The Business Genome Project
Was working out in the gym today listening to the November edition of Fast Company on my iPod and I was suddenly immersed in the debate between the reality of gene sequencing versus the hype and the promise that was sold to the public. Heavy stuff.
However, pondering this further, I started musing about the possibilities of approaching the creation of companies and modification of businesses in the same way. Consider for a second if the same principles, brain power and technology that were used to decode the human genome were applied to specific industries, market-places and businesses? What if you could find the key to unlock the genome of a particular business, could you could genetically modify it to potentially create a super company of the future? Perhaps a bit far-fetched, but at least an idea worth chewing over I thought. After all just look at Pandora and their music sequencing software which takes a leaf out of genome sequencing to help music prediction and the notion of leveraging similar breakthrough approaches to build better businesses isn’t that crazy after all. Perhaps…
After delving into this a little more there appears to be some companies out there already who have thought along similar lines and have tried to establish consultancy practices around such a notion. One such company is http://business-genome.com/. While I like their train of thought, I’m not sure I would bet my last $ on them transforming my business just yet.
So in summary, not sure if this is a flyer or not, but thought it would be a good discussion to get the creative juices flowing! Let me know your thoughts.
Craig–great to read your blog and to hear from a kindred spirit. Business Genome (www.business-genome.com) is designed as a crowd-sourced, collaborative framework like the Encyclopedia of Life, where we are gathering examples of cross-industry innovation (like Pennzoil learning about how to improve a waiting room experience from Starbucks=Jiffy Lube) so that entrepreneurs and other business leaders can sift through great ideas and accelerate their ability to innovate (with less risk.) It’s an open source approach, where we offer tools, not answers. The key is to invite everyone to contribute (like when a biologist sends data on his/her butterfly to the EOL repository) then we add it to our evergreen repository of cases (sorted in a genomic style.) http://businessgenome.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/what-changes-everything-how-an-index-of-business-innovation-fuels-growth/ In 2010 we’re going to launch a submission engine so that we can accelerate our collection capabilities. Would love to talk with you and others in your community about adding to the repository, which is free and open to everyone. We’re also planning summits in NY and San Diego in 2010. Looking forward to expanding our community–Andrea Kates
Andrea – Thanks for keeping me honest on this one. I get it. Love what you guys are up to… Keep pioneering and let’s collaborate on helping your endeavor here!
Will you be at TED (http://conferences.ted.com/TED2010/) in Long Beach in February? We’ll be there February 9-13, 2010. If not, we welcome you and others you are networked with to participate in the building of what we view as an exciting new engine for business innovation. Please encourage people to get in touch with us. Looking forward to meeting you. –Andrea Kates (akates@business-genome.com)
Interesting…. I’m intrigued but I think I need to carve out a little more time before I pull on this ‘genome’ thread!
Hopefully can learn more soon – I don’t think I’ll be able to make the TED conference, but if there is a summit in San Diego, I’d be interested to know when/where.
cheers
Kate