Examples of vision and how to present them (may be needs to be a core section?)
Vision statement based not upon what one wants to avoid such as CO2 gases, but a vision of what one wants to achieve and why. The goal is much higher and inclusive and takes focus off the villains (that is all of us who use electricity) and focuses on the positives of a new goal. Unpack following ideas to form a vision statement:
A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked: The Story Behind Corning’s Vision (2012)
Africa: The impact of mobile phones (March 2005)
Morse vision of a wired world with countries bound by global network (Standage, 1999, p. 40)
The transition of a vision that Bell had to one that Vail had:
It will be seen from the foregoing statement of Bell that his serious study of electricity was undertaken with a view to understanding and repeating Helmholtz’s experiments in the artificial production of vowel tones. The knowledge of electricity was another essential to the accomplishment of his subsequent work, but the application of his acoustical knowledge to the production of a telephone was not yet. . . . A rough and weary road had yet to be travelled before he reached the goal of an idea. (Kingsbury, 1915, p. 23)
Any development which is comprehensive must cover some territory which is not, and may never become, profitable in itself but must be carried at the expense of the whole. It must be a system that will afford communication with any one that may possibly be wanted, at any time. To do this the system must offer a connection of some kind, and at such rates, as will correspond to the value of the system to each and every user. (Vail, 1917, p. 27)
From the core section on Innovation on this web site no single and simplistic definition exists that is meaningful, it is context dependent. One way to view this is to consider historical events that are comparable to what is may mean in the energy generation industry. One such example industry is telecommunications and the Internet. In simple terms telecommunications was a monolithic and centralised industry where telephones were stationary with dedicated telephone lines being installed. While computers were massive mainframe machines kept in secure, climate controlled rooms that were operated by qualified “men” in white coats. I’m not sure women could or did possess the same status! We now have a highly distributed system of microcomputers attached to your mobile phone with more computing power than the guidance system on the Apollo 11 moon mission.
A major driver of the telecommunications/computing industry to be one of the most if not the most innovative industry with far reaching impacts beyond the industry itself is that it transitioned towards a decentralization. From mainframe computers to a computer in your pocket. This was a transition took time pushed by visionaries (who most likely watched Star Trek or read other science fiction books!!) , research and development, dreamers, entrepreneurs, and many others. There were many successes and even more failures, but progress was ongoing without global agreements or government policies to push it. Governments actually lagged behind in the effects that modern telecommunications has taken society in many areas. It was not only the hardware and software that progressed it was also different protocol standards that different parties attempted to implement, the protocol that is needed for computers to be able to successfully exchange data between them. The business models of how to provide the services of computers and interconnections were open to economic competition. As companies moved towards modernizing their operations with computer technology, so did other companies materialize to help provide assistance in a firm introduce computers into the work place for specific functions. It was not a simple or straight forward transition, there were many winners and losers at the time.
Additional content of the history of telecommunications and technological innovation is hoped to be added to this web site in future. As a tidbit of interest regarding the introduction of the telegraph back in the 1850s was a speech: Echoing the sentiments expressed on the completion of the 1858 cable, a toast proposed by Edward Thornton, the British ambassador, emphasized the peacemaking potential of the telegraph. “What can be more likely to effect [peace] than a constant and complete intercourse between all nations and individuals in the world?” he asked. World peace based on technology back in the 1850’s! Wonder what happened?
Today most of electricity generation is produced by massive and centralized coal, gas or nuclear power plants, requiring massive infrastructure of transmission lines to get the power to the end user. To promote innovation (along with the other desired characteristics) in energy generation requires moving away from this large centralized model where even the fuel for the massive generators often needs to be transported from a distant location.
If the desired vision of future of energy generation therefore is based on decentralized power generation that is somewhat modeled on the transition that the telecommunications industry went through then can start thinking in terms of micro-grids and mini-grids, this forms the basis of a vision for energy generation that is wide spread and dominant.
Wicked Paths 