Purpose Landing on the VizPlanet© - Our Generation’s Sputnik Moment?

Courtesy: Google images customized within our prototype implementation

With our VizPlanet© article, that is being posted within the Management Innovation Exchange (MIX) site, generating some interesting follow-up questions within the MIX community, one of our readers, suggested that we cross-post it, within our blog to keep that momentum going. As it turns out, some of those questions, in fact, strengthen the case of our article, and so, we decided to incorporate them within our blog today. The most notable question being – is there a burning platform to call this revolutionary VizPlanet© idea, as our Generation’s Sputnik Moment?

The Answer is …..

The short answer is YES! Having said that, as we started thinking about the best way to present the compelling case for this burning platform – a key insight came to our mind – i.e. an insight from an article by Jared Diamond, assessing the impact of the increased rate of consumption happening among world’s population- as summarized in the picture below.


What does this insight tell us? The middle class boom of the developing world (more specifically the BRIC countries), that is being used by the western multi nationals, as the burning platform for their emerging market growth strategy, eventually might come back, and start even impacting their capital raising ability in the long run– especially, when those middle class populations, start competing for the limited set of natural resources, that are currently being consumed by their western counter parts, with a GH emission inequality ratio of 32:1. What do we mean by that? As it turns out, the emerging market growth strategies of most western multinationals, in a way, are a paradox because - on one hand, these corporations are counting on capitalizing the middle class boom happening within the developing world, to sustain and justify their double digit growth for the next 10 years or so - and, on the other hand, the same boom, eventually will end up increasing the competition for the limited natural resources (or cost of capital in financial terms)- and might even start reducing (or hurting) the quality of life, that is being enjoyed by all of us, perhaps not today, but definitely 10-25 years from now. In other words, no matter how we slice it, our planet’s current resource consumption pattern or lifestyle, is not at all sustainable and so, it is a no-win value proposition, for both the developed and developing world, in the long run.

As we present this argument, I hear someone pointing us to the progress we have made so far on developing those innovative sustainability solutions/strategies to reduce the carbon footprint (& hence reducing the resource uses) along with those efficient global capital/capability management strategies that have been instituted by most multinational corporations. While we don’t disagree with the intent and merits of any those strategies - most of those sustainability solutions/strategies, however, are still being centered around –just changing our personal choices, to reduce the carbon footprint, as opposed to changing our lifestyles in en-masse , before changing those personal choices. In other words, if we may use Prof. Clayton Christensen’s style of writing – most of our current sustainability solutions are stuck at the wrong side of the fork!

The root cause being …..

While we agree, that it is the right thing to do, to develop these innovative sustainability solutions (e.g. energy star programs etc.) to help reduce the carbon footprint at the personal/household/business levels, in our humble opinion, these solutions, do not fix the root cause of the issue i.e. -

• "With urbanization happening at a faster rate than ever across the globe, especially, in the last decade or so - more and more percentage of consumers (& corporations) are continuing to consume and compete for the limited set of natural resources to sustain their current life style (& profit margins) within the natural realm, in spite of a compelling alternative purpose/virtual lifestyle, available for them within the virtual realm, in a fraction of cost, providing almost the same “look and feel” type of experience, emitting just a fractional percentage of the greenhouse gases.”

One might wonder why we have not been able to fix this root cause, in its totality so far! The reason, in our humble opinion, is the lack of a compelling motivation (or incentive mechanism) on the part of both consumers and corporations, to embrace the alternative purpose/virtual lifestyle - and rightfully so, we propose a “lifestyle-changing”, root cause fixing, systemic approach, that MOTIVATES both consumers and corporations alike, to come together under a Virtual Community Environment(VCE, henceforth pronounced as Viz), that is bounded together by a powerful “Purpose Score driven, Virtual Reality/Avatar/3D/Interactive Gaming technologies/Tele-Metry based VizPlanet© Platform”, as outlined in the picture above, (that was put together as part of our recent prototype implementation), that inherently compels all parties (specifically corporations) to stretch their value chain into the VizPlanet© realm, thus making it possible for them to provide value-add purpose bundles of products and services with relatively less number of resources. Not only that - this type of a stretched value chain, apart from increasing corporations’ economies of scale & scope benefits, also, helps us to preserve God given, limited natural resources for the benefit of the future generation. In other words – it is all about us, changing our life style and making a conscious mindset shift, where possible, to consume certain services within the virtual realm (thus reducing the carbon footprint in larger percentages), as opposed to continuing our current lifestyle within the natural realm.

Resource Pool Portfolio (RPP) Framework – to help prioritize the VizPlanet© Services

To facilitate such a large scale sustainability driven purpose movement, we have developed a Resource Pool Portfolio (RPP) framework by grouping the high value resource consumption assets of our planet into 25 resource consumption buckets, and let the framework itself, to identify the top 5 high potential candidate buckets of services (as numbered in the picture below) that can be slowly moved from natural realm into the virtual realm, as promoted by our earlier purpose innovation platform concept.

Simply put, those purpose consumers (with a history of consuming/applying H&W P&S’s, consuming/reducing green energies, thus leading a purpose lifestyle, in body-soul-spirit dimensions with a higher purpose scores), who choose to consume all of their commerce and content services, using our VizPlanet© Platform, not only get a better value for themselves, but also, facilitate the noble cause of reducing the natural resource consumption rate by a substantial percentage. In other words, VizPlanet© platform, over a period of time, reduces the carbon footprint, by a substantial percentage (& hence operating cost as well) as captured in the three KPI’s of the RPP framework, thus increasing the profit margins of corporations as well.
Solution Options within the VizPlanet© Platform
With that said, the sustainable long term question that needs to be solved within the purpose reform context is – How do we change our lifestyle by resetting planet’s end-to-end resource consumption pattern and by moving some or all of the resource intensive commerce/content services from natural realm into the virtual realm – using one of the five options identified below

1. Brick and mortar platform along with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel (current model with just addition of purpose scores based content and commerce services bundles).


2. Brick and mortar platform with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel along with a third option of Purpose Score based VizPlanet© Platform in asynchronous mode i.e. near real time synchronization of SKU’s and content.


3. Brick and mortar platform with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel along with a third option of Purpose Score based VizPlanet© Platform in synchronous mode i.e. real time synchronization of SKU’s & content - and so potentially replacing the newly constructed brick and mortar platforms


4. Brick and mortar platform with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel along with a third option of Purpose Score based VizPlanet© Platform in synchronous mode i.e. real time synchronization of SKU’s & content with lot more value-add services like personalization and so eliminating the need for the new brick and mortar platforms, especially in the developing world


5. 100% “one-stop-shop” VizPlanet© Platform in synchronous real time mode eliminating all commercial real estate platforms(remediate the brick and mortar real estate for other services where virtual services are not possible to provide)

Having said that, by no means, we are suggesting that any of these options, will replace the current solution(s) in totality – rather, we suggest that these solution options, among many of the other experimentation solution options, has a great potential to compliment the current solution options. In other words, our solution is an experimentation option – with a potential to become the stepping stone, for the long ranging solution(s) within the 5-10 year purpose reform road map.

Conclusion
In closing, our hope is that sustainability experts, will pay a closer attention to our experimentation based solution options, given the fact, our VizPlanet© approach (including its ancillary platforms like VizMall©, VizTV©, VizDiner©, VizBev© etc), not necessarily, just solves those sustainability challenges, but also, it provides a better value (price) proposition for all parties, with an "almost similar look and feel type shopping/consumption experience" of their brick and mortar platform counterpart, thus motivating corporations and consumers to consume more and more purpose bundles, with an intention to increase their purpose scores -resulting in a win:win value proposition for all parties, in the long run!

Healthcare Reform – the Purpose Innovation© Way.....

With our Purpose Innovation idea, that is being posted, within the Management Innovation Exchange MIX site, seem to be getting some good visibility, some of our readers, informally suggested that we expound upon our earlier hypothesis – “Purpose Innovation, being a systemic approach, has a great opportunity to revolutionize health care reform”. Before we get into the nuances of our solution – in our humble opinion, there exist three foundational issues, in the way health care reform, in its current form, has been scoped –

• First and foremost, the health care reform problem space has not been framed up correctly. In other words, it has been wrongly framed, predominantly as a choice between public vs. private option (as pointed out by Prof. Clayton Christensen), as opposed to, being framed up as a choice between distributed, integrated or virtually integrated solution options.



• With the fact it has been framed incorrectly in the first place, it has also been approached with a “problem solving mindset of finding an immediate answer to fix the symptoms”, as opposed to being approached as a “systemic mindset of finding a long ranging solution, fixing its root causes”. In other words, it all comes down to “problem solving mindset of fixing the symptoms vs. solution providing mindset of fixing the root causes”.



• Finally, the health care reform has also been solved with a mindset of fixing the symptoms, with a 5-10 year planning mindset, as opposed to being solved with a series of experimentation based chunks of solutions, fixing the root causes, constituting 5-10 year road maps with an experimentation mindset. In other words, it all comes down to “symptoms fixing mode, with a vanilla planning mindset vs. “root causes fixing mode, with an experimentation based planning mindset”.

Systemic root causes of the Health Care reform

With that said, we propose a systemic approach, where we step back and re frame the health care reform, as an “opportunity for solution with an experimentation based chunks of solutions, fixing the root causes, leading up to the 5-10 year road map. As part of that attempt, we have also identified the top three systemic causes for the health care challenge (especially within the US context), before arriving at the solution part.

• Lack of a compelling mechanism motivating consumers to reduce their health risk profile, so that insurers can accept them readily without charging a high premium.
  


• Existence of Conflict of Interest (or lack of motivation) between providers and insurers - e.g. providers trying to extend hospitalization services whereas insurers trying to reduce the coverage of the services, thus resulting in a tension.



• Motivation of the providers to exploit the loop holes (e.g. performing mundane health care services as part of an in-patient care instead of out-patient care etc), resulting in malpractices and hence higher cost.

If we had to further summarize these three causes - it all comes down to the “lack of a compelling motivation (or incentives) on the part of providers, insurers and consumers” to come together and find a systemic solution, fixing the root causes. In other words, the primary root cause for the health care reform is - the lack of a compelling motivation among the three parties (providers, insurers and consumers) to form a joint alliance, so that collaboratively, they can create a win: win value proposition for all the parties involved.

Potential Solution Options

With that said, the sustainable long term question that needs to be solved within the health care reform context (especially when we add those 32 million uninsured people) is – which solution option? – distributed, integrated or virtually integrated solution options.

As part of this right framing, we have also identified the key pros and cons of these three solutions options, and let the "pros and cons", themselves decide the right solution option.

1. Under the distributed model (by and large the current model in US and most developed countries), hospitals are motivated to keep patients for longer - whereas the insurers are motivated to minimize reimbursement; thus creating conflict of interests – which means, any process improvement solution done on one end (provider side or insurer side) is not sustainable as it lacks a systemic view. In some cases, process optimizations, done in one side of the health care value chain, to save money or improve performance, invariably might have a detrimental impact on another side of the value chain, because the system lacks an end-to-end systemic perspective. The classic example, is privately managed private hospital providers, like hotels are motivated to fill their beds (or increase their room occupancy) whereas independent insurers are motivated to minimize reimbursement charges; thus creating the conflict of interest.



2. Under the Integrated model, (as proposed by Prof. Christensen), providers and insurers will come under one roof (perhaps as one firm) and so, provider’s action to reduce costs will also help the insurer side, as the conflict of interest, no longer exists as they are all part of the same organization. Increased room occupancy, a primary motivation for increasing the revenue in the distributed model, may not be a revenue opportunity under this model, and hence, conflict of interest, is greatly reduced, resulting in a better solution. On the flip side - while it provides a superior strategic/systemic solution, it might also introduce some structural challenges, in terms of making the health care value chain much more complex and bigger, potentially leading up to a monopolistic market model, as opposed to the free market driving the long term solution. In other words, a superior strategic solution, without a solid free market structure, sometimes, may not get the support from the business world!



3. As a middle ground solution, we propose the Purpose Innovation enabled virtual model, wherein, providers, insurers and consumers alike, are motivated to come together under a virtual roof, that is bounded together by a powerful “Purpose score based, virtual PurposeCare© platform”, that inherently motivates the parties to reduce the cost (with incentives to reduce their conflict of interest & malpractices), resulting in a “collaborative health care value chain” providing win: win value proposition for all, as promoted by our larger Purpose Innovation Idea. In other words - stronger their purpose causal chain (e.g. H&W consumers with a history of consuming/applying H&W P&S’s, leading a healthy lifestyle in body-soul-spirit dimensions), higher will be their purpose scores (and lesser their risk profile), and hence, resulting in increased number of uninsured being accepted by the insurers with lower premiums, facilitating a quick treatment turnaround time(as healthy consumers, in general, respond to treatments faster, with less expensive medicines & do-it-yourself and commoditized/shop floor type procedures), thus increasing the profit margins of all parties involved. It is also important to highlight yet another point here - that the spiritual dimension of "body-soul-spirit" has been consciously incorporated into the purpose causal chain, as health & wellness, in our opinion, also has a spiritual component, as history has proven again and again, that spiritual minded people (regardless of their religious denomination background), lead a healthy life style and have a better resilient power to recover quickly from health issues. On the down side - although, this solution is a sound systemic solution like option #2, (yet does not have as much of structural challenges like option #2), it still needs, some revamp of the health care value chain, as it needs lot more collaboration mindset among all parties (without much of direct control) - potentially resulting in a model, where we might need regulators policing the governance and purpose scores.
   

By looking at the "pros and cons" of these three options - options #2 and #3, in our opinion, deserve some additional exploration. Having said that, by no means, we are suggesting that any of these options, will totally replace the current solution(s) in totality – rather, we suggest that our solution, among many of the other experimentation solution options, has a great potential to compliment the current solution options, that are being considered by the experts from Washington. In other words, our solution is an experimentation option – with a potential to become the stepping stone, for the long ranging solution(s) within the 5-10 year health care reform road map.

Conclusion

In closing, our hope is, that experts from Washington will pay a closer attention to our experimentation based, Purpose Innovation option - given the fact, our solution (including its foundational purpose platform), not necessarily, just solves the health care reform, but also, has a potential to become the solution for other purpose reforms – i.e. motivating corporations and consumers to embrace green brands, green energy and also thereby solving externality other corporate social responsibility issues, given the fact, our solution is built on a purpose platform, that is bound together by a powerful purpose score based, purpose causal value chain.