i’ve been out of the loop (and the echo chamber) for most of the year, and now we’re already in june. lots of odd things have come up, and while many things in my life have changed, some things feel incredibly stagnant – i dropped a lot of balls over the past six months. several of them aren’t really worth picking up – some of them are. i hope i have the wisdom in my old age to know which are which. today, i’m going to pick up a story about changing the world (i’ve never been accused of thinking too small…).
some time ago, joi talked about organizing a blogger expedition, of sorts, to africa.
i can only assume that the trip is still on, that joi and ethan have hordes of underlings tasked with bringing this idea to fruition… i’m sure it’s probably even approaching the end of the “idea” stage… after all, that was way back in february.
i pick this up again because this post was sitting in my “to blog” collection of drafts, also from february (19th), and it came with a name and a link. the name was ck prahalad, and the link was to a story in fast company back in 2001.
four months ago i thought ck prahalad was worth writing about. joi’s probably in an airplane somewhere on the way to europe, so i guess i should go ahead and get this thing written – if for no other reason than to give the guy something to read while he’s looking for things to do.
prahalad came to my attention in february in an ancient (internet time) archive…
…about five years ago, Prahalad read a book about the history of the potato and how its eventual spread transformed the world. Somehow, it made him think differently about the Internet. Just as international trade had fostered the potato’s growth, the Internet would foster the global diffusion of individual power — and that would transform the world.
The connection is perhaps obvious only to Prahalad. But that’s his way. “If you want new ideas, you have to push yourself into the periphery,” he says.
perhaps for reasons obvious only to me, this prahalad thing and joi’s africa thing clicked for me. the fast company article is mostly about prahalad starting a company, shortly after the great internet burst – praja. praja has since been sucked into tibco, and i don’t know if anything of substance remains – and by substance, i mean the vision and philosophy and management that got it started in the first place – i’m sure the code and the paperwork remains in some form or another.
i suppose that prahalad is best known for his paper co-authored with stuart hart, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid [pdf]. this is a paper that works for me – and not just because i’ve spent most of my adult life trying to squeeze a living out of the worst possible economic situations i could find. it’s one of those business-sense-versus-common-sense concepts that i am constantly amazed need to be discussed.
low-income markets present a prodigious opportunity for the world’s wealthiest companies – to seek their fortunes and bring prosperity to the aspiring poor.
i’ve always been fascinated with business models that “lose money on every deal, but make up for it in volume.” i’m still amazed at things like mcdonald’s – i know the numbers work. i know there’s a mcdonald’s in nearly every conceivable space on the planet, but it’s still fascinating to me that a “speedee service system” spitting out 15-cent burgers and 10-cent fries can do enough volume to grow into the beast that it is today. but, this is america, and we do amazing things.
as an american, i realize i live a life of comfort and luxury, perhaps not the most comfortable and luxurious, but compared to how the other billions live, i’m not doing too bad (and $2-a-gallon gasoline, no matter how many times i hear about it on newscasts, isn’t going to shatter my world).
prahalad has since moved on and now seems to be working with the world resources institute on the digital dividend.
in typical roj-fashion, i probably don’t have a whole lot of new material to add to this, but i can lend some [odd] perspective. out here in my box, this makes sense.
“Don’t look at the poor and say there is no hope. Selling to the poor may be more profitable than selling to you and me. This is where the future is. Opportunities are everywhere. This (digital divide) is not about lack of opportunity; it is about lack of imagination.”
perhaps we should imagine a digital dividend project wrapped around the bloggers-to-africa trip? i think there’s an opportunity.
