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Summary - the Value Growth Model

This model focuses on growth in value, why and how it occurs in succinct and effective ways. It's based on a model for growth that’s been adhered to since life began - mathematicians, artists, philosophers, designers, scientists etc. have been inspired by it. It’s been called by many names like Phi, the Golden Mean, Fibonacci sequence and more. It’s observable by how plants grow, how shells form, weather patterns, galaxy structures, even the spiralled growth from the human foetus. What happens when we apply this model to other growth patterns – such as design, product development, sales and business? I'll try to answer that by telling a story.

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I’m walking in the rainforest and notice surrounding me how branches are distributed along the massive tree trunks in similar ways, how leaf vein patterns do the same, how the canopy is spread out likewise to catch as much sun as possible. I remember hearing about the Mandelbrot set, Phi, the Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Mean and how these related concepts describe growth patterns in nature and I start to wonder whether there’s some kind of underlying energy that holds and directs nature to make this happen. At that point, captured by the idea of a new type of technology, I have a wild vision about this potential energy and wonder “could all our technology be living systems and connect us closer to nature?” Something like that is bound to happen when you put a geek in a rainforest for any extended period of time.

1.1 Evaluate (why)

No matter how crazy that notion sounds, the point of this story is a vision drives why we’d seek change and do anything new. It's especially motivating when our purpose is about creating more value for more people and making their lives better (including our own). That’s also the earliest form of a top-down strategy because it directs subsequent ideas and makes sure they remain true to it. Both our vision and purposes would naturally refine and grow from what we learn bringing it all to realisation. This model starts at the centre when the value of a new idea has just been initiated.

So I have this vision in my head and I’m driving on the freeway - my wife, daughter and the dog are sleeping at the back. It’s going to be a long trip home - about seven hours. I’ve got plenty of time to form some ideas about it. I start imagining what nature-based technologies could be, and create a world in my mind like the Na'vi’s in Avatar (the movie). A lot more wild assumptions come from the back of these ideas:

There’s an energy field in places like rainforests that could power our devices
We can use that energy field like Wi-Fi
Trees sense light and atmospheric changes, so they can be like cameras
Trees might sense sound vibrations and movement in the same way too
All that information is memorised in tree growth patterns and so we can store and retrieve data like servers but from trees
There’s a natural luminance in plants to be like our lights or even act like computer screens

From that I start to form a hypothesis that nature and tech don't need to be so separate, that finding ways to integrate these could even encourage more growth and diversity.

1.2 Generate

We could say the first designs we generate based on a vision are our initial ideas. Being only forms of thought at this stage, our time and energy invested is very little and so the process can very light and agile. This means the value of our initial ideas has the opportunity to grow in quick and light ways at first and later scale and evolve.With anything we design, we make assumptions about the value in them and from there form the basis of a hypothesis. It's no different really for existing products, services or experiences either, understanding these as experiments that help us discover value (from the bottom-up) is how we find new ways to grow our offerings.

I get home and I'm inspired to research, I'd really like to know if anyone else has made a similar hypothesis about nature supporting our technology requirements and if they had any success. It turns out a lot of my assumptions have been researched fairly widely already with some positive results (see the end of the post).

My hypothesis feels stronger than I first expected and maybe not as wild as I imagined! For example, early in the 1900s I find out trees were being used as nature's own wireless towers and antenna combined and also that during the Vietnam war the troops needed this kind of technology to communicate deep in the jungle when the environment wouldn't allow for much else. I find a bunch of references about how plants communicate via electric signals and I’m curious whether this natural frequency could carry digital signals as well. It looks like this idea about trees having a unique frequency capable of transmitting and receiving digital signals has some merit and I start to research how I might validate that.

1.3 Explore

With an idea or a product in the market etc. viewed as an experiment, the logical next step is to explore / discover what value it has with facts on the ground. We might start by researching what’s been tried before, or spend time with people already using our products. Any bottom-up approach helps us better know what the real value is. Simply, it’s about validating our hypothesis or assumptions about the value of what we propose or offer. But it’s also an opportunity to discover any hidden value we haven't yet considered too.

A lot of what I found out about the technology potential of plants was researched in labs with equipment I wouldn't have access to any time soon. I decide I have to shift my focus towards something smaller. The radio signals experiment in the early 1900s looked like one of the simpler ways to verify something for myself and hopefully one day solve the awful WIFI strength I get by with at home. I remember my dad telling me that a lot of radios he used as a boy weren't powered by battery or plugged-in to an electric socket. He called them "crystal radios" and it amazed me as a kid to think that crystals by themselves powered things! Later I found it wasn't really the crystals but radio-waves powering the device. Would this mean that trees could boost the signal powering a crystal radio? I tell my wife I want to make a crystal radio and hook it up to a tree, she looks a bit perplexed but seeing my enthusiasm, she suggests I do it with Hala, my 6 year old daughter. For me that sounds even better.

2.1 Evaluate (again)

An initial purpose is the early stages of strategy, and like everything on this value growth model, our purpose is subject to being refined by converging what we've discovered towards a more coherent direction. Once we know more about the real value of what we propose or offer to others and any new areas of value, we can revise a new direction to suit. This might lead to designing our experiments differently or even starting something completely new. When our focus is on giving more value to those we hope to serve, continually testing and learning, the value of our offerings (and our businesses too) scales and evolves accordingly. Essentially this model is about how to find and grow towards an increasingly higher value and continue to do so in exponential ways for anything we choose to do.

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Some references

Trees and WIFI

http://rexresearch.com/squier/squier.htm
http://creating-a-new-earth.blogspot.se/p/earths-internet-electrical-conductivity.html?m=1 http://we-make-money-not-art.com/tree_antenna/http://www.bookmetrix.com/detail/book/7814770a-32ca-47a4-a701-63304027ccff

Biosensor / sound

http://www.cnet.com/au/news/listen-to-the-sound-of-plants-responding-to-the-world/http://www.hese-project.org/hese-uk/en/niemr/natural.php?content_type=D http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/310.html https://news.osu.edu/news/2016/02/01/shaketree

Glowing trees / light

http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/glowing-trees-to-replace-glowing-lights.htm

Power from trees

http://m.instructables.com/id/Power-from-trees-And-using-this-power-to-collect-d/?ALLSTEPS http://pasco.ifas.ufl.edu/fcs/Lightning.shtml http://rexresearch.com/wadlevoltree/wadlevoltree.htm

Written by

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David Berigny

Experience & Service Design | Design Teaching | XR Design | Ethical Design & Value Creation |