OEB 2015 - Opening Plenary - David Price

(OFF) Thanks very much...

(David Price) This is the
........ - shrinking (check) presentation.

It was originally 25 minutes,
last night it was 23,

now it's 22.

I've got a 45-minute presentation,
I'm just going to speak twice as quickly.

No, I'm only kidding, it's only
20 -- 22 minutes.

And I've got to think of the time
to make sure I don't go over.

About four moths ago, I was diagnosed
with cancer of the colon.

And what was it? Seven weeks ago,
I had the operation

which kind of went OK,
got rid of the tumor,

But when the colon got reconnected,
it sprung a leak

and I got a thing called sepsis,
which I later discovered,

is fatal in 60% of the cases.

What essentially happens with sepsis is

the organs start to pack in,
one after the other, so

my heart was fibrillating, I lost --
kidneys stopped working,

lungs stopped working, so they
pumped me on a ventilator.

And my wife Claire (check)
who is here somewhere

was told to bring the family around,
because they didn't expect me

to get through the week-end.

As you can see, I survived, and this is
actually the first talk I've given

since I was in intensive care.

I was in intensive care for a week.

So, when a sick -- no, no honest
(Applause)

But when I say I'm delighted to be here,
I'm not just being polite.

(laughter)

I'm talking existentially
rather than conversationally.

But I wanted to start with that story
because, in that process of the journey

from diagnosis to operation,
I met with some remarkable people:

on forums and ingress (check) groups,
but I also visited and interviewed people.

So I interviewed some people
in the Netherlands

who are treating their loved ones,
who've got end-stage cancer.

They are lay people, computer technicians

who, frankly, conventional medicine
has given up, they're stage 4,

they said there is nothing more we can do,

so they're administering
endovenous cocktails of drugs.

some of which are approved,
some of which are off-patent,

some of which are off-label (check).

I visited a clinic, here in Germany,
which I can't name, because

they kind of operate in the shadows
in fear that they'll be closed down.

And what it seemed to me,
once I looked beyond health

is that this is a phenomenon
which is happening

in all kinds of areas of public life.

That we're seeing what I call
people-powered innovation.

And I think it's a real challenge for
institutions and organizations.

So, why is it important?

I think it's important because it's
kind of a natural consequence

of the issues I talk about
in my book "Open".

where, now that we're able to share
and exchange knowledge,

we're now at a point where
we want to do something about it,

we want now to be more in control
of our own lives.

But I think it's particularly important
for the people who are in this room today:

educators and human resource people. 3:05

Because one of the things I was seeing
is a major shift in the way

in which we accredit knowledge
and competencies.

I don't know if any of you have read
Phillip Brown's excellent book

called "Tne Global Auction", but he talks
about how our graduates are facing

a high-skilled low-income future,

because of globalization
and a whole range of other issues.

And recently, Laszlo Bock who is in charge
of People Operations at Google said this

"Your degree is not a proxy for your
ability to any job.

"The world only case about
-- and pays off on --

"what you can do with what you know

"(and it doesn't care how you learned it)"

So my point, I guess, is that
unless we change the product,

we risk being disintermediated.

By that, I mean, learners
can find other ways

to get the knowledge and skills
that they need.

And let's face it, the product hasn't
really changed much in decades.

So I'd -- obvious that the best way
to stay relevant

is to involve users
in the process of innovation.

So this is what I mean by
people-powered innovation,

users lead users, accelerate innovation

by either advocating for new products or
services,

tinkering with existing products and
services,

or creating new products and services
from scratch.

That's my kind of working definition,

based partly on Eric von Hippel's
definition of people-powered innovation.

So here's some examples.

The potato crisp, the home-baked (check)
potato crisp

was invented in 1853 by a chef
called George Crum,

who worked at a restaurant in Saratoga.

Now he gets the credit for inventing it,
but I think it should go to

the disgruntled diner in that restaurant
who kept sending the potatoes back, said

that they were too thickly sliced.

And this kept going backwards and forwards

and eventually George Crum got really
pissed off about this

and cooked them as thin as he could,
burning them to a crisp,

smothered them in salt
and then sent them out.

And the diner loved it.

So he thought, oh, we're on to
something here

but he didn't take out a patent: in fact,
none of these examples have been patented.

So, 1853, we've always had
people-powered innovation.

In fact, you could argue that up until
the Industrial Revolution,

that's all we had, we had
people-powered innovation 5:26