Does your organization have a crow's nest? | Keith Politte | TEDxCosmoPark

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Staying on the lookout for disruptive opportunities and challenges is a necessary component of any organization. Traditionally a ship's crow's nest was for seeing ahead, and made more powerful by the right technology. Unfortunately the story of the Titanic illustrates that failure to provide access to the right tools can lead to disaster. Even when advantages are spotted and embraced, it is important to have a process such as Design Thinking to incorporate them into an organization's operation and culture.

Keith brings to TEDxCosmoPark a wide range of experiences in higher education, strategic communications, project development and connective imagining. While at the University of Missouri, he build collaborative projects with several private sector companies, including Apple, Adobe and Newsy.com. A native Columbian, Keith earned his BA from Boston University and his JD from Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Keith Politte: So does your organization
have a crow's nest?

What does that mean?

How do you see over the horizon?

How do you anticipate

those disruptive opportunities
or challenges?

That's what I'd like to address today.

So, what's a crow's nest?

A crow's nest actually is the structure
that sits on top of a ship's lookout.

For the purpose of this talk,

I want to have you think
of a crow's nest as your organization,

it's the structure.

So crow's nests actually, by legend,
were created by the Vikings.

That's where they got the name.

The first documented use
of the term for a crow's nest

actually comes from 1807
in a whaling ship.

So the lookout would be able
to see whales but also icebergs.

We all know of another instance of
a crow's nest and icebergs: the Titanic.

So the Titanic provides
an interesting metaphor

I'd like to share with you.

On the night of April 14th, 1912,

the incident happened:

Frederick Fleet was in the crow's nest
at 10 pm at night and yelled the words,

"Iceberg dead ahead!"
and we know what happened.

But there's something
you may not know about this story

which I find really interesting.

Two days before the Titanic sailed,

the second officer
that was assigned to the Titanic

was assigned to another ship.

In those two days,

the key to the locker in the crow's nest,
which the second officer had,

was not transferred to the Titanic.

This is a big deal, because that night,

Frederick Fleet, up in the crow's nest,
did not have the key to the locker

where the binoculars were.

So not issuing that key
had tragic consequences

and 1,522 people died that night.

Let's modernize
what the crow's nest could be.

Crow's nests used to be very
dependent upon eye sight, binoculars;

very basic things.

Today, we know that we can layer
digital information on top of reality,

augmented reality.

I think this has some implications

about thinking about
our own creation of a crow's nest.

So we need to think about
creating our own new crow's nest.

What does that look like?

We know that we can do all
kinds of really interesting things

with digital information now.

Tony Stark,
this actually isn't too far off.

I'm going to show you
a little bit about this.

But we need to think about,

"How do you structure
your organization's content,

and how do you see ahead?"

So what I'm going to show you
is a cool piece of technology

that it's for my own
crow's nest a little bit.

There are AR glasses,
augmented reality glasses.

What I'm going to show you is--

This is from TED this year.

This is a minute of a longer talk,

But I want you to think about,
as you see this video,

how the implications of this technology
may impact collaboration, communication

and a whole bunch of other stuff
we may not have thought about it yet.

This is Meron Gribetz.

He's the CEO of the company called Meta,

but he is actually a neuroscientist.

I want you to see this video

and think about how it might impact

on what you do as an organization,
internally or externally.

(Video starts)

MG: So again, our favorite interface,
the iOS of the mind.

I'm going to now take a step further

and go ahead and grab this pair of glasses
and leave it right here by the desk.

I'm now with you, I'm in the moment,
we're connecting.

My spatial memory kicks in,

I can go ahead and grab it
and bring it right back here,

reminding me that I am
the operating system.

And now my proprioception is working,

and I can go ahead and explode
these glasses into a thousand parts

and touch the very sensor
that is currently scanning my hand.

But it's not enough to see
things alone, so in a second,

my co-founder Ray is going
to make a 3D call --

Ray?

(Ringing)

Hey Ray, how's it going?

Guys, I could see this guy
in front of me in full 3D.

And he is photo-realistic.

(Applause)

Thank you.

My mirror-neuron subsystem suggests

that this is going to replace
phones in not too long.

Ray, how's it going?

Ray: Great. We're live today.

(Applause)

MG: Ray, give the crowd a gift
of the holographic brain

we saw from the video earlier.

Guys, this is not only
going to change phones,

it's also going to change
the way we collaborate.

Thank you so much.

MG: Thanks, Ray.
Ray: You're welcome.

(Applause)

(Video ends)

KP (On stage): So that's pretty cool.

You can start thinking
about collaboration,

you can actually manipulate
the same hologram with multiple people.

I keep thinking about maybe collaborating
with someone in the same space,

manipulating an object
and then sending it to a 3D-printer.

We're just at the beginning of this stuff,
It's very, very cool stuff,

but we have to think about

what does that mean for how we work,

how we use information,
what's the user experience,

what's the experience design

of these disruptive technologies
like AR and VR.

I actually have an idea for that.

Obviously, collaboration
is a very important thing.

The one thing I really want to emphasize

is collaboration between disciplines.

You want to bring people together
that have not worked together usually,

because the most interesting stuff happens

between the intersections of disciplines.

You want to have the right-brain people

and the left-brain people
working together.

The trick is to get them to use
the same vocabulary.

But once you do, magic can happen.

But it's not just to throw
people together,

there needs to be a boundary,
there needs to be a structure

on how people can interact
with each other with the process.

What I'm going to introduce to you
- this is a whole other talk -

[is] design thinking.

Design thinking is a secret weapon

for a lot of different kinds
of industries, verticals.

I want to share

because I think it's applicable
to a lot of different companies.

Design thinking is an iterative process.

So the first square, first couple squares,
is basically knowing your client,

knowing your customer;

who are they, what are their needs.

The middle square
is basically about dreaming

no dumb ideas.

You want to really think big;

think outside of the box,
in this collaborative space.

The last two boxes are

you do a prototype
based on the prior three.

What could we do?
What could we build?

What could address
those needs of the customer?

And then, the fifth one is measuring,
whether it's analytics, testing.

Then you start over.

It's a rapid way
of iterating changes, innovation,

it's your own internal
innovation engine, if you will.

I come back to the lookout.

What is your lookout?

How are you structuring
your company, your organization,

or you as an individual
to see over the horizon

for the things that are coming?

You want to make sure

that everyone in your organization
has access to the right key.

And with that, I thank you very much.

(Applause)