new-dialogues

The workshop started with an introduction of the theme of trust building, which developed into an extended conversation about the detrimental effects of hierarchical structures, deception, and simplistic and distorted notions of intelligence.

The discussion covered a lot of ground related to Allen’s problem statement:

Customer experience, innovation, long-term investments, digital transformation in contention with business profitability, business as usual, short-term profitability, traditional organisations, and outdated legacy systems that are costly to replace.
– Allen SW Huang

Jorn’s slides on trust building introduced the concept of competency networks and outlined principles for establishing trusted collaboration and building non-hierarchical networks and teams, citing Buurtzorg (in the Netherlands) and S23M as two very different examples of non-hierarchical organisations. S23M’s experience is consistent with the key observation from Frederic Laloux:

All successful non-hierarchical organisations replace management hierarchies with a simple advice process that establishes the vital feedback loops that enable the organisation to learn and adapt in a timely manner, even in a highly dynamic context.

Triggered by the first-hand entrepreneurial experiences of at least three participants with investors, the discussion explored the impact on decision making created by external investors, in particular associated risks to the mission and success of new ventures and innovations. This thread of discussion led into a presentation by Ira Munn on the development and integration of the technologies needed for his Ierospace venture, which is focused on the Drop, a low-cost 3D printed electric car built to a significant extent from recycled plastics.

The afternoon was spent in two break-out groups, one focusing on the problem statement submitted by Ira Munn, and the other focused on specific logistical challenges in the healthcare sector and the problem statement submitted by Amy J. Newkirk.

Selection of suitable investors for seed-stage ventures

In what ways can seed-stage entrepreneurs with a sustainable, profitable business case draw capital-providing stakeholders, that understand first-mover advantages of risk and reward, to their endeavours? – Ira Munn

The basis of the conversation focused on sharing values, which are the principles that undergird an institution, and sharing value, the combination of skill sets, core competencies, intellectual property, business strategy, relationship capital, and tangible assets, clearly and succinctly to an investor or investor group.

Ierospace is designed and built in collaboration with Accelerating Aotearoa as a non-profit partner.

With Hamid in Melbourne, we also discussed various types of investors, including reaching the public through crowdfunding means, which has the potential to supplant high-net-worth individuals who may decide to invest with intention to introduce ways, means, and goals contrary or diversionary to the core values of the company.

To further mitigate such a likelihood, we also discussed engaging with investors who offer competencies germane to entity success, hence strengthening relationships with potential investors who would carry greater vested interest in the company vision, goals, and values that drive those goals.

Coping with increased pressure on the public health system

How do we cope with increased pressure on the public health system, model service level, measure service acuity, connectedness of health services within the health system at a hospital and northern regional level, patient flow, distribution cost, product cost and create a auditable cost to serve model? Benefits – efficiency in service level provided (all departments cannot be serviced at the same historical level), targeted outcomes, i.e. you would not service the emergency department at the same level as an admin block; and saving taxpayer dollars. – Amy J. Newkirk

Amy explained that a single hospital can have as many as 1,500 pantries (“sub-inventories”) that needs to be restocked on a regular basis, and that over the course of a year a hospital orders around 600 million line items, leading to significant logistical challenges in terms of inventory tracking, planning, and potential waste of time and valuable resources.

A large number of different organisations are involved in decisions related to the funding of improvement initiatives, and this has led to a situation where logistics processes are only automated to a very limited extent, and where inventory tracking and restocking of inventories currently is a highly manual activity.

It seems that improvements will need to consider a suitable categorisation of pantries and an analysis of the commonalities and variabilities between the different categories of pantries in terms of the categories of items that are stocked. This would allow the design of radically streamlined logistical processes, and facilitate investment into new forms of automation and suitable technologies for inventory management and tracking.

Conclusions

The day concluded with a presentation of results from the two groups, and with coordination of further activities related to the discussed topics in the time leading up to the next CIIC workshop.

Following a tangential discussion on the relationship between food and health, the group agreed that it would be a great idea to focus the next CIIC workshop on the intersection of the healthcare sector and the agriculture sector.

Calendar reminder: The next CIIC unconference will take place on 3 March 2018!