Emerging Markets as a Source of Disruptive Innovation: 5 Case Studies. Posted by Niti Bhan | 3 Feb 2010 | Comments (8) The original 7iinch ASUS eeePC. One of the most misunderstood terms in the business world is disruptive technology. Too many companies—and the marketers in charge of bringing these companies' innovations to market—assume that "disruptive" connotes a highly-sophisticated, high-end product with cutting-edge technology that will appeal to early adopters. Actually, Harvard's Clayton Christensen argued the opposite in his groundbreaking book on business innovation, The Innovator's Dilemma. As Christensen pointed out again and again, "disruptive technologies were exactly those that did not appeal to entrenched market leaders because they tended to under-perform existing technologies and served a less-profitable consumer demographic.
" The original 7-inch ASUS eeePC is an excellent case in point. But it doesn't stop there. There's evidence that the shift of consumers away from more expensive products is a widespread trend. Image: Tata website. Hands Off Our Houses. High Costs Linked to Gaps Around Air-Conditioners. The warm air was escaping, substantially raising his utility bills. “It defeats the purpose of all the other improvements you’ve done,” he said. And it was not just the heated air that was escaping: in the summertime, the gaps around units that did not fit tightly were letting out refrigerated air. The scope of the problem is outlined in a report to be released on Thursday by the Urban Green Council. The report, titled “There Are Holes in Our City’s Walls,” estimates that poorly fitted air-conditioners cost buildings in New York City $130 million to $180 million a year in extra fuel consumption, which in turn is linked to an extra 375,000 to 525,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
While the report covers only New York City buildings, the problem extends across the nation, said Russell Unger, executive director of the Urban Green Council, the New York affiliate of the United States Green Building Council. “This is something under everyone’s noses, and it’s totally overlooked,” he said. Lauren's Tiny 400-Square-Foot Cozy Apartment Green Tour | Apartment Therapy Re-Nest. Name: Lauren Yarmuth Location: New York CitySize: 400 sq/ftYears lived in: 2.5, owned Lauren’s 400-square-foot apartment was classic New York real estate: a sliver of space in an old brick building, with little light and even less charm. But in just three weeks, she gave it a clean and natural makeover, putting every inch of space to use with clever storage solutions. Enter Green Tour When she bought it, Lauren explained, the building “was a dump.”
It was so small and narrow – just about 12 feet at its widest point - that there was no logical place to put anything, not even a bed. Drawing on her training as an architect and experience as principal of YRG Sustainability Consultants, Lauren set about refreshing the surfaces and adding crisp and functional storage. Clean lines of open shelving ring the apartment, adding storage without adding clutter. Now, she says, it feels wonderful - a cozy refuge from the city. Re-Nest Survey: Inspiration: Rock outcroppings Favorite Element: Barn door. City launches competition for ‘ultra’ green projects.
Calendar. One account. All of Google. Sign in to continue to Google Calendar Find my account Forgot password? Sign in with a different account Create account One Google Account for everything Google. Land mafia violating all norms in Hubli-Dharwad | Track2Realty || India's real estate e-newspaper. By: Ravi Sinha Track2Realty Exclusive Land mafia has surfaced in the twin cities of Hubli and Dharwad of Karnataka in a big way. They are converting agricultural lands into residential plots without the CLU (Change of Land Use) and other required approvals from the concerned authorities and are selling to gullible people.
These Land grabbers have set their eyes on the large tracks of agricultural lands cheaply available on the outskirts of Hubli and Dharwad, leading to the mushrooming of several unauthorised layouts in the twin cities. Hubli Dharwad Urban Development Authority (HDUDA) commissioner R N Shanbag admitted this reality to the Track2Realty and said that such illegal layouts have come up mostly on the outskirts near Kelageri, Muruga Mutt, Hubli-Dharwad bypass road and elsewhere. Since buying agricultural lands from the farmers is not an easy task, the unauthorized land developers take the power of attorney from farmers before converting the land into residential plots.
Hong Kong to Face Housing Scarcity. Massive activity in the Hong Kong property market has left prices unaffordable for many of its residents. The government is not providing enough land for the housing needs of its citizens. See the following article from Property Wire for more on this. The overheating of the Hong Kong property market has left the private housing market severely unaffordable and the trend is expected to continue for the next 20 years, according to research carried out by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
Its new report on property affordability over the next five, ten and 20 years, is being submitted to the government to help finalise annual budgets. Based on the housing needs of Hong Kong’s demographics, the government should be providing enough land for about 22,000 per year for the next five to ten 10 years, the report points out. Yet current policy only allows for 18 500 units per year. Eco-City Competition Hotting Up in China [News] | Green Business Times. Energy Crisis-Architect’s to take lead Rethinking Design | Feature Article 2011-02-20. Feature Article of Sunday, 20 February 2011 Columnist: Osei, Bob This article is intended to galvanise public thinking particularly persons involved in the design, procurement, delivery and use of buildings in Ghana.
It seeks to initiate a dialogue amongst technical experts’, policy maker’s, city councils, urban and town planning and city managers. Under sec C of the UN Habitat Agenda a broad base and wide range cross sectional consultation with government and her people is advised. Ghana has been fortunate; we had a head start with naturally clean generated energy from Akosombo as the bedrock of our post independence economic resurgence. This vision of Nkrumah has kept Ghana pristine from associated environmental degradation and health related respiratory problems resulting from powering with coal or diesel generated electricity.
As always, my answer has been- Everything, for just a moment look around you, With the right mixes present Ghana can and will explode her development pace. Social Issues. I Want My Twitter TV! How the Germans keep a lid on prices. You get a lot more house for your money in Germany and there's a simple explanation for the stability in the housing market - steady growth in supply. HOW does this sound? An outside staircase leads up to this modern villa. Built on a near quarter-acre block, it boasts four bedrooms, three bathrooms, floor heating, garage, sauna, pool and a landscaped garden, complete with a fish pond. The suburb is green and leafy, yet it's only a short trip to the central business district by car or train. But the best thing is the price: this dream home could be yours for just under $600,000. ''Where is the catch?
'' Advertisement International visitors are often stunned by German property prices. What you typically pay for a small flat in Ballarat or Wollongong would buy you a decent-sized family home in Cologne or Hanover. So what is it that has kept house prices so stable in Germany? An analysis of the German property market shows that low German property prices are not a new phenomenon. Energy efficiency retrofits help sell foreclosed homes. Mothers-to-Be Are Getting the Message. Fixes looks at solutions to social problems and why they work.
We’re used to hearing about public initiatives that get mired in politics or entangled in bureaucracy, but we rarely hear about programs that exceed expectations. So here’s one: last week marked the one-year anniversary of a program called text4baby, a service that sends free text messages to women who are pregnant or whose babies are less than a year old, providing them with information, and reminders, to improve their health and the health of their babies. The service, made available through a broad partnership of community health organizations, wireless carriers, businesses, health care providers and government health agencies, is catching on like wildfire: to date, about 135,000 women have signed up — and organizers have set a new goal of reaching one million users by the end of 2012 (there are four million births each year in the U.S.) What are they doing right? Some of the causes of poor birth outcomes are unknown. CEPT students win Int’l design competition - Ahmedabad Mirror,Ahmedabad Mirror.
Posted On Friday, February 04, 2011 at 02:41:55 AM Two groups of students at the CEPT university won accolades at the 9th International Association of Human Habitat’s International Student Design Competition-2011 held in Mumbai on January 31. The first prize was won by a group of four students from the urban design department for their design proposal ‘Sabarmati Transit Precinct - an inquiry in sustainable humane living environment’.
The design proposal is based on the theme of planning and designing a hub for a sustainable humane habitat. It critically looks into the aspect of human development around the busy transit hub of Sabarmati. The winners, Narendra Mangwani, Sudeept Maiti, Rajat Mukherjee and Sanjay Ramani are currently pursuing their final year masters programme in urban design at faculty of architecture. Talking about their design, Narendra said, “Winning this competition is a great opportunity for us as our design proposal will now be exhibited at various colleges in India. Five Warning Signs Your Innovation Efforts Are Going Off the Rails - Vijay Govindarajan. By Vijay Govindarajan | 9:30 AM August 16, 2010 For the past ten years, my colleague, Chris Trimble, and I have studied one critical question: What are the best practices for executing an innovation initiative?
Execution is the poor stepchild of the innovation challenge. People love to engage in the hunt for the big ideas, but, let’s face it, without execution capability, an idea on paper is….just an idea on paper. Having conducted research in more than 25 of the Fortune 500 companies, including Deere, Hasbro, Thomson Reuters, GE, IBM, and Corning, we have found that when they want to bring an innovation alive, companies typically commit one of two cardinal sins. Businesses need a distinct-but-linked organizational model: a dedicated team for the innovation initiative that partners rather than fights with the core business.
Once it has that partnership in place, a company must keep it on track. How frequently have you observed one or more of these de-railers? LOIS HENRY: Kern water districts scramble to catch every drop - Bakersfield.com. OK, it's better than having no precipitation, according to water district folks I spoke with recently. But the timing and sheer abundance of snow in the northern mountains created a new headache known by the name "carry over water. " I know, I know, water guys around here sometimes seem like a bunch of hairy-legged Goldilockses -- there's not enough water; then there's too much. It's never juuust right. Carry over water, though, is an interesting twist in the state's intricate plumbing system so it is helpful to understand how it works and why it's such a big deal to Kern County.
When State Water Project contractors are faced with shortages from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as has been the case over the past few years, they pump more ground water and save as much delta water in the San Luis Reservoir as they can to hedge against the next year. Whatever they save is carried over in San Luis to the following year, hence the creative title of carry over water. "That's our insurance.
Putting the "Desi" in Design: Why the Indian design community is uniquely equipped for emerging markets. Putting the "Desi" in Design Why the Indian design community is uniquely equipped for emerging marketsBy Niti Bhan From Fiji to Canada, Australia to South Africa, "Desi" is the continent spanning self referential term used by the South Asian diaspora to refer to themselves, their culture, food, music, movies and books. It means "of the homeland," derived from the Sanskrit word 'desh' meaning 'motherland'. Now that media hype on China's manufacturing boom has quieted (well, maybe just a tad), it seems to be India's turn.
The focus, predictably, is on outsourcing 'knowledge work,' and recently on innovation-and-design, but we need to be careful not to view India as just another cheap alternative for yet another field of specialization. The biggest mistake here would be to assume that in the same manner of "sending products to be made in China saves you money," sending product design work to India also saves you money. Well, designing for diverse and disparate market conditions. The Quest for Architectural Excellence in non-Western Societies: Reflections on the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in its 11th Cycle. Repeatedly, in non-Western societies, successes and failures of designed environments go un-noticed.
Opportunities for discussing lessons learned from intervening in natural or built environments are missed. Initiating change in the physical environment takes place in many cases as if there was no history or past to learn from. Frequently, gaps in knowledge transmission do exist because of the lack of rigorous documentation, especially give that assessment studies and critical writings have not matured in many parts of those societies. One way to bridge knowledge transmission gaps is to unveil merits of best practices through critical assessment of projects with the ultimate goal of creating a sharper public awareness of the role of architecture in enhancing and celebrating human activities, of its socio-cultural, environmental, and aesthetic qualities. The Aga Khan Award for Architecture-AKAA (1) continues to represent such a way. Figure 4: View of main patio from the lobby. 2. 3. 4.
USATODAY.com. ORLANDO — The American home of the future will be smaller, more energy efficient and apt to have a combined great room-kitchen area, says a survey Thursday by the National Association of Home Builders. Single-family homes, after ballooning in size for decades, began shrinking in 2008 and will continue that downward trend for years, says the survey released here at the trade group's annual International Builders Show, which runs through Saturday. Completed new homes, only 1,500 square feet in 1970, peaked at an average of 2,520 square feet in 2007 but fell to 2,377 square feet last year, the NAHB reports, citing U.S. Census Bureau data. Their average size will drop to 2,150 square feet in 2015, according to its survey of 238 builders, architects, manufacturers and designers. "Demographics are long term on the side of smaller homes," she says, pointing to the increasing number of young adults seeking energy efficiency and senior citizens wanting less space.
Mud housing is the key | India Environment Portal. Green House Effect. Of sustainable homes. Affordable Housing: An Idea Whose Time Has Come - India Knowledge@Wharton. Mumbai's Dharavi googly for builders - Mumbai. The Next Little Thing?
Graham Hill of TreeHugger Realizes an Ultra-Low Footprint New York Apartment Using jovoto and Mutopo. Sustainable Housing: A Solution for Mexico. Private sector offers India's poor home-ownership dream. Venezuelan squatters bank on the future in office tower.