This post is a little off the green building path, but it gives you some insight into how I think about innovation. One of the phrases I find particularly self serving is “making the future” it’s a meaningless phrase. By waking up in the morning and doing practically anything we’re making the future. “Making the future” isn’t innovating, problem solving is. Later today, I’ll be speaking with Mike Hines of Homepath Products for our podcast. I’m talking with Mike, because I think his company is developing a truly innovative and valuable product. I’ll let Mike speak for his product later on tonight. Right now, here’s my little lesson about a man who actually made the future of film through innovation, but that’s not the whole story.  

In the late 1970’s there was a young film maker…he came out of film school having created startlingly different and interesting pieces that got producers and movie houses interested in backing his first big motion picture. He took an idea he had been kicking around for years prior about a family at the center of a galactic revolution, and decided this film would be the first of a three part story about the fall of an empire. Of course, that film maker was George Lucas and film was Star Wars.

I am an unabashed, unashamed Star Wars Fan. I can recite on command practically any (yes any) passage from the original trilogy. However, watching George Lucas’ creative arch we can learn something about innovation and working within limitations. I call it the George Lucas Effect. In the late 70’s and into the 80’s the technology simply didn’t exist for Lucas to create the world of Star Wars. It had to be invented so he and his team of young visual artists set about the task of inventing the methods and tools necessary to make the film happen. Every solution wasn’t perfect, every model’s flight wasn't seamless, every special effect wasn’t so special. But at it’s core the story was simple and profoundly well told. The special effects of the original films served one purpose…to tell the larger story. The result was classic cinema.

Fast forward 20 years or so and it’s time to make the next trilogy. At that point digital effects are the norm, having largely been invented by Mr. Lucas’ company. But for most observers the heart of the films wasn’t quite there. There were plenty of amazing things to look at, but they didn’t all serve the story, and the story itself wasn’t as simple…and couldn’t be told as easily and with as much heart.

The result was a trilogy that couldn’t hold a candle to the original series. This is the George Lucas Effect, once you have all the toys you stop doing all the thinking. You’re no longer inventing things to tell your amazing story. You’re inventing things to make your movie look cooler.

There’s a lesson to learn here for all of us when it comes to innovating solutions. Beware the George Lucas Effect. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, embellishment doesn’t equal innovation.

Are you telling an exquisite story…or adding some visual candy?

One of the goals of Build2Sustain open up the design/build process so the public can see (to overuse the phrase) how the sausage gets made. We want to do this, not just to better explore sustainability and green design, though these concepts lack a concrete definition in the market, or even within the design community. But even more fundamentally, we need to become better designers and better builders of buildings. The question I ask myself..."Is the Construction Industry Ready for 'Open?'"

An estimated 10%-15% of Construction Cost is attributed to rework. That is work that has to be redone because of miscommunication from the client or the design team or because of an error by a contractor. That cost is baked into to all well written construction contracts, it's an unexplained tax on building something. It's not malicious or decietful, simply put people make mistakes, and those (usually) minor mistakes can add up to serious cost.

We believe well-curated crowd sourcing mixed and open sharing of results throughout the design/build process is essential to compiling a set of best practices that can be employed widely throughout the industry. But are design and build pros ready to open up the process frankly. One Lighting Designer I worked with told me once "why would I blog? I get paid for what I know, if I tell you what I know for free, why would you pay me any more?"

That kind of thinking is very closed, it's pre-web and it's not conducive to our experiment. It's also rampant in an industry dominated by boomers. I think there are enough professionals of a different age and ethos that we can make it work, and almost more importantly, I think clients are going to begin to demand it. In an age where every dollar is closely guarded, clients are going to work with teams who make their process open. Clients increasingly will want to know everything about their building. They either built it themselves or are taking it over and I believe we can engage the owners of commericial buildings to be just as learned about the space, what went into it and the design process behind as we can for a homeowner, obsessing over every finish and stud.