To listen to our entire conversation with Gary, click on the player.

Tom:                           We’re talking with one of the 10 finalists in The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program, MagGrow. Gary Wickham is CEO and founding member of the Irish ag-tech startup. We wanted to talk with Gary about the company’s technology, which uses magnetic fields to reduce the waste of water in spraying crops. We thank you for joining us, Gary.

Gary:                           Thank you.

Tom:                           So, tell us about this technology.

Gary:                           MagGrow, as you said, is an Irish-based company. We were set up in University College Dublin in an incubation center to solve this particular problem around pesticide spray drift. It’s a consistent problem worldwide.

                                    Using conventional technology, 70 percent of water sprayed is waste. There’s $60 billion of pesticides sold worldwide, but 70 percent does not reach its target.

                                    The way farmers solved the problem of drift, driven by increased regulation, is to add water to the droplets, and they use coarse nozzles. All that does is create a secondary problem. You get runoff into the soil, rivers and streams, and you get massive contamination. So now, you’re wasting water and you’re creating waste.

                                    So, only 30 percent of what they spray goes to the crop. All farmers are very clever. They know that if you use smaller droplets, you get better efficacy. Conventional technology does not deliver both. Up to now, we didn’t have a solution to control drift and also give you excellent coverage, until MagGrow came along.

Tom:                           So, you’re employing magnetic fields to make this happen. How does that work?

Gary:                           Effectively, electromagnetic fields. So, it’s actually similar to the principles of generating electricity, where you pass currents through magnets.

                                    What we do is use permanent rare-earth magnets, the strongest magnets known to man. We retrofit a tractor boom, and we pass the fluid through that under turbulent flow conditions. That creates a positive-negative charge into the liquid. We basically transform the physical properties of the liquid, making it easier for those droplets to attach to the crop. Then, we can use the off-the-shelf nozzles for smaller droplets that are readily available, but farmers don’t use them because of drift. But, with our technology, you can spray without the drift. In fact, we reduced drift by over 80 percent using small droplets.

Tom:                           I was going to ask you, if you were to do them side by side, conventional versus the MagGrow method, what would you see?

Gary:                           We’ve done that worldwide with the major research centers and our customers worldwide as part of our validation. It’s a patented new technology, so that was vital. But, basically, you’ll just see a massive cloud with conventional technology, and you can hardly see the spray using the MagGrow system. We have a video on our website, which clearly shows that, on maggrow.com.

Tom:                           This sounds like a bonafide agricultural technology disruptor.

Gary:                           Absolutely. Hugely. Because if $60 billion of chemicals have been sold annually and growing…70 percent of that is not needed.

                                    And, of the ingredient they spray, 99 percent of it is water. In California, Africa and Asia, we’re using over 80 percent of the total available water for agriculture right now.

                                    The world needs 70 percent more food. Africa needs 300 percent more food. We need sustainable innovation, using less to grow more, and that’s where MagGrow steps in.

Tom:                           You mentioned that you manufactured a device that’s attached to a tractor boom. What about portability? Backpack sprayers, that kind of thing.

Gary:                           Yeah, we did two water products. One for greenhouses. Backpack for greenhouses. The fluid is piped into the system, and it goes through a MagGrow magnetic manifold. We basically then use the small nozzles again.

                                    We have customers in East Africa who are the fourth- and fifth-biggest flower growers in the world that are using 50 percent less water, 50 percent fewer chemicals. They’re getting uniform coverage under the leaf as well as above the leaf and less disease pressure because there’s less humidity in the room.

                                    And again, they are problems that we can solve.

                                    Finally, we’ve developed a product for the small farm holder, which is 500 million farms worldwide. This is really exciting because they’re the poorest of the poor. We’re using a technology in East Africa right now that’s produced 300 percent higher yields because they’re working off a low base, using the same amount of chemicals they currently use right now because we make the chemical last four times longer with small droplets. Current technology would just waste and blow away. With our system, it’s very efficient, and we allow them to use six-nozzle systems instead of a one-nozzle system. We are trialing that with the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Dutch government and other interested parties in East Africa right now.

Tom:                           Was it a challenge to make it cost-effective to bring the technology to the point where it’s affordable even to the small farmer?

Gary:                           For the small farmer, basically, they use a simple knapsack, which is $40. The air system is $1,000, but you don’t need one for each farm.

                                    We’re using a pay-per-spray model for those small farm holders to take the (in)affordability away. Basically, what we do is we supply the equipment under license to an agent who is selling the inputs to them. We make sure the input is of the correct quality because you need to have the correct chemicals that are not diluted. Then we train the agent to spray for the farmers. We’re getting 300 percent higher yield for the same money. Africa needs 300 percent more food. And we’re saving 50 percent water.

Tom:                           I’ve read that attracting U.S. investors is a desire of many an Irish startup. What does it take to attract American investment?

Gary:                           We, from the very beginning, were solving a problem, not developing a technology and trying to find a problem. I think that’s a big distinction. We had a problem to solve that was worldwide and universal in a market that’s worth over $8 billion. So, that attracts the big U.S. investors, the size of the market. They also look at the team.

                                    This is my second startup. My previous startup is now a $60 million business that I set up myself. It serves apartment business that’s operating all over Europe. I exited it two years ago to try and set up MagGrow, which is what we’ve done successfully. I brought a team of people that have over 50 years of collective startup experience as well as multinational experience.

                                    You can have a wonderful product, but you need to have a world-class team. Then, you’ll need a business model that makes sense to the investors. So, we were very clear working with large customers, working with the leading research centers to validate our technology, get the patents in place and then start selling direct so that we could control the sales process, to get customers doing the early adapting, doing field demos and then find local distributors to scale and partner.

Tom:                           There were in excess of 180 applicants for The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program. What was it like to get that e-mail, or phone call, or letter in the mail telling you that you were one of the 10?

Gary:                           It was fabulous. It was fantastic because, actually, since we invented this technology, Alltech was on our radar, and we were trying to get to the top people in Alltech because I knew our technology would interest them as they’re in the crop protection space, especially in the biologics space, which is opposite to the petrochemical-based pesticides. With those products, too much of it gets blown away, so it’s not affordable for our farmers. The holy grail is those biologics for use for farms; you don’t even need to wash the crop. MagGrow can solve that problem.

                                    I knew I needed to get in front of them. To be actually selected and now going to the mentorship program, having a very good mentor, getting access to their network, their channel partners, and now we’re working with them all over the world…so we were absolutely delighted and chuffed to achieve that.

Tom:                           For the listener whose focus may be more on the consumer end than on the producer end, how would you say that your technology, MagGrow technology, affects the average consumer’s dinner table?

Gary:                           There’s a number of ways we help the consumer. One, for the people that work in agriculture, we’re making their lives safer. They’re not breathing in these products because it’s going straight to the crop. We’re stopping the 70 percent waste going into our rivers and streams. We’re not contaminating. Pesticides blow into other fields and cross-contaminate. It’s called a minimum residual level problem. So, we’re not cross-contaminating other food with other pesticides. We’re making sure it only goes to the crop and nowhere else. So, water is not contaminated. Water is cleaner and healthier.

                                    And, because you need fewer inputs, we can drive the cost of food down. That’s affecting the consumer in terms of having higher quality food, better use of scarce resources and making it more affordable when the world needs 70 percent more food.

Tom:                           Gary, what would you say you enjoy most about your work?

Gary:                           Myself and the team are very passionate about what we do because the world, as I said at the beginning, needs 70 percent more food, and it’s using 80 percent of all water. There’s a massive challenge over the next 30 years: 2 billion more people on this planet.

                                    We get up every day excited because we know we’re doing our bit to solve some of the biggest food and water challenges this world is going to face, and we’re working with small farm holders. That makes us feel good every day.

Tom:                           Gary Wickham, CEO, founding member of MagGrow. Thank you so much for being with us.

Gary:                           Thank you.

Gary Wickham spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Paul, click on the player.

From fish to humans: Algae's impact throughout the food chain 

Luther:                        Paul Groenewegen is the director of innovation and nutrition at Masterfeeds, an Alltech company. He’s here to talk with us about how algae might transform the way people and animals obtain essential nutrients. What are the benefits of algae?

Paul:                            Well, it’s a great question, Luther. The main benefits of algae are to provide a very sustainable, renewable source of the essential omega-3 fatty acids we hear a lot about in the industry, in consumer press. The main essential fatty acid that we’re going after with algae is DHA. So, we hear about the omega-3 fatty acids that we need to increase our omega-3 fatty acid intake, but the true fatty acid we need to consume is DHA, traditionally consumed through fatty fish, marine fish.

                                      So, how marine fish get this DHA-enriched meat is by eating as they go further up the food chain, starting with algae, the DHA. The algae go into the tissues of one species of fish that’s consumed by another, all the way up to, for instance, having pieces of marine salmon that are high in DHA.

                                      We always say that, you know, our mothers always told us that it was good to have fish once a week. And I believe on our food guides — I know the Canadian food guide indicates — that we have to have a meal of fatty fish at least once a week, and that’s to get the DHA. That’s where we’re coming from, from an algae perspective. So now, we have a sustainable source of nutritionally enhanced food that provides DHA from algae.

Luther:                        What are some important ways algae production can disrupt the status quo?

Paul:                            The main way we’ve traditionally received or utilized DHA in the food chain is through fish oil and fish meal that were harvested from the ocean. Utilizing algae that are produced in a very controlled, sustainable fashion, we now have a renewable source of DHA to enhance food products through meat, milk and eggs that is not depleting world stocks of fish.

                                      That’s the true disruptor: How do we maintain world stocks of fish while producing these larger quantities of a very sustainable, very digestible, very good source of food that once fed to animals enhances the DHA content of meat, milk and eggs?

Luther:                        So, what you’re saying is, instead of going from further down the food chain, we’re going up to a source, and we can either consume that or —through feeding to other animals — consume it when we consume those animals.

Paul:                            Absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, fatty fish, marine fish that we consume to get DHA in our diets, they have to consume the algae. So, we’re just circumventing that, and now we can put DHA into terrestrial animals — layers, pigs, chickens, etc. — that we can then consume and have a DHA-enriched source of terrestrial food (i.e., meat, milk and eggs) that we traditionally haven’t had before.

 Beyond nutrition: Algae in energy and baby formula

Luther:                        Algae has been a buzzword in the biofuel industry. Can you give me some ways in which it is disrupting that industry?

Paul:                            Yeah. The key component is algae. There are thousands of species of algae that you can grow under specific conditions to harvest carbon dioxide, which the algae then convert into fats, which then can be harvested and used in biofuel. By utilizing algae, it does give us a renewable source of energy. Whether it’s economical or not at this stage of the game is a whole other discussion, but it does allow for sequestering carbon into a fuel source.

Luther:                        Fascinating. What are some other product applications for algae?

Paul:                            Oh, the product applications for algae are widespread, from food sources (that) different parts of the algae can be used and extracted for, from cosmetics to all different kinds of food sources.

                                      If we think about human infant formulas, algae have been grown for years to produce DHA that then goes into human infant formulas. And for those listeners out there who have young infants, if you do have some infant formula in your house, take a look at the label. You’re going to see DHA on the label. In most cases, that will come from algae.

Luther:                        What items out there can algae replace?

Paul:                            The main items that they can replace from a food perspective are fish oil, fish meal and some different types of oils.

                                    Obviously, algae can produce different types of oils at different levels depending on how they’re grown. And you can replace oils for cosmetic reasons. You can replace oils for biofuel reasons. You can replace protein sources if you grow algae to produce protein.

                                      Obviously, from a nutritional perspective, we can utilize algae to produce a number of different products that can then displace typical products that we use to extend the overall lifespan of our more traditional products: from an oil perspective, for instance, or from a cosmetic perspective. And we can continue to grow algae very quickly, very economically. And it’s very sustainable. And it’s a renewable resource. 

Growing algae 

Luther:                        Can you bring us up to date on the status of Alltech’s algae research?

Paul:                            Our algae research has allowed us to register the technology across the globe in a number of countries, allowing us to make very specific claims on the enhancement of meat, milk and eggs with DHA. Regulatory bodies around the world stipulate that we have to have efficacy trials. And all the research that we have done globally has pointed directly to the fact that when you feed All-G Rich® to chickens, pigs, dairy cows and a number of other species that we’re doing research on now that we do enhance the DHA content of the meat, milk and eggs that they produce.    

                                      We are also looking at positive attributes to animal health from a welfare perspective and just an overall health perspective in the animals.

Luther:                        What of the future challenges of growing algae commercially?

Paul:                            How we grow it is extremely important.

                                      People think of algae and see pond scum and layers of algae, or we hear about algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, for instance. That’s not the type of algae that we’re talking about.

                                      The big focus that we have now is growing very specific strains of algae under very controlled conditions to give us the very specific product we need.

                                      Algae are incredibly good at cleaning up the environment, and it just concentrates whatever contaminants you’re trying to clean up, and that’s one thing we’re not trying to do. We’re trying to grow algae very specifically to give us a very specific end product to enhance human food and animal feeds.

Luther:                        Are there challenges with the rising billions who are moving into the middle class (China, India, other parts of Asia, Africa) with the demand that’s going to be placed and meeting that demand in terms of production?

Paul:                            Oh, absolutely. And as the middle class continues to grow and as our world population continues to grow, we have to produce more food that’s very nutritious. And traditional global stocks of DHA through fish and fish oil are not only decreasing, but they’re not going to be able to meet the demands that are coming down the pipe.

                                      By utilizing fermentation technologies that allow us to grow algae in large quantities of very specific strains that produce very high-quality human food and animal feed technologies, that’s going to fill that gap as we grow up through the global population of the 6 to 7 billion; people are going to reach the 9 billion mark and are going to have that good sustainable food source as well.

Luther:                        What are the new markets (you’ve addressed some of those) for algae that it’s either disrupting or it’s starting from scratch or are new markets that it might be emerging into?

Paul:                            What we see is, we can utilize these technologies through algae. The biggest one I would say is functional foods and enhanced foods.

                                       At Alltech, we’re about enhancing food to better people’s lifestyles down the road and utilizing algae to produce functional foods for infants and the elderly.

                                      There are also some applications from a DHA perspective looking at different health conditions that, as we improve our human health, it’s going to have a positive impact on the health care system so we can utilize these technologies to have an overall benefit to society.

The health benefits to algae 

Luther:                        You’ve touched a lot upon DHA and its definite health benefits. Are there any specifics that DHA actually addresses in terms of our health, that it promotes health, or it may be a condition that it helps to treat or to improve?

Paul:                            We know that DHA is required in infants for brain development.

                                    If we think about our brain, it’s a very fatty substance, and we require a lot of DHA fat in our brain for membrane integrity. So, as young children are developing, they require DHA in their diet to develop the brain. There are cardiovascular issues in adults, there are eye issues, and DHA has a positive impact.

                                      I think from a sports perspective, concussions are a big concern in football and hockey. Being a Canadian, yes, hockey — we follow it very closely. And knowing that a lot of sports players run into concussion issues, I truly believe that utilizing DHA for sports injury repair is something that’s coming down the road as well.

                                      Just think about it: You get a concussion, your brain is damaged. You need to replace and rejuvenate the membranes of your brain. Some of the research is showing that this is going to have a huge impact.

                                      So, it’s brain development in human infants. I believe there are impacts on brain repair through sports injuries or automobile accidents or whatever injury. People fall, and they hit their head sometimes. So, there’s an application there, as well as cardiovascular disease. That’s all part of the omega-3 concept and increasing our omega-3s and overall improving human health.

Luther:                        What opportunities are there on the horizon? What do you see either today or tomorrow or maybe an interesting fact we haven’t touched upon when it comes to algae?

Paul:                            The biggest impact we’re going to have is: How do we produce large enough quantities at economical rates and then have those technologies registered to be used for animal and human food products?

                                      Our regulatory bodies have to look at these conditions extremely closely so that we can move fast enough so that these technologies can replace depleting stocks of the traditional feed stocks or food stocks that we have to meet the demands of the growing population in the world. So, that’s going to be the biggest roadblock: How do we scale up production fast enough and get acceptance through the industry to utilize new technologies? We have to adopt these technologies not only from a regulatory perspective, but from an application perspective as well.                  

Luther:                        And, finally, bringing this back home, how do algae affect the average consumer’s kitchen table? You’ve talked a lot about DHA. Other than just DHA, are there other ways that it’ll affect the average consumer, their kitchen table, their health, the food they eat?

Paul:                            Yeah. By enhancing the food that consumers eat, we know we have a very safe supply of ingredients, low in contaminants. Global regulatory agencies and governments around the world are watching the food we eat more and more to make sure there are no contaminants in there.

                                Utilizing a technology like algae that’s grown under very specific conditions allows us to produce a much more consistent and much safer human food product.

                                As well, there are potential attributes not only looking at the fatty acid component of algae, but maybe some of the other structural components that are coming down the pipe that we can say, by utilizing the structural components of algae, the carbohydrates in algae, the protein in algae, we can enhance our overall diet, broaden our spectrum of nutrients and ingredients that we consume to give us a healthier population.

Luther:                        Paul Groenewegen, director of innovation and nutrition at Masterfeeds , an Alltech company. Thank you for your time.

Paul:                            Thank you.

Paul Groenewegen spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Aidan, click on the player.

Tom:                As Alltech's chief innovation officer, Aidan Connolly is responsible for the commercialization of Alltech's global research efforts. And as a company vice president, he oversees corporate account strategy. He led the implementation of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, a late-stage agri-tech accelerator, and he joins us to talk about it. Thanks for being with us.

Aidan:              Thank you.

Behind the scenes of the first Pearse Lyons Accelerator program

Tom:                First, who originated the idea of establishing this accelerator program?

Aidan:              I think it's actually hard to remember exactly where it starts. I know the genesis, as always, came from Dr. Lyons himself. He has tasked us with trying to make the ONE conference the biggest, the greatest, the reason to come to Lexington in May, and obviously 4,000 people have responded to that. But this accelerator was to help people like himself, back 20, 35 years ago, starting their own businesses to have the help that they need to be successful.

Tom:                Okay. And we'll get into what you're looking for in just a minute. First of all, Alltech has partnered for this program with Dogpatch Labs of Dublin. What does each company bring to the project?

Aidan:              Well, Alltech, for those not familiar, is headquartered here in Lexington, Kentucky. We employ (approx.) 5,500 people, and we're in (approx.) 130 countries. So, clearly, from an agricultural perspective, from a food production perspective, we've got a very big footprint.

                        Conversely, Dogpatch is all about startups. It's all about people with ideas. Usually, they start on their own. Maybe a couple of people decide they're going to form a company, and they have been very good about helping those companies get started. We felt they would help us with the companies we selected, typically who are a little bit further down the process, but would provide some of that mentoring and help that we were looking for.

Tom:                So you put out this call for accelerator applications, and you got quite a response. What did it look like?

Aidan:              To put it in context, we got 183 applicants from 38 countries. In the agricultural technology field, that would already make it the number one program in the world. So just overnight, it became the number one program. And Dogpatch has connections with Google, and they have connections with many of the top organizations in the world as well. So, clearly, they brought something to the table. But I think there's a lot of attraction for these startups and partnering with Alltech and seeing that as part of their successful future.

Tom:                183 applicants and you had to pare this down to 10. It must have been quite challenging.

Aidan:              We did. It was a big task, and I think some dropped off fairly quickly, as can be the case. But I still think we had about 150 really good applications, which is remarkable. And when you're looking at them, you are looking to think, “Is this the next Alltech?” It was very exciting to be part of that, and I know that's a big thing to think about, but I think from their side as well. They were very happy to be evaluated on that basis. They were very excited about what they are doing.

Tom:                And we have potential investors coming to town to listen to their pitches. Any estimate of how many?

Aidan:              Well, the part of the conference that's specific to investors will be attended by almost 200 people who are uniquely coming to the investor part. Of course, there's a further 3,500, close to 4,000 people, who are coming to the conference for the overall conference. But, yeah, those 200 people would represent some of the bigger investors in agriculture and indeed in startups. They're not just coming from overseas, not just coming from California, of course, but even from Louisville and Cincinnati and Nashville. There are quite a lot of these startup hubs and investors who are both angel investors and venture capitalists really excited about the idea of being here.

Tom:                And does Dr. Lyons himself get involved while they're here?

Aidan:              He does indeed. In fact, he got involved with the program at every stage of it. Of course, he remembers starting Alltech in 1980 with $10,000. When you have somebody, a live person who actually built their own business, who has created something the size of Alltech, it's exciting, I think, if you're an entrepreneur, to imagine yourself being that person in the future.

Tom:                You touched on this earlier, but maybe you could expand on the benefits of this accelerator program?

Aidan:              Everybody sees things through their own eyes. But what I could say is, the 10 companies came back and said they had all raised an excess of $3 million each already, from finance rounds. So $30 million over 10 companies; they didn't really need more money. What they did need was help with sales and marketing strategy to find customers. So this was a very big deliverable for them. Frankly, being in front of 4,000 people in Lexington is a very big deal for them. What's better than when you have a great idea to get that level of exposure?

                        At Alltech's global footprint…that is something that if you're starting out with two people, 10 people, or 15 people, you just don't readily get access to. I'd say those are the three deliverables that they highlighted primarily that they saw coming from the program.

Finding a home for agri-tech and food innovation

Tom:                Dr. Lyons has suggested that Lexington should become a hub of agricultural technology innovation. Do you agree with that? Tell us what you envision.

Aidan:              I think Kentucky can sometimes underplay Kentucky's role in terms of agriculture. It obviously has a tradition of tobacco. It has a tradition of beef cattle. It recently has become a pretty big producer of chickens, soybeans, corn. From that aspect, there's a lot going on in Kentucky with some of the larger farms. But Kentucky is also very much focused, or has a tradition of small farms as well. And I think you see consumers looking increasingly for local, fresh, to know the name of the producer, the farmer, to be able to go and visit them. So I think opportunities for cheeses, et cetera.

                        What we're looking at in farming is basically 12,000 years of doing the same thing. And this digital disruption, this explosion in using sensors and using robots and using drones. It's changing every aspect of our life. But it's changing agriculture even more than it does the rest of life.

                        Lexington, and Kentucky in particular, has an opportunity to be front and center in this, as it wants to be. Alltech is doing its best to make sure that that happens. We would love for more people to join us. We're hoping to see people there at the conference. And if they come up and say, "How are we going to help make this happen together?” we're all ears; that's our goal.

Tom:                From what I gather talking to various folks from Alltech, there's a great deal of enthusiasm about the work at hand. And I'm asking everybody, "What is it about what you do that you enjoy most?"

Aidan:              Well, if you didn't have fun, then you weren't enjoying it, you shouldn't work for whoever you're working for, but you will find that Alltech people have a disproportionate level of enjoyment in their company.

                        Clearly, we as locals will know here, we do make our beer, our own whiskey and bourbon, and that does help of course, as well. But the food business has become a very exciting business to be in. Some people call it a sexy business, which it traditionally was not. For the last whatever number of years, certainly in my career, it never seemed as though my mom was proud of what I did. Now, when you ask her, she's very proud that I don't work for the traditional industries of banking or real estate or whatever else, because food is critical. And people understand, and have a relationship with what they're consuming. They want to understand more about it. They want to be healthy. They want to be natural. And they want to do good for their body and for the bodies of their children. So yeah, it seems to be really the right time to be in this business.

Tom:                Alltech chief innovation officer, Aidan Connolly. Thank you so much for joining us.

Aidan:              Thank you.

Aidan Connolly spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with George, click on the player.

Tom:                            Tesla Motors, Apple, GAP: George Blankenship’s executive resume fairly screams disruption. At Tesla, redefining the car buying experience. At Apple, designing brand-building retail methodology. And at GAP, managing the growth of more than 250 stores per year, with an eye on energy and environmental efficiencies. Thank you for joining us, George.

George:                       My pleasure to be here.

Disruption: Driven by pursuing customer delight

Tom:                            So, Tesla, Apple, GAP: Three iconic American brands. What are your key takeaways from those experiences?

George:                       Well, I think the one thing that all of them do is, they focus on the customer first and then sort of back into everything from there, whether it was the way we presented clothing and the design of the clothing or the way we looked at what would be good for the customer, and then back into the technology. And then at Tesla, we looked at the customer experience of buying a car and thought, you know, there’s probably a better way than the way it’s been done for the last 100-plus years. And so, we thought there’s probably a better way for the end user, the customer, and that’s what we set out to do.

Tom:                            I’m sure it’s not news to you and you’re following this, but retailers are filing for bankruptcy at a record rate these days. They’re trying to cope with a rapid acceleration of online shopping. During the first quarter of this year, at least 14 retail chains filed for bankruptcy, almost surpassing all of 2016. Retailers are closing stores faster than ever. A deep recession might explain this, but GDP has been growing for eight straight years. Gas prices are low. Unemployment is under 5 percent. In the last 18 months, we have seen wage growth, especially for middle- and lower-income Americans. What’s going on?

George:                       I think it’s a couple of factors. One is obviously online retailing is impacting brick and mortar. But I think as important or more important than that is that a lot of companies over-expanded, and there was a lot of supply of places for them to go. A lot of shopping centers that maybe shouldn’t have been built in the first place. There’s one there, and then another one comes and builds across the street. And so now, you have two in a place where really one would thrive. So, one ends up winning, the other one ends up losing.

                                    And a lot of the retailers you’re talking about, one of two things happened: either they over-expanded and they shouldn’t have, or they didn’t react enough to downsize when they should have, or they lost connection with a customer.

                                    And I think what’s important is, while the bankruptcy is going on, most of those companies are not going to go out of business. They’re going to right-size and come back.

                                    But, at the same time, there’s some major companies out there who are going into brick and mortar. You’ve got Warby Parker, who was online and going into brick and mortar. Amazon Books just opened up their sixth brick-and-mortar retail store. They’ve opened up Amazon Go in Seattle. So, while one’s moving out, there are also ones that are moving in.

Tom:                            Among those moving into brick and mortar, are they making this move to provide experiences, especially the kinds of experiences that make for good social media content?

George:                       I think it’s really to learn as much as they possibly can about their customer.

                                    An online retailer has a connection in a certain way with a customer. They know their buying habits. They know the kind of things they buy. They know those types of things, and they can suggest that online, based upon an algorithm, but people aren’t algorithms. People are people. They have a character. They have a desire. They have a way of looking at the world, and sometimes the only way you can interact with that — the only way you can really learn about that is to interact with them directly.

                                    Why did Apple open up stores in shopping centers when no one was doing that, whether it was to interact directly with the customer when they were not thinking about buying a computer? We wanted to be there, take care of them, and then open the Genius Bar. So, no matter what Apple products you have, no matter where you bought it, no matter when you bought it, if you need help, we’re there for you and you can come to the Genius Bar and get taken care of.                                   

                                    Tesla opened up in shopping centers so that we could interact with people when they were not thinking about buying a car, and it’s just a totally different relationship. And that’s the reason you do it. It’s so you can interact directly with your customer and so they can understand you better and you can understand them better.

Defining disruption

Tom:                            The theme of the Alltech Ideas Conference was disrupting the disruptors. Disruption sounds a lot like chaos to a lot of us, but it’s important today. And why is it important to understand disruption as a positive thing?

George:                       Well, yeah, disruption could be thought of as chaotic and confusing, and people see it as reckless, but it’s really not.

                                    It’s really very, very simple. It’s when you look at something. It could be an industry, or an activity, or a process that’s been done the same way for a long period of time. It could be done the same way for 20, 30, 40, 100 years and generally people think it’s okay. But the reason it’s important is because the end user, the customer, usually develops a new set of benefits, a new set of things that are better for them as a result of the disruption.

                                    I mean, think about the Apple iPhone. Think about all the things people rely on their iPhone for today, whereas if you went back before the iPhone, phones worked. They were phones, but they weren’t an active part of your daily life. Now a smartphone is a part of most people’s daily life.

                                    You think about things that have been done the same way for a long, long, long time and somebody comes in and just finds a better way for the customer to interact with something or to do something. And it’s just different benefits that are generally better.

Tom:                            Innovation in technology is keeping a pretty blinding pace these days. If disruption in that area or disruption in general becomes the norm, is there risk of all that constant churning and change outpacing our capacity to process and roll with the changes?

George:                       Not at all. People embraced the iPhone right away. People embrace the way Tesla sells cars, which is different than the auto industry has worked for 100 years. You know, they embrace it right away.

                                    I think back, 20 years ago, Amazon went IPO 20 years ago. And now, look at the impact Amazon has had on the way we do things. At first, it was Amazon and then it was Amazon Prime. So, you get delivery in two days. Now, it’s Prime Now, where you can get thousands of things available for delivery in an hour.

                                    Yes, the technology enables things, but some of it is the people enabling things.

                                    Look at Uber. Think about Uber. All right? Technology, a smartphone, allows you to have a sharing type of way of sharing your car. So, think about the experience. You push a button and a car shows up on a map. You can see where it is. It shows up at your house or your business. You get in the car and you go. You never pull out a credit card. It’s just a better overall experience.

                                    Tech enables a lot of things, but sometimes it’s just the process, like how you buy a car. It’s done differently now at Tesla without any change in technology other than you can order something on the web: a car. But other than that, it’s the shopping for the car that actually changed, that’s disruptive. But again, we thought it was a better way for a customer to buy a car.

Tom:                            From the business perspective, not the consumer point of view, but the business perspective, are the concepts of disruption and sustainability compatible?

George:                       Well, sure. Look at what Tesla’s doing. Let’s use them as an example, alright? At a Tesla store today, you can walk in and you can buy a car or you can buy what’s called a power wall, which is a battery pack that you hang on your garage and you charge it up and then it runs your house from the batteries. And then with their acquisition of Solar City last year, I mean, today, you can walk into a Tesla store and you can buy an entire program. It will take you from solar, the battery, battery to run your house and charge your car. So, it’s disrupting the way you buy a car, but it’s also disrupting the way you can actually get off the grid and from there charge your car. So, you can live totally off the grid with one visit to a Tesla store.

Funding disruption 

Tom:                            How about attracting investment capital to a business model that relies on game-changing technology, on constant innovative change? Is that difficult?

George:                       Well, when you live in Silicon Valley, there is investment capital that’s out every single day searching for what they believe could be the next disruptive technology or disruptive process to invest in. There’s a big difference in how it’s looked at today versus in the past. In the past, they were saying “Okay, show me how soon you’re gonna make a profit, and how much profit, and how soon?” All those kinds of numbers, whereas today, it’s looking like, “How much money do you need to become the leader in this?” You’re probably not going to make money for seven, or eight, or nine, or 10 years or whatever. But if you can become the leader in what you’re doing, that’s more important to us investing in you than it is saying, “Oh, in 29 months, I’ve got to break even.”

                                    So, it’s a little bit different here. Now, I realize that I’m sort of in a unique pocket here in the Silicon Valley. I’m sure it’s probably more difficult to raise investment capital in other places. But here, you’ve got people looking to invest and you’ve got people looking for the investment. And is it available? Yes, it is if you have a great idea.

Tom:                            To what extent should a disruptive concept or technology be market-tested before there’s hope of attracting that investment capital?

George:                       Well, a lot of investment capital, they want to be in so early that there really is no time for testing. You’re investing in an idea because that’s where you get in the earliest and where you get in with the most opportunity for the lowest price. You know, obviously, if you’re early in …you’re the one who has the most opportunity to make the biggest gain. They would rather take multiple shots at something like that, knowing that two or three or four of them might not make it out of 10, but the ones that make it could be substantial. I mean, think about if you were one of the early investors in Google or some of the online — I mean, I saw the other day where 20 years ago — I think it was May 16 — Amazon’s IPO. And if you had invested $10,000 in Amazon 20 years ago, it would be worth $4.8 million today. So, how tested was Amazon before it went in and how long did it take to make a profit? And look at all the incredible things they’re doing today.

                                    You want to be in early. So, oftentimes, there isn’t a lot of time to test it before you actually invest.

Tom:                            So, it’s really a very strong hunch that what we’re talking about holds promise.

George:                       I think seasoned venture capitalists and those investing money are able to step back and look at things and say, “You know what, I think this has a niche. I think it has a place. And I think the place could be very big in the future. And if we get in on this now, and this becomes the leader, this could be really big.” And they step back and they sort of — you know, there may be five people in the room and they’ll look around at each other and go, “What do you think?” And if three or four of the heads nod yes, well, “Here. Here’s $30 million dollars.” It didn’t use to be like that, you know? It didn’t. No one ever did that kind of thing. But in today’s world, that’s what happens with a great idea that seems to have legs that people can look at and say, “If you can own this, it will be huge.” And that’s what people want. They want to own something and be huge.

Tom:                            So, what can make the difference between a business being disrupted versus being the disruptor?

George:                       Well, let’s go back 10 years ago. iPhone 1 was launched in June of 2007. And I believe the iPhone disrupted the cellular phone industry, actually the whole phone industry. And ask yourself: If on the day that Steve Jobs stood up and said we’re going to do a phone, chances are if you had a phone in your pocket, a mobile phone, it was a Nokia, a Motorola, a Palm or a Blackberry. Well, how many people have those in their pockets today? So, you can either be the disruptor or be disrupted. I think those four phone companies would probably wish they were the disruptor, not the ones who were disrupted. I think you always want to be on the front end of that.

Tom:                            You’ve long been a change agent, if you will. A champion of innovation. What sort of disruption are you engaged in these days?

George:                       Well, I’m helping Amazon open up their brick and mortar stores, just as a consultant, just sort of helping them get into that world. Other than that, what I’m doing now is I’m being disrupted as a grandfather. I’ve got four grandkids, and I love spending time with my wife, and my kids, and my grandkids. And I think, you know, the nice thing about grandkids is they make you young again. So, I guess I’m being disrupted by them as much as I’m disrupting the world.

Tom:                            My last question was going to be what about your work do you most enjoy, but I think it’s been upstaged by grandchildren.

George:                       Once you have grandchildren, they make you young again. They have a perspective on life that just makes you smile every time you see them, and they’re always glad to see you too. So, it’s a wonderful, wonderful situation.

Tom:                            George Blankenship, thank you so much for joining us.

                                    We appreciate it.

George:                       Absolutely my pleasure, Tom. Have a great week.

Tom:                            You too.

George Blankenship presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For free access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Jack, click on the player.

Tom:              Can agriculture save the planet before it destroys it? That's the question addressed by Jack Bobo, senior vice president and chief communications officer for Intrexon, a synthetic biology company focused on food, energy and health. And we thank you for being with us, Jack.

Jack:               Thank you.

Can agriculture save the planet before it destroys it?

Tom:              So, “Can agriculture save the planet before it destroys it?” That's a heavy and somewhat ominous question. Let's begin with the destructive nature of agriculture. What do you see?

Jack:               Well, in many ways, there's nothing we do that has a bigger, more negative impact on the planet than agriculture. And yet, there's nothing more critical for our daily survival. The challenge that we have is how to minimize those negatives and grow the benefits.

                        In terms of land, 40% of all the land on Earth is already devoted to agriculture, and that's a huge amount. The amount of crop land is the size of South America; the amount of pasture land, the size of Africa. So that is a really, really big footprint. If we were talking about water, well, 70% of all the freshwater we consume goes to agriculture. So, again, a huge demand on the planet. We can talk about greenhouse gases and all the other things.

Tom:              We hear an awful lot about the "rising billions," the rise of the middle-class in Asia, in India, in those areas of the world, meaning more demand, which means the need for more capacity.

Jack:               Yeah, so on one hand, we're going from 7 to 9 billion people, and so that's adding a couple billion more people. But perhaps even more important than that is the fact that their incomes are increasing, and so it's not that they're just more mouths to feed, but they're people that want more protein and better nutrition and better products. All of that means that we're not just going to need 30% more food, but we'll need 60% to as much as 100% more food in many places.

Tom:              So that's just going to put more pressure on those resources.

Jack:               Absolutely true.

Tom:              Well, let's flip the coin. What can save the planet?

Jack:               Well, one thing that can save the planet is innovation and new technologies. Because we need to produce all of that new food using the same amount of land or less, the same amount of water or less. We need to do everything better tomorrow than we're doing it today. But our rivers and lakes are already running dry, and so it's a huge challenge. But the only way we will ever be able to do it is to have science and technology help us to solve these problems. We need to get to 2050 without screwing up the planet and sustainably feed those 9 billion people.

                 Far from the farm: Consumers care more, know less

Tom:              As food shoppers, consumers, have we become disconnected from the origins of what we're eating and feeding our families?

Jack:               Absolutely, and it's inevitable. If you go back 200 years, pretty much everybody was a farmer or engaged in farming or knew a farmer, and today, it's 1% of the population is involved in farming, and most of us, it's a very distant activity. It's not really surprising that people are less aware of what goes into our food system today.

Tom:              Innovation versus Change. Do people revere one, loathe the other?

Jack:               Yeah. Well, I do like to say that people love innovation almost as much as they despise change. And there's nothing that they despise change in more than in the food they eat because food is what brings us together as family, as friends. It brings us together around the table. When you mess with my food, in many ways you're messing with my family, and people just don't like it.

Disrupting the discussion about food

Tom:              We're in an era of disruption. In fact, the theme of the conference is "Disrupting the Disruptors." What are the consequences of not being able to roll with those changes?

Jack:               I have a lot of confidence in the science and technology that we will in fact be able to address these challenges, if given the opportunity to do so.

                        What I was really talking about is disrupting how we communicate about food and agriculture, and that's really the challenge that we all have: figuring out how do we bridge the divide between those who think we should produce food the way we did a hundred years ago and those that think we need to produce food more intensively, because they all have something to contribute to this conversation.

Tom:              What about the emerging technologies that are bringing data to the platform and data that could be accessible, even all the way down the food chain to the consumer?

Jack:               Well, I like to say big data reveal small differences, and this is a really exciting aspect.

                        Imagine if you're an organic farmer today. For the last 50 years, you’ve probably been planting something called cover crops, which you plant in between growing seasons to maintain the soil and add maybe some more nutrients back into the soil. You've been doing it because you believed in your heart it was the right thing to do. Well, today, big data allows us to tell what's the return on my investment of planting a cover crop? And for the first time, a lot of big conventional farmers are planting cover crops because big data told them, yes, in fact, you get a return on your investment. That's just an example of how organic practices become mainstream practices as a result of this data.

Tom:              On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the best, how would you rate the public's level of trust in the food industry today?

Jack:               Well, it's certainly not very high. And that's really unfortunate. Because the only way we're going to save the planet is if the food companies are part of the solution. And there's no way we can do it without them. And if we make them the bad guy, if we make them the villain in the story, why are they going to work with us to try to solve these problems? Why are they going to care what the consumers think if the consumer just thinks that they're out to somehow undermine them?

                        The reality is that we need to gain the trust. It's not the consumers' fault. As a food company, you need to be trustworthy in order for people to trust you. That's something that is earned. It's not something that's given.

Tom:              What have you observed the industry doing that, if you were given the opportunity to change it and to improve it so that it became more credible, “it” being the industry, you would make that change?

Jack:               Well, I mean one of the things I worry about is food fads. There's always a new fad coming along — a new superfood or a new diet or other things. And food companies tend to just jump in, and that's because the marketing guys are saying, "Hey, everybody wants gluten-free. We need to produce a gluten-free product." Even if the company itself doesn't believe that product is going to benefit the consumer.

                        So you can actually find gluten-free water now, and you can find non-GMO water. Well, as far as I know, there's never ever been any water that's had gluten in it or was GMO. They're really selling a concept to the consumer, and consumers no longer understand. What is gluten? Most people don't even know. Unless you have celiac disease, you probably don't need to be avoiding gluten at all. And yet, when people go to the grocery store and they choose between two products, one is gluten-free and the other isn't, they think that contributes to their health. And the company knows it does not contribute to their health, and yet, they're willing to take that premium.

                        I really think that when consumers have a false belief, it's more often in the interest of industry to cater to the belief than to try to eradicate it. And that's really short-term thinking. The companies that are going to be around a hundred years from now are those who are in it with the consumer, not out to get the consumer.

Tom:              What, in your estimation, is the best, most effective way to deliver important, complex information to the public?

Jack:               It's an interesting question, because, in fact, in many ways, science doesn't matter. If people don't trust you, science doesn't matter. And if people do trust you, science doesn't matter. Because if you trust me, you don't need to see my science; and if you don't trust me, you don't care to see my science. So it's really about building that relationship, and that's a long-term relationship.

                        Information follows trust. It can't precede it.

Tom:              Here's a question for the times. It kind of has little to do with what we've talked about so far, but you're a communicator and I'd like to get your opinion on how we go about, in these times, engaging people who have different opinions about things.

Jack:               I think we need to start with ways of connecting with people. Where are our shared values?

                        It doesn't really matter where you are on the political spectrum or on the food spectrum, you probably worry about the negative impacts of agriculture, you care about the future of our planet, you want people to be healthier and better fed, and so there are a lot of things that we have in common. The question is how we get there. The only way that we're going to figure it out is by talking to each other, not talking at each other. Ultimately, what will determine whether or not agriculture can save the planet is, do we have a conversation that allows us to make those choices?

Tom:              Back to the food industry, are there any particular trends that you have your eyes on these days?

Jack:               Well, one of the exciting ones that my company is involved in relates to something called the Arctic Apple. It's a non-browning, genetically engineered apple. I'm hoping that it will actually change the nature of the conversation around GMOs. Because what we haven't had up until now is a product that people choose because it's a GMO. Once you choose a product because it's a GMO, you're not really going to think very much about soybeans and corn and other things like that. And people often say, "It's just an apple," but the apple is the third most wasted food item in the United States.

Tom:               Really?

Jack:               It's an important one. And the great thing about our apple is, if you're a grower of apples, you have less finger bruising and loss. If you're a shipper, less bruising and loss. If you're a retailer, less bruising and loss. And if you're a consumer, your kids will eat the apple slices that you put in their lunch bags.

Tom:              Well, I have to ask. Apples are really good, why do we waste them so much?

Jack:               Well, we don't really have a choice. When apples are bruised, they're not going to fit the quality demands to go to the store. I've talked to some people and they'll say, "I still eat bruised apples." And that's fine, but do you buy bruised apples? You're not intentionally going out there and looking for them. And so it just undermines the quality, and at the end of the day, the apples that have slight bruising are going to get tossed.

Tom:              So what about your work, Jack? What do you enjoy the most?

Jack:               Well, I'm passionate about trying to figure out how are we going to solve this huge problem that we all face, and do it in a way that actually makes everybody better. I'm hopeful that we have some of the tools. Now we just have to find the right dialogue that allows us to get there.

Tom:              Jack Bobo, senior vice president and chief communications officer for Intrexon. We thank you for joining us, Jack.

Jack:               Thank you.

Jack Bobo presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For free access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Lisa, click on the player.
 

Tom:                           As founder and CEO of futurethink, Lisa Bodell has transformed teams within organizations like Google, Novartis, Accenture, HBO, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Merck, Fidelity, even the U.S. Navy.

Best-selling author of “Kill the Company,” her latest is “Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters,” which is what we will do right now.                                    

Thanks for joining us, Lisa.

Lisa:                            Oh, thanks for having me.

Tom:                           And do we humans have this tendency to complicate everything?

Lisa:                            We definitely have a tendency to complicate things. And one of the things that was interesting to me about doing the research in this book was that so much of the complexity that exists is self-imposed and unproductive, but most of it has actually been put on us unintentionally.

                                    We create the beast that we become a slave to all the time. And a lot of that is driven by risk and fear and power and control, and that’s what drives us to want to have just one more metric to be safe; one more KPI; one more report, just to triple-check things; one more meeting to make another person help us with that decision, versus a lot more reliance on our gut, and we need to get back to that balance.
 

Clear away the clutter
 

Tom:                           You offer guidance on how to eliminate the mundane or the unnecessary from the daily routine and free up more time for work that matters. What are some key ways to clear away all that clutter?

Lisa:                            Oh, my gosh, I wish we had more time. The good news is that there are so many things that you can do that are very easy, and I’ll tell you a few of my favorites.

                                    One of the things that you can do for yourself or with your team is you can kill stupid rules. A lot of things that we put in place had a purpose at one point, but they may have outlived their time. Things changed. We don’t spend enough time going back and reviewing our work practices and the rules we put in place to see if they’re relevant anymore.

                                    So, what we do is we get people in the room and we say to them: “If you could kill any two rules to help you be more productive at work or be more innovative, what would you kill and why?” And what’s interesting is, that most people, they come up with rules, but most of the things they come up with are tools. They are cultural assumptions, they’re annoyances, they are those reports and meetings and e-mails. So, killing a stupid rule is great because it gets you in the process of subtraction, but also it gives people permission to eliminate. That’s one.

                                    Another thing is to look for redundancies in your work or the things that you do that are duplicate. Do things less frequently. Some people have meetings for an hour just because that’s the default on their Outlook calendar.

                                    We teach people a practice we call NNTR, and what this does is it helps clear (your) inbox. A lot of times, people get clogs in their inbox by people that are just responding with “thanks,” “got it,” you know, pleasantries, and those become annoyances. NNTR is called “no need to respond.” And when you put that in your subject line, people know that this is just an FYI e-mail, don’t feel the pressure to respond and, in fact, don’t respond, because I don’t want it in my inbox.   
 

Tom:                           I’m going to thank you for that, right now.

Lisa:                            [Laughs]

Making simplicity practical

Tom:                           I found on your website, futurethink.com, a simplification toolkit, which seems to carry forward the ideas that you were just talking about. Tell us about that?

Lisa:                            One of the things I really like to do is not just talk about a theory, but really about practice. This is kind of the Midwesterner in me. I really like the practical “get things done.” 

                                    When I wrote this book, I decided I didn’t just want to talk about why simplicity is important. I have a full chapter dedicated to tools people can do right away.

                                    We created a whole toolkit that people could actually use with facilitation instructions and worksheets with their own teams to really make it stick because simplicity can’t become a habit if we don’t change behaviors and the tactics that drive them.

                                    So, the idea of the toolkit was: “Don’t take my word for it, try it, use it; one of these will help you get to the work that matters.”

Tom:                           And that can be downloaded straight from your site?

Lisa:                            It can be. It’s actually available on the site for purchase. They also have it on Amazon. So, if you get the book, you can get the toolkit, and it’s the perfect marriage.

Tom:                           What sorts of complexities do you most often encounter when you begin looking into a client’s structure, their culture, their problems?

Lisa:                            Well, you know, it’s interesting because when you ask people what complexities really hold them back, here’s what they’ll say: regulation. We’ll regulate it, so we have regulatory complexities. Well, there are people that are regulated that operate with simplicity more than others, so that can’t be the only thing.

                                    And then, they start to talk about organizational complexities. Those are the things you put in place to manage, right? Regulation like new structures or charts reporting things. But, those aren’t really the culprits, it’s two other things you don’t expect. It’s tactical, everyday complexities that really bother people; the things you put in place to manage the organization. So, it’s PowerPoints, it’s meetings, it’s e-mails, it’s decision-making. Those are the things that really bother people.

                                    The habits are driven by very human things. It’s human behavior that drives these risks, fear, power and control. So, if we really acknowledge the fact that we’re operating from a place of fear, of power, etc., if we get comfortable with doing less, we’re subtracting; we’re saying no. A lot of those tactical complexities — one more resource, one more PowerPoint, one more meeting — they’ll start to fall away and people will have more time in their hands.

Success from simplification

Tom:                           Is there a particular outstanding outcome after you’ve taken a company through the process of simplifying?

Lisa:                            Yes. Yeah. People have more time. That’s really what it is to do meaningful work. So, it’s interesting when you ask people what they want, they say they want to do more meaningful work — and I’ll get to that in a second; they don’t know what that is. That’s the problem. They have a bunch of stuff, they just need to learn how to clear it out.

                                    Teaching people how to clear out the non-meaningful work is really the most important thing because that’s what sucks up their time. When I look at a company and I figure what is the most important metric that I measure success by, a lot of people say it’s creating a culture of innovation. “The more innovative we are, the better off we must be.”  That’s not it. The metric I want to really move the needle on is the ability to get things done because my saying is, “If you get the work right, you get the culture right.” So, if I give you the right work and we don’t focus on mundane stuff but more meaningful things, you’re focusing on the right stuff, then you can get things done. That’s where real culture happens. That’s meaningful.

Don’t complicate simplicity

Tom:                           Is achieving simplicity a complex endeavor?

Lisa:                            It can be. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. I think it can start on the individual level, and that’s the good news, which is, you have a lot of things you can do with your sphere of influence, your sphere of control. You can say no to meetings. You can look at your own work and figure out what’s redundant. You can spend less time on e-mail throughout the day and you can bunch them. You can communicate with more clarity, versus jargon. So, there are things you can do.

                                    There are also more structural things that can be put into place like cut-the-crap committees that are in charge of looking at things and eradicating complexity. I guess my key takeaway is: It doesn’t have to be complex.When people start to look at redoing the organization and re-managing IT systems, I think they’re going about it at too high a level and making it much more than it needs to be to start.

Tom:                           What kinds of complications that are ripe for simplification have you encountered in highly regulated businesses?

Lisa:                            The interesting thing is, regulated businesses, when it comes down to it, aside from the regulation part, are not that much different than other industries because the things that drive people crazy are the day-to-day complexities.

                                    So, what are some of the things I’ve seen? Let me take Merck for an example. They have a simplification team in Canada, and they had so many things that were complex much like, frankly, a lot of other industries.

                                    What they decided was that they needed to tackle simplifying meetings. So they focused on one thing and they created a code of conduct for how meetings were going to be run and everyone had to adhere to those simplified behaviors. There had to be a decision maker, there had to be less than an hour. They couldn’t be repeated unless everybody agreed to it. You know you can’t have those zombie meetings. There had to be an agenda.

                                    All these kinds of behaviors that everybody started to adhere to caused people to use their time better and use the time they got back in more meaningful work. Focus on one thing. Agree to behaviors. Give yourself more time.

Is digital technology the savior of simplicity or the blockade?

Tom:                           Is digital technology aiding and abetting simplicity, or the opposite?
 

Lisa:                            [Laughs] The answer is “yes.” The problem with technology is, you ask people if it’s helped or hindered, and the answer is “yes.” Technology has helped us get more things done and many things more easily. Kickstarter lets us get funding more easily. Airbnb, we can get, you know, access to a hotel room more easily. Uber, you get a car more easily. So, technology can be a great thing. Unfortunately, we don’t know when to stop, and the problem with human nature is, just because you can does not mean you should. And so, that’s where it kind of goes over the edge where, you know, you want one more metric, you want one more report because it’s just so easy to generate.

                                    And so, we spend all these times drowning in mundane internal tasks, versus relying a little less on those things so you can focus on what’s important, the external customer-facing stuff.

Simplicity skepticism

Tom:                           What are some typical pushbacks, resistance to change and simplify, even if it is in the best interests of the client?

Lisa:                            Well, it’s interesting. How I would answer this question is, I don’t get a lot of pushback in terms of people wanting simplicity. In fact, it’s the best question I could ask people and get the answer I want. You know, “Who would like more simplicity in their lives?” Everyone raises their hand, and they’re so excited about it. What I get instead is skepticism. They don’t really believe that they’re allowed to make it happen, that their bosses will let it happen, that they’re able to do it, and there’s a few reasons why. We are conditioned around more. We are valued, we are awarded for doing more, not less, so it seems almost counterintuitive. A lot of our bosses operate out of risk, fear, power, control, so that’s why they put these things on us. And, a lot of it is, I’ll get down to habit, because I tell people that they — they need to just try not doing something. 

                                     You know, “What if I didn’t?” is a great question to ask because you think you’re in a groove, but you may be in a rut, and it’s very hard to tell the difference and to try and change one behavior and stop doing something.

Tom:                           I wonder if a lot of people are like this. I find that in my case, I’m a morning person.

Lisa:                            Yeah.

Tom:                           I get a day’s worth of work done in the morning.

Lisa:                            Me, too.

Tom:                           Yet if you are employed somewhere where you must clock in and put in your eight or nine hours. You feel guilty if you’re not applying nose to grindstone all eight or nine hours.

Lisa:                            So, here is the difference, right? It’s that simplicity is a time versus value equation. I want to get people off the time and get to the value. So, simplicity is not about time management. I’m sure you — just like you just said — you are really good at getting stuff done. You can look at a to-do list, and you can check things off. I get great satisfaction from doing that. I admit to people that I’m the person that, after I got stuff done — just for that satisfaction — I will create my to-do list and then check all the things on it that I already did because it makes me feel so good. But, it’s not about getting things done on your to-do list; it’s about what should have been on that to-do list in the first place. And that’s the habit we have to get into, which is not “How much am I getting done?” but “Am I doing the right things?”

Tom:                           Well, it’s very obvious, Lisa, that you enjoy this work, but what would you say you enjoy most?

Lisa:                            Oh, my gosh, I’ll try to focus on one thing. I get a lot of satisfaction in showing people how to get their time back, how to do more meaningful things. So, what that says to me is, people come to work to do meaningful things, and they are drowning in mundane work. And if I can teach them one or two simple things that can make them more fulfilled at work or frankly have more time at home with their kids, I will feel like I’ve done a good job.

Tom:                           Lisa Bodell is founder and CEO of futurethink, and we thank you for being with us.

Lisa:                            Thank you for having me.

Lisa Bodell presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17). To hear talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For free access, click on the button below.

To listen to our entire conversation with Dror, click on the player.

Tom:                Selected from more than 180 applicants, Hargol FoodTech is among the 10innovative food and agriculture ventures around the world brought to Lexington to make its case for investment. Co-founder and CEO Dror Tamir is among presenters in The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program — his latest stop in what has been an enormously successful whirlwind world quest.  Hargol … is in the grasshopper business. Dror, thank you for joining us.

Dror:                You're welcome. Happy to be here.

Tom:                We're pleased you're here, especially given all the traveling that you've been doing. We'll get into that in just a moment because it's very interesting. But first, I have to ask, edible grasshoppers. Do tell.

Dror:                Yes. Well, I can start with the story about the expected increase in global demand of protein. It is expected to double by 2050. And we all know that existing protein sources have their limitations. So the demand for alternative, high-quality protein will skyrocket. That's one story.

                        The other story is grasshoppers are the most widely eaten insect in the world, by about 2 billion people worldwide, mainly in regions where there is a lack of protein in people's diet. Today, they just collect them in the wild, and it means that they have a very limited season of four to six weeks. We will enable them to farm them year-round and reduce their cost significantly.

Tom:                I understand that you have developed a way to lengthen the normally short breeding season of edible grasshoppers. Is that correct?

Dror:                A little bit different. What we did was shorten the eggs' incubation period. In the wild, it takes about 40 weeks for the eggs to hatch, which means they can have one cycle a year. And what we did, we incubate in an incubator the eggs and we reduce the period to two weeks, meaning that we can have 10 cycles per year.

Tom:                And how did you come up on this idea? What instigated it?

Dror:                The funny story is, I'm an accountant. So accountants have very strange ideas. But the real story is, my previous startup, Plate My Meal, is dealing with obesity prevention and, while working about that startup, I learned about malnutrition and the lack of protein in people's diet. So as an entrepreneur, when you see a big problem, you start looking for a solution, and I came up with grasshoppers.

Tom:                When we think of grasshoppers, of course, especially in this country, we think of a bug. However, there are other parts of the world where it's nothing at all to have a handful of grasshoppers. What is the end product like? Is it a powder? Or is it a grasshopper?

Dror:                Both.

Tom:                Both?

Dror:                Yes. Just south of the U.S., you have Mexico, and the local grasshoppers called chapulines are a national dish. You have tens of millions of Mexicans in the U.S., and the demand for grasshoppers is high, and there is no supply of them. So when we look at the market potential and the opportunities, we look at two different products. One is, we mill the grasshoppers into a protein powder. We sell it to food manufacturers that produce healthy foods based on it. And we also sell to restaurants in Southern U.S. And that's about 35 percent of the demand that we see from the market.

What does a grasshopper taste like?

Tom:                I have to ask, what does a grasshopper taste like? Not chicken, I'm sure.

Dror:                I'm using that answer, usually. The thing is this: The grasshopper is almost neutral in taste and flavor, so the actual taste depends on the way you cook it. So you can get a taste that feels like shrimps or small fish, a nutty taste, or even a wheaty taste.

Tom:                Tell me about the company's former name and why you changed it to its current name.

Dror:                Oh, that's a good question. Former name was Steak TzarTzar, and, actually, everything started as a joke because steak tartare, we all know what it is. And tzartzar in Hebrew means crickets. So it started like that. And the name really caught, and people really liked it until we had our first investor from the U.S., and said we cannot pronounce tzartzar, you have to change the name. So we came up with Hargol, and that's the name of the kosher grasshopper from the Bible.

Winning global competitions with grasshopper genius

Tom:                Now, as we mentioned earlier, you've been experiencing quite a whirlwind of excitement in recent weeks. How is this interest in your product influencing your plans for the future?

Dror:                That's a complicated question to answer. What happened in recent weeks, we got a lot of attention and attraction from all over the world, and it means that it's hard for us to maintain the focus we had. Our focus is on the U.S. market. We want to produce an ingredient to food manufacturers. Keep it simple with a single product to a specific market. And the attraction from all over the world, from Europe, from Africa, from Asia, means that there's very high demand for whole grasshoppers frozen, freeze-dried, roasted, for powders of all kinds of species of grasshoppers, and we have to maintain focus on what our plans are and keep all these new opportunities to a later stage of the company.

Tom:                You have a great deal of momentum going for you right now, and you are in the midst of some pretty serious globetrotting. Can you describe for me what the past week or so has been like for you in your travels?

Dror:                The past actually three weeks, since we finished the Alltech Accelerator in Dublin. We've been working hard with their team, with (the) Dogpatch team and Alltech, to perfect our pitch. And the moment we finished that demo day, three weeks ago, we applied to several competitions, startup pitching competitions, five of them, actually, and we won all five. Some of them are international. The largest one, just two days ago in Singapore, with over 10,000 startups from over 100 countries, and it's unbelievable for us to imagine that grasshoppers could beat all these amazing technologies. I can only tell that this is the hard work of Alltech and Dogpatch with us to get the pitch to that level.

Could grasshoppers be the next sushi?

Tom:                How do you envision your concept — and I should interject here that I understand that you're targeting two different markets, the grasshoppers themselves and also the protein supplement, I suppose. How do you envision these concepts affecting the average consumer's diet or the dinner table?

Dror:                Well, as we see it, the new protein sources, it will take them a long time to replace existing protein sources. It's hard to change our behavior, our habits. So it's the same as it was with sushi. In the '80s, no one would ever try raw fish in the U.S., and now it's common food you can find everywhere and it's really cheap. And we believe that it will be like that. It will be only insects or only grasshoppers. You will have a variety of new protein sources: plant-based, algae-based, cultured meat maybe, and many, many other sources. And eventually, they will become part of our diet. And we will have, because of that, many new food applications that we will be able to find in the market, and we also see it getting into the pet food industry and feed industry as well.

Grasshoppers…on Mars?

Tom:            There's a lot of lore around this insect, many stories, and I know that you have plenty of them. Can you give us a few?

Dror:                Sure. Let's do some amazing facts about grasshoppers and insects.

                        First, grasshoppers have been around on Earth before the dinosaurs. They're an ancient, very efficient creature.

                        Second thing, grasshoppers are the only kosher and halal insect in the world. They are mentioned on Leviticus as kosher. Actually, that's the name of the company, Hargol.

                        And the last thing is that's our vision in Hargol FoodTech and it will be that missions to Mars will have insects as part of the closed system to support humans on this long and challenging trip.

Tom:                And why is that?

Dror:                Because insects first are really efficient, and they provide zero-waste farming, meaning they can use any waste generated by humans and plants and generate with that protein and fat for the uses of both humans and plants.

Tom:                What do you enjoy most about what you do?

Dror:                It's fun. We're having so much fun. We're having so much laugh about it, so many jokes. The joke I like the most is that our CTO Chanan Aviv, for over 30 years, has been growing, breeding and eating a wide variety of insects, and this is why he is the only guy with hair on his head on our team.

Tom:                Dror Tamir with Hargol, which is among the 10 companies chosen for The Pearse Lyons Accelerator program. Thank you for being with us.

Dror:                Thank you very much.

Dror Tamir presented at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17) as part of a special pitch fest by the top 10 agri-tech startups selected for the Pearse Lyons Accelerator program. To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.

Tom:                Technological innovations have the ability to transform every link in the food chain, from seed to fork. We're joined by the author of those words, Alltech's chief innovation officer, Aidan Connolly, to talk about disruption and the accelerating pace of change. Thank you for being with us.

Aidan:             Thank you.

Tom:                “Disrupting the Disruptors” is the theme of this conference. Sounds a little bit like chaos, or are we interpreting that too literally?

Aidan:             Well, you have to remember that although Alltech has become a very large organization employing over 5,000 people, we're still led by an entrepreneur. We're still led by the man, Dr. Pearse Lyons, who created and started the company, and he very much enjoys disrupting things. If you work for Alltech, you would know that. So the conference reflects the fact that he sees the world changing tremendously and that conventional thinking is not going to solve the problems that we are facing. We need to think differently about how we confront those issues, and if we do so, in the right way, we'd profit from our solutions.

What is disruption?

Tom:                That word, “disruption,” is becoming something of a buzzword, and the originator of the theory has complained that the term is frequently used loosely to invoke the concept of innovation in support of whatever it is that person wishes to do. What, in your view, defines meaningful disruption?

Aidan:             Well, it is something that you hear a lot of discussion about, and, obviously, you hear people from universities, people, academics, talking about it. But practically, I feel that innovation is all about doing the same thing better, whereas disruption is about doing things that make the way we do it today obsolete, and that obsolescence of the old ways of doing things is overused as a phrase, there's no question about it. We do hear people talking about things that are fairly conventional and how they're going to disrupt them, but we've seen huge disruption in all markets in the last three to five years. We think of the Uber model disrupting the way that we get moved from place to place, we think of the Netflix way of disrupting the model of how we get our movies, and you look at businesses that are really struggling to cope with the level of disruption of the scene, in particular, in our area, areas such as the food business, grocery stores, shopping malls that are empty, et cetera. So the level of disruption that we're seeing just requires us all in business to think differently about what we do and to really prepare for that business is not going to be the same as — it's not going to be as usual.

Tom:                The pace of disruption today seems to have really accelerated. Won't something soon come along and disrupt your disruptor?

Aidan:             Of course. And sometimes you feel disruption is like being on a conveyor belt. You're walking along, and just about the point that you get to one spot, you have to keep on walking because, if not, you start being pulled back. So there is no question that the level of change in society no longer allows you to come up with a new business model or idea and expect to get away with maintaining that for 10 or 15 years. You have to be on a continuous disruptive innovation pathway.

                        What I would say is that this perhaps is not as different as we think. We did for 200,000 years maintain pretty much a hunter-gatherer existence. We started farming about 10,000 years ago. That led to the development of cities and civilization and the time to think and innovation and art and all of the creative stuff that we're doing today. We have to assume that although we're seeing acceleration, which seemed mind-boggling in the last 10 years, that's going to continue. It might even accelerate.

Investing in disruptive ideas

Tom:                Do investors in disruptive technologies or innovations need an iron stomach? Do they need to be pretty tolerant of risks?

Aidan:             I think a lot of people use the phrase “I'm looking to invest in a unicorn, I'm looking for the unicorn, and I'm trying to figure out what a unicorn is.” But, of course, the unicorn, in their language, is this one business opportunity that you invest $10,000, $100,000 and magically, over a number of years, with the insight that they have to create businesses worth $100 million or $1 billion. The reality is, there are very few of those out there, and, of course, they are well-reported in the newspapers and in the media because that is what people are excited by.

                        I think if I'm an investor, I have to assume, as we always do, that we're going to have some successes, we're going to have some failures and we're going to have a loss in the middle.

                        And make sure that you maintain a portfolio approach to how you invest. So would I invest $10,000 in one project, or would it be better investing $1,000 in 10? I would feel the 10 is always the better way to go.

                        Yes, there are people out there with unique insights into where the future of the world is going to go, but the vast majority of us are not that lucky. And as such, we have to embrace what we see as the opportunities but also be prepared to spread our risk.

                 Digital technologies that will transform how we farm

Tom:                 In a recent article, you identified eight disruptive digital technologies with the power to transform agriculture. Which technologies made that list?

Aidan:             I hope I can remember all eight now off the top of my mind, but I remember we have hardware solutions, such as drones and robots, sensors. We have the software applications of virtual reality, enhanced reality, artificial intelligence. Of course, we think a lot about the internet of things, bringing all of these together. From my perspective, all of these have tremendous opportunities to change the way in which business is done — all types of business — but the gap between where we are today and where we could be in food and agriculture is even larger.

                        So, from that perspective, I think that the gains can be much greater. You take a technology such as blockchain, which most of your listeners probably will not know what blockchain is. It's a little bit like bitcoin to allow you to have transparency in a system where you don't actually know who manufactures, who transforms or changes it, who packages it and who delivers it. The food system is a classic example of that. But you need that transparency to make sure that if there's a food scare, if there's a requirement for going back and finding where something bad happened, you can do so.

                        So blockchain is another transformation of technology. But, from my perspective, all of these eight areas all can transform food and agriculture. Some of them are closer to being implemented. For example, robots we already see being used on farms to help milk cows, sensors to detect the water content of soils so we can irrigate better. But then others, maybe like virtual reality, are further away, will require larger investments, and as of yet, we're looking to the future, not looking at today.

Tom:                Among them, is there one or are there some that you find really compelling?

Aidan:             I think people talk a lot about the internet of things, and that clearly is the central point of all of this. As in feedback from devices from the information you're collecting, bringing that back  to your systems, to your computers and being able to analyze and understand what you're seeing.

                        But fundamentally, I think artificial intelligence is the one I would go for. That is the one that I think is the most transformative, the most disruptive and the one I'm most excited by.

How should businesses deal with digital disruption?

Tom:                Borrowing from a question that you've raised, given that artificial intelligence, or AI, has the potential to revolutionize many areas of a company's operations, including their decision-making processes and their budgeting abilities, how best for an organization to invest in and leverage AI?

Aidan:             That's a really good question, and obviously I posed it myself in the article we published on alltech.com and on my LinkedIn page. I think you have to be extremely hard-nosed about really understanding what the technology is and who's behind it. And, of course, for most of us, we don't feel comfortable asking some of these writing algorithms or mathematical formulae, "Now, how do I use this? What does it do?" But it has the ability to transform life and transform, in particular, work life. So we really have to dig into it, and the classic questions exist of “What is it going to do for me and for my business, my customers? How is this going to help me make more efficient or better or do so at a lower cost?” Examples of where it's being used today, that's clearly something that is very, very important. So while I wouldn't necessarily focus on existing sales, I'd like to look at existing uses and applications.

                        I think, while a lot of us feel very uncomfortable with trying to understand technology, I don't see any aspect of business today which will not be affected by it. So I think it's kind of important for us all to read as much as we can, research these areas. There are tremendous articles online on the internet that you can read. And obviously, don't rely on one. Read many of them. But I've also recently formed a kitchen cabinet of friends who I know I can call on who have the time and the interest to understand this better than me, who can give me very good advice as to whether, from an Alltech perspective and/or my customers' perspective, whether something being promoted actually has the ability to deliver what it says it can deliver.

How innovators and tech entrepreneurs deal with failure

Tom:                How important is it to the technological entrepreneur, the innovator, to accept risk and even accept the possibility of failure going into it?

Aidan:             It's absolutely essential. So if you think of the types of companies I've seen in my short space looking at this since the creation of The Pearse Lyons Accelerator, it's surprising to me how many things can happen that you just can't predict. You can have somebody sadly fall ill. In one case, I saw somebody who's in his 40s die of a cancer that we did not know when he was setting up his business, so obviously, he could never have. We've seen situations where anchor customers go out of business, the customer that you're most reliant upon.

                        So you have to accept that when you're talking about 10 or 100 or 1,000 companies, a certain percentage of them will have things happen to them which are just not predictable. And back to my suggestion of taking a portfolio approach to how you invest or how you select, obviously you can do your best to find the companies you think are likely to succeed. But if you try picking a single company, I think you're always taking a risk, a very large risk that your investment strategy will not be successful.

Tom:                And if it's not successful, if failure turns out to be the outcome, what should happen then? What should you do with that?

Aidan:             Well, ideally, it should be money that you can afford to lose. I mean, that's the essence. For yourself, personally, or for your company, you shouldn't be overextended into something.

                        I met a company last week who have twice invested in technology that they were told would transform the way their factory worked. They, in one case, invested $600,000, the next case $300,000, and both times the software failed to deliver on its promise. So they're down $1 million. If they couldn't afford the $1 million, they shouldn't have invested it. It is clear they believed that if they succeed, this will put them at a tremendous competitive advantage over everybody else in their business, but at the same time, you have to understand many of these technologies don't succeed.

Bringing it back to the kitchen table: How will ag disruption impact the consumer?

Tom:                How does this ongoing disruption in the agriculture sector affect the average consumer's kitchen table?

Aidan:             It could affect it in many, many ways. The most obvious, which was surprising to me, was to see a 3D printer printing food. If you think that's hard to believe, just imagine a cake being produced where the machine is just moving in circles and it's basically using food ingredients to print out the cake and create it perfectly. So will that be capable of producing burgers and fries in the future? I'm not sure about that, but why not? That 3D food printer today is about $3,000. So, maybe expensive, but starting to sound like it's within the realm for people who wish to do that. I could imagine the same thing clearly for drinks, maybe being even easier when drinks are so deconstructed.

                        If I think about what it could do from the point of view of traceability, I see McDonald's having a virtual reality farm visit. So if you are the type of person who wants to go to McDonald's — and this is being held in England — and you want to see where their food is being produced, their potatoes, their beef, their tomatoes, you can actually put on the goggles and you can visit their farm virtually without ever having to leave the store.

                        And if you think in terms of what's happening in traceability of food, I mentioned blockchain earlier. This is very important as well for places like China. But Walmart having used blockchain in China is bringing it back to the United States and implementing it here to make for better traceability. When there is any sort of issue with packaging, maybe even food safety, they know exactly where in the chain the problem occurred and how to solve that problem quickly.

                        So I see these will basically, I believe, hopefully help to continue to make food more affordable, make food safer. I'd like to think it will add flavor to food and allow consumers to do what they said they want, which is to understand more where their food comes from.

Tom:                Alltech Chief Innovation Officer Aidan Connolly, thank you so much.

Aidan Connolly spoke at ONE: The Alltech Ideas Conference (ONE17).To hear more talks from the conference, sign up for the Alltech Idea Lab. For access, click on the button below.