Breakthrough Ideas for 2009

by Jean-Louis Warnholz, Amy J.C. Cuddy, John J. Sviokla, Raymond Fisman, Paul Saffo, Rita McGrath, Michael I. Norton, Nicholas A. Christakis, Ian Bremmer, Lew McCreary, Alex “Sandy” Pentland, Thomas H. Davenport and Bala Iyer

From the Magazine (February 2009)

Summary.

Reprint: R0902A Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi argue that consumer credit should be made as safe as any other product. Paul Collier and Jean-Louis Warnholz reveal an increasingly investment-friendly climate in sub-Saharan Africa. Amy J.C. Cuddy asserts that warmth and competence are not mutually exclusive. John Sviokla predicts a surge of peer-to-peer lending in the wake of the financial crisis. Noah J. Goldstein demonstrates the power of social pressure in guiding customers’ behavior. Raymond Fisman urges the creation of a global forensic economics lab modeled on Interpol. Paul Saffo warns of a brain drain out of the United States. Janine M. Benyus and Gunter Pauli illustrate the advantages of innovation copied from nature. Peter Schwartz dispels the illusion that global temperatures are actually falling. Nicholas A. Christakis shows that personal influence dissipates beyond three degrees of separation. Michael I. Norton observes that an investment of effort can lead to unduly glorifying its results. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco identifies the migrant millions as untapped brand emissaries to their relatives back home. Ian Bremmer and Juan Pujadas chart the growing influence of state capitalism in four industry sectors. Steve Jurvetson shares a fun way to stimulate the growth of new brain cells. Lew McCreary spotlights the death-defying interior designs of two adventuresome architects who aim to counteract the degenerative effects of physical comfort. Tom Ilube explains the semantic web—a quiet revolution in technology that will radically change the internet. Alex Pentland considers the benefits of combining two distinct kinds of social networking. Thomas H. Davenport and Bala Iyer look at the offshore outsourcing of decision making. Gurdeep Singh Pall and Rita Gunther McGrath contemplate the ramifications of immortalizing business meetings in searchable, high-quality digital video. R. Stanley Williams envisions a central nervous system for the earth.

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The List in Brief

Read more on Power and influence or related topics Finance and investing, Innovation, Professional networks, Operations strategy, Web-based technologies, Government, Decision making and problem solving, Psychology, Customer service, Sustainable business practices, Construction and engineering and Africa

A version of this article appeared in the February 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Jean-Louis Warnholz (jean-louis.warnholz@qeh.ox.ac.uk) is an economic consultant who works with corporations, international organizations, and NGOs on business-led development in low-income countries. He is currently doing postgraduate work in the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford.

Amy J.C. Cuddy is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

John J. Sviokla , Co-Founder of GAI Insights has been a senior consultant with PwC, Diamond, and was on the faculty of HBS for over decade. His passion is understanding how computability of reality changes organizations and competition and that’s what he researches, writes, and speaks about.

Raymond Fisman is the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School.

Paul Saffo (paul@saffo.com) is a forecaster based in Silicon Valley, in California.

Rita McGrath is a Professor at Columbia Business School and a globally recognized expert on strategy in uncertain and volatile environments. She is the author of The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press), and most recently, Seeing Around Corners (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

Michael I. Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is the author of The Ritual Effect and co-author of Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. His research focuses on happiness, well-being, rituals, and inequality. See his faculty page here.

Nicholas A. Christakis directs the Human Nature Lab at Yale University and is the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science. He is the Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science, appointed in the Departments of Sociology, Medicine, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Bioengineering at Yale University.

Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and author of Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geopolitical Risk.

Lew McCreary is a former senior editor at Harvard Business Review.

Alex “Sandy” Pentland is the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences with the Media Lab, Sloan School of Management, and College of Computing at MIT. Sandy directs MIT’s Connection Science and Human Dynamics research laboratories, advises the OECD and UN, and co-led the World Economic Forum personal data initiatives.

Thomas H. Davenport is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology at Babson College, the Bodily Bicentennial Professor of Analytics at UVA’s Darden School of Business, a visiting scholar at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer Program.

Bala Iyer is a professor and chair of the Technology, Operations, and Information Management Division at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Follow him on Twitter @BalaIyer.

Breakthrough Ideas for 2009

Summary.

The List in Brief

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