Week 3 Post - "The Threat"

This week's article "The Prophet of Cheap" takes an even more in-depth look at One Laptop Per Child, the organization that Professor Zak discussed at the end of class this past Thursday. The latest product, a tablet computer for poor schoolchildren, sets the innovation bar even higher A key point I took from this article was from OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte: in so many words he said that people should believe in his project because he doesn't even have to build it. According to Negroponte, "we just have to threaten to build it." How true is this? To me, the original OLPC product proves Negroponte's point: as we talked about last week, even if the OLPC design wasn't absolutely perfect it was a disruptive product that has made mainstream laptops more affordable. My main question for thought is how do we better apply this "threat" technique to other social enterprises or innovations? Consider solar energy: can we really "threaten" to make more efficient panels? With high costs basically mandating government subsidies, I'm not sure that that's the right way to approach this specific problem. (Having briefly researched this industry in previous summers, it seems like the long term solution is not in the traditional technology. One example is in Pittsburgh, at the CMU spinoff Plextronics whose "innovative" approach to solar technology utilizes printed OLED lighting.) That being said, I'm not convinced to just pack up and say that the "threat" philosophy requires a private sector counterpart for social enterprises. But maybe by the end of the course we'll have more insight as to how to better approach this crisis.