This is the third installment of the Saturday Sourcebook.  For those of you who aren't familiar with this weekly post, you can check out the backstory on it here and here.  If you already familiar with the Saturday Sourcebook, or if your don't give a crap about the backstory, here are the links from this week:

Combining Alternatives:
Fast Company:  How MIT's Hybrid Bike Wheel Came To Life

Reducing Transaction Costs:
VentureBeat: Make your own gadget with Ponoko and SparkFun

International Markets / Constraint Innovation:
Springwise:  Open source phone service for off-grid areas

Biomimicry:
PSFK: Could Bedbugs Actually Be Useful?

Complementary Products:
Springwise:  Tesco tests out drive-through delivery

Product Design / Waste:
CoolHunting: A+: The Young Designer's Platform

Exploiting Technology:
NYTimes:  New Uses for an Old Plug

Projection:
Springwise: Incubator for socially focused ideas

Support Systems:
ReadWriteWeb:  Re-Imagining the Interface of Mobile Augmented Reality

Waste:
PSFK: Recycled Rubber Sink

            It’s popular these days to proclaim the death of long-form reading.  It is reasoned that, due to our society’s hunger for video clips and web snippets, the majority of us have lost interest in doing in-depth reading on a topic. This is occurring much to the dismay of many authors and publishers who feel that their livelihood, and one of the activities that our society believes enriches us as a culture, is slowly fading from importance.  The internet, and the way in which information is presented online, is usually blamed for making inroads into long-form reading.  However, after spending hundreds of hours over the past three months creating a multimedia version of my book, I would like to suggest a different hypothesis.  I don’t think long-form reading is going to die.  In fact, I think we’re going to go longer.

            The central argument of those who are declaring the death of long-form reading is the idea that consumers prefer “snippets” and clips instead of in-depth analysis.  While this may be true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers want less information overall.  It may only mean that they prefer to consume the longer analysis of a topic in shorter bursts, or from a variety of sources.  This shift doesn’t necessarily signal the death of a certain type of mental exploration, but rather a change in the way we achieve that exploration.  For starters, we have to look at how long-form reading became the pinnacle of learning to begin with.  When long-form reading was in its prime, information was scarcer than we find it in our world today.  If you wanted to explore a topic in depth, you sought out a book.  And, if you wanted to know even more, you went to the library and sought out more books.  When the flow of information to individuals was less efficient, we relied on authors to curate disparate information and present it cohesively in the form of a book.  This method, that created long-form reading, was the most efficient way to learn about complex topics.  However, we must ask ourselves, is that still true today?

            Today information flows efficiently (for the most part) from one corner of the globe to the other, in seconds.  Forms of media, namely video, that were once cost prohibitive for the dissemination of information are now extremely cost effective. With that being the case, we have to reassess the value of long-form reading compared to other types of media and combinations of various media.   If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how much is a video worth? 10,000?  20,000?  Assuming the video is of high quality (yes, I realize a great deal of online video is crap), the content I encounter in 20 minutes may cover the same amount of ground as two chapters of a book.  Likewise, a 1000 word blog can substitute for a third chapter.  Instead of reading about examples that back up the claims, I can often go and check them out myself.  I can experience them first hand, or through the stories of others, which enhances my understanding.  Reading is great, but experiencing is better.  All of this can be done immediately, and at little or no cost.  With another hour of follow up exploration, it is completely feasible to have accessed a majority of the information I want to know about a given topic.  However, where long-form reading comes back into play, and the reason it won’t die, is the structure and logic that is afforded by the medium.

            The problem with using a variety of sources and media for exploring a topic is that it lacks structure, a consistent point of view and the logic that builds to an over-arching theme, or theory.  Long-form reading is still great because it takes the leg work out of analyzing what the data means and how things fit together.  Learning about a topic is made infinitely easier when a cohesive and logical progression of information is made available to us.  Long-form reading brings clarity to an otherwise fragmented set of information.  For that reason, long-form reading isn’t going away anytime soon.  We need the structure of long-form reading just as much as we need disparate media types available to us on the web.  Since we need them both, I would argue that the name of the game moving forward is supplementation.

            The variety of media available online and the act of long-form reading are all great tools in their own right for all of the reasons I have listed above.  The future of exploring information is not about choosing one over the other, but figuring out the best way to leverage them in combination.  The strengths and weaknesses of each can be offset by bringing them together.  In the near future, you won’t simply read a chapter for 40 minutes.  You’ll read a chapter for 40 minutes, click on the 18 minute TED talk linked into paragraph 3, explore a counterargument blog post in paragraph 6 and spend an hour skimming supplemental links provided by the author at the end of the chapter.  Long-form reading isn’t going to die.  We’re going to augment it.  In the process, the act of reading may be broken up into smaller pieces, but the net effect is spending more time exploring a topic.  In short, we’re moving towards longer-form reading.

This is the second edition of a post that I will be doing on a weekly basis titled, "Saturday Sourcebook."  If you missed the first edition, or want the in-depth explanation of why I am making this a weekly post, check out the original Saturday Sourcebook post below.  My main objectives are to narrow down the best innovation links of the week, provide real-world examples of the concepts I talk about in my book and to give my readers something to read on the weekend when few people are publishing content.  Without further delay, here is the Saturday Sourcebook, volume #2:

Trends / Markets to Watch:
Business of Software Blog:  Paul Graham on trends for the future  (video)

Specialization / Niche Markets:
Springwise:  Design your own custom-made beef jerky

Exploiting Technology / Waste:
CNN Tech:  MIT unveils swimming, oil-cleaning robots

Combining Alternatives:
Springwise:  Matchmaking site for platonic friendships

Consumer Appeal Levels:
PSFK:  Ciclotte's $10,000 exercise bike

Exploiting Technology / Waste:
TechCrunch:  Five Greentech Startups Thinking Outside of the Box

Combining Alternatives:
CNN Health:  Von Furstenberg's non-runway project: Haute hospital gowns

Non-Innovators:
PSFK:  Gigmaven: A New Way For Musicians and Venues to Book Gigs Online

Social Entrepreneurship:
Springwise:  Microloans for clean energy in the developing world

Trends / Copy Cats:
VentureBeat:  Five new Y Combinator startups to watch
  

On average, I get about 200 stories a day coming into my Google Reader account that have to deal with new business ideas and innovation.  Of those 200, I usually choose between 10 and 20 posts a day to read in full.  In addition, I probably read another 10-20 posts a day from people I follow on Twitter.  However, I noticed that when the weekend hits, those post numbers drop dramatically.  Few people are publishing content on the weekend.  But, that is when everyone finally has some time to read!  So, I am trying an experiment.  Instead of sifting through hundreds of RSS feeds that you missed throughout the week to find something to read on Saturday morning, I am going to try and help you out.  I'm calling it "Saturday Sourcebook."  If my Google Reader stats are accurate, I have scanned over 1000 headlines relating to innovation in the past week.  I've read over 100 stories. (probably closer to 200)  And now, on Saturdays, I'm distilling them down to the top 10 links, for you.  I'll continue doing this every week as long as people find it valuable.  One thing to note, these are not links that talk about innovation as a concept, but links that I find to be compelling sources of inspiration for business ideas.   Here we go, Saturday Sourcebook Volume #1:

Social Entrepreneurship / International Markets:
TechCrunch: Tech For (and By) Africa

Substitutes:
Fast Company: Wine Corks Fight Off Alternative Stoppers

Pure Profit Play?:
New Scientist:  Nobel prizewinner: We are running out of Helium

Waste:
New York Times: A Global Graveyard for Dead Computers

Consumer Targeting / Product Design:
Springwise: Clothing line makes treatment easier for infusion patients

Product Design:
Cool Hunting: UPS Reusable Express Envelope

Exploiting Technology:
PSFK: A Location-Aware Music Video

Waste:
VentureBeat: Coinstar back EcoATM's e-recycling kiosks

Mashup of Ideas:
Computer World, Car Tech: Building the Zero-Fatality Car

Reducing Transaction Costs:
Fast Company: Fifteen Independent Spirits Using Web Video to Forge Their way in Hollywood

I'm not sure what is going on, but July and August have been filled with interesting blog posts and articles on the topic of "biomimicry."  Biomimicry is a term used to describe something inspired by, or emulating, nature.  The topic of biomimicry almost made an appearance in my book as a source of innovation.  However, the topic is so broad, and the potential applications so numerous, that it was difficult to put a framework for execution around the concept.  In any event, I still think biomimicry is a great source of inspiration and maybe it will make it into the book in the future.  In the meantime, check out the links below for some truly interesting ideas inspired by nature.  Everything from human hands to the common house fly seem to have inspired someone, somewhere this month.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs):  Check out the DellFly II which was recently featured on the Fast Company blog.  (you can see it in action here)  Tiny, robotic crafts such as this one may be the future of espionage.  While the thought of using nature-inspired "bugs" for espionage is pretty awesome, the thought of this technology getting into the hands of the average consumer is, well, creepy.

Robotic Insects:  BusinessWeek recently profiled Rob Wood, an engineering professor at Harvard, who is working on mechanical insects.  While the suggestion of espionage arises, Wood seems focused on using these robo-bugs for more noble causes.  He is currently working on robotic bees that might be able to help combat the effects of Colony Collapse Disorder.

Blooming Lamps:  Patrick Jouin's Bloom.MGX lamp, featured on PSFK, takes design inspiration from blooming flowers.  The idea behind the design is that more, or less, light can be diffused depending on the position on the flower-like shade.  This idea marries interesting aesthetics with a functional purpose.

Butterflies for Bio-Sensing:  PFSK ran a story today about GE being granted money to develop nano-sensors based on the bio-sensing capabilities of butterflies.  It is hoped that mimicking the chemical sensors in butterflies will allow a variety of safety organizations to improve early detection of chemical threats.

Robotic Hands:  Mimicking the elements of nature for use in prosthetics is nothing new, but Japanese company Squse has taken the idea to a new level.  Check out the realistic look and movement of their new prosthetic hand.

I came across an excellent blog post today written by Bradford Cross regarding "The Next Silicon Valley."  The piece winds you through the history of Silicon Valley and describes how that area became what it is today.  However, Cross didn't write the post to be instructional on how to become the next Silicon Valley. He wrote the post to illustrate the point that there is no "next Silicon Valley." 

"Efforts to duplicate silicon valley tend to fail because they attempt to follow the valley by looking at where it is now.  They don't look at the century of history." 

The critical error in thinking, as Cross points out, is that trying to emulate success in this manner ignores context.  Essentially, people see the end product -Silicon Valley- and believe that they can hatch a plan to achieve the same results in other areas across the world.  However, it is interesting to note, even Silicon Valley couldn't have planned to be what it is today.

"No one could have looked at San Francisco or Stanford at the dawning of the 20th century and laid out a reasonable plan to arrive at the economy of today."

I didn't bring up this topic because I care all that much about the history of Silicon Valley, but because I see the same mistake being made by aspiring entrepreneurs.  When entrepreneurs walk around looking for their next big idea, they ignore context.  They generate ideas based on the notion that they will come across some grand idea and then devise a plan to make it happen.  It is important to your mindset as an entrepreneur to recognize that things do not happen that way.  You can't envision a path to becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.  You can't create a roadmap to emulate the success of Steve Jobs.  Why?  Because Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs didn't know what they would ultimately create when they set out to start their companies.  They couldn't have envisioned their journey at the outset, or the results of their efforts, and neither can you. 

So, as you go through your idea generation process, keep in mind that you won't become the next Silicon Valley superstar by trying to emulate the successes of those who came before you.  Everyone creates their own path.  Start with an idea, however big or small, that you are passionate about and accept that the path to your eventual success or failure is largely unknowable. 

Projection is one of the easiest ways to conceptualize new venture ideas.  Step 1: Find a successful business model.  Step 2: Project that model onto another industry or country.  If you watch the startup space, you see this kind of thing all the time.  Not only does projection allow you to leverage a known quantity to an extent, it also paves the way for forming an analogy when pitching.  "We will be the Southwest Airlines of X industry."  Or, "Our company is like Facebook for X."  While it can be used for the wrong reasons (jump to 13:00), as Gary Vaynerchuk points out, analogy is a great way to form associations quickly and get people to grasp your concept.  Over the past week, I have come across a few examples of this and I thought I  would share them with you:

SnapGoods: SnapGoods was recently featured in an article on TechCrunch and the company is being slated as "the ZipCar for gadgets."  Now, I'm not sure if this is actually the pitch the company is using, or if this is John Biggs' analogy, but either way, you get the point.  The idea is that you can rent objects and tools for a short period of time. 

Exclusively.in:  Today, PSFK featured Exclusively.in on their blog and used the analogy that they are "The Gilt Groupe of Indian Designs."  Right now, "flash-sales" and deal sites like this are proliferating at a ridiculous rate, so, in this case, projecting onto a niche market may be the smart way to go. 

PopSugar's Retail Therapy:  Featured on TechCrunch TV, Retail Therapy aims to be the "Farmville of Shopping."  Although the online gaming space is crowded, I think that this idea is getting at something really interesting.  As I mentioned in my post about the Greening of Game Mechanics, I think we are going to start seeing game mechanics flow over into real world actions.  For women interested in fashion, something like Retail Therapy has the potential to turn interests into action.  Will running a fashion boutique in the virtual world motivate people to actually start a fashion boutique?  I don't know.  But, I think that games have the potential to start converting virtual interests into real world action.

In case you missed it, Scott Berkun has posted an interview with me about The Innovator's Sourcebook on his blog.  http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2010/the-innovators-sourcebook/  We talk about the book, problem finding and the innovation efforts at Apple, Google and Microsoft.  Anyways, if you haven't had the chance, check it out!  Also, thank you Scott for doing the interview.  I had a lot of fun and the site is busier than ever.  If you haven't read Scott's books, or his blog, go do it now at  www.scottberkun.com.  Myths of Innovation will change the way you think about the topic of innovation.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is not new by any means.  It has long been a cool technology searching for the right problem to solve.  However, the time, and the price, may be right for some great RFID applications to emerge in the next few years.  ReadWriteWeb recently featured a blog from Thing Magic that will supposedly reveal 100 uses for RFID over the course of the next 100 business days.  If they follow through on the blog, this should be an interesting source of inspiration to keep in mind. 

People love to play games.  In a recent TED talk, Jane McGonigal cited an interesting statistic on just how much we like to play games.  She said, as a society, “we invest 3 billion hours weekly playing online games.”  That is a lot of gaming.  It would seem that game designers have pegged the formula for producing addictive games.  However, for as long as there have been addictive games, people have bemoaned the amount of time that others have spent playing them.  The general complaint is that all of these hours spent playing games could be put to more productive use in the real world.  While that debate won’t be decided anytime soon, I think there is an interesting trend happening in eco-friendly products that may finally be bridging the gap.   From real products like the new Puma Smartphone and the Yellow Strom power meter, to proposed initiatives like those found in the Betacup competition, we’re seeing game mechanics being applied to saving the environment.  While this is not necessarily a new idea, the timing of the products, and some of the brands entering the fray, seem to have an outside chance of making a dent in this real world problem.  It is a trend to keep an eye on and one that I think entrepreneurs will be taking advantage of more in the near future.