The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology Innovations

Polymath is Greek for a Renaissance Man like Leonardo Da Vinci or Ben Franklin - someone good at many skills. The New Polymath, in the book’s definition, is an enterprise good at many technologies and at leveraging multiple talent pools. It is an enterprise which has learned to blend 3, 5, 10 strands of infotech, biotech, cleantech etc. to come up with compound new solutions which we could not have delivered a few years ago.Vinnie, the quintessential polymath as defined in the book, starts by observing that for the most part today, most of us seem to specialize and highlights the fact that we are monomaths in a world of exploding knowledge and passionately argues for more and more polymaths to be nurtured both at the institutional and at personal levels. With monomaths around, Vinnie argues that many ecosystems are going through a phase aka the dark ages, where there was plenty of living, but there was little forward movement in terms of progress. It was defined by its relative “nothingness”. Drawing a parallel to the current time, he points out, in the information technology space, there is lack of nutrition—so much of the spending is wasted. In sustainability, there is lack of agreement—there are so many rancors in spite of so many global concerns. In health care, it is about lack of availability—so much of the world does not have access to all the advances in technology—or even basic health care. The core of these problems Vinnie argues ,amongst others centers on monomath thinking and execution. Rather than stopping at pointing to inhibitors, in the book Vinnie comes with a refreshing , practical and promising alternate approach -one that can be widely adopted at all levels, big and small enterprises, business and individuals etc. Vinnie points several successful "New Polymaths" in business that are getting at far-reaching results around the world. He insightfully observes that the broadening palette of technology components - many increasingly affordable, allows us to take a completely fresh look at many problems. The two biggest takeaways from the book are a) Stretch your stretch goals. and b) Adopt an AND not OR attitude towards technology -do remember that we have too many silos across IT, biotech etc. Even within IT we have so many silos. Throughout the book,Vinnie brings out the modern day success stories of polymath enterprises and individuals and argues that in them he sees the potential to capitalize on the promise that future holds for business and mankind. He succinctly points out to the fact that well-designed enterprises are taking individual monomaths, leveraging a wide array of technologies and becoming the new polymaths. What I see in the book are a rich set of examples and metaphors that talk the story of entrepreneurs, business leaders, and multinational companies innovatively leveraging technology to tackle big problems, “grand challenges,” related to health, hunger, and natural disasters—and, of course, information technology. In their own ways, these big and small enterprises in their spheres of influence are reshaping the world . Vinnie highlights that examples represent a range from a triangle to an eight sided octagon to a ten sided decagon to a twenty sided icosagon to a 50 sided pentacontagon! The “more-sided” polymaths are trying to solve the really big, hairy problems. The “fewer-sided” ones are a bit less ambitious, but they are helping us run our enterprises and lives much better. Vinnie provides a framework to help enterprises adopt and improve the polymath framework - an important on for those interested to practice this. When In Search Of Excellence got published in 1981, It helped American executives look into the mirror and see that some of the things they were doing were not bad at all, that others were excellent, and that they could borrow excellent ideas from each other. That, in turn, paved the way for many wannabes to create successful business. With the examples showcased in The