That sounds way too sensationalistic, and it probably is. But the drama of that statement is certainly rooted in truth.

Allow me to explain.

Several years ago, I got enamored with the concept of ‘innovation’.

So much so, in fact, that it became a personal buzzword, advocacy, unifying battle-cry.

I read all the books and delved into all of the websites. Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Innovator’s Dilemma. Innovation : The Five Disciplines. Closing the Innovation Gap. Innovation to the Core. Open Innovation. Innovation Nation. Innovation X. If the book had the word ‘innovation’ in its title (even the sub-title), it had a 90% chance of ending up on my bookshelf. I would get indoctrinated in the religion of IDEO (the Shopping Cart video and the innovation bibles, The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation).

For a time, some really cool friends and I put up Kolektib – an Innovation Hub in the creative hustle-and-bustle of Cubao X. We did Innovation Workshops internally and externally. It was an exquisitely fun time.

Even social entrepreneurship, for me, was a form of innovation – albeit social innovation. Hapinoy and Rags2Riches are expressions of melding social development with business models, a rather revolutionary approach which would certainly qualify as innovating.

I eventually synthesized my knowledge. I wound up conceptualizing, creating, and teaching a class in Ateneo on Innovation. It would tackle the why’s, the what’s, the how’s of the topic. I wanted to transmit the spirit to a next generation of innovators which would try to conquer and/or change the world.

The one line i always wanted my students to remember : Innovate or Die.

But beginning last year, my innovation lens would slowly shift. Not on a different tangent, but rather on a different depth.

I’m significantly more experienced and quite wiser. For all intents and purposes, I’ve changed. But more importantly, the world has changed at a mind-spinning rate – far outstripping my own evolution.

The first decade of the 21st Century was characterized by dizzying change, hyper-competition, unbridled growth – all of the factors that led to an innovation explosion. Globalization was at full-swing, the Internet began to fulfill its promise of changing everything.

And everything seemed possible. Growth was so palpable and reachable, and so businesses began pouncing on the massiveness of the opportunity. Driven by sheer momentum, they just plowed full steam ahead.

An innovation avalanche would ensue.

Innovation and Design consultancies would have a field day. So many new products, services, processes, and business models would emerge. I should know – it’s what I taught :

How Zara had reinvented the supply chain, allowing them to launch new fashion lines at lightning speed.

How the Wii would tackle the Blue Ocean of game consoles, beating the higher-performing Xbox 360 and Playstations by going on a different tangent and tackling non-gamers.

How Procter & Gamble used Open Innovation and launched connect + develop, unleashing a torrent of growth for their brands under AG Lafley’s watch.

More consumers were opening their wallets, and companies were feasting.

But towards the end of the decade, the world would undergo yet another step-change, perhaps an even larger one than the last.

Crises of global proportions would enter the lexicon.

A financial crisis would infect the world over, leading to national economies teetering on the brink. It was a full-blown meltdown and it washed over countries like a worldwide tsunami.

And speaking of tsunamis, the world became a real-life disaster movie. Environmentalists have been banging the alarm bells on the planet for so long, but it’s certainly only in the past few years that climate change has become real to the person on the street. When Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines, it was a shock to the system – it dumped one month’s worth of rain in half a day, causing floods in areas we never imagined were possible.

This climate change crisis is of course linked to to the energy crisis – our over-dependence on carbon-based fuels. Generations ago it wasn’t tangible, but now we see just how finite non-renewable energy is. It’s like we’ve got lung cancer and yet ironically still need two packs of smokes a day just to keep on moving.

And while all this was happening, the gap between the rich and the poor continued to widen. The proportion of the world’s population that survives under $2 a day still goes between a third to one-half of the total human race! (depending on which statistics you look at). Without a doubt, the population and poverty crisis continues to rear its ugly head.

And so in the span of a decade, we went from an age of seemingly unbridled growth … and plummeted into an age of uncertainty. An Age of Massively Complex Problems.

And that’s why a nagging feeling in my gut gradually snowballed, until my lens shifted.

I remember some of the projects that were conceptualized in my Innovation Class. A better kind of toothpaste. Refillable packaging for laundry detergents. Heck, even an innovative cigarette that would light without matches. Of course there were some that were more interesting – especially those who were in the social innovation track.

But with all due respect to my former students, it was the teacher who was at fault. We were thinking too small. We were throwing our energies at the wrong things. (just look at my slides)

Power is useless, if misdirected. Same goes for Innovation.

Innovation is good at tackling any problem, but it can be so much greater if it tackled the right ones.

And so I’m drawing a line on the sand, demarcating where my old thinking ends and my new perspective begins :

The only problems worth solving, worth investing your life in, are meaningful ones.

In an Age of Massively Complex Problems, do we really need to design a better toothbrush?

Do we still want to use innovation to drive unbridled growth and overconsumption, for things that people don’t really need but we’d just want them to buy?

Do we want to continue ransacking the planet with novel products that don’t really add anything extraordinary to people’s lives?

I say, that may have its place in the world, but certainly not in mine.

I will invest my time, my resources, my life, in innovation that, frankly, matters.

Meaningful innovation that adds real value to people’s lives, that tackles real problems plaguing individuals, society, and the world.

A lot of Big Problems. A lot of Big Opportunities. A lot of Big Innovations needed.

I call this new evolution of my definition, Innovation(+). Innovation plus, Innovation positive, Innovation with meaning.

The time has come for us to put collective energies into innovations that can create positive differences in people’s lives, for society, and the world at large.

We need platforms for participation; Heck let’s take it a step further as Platforms for Activation – where people are actively engaged in helping things move not just onwards, but upwards.

And so it’s in these specific challenges that I will be investing my energies on :

1. Social Innovations at the Base-of-the-Pyramid
- How can we co-create business models, products, and services that serve essential needs for those that live under $2/day?
- How can we make the poor active participants and co-creators in the common drive to get them out of poverty?

2. Development of Technologies, Products, and Services that Positively Advance the Human Condition
- How can we create new innovations in education, healthcare, energy, and communications that sustainably serve the needs of this generation and the next?
- How do we use innovation and design thinking to tackle everyday problems of society – traffic gridlock, transportation, crime as some examples? (in fact, IDEO has evolved Design Thinking into tackling Big Problems – just look at Open IDEO).
- How can the Big Brands, Big Products, and Big Services reinvent themselves into positively advancing the human condition?

3. Harnessing the Web for Massive Connection, Collaboration, and Change
- As I mentioned earlier – how do we create Platforms for Activation? I can think of no better example than how Iceland recently engaged its citizens to write the constitution.
- How can we use web to either rebuild or create new institutions? Financial institutions, Educational Institutions, Healthcare Institutions, even Governments?

4. A New Kind of Society
- How do we transition a paradigm shift from the traditional economics of GDP into one that measures happiness and prosperity?
- How do we go from unbridled production-consumption-growth into true, sustainable living?
- How do we balance the currents of globalization, localization, and community?

5. Innovating for The Planet
- There’s just no way getting around tackling the Climate Crisis head-on, it’s quite simply the biggest problem that we as a collective species have to contend with.
- In fact, I love what Al Gore writes in his new book/app ‘Our Choice’. In addressing the Climate Crisis, he wants ‘to make the rescue of civilization the central organizing principle of our politics, economics, and action.’

So there. A new personal roadmap, a clearer direction, a manifesto on where I wish Innovation+ will go. Where it will take us, or where we can drive it towards.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is by technologist Alan Kay – “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Such wise words in an Age of Massively Complex Problems, an age which needs more and more of us to do Innovation(+).

My personal dreams exist on several levels – for myself, my loved ones, my ideas, my causes, my enterprises, and of course, for my country (and if imagined at the highest levels, perhaps the world-at-large :p)

For the Philippines, specifically, I’ve always dreamt that I can have the biggest impact from my chosen field of business and entrepreneurship. I never aspired to be a politician, a social worker (in the purest sense), or an artist. I took up a business degree, worked in the corporate sector, and eventually transitioned into my current life’s work in social enterprise and innovation/design thinking.

The perspective I’ve been carrying for the longest time is that business and entrepreneurship can help eradicate poverty, create jobs and opportunities, and move our country along a positive economic trajectory. The Philippines will be globally competitive, world-class, “developed”, and recover our ‘lost glory’. Using economists’ jargon, my dream was that the Philippines will hurtle from the Third World into the First.

But for these past few months (probably even years), I’ve begun to challenge this long-held belief.

Picking up on the First World-Third World economic dichotomy, things don’t look so rosy on the other side of the fence, if you ask me. The developed world’s financial markets reached near-critical meltdown while the emerging markets held their ground; Unemployment and unrest in America is reaching fever highs, while Europe’s social safety nets are being challenged – the discomforting examples of Greece and Ireland coming to mind immediately. The question we ‘Third-World’ Citizens have to ask is this – is this what we want to aspire for? What our dreams will ultimately add up to?

I’ve got an even simpler example to illustrate my point.

I have a European friend who lived in a country where everything just works – the trains come and go on time, one can make a very decent living, government is reliable, personal security is not a day-to-day battle, and so on and so forth. He was living it up in a “developed” environment.

But this is what’s peculiar – he turned his back on all of that, and of his own free will, decided to move here to Manila – here, with all our flaws, our poverty, our corruption, our chaotic public transit systems, our social problems.

Why?

Why did he seemingly “regress” from the First World into the Third?

My friend will answer you with a straight face : Because he wasn’t happy there. And it seems that he is “happier” here.

Of course one could probably argue that he has money and that’s why he doesn’t contend with being poor the way a majority of Filipinos are. Yes, I agree – and I will revisit that point later. But let me tell you as well that he is certainly not living a lavish lifestyle. He’s got some level of financial security, he put up a small business, and yet he is certainly not living like an expat. In fact, he is renting a small house, commutes using our jeepneys, MRTs, and taxis, and quite enjoys going to un-airconditioned public markets to buy fresh meat and vegetables. It’s a simple lifestyle – and certainly a far cry from what he was used to.

My point is this : our concepts of progress or regression between First World and Third World, Developed and Developing – these concepts shape the direction of our aspirations and our dreams. The current mindset, the current dream – is that we want to go from Third to First, from Developing to Developed, From Emerging to Emerged. But if we look at all the latter examples of First, Developed, and Emerged – again – is the grass really so much greener?

I’m not trying to create divisiveness nor incite misplaced arrogant comparisons – it’s certainly true that Third World, Developing, and Emerging countries have their own massive issues to contend with, and are in certain cases ‘worse off’. We’re not model citizens nor countries of the world as well, if you ask me. And as such, I’m not suggesting that the direction – the aspiration – should be from First to Third, Developed to Developing, or Emerged to Emerging.

What I am saying is this : whichever side of the First World-Third World dichotomy you’re on – your aspirations, your dream – should be oriented towards the ‘right’ things;

It’s not all about the economy, the GDP, the productivity nor the consumption statistics -  all of which are the variables of how most most of the world measures progress now. (I do recognize that the Millenium Development Goals have elevated the conversations beyond GDP, and this is a great example of the direction we are moving towards.)

Hit me on the head for probably being way too late to the party, but I’ve now begun to realize that economic development is a must, but it is certainly not a panacea. And for somebody who’s held that lens for the longest time, it’s quite the personal lightbulb moment, to be brutally honest about it.

Yes, the Philippines must no-holds-barred tackle poverty head-on. Yes, our GDP must indeed grow to create jobs and opportunities – we most certainly need progress in that sense. And yes, economic solutions could certainly be one of the magic bullets. But yes, all this movement, all this “development” – should lead to a situation not just of wealthy unsatisfied people living lives of unbridled consumption but – pardon my being philosophical about it – a state of happiness.

Happiness.

It might sound too simplistic, too dumbed-down, too abstract, even. How in the world do you intend to measure that?! But at the end of the day, as human beings – isn’t that what we should all be aspiring for, dreaming for? Not just for ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities … heck, yeah … our Countries? Our World?

I’ve met a lot of rich people in my life, and my current work keeps me in touch with a lot of poor people. And I tell you, the latter – despite their lack of material wealth – seem sincerely, genuinely happier. I don’t want to romanticize this. The poor certainly have aspirations to get out of poverty : decent human standards will just have to be met – food, shelter, clothing, education, livelihood, dignity of work. And yes, wealth is always something that people naturally aspire for. But it’s certainly not a trajectory of unbridled greed, excessiveness, and consumption (which is what has happened in ‘developed’ economies and is the scary direction of the rapidly-’developing’ ones).

So to this piece on wealth I say, maybe it’s not just about material possessions and riches per se, but prosperity. Having what you want in life, without going overboard.

Happiness, and Prosperity.

I think it’s what we should all be aspiring for – regardless if you’re First World or Third World, Developed or Developing, Emerged or Emerging.

—

The American Dream has been a light for countless of people and generations : that a nobody – regardless of race, religion, or social class – with nothing but the shirt on his/her back can go to America and realize wealth if s/he works hard enough.  It is an idea of a country wherein opportunities are abundant, and a comfortable life is realizable. Just think of all those Filipinos migrating to the US in order to chase that dream (and for quite a number, indeed achieving that). The American Dream, for most people, has become the poster child for finding, realizing, and achieving material wealth and prosperity. (let’s take current situation aside – I really believe that the US will bounce back).

But a lot of people often forget that the United States Declaration of Independence proclaims that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Again – it’s not just about material wealth, it’s about prosperity. And this prosperity is just a means to an end – the end of which is the pursuit of Happiness. It’s what people seem to have forgotten, drowned out by the glitz and glamor of excessive wealth, debt, and consumerism.

—

If you ask me, that’s what my dream is now – Happiness, and Prosperity. (side note : how to measure all of this – I leave all the economists and social scientists to figure it out. But as in the Little Prince, “what is essential is invisible to the eye”.)

Happiness, and Prosperity.

Yes, I still want my gadgets, a nice house, a comfortable life, the occasional vacation. But i want just enough, just enough. I would never trade excessive material wealth for my peace of mind and the genuine happiness of being alive where I am now, and where I’m headed in the future.

Happiness, and Prosperity.

It’s my dream for myself, my loved ones, my ideas, my causes, my enterprises, and of course, for my country, my world.

Let’s Re-Dream.

Let’s re-dream our country into an idea – an idea that we say ‘No’ to the current dominant logic of First World and Third World dichotomies, of being beholden to measures of “global competitiveness”, of being measured by standards not our own.

We can become an idea – an idea that we stake and fashion our dream on our own terms, and this dream at the very end of the day is rather simple, so simple and yet possibly so beautifully powerful – the idea that our country is a place where Happiness and Prosperity are ultimately realizable.

Beyond the usual Competency 101 Profiles – visionary, entrepreneurial, business-minded, collaborative, empathic, empowering – I’ve reflected on (3) less popular characteristics that I wanted to highlight. I picked these (3) values as I consider them ‘currency’ in making one more effective, especially in working with people.

For me, these (3) are : Integrity, Sincerity, and the Ability to Execute – values that I continue to aspire for, and hope to one day realize.

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1. Integrity

Integrity is the default absolute must-have. After all, it is the cornerstone of being a social entrepreneur.

For me, the seed of integrity starts with the fact that you’re doing this for the right reasons; You have to be fueled by the right intentions.

It shouldn’t be about the money (although self-sustainability is undeniably important), your ego, or the warm fuzzy feeling one gets from “doing good”. My personal opinion is that you should be passionate about solving social problems, and obsessed about living a life of service.

Furthermore, integrity is about uncompromisingly doing the right thing. This can take the form of having core principles that you will adhere to, even when the going gets tough. In Hapinoy, for example, whenever we are faced with difficult decisions, we simplify it to one simple question : “What’s Good For Nanay (the Hapinoy Store Owner)?”. This ultimately sways the decision that we take.

When people know that you have integrity, they will trust you, collaborate with you, support you, do business with you. So you really have to guard this with your life. And the secret is simple : just live a life of integrity (I absolutely know that this is easier said that done!).

There are no techniques to gain integrity and build reputation, one must simply try as hard as s/he can to stay true to it. The easiest way to not have any skeletons in your closet that will explode in your face – is to not have any skeletons in the first place.

2. Sincerity

As a social entrepreneur, you’ll most likely be working with marginalized sectors/communities, tackling a palpable social problem – whether this be on livelihood, healthcare, education, poverty, inequality, access to energy, etcetera.

Now, take note that the people you will be serving and/or partnering with could have already been “betrayed” by over-promising politicians, or “let down” by good-intentioned, yet unsustainable organizations who came and then went away. In any case, earning the community’s trust – that you are here for the long-haul – is an important first step, and the smell of sincerity is a key that opens up communication and dialogue. (And trust me when I say that without the community’s trust, you will not be able to accomplish anything.)

Trust is not something easily given, and as such it must and will be earned through time. In Rags2Riches, it took over a year for things to really mature such that the Cooperative formation became a welcome development and shared goal. And although the program became more robust, I’d like to believe that it is the Community’s belief in the sincerity and integrity of the R2R team that made this social enterprise truly work.

3. Ability to Execute

Most Social Enterprises – especially if they are veritable game-changers – will start as a vision of what could be, and not what is. Now, while this is certainly inspiring, it also lends itself to the term, “Drawing lang ‘yan” – which means to say that it is still only a concept drawing on paper. In other words, it’s a skeptic’s perspective – it hasn’t happened until it has happened. In fact, you can be the most kind-hearted person in the world, but until you fulfill the vision you’re painting  – even gradually – you will be less effective in the eyes of your partners.

A former boss of mine taught me a valuable lesson : the best argument against your critics will always be results. After all, results will always speak for themselves. This holds true as well for social entrepreneurship.

The Ability to Execute and make the vision gradually real is sacrosanct. It not only fuels credibility, but it also spurs a bandwagon effect that increases momentum and growth.

In my view, Hapinoy still has a long way to go in realizing the true potential of the program, especially as we see it in our heads. But we continue to execute, iterate, execute, iterate – and gradually build on the unfolding results. It’s admittedly a continuing uphill battle, but one that we’re absolutely committed to getting to eventually.

—

The reason I call the above (3) as ‘currency’ is this – a large chunk of a social entrepreneur’s time is invested in working with people.

And one particular nuance in a social entrep’s lifestyle – is that we do not strictly transact as other people do. For example, a normal business would be focused on finding suppliers and workers, pay them to do a job – and on the other side, sell to a customer, and gain cash from the exchange. In this model, money is the main currency.

The social entrepreneur, on the other hand, will also transact with money, yes – but will go and build deeper relationships. And at this level, it’s really intangible currency that can spell the difference.

In Hapinoy, we don’t hire and pay microentrepreneurs as labor; We work with them in order to co-build their business; In Rags2Riches, we don’t just sell bags, we sell the broader advocacy of eco-ethical style.

Money definitely speaks – but in social entrepreneurship, so do Integrity, Sincerity, and Execution.

Sandwiched amidst lighter conversation was a topic that landed on the dinner table :

What country’s model of development can the Philippines emulate?

Now, I’m an entrepreneur, not an economist; But I guess my opinionated self can’t help but throw in my own two cents on this personally-fascinating topic.

The angle that really fascinates me, though, goes beyond the “Should the Philippines follow the US, India, Japan, or South Korea model of economic progress?” discussion. Now while I think that topic is a critically important conversation, I think I’ll save my thoughts on that for another blog. (My quick answer: an intersection of India and South Korea.)

For me, the angle I want to explore begins with clarifying the dichotomy between Developed vs. Developing Countries.

A quick search on slideshare gives us a quick resource :

Now, this is far from a technical, scientific explanation of the difference in definitions; But it does give us a flavor of the general bias.

If anything, it reinforces that Development is something that every country must aspire for. It gets populations out of poverty and improves a nation’s way of life.

But while I generally agree that Developed Countries have shown ‘The Way’ for those still ‘Developing’, I for one don’t accept that we have to take their ‘Roadmaps for Development’ lock, stock, and barrel.

Why?

For the simple reason that the end result – their version of development – is not something embraceable in its entirety.

Yes, Developed Countries have the highest GDPs per capita, while Developing Countries have most of its people living under $2 a day.

Yes, Developed Countries have infrastructure. Technology. Military might. And products that Developing Countries want.

But they sure as heck have also tons of baggage that I wouldn’t touch with a country-wide pole : Environmental degradation. Unhappy populaces. Mountains of debt driven by unbridled consumerism.

Corny as it sounds … development … doesn’t always equal … happiness.

Let me be clear : this Developing-Developed dichotomy isn’t a West vs East debate. Even Developed Asian economies experience the same issues. If either China or India mirror US development with its patterns of consumption and addiction to oil, climate change will accelerate at disaster-movie-proportions.

So, for me, the heart of the matter is rethinking a new model of development – one that goes beyond what we have normally laid it out to be.

My book of the moment is The Economics of Happiness : Building Genuine Wealth by Mark Anielski, and it has greatly influenced the thinking I have on the subject.

The book urges its readers to go beyond traditional measures of economic development – e.g. our fixation on GDP – and expand the scope to other measures that would result in Genuine Wealth. Anielski’s philosophy is that Genuine Wealth is based on five capital assets: human (duh, people), social (strength of relationships with each other), natural (gifts from nature e.g. forests, natural gas, mineral resources), built (what we’ve made e.g. equipment, factories, tools), and financial (money!) – and this becomes the foundation for an economic model of well-being and prosperity. Of Happiness.

I know this is mostly touchy-feely, but I think we have to start becoming more comfortable with this new reality. After all, the world that’s emerging is the fuzziest that it’s ever been. The intangibles are seamlessly meshing with the tangibles in entirely new, surprising ways.

—

So, going back to the Philippines, and what we can – and should – aspire for from development?

We have to grab the issues of poverty and corruption by the horns, bare minimum. Let’s not even talk about happiness economics if people don’t even get to eat three times a day, brought about by the absolute excess of those in power. The first issue requires traditional economic development that brings financial security to people; The second requires a radical new inculturation and cleansing of government.

But beyond solving the poverty-corruption conundrum, we also have to wrap our heads around the fact that The Filipino Dream shouldn’t just be financial security and purely materialistic pursuits.  Developed economies have shown that this kind of mentality can lead to unbridled consumption, a breakdown in values, and environmental degradation. So as we explore the hard economics, we also have to grapple with the socio-cultural approach. We need to change our thinking, what we measure, and how we go about things.

To end, one of the few silver linings of being a laggard is that you see what has befallen those ahead of you – both the good and the bad. The Philippines can emulate most of what is good from those that have Developed. But we have the singular, prime opportunity to avoid the Bad. Let’s not waste this opportunity.

Before anything else, let go of your easily-prickable Pinoy pride for 15 minutes and read (or re-read) Nick Joaquin’s A Heritage of Smallness.

In this influential essay, the one-time National Artist for Literature holds up a mirror to the Filipino Soul and eschews our love affair with all things small :

“Society for the Filipino is a small rowboat: the barangay. Geography for the Filipino is a small locality: the barrio. History for the Filipino is a small vague saying: matanda pa kay mahoma, noong peacetime. Enterprise for the Filipino is a small stall: the sari-sari. Industry and production for the Filipino are the small immediate searchings of each day: isang kahig, isang tuka. And commerce for the Filipino is the smallest degree of retail: the tingi.”

He further builds his case, noting the Philippine aversion of going for big, bold risks.

Whereas other countries have the grandeur of millenia-old pyramids, colloseums, or castles, our landscape reveals … invisible traces of the nipa hut, obliterated in months and years, not centuries.

This seeming absence of ambition in our DNA is a reinforcement of Joaquin’s three theories :

“First: that the Filipino works best on small scale–tiny figurines, small pots, filigree work in gold or silver, decorative arabesques. The deduction here is that we feel adequate to the challenge of the small, but are cowed by the challenge of the big.

Second: that the Filipino chooses to work in soft easy materials–clay, molten metal, tree searching has failed to turn up anything really monumental in hardstone. Even carabao horn, an obvious material for native craftsmen, has not been used to any extent remotely comparable to the use of ivory in the ivory countries. The deduction here is that we feel equal to the materials that yield but evade the challenge of materials that resist.

Third: that having mastered a material, craft or product, we tend to rut in it and don’t move on to a next phase, a larger development, based on what we have learned. In fact, we instantly lay down even what mastery we already posses when confronted by a challenge from outside of something more masterly, instead of being provoked to develop by the threat of competition.”

While there’s most certainly truth in this – denial would only be delusional and unproductive – it’s time to reframe Joaquin’s thoughts and put them in a new historical perspective; Most especially since this so-called heritage of smallness is a jiu-jitsu move whose time, I believe, has finally come.

The transformation spurred by the Industrial Revolution saw unprecedented growth and scale driven by cookie-cutter replication;  This great leap forward was facilitated by large-scale organizations and systems : huge industrial factories and their assembly lines, massive one-size-fits-all educational systems, sprawling country-wide infrastructure – all supported by financial institutions that both oiled and churned the giant wheels of commerce.

Just consider the following examples :

The tri-media attack of Television, Radio, and Print became national – even global – platforms, easily influencing and swaying popular opinion at a massive scale.

Big Business got bigger, while the small guys got smaller. The latter would eventually became roadkill for the ever-burgeoning class of multinational corporations : Wal-Mart dries up the Neighborhood Mom & Pops, Starbucks engulfs the local coffee shops, Barnes and Noble kills the community-based bookstores.

The so-called First World Countries’ GDP’s would balloon and dwarf those in the Third World at mind-boggling ratios. These countries even formed an Industrialized Nations’ Club called the G8 – with their collective financial institutions pretty-much dictating the pace of the World Economy.

But something peculiar happened at the turn of the century.

The large institutions started teetering, and are now on their way into becoming dinosaur-obsolete – their 20th century innards simply being torn apart by 21st Century Realities.

The seemingly impenetrable consolidation of media became oh-so-vulnerable. Professionally produced shows on Television compete with amateurish two-minute antics on YouTube; Internet radio is replacing the radio station as we know it; And every week we extol eulogies on yet another magazine and/or newspaper’s death, as they become replaced by blogs, websites, and online forums.

Even Big Businesses are in quite a disarray. Wal-Mart survives through its ongoing reinvention; Starbucks is now buckling under its own weight – in fact, its new experiments are going community-based as unbranded local shops; Amazon.com and a myriad of niche online booksellers continues to threaten the very economics of brick-and-mortar stores. And don’t get me started on the really easy pickings, The Banks That Were Too Big To Fail, But Did.

On that note, the Global Financial Crisis of ’08-’09 swept across the industrialized nations – their financial institutions becoming a worldwide domino of economic disaster. Tackling this dangerous web was no longer something that the G8 could address in isolation, and so to deal with it they had to involve an expanded group, the G20.

The most-developed, largest countries which just a decade ago seemed invulnerable flirted with disaster and economic depression.

This breakdown in large 20th century institutions certainly has me thinking : maybe Being Big isn’t that – pun intended – big a deal anymore.

From 2010 onwards, maybe it’s time to revisit the other side of the spatial spectrum and get reaquainted with the virtues of smallness.

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It’s no secret that The Rise of Smallness is being fueled by the Internet’s overarching disruptive shadow. Call it what you will – Wikinomics, The Groundswell, The Long Tail, an Army of Davids – the fact is that no other time in history has power been so democratized and redistributed – from multinational companies into a mosaic of startups; from large institutions into the hands of collective individuals.

Indulge me now by sharing with you Exhibits A & B  (both hailing from the same source : uber-brain-food magazine, Wired’s Issue 17.06 – a major, major influence on my thinking with regards to this matter).

Exhibit A is the article, The New New Economy : More Startups, Fewer Giants, Infinite Opportunity -  which showcases the decline in number of the Megacorporations and the viral proliferation of an Ecosystem of Startups.

Exhibit B is more a mindbend, if you will.  Kevin Kelly talks about The New Socialism : Global Collectivist Society is Coming Online – and this is where it makes the leap from mildly interesting to extremely interesting.

Because the secret sauce isn’t really in The Small per se; it’s the aggregation of what I can only call as ‘The Many-Small’ into an almost sentient-network, mimicking swarm intelligence.  And so it’s not just the empowered individual which is the focus of the matter, but rather the groups of individuals bound together, moving from Web 2.0 Guru Clay Shirky‘s hierarchy of sharing, cooperation, collaboration, and collective action.

What does this all have to do with the Philippines?

Because for better or for worse, Nick Joaquin is absolutely right. We are indeed a nation of smallness, divided across a myriad of 7,107 islands.

From sari-sari stores to barangays, from nipa huts to sachets, from farming small plots of land to microfinancing – it is the small that dominates the Filipino landscape.

But if we mirror the Internet model, then we can arrive at the logical conclusion that we’re sitting on a goldmine. And it’s not in The Small. It’s in harnessing The Many-Small.

Our work in Hapinoy is an extremely relevant example to the thinking here. The smallest, minutest unit of retail – the humble sari-sari store – by far dominates the number of retail outlets in the country. While there may be a few thousand supermarkets and groceries nationwide, there are almost 700,000 sari-sari stores sprawling every nook and cranny of the archipelago. 700,000! Numerically, that’s more than 90% of all retail.

So individually, the sari-sari store is too micro to make a dent in the universe. But as a Hapinoy network, the aggregation and alignment of hundreds of thousands of sari-sari stores represents a massively untapped economic opportunity. It’s most definitely not Wal-Mart, but it is a powerful force in its own right.

What makes this model more resilient is that its not solely reliant on a centralized nervous system. Close one Big Box Hypermarket and your business goes under; Close a couple of hundred sari-sari stores and you’ve got an equal number of stores that can willingly take its place. It’s self-healing on the fringes, with a high tolerance for fallouts.

Now extend this Hapinoy model into other Filipino Many-Small realities.

Micro-Businesses.

Barangays.

Public Schools.

Agricultural Plots of Land.

Seven. Thousand. One Hundred. Seven. Islands.

And then add layers of technology to mesh them together – wireless networks, mobile communications, the web as a platform – and the possibilities just effortlessly, exponentially grow.

Let me make it clear that this I am not proposing mere consolidation; The model is hinged on networking and connection. Every point in the mesh retains its individuality – every Hapinoy Store retains its freedom and ownership – it can link and de-link with the chain. But whenever it is plugged-in, then it benefits from the power of the unified group.

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To end, the challenge of Nick Joaquin wasn’t only in the Filipino’s limited capacity of churning out small things; It was also very much a commentary on the smallness of our thinking – of our lack of ambition, of grandness, of boldness.

But just because we’ve got small things doesn’t mean we have to think small.

The fact of the matter is that we probably won’t be building grand pyramids anytime soon;

But the good news is that we might not even have to.

We can embrace our heritage of smallness;

We can embrace the small things this heritage has given us.

Because at this point in history, we can make enormously gigantically big things out of them.

Heima is a lifestyle & home designs store in the center of the creative universe, Cubao X – which by no accident is also home to Rags2Riches.

Love2010 – an art exhibit with corresponding candles, cupcakes, and  cotton candy machine – was celebrated in true Heima fashion, which is to say that it was a hyper-real kitsch-kicking experience :

Love2010 instructions for the night

the Art Exhibit

the centerpiece Cotton Candy machine; photo credit www.arlenesy.com

No odd wheel here – (4) couples Lex Reyes & Marielle Nadal, Birdie Salva & Arlene Sy, Heima’s Bong Rojales & Rossy Yabut, Moi with Reese

Now, the reason I can’t help but talk about Heima is that everytime I go inside the place, I just feel an inexplicable sense of joy; Almost as if some unknown happiness buttons were pushed and lights would go up inside my head.

And it really has everything to do with the overall experience and feel of being there – as Reese and I have had the pleasure of being so innumerable times already :

You see, one has to go inside Heima in order to fully appreciate it.

The place is literally a canvass of Rossy’s playful designs coupled with – intended pun on its way – the couple’s eclectic taste. It’s as if every turn, glance, movement you make reveals new eye candy that makes you say ‘oooohhhh nice!!!’

Whether it be Rossy’s happy couch, intriguingly beautiful art & decor, Bong’s lomo collection, Counting Sheep’s wall stickers, etc etc etc -  it’s curated happiness-delivery to design enthusiasts at its most unapologetic; a veritable assault on one’s aesthetic sensibilities.

This rumination on Heima and their Art of Happiness actually reminded me of Don Norman – a leading global design thinker who wrote landmark books The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design – and his talk in TED.

Fittingly enough, his presentation is entitled “The 3 Ways that Good Design Makes Me Happy”, and it pretty much elucidates what i’ve been waxing about in this blog post :

On our way to a brainstorming-consultation for Rags2Riches in TriNoma, Reese, Memey, and I chanced upon a street vendor selling these funky eyeglasses-moustache-torotot contraptions.

The vendor-guy was actively playing with it as he walked under the unforgiving Saturday sun.

I couldn’t resist. He just looked kickass dumb funny . And so I signalled his attention, inquired, and finally haggled to buy a set of three for a hundred bucks. (marketing lesson : demo demo demo!)

That was quite possibly the best hundred bucks I spent in recent weeks.

What construed was a pure hour’s worth of stomach-turning laughter for the three of us. We torototed our way through and around Mindanao Avenue, to the TriNoma parking guards, all the way into the mall weekend-goers.

We looked kickass dumb funny and weird, sure. But it was pure-as-heck enjoyable.

For the price of one tall Starbucks cafe latte’, we had such an energizingly funny afternoon.

All from a piece of China-manufactured cheap plastic and paper.

Which had me thinking.

What kind of experiences are you offering your customers?

What kind of human moments are you producing, the kind that makes your product an emotional purchase inasmuch as it is a logical purchase?

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Cranium – the company that makes really fun games – has a term for it.

It’s called “moment engineering”.

Each board game is designed and engineered for a specific moment. For example, a board game can be designed for a rainy stay-at-home moment between mother and child. Etc etc etc.

How about you?

What moments are you engineering your products and services for?

And as with my P100 purchase, it doesn’t have to be an extremely luxurious experience to make it absolutely memorable.