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The greatest minds and inventors of our time are often cited as inspiration for innovation and transformation. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Marie Curie โ all brilliant people with extraordinary vision and determination. But weโre forgetting about the greatest innovator of them all: Mother Nature.
Our planet has existed for around 4.5 billion years, and for 3.8 billion of those years, organic life has formed, proliferated and evolved.ย For nearly 4 billion years, Mother Nature has had to deliver the most ambitious programme of innovation and transformation we could possibly witness.ย โThe practise of applying lessons from natureโ is known asย biomimicry.
Sound silly? Letโs break it down.
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Natural Innovation
It begins with an initial, minimum viable product. Simple, single-celled organisms forged in the primordial soup harboured by our planet. Natural forces contend with a vast number of variables, and like the fabled Goldilocks, this mixture provided the conditions that were just rightโฆ
From there,ย natural life faced an innumerable set of challenges. Life across the worldย adapted and changed over time, reacting to the varying constraints that each environment brings about. Differentย weather conditions,ย levels ofย sunlight, ambient temperature ranges,ย available oxygen and carbon,ย nearby predators and preyโฆ This wonderfulย spectrum of conditions had produced some incredibly unique lifeforms thatย respond to their own challenges in incredibly interesting ways.
Recommended read: Innovation Challenges
Business Evolution
Modern business challenges arenโt all that different. Every day, we strive to increase productivity, reduce waste,ย improve communication, provide safetyย โ ultimately, to survive amongst fierceย competition.ย Thus, we canย look to our greatest innovator โ Mother Nature, an inventor that has spent an incomprehensible amount of timeย innovating,ย to solve modern problems.ย Many are alreadyย doing so; if youโve ever looked in awe at Gaudiโsย Sagrada Familiaย in Barcelona,ย marvelled atย theย High Speed Shinkansen bullet trainย in Japan, orย contemplatedย Heatherwickโsย Rolling Bridge in London, youโre seeingย real, working examples of biomimicry in action.
The Biomimicry Instituteย is one such organization that is driving awareness and education on how weย can learn from the expansive period of adaptation, reaction, scaling and evolution โ so we can learn from the natural world in order toย existย withinย this spectacular global ecosystem harmoniously.
Hereโs a quick look at a few examples of how the greatest innovator, Mother Nature, has developed slick solutions that we can take inspiration from.
Egg-ficiency
The simple, yet elegant egg. Partially gestated by hens, eggs are formed with the least amount of material possible (more material = more energy from mother hen!). The curvature of different speciesโ eggs varies, a direct function of both the animal sitting atop it, and developing within it. Eggshells are built to allow for the mother to safely sit on them during fertilisation (compression), but also allow the newborn chick to break the egg from the inside (tension).
Strength:ย The Mighty Mantis Shrimp
This heavyweightย crustaceanย weighs inย atย a mere 10cm in length, yet packs a mean punch.ย Grunenfelderย et al. (2014) carried out extensive testing on the club of this creature; โthe crustaceanโs club has been designed to withstand the thousands of high-velocity blows that it delivers to its preyโ. Not only is it the ability of this club to withstand high velocity blows that makesย this interesting, but alsoย itโsย ability to endure such blows throughout the entire lifespan of the creature.
Recommended read: Making an Innovation Process Stick
Silicon carbide is a material used in bulletproof vests, and according to Ansari,ย Rouhi,ย Aryayi, andย Mirnezhadย (2012) can withstand approximately 2-3GPaย (around 2500 N/mm2, orย 362594 psi). In the course of their research,ย Grunenfelderย et al.ย (2014)ย concluded that the club of the mantis shrimp could withstand 5GPaย ย (5000 N/mm2, orย 725189 psi)ย of pressure before buckling.
To put that into perspective,ย it requires around 725000 pounds per square inch (and some really high temperatures) to form diamonds.ย Heavy-duty pressure washersย have a psi of around 3000.
And the most impressive thing? This is a tool that the mantis cannot maintain, repair or replace. Itโs with it for life, so it is durable for an extended period of time. ย Another reason why nature is the greatest innovator!
Image: WhalePower Corporation
Flow State:ย Humpback Whales
When humans design structures to cut through fluid mediums (or plane wings or F1 car spoilers through air), we typically picture these with clean, immaculate lines that are incredibly smooth. The front edges of the humpback whaleโs flippers are, however, not smooth, as one might expect from an 80,000-pound beast moving through a thick medium like water.
These flippers have small bumps along the leading edges, which when tested have been shown to reduce drag by around 30%, and increase lift by around 8%. This approach is so effective, that the commercial world is now employing this concept in the production of fans and turbines.
WhalePower are one such organization, building blades for wind turbines and fabs to mimic whale flippers, in order to improve the efficiency of operations โ and in doing so, allowing the users of their products to reduce costs and enhance safety.
Now that youโve read about the reasons Mother Nature is the greatest innovator of all time, letโs jump into some of the 8 core pillars of innovation culture, and help you transform your workforce!
