We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World

by Mark Stevenson

Overview

There is hope for us yet: “Stevenson’s engaging commentary has the ability to restore your faith in human ingenuity in the face of adversity.” —Geographical magazine

Our systems are failing. Old models—for education, healthcare and government, food production, energy supply—are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world’s population heads towards 10 billion, it’s clear we need new approaches. In We Do Things Differently, historian and futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them, across four continents.

From Brazilian favelas to high-tech Boston, from rural India to a shed inventor in England’s home counties, Mark Stevenson travels the world to find the advance guard reimagining our future. At each stop, he meets innovators who have already succeeded in challenging the status quo, pioneering new ways to make our world more sustainable, equitable, and humane.

Populated by extraordinary characters—including Detroit citizens who created new jobs and promoted healthy eating by building greenhouses; an Austrian mayor who built a new biomass plant using the by-product of a local flooring company; and an Indian doctor who crowdsourced his research and published his findings online—We Do Things Differently paints a riveting picture of what can be done to address the world’s most pressing dilemmas, offering a much-needed dose of down-to-earth optimism. It is a window on (and a roadmap to) a different and better future.

“Stevenson writes with enormous warmth and humor.” —Cory Doctorow

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781468315837
Publisher:	Abrams Press
Publication date:	01/16/2018
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Stevenson is a futurologist and writer whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Times, and The Daily Telegraph. His acclaimed book An Optimist’s Tour of the Future has been translated into ten languages.

Table of Contents

Introduction Windmills 9

1 My Brother's Keeper 13

In which an engineer from Boston revolutionises medical research

2 Patients Like Me 24

In which a group of American patients outperform the professionals

3 Bug in the System 40

In which Indian amateurs do 300 years' work in four months and the study of packed lunches reveals a new way to beat disease

4 Rice Wars 73

In which billions of lives are saved and put at risk by one green revolution, and (hopefully) saved by another

5 Running On Air 100

In which an Englishman in a shed solves a century-old problem with his lawnmower and invents two world-saving machines

6 Instant Power 122

In which we learn the lessons of an electric mountain in Wales and the surprising foundation of Singapore's economic miracle

7 Edison's Revenge 132

In which Edison kills an elephant in New York and a small Austrian town comes back from the brink

8 Energy Trilemma 154

In which a basketball ace takes on the corporates

9 Make Way for the Enernet 169

In which an Internet pioneer literally has to eat his words and then re-imagines the entire world energy system

10 Always Bet on the Tortoise 187

In which the people of Detroit reconnect and begin to transform a city

11 How to Make Politicians Popular 211

In which Brazilian neighbourhood activists come up with an idea to reboot politics, try it, and find it actually works

12 Worst School in the Country 240

In which an ex-nightclub owner creates a beacon of excellence and a New Zealand stats man sees the big picture

13 System Addict 267

In which the author sets out his stall

Acknowledgements 273

Inspirations 277

Notes 279

Editorial Reviews

Stevenson is an excellent storyteller and knows how to make science comprehensible, whether it is drug metabolism or liquid-air engines. The chapters on drug discovery with which the book opens are especially well told. Fascinating.

The Times

Some people don’t just think differently, they do differently. [We Do Things Differently] looks at some of those doers – people who are trying to solve the world’s most difficult problems. To find them, the author went to places where things are most broken, from failed political systems to collapsed economies to threatened food supplies.”

Sacha Pfeiffer - On Point

Stevenson wears no blindfold. His tools are curiosity, open-mindedness, clarity and reason . . . ultimately exhilarating.

TED.com

2017-11-14
Profiles in courage—at least the courage to challenge conventional wisdom and innovate successfully in a world of business and institutions that don't necessarily welcome change.In his latest foray into the world of invention and life-hacking, business journalist and trend-spotter Stevenson (An Optimist's Tour of the Future, 2011) lauds "the pioneers, architects, and builders of a surprising and hopeful future," most of whom have done their work by bucking received opinion and admonitions that something can't or shouldn't be done. One such pioneer, motivated by a desperately ill brother, pulled together the largest research lab for Lou Gehrig's disease in the world only to discover that that research was far behind where it was supposed to be, so he became a "guerrilla scientist" devoted to challenging the status quo on drug discovery; his newfound resistance led to work in other maladies, such as Parkinson's disease. Finding new medicines is damnably difficult work, all the more reason for difficult evangelists, hard to please and hard to argue with, to come to the fore. One Indian pioneer whom Stevenson profiles adapted network theory to the way in which hot lunches are distributed throughout the teeming city of Mumbai; the delivery people averred, "we don't know management theories. All we have is decades of learning." That learning is key: all of Stevenson's case studies are wedded to the idea of constant learning, experimentation, and questioning, whether hacking government—a "stratospheric failure of modern democracies," the author writes, is their "inability to provide a financial system that serves the majority"—or revolutionizing educational systems so that schools actually teach. Stevenson offers no overt formulas, but his case studies are suggestive of the ways in which a willful innovator can ignore obstacles and do whatever needs to be done, allowing for failure just as much as for success.Solid reportage and inspirational reading for those who imagine they can do it—whatever "it" is—better.

Kirkus Reviews