Architect David Fisher has a vision.

It’s an 80 story skyscraper to be built in Dubai.

Similar to the Suite Vollard completed in 2001 in Brazil, each floor will be able to rotate independently. This will result in a constantly changing shape of the tower. Each floor will rotate a maximum of 6 metres (20 ft) per minute, or one full rotation in 90 minutes.

It will be the world’s first prefabricated skyscraper with 40 factory-built modules for each floor. 90% of the tower will be built in a factory and shipped to the construction site. This will allow the entire building to be built in only 22 months. The core of the tower will be built at the construction site. Part of this prefabrication will be the decrease in cost and number of workers (90 at the work site and 600 in the factory instead of 2,000 needed). The total construction time will be over 30% less than a normal skyscraper of the same size. The majority of the workers will be in factories, where it will be much safer. The modules will be preinstalled including kitchen and bathroom fixtures. The core will serve each floor with a special, patented connection for clean water, based on technology used to refuel airplanes in mid-flight.

The entire tower will be powered from wind turbines and solar panels. Enough surplus electricity should be produced to power five other similar sized buildings in the vicinity. The turbines will be located between each of the rotating floors. They could generate up to 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy. The solar panels will be located on the roof and the top of each floor. Wikipedia

It is beautiful; another home for the super-wealthy.

I don’t blame Fisher for focusing on that demographic, but look again at the stats.

It’s prefab, which means hundreds of decently paying factory jobs.

Prefab cuts building time by 30%.

The building will be self-sustaining both energy and water-wise.

Think what smaller versions, filled with non-luxury units, would mean to people who are homeless or living in primitive conditions.

Not fancy, but clean, light, safe and sustainable.

Now think about the amount of government and NGO money wasted across the globe sticking band-aids on the housing, clean water and energy problems that beset most of the world’s populations.

There is nothing wrong with innovation meant for the wealthy, but we need to remember that it can be re-imagined for the rest of us.

It just takes the interest and guts to do it.

YouTube credit: Design Magazine

Chapter Three from IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy) is about being “globally integrated.” It may sound as if it’s strictly for giant multinationals, but it’s not.

“It was striking that CEOs of companies of all different sizes and geographic coverage were engaged and enthusiastic about these topics, which suggests optimization is crucial whatever the current geographic scale.”

Integration isn’t about selling products or outsourcing work or even doing lots of business in China and India—it’s about connecting, both internally and externally.

According to one US CEO, “We need to move away from an operational focus to a client interface focus.”

That translates to connecting and listening to your customers, even when you find it disruptive or just don’t like what they’re saying, because the one thing you can count on is that someone, some where, is listening and responding.

To spark global integration in your company focus on size-appropriate variations of these five questions

1. “Are you effectively integrating differentiating capabilities, knowledge and assets from around the world into networked centers of excellence?
2. Does your organization have a globally integrated business design (even if it does not have a global footprint)?
3. Do you have a detailed plan for global partnering and M&A?
4. Are you developing leaders that think and act globally?
5. Do you nurture and support social connections to improve integration and innovation?”

The answers to these are more than operational, they are attitudes that must be embedded in your corporate culture, but ‘corporate culture’ must expand in a global workplace.

As one Japanese CEO said, “The key for doing business abroad is not to seek homogeneity. Instead, we must be able to work effectively with people of different cultures and from different countries. We can learn this by working collaboratively with them.”

This is doubly important for micro biz to remember. Your market may be local, but your customer base is still multi-cultural—even in those rare areas where it isn’t multi-ethnic.

How is your organization addressing these questions?

Your comments—priceless

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Image credit: nookiez  CC license