THE FUTURIST Interviews Brian Merritt, Founder of Compose the Future
On Saturday, July 28, WorldFuture 2012 conference attendees and innovation-loving Torontonians will have the opportunity to see how open-source innovation will shape our world through the social network platform ComposeTheFuture. The start-up’s founder, Brian Merritt, answered a few questions for us about ComposeTheFuture, which will be officially launched during Futurists: BetaLaunch at WorldFuture 2012.
Who is involved in ComposeTheFuture?
Merritt: ComposeTheFuture is a self-funded social network startup. I am the CEO/Founder and am currently building the core team and exploring funding options.
In true lean start-up style, finance and business planning have been outsourced to Associated Solutions in the UK, software development to Flexsin Technologies in India, and marketing and PR have been outsourced to teams on three continents.
The technical and product vision is still very much with me however, because I love my baby soooo much.
The Futurist: What background do you bring to ComposeTheFuture?
Merritt: I kicked off this career in technology and communications in the US Air Force. University was dropped in favour of the fast-growing PC industry of the late ’70s and early ’80s. I see-sawed between tech start-ups and large computing and telecom companies, with a two-year break to travel across the US and write a series of guidebooks for foreign tourists.
I recently spent nine years helping turn Interoute from a post-2001 dot com casualty into Europe’s largest and fastest growing supplier of information and communications technology services. Along the way, I gained an MBA encompassing product and software development, operational and customer support, solution selling, and business planning and forecasting in the famous “School of Life.” At Interoute, I was a recognized agent for change, always on the customers’ side, and saw not only the forest and the trees, but the ecosystem that powered them.
Having achieved profitability and stability for Interoute, I followed my dream to help individuals and organisations to face up to and plan for the future.
The Futurist: What inspired you to develop ComposeTheFuture?
Merritt: A lifetime of change, and of great experiences and almost unbearable tragedies, empowered and enabled me to take the longer term view. Being an agent of change in one of the most disruptive telecom start-ups helped me realize that anything was possible, if you could invent it and then implement it.
The Futurist: When did you first dream about and design your innovation? How far along are you in developing it? When do you think it will be delivered?
Merritt: ComposeTheFuture was the germ of an idea for many years, a dream of how to help people, and how to anticipate and grasp the future. As a design, it was prototyped on open-source software platforms and gradually grew into a full-fledged “idea for the time.” After several false starts whilst seeking a suitable software platform, ComposeTheFuture was put out to tender, with responses from 40 different software development companies across five continents. In May the software went into alpha test, and the beta will run through June and July ahead of the World Future Society conference, where it will be launched at Futurists: BetaLaunch.
The Futurist: What challenges have you faced already in developing ComposeTheFuture, and how did you address them? What challenges do you anticipate facing in the future?
The benefit of bringing a true innovation platform to market is an almost limitless potential for further and future innovation.
The greatest future challenges will be convincing other innovation management and social networking platforms that ComposeTheFuture is a positive force in the market, and showing how it adds value to what they are already doing. I believe ComposeTheFuture is a “delightful disruption,” a platform and open architecture that will integrate well with, rather than replace, other systems and methodologies.
The Futurist: What's innovative about ComposeTheFuture? What are you doing that others haven't?
Merritt: Social networks are typically about “who you know,” but ComposeTheFuture is all about “what you are interested in” and “what do you want to achieve.” Innovation management systems may combine social networking, but they are not truly open, not in the sense that everyone in the world can participate. Also, many individuals and even organisations confuse innovation with ideas. By combining collaboration and project management, in an open social network, change can be implemented globally.
The Futurist: What impact will ComposeTheFuture have on society and technological developments in the future?
Merritt: This is in the hands of the individuals and organisations that will use ComposeTheFuture. Whether they are setting personal goals, addressing global issues, or feeling empowered to create their own destinies is totally up to them. We do believe that they have the best available tool to achieve their goals, and also we will fully use our own platform to plan the next phases of ComposeTheFuture, for release in late 2012, and in 2013, and 2113, and in 211,213.
What conference sessions are you looking forward to attending during WorldFuture 2012?
Merritt: The Master Courses look very interesting, but sadly they run in parallel, so choosing is my next major task. Naveen Jain’s “Innovative Entrepreneurs Execute Big Ideas” is right up our street, so to say, and the Asian economies will have major impact on all our futures, so that is a must. ComposeTheFuture has much to offer the education market, so “When Ivory Towers Fall” is another crucial session. The truth is, we may have to do some quick cloning to ensure we get the most from the event as possible.
This interview was conducted by Kenneth James Moore. You can meet Brian Merritt and see the live launch of Composethefuture on Saturday, July 28th at Futurists: BetaLaunch 2012.