THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY: Malcom's Platform

Resilient communities aren't built through one-off projects/efforts, good will, and lifestyle changes. Instead, they are a vibrant ecosystems of activity, that are innovative, robust, and efficient. The key to growing ecosystems that exhibit these qualities is to build platforms that span everything from electricity to food to security. Here's a short story about Malcom McLean to get your head around the idea of what a platform is (this is for my upcoming book on Resilient Communities) and why they are so powerful:
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Malcom's Platform

In 1937, during a commercial delivery trip carrying North Carolina cotton bales to the port in Hoboken, New Jersey, Malcom McLean became frustrated at the wait he experienced to unload his cargo at the port facility. He later remarked, “I had to wait most of the day to deliver the bales, sitting there in my truck, watching stevedores load other cargo. It struck me that I was looking at a lot of wasted time and money. I watched them take each crate off the truck and slip it into a sling, which would then lift the crate into the hold of the ship.” This thought was carried forward seventeen years, when at the helm of a company with 1,776 trucks and 37 transport terminals (on the Eastern Seaboard) he gravitated to the idea that long haul routes would be better accomplished through sea transport.

However, to accomplish this, he needed to remake the shipping industry from the ground up. In other words, he needed to build a shipping platform for the shipping industry. What is a platform? At a high level, a platform takes related activities that are complex, unique, and variable and turns them into activities that are simple, universal, and standard. Here's how Malcom built his (and now our) shipping platform:

• First, he created a shipping container that could be detached from a truck and stacked on a ship without unbundling the contents.
  
• He followed this with new wheel systems to quickly attach containers to trucks.
  
• Finally, he developed container ships that allowed easy roll-on/roll-off and container stacking.

The new containerized system he developed simplified shipping by pushing the complexity of packing and unpacking cargo to the edges of the shipping network. Second, it made interconnection with the network easy, since containers were inexpensive and of a standard set of sizes. Finally, it lowered/standardized costs, reduced theft, and limited damage.

The debut of his new system was with the maiden voyage of the Ideal X, a converted oil tanker that loaded fifty-eight containers at Port Hoboken, New Jersey and unloaded them in Houston, Texas to his waiting trucks for delivery. The success of this innovation led him to radically expand his business into a powerhouse called SeaLand Industries that had twenty seven thousand containers and thirty-seven container ships by the end of the 1960s.

Obviously, it didn’t end there. The advantages in speed, cost, and flexibility were so compelling that the entire shipping industry was transformed as companies, ports, and governments adopted his containerization process. By 2000, nearly 90% of the world’s shipping was accomplished using containers in support of a vast global ecosystem of manufacturers and retailers made possible by Malcom's shipping platform.
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Still working on this post. Feedback welcome. JR

Comments

[RanDomino]

great, he made WalMart possible. this is a success story?
you're brilliant, but you need to quit Capital. Resilience is only good if used to help humanity, not the elite few.
You're lacing up the boot that'll stomp on the human face forever.

[John Robb]

This is just a demonstration of what platforms can do. They are a neutral concept.

Now it's time to put them to use to accelerate the communities we live in.

[jonrog1]

RanDomino, the example of the universality of platform is to show that if you create a universal simple platform, it can become ubiquitous and simplify processes which are complex because they are localized. That is, if you can come up with a Malcolm Platform for community based solar power or grid-independent connectivity, then every community won't have to solve that problem during or in anticipation of a crisis. Also, getting communities to evolve to independence becomes easier when solutions are availiable, instead of forcing them up the development road.

You can stomp with a boot, or march in one. Take off the blinders so you can see solutions from whatever direction they may come.

[Duncan Kinder]

John, it seems to me you may be attacking this problem from the wrong angle. The problem with your approach is that it is difficult to visualize what it is that we would be attempting to do.

Perhaps instead, we ought to identify those communities that are, in fact, resilient, and seek to determine those general characteristics which endow them with resiliency.

In considering such communities, we should be very broad - a termite colony might be resilient, for example. ( I know nothing about termites; this is just a hypothetical. ).

Then we study the colony and try to figure out what makes it so resilient; and consider whether human communities could likewise adapt; and, if so, how?

[gmoke]

Shipping containers can also be used as modular housing and manufacturing units. I have been tracking shipping container housing units for some friends who plan to build that way and have seen hospitals, schools, and workshops designed to fit into a single shipping container.

Platforms are not a neutral concept. Ain't nothing neutral except maybe pH. The configuration of a platform is an economic and political statement. They can be used for positive or negative purposes and all will have positive and negative ramifications. Such is the Way and you forget it at your own peril.

I have what I believe is a platform for a personal power system for low voltage DC electricity which could be immediately useful in Afghanistan, for instance. See http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/05/solar-is-civil-defense-illustrated.html for more.

[PeakOilBoy]

John,

We are using Bright Neighbor in Portland to build resilient communities, and so far the user base is saying it's more powerful than Google, MySpace, or Craigslist.

I would be happy to give you a personal tour to show you what community resilience technology is all about!

Randy White
www.brightneighbor.com

[Syn Diesel]

Randy, your work promoting ethanol applies here as well.

Standardized downscaled biorefineries using integrated industrial ecosystems, as described in David Blume's book Alcohol Can Be A Gas, in the range of 1,000-1,000,000 GPY can serve as a basis for food and energy security.

[Paul LaFontaine]

What strikes me is that Malcolm attacked the problem at its transition points (loading & reloading) which made me think of the transitions explored in Boyd's work. So an idea might be that resilience comes from bundling activities in such a way that their throughput is dramatically faster due to smooth transitions (or reducing friction).

Perhaps a resilient community is one with a clear boundry that impedes entry, but a platform within that allows for better throughput. A sort of systemic interior lines that is consciously created.

For the Malcom example might be interesting to look at ways SEALAND created barriers to entry beyond just price/speed. Like how the platform made load planning a standard, etc.

Good post John.

Paul

[Paul LaFontaine]

What strikes me is that Malcolm attacked the problem at its transition points (loading & reloading) which made me think of the transitions explored in Boyd's work. So an idea might be that resilience comes from bundling activities in such a way that their throughput is dramatically faster due to smooth transitions (or reducing friction).

Perhaps a resilient community is one with a clear boundry that impedes entry, but a platform within that allows for better throughput. A sort of systemic interior lines that is consciously created.

For the Malcom example might be interesting to look at ways SEALAND created barriers to entry beyond just price/speed. Like how the platform made load planning a standard, etc.

Good post John.

Paul

[Duncan Kinder]

"The new containerized system he developed simplified shipping by pushing the complexity of packing and unpacking cargo to the edges of the shipping network."

OK. This platform ( and I'm still not sure what a "platform" is -- much less why having one should matter ) does not eliminate complexity, it shifts it.

As such, it, on an abstract plane, parallels other developments in capitalism over the past several decades, which likewise do not eliminate complexity ( i.e., risk ) but rather shift it.

The complex financial instruments which are central to the mortgage meltdown, likewise shifted risk. Much of outsourcing and downsizing have entailed shifting risk onto Third World countries. Much as been written about the Great Risk Shift, in which workers increasingly are made responsible for their own retirements and health care, etc.

Shifting risk onto others, paradoxically, itself entails a risk. A "meta-risk," one might say. Namely, if you shift your risk onto me, you assume the risk that I might succeed in managing that risk. Which would mean that I would develop expertise. And would have little reason to love you for it.

This could come back and bite you. This, essentially, is what Russia is doing in Georgia right now.

As applied to containers specifically, consider your recommend _McMafia_ book by Misha Glenny. Discussing smuggling materials with containers, at p. 340, Glenny quotes a Hong Kong police officer:

"And so far as we understand, if you are not carrying nuclear material, if you can succed in getting your container selected for examination in Kaohsiung or Hong Kong, then you are home free! It is an idela way to smuggle any manner of goods into the United States."

So Malcom's platform seems to be very much a part of the current problem, not the least bit resilient. His approach has worked because it harmonizes with the broader, risk-shifting ethos of late 20th century - early 21st century capitalism.

Assuming that some different sort of platform could work; it would have to differ greatly and fundamentally.

[SWIMMER21]

Great post.
I see different things of interest here, some discussed in the comments. Short sum-up : boundary of RC. Looking at how living cells work, the boundary is semi-permeable and works with active or passive osmosis. Perhaps a model here.
Platform, a generic open construct where you can plug and play with as many things as imagination can create. A resilient community = a platform ?
Dissemination of breakthrough. Malcom had his idea, and then, he let it disseminate all over the world. Fast changing is only related to the strategic position where you place your concept or idea. If it is at the bottom of the mountain, it has little potential and won't disseminate much. At the summit, potential is the highest. Just let it go and dissemination is wide and fast. That's what Malcom's example says to.

[lancemiller777atgmaildotcom]

I'm extending or affirming the comments by Paul LaFontaine, I like his precision and also like the original post.

The core of this perspective should be less, or no, friction across some transition points, moving the complex and labor intensive to the periphery. By labor I mean any judgmental, mental, computational, perception, physical handling process.
This abstracted robustness would need to allow for ease of activity ( activity is truly general, all leisure, social, artistic activities are included ) while providing security with the hardness of the periphery, where the heavy judgement point is concentrated.

Speaking to the stereotypical Lefties and Rightists, the the civil libertarians seem to be all about making a frictionless non-judgmental environment, but seem afraid to design the point of judgement/policing/transition in the system. The Rightists would take us back to friction everywhere, which would create a dull uninventive culture due to police judgement roadblocks every few steps. Expensive and dumb for a dull dying society. Choosing no friction anywhere is unsafe, choosing too much is stops technological development.

I bet in heterogenous cultures ( melting pots) the challenge is to get Left and Right extremes to design a full system, less or no friction in these zones, all the policing friction in that specific boundary zone.

Homogenous cultures such as Japan have it easy implementing a good platform with appropriate no-friction and high-friction points. As do communities that are hard to get to by land and sea barriers.

[totierne]

I want to be able to put pieces together easily (unix/shell/pipes) and not use some monolyth in flexible thing like vista. When you are on the ground you use what you have (Iraq's defenders) rather than some hugely expensive and inflexible set of tools at the end of a supply line half a world long (American attackers).

Thats just hot air, I am just trying to see things working from the bottom up for a change, not being forced into being some tentacle of a multinational corporation.

I hope that extreme situations (Gaza/Iraq) may forge novel solutions, before the practicioners become older and power crazed.

Regards,
Turloch

[Tangurena]

Levinson's history [1] of the rise of the container was interesting. It changed everything, including which ports/cities shrivelled up [2] and which ones thrived. I don't think anyone could have imagined the changes that came about due to containers, including transoceanic shipping so cheap that it was cheaper to ship something around the world than it was to ship it across a city.

It didn't come easy, and I'm sure that while it was happening, a lot of times it looked like it wouldn't happen. Without it, we wouldn't have anywhere near the amount of trade that we currently have.

Prior to containerization, the workflow was something like: load up a truck and drive it to a port. Unload the truck into a warehouse until the ship arrives. When the ship arrives, load the ship from the warehouse. Sail across ocean. Unload ship onto dock. Load truck from dock, drive truck to destination, unload.

With containerization, it takes less than 5 minutes to hoist a container from a truck/train and put it onto a ship. Previously, that amount of effort would have taken about 8 hours of manual labor moving cargo around.

Notes:
1 - http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller-Economy/dp/0691136408/
2 - London and NYC stopped being relevant ports as they were incapable of handling containers in any reasonable quantity. Boston (as well as London) had labor issues that delayed introduction of container handling until they became irrelevant.

[enigma_foundry]

Here's a post of mine that's relevant here, (are you following my blog, John?) from 18 May 2008, My review of the book "Box Boats"

But it was . . .
Sunday, 18 May 2008 — enigmafoundry

Just finished the book “Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World” by Brian Cudahy. It was an interesting and good book in many respects...

Especially significant is ... the importance of containers becoming a de facto standard, assisted by free source/open source methodology:

Measured against twentieth-century innovations in fields such as electronics or nuclear medicine, a thirty-five-foot box that can be securely stacked atop similar boxes and that can be lifted by a crane hardly seems like cutting edge technology. But it was, and Malcolm McLean’s foresight, in 1963, in freely forgoing the patent rights that his company held for the corner casting was an important factor in allowing the adoption of standards that permitted the extraordinary degree of interchangeability that remains a hallmark of the contemporary container ship industry. (page 40)
Modularity only works if it is a standard; standards spread when they are unencumbered. Simple solutions that take into account the totality of their effects on different systems are cutting edge technology.

http://enigmafoundry.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/but-it-was/

[lancemiller777atgmaildotcom]

Humans need civilization, and it is time we containerized it for safe passage through time, by maturing to a point where all are conscious of the flow, and where/when the free flow points and friction points should appropriately exist. Not a police state with police judging people's validity of movement, but a people state policing with a precision, decisiveness, violent intervention, wealth and innovation protection that makes police states of the past look like what they really were: weak, pathetically poor and stupid.

[SteveFromDelaware]

I've been researching the 1916-1917 capacity and mobility crisis that gridlocked the US transportation net for weeks at a time. One of the books I've encountered (thanks, Google Books!) is Edward L Hungerford's The Railroad Problem, published in early 1917.

Beginning on page 163, he describes with impressive detail the concept of a standard container and notes what a boon it could represent for railroads. He begins his coverage with the comment: "The idea, in itself, is not entirely new."

This observation does not mean to take anything away from Malcolm McClean's independent "lightbulb" moment. Hungerford's description instead highlights for me the difficulty in isolating any one trend or practice and studying it in detail without reflecting on the context within which the event or trend occurs.

Reading Hungerford's depiction of how this idea would be carried out, you can see how he just missed it. He gets the train part right; indeed, there's some real charm and a feeling of missed opportunity in his image of electric interurbans scurrying from one town to the next with containers on special cars. And he points out how much easier it would be implement a packing process away from the terminal area. He also shows how loading a ship might be simplified.

But he doesn't redesign the ship as a platform. Indeed, he speaks of placing the container in the lower hold where it would be difficult to reach and unload. From his vantage point as a railroad observer, he can see the technology and indeed can be credited with a good degree of foresight. But it's still limited.

Innovation is an awful lot like the evolution of a specific component (the eye, for example). It can occur many times, but will only "take" if the environment supports or the change, or at least does not attack it fatally. Notice that McLean's moment came in 1937, but his implementation came almost 2 decades later when more and more ship types were seen less as "ocean greyhounds" and more as movable containers - vessels. (My father, then nearing the end of a good career as a merchant marine officer, hated the effect on ship design of these developments. Whatever these new vessels were, they were certainly ugly ships.)

Your exploration of platforms can refer as well to the increasing division between weapon and platform in military design...but that's another topic, I suspect.

[enigma_foundry]

Beginning on page 163, he describes with impressive detail the concept of a standard container and notes what a boon it could represent for railroads. He begins his coverage with the comment: "The idea, in itself, is not entirely new."

SteveFromDelaware:

The fact that Malcom McLean was one of many who had come up with the same idea is covered in Brian Cudahy's book Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World Some even deleoped and put theidea into practice, one using railroad cars.

But Malcom's key insight was that he made the technology available--he open-sourced the patents for the container he invented. This is a quote from Brian Cudahy's book:

Measured against twentieth-century innovations in fields such as electronics or nuclear medicine, a thirty-five-foot box that can be securely stacked atop similar boxes and that can be lifted by a crane hardly seems like cutting edge technology. But it was, and Malcolm McLean’s foresight, in 1963, in freely forgoing the patent rights that his company held for the corner casting was an important factor in allowing the adoption of standards that permitted the extraordinary degree of interchangeability that remains a hallmark of the contemporary container ship industry. (page 40)

My apologies that this wasn't clear from my prior post, but the html function of blockquote apparently is disabled on this blog.

The review of Brian's book on my site can be found at the end of my prior comment (3 comments back)

Relevant to the concept of platform is the concept of infrastructure.

A best functional definition of infrastructure ever can be found here:

http://enigmafoundry.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/infrastructure/

http://enigmafoundry.wordpress.com/2006/12/09/the-ghost-map-5gw-the-answer-is-blowing-in-the-wind/

[docsharp01]

I enjoyed reading the comments and discussions on this subject. I found it to be very thought provoking and eye opening. Thanks for sharing.
http://www.pc-satellite-tv-reviews.com

[Truck Bed Covers]

Interesting story. Using trucks to ship merchandise from one location to another is one of the most effective and efficient ways of transportation. As the saying goes, "if you have it, a truck brought it."