Applying the principles of biomimicry to business: Wiebke Liu at TEDxOlympicBlvdWomen

Wiebke Liu is a Fortune 500 executive, McKinsey-trained strategist, consultant, entrepreneur, and proud mother. She combines her passion for business with her love for nature into a quest to help businesses shift to sustainable process and product design. She believes we must leave behind the straight-line industrial age methods of production, and embrace closed-loop processes with zero waste. This is how we will stop maximizing for just a few and start optimizing for all.
Wiebke's business career started in corporate finance at Deutsche Bank and spans consulting at McKinsey & Company, growing internet start-ups, running her own marketing consultancy, and leading marketing functions at Apollo Group, the world's largest online education provider. She has developed consumer brands including Apollo's Balloon.com, an online skills marketplace, and Innovator's Accelerator, the IDEO-designed innovation course with Harvard's Clayton Christensen. She has also designed sales and marketing programs for market leaders including Adobe, AT&T, Expedia, Microsoft, Peet's Coffee, Sun, Target, and the occasional winery.
In her TEDxOlympicBlvdWomen talk, Liu explores nature as the ultimate R&D lab and systems designer. Using examples including slime mold and honey bees, she shows how businesses can drive innovation by studying and mimicking nature. Liu urges businesses to apply nature's blueprints to create win-win value chains with the power to restore our planet.
About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

[@jnelder05]

The solutions provided by Nature and biomimicry are amazingly impactful. I don't know why we don't see more biomimicry solutions in business. Keep up this essential thought leadership.

[@piotr803]

Fascinating talk. And a living proof that German people can have a great sense of humour.

[@peaceandlove544]

This is becoming a Nature inspired business industry engineering innovation and Design sciences NIBIED its all about the zero waste Ecosystem mentality

[@miladnasiri393]

Great presentation and clear telling. Also love her humor!

[@stephmont67]

Great talk and fascinating insights. More businesses need to embrace these principles. A win for business doesn't have to mean a loss for the environment.

[@regenarrativa9265]

Wonderful to see business experts defending the living systems approach. But we must also consider is that nature doesn't only work in closed loops. Actually, for a living system to evolve, it must create extra energy (vitality). A closed loop eventually leads to enthropy, as there is always some level of dissipation of energy. If organizations are to biomimic, they must engage into fostering that quality that comes from the harmonious relationship among the parts and invite some level of chaos. Instead of being disharmony, chaos is in fact the predecessor of tipping points that take the system into a whole new state (or paradigm). That's why I love Regeneration so much: because it takes biomimicry and sustainability into an upper level of understanding.

[@puddy2014]

I want to hear more! Leadership is moving in a new direction and we all need more exposure to talks like this.

[@johnroney4002]

Awesome talk! Very interesting..

[@Robert-dt3is]

Any good books on this subject (Business Biomimicry)?

[@kateloftus1295]

Fascinating and inspiring!

[@wiebkeliu3403]

Thank you, Kate. Sustainability makes business sense - now we have to help business leaders see this and shift their thinking & leadership habits.