Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range

Global Brand Value Studies - How do they help business leaders?

2011-05-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

Brand is one of the most important assets a company "owns", broadly defined as the whole of customer sentiment towards your company. Although easily defined, brand is hard to value and even harder to manage. Interestingly, there seems to be more 3rd party insight available on the value of a brand than there is on the levers you can pull to impact that value; several companies put out annual brand value rankings. These rankings have always been interesting, but unless you are involved with mergers and acquisitions and need the brand value to calculate intangible assets, the rankings have done little to help the line managers wondering, "what levers can I pull"?

Millward Brown, a WPP company, just came out with its brand value study, called "Brand Z". Encouragingly, this year, they have begun to look at the levers a company can pull. The methodology to calculate brand value still requires a firm grasp of finance, but Millward Brown broke down a couple metrics that actually begin to have relevance to leaders ... specifically, they look at a customer's engagement with a brand over time (called TrustR) and a willingness to pay metric (called Value-D). These are business priorities around which there are real strategic conversations happening.

The brand value rankings are still likely to be used as "score cards" ... how did my company do, what do I need to justify spend ex post facto, etc. However, going beyond a single brand value is a step in the right direction of informing decision making and begins to move the study's relevance beyond just corporate bragging rights. The study is worth a read.

SuperBowl Advertising: Black Eyed Peas With Salesforce’s Chatter versus Darth Vader

2011-02-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

Every SuperBowl becomes a crucible for advertising. If a company is willing to pay ~$3 million for a 30 second spot and expose itself to the largest possible audience, it better be confident in its strategy, message, creative and the objective it hopes to achieve.

I thought a few ads were excellent. My favorites were little Darth Vader using the force to start the Volkswagen and Chrysler’s hard-nosed view of Detroit. However, for me the ad that stood out the most was from SalesForce.com for its Chatter product. It stood out because:

A business to business (B2B) company, SalesForce.com, used the ultimate pop culture pitchmen, the Black Eyed Peas. This is pretty uncommon in B2B. Accenture did it with Tiger Woods, a few other companies have done it. But most don’t make the pitchmen as integrated into the product and usually just trade off the pitchmen’s persona.

SalesForce.com was launching a product, Chatter, that is a fundamental new approach to business, breaking down the work/business silo. Whether or not Chatter or any of the other products deliver on the promise, this is quite a fundamental shift. Usually, companies control their internal collaboration and conversation. In this case, Chatter is offering itself as a platform, outside of the company, to enable dialogue.

The product is based on the concept of the cloud that about 90% of the audience probably does not need to understand. Microsoft has taken some admirable swipes at marketing the cloud .… touching up photos and watching television shows while stuck in the airport. Making the cloud an actual player in the ads is more interesting. Anyone 35 and younger probably views the cloud as standard operating procedure so I applaud the effort to not market the cloud so much as a concept and instead make it a supporting player in the ad.

The Chatter commercials seem to have been universally panned. However, I think it might actually have been one of the few that achieved its business objectives. We will never know what Marc Benioff and team wrote down in their marketing plans, but here is my take:

Linkage to clear call to action: Ads usually don’t drive the sale, but should be a chain in the sales process. In this case, I assume a large number of people actually visited the Chatter site. On the site, there was a clear next step … enter your business email and start engaging in your company’s conversation. I thought this was brilliant. Not a call to action for another white paper. Not some inane Facebook “like” request. This was something you could fundamentally have interest in.

Broad awareness achieved: SalesForce, unlike many other Enterprise software companies, needs the individual employee to be an advocate. I’m not sure of the audience size for the SuperBowl, but aided awareness for SalesForce has likely shot through the roof.

Buzz created: In today’s tech conversation everyone is trying to out-innovate everyone else. Although arguably much of the buzz has been negative, it’s still buzz, people are talking, etc. There is also plenty of places to take SalesForce’s approach into popular culture given how ubiquitous the Black Eyed Peas are.

Overall, I’m not sure how SalesForce justified its ROI on this advertising spend, but of all the advertisements, I think this is one that might have made the most business sense. Sure, every ad could be improved and this one is no exception; perhaps a different creative approach would have made this more enjoyable, but I'm not sure it would have made it have more impact. As I wrote, my favorite ad was Darth Vader with the Volkswagen … but enjoyment and impact aren’t correlated. I’m not going to buy a Volkswagen, but I might check out the Chatter site.

Gulf Coast Oil Spill - Early thoughts on the response

2010-04-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

Almost two weeks into what promises to be one of the largest spills in US history, questions are beginning to come up about the decision timeline around the response. Given the response went through a standard command and control model any of the actions can be considered against the standard operating procedure and the assumptions that feed into that operating procedure. Below are some early thoughts based on these two categories. Please note these aren't based on inside knowledge and may prove incorrect once more details come out.

Search & Rescue needs to be separated from environmental response at the outset: Usually, marine incidents feed up into one centralized command center. Anyone in this command center is going to focus immediately on the possibility of saving lives as they should. In parallel, though, a separate structure should immediately be set up to focus on the oil spill. That way, both events get full focus. This approach usually should happen; what will be telling is how quickly this separate structure was set up and in place.

Faulty assumptions likely exacerbated the spill impact: The first assumption was based on a perceived understanding of oil rig design that there should have been a safety that stopped the flow of oil. This assumption likely meant that during the first flurry of conversations, experts thought there would be no danger of a large scale spill. The second assumption was about the size of the leak which went from 5K to 10K barrels a day. Given the dispersion of an oil spill is based on basic variables like amount of oil, wind direction and current, the models of how big the spill would get were likely wrong.

These assumptions seem to have lead to a delay in recognizing the size of the problem and the subsequent deploying of other resources like commercial vessels and the US Navy. Unfortunately, this also means that the spill is exponentially larger (by area) and harder to contain than if the severity had been recognized and responded to at the outset.

How will this play into the future? The standard operating procedures should be modified to include checks into the assumptions that exacerbated this spill. There will be debate about first response actions (e.g., what happens when the first notice of an oil spill is received). Given we don't exist in a world of unlimited resources, every spill can't be treated like the "big one" before all the facts are known. However, there will likely be considerable debate about what the first response should look like in the future and whether it needs to be bolstered.

Icelandic Volcanoes: Networks, Risk Management & Innovation

2010-04-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

Network resiliency, risk management and innovation are frequent topics of discussion when it comes to the economic system meltdown. Any system, however, can be looked at through the same high-level lenses. This holds true for the air transportation system which has seen airlines, travelers and businesses impacted by a giant cloud of silica spewed out from an Icelandic volcano. With the air transportation system shut down, there are lessons to be learned in how businesses/governments think about networks and then how that impacts the very real decisions made around risk management and innovation.

(1) Networks are resilient only to the extent their underlying operating systems are stable. One hears a lot about how networks are resilient, that specific nodes can be taken offline without impacting the functioning of the overall network. However, when the operating principle of the network is disrupted, the network isn't resilient and ceases to function. In this case, the operating principle (ability to route around what are usually short term, localized atmospheric conditions) of the air transportation network was disrupted effectively shutting it down. This demonstrates that focus needs to not only be on protecting network nodes, but also the basic underlying operating systems. This has often received less focus than protecting individual nodes when ensuring the continuity of networks we depend on ... international shipping system, electrical grid, etc. It gets to the heart of risk management.

(2) Risk Management. Formalized risk management systems are all the rage in a lot of companies, yet in many cases they become sterile exercises where everything is included and nothing is effectively mitigated. How many airline companies had: "Large scale atmospheric disturbances, resulting from volcanic ash" in their risk management systems? Likely very few.

(3) Innovation to manage risk or make money off of it. Some reports say that there were past volcanic eruptions in Iceland that today could cause an ash cloud that persists for months. Somewhere, there is a company or inventor thinking about a jet engine filter to allow planes to fly safely through volcanic silica. Perhaps, this was even proposed in the past, but was never acted on because a volcano was considered a "black swan" or the cost was too high. In any case, what may not have been a priority in the past, likely will be today as the airlines lose market cap and businesses of every type suffer losses ranging from productivity to product spoilage.

Anticipation building as a marketing tactic

2008-01-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Apple's Macworld is a study in the art of extreme anticipation building. The level of anticipation is so great that Apple watchers obsessvively look for clues, scour leaks for authenticity and count down to the announcement of the next great product. The whole thing is more similar to recent movie marketing epitomized by JJ Abrams and his Cloverfield campaign ... engage enthusiasts through very controlled information delivery and then launch the product in a extremely hyped environment with minimal preview.

Apple's extreme anticipation building has clearly worked in the past (e.g., iPhone). Is it an approach that should be used as THE method for product launches? There isn't a clear cut answer, but there are some key questions that Apple must have considered to validate its current approach:

Share value: MacWorld creates a very compressed, binary event for investors. Apple stock is extremely volatile during Macworld. Would a more conservative product launch approach reduce stock volatility?

Revenue: Macworld clearly has many enthusiasts that want to purchase what is announced immediately. Would a more traditional product launch schedule be better attuned to products that are >$500 where some will buy based on research and others will buy based on brand?

Cost: Macworld must clearly be the key date in the life of many developers at Apple. Does this one year cycle put artificial constraints/deadlines on the R&D cycle and delay products coming to market?

Competitors: Macworld provides a point in time announcement that prevents competitors from scooping Apple. Is this advantage substantial or does it not matter given the prevalence of fast followers?

Everyone is Replaceable

2007-04-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

My company had a management shift recently when one of the executives decided to depart. The stock market cut through all the discussion about the departure and declared loud and clear that everyone is replaceable; the stock currently trades above the price when the departure was first announced.

Beyond all of the discussion, though, is the question of what any organization has to replace when a key personality leaves. Senior executives are usually one of three things:

"leaders" (they set the vision)
"managers" (they make sure things get done)
"evangelist" (they sell the company to customers, the markets and employers ... beyond the traditional definition of sales).

It is the rare individual who successfully embodies all three.

Which of the three is the hardest to replace? My initial answer was "leader". I reconsidered after reading the book "Halsey's Typhoon", by Drury and Clavin, which detailed how Admiral Halsey took his Third Fleet through a typhoon in WWII, losing close to 800 men. He clearly made mistakes, but wasn't relieved of command. Why? Well, it's not because he was the only "leader"; there were plenty of oversized personalities setting vision. It's not because he was the only "manager"; Admiral Spruance was arguably a more effective manager. I believe he wasn't relieved because he was the greatest "evangelist" of the US effort to both his sailors and the American public.

So, how does this translate into a lesson for the organization? As much as you have to have succession plans in place for leaders and managers, companies need to carefully monitor who becomes their chief evangelist as well. Having too much tied to one person doesn't mean they aren't replaceable, but the transition is easier when the responsibility is spread.

Search and Rescue, the US Coast Guard & Web 2.0

2007-02-04T14:22:00.000-08:00

Doctor Gray, a renown technologist, disappeared while sailing off Northern California. The Coast Guard did a thorough search before calling off the effort; most search and rescue stories would have unfortunately ended here. However, Doctor Gray's colleagues and the public mounted an impressive effort that put technology to work to continue the search. Those still hoping need only look to the pantheon of "survival at sea stories" for inspiration.

So, how is this effort actually helping the search? By working on some of the components of the search and rescue equation. Although there is some art to search and rescue, there is a lot of science as well. There is a basic equation that drives all search planning which I have paraphrased. More info is available.

The Probability that you are searching in the right area

The Probability that you will spot the survivor

The Probability of finding a survivor

The civilian effort supporting Doctor Gray improves The Probability that you are searching in the right area. It's not easy to find the right spot to search in a giant ocean. A Search and Rescue planner has to make a best estimate of where the mariner might be so that he/she can focus limited resources. By posting satellite images on Amazon's mechanical Turk that anyone can search, more bandwidth is being thrown at the problem; now you don't have to be constrained by searching a small area. This is what people are calling the Web 2.0 portion of this. Perhaps closer to open source, the modular and self contained nature of each satellite picture allows the overall effort to be divided up between many participants.

However, the civilian effort is still constrained by The Probability that you will spot the survivor. Although you might be looking at a satellite photo of the right area, cloud cover, inexperience, carelessness could prevent spotting the survivor. By having multiple people look at the same image, carelessness can be screened out, but the clarity of the photo is still a limiting factor. A survivor once told us a Coast Guard helicopter had flown right over him. Night, high seas and rain, though, lowered the The Probability that you will spot the survivor.

So, is there potential here for the Coast Guard? SETI is a proven distributed effort. Crowdsourcing is being considered as a viable solution. If the Coast Guard wants to extend and formalize this effort, there are a few next steps starting with proof of concept. I'm not sure if there is opportunity here, but I hope it is evaluated to find out.

Validate the ability to search using satellites photos. Can the average person spot a sailboat? Could a computer program be made to do it? How often will weather prevent a suitable picture?
Gauge the interest of the public to help more anonymous mariners. Would civilians mobilize to help out a mariner without a large public persona?
Evaluate how quickly people would mobilize. Help needs to begin immediately as the chance for survival is a function of time.

One more comment on this story. I've read a few comments that the Coast Guard gave up and that simply gives the wrong impression. Sometimes the duration of disappearance, weather conditions and other factors make survival unlikely. In those cases, the Coast Guard has to weigh the extreme unlikelihood of finding a survivor against the danger to its own crews and the need to perform other missions, which include search and rescue for someone else. Believe me, as someone who has had to inform people that the Coast Guard was suspending a search, you do everything possible. It's not an easy decision and it certainly is not giving up.

Baffling behavior in Boston ...

2007-02-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

The two men arrested for executing the viral marketing campaign that set off the Boston terror scare made truly baffling comments to the press after leaving the courthouse. The situation hasn't changed and the corporate sponsors still deserve the brunt of any consequences.

But any sympathy the city felt for those two has been squandered. Imagine how much different it would have been if they had expressed even a bit of contrition ... or even made a reasonable statement about how they felt they had been set up. It's such a dichotomy to think of the thousands of kids serving in the middle east compared to these two guys who don't even have enough respect for our society to make an intelligible statement.

Deconstructing A False Alarm: Boston invaded by Mooninites

2007-01-31T19:19:00.000-08:00

The Department of Homeland Security's color coded threat scheme has been the subject of jokes since introduction. Until today, I didn't have a better solution. Well, seeing the Boston politicians trip over themselves tonight to appear tough on the Cartoon Network's viral marketing campaign, it's clear what the new threat scheme should be. You could even use different color lights on the "mooninite" (the symbol for the Cartoon Network Show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force") to indicate threat severity.

It's easy to mistake nothing for something. About 10 years ago, I was involved with shutting down a major waterway because of a "suspicious device"; turned out to be an old microwave with some aluminum foil duct taped onto the top. False alarms are a fact of life. What matters is how quickly the system validates a threat. There is a lot of second guessing going on in Boston about why it took so long to invalidate the threat. Maybe there is some validity to this, but I give them the benefit of the doubt. Best case, maybe the city could have invalidated the threat a couple of hours earlier ... probably not worth quibbling about.

Just as important as response, though, is after action. How do you clean up the mess, how do you learn from the process, what do you tell the public. It's only been 5 hours, but I think the initial grade here is a "D". I had a visceral reaction to the politicians triumphantly announcing an arrest superimposed against footage of the downtrodden artist they arrested. After action is supposed to make citizens feel safer. Legality aside, his arrest made me feel like the city is petty and focused on the wrong things. Of course, I didn't sit in traffic for 4 hours because the roads were shut down ...

As for Turner, I don't know the details or legal issues so I'll keep my judgment in abeyance. I do think that the job of any product manager is to manage risk; I'd be surprised if risk wasn't considered before putting up 100+ signs in over 5 cities.

picture source: CNN, Cartoon Network

Abdicating Responsibility

2006-12-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

One of the byproducts of a safety net is that some people seek a free ride. There are those that truly need the safety net because of mistakes and those that purposefully use the safety net for their advantage. The latter type of person is a freeloader who is a drain on the entire system.

Last week I was in Nantucket reading the local paper and there was a picture of this kiteboarder who had gone out into the harbor in extreme weather. You have to wonder if he would have gone out into this extreme weather if there wasn't a Coast Guard available to back him up.

I have no idea if this guy consciously knew he was abdicating responsibility for his safety. What I do know, is that 7 years ago I had to plan a rescue mission for the same guy when he had gone out into a gale and gotten washed out to sea. At the time, I was in charge of Coast Guard resources from New Jersey to Maine. I had to order two boats and two helicopters to look for him which was risky, not to mention expensive. The cost of this freeloader got absorbed into the overall cost of the safety net.

Experience that matters in corporate America

2006-10-31T19:10:00.000-08:00

I believe John Kerry when he said that he wasn't intending to insult those serving in military by calling them uneducated. Kerry is one of the few in the Senate who actually served in the military and I find it hard to believe he would purposefully insult the armed forces.

That said, Kerry's comments were misplaced and suggestive of a broader theme. There are a lot of preconceived notions in the private sector about how a military background measures up in the civilian sector. With the hindsight of now having more years in the corporate world than the military, I know that military experience can be a great contributor to business success. However, many young former military officers feel they need to minimize their military experience to appeal to those in corporate recruiting. I probably did a bit of the same thing.

I remember one dinner with an investment bank during Harvard's recruiting process. I was sitting next to a managing director who asked, "How would taking down a smuggling operation ever be useful to my firm? Frankly I don't see any way you could fit." Maybe it was a test and I probably should have had a better retort at the time. I would now. Leading a multi-national effort (US, Dutch, Colombian), across a matrixed organization (US State Department, US Navy), using unstructured data (intel, analysis,) in a high stress environment to a successful conclusion. How couldn't that experience be considered relevant? The rest of the stuff (high seas, night time boardings, etc) is just window dressing.

My advice today to an officer going through the experience is to not give any company the time of day that doesn't value your experience.

Google Groups Lacks Social Network Diagnostic Tools

2006-09-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

One of the best aspects about running groups online in a contained environment should be the ability to diagnose the groups using the ideas of social network analysis. Identifying who is central to the conversation, who is quiet but respected or who is a connector is fairly basic as long as you know who communicates with who and in what order. Google Groups unfortunately doesn't allow any of this basic analysis. The only information shared is the number of posts by each individual.

The social networking information is a fairly valuable dataset. I would be surprised if Google isn't analyzing this information on the backend and adding to its great store of data on the way we interact.

Splitting My Blog - One Enterprise Software, One Everything Else

2006-09-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

I am going to launch a new blog and will now have two:

New: Business Of Software with an explicit focus on enterprise software
Original (this blog): Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range with its more general focus

I will do dual posts while I get the word out. If you read me only for software, please update your feeds: http://businessofsoftware.blogspot.com/

I hope this brings a sharper focus, especially since I have had the opportunity to recently take the lead for a great enterprise focused strategy team.

Is that "business background" relevant?

2006-09-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

The upcoming Massachusetts Governor's election is the latest to host multiple candidates touting successful business careers as omens of success. I'm leery of the blanket "business background" is good mentality. You have to dive to the second-level questions to really understand whether a business background is relevant. Given what is important in Massachusetts, below are some relevant second order questions for the candidates:

Did you have P&L level responsibility (with P&L interpreted widely)?
Did you spend more than 70% of your time in business on execution as opposed to process (e.g., not HR, legal, finance., etc)
Were you in charge of the strategy for your business?
If you were on a board of directors, did you ever vote against the CEO and with the minority?

Frankly, if the answer to any of the above questions is no, their business background isn't that relevant to the needs of Massachusetts which needs a Governor that will give this state some vision, sign up for results and execute.

Why isn't the upperclass serving in the military?

2006-08-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

There is no shortage of people pointing out that today's upperclass are not serving in the military. Ben Stein just ran another piece about this in Sunday's NYT. And you consistently hear about how only a couple members of congress have children in the military. Why is this? There is a tendency to answer by pointing to a sense of declining national responsibility that hasn't been strong since Brokaw's "greatest generation". But this answer really doesn't hold up to scrutiny and we are past a period where national responsibility was defined by serving in the military.

So what are the structural reasons for declining upperclass representation in the military? The all encompassing, obvious answer is that the military isn't attractive to many upperclass youth when stacked up against other options. Although the leadership, management and crisis response lessons learned as a Junior Officer are second to none, the military often doesn't give people that same amount of entrepreneurial freedom found in the civilian world.

Should the nation be concerned? No. The military is going to function well no matter its makeup; it doesn't need upperclass representation to work better, an argument that in fact smacks of elitism. The one argument often used is the "I care about my own" argument which states that if more members of Congress had children serving, the debate around going to war would be more considered. However, war's cost and its impact on the balance of power are probably already enough to hold Congressional attention.

You thought your last product launch was complicated ...

2006-08-16T15:52:00.000-07:00

A US operation netted Mexico's most powerful drug cartel leader about 15 miles off the Baja coast today. He was a particular favorite of the US in the mid to late 90's when there were rumors he put a blanket bounty out for the death of US law enforcement officers.

I question the strategy behind our US drug policy, but that said, this operation was flawlessly executed. I don't have hard facts on success rates, but I estimate that maybe 1 in 20 operations are successful, let alone netting a target this high profile. The news report doesn't fully capture the coordination, planning, execution and luck that all had to fall in place to drive a win.

Planning & Coordination

The right intelligence sources had to be identified
The intelligence sources had to be able to collect the information ... probably a mix of human intelligence, signals intelligence and other things
The intelligence had to be analyzed and disseminated to the right operators
The inter-agency planners had to come up with a plan to execute & get multiple agencies to agree

Dumb Luck

The bad guys had to be outside of Mexican territorial seas (12 miles) for the US to be able to act under international law. It's likely the US couldn't have coordinated with Mexican officials quickly enough if he had stayed within Mexican waters

Execution

There had to be a US asset, in this case the Coast Guard Cutter Monsoon (picture below), within striking distance
The Coast Guard had to find these guys ... made significantly easier with technology, but its a big Ocean
The boarding teams had to be on their game to successfully bring them in
Prosecution ... we will see how this goes

Many military officers making the transition to a civilian business career are put on the hot seat about how their experiences apply to the business world. This operation would be a textbook answer to that question; the ability to drive complicated plans from development to completion, with all the facets that entails. There have been enough botched product launches, failed integrations and ineffective re-orgs to know this skill should be in high demand.

Function follows form in the command center

2006-08-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've posted in the past that the command center of reality is different from that of fiction. I'd be as motivated as Jack Bauer in "24" if I could work in that sweet command center he had.

Well, turns out I'm wrong. There are cool command centers. Check out this picture from the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va (source: Evan Vucci/Associated Press).

The place has a cool look to it, at least from this camera angle. Although my experience was in a regional versus national command center, this one has everything we dreamt about:

The requisite two levels. If you are in charge, you can survey activity from the second level and run down the stairs in an emergency to get involved in the action ... (we had only one level and it was less dramatic to be called over when something was happening)
Large LCD map hanging on the walls to monitor activity ... (we had a 19 inch TV set which my Chief Petty Officer used to watch "Real TV")
Glassed in conference rooms ... (we had the typical corporate conference room)
Cool architecture ... (we had something that resembled a 70's classroom)
Three monitor work stations ... (we had two)
Some kind of flashing red status lights (we didn't have any although once a reporter mistook our flashing red phones for some kind of status light; I didn't correct her)

Seriously speaking, this is great. There is a bit of function following form when it comes to performance. Architecture and design has a huge impact on how one can feel about his/her job and can even improve focus and intensity. Who knows if they solved the age-old command center problem of field communications, but I'd want to work there.

Dell: What could have been learned from the 1982 Tylenol Recall

2006-08-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

One of business school's most touted leadership case studies is about J&J's 1982 Tylenol recall. J&J acted immediately and at a cost of over $100 million to pursue action in the best interest of the consumer. In the end, it was in the best interest of the Tylenol brand, which to this day remains a top global seller.

Dell could learn something from J&J's action. Although its battery problem has yet to completely play out, the defects and more importantly the response could further erode its customer service reputation. The take aways from J&J's crisis management actions were:

Declare a crisis to defuse a crisis: Doesn't matter whether the company believes something is a crisis or not ... if the customer believes it, it's true
Act immediately: Lead time between first report and action should be less than 72 hours
Act transparently: Tell everyone what you are doing
Take responsibility
Make it easy for the customer

It took awhile for Dell to respond as pictures of exploding batteries circulated virally. No doubt, Dell was examining the battery to determine if there actually was a problem. But that goes against the first rule "Declare a crisis to defuse a crisis". Action was slow. Time will tell whether customers find it easy to work with the recall.

Appropriate crisis management is not only responsible, it's also a sound business decision. Recalling 4.1 million batteries will likely cost Dell and Sony more than $100 million. However, with a slow response, Dell allowed negative publicity to steamroll. This actually could be costlier in the long run.

Debate Tactics Around The War

2006-08-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

There is a science to debating in which it's less about being right and more about outfoxing your opponents, painting them into a corner and forcing them to use their time to argue irrelevant points. Just watch "Meet The Press" on Sunday and you will see what I'm talking about. It's an effective tactic, but also infuriating to those who just want to drive a decision based on facts.

The "support our troops" line of conversation can often be used as such a debate tactic. Most in the military like moral support, but what they really care about is good equipment, equitable pay and clear mission parameters. When most people say they "support our troops" they back it up with the same level of sacrifice they give when supporting the Red Sox or Yankees. There are obviously exceptions.; if you are one of them, this doesn't apply to you.

So, if most people don't actually make any substantial sacrifices, why do most debates about the Iraq War include a self conscious "support our troops" component? It actually sidetracks both war opponents and war proponents. War opponents have to craft troop support into their arguments. War proponents have to explain how the latest military scandal doesn't negate any value from the overall effort.

The current Middle East crisis, most directly involving Israel & Lebanon, has really driven this point home. Most there don't seem preoccupied with a military self-consciousness that side-tracks discussion, but are instead focused on debating whether or not a war should be pursued. This is likely because most of their citizens are personally impacted by the decision and can't afford to be distracted by debate tactics ... amazing how real sacrifice focuses a discussion. I hope future decisions in the US are as focused on the salient issues.

note: this post isn't a "for or against" post. It is a "how" post. At this point what matters is how we make the national decision regarding our next conflict.

Data and Social Policy

2006-07-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

I’ve been on a data kick lately focused mainly on corporations. Well, reality is corporations have decent data compared against the available data citizens and governments have around making certain social policy decisions. One such area I’ve been personally interested in is day care.

This area is charged and everyone is colored by the decisions they have already made. Ask parents who have sent their kid to day care and they will say it is a great thing for development. Ask parents who raised their kid at home and they will say it is a great thing for development. Neither wants to hear about “data” if it goes against the decision they already made.

So is there data on the impact of daycare on child development? In fact, there were two large studies in the last five years, one in the US and one in the UK. I haven’t digested the complete body of work, but in the sample of articles I have read the common theme is that kids under the age of three (and especially under the age of two) are negatively impacted by daycare; evaluators somehow rated these kids as more “anti-social” & “aggressive” and they scored ~3% lower on standardized tests than children raised at home. Now, at first glance this seems cut and dry, but there are some valid questions:

• Are the findings time-bound? So a kid did worse on a standardized test at age 6, but what happens at age 8? Age 15?
• Can I cut this multiple ways to see the impact of other variables?
• How is anti-social behavior determined? If it’s independence, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m sure it’s written up somewhere what the criteria were, but I haven’t found it yet. Anti-social is a strong worth with some pretty vivid implications and I don’t know if it’s warranted.
• What about the impact of limited daycare? Say 30 hours a week versus 50?

In the end, I don’t know if data would ever cut this Gordian Social knot … three desires that appear to be difficult to align, especially if the day care studies have valid findings:

• Parents want to earn a living and have kids
• Governments want both parents in the workforce to drive economic growth
• Society wants well adjusted kids who arguably turn into well adjusted, contributing adults

Right now, the government/business policy towards child rearing is not optimized. The US Family and Medial Leave Act guarantees 12 weeks off after giving birth and many companies provide pay during his period. But, 12 weeks only gives women time to recover, not to have significant impact on their child’s development. Businesses must balance those who take the maternity leave & pay and don’t return to work with those who want to return to work. Even those who want to return are usually forced to return fulltime within the first year. The tax incentives around child care are a mixed bag as well.

In a democracy, parents have the freedom to make their own decision. But as a society, the government can set policies that “nudge” these decisions one way or the other to promote overall security and growth. Right now these policies don’t make a forceful statement. In the end, though, a weak statement is better than codifying a bad statement.

Why is it so difficult to execute a data strategy?

2006-06-22T18:25:00.000-07:00

Jim Collins presented the keynote at IDC's forum last week. Jim is energetic and always has some great points. What struck me from his presentation was one quote. I don't have it exactly right, but he said something along the lines of, "Great companies have an unrelenting focus on the data." Data is important because it is turned into information which is used to optimize your company's operations and strategy.

I agree with Jim. Walmart has an unrelenting focus on data and is arguably a great company. However, the Walmart example is the exception and not the rule. Go into any leading strategy consulting company and ask the rank and file consultant what the bane of his/her existence is .... it's the lack of data at clients!

The focus, effort and budget necessary to collect good data are not immaterial. Below are the components necessary for a good, closed loop data strategy. Falling short on any of them torpedoes the whole effort:

identify what data is important to decision making
collect the important data
analyze the data to produce information
use this information in decision making

Even in a company that has the systems, process and headcount necessary to turn data into information, the biggest battle still exists - step 4 - getting executives to make decisions based on this data. Probably because of their experience, many senior executives trust gut more than analysis. In some cases they are probably right to do so, but a "pick and choose" data strategy can never be effective. A data strategy that is politicized will also fail.

It all comes down to leadership. Unless the CEO and leadership team are the ones pushing the unrelenting focus on the data, a data strategy probably isn't going to be a very successful effort. It can't be a bottoms up effort.

Objects in the mirror may appear more Open Sourced than they actually are

2006-05-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

Over the last five years, I've done a few projects on Open Source, first at a strategy consultant firm and then for an enterprise software company. I've looked at Open Source from three primary frameworks: trying to describe it as an ecosystem, dissecting it as a business model and detailing it from a customer perspective. From these projects, its apparent that open source is not a monolith, it's different things to different people. This comment raises the hackles of some who object to the idea that Open Source is a "flavor" that can be injected into most anything a company does, not necessarily requiring an open source license.

Yes, I agree from a pure taxonomy standpoint, many of these things might not be "purely" Open Source. However, the Open Source label really doesn't mean much for a business or customer. Business or customers are after the results that open source can deliver to them, not open source itself.

Why this set-up? Because things aren't always what they seem. There are a lot of new companies out there branding themselves open source, but when you dissect their business model, they are really quite traditional. On the other hand, there are businesses out their that don't appear to embrace open source, but when you dissect their business models, they have surprising open source "flavor". If you heard there was a development community that had 500,000 members that contributed 80% of the content, you might think it was developed around an open source company? This actually referring to SAP's own development forum (SDN).

There is still a place to talk about open source as a classification. However, as a business or customer, the focus should be on the resulting benefits of open source. Business and customers are focused on development cost, quality, product cost, distribution, customization services, innovation and community support. In some cases, open source might be the best option, while in other cases traditional models are the right choice. The bottom line, though, is look beyond the models to what is actually delivered.

Can the government actually do anything useful with telephone data?

2006-05-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

Beyond the debate about whether the Government should be collecting phone record data is whether or not anything useful can come from the effort. An action can be right or wrong, independent of whether it is effective or ineffective. This post focuses on effectiveness; I'm not addressing legality.

A few years back, the idea of Total Information Awareness (TIA) was floated. The idea was shot down under the auspices of privacy, but many also felt that it was good in theory, but would yield limited practical results. This new data collection effort is a subset of what TIA aspired to do.

What the government seems to have collected from the phone companies is a lot of data around telephone calls ... Origin, destination, date/time and probably duration. This data in and of itself is not information. Information is the reduction of uncertainty that can be used in the decision making process. So what is the government doing with this data to turn it into information? The New York Times wrote, "Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said the NSA was using the data to analyze calling patterns in order to detect and track suspected terrorist activity, according to information provided to him by the White House."

I assume the government is applying a sophisticated version of Social Network Analysis to all of the data. Social Network Analysis can provide both forward looking and backward looking information. Forward looking analysis would be used to develop intelligence to disrupt a future action. Backward looking analysis would be used to identify the participants in an action that already took place. Both are useful to our intelligence and law enforcement community, but forward looking, preventive intelligence is more important to most Americans.

For Social Network analyses to be forward looking you need to put some filters around the data to isolate the networks that are useful. Without some filters it would be hard to isolate any useful patterns. I can't imagine that there would be emergent patterns in the phone data to allow identification of a home-grown attack. Yes, if there are calls to foreign countries, these would trigger suspicion, but planning for an attack would probably fit the same profile of calls that take place around planning a trip or a wedding. Some piece of information beyond just the call data is needed.

Although the government may not have received any identity information from the phone companies, this doesn't prevent it from merging identify information from other government databases with the telephone numbers to provide a rich data set. If this isn't possible, then I don't understand how the data could provide any forward looking, actionable intelligence.

"Flash Blog" Experiment With The Boston Marathon

2006-05-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

The blogosphere, like most things, has taken on somewhat of a hierarchical structure. The A-list bloggers get most of the mindshare while most others are relegated to the "long tail". However, are there areas of the blogoshpere where A-list bloggers might not be in control of mindshare? The answer comes down to why people read blogs. The first reason is to be engaged in a community, whether it is around business or politics. A-list bloggers will probably always dominate this sphere. The second reason people read blogs is to find information on a specific topic. I believe it is here where the "long tail" can gain mindshare. To test this, I decided to run an experiment on something called a flash blog; a short-life blog on a limited topic. My hypothesis was that a short lifespan blog that provided real-time information around a time-limited event might grab some blogosphere mindshare.

This year's Boston Marathon provided a good base for the experiment. Wouldn't someone rather read a blog from a runner actually running the course than a journalist covering the event? The morning of the race, I launched a new blog with one introductory post. I then ran the marathon as a non-qualified runner (e.g., "bandit") and wrote 8 posts from my blackberry before and during the race. The day after the race, I posted a race wrap-up entry. Here is an analysis of the blog traffic, looking at returning visitors as a percentage of total visitors:

I did not completely "control" this experiment; I told four friends and co-workers about the blog, one who subsequently blogged about it on the day of the race and another who sent an email blast the day after the race. It's impossible for me to completely separate those who found this site through search versus those who were "pushed" the site, but from what I could tell, quite a few found the site through search. Here is what I took away from my quasi-experiment:

The blog's lifespan was intense and short. Traffic essentially dried up after the third day, with only sporadic visitors still coming. Readers understood the nature of the flash blog and its limited focus; they didn't come back expecting more content a week after the event.
Readers fell into either a "real-time" or "wrap-up" category. "Real-time" readers read posts on the day of the race and were engaged, with ~69% of them returning to follow the progress. "Wrap-up" readers read all the posts after the race in one sitting with less repeat traffic.
Reader commitment and participation was low. I believe that readers only wanted the "play by play" and nothing else. I received only a few comments and these were from acquaintances.
Legitimacy was achieved by the fact that I was "on the ground". There was no other reason for people to read my posts. I provided no biographical data.

So, with any experiment, the key question is, what can flash blogs be used for? Here are a two thoughts:

Provide focused, short term coverage with no commitment. Most blogs are perpetual and require some commitment from the writer and reader. Implicit in their build, flash blogs are casual and quick relationships, more akin to news articles. An individual can use them to provide one-off information on something he or she feels important about. A corporation can use them in its marketing plan for very short-term product launch coverage. To some extent, companies have been doing this.
Use mindshare from a flash blog as an on-ramp to a perpetual blog. Taking advantage of traffic around a certain event, an individual could funnel the traffic to a perpetual blog. Readers gain because they "try out" the content before becoming a perpetual reader.

I'm sure others have tested these concepts more thoroughly and likely have ideas; I'd be interested to hear them.

Strategy Consultants Strike Again? ... This time at eBay

2006-04-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

In today's WSJ story about Ebay's co-opetition dance with Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, consultants are given some responsibility for laying a faulty foundation that lead to Ebay's predicament

"Few at eBay initially saw reason to fear Google, say people at the company, in part because of a 2003 study it commissioned from McKinsey & Company concluded that Google wouldn't use its search capabilities to break into e-commerce. That made Google a manageable threat, say people familiar with the study."

Obviously, Ebay wants to put the blame for this on someone else; when in doubt blame the consultants. Good in theory, but seldom are strategy consulting recommendations baked without CONSIDERABLE input and direction from the client. I don't know the details of the Ebay study mentioned, but I bet it consisted of 3-4 consultants and 1-2 ebay employees. The findings were probably thoroughly baked with Ebay executives. I'm not defending a study that so obviously was incorrect. But as an Ebay shareholder, I hold management responsible for making that incorrect call. Consultants are, at best, a tool. Consultants are not responsible to share holders, most don't have equity ownership in their clients and most will not work at the same client more than once or twice.

Having been a strategy consultant and worked at companies that employ strategy consultants, I am amazed at how they are utilized. Fortune 500 companies would be well advised to have an internal consulting management group, which does nothing but manage consultanting engagements. The ROI of consulting projects is consistently under attack. Some of the problem lies with the consultants. Some of the problem lies with the executives who don't know how to engage with consultants, wasting considerable budget on their services.

The Art Of The Upsell

2006-04-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was in a Blockbuster store and I heard the manager talking to his associate. The manager said, "The store looks pretty good, but you guys need to do more upselling at the cash register .... popcorn, gift certificates, whatever ... you need to do it." Unable to resist, I asked the manager how much additional revenue he brought in through the upsell. I got a polite, "I can't really say", but I'm not sure if he even knew. When I told him that in fact, I found the upsell so annoying that I would avoid stores that do it if I had a substitute, he thanked me for my advice. I doubt he spent last night building an excel model to balance the lifetime value of a customer versus the value of the upsell.

I really dislike the upsell around ubiquitous, commodity products. If I wanted popcorn, I probably could have gauged and responded to that desire on my own. I only appreciate the upsell when it is a value play for the customer where the customer either

saves money (e.g., supersize this) or
where the product has some unknown or confusing features (e.g., sommelier who says try this pinot noir instead of that one because it better matches the food, even though it is more expensive) or
where the customer doesn't know about an option (e.g. navigation system on a car)

When the upsell is only around making more money for the business, it is so blatant that I could actually see it driving some customers away ... it has a negative impact on the brand. I think this principle is probably true no matter what you are selling .... cars, movies, enterprise software, whatever.

The old saying, though, about never projecting your own thoughts onto the whole customer base holds true. I'd be curious to see some numbers on this to determine if there is sizable revenue bump from the commodity upsell. Maybe more people than I think actually appreciate being reminded to buy popcorn.

Information Overload - from a decision perspective

2006-04-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting discussion yesterday about information overload. The framework, though, was from a decision perspective: What percentage of decisions made are based on what percentage of information collected.

In my own life, I hypothesize that easily 80% of decisions I make are based on 20% of information I take in. In other words, 80% of what I read has no real bearing on what I choose to do.

Daily, I daily read the WSJ and various websites/blogs. Weekly, I read the Sunday NYT, Economist and a book or two. There is not only a lot of redundant information there, but a lot of information that is never even applied to a decision. That's not to say I'm going to stop reading all those sources. There is a lot of satisfaction in "knowledge for knowledge's sake". There is also social and entertainment value derived from information independent of its use in decision making.

For corporations or governments, however, where each piece of information carries a cost in either time or money, that 80% of information needs to be cut back. What form does it take? Unnecessary consulting reports, overlapping group output, unnecessary email trains, decks with no impact on a decision, etc.

How do corporations and governments solve this? Some of it is tools. Our group is using Wiki's which cuts down on unnecessary information such as vapid email trains. However, I think a lot of this is cultural. You need strong leadership that is able to say, "No, we aren't paying for another consulting report, we have all the information we need." That is really difficult to do. You can't expect someone who appreciates "knowledge for knowledge's sake" to suddenly flip a switch and be a different person at work where information is purely utilitarian.

The 57 flavors of Open Source business models

2006-04-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

Last month I wrote that open source isn't a monolith ... it's different things to different people. With this framework in mind, it was interesting to hear THE open source business model practitioners discuss the topic on a panel at Linux World. Included were Marten Mickos from MySQL, John Roberts from SugarCRM, Marc Fleury from JBoss and Peter Levine from Zensource.

Each of the CEO's had a different view about the key driver in an open source business model; some were focused on the increased quality assurance in the development cycle while others were focused on the distribution aspects. I had the sense that these open source companies have more elements of a traditional business model than one would first guess.

It's too early to draw any broad conclusions from the few open source business models that exist. Given the variations in their focus, though, it's clear that open source isn't a cookie cutter business model that can be wrapped around any business. As for the threat to enterprise business models? It looks like a slow death. The panel had a general belief that the Open Source business model would squeeze traditional software companies, but within some debated 5-50 year time frame.

At the end of the discussion Peter Levine said something along the lines of, "You don't invest in something because it's Open Source. You invest in it because it provides a valuable service." That is the takeaway - Open source is only important to the extent that it provides things of value to a customer & company such as low cost, adaptability, speed to innovation, etc.

note: my post was from the viewpoint of a capitalist. Things get interesting when you consider groups that deploy Open Source in its "purest" form, as a means of production without a business model but instead to fill some communal need.

Command Center Reality

2006-04-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

I had heard from some friends that Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, loves the Fox television show "24". An interview in the New York Times confirms this. Given his role, I always found this interesting, but now I know why. He has command center envy. Compared to what he deals with in reality, the command centers on "24" are things of beauty.

I remember about 7 years ago I had to give a reporter a tour of a command center after a newsworthy event in the Northeast. The tour started out great. The reporter loved the requisite security checks and security cameras. We had this cool vault like room for communications. Everything fit that "command center feeling" .... then we got to the command center itself. Apparently four computers, scattered communication gear, paper charts and a dirty coffee pot didn't quite fit the image. She was completely let down. What finally made it to the news? A shot of a Senior Chief using the phone system. Apparently, its sleek black console and 30+ buttons at least looked cool.

In any command center, there are legacy systems that don't talk to each other and communication always blunted by static. Information is rarely real time and decisions are made on 70% information at best. The lifeblood of these places isn't equipment or systems, its people who can execute.

The Democracy Bundle

2006-04-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Experts tell you to avoid negotiating over a bundled deal; instead break down the bundle and deal for each individual component. I couldn't help but think of this advice while watching "Meet The Press", where the topic was again focused on spreading democracy. What struck me is that democracy isn't a monolith as many seem to suggest, but it's really a bundle of many components. In the US, it's a bundle that typically consists of freedom (a framework which lets individuals act as they choose), representative democracy (a system for individual control over the government), capitalism (a right of private property) and the rule of law (a system of understood consequence management).

The Democracy bundle has always been built up component by component. The American founders had visions of an end state, but they negotiated over components and made tradeoffs when they put the Constitution together. And they relied greatly on some components that had been established prior to American independence.

Instituting the Democracy bundle has and will always be a messy affair, requiring tradeoffs and a long maturation process. We like to talk about Democracy as an end result, but a lot less time is spent discussing the necessary steps, component by component, to actually reach the end state. Implicit in such a discussion would be a realistic understanding of the cost, benefit and timeline.

MBA's and the value question

2006-03-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

There is a running theme that MBA's destroy value. One recent post referred to them as "MBA Monkeys". There was a recent study that said MBA's underperformed non-MBA's.

Some of the methodologies taught in business school probably stunt creativity and put focus on the wrong things. These methodologies were supposedly tested in the business world and are built into a teaching curriculum, but turns out these methodologies weren't so great after all ... unfortunately they are now codified.

That said, do I think MBA's destroy value? I know some do, but more often than not I think these people would have destroyed value even without their MBA's.

Plotting a course for Software

2006-03-17T14:04:00.000-08:00

How do most people navigate a boat? They plot a direct course to their destination and motor away. This works for short trips, but for longer journeys you will end up hundreds of miles off course. Why? Because wind, current, seas & pirates can have more influence than your motor. A boat operates in a system in which its own capabilities only influence its movement, not dictate it.

Forecasting into the future is a lot like navigating a boat. Probably 90% of the forecasts I read are written by people who believe that their product or idea is self contained and will dictate its own movement. Most of the predictions I have read about Open Source, SOA and SaaS are of this variety - they will likely be wrong.

I don't have the perfect software prediction to offer, but I know what it would look like. It would recognize the inertia of current ways of doing business. It would identify the possible impact of different environmental factors. Most importantly, it wouldn't treat itself as a self contained entity. Separately, you can talk about Open Source as a movement to produce non proprietary software, SOA as a way to extend capability and SaaS as a novel distribution method. Personally, I think that software's future won't be dictated by how these key trends act independently, but how they converge into some kind of megatrend to influence the landscape. Any company that isn't considering this convergence is likely to end up a long way from its intended destination.

Software as a Service - Attacking Enterprise clients from the LOB perspective?

2006-03-09T05:58:00.000-08:00

Certain corporate needs become so large and fungible that their management is moved to centralized functions and away from the lines of business. IT (along with Real Estate, Legal and Human Resources) falls in this bucket. The result is scale and scope benefits around IT, but LOB's sometimes don't get their needs met. As an LOB, it is sometimes impossible to get the specific IT functionality you need.

For all the talk of whether SaaS will reach some glass ceiling beyond which it won't be a viable alternative for companies of a certain size, I wonder whether companies like Salesforce.com are actually targeting enterprise clients from a different angle: LOB's over IT. The anecdotal stories I hear of LOB's making purchases either with or without implicit IT approval is growing. I don't think companies like Salesforce would ever ignore the IT department, but they can approach LOB's which other Enterprise Software Companies might find difficult.

If you look at IT spend, I would have to imagine that the LOB potential could be significant considering how much money the typical LOB has for special projects. Success would assume they have offerings and pricing attractive to LOB's, but I assume Salesforce is considering this when it builds out its Appexchange.

Salesforce's marketing & sales budget (interesting to note this is how they state it, not in the traditional order - sales and marketing) was close to 55% of revenues for 2005. Seems high and I wonder how much of this was spent on collateral, webinars, etc directed at LOB's.

It's Classified: we could tell you, but then you would realize it's useless

2006-03-08T15:07:00.000-08:00

I take some ribbing now and then for what is perceived as an overzealous focus on security. It probably stems from prior experience where I had to label every paragraph in a document as "top secret", "secret", "confidential", "for official use only", "unclassified" or "not for release". Don't ask my why we actually needed six classification categories.

When I moved onto the business world a bunch of years back, I always thought it would be easier to get information. Was I wrong. As a strategy consultant it was always very difficult to get information from client companies. Talking to friends, its just as hard or even harder within companies. I bet people spend 30% of their time trying to get information, often-times to find out that it's useless.

I think people classify things for four reasons. One, because it deserves it - maybe true for 15% of information. Two, because it's the default mode - no one ever got fired for classifying information. Three, because it validates people's work - if it's classified it must be good. Four, because some people look out for their own self-interest by "owning" information as a power card.

The answer? New ways of thinking and working. Our team has been working to adopt and spread social media tools recently. One example is internal wiki's. They have been great for 360 degree information awareness because they tend to remove the default mode of classifying information.

What you can learn by looking at "the other" 84% of software functionality

2006-03-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

At IDC's Directions Conference last week, a presenter stated that customers use ~16% of application functionality. I can't find the source for the number, but directionally it seems plausible. If true, 84% of application functionality sits idle. Sometimes simple facts can put a lot of things into perspective.

1) Companies can do a few things very well (in fact 16% of things) and still retain customers. That is probably why there are 23K+ software companies in the US.

2) If you want to find the innovators in the industry, R&D spend is likely not a good indicator because a portion of it is focused on the unused 84%. For innovators, find the companies with the best market facing product management groups.

3) Good Product Management isn't being effectively utilized in much of the software industry. If it was, how would the other 84% even get built?

4) Customer demand for a la carte pricing is driven by their desire not to pay for the 84%.

5) The market is responding through a host of innovations that let customers choose only those features it wants ... Sale Force's appexchange, SOA, Open source, etc. Note that these aren't functionality innovations, but ecosystem and distribution innovations.

At the heart, this issue is about innovation. I think a lot of software companies think they drive innovation; that is what they think the other 84% of functionality is - unused innovation. In some cases they might be right and a big payoff ensues. But for the most part, responding to market needs is safer than trying to drive breakthrough innovation. The balancing act between the two is a key leadership function and one that companies continue to struggle with. Jeff Nolan has some thoughts on that here.

Solving for the Open Source Variable

2006-03-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Digesting all the open source commentary over the last month has been like trying to solve a multivariate equation. It’s difficult to solve for x when everyone is talking about y, z & w …different frameworks, different assumptions and different variables. Because it was difficult to get a bearing, I’ve pieced together the following open source framework … feel free to fork it.

Open source is not a monolith. It’s a category definition for beliefs ranging anywhere from Stallman’s belief about open intellectual property to MySQL’s business model. As such, any discussion about open source is meaningless without context.

Open source doesn’t have one business model; it has many. At least four different models; Companies built around providing services to GPL companies, companies providing duel GPL and traditional licenses, companies open sourcing existing products as a loss leader, governments funding open source to sow system wide benefits. Probably more.

Open source is not a strategy. With the term thrown around so much, I always go back to Porter’s definition: “Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities.” Open source is part of Porter’s “different set of activities”, not a strategy in and of itself

Open Source is an “activity” businesses can use to help monetize industry trends. Open source itself isn’t worth much. It has to be used against an existing trend. For example, if the trend is the importance of the SMB market, open source can be an activity that lowers your sales and marketing cost and makes this segment profitable. If the trend is platform development, than open source can be an activity you use to drive community and acceptance.

Open source has to be linked to revenue generation or costs reduction to be considered a legitimate “activity”. I don’t mean that revenue needs to be immediately booked. Perhaps you are laying the groundwork for 3-5 years down the road. Or perhaps open source is being used as a loss leader to get people to trade up to a traditional license. Regardless, you should be able to voice how open source activities will impact net income at some point down the road.

Open source activities can be co-opted. You don't need to use a strict definition of open source to realize benefits. You can co-opt those traits that are important or use some type of hybrid model. Microsoft is doing this with its shared source initiative.

Bottom line: Start from the trends in your industry and look at how open source can help you monetize them. Don't respond to the open source trend itself.

Dubai Ports World Isn't A Major Threat To Our Security, but our own government failure is

2006-02-22T14:54:00.000-08:00

People always feel safer controlling access to their own assets. This "feeling" is not a valid argument to block Dubai Ports Worldwide from operating major US ports. The possible maritime threats to the US are (1) Delivery of a WMD (2) Delivery of terrorists (3) Attack on a major shipping channel (4) Shut down of the global shipping industry due to security concerns (costing billions per day). Truth is, the likelihood of these threats does not change whether a US or a foreign company manages our ports.

So what is the true concern? Repeated failure to act by our government despite constant warnings from people like Steve Flynn. To date, over 70% of cargo entering the US is not inspected by US law enforcement. That means that a terrorist, regardless of whether Dubai Ports Worldwide is in the picture, has a 7 in 10 chance of smuggling something undetected into the US. Success of an infrastructure attack to shut down a major ship channel is probably just as high. The list of concerns goes on. Unfortunately the list of concrete steps our government has taken towards resolving these threats is short and underfunded. Given the expenditures we have made as a nation on dubious homeland security initiatives, it's amazing how little we have done to protect and harden the maritime system and infrastructure that provides many of the goods you use on a daily basis.

Port security deserves the mindshare it is now being given,but it is being directed at the wrong target in the form of Dubai Ports.

If we build it, they will come ... and we still will have the highest cost of doing business in the country

2006-02-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

Mayor Tom Menino wants to build Boston's tallest skyscraper. He says, "it will be a stunning statement of our belief in Boston's bright future." You know what would actually be a stunning statement about our future? Getting the price of doing business down so Boston can attract business and retain our citizens. Boston consistently ranks as the most expensive city in the nation to do business. Massachusetts is one of the few states to loose population every year. A skyscraper isn't going to solve that.

I love spectacle and the thought of a big building is cool. But, (1) Extra office space isn't going to help us out & (2) It smacks of NYC ... Boston isn't a town with an amazing skyline and shouldn't aspire to be part of the skyscraper club. I whole heartedly support civic development that moves us forward. I just don't see how a new skyskraper will accomplish anything.

If private developers want to move forward with this, I'm all for it. But I don't think it's a point for political grandstanding and it sure doesn't deserve a lot of tax breaks.

Putting In A Long Day At The Office

2006-02-17T07:41:00.000-08:00

Ask the majority of people what they will do at work today and you will hear "go to a meeting", "send email", "file a report", "make a pretty graph", "come up with a list of 10 strategies", etc.

I don't think the above is always work. Work needs to have a connection to:

(1) increased sales
(2) reduced cost
(3) fulfilled legal requirements (reluctantly included due to SOX, SEC requirements, etc)

Having consulted for a few companies, a good number of employees don't know how what they do day-to-day actually translates into dollars. If you can't connect what you are doing today with an impact on one of the three categories within the next six months, it probably shouldn't be considered work.

Blizzard 2006

2006-02-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

Mild winter, but finally received something worthy of the word "storm". Got about 15 inches here. Not a trifling about, but did we really need to have 6 hours of "storm force" coverage on all the news affiliates. Was providing comments like, "This snow appears to be light and fluffy" or "Home Depot is sold out of shovels" really need to preempt Meet The Press, the only good show on TV? I think the reality is that these stations invest so much in their weather teams that they need to justify their existence by rolling them out during a storm.

NYC had the highest snow total in its history. Amazingly, Bloomberg says that it will be business as usual in NYC come Monday. Boston, on the other hand, is keeping schools closed and I believe some government offices. I don't want to get started on how I think Boston is a dying city (population loss, high cost of doing business, departure of corporate HQ's, inept political establishment), but come on, how can we not be ready a full 15 hours after an intense, but not historic snowfall?

Sun Tzu - Over-used or still an inspiration?

2006-02-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

Sun Tzu likely wasn't an individual. The 13 great chapters in his book are probably an amalgamation of knowledge from a great variety of leaders from 500 to 250 BC. This doesn't lessen the brilliance in the text. Unlike Clausewitz, who would follow almost a millennium later, Sun Tzu is nuanced, less absolute and more practical for today's matrixed world.

That said, are the Sun Tzu quotes a little overused? I've used them in at least three exec level presentations and you can't go more than a couple slides in any corporation's internal sales decks without finding one. Reading the Sunday NYT, there was an ATT advertisement with a Sun Tzu quote. Maybe the "new" ATT is using Sun Tzu as a guide. The "old" ATT sure wasn't and would have benefited if it had followed Sun Tzu's advise earlier: "You should not linger in desolate ground."

Maybe Sun Tzu is now the universal strategy standard. If everyone is following his dictates, though, is it time to find another inspiration? Maybe there is some obscure leader out there who beat Sun Tzu in 200BC and I can start using that strategy. Or more likely, like everything else, it comes down to execution. People quote Sun Tzu, but can't execute his vision.

Who knew what, when?

2006-02-10T06:44:00.000-08:00

The NYT reports today that the White House was briefed on the New Orleans levy breach 24 hours before what was previously stated. A lower level FEMA official apparently had heard about a breech, hopped a ride on a helicopter to get a first hand view and then reported the information up through his leadership. This fact will likely kick the congressional investigations into higher gear, especially with the news that Brown will not get the full cover as a presidential advisor and will answer congressional questions. Three observations:

(1) Whenever something disastrous happens, two types of investigations are possible. The first assigns responsibility, the second makes recommendations for improvement. I think both are always necessary; people should be held accountable for their mistakes and "lessons learned" should be sent to those who might benefit. However, with Congress's partisan makeup, these two investigations really need to be separate for anyone to actually be able to learn something from the failings.

(2) I hate to say that Org structure is strategically important, but I really think it is. FEMA and DHS botched this whole effort because they have a Byzantine command and control structure with little understanding of who is accountable for what. The Coast Guard, on the other hand, was able to respond because it is decentralized and has an understanding of accountability which drives impactful action.

(3) Once you have accountability nailed down, DHS needs to build process. This is pivotally important for us going forward because the same command and control process that botched the Federal Katrina response will be the one dealing with a wmd attack, influenza pandemic, etc. We need to know who is accountable for what and how information and decisions are passed to and from the accountable owner.

The Military Doesn't Want Effusive Thanks ... A strategy would do

2006-01-31T19:33:00.000-08:00

Clausewitz said, "War is the continuation of politics by other means". With a US military that reports to civilian leadership, Clausewitz is spot on for the US. Only the Congress has the authorization to delcare war, appoint officers or raise an army as stated in the US Constitution. Only the President has the authorization to direct the military.

This being the case, I find it disingenuous when leaders from either political party obfuscate what should be a discussion about the purpose and direction of military action by focusing instead on the honor and sacrifice of our military. The American military is a professional fighting force that doesn't want thank you. What it does want is clear strategy provided by its civilian leadership. Thank you's don't prevent any more combat deaths; strategy can.

I know that many in our military would have rather had President Bush spend his two minutes on substance during his State of the Union instead of emotionally charged thank yous and vignettes. Long term (10+ years), I believe the US can be better off for having gone into Iraq, but only through execution of a clear strategy.

I'm not making a republican or democrat criticism here ... I'm making a political criticism. Politicians need to step up to their responsibility under the US Constitution and treat the military like what it is ... their instrument for advancing US aims. Not something that should be used to manipulate emotions. If Politicians want to honor the 2200+ military people who have been killed, they can begin to do so by providing clear strategy. Start with Iraq and continue on through the quadrennial defense review ....

Milt ... should I focus on profits or shareholder value?

2006-01-31T18:58:00.000-08:00

Milton Friedman wrote a piece in 1970 which said that the sole responsibility of a corporation is to increase its profits. Somewhere along the line, that got translated into "increase shareholder value", which is the mantra students hear parrotted throughout business school. However, with a material percentage of stocks now held for less than 2 months, companies must ask themselves what they should focus on: longterm value or short term moves that might hurt your company's long term viability. These short term moves include reducing R&D, freezing wages which drives out your best employees, in some cases stock buybacks, etc.

The answer? I would like to say companies should only focus on value investors (e.g., people like Buffett who invest in companies for the long-term), but does a company have a right to ignore a group of shareholders who want short term results? I believe it does, as long as management and the board are clear about its focus and objectives. So in the end, companies should still focus on "increasing shareholder value", but just make sure they are clear about what shareholders they are focused on.

Job Qualifications: 5 Years Experience, Jack Bauer Type Capabilities

2006-01-25T17:45:00.000-08:00

I was talking to a friend the other day about the Chuck Norris & Jack Bauer (of Fox's "24" fame) threads that have been emailed around over the last couple of weeks. The ones that go something like, "Jack Bauer - He would have gotten the ring to Mordor in 24 hours". The difference between the two guys is that you laugh at Chuck Norris, but you would want to hire Jack Bauer. Just consider his qualities:

Succeeds at working within a matrixed organization without direct lines of control
Leads a team while also acting as an individual contributor
Makes spot on decisions with 80% information
Possesses honesty and passion
Masters all the skills necessary for his job
Gets stuff done with a Macgyver type sense of innovation

In fact, if anyone is trying to set their business objectives for the coming business year, just put down you want to be more like Jack Bauer, perhaps sans the violent tendencies, and leave it at that. Who would I pick for real life Jack Bauer for 2005? Probably Admiral Thad Allen who seemed to be one of the only people capable of action during the Katrina crisis.

Guess I can't (virtually) go home again ...

2006-01-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

To get up to speed on Wiki's and how the community content process works, I posted a few things about my hometown on www.wikipedia.org under the dedicated encylopedia entry for my town. Now, my town is small (~50K population) and I wouldn't think anyone is taking an active interest in the post. Was I wrong. I posted my name under the "natives" section, which lists natives of my town, and someone removed me. I posted again, someone removed my name again. More due to a stubborn streak than anything else, this process has gone through 8 cycles over the last month of me posting, being erased and posting again.

Today, I learned how to track changes. One single person has been removing my name from the "natives" section and justifying it with the comment "fixing vandalism". It's interesting. I think I'm adding valuable information (I am a native of the town and have accomplished things at least on par with some of the other natives in terms of societal impact). My nemesis apparently has some strong ideas about the filter through which notable natives must pass and keeps removing me. I'll enjoy seeing how this plays out - an experiment on how the community content process works. The broader implications are more serious. I've spoke to people who use wikipedia as a first source of information. To be useful, the process has to achieve a balance between the information zealots who might provide structure and the perceived "vandals". I'll see if I can virtually go home again.

What we should expect from journalism

2006-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

I don't want to weigh in too deeply on the "what is a journalist?" debate. Jeff Jarvis has covered that enough. Maybe more important a question is, "what is journalism?" I tend to think that journalism is only a sensor and distribution methodology for disseminating information. Journalism is made necessary by imperfect information. In societies where there is imperfect information (due to the slow spread of news, limited access, oppression, etc) it makes sense to have a group of people practicing something called "journalism".

If journalism is basically a sensor and distribution methodology for a society with imperfect information, what happens when the information flow starts to move towards perfection? The United States , or any country for that matter, will never have perfect information, but in so many ways the information flow now is better than it was 10,20,50 years ago. Does this mean that the umbrella of "journalism" should now apply to all information sources that abide by the canons of journalism (responsibility, freedom, independence, truth, impartiality, fair play)? I think the answer is yes, which leads to two fundamental shifts in modern journalism:

1) Focus on analysis over the news. In the past, journalists controlled news and could get away with just presenting the facts. Look at any old newspaper, which often reads like a diary. Now, since news isn't the scarce resource, journalists now focus more on analysis. I tend to think of journalists today more as referees. For many things, I don't need an intermediary to tell me what happened, but for those close calls I still need someone to sort out the details.

2) Working with sources as opposed to against sources. I think journalists still need to maintain an adversarial relationship with some news makers to keep impartiality, but there are so many outlets for news makers to get their own news out (blogs, forums, press releases, etc) that journalists can't really afford to always work against them. For instance, it is ludicrous to think that a company in today's world would cede all news control to a journalist. Companies are going to use all means at their disposal to get out the news they want to get out. I don't have a good answer for how journalism incorporates these sources, but it is happening. The days of a journalist saying "whoa, that's my job" to someone outside of the established walls of the newsroom are over.

Right versus legal

2006-01-20T14:50:00.000-08:00

The debate around the NSA wiretapping highlights the difference between what is right versus what is legal. The former is a subjective judgement call (e.g., “I have no problem if the government listens to us” or “I want my conversations private.”). The latter is about what is allowed under an established body of law. Regardless of whether you think wiretapping is right or wrong, I think the legal question deserves scrutiny. In such a polarized country about so many issues, the legal question really is the only thing worth debating with people of different beliefs.
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Can't We All Just Get Something Done?

2006-01-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

Innovate: v. To begin or introduce something new for the first time

Everyone needs to innovate these days. Governments should innovate to better serve citizens. Companies should innovate to better serve shareholders and customers. Parents should innovate to better raise healthy kids. I am all for change, cool ideas and new paradigms. But I think innovation has it's limits in the way it is discussed. Seldom does it include any aspect of execution.

Perhaps if I'm looking at it from an entire systems perspective (e.g., innovation in the US) it's fine not to put any bounds around innovation - some percentage of innovators in my system will succeed and I don't have to worry about the rest. But If I'm in a single entity, like a company or a government division, innovation has to be carefully managed because it can take you down rabbit holes, suck up your resources and push you in the wrong direction. For only one costly example, consider space based ballistic missile defense.

Popular business press would tell you that everyone needs to innovate these days ... from the leadership to the line manager. I think that is part of it. But I would supply a few adjectives to that. Focused, executable innovation. Sure, somewhere in your organization you want a free flowing idea lab where anything goes. But in the other 90%, you want leadership actively managing innovation.

My simple test to see which companies innovate well? Look at the amount spent on consultants (Bain, BCG, Mckinsey) versus the percentage of people who can actually tell you what those consultants accomplished. Consultants are about innovation, new ideas. Everyone loves to be part of a cool consulting project because it seems fresh and new. 80% of the time, though, nothing is executed. So, did they innovate? Yes because they came up with new ideas. But often this does little for revenue, increases costs and sucks up focus.

Military academy standards

2006-01-12T05:42:00.000-08:00

Misconduct at military academies is intolerable. Admiitedly, I'm a little full over on the obligation of future officers to act with honor and integrity. My view might be dated as I have recently begun to reconsider the nature of the armed forces. Still, I can't comprehend how the egregious problems at the air force academy, ranging from sexual misconduct to forced religious participation, were allowed. More amazing is the minimal justice doled out under what can be a harsh code of military justice.

Now, all military academies have suffered some sort of scandal and I don't want to simplify why the air force is having so many problems. However, if one take character into consideration, you would logically reason that recommendations would be an important part of the air force academy selection process. However, according to the NYT education section this past Sunday, Air force places little importance on recommendations. This is in contrast to the naval academy. The Air Force should begin considerig recommendations. Taken as a whole and compared across all the applicants, an admissions office could use recommendations to deny entry to what have turned out to be some despicable individuals.

Secrets of success

2006-01-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

Another year, another perfomance management cycle. In my different organizations, I've gone through different iterations of this ... from quick feedack focused to a full system of setting objectives early in the year which are then tracked and graded. I've never been impressed with any of the systems. Good intentions, but not sure whether the results are worth the effort. But as I was going through the process, I started to think about what actually makes a person successful. I think it boils down to five aspects. Either alone or combined, these are what drive success.

Luck - nothing else to say here, but I believe 10% of those who succeed do so through luck
Passion - Really caring about what you are doing
Skill - Being good at what you are doing
Dedication - willing to work the extra hours
Likability - believe it or not, 80% of people would rather work with someone incompetent, but likable as opposed to the other way around. If you are likable, you get opportunities, people cut you breaks, etc
Defining your own success - not letting other people define your boundaries, but setting them yourself

No one possesses all of these. Having one aspect probably allows you to be successful some of the time. Having 2 or 3 probably sets you up for life.

The Building Block Of A Nation - Corruption

2006-01-04T20:22:00.000-08:00

The amount of corruption in our government, epitomized by the ongoing Abramoff scandal, amazes me. Even more, i'm continually amazed at how blase we are about this corruption. And I'm not sure if this blase attitude results from indifference, reluctant acceptance or ignorance - probably all three play a role.

Some level of corruption is natural in any democracy, but I have faith that technology and process can help reduce it. The key is transparency .... knowing where the money is. I'm willing to bet that Abramoff wouldn't have been caught 30 years ago.

Floating Island Around Manhattan Island

2005-12-29T14:01:00.001-08:00

Some of you may have seen Smithson's "Floating Island Around Manhattan Island" this past fall. It was the realization of his concept, developed I believed in the 70's, in which he wanted to pull an artificial island around Manhattan via tug. I love it .... water, manhattan, spectacle and boats - doesn't get better.

I took his original 70's concept sketch and superimposed actual shots of the tug, island and skyline from the 2005 exhibit. I didn't want to overshadow the original work, but wanted to give a flavor for conception of an idea through execution.

Take some responsibility ...

2005-12-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

When I was at graduate school in 2001/02, Jeff Skilling spoke to us from a packed auditorium .... a hero to the crowd of business students. He was cocky, confident and energetic. Skilling was an alumni and seemed quite pleased to be back at his alma mater.

Later on, when Skilling was facing legal proceedings and the evidence was clearly against him, I was furious at the utter lack of responsibility. This guy helped ruin countless lives, yet he sat smugly by proclaiming innocence. (contrast this to Scott Waddell, captain of the US Navy sub that sank the Japanese research vessel - he took full responsibility). I wrote to a contact at my alma mater saying that if the school could grant a graduate degree, it should publicly take it away if someone didn't live up to our code of conduct; The school found the idea "interesting", but it never went anywhere.

Today one of the bit players in the Enron scandal, Causey, agreed to testify. I hope he finally provides the ammunition to put more of these people behind bars.

I agree that one of the things that makes American capitalism great is a "pushing the boundary" mentality. Derivatives, hedging, creative financing, etc, would never happen in a strictly regulated system and our country would suffer from it. The byproduct of this deregulated economy is illegal activity. I don't want government overseeing every aspect of our economy, but I would at least like to see it be effective at dishing out justice when it is clearly due.

Walmart - even the playing field

2005-12-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

I've never invested much in the walmart is good vs evil debate. However, this weekend I was out of town visiting relatives for the holidays. I had hoped to run each day I was traveling, but forgot my running shoes. Well, I wasn't about to lay out 100 bucks for a decent replacement pair just to get three runs in. Later that day, I was searching for eggnog and was forced to go to Walmart, the only store open at the time. Low and behold, not only did they have eggnog, they also had running shoes for $23.49. So I picked up a pair. Granted, they are hideous looking - i'm not sure which midwestern marketing department came up with the logo and name - "starters". But they felt fine on the run. So in the end, if Walmart can put out a decent pair of running shoes for under 25 bucks, I'm a supporter. One shouldn't have to make two times the median income to be able to afford to buy good running shoes ... Of course, I'm back using my Asics, but have those "starters" in reserve.

The importance of clarity

2005-12-21T15:11:00.000-08:00

Comparing leadership for me pre and post MBA means comparing what I experienced in the military with what I now experience in the business world. Before recently, I hadn't given it much thought, but generally felt military leaders were superior. Recently, I began to think about this again. The people I worked with in the military were top caliber, but so are the people I have worked with during two years of consulting engagements at five different companies. Why did the military leaders seem so much more effective? Having already taken ability or skill of the table, there had to be another reason. What I now think is that I perceived the military leaders to be stronger because of the environment they worked in. They had clear goals and clear lines of leadership ... Things that business leaders almost always struggle with. This struggle is largely due to the constant ambiguity resulting from new markets, serving multiple stakeholder and constant powershifts ... Complexities that are taken off the table in the military. However, previous experience seems to indicate that if business leaders could do better around clarity and accountability, they would see a dramatic improvement in their effectivess and their impact on their team. (Note: before anyone lambasts me for saying that it is more difficult to serve a new market than conduct a rescue in 20 foot seas, I'm not. I'm only discussing the different operating environments in terms of accountability and clarity)
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What is the military?

2005-12-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

I knew some professionals (consultants, bankers, etc) who talked about joining the military after 9/11. The thought was short lived, however, and I don't know anyone personally who made the transition - which is fine because our current system can't function without these essential functions. A WSJ reporter on Friday, however, wrote about how he had just joined the Marine Corp at age 31. Having seen the world and what America meant to it, he decided he needed to be part of protecting and promoting our way of life.

Having served, I have mixed feelings about how to view the armed forces. As a Service Academy graduate, I was given four years of training centered on honor, duty and country. A feeling I loved, but largely out of touch with how our political process runs now. Up to a certain time period, politics was filled with men and women who had served in the armed forces. There was more give and take between the military and the political establishment .... it was less of a tool to coldly wield when you needed to apply force. Now, however, most of the politicians ordering the military into risky situations has never served - many seem to view the military as any other tool, like fiscal policy. The difference is that the military is a tool which necessarily results in death when wielded. I would think politicians would understand this even if they didn't serve, but for some reason many of them separate the objective of a military campaign versus the cost.

The issue is still mixed in my mind, but my main question is whether the armed forces should be viewed as something other than a tool to be wielded without emotion or as a direct extension of our political process? The former implies a mercenary type military where we really don't need to overdue the concepts of patriotism, honor, etc - it is paid well and does what it is told when it is told to do it. The latter implies that we need more of our society represented in the military.

The one baby manual that should replace all others

2005-12-17T17:54:00.000-08:00

We must have about twenty baby manuals in our house. The interesting thing about them is that they are all process focused ... How to have a healthy, sleeping baby ... How to feed your baby ... Etc. What I don't see in the book stores are any books focused on the long term development goals of a baby. Something with the title like “How to lay the foundation for a happy human being”. Not that I don't think good sleep is important, but I tend to think the natural processes take care of themselves. Given the state of many families, it seems they could use help on raising more well adjusted children.So here is my quick take on the five things that I think a baby book should focus on helping you foster: empathy, independence, passion, humor, joy and logic.
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Strategy and The Apprentice

2005-12-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

After spending close to 100K on an MBA, working at a strategy consulting firm and currentluy occupying a role with the title of strategist, you think I would love strategy. In fact, I think I would move it into the trashbin next to other great business buzzwords (along with my most hated word “quick wins”). I recently heard a CEO say that strategy was overrated. This is not to say that ideas aren't important because that is all a strategy really is; an idea which meets certain criteria. No, I just think that strategy withers when compared to the importance of execution, decisiveness and determination. I see this in no clearer place than The Apprentice. The people I would hire (not necessarily those trump hires) are the ones that get things done. As kramer said on Seinfeld, “TCOB”. Taking care of business. I find strategy guys interesting. They have cool ideas. But in the end give me someone who can TCOB.
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Where is the next opportunity - Dubai?

2005-12-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

Everyone has had the discussion, where is the next opportunity? Three ways to look at it: 1) Try and find a hot technology or trend 2) Try and find a hot company that will hit on a a great opportunity 3) Try and find a geography where opportunity is omnipresent (like the Bay Area in the late 90's) . Along the latter, Dubai has been popping up in many discussions. Not sure if they are looking for management talent, but John Hagel points out how the country is looking to become an economic player beyond it's oil industry which has about 10-15 more years of life.

Dubai - Global Talent Magnet
Dubai is not China or India. Far from it. In fact, in terms of population, it is entirely at the other end of the scale. But, having just returned from a trip there, I came back with a growing sense that Dubai has an opportunity to become a much more significant player in the global economy.