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Latest read: Corporate Agility

How do organizations compete today?  Corporate Agility: A Revolutionary New Model for Competing in a Flat World provides a good reference on how major US companies have adopted a new business model for competing in a flat world.

corporate agilityAfter reading Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century book series on globalization and the breakthrough work by Jerry Wind and Victor & William Fung in Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World.

I found chapters in Corporate Agility a fit perfectly to the above works.  Corporate Agility supports business case studies throughout the book that span a wide range of industries with lessons for all who are seeking new models for business in the 21st globalized century.

The strongest chapter is early in the book surrounding the shift in company buildings and the move to a mobile workforce that permits companies to break expensive building leases and create smaller ‘offices’ with limited administrative staff and resources.

I have experienced these efforts directly in working with clients who have been forced to trim staff and yet end up in an dry office complex with over 50% of their office cubes empty.

Actually I’m reminded of a PR company who hired temporary workers to “work” in all their empty cubes while a potential client made an office visit.  Needless to say they did not understand the basics of a company’s need for agility as described in the book.

I feel the early chapters of Corporate Agility is an expansion of The World Is Flat while the book’s case studies just touch the surface that is presented in detail by Competing in a Flat World.

Corporate Agility’s book website

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Design Education Globalization Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: The Numerati

This is not a book about Dan Brown’s character, Robert Langdon and his fight against the Illuminati in Angels & Demons.  This is The Numerati, a slight spin on very advanced mathematics and high performance computing, the future of shopping, medicine, safety, sex, voting and yes …. even work.
the numeratiThe Numerati is a great read regarding the impact of advanced analytics across the board.  I was impressed with mathematicians Baker interviews and the surprising number who eventually work for IBM or the NSA.  Baker has written a book about how the best mathematicians are changing the way we live by processing amazingly vast amounts of data and simply detecting patterns.  The data comes via mouse-clicks, cell phone calls and credit card purchases just to name a few.

It sounds simple.  On the surface with today’s high performance computing and powerful consumer technologies.  But Baker shows how mathematicians are working to draw upon extremely high levels of computational power to deliver products and solutions that will dramatically impact our lives.

At the same time some of the projects mentioned seems more ‘wonderland’ in design. Yet consider the amount of data created by the Large Hadron Collider for example, the emerging world of Big Science is just starting to take off.

Chapters tackle different subjects (mentioned above) and as others. Many have indicated the shopping chapter is the best of the book. It was very enjoyable to read.  Some of the ideas and inventions about health were interesting, some ideas a bit hard to wrap around your brain – like the ability of a floor tile to detect if your elderly father has a change in an existing medical condition.  Another example, how a computer can analyze a sequence of video (over time) and determine in your are prone to suffering Parkinson’s disease.

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Cyberinfrastructure Design Education Globalization Innovation OpenSource Technology

Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0

Sometimes a 2.0 release is viewed as a fix for shortcomings in the initial release of just about any product….except this update from Tom Friedman: Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America.
I quickly read version 1.0 as soon as it hit bookshelves and was just amazed at Friedman’s writing about the state of research, business and culture surrounding our planet. Missed reading this when it was originally released?

Yet as of late I have been reading so much about Wall Street’s clusterf*ck that I missed his update Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America.

An overview to the version 2.0 release:Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is “hot, flat, and crowded.”  In this Release 2.0 edition, he also shows how the very habits that led us to ravage the natural world led to the meltdown of the financial markets and the Great Recession.  The challenge of a sustainable way of life presents the United States with an opportunity not only to rebuild its economy, but to lead the world in radically innovating toward cleaner energy.  And it could inspire Americans to something we haven’t seen in a long time—nation-building—by summoning the intelligence, creativity, and concern for the common good that are our greatest national resources.

In vivid, entertaining chapters, Friedman makes it clear that the green revolution the world needs is like no revolution before. It will be the biggest innovation project in American history; it will be hard, not easy; and it will change everything from what you put into your car to what you see on your electric bill. This is a great challenge, Friedman explains, but also a great opportunity, and one that America cannot afford to miss. Not only is American leadership the key to the healing of the earth; it is also our best strategy for the renewal of America.

Or consider the following accolades for his writing:

  • A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
  • A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
  • A Businessweek Best Business Book of the Year
  • A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
  • A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
  • A Business Week Best Business Book of the Year
  • A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year
  • A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Best Book of the Year
  • A Booklist Editors’ Choice Best Book of the Year
  • Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
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Design Education Globalization Innovation Milwaukee Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest read: Hot, Flat and Crowded

Over the long holiday I finally finished Tom Friedman’s book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America. The book is a mixed blessing.  Friedman has written one of the best books to understand the emergency need for a global environmental revolution.

hot, flat and crowded

Friedman provides detailed examples of how the world has been wasting energy resources since the industrial revolution. Sadly I am convinced we are (environmentally speaking) screwed.

Friedman provides well written pages that will awaken those still asleep on the environment’s impact on the human race.  If you think “green” is a movement to replace your light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs your WAY off base.  Its about re-educating how we waste energy and in today’s global economy risk losing more industries to countries around the globe.

The major challenge?  This issue is no long America’s alone to fix. Thanks to globalization its now a problem for the entire world.  Mother Earth needs assistance from China and India. Both must engage in green technologies to ensure planet earth’s health for the long term.

For China and India that includes all 3.5 Billion of their citizens who are just coming out of poverty.  Their governments cannot permit new coal plants to dominate their air pollution.  China alone brings coal-fired (dirty) power plants online every two weeks and will continue to do so for the short term future.

The Beijing Olympics was a perfect example of population and industrial pollution impacting the Chinese environment … and their economy.

Why China and India are causing the price of gasoline to rise.
When I was born in 1966 the earth’s population stood at 3.4 billion.  When my son was born in 2007 the population doubled to 6.7 billion.  What does our future hold when the earth’s population reaches 9 billion in 2050?  Forget fuel costs for a moment.  How much will it cost to feed your family?

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Jump in line…NOW

Tom Friedman’s book will be one of the hot reads this fall.

Order yours today: Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America