Tag: knowledge

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Latest read: The Black Swan

There are interesting lessons in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Learn to look for trends, events and all the gems in life that seem hidden, out of place, under the table and around corners?
the black swanAt 400 pages its no quick read but Taleb has presented his research by sharing stories and analysis about randomness in his own life. Taleb has suggested that technology and history is primarily driven by Black Swans.

There are many lessons for IT leaders when it comes to Black Swans.  The BBC wrote an interesting article about how black swans in the area of information technology enterprise systems.  One in six big IT projects go over-budget by an average of 200% Why?  Once you see his point of view it will be much easier to notice black swans within your organization.  His book’s takeaway?  Unexpected and rare events and even novel ideas have a huge impact on the world.

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Latest read: The Wisdom of Crowds

James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds proves useful in understanding the impact (both positive and negative) regarding knowledge of isolated individuals vs. collective intelligence that shapes business, economies, societies and nations.

Surowiecki opens the book with a great example of the surprising “wisdom” possessed by groups of people. The book is a easy, enjoyable read.

As much as I enjoyed the learning I was somewhat more interested in learning the faults of crowds…specifically his analysis of NASA and the Columbia tragedy. To some extent the exact same lessons can be lifted from NASA and applied to Watergate, the highly intelligent crowd in the White House of Nixon’s inner circle.

The NASA “crowd” knew the danger yet did not as a group act to save the lives of their astronauts. In this lesson, I’m not convinced of the blanket approach to the wisdom of crowds. But Surowiecki is able to relay a number of cases in which this applies in business and societies.

The ability of crowds to outsmart a individual experts on any given topic ultimately supports the strength of communities, but as noted above even groups of specialists with graduate degrees have the ability to ignore their collective wisdom.

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Latest read: How We Compete

Suzanne Berger and MIT’s Industrial Performance Center wrote a book after concluding a five year study of the new global economy How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today’s Global Economy.

how we compete

If you want to learn more about globalization, this is a necessary addition to your bookshelf. Today companies must compete.

The study moves beyond the often discussed Dell approach to manufacturing. Lessons from auto and textile industries are included and should not be missed. How America can compete against the global marketplace?

Students entering the real world after school makes this book mandatory reading before graduating … from high school. By the time your set to graduate from college — it may be too late.

Companies that need to compete are shifting production … sometimes to very interesting locations for very interesting business reasons. Understanding this process and the major impacts of globalization will help us all prepare for tomorrow’s shifting economic climate.  There are powerful lessons from many industries that have shifted into a highly competitive marketplace with a global reach.  In doing so, these companies now compete with global brands.

Globalization can be very complicated. This book suggests very intriguing lessons from companies who need to compete are outsourcing their products, production lines or selected low end solution simply to survive against the competition.

We have a lot to learn from the Japanese and the Italians!

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Latest read: Made to Stick

What book would be a perfect follow up to The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? To prove timing is everything I read Dan and Chip Heath’s new release: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The book’s authors acknowledge that their book complements Gladwell’s The Tipping Point by identifying “traits” necessary to make your ideas ‘sticky’ with your intended audience.
Made to StickWritten by brothers Chip and Dan Heath they share experiences and research in finding ideas that stick. Chip is professor of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.

Made to Stick provides wonderful insight to learn how powerful ideas succeed in the face of big obstacles (and people) especially in a stale environment. Take Subway’s series of commercials featuring Jared for example.

Originally passed by PR firms, Jared’s story was brought to life by the Subway store manager where Jared ate while attending Indiana University. The ad campaign was eventually created pro-bono by a firm thinking they would fail. Even Subway’s PR firm did not support this idea. Chip and Dan prove not only how wrong they were, but how powerful the idea has turned out to be for Subway.

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Latest read: Wikinomics

Want to learn where a faster, wireless internet and robust web technology is moving all of us? Read Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything to get a real-world understanding of the impact of YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, MySpace, Linux, SecondLife and InnoCentive.
wikinomicsThis is a true paradigm shift. Changes have occurred in business and society regarding mass collaboration and the internet. I know many people do not like change but we live in exciting new times.

How has technology transformed our world? Consider ABC Television has been around for almost 60 years. The first television broadcast was in 1948. If you total all the video (24/7) shown on ABC since 1948 — just over 500,000 hours. YouTube has produced more hours of content in just the past 6 months.

The colonial era approach to education will never should not be continued. When will our educational systems catch up with the world? The longer we stand on the sidelines and watch countries including India and China establish educational models around the internet-enabled world, the longer our students will not be able to compete when they enter the global marketplace.

Some states are making that change. Michigan’s virtual schools permit students to study the Chinese language via the internet. Their instructor lives in China. It started when choices for foreign language were no longer acceptable. What economic impact does French or German have in contrast to Chinese and Hindi for a student’s future? Its safe to say French economic power has been on the decline since World War I. Lets give our students the best opportunities to succeed in our country’s future.

In higher education there are examples of how ideas fall short. Teacher are often unaware of how to get their students to connect their idea/project with a engineer, on-demand book publisher or patent attorney in today’s global marketplace. Yes patent attorney. But it may be due to the colonial era approach to educational reform. Too often educators look inward (or to peer groups) and believe if they change internal measurements, students will benefit. Wikinomics proves this to be another colonial era step in the wrong direction.

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