Tag: manufacturing

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Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Fusion Strategy

Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future by Vijay Govindarajan and Venkat Venkatraman.

Fusion Strategy: How Real-Time Data and AI Will Power the Industrial Future by Vijay Govindarajan

Vijay holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is Professor of International Business at Dartmouth College. Venkat holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management and a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and is Professor of Information Systems at Boston College.

Mix AI innovation and digital strategy and you can certainly understand how real-time data can transform companies and their products. Furthermore, this book is addressing industrial and manufacturing firms., data-rich information was limited to a select few like Boeing.

So parsing terabytes of interconnected datasets, industries can drive new value by creating strategic connections not possible even 10 years ago. However Facebook, Amazon, and Google proved repeatedly that the collection of real-time data can drive innovation in a fast changing world. Especially for design and manufacturing firms, the deployment of inexpensive sensors, enhanced wireless technologies and real cheap computing wrapped around artificial intelligence will make industries shift overnight.

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Design Education Globalization Innovation OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest read: Hot Property

Its all in the timing.  The global economic crisis has placed my latest read Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization into a pretty unique light. Regardless of the delay in the US economy the impact of globalization, technology and good old corporate espionage has impacted the world’s stage in manufacturing and distribution.

From aspirin to automobiles with computer technology stolen right in the middle. Author Pat Choate, an economist was the 1994 University of Oklahoma Arthur Barto Adams Alumni Fellow.  He has also written Agents of Influence: How Japan Manipulates America’s Political and Economic System.

The core arguments focus on the use of historical legal patents and technological advances of foreign companies competing against American interests by stealing.  Today its known as corporate espionage.  The end result: the US government does not protect companies in today’s global marketplace.

This book will leave most Americans frustrated.  Globalization has changed the way people and business must evolve to simply stay in business.  The auto industry is a timely example of how America lost this business to global competition.

The old assumptions in American business do not work today. When you innovate and invent, patents will protect your dedication and hard work against competitors around the globe.  How wrong Choate proves this idea is today.

Hot Property will quickly show you how far from the truth the real-world works … against you.  Reminds me of T-shirts I see around the Univ. Wisconsin-Madison campus:  “Don’t let school get in the way of your education”.Choate illustrates how major American companies like GM, Microsoft and Cisco are powerless to stop Chinese counterfeiters. To remain a “favorable company” in the Chinese market, American companies sacrifice their own development, technology and employees while trying to gain business in China.  It is somewhat amazing to see the RIAA use it’s legal arm against elderly Americans for downloading an MP3 file but turn a blind eye to the stunning levels of piracy in China.

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Design Education Globalization Network Reading

Latest read: Competing in a Flat World

Searching for the next emerging career in business?  Its Network Orchestrator and this does not refer to computer networks or chamber music.  If you understand fluid, globalized supply chains your on the right track.  Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World proves success is less about what a company can do itself and more about what it can connect to in the global world in order to succeed.

Enter Globalization 3.0 and now business must be in a position to take advantage of a Network Orchestrator.

This book follows Li & Fung, a garment company which produces annual sales over $8 billion for some of the most respected brands in the world.

What may surprise you is that Li & Fung do not own any factories.

This book may be crafted for business schools but its larger impact is for educators.

More importantly parents should read this to see how the world has already changed and learn how their children (regardless of profession) will enter a vastly different marketplace.  The changes from their generation are drastically different.  Li & Fung’s message is quite simple: evolve or die.

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Design Education Globalization Google Milwaukee Network Reading Technology

Latest read: The Elephant and the Dragon

Tectonic Economics?  Robyn Meredith has written a must read book, The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us. Take a look at Wall Street lately? Then think about oil, the environment and the post cold war shift in the global economy.  Its time for business and education to take note…and fast.
Tectonic Economics is about the impact of the two fastest growing economies who have embraced capitalism AND globalization at the same time.

And by the way America and Europe have been left out of this economic growth spurt since 9/11.

Actually at the rate China and India are rising you just need to look at both countries since 9/11 to see their immediate impact.

Meredith has done a great job of helping understand these two transformations.  There is no more waiting for a new generation they have arrived and instituted global change in less than a decade.  For most Americans they still do not see changes occurring at this speed affecting the global economy.

Meredith makes the hard salary figures easy to understand why companies around the globe have jumped to China and India.  But this will not be easy for IT professionals in America.  India’s InfoSys hires computer science graduates (some also have an MBA) to be a VoIP specialist in Bangalore with an annual salary of $5,000.  Yes, five grand a year for a VoIP specialist.  This similar type job in California via InfoSys pays $120,000.

This should be really easy to understand why hundreds of tech companies including Cisco, Apple, IBM and HP have moved operations (some larger than others) to Bangalore.  Remember you have to please your stockholders.  The changes already underway (and under the radar) will continue to add stress to America’s middle class.

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Education Globalization Reading Technology

Latest read: China Shakes the world

I found myself fascinated by China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future – and the Challenge for America by James Kynge. Yet most of the time I was also infuriated over how America has fallen asleep regarding China’s threat to our economy.  Kynge has written an excellent book that should be read by every school teacher, mayor and businessman.

It was my goal to finish this book before the end of the summer Olympic games.  But I needed time to finish Randy Pauch‘s one of a king book The Last Lecture (review is here) so this week was plenty of time to complete this book.

Infuriating?  Yes Kynge shares a startling story about how the Chinese almost secured the assets to the American company that produces stealth coating to the B-2 bomber.  Yes THAT Stealth Bomber.  Now are you interested in what Hynge has to say?  It was Financial Time’s Book of the Year.

So how does America’s secret stealth technology (a skin made with highly specialized thermoplastics and composites which are radar-absorbent) come within arms reach of the communist Chinese?  Did they try to steal it?   No, they almost purchased the technology outright.

What about pirating and corporate espionage? China plays this game very well too.  And based upon the communist’s approach to banking, well lets just say their idea of business as usual includes very loose, corrupt accounting…kinda reminds me of Enron.

If you are frustrated with the RIAA’s music lawsuits against college kids encourage the RIAA to go to source in this matter: China.  The Chinese have truly become the world’s leading Pirate Nation. A word of note to the music and movie industry: Do you really believe your lawsuits against college kids is making a dent in your attempt to stop pirating?  Go to China.

The Chinese impact
It’s not on the gold medal stand in women’s gymnastics.  As the saying goes … if your not cheating, your not winning.  Regardless, it was the American gymnast Sacromone who fell of the beam and floor exercise that cost the team gold medal.  I know the Olympics bring out national pride. We all feel good about cheering for our athletes during the 16 days of competition.  But what about the other 349 days of 2008?

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