The whole world is luring Information and Communication Technology (ICT) graduates like never before. The US categorizes ICT graduates as a special category, and so do other major economies, such as, the UK, Ireland, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, etc. The world needs many more ICT graduates in order to keep technology-led shows running smoothly.
Moreover, all the above mentioned economies have special provisions to retain ICT professionals. Amongst them, the US, the UK, and the European Union are desperately looking out for ICT professionals.
The reason for their desperateness is simple. A majority of people in these economies don’t “fall” for complex technological studies. They rather go for non-technological fields of study. You can get the feel of this in the statements of George Bush and Bill Gates, when they hopelessly advised US students to hone their Mathematics and Science skills, otherwise Asians would be taking their jobs away.
As these economies have enough money to invest in latest-and-complex Information and Communication Technologies, they don’t have enough man-power to build and operate the ICT infrastructure.
On the other hand, the third-world countries have a lot many ICT professionals, but they don’t have enough money to afford high-end ICT infrastructure. One of the fallouts of this situation is that these third-world countries are losing their highly skilled man-power to rich economies, moving them backward by ages.
Thankfully, the situation is improving in India and China though very slowly. India now allows up to 74 percent Foreign Direct Investment in its ICT. That’s how Vodafone has gotten into India, recently.
We are lazy. Still, I hope that we are going to witness some more positive changes in our country, soon.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Correlation Between Fun and Change
In general, we are, at most of the times, skeptical about changes – and doing so is just our natural reflex. We all look and seek for certainties in our lives, forgetting that life in itself is uncertain. But, we are what we are – paltry human beings.
I have keenly and amusingly observed people who play safe and crave for certainties. I do so whenever I feel like getting entertained for free! :-) And to no surprise, these kinds of people, generally, don’t make big in their lives. For God’s sake, why do people take their lives so seriously that they simply don’t have fun? Yes, fun is again a relative term. It means different things to different people. Quite often, I have heard people “covering” their mundane lives by manipulating the definition of fun, so that they don’t sound like bores. Whatever their reasons are, people should have fun to be productive enough and to keep going.
Again, in general, if you love fun, you must also be loving changes. That’s how you enjoy yourself by doing different things differently and amusingly. Thus, you are embracing changes and are being creative at the same time. This attitude gives you a definite edge in life. You win more, whereas not-so-fun-loving lose more.
I have keenly and amusingly observed people who play safe and crave for certainties. I do so whenever I feel like getting entertained for free! :-) And to no surprise, these kinds of people, generally, don’t make big in their lives. For God’s sake, why do people take their lives so seriously that they simply don’t have fun? Yes, fun is again a relative term. It means different things to different people. Quite often, I have heard people “covering” their mundane lives by manipulating the definition of fun, so that they don’t sound like bores. Whatever their reasons are, people should have fun to be productive enough and to keep going.
Again, in general, if you love fun, you must also be loving changes. That’s how you enjoy yourself by doing different things differently and amusingly. Thus, you are embracing changes and are being creative at the same time. This attitude gives you a definite edge in life. You win more, whereas not-so-fun-loving lose more.
Friday, June 13, 2008
How Big Is the Web?
Sometime back, I was just wondering – how big was the Web? I did some “R&D” to come up with the conclusion that there are two flavors of the Web:
1) The Surface Web – the size of which is estimated to be 167 Terabytes (TB). The Surface Web is something which is easily searched by various search engines, such as, Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc.
2) The Deep Web – the size of which is estimated by the University of California at Berkeley to be 91000 Terabytes (TB). And, typical search engines just cannot peruse through these data.
So, if anybody is looking to kill the hegemony of Google over the Web, the Deep Web is the opportunity. Good luck.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Can You Buy Happiness?
Yes, you can "buy" happiness! But, as it may seem counter-intuitive, you need to give away a portion of your money for free to "buy" happiness. People get happiness by spending money on someone else. According to a new research, conducted by Harvard Business School’s Professor Michael Norton and his two colleagues from the University of British Columbia, Elizabeth Dunn and Lara Aknin, giving other people even as little as $5 can lead to increased well-being for the giver.
Norton and colleagues found these results to hold in three different studies: a nationally representative survey, a field study of windfall spending, and an exploration in which participants were randomly assigned to spend money on others rather than on themselves.
The research says that one of the most puzzling paradoxes in social science is that though people spend so much of their time trying to make more money, having more money doesn't seem to make them that much happier. The issue was not that money couldn't buy happiness, but that people simply weren't spending money in the right way to make themselves happier.
The relative percentage rather than the absolute amount of their money that people spend on others matters to make the people happy. In other words, people need not be wealthy and donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity to experience the benefits of pro-social spending; small changes — a few dollars reallocated from oneself to another — can make a difference.
Although people believe that having money leads to happiness, the research suggests that this is only the case if, at least, some of that money is given to others.
Norton and colleagues found these results to hold in three different studies: a nationally representative survey, a field study of windfall spending, and an exploration in which participants were randomly assigned to spend money on others rather than on themselves.
The research says that one of the most puzzling paradoxes in social science is that though people spend so much of their time trying to make more money, having more money doesn't seem to make them that much happier. The issue was not that money couldn't buy happiness, but that people simply weren't spending money in the right way to make themselves happier.
The relative percentage rather than the absolute amount of their money that people spend on others matters to make the people happy. In other words, people need not be wealthy and donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to charity to experience the benefits of pro-social spending; small changes — a few dollars reallocated from oneself to another — can make a difference.
Although people believe that having money leads to happiness, the research suggests that this is only the case if, at least, some of that money is given to others.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Spreading Horizon through Islamic Banking
According to Reuters, not only China, but also the Gulf States are spying profitable opportunities among the hundreds of millions of Muslims who live just a hop across the Red Sea.
Africa's economies are growing fast, thanks in large part to the commodities boom. Although many people on the continent do not have a bank account, the banking systems in some countries are growing increasingly sophisticated. Bankers from the Gulf hope that the middle class, particularly in the Muslim north, will turn to Islamic finance and that firms will raise money through Islamic bonds, known as sukuk. Moody's, the credit-rating agency, reckons that although Islamic finance was worth a puny $18 billion at the end of last year, its potential is close to $235 billion - about half what it estimates as the GDP of Africa's Muslim population.
So far, forays from the Gulf into Africa have been limited to a few countries. Sudan - where only Sharia-compliant finance is allowed in the north - dominates, holding over half of Africa's Islamic-banking assets. A number of Gulf banks, familiar with the country's language and oil resources, have joined forces with Sudanese investors to open Islamic banks.
Last year the first sukuk from Africa was issued by a Sudanese cement firm. Reportedly, the government also tapped the market in January by selling bonds to Gulf investors to sidestep American economic sanctions over the massacres in Darfur. The same year, the Kenyan authorities licensed two Islamic banks, Gulf African Bank and First Community Bank, both backed by Gulf investment.
Western banks are also dipping their toes in. In Kenya, Barclays was the first to offer an Islamic bank account appropriately named La Riba, meaning "no interest". South Africa's ABSA opened an Islamic banking division in 2006.
Some of the keenest African customers for Islamic products are in countries where Muslims are a small minority; to them it provides a way of affirming their cultural heritage.
Islamic finance in Africa is a niche market, and probably will remain so. Islamic scholars are few and far between; few countries' laws are suitable for Islamic banking; the margins tend to be thinner than in the conventional Western model.
Some countries, such as Nigeria, with almost 70 million Muslims and a booming banking sector should be fertile ground.
Lack of standardized documentation and practices has been repeatedly highlighted by the Islamic finance industry as one of the key constraints on the rapidly growing sector. Islamic law is open to interpretation, which leads to differences in banking practices depending on the financial institution's advisers.
The Bahrain-based International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM) hopes its Master Agreement for Treasury Placement, which is in the final stages of gaining approval by Islamic scholars, will become a standard document.
"Each bank takes its own different decisions. What we are trying to do is put together a document which is a benchmark document that the industry can use," IIFM Chief Executive Ijlal Alvi told a conference on the future of Islamic finance.
Assets invested according to Islamic guidelines have been growing at roughly 20 percent a year worldwide, reaching $900 billion in 2007, and are set to $2 trillion by 2010, according to accountants at Ernst & Young.
By far, the most common Islamic financial transaction is commodity murabaha, which involves a bank buying a commodity for a client, and the client paying the bank back the cost of the commodity plus a bank charge or "profit rate" at a later date. The contract helps banks manage liquidity, and can be used by the client to secure cash by selling the commodity off, effectively buying money from the bank for the cost of the profit rate.
Islam bans interest, and stipulates that deals must be based on tangible assets - money cannot be made from money alone.
Commodity murabaha deals have come under criticism in recent years on fears that it is just a paper trail to circumvent Islamic law, with no real prospect of a physical commodity changing hands. Others say the practice of clients effectively "buying" money for the cost of the profit rate by selling the commodity off is simply interest by another name. IIFM's new contract does not tackle these issues, but bankers say they are working on an alternative to commodity murabaha.
Africa's economies are growing fast, thanks in large part to the commodities boom. Although many people on the continent do not have a bank account, the banking systems in some countries are growing increasingly sophisticated. Bankers from the Gulf hope that the middle class, particularly in the Muslim north, will turn to Islamic finance and that firms will raise money through Islamic bonds, known as sukuk. Moody's, the credit-rating agency, reckons that although Islamic finance was worth a puny $18 billion at the end of last year, its potential is close to $235 billion - about half what it estimates as the GDP of Africa's Muslim population.
So far, forays from the Gulf into Africa have been limited to a few countries. Sudan - where only Sharia-compliant finance is allowed in the north - dominates, holding over half of Africa's Islamic-banking assets. A number of Gulf banks, familiar with the country's language and oil resources, have joined forces with Sudanese investors to open Islamic banks.
Last year the first sukuk from Africa was issued by a Sudanese cement firm. Reportedly, the government also tapped the market in January by selling bonds to Gulf investors to sidestep American economic sanctions over the massacres in Darfur. The same year, the Kenyan authorities licensed two Islamic banks, Gulf African Bank and First Community Bank, both backed by Gulf investment.
Western banks are also dipping their toes in. In Kenya, Barclays was the first to offer an Islamic bank account appropriately named La Riba, meaning "no interest". South Africa's ABSA opened an Islamic banking division in 2006.
Some of the keenest African customers for Islamic products are in countries where Muslims are a small minority; to them it provides a way of affirming their cultural heritage.
Islamic finance in Africa is a niche market, and probably will remain so. Islamic scholars are few and far between; few countries' laws are suitable for Islamic banking; the margins tend to be thinner than in the conventional Western model.
Some countries, such as Nigeria, with almost 70 million Muslims and a booming banking sector should be fertile ground.
Lack of standardized documentation and practices has been repeatedly highlighted by the Islamic finance industry as one of the key constraints on the rapidly growing sector. Islamic law is open to interpretation, which leads to differences in banking practices depending on the financial institution's advisers.
The Bahrain-based International Islamic Financial Market (IIFM) hopes its Master Agreement for Treasury Placement, which is in the final stages of gaining approval by Islamic scholars, will become a standard document.
"Each bank takes its own different decisions. What we are trying to do is put together a document which is a benchmark document that the industry can use," IIFM Chief Executive Ijlal Alvi told a conference on the future of Islamic finance.
Assets invested according to Islamic guidelines have been growing at roughly 20 percent a year worldwide, reaching $900 billion in 2007, and are set to $2 trillion by 2010, according to accountants at Ernst & Young.
By far, the most common Islamic financial transaction is commodity murabaha, which involves a bank buying a commodity for a client, and the client paying the bank back the cost of the commodity plus a bank charge or "profit rate" at a later date. The contract helps banks manage liquidity, and can be used by the client to secure cash by selling the commodity off, effectively buying money from the bank for the cost of the profit rate.
Islam bans interest, and stipulates that deals must be based on tangible assets - money cannot be made from money alone.
Commodity murabaha deals have come under criticism in recent years on fears that it is just a paper trail to circumvent Islamic law, with no real prospect of a physical commodity changing hands. Others say the practice of clients effectively "buying" money for the cost of the profit rate by selling the commodity off is simply interest by another name. IIFM's new contract does not tackle these issues, but bankers say they are working on an alternative to commodity murabaha.
Friday, June 6, 2008
What is Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)?
When you move from desktop application development to web application development, you gain a lot in terms of distribution, working across operating systems, and ease of updating applications. But you lose things, such as, access to the local file system, drag and drop features, the ability to notify the user if something changes.
So, Adobe thought: How could it get those desktop features to Web apps?
AIR is basically about enabling web apps so that they have the “power” of the desktop application. In today’s IT enabled world, the trend is toward hosted applications, software as a service, that are built with web technologies. AIR helps your web apps to look beyond the boundary of a browser.
Adobe is just following its suite, as it has solved the cross-printer problem with Postscript, has solved the cross- word-processing-program problem with Portable Document Format (PDF), and has solved the problem of multimedia and video incompatibility across the Web with Flash. So, the obvious next frontier is solving the problem of cross-operating-system application runtime. In some ways, it's the toughest of all the problems that Adobe has cracked so far.
As people are relying more and more on web technologies for getting information, doing business transactions, expressing themselves creatively. The digital revolution that's happening now is with web technologies. So, by all means, for Adobe, this problem is worth pondering on.
Web apps have a lot of benefits from an IT perspective. They are easier to monitor because you just update them on the server and everyone gets the updated version. We don't have to worry about having a particular configuration on the desktop. You can have Mac, Windows, Linux, whatever you like, and your web applications will work. Moreover, web apps are easier to develop. You can have web developers creating these applications in conjunction with traditional IT architecture on the server side.
But, while web developers gained a lot when they went to the Web, they also lost the ability to access “personal” or “confidential” information while they are on the road. For example, companies have directories for everyone who works there. You can usually look up information on those directories while you are inside the organization’s firewall, but while you are traveling, either you don't have a network connection or you have to connect through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to get that information. Now, this problem could be solved using AIR. AIR helps you to “integrate” your web apps with your mobile devices, and also gives your web apps the power of traditional desktop apps.
Hats off to Adobe!! Good work.
So, Adobe thought: How could it get those desktop features to Web apps?
AIR is basically about enabling web apps so that they have the “power” of the desktop application. In today’s IT enabled world, the trend is toward hosted applications, software as a service, that are built with web technologies. AIR helps your web apps to look beyond the boundary of a browser.
Adobe is just following its suite, as it has solved the cross-printer problem with Postscript, has solved the cross- word-processing-program problem with Portable Document Format (PDF), and has solved the problem of multimedia and video incompatibility across the Web with Flash. So, the obvious next frontier is solving the problem of cross-operating-system application runtime. In some ways, it's the toughest of all the problems that Adobe has cracked so far.
As people are relying more and more on web technologies for getting information, doing business transactions, expressing themselves creatively. The digital revolution that's happening now is with web technologies. So, by all means, for Adobe, this problem is worth pondering on.
Web apps have a lot of benefits from an IT perspective. They are easier to monitor because you just update them on the server and everyone gets the updated version. We don't have to worry about having a particular configuration on the desktop. You can have Mac, Windows, Linux, whatever you like, and your web applications will work. Moreover, web apps are easier to develop. You can have web developers creating these applications in conjunction with traditional IT architecture on the server side.
But, while web developers gained a lot when they went to the Web, they also lost the ability to access “personal” or “confidential” information while they are on the road. For example, companies have directories for everyone who works there. You can usually look up information on those directories while you are inside the organization’s firewall, but while you are traveling, either you don't have a network connection or you have to connect through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to get that information. Now, this problem could be solved using AIR. AIR helps you to “integrate” your web apps with your mobile devices, and also gives your web apps the power of traditional desktop apps.
Hats off to Adobe!! Good work.
The World’s Solidarity with the US Banks
The world is extending its support to the two of the troubled banks of the US, Citigroup Inc., and Merrill Lynch & Co.
Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), which manages the Gulf Arab state's vast oil-generated assets, invested about USD $800 million in the initial public offering of the US credit card firm, Visa Corp. KIA had at least USD $213 billion of assets under management on March 31, 2007, according to the latest published figure. KIA might consider increasing its stake in the two US banks, Merrill Lynch & Co, and Citigroup Inc, after it already invested USD $5 billion in the two banks' capital raising efforts in January, 2008. Moreover, State-run Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) agreed in November, 2007 to buy USD $7.5 billion of stock in Citigroup.
Citigroup said it was privately raising USD $12.5 billion - the capital infusion of nearly USD $7 billion from Singapore Investment Corp, USD $3 billion from the Kuwait Investment Authority, and an undisclosed amount from Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, Citigroup’s largest individual shareholder.
Merrill Lynch & Co said it received a USD $6.6 billion investment from Kuwait, the Korean Investment Corp, and Japan's Mizuho Financial Group Inc. It also said it would boost its capital by raising USD $6.2 billion in a private placement with Singapore's Temasek Holdings and Davis Selected Advisors.
Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), which manages the Gulf Arab state's vast oil-generated assets, invested about USD $800 million in the initial public offering of the US credit card firm, Visa Corp. KIA had at least USD $213 billion of assets under management on March 31, 2007, according to the latest published figure. KIA might consider increasing its stake in the two US banks, Merrill Lynch & Co, and Citigroup Inc, after it already invested USD $5 billion in the two banks' capital raising efforts in January, 2008. Moreover, State-run Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) agreed in November, 2007 to buy USD $7.5 billion of stock in Citigroup.
Citigroup said it was privately raising USD $12.5 billion - the capital infusion of nearly USD $7 billion from Singapore Investment Corp, USD $3 billion from the Kuwait Investment Authority, and an undisclosed amount from Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, Citigroup’s largest individual shareholder.
Merrill Lynch & Co said it received a USD $6.6 billion investment from Kuwait, the Korean Investment Corp, and Japan's Mizuho Financial Group Inc. It also said it would boost its capital by raising USD $6.2 billion in a private placement with Singapore's Temasek Holdings and Davis Selected Advisors.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Trend-setting Engineering at Adobe
On February 25, 2008, Adobe Systems launched version 1.0 of the Adobe Integrated Runtime, or "AIR," which allows software programmers to use web-development tools to create desktop software applications that run on all the major operating systems: Windows, Mac, and -- coming soon -- Linux.
For Adobe, AIR is a big bet. It is Adobe's "fourth platform," positioning it as the next link in the chain that includes PostScript, Acrobat's PDF (Portable Document Format), and Flash. The first three created disruptive paradigm shifts in their respective fields -- typesetting and document printing, electronic document interchange and web interactivity -- and all have generated significant revenues for Adobe.
On March 5, 2008, Microsoft, the software giant, released a beta (test) version of the next generation of its Silverlight technology. The first version of Silverlight was aimed at combating Adobe's success in establishing Flash as a popular method of delivering video over the web. The most recent release of Silverlight, version 2, is targeted at Flash's ability to create what Adobe terms "rich Internet applications" -- web-based software programs that provide many of the features associated with traditional desktop software.
While Microsoft's Silverlight competes with Adobe's Flash, Microsoft doesn't have a technology that directly compares to Adobe's AIR.
Thus, the contest between Microsoft and Adobe over the next generation of software development tools is, to some extent, based on differing views of the future of computing. For Microsoft, the future lies in what it terms "software plus services" -- that is, using traditional desktop software (like the company's popular Office franchise) to connect to the web to access online services. Adobe believes the future rests on cross-platform software that allows developers to use web-based tools to build applications that run inside a web browser or, with AIR, can be installed as full-featured desktop software programs. (The grass is always greener on the other side - just joking!!)
As per my understanding of the situation, the differing views of Microsoft and Adobe on the future of computing landscape can be consolidated, in layman terms, as that the entire landscape of computing is going to get amalgamated big time. Players, including software developers and end users, on client sites – standalone PCs, laptops, and handheld mobile devices – are going to leverage the potential of server-site computing. Similarly, the vice versa holds true – players on server sites need to leverage the potential of client-site computing. Thus, both MS and Adobe are perfectly right in their visions of the future of computing. There are no differing views – both of them are starting off their journeys from so-called two opposite ends to the other end of the same spectrum.
For example, the recently released the Adobe Media Player, built with AIR, can both access online video subscriptions and organize locally-stored Flash video files. In the works is an AIR version of Buzzword, a word processor with many of the basic text formatting features found in Microsoft Word and similar programs. A number of other companies including eBay, AOL and Salesforce.com have deployed AIR applications. Adobe hopes many more will follow.
For Adobe, AIR is a big bet. It is Adobe's "fourth platform," positioning it as the next link in the chain that includes PostScript, Acrobat's PDF (Portable Document Format), and Flash. The first three created disruptive paradigm shifts in their respective fields -- typesetting and document printing, electronic document interchange and web interactivity -- and all have generated significant revenues for Adobe.
On March 5, 2008, Microsoft, the software giant, released a beta (test) version of the next generation of its Silverlight technology. The first version of Silverlight was aimed at combating Adobe's success in establishing Flash as a popular method of delivering video over the web. The most recent release of Silverlight, version 2, is targeted at Flash's ability to create what Adobe terms "rich Internet applications" -- web-based software programs that provide many of the features associated with traditional desktop software.
While Microsoft's Silverlight competes with Adobe's Flash, Microsoft doesn't have a technology that directly compares to Adobe's AIR.
Thus, the contest between Microsoft and Adobe over the next generation of software development tools is, to some extent, based on differing views of the future of computing. For Microsoft, the future lies in what it terms "software plus services" -- that is, using traditional desktop software (like the company's popular Office franchise) to connect to the web to access online services. Adobe believes the future rests on cross-platform software that allows developers to use web-based tools to build applications that run inside a web browser or, with AIR, can be installed as full-featured desktop software programs. (The grass is always greener on the other side - just joking!!)
As per my understanding of the situation, the differing views of Microsoft and Adobe on the future of computing landscape can be consolidated, in layman terms, as that the entire landscape of computing is going to get amalgamated big time. Players, including software developers and end users, on client sites – standalone PCs, laptops, and handheld mobile devices – are going to leverage the potential of server-site computing. Similarly, the vice versa holds true – players on server sites need to leverage the potential of client-site computing. Thus, both MS and Adobe are perfectly right in their visions of the future of computing. There are no differing views – both of them are starting off their journeys from so-called two opposite ends to the other end of the same spectrum.
For example, the recently released the Adobe Media Player, built with AIR, can both access online video subscriptions and organize locally-stored Flash video files. In the works is an AIR version of Buzzword, a word processor with many of the basic text formatting features found in Microsoft Word and similar programs. A number of other companies including eBay, AOL and Salesforce.com have deployed AIR applications. Adobe hopes many more will follow.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Ten Factors in Managing Global Talent
As per a recent McKinsey’s survey, there are ten important factors to consider, when it comes to managing global talent and increasing profit per employee. The ten facets, in decreasing order of importance, are:
1) Ensuring global consistency in management processes.
2) Achieving cultural diversity in global setting.
3) Developing and managing global leaders.
4) Translating human-resources information into action.
5) Relocating work to locations with good supply of talent.
6) Shaping the corporate HR agenda for managing good talent.
7) Creating internal talent pools.
8) Managing overseas assignments.
9) Sourcing and recruiting global talents.
10) Responding to changes in global talent market.
1) Ensuring global consistency in management processes.
2) Achieving cultural diversity in global setting.
3) Developing and managing global leaders.
4) Translating human-resources information into action.
5) Relocating work to locations with good supply of talent.
6) Shaping the corporate HR agenda for managing good talent.
7) Creating internal talent pools.
8) Managing overseas assignments.
9) Sourcing and recruiting global talents.
10) Responding to changes in global talent market.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Who “Ate” the American Pie of Productivity?
The US imports about 12 million barrels of oil a day, and at USD $130 a barrel -- no one knows where the price is going to stabilize at; it could go higher or lower – the US oil-import bill stands at about 4 percent of the US GDP, almost USD $600 billion. And for the US, this oil-import bill has got doubled over the last year. Previously, oil-import bill was of 2 percent of the GDP and now it has gone up to 4 percent of the GDP.
And, as the US productivity is up on the average, around two years of the GDP, this rise in the oil prices would COST the US a whole year's productivity gain!!
And, as the US productivity is up on the average, around two years of the GDP, this rise in the oil prices would COST the US a whole year's productivity gain!!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Managing Innovation
Here, I present you the core thoughts of Prof Gary Hamel on the way innovation is going to be managed in the future.
The traditional hierarchically based 20th-century model is not effective at organizing the thinking-intensive work of self-directed people who need to make subjective judgments based upon their own special knowledge.
The winners will be those that enable their thinking-intensive employees to create more profits by putting their collective mind power to better use. The real challenge is making profits off those talented people. That’s where the big opportunity is. The leading companies today are combining talent, technology, and organizational design to generate much higher profits per employee than was possible in the past. So the trick becomes, “How do I hire talent that I can profit from?”
In terms of managing creative-thinking people, you have to separate the work of managing from the notion of managers as a distinct and privileged class of employees. Highly talented people don’t need, and are unlikely to put up with, an overtly hierarchical management model. Increasingly, the work of management won’t be done by managers. It will be pushed out to the periphery. It will be embedded in systems. I think we’re on the verge of a post-managerial society. Your notion that you mobilize human labor, through a hierarchy of overseers, bureaucrats, and administrators, is going to look extraordinarily antiquated a decade or two from now.
The outlines of the 21st-century management model are already clear. Decision-making will be more peer-based; the tools of creativity will be widely distributed in organizations. Ideas will compete on an equal footing. Strategies will be built from the bottom up. Power will be a function of competence rather than of position.
In terms of the future of management, we’re at the beginning of what will be a fairly long journey. You can see some of the pieces starting to come together, but we’re not there yet. It often takes a crisis to change an organization because in most companies the authority to set strategy and direction is highly concentrated at the top. As a consequence, a relatively small group of people at the top can hold the organization’s capacity to change hostage to their own personal willingness to adapt and to change.
The traditional hierarchically based 20th-century model is not effective at organizing the thinking-intensive work of self-directed people who need to make subjective judgments based upon their own special knowledge.
The winners will be those that enable their thinking-intensive employees to create more profits by putting their collective mind power to better use. The real challenge is making profits off those talented people. That’s where the big opportunity is. The leading companies today are combining talent, technology, and organizational design to generate much higher profits per employee than was possible in the past. So the trick becomes, “How do I hire talent that I can profit from?”
In terms of managing creative-thinking people, you have to separate the work of managing from the notion of managers as a distinct and privileged class of employees. Highly talented people don’t need, and are unlikely to put up with, an overtly hierarchical management model. Increasingly, the work of management won’t be done by managers. It will be pushed out to the periphery. It will be embedded in systems. I think we’re on the verge of a post-managerial society. Your notion that you mobilize human labor, through a hierarchy of overseers, bureaucrats, and administrators, is going to look extraordinarily antiquated a decade or two from now.
The outlines of the 21st-century management model are already clear. Decision-making will be more peer-based; the tools of creativity will be widely distributed in organizations. Ideas will compete on an equal footing. Strategies will be built from the bottom up. Power will be a function of competence rather than of position.
In terms of the future of management, we’re at the beginning of what will be a fairly long journey. You can see some of the pieces starting to come together, but we’re not there yet. It often takes a crisis to change an organization because in most companies the authority to set strategy and direction is highly concentrated at the top. As a consequence, a relatively small group of people at the top can hold the organization’s capacity to change hostage to their own personal willingness to adapt and to change.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
How to Improve Energy Productivity?
Economies can improve energy productivity in two ways:
1) They can generate a given level of energy-related benefits with fewer inputs by using energy less intensively (with smaller appliances, for example), using energy in a more technically efficient way (car engines that use less fuel, say), or changing the mix of fuel they use (for instance, by switching from wood-burning stoves to electric ranges powered by coal-generated electricity).
2) They can increase output more rapidly than demand for energy by changing the composition of economic activity. Energy productivity rises, for example, when growth shifts from more to less energy-intensive sectors—from steel, say, to services, or to higher value-added activities within services.
Unfortunately, the gain of 1 percent a year in energy productivity over the past decade has been outstripped by global energy demand, which has risen by 1.6 percent a year. In the near future, that demand is likely to grow even faster—by 2.2 percent a year.
1) They can generate a given level of energy-related benefits with fewer inputs by using energy less intensively (with smaller appliances, for example), using energy in a more technically efficient way (car engines that use less fuel, say), or changing the mix of fuel they use (for instance, by switching from wood-burning stoves to electric ranges powered by coal-generated electricity).
2) They can increase output more rapidly than demand for energy by changing the composition of economic activity. Energy productivity rises, for example, when growth shifts from more to less energy-intensive sectors—from steel, say, to services, or to higher value-added activities within services.
Unfortunately, the gain of 1 percent a year in energy productivity over the past decade has been outstripped by global energy demand, which has risen by 1.6 percent a year. In the near future, that demand is likely to grow even faster—by 2.2 percent a year.
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