Executive Advisory Program

Economic Entrepreneurship and the World

Posted by: Jack Santos

Tomorrow is the traditional holiday of Thanksgiving in the states.

It is sometimes interesting how unrelated events seem to converge in space and time to make a point, and emphasize the spirit of a holiday where Americans give thanks for what they have, and have become.  In my case it was three events over the past week.

The point was how small our world is becoming, how people feel empowered, and the role of entrepreneurship in it.  At the Boston SIM meeting, I heard Iqbal Z. Quadir speak about the efforts of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship (at MIT: http://legatum.mit.edu).  A fascinating story… and basically a story about cell phone entrepreneurship in Bangladesh.  The Economist covered that this world economic miracle well, calling it the Indian model.  To sum up Iqbal’s message (probably unfairly): the only way to impact the third world is to give economic power to the masses – and the way to do that is through entrepreneurial opportunity.  Not loans to governments. Not stimulus plans. Heck, he made a case for shutting down the world bank…

That same week saw a call from an Argentinean company to pitch their product, ostensibly an outsourcing play.  Hmm, India, Philippines, China, now Brazil, Argentina…

In fact, the software development company (Globant) was less about traditional outsourcing, and competing on price, and  more about competing on the strength of its innovativeness, it passion, and the skills of their people.  Latin American pride came through, and it was clear that they weren’t just an engineering company, but positioning themselves as designers, analysts, and would come onsite,  offsite, or a mix.  A very impressive repertoire of projects, and an eye-opening view of how reach of the internet is affecting talent sourcing.  Here, too, was Iqbal’s example of entrepreneurial energy, lifting the economic opportunities within Latin America.

At the other end of the spectrum is my daughter’s effort in Sao Tome, a small African island nation off the west coast of Africa.  She’s down there helping them make effective use of the 100 “one laptop per child” laptops they got from the MIT program hand-out.  Yes, probably exactly the same kind of program that Iqbal (also at MIT) complained only empowers the status quo – the existing regime, the government.  Maybe so – and there is a lot of evidence of that.   But it’s also clear that the same kind of entrepreneurial fever is at play there, in the eyes and aspirations of the children.  It’s like planting a seed – an understanding within the child that there is so much more to the world than the poverty and limits they are surrounded by.  Maybe it’s that kind of start that feeds the entrepreneurial fever, that leads to economic power.  I can only hope.

So there you have it.  It can takes two years for a letter to reach Sao Tome from the states. Yet I chat online with my daughter almost every night, and keep abreast at the efforts with the kids.  It sounds like the start of the kind of momentum that Iqbal described happened in Bangladesh.  The kids in Sao Tome are getting ready.

Not exactly what the pilgrims had in mind, but hopefully the results will be similar – after all, the pilgrims were economic entrepreneurs, too.

Happy Thanksgiving.

More Pie for the Masses...

Posted by: Jack Santos

How many emails do you get daily?  I remember when my response of 50-100 per day would elicit a “yeah, right…do you get anything else done?”.

Sad to say, 50-100 per day is probably the low end of the norm for most people these days, and my work load has topped  over 150-200 a day…then add my personal email box of 50-100.

Our collaboration and content group has a lot to say on information overload. Craig Roth has for years talked about the concept of information pull, instead of push.  That is, set up a system so that you can easily get what interests you, rather than just get a torrent of unsolicited stuff that screams for attention.

One of the ways is to move some of that load to wikis or discussion groups.  The jury is still out for me on that, and my take on the use of wiki’s (for other than joint authoring, like with Wikipedia) is skeptical.  But some of the benefits of SharePoint discussion groups, or even wikis, are (as Craig pointed out):

• it enables simple subscription/unsubscription to the topic
• it maintains a historical record of how decisions were made for future justification
• it allows new employees to gain visibility to the whole thread
• it applies thread management like a tree structure
• it surfaces tribal knowledge so the corporation can maintain it (rather than this knowledge residing in our personal inboxes which are unsearchable and destroyed when we leave)

I guess so.

But it’s still yet another place to go, yet another place for MORE information, yet another place vying for your attention.  Add to that blogs, news feeds, Facebook,  Twitter…. well….its just piling on.  Where will it all lead?

We may be at a tipping point where the processes for managing information are far more valued than the delivery mechanisms.  One can only hope.  Lyn Robison (from our Data Management group) loves to rant about how business people put up with bad information from their IT departments.  No doubt. The sad thing is businesses want more. 

Like the old  shtick about the two senior citizens in the Catskills: “This  pie tastes awful!” says the first, to which the friend replies “ YES! and the pieces are too small!”

And so it goes with enterprise information…

100% Organic Thinking

Posted by Jack Santos

The term “organic” is making the lexicon rounds, and has come a long way from its health food store beginnings in the 70s.  Take organic business growth (versus growth by acquisition).

The most recent manifestation of “organic” came from a column in Forbes, by Dan Woods.

Dan’s approach, and back-handed chastisement of traditional IT, certainly fits trends that we at Burton group talk about.

Specifically the  consumerization and democratization of IT.   A recent Computerworld report brought the point home:  Internet access is now a human right, according to the EU.

So, as information technology continues to become integrated in everyday life,  the trend toward “organic IT” will only get worse – or better depending on your POV.

That’s why I often talk about IT integration versus IT alignment.

But the flip side of organic is chaos (both data and process) and unintended consequences.  Think invasive species. 

The business has ultimate control and responsibility for both data and process, and the organic approach, if not managed, can negatively impact both.

Usually what that means is that the organization looks for someone to mediate the decision-making and organizational/systems decisions…and the only piece of the organization that has the expertise and (ostensibly) the umpire-like lack of line responsibility skin-in-the-game is IT – so IT ends up managing the use of technology, and all that goes along with it -- including governance processes.

Whether governance fully involves the business, or IT just takes on the mantle of responsibility is a tricky balance.  The latter often occurs at the urging/delegation/abdication by business units.  I would submit that IT needs another set of skills – that of making sure that technology (read data and process) decision-making is business driven.  

It’s a  biblical “give a fish vs. teach to fish” scenario – but  teaching to fish assumes learning acceptance by the target, and some level of skill by the teacher.  And these skills are not technical skills – but relationship and influence skills.  Not the usual courses taken by a rising C programmer, or a database administrator.

When getting the business to be fully involved in technology decision-making doesn’t work well,  it's just a short hop to blaming IT, or for IT to overreact (again as proxy to the business) and set inflexible standards that squelch business innovation.

That’s why architecture (and governance) is so important.

It’s all about collaboration and communication, and neither a soviet-style centralized approach (which, incidentally, has strong similarities to how capitalist companies are managed), nor a total laissez-faire anarchy (which is where organic has strong tendencies) will work.

Which reminds me of a t-shirt…

“Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll sit in the boat drinking beer all day…”

Would that be…organic beer?

The real world

 

 
  Posted by: Jack Santos

Just back from 2 weeks at sea; timing is everything – just missed a hurricane.  It gets interesting when life doesn’t include daily (if not hourly) interaction on the internet…and it was a welcome respite.  Which reminded me of this recent piece forwarded by a friend:

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch "Who's on First?" might have turned out something like this:  

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT      
ABBOTT:  Super Duper computer store. Can I help you? 
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT:  Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer.. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT:  Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why?  Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows? 
ABBOTT:  Wallpaper. 
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software... ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer!  I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business.  What do you have?
ABBOTT:  Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything? 
ABBOTT: I just did. 
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT:  Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT:  Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT:  Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office! 
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?  
ABBOTT:  Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows? 
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "W" if you don't start with some straight answers... What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT:  Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT:  Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer..
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer? 
ABBOTT:  Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much? 
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money? 
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not?  THEY OWN IT!
        (A few days later) 
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you? 
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START"............