Google and the ripoff merchants

Google tries hard - perhaps too hard - to use its "smarts" (the fancy, arcane and secret algorithms it's famous for) to outwit the shonky operators who lure lots of clicks via cheap Adwords search terms, only to offer them pages of hi-return ads. And gets written up in Forbes. Another fascinating read, from any perspective.

Resources for business brains

My online strategy? Basically look at and subscribe to everything then slowly weed out the chaff. Let things percolate slowly. You may think YouTube a dud but 6 months later it's gained critical mass. It happens over and over again. Look at MySpace, or the fast growing virtual world at Second Life. Now one day someone will integrate all of these social networks and kaboom. In the business of online business it's keeping your eyes open to new ideas that matters. Audio remains big on the web and in real life, and tools like Pluggd and Talkr have got to have scope to grow.

And use the resources like MBA Depot. It was a great source of articles during my MBA study and remains very useful.

The Reserve Bank's virtual museum

Well it's an interesting diversion from working on spreadsheets. Check it out here. It's pretty cool in a central-bankish sort of way.

The description: "A virtual tour of the Reserve Bank of Australia's Museum of Australian Currency Notes is now available. The interactive features of the tour include zoomable images, 360° panoramas and streaming video."

Not sure this is a good idea but here it is...

I'm not sure that Forbes intends to bring anything remotely resembling positive attention to the evil and corrupted forces behind email scams, but they have made it mildly amusing:"making his Fictional 15 debut: spam entrepreneur Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria. Abakaliki is notable for being the only fictional character on our list who regularly e-mails real people, usually begging for assistance in recovering large sums of money. We estimate Abakaliki to be worth more than $2.8 billion."

The Forbes Fictional 15 here (includes oil billionaire Jed Clampett, by the way).

War between the formats hurts uptake

Well price hurts uptake too. Why don't you toss a coin and pick between Blu-ray and HD-DVD? (Wharton's excellent article here.)I suspect that the cashed up early adopters will buy both and the less affluent will go with what looks coolest, spec-wise. So we'll see sales of both for a while until content kicks in... since you can't as yet record to either format content will be king. Which looks like a Blu-ray win to me, at this stage. But is it so?

History tells us that the 'better' Beta lost to VHS because of content - but the proliferation of VHS machines played a part, too. The lower cost machine built up more content and it all snowballed. What will make Blu-ray snowball? Games consoles? Content? It's a maybe on both counts. What could stop Blu-ray domination? Well history also tells us that what was a mess of CD, CD-R, CD-RW and other combinations of plus and minus got sorted out - to a large extent - by machines able to cope with multiple formats. Maybe that will happen again?

It's fun to watch, anyway. The fight between formats, I mean, not necessarily the content ;-)

IBM on InnovationJam and Thinkplace

IBM recently showcased the top 10 ideas generated by its employee and client online "jam". In essence the company opened up a site that allowed access to its staff as well as clients in an effort to get a wide-ranging conversation - a brainstorming - happening on future needs and possible solutions. It's mostly worthy stuff as well as potentially profitable, if the research department can make it workable. I like the "jam" idea but it does get a bit hard to see what's happening when 150,000 people are simultaneously involved. Hey, I work for IBM and I participated - but these are my opinions and not necessarily those of the corporation. It was crowded in there.

Anyway, it's come up with some good ideas - check it out at InfoWorld.

GM, hydrogen and sustainability.

Read this (from Carsguide.com.au) and have a laugh. Firstly: "The eco-friendly cars hold the potential of zero emissions and a sustainable source of energy produced when hydrogen and oxygen are mixed." How can a car be eco-friendly? It takes energy and resources to make it, distribute it and service it. It takes energy to melt it down and recycle it. It requires roads, which tar over the soil that would otherwise support plants and animals. Need I go on? It's not 'eco' friendly at all. And what the heck is 'a sustainable source of energy when hydrogen and oxygen are mixed'? Where does this 'sustainable' energy come from? By using energy to break water into hydrogen and oxygen? Where did that energy come from? Thin air?

It gets better - or worse, if you like: "Car makers claim they need help from governments in developing the infrastructure for hydrogen fuelling, he (Rick Wagoner of GM) said. 'Developing new technologies is really a team sport that requires business and governments to work together,' he said. 'It's doable, it's not that expensive, but it's going to require some work.'

It's not enough that car companies can wreak havoc on the environment and expect communities to fork out billions for road infrastructure, they also expect a subsidy for being such nice people. Please, please - catch a train instead. I love cars but I don't expect them to subsidised to the hilt. If they are worth having - and they are - they should be priced to cover the real cost - the opportunity cost - of what we lose as well as gain. And they should bear the full cost of the infrastructure. Only then will we appreciate how much it really costs when we jump in the car to go a kilometre down the road to buy some bread or milk.

These market distortions - call them externals if you like - are hiding the real cost of what we are doing to this planet. Wake up. Get a bike instead!

Another view of powerhouse India

Another view of the problems and successes of powerhouse India, from Forbes mag. A good , balanced review of the outsourcing issue plus a few anecdotes and examples of rising fortunes in IT manufacturing and the price to be paid for success. The upshot? As India rises, so do the expectations. It'll level out in the end and jobs will change but - yes - there will still be jobs.

Potential dangers with "proximity" cards

Do you have a proximity access card for your secure building, or a credit/debit card with 'tap and go' or some other variety of proximity based radio transmission of your account info? How secure do you imagine those transmissions to be? Are they encrypted? Do the POS terminals decrypt the signal, then? Do they? Are you sure? Did you ask your bank?

Well at least these RFID-based things are convenient. They must be coupled with encryption in order to defeat 'eavesdroppers' who can use sensitive antennae to pick up the RFID signal and save the info for nefarious use. If you have multiple such cards then at least you have muddied the electronic waters a bit, but a single card is prey to short range transmission - and reception. Maybe that guy in the queue behind you is reading your card right now... read the full study here (from the University of Massachusetts).

Project management wiki

In case you blinked, there's a useful project management wiki inside Wikipedia.

Lean vs Six Sigma

I am assuming you have an MBA, are getting one or are thinking you may like to have one. You don't need one but it does make you feel slightly more justified when you speak or write about business topics. It's a generalist, not a specialist degree after all. Anyway, during my MBA studies I was taught about Toyota's lean manufacturing principles, as well as GE's love affair with Six-Sigma. In essence Toyota cuts out waste by eliminating duplication of effort and designing both the production line and the product to have the minimal number of parts, bottlenecks or possible problem areas. It minimises assembly times (fewer parts doing multiple jobs) and thus saves time and money whilst boosting production. It builds what the customer actually wants and nothing more. It's also based on incremental improvement from the shop floor as well as above (or below or sideways, whatever) and it's complementary with just-in-time assembly. You buy just enough parts to make just enough cars to meet immediate demand and avoid having bins, rows or yards full of parts or completed products. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Unless you want to save the planet, of course. What happens is that the production is refined to the nth degree but the product - although reliable and long-lived - is almost irrepairable in a traditional sense. What were once multiple, low-cost serviceable parts become 'modules' of high cost replaceable parts. You remember cars you could fix for a few dollars? Well complete cars are cheaper and better today but when you break a bit - like a gearbox - you are more than likely required to buy an entire gearbox to fix it! OK, that's an extreme - but increasingly that's where it leads. It suits the car makers - they make more stuff, cheaper, and sell more. But it's more energy used overall, more otherwise healthy parts rendered useless an dmelted down (at an energy cost). It's all about faster life-cycles, mass consumption and saving waste at the factory, and less about maximising serviceability, product life-times and re-use. So it has a downside.

And Six-Sigma. well again it's about minimising factory or production waste, in both effort and materials, and getting the greatest consistency of quality possible. Just imagine if you make no errors in production - or just 1 in a million - and your competitor makes 10 such faults in a million - what an advantage you have! You have less cost soaked up in in stopping production, replacing parts or re-making faulty product. And fewer returns.

So Six Sigma and Lean are both process improvement methodologies that focus on reducing waste associated with production processes. Six Sigma is particularly about eliminating defects in any process. The fundamental objective of the Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy (can't manage what you can't measure!) that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction. Build with tight tolerances and don't go outside. GE has used it to great effect.

However Lean is more about speed and efficiency in the process. Lean is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste, where waste is defined as anything that does not add value to the client (anything they don't think they want, or that doesn't register as useful. That 6th cupholder may be going too far, for example, in a 5 seater car). So whereas Six Sigma eliminates defects it does not address the question of optimising process flow. By adding Lean as well each approach can work in concert to result in dramatic improvement within an organization. They make a powerful combo.

So what are the Lean principles?

• Value: Keep asking what the customers value and want
• Value Stream: Map the flow of work and look for ways to speed it up by reducing waste and the amount of work in progress
• Flow: Do work so that it flows smoothly and without interruption; mistake-proof the process, and solve problems at their source to achieve higher quality and productivity
• Flexible Pull: Produce only what the customer requests, when they need it
• Continuous Improvement: Define, measure, analyze, improve, and control production.
  

By applying these principles organizations have used the Lean process approach to shorten delivery cycle times, increase quality and the value of their services, improving their competitiveness. As I say, however, they is a potential drawback for the world's energy and resource reserves. Whilst savings are made at the factory there may be no such savings in the overall scheme of things - until we start to value our environment a bit more! Do the math yourself and come back to me!

Vigilant vs operational leaders

Excellent Wharton article on Vigilant vs Operational
leaders... It touches on Ford vs Toyota (guess which type of leader is which) as well as
Coke vs Pepsi in India and the lighting manufacturers missing the switch to
LEDs. Essentially the article distinguishes between looking just at the
operational issues of lower cost production and matching the competitors
you know, vs looking outside at a broader range of influences and moving
earlier. Makes sense to me.

Another case study for you - the HDD turns 50

Want to see a product life cycle? Look at the humble hard disk drive. Invented 50 years ago by IBM, it has steadily dropped in size and price. A few years ago IBM sensed that the margin was gone and it sold out of the business. Nevertheless the market remains big with niches developing all the time. However it's hard to make money except by low-cost production and high volumes. HDDs also face competition from solid-state memory devices. Although HDDs are attractive in terms of price, performance and size, technologies such as Flash memory are robust, immune to the likely effects of shock and power loss and getting bigger, faster and cheaper by the day. Can you see a future for HDDs, or will they be overwhelmed by new technology? Sounds like a good essay subject to me.

Agility and competitive advantage

Competive advantage is taking your core competence and making from it some key feature that gives you an edge over your competitors. It could be a fast, flexible and low cost supply chain like Dell's; or Toyota's ability to rapidly develop multiple new car designs and to manufacture them almost faultlessly. But what happens when, inevitably, the others catch up? The answers are many, but they include sharpening that edge continually or looking for new ideas from left field. This BusinessWeek article explores a few of those ideas.

EFTPOS decision in Oz

The RBA has issued a press release on the subject of EFTPOS and capped fees. The fees will fall, reflecting the real cost of electronic transactions, to 5c or less (from around $0.20). Quite a fall. This is a reasonable thing... electronic transactions are meant to be frictionless, it is quite ridiculous to be promoting electronic banking on one hand and charging over the top for it on the other. Whilst normally competitive pressure would see it come down anyway, in fact a virtual cartel of banks has kept it high. You can guess their motives.

Apple's strategy defined - a little

Apple has finally moved to show its hand - a little. CNET reports new iPods, at last, push the boundaries a little but mostly play catch-up with the market. Bigger capacity, funkier colours. iTunes gets Disney movies. And iTV promises a method of streaming PC video wirelessly to TVs. It's a home-based play, sure - and in line with the iPod consumer strategy - that bridges the PC to the TV. Whilst it makes sense it hardly shatters our perceptions. There must be more, surely?

Telstra and strategy

What a case study... start with a huge public service monopoly (the Post Master General or PMG) and split it into 2: Australia Post and Telecom (roughly 1976 or so?). Start cutting staff... reorganise... reshuffle .... sell excess property... trim it down and increase the potential for a high ROI. Rebrand the sexy IT bit - Telecom - as Telstra and sell it off to investors large and small. OK, the first tranche went well, so sell off some more at a higher price. Now smart investors new that threats like DSL and VoIP were already here but that didn't stop the less informed paying that over-the-top price. Oooops. Since then it's been going down... lots of competition, share price falling... so bring in a US exec with a proven record and... well it's been quite a ride. Here's a Forbes interview with Sol Trujillo for that US perspective. Then get busy writing that essay!

Playing hardball on strategy

This one's from Ivey Business Journal via MBA Depot. We are used to sporting and military terminology in business strategy and Hardball is no exception. In summary, go easy on your competitors and you will lose. Instead, play hardball - fair, legal, ethical but hard - by focusing on your strengths and their weaknessness and by exploiting both.

Business Transformations 101

On Transformations and what must have happen to make them work, John Kotter noninates 8 stages. I'm not personally fond of the 'institutionalising new approaches' wording as it suggests entrenchment... but overall you can't argue too hard against the 8 dot points. Kotter explains all in his book, Leading Change.

It's probably a good idea to practice sensible Change Management as well. It never ends - I think that's the secret.

Google Trends - a useful service

Don't forget to use Google's Trends service... or use it now if you've only just realised it's there! Trends allows search term comparisons, as in "alfa" vs "alfa romeo". It plots it graphically and by geography. If you need to know what search terms are hot and where, this is how you find out.

Oh yeah, it's also fun.

Google search share down?

Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know how they know - I imagine there's some proprietary rights over the real data, so it's probably a sample, but Forbes is reporting that Google's share of web searches has fallen. About time. Anyone remember when Altavista was king? Google has had a long and spectacular run, as has Yahoo!, but things do change. Interestingly noone is saying that Microsoft's share is growing.

Old Media takes over the New Media?

I have a few bones to pick with this Forbes soapbox article. Firstly, why would it surprise anyone that cashed-up Old Media wouldn't see the light eventually (let's not forget they mostly nay-sayed to begin with) and then jump in buying up the new, hardier post-techwreck upstarts? Especially when the writing's now plainly on the wall? The upstart is here, banging on the door.

Whilst I accept the premise that "old media" will adapt, I disagree with the thrust of the article, that all previous forms of media remain intact and will continue to flourish in "a bigger pie". The pie may indeed be bigger - there are more consumers with more cash in hand now than 50 years ago, for starters - but the forms of media that were around 50 years ago - even 25 years ago - have certainly not 'flourished'. They may look healthy now but that's a veneer - what they are today exists only because of a painful and lengthy process of adaptation to previous change.

Anyway, Clem Chambers writes in part that it was said that "The invention of radio was going to kill newspapers; the advent of television was going to kill radio, cinema and newspapers. The older among us will remember that the computer was going to banish paper from the office and replace textbooks and so on. Yet in all instances, there has never been more apparently "obsolete media" around than today".

Not everyone believes - or has in the past stated - that a new invention "kills" prior art. Sometimes it does, or seems to, just as TV did overwhelm cinema. If you consider it to be otherwise, consider that there used to be cinemas in every suburb, in the tiniest communities - just as there were dance halls, community meeting rooms and public libraries everywhere. Radio and then TV steadily drove down patronage, before cinema fought back with multiplexes; and now cinema is adapting again to DVD and online entertainment options. Cinema may not have been "killed" but it's a very different - and far less dominant- beast from, say, the 1940s version.

Exactly the same applies to radio and newspapers. Radio was the centre of our lives for a while, the fastest way to obtain information and a new source for entertainment. It did impact newspapers hugely and still does. Indeed newspapers adapted and competed but they noticeably increased their op-ed content, decreased their frequency, merged and generally looked desperately around for new ways to survive. It was a major and very public reorganisation and regrouping from the 1960s to the 80s that led to what Clem sees as the flourishing "old media" we see now. But now radio, newspapers and TV itself are threatened by the Internet. Radio is already marginalised. Yes, it has adapted, just as TV is adapting, and they both have found ways to cut costs and cling to their niches. But radio certainly isn't the beast that it was and TV is now facing the same competitive pressures - and losing both viewers and revenue.

As for the myth of the 'paperless office', Clem is clearly not old enough to recall what offices were like before ubiquitous computing. Look at the finance industry for just one example. Bank books were indeed books with handwritten entries. Ledgers were on paper and balances had to be made available daily - on paper. Customer records were on paper. Paper forms for new accounts. Paper forms for every transaction, credit or debit. Offices were packed with paper files that represented the account details of every customer. Typewriters where everywhere. We used handwriting a lot more. We kept everything - on paper. It was a paper-based world.

If you replicated this paper-based information collection, storage and presentation stream to the scale and breadth of today's requirements - well it wouldn't work, would it? It may have been rash to declare the end of paper in the office, but like cinema, radio, TV and newspapers its use has changed profoundly and - relatively speaking - has declined enormously.

Which brings me to Clem's claim that the textbook is also flourishing in this modern digital age. Perhaps he means that the textbook has morphed into an online entity; because paper-based textbooks are on the nose. Children are increasingly required to have laptops in their schoolbags, not paper-based boat anchors.

After 25 years is the PC dead?

Is the PC dead? After 25 years of development we are both nowhere and everywhere. Nowhere in the sense that I for example am doing exactly what I did on a computer in 1984... type. I work with words and numbers. I may do a few other things like video editing, which back then I did equivalently as 8mm film splicing, but 90% of what I do is the same. And by everywhere I mean I do just about everything on a PC of some sort and pretty much carry one of them around all the time. But what really has changed?

They are bigger, faster, lighter, smaller and more colourful - louder as well. They can replace audio systems, video and TV systems, even photograhic paper and film. But increasing so can other devices. What's the betting that one day your cell phone will do everything your PC does today? What will that mean for PC hardware and software businesses?

Interesting InfoWorld piece here on the PC's history and relevance.

Free stuff from McKinsey's

Highly recommended for anyone in business or involved in business studies: the McKinsey Quarterly. Some content is free upon registration. If you are doing an MBA these reports are great reference material.

Apple's Leopard about to pounce

OS wars, again and again

Does it really matter what Apple does? They only have about 2% of the global PC market, if that. However they do possess greater 'mind share'. Far more than 2% of us know about Apple as a brand. We may like 'em or loathe 'em but they do come out with some funky stuff. Here's a positive (perhaps overly positive) report on Leopard from SmartHouse. With Windows Vista somewhere in the wings it's Apple's (and Linux's) time to make up some ground. With Macs now powered by Intel the obvious is happening - Apple can now confidently assert that all apps are available on the one platform - the Apple platform. Whilst that's reassuring for the Mac users - to have access to Windows apps on their otherwise more limited (if impressive) architecture - will it drive PC fans into the arms of Apple dealers?

I suspect it will grab a bigger bite, but it won't shake the earth.

posted by gtveloce at 2:52 AM

Strategic purchase by AMD

The ATI purchase by AMD is interesting. It's not just a simple play to grow a company by absorbing a related but smaller company. Sure, AMD is a chip maker, but it makes the grandest chips of all - the CPUs - so buying up a graphics specialist is (a) chicken feed and (b) not going to shake the Earth. Or will it?

By buying up such a reputable graphics card maker they have guaranteed that at least some of AMD's product will now be getting inside some of those Intel boxes, not just their own. Intel may now have to consider putting pressure on its customers to drop ATI - but it surely risks anti-competitive action in so doing. And some graphics and games buffs love ATI, so there will be resistance. It's thus another ploy by AMD to get the brand into Intel territory and to drive a wedge into the box makers. Do they stick with ATI and thus side with AMD, risking Intel's wrath, or do they side with Intel and drop ATI, accepting any collateral damage that may bring?

It's a canny move by AMD in any case. Read Infoworld's take here.

Top ten proliferated new technologies by 2020

"In the year 2020 -- the death of locality and other predictions", from Infoworld with extras in bold by yours truly. Infoworld's writer had a talk with Hossein Eslambolchi, former president of AT&T Labs and CTO for the company. This is his/their top 10, except I have added my comment to Infoworld's.

Number 10 -- Next generation speech recognition and Natural Language Understanding [NLU] will redefine human machine interface. Comment: I hope it comes before then, I'm sick of typing. On the other hand I get a sore throat and what happens? Perhaps some more direct mind-machine interface would do the trick?

Number 9 -- Knowledge mining will transform the way we do business. By 2010 individual databases will store 5 terabytes to 10 terabytes of data. By 2020 Eslambolchi says a single database will contain 100 petabytes of data. Comment: can't argue against this one, it's happening as we speak (or write). Tell us something new!

Number 8 -- Open source components at network edge will dominate. Stuff that sits on the edge now, like security and XML messaging will be integrated into the heart of the network and new things will appear at the edge. Comment: hmmm, not very convincing. What's the new stuff? Should we be that concerned about where stuff "sits"? Will we even have an "edge" to consider by 2020?

Number 7 -- Broadband will be common -- death of locality. Comment: well, yeah. Once we cure famine and war we will have the death of locality. In lucky western countries we already have reasonable broadband and it doesn't matter much where you are. I am in Australia. Can you tell? But it matters in Lebanon right now, don't you think?

Number 6 -- e-collaboration and P2P will dominate the workplace. Infoworld says: Maybe. Comment: As we Kazaa and Skype our P2P way through our day now, this is a no brainer. Similarly with e-coolaboration. Like we do it now, so why should it not persist? It will proliferate. It will remain difficult to plough a field e-cooperatively but I'm sure tractors will be electronically, remotely controlled, guided by GPS and absolutely brilliant by 2020. We'll all want one.

Number 5 -- Sensor networks will proliferate. "Yes, if you sneeze into a tissue there will be a sensor on the tissue and you'll find an email in your inbox when you get home asking if you want to reorder". Comment: like we need to waste the world's resources on all those throw-away sensors. Better bet - the box counts the tissues and suggests a reorder, and the new tissues come sans-box.

Number 4 -- Wireless Internet Access will grow exponentially. Sounds obvious but Eslambolchi says gaps will be filled in over the next gen. Comment: still seems obvious. Barring a better way being developed, makes sense. Not earth-shaking. Burying/hanging copper made sense under the old water/power utility model. Thinking of which, what about data via the power lines? Talk about ubiquity...

Number 3 -- Networks will become personal. Wireless IP networks will create a new class of personal devices and services. A network dedicated to you. Infoworld supposes its 'like a personal portal on steroids'. Comment: I think we can all see this one happening. Loads of people have personal LANS, it's just an extension of the obvious.

Number 2 -- Security requirements will continue to increase. Comment: no way! Surely not? Are they wasting bandwidth writing this stuff? I'm beginning to think I am!

And Infoworld says that "the number 1 technology change we will see by the year 2020 is --
Emerging networks and the Internet will be ready for the "sextuple" play. Voice, video, data, wireless, gaming and sensory information". Comment: Go on, tell us more. Did someone have a slow news day? I'm sorry I just added to it! Anyone out there want to prognosticate with vision and insight, rather than stating the blindingly obvious??

Neverthess, as Infoworld says, "go forth and build a business around one of these. You can't lose". Indeed, it's a pretty safe bet you'll have a market. You may have to fight for your marketshare and the return on investment may be poor, but... hmmm. There's no free lunch here, folks. This is leveraging what's already well on its way with many players already claiming rights.Grab a niche or go for a big play, or perhaps build something compelling and new that leverages off these no brainers. Your choice.

Blogdomination

Blogging gives me another reason to write. As I do want to write, and I want to practise writing, it seems to me that any method is better than no method. Blogging is a style, one that I break regularly. There's an etiquette as well, which I choose to ignore. The point to me is that I can write what I want, when and where I want. Now I always could - and did - do that. However now my scraps of paper are not filed away in a folder but published on the web. Apart from added colour and motion I have gained a small readership. Potentially, anyway. Somehow it's both inspiring and limiting to have this level of openness. Inspiring that what I write will be viewed and critiqued, and limiting in the sense that now what I write is not just for me. So I tend to edit a bit more harshly. Or not. It's my choice, and I am aware of it.

Anyway, most of my recent writing has been in my blogs. I blog about writing, photography, business, cars and bike racing. Plus I rant and rave. Or just share opinions. There's some overlap, but mostly they stay on track. Feel free to critique.

More examples of convergence and competition from left field

I briefly mentioned the photographic industry a while ago and this article in Smarthouse (may need to register to read it) prompted more thinking. Basically the 35mm SLR camera business has been dominated by Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Olympus (apologies to the rest of the market) for so long that was hard to imagine any major change happening anytime soon. Of course then the charge coupled device (CCD) came along and we went digital at the point and shoot end quicker than you can click a shutter. Seemed that quick anyway. That hurt film companies, big processors, minilabs and lower end camera sellers like Kodak. In a race to move fast Kodak probably missed the inital boat and has taken a while to catch up. Hard to know why they waited so long with the memory of Polaroid still pretty fresh in their minds.

Anyway, it's another classic case of disruptive forces at play.

The hardware and film makers got the shakes about 5 years ago because new, alternative (digital) technology finally came of age. Enough people had computers with big enough hard drives, fast burning optical media and hi-res printers to make digital seem doable. You could argue that film is superior until you are blue in the face - and they did - but it's no longer that much better, certainly not at the low to medium end. And home printing is faster, more selective and more convenient than even waiting an hour to find your happy snaps are blurred.

So the camera guys get shaken up by the computer and consumer electronics guys. New technology proliferates, new brands emerge and a brand new price war erupts. It also drives sales of computers and hi-res colour printers. Film is dying.

Now some crossover was already happening with Canon leveraging their optical competence in the scanner market and diversifying into printers. And the big SLR makers could only hold out so long before swapping their most popular film-based SLRs for digitals at similar but higher price points.

They love selling SLRs because each one can be accessorised. And they had managed to avoid any dominant standard of lens mount, so if you bought a Pentax or a Nikon you were pretty much obliged to buy Pentax or Nikon lenses, apart from a few aternatives with adapters. It manufactures loyalty. Once a Pentax buyer, always a Pentax buyer - if only because it's too expensive to swap over a whole fleet of flash lenses. So it's a pretty attractive market from a profit perspective.

Enter the disruptors. It's been brewing for 10 years or more. More and more electronics had stretched the old mechanical linkages between lenses and camera bodies already, so the buyer was getting more reasons - or opportunities - to swap brands. If I had to buy a whole fleet of new lenses anyway, because the mechanical links to aperture control were now electronic or because autofocus required a new mount anyway, well I may as well look around. I always fancied a Nikon... ;-)

So digital is the latest and probably greatest incentive to switch brands. The race is on to once again lock customers into proprietary camera to body designs. Camera makers without the resources to go digital will have to consider their alternatives. Pursue the high-end highest-resolution traditionalists and pros who won't, or can't yet, drop film, or get out. Konica-Minolta did both. They hived off their 35mm SLR business to Sony and concentrated their resources on the medium-format higher resolution film-based business.

Sony brings a big brand into the SLR market. A brand that bridges successfully from the consumer electronics end of the spectrum to top-shelf pro video gear. If they are serious about it then they should take a big slice of the market and put the heat on the rest.

Looking for MBA resources?

Try these previous posts...

• Leadership
• Economic context of management
• Strategy and product lifecycles
• Harvard resources for MBAs
• Apple and innovation, take 2
• Optimum team size - Wharton article
• HR impact - remote working
• Not as silly as it sounds
• HR and MBA resources
• Hydrogen and realism

Leadership part 2

An interesting article via BNET on Leadership development. Entitled 'A Systems Approach to Leadership' it begins, "What Is Leadership Anyway? Despite decades of research and a constant search for capturing and nurturing the essence of leadership, consistent, proven approaches to leadership development have proven elusive. The primary reason for varying perspectives and methods is that most definitions and development practices focus on selected aspects of the phenomenon. All to often popular literature and organizations latch onto the latest “reductionistic” fad hoping to create better leaders faster. Why doesn’t this work?"

It's a good short summary and worth a read. Register at BNET and try this direct link. It's written by Schoonover Associates, Inc and seems to tap into a few textbook ideas I've read and make sense.

Leadership

Don't get offended if I mention a German leader from the mid 20th Century, however in the context of learning about leadership - the art of mass persuasion, if you like, Hitler is a classic example. (In this case creatively turned into a short play, a trial if you like, on matters of leadership style.) He may be an example that shows us the dangers of truly hypnotic leadership, and in that there's a lesson indeed, but we may also see echoes of his speeches in own own political leaders as they try to get us to follow and embrace their decisions. There's s lesson in that as well.

Warning: We are looking at leadership styles and their effectiveness, not doing a values analysis. Hitler quite clearly was an exceptional orator who tapped into his audiences feelings in a way few leaders had done before - certainly not on that scale. He also demonstrated a cruel disregard for human life and was the cause of immense hardship and suffering. Despite - or perhaps because of this - his leadership style is worthy of deeper analysis. More here and here on Hitler's style and impact.

Economic context of management

Folks, there's another MBA study sample posted here that gives you an idea or 2 about one approach to writing a report to a board. It relates to the economic context of management decision making - looking around you and into the future before jumping into markets, new products or new strategies.

Strategy and product lifecycles

MBA students love case studies. So to help out (hehe) I do some simple analysis of product life cycles and strategy with regard to Telcos vs VoIP and Dell vs the full solution. It could give you some ideas. It's not deep analysis but it gives you some idea.

Harvard resources for MBAs

Well Harvard resources for anyone who wants to read 'em, really. When studying for your MBA read widely and reference every influence, not just your quotations. Different standards apply at different Universities but in general quote often to back up your thinking and remember to answer the question. These resources are broad - and free - but require rego.

Apple and innovation, take 2

Now I contend that Apple is over-rated on innovation. There's little in an i-Pod that wasn't already around, but that the fusion between i-Pod and online music distribution is a worthy innovation. And so on. Now here's another view of Apple and innovation - from Tom Yager (always a good read on geeky, tech-driven matters and often ahead of the game):
"Before consummate wealth and success, Steve Jobs was the poster boy for that misunderstood fraction-of-a-fraction to which my erstwhile handlers referred. Jobs was odd man out for being inventive, curious, tenacious, fearless, opinionated, and insatiable. These ingredients make an innovator. Jobs built a company, then a culture, and then a product line...". The full Infoworld article is here.

Optimum team size - Wharton article

Optimum team size - now that's an interesting question. My unscientific opinion is that 5-7 people is optimum, but you have to have a good mix of skills and motivators. So teams - I call them cells - averaging 6 working in larger groups of 6 "organs" if you like give you 36 people arranged in a "body". That to me is the upper limit to 'team size', above that it breaks down fairly comprehensively. You can make larger groups of up to 200 "work" but they don't really work as a team, although they are more cohesive than 300. In my as yet untested theory 200 is your upper limit, but you can group teams of 200 into corporate bodies as big as you like as long as you don't exceed 200 in any one extended family of bodies. 200 is my limit because you can get to know 200 people by name. Thus you know your 36 key co-workers well, your 6 team mates very well but just enough of the 200 to keep you feeling "a part of the whole". Well that's my theory!

Here's the Wharton article that started me thinking.

HR impact - remote working

It's obvious enough that when you work in the one building you eventually get to know and converse with - if not everybody - a lot of those people. That's good for cohesion, teamwork, culture and you name it. But what happens when you work remotely? Is it enough to simply email workmates, to telephone them or to use instant messaging? How do you generate those chance encounters? Who do you deliver your elevator pitch to when you don't even have an elevator?

Here's a Workforce Week article on how the US FAA has dealt with part of this issue and some further virtual working options. The key I think is the last para of the article: "If you just tell them, ‘Here is your software, now go work on it,’ you won’t be successful," Drakos says. "You may just end up with a big, empty virtual space."

Not as silly as it sounds

One thing that you can achieve out of an MBA - apart from the sense of personal achievement, a new network of newbie managers, lots of articles on strategic anything and a nice piece of paper, is an understanding of the Lingo of Obfuscation, those weasel words we know and love. Seriously (and actually I was serious before, too) we do need to use language that makes sense, is understandable and is descriptive of what we want to achieve. We can't always dumb it down as much as some may want, going forward. Business is no different from neuroscience in that respect, is it?

Anyway, a reasonable read on recent business argot here, in the WSJ.

HR and MBA resources

Welcome to TheSpiel

Folks, we have refreshed the front page look of TheSpiel. You may find it easier to navigate to our business resources from here.

The objective of TheSpiel remains the same: to provide relevant information that may assist you personally in business and to foster sustainability.

Hydrogen and realism

The carconnection.com has run an interesting and balanced article on hydrogen-power in Iceland. In part it says, "The Shell station uses a process known as electrolysis to produce its fuel, electric current splitting water into its basic components: two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, the latter vented into the atmosphere."

Interesting indeed that they are producing the hydrogen onsite. Better, cheaper and safer than trying to transport it. The hydrogen is for a small H-dedicated bus fleet, by the way. The article admits "Electrolysis is an energy-intensive process, in itself, and if you were to follow the wires leading out from the back of the station, they'd connect to the big towers snaking east, nearly 30 kilometers into the country's rugged interior...As they approach the source, one can spot steam pluming into the sky. Some are natural vents, hinting at the violence roiling deep beneath the rocky soil." It's geo-thermal, folks.

So hydrogen is do-able, despite lower energy density and higher volatility. Especially so if you have locally renewable energy such as hydro or geothermal sources to tap into. In most countries you just don't have that sort of energy locally available, of course. So we resort to oil or coal. Which defeats the benefits of using H in the first place. Of course there is also Nuclear power but again the production of the right blend of uranium isotopes is energy intensive. So you end up spending energy to make energy. Are we ever to get out of this cycle of fossil-fuel dependence? What will it take?

Recent posts from GTVeloce

1. Cars and the psychology of Malls

   4 days ago

   An excellent article entitled 'More mall pall than Pall Mall' By Elizabeth Farrelly (May 24, 2006, Sydney Morning Herald). It begins, "Fantasise this: for some reason - dollars a barrel, airborne particulates or, conceivably, government backbone - petrol is all but prohibited. Car use, while not banned, has shrunk to maybe one-20th of present levels. Sydneysiders drive only as absolutely necessary. For the rest, we walk, cycle or take trams. What would change?". Indeed, lots would change - for the better, as Elizabeth goes on to say ...

2. A summary of my recent posts

   5 days ago

   Hotcakes and hydrogen By Robert Russell in http://thespiel.com 1 day ago cost via the small ongoing fuel saving, depending upon how much driving you do. They are also a 'safe' buy in that they still use the fuel you buy at gas stations (as against some alternative home brew, cold fusion or risky hydrogen). Read more... http://thespiel.com By Robert Russell in http://thespiel.com 1 day ago Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? ...

3. Forbes on Google

   6 days ago

   Let's face it, Google has entrenched itself. Why is that? When it first came to my notice - I guess around 1999? - they were just a cute name with a reputation for good search results. That reputation was a cult, underground groundswell much like that which had driven Altavista to be the previous search tool of choice - or arguably Yahoo!? Google entered the fray with a new idea - results based on the popularity of links to each site. That seemed to work, and they grew ...

4. Read this post

   7 days ago

   Hotcakes and hydrogen By Robert Russell in http://thespiel.com 1 day ago cost via the small ongoing fuel saving, depending upon how much driving you do. They are also a 'safe' buy in that they still use the fuel you buy at gas stations (as against some alternative home brew, cold fusion or risky hydrogen). Read more... http://thespiel.com By Robert Russell in http://thespiel.com 1 day ago Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? ...

5. Can't resist this one from Wharton on...

   7 days ago

   Entitled 'Microsoft's Multiple Challenges' the argument goes like this: (1) Microsoft's size can be a handicap. Updates take ages, new products even longer. Google is nimbler, for example (2) there's "brain drain" and Microsoft's ability to develop a new generation of leaders is questionable, especially when it's harder to offer the 'ground floor' opportunities of the past. It makes me wonder if Wharton isn't thinking of IBM rather than Microsoft, but there you go. However they also don't count Microsoft out - yet ...

Cars and the psychology of Malls

An excellent article entitled 'More mall pall than Pall Mall' By Elizabeth Farrelly (May 24, 2006, Sydney Morning Herald). It begins, "Fantasise this: for some reason - dollars a barrel, airborne particulates or, conceivably, government backbone - petrol is all but prohibited. Car use, while not banned, has shrunk to maybe one-20th of present levels. Sydneysiders drive only as absolutely necessary. For the rest, we walk, cycle or take trams. What would change?".

Indeed, lots would change - for the better, as Elizabeth goes on to say. There have been reports in Sydney that the rising cost of petrol is driving people out of their cars and back onto public transport. Whilst we are a long way from returning to villages and corner shops, it's a start. I think also that the hypermarket malls will fight back, possibly by investing more heavily in public transport that feeds directly to their shopping plazas. We shall see.

More from Elizabeth here.

A summary of my recent posts

1. Hotcakes and hydrogen

   By Robert Russell in http://thespiel.com 1 day ago

   cost via the small ongoing fuel saving, depending upon how much driving you do. They are also a 'safe' buy in that they still use the fuel you buy at gas stations (as against some alternative home brew, cold fusion or risky hydrogen). Read more...

2. http://thespiel.com

   By Robert Russell in http://thespiel.com 1 day ago

   Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? Automobile links Mustknow links Philosophy links Music Links Images of the Russell, Matthews, O'Brien and Brown families in Australia Rob's Amateur Art Gallery

3. addicted2wheels

   By Robert Russell in addicted2wheels 2 days ago

   Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? Automobile links Mustknow links Philosophy links Music Links Images of the Russell, Matthews, O'Brien and Brown families in Australia Rob's Amateur Art Gallery

4. 

   the gtveloce.com-munity of interests

   By Robert Russell in the gtveloce.com-munity of int... 2 days ago

   Links GTVeloce.com ...cars, bikes and com-munities The bike racing forum ...for racers only The general purpose gtveloce forums ...for everyone MBA related resources ...with an HR spin The KlausenRussell Com-munity ...please visit! OODB ...out out damned Blog GTVeloce.com blog

5. Velodrome 101

   By Robert Russell in addicted2wheels 2 days ago

   too so keep away - it can get a bit hairy if you get stuck in that transition zone, especially if you are on the duckboard at speed and try to get onto the banking before a turn. It's a good way to fall and bring down the pack. Read more...

6. Image gallery

   In Image gallery 8 days ago

   Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? Automobile links Mustknow links Philosophy links Music Links Images of the Russell, Matthews, O'Brien and Brown families in Australia Rob's Amateur Art Gallery

7. Aviation images

   In Aviation images 8 days ago

   Links GTVeloce.com ...cars, bikes and com-munities The bike racing forum ...for racers only The general purpose gtveloce forums ...for everyone MBA related resources ...with an HR spin The KlausenRussell Com-munity ...please visit! OODB ...out out damned Blog GTVeloce.com blog

8. Airliner art

   In Aviation images 8 days ago

   [IMG ]

9. Airliners, automobiles and art

   In Image gallery 8 days ago

   [IMG ]

10. Welcome to the image resources at GTVeloce.com

    In Image gallery 8 days ago

    Folks Copyright is reserved, but feel free to browse. Reuse is often possible by arrangement and some images may be purchased. The content starts here . Image gallery

11. Welcome to Aviation images and postcards @...

    In Aviation images 8 days ago

    Folks Copyright is reserved on all images, be it my own or other attributed work - please ask before using. Otherwise feel free to browse the content here . Aviation images

12. OffLine

    In OffLine 20 days ago

    Links TheSpiel.com TheSpiel's Business Blog OODB GTVeloce.com OffLine Addicted2wheels Site Feed

Forbes on Google

Let's face it, Google has entrenched itself. Why is that? When it first came to my notice - I guess around 1999? - they were just a cute name with a reputation for good search results. That reputation was a cult, underground groundswell much like that which had driven Altavista to be the previous search tool of choice - or arguably Yahoo!? Google entered the fray with a new idea - results based on the popularity of links to each site. That seemed to work, and they grew. They also innovated with AdWords and derived income from searches in a new way. The rest is history. Yahoo! also has a cute name, revenue and massive success - but Google, despite arriving later, has innovated in a way that has kept it ahead.

Forbes now asks,'Can anybody overtake Google?'. Well of course anything can happen. More here.

Hotcakes and hydrogen

Hybrids aren't selling like hotcakes. Well they aren't hotcakes, for starters!

In short, hybrids make sense in many ways but their ROI is weak. It takes around 3-4 years to recover the higher cost via the small ongoing fuel saving, depending upon how much driving you do. They are also a 'safe' buy in that they still use the fuel you buy at gas stations (as against some alternative home brew, cold fusion or risky hydrogen). Read more...

Can't resist this one from Wharton - on Microsoft

Can't resist this one from Wharton - on Microsoft

Entitled 'Microsoft's Multiple Challenges' the argument goes like this:

(1) Microsoft's size can be a handicap. Updates take ages, new products even longer. Google is nimbler, for example
(2) there's "brain drain" and Microsoft's ability to develop a new generation of leaders is questionable, especially when it's harder to offer the 'ground floor' opportunities of the past.

It makes me wonder if Wharton isn't thinking of IBM rather than Microsoft, but there you go. However they also don't count Microsoft out - yet. Size may overwhelm nimbleness if the right moves are made. Read more...