China, Collectivist Culture, and Organizational Success
January 23, 2012
“Huawei people, especially the leaders, are destined to work hard for a lifetime and to devote more and suffer more than others.” – Ren Zhengfei, President and Founder, Huawei.
Huawei, based in Shenzhen, is one of the largest telecom companies in the world (with 2010 Revenues of $28bn) and the single largest such company in China. In this Harvard Business Review post (hat tip: Brian Pan) by China-based consultant, Ruxiang Jiang, the author questions whether the work ethic at Huawei, and in China in general, will be enough to propel that country into 21st century economic leadership.
A key quotation:
A collective culture is great for rapidly building an organization from scratch. But too often, companies with collective approaches continue to disempower individual employees and devalue their intellectual contributions.
As would many in the West, I tend to agree with Mr. Jiang’s conclusions. The enormous size of China’s labor force, which Mr. Jiang does consider, could push off China’s day of reckoning for some decades, however. One important question is how deeply business culture in other parts of the world would be influenced by such Chinese success, in the meantime.
Free Online Educational Opportunities, Present and Future
January 11, 2012
- Lifehacker’s Spring course catalog, with listings from major educational institutions
- An overview of MIT’s plans for highly extensive online learning opportunities (hat tip: Brian Pan)
Steps towards crowdfunding
December 23, 2011
High-speed transactions that leveraged large amounts of information were vital to banks and financial institutions supporting the real estate bubble that preceded the 2008 crisis. Today, banks are still viewed with suspicion and, at the same time, themselves lack visibility to the quality of debt that they have issued. Trust is hard to come by from all quarters.
The solution, oftentimes (if not always), harnesses the same energies that created the problem: Namely, the explosion of information and transaction speed in finance suggests that new institutions, capable of processing this information in a manner that garners greater trust, are not only necessary, but possible.
This Business Insider article details some of the changes in finance that could be harbingers of more dramatic changes in the years ahead. One tidbit (in the context of start-ups):
Crowdfunding startups has long been a dream deferred. But it’s finally happening. Direct crowdfunding via equity financing is still a big no-no, because SEC rules make it difficult for non-accredited investors to invest in startups. But exciting things are going on.
One of the most exciting such examples is AngelList, a “Match.com for investors and startups” that lets startups vie for capital from angels and (increasingly) VC firms. AngelList has seen torrid growth on the back of rising early-stage valuations in Silicon Valley. And it has also been expanding horizontally and geographically.
There are non-tech companies listed on AngelList, along with companies from around the world. AngelList is not technically crowdfunding–it just makes it easier for startups to get accredited investors’ attention and get funding–but it is certainly an early step in that direction.
Start-ups, by their improvisational nature and limited funding options, are likely to continue to be innovators in this space. But look for changes in finance to be an instrumental part of our economic recovery across multiple sectors. I am not promising that this will happen soon but I am promising that major structural changes, such as the ones described in the Business Insider article, will be necessary for economic recovery in a global informational environment that has dramatically changed in the past decade.
AIDS Research Progress through Online Gaming
October 10, 2011
Perhaps you’ve already this exciting news:
Over a three-week period, gamers playing Foldit, an online protein-folding game, helped to map out the structure of an enzyme that could be used to help fight HIV and AIDS.
What the gamers were able to accomplish in unlocking the structure of a protein called M-PMV was something that scientists, engineers and automated computer programs haven’t been to pull off in about a decade’s worth of attempts, according to a study published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
This online game, which I’ve referenced several times before, provides a prime example of the open source phenomenon spreading beyond software programming. It’s interesting to consider why scientific discovery might provide a ripe field for such collaboration. I’ve yet to see examples as successful in areas such as government, supply chain planning, or other areas of personal interest. Here’s to hoping that we do see such examples, and in short order.
Technology in Sports
September 1, 2011
I couldn’t resist sharing this article about how technology is affecting the way baseball is played.
Here’s a key passage:
“I think this is truly the second great renaissance in baseball,” says Joe Maddon, a visionary kind of guy whose embrace of technology, info and outside-the-box thinking has made him, for all intents and purposes, the Steve Jobs of managers.
The first great renaissance, Maddon says, arrived with Branch Rickey in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, back when Rickey was pioneering the use of (gasp) farm systems and (shudder) statistics.
And the second great renaissance? That’s been taking place, almost imperceptibly, over the last decade — but to a greater degree, just over the last year or two or three. . . . Think about it:
. . .
• All of a sudden, while you were busy doing your laundry or drafting your fantasy team or something, the world was quietly being invaded by an army of sabermetric wizards, capable of computing Justin Verlander‘s road FIP against sub-.500 teams in games in which he throws more than 20 percent curveballs — and actually understanding the significance of that.
ESPN and Sports-related Information
August 23, 2011
Lest anyone think that the tagline for this blog (“How to Stay Afloat in a Sea of Data”) applies only to business/government analytics, I’d like to share a recent sports article by Matt Mitchell (KVUE reporter – Austin) that addresses how sports-related information is created, digested, and broadcasted by ESPN today. A certain nautical feeling can overcome any observer ingesting a series of (often misleading) ESPN statistics but Mitchell makes a more general point about the influence the organization’s influence, in light of the its recent investment in the Longhorn Network, which will be dedicated to University of Texas sports:
The problem with all of this is the very real threat of sports hegemony when ESPN wields enough influence to alter the very sports it broadcasts by driving the national conversation.
ESPN’s distorting influence on sports stories came into sharp focus for me when the network raised LeBron James’ “Decision” about where to play basketball to unprecedented prominence before preceding to pillory him on a regular basis.
In Guy LeBord’s The Society of the Spectacle, the author observes that “modern industrial society . . . is based on the spectacle in the most fundamental way.” The trajectory in ESPN’s development validates that hypothesis in one particular sphere of society.
International Excel Champion: 15 years old
August 5, 2011
Open Source Hardware
July 31, 2011
Have you ever heard of ‘open source hardware’? This video provides a great overview of an effort to re-create basic machines (e.g. tractors) so that they are cheaper, modular, and more easily assembled in distributed sites (i.e. outside of traditional factories). The designs are shared across the internet, of course. It was exciting to see a concrete example of how the ‘electron economy’ is changing the ‘atom-based economy.’ We should keep our eyes open for many more such examples in the years ahead.
Digital Credibility
July 18, 2011
Credibility is an essential component of any relationship, personal or professional. One key challenge of the digital world is how to create credibility for oneself among the many folks an individual interacts with casually.
I’ve come across a few digital experiences lately that shed light on the new ways we earn trust nowadays:
- I took a tour of a social media command center at a major company. They explained that comments/complaints about their company are monitored across the web but that comments made by more influential people are addressed first. How do they know that someone is influential? Because they went to Harvard or hold a post in government? No (OK, there may be some exceptions.). Rather, the company sees how many followers an individual has, how many re-tweets of their comments there have been, etc. The day will come that having digital followers will be the quickest way to get your phone company, or mortgage company, to address a problem. In fact, that day has already begun.
- The job search services site, Ivy Exec (where, incidentally and disclaimer-ly), I have a post about “How to Change Careers in a Knowledge Economy“), ask me to check out their new site. I was fascinated by the validation service they offer. For $68 they will perform a background check on you, to ensure that your resume is reliable. How will employers know to trust you? Because they may trust Ivy Exec.
- The Harvard Business Review comments, in a piece about the work of Morten Hansen and his thoughts on collaboration, that we should strive to build weak ties at work, not strong ones. The point, I think, is that the premium on extending one’s ‘network of credibility’ is very great today.
What changes have you noticed, in terms of how you build professional credibility, in the past decade or so?
