I just finished attending a 2-day workshop on capital stewardship today. An internal company session for equipping leaders with a systematic methodology on managing capital investments in light of leadership behaviors, decision making process, and organizational capability.
During a series of business simulations, we were challenged to make good decisons upon a portfolio of project initiatives with financial consequences in the future, conflicting interest of various stakeholders, and needs to comply with regulatory requirements and environmental concerns. Within a limited time constraint, we were pressed to make various decisions.
One of the takeway nuggets from this excersise is Go Slow to Go Fast. On being confronted with pressing situations, in our daily life, we most often go fast trying to solve the problems. This is done without giving enough time upfront for some planning, process organization, and agreed approaches in cases of involving others in the decision making. Quick, quick, quick as timing is part of the game. At the end, we frequently end up with running out of time resolving the issues with a lot of confusing information as things do not get organized neatly and clearly.
It proves to be, on average in general, spending some time upfront on ways and approach to tackle the issues is contributing more to coming up with good decisions: things move faster at subsequent steps, information can be intelligently digested. Time spent is amazingly shorter than otherwise. It's slow at the beginning, but then it's moving much, much faster afterwards. This can be applied to, as simple as, our business meetings: spend intial time to reach an agreed agenda: points to discuss, process to resolve issues, ways to tackle disagreements....prior to adressing the subject matters.
In managing big projects, as we are aware but often neglect, spending enough efforts and time for upfront planning provides solid basis to execution that give more predictable good outcome. Re-work on construction phase is much more expensive than re-work on planning stage. And we seem to be frequently reminded: good planning with bad execution generates most-likely better results than poor planning with good execution.
But how often that we appreciate in performance appraisal for those already delivering 'good planning' (no execution stage yet) as compared to those already delivering some execution results?
Note: I am trying to be back on blogging -- reviewing/finalizing some unfinished write-ups, including this entry ...
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Going Green with IT
Last night, I was having dinner with friends and visiting colleagues from Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization (CICC), Tokyo, Japan. Having friendly talked about good past time and state of the art IT development in some Asia Pacific countries, we came to a chat about energy conservation. Some offices in Japan set the aircon to an unbeliveable 28%C to conserve energy! The buzzword is now cool-biz - no tie, no suit in the office so that your business activities would demand less (electrical) energy to consume.
Radically going green for IT is still posing some challenges for some to take bold actions, yet opportunity are widely open. Replacing reliable IT infrastructure today with new stuffs just for going green is of great concerns. Nevertheless, there are now available to offer an array of green IT solution: wind-powered data centers, dynamic power management software to shut off power in semiconductor chips until it's needed,...
On the other side, effectively (strategically ?) using IT for minimizing energy consumption is quite real and can be expanded to contribute more. When things go virtual on daily busines practices, physical undertaking can be minimized to save energy. On-line net meetings and video conferencing facility saves people from travel, freeing from a chain of energy consumption for physical transportation. Intel uses heat recovery chillers, in its new development center building in Israel, to recover waste heat from data centers and other equipment to heat the building in winter and to provide hot water for the bathrooms and kitchens year-round. The system eliminates the need for energy-consuming gas or fuel-oil boilers and reduces CO2 and NO emission. Intel claims, in its Premier IT Magazine (Summer 2008), to save around US$ 235,000 annually due to reduced fuel consumption.
Green IT iniative should be fairly adopted by IT shop, especially those big ones managed in big organizations. Not only that it reduce energy consumption by and potential hazardous waste from IT equipment. It could be creatively taken into a next level of strategic function for maximixing its use for helping business to reduce pressure to environment and optimize energy efficiency. There might be some costs incurred in the beginning. Managed smartly, it could at the end contribute to the positive impact of the bottom line.
So, how green are you ? Green business shall be good business. Or as some are starting to say, green is beautiful.
It seems that energy conservation has been becoming very serious matters for the business community in Japan. Mr. Yutaka Ikeda, GM Planning & Coordination, then handed over to us a 5-page paper from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry - METI (whom CICI report to) : Green IT Initiative in Japan. This whitepaper is quite neat, addressing a framework to halving global (CO2) emissions by 2050. As a follow up of Kyoto Protocol and Heiligendamn Summit, Japan establishes US$ 10 billion fund to support developing countires with Cool Eart Partnership program, and will be investing US$ 30 billion in R & D in the environment and energy sectors over the next 5 years.
Radically going green for IT is still posing some challenges for some to take bold actions, yet opportunity are widely open. Replacing reliable IT infrastructure today with new stuffs just for going green is of great concerns. Nevertheless, there are now available to offer an array of green IT solution: wind-powered data centers, dynamic power management software to shut off power in semiconductor chips until it's needed,...
On the other side, effectively (strategically ?) using IT for minimizing energy consumption is quite real and can be expanded to contribute more. When things go virtual on daily busines practices, physical undertaking can be minimized to save energy. On-line net meetings and video conferencing facility saves people from travel, freeing from a chain of energy consumption for physical transportation. Intel uses heat recovery chillers, in its new development center building in Israel, to recover waste heat from data centers and other equipment to heat the building in winter and to provide hot water for the bathrooms and kitchens year-round. The system eliminates the need for energy-consuming gas or fuel-oil boilers and reduces CO2 and NO emission. Intel claims, in its Premier IT Magazine (Summer 2008), to save around US$ 235,000 annually due to reduced fuel consumption.
Green IT iniative should be fairly adopted by IT shop, especially those big ones managed in big organizations. Not only that it reduce energy consumption by and potential hazardous waste from IT equipment. It could be creatively taken into a next level of strategic function for maximixing its use for helping business to reduce pressure to environment and optimize energy efficiency. There might be some costs incurred in the beginning. Managed smartly, it could at the end contribute to the positive impact of the bottom line.
So, how green are you ? Green business shall be good business. Or as some are starting to say, green is beautiful.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Remembering the Day of Reflection
A day has lapsed since August 3. As a self-performance review, not against the annual goals, but to the journey of life, I was reminded by a sign board on the wall in the Kid's World, a school building I was visiting August 2, Saturday.
Happiness is not to get what you want, it is to enjoy what you have. Above all, it is the time that we can best utilize is the precious one - currently and for the forseeable future. How much time we have wasted in the past, standing still as the world was moving in dynamic motion. Or at best, just walking into the path as the crowd was going, ending the day as usual. Following the heart to have the one we would enjoy requires a bravery, a bold action and persistency. Whatever it is that we want to pursue.
It is a simple realization, yet sometimes still catch us off-guard, that we could not change the past. How often that we "visioning" to have a different course of direction of our past journey ? It's gone. Today shall be made better than yesterday. Each day is providing an opportunity for us to create a masterpriece of our own. We frequently get it passed by without doing nothing worthwhile. We sure know the changes we need to make to give path to our journey. It's our call to change job, career, or life in which we are stagnating. As with the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity, to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Another day would have passed by. Need to have encouragement, to get a kick-off for a right path to the future. Many of the past might have been regretted by now. It's time for a better look into the future. As English novelist, George Eliot, said, "It's never too late to be what you might have been".
Pursuing to get what you want is a journey of minds, enjoying the ones we have is a state of heart. Happy birthday!
Happiness is not to get what you want, it is to enjoy what you have. Above all, it is the time that we can best utilize is the precious one - currently and for the forseeable future. How much time we have wasted in the past, standing still as the world was moving in dynamic motion. Or at best, just walking into the path as the crowd was going, ending the day as usual. Following the heart to have the one we would enjoy requires a bravery, a bold action and persistency. Whatever it is that we want to pursue.
It is a simple realization, yet sometimes still catch us off-guard, that we could not change the past. How often that we "visioning" to have a different course of direction of our past journey ? It's gone. Today shall be made better than yesterday. Each day is providing an opportunity for us to create a masterpriece of our own. We frequently get it passed by without doing nothing worthwhile. We sure know the changes we need to make to give path to our journey. It's our call to change job, career, or life in which we are stagnating. As with the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the serenity, to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Another day would have passed by. Need to have encouragement, to get a kick-off for a right path to the future. Many of the past might have been regretted by now. It's time for a better look into the future. As English novelist, George Eliot, said, "It's never too late to be what you might have been".
Pursuing to get what you want is a journey of minds, enjoying the ones we have is a state of heart. Happy birthday!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Cost, Credibility, and Open Innovation
Innovation seems to be a mantra for a business survival, paving the path for prosperous future. In business, it's not just about technology nor something merely new. It's about positive change leading to increased productivity and business value.
Some put it that innovation sources out from creativity and, in proceeding with the implementation, involves some risks. As risk taking is in this equation, an undertaking that could put a business into liability, those launching a (radical) innovative change shall first earn credibility. As such, it would get management trust and proper funding to put it in place.
In this regard, it's interesting to read one CIO - those position responsible for IT for the business - shared his thoughts in a magazine (forgot the name and publication) about the role. First, it should become a Cheap Information Officer to build the credibility before functioning fully as a really Chief Information Officer as it's supposed to be. Once it gets all in order and serve the business purpose, you could then tranform into Chief Innovation Officer.
Some put it that innovation sources out from creativity and, in proceeding with the implementation, involves some risks. As risk taking is in this equation, an undertaking that could put a business into liability, those launching a (radical) innovative change shall first earn credibility. As such, it would get management trust and proper funding to put it in place.
In this regard, it's interesting to read one CIO - those position responsible for IT for the business - shared his thoughts in a magazine (forgot the name and publication) about the role. First, it should become a Cheap Information Officer to build the credibility before functioning fully as a really Chief Information Officer as it's supposed to be. Once it gets all in order and serve the business purpose, you could then tranform into Chief Innovation Officer.
I have been, to some extent, seeing this in some organizations. It gone well for some. On another case at worst, it should have catiously been managed: some :innovation" initiatives went thru unchallenged, with fancy technology introduced, the chnages that sometimes be well understood to relate to building a landmark for the chief. A personal image building that incurred some hidden costs to the business.
The lanscape of innovation is now changing. And it changes very fast. Previously (and it is still now for some), innovation is a managed proprietary initiative (R & D, or even sacred activities for some) conducted largely inside the organization. Nowdays, it gets connect beyond corporate walls: the new face of innovation involving people outside from suppliers, customers, independent inventors, and university labs.
Internet technology, Web 2.0, and the need for best utlizing all creative talents available, more flexible work environemnt gave birth to Open Innovation unimagnibale before: collaborate inside-out and co-create product and services borderless and in real time. There would always be a lot more smarter people in the world outside the wall of corporate offices.
The game has been playing a lot more now. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is a living and continually expanding global reference work. Wikinomics, abook written by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, becomes a new phenomena on how mass collaboration changes everything. A success story of Canada-based Goldcorp Inc., in finding more gold deposits after collaborating with outside experts by openning up their proprietary geological data for sharing. In March 2000, the "Goldcorp Challenge" was launched with a total of US$ 575,000 in prize money available to participants with the best methods and estimates.
Check out at Innocentive, Inc., where the world innovates: an Open Innovation community to earn money while solving some of the toughest problems facing the world today. Online marketplace with challenges to solve in a wide variety of disciplines, from Business and Entrepreneurship to Engineering and Life Sciences: awards from $5,000 to $1,000,000. Challenges are posted by corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Many others are available to tap and utilize.
Henry William Chesbrough in Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, addresses that companies can no longer afford to rely entirely on their own ideas to advance their business, nor can they restrict their innovations to a single path to market.
What is CIO now ? Get the business to collaborate and craft a way to innovate by best utilizing outside experts.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Investing in Talent Management
I can not stop questioning myself whenever it comes to recruitment interview for getting new hires. Admitedly, we often did not invest enough time to get things really well prepared, most likely rely on our HR colleagues to get stuffs arranged. They get to the one called Behavorial Event Interview, said by some to have a high accuracy to explore candidates' comptency, potentials, and to analyse the gap.
First thing first, we shall know what we want. It's not just a position title, or job description at best. What kind of specific qualities we are looking for to go into our workforce to translate into a business success. It is a highly skilled techies ready for a single contribution type of job ? or a generalist with consulting background at ease to speak with the language of business ? This is on top of specific disciplines being on hire - be it IT, Finance, Facility Engineer,..etc. Interesting enough, a famous study by McKinsey for The War for Talent, highlighted that most companies don't really know what they want. They must find out, and quickly, or their recruiting programs will be flawed before they even begin.
First thing first, we shall know what we want. It's not just a position title, or job description at best. What kind of specific qualities we are looking for to go into our workforce to translate into a business success. It is a highly skilled techies ready for a single contribution type of job ? or a generalist with consulting background at ease to speak with the language of business ? This is on top of specific disciplines being on hire - be it IT, Finance, Facility Engineer,..etc. Interesting enough, a famous study by McKinsey for The War for Talent, highlighted that most companies don't really know what they want. They must find out, and quickly, or their recruiting programs will be flawed before they even begin.
War for Talent
Talent management , emerged in 1990s and continues to be adopted, refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and keeping current workers and attracting highly skilled workers to work for your company. The War for Talent, based on a research study in 1998 about 77 companies from a variety of industries, remains relevance until today and is a good base reference. Even for companies where the dominant strategy is to spot talent early and train it within, the study suggests considering regularly hiring senior executives from outside. Is it a failure of internal development pipeline ? No, it suggests to view it as a way to accommodate rapid growth, refresh the gene pool, and calibrate the internal talent standard.
Better talent is worth fighting for. On recruitment process, most big companies still are in passive mode: run thru vacancy ads in newspapers, confidently expect that best talent outside would be attracted to appy to the big names. I doubt it work quite well. At the interview moments of having candidates of this type, I was always wondering if there were still many better talented people outside that would not give a damn to apply to a newspaper ads. I believe so and we are adressing it with our HR to reach beyond. Some companies are spotting great talent by constanttly looking around - competitiors, suppliers, customers.. and even the military!.
Rewarded Accountability
While HR is tasked to oversee broad spectrum of workforce and talent managment, the accountability shall be extended to line managers to develop, develop, and develop their people. Recruitment is the start of the talent management pipeline. We offten do it occassionally. It is very rare to see that bonus is tied in with managers' skill on managing people. Even ability to recruit talented new people goes unrewarded. Probably, we shall take lessons learned from the member-get-member marketing scheme. Some headhunters, to some extent, put it into practice to get people for their clients.
A book by William Poundstone, How Would You Move Mount Fuji ? , provides some insights on Microsoft's role in changing interview practice. The hiring focuses on the future tense, accepting rather than resisting the "job candidate as blank slate". Hire for what people can do rather than what they've done.
Future Investment, Worth Some Disruptions
So we ought to get well prepared for the prime time - dedicated time for recruitment interview. Moving along, building organization capability with structured people development. Putting good talent beyond his/her current domain and reach, as part of managed job assignments, could certainly be a very effective development. There is nothing worse than assuming a job that is in degradation of our experience and abilities.
On our sphere of influence, we tried to put job rotation, people movement into performance metrics. The implementtaion is still posing challenges to some leaders. Managers are most of the time still worried that moving people around is not worth the disruption. Well, we got to have a little pain to breed overall benefit for the whole organization success.
A little disruption that oscillate the organization to a new height of performance level into the future is worth investing.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Performance Indicators - Missing the Key
As the saying goes, "what gets measured, gets done", we have instutionalized a number of measuremens and mechanism to keep track on stuffs with the business operations. Good, but beware that we might loose sight of the real purpose.
In a breakfast with a colleague manager of mine a few days ago, he was appreciative about how much lot of data that we have been collecting in day-to-day operations. People do follow procedures to get the data and information expected from them. Yet, he complained, how little analysis that our guys are doing with those data. If they managed to spend some time doing some analysis, there could be a lot of improvements with many activities be done differently with more effictive and efficient.
As we measure things, we would like to track those contributing to the "success factors". Stemming out from organizations' Vision-Mission, Stretegic Goals, and Objectives comes CSF - critical success factor. It then is further quantified into KPI - Key Performance Indicators, supposed to be the selected few that we shall focus on for a prticular business domain to breed expected success. In practice, I often found that it's too many details to measure and review in a given time that business leader could be distracted, lacking the information focus. The key is lost deep in the the ocean of oprational information metrics.
In a breakfast with a colleague manager of mine a few days ago, he was appreciative about how much lot of data that we have been collecting in day-to-day operations. People do follow procedures to get the data and information expected from them. Yet, he complained, how little analysis that our guys are doing with those data. If they managed to spend some time doing some analysis, there could be a lot of improvements with many activities be done differently with more effictive and efficient.
As we measure things, we would like to track those contributing to the "success factors". Stemming out from organizations' Vision-Mission, Stretegic Goals, and Objectives comes CSF - critical success factor. It then is further quantified into KPI - Key Performance Indicators, supposed to be the selected few that we shall focus on for a prticular business domain to breed expected success. In practice, I often found that it's too many details to measure and review in a given time that business leader could be distracted, lacking the information focus. The key is lost deep in the the ocean of oprational information metrics.
One of our guys was struggling to collect data and figure out KPI for the IT shop that he should submit to a regulatory body. It consists of 10 category of the so-called KPI with each containing 3-4 items to measure. Overall, it deals with 30 to 40 metrics that we called key performance indicators! And there are more than 10 completely-different companies (and at corporation level, be comptetitot to each other), oil and gas, that the IT shop shall submit this KPI to the IT dept of a regulatory execution body that monitor oil and gas companies. While the idea is 'noble' to have a meaningful collection of metrics to compare and benchmark, the number of KPI is too much to a non operating body to challenge the information for any strategic decision making.
To stay on top, to possibly make any necessary strategic direction, I suppose that 3 (three) top categories are enough to start with: Cost Performance, Value Creation and Realization, and Synergy and Collaboration. With 2-3 items for each category, the energy can be directed to the focus of guiding the proper IT investment and leveraging it across for the benfeit of all. As such, it would not interfere with details of business operation of each competing company. Still, the regulatory body, repressenting the host government as the major stake holders, could still stay on control.
Unfortunately (fortunately ?), I was somehow get involved in the process - although a bit late coming into the game. It was too late to re-direct the whole things. or probably, it's just better the stay the course. Just make sure that we do not just collect all data possible without a clear path forward to act on them. The end in mind shall be then - "compare and decide", not just "review and store".
A similar reminder from an articel in HBR (Harvard Business Review), Stop Making Plans, Start Making Decisions. Debate and Decide, instead of just Review and Approve. And remembering Pareto, get focus to the vital few, as not to miss the key in trivial many.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Global Reach and Cost Disparity
As always, Fortune Global 500 portrays an amazing notion on how big corporations getting bigger, with the biggest ones generating revenues much, much more than state budget or spending of almost all developing countries.
The top lists this year have an interesting outcome. The top 10 largest companies, in revenue, are those old names, with Walmart sitting on the top with US$ 378,799 millions.
1. Wal-Mart Stores (~$ 379B) ....... 6. Chevron (~$ 211B)
2. Exxon Mobil (~$ 373B) ............ 7. ING Group (~$ 201B)
3. Royal Dutch Shell (~$ 356B)....... 8. Total (~$ 187B)
4. BP (~$ 291B) ....................... 9. General Motors (~$ 182B)
5. Toyota Motor (~$ 230B).......... 10. ConocoPhillips (~$ 179B)
By profits, Exxon grabs the top list with US$ 40.61 billion or nearly $ 78,000 per minute! Stacked on the US$ 18 billion club are Chevron (no. 6, $ 18.7B), Petronas (no. 7, $ 18.1B), Total (no. 8, $ 18B). Thease are all oil companies, benefititng from high oil prices. Amazingly, Petronas is the no.
95 by revenue, yet its profit is at par with two of the super major oil companies, Chevron (no. 7) and Total (no. 9). With revenue about one third of these two big guys, Petronas posted profit against revenue (27%) about three times of Total and Chevron. How can it be ?
Fortune 500 described that Chevron "faces several challenges from falling oil production to difficulties in finding new resources". Beyond this, I presume that for Petronas being operated out of Malaysia contribute to lowering the cost of doing business -- although not quite sure enough about the significance.
It's about globalization, and those big corporations of "multi-nationals". Automation technology, creative efficiency, and professional disciplines have been contributing to a big leap in productivity in light of growing business operations globally. It's been the "priviledge" of much developed economy to have those productivity enabling characteristics. With the advance of Internet digital technology, growing competency of people in less developed countries, and easier flow of people around the globe, the opportunity is now widely open to developing countries. As company operations are becoming global, the needs for more standard products and services are more apparent to breed overall efficiency. Several global companies are still relying on products and services that are "manufactured" by and in developed countiries with more "advance" technology, yet with labor-related cost relatively much higher. The aim is to get an overall good cost-performance: higher labor cost is offset by higher productivity. This product-service package is then deployed to all their business units across the globe.
The top lists this year have an interesting outcome. The top 10 largest companies, in revenue, are those old names, with Walmart sitting on the top with US$ 378,799 millions.
1. Wal-Mart Stores (~$ 379B) ....... 6. Chevron (~$ 211B)
2. Exxon Mobil (~$ 373B) ............ 7. ING Group (~$ 201B)
3. Royal Dutch Shell (~$ 356B)....... 8. Total (~$ 187B)
4. BP (~$ 291B) ....................... 9. General Motors (~$ 182B)
5. Toyota Motor (~$ 230B).......... 10. ConocoPhillips (~$ 179B)
By profits, Exxon grabs the top list with US$ 40.61 billion or nearly $ 78,000 per minute! Stacked on the US$ 18 billion club are Chevron (no. 6, $ 18.7B), Petronas (no. 7, $ 18.1B), Total (no. 8, $ 18B). Thease are all oil companies, benefititng from high oil prices. Amazingly, Petronas is the no.
95 by revenue, yet its profit is at par with two of the super major oil companies, Chevron (no. 7) and Total (no. 9). With revenue about one third of these two big guys, Petronas posted profit against revenue (27%) about three times of Total and Chevron. How can it be ?Fortune 500 described that Chevron "faces several challenges from falling oil production to difficulties in finding new resources". Beyond this, I presume that for Petronas being operated out of Malaysia contribute to lowering the cost of doing business -- although not quite sure enough about the significance.
It's about globalization, and those big corporations of "multi-nationals". Automation technology, creative efficiency, and professional disciplines have been contributing to a big leap in productivity in light of growing business operations globally. It's been the "priviledge" of much developed economy to have those productivity enabling characteristics. With the advance of Internet digital technology, growing competency of people in less developed countries, and easier flow of people around the globe, the opportunity is now widely open to developing countries. As company operations are becoming global, the needs for more standard products and services are more apparent to breed overall efficiency. Several global companies are still relying on products and services that are "manufactured" by and in developed countiries with more "advance" technology, yet with labor-related cost relatively much higher. The aim is to get an overall good cost-performance: higher labor cost is offset by higher productivity. This product-service package is then deployed to all their business units across the globe.
The above is no longer true for mass products. As economic disparity still in a wide gap, re-locating manufacturing plants to low-cost countries have been quite successful to lower down cost of business. Products made in China has been flooding the world. Services and eventually products made with more advanced technology, and specialized services would be on the next pendulum shift. Offshoring jobs to India have become a business phenomena. Among other things, I suppose that Petronas is taking benefits by having Malaysia as a base of operations as compared to Total (France) and Chevron (USA).
The challenge for global companies is to agressively move around their "factories" around the globe to benefit from low-cost economy whrever appropriate. Management overhead would be higher as it would face a complexity of managing research centers, pool of expertise, products design and the like across various locations in the world with different timezone and cultural barrier. Once it could be properly managed, the overall cost of products or business would be more efficient, lower that at the end would book more dollars to the bottom line.
Although there might be some concerns of "national interest" (employment in the base countries / HQ), the global reach would benefit the world as whole providing a net positive opportunity to all. It is going toward a new equilibrium of the world while shrinking the economic disparity. It shall be done on mutual benefits, business-like undertaking, not on the basis of (pure) charity. It is, I would suppose, within the spirit of capitalism. Or as Bill Gates once stated, a creative capitalism.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Blowing in the Wind of Change
For the past 4 years, the wind of change has been blowing straight into my face. Different roles of job with some exercises of branch-outs, having to deal with a turbulent time. Getting used to a challenging moment of raising a baby kid turning to be a hyper-active toddler. Accepted a new job in a new company, only to find out that several months afterward a major merger was undergoing, jumping again into a different environment. Moved out to stay in an apartment-hotel, living on "high ground", less than a sixth of the size of my previous house.
I am pretty much OK with all those changes and, supposedly, still in a good shape. The people around me might not be feeling the same. This notion came into my mind, right after I delivered my presentation to a senior leadership team in one of our few business operating group. I am managing a project that would deliver a new business computing environment that would significantly change the way people work with business information. While in general they were aware of the upcoming inevitable future and the top leader was supportive at the end, I could sense great concerns from the audience and some blank faces. Yet, a voice of embrace was also present in conjunction with a faintest remain of old school of thought. A mixed of various degrees of angles in dealing with a technolgical wave of change.
Having been going thru a number of same presentations to various different groups, I was already on a high gear. On the latest session, I should have been back to a drawing board as it deals with field operations wit concerned focus on safety, operation excellence, and prodcution. Adressing a change management is becoming critical as it challenges the very basic of human nature: stability. It is natural that we would then be encountering some resistances.
I am pretty much OK with all those changes and, supposedly, still in a good shape. The people around me might not be feeling the same. This notion came into my mind, right after I delivered my presentation to a senior leadership team in one of our few business operating group. I am managing a project that would deliver a new business computing environment that would significantly change the way people work with business information. While in general they were aware of the upcoming inevitable future and the top leader was supportive at the end, I could sense great concerns from the audience and some blank faces. Yet, a voice of embrace was also present in conjunction with a faintest remain of old school of thought. A mixed of various degrees of angles in dealing with a technolgical wave of change.
Having been going thru a number of same presentations to various different groups, I was already on a high gear. On the latest session, I should have been back to a drawing board as it deals with field operations wit concerned focus on safety, operation excellence, and prodcution. Adressing a change management is becoming critical as it challenges the very basic of human nature: stability. It is natural that we would then be encountering some resistances.
When stuffs around us are in a state of flux, our established routines are disrupted. Consequently, we have to think of navigating our ways moving forward. And thinking is hard work, let alone going into an extra mile of efforts. However, when everything is in order, when going from any point A to any point B is straightforward, we would just need, as my old boss would love to say, a robot instead of creative human being, not to mention about highly paid managers.
Learning from past failures, corporations have been taking a serious stance on addressing change management in implementing any new major inititives brought in to an established business operation. It shall go two folds. People in charge of introducing new things that would shake out the business, have to be equipped with and wisely manage change management processes. It's not just a game of technical prowesness. Mastering techniques, financial matters, and "hard" stuffs are necessary but far from enough. Facts are that pace of adoption for people around us is and will always be not the same. If it's not managed correctly, it could screw up even great things, products, or innovation we are about to put in place.
On the other hand, leaders are expected to quickly and flexibly adapt and adopt - embrace change as a business fact of life. Sadly to say that we are witnessing many expensive managers not being able to cope with it. Even worse is to actively resist change. Last week, I had a chat with a Project Manager experiencing the case of resistance before. He noted that how much more productive we would be if those energy of resistant behavior be transformed and directed into efforts for adopting the change. Surfing the wave of changes, we shall be expecting some bumps along the road. A period of valley of despair would surface that needs to be dealt with and managed before reaching up to the summit.
"Be a good salesman", advised a colleague manager of mine in well knowing the business-technology innovation that we are about to bring. As the saying goes, the only people who like change are busy cashiers and wet babies!
Down to Gorky Park, sing Scorpions, listening to the wind of change. Blows straight into the face of time. The world is closing in. But there would be no magic of the moment. We strive to make it leap forward to share our dreams of tomorrow.Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Mysteries of the Past
Last Sunday, I managed to go to the cinema watching Kung Fu Panda, a 2008 animated film about a panda named Po aspiring to become a kung fu warrior, despite his clumsiness, a fat guy working for his father running a noodle restaurant. As he worked to his destiny, he was chosen to be the Dragon Warrior to fight the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung. Dealing with "mission impossible" preparing from nothing to kung fu warrior to save the Valley of Peace, Master Shifu (or Grand Master Oogway ?) started training Po with an advice, yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is a gift. That's why it's called a present.
It reminds me how precious is the present that we shall value every minutes of moment to be of something useful to prepare for the future, yet enjoyable and fun. A shed of light for a mystery tomorrow. How about a history yesterday ? Interesting to be aware of, yesterday's history remains to have a lot of msyteries -- the ones that, unfortunately, have been shaping our today and perhaps tomorrow.
I was reading the Alexandria Link, a fantastic fiction epic by Steve Berry, a New York Times best seller. As Da Vinci Code is with a wild imagination sourced out of New Testament, the Link is for Old Testament. The Covenant of Abraham in Genesis is talking about a promised land God gave to Israel thru Abraham. The piece of land Israel is now occupying, an area of Palestine in the previous past (well, depending on how long we go back in history), a source of conflict in Middle East since 1948. The story argues about "lost in translation" from original source in Old Hebrew to Latin to English. Reversing it back to Old Hebrew, studying the contextual meaning, and mapping out the current region in question, the promised land points to the current West Arabia, not Palestine! It's becoming a shocking "fact" that would impact the course of history with a great deal of interests at stake. The source can be traced back to the legendary Library of Alexandria, buried into thousands of old manuscripts. This most information cache of ancient knowlledge vanished without trace 1500 years ago...
As with epic novel like this, a mixed of research study ("facts") and fiction construct the whole story landscape. Steve Berry sourced the first part from a study conducted by a Lebanese scholar Dr. Kamal Salibi in a book The Bible Came from Arabia. I had been reading books sourced for Da Vinci Code and other stuffs related to history and old scrolls, biblical manuscripts, and civilization. It's quite overwhelming. Things strucking me are that: how well we know about ourselves, about human kind, our origin ? How little we understand about history as accepted facts with so much ancient writings buried into nowhere, or kept in custody that open up prospects for a completely new meaning, the stuffs that would de-construct our current civilization history as we understand today ?
As individual, we all, I presume, have a bit of dark side of the past that we would try to forgive and forget. And make peace with it to free up our soul and mind for the better journey of the future. But for things dealing with humankind, stuffs that provide foundation of some beliefs, historcial revealation that could change the future....and probably events that could trigger a new source of conflicts.... it's realy a serious matter, and sensitive to some extents. And I could not just comprehend it all yet.
Master Shifu and Grand Master Oogway, yesterday remains a big mystery, no less than the future. Until we have the technology and wisdom, it will remain so before we could have a real history of yesterday. Let the mystery be for the future only. A long quest for the real truth of humankind.
It reminds me how precious is the present that we shall value every minutes of moment to be of something useful to prepare for the future, yet enjoyable and fun. A shed of light for a mystery tomorrow. How about a history yesterday ? Interesting to be aware of, yesterday's history remains to have a lot of msyteries -- the ones that, unfortunately, have been shaping our today and perhaps tomorrow.
I was reading the Alexandria Link, a fantastic fiction epic by Steve Berry, a New York Times best seller. As Da Vinci Code is with a wild imagination sourced out of New Testament, the Link is for Old Testament. The Covenant of Abraham in Genesis is talking about a promised land God gave to Israel thru Abraham. The piece of land Israel is now occupying, an area of Palestine in the previous past (well, depending on how long we go back in history), a source of conflict in Middle East since 1948. The story argues about "lost in translation" from original source in Old Hebrew to Latin to English. Reversing it back to Old Hebrew, studying the contextual meaning, and mapping out the current region in question, the promised land points to the current West Arabia, not Palestine! It's becoming a shocking "fact" that would impact the course of history with a great deal of interests at stake. The source can be traced back to the legendary Library of Alexandria, buried into thousands of old manuscripts. This most information cache of ancient knowlledge vanished without trace 1500 years ago...
As with epic novel like this, a mixed of research study ("facts") and fiction construct the whole story landscape. Steve Berry sourced the first part from a study conducted by a Lebanese scholar Dr. Kamal Salibi in a book The Bible Came from Arabia. I had been reading books sourced for Da Vinci Code and other stuffs related to history and old scrolls, biblical manuscripts, and civilization. It's quite overwhelming. Things strucking me are that: how well we know about ourselves, about human kind, our origin ? How little we understand about history as accepted facts with so much ancient writings buried into nowhere, or kept in custody that open up prospects for a completely new meaning, the stuffs that would de-construct our current civilization history as we understand today ?
As individual, we all, I presume, have a bit of dark side of the past that we would try to forgive and forget. And make peace with it to free up our soul and mind for the better journey of the future. But for things dealing with humankind, stuffs that provide foundation of some beliefs, historcial revealation that could change the future....and probably events that could trigger a new source of conflicts.... it's realy a serious matter, and sensitive to some extents. And I could not just comprehend it all yet.
Master Shifu and Grand Master Oogway, yesterday remains a big mystery, no less than the future. Until we have the technology and wisdom, it will remain so before we could have a real history of yesterday. Let the mystery be for the future only. A long quest for the real truth of humankind.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Best CIOs in Indonesia 2008
Early morning Friday this week, I got a called from my former boss. He was talking about the Best 10 CIOs in Indonesia as he saw on the coverpage of a national magazine here. One of them was before working for us. Knowing some top guys, the industry, the business, and the community at large, my ex-boss was quite curious and wondering where are those guys hiding.
I shared with him that we knew of many people that might (or certainly) be on the top list. Just bear in mind, this is a result of processes for those willing to participate for this particular magazine. A total of 12 people was short-listed from 21 candidates that were identified and participated. Also, one of the general requirements is that the companies CIOs belong to shall be headquartered in Indonesia.
Nevertheless, I congratulated our former guy to make to the top 10 list. We notices few familair faces on the list as well. While few mentioned about implementing business transformation, the majority is still struglling about applications and integration. The criteria is developed arounf current challenges (complexity, roles of IT) and Individual achievement. This is in light of the evolution of CIO roles as laid out by the Panel from operational transforming to strategic.
Some can be learned about this result and those challenges the CIOs are facing. The remaining big chunks are still on general, typical, and average IT shops trying to help the business. It would be interesting enough if Warta Ekonomi, the magaizine, can look at the angle as to try to portary that IT is (part) of the business and run IT as a business. IT Doesn't Matter -- a debate quite a while ago from an article on the Harvard Business Review. The author then further published again in response to many feedbacks - Does IT Matter ?. I would like to keep on saying to my collegues that the 'ultimate' measure of IT 'success' could be simply sensed: senior level managment (CEO or the executive team) is to have IT come into their mind when about to make strategic business decisons.
The gap between theory and practice seems very wide when it comes to the CIO role, wrote Edaward Cone in The Accidental Strategist, CIO Insight April 2008. New research from CIO Insight indicated that a sizebale percentage of CIOs identify themselves as more tactical than strategic in their day-to-day affairs. Fewer than half of responding CIOs say they "create or co-create business strategy". Sixty pecent say they "contribute" to their company's strategy. Cone put it that tactical and operational jobs still matter.
One of the finding on this annual survey the magazine conducted is on the role CIOs perceiving about their jobs. On the top lists are 1) Adviser on improving business processes across the company, 2) Technology visionary. On the bottom lists (rank 15 and 16) are 1) product or business process innovator, 2) discover of new business opportunities.
On talking about the new height of challenges, seems that CIOs are loaded with a heavy-weight busines expectation when CIO Insight describing that CIOs confuse operating a business with running a business. It's a tough job to be expected from the technoogy chief to really contribute to the bottom line, devising new ways to put more money in shareholders' pockets.
Would it be Career is Over if it's not delivering that way? Again, It would be quite a hot discussion if Warta Ekonomi could package it all with the above matters in spotting and selecting the next best CIOs of Indonesia corporations.
I shared with him that we knew of many people that might (or certainly) be on the top list. Just bear in mind, this is a result of processes for those willing to participate for this particular magazine. A total of 12 people was short-listed from 21 candidates that were identified and participated. Also, one of the general requirements is that the companies CIOs belong to shall be headquartered in Indonesia.
Nevertheless, I congratulated our former guy to make to the top 10 list. We notices few familair faces on the list as well. While few mentioned about implementing business transformation, the majority is still struglling about applications and integration. The criteria is developed arounf current challenges (complexity, roles of IT) and Individual achievement. This is in light of the evolution of CIO roles as laid out by the Panel from operational transforming to strategic.
Some can be learned about this result and those challenges the CIOs are facing. The remaining big chunks are still on general, typical, and average IT shops trying to help the business. It would be interesting enough if Warta Ekonomi, the magaizine, can look at the angle as to try to portary that IT is (part) of the business and run IT as a business. IT Doesn't Matter -- a debate quite a while ago from an article on the Harvard Business Review. The author then further published again in response to many feedbacks - Does IT Matter ?. I would like to keep on saying to my collegues that the 'ultimate' measure of IT 'success' could be simply sensed: senior level managment (CEO or the executive team) is to have IT come into their mind when about to make strategic business decisons.
The gap between theory and practice seems very wide when it comes to the CIO role, wrote Edaward Cone in The Accidental Strategist, CIO Insight April 2008. New research from CIO Insight indicated that a sizebale percentage of CIOs identify themselves as more tactical than strategic in their day-to-day affairs. Fewer than half of responding CIOs say they "create or co-create business strategy". Sixty pecent say they "contribute" to their company's strategy. Cone put it that tactical and operational jobs still matter.
One of the finding on this annual survey the magazine conducted is on the role CIOs perceiving about their jobs. On the top lists are 1) Adviser on improving business processes across the company, 2) Technology visionary. On the bottom lists (rank 15 and 16) are 1) product or business process innovator, 2) discover of new business opportunities.
On talking about the new height of challenges, seems that CIOs are loaded with a heavy-weight busines expectation when CIO Insight describing that CIOs confuse operating a business with running a business. It's a tough job to be expected from the technoogy chief to really contribute to the bottom line, devising new ways to put more money in shareholders' pockets.
Would it be Career is Over if it's not delivering that way? Again, It would be quite a hot discussion if Warta Ekonomi could package it all with the above matters in spotting and selecting the next best CIOs of Indonesia corporations.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Beyond Computing, Above the Earth
On May 9, 2008, I was one of a 1,000 crowd waiting at Jakarta Convention Center for Bill Gates to give a Presidential Lecture. It was the very first visit that Bill paid to the country and had been a strong magnet attracting enthusiasm of people to watch.
I don't know why it's called a 'Presidential Lecture'. Probably, it was opened by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and moderated by Minister of Trade Mari Elka Pangestu that both stayed present, along with some other members of Indonesia cabinet and top brass, until the very end of the session. As the moderator introduced, it was part of Government Leaders Forum that regularly invites world dignitaries to deliver presentation to and have discussions with top brass in the goverment. It was the first time that GLF was made public to selectedly invited attendees with Bill Gates addressing the forum. And wherever countries he goes, he seems to make it sure that we would be with the country's numero uno.
Bill was talking about some IT progress and trend, how that technology can help some world issues, and addressing global health and program that his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on. He then introduced the audience with the latest Microsoft products, or I would say contribution to IT and community. Microsoft Surface is about a new wave of human interface with computers, a natural way of doing computing, a very human being nature. And Microsoft WorldWideTelescope that is (currently) made free for everyone to explore outer space - stars, galaxy, nebulae and the like. Both are quite impressive and promising (future) Microsoft undertaking. Bill also managed to applause creativity of Indonesia students, called on stage a team of students from ITB winning national software development contest.
Looking at the back, a crowd of students was at the upper balcony, seat allocation given to University of Indonesia, Swis German University, and Univesitas Pelita Harapan. The way the session was delivered. It's like a deja vu of sort of Student Studium General. While it's interesting, nothing is quite special and spectacular. Only Bill Gates in person that make it different and special. The Q & A session was very much controlled with 5 (five) questions were already pre-arranged. A Studium General would be more lively.
Expectations for interesting discussions were popping up when a schduled TV interview with Bill Gates would be aired few days afterwards. But then, the interview with RCTI channel was plain and dry. Creative Capitalism ? Microsoft bid for Yahoo - would it be a hostile take-over ? Competition playing field with Google - earth and outer space ? None was addressed, to name a few of interesting hot topics.
Nonetheless, a salute shall be for Bill Gates that dedicate his time now with his foundation for serious efforts to improving global health and education. The visit is good for Indonesia, in light of, among other things, Visit Indonesia Year campaigns, attracting more foreign investments to come in. A credit to Tony Chen, President Director of Microsoft Indonesia, of being able to help convincing Bill Gates to come visit, after a successful arrangment previously of meeting Presidnet SBY and Bill Gates in USA (Redmond ?). And the keynote speech from the President was quite good, rich, within the context, and with a good sense of humor. I just was wondering who was the speech writer.
For sure, Bill is now now beyond computing, leaving a legacy behind for Microsoft to go above the Earth.
I don't know why it's called a 'Presidential Lecture'. Probably, it was opened by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and moderated by Minister of Trade Mari Elka Pangestu that both stayed present, along with some other members of Indonesia cabinet and top brass, until the very end of the session. As the moderator introduced, it was part of Government Leaders Forum that regularly invites world dignitaries to deliver presentation to and have discussions with top brass in the goverment. It was the first time that GLF was made public to selectedly invited attendees with Bill Gates addressing the forum. And wherever countries he goes, he seems to make it sure that we would be with the country's numero uno.
Bill was talking about some IT progress and trend, how that technology can help some world issues, and addressing global health and program that his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on. He then introduced the audience with the latest Microsoft products, or I would say contribution to IT and community. Microsoft Surface is about a new wave of human interface with computers, a natural way of doing computing, a very human being nature. And Microsoft WorldWideTelescope that is (currently) made free for everyone to explore outer space - stars, galaxy, nebulae and the like. Both are quite impressive and promising (future) Microsoft undertaking. Bill also managed to applause creativity of Indonesia students, called on stage a team of students from ITB winning national software development contest.
Looking at the back, a crowd of students was at the upper balcony, seat allocation given to University of Indonesia, Swis German University, and Univesitas Pelita Harapan. The way the session was delivered. It's like a deja vu of sort of Student Studium General. While it's interesting, nothing is quite special and spectacular. Only Bill Gates in person that make it different and special. The Q & A session was very much controlled with 5 (five) questions were already pre-arranged. A Studium General would be more lively.
Expectations for interesting discussions were popping up when a schduled TV interview with Bill Gates would be aired few days afterwards. But then, the interview with RCTI channel was plain and dry. Creative Capitalism ? Microsoft bid for Yahoo - would it be a hostile take-over ? Competition playing field with Google - earth and outer space ? None was addressed, to name a few of interesting hot topics.
Nonetheless, a salute shall be for Bill Gates that dedicate his time now with his foundation for serious efforts to improving global health and education. The visit is good for Indonesia, in light of, among other things, Visit Indonesia Year campaigns, attracting more foreign investments to come in. A credit to Tony Chen, President Director of Microsoft Indonesia, of being able to help convincing Bill Gates to come visit, after a successful arrangment previously of meeting Presidnet SBY and Bill Gates in USA (Redmond ?). And the keynote speech from the President was quite good, rich, within the context, and with a good sense of humor. I just was wondering who was the speech writer.
For sure, Bill is now now beyond computing, leaving a legacy behind for Microsoft to go above the Earth.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
High Tech and High Touch
Last week, a friend of mine dropped me an email tagged with a subject of “why to move”. He attached a long quote and a (seemed-to-be) book review on why that people leave a company. The guy, was before working with me, seems to be a little bit at the cross road of his career – or his current job to be precise.
One of the books mentioned caught my attention. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, working for the Gallup Organization, published first in 1999 (?). The book is the culmination of over 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. It definitely provides quite a solid reference. “What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?” Gallup surveyed over a million employees from a broad range of companies, industries, and countries. The most powerful discovery was this: Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.
I replied to my friend that it seems to be true. He responded back that it’s very true, not just seems to be true. OK, well noted. As it goes on saying, people resigns to leave the manager, not the company. Ironically, good guys most frequently end up with having bad bosses. A quoted survey from Fortune revealed that 75% of employees are suffering from difficult bosses.
In a war for talent, companies compete to find and keep the best employees. It goes beyond just monetary benefits. I realized that even having a good coach is not enough, although it’s quite a foundation before anything else. Years ago, I had a technically bright talented guy working for us. He resigned because of the job was mostly doing “technical housekeeping” dealing with old technologies. He wanted to pursue something more exciting in touch with “tomorrow technologies” as not to make his skill obsolete. Nowadays, with a new generation of bright young people coming from the market and schools, having been “living through daily routines with fancy technologies around”, it would becoming more apparent that technology-friendly workplace is a necessity to keep them stay and productive. A CEO once I was working for required me to ensure that all engineers, and virtually all employees, in the company get access to the Internet and just keep on monitoring its proper use. In contrast, in some other different environments of equal financially strong companies, the Internet is open only to those with very strong justifications.
Turning employees’ talent into lasting performance is still a big challenge for leaders. Numbers, targets, and bottom lines do communicate, but not enough to capture the heart as to get people moved to passionately work for excellence. A very long ago, as a manager I was drafting a memo for my Vice President to address some important issues to all VPs in the company. Once finished and OKed, I asked my boss as to who should broadcast the email distribution from, as I supposed that it would be issued from him to all VPs. He simply said that let it be issued from and by you, adding with a smile that “you are already at the same level with them”. It might be just a little from his part, yet had a psychologically profound positive impact to me considering his sincerity. In contrast, there was a case whereby a big boss drafted a memo ready for his manager to sign and issue. He might intend to help. But to a talented, senior people, it was discouraging.
The driving force behind great corporate performance is talented people working with passion for excellence with an engaged heart. Quoting Dr. Jim Harris in Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company, today’s great managers capture the hearts of their employees thru focusing on three strategies: Live a compelling vision, Balance work and family, Celebrate and have fun.
High tech and high touch. A I-have-a-dream motivation meets with a platinum technology exposure.
One of the books mentioned caught my attention. First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, working for the Gallup Organization, published first in 1999 (?). The book is the culmination of over 80,000 interviews conducted by Gallup during the past 25 years. It definitely provides quite a solid reference. “What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?” Gallup surveyed over a million employees from a broad range of companies, industries, and countries. The most powerful discovery was this: Talented employees need great managers. The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits, and its world-class training programs, but how that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor.
I replied to my friend that it seems to be true. He responded back that it’s very true, not just seems to be true. OK, well noted. As it goes on saying, people resigns to leave the manager, not the company. Ironically, good guys most frequently end up with having bad bosses. A quoted survey from Fortune revealed that 75% of employees are suffering from difficult bosses.
In a war for talent, companies compete to find and keep the best employees. It goes beyond just monetary benefits. I realized that even having a good coach is not enough, although it’s quite a foundation before anything else. Years ago, I had a technically bright talented guy working for us. He resigned because of the job was mostly doing “technical housekeeping” dealing with old technologies. He wanted to pursue something more exciting in touch with “tomorrow technologies” as not to make his skill obsolete. Nowadays, with a new generation of bright young people coming from the market and schools, having been “living through daily routines with fancy technologies around”, it would becoming more apparent that technology-friendly workplace is a necessity to keep them stay and productive. A CEO once I was working for required me to ensure that all engineers, and virtually all employees, in the company get access to the Internet and just keep on monitoring its proper use. In contrast, in some other different environments of equal financially strong companies, the Internet is open only to those with very strong justifications.
Turning employees’ talent into lasting performance is still a big challenge for leaders. Numbers, targets, and bottom lines do communicate, but not enough to capture the heart as to get people moved to passionately work for excellence. A very long ago, as a manager I was drafting a memo for my Vice President to address some important issues to all VPs in the company. Once finished and OKed, I asked my boss as to who should broadcast the email distribution from, as I supposed that it would be issued from him to all VPs. He simply said that let it be issued from and by you, adding with a smile that “you are already at the same level with them”. It might be just a little from his part, yet had a psychologically profound positive impact to me considering his sincerity. In contrast, there was a case whereby a big boss drafted a memo ready for his manager to sign and issue. He might intend to help. But to a talented, senior people, it was discouraging.
The driving force behind great corporate performance is talented people working with passion for excellence with an engaged heart. Quoting Dr. Jim Harris in Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company, today’s great managers capture the hearts of their employees thru focusing on three strategies: Live a compelling vision, Balance work and family, Celebrate and have fun.
High tech and high touch. A I-have-a-dream motivation meets with a platinum technology exposure.
Monday, April 7, 2008
The World of Prejudice
A friend of mine forwarded an email attached with 9 cartoon pictures of a bit sarcastic (?) jokes. The picture illustrates a monk sitting with an osario, as trying to depict a wise-man addressing his preach or words of wisdom. While the jokes can end our day with a smile, tagging it with Dalai Lama as mentioned in the email (not the cartoon, though) might become a concern in light of what's happening in Tibet-China nowdays. I am cautioning my friend as to observe a sort of diversity and culutral sensitivity as not to possibly insult any religious figure.
I don't know if I am thinking too much. It might just be a good joke and, as my friend responded back, needs to be read 'wisely'. I seemed to be a bit cautious, learning from a world-wide news coverage, concerns and uproar with regard to a 15-minute Fitna movie created and posted by Geert Wilders in the Internet (LiveLeak). Having briefly seen it, I would say that it's quite outrageous and too much out of proportion. Ducth Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkanende, was within the context as wisely noted that we believe it serves no other purpose than to cause offense. He continued as to remind that feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats.
Violence, let alone act of terror in any form, is out of question and shall not be tolerated at all. Sadly enough, the iceberg is sometimes rooted deep in the prejudice that people might not be aware of. As the dictionary goes on saying, it is an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the fact. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgements or convictions. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. We can find it anywhere. From the extreme one that could cause serious consequences to the light one that probably becoming a food of thought. Obama dressed in a Kenyan tribe clothing during a visit to Africa was a target of "issue". Finding that the biological father of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a Syrian Abdulfattah Jandali "inspired" many with a lot of discussions that some ended up with a "what-if prejudice analysis".
Now and then. It travels fast with technology and media. In the World Debate on media hosted and broadcasted by BBC in the face of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, California (March 2008), Andrew Mwneda, a journalist from Uganda (?), complained that mainstream media in the west tend to convey prejudice instead of info. He was referering to news coverage about Africa that are always associated with disease, war, charity, disaster, and despair. The East-West different interpretation is apparent as Queen Noor of Jordania reminding about Iraq War in light of distortion, successful manipulation of information that the media was also taking part. However, Sergey Brin (Google co-founder), indicated that with Internet or Google people can see news they way the want to see it. And information is abundantly available, a more complete picture as not to cause any prejudice. People put a comment as a response in real time, unlike in the old media that would take a week or a month for a response to a news to be published.
I don't know if I am thinking too much. It might just be a good joke and, as my friend responded back, needs to be read 'wisely'. I seemed to be a bit cautious, learning from a world-wide news coverage, concerns and uproar with regard to a 15-minute Fitna movie created and posted by Geert Wilders in the Internet (LiveLeak). Having briefly seen it, I would say that it's quite outrageous and too much out of proportion. Ducth Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkanende, was within the context as wisely noted that we believe it serves no other purpose than to cause offense. He continued as to remind that feeling offended must never be used as an excuse for aggression and threats.
Violence, let alone act of terror in any form, is out of question and shall not be tolerated at all. Sadly enough, the iceberg is sometimes rooted deep in the prejudice that people might not be aware of. As the dictionary goes on saying, it is an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the fact. The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgements or convictions. Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion. We can find it anywhere. From the extreme one that could cause serious consequences to the light one that probably becoming a food of thought. Obama dressed in a Kenyan tribe clothing during a visit to Africa was a target of "issue". Finding that the biological father of Apple CEO Steve Jobs is a Syrian Abdulfattah Jandali "inspired" many with a lot of discussions that some ended up with a "what-if prejudice analysis".
Now and then. It travels fast with technology and media. In the World Debate on media hosted and broadcasted by BBC in the face of TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Monterey, California (March 2008), Andrew Mwneda, a journalist from Uganda (?), complained that mainstream media in the west tend to convey prejudice instead of info. He was referering to news coverage about Africa that are always associated with disease, war, charity, disaster, and despair. The East-West different interpretation is apparent as Queen Noor of Jordania reminding about Iraq War in light of distortion, successful manipulation of information that the media was also taking part. However, Sergey Brin (Google co-founder), indicated that with Internet or Google people can see news they way the want to see it. And information is abundantly available, a more complete picture as not to cause any prejudice. People put a comment as a response in real time, unlike in the old media that would take a week or a month for a response to a news to be published.
Well, the advance of Internet technology and information access, global business operation and social interaction shall bring people of the world getting closer and closer. Physically and virtually, yes. Mutual understanding and respects are keeping on improving. Yet, it might not be at the speed and scale we all are expecting for the peace of mind. To make the world a much better place to live in. As such, inter-faith dialogue, socio-cultutal engagement, and embracing diversity are something of significant importance to be encouraged. It shall be based on pluralism and tolerance. It's not the game of blame, as one of the cartoons mentioned above "preaching" to err is human, to blame someone else for your problem, is strategic. Or my cab driver here in Jakarta that quickly slammed "It's CIA" referring to a poltical figure here, a former presidential candidate that often made statements that difficult for the grass roots to understand and digest. Anything bad or dirty work or things incomprehensible, people seems to prejudicely stamp or label it with CIA.
It shall be a conspiracy of kindness offered to all stakeholders of the blue planet. Respect and dignity, in one-go with freedom of expression. And be wise to see any act of individual as opposed to a state's policy or action as not to draw excessive repsonses that would trigger a further negative chain of reactions. As Sir Paul McCartney conveys a meesage in Ebony & Ivory --- There is good and bad in everyone. We learn to live, we learn to give each other what we need to survive, together alive.
A perfect harmony. Sound like a utopia?
Friday, March 28, 2008
Escape the Past, Invent the Future
In a Q&A session after our GM presentation on re-organization, vision and mission, upcoming projects, and global undertaking, one of our guys posed a question about job security. I had no idea what prompted him to ask this question as he is one of our high performers. Perhaps, he was voicing concerns that some others might have.
The classic response was that we are working in a big enough company, on the top lists of Fortune 500, operating globally with diverse energy production and opportunities. Region-wise, two third of the energy demand would be coming from Pacific rim, with industrializing China hunger for more and more energy. On personal space, I was adding to remind our guys to keep on maintaining professionalism and preparing for the future in light of the next generation of skills (probably some of our guys were not quite comfortable with this notion). Referring to the best-seller Competing for the Future (Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad), we shall be ready to escape the past, do something to invent the future. An old book, yet still inspiring, that I bought a few years ago in Houston. Hamel and Prahalad indicated that inability to escape the past and inability to invent the future are great company diseases that make them failed.
The classic response was that we are working in a big enough company, on the top lists of Fortune 500, operating globally with diverse energy production and opportunities. Region-wise, two third of the energy demand would be coming from Pacific rim, with industrializing China hunger for more and more energy. On personal space, I was adding to remind our guys to keep on maintaining professionalism and preparing for the future in light of the next generation of skills (probably some of our guys were not quite comfortable with this notion). Referring to the best-seller Competing for the Future (Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad), we shall be ready to escape the past, do something to invent the future. An old book, yet still inspiring, that I bought a few years ago in Houston. Hamel and Prahalad indicated that inability to escape the past and inability to invent the future are great company diseases that make them failed.
As for our professional life, it is human that we all are proud of our great achievements in the past, and frequently that we are content with current performance that breed success. The one, among other things, that we might get trapped with this is that "success confirm strategy" mindset. We keep on doing things in the same way with the same thinking as it's already "proven" before that it makes us "success". We might "win" in the past because of abundant resources and it gets into subconsciious mind that "resources subsitute for creativity". The landscape of the future would require us to creatively adjust from time to time our approach to success. It might not be an immediate future, yet we need to get prepared. The "blue ocean" of the future is opportunities for those ready with new skill sets to tap in and reap the benefit. We have been seeing, for instance, that "customer subscription-based fee" is replaced with "ads revenue stream" in the business model such as Google, Yahoo and the like.
First thing first would be a question as to how that we have strong enough radar screen as to capture the fish of the future. How do we get in touch with the future. More importantly, do we have the courage to cross borders and go beyond -- out of current comfort zones. Let alone, if the risks are clear and the rewards (whatever huge it might be) are still a possibility. As Robert Kiyosaki (in Rich Dad Poor Dad, or other books I did not recall), we are always waiting for a green light. The light will never turn green, we have to make it green!
Get our mind to smartly read any leading indicator while wisely enough to deal with lagging indicators. Success of the past is a sweet memory, but it would not necesary be a ticket for a future success. In an interview wih Newsweek published this week, Dalai Lama said that "we don't talk about the past. We are looking to the future" when asked about his relationship with Beijing, recalling about meeting with Chinese leaders in the past for being reminded that Tibet has been part of China for centuries and being requested to state for no separation guarantee.
Do something. For the better future.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The 3am Decision Case
It's 3am. The children are safe and asleep. The phone is ringing in the White House. Something is happening in the world. Who do you want answering the phone ? Sound familiar? Yeah, it's the famous '3am Hillary phone call' ad campaign for the Democrat's presidential nomination. The answer is supposed to be clear: it's Hillary Clinton who already knows the world leaders, knows the military, someone tested to lead in the dangerous world.
Barack Obama was quick to response in a speech countering the experience Hillary is portraying. The question is not about who's picking up the phone. The question is what kind of judgement that you excercise when picking up the phone. By now, there are a few hundreds parodies written with regard to this 3am phone call. Some jokingly questioned why Hillary was dressed up with make-up at 3am?. And oddly enough, one of the kids sleeping in the bed is grown up now, a young lady named Casey Knowles that support Obama! What a joke.
Barack Obama was quick to response in a speech countering the experience Hillary is portraying. The question is not about who's picking up the phone. The question is what kind of judgement that you excercise when picking up the phone. By now, there are a few hundreds parodies written with regard to this 3am phone call. Some jokingly questioned why Hillary was dressed up with make-up at 3am?. And oddly enough, one of the kids sleeping in the bed is grown up now, a young lady named Casey Knowles that support Obama! What a joke.
Anyhow, making a critical decision at 3am must be very tough, let alone dealing with world affairs of urgent matters that might have long lasting impacts. It takes both proven experience
and good judgement to deal with it. In smaller scale, the same token shall apply to the business and corporate matters. We see many great leaders sucessfully grow the business and prosper the people within the business and the community. Yet, many good leader failed.
Coming up with sound decisions, timely and well considered, are sometime quite a challenge in day-to-day business operations. In one extreme, there are managers that often go making impulsive decisions, anything as long as it's good for him/her or his/her divsion, caring less that it might have impacts to others. In other extreme, we have managers that are not comfortable making important decision, let alone tough ones. Years back, I was curious as not being able to invite some managers in our important meetings. It turned out that it was not because they were so busy with other more important stuffs, but it's more that they did not want to end up in a situation at the meeting that they had to make (key) decisions!. It's ironic that they were expensive because they were supposed to make (tough) decisions in the first place.
Personal background and cultural-social environment have for sure some contributing factors in decision making process. More importantly, we could observe that we most of the time do not prepare our people in systematic ways to assume business leadership. We shall start with the new recruits. We have spent extra efforts to bring in the best fresh graduates. We then need an established program to grow them in their early career years. Yes, there are some good management trainee programs in some companies. Yet, it only for few selected people. The majority comes in thru regular pipe. Some have programs to widen their horizon within the first 3-4 career years. They would need to be rotated to gain technical experience, oriented to have business exposures, and got in touch with management awareness as to how the whole things get integrated and moving.
Key element missing in such porgram as I observe is the exposure to making business decisions. It's worth the efforts for them undergoing a systematic program in a way that would be confronted to make a real decision as we prepare them to become future leaders. Let them go thru case by case and learn first to have the courage to decide and then make well-considered decisions. Good ones and bad ones, and later on try to deal with a '3am situation'.
In recent recruitment interview with a number of candiates graduated from best schools with excellent GPA, I posed a question of 'what is the biggest and toughest decisions you've ever made in your life' ?. I virtually ended up staring at blank faces, with some managed to refer to few daily routines. It's imperative that we have to train our guys to get used to making tough choices - with well-thought consideration, understanding the impact to overall business, putting aside any super-ego and emotional attachment. Although, good decisions do not automatically yield good or best results as there are some unknown factors usually involved. But, statistically, decisions made with good processes and apropriate tools would in general make a good outcome that can responsibly be accounted for. With it, we could hope to have good leaders in the future that intelectually mature enough to make decisions that might impact the lives of many people. Proven experience and good judgement. When you become powerful leader, you'd better need it.
Advice from Spiderman passed on from Uncle Ben to all of us, especially to Obama, Clinton, and McCain, with great power comes great responsibilty. Use it very, very wisely.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Generation W2: Collective Intelligence at Work
Business IT Forum, March 3-6, 2008, San Ramon, California. This was an annual gathering of business-IT leaders within one of super-major oil companies that I was attending. Social computing was one of the topics addressed during this 3-day session. It was quite coincidently surprising and personally entertaining as a week before I managed to post Social Networking and Balance of Power to this blog. Listening to speakers in a break-out session and technology trend keynote, it's a bit deja vu, connecting dots back about 4-year ago my conversation with a good friend of mine. Andy Eyschen has been an independent consultant working and travelling around the globe and often dropped by at my office when he is in town. We're discussing about knowledge management, learning that it was not about knowledge database that mostly matter. It was connecting the subject matter experts that would really be the name of the game.
Back to the future, I could not be able to resist thinking that it's in a way transforming into or surfacing as what we see today as the phenomena of social networking. Or in broader and more general context, social computing. The wall of hierarchy is falling down for the sake of more collaboration and sharing, connect thru on-line networks with each node (user, people) able to be a subject active contributor rather than an object passive reader. It is not a fad. Nor is it something that will pass you or your company by. Forrester Research articulated that gradually, social computing will impact almost every role, at every kind of company, in all parts of the world... Big names like Microsoft and IBM have established research groups dedicating to social computing.
Wikis, blogs, "walls" on people-connect tools, and the like establish a paradigm shift to user-generated content, trusting users as participants or co-developers. Millions and millions of people do write, post, interact, share and refine on topics of interest to them - no money involved (well, not the first and foremost, as to some extent and forms, you might "invite" commercial ads), it's just out of curiosity, enthusiasm, and feeling good to contribute. The result ? collective intelligence is being embraced and well established. Here is the example of the work of many collaborating in Wikipedia formulating social computing :
In the weaker sense of the term, social computing has to do with supporting any sort of social behavior in or through computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and technology. Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing, but also auction software and other kinds of electronic market or electronic negotiation platforms where people interact socia
And what the hell is Web 2.0 ? Don't get it wrong. It is not a product. Nor it is a software release. It is a second generation of internet technoligies that pave ways for social computing. The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use webs. According to Tim O'Reilly (founder of O'Reilly Media and supporter of the free software and open source movements) on clarifying What is Web 2.0, there's still a huge amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people decrying it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom. He formulated the initial brainstroming with some examples below:
Web 1.0 ------------- Web 2.0
DoubleClick --------> Google AdSense
mp3.com -----------> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
publishing ---------> participation
Got it ? No ? A high-level executive addressing the Business IT Forum mentioned above started his speech by mentioning about social networking that his kids are coversant in playing around and said jokingly that he/we might be dynosaurs by now. So watch out. A new generation is born! Generation W2 - social interaction growing on top of Web 2.0 foundation. Unlike with many notion of generations before, it is not bound by age nor time-stamp (date) when those people are born at the same period. It is a network of community that has the energy and enthusiasm to embrace collaboration and sharing, across boundaries of age, geography, and hierarchy.
Again, a collective intelligence, a global brain. Be part of it or be virtually isolated in Jurassic Park!
Back to the future, I could not be able to resist thinking that it's in a way transforming into or surfacing as what we see today as the phenomena of social networking. Or in broader and more general context, social computing. The wall of hierarchy is falling down for the sake of more collaboration and sharing, connect thru on-line networks with each node (user, people) able to be a subject active contributor rather than an object passive reader. It is not a fad. Nor is it something that will pass you or your company by. Forrester Research articulated that gradually, social computing will impact almost every role, at every kind of company, in all parts of the world... Big names like Microsoft and IBM have established research groups dedicating to social computing.
Wikis, blogs, "walls" on people-connect tools, and the like establish a paradigm shift to user-generated content, trusting users as participants or co-developers. Millions and millions of people do write, post, interact, share and refine on topics of interest to them - no money involved (well, not the first and foremost, as to some extent and forms, you might "invite" commercial ads), it's just out of curiosity, enthusiasm, and feeling good to contribute. The result ? collective intelligence is being embraced and well established. Here is the example of the work of many collaborating in Wikipedia formulating social computing :
In the weaker sense of the term, social computing has to do with supporting any sort of social behavior in or through computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and technology. Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing, but also auction software and other kinds of electronic market or electronic negotiation platforms where people interact socia
And what the hell is Web 2.0 ? Don't get it wrong. It is not a product. Nor it is a software release. It is a second generation of internet technoligies that pave ways for social computing. The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use webs. According to Tim O'Reilly (founder of O'Reilly Media and supporter of the free software and open source movements) on clarifying What is Web 2.0, there's still a huge amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people decrying it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom. He formulated the initial brainstroming with some examples below:
Web 1.0 ------------- Web 2.0
DoubleClick --------> Google AdSense
mp3.com -----------> Napster
Britannica Online --> Wikipedia
personal websites --> blogging
publishing ---------> participation
Got it ? No ? A high-level executive addressing the Business IT Forum mentioned above started his speech by mentioning about social networking that his kids are coversant in playing around and said jokingly that he/we might be dynosaurs by now. So watch out. A new generation is born! Generation W2 - social interaction growing on top of Web 2.0 foundation. Unlike with many notion of generations before, it is not bound by age nor time-stamp (date) when those people are born at the same period. It is a network of community that has the energy and enthusiasm to embrace collaboration and sharing, across boundaries of age, geography, and hierarchy.
Again, a collective intelligence, a global brain. Be part of it or be virtually isolated in Jurassic Park!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Managing Less is Managing Better
A very long while ago, I told an executive "leader" that he should stay away from interfering into granularity of work details of his people, and have a helicopter view instead. The response was "I am an engineer. If I drive a car, I have to know how the engine work". I was trying to remind him that he is a vice president. A US$ billion company. He then said that he would stay away once he knows all the details and feels comfortable enough.
It turned out that enough was never enough, or at least took a very long time to get to a small portion of enough. It's at the expense of (some) other people, feeling unease at work, worrying (or fearing) that the way people do the jobs might not be the way the boss like. Nevertheless to say, he got what he wanted, jobs were executed completely. Some good highly talented people were detaching themselves, some were seeking opportunity outside the company. Lately, I indirectly had a converstaion with one of them. He smilingly mentioned that if he were a VP, he would have him (the boss) as the manager, not the other way around. "Now, he is getting better, though", he added.
I have no idea to connect 'an engineer' and 'a helicopter view'. Perhaps, I shall be wise enough to understand about being (or talking to) a 'leader' and a 'manager' as some people try to differentiate. Or there are people thinking that the world is revolving around him or her, the center of universe! It might be an interesting topics of organizational behavior or leadership psychology study. But I would like to refer to Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Many called him as one of the greatest CEO of the era. In 29 Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch (Robert Slater, 2003), abridged from Get Better or Get Beaten, Jack Welch mentioned:
As we became leaner, we found ourselves communicating better, with fewer interpreters and fewer filters. We found that with fewer layers we had wider spans of management. We weren't managing better. We were managing less, and that was better.
Interesting enough that he wanted his managers to manage less. He wanted them to do less monitoring and less supervising and to give their employees more lattitude. Conversely, he wanted far more decision making at the lower levels of the company. It shall be understood carefully as not to suggest that managers are out of controls on what's happening. Sometimes it sounds counterintuitive as managers are supposed to and want to manage. As we see it within the context, it's more appropriately sugesting about managers staying away from thsoe granuarity of details of their people. Stop looking over their shoulders. Stop bogging them down in bureaucracy. Let them perform.
Behind it lies a key idea: we have hired the best people and trained them so that we need to treat them with respect. Build their confidence - in us, in the company, and in themselves. And then get the hell out of their way. For Welch, "managing less" at GE meant that his leaders had more time to think big thoughts and be more creative.
I would say that it's very inspiring. We can just simply say, Empowerment.
It turned out that enough was never enough, or at least took a very long time to get to a small portion of enough. It's at the expense of (some) other people, feeling unease at work, worrying (or fearing) that the way people do the jobs might not be the way the boss like. Nevertheless to say, he got what he wanted, jobs were executed completely. Some good highly talented people were detaching themselves, some were seeking opportunity outside the company. Lately, I indirectly had a converstaion with one of them. He smilingly mentioned that if he were a VP, he would have him (the boss) as the manager, not the other way around. "Now, he is getting better, though", he added.
I have no idea to connect 'an engineer' and 'a helicopter view'. Perhaps, I shall be wise enough to understand about being (or talking to) a 'leader' and a 'manager' as some people try to differentiate. Or there are people thinking that the world is revolving around him or her, the center of universe! It might be an interesting topics of organizational behavior or leadership psychology study. But I would like to refer to Jack Welch, the former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Many called him as one of the greatest CEO of the era. In 29 Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch (Robert Slater, 2003), abridged from Get Better or Get Beaten, Jack Welch mentioned:
As we became leaner, we found ourselves communicating better, with fewer interpreters and fewer filters. We found that with fewer layers we had wider spans of management. We weren't managing better. We were managing less, and that was better.
Interesting enough that he wanted his managers to manage less. He wanted them to do less monitoring and less supervising and to give their employees more lattitude. Conversely, he wanted far more decision making at the lower levels of the company. It shall be understood carefully as not to suggest that managers are out of controls on what's happening. Sometimes it sounds counterintuitive as managers are supposed to and want to manage. As we see it within the context, it's more appropriately sugesting about managers staying away from thsoe granuarity of details of their people. Stop looking over their shoulders. Stop bogging them down in bureaucracy. Let them perform.
Behind it lies a key idea: we have hired the best people and trained them so that we need to treat them with respect. Build their confidence - in us, in the company, and in themselves. And then get the hell out of their way. For Welch, "managing less" at GE meant that his leaders had more time to think big thoughts and be more creative.
I would say that it's very inspiring. We can just simply say, Empowerment.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Green Concerns, Small Steps
I learned with surprise this morning, during an internal global con-call on IT projects, that our compnay is the no. 3 polluter in the Bay area (west coast, USA). For a company with a high commitment to HES (health, environment and safety), this is quite a not-so-good news, if not to say a bit embarrassing. I have not yet made any further checks as to whether it's coming from refinery, oil-gas exploration-prodcution, or other stuffs. More importantly, serious green initiatives are now being undertaken.
Within the energy industry, efforts have been projected toward finding and establishing more on renewable energy. While this would be a future answer to the current sky-rocketing of oil prices, it would also be good energy alternatives that are more environment-friendly. Getohermal energy production has been praised for reducing CO2 footprints as compared to oil and gas mining. Reduction of CO2 footptints shall also be directed toward those manfucturing plants and industrial complex. In this regard, the one that was quite impressive a long time ago while living there was Yokohama in Japan. It was surprisingly clean air amidts a large number of plants operating day-by-day. They were fueled by LNG - liquified natural gas -, a clean energy solution.
What can we do as an individual to help our mother earth sustain our lives ? While some has powerful authority to excercise positive impacts (and need to do so), we can start small steps on our parts. There are stuffs that contribute directly to high emsision or carbons (bad motor exhaust for example) and also those daily "products" we use that the making process are involving carbon emissions or the disposal that would create environmental issue (plastics). Get good care of our cars and bikes as not to pollute our air. Use as approriate, not more than necessary: water, electricity (switch off when we are out of the rooms)... and those computer generated products we use daily. Don't print anything than necessary. A lot more of other stuffs that seems to be small, yet would contribute to the better of our living environment.
Within the energy industry, efforts have been projected toward finding and establishing more on renewable energy. While this would be a future answer to the current sky-rocketing of oil prices, it would also be good energy alternatives that are more environment-friendly. Getohermal energy production has been praised for reducing CO2 footprints as compared to oil and gas mining. Reduction of CO2 footptints shall also be directed toward those manfucturing plants and industrial complex. In this regard, the one that was quite impressive a long time ago while living there was Yokohama in Japan. It was surprisingly clean air amidts a large number of plants operating day-by-day. They were fueled by LNG - liquified natural gas -, a clean energy solution.
What can we do as an individual to help our mother earth sustain our lives ? While some has powerful authority to excercise positive impacts (and need to do so), we can start small steps on our parts. There are stuffs that contribute directly to high emsision or carbons (bad motor exhaust for example) and also those daily "products" we use that the making process are involving carbon emissions or the disposal that would create environmental issue (plastics). Get good care of our cars and bikes as not to pollute our air. Use as approriate, not more than necessary: water, electricity (switch off when we are out of the rooms)... and those computer generated products we use daily. Don't print anything than necessary. A lot more of other stuffs that seems to be small, yet would contribute to the better of our living environment.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Social Networking and Balance of Power
Don't be scary. It's not about political power struggle. This is purely about IT. Or can be said so. The social networking has been becoming so popular, easy and fun to do so with on-line tools freely available in the Internet. It connects friends of friends, relates, doing people search, write and collaborate. It operates on many levels, from families up to the level of nations. In conjunction with blogging, it seems to be entering into corporate realms. Once that looks like things for teenagers to play around with, it would be part of a new game for information warfare. I was about to address it to an IT leadership meeting in Pekanbaru, Sumatra as to ultize it for corporate purposes. It was then postponed because of time limitation, giving more for other important stuffs. Some might also still perceive it as just toys.
Kevin Werbach, professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, commented to the discussion on How Facebook Gave Birth to an Industry that "social networking will be the basis for a great deal of innovation and business opportunity". Eager to get a friend of mine into this circle of networking wave, I sent a text message asking her email addrees mentionng that I want to invite her to join Facebook. The answer is "I don't' have one. Please send the invitation to my shop at Tator Cafe, 4th Fl. Pacific Place, Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Jakarta".
Amidst all those millions of people in some parts of the world unaware about this new game, a new set of creative ways of doing things unimaginable before keeps on coming to market. In a corporate language, business is not (would not be) as usual as it should be in the past. IT-enabled innovations are becoming real, fast and more to happen. The roles of IT in corporation would need to be re-defined to find a new seat on the table. Many IT-related services are becoming commodity. A lot of things can be done nowdays in a plug-and-play fashion without intervention of highly skilled IT guys. To some extents, the balance of power has been shifted from IT shop to the hands of users. The paradox seems to be that the more successful of IT implementation in a corporate, the less the business needs from the IT department. This is something that IT leaders in corporations shall be aware of and need to come up with a next generation of IT skills to contribute in a diferent way to the business as before.
Wikis, blogs, and social networking would be new enabling tools inside corporation. The new school of thoughts would be for IT functions to live with it, while transforming its competency into business partnering that orchestrate an array of technology solutions for high-value business benefits. Leave gradually all those low-margin "hard stuffs" of old-day romantism to plug-and-play automation or external parties that woud combine with those from others for their economies of scale benefits.
A new challenge for corporate IT leaders to make that IT DOES MATTER.
Kevin Werbach, professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, commented to the discussion on How Facebook Gave Birth to an Industry that "social networking will be the basis for a great deal of innovation and business opportunity". Eager to get a friend of mine into this circle of networking wave, I sent a text message asking her email addrees mentionng that I want to invite her to join Facebook. The answer is "I don't' have one. Please send the invitation to my shop at Tator Cafe, 4th Fl. Pacific Place, Jl. Jend. Sudirman, Jakarta".
Amidst all those millions of people in some parts of the world unaware about this new game, a new set of creative ways of doing things unimaginable before keeps on coming to market. In a corporate language, business is not (would not be) as usual as it should be in the past. IT-enabled innovations are becoming real, fast and more to happen. The roles of IT in corporation would need to be re-defined to find a new seat on the table. Many IT-related services are becoming commodity. A lot of things can be done nowdays in a plug-and-play fashion without intervention of highly skilled IT guys. To some extents, the balance of power has been shifted from IT shop to the hands of users. The paradox seems to be that the more successful of IT implementation in a corporate, the less the business needs from the IT department. This is something that IT leaders in corporations shall be aware of and need to come up with a next generation of IT skills to contribute in a diferent way to the business as before.
Wikis, blogs, and social networking would be new enabling tools inside corporation. The new school of thoughts would be for IT functions to live with it, while transforming its competency into business partnering that orchestrate an array of technology solutions for high-value business benefits. Leave gradually all those low-margin "hard stuffs" of old-day romantism to plug-and-play automation or external parties that woud combine with those from others for their economies of scale benefits.
A new challenge for corporate IT leaders to make that IT DOES MATTER.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Bill Gates on Creative Capitalism
Davos, Switzerland. This winter sports area is famous as the host to the annual meetings of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites. The closest that I could physically get to this destination of the rich was last year when 'Eurailing' aboard Glacier Express from St. Moritz to Zermat. The scenary view was spectacular along the Alps of beautiful and snowy Switzerland. We, Ratih and my 5-year old Rafi that kept on moving around, were the only one, I suppose, that looked far, far less wealthy among those passengers in the first class car serving a good lunch meal aboard this slowest fast train in the world.
That's it. The gap between the rich and the poor. Craving for $1 a day, unable figuring out how much zeros are there in $1 million a day in local Indonesia or Peru currency. At WEF 2008 in Davos last month, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, was talking about Creative Capitalism, an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities.
The great advances in the world have often aggravated the inequities in the world. The least needy see the most improvement, and the most needy get the least -- in particular the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. There are roughly a billion people in the world who don't get enough food, who don't have clean drinking water, who don't have electricity, the things that we take for granted. Diseases like malaria that kill over a million people a year get far less attention than drugs to help with baldness.
We need a system that would have a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives of those who don't fully benefit from today's market forces.
A very noble intent. Although qualifying Capitalism with 'creative' or any other words would not create a new school of thoughts as to establish a new set of economic system. Some critics even say that Bill Gates miss the point on 'creative capitalism'. It's something like branding corporate social responsibily with a new word, as similar to 'caring capitalism'. They said that corporations already provide money to communities and charitable causes, and the world does not get any far better.
I would say that the critics miss the points as well in focusing more on charity aspects. Business could not grow bigger and bigger beyond the limit that can be financially afforded by purchasing power of the community. You can not sell more and more cars in a town that the people can only buy a bike. Anyway, we would not be getting trapped into pros and cons arguments. We would embrace and support the ideas of making the world a better place to live for everyone. And if it comes from a Diva of Software Industry like Bill Gates, it would become more real and make things happen.
"It's Bill", commented Erik Renaud, GM Enterprise & Partner Group, Microsoft Asia Pacific, in our lunch at Pacific Place, Jakarta today. "He likes big things. He still wants to change the world".
Well, we shall be wellcoming Bill Gates in May 2008 here in Jakarta. Probably, someone could manage to steal his time to introduce the concept of "zakat" and "ekonomi syariah", a completely different thinking that might inspire him to do more..... as John Lennon with Imagine, inspired after he spent some time inside India.
That's it. The gap between the rich and the poor. Craving for $1 a day, unable figuring out how much zeros are there in $1 million a day in local Indonesia or Peru currency. At WEF 2008 in Davos last month, Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, was talking about Creative Capitalism, an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities.
The great advances in the world have often aggravated the inequities in the world. The least needy see the most improvement, and the most needy get the least -- in particular the billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. There are roughly a billion people in the world who don't get enough food, who don't have clean drinking water, who don't have electricity, the things that we take for granted. Diseases like malaria that kill over a million people a year get far less attention than drugs to help with baldness.
We need a system that would have a twin mission: making profits and also improving lives of those who don't fully benefit from today's market forces.
A very noble intent. Although qualifying Capitalism with 'creative' or any other words would not create a new school of thoughts as to establish a new set of economic system. Some critics even say that Bill Gates miss the point on 'creative capitalism'. It's something like branding corporate social responsibily with a new word, as similar to 'caring capitalism'. They said that corporations already provide money to communities and charitable causes, and the world does not get any far better.
I would say that the critics miss the points as well in focusing more on charity aspects. Business could not grow bigger and bigger beyond the limit that can be financially afforded by purchasing power of the community. You can not sell more and more cars in a town that the people can only buy a bike. Anyway, we would not be getting trapped into pros and cons arguments. We would embrace and support the ideas of making the world a better place to live for everyone. And if it comes from a Diva of Software Industry like Bill Gates, it would become more real and make things happen.
"It's Bill", commented Erik Renaud, GM Enterprise & Partner Group, Microsoft Asia Pacific, in our lunch at Pacific Place, Jakarta today. "He likes big things. He still wants to change the world".
Well, we shall be wellcoming Bill Gates in May 2008 here in Jakarta. Probably, someone could manage to steal his time to introduce the concept of "zakat" and "ekonomi syariah", a completely different thinking that might inspire him to do more..... as John Lennon with Imagine, inspired after he spent some time inside India.
Management Lessons from Best Jokes
It's interesting enough to learn that a 'case' story often told in management sessions is derived from a joke. Or probably seen as the other way around that the case is considered as (just) a joke ?. The lessons learned from the story, I would suppose, are about getting to the point, understanding what is actually the problem to come up with the real solution. A classical case about doing the right things versus doing things right.
It is rated as Top Joke in Canada by the University of Hertfordshire, UK in a research project http://www.laughlab.co.uk/ to find the best jokes in the world. Here is the story.
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C.
The Russians used a pencil.
It is rated as Top Joke in Canada by the University of Hertfordshire, UK in a research project http://www.laughlab.co.uk/ to find the best jokes in the world. Here is the story.
When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300°C.
The Russians used a pencil.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Jakarta Bus Ride
Last Saturday, 16th Feb 2008, I managed to wake up and go out early. At around 6.30am I was already on the 'Busway' from Kuningan area, Jakarta to Sarinah Thamrin, with my 5-year old Rafi quite exciting on his second-time ride of Busway.
It was quite efficient and comfortable, and surprisingly cheap with Rp. 2,000 ticket / person! I was then aware that the ticket is sold cheaper before 7am from the normal fare of Rp. 3,500. I would say that it's a good means of public transportation for Jakarta, although there are still some concerns as it (still) does not (yet) significantly reduce an overall traffic burden (some even say that it adds up to make it worse some time as a lane is dedicated to Busway sparing less to other use -- giving away 30% of the road to Busway while saving only 10% of the overall traffic load ?). Nevertheless, it would be good options for domestic as well as foreign tourists to take in cruising along the "jungle' of Jakarta.
Namun, di penyeberangan jembatan Sarinah Thamrin, ternyata kondisinya lumayan kotor. It's CBD area! It's not good for a tourism promotion even to a 'local tourist' seperti saya. Dalam perjalanan pulang, saya mencoba naik Patas AC dari halte Sarinah Thamrin ke arah Kuningan. Saya memerlukan waktu kira-kira 10 menit untuk tanya kanan-kiri untuk akhirnya tahu bahwa bus no. 147 (salah ya ? lupa lagi) dan 57 yang mesti saya tunggu. Setelah ditunggu 30 menit tidak muncul dan melihat para Patas AC berhentinya di lajur kedua (bukan dipinggir, yang sering di tempati metromini, kopaja) dan sekejap saja (not a good safety practice as not to say dangerous), saya akhirnya back to Busway.
Patas AC ini bisnya bagus juga, dan sebenarnya recomneded juga as good public transportation for tourists. "Hanya" informasi dan kesemrawutan yang perlu dibenahi. Alangkah baiknya, kalau di halte (apalagi CBD seperti Sarinah Thamrin) di pasang informasi tentang rute bis, nomer berapa ke jurusan mana. Hal ini akan sangat membantu. Mulai dari informasi dasar sperti ini, belum bicara soal time schedule seperti di kota-kota di bagian dunia lain yang "sudah duluan majunya". Pembenahan sederhana (?) ini sedikit banyak akan berkontribusi menjadikan pada kenyamanan dan berujung ke (peningkatan) turisme juga - Visit Indonesia Year 2008. Ini tugasnya siapa ya, Pemda DKI, Dinas Pariwisata, atau penyelenggara angkutan bis ?.
It was quite efficient and comfortable, and surprisingly cheap with Rp. 2,000 ticket / person! I was then aware that the ticket is sold cheaper before 7am from the normal fare of Rp. 3,500. I would say that it's a good means of public transportation for Jakarta, although there are still some concerns as it (still) does not (yet) significantly reduce an overall traffic burden (some even say that it adds up to make it worse some time as a lane is dedicated to Busway sparing less to other use -- giving away 30% of the road to Busway while saving only 10% of the overall traffic load ?). Nevertheless, it would be good options for domestic as well as foreign tourists to take in cruising along the "jungle' of Jakarta.
Namun, di penyeberangan jembatan Sarinah Thamrin, ternyata kondisinya lumayan kotor. It's CBD area! It's not good for a tourism promotion even to a 'local tourist' seperti saya. Dalam perjalanan pulang, saya mencoba naik Patas AC dari halte Sarinah Thamrin ke arah Kuningan. Saya memerlukan waktu kira-kira 10 menit untuk tanya kanan-kiri untuk akhirnya tahu bahwa bus no. 147 (salah ya ? lupa lagi) dan 57 yang mesti saya tunggu. Setelah ditunggu 30 menit tidak muncul dan melihat para Patas AC berhentinya di lajur kedua (bukan dipinggir, yang sering di tempati metromini, kopaja) dan sekejap saja (not a good safety practice as not to say dangerous), saya akhirnya back to Busway.
Patas AC ini bisnya bagus juga, dan sebenarnya recomneded juga as good public transportation for tourists. "Hanya" informasi dan kesemrawutan yang perlu dibenahi. Alangkah baiknya, kalau di halte (apalagi CBD seperti Sarinah Thamrin) di pasang informasi tentang rute bis, nomer berapa ke jurusan mana. Hal ini akan sangat membantu. Mulai dari informasi dasar sperti ini, belum bicara soal time schedule seperti di kota-kota di bagian dunia lain yang "sudah duluan majunya". Pembenahan sederhana (?) ini sedikit banyak akan berkontribusi menjadikan pada kenyamanan dan berujung ke (peningkatan) turisme juga - Visit Indonesia Year 2008. Ini tugasnya siapa ya, Pemda DKI, Dinas Pariwisata, atau penyelenggara angkutan bis ?.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
On Iran's Nuclear Program
The world, at least some people including myself, is watching in a very deep concern about the proceeds of issues with regard to the Nuclear Program that Iran is pursuing. On particular concerns are on how USA and UN would deal with it, in an equal importance on how that Iran would "cooperate". We could no longer afford seeing a war in middle east. More even a "war based on assumptions" as the world is realizing on what's happening in Iraq now.
While the rethroric ways that President Amhadinejad deliver speeches were perceived as threatening by the west, we need to see resolving the issues thru constructive dialogues, more on "substances" rather than "styles".
We glad to hear about IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and NIE(US National Intelligence Estimate) that indicate a 'negative' on Iran's pursuance to nuclear weaponry (military purposes). Yet, we still see that President George Bush seems to be still after Iran. Even during the press conference with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on his visit to Israel a few weeks ago, Mr. Bush seemed to be 'dismissing' the report from both IAEA and NIE.
Mr. Olmert is also keeping on saying that Israel sure Iran seeking nuclear arm. In response to this, a spokeperson of the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Jakarta, Mr. Hamid Soltan Soleki wrote to Jakarta Post daily, yesterday Feb 16, 2008:
"It is very strange that representatives of a regime, which obtains hundreds of nuclear warheads and has been source of unrest, instability, crisis by resorting to agression, usurpation and killing of innocent men and women of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, is judging Iran's nuclear program".
It's quite a strong statement, amidst a naked fact that some people might see as what's really happening in middle east. So it would absoulutely need extra energy to make both sides sit down together in a round table -- peace, justice, mutual respects, no double standards. -- seems to be quite a utopia:)
Above all, what are the (moral) grounds that some could have nuclear weapon while others could not ? People even now are worry about nuclear weapon in a relatively unstable Pakistan in the events following Bhutto's death. India has also got it just sometime ago without any issue. I just recalled on what President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, cleverly stated quite a while ago that he very much agreed that middle east should be free from nuclear warheads - no exception. Yap, all parties have to be back to the table on reducing and eliminating this WMD in more time certainty.
An Israeli friend of mine (a businessman), that often comes to visit Jakarta, once said that we make friends by doing business and partnering - across nations that may have different political views or adversaries -- and contribute, whatever small it might be -- to mutual understanding among people in every part of the world on a peaceful earth.
Agreed. But was it true, Erez, that business contacts give also pathways to Camp David and Oslo Accords ?
While the rethroric ways that President Amhadinejad deliver speeches were perceived as threatening by the west, we need to see resolving the issues thru constructive dialogues, more on "substances" rather than "styles".
We glad to hear about IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and NIE(US National Intelligence Estimate) that indicate a 'negative' on Iran's pursuance to nuclear weaponry (military purposes). Yet, we still see that President George Bush seems to be still after Iran. Even during the press conference with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on his visit to Israel a few weeks ago, Mr. Bush seemed to be 'dismissing' the report from both IAEA and NIE.
Mr. Olmert is also keeping on saying that Israel sure Iran seeking nuclear arm. In response to this, a spokeperson of the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Jakarta, Mr. Hamid Soltan Soleki wrote to Jakarta Post daily, yesterday Feb 16, 2008:
"It is very strange that representatives of a regime, which obtains hundreds of nuclear warheads and has been source of unrest, instability, crisis by resorting to agression, usurpation and killing of innocent men and women of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, is judging Iran's nuclear program".
It's quite a strong statement, amidst a naked fact that some people might see as what's really happening in middle east. So it would absoulutely need extra energy to make both sides sit down together in a round table -- peace, justice, mutual respects, no double standards. -- seems to be quite a utopia:)
Above all, what are the (moral) grounds that some could have nuclear weapon while others could not ? People even now are worry about nuclear weapon in a relatively unstable Pakistan in the events following Bhutto's death. India has also got it just sometime ago without any issue. I just recalled on what President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, cleverly stated quite a while ago that he very much agreed that middle east should be free from nuclear warheads - no exception. Yap, all parties have to be back to the table on reducing and eliminating this WMD in more time certainty.
An Israeli friend of mine (a businessman), that often comes to visit Jakarta, once said that we make friends by doing business and partnering - across nations that may have different political views or adversaries -- and contribute, whatever small it might be -- to mutual understanding among people in every part of the world on a peaceful earth.
Agreed. But was it true, Erez, that business contacts give also pathways to Camp David and Oslo Accords ?
Friday, February 15, 2008
Visit Indonesia Year 2008
Last night, I was watching Minister of Tourism, Mr. Jero Wacik addressing the Visit Indonesia Year 2008 in a small panel of dicussion. I forgot what TV channel he was on. I could see that he has a good intent for pursuing this program as a successful one and seems to be already working hard to make it happen. He mentioned about launching a wide-spread ad, commercials on this program.
With all due respect, I could not yet see a kind of world-class campaigns as to attract a big number of tourists to come in. Coupled with unfortunate conditions -- recent flooding -- happening in Jakarta, it's quite a huge challenge. Almost every night, I turn on BBC channel, and have not yet seen any comercials on anything related to Indonesia Year 2008. Just see several beautiful and attractive flashes on India (Incredible India), Thailand (Amazing Thailand), China.....
I suppose that we need to do more in selling. We already have a numerous wonderful destinations and beautiful places to see within Indonesia. Travel acrosss the archipelago, spend one nite in each island, and you will end up with spending the rest of your life in touch with a very diverse, romantic, memorable encounters! 13,000+ islands that are rich in culture, wonderful panoramic views...a truly magnificent Asia, a spendid exotic touch with the archipelago ! Yap, we need to coin a simple yet attracting moto, rather than those complicated one of something like 'celebrating 100 years of nation awakening' ----- who care that we are awakened or not:)
Get in world-class marketers, engage every part of the nation to sell......Very well understood that it seems to be easy said than done. But we need to start from something. Get it right, get it world-class from the beginning, from a small step.
With all due respect, I could not yet see a kind of world-class campaigns as to attract a big number of tourists to come in. Coupled with unfortunate conditions -- recent flooding -- happening in Jakarta, it's quite a huge challenge. Almost every night, I turn on BBC channel, and have not yet seen any comercials on anything related to Indonesia Year 2008. Just see several beautiful and attractive flashes on India (Incredible India), Thailand (Amazing Thailand), China.....
I suppose that we need to do more in selling. We already have a numerous wonderful destinations and beautiful places to see within Indonesia. Travel acrosss the archipelago, spend one nite in each island, and you will end up with spending the rest of your life in touch with a very diverse, romantic, memorable encounters! 13,000+ islands that are rich in culture, wonderful panoramic views...a truly magnificent Asia, a spendid exotic touch with the archipelago ! Yap, we need to coin a simple yet attracting moto, rather than those complicated one of something like 'celebrating 100 years of nation awakening' ----- who care that we are awakened or not:)
Get in world-class marketers, engage every part of the nation to sell......Very well understood that it seems to be easy said than done. But we need to start from something. Get it right, get it world-class from the beginning, from a small step.
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