March 3, 2010
GTD
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars I normally don't like self-help books, but this one is low-key, immensely practical, and not tied to paying the author money or hiring him as a personal consultant (though the option is available). I have tried to implement some of his thoughts, using Evernote, and it is sort of working, at least when I force myself to be a little bit disciplined. I like the way David Allen leaves options open for individual variations - and his almost complete lack of self-promotion (for instance, he says that quite a few of his customers have become successful leaders, but attributes it more to their organizing and self-discipline skills than to his method, which he regards as a technology.
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Back to blogging in shanghai
I am back in Shanghai, teaching a four day MBA module, with the same limitations of Internet access as the last time (though it seems they have gotten around to blocking Google Video by now). It is raining, I am 7 hours jet lagged, but there is consolation in having sampled W. Brian Arthur's beautifully written The Nature of Technology on the way down. (More to come on that later, I will make at least portions of it compulsory reading for my Technology Strategy students..)
Oh well, back to research reports (of the administrative kind) and course preparation...
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February 24, 2010
Case analysis contest for NSM M.Sc. students
A couple of our M.Sc. students have contacted Boston Consulting Group and gotten their cooperation to arrange a case analysis contest. This is just the kind of student initiative I am very happy to sponsor, so I will a) be a judge, and b) market it here.
So - if you are a M.Sc. student at the Norwegian School of Management - you are herewith invited to participate in a case analysis contest. There are a couple of provisos: You have to form a team of 3-4 students, and at least two of those have to be strategy students (i.e., do the strategy major). The contest will take place at BI on April 14th from 8am to 8pm, and will involve analysis, presentations, feedback and - for the winners - some rather attractive prizes from both hosts.
Be a consultant for a day and test your skills with a real business case - with feedback from both faculty and bona fide strategy consultants!
The application deadline is April 1st. The number of places is limited, so ”first come, first served“ - and please send the application to kai.r.mathisen@bi.no. (And do mention that you saw it here - we are trying to track how information travels about this.)
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February 23, 2010
French version of Catatech
I got a nice email from Jim Denford, who teaches at the Collège militaire royal du Canada. He has very kindly translated the Catatech case (a short teaching case I wrote with Sarah Kaull some years back) to French - or. rather, le français québécois. The case is available as a PDF here.
And that's the beauty of freely available teaching cases - that others use them, and, sometimes, translate them. By now, this case is available in five languages. Which I think is rather cool...
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February 22, 2010
The skinny on the economic effects of IT
Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology is Reshaping the Economy by Erik Brynjolfsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Erik Brynjolfsson took a look at the IT productivity paradox in the early 90s and decided to sort it out - and he did, by and large, by collecting prodigious amounts of data and tirelessly analyze them to tease out what everybody suspected but could not show empirically: That information technology contributes enormously to increases in productivity, innovation and welfare.
This short and to the point book gives an excellent overview and guide to the research on the economic effects of information technology. Each chapter has pointers to more reading, good examples, concludes with avenues for further research. I will use this as an assignment for my technology strategy students - rather than giving them a few articles, they might as well read the whole book.
(Also available through Google Booksearch. Full notes below the fold.)
Continue reading "The skinny on the economic effects of IT"
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February 20, 2010
A case of case teaching
One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turow My rating: 4 of 5 stars Describes the trials and tribulations of going through the first year of Harvard Law School - and stands up well despite the year in question being 1975. I teach by the Socratic method myself - with variations - and the tensions in the classrooms and the reactions to teachers are very well taken. (This book is not the basis for the movie "Paper Chase", which I first thought - though it could have been.) View all my reviews >>
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February 4, 2010
English is tough stuff
This poem by the Dutch writer Gerard Nolst Trenité is called The Chaos and is a frequent floater around the Internets in a slightly simplified form, sometimes attributed to "personnel at NATO headquarters". In the interest of anyone thinking they know English, it herewith reproduced (from the Spelling Society) in its full, glorious 274-line form:
The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.From "desire": desirable - admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.
Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
But it is not hard to tell
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home."Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you're not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em -
Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight - you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does*. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess - it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.Pronunciation - think of Psyche! -
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying 'grits'?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!* No, you're wrong. This is the plural of doe.
There. That should do it.
Posted by Espen at 4:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
January 17, 2010
Chandler: Scale and Scope
I am teaching a doctoral class on Al Chandler's Strategy and structure this week, so I thought I should dig out and clean up my notes on Scale and scope. And publish them here while I am at it. Caveat emptor, of course.
Continue reading "Chandler: Scale and Scope"
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January 15, 2010
Education as a way out of poverty
Found this video of my former classmate Sarah Mavrinac giving an impassioned speech on the need for education as a way out of poverty for migrant workers - and a plug for aidha, the charity she leads:
There is one person with the fortitude to put her money where her mouth is, I say...
Posted by Espen at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 13, 2010
Cold War of the Rings
John Le Carré : Three Complete Novels by John le Carré
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I just spent the Christmas vacation under the covers with a flu, rereading this collection of three of the "Smiley" novels (in a Norwegian translation, which isn't quite the same thing, though the translator is good).
The arena John le Carré creates here (or, rather, reports from, since he was a part of the real thing for a while) is the stealthy and paranoid world of Cold War espionage and counter-espionage, with the physically unimpressive spy-hunter George Smiley as the absent-minded and socially inept anti-hero.
The three books follow each other, not unlike the three main parts of "The Lord of the Rings" (come to think of it, it shouldn't surprise me if le Carré structured it this way on purpose): The first book (Thinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy) concerns the hunt for a "mole" inside Circus, an thinly veiled version of MI6, defectors and all. The second has Smiley as a less central character, instead giving an operational agent named Jerry Westerby (the "Honourable Schoolboy" of the title) first billing, as he tries to locate and then secure an important Chinese defector through investigations during the final weeks of the Vietnam War. The third ("Smiley's People") concerns Smiley's attempt to penetrate the Soviet intelligence organization in a final battle with his nemesis, a the shady and very competent spymaster Karla.
I like these books for their accurate depiction of the fear underlying much of the cold war, the way "little people" become pawns in a game they (and, many times, not their bosses either) understand. Aside from the gloriously tragic figure of Jerry Westerby, the spy game is one of meticulous investigations, bureaucratic frustrations, occasional high hopes with correspondingly deep disappointments. How far can you go in order to win - can you sacrifice people, sometimes with their consent, for an uncertain victory in a cause you are no longer sure about? I think these three books are the best John le Carré wrote, with the possible exception of "The Little Drummer Girl". Reading them again brought back the haunting specter of the dictatorship next door, the nagging fear most people of my generation grew up with, the uncertain enemy with powerful weapons, fought by vicarious means with a realization that the individuals involved had very little to say in the big decisions.
The question remains - who, if anyone, had?
Posted by Espen at 4:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 5, 2010
Newton as master detective
I am currently working from home, laid somewhat lower than usual by a persistent cold. One way to pass the time in between attempting to do actual work is padding through some of the bookmarks of "things I will read when I have time." Here is one gem I marked four months back - Thomas Levenson's brilliant talk on his book about Isaac Newton's tenure as Master of the Royal Mint, where he had to deal with counterfeiters (particularly William Chaloner) by setting up his own detective force:
Levenson draws lines to modern economy and shows how Newton had a quite sophisticated understanding of modern economy, was a smart investor, particularly in the South Sea bubble in 1720, and then fell victim to his own greed. Highly recommended!
Posted by Espen at 5:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 31, 2009
Jay Leno remakes Rendezvous
One of the most famous car movies ever made was Claude Lelouche's C'était un rendezvous, which is a single take, 9 minutes long, of an incredibly fast drive through the streets of Paris. The film was not speeded up, and the only safety concession was a lookout near the Louvre for a particularly sharp turn into traffic. The car used was a Mercedes 450SEL 6.9 (erhm, not unlike mine...) but the sound of a Ferrari was overlaid later. Here is the result:
Now Jay Leno, car collector and talk show host, has made a version of this for LA, doing a lap around Mulholland Drive and Beverly Hills in a Mercedes SLS AMG. Though not as exciting as the original (given that the driver is identified, it would have landed him in jail), it nevertheless induces some of that sinking stomach feeling from going really fast around a bend with a good car. (Note that the speedometer is never shown.) Enjoy:
(Yes, it is kind of childish, I know. But fun.)
Posted by Espen at 8:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
December 19, 2009
7 hour train journey via Bittorrent
The Norwegian broadcaster NRK recently made a 7 hour program about the very scenic train journey from Bergen to Oslo. The program was hugely successful despite the rather slow subject, offering long views from the front of the train interspersed with interviews and various other happenings along the ride). Here is a selection:
The raw film from the front camera is now being offered as a free Bittorrent download under a CC license. There is even a competition (in Norwegian only) for best reuse of the footage.
Kudos to the people behind NRK Beta, the experimental part of NRK, who again come up with interesting ways of making their material available!
Update 20.12: Boingboinged!
Posted by Espen at 9:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 16, 2009
How about donating to Wikipedia?
As the holidays come up, how about making a donation to Wikipedia? The canonical Internet encyclopedia has no other income than donation, and need money for running technical and other costs.
A donation to Wikipedia - no matter how small - ensures that you will still have access to one of the world's most complete and updated sources of knowledge. It is also a way to support a project which goal is to provide all the world's knowledge to all the world's people, in a form and with an interface that permits everyone to use and enhance it.
I am convinced that Wikipedia today is the single most influential collection of knowledge available, and the one that helps the most people, be they pupils, students, knowledge workers or anyone without access to the knowledge and learning infrastructure we in the richer and more liberal parts of the world take for granted. 350 million people go to Wikipedia to find neutral and detailed knowledge about the world we live in. Do your part so that it can be sustained and evolved further!
(Incidentally, it is really simple, as well. Credit cards accepted. Easily)
Posted by Espen at 10:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
December 11, 2009
Fire wall effects
Got to say it: Having Twitter and Youtube blocked by the Great Fire Wall of China sure drives up my blogging frequency....
I do feel for my Chinese academic colleagues who want to do research on social media, though.
Posted by Espen at 10:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Cringely bows out (with predictions)
Bob Cringely has written his last column for PBS, and bows out after 11 years. I for one will miss his long, mostly insightful and always readable columns. He predictably comes up with ideas that are different from what other pundits write, is frequently wrong (4 for 11 in the prediction market is not wonderful, exactly) but always interesting.
And I do like his latest prediction: That VCs will channel money into starting small banks that can extend credit to the very creditworthy companies currently cash-strapped because most of the incentives and the focus is on mortgages. Might not happen, but deserves to.
Bob will, of course, not stop writing (he has his own website, of course, like any professional tech writer) but I particularly like the long essays he has been posting at PBS.org and hope he will continue that format, in some highly visible channel.
Posted by Espen at 10:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
December 10, 2009
Obama impresses again..
...this time with a ready message about a prize given too soon: The US is the world's guarantor of peace and democracy, no matter what others may think about it. And in that role, the country needs and deserves the world's trust that it is doing the right thing - and gives the assurance that it will listen.
An impressive speech, given the uncomfortable situation the Nobel committee has placed Obama in.
To paraphrase the (Republican, but well-traveled and well-read) humorist P. J. O'Rourke: No matter what you think about the US, please notice that when the world needs power behind good arguments, nobody calls Sweden (or, for that matter, Norway.)
Posted by Espen at 3:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
December 9, 2009
Web sites blocked in China
Currently I am sleepless in a hotel in Shanghai, where I am teaching a four-day module on IT and technology management at the NSM-Fudan MBA program the Fudan University School of Business. I do this about twice a year.
Every time I am here, I try to figure out what websites are blocked by the "great Internet wall". It differs from time to time, and between the hotel and the university. Currently, I cannot get to
- Youtube (but Google Video is available, can't show Youtube videos, though)
- Facebook (but Gmail works fine)
- Bloglines
- various blogs, including anything from Blogger.com og Blogspot.com
- bit.ly and other redirectors/URL shorteners
On the other hand, Wikipedia is available, as are all the big news services. It seems self-publishing is seen as more dangerous than anything hewing to a more traditional process. Or, rather, sites where you can self-publish in Chinese, outside of China.
Posted by Espen at 10:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
The trouble with airline movies
I am writing this from a business class seat between Frankfurt and Shanghai, which I cannot, in all fairness, describe as an altogether frightful experience, in between good red wine, awful whisky (unfinished), reading Alfred Chandler's very enjoyable Strategy and Structure (I am teaching a session on it mid-January) and Nassim Taleb's equally enjoyable The Black Swan at the same time.
Another thing they have in business class is movies - a terrifyingly bland selection, which led me to choose Love Actually, something of a family tradition. Only, this was is the airplane version, which is edited for offensive content. This turns out to be most of the interesting dialogue and quite a lot of the story. Not only is all of the glorious swearing (and lots of other colorful language) missing, but one of the subplots (involving two stand-in actors performing an ornate sex scene on a film set while conducting a very bashful courtship.) Not to mention that even "complicated" words are edited out, and whole scenes missing.
I think this kind of ham-fisted sanitization is a particular problem for English comedies - they enjoy their swearing and sexual innuendos and perform them with panache and inventiveness. The watered-down and sensibility-tested version just doesn't wash at all.
(Incidentally, in the screenplay to Four weddings and a funeral, Richard Curtis talks about how having to shoot the airline version of his comedies brought even more swearing into the world, as the director invariably had to be reminded after finally completing a long series of takes of a complicated scene that they now had to do it all over again for the airline version.)
Which leads me to think - I have watched a lot of movies on airplanes (my main source, come to think of it) - what have I missed? Perhaps all those bland comedies and dramas actually were a lot better than I thought?
Posted by Espen at 6:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 19, 2009
Reflections on Accenture's Technology Lab
I am writing this from Accenture's Sophia Antipolis location, where I am visiting with a group of executive students taking a course called Strategic Business Development and Innovation (the second time, incidentally, last year's notes are here). Much of this course is around how to use technology (in a very wide sense of the word) to do innovation in organizations. To turn this into practice, my colleague Ragnvald Sannes and I run the course as an innovation process in itself - the students declare an innovation project early in the course, and we take them through the whole process from idea to implementation plan. To further make this concrete, we collaborate with Accenture (chiefly with Kirsti Kierulf, Director of Innovation in Norway) to show the students some of the technologies that are available.
Accenture Technology Labs is a world-wide, relatively small part of Accenture's systems integration and technology practice, charged with developing showcases and prototypes in the early stage where Accenture's clients are not yet willing to fund development. While most consulting companies have this kind of activity, I like Accenture's approach because they are very focused on putting technology into context - they don't develop Powerpoints (well, they do that, too) but prototypes, which they can show customers. I see the effect on my students: I can explain technology to them (such as mobility, biometrics, collaboration platforms) but they don't see the importance until it is packaged into, say, the Next Generation Bank Branch or an automated passport control gate.
Making things concrete - telling a story through hands-on examples - is more important than what most companies think. When it comes to technology, this is relatively simple: You take either your own technology, if you are a technology provider, and build example applications of it. If you are vendor-agnostic, like Accenture, you take technology from many vendors and showcase the integration. If your technology is software-based, or consists of process innovations, then you showcase your own uses of it. Here in Sophia we have seen how Accenture uses collaboration platforms internally in the organization, for instance. (Otherwise known as eating your own dog food.)
Having a physical location is also very important. At the Norwegian School of Management, we have a library that we like to showcase - a "library of the future" where the students have flexible work areas, wireless access to all kinds of information, in an attractive setting. This looks nice on brochures, but also allows us to highlight that the school is about learning and research, and allows us to tell that story in a coherent manner. I see Accenture as doing the same thing with their labs - they develop technology, but also showcase the activity and its results to the rest of the world. The showcasing has perceived utility, generating the funds and managerial attention (or, perhaps, inattention) necessary to sustain the prototype-producing capability.
Quite a difference from slides and lunch meetings, I say. And rather refreshing. An example that more companies should follow.
Posted by Espen at 10:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
