Archive for January, 2010

“How We Decide”
by: Jonah Lehrer
ISBN: 978-0-618-62011-1

Thinking about how we think.  That’s the gist of Jonah Lehrer’s book, “How We Decide.”

I’ve read books in the past about how the brain works. What the amygdala does, what the prefrontal cortex does, and so on. They’ve all been rather clinical, dry in nature.  Certainly not engaging. In surprising contrast, Lehrer has not only crafted a book on the topic of the brain and it’s constituent parts, he also puts it all in context of our daily lives.

Going all the way back to Plato’s day

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One can argue whether economists are cheapskates, or not. The debate can certainly be entertaining, such as in this Wall Street Journal article.  There’s even an old economics joke tied to their, umm, stereotypical tendencies.

It goes something like this, “…an economist is walking down the street with a friend when they happen upon a $100 bill laying on the ground.  As the companion reaches down to pick it up, the economist says, ‘Don’t bother—if it were a real $100 bill, someone would have already picked it up.’” (Andrew McAfee and Andrew Lo.)

Andrew wrote an article comparing companies’ use of IT with that $100 bill.  The notion is that ‘everyone’ has the same technology.  We all have, or have access to, tools like email, internet, smart phones, computers, and the like.  So, technology itself should be a non-competitive tool. Right?

While Andrew continues to discuss inconsistent use of these tools—fewer than 5% of all firms do the job well—I’d like to briefly look beyond just ‘IT’ per se.

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Energy costs.

Ask yourself, why did the economy tank last year? A popular answer is bad mortgages leading to a collapse of the financial markets…and the dominoes just fell from there. But if so, then why did Europe and Japan head into recession (by a couple quarters, at least) before the US?

If you listen to the popular economist Jeff Rubin (http://www.jeffrubinssmallerworld.com), he’ll give you an earful on why it was really triggered by 2008’s run up in oil prices. Consider that in 4 of 5 previous recessions (we can’t say about this one yet, for sure), oil spikes preceded economic recession by about 12 months each time. Interestingly, 09’s spike was nearly 500% prior spikes. I encourage you to read Jeff’s book, or at least skim the related blog post, Financial Crisis or energy Shock? You Be the Judge.

So, what happened to us as energy sky rocketed, before last year’s collapse? We started

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Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series,  Starting Your Own New Business.  The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business.

Below, is the high-level presentation I’m giving today.  The focus is on moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.

Does your company stand for anything? Do you just go to work each day to, ‘make money?’  If you don’t have an answer, why not?

The best place to find it, if there is one, is in an organization’s Mission Statement.  Too many mission statements though are simply great places to collect a bunch of fancy words used to simply obfuscate any underlying meaning. Hmm.  Obfuscate: to confuse, hide the meaning of, be ambiguous.

Google has a 10-point Philosophy.  The most famously quoted is, ‘…do no evil.’  While one might question this basic tenet, it is there, it is understood, and it can be used to help align the organization toward a common purpose.

Even if your organization has lost its way, its never too late to start on a path toward recovery. Maybe this is part of what Google’s doing today, with it’s recent stand against Chinese censorship.  Is what Google’s doing noble?  It’s an interesting question.  See what HBR has to say in, “Why Is Google Doing Government’s Job?”

It’s never too late to Pick Your Fencepost and decide whether to Focus or Flounder.

(Photo Credit: Rainer Topf)

Had a good conversation with a friend today.  As we talked, we seemed to circle around a common thought that has been all too apparent to many of us these days.  We have increasingly become a nation of specialists.  The foremen (and women) have largely been sent packing.

Sometimes the essence of this thought comes to mind, even though you might not do so tangibly.  For instance, my family has had a spat of medical ‘things’ going on.  10 years ago, most of our time was spent with our general practitioner.  You know…the one doctor you went to for just about ‘everything.’  Now, the GP seems to simply be a glorified gatekeeper.  Skin your knee, see the GP.  If you need a band-aid they’ll set you right up.  Otherwise, you’re off to for visits to any number of point-practitioners.  Ok, I exaggerate a bit…‘just’ a bit.

This problem is also very evident in our professional lives as well.  Today I met with a number of folks in a regional networking group.  The group reflects what is already known about this recession…most of those effected are mid/senior careerists.  What seems unspoken though, is these are also the folks known to a different generation as foremen.

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By now, almost all of us have encountered an electronic book, or ebook. In simplest form, an ebook can simply be a multi-page document available as a plain text file. More often, you’ll find them as Adobe PDF files you can view on your computer which, when displayed, look exactly like they would if printed out. Even I am experimenting with them as part of this blog.

Recently I came across a question, asking, what the difference may be between an ebook you can download, versus one accessible online? At the same time, what might it mean to the publishing business? An interesting question as I look at my favorite recliner for doing reading.

There are two subtleties here and they are tied to the ‘type’ of ebook in question. The first are what I think of as ‘informational’ ebooks. Examples might include white papers, case studies, academic efforts, and other ‘informational’ type ebooks. Many Harvard Business Review publications might fall in this category for instance. Some are free, some are not.

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