Bull Shit

Being born in mid 1964, I am technically part of the Boomer generation, but if you read traits of the generations, I have a few of the traits from from both the Boomer & Gen-X. (I guess ‘64 was a transition year!)

So even as the getting older fogey that I am, I realize that one of the key business drivers in this new  millennium is innovation and collaboration.

Gideon J. Lenkey writes at Internet Evolution about; The Case for Blocking Facebook, IM & Webmail

I won’t go into the article in detail, you can visit it.

But it is right in the ballpark of not allowing employees to use telephones, then computers, then the network, then the Internet.

You get the idea.

The social in business is here to stay.

Collaboration is no longer mandatory 6PM Friday meetings around the conference room table.

Innovation is not an 8 hour task given at 3PM Tuesday, due Wednesday at 8 AM

Innovation and Collaboration are coming through new, modern tools such as IM, and Blogs.

It is connecting, sharing, and comparing.

It  across time, across place, and without borders.

Don’t take my word for it. There are other fogeys saying the same.

Ask Ram Charan,

Ask Don Tapscott ,

Ask Clayton M. Christensen

and Forrester Research

You can try to crawl back into the rabbit hole to the bad old days.

But your competition probably won’t

Then you lose.

Book Review; Disrupting Class

Disrupting Class

Being a member of a family of past and present educators, I picked up Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns by Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn.

If you have any responsibility for learning, inside or outside of the education system, (i.e. Human Resources or training staff)this book is worth a read.

The text applies Mr. Christensens’ disruptive innovations theories to the (primarily Western) education system.

The book does not require familiarity with his previous books on disruption, but I found knowing them was beneficial in understanding – in depth, the disruptive innovation context that the authors are describing.

My only issue would be that major projects are often late and cost more than they should. So in the student centric timeline estimated by the authors, I would extend that timeline until all boomers are retired, and even the first waves of Gen-X retireing.

Maybe then we see the much needed context changes described by the authors.

Wall St. And The 800 Lb Gorilla in the Room

I am stepping out of my area of expertise. So I am free to enter in ignorance.

But just about every media outlet around the world is fixated with the executives of the organizations in the current Wall St. melt down doing the perp walk to congress.

Anderson Cooper on CNN even has his version of the US Army’s Iraqi playing cards in a ‘Most Wanted’ type format. Just lined up for these exec’s.

The only note that I have seen that even obliquely mentions the 800 Lb gorilla is the Short Termism mention by 1 to 1 Media here.

To me it seems pure classical conditioning.

Like Pavlov’s Dogs you learn what bell to push to get the treat.

Option A results in punishment

Option B results in reward

This classical conditioning can be fueled by the institutional investors that figure it is their god given right that a dollar invested today needs to be two dollars by the end of the quarter.

Not next year, or five years, but three months from now.

I personally like defining most of these institutional investors in the term used by Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman, and Willy C. Shih in the Harvard Business Review.

They call them shareowners,  not shareholders.