This piece (Symantec admits antivirus source code filched in unnoticed 2006 hack attack) in the Globe and Mail today is ironic in and of itself. The admission that Symantec continued to sell PCAnywhere knowing that code had been stolen and the security compromised ought to generate at least one or two entrepreneurial lawyer-disgruntled customer combinations to file a class against Symantec. Of course, it’s too late to short their stock right now.
Grayson
Jan 192012
Trickled out
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Dec 062011
This just in from the OECD, what should have been obvious to anyone paying attention since about 1983: OECD calls time on trickle down theory (from the Globe & Mail). The OECD woke up and realized that widening income disparities might actually put the lie to the theory that a “rising tide raises all boats” at least as far as economics goes. Should take only about 2 more generations for the political applications of this theory to finally be bankrupt as well.
Dec 012011
Maybe nobody’s noticed (maybe nobody cares), but there is a tension between creation and evolution that goes on in business even without invoking the giant scientific-belief system debate. And, it permeates right down to the educational process for business and organizational administration. What’s worse is that unlike the much larger debate, where there are clear divides and most people who contemplate it for even a moment tend to fall into one of the two camps, in business and organizations the same person can and will hold diametrically opposing positions from moment to moment depending on what (s)he is doing. In brief, it goes like this:
Management education and the practice of developing business plans, etc. especially within large and established organizations tends to follow the creationist approach. Think it through to some conclusion (i.e., a successful business) based on the materials available and the circumstances observable. Plan for the successful achievement of that “business case.” Implement the plan to “create” the successful outcome. This is decidedly creationist–”intelligent design” if you will. And, at least where I’ve observed, there is even a “religion” around these articles of faith that the end can be achieved if you plan it well enough.
On the other hand, there are those who are occasionally raised upon shoulders (can you say “Jobs”), who represent a different point of view–at least for a while. That point of view is somewhat evolutionist and, unlike the larger philosophical perspective that looks backward in time to create a coherent path for how evolution happened to get “us” to this point, in business and organizations evolution does not yet know the end point. But, the perspective and logic is the same: there is a starting point and a hoped for direction and end state. Ultimately, however, a product or a business or some organization is given life and “free will,” and then is set out into the conditions of the world to grow and develop as the conditions of the market, competition, and funding allow. Without a doubt, the intent has direction and a goal. But, and this is key, the response to those changing conditions may (often does) move the product or business in ways unanticipated at time zero. In short, the product or business “evolves.”
Which is right? Who knows but I would suggest that the path to greatness is littered with the corpses of the creationists. Few businesses and organizations exist at any stage in the exact condition assumed at the outset. Some are close to what the founder or visionary saw; others are massively different. What is sure, in both cases is that the mind has to make sure there is internal consistency. So, those who believe in the creationist approach will adjust and evolve but conveniently forget the original designs (perhaps “revise” is a softer and more palatable choice) and paint the bulls-eye around the arrow at any given time. The evolutionists tend to be those in full apology mode: when something hasn’t gone exactly as anticipated and changes have to be made, even before success is determined, many become evolutionists to accommodate the earlier “failure”–at least according to creationist rules.
Will this change? I doubt it. I doubt it will even become more acceptable and transparent. There’s too much at stake and too little to squash the conveniently malleability of self-/organizational-delusion.
And who am I to change it? I’m just saying…
Get productive! if you’re up to it
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Nov 252011
I went to the OCRI execTALKS Business Forum yesterday morning to see Deloitte’s Bill Currie speak about their latest study and recommendation for the widening productivity gap that’s been all the rage in the media of late. First off, the study and its results were comprehensive, and Deloitte has done an excellent job of relating the complexity of the situation and the solution. In short, it’s not a simple fix (which, when I preambled a question to Bill, came out poorly–intimating that Deloitte has made it confusing; not so). A few observations and comments about the presentation and the Canadian condition:
1. Funny bit: At one point Bill noted that although the productivity (and innovation) situation in Canada worsens, we are as a nation exceptionally productive at producing white papers. Even funnier, when I was in university many years ago, and frankly up until last week, all policy planners and economists direly suggested that we HAD to be in the knowledge economy not the old and dirty production economy. Apparently you have to be careful what you wish for.
2. Early on in the list of eight issues, Bill identified that there was an eductional challenge particularly regarding risk, investment, economics, etc. That was great but might come up shy of the cultural change that’s required. Specifically, there’s fewer risk takers in Canada and, more importantly, those among the risk averse are more decidedly risk averse than our American counterparts. My suggestion is that educating about risk probably is not going to change that because it’s a cultural matter (see below).
3. The recommendations are typically and, I suppose, necessarily top down from the organizational level. Essentially, company leaders (CEOs and executives) and educational leaders (chancellors, presidents, and deans) and government leaders (policy makers of all stripes) need to enact changes. That’s great, but return to point no. 2 and see if there’s a bit of a thin connection here. Notably, what Currie identified was that the participant that wasn’t at the table was business. Hmmm.
4. During the Q&A a woman asked Bill what she could do now. He glibly answered, “Go back to the office and buy a new machine.” I loved it, particularly since it underscored one of the themes of their research was that Canadian businesses don’t invest in newer, more efficient production equipment at the same level as Americans and hence don’t benefit from the productivity gains.
5. I noted that about 30 years ago I had participated in exactly the same kind of business congress with the same sort of hand-wringing about the same impending problems. Then I asked Bill what he thought was the consistency between these two times. Admirably, he dodged that specific question and noted that the structural and other specific conditions of the two times were different and that those challenges had been addressed by people at that time. I was actually hoping that he would call out the fact (obvious in the first, “educational” point) that the consistency was Canadian business people and their conservative “milk the cow” business approach toward investment into productivity-enhancing tools let alone investment into innovation. That didn’t happen. My point is that while the times were different, the problem was ultimately the same. A medical doctor would likely refer to the treatment of the structural issues then and now as a measure of “treating the symptoms not the disease.” The disease, as it were, is cultural.
6. At one point, talking about spending nationally, Deloitte makes the point that American spending on defense outpaces the next ten economies together. BUT, when Deloitte, normalized the effect of the spending, they uncovered that there was no immediate correlation between the defense spending and the state of national productivity. Bill made the point that it typically takes 20 years or so to commercialize defense development. I said to him after the speech that if that is the case, we should probably be seeing a massive productivity increase as a result of the Reagan Star Wars work in the early 1980s any time now. A pop that wouldn’t appear in Canada.
The entire study and the recommendations are decidedly made as a comparison to the United States of America. Is this meaningful? Yes, we lag the US even in the development of massive income disparity between haves and have-nots (although we’re catching up even there). But, as Deloitte notes, the economies that are growing the fastest, becoming more productive the fastest, that are likely to overtake everyone are the Asian economies–particularly China and India. Shouldn’t we, therefore, take some of our lessons from them? Maybe not: its easy to have 50% growth from 2-3 rather than from 1M – 1.5M.
All this said, the Deloitte study and Bill Currie’s presentation are very good. Productivity in Canada, tied to lagging innovation benefit, is a genuine problem that is particularly interesting (let alone vexing), and I have more thoughts about it. Stay tuned.
Grayson Begins
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Nov 202011
When I was eight years old–about a month from turning nine, I went to a hockey school in Toronto for a week. For the week that followed, my mother toured me through all the kid-friendly parts of Toronto and the Golden Horseshoe that were her old stomping grounds.
We ended up at Fort Erie and the Crystal Beach amusement park: monster roller coaster, fun carnival games, and various other typical amusements. We went to the “Fun House” in which clowns and other stuff would pop out of a strobe-lit darkness to great shocking hilarity. Let it be said, I do not have a clown phobia. That now said, I got to the first unexpected puff of air and out the ride I went. My mother, being the mother she was, was insistent that I go through the ride completely. Eventually she brought the carny operating the fun house to guide all of us through the amusement with a flashlight. Basically, we got a private workman’s tour of the magic behind the ride.
For years I’ve been a bit embarrassed and guilty about what a coward I was. Then I remember that I WAS EIGHT in an adult fun house. So I feel better. It struck me recently, though, that this much-too-close-to-forty-year-old episode was perfectly consistent with who I am and what I’m compelled to do every day.
What I do is pull back the curtain to show everyone that the magic–whatever it is–is just artful trickery. Mostly that’s been in the realm of business. This is not to suggest that these magic tricks are deceitful or nefarious, only that they are not always what they seems to be. Tricks of language, method, or what have you are presented to create and sustain an illusion of magic and insight. I expose it so that everyone who wants can understand it and do the right thing rather than do things right (or as they’re told are “right”).
It all makes sense to me now.
Banished words… my contribution
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Nov 162011
We are less than 2 months away from the next installment of Lake Superior State University’s (narrowly) famous annual list of banished words. These are the words and phrases that have been so overused as to have, first, lost all meaning and, second, become noxious.
My contribution for the January 2012 list is “brand permission.” Despite my reasoning as follows, I first want to doff my hat at the guy who coined the term and hope he or she is making a royalty from its use. Still, draw and quarter the phrase and bury the parts in different places.
The phrase “brand permission” is a kitschy bit of shorthand for “Will our customer’s accept such an offering/communication/position from this business/organization?” This is not a novel rumination among business people; it’s common sense that’s merely been given a sound-bite. My issue is that it has been overworked as though it we’re on an overlooked scrap of lambskin found in a jar near the Dead Sea. Really, can’t we not speak in tongues? The question is: ”Will we be able to sell this to anybody who knows our business?” And it applies only to extension products.
Does a mortuary really need to question “brand permission” to know that becoming a full-service funeral home or installing an incinerator for cremation services would make sense, while adding a terminal patient palliative care ward next door might make efficiency sense but probably would horrify the marketplace? Does a dolt of an action hero (or bimbo–to be fair) really need to be told that they’re kind of typecast and wouldn’t be credible in a sensitive dad or bookish librarian Mensa member roles? (OK, they probably shouldn’t need it but apparently the lesson here is less powerful than ego.) It’s not magic.
More than that, by becoming an incantation it leads to abusive overkill and caution. The outcome here, from the “brand non-permission” cravenness, is that innovation and expansion narrows to conservative irrelevance. The entire concept smacks of stasis. In the hands of an unnuanced mind, it will be inhibit change and development because there is no permission to move beyond what is. Logically, you can not have permission to do what the authority (in this case the faceless “market”) does not know. (My child neither has nor does not have permission to be a star high-school musician travelling around the world giving concerts: I–the faceless authority–haven’t contemplated that seriously as yet.)
In the extreme case, as a lumbering company Nokia probably didn’t have brand permission to become a cellular handset leader. And only in the wispy memory of what has already become do we readily see and say that Apple had “brand permission” to jump into consumer electronics, the music business, and even the tablet computing space. Let’s recall, at the time of the first ipod, Apple was a near-death, small share maker of personal computers, AND it had failed miserably with its first foray into portable computing. (Can anyone say “Newton?”) It’s claim was that it’s computing equipment focused on design and shifted that category from beige boxes. Did it really have “brand permission” to make a portable music player? –to upend the entire music business? Really? Be honest?
“Brand permission” is, like so much other business-speak, a way to contribute risk measurement and caution. It also has the value of forcing one to think about “sticking to your knitting” or “staying focused.” It also generates rationale gymnastics to prove that an idea does, in fact, have permission. That’s a natural second order effect.
For at least these reasons, and for so many more–and because the phrase is getting nauseating: LSSU, please banish it.
I shall be released
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Nov 152011
Coincidentally, I was listening to this old Bob Dylan tune as I ran on the treadmill the other day. Good song. Great poetry.
In any case, immediately after my run I encountered the situation of a person being vacated from his job by an organization. The official word was that this employee had been “released.” The less official word that he had chosen to leave in order to pursue other opportunities.
Maybe we all realize that “laid off” carries a specific legal meaning and “fired” a social stigma. So “released” is a relatively recent euphemistic salve.
Still, with Dylan’s aide, I couldn’t help but come to the implicit realization that if the employee is “released” then the organization casts itself into the role of zoo, hospital, (insane) asylum, addiction rehabilitation centre, or prison. Gotta be one of those to be released, no?
Oct 132011
Canadian (media) hockey hero, Don Cherry, recently ranted in his own inimitable fashion–again. This time it was about the opposition to fighting by the NHL and many hockey players, including some former star fighters. The whole thing is a tempest in a protective cup, and made ugly by Mr. Cherry to boot.
In the Tuesday Globe & Mail, the editorial board rose to chastise his Don-ness. They challenged Mr. Cherry’s reference to three reknowned former “enforcers” as “pukes.” I don’t dispute the editorial position nor the approach to or even the actual argument. Still, one has to imagine that a few lawyers among the readership could take offense to at least one part of the piece. Judge for yourself; here’s the offending paragraph.
Mr. [Stu] Grimson didn’t earn his nickname “the Grim Reaper” for scoring goals; he had 217 fights in his NHL career, and retired because of a brain injury. [Here comes the punch line.] But he had the wherewithal to become a lawyer.
Gotta love it.
So one dead guy ruins it for everyone else!
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Sep 242011
I’m not even sure what to think about this that I found in today’s Ottawa Citizen. There are simply so many things “wrong” with the entire episode.
Texas draws line on death row final meals
Convicts on death row in Texas [where else?] are no longer free to pick the menu for their own last meal, after a white supremacist executed this week ordered a veritable feast. Lawrence Brewer raised eyebrows when he asked for two chicken fried steaks, a triple-bacon cheeseburger, a cheese omelette, a big bowl of fried okra, three fajitas and a pound of barbecue before he was put to death. A pint of ice cream and half a loaf of white bread rounded out the menu–which was left uneaten–for the 44-year-old Ku Klux Klan member given a lethal injection on Wednesday for killing James Byrd, a 49-year-old disabled black man, in 1998. Death row inmates are now to receive the same meal served to other offenders on the unit.
Can you say, “Keep your eye on the ball, folks”?
In the spirit of the hybrid car…
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Sep 212011
Reading an article in the Globe and Mail this morning about using a “solar wall” on the side of a building as a means to reduce energy consumption, I was struck by this statement:
Think of the biggest energy cost for a typical Canadian business – one running multiple computers and keeping the lights on at all hours. It’s electricity, right? Wrong.
“People think of electricity first but actually, in Canada, indoor heating is the largest use of energy,” says Victoria Hollick, vice-president of renewable energy firm Conserval Engineering in Toronto. “Given that [we use] heat seven months of the year, that represents a tremendous use of energy.”
Made me think. Computing equipment needs electricity to operate, but it throws off (as anyone sitting near a server rack knows) a lot of heat which demands more electricity for cooling. In the winter–or for seven months, buildings need to be heated. This creates an interesting little system.
What if the energy being dissipated by the computing equipment in the form of heat thrown off were reclaimed or invested as energy for another source? That is, kind of like a nuclear reactor or steam engine, what if the heat were used to boil water or somesuch that was then either (a) directed to heat the premises in the winter or (b) used to generate some of the power required to cool the premises in the summer? On a smaller and more closed scale, perhaps the power generated by this capture of heat could be reintroduced into the source for the computing equipment itself creating a slowly degenerating closed loop.
It wouldn’t eliminate the need for electrical power–obviously, but maybe it would reduce the overall need in the short run and expand the imagination in the long run.
Of course, I’m sure others have thought about and implemented this already. But, hey, it struck me now.
