Archive for September, 2008

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Sprinkling some Web 2.0 pixie dust on boring stuff

Monday, September 29th, 2008

Cisco’s acquisition lineup tells a story.

  • Webex for $3.2 Bil
  • Postpath for $215 Mil
  • Jabber (undisclosed sum)

Hmm .. what do these three have in common? Looks like Cisco is after the $34 Bil collaboration market, by beefing up its portfolio with unified communications, telepresence, and all sorts of Web 2.0-for Enterprise technologies so that people can cut down on physical travel.

Makes sense, given the weak economy and soaring gas prices – it’s costly to travel. Much like how dinosaurs went extinct and the smaller animals went on to dominate the earth because they were smaller, nimbler and able to adapt to the changing environment, Cisco is evolving.

Companies that rely on easy credit and on business models that require moving physical goods will probably find a tough time surviving. Cisco can help in the latter by cutting down on employee travel (ok-still no substitute for actually delivering parcels of stuff like Amazon), but for multi-national companies even small savings make a significant dent when multiplied.

Web 2.0 innovation is increasingly bottoms-up; that is, it’s first tested “in the wild” by consumers, then buffed up for corporations. That’s right, Web 2.0 is growing up and is punching holes through the corporate firewall.

Why am I writing about this? Oh, because I think it’s cool to watch the behemoth Cisco turn its big ship. We’ll see if they succeed in evolving fast enough.

A similar trajectory this reminds me of is British Telecom (BT).

Cisco = big company that makes the low level nuts and bolts for networking = boring.

BT = big telco which without, your cell phone might as well be a brick = equally boring.

Cisco with Web 2.0 = ooOOooh!

BT with Web 2.0 = aaAAaah!

Ok, on a more serious note, just as Cisco has a real strategy-so does BT. Just as Cisco is thinking how it can provide more value on top of its TCP/IP stack, BT is working to deliver more value through its pipeline – by being a channel for SaaS providers to reach BT’s SMB clients.

What BT has done so far:

  • Acquired Ribbit – $105 Mil
  • Partnered with Genius.com, branded as BT Smart Marketing
  • Announced a deal to sell NetSuite and SugarCRM

At the very least, Cisco and BT’s strategies to deliver value added services on top of their commoditizing products in an increasingly saturated market (Africa aside) makes for an interesting juxtaposition and business case study.

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Posted in business, cloud computing, saas, strategy, web 2.0 | Comments

Happy Friday..

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Just another Friday, had a good laugh at work today when a reader submitted a hilarious comment on my team’s blog post yesterday. Then, I found this on Reddit .. also tickled me because I’ve had room mates, since .. hmm .. ever since I moved out from mom and dad’s!Then, this post on Hacker News. Interesting question asked over and over, and a clear and concise answer. 

Question:

I think it’s interesting that I see a lot of people saying that computer programmers don’t need degrees, but I rarely see anyone saying the same thing about physicists, biologists, mathematicians, or zoologists. I wonder why that is.
Maybe there really are people decrying degrees in those other fields and I just don’t hear about it because I’m a computer programmer. But I suspect that degrees are actually required and respected in those fields. What is it about Computer Science that makes people think you can read a few books on your own and you are qualified? What is it about the other fields in math, science, and engineering that make that not the case?

Answer:

- Computer programming does not EQUAL Computer Science
- Technicians implement others’ designs using skills
- Engineers create new designs using knowledge
- Scientists create new knowledge

“Pure” programmers are technicians. Computer scientists are engineers or scientists.
Plumbing, like programming, offers immediate feedback, is cheap to try on your own, and is useful even if you’re not an expert. But plumbers aren’t the same as hydraulic engineers or fluid dynamics experts.

Posted in humor, regular reads | Comments

The importance of also being technical (not just strictly business)

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

It’s not enough to be just business-savvy, especially in a technology venture — one must also be tech-savvy. Despite what people say about why today is a bad day to begin majoring in computer science because all the jobs in the US are being offshored to China and India, I still humbly largely disagree, because tech companies are still hungry for talent.

Obviously, with globalization and the flattening of the world, if all you do at work is push a button, then your job is most probably by and large a candidate for offshoring. If someone in China or India can push the same button for a fraction of what you’re being paid ..why should the company not use them? The point I’m trying to make is that it’s still great to be in tech – as long as you’re not complacent. You have to differentiate yourself and actually be useful/valuable (imagine that!)

Why are science and technology so important today?  We are living in times of intense change, a point I tried to cover in my post on Innovation last week.  In any kind of system or organization, the more components the system has, the faster those individual components are changing, and the more integrated the components are, the harder it is to predict how that system or organization will evolve into the future.  The system becomes “emergent,” a term used to describe highly interactive, complex systems whose behavior — indeed, whose very nature — is essentially unpredictable.

It is not hard to see how our world, its institutions, perhaps even our personal lives are becoming increasingly “emergent”, that is, hard to predict.  Technology is changing at a prodigious rate, new products and services are born almost every day, and to top it all off, ever since the Internet hit in the mid ’90s, we are living in an increasingly interconnected, global world.  If your business and/or your life feel more chaotic . . . . it is because they are. (Or, at least, they look chaotic through the lens of our familiar paradigms.)

And .. the reason why I wake up in the morning, the reason why I’m proud to be a computer scientist,

To a good scientist or engineer, all this complexity and seeming unpredictability is fun. It’s in times like these that the most important innovations happen. Scientists love to explain what is going on in a complex world in the simplest, most elegant way possible, so you can analyze the options, make sense of what is going on, and take the proper actions.  Engineers love to solve problems and build things, and the more sophisticated the problem or thing you want to design and build, the more good engineering you need.

Emphasis is mine. Cutting through complexity is not just an important technical skill to have, it’s an important business skill for CEOs as well. “Cutting through clutter” is something Ram Charan talks about. I’ve blogged about him here and here before.

(more…)

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Posted in engineering, innovation | Comments

What is the American Dream again?

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

I’ve been light on my blog posts lately, been busy and am recovering from a gut-wrenching time, although I won’t detail that here (and please don’t ask), but suffice to say I’ve been thinking a lot. A lot. One of the things I have asked myself: What is the American Dream again?

In its essence, The American Dream refers to the opportunity for achieving greater material prosperity and a decent standard of living based on one’s ability and work ethic, as well as the hope that one’s children will receive a good education so they, too, can aspire to a good job and standard of living. The term was coined by historian James Truslow Adams, when he wrote:

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.“

Ahh .. the essence of meritocracy — something my mentor Anita believes in (herself an immigrant), something I believe in (myself an immigrant).

I found that from Irving Wladawsky-Berger’s blog this morning, as I was catching up on my RSS feeds. Read his full post for his thoughts on the knowledge economy, and how the US really needs to innovate to remain ahead — or slip behind others, as we watch the US presidential election slowly degenerate into a culture war.

Meritocracy is a system of a government or another organization wherein appointments are made and responsibilities are given based on demonstrated talent and ability (merit), rather than by wealth (plutocracy), family connections (nepotism), class privilege (oligarchy), cronyism, the will of the people (as in democracy) or other historical determinants of social position and political power. In a meritocracy, society rewards (by wealth, position, and social status) those who demonstrated talent and competence, demonstrated through past actions or by competition.

Although lately, I’m starting to wonder if the American Dream still is .. in America? In light of all the anti-immigrant protests (whether outright or underhanded), both Republican and Democratic candidates essentially shying away from the thorny issue of immigration, I really question America’s ability to (a) attract and, (b) retain foreign talent.

For the uninitiated, the contribution of foreign talent to America is well documented (and well quantified, if you want hard stats).

And now, contrast all of the above with all the anti-immigration debates, and headlines like, “U.S. immigration policy discourages foreign-born entrepreneurs” and “U.S. Immigration Policy Hinders Entrepreneurship”

Irving writes, “A recurrent message in my blog has been the critical importance of human capital – that is, the stock of skills and knowledge that enables individuals to produce economic value.  Talented, well educated individuals are more needed than ever in our global, highly competitive, knowledge economy.  Countries and regions endowed with that kind of human capital will be in a much better position to cope with, adjust to and thrive in our fast-changing, emergent world.”

Why is America making it so hard for immigrants? Is it still worth it for immigrants? Has America forgot what it means to be American?

Other points of interest, from Wikipedia:

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Posted in things to ponder about | Comments

Another “break” through in hockey

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Hockey tape = $2.50

Beginner hockey skates = $69.99 (2 years ago, excluding depreciation)

Foiling 3 shots on goal from the opposing team by taking direct hits
on the same spot on the blade, causing it to break and thus giving you
a legitmate excuse to a new pair of skates = priceless :)

photo.jpg

From last Friday’s midnight game: Teams Storm vs. Thunder @ SDIA. Final score: 5 (Storm) to 1 (Thunder)

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Posted in ice hockey | Comments

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