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February 29 Business Change Architect....Change Architect implies I am concerned with people and HR issues.... I have been in the past but I can assure you I am not now because I see most organisations and businesses entering an era that I refer to as "getting beyond people". I am now interested in specific people - customers, users, innovative consumers, etc. The C20th has gone - it has been replaced by a century of the flat world internet, digital information transfers, mobile services 24/7, customer influenced products and services, virtual assets such as content, and new passive revenue models. Too much of what we read today is non information because it relates back to the C20th management model. The war on talent has been replaced by a war on ideas. The gabfests that produced a corporate strategy/vision/storyboard have been replaced by a clear and present purpose that comes with a simple template - clear, hold, and build. Clear the intransigents and ideologues - prepare to deal with purposeful new ideas that are placed in context and have a framework for action. Hold new ideas accountable in a model and then test them with prototypes - test them until you break them and then retest them. Build new automated business process to form global networks - link them to local business clusters that deliver passive revenue streams. February 28 Change Architect - what do you do?I am a Change Architect but more about what I do later. First let's discuss a more common beast - the change agent or change master... Senator Barack Obama is a self professed change agent - he says he will bring change you can believe in.... Most people want and need change they can believe in... They vote repeatedly for it at national, state, and local elections. They get onto change programs at work because they believe in the storybook or vision of change being touted by their anointed Change Master. But most change agents fail to deliver - not because they do not want to or do not try hard to but because most of them get too involved in selling the change rather doing the change. To do the change efficiently and effectively you have be careful how you define and design it. You have to ensure that you fully understand the complexity of the issues and then work through a disciplined process that can and will convert all your good ideas and innovations into practical outcomes. In most cases the change agent or change master is better at selling the prospective change than delivering it. Why? Because they think they need a coalition or consensus around the proposed change more than they need a viable plan to implement change. The mistaken belief is a change program needs "a coalition of the willing" to bring about desirable outcomes. Most of the time needed to design a workable change process therefore is spent playing politics - inevitably "the coalition of the willing" is formed around a simple, not a complex, view of the issues. In the end most change agents do not believe their vision is feasible without a coalition of the willing or a consensual elite to drive its benefits home. I know about this approach because over the past twenty years I have used it with moderate success. But my real successes came when I abandoned my dog eared copy of "the handbook of the change agent" and resorted to my natural instinct which is to be a Change Architect. Clear, hold, and build is the natural strategy for a Change Architect. Clear the issue of all insurgent ideologies. Hold new ideas stable in models and prototypes. Build a positive outcome by ensuring the use value or intended benefits of the change far exceeds the dollar costs. A thrist for inquiry.....The world is full of people who whine about this and that... They are in the main great advocates of change. They often claim to be change agents. They are not. They are ideologues who are pushing a certain solution to all the problems they see in the world. I can be like that too - I can be like that as a resistor to change. I like to find fault with proposed changes - my first reaction is to resist change. My inclination is to stay with existing continuities. Am I an ideology? That is for others to answer not me. But I often am to my regret. What I want to be when I grow up is a person with a thirst for inquiry. A person who loves new ideas and new challenges. A person who learns from trial and error. A person who seeks understanding and completion rather than constant struggle and pain. A person who is comfortable with the fact that he sees things differently from others and is able to let it be. A person who channels positive energy into the resolution of complex issues - a person who delights in simplicity and complexity equally because they both present learning opportunities. February 27 Change Architect....I am a Change Architect because I have always been one - yeah but what does that really mean? A Change Architect is someone who works in commonsense ways to resolve the complexity of change and thus ensure a set of positive outcomes into the future. 2008 is a already proving a testing time for most of us - there are a multitude of complex issues in the mix of life for all of us. Sure some of us are cruising through life and others are doing it tough and that is how it always was and always will be - so I am not talking about individual outcomes so much as the challenge and problems in the world around us. Some of us are able to switch off to those complexities and others are not - those who are not want change. Not change for changes sake but change that makes a difference to the range of positive outcomes possible for individuals, communities, nations, regions, and the globe. Such big picture change is difficult to conceive, model, and execute. It needs an architect - someone who can help each of us understand and put our issues into context, someone who can design a framework for action, someone who works with us as we model and prototype our best ideas and innovations, someone who will then stay the course as we execute our plans as best we can through trial and error. Do you need a Change Architect? Are you a Change Architect? Is there a Change Architect involved in your big hairy complex issues? If not why not? February 25 Change we can believe in....Barack Obama promises "change we can believe in...." What is he talking about? Why is he so appealing across race, gender, age, and wealth? Change we can believe in...... Obama has found the key to new age politics - it is about ideas not experience. Obama raises his funds online from the masses not from the usual players in politics - it is about inclusion not exclusion. Obama is a preacher not a doer - it is about inspiration not perspiration. Obama has a message based on faith in a world of doom and gloom - it is about what you think can be done not what is currently being done. Obama talks about his faults and weaknesses because he knows himself well - it is about transparency in thought and action not image. Obama has tapped into the aspirational conversations of his electorate - it is about what people aspire to be not what they are told they are. Obama offers his electors a new sense of hope - it is a time for new beginnings not a time to refine old continuities. February 24 Healthcare is becoming a good news story.....The news about health care around the globe today is usually bad. Rising costs. Shortages of doctors, carers, and hospital beds. Malpractice suits. Mistakes in diagnosis, treatment, and care. Aging populations with chronic illnesses clogging up the system. Problems about who should pay for what. Circular arguments about the benefits of universal public systems and part public part private systems. All these items contribute to a diet of bad news days on health care. The circuit breaker in all this is the change that the flat world of the internet brings. It brings free information. It brings connectedness. It brings sharing of stories about health issues and outcomes. It brings the opportunity for patients and their care givers to play new roles. All these items are a good news story for your health care possibilities. The key to changing the bad news to good news is to involve patients in their health care decisions more and more. To do that is now simple because the internet can provide the information they formally had to get from their medical practitioner - although that information always belonged to the patient it has been kept as a medical practitioner's asset. The revenue model for medicine also meant your doctor was kept in the loop perhaps unnecessarily at times. The power of the doctor was in the information he or she had in about individual patients. Case history is like corporate memory it can be powerful - but it can also be limiting as it sets boundaries on discovery and exploration in diagnosis. Diagnosis was either based on the expert knowledge of your practitioner or invasive treatments or techniques. New technologies allow non-invasive discovery and diagnosis - it often allows the patient to be part of the discovery process, for example, ultra-sound scanning of injuries or prenatal situations. Patients are now well placed to become advocates in their medical diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. February 22 Pragmatic, socially savvy, results seeking - the new workforce....Workers are suddenly different. They are pragmatic - they are ethical and flexible. They are socially savvy - they are part of the Web 3.0 generation with social networks just one or two clicks away. They are seeking outcomes - they are intolerant of waste, inefficiency, and ignorance. They are the new workforce - these people exist in China, India, Brazil, US, UK, Europe, etc. These workforces are customer focussed 24/7. They are intent on shifting decision making to customers - they want to ensure customers participate fully in their purchasing decisions. They want to be part of the solution not part of the problem. They want to work for low carbon footprint companies. They want to have good customer experiences. They demand good feedback loops on customer experiences. They work to live rather than live to work. These workers are fusing in with their customers. They are keen to learn from customers - they share information as easily as kids trading insults in a school playground. They are no longer "super glued" to their company revenue models - they understand the power of viral marketing and passive income streams. Yeah I know - this is a possibility not a reality at present for most businesses. However the challenge is there for owners and management to grow such workers. February 19 What is modeling your mindset?In these missives lately I have been exploring some of what is modeling my mindset - it is based on what others are doing in business and politics today because they are core interests for me. But these missives are not about me - they are about how you the reader thinks, behaves, and interacts with the world around you. Do you have a complex model of the world running inside your head? If you are reading these blogs the answer is yes - otherwise you are perverse and that means you have multiple models running simultaneously which in turn means you have an insanely complex view of things. So let us see what this knowledge about yourself is good for and what you can learn about yourself that is useful today. Let us assume you are an American and you are taking a keen interest in the race for the White House. It turns out that it is irrelevant whether you favour the Democratic or Republican Party because that has more to do with personal values, upbringing, career outcomes, etc. than with your sense of the complexity of issues facing your nation in 2008. Nonetheless the very fact that you see the complexity of the world today means you will definitely favour one candidate over another. Furthermore the fact that you see such complexity means you will find yourself arguing angrily with those who support the other candidates - the reason is you are arguing about the complexity of the issues not about the candidates or their appeal to the voters. Republicans - if you see and live in a world of complexity you will vote for John Mc Cain not Mike Huckabee. Huckabee appeals to those who see a simple set of issues - issues with a clear set of right and wrong solutions. Mc Cain appeals to those who see a complex set of issues - issues with no clear set of right or wrong solutions. Mc Cain is the clear Republican choice for you if you see and live in a complex world - for example his policy outline on health care is the best of all the candidates. Mc Cain is a seasoned policy advocate - he was one of the first in the Senate to understand the strategy of Clear, Hold, Build which is the basis of the success of the current US troop surge in Iraq. Mc Cain is the only Republican candidate talking about the complexities of issues you have running inside your head. Democrats - if you see and live in a world of complexity you will vote for Hillary Clinton not Barack Obama. Obama appeals to those who see a simple set of issues - issues with a clear set of right and wrong solutions. Obama was opposed to the Iraq War from the get go - his mantra is "change we can believe in" which means he must dumb things down. His appeal is great because so many people live in a world of simplicity - a world where change is done to you not by you. Obama appeals as a politician who promises to bring about change with you - to leave you with that clear impression he has to appeal to your faith and belief rather than your logic and rational argument. Clinton has floundered when she has debated Obama because she tries to cover off the complexity of the Iraq War and the implications for US involvement in the Afghanistan/Pakistan War. Clinton tries to cover off the complexity involved in actually delivering universal health care to all Americans. Clinton tries to cover off the complexity involved in the US economy from the sub prime crisis to rising unemployment in manufacturing. Clinton tries to argue with Obama about a range of complex issues but she is only shadow boxing with him because he does not engage in such discussions - Obama stays on his simplicity message of "change we can believe in"... Obama can not convince you if you see the complexity of these issues - equally Clinton can not convince you if you see simplicity of these issues. Americans have lived the past 7 years with a President who dumbed the issues down to one simple catch-cry "you are either with us or you are against us". After 9/11 there were few who dared to be against their President - today there are few who dare to be with him. Finally the issues are not being defined by George W Bush - he is history. The key issue in 2008 is how many Americans see and live in a complex world? Where are they in the electoral college spread of votes? How well will the complexity vote do against the simplicity vote? The simplicity vote is boosted by the desire for diversity - that plays to youth, race, and gender. This fact gives Obama a huge advantage in a race off against Mc Cain. The complexity vote is boosted in the bigger States such as California, New York, Texas, Ohio, etc. because they are tackling issues of climate change, a sub prime meltdown, addiction to oil, immigration, decline of manufacturing, etc. and this plays across youth, race, and gender. This fact gives Mc Cain a huge advantage in a race off against Obama. Mc Cain versus Clinton is an interesting contest too because it will be won by the candidate who can appeal to those who seek simplicity not complexity. If either candidate can weave a message of hope for those who seek to maintain a life based on simplicity while also confronting the issue of complexity then they will win the White House comfortably. February 18 Flat is the new core.....Business has a new core and it is flat. Business has a new flow and it is lateral. Business has a new revenue model and it is detached and produces passive income. Business has a new dynamic and it is free products and service. Business has a target and it is clusters of users. Business has a new mantra - inclusion not exclusion. Business has a new outcome - customer experience. Where are the future opportunities in business? At the global level the big opportunity is to create network economies that are beyond nation-state boundaries and legislation. Automate business. Scale business. Remove people processes from business. Ensure machine-to-machine transfer is the essence of the business. Establish a network of business revenue models. At local level the opportunity is to create a community-based business that is both relevant and remarkable. Your business has to serve the locals in ways that others do not. You business can be connected to the global grid but your offerings must be local. Your business has to deliver a great customer experience - this is not difficult if and only if you disconnect your customer's experience from your revenue model. Your business has to deploy its talent where the customer experience is critical not where a traditional revenue model dictates. February 17 F, D, V, M, P & R...This missive is about future possibilities. The C21st is full of wonderful opportunities. There has never been a better time to do big things in your life. There has never been a better time to be different. There has never been a better time to find out who you are and what you stand for and then to do what you do best. However all around me are nay sayers - the worst are the management gurus, speakers, and consultants are who are paid exorbitant fees to tell us stories about the past. Their fees are only relevant because the amount they charge ensures they are listened to and that their moribund ideas are followed as if they were both relevant and remarkable - they are neither. These false prophets claim they are change agents and yet the stories they tell you will button down your mindsets to yesterday's realities - not tomorrow's opportunities. I am not a prophet - I am not a management guru - so you have to think hard about what I say before you are likely to believe it let alone act on it. But eventually the new realities will be revealed to us all and I doubt that it will have much to do with yesterday. What I see already is a world that is F, D, V, M, P & R. Oh yeah I should perhaps explain what I mean. The world is FLAT due to the internet. The world is DIGITAL which means production is now automated and services are distributed machine-to-machine. The world is VIRTUAL because we are all connected through broadband internet-based technologies - eg email, VoIP telephones, Facebook, Myspace, etc. The world is MOBILE because we do everything on the run - we live 24/7. The world is PERSONAL because we now have products and services customised to our precise requirements. Finally the world is different because new age businesses have REVENUE models that raise passive income - eg Google, Skype, eBay, etc. Do you live and work in a FDVMPR world? If not why not? February 16 The pathology of virtual networking....We have a new disease. It is viral. It is becoming a pandemic. It requires a pathology (a study of its origin, nature, and course). It is virtual networking. Virtual networking has its origins on the net. Blogging and Facebooking with friends is routine for most people today. Some are addicted but most are engaged to some degree or other. It is an integral part of contemporary life. But why is virtual networking so addictive? It is addictive because it allows individuals to choose who, where, why, and when they network with others. You get to choose who you hang with. Networking via face to face contact is so hit and miss - it is highly inefficient. When networking is done face to face it favours the extroverts. It favours those with position, status, wealth, or fame. Networking face to face is often a power play in some dimension or other - it is therefore rarely if ever an open forum for ideas or creativity. This is why so many organisations, companies, communities, etc struggle to induce innovation - they are too formal, too rigid, and too judgmental. Innovation thrives on thinking based on counter points, contradictions, disruptions, and difference. All of these features are likely within the chaos of a virtual networking event - none are features of the social cohesion formed in a face to face networking event. Virtual networking is efficient. It is 24/7. It is open to everyone. It is informal, creative, experimental, and fun. It is viral. It is scalable. It is entertaining. Virtual networking is about to become an important part of business. It will become a key determinant in the success of local businesses. It will become a innovative feedback loop for global networked businesses. At the local level business has to be relevant and remarkable in the way that Tupperware was in the 1950s. It has to make sure and certain that customers are having great experience, getting use value more than the dollar amount paid, and excited to tell all their virtual friends about their latest find - that has to be your business. At the global level business has to encourage feedback - it has to act on the feedback. Feedback from live customers in a machine to machine world is critical to future success. February 15 Complementing not competing businesses...Here is a new idea for you. The world is ready for complementing businesses. Businesses that complement what you are already doing. Businesses that increase your use value to customers. Businesses that your competitors play no active part in. Your competition can perhaps beat you on price, quality, convenience, or service. But they can not beat you if you offer a complementary business proposition as part of your total offering. I am not talking here about the line extensions to your current business - such as finance, insurance, or optional extras that motor dealerships sell to new car buyers. I am talking about a linked service or product range that currently lies outside your industry. Ideas are a C21st assets.....Today we live in a world overflowing with information and lacking ideas... Barack Obama is running his Presidential campaign based on ideas - he is termed inspirational. Hillary Clinton is running a campaign based on detailed information - she is termed experienced. Mc Cain is also running his campaign on ideas but he likes to back up his ideas with information - he is termed a liberal conservative. These times best suit the inspirational candidate - the reason being that people without ideas are commonplace. People without ideas tend to rely on their experience - they tend to overload you with information. Being further overloaded with information is the last thing anyone needs today. People with ideas tend to stimulate ideas in the people around them - they inspire them to think about ideas and to come up with new ones for themselves. Obama is inspirational because he is saying it is alright to have ideas without detailed plans, it is alright to have new ideas that are not based on experience, it is alright to have ideas that are unproven, and ....... Obama knows that good ideas can be worked up into good plans because there is no shortage of information in the world and there is no shortage of experience lying around idle because they lack good ideas to work on. What ideas do you have today? Where can you apply them? Who are you inspiring to help you with these ideas? February 14 Grow and distribute wealth....The flat world of the internet brings big changes to the global economy. First and foremost we are about to see the unprecedented wealth creation of machine-to-machine global networks. These networks will generate huge wealth without the need for people - thus the normal distribution of wealth through salaries and wages will not apply. How will this wealth get redistributed? It will get redistributed through company dividends and higher tax receipts around the globe. But it may also get redistributed through rising asset prices in the clusters that are directly linked into these new networks. Tangible assets will rise in price but so too will virtual assets - like ideas. Those with ideas - those who provide the content for the network will reap the biggest rewards. They will be the next wealth barons of our world. Strangely they are more likely to be customers of a business network than an employee. The reason employees are less innovative than customers in our new flat world is that customers are interested in use value while employees are focussed on value add. The employees are tied into a revenue model - it is the revenue model that dictates employee mindsets, behaviours, and ways of thinking. Customers are tied only to their need for use value - low price, fast delivery, free components, re-usable elements, and feedback loops. Thus there if more scope for innovative with customers than employees. Customers will have more ideas and better focussed ideas. Customers are not afraid to use new ideas to disrupt existing revenue models. Customers are thus most likely to benefit from a flat world where a good idea can be quickly deployed here there and everywhere. Welcome to the new world of customer wealth creation through innovation........ February 13 New ways of being are needed in a flat world...The new world of the internet is flat... It consists of nodes, clusters, and webs. The webs connect into a network - the network connects the nodes and stretching out beyond them the clusters. This world is populated by everyone - here everyone is a user. Users are equal in status - the status of a cluster is determined in part by its numbers of users. This is a networked world - it is connected and thus everyone new user adds to its use value. This is an inclusive world. It is an abundant world. It is a world with new norms, conventions, rituals, and taboos. It is a world of opportunity, speed, fads, and adventure. It is also a world of evil, harm, shame, lust, and misadventure. This new flat world demands new ways of being from each of us. We all have to find our limits of participation - we have to better understand our risk profile and be ready to be surprised by who we really are. When we engage this flat world our identity is squeezed down to a nanosecond so we are hardly who we think we are. In this hyper speed world we have to change our stories about ourselves to better fit what we are now able and capable of doing and being. Welcome to the new flat world AND good luck! February 12 Old habits....People often tell me how difficult it is to change old habits. But is it really? Yesterday my wife took me to lunch - we went to one of our favourite haunts. It is a favourite because we always have a great customer experience there. But yesterday the magic had gone. It was different. It was disappointing. It was a habit changing event. We will not go there as often in the future. So we have to find a new place. That will not be easy. Going to this little cafe was like pulling on a favourite pair of shoes - they fit perfectly and they feel oh so comfortable. Old habits can be like old shoes - they are a good fit with who you are and they can reassure you in times of stress or mild anxiety. So we are reluctant to give them up - when we do dispense with them it hurts either a little or a lot. What was it that was not right at the cafe yesterday? Well the food was good - the coffee was not as good as usual but it was acceptable. The difference was the vibe in the place - all the staff were new. This in and of itself has not been an issue in the past because staff turnover at such places is necessarily high. Indeed we often noticed that such changes had merely brought new faces to the scene. In the past the new people were still as welcoming and helpful as they could be. The new staff were always perceptive, efficient, and gracious. Yesterday's crew were different - they were not as attentive. The experience was dull - the magic had gone. Yesterday I had an old habit changed for me by decisions made by the owner of a small business. February 11 Complexity is the spice of life....I have a virtual friend - we connect through emails - who is obsessed with Simplicity... He makes many good points about just how unnecessarily complicated we can make our lives when simplicity is our friend if only we would reach out for it. His work is in health care and so he is a passionate advocate of the front line staff and the patient - he sees them as holding the key to Simplicity. Having just spent four days in hospital - something I have not done for many years - I tend to agree with his prognosis - the front line staff and fellow patients were a great help to me and they did indeed prove to be my key to Simplicity. My friend, Trevor, wants managers to get out of the way and let us all get on with living the good life that he believes only Simplicity can provide. As I say it has a lot to recommend it...... BUT....... Those of you who read this missive regularly will know that Simplicity is not what I believe stretches us, brings out the very best in us, or ultimately makes us happy. I believe we need complexity in our lives. Complexity is after all what mother nature provides us. Complexity is the core issue when dealing with climate change, peak oil, culture wars, social movements, financial contagion, pandemics, over population, poverty, mass migrations, etc. Indeed all the key issues facing my sons' generation are complex - my sons are 14 and 19 years old. Simplicity will not solve these problems - these are generational challenges that will take a variety of counter-intuitive ideas, conventions, and regimes to overcome. Lord Ashby dealt with complexity through his genius as a mathematician - he ruled that you need a "requisite variety" to overcome complexity. I have found that to be true of my past lives in politics, government service, and business. Finding the requisite variety needed to combat complexity - there is a worthwhile challenge! Anyhow all this leads me to my assertion that "complexity is the spice of life"........ February 10 Change leadership .......The change leaders I respect today - people who will become legends for the next generation - are as good as any we have seen in the past. First we can all learn so much about change leadership from Lee Scott (CEO of Wal Mart). He is both a front liner and a CEO. He spends heaps of his time with his troops in their stores - he knows products and prices inside out but more importantly he knows the Wal Mart customer experience from the ground up. He is currently leading Wal Mart's approx 2 million associates (staff) on a transformation to deliver sustainable retailing (energy and greenhouse gas reduction initiatives for his company and its customers) AND most importantly towards a new health care scheme for all his associates. Jeff Bezos is a new frontier leader who is still building Amazon into a digital age company that has no peer. He continues to impress us all with his initiatives - most impressively his EC2 cloud computing model now provides a compelling storage and computing power service to other businesses (small and large). Jeff has also released the kindle (an electronic book) - it could be the breakthrough for readers that the iPod was for music lovers. Jeff is leading us all into a world of efficient and effective machine to machine systems, processes, organisations, and businesses - this will change the ways we do things and this will increasingly allow each of us to be more and more relevant and remarkable at what we do best. Jeff is also about to pioneer space travel for us all. In sum, Jeff is a change agent who builds new ventures and then tinkers with them until they are the best of their breed. John Doerr is a Silicon Valley based venture capitalist - he has
become a legend in his field. He is perhaps most famous for his
involvement with Dr Eric Schmidt in securing a financial platform for
Google. John is a change agent who possesses the great foresight and
insight needed to convince people with capital to back risk-taking
ventures. He is dedicated to two areas at present. Finding ways to
prevent the world being ravaged by what he sees as an inevitable
pandemic. Finding ways to foster green technologies that reduce our
green house gas emissions and thus our carbon footprints AND kicking
our bad habits that have made us all addicted to oil. February 09 Talent and the revenue model....Human Resource experts constantly rave about the need for talent, the lack of talent, or a success being due to talent. I never hear them raving on about the need for a revenue model, the lack of a revenue model, or a success being due to the revenue model. I know which one is more important and it is not what you will read about in most commentaries on good management or business. Google would be nothing without its talent - that seems like a fair statement. It is surely one that you have heard or read so often over the past few years. The truth is Google would be a handful of guys and gals with a grand scheme and little else if it was not for its brilliant passive revenue model. It is the revenue model not the talent that has made Google what it is today. The revenue model funds the use of development talent that has been successful in launching Google Maps etc. It also funds the waste of talent that is happening at Google today on all those projects that are not successful. Take away the success of the revenue model and you will take away the continued development of Google. The great advantage Google has over many businesses is that its revenue model is separate from the day to day activities of the talent. The talent at Google work on a search engine or adjuncts to it. The revenue model is attached to the results of those developments like gmail, google maps, gphone, etc. Contrast this with Microsoft - they too have great talent and a great revenue model but these two are tightly linked together. Microsoft deploys its talent as its revenue model dictates whereas Google adjusts its revenue model to fit the development outcomes of its talent. Most of the management gurus - you know who I mean - are great advocates of talent. In a world dominated by people-based revenue models then this notion had some validity but even then it was over stated. Today the notion is a complete nonsense. Talent is where you find it and most talent today is attaching itself to a successful revenue model - a revenue model that allows such talent to do whatever it does best. February 08 Battle between Microsoft/Yahoo and Google....There will be increasing hype about the pending battle between Microsoft/Yahoo and Google for internet based revenue. But it will prove to be just that "hype" - there is no looming battle between these two and probably never will be... They have completely different revenue models therefore they have different talent pools and ultimately they have different opportunities in the flat world of the internet. The looming battles are internal to Microsoft/Yahoo and Google respectively not between them. Putting together Microsoft and Yahoo will become something that seemed like a good idea at the time... The context is we (at Microsoft) basically missed the whole internet thing but we had a spare $US 50 Billion lying idle so we decided to buy Yahoo's seat at the internet table. We decided to buy one of first movers into the internet search space and to move there with them. As we say it seemed like a good idea at the time - especially given we had run out of good ideas about how to join the flat world of the internet. Looking back from 2012 with the benefit of hindsight it was not a good idea. Reason being we brought the Richmond hubris to Yahoo - it killed the creativity in the place and we were left with a search engine business with no go go juice. Google has its own demons to counter - they have the problems associated with the Googleplex. This fortress up on a gentle slope in Mountain View is not the center of the universe in the flat world of the internet either. It is a node just like the Microsoft Campus at Richmond. Sure the Googleplex has amassed a great talent pool and that pool has delivered a great search engine. But is the talent pool up to the task of moving Google to iGoogle - that is from general search to personalised search? Time will tell but I would bet against it. If Google is to move onto to the next big opportunity on the net - that is personalised search, storage, and use value - then it has to distribute its talent. It needs to network its creative engineers around the globe. It has to reach into China and India to find the next genius of the web. It has to then use all its talent within the Googleplex to ensure that its revenue model remains flexible enough to be attached to and not integrated within its new products/services. It will make good copy for blogs, commentators, journalists, etc. to write about a looming battle between Microsoft/Yahoo and Google. But truth is often stranger than fiction - it is not going to happen. |
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