Noise Between Stations

June 2006

  • Can Web 2.0 Help Anyone Dabble in I.T.?

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    1 min read

    While discussions of Web 2.0 in the popular press center around the cool technology — and it is pretty cool — the more interesting aspects for me are the changes we’ll see in how people relate to information in fundamentally different ways as companies move from creating products to creating tools. One ubiquitous software app…

  • Creating Strategy in an Unknowable Universe

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    2 min read

    At Overlap there was a running side conversation about using real options to evaluate product investments. Eric Beinhocker explores a similar idea on the scale of business plans in Creating Strategy in an Unknowable Universe, a summary of his book The Origin of Wealth. Here’s an excerpt: Rather than thinking of strategy as a single…

  • Tangibly understanding your retirement

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    2 min read

    Our retirement is one topic where all of us think many years into the future. In my tangible futures presentation I’ve been showing a typical screen from my online retirement account. It shows how much money I have saved, where it’s invested, the rate of return, my asset allocation, and so on. It’s a great…

  • Why design thinking is so hard for designers

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    3 min read

    “You can’t make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.” In our exploration of design thinking some people assume that it is the kind of thinking that designers do, but unfortunately this isn’t usually the case. For several reasons designers are predisposed against integrative ways of thinking. To explain I’ll…

  • Hyundai Brand Evolution

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    1 min read

    Hyundai successfully entered the U.S. market as a low-cost competitor, became established, and has even started to offer an affordable luxury model. And now a recent J.D. Power report listing them as the No. 1 non-premium auto maker in terms of perceived quality, ahead of previous frontrunner Toyota. But when you’re known for being the…

  • Successful small business units, schools

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    1 min read

    William G. Ouchi on decentralized management: I had spent 35 years studying the management of very large companies, and one of the most consistent principles is decentralization. In a competitive world, you must make decisions in the smallest operating units possible, or you will go out of business… …We have a research project under way…

  • The Neuroscience of Leadership

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    1 min read

    I agree with Ed when he says of The Neuroscience of Leadership “it’s an outstanding piece of work, well worth your time” but that the authors’ critique of humanism is both lame and unnecessary.

  • Creating organizational vision with storytelling and artifacts

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    3 min read

    “The Institute for the Future couldn’t get clients to read its trend forecasts. So it started giving away prescient product ideas instead.” These are great examples of the tangible part of what we’ve been calling Tangible Futures. The IFTF objects seem like good ways to, as they say, ‘start conversations’ about alternate futures. The intention…

  • The Five Functions of a Team

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    1 min read

    In retrospect, when Christina bought me a copy a The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, there were a few reasons it didn’t exactly rise to the top of my to-read pile: It addresses a non-fiction topic in the form of a story, which can sometimes feel contrived. It looks at the topic through a negative…

  • The cost of iteration

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    1 min read

    Iterating on paper? Cheap. Iterating in software? Still pretty cheap. Iterating the Airbus A380? Not so cheap: “Airbus said Tuesday that it would produce only 9 of its giant new A380 jets next year, not the 25 planned, because of numerous design changes…. Small changes, like moving small pieces of equipment, were cascading through the…

  • GE dares to dream of the future

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    3 min read

    In my tangible futures presentation last week, I repeated a statement I’ve written here, that sometime during the second half of the 20th century, American companies forgot how to dream. I’m happy to contradict that statement with a clear example: GE. In Growth as a Process, Jeffrey Immelt reveals the process that led to their…

  • Female masters of innovation

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    1 min read

    Last year I went back to Jeanne Lietdke’s Strategy as Design article for a second, close reading. One thought I came away with was, “It’s not too surprising this has come from a woman. The creative embrace of conflict, the willingness to stay in the problem space, the lack of need to control a situation…

  • Prediction markets blog

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    1 min read

    My friend and former co-worker Alex Kirtland is reviewing public prediction markets on his blog. Given how important a clear understanding of the market is to the accuracy of participants’ voting, I appreciate the POV of someone like Alex who groks good digital design.

  • Two New Biz Mags: IN and Portfolio

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    1 min read

    I believe IN launches as an insert inside BusinessWeek today, while Conde announced Portfolio (also see the NY Times introduction). The editors say the latter will be serious, long-form journalism. We’ll see if it’s more Wired or more New Yorker.

  • Stewart: ultimately, it’s all about values, and not an MBA

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    1 min read

    The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart argues against the value of Winslow Taylor’s methods, an MBA education, and much of management theory. His tone is often snarky and flip, which is a shame because it undermines the delivery of some great ideas, such as this discussion of values: …as anyone who has studied Aristotle will…