Noise Between Stations

Month: December 2007

  • Hamel and the Technology-Driven Future of Management

    Here’s some terms from a recent interview with Gary Hamel, management guru…

    digital device
    Internet
    the Web
    Googlers and bloggers and mashers and podcasters
    community
    open source projects
    PCs, routers, and hubs
    social network
    MySpace
    …

    I’m fascinated by his view that technology — particularly Internet tools — will change management. This isn’t just the hyper-hype of the Cluetrain Manifesto, this is a top-tier business professor who regularly publishes in HBR. When I wondered aloud a couple years ago, Who are the new rebels? (Managers?), I saw this as daydreaming, but perhaps the entrepreneurs of the Internet will also influence future management techniques.

  • The Internet is the New LAN

    As we build more and more functionality into both the client and server sides of the Internet, we’re ending up with, well, client-server technology. But instead of a server in a closet up on the 3rd floor, it’s around the world.

    If Microsoft were to update Visual Basic’s user interface and transmission protocols a little, they could leapfrog everyone with a rich Internet application platform ;-)

  • Alex’s Draft Business Model Innovation Manual

    This draft from Alex Osterwalder is very very interesting…

    Yesterday I finished a draft for a simple business model innovation manual… The manual will help business people describe their business model step by step, assess its strengths and weaknesses in order to then improve it.

    I’ve tried teaching business model creation before, and it’s not easy. In opening Alex’s manual, I immediately looked for his first step; in a model where so many elements are inter-related, where does one start? He starts with customers, which I think says a lot about this perspective of the business world, and how we do business in the 21st Century.

  • Business Design Term Alert: “Hybrid”

    Not that Crain’s NY is any sort of reliable trend watcher, but this me-too article on people who combine technical and artistic skills comes with an interesting frame: hybrids. In one word it sums up a natural blend of two or more disparate skill sets and perspectives, and does so with a term that’s in vogue for its ecological connotations. The business design community, with its confusing label, could do worse than steal this one.

  • Structuritis

    Inflammation is the root cause of many “-itis” diseases. Similarly, we have places where structural design elements become inflamed and painful.

    In a meeting yesterday I used to the term “landing page-itis” to describe the situation where a website landing page makes sense in one category so landing pages are added in all categories. What follows is an exercise of figuring out what kind of information will go on the new landing pages. To let the structure drive what is created is backwards; in user-centered design it’s the audience’s need that should drive the structure and the information created. If the structure becomes inconsistent or lopsided, then the whole structure should be revisited to see if it’s working.

    The same thing happens with headers (headeritis). We may start a list without headers:

    • Telephone
    • Flower
    • Pencil

    Then add items that require a sub-group, with a header for the sub-group:

    • Telephone
    • Flower
    • Pencil

      • Colors

    • Red
    • Blue
    • Green

    Which then compels us to make up headers for everything:

      Other Stuff

    • Telephone
    • Flower
    • Pencil

      • Colors

    • Red
    • Blue
    • Green

    The extra headers aren’t really useful, but we put them in for consistency, rather than admitting the structure might not work and fixing it.