BusinessQuests - tailored advice and facilitation for business progress

US Innovation Status

I just read this excellent report on the status of innovation in the US (link kindly provided by the excellent Leeander) and I find it just amazing that the authors show a great deal of analytical rigor both in assessing the past and suggesting ways for the future in the form of a public private partnership. The article is long but very well worth your time.
With this kind of approach I see the US going back to the very top of innovation performance. It's time we did a similar assessment in Europe instead of just celebrating innovation and creativity in a very institutional manner.

MIT economists' panel sees light at end of economic tunnel

This is not only a good panel discussion, but also one that has some good news. The time might be close when people can resume investing. Perhaps it's also time for Europe to realize that our economic situation is way better than the US for a number of reasons starting with the fact that we are nowhere near the level of debt that prevails in the US be it government or private debt. It's just so sad we don't have anyone to carry the torch of recovery on the political front. As someone told me recently, a recession can be a self-fulfilling prophecy whereas business & economic progress does not happen by mere wishful thinking.

Vopium: does it rock?

I came across Vopium today and from what I read on their site and elsewhere online:

1. what they promise rocks, period and it's particularly relevant at this point in time with buyers being weary of spending too much
2. the offering stands to put even more pressure on mobile operators whose position is likely to be further undermined by VoIP plays like Skype (now running on some mobile phones) and Jajah. In fact, Jajah + Vopium spells the end of mobile operators' dominant position on the market of mobile connectivity;
3. it would be interesting to consider how Vopium could be combined to open WiFi networks in a logic analogous to Fon as it would definitely have some major appeal for roamers, even though GSM incumbents might not enjoy this that much :)

Anyway, I downloaded the software on my E61i. More in a few days.

Conference on the economic situation

Last Thursday BusinessQuests helped organize a conference on the financial situation. We had Prof. Bruno Colmant, who also happens to be the CEO of Euronext, and Prof. Philippe Defeyt on the panel and they presented a number of interesting developments to explain the causes and the dynamics of the current situation. Aside from the content, which is very much within my field of attention, the event has been a great opportunity for me to test the adoption of online tools by a predominantly tech-conservative  audience. Results of my tests in a future post. This one is about the content of the conference.

Philippe Stark on design

What inspiration and fun Philippe Stark can be! There's more than meets the eye in what he says in this presentation...

Seemingly dissimilar items composing a coherent picture

Today is one of these days when I can express better than on most other days why I carefully remain on a spot that is common frontier to several seemingly different worlds: business, marketing, technology, psychology, software development, complex adaptive systems, social media... At the end of the day this is also what defines BusinessQuests: the often treacherous area defined by 'business + innovation + technology', where starting from what drives people is a fundamental starting point. BusinessQuests is where people's quests drive business value and where people's values resonate with quests in business.

Patterns of innovation

There's a very interesting analysis by McKinsey and the World Economic Forum on innovation called "Building an innovation nation". It shows how different regions stack-up on the global innovation map and the authors identify assets that are required to drive innovation. It's worth reading, and prompts me to make a couple of comments, some of which have to do with the random nature of our world...

Fallacies, illusions and dogmas of social media

Having spent the best part of the past twelve years operating on the treaterous frontier of progress defined by the combination 'business + innovation + technology' the phenomenon of stubbornly odd pursuits of generally accepted truths makes me wonder sometimes. It does seem to remain valid with each wave of innovation imposing fads as reality for as long as it takes for deception to sink in thus leaving room for people who actually deal with the nuts and bolts of new practices to create forms that can be adopted. In this article we'll identify what I consider to be the top 5 fallacious propositions in today's social media environment.

The future of work: towards chaordic business?

This interview on the future of work as shaped by modern infotech and social media is extremely interesting not only because of the implications for social infotech tools in business, but also because it suggests an evolution of business and the enterprise into more flexible and adaptive systems. Are we going towards a less deterministic way of running business? One combining chaos and order, considering the enterprise as a chaordic system... that would be much, much better than enterprise 2.0: should we call it enterprise x.0?

Excellent discussion on the crisis at Digital Life Design

Late January at Digital Life Design in Munich, there was an interesting panel with Nasim Taleb (always insightful and full of common sense | his site) and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman (always fascinating pioneer of psychology applied to finance and the economy | his Nobel profile ). Taleb has a realistic approach by saying that what he basically want is not to improve forecasts but rather to review the way the world is working in order to make it resistant to forecastign errors. Like Roubini he advocates the nationalization of banks. I suspect he means the "utility" part, not the "casino" part of the banking system (for a view of utility vs casino listen to the podcast at the end of this post). Kahneman shows how human psychology is a key driving force for understanding organizations, companies, the economy and markets because, as he very correctly points out, these entities do not exist in any other way than through human behavior.

Video and comments below.

More pressure on marketing expected

A few short months ago there were worries about marketing budgets being cut but most professionals were sounding reassuring in saying that the bulk of marketing budgets would be transferred to online and interactive initiatives. The theory went that brands would want to keep taking initiatives and would continue the same intensity of communication by shifting their marketing dollars to more affordable channels like the Internet.

Even then this thesis did not seem to hold against careful analysis and discussions with senior decision makers even back then. Recent news seem to confirm the pain to come for agencies and marketing professionals, irrespective of the nature of their business, with an exception that is not what most people seemed to think, but makes economic sense.

Continue reading "More pressure on marketing expected" »

Here's an interesting take on the Geithner plan for shoring up the banks' financial situation. The article makes a compelling argument as to why the plan is not really a great deal for would-be investors and definitely a loosing proposition for taxpayers. So is the Treasury's plan destined to fail? Are the core causes of this mess addressed?

Nouriel Roubini’s (RGE – Wikipedia –  Page at NYU Stern) interview on Bloomberg is something you ought to listen carefully (podcast at the end of this post) if you’re a business founder, a manager or an asset owner. It’s not exactly the sort of content that will boost your morale, but I don’t believe the Coué method is the right way to go because it’s much more than a mere crisis of confidence. On the other hand neither denial, nor pessimism are going to take us anywhere.

Rather a pragmatic take on the situation is an essential first step if you’re serious about adapting and being in a position to fully benefit from an eventually recovering economy. This is only one of the reasons why it’s worth getting down to some of the implications of this analysis for business. Today helping business people deal with anxiety and make sense of this chaos is part of my work in different industries, from commodities to tech-innovative sectors, in different areas of Europe. So what does a pragmatic analysis of the situation mean for business? Read on and listen to the podcast.

Is the Treasury's plan destined to fail?

Here's an interesting take on the Geithner plan for shoring up the banks' financial situation. The article makes a compelling argument as to why the plan is not really a great deal for would-be investors and definitely a loosing proposition for taxpayers. So is the Treasury's plan destined to fail? Are the core causes of this mess addressed?

Roubini confirms deep crisis: how will you shield your business?

Nouriel Roubini’s (RGE – Wikipedia –  Page at NYU Stern) interview on Bloomberg is something you ought to listen carefully (podcast at the end of this post) if you’re a business founder, a manager or an asset owner. It’s not exactly the sort of content that will boost your morale, but I don’t believe the Coué method is the right way to go because it’s much more than a mere crisis of confidence. On the other hand neither denial, nor pessimism are going to take us anywhere.

Rather a pragmatic take on the situation is an essential first step if you’re serious about adapting and being in a position to fully benefit from an eventually recovering economy. This is only one of the reasons why it’s worth getting down to some of the implications of this analysis for business. Today helping business people deal with anxiety and make sense of this chaos is part of my work in different industries, from commodities to tech-innovative sectors, in different areas of Europe. So what does a pragmatic analysis of the situation mean for business? Read on and listen to the podcast.