Posts filed under 'globalization'
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September 5th, 2008, 08:37am
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I’m in Krems Austria at the Talk of the Future Conference. I have the opening keynote this morning. Last night I heard an amazing talk from Dr Franz Joseph Radermacher, head of the Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing and the Chair of Computer Sciences at the University of Ulm. Member of the club of Rome and an expert in artificial intelligence.. It was a profound talk. My notes are below:
The issue is not the individual. The issue is human kind as an intelligent system. We’ve been living for 4 million years. What keeps us together? Communication.
Innovations are powerful mechanism to change input output mechanisms. There is a universal mechanism of communication where by superior innovations become part of standard procedure. It took 4 million years to get us to 20 million people. 8,000 BC. Up to that point we were hunters and collectors. Read More »
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August 11th, 2008, 01:33pm
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It’s still early in the Games, but already one can see Asia — China and South Korea in particular — racking up an impressive number of medals, reflecting their growing economic clout. Of the top ten medal-winning countries, Asia currently scores 39 medals and the rest of the world 23. Countries have often used the quest for Olympic medals to showcase their economic or political strength. The New York Times has a great interactive world map here that relates each country’s size on the map to how many medals the country won during that year’s Games. The map shows the medal count for all Games starting with Athens in 1896.
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August 4th, 2008, 09:52am
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Don’t ask me how it happened. I was just planning to check my email last night, but for some reason I ended up on the United Nations website. I spent a couple hours searching through the information. It was amazing how much it contains. Dan Herman actually wrote a blog post about it a few months back.
The website is filled with research papers, news, and reports highlighting what innovative governments, businesses, and educators can do to empower the people. It also breaks them down into a variety of case studies like Debate Europe where European citizens can share their opinions, concerns and ideas on the future of the European Union. The French National Commission of Public Debate (CNDP) has an innovative site that allows citizens to debate on infrastructure projects in France. Chunceon, Korea citizens have direct web access to the Mayor’s office to submit ideas and then receive feedback on them. Seeing case studies like these can really help allowing people to interpret and to better understand the opportunities available to their countries, states, provinces, and small towns. They even have some of our own Anthony Williams’ stuff in there. Read More »
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July 28th, 2008, 03:32pm
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Interesting statistics announced today by the China Internet Network Information Center (CINIC) that 253 million people in the country are now online, meaning China now has the world’s largest number of Net users in the world (topping the US’ 223 million). These numbers are still much inferior to the country’s stock of mobile-phone users (500 million) but nonetheless, the continued growth of China’s online participant community bears watching. Least of all because the current user-base represents a penetration rate of only 19% suggesting that as the country develops, and as infrastructure spreads West throughout China, it will dwarf the rest of the worlds (i.e. start publishing/marketing in Mandarin). CINIC projects the number of Chinese users to grow to 490 by 2012.
The growth of China’s online community has been acknowledged by many within the Chinese Communist Party, including the country’s most powerful leader, Hu Jintao. In mid-June he took part in an online web-chat at the People’s Daily website that marked the first time a senior party official publicly engaged with internet users. While commentators noted that “there was no real substance to the online conversation,” it has since been referred to as symbolic of the central governments acknowledgement of the internet as an important source of public information and public opinion. Read More »
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June 28th, 2008, 02:01pm
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Can Wikinomics Keep the 77 Year Streak Alive?
This week’s edition of the Wikinomics Report Card will focus on General Motors Corporation (GM). In case you missed my first report card about Major League Baseball, you can find it here. Like last week, I will be evaluating GM on the Wikinomics principles of being open, peering, sharing, and acting globally.
Company Background: GM was founded in 1908 and is the world’s largest automaker and leader in global sales for the last 77 calendar years. It manufactures cars and trucks in 35 different countries under the brands Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Pontiac, and many more. Under the strength of Alfred Sloan’s revolutionary corporate structure and leadership, GM was once one of the world’s most profitable companies peaking in the early 80’s with a U.S. market share of 45%. However, the legacy costs and complex accounting systems associated with the Sloan era have hindered GM’s efforts to create a more lean manufacturing process. Stiff foreign competition from companies like Toyota and poor strategic decisions like focusing on SUVs and light trucks in a rising fuel market has led GM to one of its weakest points in its history. Yesterday, its stock reached a 53-year low after Goldman Sachs changed it status to “sell”. GM is hoping that it can weather this storm long enough to introduce its new line of alternative energy vehicles like the Chevy Volt and reclaim some of its former glory.
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June 27th, 2008, 11:40am
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Editor’s note: Josh Beil recently sent us a rather interesting piece digging into IPTV, and how the application of the wikinomics principles are required to make it successful (which you can read below). Of note for other potential guest bloggers, I (this is Denis by the way) want to highlight that this is a meritocracy - if you have a good, well-written, wikinomics-related story to tell, we are interested in sharing it with our readers. (Mid-afternoon addition: I’ve included Josh’s more complete bio at the end).
After a long day of work, you plop down on the couch after dinner and turn on the television. Your myTV channel pops up and you begin to scan your customized start channel, which shows you what shows have recorded on your DVR, what shows on network TV you might like based on your recent viewing habits as well as what your social network is watching, the top UGC clips of the day from YouTube and other video sharing sites, as well as a robust search engine that will allow you to find and download virtually any TV show or movie every published, at costs ranging from free to $19.99 per download. Furthermore, with a couple clicks on this page through your remote, you can send content to your wireless device or your car’s hard drive over your home network – a virtual digital content consumption utopia.
The reality, however, is something much different, despite all the technologies needed for this vision being well established and available. A relatively recent article (editor’s note: November 2007) in Business Week has titled I Want My iTV is an excellent read on the forces at play in the royal rumble of media consumption. The article focuses on the battle for the living room, and it highlights how the promise of the convergence of TV and the Internet is long overdue yet continues to be hampered (in the US in particular) by the various stakeholders in the value chain each trying to protect their business and avoid being disintermediated by new technologies or business models.
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May 30th, 2008, 04:00pm
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Looks like Facebook has upset some sensitive law students at the University of Ottawa.
According to this article, a group of students as part of one of their courses have decided to lodge a complaint stating that Facebook commits 22 violations of Canadian privacy law.
From the article:
They allege Facebook fails to inform members about how their personal information is disclosed to third parties for advertising and other profit-making activities, and also that it doesn’t get permission from users to do so.
The students drew up the complaint after analyzing the company’s policies and practices as part of a clinic course during the winter term.
Clinic director Philippa Lawson says the group focused on Facebook - which boasts more than seven million Canadian members - because it appeals to young teens who may not realize the risks of exposing personal information online.
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May 28th, 2008, 09:03am
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A couple of days ago I posted a story about how Erik Nordenanker created a single line self-portrait of himself by having a GPS device shipped around the world with very precise instructions. The story had been picked up many places, including Gizmodo - and was generating a lot of discussion. At the time, if you went to the site dedicated to the project, it was described this way:
“With the help of a GPS device and DHL, I have drawn a self portrait on our planet. My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. the paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing.”
Providing further detail, the site then goes on to provide the exact date the briefcase was given to DHL, how long it took, where it finally ended up, and how the information from the journey was downloaded to his computer to make the diagram. Finally, a picture of the delivery notes from the journey are shown at the end. Seems fairly unambiguous, non?
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May 26th, 2008, 01:50pm
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At first glance, one might simply be impressed by the “single line” self portrait that Erik Nordenanker created - but it’s how it was created that truly makes this a unique piece of art. As reported in Gizmodo, what Erik did was place a GPS device in a briefcase and mail it, via DHS and with precise travel instructions - it is the path the device took that created the drawing you see above. You can find all the details, including the particulars of the travel plan, here. If there is such a thing as the opposite of an art critic I am probably it, but it certainly seems like a relevant piece of work in this age of globalization - right down to the quite wasteful consumption that enabled the “drawing” to be created :).
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April 30th, 2008, 11:10pm
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I came across the notion of shrinking the world down to 100 people in a blog post by Jim Estill. I figured I’d look into it a bit deeper (I powered up the Google machine), to see what stats I can come across that would surprise me. I came across a film project called “100 People: A World Portrait“.
The project will find and capture in film, photography, music and text 100 individuals who represent the global population, proportionate to annual global surveys and statistics. This World Portrait will be used to make an introduction between the peoples of the earth and to facilitate a greater understanding of the diversity and the commonalities among us.
Looking through the stats of the people who would be part of the ‘ideal’ 100, it’s interesting to compare the world you would picture in 100 people to the actual 100. I’d love to see the same idea applied to one of the world’s many global firms. Take a look at some of the stats after the jump to see how different your image of the global 100 is to the actual. Read More »
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April 13th, 2008, 05:28pm
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I came across a book review in the NY Times last week that made me realize that the era of the American Dream might be coming to an end (has ended?), mostly due to a combination of Wikinomic forces; namely the global Net Generation and rising global economies/Worldsourcing.
The review in the Times, “Wonder Bread and Curry: Mingling Cultures, Conflicted Hearts,” speaks of immigrant children in the US and “the generational process of Americanization.” I can’t say anything good or bad about the book itself, having not read it, but the entire notion struck me as quaint. The idea of cultural awkwardness among Indian immigrant children in the US – the embarrassment of bringing a curry sandwich to school instead of PB&J – is sooo 1985. Having grown up in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon city myself (I was always one of two or three minorities in my class in grade school), I can sympathize with the author’s plight. However, reading through the book description, I couldn’t help but think that the whole idea of Indian-born parents wanting the American Dream for their children is becoming somewhat dated.
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March 26th, 2008, 05:56pm
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I recently came across a new term, “Worldsourcing”, that expresses beautifully the next generation of global enterprises. Take a look here, on the Lenovo blog.
The idea behind Worldsourcing is really the dawn of the truly global enterprise. Global enterprises operate on a truly global scale; operate with porous corporate boundaries (interacting with “outside” partners in much the same collaborative way that “internal” departments work together); and bring that global approach to all functions (not just manufacturing and customer service). Let’s look at each in more detail: Read More »
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March 19th, 2008, 03:38pm
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Earlier in the year I blogged about the true costs of healthcare and the role technology and the Web 2.0 might play in reducing those costs. But maybe we should forget about providing expensive healthcare procedures all–together and instead take a true free-market / division of labour approach and outsource expensive procedures to where they’re cheapest.
Unlikely and politically unpalatable as that may seem, global medical tourism is a $20 billion industry, expected to grow to 40 million cross-border trips by 2010. In the US, 750,000 Americans went abroad for some type in treatment in 2007, and by 2012 that number is expected to top 6 million. Evidently, there are questions about standards but Joint Commission International , a US not-for-profit that accredits American hospitals, has accredited over 140 international hospitals (based on US standards) and expects the number to grow to almost 300 over the next three years.
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March 4th, 2008, 06:08am
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For the last decade, if one argued that globalization and free trade drove up inequality in the U.S., one was arguing against the latest and most advanced economic research. For example, each of Krugman, Lawrence, Cline, and Borjas looked at “North - South” (think U.S. - China) trade in seperate studies, and each concluded that there was almost no impact on skilled-to-unskilled wage ratios (differential estimates of 3%, 3%, 7%, and 1.4% respectively). Point, set, match - the free traders win, so let’s just open the borders and we can all get rich!
But… it’s kind of hard to believe, isn’t it? Read More »
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February 7th, 2008, 12:45pm
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Have you ever heard of this company? TenCent QQ. Well… it has over 220 million active users and over 641 million registered users – to be fair, that’s including multiple accounts. The success of TenCent and other grassroots Chinese companies have established such a stronghold over the Chinese user base that even Google is having trouble establishing firm ground in China (not to mention the heat they’ve been getting for complying to strict Chinese censorship conditions).
you can purchase a virtual QQ pet (pet penguin) and bring him online to meet friends, you can even buy clothes for him and get him educated.
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January 13th, 2008, 06:11pm
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Here’s a summary of just a few of the wikinomics-related stories that have popped up over the last few days.
The Economist’s article The Challengers takes a look at the new multinational companies that are evolving in the emerging markets. From the perspective that the Ford-Jaguar-Tata story brings, to the data on Developing countries cross-border M&A, it’s a fascinating study of how the world is changing right now.
CIO.com has a nice little article on how Sun Microsystems is leveraging Second Life to facilitate internal collaboration and social interaction. The best quote provided in the mini-interview is: Up until now, Sun, like most companies, has used audio conferencing. We’ve used a little bit of video conferencing too, but a lot people working at home don’t have video because that’s their personal space. So we mostly use audio conferences. The problem with this is we’re not getting the social interaction and the informal brainstorming you’d get in person. We figured [we] can create a virtual world where you can begin to re-create that social interaction, and then we could really create a wonderful place to bounce ideas off each other, both as a group or just between two people.
We’ve talked about the potential for RFID tags (and related technologies) to bring about a lot of positive changes in business and society, while also creating some major concerns in terms of privacy (etc.). Think about both sides when you read this story about Ministers in Britain planning to implant RFID tags in prisoners.
While a lot of people in Western nations are focused on the rise of India and China as major exporters, one of the more interesting trends to watch is there trade with each other. This article in the Times of India sums up the situation nicely, and it will be interesting to see how India reacts.
The fact that confidence in many major financial institutions is going into the tank won’t surprise too many people in Second Life. To quote: “As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest of any direct return on an investment (whether in Linden dollars or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter,” Linden Lab wrote on its blog Tuesday. “We’re implementing this policy after reviewing resident complaints, banking activities and the law, and we’re doing it to protect our residents and the integrity of our economy.”
The NY Times has a great article on “bruising Senate fight” over the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The quick version is that big firms are increasingly antsy about patent trolls and excessive leverage being given to small patent holders, while the “little guys” are worried about the big firms using their heft to trounce them.
Finally, Fred Vogestein has a great story in Wired entitled The Untold Story: How the iPhone blew up the Wireless Industry.
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December 20th, 2007, 11:41am
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Google Talk, the company’s messaging service, has just released a real time translation service in 23 languages. The translation is done by bots who are invited to the participant’s chat session. The service is said to be reasonably accurate, given the limits of machine translation. They even get swearing right.
An increasingly globalized world brings the need for people to understand each other in order to travel, do business and learn. However, as I have written before, the internet is not yet particularly friendly to speakers of languages outside of English, Chinese and maybe Spanish. Although millions of people are learning English, it seems that the bots are going to learn a lot faster. The technology has come a long way since its inception in the 50s. A freely translatable internet would go a long way in bridging the digital divide.
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December 5th, 2007, 06:50pm
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For those that might have missed it, about two weeks back The Wall Street Journal published an excellent article providing an update on the $100 laptop scheme that was hatched by Nicholas Negroponte in 2005. The sub-title is indicative of the very interesting story that they tell: How a computer for the poor got stomped by the tech giants.” It is most definitely worth the read.
As the person who (I believe) coined the term Digital Divide over a decade ago, I find it very bizarre that big companies would put their short term parochial interests above the needs of the world’s children. It’s in everyone’s interests that we have an educated work force, motivated young people, social cohesion and all the other payoffs of a wonderful initiative like Negroponte’s. Shame.
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November 5th, 2007, 09:53am
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A post by Stephanie Overby at CIO Magazine points out that early closing hours for bars in Bangalore are discouraging Indian youths from taking customer service jobs.
From the post:
A few years ago, Bangalore put an ordinance in place that effectively shuts down all pubs and “entertainment” establishments at 11:30 p.m. Officials had their reasons — closing go-go bars and curbing drunk driving. But if you’re a young 20-something pulling a graveyard shift at 24/7 Customer, you’re out of luck. As Cliff Justice, head of globalization for outsourcing advisor EquaTerra, told [Overby]: “There used to be this whole nightlife culture that revolved around the call centers. Now, if you’re working the night shift, your social life is just shot.”
It’s not just the loss of the shooter bar, that is curbing the call centre business – as the Indian economy heats up and attitude of Americans that perceive that too many jobs are being sent overseas and become verbally abusive, the call centre job is no longer considered a choice assignment.
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October 11th, 2007, 10:44am
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In June 2006 I wrote a case study on Boeing and its 787 Dreamliner project. In short I noted that, “Faced with a decline in sales and market share, Boeing has revised how it does business in an effort to retake top spot in the competitive commercial aircraft industry. The company has found solutions to the inefficiencies of traditional manufacturing processes and a decentralized IT function and has relinquished what was once its core manufacturing competency. Boeing has used IT to transform a traditional collection of suppliers into a global network. These changes have been crucial to the development of the groundbreaking 787 Dreamliner aircraft, whose early sales and cost efficiencies augur a bright future for Boeing.” Mass collaboration was going to take Boeing to the top. And for the past year it looked as if those bright expectations were going to be fulfilled.
But over the past two months the Seattle-based company has faced increasing struggles to finalize delivery of the 787. The latest setback will see planes delivered in November or December of 2008, rather than May 2008 as promised. The company has blamed the delays on slow delivery of components from suppliers and shortages of raw materials.
Evidently this highlights the downside of giving a larger share of control of the 787 project to suppliers. But does it discredit the company’s collaborative solution? Not at all. Having saved billions in development and prototype costs, as well as the evident sales advantage over Airbus, Boeing will still be well served by its shared-risk, shared-reward strategy with its suppliers. Moreover, the lessons learned in this phase of the 787 project (though perhaps costly with late-penalties applied) will be integral for future collaborative ventures , not only for Boeing but throughout the manufacturing industry.
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