Last February, when I wrote that Windows 8 will put Microsoft back on top, a lot of people thought I was nuts. Nobody could touch Apple and Google’s Android had too big of a head start. Microsoft was toast and anybody who denied it was just ignoring the obvious.
Well, Microsoft launched Windows 8 last week to mixed reviews. None were glowing, a few were negative and almost all expressed some kind of reservation. So how do I feel now? I’m doubling down.
Given that Windows 8 is an almost completely reimagined product, from the interface to the basic technology, the reviews are surprisingly positive. Combined with the rest of Microsoft’s assets, is strategically brilliant (and amazingly interoperable). From a business perspective this is one of the most important products in history. Here’s why:
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Our data driven society requires hard numbers. We take those numbers, plug them into models to create solid plans and execute those plans with ruthless efficiency. If we do it right, things are supposed to go well.
The problem is that our numbers are fantasies, our models are broken and our budgets are farces. We all know it, try to make allowances for it and the game goes on because, quite frankly, it is the only one we know how to play.
Somewhere along the way we became enamoured by certainty and obsessed with precision in the hopes that, if we only built better tools, we could conquer complexity. That effort has failed miserably. There is, however, another way that was abandoned long ago. It has a rich history of solving the thorniest, most uncertain problems. It’s time we returned to it.
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Every manager would like to be Steve Jobs, but very few ever even come close. Many seek out advice, read case studies and go to workshops to help guide them. Yet still, very few companies are able to innovate effectively. Why is that?
Surely there is no lack of desire. Ask any top executive and he will tell you that innovation is a top priority. It’s not a lack of commitment either. Businesses invest billions in R&D every year, yet all to little avail.
One big reason is a the lack of innovative culture, especially at successful operational firms. Competing for the future is different than competing for the present. If you try to innovate the same way you operate, you probably won’t get very far. To break the cycle, you’ll need to build a culture that promotes innovation as well as operational excellence.
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The mathematician G.H. Hardy once wrote that “for any serious purpose, intelligence is a very minor gift.” As someone who intimately knew some of the greatest minds in history, he would know.
What he meant was there many things other than intelligence that are required to succeed at an intellectual task. Persistence and luck surely play a role and, as Einstein famously noted, imagination is supremely important.
Nevertheless, intelligence is something we admire, both in ourselves and in others. It has been considered for most of history, to be a uniquely human virtue. So it is unnerving, even terrifying, when we encounter other types of intelligence. From crowdsourcing to computers performing human tasks, we’re going to have to learn to make our peace.
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Shakespeare once wrote that life is a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Digital marketing sometimes seems a lot like that.
It certainly has its share of idiots, no lack of sound and fury and, while not exactly signifying nothing, does have an unhealthy tendency toward hyperbole. Technology changes much more quickly than people’s habits do.
In reality, consumers largely buy the same products they always did and use them in the same way. We still eat food off of plates, put socks on our feet and get behind the wheels of cars. Just because technology is evolving is no reason to abandon common sense and, perhaps not surprisingly, the clearest path to good strategy is still asking good questions.
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Last week, Paul Broun, a US Congressman on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, asserted that evolution, embryology and big bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell.” A recent Gallup survey suggests that 46% of Americans agree with him.
Many would tend to give the Congressmen some slack. After all, what we can not observe is a matter of faith. However, while we tend to consider beliefs personal and beyond reproach, denial of observable facts is not faith, but ideology run amok.
In the modern world, the visceral abstract plays a central role. Without Darwin’s theory, there can be no modern medicine. No big bang, no iPhone either. Nearly every facet of our lives is governed by some strange notion that is far removed from everyday experience. Ideas matter. Those who deny science are, in fact, denying the modern world itself.
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In the United States, with the political season in full swing, we hear a lot about outsourcing. Good jobs, the kind where people wear hardhats and safety glasses, are moving south and east, supposedly leaving a nation of hamburger flippers in their wake.
Politicians of all stripes say they will bring the jobs back. Some promise to batter China, while others pledge to create new industries that will provide honest work for millions of Rosie the Riveters and Bob the Builders.
But what if those jobs are replaced by robots? As The Economist reports, we are in the midst of a third industrial revolution. Whereas, before a factory could hire thousands of people, today most employ a small fraction of that number. When billions of dollars of output can be generated by just a few employees, the nature of work changes drastically.
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I learned most of what I know about innovation during the 15 years I spent living and working in the former Eastern Bloc. People are surprised when I tell them that and I admit, it’s a strange thing to say.
After all, the Soviet Union failed miserably. It was a drab place, filled with heavy tractors and people with gray clothes and dour looks on their faces. Innovation isn’t the first word that comes to mind.
However, while the system was crumbling, people still had to get things done. They needed housing, food, electricity and means to entertain themselves. Officially, these things weren’t a priority and the power structure put forth little effort to provide them. When leadership fails, innovation goes underground and people learn to hack to get by.
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Winston Churchill once wrote that “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” I think it’s clear that’s never been more true than today.
As old line industrial firms struggle to survive, web based startups less than two years old become billion dollar enterprises. While the past few decades have been characterized by offshoring to cheap labor markets, now manufacturing is coming back, albeit to factories that are largely ran by algorithms.
The underlying trend is the rise of informational content in the products and services that make up our economy and, increasingly, that information is managed by machines rather than humans. That is the essence of digital business and it’s changing everything we thought we knew about creating value. Here are 3 keys to understanding the new era.
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Do you have a philosophy or an ideology? The answer to that question will very likely determine whether you will succeed or fail.
Philosophies ask questions (sometimes annoying ones, which is why they made Socrates drink hemlock). Ideologies, on the other hand, determine answers. That seemingly nuanced distinction makes all the difference in the world.
Most people prefer ideologies. They’re easier. You can believe in world peace or free markets, feel good about yourself and never have to think much about it. Philosophies are much harder. They provide a guide to the journey but don’t give us the destination. The advantage of philosophy is that it will get you where you want to go. Ideology won’t.
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