July 3, 2012
I'll Take The Stairs
Thank G-d our automobiles and airplanes aren't as unreliable (generally).
Anyway, I didn't mind walking a little more, and I got a chuckle out of this sign.
Of course, less funny this morning was news of Microsoft's $6.2 billion! dollar writedown on their Internet division.
For a long time, Microsoft has been waiting for the elevator to pick them up and take them to virtual heaven, but instead everyday they try to buy (e.g. aQuantive for $6.3 billion all cash in 2007) their way there, and they end up in a place a lot hotter and nastier.
Microsoft can still make a comeback, but it's past time for them to unleash their creative juices again.
What type of name is Bing (bing-bong) for a search engine, anyway? ;-)
July 2, 2012
The Tiger Woods of Ping Pong
This 9-year old kid--Tom Spicer--from Australia is quite simply amazing.
Hard to believe this is real--but I understand that it is!
This kid throws a ping ball every which way into a tiny cup.
Straight shot, with a bounce and even 4, off the wall, rolling off a roof, behind his back and around the corner, out of a window, a backflip while laying down, with a flick of a skateboard, with the cup in motion, even while bouncing on a trampoline.
This kid is an inspiration with just a ball and cup, a million and one shots, and a big smile.
Tom has been practicing for 5 1/2 years.
Amazing discipline and creativity--seems right for America's Got Talent.
Imagine what we can do if we set our mind to accomplishing great things too.
Everyone can score! ;-)
The Tiger Woods of Ping Pong
June 10, 2012
A Technologist's Personal Rorschach Test
This was from a outdoor mural at school that I really liked.
I let my mind freely associate and had some fun too.
I could've gone on with this, but wanted to keep it clean.
Hope you like the mural and creativity.
If you had to do this exercise, I'd be curious to see what you came up with.
Have a good week!
Andy
A Technologist's Personal Rorschach Test
June 1, 2012
We're In It Together
This is a cool vision by Tom Clancy of the "future soldier" from the Ghost Recon game series.
The mixture of advanced weaponry, high-tech reconnaissance and surveillance, drones and robotics, future combat uniforms, and cloaking technology is just super.
If you have time and interest, there is another longer video here with footage that is particularly good starting at about the 3:40 marker.
Like Star Trek paving the way for real-life advances in technology and space exploration, Clancy's future soldier will be another example of life imitating art.
When we marry the vision and creativity of our entertainment industry, with the technical skills of our scientists and engineers, and the risk-taking of our entrepreneurs, we can do truly awesome things.
"No one can do everything, but everyone can do something"--we're in it together!
We're In It Together
May 30, 2012
Communication, What Comes From The Heart
They ponder what will it take to win the hearts and minds.
They may hire consultants to tell them what they should say.
They engage fancy speechwriters to say "it" just so.
Then, they monitor the polls to get feedback and see how their message was received.
However a new article in Harvard Business Review (April 2012) throws a curve ball at this whole notion--stating: "It seems almost absurd that how we communicate could be so much more important to success than what we communicate."
From my perspective, there are many factors that contribute to the success of our communications:
Firstly, let's face it--personality, likability, charisma, and charm go a long way to influencing others--and yes, it seems like this is the case, almost at times, regardless of the message itself.
Then there is everything else from emotional intelligence and political savvy for "working" the audience to doing your homework in terms of getting your facts right, making your presentation engaging, using back channels to build support, and giving people the opportunity to ask questions, contribute, and buy in.
According to the HBR article, successful communication directly impacts team performance, this occurs through:
- Energy--"the number and nature of exchanges among team members"--with more interaction being better.
- Engagement--the distribution of communications among team members--with more equal distribution being better (i.e. communication isn't being dominated by one person or a select few).
- Exploration--this is the communication between a team and other external connections--with more outreach being better for creativity and innovation.
For all of us, communicating is as much about the way and how much we interact with others, as with what we actually have to say.
That's not to say, that what we have to communicate is not important, but rather that the mere act of communicating with others is itself a positive step in the right direction.
We have to genuinely interact and connect with others--it's a critical part of the influencing and teaming process.
Only then, does honing the message itself really make the difference we want it to.
People communicate with other people and this happens in a very direct, personal, and emotional way.
There is a Jewish saying that my wife often tells me that her grandfather used to say, "what comes from the heart goes to the heart."
I think that is the correct notion--sincerity is at the core of it takes to really communicate effectively with others.
(Source Photo: here with attribution to VisaAgency)
Communication, What Comes From The Heart
May 28, 2012
A Little Nostalgia For NYC
A little nostalgia for the talent and creativity of New York.
Sing loud.
Dance in the streets.
Show what you can do.
Do it!
Yearn to be your best.
Don't let anyone else spoil your dreams.
Live forever.
Thanks Fame--Thanks Irene Cara.
A Little Nostalgia For NYC
February 28, 2012
The Star Wars Internet
I just love the creativity of this Star Wars-like animation video to explain how we communicate over the Internet (using the guidelines of Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, TCP/IP). From the initiation of the data packets to the transport over the LAN, WAN, and Internet, and through the routers, switches, proxy servers, and firewalls. The data is packed, addressed, transmitted, routed, inspected, and ultimately received. This 13 minutes video explains Internet communications in a simple, user-centric approach. It helps anyone to understand the many actors and roles involved in ensuring that our communication get to where it's going accurately, timely, and hopefully safely. I guess to make this really like Star Wars, we need the evil Darth Vader to (cyber) attack and see how this system all holds up. Where is Luke Skywalker when we need him? ;-) Great job by Medialab! |
The Star Wars Internet
December 29, 2011
Bathroom De/sign Winner
Bathroom De/sign Winner
November 28, 2011
Moving Forward in Reverse
There is "more than one way to skin a cat" and there are those who take the high road, and others who take the low road to get to where they are going.
The Wall Street Journal (28 November 2011) has two articles this morning on how how reverse is the new forward.
"Reverse Mentoring Cracks Workplace" is about how "Top managers get advice on social media, workplace issues from young workers." It's a reverse on the traditional mentoring model where older, experienced workers mentor younger workers; now younger technology savants are teaching their older colleagues some new tricks.
According to the article, Jack Welch championed reverse mentoring as head of GE when "he ordered 500 top executives to reach out to people below them to learn how to use the Internet...fast forward a decade and mentors are teaching theirmentees about Facebook and Twitter.
Really this phenomen of learning from the young is not all that odd, when you think that many, if not most, of technology's greatest advancements of the last 35 years came from college kids or dropouts working out their garages and growing whole new technologies, industries, and ways of doing business.
Another article called "Great Scott! Dunder Mifflin Morphs Into Real-Life Brand of Copy Paper" describes how Staples and Quill have teamed up to market a new brand of copy paper called none other than Dunder Mifflin (from the TV show "The Office" now in its 8th season).
Here again, we are in going forward in reverse. "For decades, marketers worked to embed their [real] brands in the plots of TV shows and movies. Nowadays, they are seeing value in bringing to life fictional brands that are already part of pop culture."
This reminds me of when I started seeing Wonka chocolate bars--originally from the movie, Willie Wonker and The Chocolate Factory--showing up on store shelves.
Whether the young mentoring the old or fictional brands showing up in real life, changes that are the reverse of what we are used too, are not something to "bristle at", but rather are the new normal.
There are many ways to success and we will find them through creativity, innovation, and entreprenuership--any and every way forward.
Moving Forward in Reverse
October 29, 2011
PwC Leading Like Idol
PwC Leading Like Idol
August 12, 2011
Helmet Hair--Thanks Borat
I'd like to nominate this product for innovation award of the week.
Helmet Hair--Thanks Borat
July 15, 2011
An Infographics Treasure Trove
An Infographics Treasure Trove
December 26, 2010
Hollywood Sees The Future and It Is Shapeshifting
Now, The Economist (11 December 2010) reports that shapeshifting material, or “liquid armor,” is being tested by BAE for high-tech body armor.
Traditional body armor contains about 30 layers of protective Kevlar; however, by using the new material between the protective fibers, BAE is able to reduce the layers of Kevlar to just 10, making for lighter and more comfortable protection.
The secret to the liquid armor is that it is made of “shear-thickening fluids” from nano-engineering particles of silica, which provide the shapeshifting properties: “The molecules in such liquids are closely packed, but loosely arranged. The material behaves like a liquid in normal conditions…[but] if subjected to pressure though [like from a projectile], the molecules lock together and behave like a solid.”
In the body armor, when the fluid sandwiched Kevlar is struck by a bullet, the molecules in fluid lock together and spread the impact, thereby absorbing it more effectively.
This seems like an exciting development applying chemical engineering to protecting the warfighter and law enforcement officers.
What is also so cool is that the concept of shapeshifting being a potent force showed up almost two decades ago in movies and television—and once again we have life imitating art (so to speak)!
Hollywood captured the shapeshifters in both the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine series (1993-1999). In Terminator II, a shapeshifting cyborg is sent back in time to try and kill John Connor, the leader of the resistance against the cyborgs. The shapeshifter takes on the form of the various people and things to try and get Connor, but ultimately in thwarted by the original Terminator (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger). Similarly, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Otto is a shapeshifting constable on the space station that protects the station and the Star Fleet command making frequent use of his abilities to shift forms, but always returning at rest to his liquid state to rejuvenate.
I’ve got to say that I applaud Hollywood and continue to see it as not only a creative core for our entertainment, but also a prescient forbear to technology and events to come.
Hollywood Sees The Future and It Is Shapeshifting
September 3, 2010
Revenge of the Introverts
I am an introvert.
Does this mean I am among a minority of the population that is shy, anti-social, “snooty,” or worse?
Many people have misperceptions like these, which is why Psychology Today’s current issue has a feature story on the realities vs. the myths of introverts. Actually half of the people you meet on any given day are introverts.
According to the story, introverts are:
“Collectors of thoughts…(and) solitude is the place where the collection is curated…to make sense of the present and the future.”
Most of us don’t realize that there are many introverts, because “perceptual biases lead us all to overestimate the number of extraverts among us.” (Basically you extraverts take up a lot of attention :-).)
To me, being an introvert is extremely helpful in my professional role because it enables me to accomplish some very important goals:
- I can apply my thinking to large and complex issues. Because I gravitate to working in a quiet (i.e. professional) environment, I am able to focus on studying issues, coming up with solutions, and seeing the impact of incremental improvements. (This will be TMI for some, but when I was a kid I had to study with noise reducing headphones on to get that absolute quiet to concentrate totally.)
- I like to develop meaningful relationships through all types of outreach, but especially when interacting one-on-one with people. As opposed to meaningless cocktail party chatter – “Hello, How are you today?” “Fine. And how are you?” “Fine.” Help, get me out of here!
- I get my energy from introspection and reflecting; therefore, I tend to be alert to areas where I may be making a mistake and I try to correct those early. In short, “I am my own biggest critic.”
So while it may be more fun to be an extrovert—“the life of the party”—and “the party’s going on all the time”—I like being an introvert and spending enough time thinking to make the doing in my life that much more meaningful and rewarding.
[Note: Lest you think that I hold a grudge against extraverts, not at all—you all are some of my best buds and frequently inspire me with your creativity and drive!]
Revenge of the Introverts
August 23, 2010
Putting the Donkey Before the Cart - Or Is He Sleeping Inside?
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the "Bufalino" mini RV by designer Cornelius Comanns, profiled in DVICE.
Putting the Donkey Before the Cart - Or Is He Sleeping Inside?
August 21, 2010
Pedal to the Next Tech Level
Pedal to the Next Tech Level
March 5, 2010
Next Generation IT Project Managers
Check this out...
Maybe we should hire these guys to do our IT projects in the future?
These guys have it all from planning to implementation. :-)
Next Generation IT Project Managers
February 28, 2010
Are Feds Less Creative?
Contrary to the stereotype, in my observation government employees are just as creative as those in the private sector. The reason they may not seem this way is that they typically think very long and hard about the consequences of any proposed change.
Once an agency has tentatively decided on a course of action, it still takes some time to “go to market” with new ideas, for a few (to my mind) solid reasons:
- We are motivated by public service. One of the key elements of that is our national security and so we must balance change with maintaining stability, order, and safety for our citizens. In contrast, the motivation in the private sector is financial, and that is why companies are willing to take greater risks and move more quickly. If they don’t they will be out of business, period.
- We have many diverse stakeholders and we encourage them to provide their perspectives with us. We engage in significant deliberation based on their input to balance their needs against each other. In the private sector, that kind of deliberation is not always required or even necessarily even desired because the marketplace demands speed.
The fact that process is so critical in government explains why IT disciplines such as enterprise architecture planning and governance are so important to enabling innovation. These frameworks enable a process-driven bureaucracy to actually look at what’s possible and come up with ways to get there, versus just resting on our laurels and maintaining the “perpetual status quo.”
Aside from individual employees, there are a number of organizational factors to consider in terms of government innovation:
- Sheer size—you’re not turning around a canoe, you’re turning around an aircraft carrier.
- Culture—a preference for being “safe rather than sorry” because if you make a mistake, it can be disastrous to millions of people—in terms of life, liberty, and property. The risk equation is vastly different.
Although it may sometimes seem like government is moving slowly, in reality we are moving forward all the time in terms of ideation, innovation, and modernization. As an example, the role of the CTO in government is all about discovering innovative ways to perform the mission.
Some other prominent examples of this forward momentum are currently underway—social media, cloud computing, mobility solutions, green computing, and more.
Here are three things we can do to be more innovative:
- From the people perspective, we need to move from being silo based to enterprise based (or what some people called Enterprise 2.0). We need to change a culture from where information is power and currency and where people hoard it, to where we share information freely and openly. And this is what the Open Government Directive is all about. The idea is that when we share, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
- In terms of process, we need to move from a culture of day-to-day tactical firefighting, to more strategic formulation and execution. Instead of short-term results, we need to focus on intermediate and long-term outcomes for the organization. If we’re so caught up in the issue of the day, then we’ll never get there.
- And from a technology perspective, we need to continue to move increasingly toward digital-based solutions versus paper. That means that we embrace technologies to get our information online, shared, and accessible.
Innovation is something that we all must embrace—particularly in the public sector, where the implications of positive change are so vast. Thankfully, we have a system of checks and balances in our government that can help to guide us along the way.
Note: I’ll be talking about innovation this week in D.C. at Meritalk’s “Innovation Nation 2010” – the “Edge Warriors” panel.
Are Feds Less Creative?
December 29, 2009
What Hollywood Can Teach Us About Fighting Terrorism
U.S. law enforcement officials have thwarted about two dozen known terrorist plots since 9/11 and there are probably lots more that haven’t made the papers. Some of them, like this month’s “Underwear Bomber” have nicknames, like the “Shoe Bomber” (2002), the “Lackawanna Six,” (same year), and the “Virginia Jihad” (2003). Others are known by geographical location, such as Fort Dix (2007) and the foiled plot against synagogues in the Bronx (2009). But one thing they all have in common is their determination to threaten and even destroy our freedom and way of life.
As a person who is deeply dedicated to America’s safety and security, both personally and professionally, I worry about the rise of terrorism that has sprung up in the past few decades. Terrorists are relentlessly determined to destroy our lives even if it means taking their own lives to do it. But what is even more frightening is that despite all the actions we have taken to fight terrorism, our culture remains deeply reactive. Can we really stay one step ahead and lucky forever?
The best example of our relative complacency in the face of a deadly threat is the policy of taking off our shoes for screening only after the case of the Shoe Bomber came to light. Now again, we waited for an Underwear Bomber before talking seriously and publicly about full body screening for all?
There is a saying that you can’t drive a car by looking in the rearview mirror, but unfortunately that seems to be the way our culture approaches the fight against terrorism. The focus should not be on stopping the last threat, but on anticipating and countering the future threat before it ever materializes.
To do this, we need to think like the bad guys do as well as conduct more exercises to expose our own security weaknesses (red teaming), rather than be surprised when the terrorists find our next Achilles heel.
In the particular case of the Underwear Bomber, it was particularly shocking that we knew this person was a threat. His own father warned us, yet we didn’t put him on the terrorist watch list or revoke his visa (as the British did). And just today I read that this individual told investigators there are literally hundreds more just like him, all waiting to strike.
Think about that for a second. There are seemingly endless terrorists out there, and they can have a 99% failure rate and still be “successful.” Yet U.S. and global law enforcement can’t fail at all—not even once—without dire and deadly consequences on a massive scale.
However, instead of gripping that unbelievable reality and treating it as the dire situation it is, there is actually talk about “rehabilitating” the terrorists. As if we have succeeded at rehabilitating “normal” criminals…now we are going to try and “deprogram” people who are religiously “inspired” to commit their diabolical deeds?
To adequately manage the new reality we face today, we must not only stay ahead of known threats, but also proactively envision new potential attack scenarios, prepare for them, and thwart them before they become potentially lethal.
A great place to start would be Hollywood; our entertainment industry has done a pretty good job of imaginatively exposing potential attack scenarios—in dozens of films from Air Force One to The Sum of All Fears, Executive Decision to The Peacemaker, and Arlington Road to The Siege, and many more.
There are also television shows like 24, with now seven seasons and counting, that keep Americans riveted to their seats week after week with terrorism plots that play out before our very eyes. We seem to generally view these as serious threats that are possible in our time.
I respect the President for openly acknowledging the "systematic failure," but it is going to take all of us to commit and follow through with ongoing security measures. It is not a one month or one year event (or even an 8 year event post 9/11), but rather a complete new security mindset that stays with us always.
We can and should learn from the visionary talent in our vibrant entertainment industry and from wherever else they may reside, and adopt creative and proactive thinking about terrorism and make this a regular part of our security culture. I understand that there are many forces at play here, and that most of us are not privy to some of the more sophisticated ways that we fight terrorism every day. But what I am talking about is our collective, public culture, which still seems to shrug off the seriousness of threats against us. For example, just today, I saw a sign in an airport that directed wheelchairs through security screening. It seemed almost an invitation to sew explosives into a wheelchair (although I understand that these are actually screened).
I have the deepest respect for the men and women who serve to protect us every day. But as a culture, it is long past time to wake up. We don’t have the luxury of collective denial anymore. We must embrace security as a fact of life, fully and in an ongoing manner.
Further, as we approach 2010, let us resolve to learn from the most imaginative people in our society about how we may think out of the box when it comes to combating terrorism.
In the real world, we must act now to quickly deploy new, more advanced screening technologies to our airports, marine ports, and border crossings, and employ our most creative minds to “outwit, outplay, and outlast” the terrorists who plot against us—whether in their shoes, their underwear, or wherever else their evil schemes might lead them.
What Hollywood Can Teach Us About Fighting Terrorism
September 29, 2009
Embracing Instability and Enterprise Architecture
Traditional management espouses that executives are supposed to develop a vision, chart a course for the organization, and guide it to that future destination. Moreover, everyone in the enterprise is supposed to pull together and sing off the same sheet of music, to make the vision succeed and become reality. However, new approaches to organizational management acknowledge that in today’s environment of rapid change and the many unknowns that abound, executives need to be far more flexible and adaptable, open to learning and feedback, and allow for greater individualism and creativity to succeed.
In the book Managing the Unknowable by Ralph Stacey, the author states that “by definition, innovative strategic directions take an organization into uncharted waters. It follows that no one can know the future destination of an innovative organization. Rather, that organization’s managers must create, invent, and discover their destination as they go.”
In an environment of rapid change, the leader’s role is not to rigidly control where the organization is going, but rather to create conditions that foster creativity and learning. In other words, leaders do not firmly set the direction and demand a “cohesive team” to support it, but rather they create conditions that encourage and promote people to “question everything and generate new perspectives through contention and conflict.” The organization is moved from "building on their strengths and merely adapting to existing market conditions, [to insted] they develop new strengths and at least partly create their own environments.”
An organization just sticking to what they do best and incrementally improving on that was long considered a strategy for organizational success; however, it is now understood as a recipe for disaster. “It is becoming clearer why so many organizations die young…they ‘stick to their knitting’ and do better and better what they already do well. When some more imaginative competitors come along and change the rules of the game, such over-adapted companies…cannot respond fast enough. The former source of competitive success becomes the reason for failure and the companies, like animals, become extinct.”
Organizations must be innovative and creative to succeed. “The ‘new science’ for business people is this: Organizations are feedback systems generating such complex behavior that cause-and-effect links are broken. Therefore, no individual can intend the future of that system or control its journey to that future. Instead what happens to an organization is created by and emerges from the self-organizing interactions between its people. Top managers cannot control this, but through their interventions, they powerfully influence this.
With the rapidly changing economic, political, social, and technological conditions in the world, “the future is inherently unpredictable.” To manage effectively then is not to set rigid plans and targets, but rather to more flexibly read, analyze, and adapt to the changes as they occur or as they can be forecast with reasonable certainly. “A ‘shared vision’ of a future state must be impossible to formulate, unless we believe in mystic insight.” “No person, no book, can prescribe systems, rules, policies, or methods that dependably will lead to success in innovative organizations. All managers can do it establish the conditions that enable groups of people to learn in each new situation what approaches are effective in handling it.”
For enterprise architecture, there are interesting implications from this management approach.
Embracing Instability and Enterprise Architecture