Marketing people are familiar with funnels – though there is also a funnel backlash – but this is a good example of the principle applied to obtaining investment:
https://soundcloud.com/keypersonofinfluence/kpi-matthew-michalewicz
Henry Mintzberg just mentioned on LinkedIn that “Power In and Around Organizations” is available for free here:
http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=134841&silo_library=GEN01
Always a good read.
This is a perfect example of the MWT principle of the need to “separate measurement from management”. On an unrelated note it also reflects my belief that the “agile” movement is its own worst enemy – because it think it’s managing a broader scope of organisational decison-making than it actually is.
Capability-based Governance and business architecture:
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/Enterprise-Architecture-Planning-2.0?gko=43bf5
My views on business capability-based governance extend to the idea that an “IT function” doesn’t really make any sense at the highest governance levels. However, the implications of this are significant. So, in the meantime….
The McKinsey Podcast has a great summary of “digital”. It’s basically a summary of good stuff that’s been around for a long time:
- Optimise assets
- Use data
- Optimise decisions-making (both bold, and common)
- Improve intimacy with customers
- Agility as responsive but with a stable core
- Radical cost reduction – including elimination of processes * Two speed IT architecture
- Bringing in talent from other industries… Works to a point
- beyond org charts and focusing on coherence
I’ve been reluctant to call what I do “digital” but if might be time to admit I’ve been “doing digital” for some time.
There are of course some universal truths here that have just been rebadged as “digital”. The idea that you should allocate resources to things that you believe will be required in the future and reduce your allocation of resources to things you don’t believe will be required in the future is important but has very little to do with digital.
I also noticed that the two interviewees seemed to disagree slightly on some points and were holding back from a debate. Maybe that was just me.
Podcast episode here: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/the-mckinsey-podcast/id285260960?mt=2&i=360547521
I have long been interested in pendulum arguments. These are the sort of arguments where the position swings drastically from one position to another. For example, capitalism versus of socialism, centralised versus decentralised, or technology-driven change versus business-driven change.
I think these pendulum arguments ultimately turn out to be false dichotomies or otherwise the result of incomplete models. Like real pendulums, they can be stopped by adding a “third thing”. Imagine the image of a pencil being stabbed into the middle of the pendulum which dramatically stops it swinging.
This “third thing” is usually something that is not typically considered part of the domain of the argument. It changes the model.
I’m finding this talk interesting, with the key slides reproduced below:
https://youtu.be/Yvv178OgB6E
The idea of “financial capitalism” versus “production capitalism” is a likely controversial tweak to our idea of capitalism. The model appears to fit:
I have a bit of an ideological issue with the other that the switch to the “deployment” / “production capitalism” phase “doesn’t happen automatically – i.e. that it requires governance help. I suspect that this is a causation versus correlation debate. Possibly Carlota is playing to her audience.
Amazon opens its first real bookstore — at U-Village | The Seattle Times:
Amazon is betting that the troves of data it generates from shopping patterns on its website will give it advantages in its retail location that other bookstores can’t match. It will use data to pick titles that will most appeal to Seattle shoppers.
Reminds me of banks and branch networks, the doubters when Apple announced retail stores, and how things both change and stay the same.
LONDON Nine of the world’s biggest banks including Goldman Sachs and Barclays have joined forces with New York-based financial tech firm R3 to create a framework for using blockchain technology in the markets, the firm said on Tuesday.
Commonwealth Bank of course joined earlier.
from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/15/us-banks-blockchain-iduskcn0rf24m20150915
Includes this and many other insights:
Alphabet’s plan to report Google’s results on a standalone basis will likely reveal that the search-and-advertising company investors have bought stock in is, absent the financial blackhole of Google’s moonshots, doing even better than most suspected. Unfortunately for said investors the additional clarity will only serve to illuminate just how much money is not being returned to shareholders and is instead being spent by Page and Brin on what they think matters. Will investors trust Page to spend it wisely?