Give NASA the chance to be next Google (Dê uma chance à NASA de ser o próximo Google)

Quem conheceu a NASA no passado jamais poderia pensar em ler algo como o post abaixo, retirado do blog http://www.chron.com!

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Give NASA the chance to be next Google
By TORY GATTIS and CHRIS BRONK
Copyright 2009 Houston Chonicle
July 4, 2009, 7:40PM

As it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings, NASA may be facing its greatest challenge in history. Envisaged is a return to the moon, the establishment of a base there and a push on to Mars, all within far more severe budget and safety constraints than the Apollo program. Failure could mean the end of the organization. As former astronaut Bob Crippen pointed out recently (“The next step in space exploration,” Outlook, June 28, Page B8), the growing time gap between retirement of the space shuttle and new manned launch vehicles threatens the economic and technical base of the U.S. aerospace industry. Meanwhile, China’s space program, flush with funds, continues to rise as a competitor. Imagine what it will achieve with the same focus and funding that was lavished on the 2008 Olympics.

A radical breakthrough is needed. There are well-documented problems with the existing bureaucracy, and heavy reliance on private contractor outsourcing has not been a panacea. To succeed, NASA will need an organization that can enable something like a “Moore’s Law of Space Travel” — yielding continuous reductions in the costs and risks of space travel similar to the rapid improvements we’ve seen in computer technology.

At the same time, the Obama administration wants to pioneer “Government 2.0” based on modern “Web 2.0” collaboration technologies to improve both efficiency and effectiveness. It wants government to be more agile, innovative and entrepreneurial, and has hired federal information and technology officers to make this happen. What the administration needs is an agency to create a prototype of these new approaches — a “Google of government” able to transplant the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem inside its organization to yield a continuous stream of innovations. Who better than NASA to pioneer this approach?

NASA is in an absolutely unique position to prototype a 21st-century organization. Given current political and budget constraints, many may consider the mission near impossible, but NASA has a mandate for change. It is expected to be creative, innovative and future-oriented. The public expects most of government and the private sector to be safe and conservative, but people understand that NASA must take risks to achieve great things with limited resources.

The rise of the open-source software movement is another example of the new, innovative organization. These very loose, voluntary associations have created massively complex applications like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server — both now dominant applications on the Internet. The open-source movement has a principle known as Linus’ Law: “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” With the extreme consequences of potential “bugs” in the Moon-Mars mission model, the open-source approach may have useful applications at NASA. It could also be an effective way to work with international, academic and private-sector partners, as well as to build public engagement.

To kick off NASA’s transformation, we are calling for the creation of a permanent blue-ribbon advisory commission drawing on leading private and academic experts, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Coordination Science, the Management Innovation Lab (MLab), McKinsey & Co., and even Google itself. By integrating these cutting-edge organizational tools and concepts into a single prototype organization, NASA can create a successful model that can be emulated elsewhere in government and industry. This next-generation organization may be more valuable to society than all the accumulated spin-off technologies from a Moon-Mars mission, perhaps even besting the greatest government spin-off to date: the Internet.

Gattis, a Houstonian, blogs on Organization 2.0 as a social systems architect with OpenTeams Software. Bronk is the fellow for technology, society and public policy at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.

Mudança na Educação

Uma imagem vale mais que mil palavras!

Projeções para 2010: novamente (Forecasts for 2010: again)

No dia 28 de agosto de 2008 escrevi um post neste blog onde fiz três previsões para 2010, a saber:

“Para mim o Século XXI para o Brasil vai começar em 2010!  Por quê?  A primeira razão concreta que posso dar é que o último Presidente do Brasil do Século XX foi (será) Lula. Lula, com sua política de resgate do social como sua bandeira principal, epitomizou a tentativa de superação das mazelas de todo século XX, coisa que FHC (o efetivo último Presidente do século passado) apenas começou.  Sendo assim, ao acabar-se o mandato de Lula em 2010, estará sendo dado um desfecho àquele século marcado pela industrialização do Brasil, e emergirá, de maneira mais transparente, a nossa nova sociedade pós-industrial.

A segunda razão é que em 2010 nós teremos uma eleição (fenômeno em que, segundo a Ciência Econômica, nós fazemos nossas principais escolhas coletivas) em que a Televisão (um produto que é cria da etapa industrial do século XX) não será a mídia (no amplo senso) principal a exercer o papel de “locus” da racionalidade comunicativa (de Jurgen Habermas) da sociedade brasileira.  A Internet (ou WEB-World Wide Web, como preferirem), com seus Geeks (nova classe social da era pós-industrial) tomará este lugar!

A terceira, e última, razão é que a partir de 2010, nós iremos começar a superar o que chamo de “nossa atual síndrome macunaíma” (ou seja, de falta de uma identidade mais nítida), onde veremos mais esforços e mais políticos representando mais interesses globais e de uma sociedade mais aberta e que se globaliza, do que interesses ditos nacionais, mas que na realidade representam o atraso e interesses de grupos encastelados no Estado.”

Hoje, ao ler a matéria abaixo do jornal Valor Econômico, fiquei mais convencido de que minha segunda previsão acima está bem próxima de sua concretização.  Até 2010 estarei torcendo pelas demais!

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Rumo a 2010: As próximas eleições serão marcadas pelo uso maciço da grande rede na briga pelo eleitor

Internet entra de vez na disputa eleitoral

Yan Boechat e Cesar Felício, de São Paulo e Belo Horizonte 03/07/2009

O segundo turno das eleições em Belo Horizonte do ano passado começou acirrado. Em uma arrancada surpreendente, o deputado federal Leonardo Quintão (PMDB-MG) chegou ao final do primeiro turno com uma diferença de apenas dois pontos percentuais em relação a Márcio Lacerda (PSB), o candidato apoiado pelo governador Aécio Neves (PSDB) e pelo então prefeito da capital, o petista Fernando Pimentel. Tudo indicava que a eleição seria decidida por uma diferença de votos pequena. Mas, então, um vídeo com o humorista Tom Cavalcante fazendo uma representação caricata de Quintão começou a circular na internet. A atuação de Cavalcante fazia uma paródia corrosiva do candidado do PMDB, mostrando-o como um ser infantilizado, dono de um discurso desconexo e simplista. O vídeo, postado no site You Tube e distribuído por e-mail e redes de relacionamento, foi um sucesso absoluto. Em poucas semanas centenas de milhares de pessoas o acessaram e, hoje, conta com quase 900 mil exibições, quase o mesmo número do vídeo em que rei espanhol Juan Carlos manda o presidente da Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, se calar. Na época Quintão tentou contra-atacar postando vídeos relacionando Lacerda ao escândalo do mensalão. Não adiantou muito. Apenas 31 mil internautas assistiram aos ataques ao candidato do PSB. Para muita gente do meio político mineiro, o vídeo na internet foi decisivo na derrota de Leonardo Quintão. O caso mineiro é apenas um episódio isolado do uso da internet nas disputas eleitorais. Está muito longe ainda da estratégia estruturada de uso da grande rede em uma eleição, como fez o presidente americano Barack Obama. Apesar disso, ele mostra a força que a internet pode ter em uma disputa pelos corações e mentes dos eleitores. Há quem aposte na mudança no modo de fazer política no país quando cerca de 130 milhões de eleitores forem às urnas na primeira semana de outubro do ano que vem. Quinze anos depois de ter chegado ao país, a internet já é acessada por mais de 40% da população brasileira. Ainda não ameaça a supremacia da propaganda eleitoral gratuita na televisão, que chega à quase totalidade dos domicílios, mas não poderá ser mais ignorada por quem pretende se eleger. É por isso que hoje não há partido, marqueteiro ou candidato no Brasil que não esteja pensando na grande rede como ferramenta essencial para as eleições de 2010. Estima-se que PT, PSDB e seus aliados, destinem até 5% do orçamento para a rede no ano que vem. Em campanhas para o Legislativo, esse percentual pode superar os 50%. Apesar de tantas previsões e a certeza de que as campanhas políticas no país serão transformadas pela internet, o fato é que poucos ainda sabem como isso vai acontecer. Oficialmente os partidos afirmam que o formato ainda não está definido. “É de fato ainda cedo para se saber exatamente o que vai acontecer, mas está todo mundo esmiuçando o que foi feito na campanha do Obama na internet para tentar repetir por aqui alguns dos seus resultados”, diz o professor da faculdade Cásper Líbero, Sérgio Amadeu, que estuda os impactos da rede no país. Foi Barack Obama quem descortinou definitivamente o véu da obviedade que encobria o uso da internet nas campanhas políticas. Durante a campanha, teve mais de 1,5 milhão de pessoas cadastradas em sua rede social particular, a Mybarackobama.com e outras 2,5 milhões cadastraram seus telefones celulares para receber mensagens do candidato. Por meio de doações de pessoas físicas via web, arrecadou mais de US$ 660 milhões. Com tanta gente conectada, usou a rede para passar informações estratégicas e fornecer treinamento e material de campanha a seus militantes. Na viagem do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aos Estados Unidos, em março, assessores do Planalto mantiveram encontros informais tanto com o Google quanto com a equipe de comunicação de Obama. O projeto do blog presidencial foi apresentado na semana passada, em Porto Alegre, no fórum de software livre. Além de não ser grande navegador, Lula não pretende, segundo assessoria, alimentar um blog pessoal ou twitter, e muito menos, ler mensagens no correio eletrônico. Não há quem creia que fenômeno semelhante possa se repetir em outro país de diferenças abissais como o Brasil. “Tudo aqui é diferente, o voto é obrigatório, a internet não é tão universalizada e a maneira como as pessoas se envolvem politicamente com as eleições é diferente, por isso é preciso tropicalizar a experiência americana para ter resultados”, diz Antonio Graeff, autor do recém lançado Eleições 2.0 – A internet e as mídias eleitorais no processo eleitoral (PubliFolha). E tropicalizar essa experiência significa focar os esforços em um público que há muito tempo estava fora do esteriótipo do internauta brasileiro: os integrantes das classes C, D e E. Com o barateamento dos equipamentos de informática, os computadores começaram a entrar nas periferias das grandes cidades. No ano passado, pela primeira vez na história, venderam-se mais computadores do que aparelhos de televisão no Brasil. Segundo dados do IBGE compilados pelo Comitê Gestor da internet 28% dos lares brasileiros têm ao menos um PC. Aliado a isso a expansão das populares lanhouses pelos rincões do país e pelas áreas mais pobres dos centros urbanos está transformando de forma radical o perfil do internauta. Das cerca de 60 milhões de pessoas que acessaram a internet em 2008, 67% fazem parte das classes C, D e E. Cerca de 80% dessas pessoas têm renda familiar mensal de até cinco salários mínimos. De ferramenta quase exclusiva da elite nos anos 90, a internet encerra a primeira década do século tendo como usuário um indivíduo cada vez mais parecido com o brasileiro médio. E é exatamente nessa transformação do perfil do internauta que os partidos vão apostar. Apesar de o twitter ser a ferramenta da moda, de os blogs com pensatas complexas atraírem a atenção dos formadores de opinião e o Facebook ser o ponto de encontro dos mais conectados, a estrela da campanha eleitoral de 2010 será mesmo o bom, velho e hoje fora de moda Orkut. É essa a rede de relacionamentos que faz sucesso entre a massa de usuários da periferia brasileira. E é nela, claro, que os candidatos querem estar. “Nas lanhouses só da Orkut e MSN, não há para mais ninguém”, diz Moriael Paiva, diretor da área de campanhas políticas da Talk Interactive, uma empresa especializada em conteúdo para a internet. “Hoje 48% dos jovens brasileiros com mais de 16 anos acessam a internet pelas lanhouses”. Mouriel Paiva já é o que poderia ser chamado de marqueteiro político digital. Ele vem trabalhando na área desde 2002, quando coordenou a área na campanha presidencial do atual governador de São Paulo, José Serra (PSDB). Naquela época, de forma ainda pouco organizada, conseguiu criar uma rede de eleitores de Serra com cerca de 30 mil membros. Batizada de Pelotão 45, serviu para que a coordenação de campanha conseguisse estabelecer um canal de informações aberto e constante com pessoas dispostas a multiplicar as propostas de Serra. Paiva também coordenou a área digital da campanha do prefeito de São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab (DEM-SP) e tem ligações históricas com as duas siglas que estarão unidas contra o candidato do governo. Ele afirma que não há nada definido ainda sobre sua participação nas eleições de 2010, mas integrantes do PSDB e do DEM já o consideram na campanha. “Já estou enfronhado no assunto, mas não sei se vou trabalhar na campanha presidencial”, diz. Nos projetos que vem desenvolvendo, Paiva coloca as redes sociais como o Orkut como o centro nevrálgico de uma estratégia bem sucedida. “Blogs, sites, vídeos, tudo isso é importante, mas é nas redes onde você vai conseguir trazer o eleitor para essas ferramentas, é ali que se ganham votos”. A estratégia é montar uma “rede de guerrilha”, como fez na campanha de Serra em 2002, para divulgar a campanha e, também, estar presente em todas elas. O alvo da estratégia são os usuários pouco informados, que não têm posição política clara. “É essa pessoa, com pouca escolaridade, que não é ligada em política, que pode amplificar nossa mensagem e fazer diferença, as classes A e B são importantes, mas já estão sedimentadas”. No lado oposto do embate, o PT também começa a se preparar para a campanha digital. “A internet teve importância nas eleições anteriores, mas nada comparado ao que veremos agora, a telefonia 3G está universalizando a rede de forma inédita”, diz Gleber Najme, secretário de comunicação petista. Assim como a estratégia digital demo-tucana, a aposta do PT são as redes sociais. O partido aposta que a militância histórica de seus apoiadores esteja conectada. É por meio dessa militância, ou guerrilha, como diz Paiva, que os dois partidos devem se utilizar de uma das ferramentas mais eficazes: as mensagens virais. São vídeos, imagens ou mesmo anedotas que se valem da bizarrice e do humor para se espalharem com rapidez maior que os vírus pandêmicos, como no caso de Quintão em BH. Na campanha pela reeleição em 2006, o PT montou uma estrutura de “marketing anti-viral”, ou seja: o partido começou a responder em e-mails e vídeos na internet os ataques que recebia no mesmo formato dos adversários do presidente. Uma equipe foi montada exclusivamente para monitorar as mensagens negativas. Nas próximas eleições a experiência vai se repetir, por certo com uma estrutura ainda maior. O mais jovem dos pretendentes ao Planalto, Aécio Neves, que tinha 34 anos quando a internet chegou ao país, é, assim como Lula, 14 mais velho, avesso à rede. Segundo sua assessoria de imprensa, o governador mineiro, o mais jovem dos pretendentes ao Planalto, a exemplo de Lula não costuma usar correio eletrônico como instrumento de trabalho e não acessa internet por telefone. Também não tem o hábito de usar o celular para receber e passar mensagens. Prefere ler as notícias no “clipping” impresso que recebe de sua assessoria do que no computador. A pouca familiaridade de Aécio com o meio não impediu seu governo de responder aos ataques eletrônicos que sofreu, tanto em 2006, em sua reeleição, quanto em 2008, na disputa municipal. O último ataque veio por meio de um documentário postado no You Tube sobre a pressão exercida por Aécio contra a imprensa mineira. A resposta veio da Juventude do PSDB, que postou um outro vídeo rebatendo as críticas e fazendo novas acusações contra o autor do vídeo. Na avaliação interna do governo sobre o caso chegou-se a uma conclusão: as respostas só poderiam ser dadas no mesmo formato, pelo You Tube.

Olha a “marolinha” do Presidente Lula aí gente!

O Presidente da República deste país classificou a recente crise financeira como uma “marolinha”, afirmando que “nos EUA ela era um tsunami mas se chegar aqui no Brasil, será uma marolinha que não dá nem para esquiar“

Eis o que dizem os números oficiais abaixo (post extraído do portal Uol)!

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02/07/2009 – 09h40
Produção industrial acumula queda de 5,1% em 12 meses, pior resultado desde 1991

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – A produção da indústria brasileira acumula queda de 5,1% nos últimos doze meses encerrados em maio, o pior resultado desde o início da série histórica, em 1991, mostraram dados divulgados nesta quinta-feira pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE).

Em maio, a produção caiu 11,3% em relação a igual período de 2008, marcando o sétimo mês consecutivo de queda para este tipo de comparação.

Em relação a abril, a produção subiu 1,3%, o quinto resultado positivo consecutivo nessa comparação.

Pesquisa da Reuters com analistas apontava, segundo a mediana de 24 projeções, um crescimento de 0,4% em maio sobre abril. Na comparação com maio de 2008, a mediana de 29 analistas mostrava retração de 12%.

O IBGE revisou o dado de abril de alta de 1,1% para crescimento de 1,3% frente ao mês imediatamente anterior.

No acumulado do ano, a atividade industrial acumula queda para 13,9%.

(Reportagem de Rodrigo Viga Gaier)

Consumer Confidence Rises 4th Straight Month for the First Time Since the End of the 2001 Recession

Post de 26/06 do blog do Prof. Mark Perry indica que a cada dia o pior da crise  (exatamente onde ela começou) vai ficando para trás!

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LA TIMES – Confidence among U.S. consumers rose this month for a fourth straight time, reflecting signs that the worst of the recession has passed. The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment gained to 70.8, the highest level since February 2008, from 68.7 in May.

Recent reports show some areas of the economy, such as housing and manufacturing, are seeing a smaller pace of decline, consistent with the Federal Reserve’s projection this week that the slump is “slowing.” Government data today indicated that efforts to revive the economy are allowing consumers to spend even with unemployment at a 25-year high. The data also showed savings surged to the highest level since 1993.

MP: The last time the Michigan consumer sentiment index increased in four consecutive months was the period from October 2001 to January 2002, which signalled the end of the 2001 recession (see shaded area in chart above). The four-month cumulative increase of 14.5 points in consumer sentiment from March to June 2009 (see shaded area in chart) is even greater than the 11.2 point increase in late 2001-early 2002.

Ballmer: Advertising Is All About Content

Steve Ballmer, CEO da Microsoft, fala sobre propaganda em evento global da área.  O post veio do blog http://www.internetnews.com!

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Ballmer: Advertising Is All About Content

Microsoft’s CEO lays out his perspective on the future of online advertising at European ad conclave.

June 26, 2009
By Stuart J. Johnston:

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer presented an overview of his vision for the future of advertising to a gathering of global advertising professionals meeting on the French Riviera.

His message laid out Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) vision of advertising in the future — and it’s not just about moving media from paper or television to online.

It also, among other things, depends on technology evolution such as the merging of computing and television. Additionally, though, it also means that the worlds of commerce and advertising need to be re-imagined.

“Five years ago, I’d have said we are mostly trying to do the offline world online,” Ballmer said.

Ballmer made the statements during his keynote speech to attendees at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 2009 in Cannes, France, on Wednesday.

His speech comes as the company’s newly launched Bing.com search engine tries to compete with rivals Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) better than its predecessors, Live Search and MSN Search.

The ultimate prize — money from advertising. Although search advertising is crucial, however, so is figuring out how to deal with the continuing merger of television — talk about an advertising vehicle — with computing.

“TV is probably where the development or the future of what’s going to happen to interactive digital content is least clear,” Ballmer said, envisioning hybrid devices like Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console and media hub, or wireless devices.

“At the end of the day you can put a PC, some form of a PC … next to the TV or embedded in the TV and we&’ll have to, as we’re repackaging the Internet and the digital content for the phone, we’re going to see content get repackaged and repurposed to really make sense of a TV-based experience,” Ballmer continued.

Ballmer’s “Mister Obvious” approach may have been calming for his audience, confronted with rapidly changing business models and explosions in communications technologies, as advertising tries to bridge the gap between the physical and online worlds.

Nonetheless, over time all media will move to digital form and most paper publications will migrate online or die, he said.

“We ought to be able to drive everybody to consume the communications and information, the information in their world digitally. All information will be social, you’ll expect to be able to collaborate and share thoughts, perspectives and interactions in any piece of content or any experience socially,” he added.

Of course, Microsoft has its own agenda for online advertising as it tries to evolve its business to embrace services “in the cloud,” much of which will be Subsidized by advertising.

To that end, over the past several years, Microsoft has spent lavishly — both internally and through acquisitions — to make itself a credible presence in online advertising, with some success.

“Microsoft has now grown an advertising business in excess of $2 billion and that’s a big number for our company, a big number, and we’re very serious about it,” Ballmer said.

The company’s largest single acquisition was the purchase of online advertising powerhouse aQuantive for $6 billion in 2007.

That media buy has helped Microsoft’s play for a larger chunk of the online advertising pie. In the first nine months of Microsoft’s fiscal 2009, which ends June 30, the company brought in $1.7 billion in online advertising despite the recession, according to its latest 10Q, That’s not a small amount for a company that grossed $60 billion last fiscal year.

Nod to Apple

Much of Microsoft’s future advertising earnings will depend on its Azure cloud computing platform, meant to deliver services to users wherever they are and whatever device they’re using.

Microsoft launched Azure with much fanfare last fall. However, the service is still in beta and the company still has not explained how it will make money — though advertising will surely play a large role.

Ballmer also gave a nod to Apple for creating its App Store, a model that Microsoft followed when it introduced its own Windows Marketplace for Mobile earlier this year.

“[I] give a lot of credit to Apple and what they’ve done with the App Store … people are trying to figure out how to take the PC-based Internet and repackage it for a small screen,” he added.

He wasn’t quite so generous when it came to mobile devices.

“Microsoft will continue to push forward with our Windows Mobile program, which despite the fact that we’ve certainly seen a little momentum in our competitors this year; we think the notion that there’s a software platform that can be available on many hardware devices, is key to platform standardization on the phone.”

A Value Proposition for Enterprise Architecture (Uma Proposição de Valor para Arquitetura Empresarial)

 Uma interessante abordagem sobre Arquitetura Empresarial do blog de Richard Veryard (http://rvsoapbox.blogspot.com)!

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Monday, June 15, 2009

A Value Proposition for Enterprise Architecture

#EAC2009

Something else I took away from Sally Bean’s and Peter Haine’s workshop Reflecting on EA at EAC 2009 was the relationship between two sets of questions. What is EA all about, what is the (emerging, changing) identity of EA? What is the value proposition for EA?

I personally find the second of these two questions much more important and interesting than the first. Questions of identity often result in entrenched positions, and (as I discussed in my previous post Think Globally, Act Locally) can produce division between different views. In the case of Enterprise Architecture, there is a traditional view (EA-as-IT-planning) and an emerging view (EA-as-business-strategy).

I think the question about the value proposition opens up a much more interesting discussion about the possible evolution and potential multi-tasking of enterprise architecture teams. (EA itself needs to understand its business model to help it survive. The full exploration of the value proposition needs something like the Osterwalder business model canvas we discussed in our workshop on on Business Modelling for Business Improvement, so I’ll have a go at that. See below for Osterwalder template.)

One of the key questions for the value proposition is the timescale. Sometimes enterprise architecture is described in terms of longer-term value: through-life coordination and capability management. Some people are still comfortable with this; but other people see a difficulty with the fact that business needs to wait so long to realise this kind of value, or even to measure it properly. In contrast, there is growing support for a much shorter-term delivery of value.

Essentially, that means EA must deliver value within same timescale as projects. And what is the nature of this value? Roger Sessions points to the massive failure rate in IT projects, and argues that’s something EA can and should be fixing. In other words, the EA value proposition can be defined in terms of improving IT project success ratios.

I see two difficulties with this. The first is one of perspective. If EA is working closely with the projects, then how is the EA perspective any different from project perspective? And if the problem is that projects are doing things wrong, then how can EA fix the problem from within the project perspective? The EA view of business requirements is hardly going to be very different from that of the good business analyst on the project. If EA is no longer taking the long view, then its value proposition is largely based on the hypothesis that the architects may have a bit more knowledge and experience than the business analysts, and some slightly superior tools and techniques. But we might achieve this outcome more efficiently and effectively by simply upgrading the business analysis practice and redeploying the architects as senior business analysts. Indeed, some IT organizations seem to be moving in this direction, although they haven’t taken away the formal job titles yet.

The second difficulty is that the job of overseeing projects and ensuring project success is hugely duplicated. Within a large IT organization, we might have project management, programme management, IT governance, tools and methods, quality management (control and/or assurance) as well as enterprise architecture, each with its own “body of knowledge”, each trying to prevent projects from getting things wrong (and claim the credit). The word “silo” springs to mind here. (All of those roles might possibly be held by the same person, but does that remove the complexity?)

From a systems-thinking perspective, this looks completely crazy. If the value proposition for EA is simply to correct things that projects are doing wrong, then this counts as “failure demand”. If the value proposition for EA is to make sure that projects are successful, then that’s putting the responsibility in the wrong place. It is the project’s job to be outstandingly successful. If they can achieve this unaided, this appears to make EA redundant.

In summary, I’m not convinced that the traditional value proposition for enterprise architecture is convincing to its customers, whoever they are. (Who are the customers anyway, the CIO or CFO who have to pay for it, or the business line management and IT project managers who are being asked to spend time and effort on EA “for their own good”, and are not always grateful for EA attention?) I think the top priority for the enterprise architecture discipline is to find and formulate a viable and meaningful value proposition. And it really doesn’t matter whether we call it “enterprise architecture” or not.

Thanks to several Twitter friends for today’s discussion: A Jangbrand, Anders Østergaard, Andrew Townley, Brenda Michelson, Colin Beverage, Roger Sessions, Todd Biske. (Did I miss anyone?)

Building a 21st Century infrastructure (Construindo uma infraestrutura do século 21)

Bom post do http://greenit.cbronline.com, publicado em março deste ano!

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Building a 21st Century infrastructure

Published:10-March-2009

By CBR staff writer

Enterprises are under increasing pressure to do more with less. Rapidly expanding infrastructure means increased power consumption, complexity and cost. CBR takes a look at the ways in which a company can reduce these factors without compromising efficiency or performance.

In days gone by, the solution to tackling increasing data centre demand was to simply throw more hardware at it. More servers equalled more capacity. But that required more space, power consumption, man hours and more bits and bobs to keep everything running.

The explosion of data – one report suggests 15 petabytes of information is being generated every day – is driving up data centre demand, which in turn is pushing up energy costs.

During the economic boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s this was not an issue; companies had money to throw at data centres. But that is no longer the case. IBM suggests that data centre costs, such as energy and space, have risen eight times since 1996 and companies can no longer afford to throw good money after bad at the problem.

So what can enterprises do? Data, applications and any other information contained in a data centre have to stay there, and it has to be available whenever the company needs it. Data centres need to run all the time, switching the infrastructure off at night, along with the lights, is not an option.

Simply reducing costs is not enough. Enterprises need to spend their money more wisely. That does not have to mean spending less money, instead the pressure is on to find more effective investment opportunities. Is it a sensible option to cap server power consumption when that could impact the response time of applications and SLAs?

Enterprises are increasingly turning toward virtualisation as a way of reducing costs without having to worry about a decrease in the availability of business-critical operations. Virtualisation can be described as the abstraction of “a form of technology away from its original environment – a literal and physical form – and redeliver it in a virtual form.”

The idea of virtualisation is not new. Companies such as IBM have been involved in it, in one form or another, since the 1960s, “in the specific context of separate logical partitions running in parallel on a shared mainframe,” according to the company. Since those days, virtualisation has grown to cover systems, storage, networks and applications.

Data centre consolidation, shifting the functionality of many servers onto fewer servers, enables a company to manage the infrastructure as a single entity and results in reduced space, power and cooling requirements, as well as management costs.

Having all these systems in place is one thing, but getting the best out of them is another. IBM says its technology can also improve performance, with what it is calling a dynamic infrastructure. Unveiled at IBM Pulse 2009 in Las Vegas, it aims to close the gap between where a business is and where it needs to be, to enable it to operate more efficiently.

Richard Esposito, vice president of IT strategy and architecture services, IBM Global Technology, said: “A dynamic infrastructure is the intelligent connection of underlying business and IT assets that are highly-automated to reduce costs, increase service levels and better manage risk.”

Esposito went on to say that the line between business assets and IT assets is becoming blurred and that is actually improving organisational efficiency. Taking a more business-minded approach to IT assets means companies are getting greater visibility of their infrastructure, which in turn is driving greater utilisation and performance.

Al Zollar, IBM Tivoli general manager, said that this is where IBM’s dynamic infrastructure sits. “Our approach is holistic, it’s not just based on our equipment but connecting with the equipment provided by others, such as power distribution units and air conditioning units,” he said. “Then we bring all of those assets into a single unified view where we can get a single set of measurements.”

This helps provide a much clearer picture of what is happening within a data centre, says Zollar. “We are bringing not just traditional IT assets but assets that are being enabled with IT. Data centre assets like cooling and power distribution are being smartened up with sensors that can communicate with control systems that can be driven by automated actions,” Zollar said.

The improvements to data centre optimisation look set to continue. Many industry analysts have suggested that Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) has the potential to revolutionise next-generation data centres.

The ability to leverage 10Gb Ethernet networks should not only improve the performance of the data centre network but it could also reduce power and cooling costs as well as the amount of physical space needed, as the number of network interface cards required should be reduced.

In a recent interview with CBR, Dante Malagrino, marketing director, data centre solutions at Cisco Systems offered a ringing endorsement of FCoE: “Network infrastructures can be very costly to build and manage, and it’s too complicated. So as we look at IT simplification and reducing costs, FCoE will consolidate lots of different environments on one piece of cable,” he said.

Malagrino’s comments were backed up by Craig Nunes, VP of marketing at utility storage vendor 3PAR. He recently told CBR: “We’ve seen a lot of I/O transitions come and go and they always take longer than predicted, but it is clear that FCoE has the momentum. You get better protocol consolidation, it’s easier to deal with and you get better leverage of your data centre equipment,” Nunes said.

But Nunes did issue a word of warning. “All the signs are there that it’s going to be an important interconnect from storage to host. That said, it won’t be today or tomorrow or later this year,” he said.

That still leaves enterprises with the issue of what they can do now. One company helping to deliver IBM’s dynamic infrastructure is Ilog, headquartered in Gentilly, France. In August 2008, the company was acquired by IBM for $340m, with the deal completing in January 2009.

CBR recently caught up with Jeremy Bloom, senior product marketing manager for optimisation at Ilog. He said his company is providing optimisation technologies which fit with IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative, particularly in the power supply field.

“We’re delivering a few applications for the dynamic infrastructure. I think there is a great potential there. One of the ideas behind it is that it enables you to locate and fix a lot of issues through sensors and automation,” Bloom said.

This is an important development. Enabling a company to proactively monitor and manage its infrastructure should improve resiliency. If a sensor detects that a server is getting close to operational capacity, business-critical applications can be automatically moved to a different server, with no drop-off in performance or availability.

 

CBR opinion

Integrating both the business and IT infrastructures, what IBM terms a dynamic infrastructure, should enable a company to consolidate an existing infrastructure by using virtualisation technologies to operate much more effectively. It is hard to argue with the benefits: higher efficiency, improved performance and reduced energy and management costs.

Photo credit: Pandiyan on Flickr, CC licence

In Search of Innovation (Em busca de Inovação)

 Um excelente artigo sobre inovação que saiu em The Wall Street Journal de hoje!

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JUNE 22, 2009, 5:46 A.M. ET

INNOVATION

In Search of Innovation
When companies try to come up with new ideas, they too often look only where they always look. That won’t get them anywhere.

By JOHN BESSANT, KATHRIN MöSLEIN And BETTINA VON STAMM

If you want to understand why some companies lack innovative ideas, think about the man who can’t find his car keys.

His friend asks him why he’s looking for the keys under the lamppost when he dropped them over on the lawn. “Because there’s more light over here,” the man explains.

[The Journal Report- See the complete Business Insight report.]

For too many companies, that describes their search for new ideas, and it pretty much guarantees they won’t go anywhere fast. While such a company can marginally improve what it’s already good at, it misses out on the breakthroughs—those eureka moments when a new concept pops up, as if from nowhere, and changes a company’s fortunes forever.

Those ideas, however, don’t really come from nowhere. Instead, they are typically at the edge of a company’s radar screen, and sometimes a bit beyond: trends in peripheral industries, unserved needs in foreign markets, activities that aren’t part of the company’s core business. To be truly innovative, companies sometimes have to change their frames of reference, extend their search space. New ways of thinking and organization can be required as well.

In other words, they have to look away from the lamppost.

None of this is easy to do. But companies that succeed may just recognize the next great opportunity, or looming threat, before their competitors do. And that’s important in tumultuous economic times with rapidly changing technologies. Indeed, every once in a while, that blip on the horizon turns out to be a tsunami.

Min Jae Hong

For the past several years, we and other researchers have participated in workshops with more than 100 companies discussing and experimenting with new ways of looking for and developing innovations. Here are nine examples of practices with the potential to produce a company’s eureka moment.

BUILD SCENARIOS

Many companies use teams of writers with diverse perspectives to create complex scenarios of what future markets may look like. The writers try to imagine detailed opportunities and threats for their companies, partners and collaborators. An oil company that wants to explore energy opportunities in cities of the future, for example, might want to work on scenarios with writers from construction, water and utility-management companies.

Industry organizations and government agencies use scenarios, too, sometimes in collaboration with companies. Bord Bia, the Irish food agency, works on scenarios with global food companies based in Ireland like Kerry Group PLC and Glanbia PLC. Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk AS has shared scenarios with the Oxford Health Alliance, a British nonprofit. Novo Nordisk thus helps the cause and broadens its own views by gaining the input of alliance members.

SPIN THE WEB

A few companies have created Web sites that act as literal marketplaces of ideas. InnoCentive.com is a site where people and companies look for help in solving scientific and business challenges. Posters of challenges sometimes offer cash rewards for solutions: Amounts have ranged from $5,000 to $1 million. The site began as an in-house tool for research scientists at Eli Lilly & Co. to help one another. Now it is independent, with Indianapolis-based Lilly as a founding shareholder.

      [Far and Wide

• The Situation: Companies looking for innovative ideas often limit their searches to fields they’re already familiar with.
• The Problem: That can help with incremental progress, but it seldom leads to the kinds of breakthroughs or inspirations that generate new markets and dramatic growth.
• The Solution: Companies need to look at the edge of their radar screens, and sometimes a bit beyond, to experience eureka moments. The authors describe methods that successful companies use to keep innovation strong.]

By opening the site up, Lilly gets wider access to individuals and companies with ideas that may be of value. Problem solvers can be professionals, retired scientists, students or anyone who can answer a problem that has stumped a company’s own researchers. InnoCentive, based in Waltham, Mass., says the site gives solutions to about 40% of the problems posed.

Other companies use their own Web sites as open invitations for new ideas. BMW AG, for example, through what it calls its Virtual Innovation Agency, invites ideas from “small and medium-sized innovative companies” on the Web site bmwgroup.com/via.

ENLIST LEAD USERS

Ideas and insights from so-called lead users can be the starting point for new markets, products and services.

Lead users are innovators themselves. They tend to be people working in or using products in a specific market who are frustrated by the tools, goods or services currently available and yearn for something better. Many medical devices, for example, originate from sketches drawn by surgeons, surgical nurses and other medical staff who feel driven to experiment with new ideas because current products aren’t meeting their needs. They are often supportive, and tend to tolerate product failures as part of a process that helps bring about improvements. Software and other online-products companies have shown interest in lead users for perpetual beta testing and other product development.

British Broadcasting Corp. sponsors a Web site for lead users at Backstage.bbc.co.uk. Several times a year the BBC uses the site to host what it calls “hack days,” when it lets subscribers play around with source codes the BBC uses for such online applications as live news feeds, weather and TV listings. BBC staff look at what the Backstage subscribers come up with to see what can be useful. Some of this work is feeding through to applications used on the BBC Web sites and elsewhere. For example, one idea from a hack day led the BBC to link its iPlayer, a tool for watching BBC video on the Web, with Facebook.com , the social-networking site. Facebook users can set up an iPlayer window on their pages to watch BBC programming.

DEEP DIVE

Interest has surged in market research that uses detailed, firsthand observation to learn more about consumers’ needs or wants. Deep diving is one of many terms used to describe the approach, which resembles an anthropological study in the way researchers immerse themselves in the lives of the target consumers.

Such approaches can help uncover underserved or unserved markets and give clues to new directions and new frames in which to search for innovative ideas.

Novo Nordisk, for one, mobilized teams in several developing countries to research how health systems with limited resources were handling diabetes care. Researchers compiled detailed interviews and observations—documenting cases by interviewing patients and recording them on video, and spending time in hospitals, rural clinics and the health ministry. The result: a rich picture of the market, of needs that weren’t being met, and fertile suggestions for alternative products and services that might be delivered.

PROBE AND LEARN

Some companies design probe-and-learn strategies that study opportunities in segments of markets the company isn’t active or strong in. This strategy goes further than deep diving by actively experimenting with new ideas in a new context. The experiments might not always work, but they will give valuable insight about future directions of markets.

[Join the Discussion

Join Kathrin Möslein and two of her colleagues for a forum on how and where to look for new ideas]

BT Group PLC, the British telecommunications company, for instance, is looking at ways to help the elderly live longer at home. By 2026, about 30% of the U.K. population will be more than 60 years old. As part of its probe-and-learn exercise, BT is conducting a test service in which it places sensors in the homes of elderly customers to monitor their movement; if the sensors detect unusual activity, or none, they trigger an alarm. BT says that the service already is generating revenue, but that its greater significance is as a stepping-stone to help the company learn more about what will be a huge and very different market in the future.

MOBILIZE THE STAFF

By engaging more of its own workers in the search for innovation, a company can broaden its vision. For example, the duties of procurement, sales or finance groups can be expanded to include learning about trends they encounter that ordinarily might be considered not of primary interest to the company.

Reckitt Benckiser PLC, the U.K.-based maker of household-cleaning and personal-hygiene products, has mobilized a large number of its agents in purchasing, marketing and customer relations to be on the lookout for relevant new market trends. A small in-house team attempts to verify reported insights and to build on them. The team reports regularly to senior managers, who decide which concepts to pursue further. A company spokeswoman adds that 40% of revenue in 2007 resulted from innovations launched in the prior three years.

CATER TO ENTREPRENEURS

Innovation can bubble up inside a company as well—when the organization follows practices that favor it.

[For Further Reading

See these related articles from MIT Sloan Management Review

• The Era of Open Innovation
  Henry W. Chesbrough (Spring 2003)
  Companies are increasingly rethinking the fundamental ways in which they generate ideas and bring them to market—harnessing external ideas while leveraging their in-house R&D outside their current operations.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/4435
• How Management Innovation­ Happens
  Julian Birkinshaw and Michael Mol (Summer 2006)
  Few companies understand how such innovation occurs and how to encourage it. To foster new management ideas and tech­niques, firms first need to understand the four typical stages in the management innovation process.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/47415
• Institutionalizing Innovation (Winter 2008)­
  Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson and Joseph V. Sinfield
  Building an engine that produces a steady stream of innovative growth businesses is difficult, but companies that are able to do it differentiate themselves from competitors.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/49216
• The Great Leap: Driving Innovation From the Base of the Pyramid
  Stuart L. Hart and Clayton M. Christensen (Fall 2002)
  Billions of poor people aspire to join the world’s economy. Disruptive innovation can pave the way, helping companies combine sustainable corporate growth with social responsibility.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/4415
• Integrating Innovation Style and Knowledge Into Strategy
  Edward F. McDonough III, Michael H. Zack, Hsing-Er Lin and Iris Berdrow
  If you devise strategy by thinking only about the positioning of your company’s product or service, you are missing a huge opportunity.
  http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/50114]

Clear policies that reserve blocks of time for scientists or engineers to explore their own ideas have worked well at some companies. At 3M Co., based in St. Paul, Minn., scientists can spend 15% of their time on projects they dream up themselves, and the company has set procedures to take bright ideas forward, including grants and venture funding. Google Inc. takes a similar approach, allowing researchers to devote 20% of their schedules to play time, pursuing their own ideas and projects. The company credits this policy with fostering many of its important product innovations, including Gmail, its popular Web-based email service.

It helps to have an established pathway to make sure the best new ideas get taken forward. In some cases, informal networking has pushed innovations to the forefront—below the radar screen of formal corporate systems. BMW, for example, has experience with what it calls “U-boat” projects, which run along below the surface of formal management approval. The Series 3 Touring car came into being not because of a formal product plan but as a consequence of efforts below the radar screen. The team responsible often worked at night, and welded together a prototype made from whatever bits they could scavenge.

START A CONVERSATION

Sometimes innovations arise when different departments talk to each other. But what’s the best way to start the conversation?

Many companies set up so-called communities of practice, which are typically internal Web sites where employees are encouraged to share knowledge and skills important to the company.

A British company, meanwhile, has taken the idea a step further. To encourage more interactions and exchanges of ideas, the U.K.-based engineering-services company Arup Group has developed something it calls a “knowledge map” depicting the company’s areas of expertise and how workers and departments are connected to one another in terms of information flows.

BREED DIVERSITY

Close, long-term relationships—depending too much on the same customers, partners or suppliers for innovation ideas—can reinforce old ways of doing things and make changing a frame of reference difficult.

Some companies seek innovation partners with whom they wouldn’t normally work, and who might bring a fresh perspective. Doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, for example, consulted with members of a pit-stop crew from Italy’s Ferrari Formula One motor-racing team to explore ways of improving how children were being moved out of heart surgery and into intensive care.

Some companies are also recruiting staff with very different perspectives to spice up their knowledge mix. The Danish enzyme maker Novozymes actively recruits experienced entrepreneurs. Such characters aren’t afraid to challenge corporate perspectives and to make waves. As one manager put it, they create a little grit to stimulate the oyster to produce pearls.

–Dr. Bessant is a professor at the Imperial College Business School in London. Dr. Möslein is a professor at the School of Business and Economics at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Nuremberg, Germany. Dr. von Stamm is director and catalyst at the Innovation Leadership Forum in North Wootton, England. They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Why Inflation Isn’t the Danger (Porque a Inflação não é o Perigo, nos EUA)

Enquanto aqui no Brasil os comentaristas de plantão ficam preocupados em saber se o COPOM-Comitê de Política Monetária do Banco Central vai baixar mais (ou não) a taxa de juros, nos EUA a discussão é se as medidas adotadas para superação da crise irão trazer inflação ou não.

Em um texto publicado ontem em The New York Times, o Prof.  Alan Blinder dá a sua versão para a questão!

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Why Inflation Isn’t the Danger

By ALAN S. BLINDER

Published: June 20, 2009

SOME people with hypersensitive sniffers say the whiff of future inflation is in the air. What’s that, you say? Aren’t we experiencing deflation right now? The answer is yes. But, apparently, for those who are sufficiently hawkish, the recent activities of the Federal Reserve conjure up visions of inflation.

David G. Klein

 

The central bank is holding the Fed funds rate at nearly zero and has created a mountain of bank reserves to fight the financial crisis. Yes, these moves are unusual, but these are unusual times. Concluding that the Fed is leading us into inflation assumes a degree of incompetence that I simply don’t buy. Let me explain.

First, the clear and present danger, both now and for the next year or two, is not inflation but deflation. Using the 12-month change in the Consumer Price Index as the measure, inflation has now been negative for three consecutive months.

It’s true that falling oil prices, now behind us, were the main reason for the deflation. Core C.P.I. inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, has been solidly in the range of 1.7 percent to 1.9 percent for six consecutive months. But history teaches us that weak economies drag down inflation — and ours will be weak for some time. Core inflation near zero, or even negative, is a live possibility for 2010 or 2011.

Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, is a keen student of the 1930s, and he and his colleagues have been working overtime to dodge the deflation bullet. To this end, they cut the Fed funds rate to virtually zero last December and have since relied on a variety of extraordinary policies known as quantitative easing to restore the flow of credit.

These policies basically amount to creating new bank reserves by either buying or lending against a variety of assets. But quantitative easing is universally agreed to be weak medicine compared with cutting interest rates. So the Fed is administering a large dose — which is where all those reserves come from.

The mountain of reserves on banks’ balance sheets has, in turn, filled the inflation hawks with apprehension. But their concerns are misplaced. To understand why, start with the basic economics of banking, money and inflation.

In normal times, banks don’t want excess reserves, which yield them no profit. So they quickly lend out any idle funds they receive. Under such conditions, Fed expansions of bank reserves lead to expansions of credit and the money supply and, if there is too much of that, to higher inflation.

In abnormal times like these, however, providing frightened banks with the reserves they demand will fuel neither money nor credit growth — and is therefore not inflationary.

Rather, it’s more like a grand version of what the Fed does every Christmas season. The Fed always puts more currency into circulation during this prime shopping period because people demand it, and then withdraws the “excess” currency in January.

True inflation hawks worry about that last step. (Did someone say, “Bah, humbug”?) Will the Fed really withdraw all those reserves fast enough as the financial storm abates? If not, we could indeed experience inflation. Although the Fed is not infallible, I’d make three important points:

•

The possibilities for error are two-sided. Yes, the Fed might err by withdrawing bank reserves too slowly, thereby leading to higher inflation. But it also might err by withdrawing reserves too quickly, thereby stunting the recovery and leading to deflation. I fail to see why advocates of price stability should worry about one sort of error but not the other.

•

The Fed is well aware of the exit problem. It is planning for it, is competent enough to carry out its responsibilities and has committed itself to an inflation target of just under 2 percent. Of course, none of that assures us that the Fed will hit the bull’s-eye. It might miss and produce, say, inflation of 3 percent or 4 percent at the end of the crisis — but not 8 or 10 percent.

•

The Fed will start the exit process when the economy is still below full employment and inflation is below target. So some modest rise in inflation will be welcome. The Fed won’t have to clamp down hard.

SKEPTICAL? Then let’s see what the bond market vigilantes really think.

The market’s implied forecast of future inflation is indicated by the difference between the nominal interest rates on regular Treasury debt and the corresponding real interest rates on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS. These estimates change daily. But on Friday, the five-year expected inflation rate was about 1.6 percent and the 10-year expected rate was about 1.9 percent. Notice that the latter matches the Fed’s inflation target. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

But if the inflation outlook is so benign, why have Treasury borrowing rates skyrocketed in the last few months? Is it because markets fear that the Fed will lose control of inflation? I think not. Rising Treasury rates are mainly a return to normalcy.

In January, the markets were expecting about zero inflation over the coming five years, and only about 0.6 percent average inflation over the next decade. The difference between then and now is that markets were in a panicky state in January, braced for financial Armageddon; they have since calmed down.

My conclusion? The markets’ extraordinarily low expected inflation in January was both aberrant and worrisome — not today’s. As long as expected inflation doesn’t rise much further, you should find something else to worry about. Unfortunately, choices abound.

Alan S. Blinder is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. He has advised many Democratic politicians.