The other day, a friend was asking me whether I was going to expand and get myself an office. Really, I quite like keeping lean and using coffee shops and park benches as my office space… to me, I don’t really want an office at all! And though there are teleconference challenges still to be overcome, security risks and self-management issues, but there are some perks to be able to go to work without having a shower, much less getting dressed…especially as the high-impact talent of today demands a better work-life balance.
I love how the economic circle turns… while we still have Indian students coming to study at our Universities, now our students are being tutored online by Indians in India ! And the value for money that you can get is mind blowing… and is all the more important considering that India and China produce five times the number of science and engineering graduates as the United States. We need all the help we can get to keep up…
Having been involved with community groups for some time, one of the challenges that you face sooner or later is handing over control. This is especially a challenge when you’ve actually made a difference – where you’ve sought to lead the organisation in a particular direction. Studies of business development – like this case study from HBS – show how the ‘founder’ or early leader of a change is often replaced over time as the organisation moves to a different phase in development. The conclusion: Often, you can be the king of a small domain or the prince of a great empire.
My dad is getting close to retirement. He’s worked in the public service forever and I struggle to see what he’s going to do with himself once he retires… maybe he’ll start his own company and become part of the wave of retirees flocking to create new wealth when they don’t really need to do it ! My grandfather did it… so did the guy who created Dreamworld… Hopefully he’ll be a bit more sensible than the current array of media-tart-web 2.0 entrepreneurs .
I’m increasingly obsessed with design. To me, it’s where the value is being created today – it’s where it’s at. We have enough stuff, now we want it to deliver values… here are some of the Masters of Design … Jochen Zeitz (CEO, Puma AG), Steve McCallion (creative director Ziba Design), Paula Scher (partner, Pentagram) and Clive Wilkinson (principal, Clive Wilkinson Architects).
It would seem that we could see more Fields Medalists (like a Nobel prize in maths) coming from outside the peer review system with the creation of internet-based journals that are peer-reviewed after publication like PLoS ONE and Philica . To me, this is very interesting, posing challenges to the existing publishers, though creating great opportunities for dynamic new findings and ideas – should be great to watch it grow. This direction has stimulated the venerable Nature already – they’ve started exploring how to maintain relevance with its own experiment in online peer-review. I wonder when we’re going to start creating concept maps of the concepts and supporting references though…
Daniel Smith
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