Ideas from the Association for Strategic Planning Annual Conference
Any reason to get out of Washington’s recent slush-and-ice storms would have been a good one — but I
got to head for sunny Southern California for a great reason. February 27 was the annual meeting of the Association for Strategic Planning, a group dedicated to strategic management, vision, and leadership in general.
I have only one complaint: I didn’t get to spend enough time with everybody. What a fascinating group of people.
Here are some of the many ideas floating around in the conference, in no particular order:
- As much as people talk about strategic planning, they don’t always actually plan. (See Tanaia Parker and enterprise architecture for more)
- Having a decisive, aggressive strategy can lead to fantastic success, and also, total annihilation. (See Michael Raynor’s interesting new book The Strategy Paradox)
- TRIZ, a Russian methdology to solve engineering problems, can be applied quite cleverly to solving strategic issues — people love to take nebulous questions of strategy and use a rigorous methodology to understand them.
- People love getting together to discuss strategy with other professionals - there aren’t as many forums for this kind of thing as you’d think.
- Lucky for me, people still want to talk about THE FUTURE.
Now, time for our next stop on the Future Inc. tour…
-Garland
The News Conundrum — Do we give people what they want, or what they need?
Unless you have been in a coma this week, you’ve been unable to avoid the news of the untimely
death of Anna Nicole Smith and the media frenzy that would make a school of piranha look sedate by comparison. We’ve seen pictures of her fridge, discussions of the corpse and morbid analysis of the woman’s unusual family life.
Many of you will find this obvious, but this is as frivolous as celebrity coverage gets. This woman was a minor, C-class celebrity, whose talents were limited to a large bosom and the willingness to let us watch her emotional demise on reality television. This was not the demise of an elder statesman, nor an especially talented artist, nor anyone of note. It’s a sad story, and while America is at war, there are lots of those going around.
But celebrity sells, and so we’ve seen this story flogged to death. I guess there’s no reason to take hallucinogens when you get to watch CNBC actually try to assess the potential economic impact of her death during the run down of the New York Stock Exchange. Not E! the entertainment channel — but CNBC, the one with Maria Bartiromo and people talking about financial markets. Surreal doesn’t cover it.
Now, why is this happening? Have we lost our minds. Well, yes, but let’s dig in to the story. I had to quiz a close friend of mine who’s in the national media business. I said, "Are you guys feeling a little ashamed right now? How can you slime America with this kind of mindless garbage?" He clued me in on the economic reality of this kind of story.
"Eric, we ran a story on the 2008 budget the same day. It went from committee to subcommittee and there are all sorts of important changes. But right next to it, the Anna Nicole Smith story got 12 million hits on our website in one hour. For every story we do that matters, we have to ring the cash register too. "
We’ve heard this argument before — "We’re giving the public what it wants." And you know, I believe them. The fact is, the story about the budget is right there, for the taking. Next to the stories about the creation of Iraq war intelligence. And the next cure for diabetes. And the future. And all kinds of interesting stuff. But Jennifer Aniston’s putative nosejob will get more hits.
These are the economics of media in a world of six billion channels for six billion people. As we go forward, there are so many choices that people can choose to only be fed the tastiest, least meaningful tidbits of information. And it’s their right to do so. But collectively we have lots of decisions to make that will require an informed people. And perhaps if we are overwhelmed with coverage ever time a C-list celebrity dies, this is a threat to our future.
I’m not certain about any answers here. Thoughts?
-Garland
It’s Who You Know
As my dear old friend April Swain used to say, "I have a question…"
In business, they say "it’s not what you know, it’s who you know," the cliche of cliches.
Now what is the difference between:
The Old Boys’ Club
and
Social Networking?
Here’s why I ask: I don’t think the cultural patriarchy that created the Old Boys Club, the stereotypical elite white male club of influence, really exists anymore. There’s this other Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn driven thing, and it doesn’t have the same values — it’s content, not context. And it’ll take a few years to see how this really affects the networks of power in society.
As Liam Fahey says, if I knew what this meant, I would write a book. For the moment, I’m merely asking.
-Garland
Viva la Revolucion de Open Source!
Cuba and Venezuela, the Bad Boys of the Caribbean Basin, have taken an unusual step in fighting so-called American Imperialism — they are dumping Windows is favor of open source Linux.
You see, not only is dropping $250 on a new copy of Windows Vista a bad deal, it’s feeding the imperialist tyranny! Viva Open Source! Viva Linus Torvalds!
The world is not just collective, it’s collaborative too. I don’t know how this fits into the 20th century paradigm of Communism versus Western Capitalism, but it sure is interesting.
For those of you who get a laugh out of the Red Hat + Che Guevara image — you are as big a geek as I am. Stand up and be proud.
-Garland
$50,000 for a Bachelor’s Degree — thanks George Washington University!
Some of you may know that I regularly sound off on the fact that the cost of basics in American society is skyrocketing ahead of wage increases. Real estate, healthcare, education, etc.
Well, that’s not dissuading some universities from making headlines! George Washington University will now be charging $50,000 per year for their world-famous Bachelor’s degrees!
My wife– who is an employee of George Washington University hospital — choked upon hearing the news, especially since she went to medical school for only $35,000 a year.
I am doing more and more talks at colleges, and when I talk about "graduate degree inflation" people often ask me what I mean. Well, with the increasingly competitive marketplace for work, people have been forced to seek higher credentials regardless of their saleability in the workplace.
These kids ask me if they really are consigned to grad school - is it a sound investment? What are they buying for all this money? I turned to a recent report on higher education, and found a financial analysis of the cost of education — what you could expect given the amount you pay and the amount you would ultimately earn. To elucidate the matter, I made a handy graphic:
Hey, college is still a good deal, in general. Unless you are so smart you’re going to knock ‘em dead at Yale and Princeton, your best money is spent at a state school for bachelor’s degree, followed by a professional degree — the Net Present Value of that combination was around $700,000.
But planning on getting a $200,000 bachelor’s degree in the gender studies of basketweaving, followed by a Master’s in comparative French literature? Its NPV is negative, meaning that you’ll never get your money back. ESPECIALLY when they ratchet up the cost of bachelor’s degrees.
Regardless, this is a message to the Baby Boomers running America’s universities — these tuition hikes are not just a burden to deep-pocketed parents who don’t care either way. You are reducing the future ability of Gen X and Y to keep the healthcare and social security schemes running.
Think about it. This may come back to haunt you yet.
-Garland
Open Source Everything
POINT ONE: Swiss drug maker Novartis, knee deep in genetic research on diabetes, opening up its database to the world instead of hoarding its hard-won information.
"It will take the entire world to interpret these data," says Novartis research head Mark Fishman. "We figure we will benefit more by having a lot of companies look at these data than by holding it secret."
POINT TWO: Apple’s Steve Jobs is pointing out that the record industry’s "digital rights management regime" is pretty much a failure. To increase sales and improve the industry, Jobs is beseeching the companies to open their files to the world.
POINT THREE: If you are truly interested in Linux, open source anything, the future of biology, or the fate of record companies, check out this seemingly unrelated, but fascinating twenty minute movie about "the world’s most important six-second drum loop." It tells the story of the "Amen Breakbeat" the drum loop that essentially launched hip hop and the billions in record sales it has represented.
According to the movie, it was the free nature of the drum sample that allowed a thousand new ideas to bloom.
So the hip hop movement has come to genomic medicine and an update of international copyright law.
Think about it.
-Garland
Slow start to 2007?
Hardly. BUT I’ve been entirely delinquent in blog posts. So let me explain, and then get into it.
Essentially, there is so much moving these days, it’s making my head spin. Demographics, technology, business models, it’s getting more interesting by the second. If you believe it, I’ve been lost in Buddhist concentration, trying to make sense of it all.
Oh yeah, and been on a national book tour in support of Future Inc.
Oh yes, and a second book is now officially in the works, tentatively titled
The Futurist in Chief: What Every Executive Needs to Know About the Future — And How to Manage It.
So much more to come.
-Garland
Be social