thingamy

busy, busy, busy

Quiet here, but I'm having a great time testing, testing and testing our little system :)

Just like I always say - this is like Lego!

I build cool and complicated (business) models from generic building blocks, and I get the same the kick out of doing it.

"Being not having" to paraphrase Eric Fromm.

"Hmm, how should this process run... what is really an invoice - a real object or really something represented by another object?... Should this event happen first or later?... What follows this snippet of process? What precedes it? etc. etc."

Using atomised building blocks really makes one rethink the basics.

Hard to get a Lego model elegant in one try, ditto for a business model...

Feels like being nine years old again, on the carpet in my room, door locked, lemonade and cookies at the ready, no parents in sight and a huge box of building blocks - dreaming, scheming, building, testing, trying, ripping apart and starting over.

How time flies!

And it works, wow! Just now running my own little virtual bike factory doing all what has to be done there and showing reports and accounts and whatnot.

When bored with procuring frames and wheelsets I flip over to a virtual hospital and run that too, giving Mr. Peter Patient all kinds of ailments and treatments.

Yikes, making software is fun!

OK, OK, it does not look like much yet, more like Mr. Daimler's first four wheeler - quirky handles all over the place. But it did move and steer!

The E-class will follow, S-class a bit later :)

And next week I'll be in Geneva at Lift06 for what I am sure will be invigorating and good fun. Will bring skies for some weekend nature romping too.

And I've had the pleasure of being invited to show a bit of what we're up to - all of 15 minutes, that will be fun too, at least for me... :)

what does a business do?

Or rather what does it deliver?

Yesterday's post was inspired by a call for help - "A Solution to My Solution Issue, Please" - prompted by a corporate discussion of whether being in the business of "products" or "solutions" was the right concept.

Once upon the time business

supplied products.

Simple, but perhaps a bit limiting.

Then the ten-rules-to-success and seven-steps-to-bliss management book crowd suggested that being in the business of solutions would be better.

And it was sticky. Now most are in the business of

supplying solutions.

I, respectfully of course, think this is still too limiting.

As argued before here, here and here - it equals to embracing the known instead of the unknown. And it is in the unknown that the future lies - thus another concept holding us back.

Why mess it up, why not stick to the core of any basic strategy? The very simple notion that a business is supposed to

deliver a value.

Current problems, future problems, new ways, joy and happiness and any jumping of the curve for your customers is covered. Limitless.

That's what business is all about. Delivering value.

Please. I want that. Value. Whatever it is.

I do value more things than just having my problems solved.

embrace the present or create the future

Guy Kawasaki has yet another excellent post (hep, this guy's been at it for ten days only, must say!). This time it's ten points for students called "Hindsight" of which #8 caught my eye:

"challenge the known, embrace the unknown"

Then there is Chris Nel over at Tom Peter's where asking for help - "Solution to My Solution Issue, Please!";

"Is all this "solution speak" just management b&*s£@t? Has anyone done any serious work on what solution is?""

A bit earlier I argued against the classic VC and expert attitude that you need a solution to a problem to make any sense at business creation.

To all I would add:

Solution requires a problem, and a problem is always a known.

Solving a problem is useful of course, and even necessary - but it will never allow for a quantum leap, a paradigm shift.

The unknown has no known problems, and it is in the unknown where the future lies.

Thus being in the business of delivering solutions you will never be able to jump the curve to the next curve.

hierarchy and necessity

Just having uttered "awast ye scurvy hierarchies", I stumbled (thanks to Doc) over Dave Roger's last post. Here's an excerpt:

"Hierarchies, of themselves, are not evil, in fact, they're essential. When you have to have open-heart surgery, wouldn't you like to have the best surgeon, at the best hospital? Sure you would. Too bad you can't afford it. But let's not digress. There are many hierarchies. When I show my ID and drive through the gate at work, I get a salute and a cheerful, "Good morning, sir." Doc would not get the salute. So I got that going for me!"

I agree to that a system for categorisation or ranking of usefulness is fine and... eh, useful.

But a hierarchy is more:

1. A tree structure to organise data / resources
2. A categorisation / ranking system
3. (In organisations) A conduit for work orders / sequence (by command and control)

Lucky enough there are other methods for ranking usefulness of data and resources (reviews at amazon for example).

Ranking as in command and control requires a combination of 2. with 3. above, and as far as I can see is not what Dave had in mind in above quote.

Organising data has alternatives (tags say).

Sequence or flow has alternatives to the classic command and control (assembly line could be mentioned).

And with that we have not even started being serious about finding alternatives.

Thus, I, in all humility of course, do disagree with the postulate that hierarchies are needed.

In fact, I would say that the postulate holds us back from exploring potential alternatives, and that is  a tad counterproductive, is it not?

traumatised bosses

The latest issue of Fast Company served an interesting article by Danielle Sacks titled "Scenes from the culture clash" (access code from page 10 of print edition needed - could give it away but that would probably get me into trouble... sigh).

In essence it tells about generation-Y (birthday post 1977) clashing with the classic hierarchy of corporations.

Little respect for positions, no waiting for hierarchical acceptance, little patience for the whole structure nor its mechanism.

Danielle tells a tale about a psychiatrist who handles some of the "victims" of this particular culture clash. And lo and behold, it's not the young ones who comes to her office, it's the old hands who needs therapy - the "traumatised bosses"!

Heh. I like that. No feeling sorry for, sorry. Deserved.

Thanks to the web, IM, online games, blogs, etc. - we have a new generation who's wired in networking, who "lives" in a transparent world, used to stick their heads out, used to personal image risk, used to learning by doing and who takes real conversations with no limits for granted.

How can they ever fit into the classic control and command structures with little transparency?

Never I say.

How can current management adjust to the new workforce the article asks.

Not. Forget adjusting the managers, adjust the notion of managers being a necessity I say.

(Managers is the hierarchy after all...)

Awast ye scurvy hierarchies!

No change of heart there :)

[PS: Happy new year to all!]