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Skills That Will Remain in Demand In a Computer-Rich World
“How do we win the “man-vs.-machine” battle?
The key is not to compete, but to partner — to develop new ways of combining human skills with ever-more-powerful technology to create value.
Another key, on a more personal level, is to work on skills that help you couple the best of human creativity with computer power. These kinds of jobs are where many of the best future opportunities will lie.”
Skills needed according to Brynjolfsson and McAfee: Applied math & stats, negotiation and group dynamics, good writing, framing problems and solving open-ended problems, persuasion, human interaction and nurturing.
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Life’s Work: Sally Ride – Harvard Business Review
“Sally Ride thought she’d grow up to be a physics professor, and she did. But before that, she became the first American woman in space. She went on to found Sally Ride Science, a company focused on improving science education for kids, which she called a “business imperative for the country.” She died in July, at age 61, just weeks after talking with HBR. Interviewed by Alison Beard”
Archives for July 2012
Visibility, Context, Correctness & Responsiveness — active information meets change-friendly
This week on active information, I offer some observations on the Pew Big Data report in the context of one of my top projects: evolving business-technology architecture and practices to accommodate continuous change. (a.k.a. change-friendly)
My change-friendly tenets:
- You can’t change what you can’t see (Visibility)
- Context is king (Context)
- Not every change is the right change (Correctness)
- Delay is the enemy of change (Responsiveness)
The post teaser: “Big data ushers in a new era of visibility, for good and evil. But, visibility without timely, intended action, isnt all that big.”
The post: Visibility, Context, Correctness & Responsiveness … – Input Output.
Lessons from Bechtel on making information valuable via APIs — active information
My latest active information post highlights Bechtel’s case study on implementing an API strategy to satisfy the needs of data consumers without all the heaviness of the current, data creation focused, applications.
It’s a great case, covering the use of APIs at Bechtel, the business and technology drivers, the benefits, the underlying technology, challenges and future plans.
The post: Lessons from Bechtel on making information valuabl… – Input Output.
Link Collection — July 22, 2012
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“Because strategy is a journey, executives need to study, understand, and internalize the economics, psychology, and laws of their industries, so that context can guide them continually.
For example, being able to think strategically in the high-tech industry involves a nuanced understanding of strategy topics such as network effects, platforms, and standards. In the utilities sector, it involves mastery of the economic implications of (and room for strategic maneuvers afforded by) the regulatory regime. In mining, leaders must understand the strategic implications of cost curves, game theory, and real-options valuation; further, they must know and be sensitive to the stakeholders in their regulatory and societal environment, many of whom can directly influence their opportunities to create value.”“Moreover, many senior executives are happy to delegate thinking about such technology issues to their company’s chief information officer or chief technology officer. Yet it’s exactly such cross-cutting trends that are most likely to upend value chains, transform industries, and dramatically shift profit pools and competitive advantage.”
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Are You a Strategist? — HBS Working Knowledge
“Montgomery maintains that strategy has been narrowed to a competitive game plan, separate from a firm’s larger sense of purpose. This has led to the eclipse of the leader’s unique role as arbiter and steward of strategy. The exaggerated emphasis on sustainable competitive advantage has drawn attention away from the fact that strategy must be a dynamic tool for guiding the development of a company over time.
“Strategy has become more about formulation than implementation, and more about getting the analysis right at the outset than living with a strategy over time,” Montgomery says. “As a consequence, it has less to do with leadership than ever before.”
Leading strategy
Montgomery explains that leading strategy requires confronting four questions: What does my organization bring to the world? Does that difference matter? Is something about it scarce and difficult to imitate? Are we doing today what we need to do in order to matter tomorrow? Being a strategist means living these questions, she says.For a leader, becoming a strategist starts with getting clear on why, whether, and to whom your company matters.”
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The CIO As Chief Systems Officer – The CIO Report – WSJ
“As a result, companies need talented executives in the business who can step back and look at what is going on from a holistic, systems point of view. How do you frame strategies so they can be quickly operationalized to meet the time-to-market demands of the business? How can you position what you are able to get done in the near term as phase one of your longer term strategy? As companies struggle to address those questions, CIOs are increasingly being asked to play the role of Chief Systems Officer, someone who understands the strategic requirements of the business and has the tools and the business ability to operationalize the strategy in a timely way.”
Link Collection — July 15, 2012
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Magazine 2012 July – Best of Maine: Unsung Hikes from an AMC Trip Leader
“A hiking guide for the Maine Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, Carey Michael Kish has been exploring Maine’s forests and mountains for more than forty years. He is the editor of the AMC’s recently updated Maine Mountain Guide (amcstore.outdoors.org), beloved by hikers for its detailed no-nonsense trail descriptions and full-color topographical maps. Added to the tenth edition are more than two hundred trails that are either relatively new or often overlooked. We gave Kish, who loves them all, the tough task of recommending ten.”
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Why the days are numbered for Hadoop as we know it — Cloud Computing News
Discusses technologies beyond Hadoop, in context of Google’s stack.
“Most interesting to me, however, is that GMR [Google Map Reduce] no longer holds such prominence in the Google stack. Just as the enterprise is locking into MapReduce, Google seems to be moving past it.”
