Swammi says...

(Yes, Joan, that one was for you!)



Today's class was all about how technology will shape the enterprise of the future. I must say that I like assignments about trying to predict the future about as much as ones to come up with something "innovative." (Thanks, Steve, for reminding the class about my lack of innovating skills!) But, that said, I think our group came up with some reasonable ideas.



Both of my classes today touched on how to manage change. In Managing the Strategy Process we discussed the case of Charlotte Beers arriving at Ogilvy and trying to turn the company around through clarifying the vision and providing direction. In IT today we talked about the need for businesses (and departments) to be proactive to change and flexible enough to adapt quickly. I'd like to think that I, personally, am able to manage change pretty well. Heck, I've changed jobs so many times since undergrad, I MUST be good at change, right? But at the same time, I recognize that I can also be set in my ways, especially when it comes to some issues with technology. (Case in point: how long it took me to get a digital camera and an iPod -- and just a Shuffle, no less.)



So, in an effort to be open to both change and technology, here are the technological advances that I plan to make before starting my consulting career at Deloitte:

1. Buy a DVR (because I can't miss Burn Notice, 24, The Office, The Closer, and Leverage just because I'm on the road)
2. Buy a Kindle (because I refuse to read work stuff while I'm on the plane)
3. Buy a real iPod instead of just the Shuffle

I've even started making my list of songs for my iPod...

Holly’s Happy Music
(a.k.a. songs that make me crank the radio up)

I Need a Lover Who Won’t Drive Me Crazy (John Cougar before he was Mellencamp)
She Moves in Mysterious Ways (U2)
Fly By Night (Rush)
Learning to Fly (Foo Fighters)
Inside Out (Eve 6)
Big Yellow Taxi (Counting Crows)
In Love with a Girl (Gavin DeGraw)
Brandy (Looking Glass)
What it Takes (Aerosmith)
Tempted (Squeeze)
Harder to Breathe (Maroon 5)
I Don’t Want to Be (Gavin DeGraw)
Smooth Criminal (Michael Jackson or Alien Ant Farm)
So What – I’m a Rock Star (Pink)
Layla (Derek & the Dominos)

Technology, eh?

Our impromptu debate on outsourcing technology and the impact on national security got me thinking about cultural diplomacy. I had never heard the term until we read a statement from the Obama campaign in my Arts, Cities & Economic Development class. The statement (from January, 2008) asserts that Obama will...

Promote Cultural Diplomacy: American artists, performers and thinkers representing our values and ideals can inspire people both at home and all over the world. Through efforts like that of the United States Information Agency, America's cultural leaders were deployed around the world during the Cold War as artistic ambassadors and helped win the war of ideas by demonstrating to the world the promise of America. Artists can be utilized again to help us win the war of ideas against Islamic extremism. Unfortunately, our resources for cultural diplomacy are at their lowest level in a decade. Barack Obama will work to reverse this trend and improve and expand public-private partnerships to expand cultural and arts exchanges throughout the world.

While growing up, I was fortunate enough to travel to Europe several times with my family, study in Vienna for a semester, and then live in Vienna for four years after undergrad. It was fascinating to see what Europeans knew about America. Of course no one knew where Iowa was -- they only knew New York and California. (I would describe my home as "near Chicago" or just "in the middle.") I had someone ask me if everyone in the States owned a gun. Someone else asked me if I got mugged all the time. Most of what they knew about the US came from movies, most of them violent action flicks.

That has certainly changed today, and the internet and advancing technology have helped, but I think that technology has an even larger role to play now with cultural diplomacy and, for lack of a better way to put it, getting people to know us and like us again. If we can share the good things about our culture -- including art, music and great films (hopefully some of which don't imply that everyone is shooting everyone else) -- and not just Rambo and Britney Spears (yes, technically she sings "music," but you know what I mean!) then I think that will make things easier for the politicians as well.

2nd class - Are you Value(able) 2.0

So, I'll start off with a couple comments on Thursday's class...

While the opening slides in the deck were quite engaging, demonstrating how better systems and technology are needed to solve the problems of the world (yes, I'm purposely being over-dramatic), it was also a little over-simplified. Specifically, the comment about the empty containers (slide #10) is misleading, because it implies that these empty containers and wasted money are due to a lack of "systems, operations, [and] enterprises" (slide #8). The reality, of course, is much more complicated than a computer system that doesn't work -- it has to do with a trade deficit and foreign policy, i.e., that we're importing a heck of lot more than we're exporting. THAT's why we're shipping all these empty containers around. Maybe we need to get someone in China or India to design a better logistics software for that....

On another note, I think it's neat to see how material from my various classes overlap. I know that I'm not the only one in the room who was picturing Mark Bergen down on one knee when we were talking about customers and value.

There's also a lot of overlap at the moment with my PA 5590 class -- Arts, Cities and Economic Development with Ann Markusen of the Humph. My current reading (Bill Ivey's Arts, Inc.) for that class is all about how technology completely changed the arts scene in America, with the advent of recordings and photographs (not to mention the printing press many years earlier). These technological advances meant that there was a distinction between arts "participation" and "enjoyment," i.e., you didn't actually have to PRODUCE the art yourself -- you could read a book, look at a photograph of the Mona Lisa, watch a recording of a play or the broadcast of an opera, or listen to the recording of a symphony. One thing that I found especially interesting was that how the invention of photography paved the way for modern visual art. Arts no longer felt the need to be accurately representative -- a photo could do that -- so they were free to explore more abstract shapes and textures.

Hm. Maybe technology isn't quite as scary as I thought. But I think I'll still reserve judgement...

First Day of Class

I've always found the idea of blogging a little pretentious. Why should anyone be interested in reading the random thoughts of some random guy (or gal)? And more importantly, why on earth should I assume that ANYone would be interested in what I have to say?

But I guess that if I have to do it for class, that's okay....

So, my thoughts on the first day of class. I certainly was not looking forward to fulfilling the IT requirement, especially with the classload I that I have during the A term this semester. But based on class today, maybe it won't be quite as torturous as I feared. Maybe. "The intersection of business and technology drives innovation" certainly seems to be a little more applicable to the average business person than, say, the IT cost reduction project I did this summer with Deloitte! (Now THAT was true hell!) The very term "IT" tends to strike fear in my heart and send a chill down my spine.

We'll see how things go from here...