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Oh, my baby! Just look at this!.. http://www.odenvoyage.ironie.org/friends_links.php?ytiPage=47ux0

Dell's Design Focus

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) held its 2006 conference here in Austin, TX where Dell announced that they were investing in Design to the tune of 500 new engineers and began recruiting at the event.

It is clear that the business world is high on Design. They should be. As business gets more and more competitive, traditional methods for creating a winning strategy are becoming too well known and the processes so well understood, that separation will come from less scientific ways of differentiation - it will come from inspiration.

The CEO is no longer the hero in today's media, it is the designer - just look to Apple's Jonathan Ive and Motorola's Jim Wicks and more. They are the all-stars, the rock-stars of modern business and hiring a good design leader and design team means survival in the coming years.

Atoms and Richard Florida's Work

Live Science posted a story today about a researcher in France who has developed a theory that connects the art of successfully locating a business with the science of how atoms interact with each other.

http://www.livescience.com/othernews/060927_business_physics.html

The research appears most valuable to a person who say, wants to open a bakery by telling them what other stores they should locate near for success. It would be interesting to see if his theories could be extended to what city or region one should locate a business. In my opinion, Dr. Richard Florida is the thought leader in this area. Combining his theories with physics would be an interesting experiment.

PG: The Executive Summary

Tonight, I must type the executive summary for my teams project. We call it "PG" as the initials for the company name. We've already determined the name and established the company but are keeping it under wraps for now.

Navigating the information that leads to deciding to Patent an invention or not is one of our toughest battles. The expense of pursuing the patent may outweight the benefit, especially if you consider the costs to enforce the patent. The debate rages on, in the mean time, the executive summary to our business plan must be started...

Culture and Competitive Advantage

Famed economist, Michael Porter wrote in Chapter 1 of "Competitive Advantage" the following:

"The concept of generic strategies also has implications for the role of culture in competitive success. Culture, that difficult to define set of norms and attitudes that help shape and organization, has come to be viewed as an important element of a successful firm. However, different cultures are implied by different generic strategies." "Culture can powerfully reinforce the competitive advantage a generic strategy seeks to achieve. If the culture is an appropriate one. There is no such thing as a good or bad culture per se. Culture is a means of achieving competitive advantage, not and end to itself."

I have the utmost respect for Porter and his theories, however, in this case, I disagree with his assessment on culture not being the "end to itself". I believe that things are changing and that an organizations very survival depends on its culture. If one focuses on a vibrant and positive culture, you can secure a competitive advantage. Culture cannot be manufactured, it is nurtured and the most natural state of your business. As individuals are advised to "just be your Self", so too must a company just be its Self. From there, the right strategy will emerge. As Porter points out, the strategy can change and this idea is not out of synch with culture. If you are true to your Self, your company culture, you will find that your strategy fits naturally and also changes naturally as you are in tune with your organization, industry and customers.

PG: Birth of My Company

The MSSTC program at UT allows us to carry a technology idea from conception to market, ending in an opportunity to participate in Moot Corp, the "Superbowl" of business plans, presented by MBA's from around the country.

The idea my team is carrying forward is an idea of my own, we'll call it "PG" for now. The team combined has supply chain management, product development, software architecture and research backgrounds and I am confident we will be going all the way with this one.

Our initial research is done and the idea looks promising. We are now in the middle of delivering to our professors the elevator speech and the executive summary portion of the business plan.

It is an exciting time and I am looking forward to launch, sometime after May!

Pepsi CEO Indra K. Nooyi

In August, PepsiCo promoted Indra K. Nooyi to CEO, making her the 12th female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. There are many obvious inspiring things about this promotion - it is refreshing to see qualified female executives land the roles they have earned and the fact that Nooyi is Indian-born and Indian-educated.

What is less obvious but perhaps more inspirational is that Nooyi did it her way. She ascended to the top position at one of the most respected organizations without compromising her beliefs, traditions and values. She still wears the traditional sari on occasion, she is a devoted mother of two and she played guitar in a all-girl rock band!

Our culture places so much emphasis on shedding our personalities and unique attributes when we join the workforce. This is horribly misguided and detrimental to the success of the individuals and the success of the organization as a whole. Incorporate your art into your job, your creativity will flourish and benefit your role. Take your note pad to the beach and journal on a Thursday rather than going to work. (Make sure you boss knows your taking off!) The point is, if you don't express your Self and live true to your Self, you can never experience complete success in life or your profession.

Rising to the Pepsi Challenge, CFO Magazine, September 1, 2006
Pepsi's New CEO a Refreshing Change, Kate Klonick, ABC News, August 15, 2006