I’m always amazed to hear what kids pick up from conversations, TV shows, books, friends, … Recently I heard my 9-year-old tell his friend that the Nintendo Wii has “bad graphics”, but he doesn’t care as he enjoys the games. Turns out he was repeating what he heard during a game console comparison on Cartoon Network. The source of this propaganda is irrelevant, but it gives us an opportunity to discuss the characteristics of disruptive innovations.

Clayton Christensen first defined the concept of disruptive technologies in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business (Collins Business Essentials). The concepts that he described have become the reference work on disruptive technologies, particularly for large and established firms. Christensen defined disruptive products as follows.

First, disruptive products are simpler and cheaper; they generally promise lower margins, not greater profits. Second, disruptive technologies typically are first commercialized in emerging or insignificant markets. And third, leading firms’ most profitable customers generally don’t want, and indeed initially can’t use, products based on disruptive technologies.

I am a fan of James Burke’s PBS TV series Connections (Connections 1, Connections 2 DVD Set, Connections, Vol. 3). In his shows, he explains disruptions occurring from coincidental inventions, changes in regulations and society, exploding demand for new products as well as growth in complementary technologies created through strange connections. With that broader context, it is possible to further define disruptive technologies and products as follows.

• They create new markets and customer segments that previously did not exist or were thought unattainable;
• They initially target underserved customers;
• They are perceived as inferior by existing mainstream customers;
• They attract early adopters and create loyal followers as they offer new performance vectors previously unmet;
• They reduce complexity and are simpler in design and easier to use;
• They specifically target breakthrough improvement in a new performance vector;
• They can require a new business model or distribution method;

Nintendo’s focus has been continuous improvement of customer experience through innovative products, such as the release of Nintendogs that enabled gamers to train virtual puppies. They also made it to the Forbes‘ list of The Top 10 Disrupters Of 2006. With the introduction of Nintendo Wii, they have seriously impacted the status quo of console videogaming especially from the perspective of how, who and why:

• how we interact with the virtual world of gaming;
• who plays with these games;
• why we play them;

With that, Wii certainly had a disruptive impact on the society and its ecosystem, which not only enabled Nintendo to change the way it competes, but also enable revenue growth through new high-value customers that was previously not attainable. It is important to note that even the name Wii was chosen to bring a sense of inclusiveness and togetherness.

Many hard-core mainstream customers might disagree that we reached a point of diminishing returns in graphics. As Sony and Microsoft concentrate on more graphics power and beefier consoles, Nintendo is focusing on changing the rules of the game by coloring outside the lines. With the motion-sensing controller, they are redefining how we interact with video games where the players take a very active part in the game, and burning calories in the process. I was personally surprised to see how entertaining Mario Party 8 is for both the players and the spectators. As the games are more interactive, parents are more willing to let their kids play the video games, and also more likely to play along.

With more graphics power and beefier consoles, Sony and Microsoft are leading the pack with more realistic graphics which are also more complex in nature. For me it is a challenge to remember all the push buttons and movements on a controller. However, Nintendo Wii’s motion-sensing controller broke down barriers by removing complexity in playing games. It made real life games, such as tennis, boxing, baseball, more fun and simple to play, thereby entering into a market, ages over 35, that was not accessible to the videogaming industry previously. Today, it is not unheard of for grandparents to buy a Wii system for themselves after playing with their grand kids.

Nintendo Wii is also opening up doors to new uses beyond gaming. Glenrose Rehabilitation hospital in Canada is using the consoles to help patients with movement and balance issues. Wii Big Brain Academy enabling all ages to participate and keep brain sharp, but also connect with WiiConnect24 to network and measure how they are doing against other kids. The educational and health-care arena is a new market previously untapped by the videogaming industry.

Nintendo has proven the validity of motion-sensing and control technology. With that, we’ll see rise of new markets and industries utilizing the motion-sensing technology, where it will be embedded into everyday technology from cell phones, TV remote controls, computers, cars …

So, when is it important for you to look for disruption in your product lines and technologies?

• Your definition of competition has been to match competitors functionality and feature set. You feel like you are fighting them in their battlefield and not making any headway towards the hill. So, it is time to look for a new hill with your own rules.
• Your mainstream customers are more interested in price than feature set or functionality. They are starting to highlight good-enough products that are cheaper from your competitors.
• You are praying for a miracle and your growth is mainly driven through mergers and acquisitions.
• You are noticing and dismissing new entrants that are penetrating your market through your under-served customers.
• You lost touch with your lead users and have been stuck in a never ending cycle of continuos improvement.
• Your market is shrinking, yet there is clearly untapped markets and customers to be reached.

Ultimately the powerful disruptive innovations are about the people. It is not as much about the impact they may have on industries or markets, but how they transform our lives. Just think back to the introduction of glucose meters and how they improved the lives of diabetics, or iPod/iTunes on how we listen to our music, or blogging technology and YouTube on enabling anyone to become the content creator and publisher, or Internet enabling globalization. Anyone, any where, any age, any skill-level now have access to the products and technologies, inexpensively, easily without dealing with the previous complexity.

There is obviously more to disruptive technologies than what we just discussed. Though the risks are high and the immediate return on investment is not obvious, with well planned technology/product management, clear focus on customer and good timing the results can be spectacular.

Technorati Tags: Clayton Christensen, James Burke, disruptive technologies, Nintendo Wii, disruptive innovations

Word for Word of American Public Radio recently brought a conversation with Thomas Friedman and Dov Seidman from the National Press Club. The discussion includes Dov Seidman’s new book How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life).

The interview revolves around how the business landscape is changing as the world gets flat and what it means to individuals and businesses. Dov emphasizes that in order to be successful in this connected world, it is not about what you know but how you do it, and how your values of trust, integrity and transparency will drive your profitability and business results.

You can listen the interview How to do business in the “flat world” at the Word for Word archives. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Word for Word, Thomas Friedman, Dov Seidman, How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything…in Business (and in Life), How to do business in the “flat world”

The Wall Street Journal recently had an article on “Working Together… When Apart: As employees scatter around the globe, virtual teamwork has become crucial. Here are 10 rules for making it work” by Lynda Gratton (June 16-17, 2007). You can access the article on WSJ.com or Business Insight section of MITSloan Management Review.

After managing a large team of globally distributed developers, I also came up with my rules for making virtual teams work. So, if you have to play the hand that is already dealt, here are my rules for building high-performance virtual teams.

1. Align organizational values to support virtual teams — Just do it! might be a great slogan for encouraging employees to act, but not as effective when the goal is to improve teamwork and communication between your dispersed teams, especially at the early stages of team forming and storming (reference: Tuckman Model of Team Development). Along the same lines, e-mail might be your preferred mode of communication, but it can also be a challange for teams where English is their second language. You’ll be suprised to see how a simple phone call can improve team productivity, communication and morale.
2. Think local, act global — Not everyone can work productively in isolation, i.e. limited face-to-face contact, work is done mainly through e-mail, IM and some phone conferences. So, where possible look for ways to establish a small team working together at a given location. It will improve trust, build a sense of commitment and support the feeling of being part of a larger team. Also, support diversity by encouraging each of your locations to have their own culture. However, make sure they all share your common organizational values.
3. Practice transparency and objectivity — This is a good rule to follow regardless, but even more important if you are managing a virtual team. Remember, someone’s perception becomes another’s reality. Transparency enables interested parties to understand what and why, while objectivity brings facts, diverse perspectives and sense of fairness into the discussion.
4. Agree and enforce team processes — The last thing you need is an unexpected check-in right before a major build and release cycle. Make sure your team understand and follows the agreed upon procedures and tools.
5. Promote leaders with good facilitation skills — When bringing diverse teams and experiences into a new project, it helps to have a good facilitator that has everyone’s trust and respect. See my previous post on characteristics of a good facilitator.
6. Risk manage your project — Vacations, sick days, and unexpected issues are inevitable. However, these emergencies are ever more heightened when dealing with differences in time zones and communication gaps. With that, risk manage your project by identifying and assigning backup individuals to risky areas, or dividing up the work among different sites.
7. Rotate meeting times and locations — Working across different time zones and locations is disruptive to personal life. So, share the load by rotating meeting times and face-to-face meeting locations.
8. Mandate a day of silence — Although it is great to have a team that can virtually work 24×6, and maybe even 24×7, the overhead associated with working in a virtual environment can be wearying. So, depending on the intensity of the interactions, declare a day, such as every virtual Friday, as a quiet day. This will give everyone a break, and allow people to recharge their batteries.

So, what works for you?

Technorati Tags: Working Together… When Apart, virtual teams, building high-performance virtual teams

My recent post on Effective Strategies For Surviving Culture Tax, specifically the concept of utilizing emotional detachment got some attention. At Huffington Post, you can read Bob Sutton’s The Virtues of Emotional Detachment and how “learning when not [to] care, what not [to] care about, and how to not care” can be an effective carrier tactic in times of need. At Slow Leadership, I enjoyed reading Carmine Coyote’s insights on emotional detachment in Should you learn not to care — or just not to care so much?.

Enjoy!

A friend of mine brought up the question of dealing with organizational cultures where the process of getting things done is draining and demotivating. He refers to this as culture tax. I have seen many cases where misalignment of priorities, inadequate resources, complex organizational structures, lack of clear accountabilities, misguided values of the leaders and overwhelmed groups help create this culture tax.

If your work environment reminds you of one of the regions of Hades, read on and remember what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Otherwise, consider yourself one of the lucky ones, but file this blog away for later reference as your time might come.

Before I share my survival techniques for effectively sailing through rough waters while keeping sanity, it is quite important for you to do a personal assessment. Be honest and ask if the culture of your organization is right for you. If you do decide to stay, be clear on your motivation, purpose and goals.

If your challenge is dealing with jerks in the workplace then check out Bob Sutton’s blog as he has extensive information on the subject. Though I haven’t read his latest book, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, I have enjoyed listening to his interview on Standford’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series. Once you recognize and accept the negative styles of the people you are working with, you are no longer the victim. With that, you can focus and direct your energy on how to effectively achieve your goal.

Next, take your time and revisit your organization’s decision making process, key influencers and decisions makers. I previously touched on the decision making process and decision quality chain. Reflect on your objectives and how your circle of influence (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey) helps/hinders the accomplishment of those objectives. As a side note, if you are a people manager, please find ways to isolate your team from all the politics and demotivational activities of your organization. You will be surprised how this will not only improve your team’s motivation, but also increase your productivity and effectiveness.

This exercise of understanding organizationally where you stand in regards to your objectives, recognizing how decisions are made and who the decision makers are will enable you to raise issues well. Here the goal is to translate your concerns and issues to purpose and objectives that others will not only relate to but also care about. Basically, look for ways to extend your circle of influence.

In addition, I recommend practicing the Zen discipline of emotional detachment. Unfortunately, this is often misinterpreted as not caring and being disengaged. However, emotional detachment merely directs you not to be attached to an outcome or to an expectation. This practice will help you objectively evaluate the situation and recognize new opportunities as they arrive. After all, when one door closes another will open, but only if you are listening.

Here are a few other tips that worked well for me in the past:

• Be a good observer, and focus on learning people’s styles: what motivates them, how they are influenced, how they listen and communicate, … And, adjust your style as needed.
• Be open to getting help, coaching and mentoring from others.
• Recognize and celebrate little accomplishments. This can be especially hard for high achievers, but especially important in situations where progress is slow to achieve.
• I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a healthy lifestyle, exercise and meditation for maintaining a positive attitude and outlook in life.

Keep on smiling. Remember, your smile is one thing that is under your control. And, please do share your experiences and survival techniques with us.

Technorati Tags: organizational cultures, culture tax

One time or another, every firm struggles with the answer to this deceitfully basic question: what business are we in? Those that are successful at figuring out the answer continue to evolve, the rest become extinct.

What business are we in is an important question as it guides an organization at ever facet of its decision making: who its customer is, what needs it meets, what benefits it provides, how it’s organized, how its organizational culture formed and what competencies it develops to deliver this value. Fundamentally, it orchestrates how the value is created and delivered, for the firm, its customers, employees and shareholders.

Knowing what business you are in, and more importantly not in, helps the firm focus on what to pay attention to, what to ignore and what to learn: customers, markets, competencies, technologies, trends… Ultimately, this all contributes to the firm’s profitability, its top line and/or bottom line growth.

It is also important to note that the industry, market and customer dynamics are constantly evolving and changing. Being aware of those changes is crucial for a firm’s ability to evolve, and to refine the answer to the question: what business are we in. At the same time, our thought models, our day to day context constrains and limits our thinking. Therefore, building awareness of the complex environment we operate in, and becoming mindful is a key to survival of the firm. Scenario planning, forecasting techniques and SWOT analysis are tools that can help break the boxed thinking and force us to look beyond what is obvious. The challenge for managers is how to design these agile organizations that can evolve and respond to the changing needs.

Railroads are a classic example from the pages of history books. Once the growth engines for the country, now mostly extinct. The ones that survived, like Union Pacific, redefined their business as transportation and not just railroads. Henry Ford introduced the concept of mass production to automobile industry: you can have any color, so long as its black. But, it was GM that recognized the changing trends in the customer desires and realized that semi-customized designs could be delivered at minimal cost to the customer: a car for every purse and purpose.

What started as a test and measurement business in the late 1930s for Hewlett Packard, became computing and peripherals in the 1990s, and today is moving “to integrate content across the home, whether it’s emanating from the Web, from satellites, from cable, or the PC, and bring that to the consumer’s touch.” (The Wall Street Journal, The Weekend Interview with Mark Hurd The Un-Carly by Michael S. Malone, April 14-15, 2007)

Amazon is not in the business of selling books or groceries for that matter. For Amazon to be successful, to be profitable, they built the needed competencies for logistics, warehousing, distribution and fulfillment: the shipping business. Starbucks is not a service provider, they are all about experience. Experience that brings us the “third place” beyond home or work, a place that has a feel of a friendly sidewalk cafe in Europe, and a place where you can order a double tall not fat extra dry cappuccino with a dense, caramel-like sweetness and smooth, satisfying finish consistently every time.

I mentioned that we recently visited LegoLand. Take a look at these shots I captured; what business do you think they are in: annual subscription? Park hours were 10am-6pm during our visit. On a positive note, with so many interesting things to look at, we were able to avoid most of the rides. Our son, like a kid in a candy store, was quite happy with just being there, and enjoyed every minute of the visit.

So, what business are you in?

Technorati Tags: what business are you in

Recently Motorola CEO, Ed Zander, commented on the challenges of building and executing to their strategy: “Today, this is about execution in the mobile-device area. It’s been more challenging to figure out the strategy than we initially thought.” I previously shared my observations on Motorola, specifically their single-minded focus on strategy and innovation. So, this blog is devoted to reminding us of the challenges surrounding successful execution of strategy.

The word strategy originates from the efforts of military leaders as they utilized their troops based on their own as well as their enemy’s resources and capabilities, examination of the external forces including the terrain, weather and the likelihood of uncertain events and developments, in order to triumph in combat. In the world of business, the battle is the effective utilization of a firm’s scarce resources to bring in profits in the face of fierce competition. This requires good understanding of the needs and wants of the potential customers, and the ability differentiate oneself so that customers would choose you over your competitors.

As strategy is a long term plan of action to achieve a particular goal and objective, it requires execution with fluidity, especially in the presence of uncertainty. Effective execution is a competitive business advantage: better execution = better performance. Creating a strategy is easy, but implementing it successfully is where the challenge lies.

The following are my personal experiences and challenges that I have encountered in building and implementing strategies successfully. Reviewing this against your current strategy and its implementation, and devising action plans to avoid these common pitfalls will help improve your chances of a successful outcome.

Strategy is about making tough choices and defining trade-offs; it is about what you are going to do, but more importantly what you are NOT going to do. This requires strong leadership, as successful strategy is about being different regardless off all the nay-sayers inside and outside of your firm. Unfortunately, on too many occasions a firm chooses to keep its options open, and provides an environment that enable its people to ignore the firm’s strategy. However, when things go wrong, the end result will be wasted effort, a disappointed and cynical workforce, and not to forget the loss of credibility of the leaders.

Many aspects of a firm’s strategy can be copied by its rivals, as in the case of fast followers. It’s incredibly arrogant for a company to believe that it can do what its rivals do, and do it better and longer. How well a firm can execute its strategy is determined by its assets and the core competencies. At the same time, immediate availability of market research and competitive intelligence data, continuos changes in customer buying habits, government regulations, convergence of technologies and globalization are making what once was a clear differentiation of the firm’s competencies a temporary competitive advantage.

Strategy is about the basic value you are delivering to your customers: who, what, and how. With this, strategy must have continuity; it can’t be constantly reinvented. Without continuity, your organization will be confused, and your customers won’t know what you stand for. At the same time, strategy formulation and implementation is an on-going process requiring continuous reassessment in the face of ever-changing marketplace and customer demands. Strategy will not need to change often, but will require periodic adjustments based on external circumstances. With that, it is important to keep your strategy flexible, and give your people the freedom and empowerment to respond and adjust as needed.

Strategy and its execution requires ownership at all levels, from the CEO on down. Executive leadership must embed strategy in the organization: from its people, to its processes, to its culture and values. Any strategy, however brilliant, will fail unless people are emotionally committed to its success. In order to achieve unwavering commitment, people need to be involved in the strategy process early, they need to understand and believe in the strategy, and they need to feel included. The organization’s culture, values, incentives, people, structure and processes all contribute to how the existing internal environment will support its strategy. Through establishment of performance targets and incentives, it is important to direct the existing behavior and culture. After all, what gets measured gets done.

Execution is a process, not an action or a step, and it requires time. Though strategy might be built by few, execution requires everyone. With that, it is about change and management of that change. If change is not managed effectively, it will generate internal resistance. Though speed of execution is important, you need a cohesive approach to communicate, align, motivate, focus and enable people to execute the strategy: self-supporting environment that will follow through even where the organizational structure and processes fails.

Strategy must be attainable. The executive management team needs to assure that the organization’s objectives, performance targets, and strategically critical business processes are all in alignment with its strategy: horizontally and vertically across the various departments. Each of the strategic initiatives identified needs to be budgeted and managed. Most importantly, there needs to be recognition of both the existing competencies and the required competencies for success, and a plan to bridge the knowledge-doing gap. Establishing tangible and practical steps, along with key milestones, will help achieve early victories that will generate momentum and excitement for the whole organization.

Technorati Tags: successful execution of strategy, strategy, implementing strategies

Well designed metrics programs enable firms to focus on what is important and what really adds value for themselves and for their customers. However, designing and executing a metrics program requires work and effort. At the same time, it is too easy to misuse the metrics. You have probably seen these classic examples of metrics gone bad, and have plenty to share of your own.

• Scott Maxwell on his post highlights the 10 best ways to lie with metrics.
• Dilbert tackles the challenges of establishing software metrics where Wally writes himself a new minivan.
• Joel Spolsky shares his customer service experience and the impacts of measuring customer service representatives based on the number of calls taken per hour.
• Yet another airline is proud to achieve successful on-time gate departure, while you sit on the tarmac for the next 2 hours before the actual take-off.

As valuable as the metrics are, falling into common traps can result in dysfunctional behavior, cultivate the wrong intents, and ultimately hurt the firm, its customers and shareholders. Here are some of the most common metrics mishaps:

• Too many (or too few) metrics — Your metrics should be aligned to support your strategy. Too many metrics is a clear distraction, not to mention a ton of work. At the same time, too few metrics will not help track the real issues or progress. Your metrics should be insightful and actionable, and not become your self-imposed prison.
• Ill defined metrics — Your metrics should not be left to interpretation by your team, and create additional confusion. They should bring clarity to your strategy, and to your performance measures. Take the time to explore and define your intents and objectives with your metrics, especially when it comes to measuring intangibles such as building an innovative culture, delivering quality products, and even increasing customer satisfaction.
• Conflicting metrics — Your metrics are the levers you will use to maximize the performance of your company. So, beware of conflicting metrics, as they will send mixed messages to your organization: are we cutting cost or becoming more innovative? Where needed, you can use weighted methods to prioritize your metrics.
• Lack of communication and training — Metrics have the power to build teamwork by pulling everyone in the same direction. However, this requires the leaders of the organization to clearly communicate the strategy, explain the purpose of the metrics program, and provide the needed training to support the teams.
• Inaccurate metrics — You may have your metrics well defined, but are you measuring them correctly and accurately? As an example, before you celebrate the large number of visits you received on your web site, ensure that you are not counting the search engine crawlers, or the number of comments you received do not include spams (my latest headache…).

So, what do you do, and where do you start? I have recently finished reading Bob Phelp’s Smart Business Metrics: Measure What Really Counts & Manage What Makes The Difference. This book is a good reminder of measuring what really counts, along with several case studies that discusses the process of building these metrics. In the past, I used Balanced Score Card performance metrics, which is a good management tool for aligning your organization top to bottom. However, I enjoyed the simplistic approach Bob shared in his book for building metrics program to specifically address the business issue at hand, and ensure that it is aligned with the business strategy. He refers to this as the value web: “a framework for the sort of measures that are needed to guide a business and its managers.”

Since the value web framework is focused on building value for the organization, the process starts by identifying a few key output metrics: things that really matter and should be measured as the output your business produces or wants to produce. Once you have determined your output metrics and ensure their alignment with your organization’s strategic direction, the next step is to determine the value drivers (factors that drive present value) and value builders (factors that drive future value) that impact the output metrics you identified. This clear separation of roles in the value web framework brings clarity, focus on what really counts and ensures present and future value is included in the metrics. Once the value web is built, the next step is to identify process improvements to support the objectives: reward and recognition programs, communication programs, training programs, etc. It is important to note that creating the value web requires in-depth analysis of drivers and their impact on the value whenever possible, using tools such as variation analysis, decision trees, regression analysis, or conjoint analysis.

However you build your metrics, make sure your metrics are clear, actionable, supports business objectives, and based on data and facts. Also remember, metrics drive behavior, so understand how your organization’s behavior might change before you launch into your next metrics program.

Technorati Tags: Bob Phelp, Smart Business Metrics, metrics program

Social networking technologies are changing the way customers and consumers interact with companies, their products and services. As an example, Amazon.com customer reviews and the ’search inside this book’ technologies influence my book buying habits; and this is not limited to just searching for opinions on books.

Social networking sites and technologies can be a gold mine for companies; in some aspects they are the online version of a focus group. Customer discussions and comments enable firms to get real-time feedback on their products, identify trends and test ideas with a diverse user community. However, building these online communities are not without challenges and effort, as summarized by Michael Bloch in the article Forums as marketing tools - tips and pitfalls.

For Dell, this challenge is a good opportunity to reconnect with their customers. As I mentioned on my previous post: Strategy 101: Revisiting Low-Cost Leadership with Dell:

At the business level, reiteration of the customer commitment and firm understanding of why the customer chose, and is going to choose, your company’s products is the next important step in starting your differentiation process.

So, in February 16, Dell announced Dell IdeaStorm and StudioDell. These new social sites complement their already existing Direct2Dell: one-2-one communications with Dell blog site, which has been in operation since at least July of 2006.

No doubt that the value of these sites is linked to the utilization of the ideas presented. However, it is certainly a great strategy for working closely with customers on the web. I am quite curious to see how it will evolve and change Dell’s brand, products and services. However, I do hope Dell will look beyond the customer input for new ideas and innovations. Managing customer feedback can be a challenge, as in some cases “customers may not know what they want, but certainly want what they know.” (Bob Phelps — Smart Business Metrics: Measure What Really Counts & Manage What Makes The Difference) As always, there needs to be a balanced approach, as highlighted in Ballmer’s interview with Fast Company.

“We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we’re in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There’s no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either.” Steve Ballmer

Social webs are a great resource for the firms; just don’t let them be the only source for your innovations.

About Dell IdeaStorm
Dell IdeaStorm is a social website designed for customers to share, discuss and vote for ideas as a Dell user community. The site provides a vehicle for the customers to post new ideas and wishes, and enables the community to promote/vote on these Digg-style. As Dell points out on the Ideas in Action site, they have every intention to utilize these learnings, as well as providing their responses for the most popular requests, such as the case for Linux distribution options.

Dell employees are monitoring IdeaStorm to gauge which ideas are most important and most relevant to you. And we’ll share those ideas throughout our organization to trigger new thoughts about how we evolve as a company.

As your ideas continue to pour in, we will use this page to provide updates on ideas that Dell is considering. We’ll also show you how your ideas are being put into action at Dell over time. Please check back to see your ideas in action.

About StudioDell
Dell also launched “Your Stories” section on StudioDell, similar to YouTube, for customers to submit their own videos showing how they use Dell products and services in their business and personal lives.

Technorati Tags: Social networking technologies, Social networking, Dell, IdeaStorm

The concept of technology goes back to ancient Greeks: online etymology dictionary states technologia as its origins:

• techné: meaning belonging to the arts, crafts or skill;
• logia: meaning sayings or speaking;

In the ancient times, technology was more than “gadgets”; it was mostly about the craftsmen passing their know-how, the art of doing things from generation to generation, and improving and innovating along the way. As the terminology evolved, it also acquired a scientific context: etymology of technology indicates that in 1859 the meaning “science of the mechanical and industrial arts” was first recorded, followed by the terms high technology in 1964 and high-tech in 1972.

Today, technology is more vital than ever to firms’ global competitiveness. Yet, technology is inherently difficult to manage with its constantly changing and unpredictable nature. As a result, the field of Management of Technology has emerged to help aid the technology managers through this complex maze by giving them the tools, processes, and the know-how they need to bring high-tech products to the marketplace. The U.S. National Research Council in Washington, D.C., defined management of technology (MOT) as:

linking engineering, science, and management disciplines to plan, develop, and implement technological capabilities to shape and accomplish the strategic and operational objectives of an organization (National Research Council, 1987).

In summary, technology management focuses on the intersection of technology and business, encompassing not only technology creation but also its application, dissemination, and impact. As technology managers, our job is to align the technology strategy with the firm’s goals and objectives, and to apply our know-how to manage the process and the results. As such, at a minimum a general understanding of technology and innovation, management, leadership, strategy, operations, new product development, project management, product marketing, organizational behavior, and product quality is needed to be successful in the role.

Technology management is a demanding and a rewarding job, as it requires the right balance of generalization and specialization, business and technology, big picture thinking and minding the details, as well as hard and soft skills. Here are some of my observations on where the technology managers often struggle. I would love to hear your experiences as well.

• Focusing mainly on a single aspect of the technology management process — Sure, we all have our strengths. However, technology management requires a multidisciplinary approach. Managing only one aspect of the project, such as technology, without much regard for other facets crucial to its commercialization success, is an early sign of failure. You can see this in products with poor maintenance and upgradeability, issues with overall usability, and failing when it comes to addressing customer needs, or costly manufacturing processes, packaging, etc.
• Executing the flavor of the month strategy — It is the job of the technology manager to ensure technology direction is aligned with the organization’s strategy. However, as Heraclitus stated, change is the only constant. If a change in strategy is not communicated effectively, and change management is not handled accordingly, the team will be left feeling as if they are executing the flavor of the month strategy.
• Failing at the know-how and not utilizing processes effectively — As I discussed in my other posts (Success is a Journey: How do you define it for your innovations?, Quantifying Innovation, or Your Golden Goose: Guidelines for Establishing a Patent Strategy) the process of managing technology will be different based on the type of innovation and where it is in its technology and product life cycle. Inappropriate application of processes will certainly hinder its success.
• Ignoring the softer side things — A big portion of the job requires emotional intelligence, and being able to manage change effectively and efficiently. Available tools and processes are not sufficient, and skills are required to maneuver the political landscape, and ability to manage bottom up as well as top down and sideways.
• Forgetting to wear the appropriate hat: leader, manager, strategist and technologist — A technology manager needs to be able flexible, and wear the appropriate hat as the context requires. We are the leader that communicates the technology vision and strategy, and many times the ones that rally the teams. We also need to strategize for the big picture, define the technology directions and also demonstrate proof of concept as required. Not to forget the fact that we also need to manage the day to day details with a multidisciplinary approach.
• Being oblivious to the influences of internal and external forces — It is too easy to stay focused on the day to day management of the details. However, as technology managers, we need to be mindful, and effectively and efficiently manage the opportunities as well as the threats. I have discussed this topic in detail in my previous posts: Single Minded Focus On Your Innovations? and How To Identify Forces Impacting Your Innovation.

Technorati Tags: etymology of technology, Management of Technology, technology management, technology manager