Wharton Chapter 18 - Designing the Customized Workplace.

Chapter 18 addresses the issues of the "human capital"factor as it relates to emerging technology and how firms should attempt to balance them. Emerging technologies are surrounding in uncertainties and it's difficult for firms to keep and maintain the talent when it could be years for results to materialize. How do firms balance the people when projects are cancelled and employees are not needed without hurting the morale? Firms must also consider how they recreuit their talent -hire people out of high school and train them or hire older, more educated employees.

The workforce is driven by different motivators (time versus money) and how do these motivators impact the workforce of companies? Employees are becoming less loyal to companies after the fallout of the .com's and tech companies are looking for ways to balance the needs of the employee with the needs of the company. Employees are becoming more powerful with the knowledge that carry and firms worry about how this knowledge can walk out the door to a competitor in such a competitive industry.

There has been a great shift in the structure of organizations to become more flexible with employees by offering them trainings, benefits, bonuses, and mini-sabbaticals. These tactics haven't worked well so businesses are looking for ways to customize the workplace to "suit the needs of both customers and workers simultaneously". Employees now have the power to choose their direction in the company, choose their working schedule, and how to do their work when balanced with the goals and objetctives of the company. Employees should be managed as individuals and not as groups, have outlets to share information and responsibility for the firms situation, and be trusted.

This chapter analyzed the best things about working for a small, tightly-held company and applied it to larger, corporate firms. In smaller companies, employees have the flexibility, the voice and responsibility to share information about the firms situation, and to be trusted. In the following article, it illustrated that little tech firms can play ball with the big firms while offering the customized workspace http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/03/26/cloud-computing-utility-tech-intel-cx_ag_0326cloud.html.

Wharton Chapter 17 - The Design of New Organizations Forms

Chapter 17 discusses the changes in business forms as new technologies emerge in the marketplace. As new technology and ways to deliver goods and services transform, businesses must create new means and methods to manage and exploit these new forms. The author mentioned 6 elements that can be reconfigured to create distinctive organization forms which include the goals of the organization, the strategies, authority relations, technologies, markets, and processes.

From these element, six new organizational forms are now present:

• Virtual Organization - suppliers, employees, and customers are dispersed geographically but are all connected by technology. Dell's connection with customers can be categorized as a virtual organization. Virtual companies have boundless opportunities to connect with customers but the flexibility can also create a new set of challenges such as the lack of face to face time with customers.
• Network Organization - set of relationships between autonomous or semi-autonomous work units for delivering products or services to customers. There are both internal and external - external: organization that creates ties among independent entities to combine skills (ie. partnerships, joint ventures). Internal: much like and external but ties together entities on the inside of the organization
• Spin-Out - organizations that are developed inside and organization that are unique and different and are then spun out to external entities and are usually partially owned by the parent company.
• Ambidextrous Organizations - organizations that continue with their established environment while creating and promoting emerging business environments (sustain and innovate). This gives structure to the new environment while sustaining the current business environment.
• Front-Back Organizations - Customers are served in the front with the backend of the organization supporting the front end. This is typically in service industries that are customer driven.
• Sense and respond organization - Identifying the emerging needs of the customer and responding intensely to those needs. This is important to meet the ever changing demands of the customer which allows the customer to adapt to the changing conditions

Organizations may go through a series of iterations of organizational forms depending on the stage of the business and the industry. For new businesses, their focus is typically on the customer and the strcuture is built in such a way that the business relationships will help grow the business (Front-Back). As the company grows, it has the ability to adapt to the changing needs of the customer (sense and respond) because of additional capital or because the business has reached a point where they can sustain their business and also grow through innovative environments (ambidextrous). When the company hits a point of maturity, internal innovations can become spin out organizations and new companies can be launched as a result. This can be illustrated through the spin off of palm from a very successful 3com. (http://www.news.com/2100-1033-236997.html)

Video Blog Example

This is a sample video I put together using the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 software. I can not only create videos but easily upload them to YouTube or create videos optimized for mobile phones.

There are a variety of avatars I can use to animate facial expressions and movements which is good for those of us who get shy behind the camera. I typically use the camera for video conferencing with old friends but it also allows me to easily create video blogs. I hope you enjoy this brief video of me.

Wharton Chapter 15 - Managing Dynamic Knowledge Networks

Chapter 15 discusses the power of networks and knowledge sharing is very important with emerging technology. Firms must gather the knowledge that circulates around the web and couple that with their own knowledge to form new, useful knowlegde that can be used the firms advantage.

This is first done by analyzing the network and determining the relationships, the flow of knowlege in and around the networks, and who the contacts or "actors" are in the network. Links can then be established to determine the flow and the possible linkages to knowledge. These linkages might include alliances, joint authorship, board interlocks, job changers, or electronic communication. Linkages that may also include "proximity" or area links based on geographics, similar works in technology, cliques working on common goals, or through patent citations.

Networks help establish the outcome of a technology. The sharing of information can help shape the technology both in function and use. Ultimately, these technologies can shape the future for many companies and there are many M&A that occur because of the networks and the technologies a company might possess. Companies should analyze and envision what the networks might looks like, how they will participate in the networks, and how they can harness the knowledge from these networks to create their own advantage.

A new startup firm such as EtripTrader might look at the networks avaible to the company to help build the product and protect the innovation. The idea started with the pilot contacting his son to code the project. The CEO then looked at the competitors products (Sabre airline software - http://www.sabreairlinesolutions.com/products.htm) to analyze features and functionalities. They then called upon Microsoft to help with the coding aspect of the project and used the resources from the Idaho Small Business Development center to gain more networks and contacts to further develop the company. Now, the company is networking with Angel Investors and other VC's to gain money to further develop and market the system. All of these networks were necessary to create and further develop the product.

Wharton Chapter 11 - Appropriating the gains from innovation

In chapter 11, the author states that there are four major appropriation mechanisms to protect innovative gains.

• patents and related legal protection - patents are over-empasized as a way to protect innovations and their effectiveness is sometimes ambiguous. Science and technology can catch up with patents quicker than the patent life. Time and energy may best be invested by evaluating the other mechanisms
• secrecy - one of the hardest mechanisms to protect gains because products can be immitated or information leaked to the public. Simply put, don't share the secrets with the public to protect your innovation. Typically, it's easier to protects secrets surrounding processes than products as processes can be incredibly complex and difficult to reproduce without the knowledge.
• control of complementary assets - by controlling the facilities and capabilities of the manufacturer, innovations can be protected. Without the complementary assets, it's difficult to capitalize on products or know how that require the complementary assets to produce an innovative product. Sometimes, products in an entire industry can be protected because complementary assets are not available to the competitors in the market (IBM example).
• lead time - knowlege and know-how can create lead-time advantages with innovations. product characteristics such as durability can impact lead time. By creating a reputation or having high switching costs for alternate products, advantages can be made in the lead time.

Finding the right mechanism or a combination is very important for companies to protect their innovations. Understanding the uncertainties and applying the appropriate mechanism(s) to protect the innovative gains is important to companies. As the book outlined, "protect the golden goose". It's difficult to determine which idea or innovation will yield the biggest gain but it's important to protect all innovations and think not only about how to protect the innovation today but how to protect the innovation in the future by being responsive.

This framework of protecting innovative ideas can be applied to Mcdonalds food products. McDonalds holds a variety of patents on their processes for french fries (http://www.google.com/patents?id=fbYgAAAAEBAJ&dq=Mcdonalds+product&as_drrb_ap=q&as_minm_ap=1&as_miny_ap=2008&as_maxm_ap=1&as_maxy_ap=2008&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=2008&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=2008)
Not only is McDonalds products trademarked but the sauce used in the big mac is one of the greatest trade secrets in the fast food industry. Though a patent would help protect the "secret sauce", McDonalds may forgo the patent to protect it as a trade secret. (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E6D9103EF936A35751C0A9679C8B63). The manufacturing and distribution channels are complementary assets that have allowed Mcdonalds to move into new markets around the world and still deliver a quality product that consumers love (I'm not the biggest fan). McDonalds holds considerable power in their lead time to get new products to market delivering existing products to locations all over the globe.

Wharton Chapter 10 - Scenario Planning for Disruptive Technologies

The chapter asked a few interesting questions to determine how a company can best prepare for emerging technologies by using scenario planning. The future is unknown but companies should ask. "which set of multiple futures" might be likely and how should a company prepare for them. Companies should consider multiple different scenarios and create or adjust their strategies to define the best path. Scenario planning also helps define the best opportunities and risks associated with the emergent technology and how a company should go about handling them. This can be done by watching for weak signals in the industry and amplifying them. These signals can have dramatic changes on a market or industry.

Scenario planning address three challenges that are inherent in emerging technologies:

• Uncertainty - scenario planning is based around this attribute and can be qualified using objective probabilities
• Complexity - scenarios that are based around a diverse set of factors (political, economic, social, technological) and explores how they mingle with one another in a system
• Paradigm Shift - scenarios that change and "shift the entire mindset and rules" and focus "amplifying the weak signals"

Scenario planning takes the various inputs, uncertainties, and data and puts them into usable scenarios with differing assumptions to be further analyzed. The results are patterns among all the outcomes that can help a company make decisions on an emerging technology and shape the future.

There are a number of steps used in constructing scenario planning. These steps include:

1. Define the issue - determine the scope and use past experiences to help define time frame
2. Identify key stakeholders - who are the parties affected by the change and who are the parties that can influence them
3. Study the driving forces that shape the future of the technology - these forces include Political, Economic, Social, Technological. Gather information that pertains to these forces
4. Identify trends that will affect the interest - based on the data, try to understand how and why these trends will expert influence on the future
5. Identify key uncertainties - outcomes from events (i.e. political race) and these uncertainies can be used to project possible outcomes from the scenarios. It's important to understand the level of importance of each of these uncertains and to weight them accordingly
6. Select the 2 most important key uncertainties - go through list of uncertainties and vote on the top two based on findings from steps 2 - 5.
7. Assess te plausability of the scenarious - determine the likelyhood of these scenarios occuring by analzying trends, the number of uncertainties, and the actions of the stakeholders.
8. Assess the revised scenarios - determine how the stakeholders would react in the scenarios to develop more conversation with the organization and strengthen/weaken the scenarios.
9. Complete more research - put the scenarios into models and diagrams to further explain the nature of the scenario and it's complexities.
10. Reassess the uncertainty ranges - examine the variables under each of the scenarios to see how things might change. Go through the details and examine steps 1-9 to see if any of the data should be changed.

The scenario planning is important because it can be used to "calibrate the nature and extent of comittment a firm to should take in pursuing a set of technologies.. ". The chapter applies the concepts from scenario planning to the newpaper industries.

There are four key traps to avoid when scenario planning:

1. Failing to gain top mgmt support early on - getting buy in from the top early on in the project will help ensure success for the project. Top mgmt are most of the key decision makers in scenario planning (Step 2) and without them, steps 3 -10 may not be completed
2. Lack of Diverse Inputs - get outsiders opinions to scenarios as they may see things differently from those internal participants and these people may help identify other complexities or possible scenarios that should be considered
3. Failure to stimulate new strategic options - the options may not be as groundbreaking or as convincing to leaders in the company.
4. Not tracking the scenarios via signposts - the scenarios may not always have all the grainular data and scenarios need to look at both the big picture and the details to fully understand the scope and impact.

A good example that has followed scenario planning has been the change from oil/fossil fuel cars to electric/hybrid vehicles. The issue at hand is that gas has become very expensive and the consumers (the stakeholders) are looking for personal transportation to alleviate the issue of rising fuel prices.

Car manufactures have looked at a variety of technologies (scenarios) regarding how to combat the issue of rising fossil fuel costs. The manufactures have analyzed the driving forces (political issues, economic issues, social issues) of the rising costs and are creating new ways to deliver low-cost, high effecient vehicles to consumers. These new vehicles have come in the forms of hybrid, electric, and biodiesel giving us four scenarios as stated from the energy scenarios website:

• Peak of Oil is in the distance, Reactive Response - resume business as usual; no change
• Peak of Oil is in the distance, Proactive Respone - transition towards other sources & options
• Peak of Oil is soon, Reactive Response - limited local supply of oil and import will be very expensive, pay higher prices or switch to alternative vehicle
• Peak of Oil is soon, Proactive Response - known that the supply of oil will be limited, disperse fuel where most needed and import only when necessary.

The next step is to look at the uncertainties (price of the dollar falls in world market, new oil supply is discovered in the US, etc) and evaluate the plausability and the level of impact and determine feasibility. Car manufactures are continuing research to look into other methods of energy (battery powered and solar powered that allow for greater distance) and reassess their markets and findings. They then make the decision of whether to move forward.

(http://info.energyscenariosireland.com/Scenario_Planning)

Wharton Chapter 9 - Strategy Making in Uncertain Environments

In chapter 9, the author discussed the rapidly changing strategies needed to survive in the market today. New strategies and the continual adjustment of existing strategies must be tested and tried to impact the overall results. The author discussed discipline and imagination as the underlying pillars of strategies.

Discipline - using a consisten application of rules to evaluate a set of alternatives. using systemic ways to evaluate competitive environments.

Limitations: sticking to methods that have always worked rarely create new original insights. Discipline focuses too much on analysis and thinking that because a method was done one way in the past, it will generate similar results in the future (not taking into account variables such as market, technological, and consumer changes). Alternatives are rarely generated and there is too much power placed on analysis.

Imagination - finding "deliberate diversities" in the way problems are defined and using these diversities to develop solutions. Focus less on experience and more on new and innovative ideas and ways to envision the future.

Limitations: simply put- chaos ensues because of lack of structure. Imagation may focus too much on the future and not the current issues at hand. Imagation may overlook valuable experience and undervalue where the technology/company has come from. Imagination can slow the process because it is chaotic and unstructured and can involve many decision makers.

The framework of utilizing experience with imagination is seen in many companies today. Apple again is a very creative company that has expanded it's product line through creativity and understanding their history/core competencies. With many of apple's products, they exercise discipline within their product lines but have also evaluated other alternatives to create superior products in the market. Apple uses both the framework and the limitations to create new, innovative products for constantly changing markets in uncertain environments.

Wharton Chapters 8 - Commercializing Emerging Technologies.

In chapter 8, the author describes capitalizing on new technologies in the marketplace by watching their success and failures and determine how to improve the product in the market or couple complementary technologies (either products or services) with the new technology to succeed. There were three challenges of commercialization discussed in the chapter:

• Change in Complementary Assets - As the market changes with new products and services, the existing complementary assets can become obsolete (ie. training and sales staff on eletromechanical calculators example).
• Change in Customers - Customer needs evolve with technology and with new products and technologies, the set of customers also change (i.e. typesetting in offices replaced by word processors for all users -new market segments)
• Change in Competition - Competitors change as technology in the market place changes and new market niches emerge -new competition arises as well

The author stated three hurdles emerging technology must overcome:

• whether to invest in developing new technology
• using the investment to develop or acquire new technological capabilities
• commercializing the technology.

A great example of commercializing the technology is the shift from analog watches to digital watches. The analog watch was carefully crafted by the swiss until the introduction of liquid crystal displays and LED's for digital displays. The skilled staff to create the watches was no longer necessary as the manfacturing process to mass produce was farmed out all over the world and digital display watches began to outsell analogs because of cost. Many of the larger companies (Seiko, Casio) began watching the other manufactures and merged companies and products. The mass commercialization of watches could hit new markets because the watch become both affordable and available to all types of consumers. Information taken from "Swatch and the Global Industry" - http://eres.boisestate.edu.libproxy.boisestate.edu/eres/docs/10483/swatch_and_the_global_watch_industry.pdf

Wharton Chapter 7 - Technology Strategy in Lumpy Market Landscapes

In Chapter 7, the technologies developed by companies must determine the direction of the market to determine how to design their products. In the laptop example, the manufacturer looks at both durability and component weights to give the best balance for a rugged, yet high performing laptop. Companies must understand the barriers and determine which ones to push with emerging technology.


The book discussed the "dimension of merit" or the set of attributes to a technology that the user finds valuable and preferable. These preferences create uneven groups of customers or "lumps" in the market. The goal of these emerging technologies is to find the "most favored attribute set" within the market to capture the largest customer set and marketshare.

The firm can then make a choice -focus on a niche market and be vulnerable to competition. Small changes in the attributes can cause a shift and can lead to greater or fewer customers based on the lump in the market. Many disruptive technologies fail to mee the needs of the intended market. These technologies then focus on niche markets which allows the attribute set to grow more rapidly, allowing the technology to infultrate new market segments.

Strategists use an attribute matrix and evaluate customer reactions and responses to the technology. The spectrum of responses are broken down into 3 components:

• Basic: a basic attribute that is expected in an offer but gives no real value in the market but can preclude the firm from the market if not included
• Discriminators: attributes that distinguish the technology in the market (can be both +/-)
• Energizing features: These are typically new attributes that have a sharp distinction in comparison to other offerings and great influence on the consumer .

After the attributes have been determined, the constraints to bring these attributes to market must be determined and evaluated. Companies evaluate the market landscapes to push barriers and look for technologies that will help improve positioning. Other companies have technologies and are in search of markets. Companies can use three strategies to position themselves in the market:

• Niche dominantion - company offers a product to a niche market and creates or moves the technology barrier or constrains the attributes available in the market
• Niche fusion - the fusion of two or more niche markets allowing a firm to dominate the fused niche markets. The attributes of the products are favorable among many niche markets
• Create a new technology envelope - radically changing the set of attributes to offer superior products or brand new products to consumers. The shift can put firms out of business and change the market landscape.

This concept of lumpy markets can be seen in the digital and film SLR camera markets. Camera uses were either point and shoot operators to high end photography professionals. The markets were lumpy based on the the type of camera users and the products avaible to those users. When digital photography took off, some of the film markets dried up and looked for new ways to compete with digital photography.

When looking at current digital SLR and point and shoot digital cameras, both have a desired market: lower and mid end, reasonably priced cameras versus higher end consumer cameras & photographer professionals. Over the last few years, we have seen many of the digital cameras carrying basic attributes (LCD screen on the back) to distinguishing attribute (photo dock and printer capabilities for cameras). But the energizing attributes diminish quickly (very high resolution, high dynamic range *HDR*) as cameras continue to push the level of megapixels.

Wharton Chapter 6 - Assessing Future Markets for New Technologies

With new and emerging technologies, it is sometimes difficult to find a market or a customer to fit these technologies, the price they would be willing to pay, how they will use these technologies, or if the market will be accepting of these technologies. We can learn and understand markets by evaluating the relative size and supporting infrastructure for the new technology. There are three approaches that useful assessments of markets:

• Diffusion and Adoption - technologies diffuse in a market at different rates and some technologies are adopted early and some not at all. Determine the value of the new product relative to the best alternatives in the market but be mindful of barriers in the market that might affect acceptance. Be mindful of innovation and price of new technologies when evaluating markets. Analyze consumer behaviors and user requirements in a given market to determine possible adoption rates of the technology. There will be early and late adopters if the technology takes off in a given market.


• Exploration and Learning - informed anticipation by watching other exploration efforts to see how products and technologies have faired in the market and making anticipatory actions to capture opportunities. Analyze what you need to know about the market and intrepret the findings to determine market expectations and how to proceed.
Try not to assume too much about the market and the preferences associated with it.


• Triangulation for Insights - absorb uncertainty and anticipate opportunities. Start with diverse market research and analyze the approaches and findings from each of the research methods. Look for different approaches that ask similar questions -this typically yields patterns and a probably bias. Look to users that are pioneers in the market (much like wait and watch approach) and tend to lead the technology. Learning from their mistakes and approaches can help you succeed. Analyze markets for indirect evidence of market needs through looking at potential customers and ask customers about frustrations and needs to determine if the market is the right one to enter. Use modeling techniques to try and anticipate the possible level of adoption and integration into the market.

There are numerous technologies that have used this methodology to find new opportunistic markets for emerging technologies. Nanotechnology has applications in so many different markets that in some cases, it can apply to almost all markets. But, in order to implement. companies must find markets that will readily adopt this technology. The biomedical field has seen numerous nanotechnology-related products become adopted but will all humans accept nanotechnologies as part of their healthcare. Companies researching and implementing nanotechnology are carefully watching the market to see what their competitors are doing, how consumers are accepting and integrating nanotechnology into their lives, and the long term affects of this technology. Costs associated with nanotechnology in biomedicine (because of research) can be higher and not all patients will be willing to pay for these costs.

Wharton Chapter 5 - Public Policy and Lessons from the Internet

This chapter of the Wharton book discusses the role of government in emerging technologies and how they help/hinder this process. The chapter analyzes the events that occurred with the introduction and adoption of the internet and how the government handled these changes.

While the government has control to monitor, tax, and set policy to disrupt technologies, they also have the power to create technology infrastructure through institutional infrastructure and research infrastructure. The government can set standards and regulations on the technologies while also offering subsidies to help emerging technologies get started.

The government helped start the ARPA net in the late 1960’s for the Department of Defense. ARPA was stabilized and the NSFnet was born for the use of academic research. In 1990, ARPA was shutdown and moved to NSFnet. During this time, technology projects were nurtured and became a testbed for techhnology.

In the early 1990’s, the NSFnet changed due to three major developments:
· NSF net was no longer privatized and moved toward a for-profit model. NSF moved to pritized backbone and NSF no longer existed by 1995
· Protocols and standard for data to travel over the internet were invented and put into place by CERN. First web browser was built by NCSA for use on the WWW
· By the early 90’s, over 30% of US households owned a MAC or PC

Lessons from the Internet:
1. Government can play a powerful roles in shaping the development of a new technology in its earliest research stage (i.e. as seen in incubating this technology in ARPA and NFSnet)
2. Withdrawal of government support for a research effort is resisted by the beneficiaries as the effort gets closer to commercialization (subsidies disappear and universities, science labs, etc suffer)
3. Government can help manage the transition from public (educational institutions, research labs) to the private sector (commericialization) but everyone will complain. Government had trouble determining and regulating the information that should be available to the public sector (ie. hate or sexually explicit information).
4. Public concern about these new technologies on social mores and how the government should intervene to limit these impacts. These impacts including legal issues, intellectual property infringement, and national security must all be addressed by the government
5. Commercial and government interests will seek a government or legal response to disruptions caused by technology. These disruptions include cellular technology, broadband technology, and “hard” /”soft” networks. These entities want to know if these services are available to all, affordable to all, efficiently provided at a “reasonable quality”, and who is making all the money on these services (i.e. monopoly)
6. A new technology leads to demand universal service for all and the needs for governmental intervention. New regulations are set in place to provide a set quality of service on the technology (i.e. the cable companies outage example)
7. Dominant firms may treat customers poorly which leads to regulation. A monopoly can increase pricing structures on technology and lead to excess profits.
8. Regulation and Antitrust help prevent a single firm from gaining a “dominant market position” through a new technology. “Closed computing architecture” and vertical integration can all lead to an issue in public policy.
9. Technology leads to a firm’s dominance in a confined marketplace and there is need for political governance to prevent the firm from vertically integrating. The technologies can lead to a monopolistic approach in the market allowing a firm to push out the competition.
10. Regulations can have unintended side effects on emerging technology. Regulations can push competitors out of the market by creating unintentional barriers to entry.

These lessons when paired with the internet example truly show how an emerging technology can both grow and be stifled by governmental policy. Government policy can help emerging technologies become more widely accepted, integrated, and maintained through regulations and policies. These same policies can have a negative impact on the technologies as well (as see in Lesson 10).

The development of experimental pharmaceutical drugs may go through a similar process. The government gives subsidies to research institutions for developing drugs to cure the ailing people of the world. After the drugs become commercialized, regulation by the FDA is set in place to ensure the drugs are safe. The drugs are then allowed to be sold to other pharmaceutical companies as generics to prevent a monopoly in the marketplace.

Wharton Chapter 4 - Identification and Assessment of Emerging Technologies

The elements most important in this chapter pertain to the assessment and identification of emerging technologies in the marketplace. Companies should "choose technologies based on the understanding of market potential" to be successful. The R&D process uses a dynamic approach to help determine the risk and value of the technology and the potential lifecycle. The 4 assessment steps to emerging technology are:

• Scoping - scope and domain of the technology should be based on the firms capabilities + the opportunity and threats as a result of the technology. Scoping is the direction based on the companies core competencies.


• Searching - determine the sources and information to follow to determine feasibility and viability. This is usually done by looking internal to the company for new technologies, external companies such as universities and governments, and external literature such as Lexis Nexis and other trade publications. Look for strong signals-citations in publications and following the action of the firms competitors. Keeping track of this information is crucial when searching for emerging technologies.


• Evaluating - technology should be evaluated against the capabilities of the company and the needs of the target market. These technologies are ranked based on financial, risk, and other criteria to determine impact on the firm and the potential market.


• Committing - how the firm should choose to proceed with the technology. Before a company commits resources, time, and money into a technology, they typically follow four types of strategies -"watch and wait" to see how the technology evolves and see how the technology is implemented and perform a quick taker, "Position and Learn" to learn more about the technology and place the firm in a position to implement, "Sense and Follow" is when the company invests the money and chooses to implement, "Believe and Lead" the firm fully commits its resources.

The four step approach allows the firm to find the technology for the customers that will be sustainable in the market, gathers information about the technology by examing the competition and information from external publications, evaluates the data collected from the "searching" phase, and makes a recommendation on whether to fully commit and implement or wait and watch to see how things change in the market.

This approach has been used by Sony with the introduction of the mini disc player. Sony created a device that allowed consumers to listen to digital music on a tiny music player that was not succeptible to the same issues of carrying CD's. The mini discs were small, lightweight, and protected from accidental scratching due to the plastic encasement that covered the mini CD. The technology hit the markets and performed very well in Europe but struggled in the US markets. With competitors using small, large-capacity hard drives and flash memory, the mini discs could not compete in storage capacity. Mini discs also required proprietary disc drives to read the media outside of it's native player. But, the minidisc was the building block for the next generation of portable music players like the iPod with it's non-skip technology of buffering the music into temporary memory (http://www.minidisc.org/minidisc_faq.html)

Google Apps in the Enterprise

In reading the article, Google takes a more unorthodox approach to presenting it SaaS solution to enterprises. By focusing on making the enterprise apps simple and easy to use, they overlook the complex needs of many organizations. But, in googles defense, they are able to adapt and change quickly with the business environment.

The idea of dealing with chaos in the enterprise business environment baffles me. Google's approach is to just search to find things rather than organize them in a meaningful structure. For A type personalities and those that need this structure, this system will be difficult to adapt to. By organizing data, I think it is easier for humans to see relationships in data. By searching on random keywords, these relationships can get missed or be clouded from view.

Taking control from the organization will be a huge change for many. With "willy-nilly" realease schedules, or those schedules deemed by google, suddenly take control away from IT with regards to upgrades, maintenance, and downtime. And not having a choice on new feature sets will drive many organizations crazy!

A replacement for office you say? If organizations do simple word documents or excel sheets without anything fancy, I could understand this statement. A "lite" version may hit most users but Office 2007 can produce amazing business literature using fonts, formats, graphics, and templates. But, Office does not support collaboration of files (OneNote is the exception) whereas this is one great strength of Google apps. Google Apps has a long way to go if they are to complete with Microsoft as a replacement technology without being able to support all levels of users in an organization. But, for 1 year of development, Google is doing well.

The mobile office and working off-line are interesting concepts to consider. With the ability to work offline, users are free to work from wherever as long as they have an internet connection. Now if the organization loses their internet connection for a few hours, EVERY user must work offline. This is much more detrimental to an organization. And, like the article mentioned, reimbursing employees for internet can be quite costly.

The product strengths of GAPE are relevant and good selling points for Google. But, possible enterprise customers should really look into what GAPE will not do for the organization. With 99.9% uptime for email only, as a customer, this would make me nervous. If my business relies on these apps to do business, I would expect the same uptime for all applications. And the clause for "not responsible for lost data, profits, or revenue" would make me think twice. With my IT staff, I can at least ensure backups are performed at regular intervals. With Google, who knows!

Google does have one thing going for them- their name. Google is an innovative company that has branded itself as the new hightech king of the web. Google has partnerships that will allow the software to evolve quickly and fill in the holes where it's GAPE products are deficit. With their always new and innovative technologies, Google will allow GAPE to go in directions that Microsoft and other companies could only dream of.

The evaluation of a SaaS based framework was definately a good point. To compare apples to apples, organizations can evaluate SaaS products to see if they meet the business needs. A slow approach to the decisionmaking process and evaluating alternatives are a must before investing in a SaaS products. SaaS products can reduce the TCO for an organization by alleviating the headaches of maintenance and upgrades. Access to Googles API's and services like SSO are certainly good features that organizations should consider during the evaluation process.

Overall, an organization really needs to look at it's current infrastructure and business needs to see if Googles GAPE solution would work for them. Google's GAPE has great simple features that would cater to most business users but falls short in the richness and ability to cater to more complex needs and power users.

Wharton Chapter 3 - Technology Speciation

Technology speciation: The evolutionary differentiation of a pre-existing technology into one or more distinct technologies. The chapter discusses how existing technologies evolve to create
"new domain of application".

There are two critical features of speciation:

• "Speciation is not triggered by a transformation of the population within"
• "Speciation event allows the two populations of homogenous entities to grow quite distinct as a result of their now different selection environments"

Changes are not usually a result of revolutionary occurrances in the environment but more of a evolution over time. In the process, the technology is changed to adapt to a new environment. This new environment must have the resources to support the development of this change. As this technology grows, it may displace the older technologies. These new "lineages" of technologies may emerge as a result of combinging or "fusing" other technologies that are then synthesized or "converged". Sometimes, these technologies are not ready for a broad market and are isolated to a single purpose or "island of application".

The key is to find the right context or application for the emerging technology. Some of the key concepts when finding this application is

• view markets as being hetergeneous
• focus on market contexts and not the products that will fit into markets
• expand the criteria for the market as each company and case is different
• study users of the market
• "Learn by doing"
• Accelerate the evolution

There are numerous products that have come on the market that have gone through technology speciation. The PDA was a great technology but was expernsive and really catered to a small percentage of people. As the technology evolved, the PDA became the smartphone and the blackberry. Combining the functions of a mobile phone, calendaring, email, and the web, a new product emerged. Now, the iPhone builds on the the smartphone/blackberry by incorporating more multimedia features and improved use of it's GUI (through a touch screen).

I think the key element of this entire chapter is that new technology rarely just comes about one day. It's an evolution -sometimes slow but sometimes very quick, it just depends on the support structure and the resources of the environment in which it operates.

Gartner Hype Cycle on Emerging Tech 2007

The tera architecture is interesting in that it promises to reduce the cost of computing by 10%. With virtualization emerging in businesses and computing today, I find it hard to believe that it's so far off from now. Leave it up to Google to kick this one off and change the industry! I'm curious as to how this will revolutionize how we do business, the future of application development, and the computing possibilities of the future. More Power!

The 3d printing was an interesting concept. Drawings and schema's can have new life while changing the look and feel of business presentations. The 3d cad and 3d cutting of materials has been around for awhile and I am interested to see if this technology actually catches on. I think 3d modeling using holographics would be more interesting than a 3rd print.

I like gesture recognition and this technology can be seen in Apple's new iPhone. People are becoming more lazy and prefer small, simple movements to perform complex tasks (i.e scrolling with a mouse versus a touchpad on laptop computers). Image if more functions could be performed using other gestures like eye movements, simple movements of the fingers (i.e the tap tap of the finger to double click). The Wii has changed how we play and entertain ourselves.. I'm curious to see how they make games even more interactive for us and how we interact with others.

Web 2.0 -- the changes to the web to make our experience more interactive and more inter-connected have been a wonderful addition to my life. Through the use of collaboration tools for school work, social networks to catch up with old friends, I'm interested to see how this is going to evolve in the future with Web 3.0.

Wharton Chapter 2 - The Pitfalls of Emerging Technology

How do companies avoid the pitfalls of emerging technologies? The first half of the chapter covered the 4 traps a company might encounter with emerging technology.

1. The delayed participation -"watch and wait" theory. Carefully weigh the value of the project before jumping in
2. Sticking with the familiar -dislike of ambiguity and risk averse. If this system works, why change and go down a winding path of uncertainty
3. Reluctance to fully commit - resistance from channel partners, projected low returns from an emerging technology
4. Lack of Persistence - High levels in the company might not recognize the benefit and cut the venture. Emerging tech is known for it's failure rates - an easy target when money is needed

These four traps are very common for businesses to fall into. Emerging technology is ambiguous and contains high levels of uncertainty. For many companies, a wait and see approach allows them to reap the benefits of their competitors mistakes (but also has a chance of losing market share because they do not have the 1st mover advantage). Companies become complacent and enjoy working in comfortable environments. Emerging technology is seldom comfortable because of the levels of risk involved. Comfortability over time can also mean status quo. Companies can be reluctant to commit if the culture does not support the change or if the company is not ready to move in a new direction. Some companies treat emerging tech like poker: know when to hold 'em, some know when to fold 'em. When you fold, you lose your chances of winning the pot. Other companies lack the visionaries that can push and be persistent for emerging technology. A bottom up approach is harder to sell emerging tech than top down.

The second half of the chapter outlined "crafting solutions". Viewing emerging technology with the blinders off allows companies to move in new directions and see new opportunities. These new directions are sometimes hard to see but allow companies to shift in new directions and ways of thinking. How will this emerging tech benefit our customer and does it align with the companies strategic goals? This change when coupled with a learning environment allow for an openness of differing viewpoints within the company to help challenge the mindset and emerging technology projects succeed. When companies challenge the mindset and think outside of the box, companies can begin to experiment to provide new insights and possibilities of the technology. But, companies need to be both flexible and committed (the business paradox of emerging technology) to be successful.

Human Computation

This video was fascinating.. in fact I watched it more than once. I was showing this to some others and I was anxious to create a peekaboom account. I was astounded at the fact about the amount of time people play solitaire around the world (and also players that played ESP for more than 10 hours). I guess I underestimate other peoples time.

The CAPTCHA concept was an interesting segment and I also thought the remarks about "other" industries are using them for spam was very intriguing. I'm curious to see what other games will be created to capture more information about images and tags in the future. Perhaps these games could be marketed to inmates.. they have time to solve these simple problems.

If only we could use human computation to help solve world and economic issues...

Wharton On Managing Emerging Technologies

Summary:

Emerging technologies are the future for many industries and will tranform many existing industries. As defined in the preface, "Wharton Emerging technologies Management Research Program was established in 1994 and was comprised of faculty and senior executives to analyze emerging tech and develop strategies for its success across all lines of an organization. The preface defined 7 different priorities top help managing emerging technologies.

The first chapter talked about the disruption emerging technologies can have on an organization and that a required mindset and skillset are needed to be successful in the implementation process. Emerging technologies can do great things for companies and create new opportunities and competitive advantages. But, it can also destroy a business if not carefully planned. Emerging tech can have great complexity and uncertainty which create great challenges for an organization to manage. Understanding knowledge from experiements, experience, and how a customer uses the technology can help give organizations an upper hand with deriving and implementing emerging technology. But, learning from the mistakes is an invaluable lesson. The paradox a company must accept in order to be successful - commit but be flexible. There are few simple answers in emerging technology and learning managing the ambiguity can lead to the best rewards.

Comments:
Necessity is the mother of invention - pioneers are able to identify and understand the necessities and develop strategies to exploit these ideas. But, as the book stated, many pioneers fail. Companies should understand that implementing and investing in emerging technologies are risky but the rewards can be great. Apple didn't get to be #1 in the portable music device market by waiting to see what other companies were doing. They learned quickly from projects like the Newton handheld that if it doesn't catch on, try to reinnovate the product (i.e. the new iphone). I'm interested to see how the other chapters outline the framework for managing the technology and examples of how other companies have succeeded and failed.

WSJ - Don't Fence Me In

IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) are becoming more popular for businesess as they worry about the security of their data. These systems certainly have their place in business and the article mentioned the financial losses from cybercrime. I am sure that for the 1 company that reports cybercrime, there are 10 companies that don't. Cybercrime can destroy a business and I think coupling this technology with other technologies such as firewalls and other access controls is a must for every businesses. But, because all of these things put overhead on the network (including AV and other host based scanners) and speed will always be a tradeoff until processing capabilities can be improved.

False positives is and will always be an issue because the enviroment in which it monitors is so dynamic. I think education of users as to the dangers out on the web and how to protect yourself and the company can help eliminate many issues associated with IDS. Companies should also invest a good portion of the money for an IDS into the setup and maintenance. These systems are complicated to administer and become easily outdated without regular and routine maintenance.

WSJ - Predictions of the Past

Summary: The article evaluated technology predictions from 1998 to determine if the trends and changes in technology over the next 10 years would come true. The article looked at the following areas:

• Changes in social dymanics
• The new wave of desktop PC technology and computing power over 10 years
• Cell phone usage in US
• Obtaining electronic music
• The use of E-books and E-book technology
• Online Education versus brick-and-mortor institutions for learning
• Outsourcing and emerging countries that benefit from technology
• The banking industry and electronic transfers

It was interesting that predictors did not forsee the social impacts of online tools. Chat was very popular in the 90's and today. I find it hard to believe that they did not believe that individuals would not want to be more creative and expressive using different tools and channels to connect with friends,relatives, or colleagues.

The PC prediction was to be expected looking at trends in technology over the last 20 years and the leaps and bounds made in personal computing capacity and capability. I thought that they might actually be further ahead than they are today.

I wasn't too surprised over the increase in cell-phone usage as I see children at 5 years of age with their own cellphone these days. With the mass adoption of cellphone for both personal and professional use, it's no wonder that 81% of the pop have a cell phone (some have as many as 2 or 3).

The electronic sharing of music was in it's peak around the late 90's and early 2000 with Napster and other P2P music sharing apps. I am surprised that mini-disc didn't do more for the advances in digital music players and the sharing of music.

I've tried ebooks and reading online and I don't like it. If there was a way to decrease the contrast and make it easier on the eyes, I think more people would be utilizing this technology. I've seen the ebook kiosks in airports and I'm interested in trying that the next time I travel.

Online instutions have their place but I think it's hard to beat a brick-and-mortar classroom to share ideas and learn. Even with online courses, sharing information and concepts I find is more difficult because body language and sometimes tone are left out. Having resources online has been wonderful (i.e. library resources for doing research).

Outsourcing to emerging countries has shown to be both successful and detrimental to our economy. I'm sure this will be discussed more in class.

I contribute to the electronic banking industry and I was happy to hear that forecasters were wrong about this technology. The majority of my banking activity is done through electronic payments and transfers as this has been commonly accepted by most of the younger generations.

New Emerging Tech Topic - A Brain Chip to Control Paralyzed Limbs

The innovations and emerging technologies in the biomedical field is quite fascinating to me. I found this article on Tech review called "A Brain Chip to Control Paralyzed Limbs". Essentially, a "tiny chip containing 100 electrodes that record signals from hundreds of neurons in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that modulates movement. A computer algorithm then translates this complex pattern of activity into a signal used to control a computer or prosthetic limb." This opens many doors for patients suffering from paralysis and offers returned motor function for the physically impaired.

WSJ Articles - Thinking about Tomorrow

Summary:
The article addressed how technology will change over the next 10 years in all aspects of our life. The article specifically mentioned changes:

• our shopping experience will change and become more personal
• video games will improve and become more realistic and interactive
• media such as TV and movies will evolve to be of better quality and improved viewing experience
• our social networks become better integrated and inform of us events
  search for things online
• how we receive the news and protect our privacy online

How we Shop: The shopping experience will change greatly in the future. The experience will become more personalized both in marketing to us as we shop in stores and online. Shopping will allow us to be more self-sufficient in getting what we need more quickly and easily through touch screen and wireless technology. By tracking user preferences, this technology will help me find what I am looking for while also offering me alternatives to my product. Because I am a shopper that doesn’t like to shop around, I like when alternatives are presented upon my finding an item.

How we play games: Photorealism is becoming better and better for the gaming consoles. The visual experience for users will change as graphics and videos become more lifelike, with the possibility of personalizing yourself into the gaming through side stories and replicas of your own face. The movement away from a controller by using cameras to monitor movement allow for new opportunities to enhance the gaming experience which I am really excited about. In playing the Nintendo Wii and online games, I’ve seen the revolution in how we play games. I look forward to the day when I can feel more “immersed” in the game and have all of the senses utilized (currently just sight, sound, touch). How will online play change and how will playing with a friend in the living room become more realistic?

How we watch media: We can watch media on many types of handheld devices today allowing us to be entertained while being mobile. Much of the media of today has moved out to the web for greatly flexibility in reaching target and new audiences. 3D technologies are increasing as well as picture quality to give movie goes a better movie experience. The article mentioned that hologram technology will give the realistic feeling of having an actor on stage in your living room. I’ve seen preliminary holographic technology (through videos online) and it has a way to come before it will work. Will lighting conditions in homes be altered to improve the viewing of this technology?

How we make and keep friends: Text messaging and social online networks allow people to connect with old friends and meet new friends. I’ve become a facebook user and this technology has been great to find old friends and meet new friends. The networking not only connects me with old friends, but compares my preferences with theirs as it relates to movies, music, and media. I learn new things about them without having to ask.

How we search: In the article, it talked about how the search has moved from the computer to handhelds and how quickly we can now find information. GPS technology helps bring new markets to us and allows us to easily access information. At times, I feel like this technology promotes information overload. As the example in the article illustrated, if I am driving in my car and my GPS alerts me to restaurants in a .25 mile radius while looking for a place to eat, this would be fantastic. If it would also recommend new places that I have not visited but might be interested in, this would greatly enhance my dining out experience.

News and Privacy: Much of the news we receive today comes from friends and online sources. The channel to get our news is so dispersed we need to be careful of the credibility of the source. We have many new ways of receiving the news in real-time and I think the handheld devices will become the dominant player for receiving new stories. Because we now tend to broadcast our own news via blogs, websites, GPS, we must be careful that others don’t use this information to take advantage of us. We should also be hesitant on what we choose to share online and how we can share the information in a secure manner.

World Economic Forum Article Discussion

Articles of interest from the World Economic Forum:

23andMe -- the ability to find others with a similar genetic pattern opens many doors for healthcare. Imagine fighting a new disease and being able to network with others who are fighting the same illness. The ability to find donors for treatment and to share experiences could bring a huge paradigm shift to healthcare. If it wasn't $1000, I'd try it.

InSightec -- The issue I have with modern medicine is that some doctors feel that invasive surgery is the only way to treat certain illnesses and diseases. InSightec could do great things for treating breast cancer (which can have terrible physical side effects) and I'm an anxious to hear more about this technology.

Neurosynaptics Comms - With the idea of telemedicine, I am interested in when the technology will be good enough that doctors will be able to perform surgeries from a remote location using high speed internet to transfer back images of the patient and using robotic arms (or machines)to actually perform the surgery .

Kayak.com - I have used this service and I really like how it aggregates my results from other vendors to find the cheapest price on flights. I believe there are other competitors in this industry that are doing the same thing but perhaps kayak could use it's services in other industries (i.e. compare a clothing brand across 5 major retail stores, a model of car across 5 different dealerships). This will help consumers find the best price without the hassle of doing large amounts of research. The chart feature is really neat if the user is flexible on travel dates. I find this is one of the most difficult tasks to do is research different dates easily and quickly. This worked great.

Lumio - I have seen this technology many years ago when it was used to project a keyboard on an office desk. The person sitting at the desk was typing on this "virtual" keyboard and, from what I remember, the user found this very uncomfortable on their fingers. Perhaps other applications could prove to be more effective for this technology than the virtual keyboard. Correction: After looking on their website, this could be huge in the medical industry where keyboards must be kept clean. Same goes for clean rooms like clean rooms in the semiconductor industry.

Blogging from Google's Picasa. A nice way to insert pictures and to "blog" at the same time. A sample post that I will probably remove later. Just a test.

The picture to the left is the Welsh flag.

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