Entrepreneurship Summit 2010, Nov 6 - Berlin - Go to site entrepreneurship-summit.de

Entrepreneurial design – and the design thinking context

The focus of the entrepreneurship summit 2010 has been entrepreneurial design and I think the concept is convincing. Concept? Maybe there are more than one concept around under this name. Just found it linked to design thinking in a certain manner, as you can see on this page and nice video from Stanford Graduate School of Business Extreme Affordability Journal. Affordability is a central term here – since the process seems to target the “bottom of the pyramid“.

Design Thinking at Stanford: Extreme Affordability Expo 2010

Since I was in touch with design thinking (DT) I am totally fascinated with the method. In this year I met the practitioners and “activists” at different places e.g. Potsdam HPI or the IA-Konferenz 2010, Köln (see post: “Are we Innovation Architects? Service.Design.Thinking, #IAK10“). Hey, I just realized my (subjective) “trend feeling” about DT and found evidence at Google trends:

Statistical evidence of the up-trend in design thinking (Google trends 2010-11-08)

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Prof. Faltin’s stance

I found the interpretation of the term “entrepreneurial design” in the context of market dynamics quite plausible. In his keynote Prof. Faltin talked about the difference of a (complete functional) automobile and the Otto engine (as an essential technical component of a car). In this perspective the automobile is the entrepreneurial design, which enables the Otto engine to be sold. One could say it this way: Only with the automobile structure build around the Otto engine the engine is “networked” with the needs of the people. Making the explosion engine beneficial for the need of mobility. This at the same time transforms people to (automobile) customers, i.e. a new market emerges.

Maybe, that there is a whole concept cloud around “entrepreneurial design”, or that this all is just one design thinking cloud – I for my part find the Otto engine example of Prof. Faltin graphic, maybe paradigmatic.

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Insight: The “Apple success” is based simply on … entrepreneurial design

Now think about the Apple success story. The competitors are shocked again and again to see that Apple wins the market with devices, that are build on components some not being state of the art. The success is based on entrepreneurial design, i.e. networking the companies ressources with the users needs, making the device a “node in the behavioral network” of the customer.

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MBA oath – a social innovation at Harvard Business School

The MBA Oath is a voluntary student-led pledge that asks graduating MBAs to commit towards the creation of value “responsibly and ethically.” The grassroots effort was launched in late May 2009 by a group of thirty graduating Harvard Business School (HBS) students in Boston, Massachusetts.

Source: Wikipedia

The principles (short)

Therefore I promise:

• I will act with utmost integrity and pursue my work in an ethical manner.
• I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.
• I will manage my enterprise in good faith, guarding against decisions and behavior that advance my own narrow ambitions but harm the enterprise and the societies it serves.
• I will understand and uphold, both in letter and in spirit, the laws and contracts governing my own conduct and that of my enterprise.
• I will take responsibility for my actions, and I will represent the performance and risks of my enterprise accurately and honestly.
• I will develop both myself and other managers under my supervision so that the profession continues to grow and contribute to the well-being of society.
• I will strive to create sustainable economic, social, and environmental prosperity worldwide.
• I will be accountable to my peers and they will be accountable to me for living by this oath.

Source: Wikipedia

A hopeful start

There are some serious questions concerning the substance and the sustainability of the oath. One could ask, whether the mentioned principles in fact are not in tension, since the conflict of interest is part of the standard situation of management. In a certain way the art of leadership means dealing with complex situations, i.e. dealing with some permanent and objective conflicts of interest.

See the sentence: “I will safeguard the interests of my shareholders, co-workers, customers and the society in which we operate.” The order of appearence is setting the rank of loyality. First comes the shareholders, last comes society. But did you really expect a revolution in a “intra-systemic” institution like Harvard? Ok, it takes more to “save the world”.

There remains enough to do – the debate just started. Finally I take the oath as a good sign. Some minds actually did understand that there is a need to change some structures – and the curricula structuring the minds. Hopefully the next generation of decision makers will be brave to make the next step.

Links

• Going Beyond MBA Oaths – HBR Now – Harvard Business Review (2009-06-09)
• A Promise to Be Ethical in an Era of Immorality – NYTimes.com (2009-05-30)

Pic courtesy: Flickr user Samuel Mann – I found this pic at blog.careermee.com, where a German translation of the oath can be found.

>>>>>>>>> UPDATE 2009-07-06 <<<<<<<<

I just came across a post at Stowe Boyd’s blog worth to mention in this context:

Wow! One of the handful of “management gurus” that I admire, Shoshanna Zuboff, has written a blisteringly stark condemnation of the way that Harvard Business School, and the rest of the MBA mills, have indoctrinated a generation of piss poor business leaders. http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2009/07/shoshanna-zuboff.html

Maybe you just want to go right here: The Old Solutions Have Become the New Problems – BusinessWeek by Shoshanna Zuboff – Little quote:

... We weren’t stupid and we weren’t evil. Nevertheless we managed to produce a generation of managers and business professionals that is deeply mistrusted and despised by a majority of people in our society and around the world. This is a terrible failure.

Ok!

Kontext: next banking -conference- 2009 Berlin http://next-banking.de

Ort: The Hub Berlin http://berlin.the-hub.net

Datum: 2009-06-16

Related: Preview Text: http://www.next-banking.de/2009/06/wozu-banken-geld-und-vertrauen-im-21-jahrhundert/

At the worlds biggest IT fair, CeBIT in Hanover, ending on Sunday they tried something new. With “Webciety” there has been a new format to close the gap between hardware selling companies on the one hand and increasingly important web companies on the other. We hear this for so long and it is from year to year it is more true: We are on the way to web society / “webciety”. At the panel there have been issues like Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing and Identity Management – but the most interesting subject for me has been the upcoming and invasion of the “digital natives”. The consequences for enterprises, media industry and marketing are still in the debate. At webciety there has been a book presentation concerning the topic. You can access and download the book at scribd as a PDF (German):
DNAdigital – Wenn Kapuzenpullis auf Anzugtraeger treffen

Digital Natives – different mindset,  communication habits and consumption patterns

Marc Prensky coined the term “digital natives” in the context of education some years ago (“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” 2001). Since Gartner and other analyst firms took it seriously since 2007 today companies start to analyze more thoroughly the rather heterogeneous group of digital natives. The core definition is trivial:

A digital native is a person who has grown up with digital technology such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones and MP3.  (Wikipedia)

Prensky realized the disparity in the realm of  learning and teaching – teachers are just ill-equipped to educate digital natives, whose sophisticated use of digital technologies is incompatible with practice in schools and universities. No question the disparity today is virulent in the enterprise context (actually I am preparing some stuff concerning the issue and the consequences for business. I want to deliver a presentation soon, promised).

Time to transform your company into an academy!

Today my message is rather short and vocal: It is time to transform!

I have been thinking about the Webciety discussions and suddenly realized that the “business pattern” had to be changed in the core to be successful tommorrow. The digital natives are just one pressure factor, others are innovation speed, real time pressure in processes, shorter loops to react to changes in the market environment. Well, the big companies all have their corporate academy or university … and of course there has been the rhetorics of knowledge society and the learning organisation for some decades.

But today, in 2009, the ingedients are quite different. Technology and human ressources are different, markets and information streams are different. It is just not enough to put the label “Enterprise 2.0″ onto theses changes and implemement an enterprise wiki. What we need is a new paradigmatic guiding principle, a “leitbild”.

Crisis + digital natives -> chance to change the game

The crisis is a good environment to make real changes. And the group of the digital natives will make you feel the pain soon if you do not change some structures – because they know more than the “experienced staff” (in some domains)! If you do not change the settings your talents not only will be unhappy – but you do not take the chance to make them “teachers”, use their knowledge and their “fast track methods” to communicate, connect and conquer.

New management paradigm: The company as a school

• Deconstruct and rebuild your enterprise really as a learning structure – at every level and detail!
• Discover the hidden teacher–student dyades in the relations and strenghten them!
• Find ways to sustainably encourage the flow of knowledge – not as an event, but as a 24/7 practice!

Early switchers at earth2tech.com

Fears and hopes

Guess you know Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (youtube). When the wall came down in Berlin some 19 years ago it happened that this easy swinging a cappella sound was the somehow perfect soundtrack for the ambiguity in the mood of the reunified Germans. Ambiguity of fears and hopes – and what followed really was political “change management XXL” – with the inevitable pains of transformation.

Now, this is end of October 2008 and I feel a certain resemblance to the situation of 1989. In these days a lot of commentators suppose that the financial crisis is just the beginning of a longer lasting downturn of the global economy.  

One last look back

Futurists and scenario planning people are prepared for the discontinuities of complex systems. This time the wild card was to expect. Warnings date back to 2006 (nypost.com) and even 2004 (abajournal.com). By the way recession cycles of market economy are observed since its beginnings. And Talebs book about the improbable “black swan” has been written in 2007. But who wants to hear bad news? We have to. That’s why we are implementing early warning systems and pay experts, even futurists. 

Looking forward – Opportunities in times of transformation

This is the time of cutbacks and layoffs, but that is only the one side. At O’Reilly’s Web2Expo Europe some days ago I heard Robin Daniels (Salesforce.com / Cloud Computing: Freedom to Focus on Innovation”). One of the messages was: “Don’t optimize, but innovate!”. So don’t worry to much, for example sustainability will be a sustaining issue. The economy has to be transformed – and on a global scale. There is no alternatiIve – world economy has to go eco, better sooner than later (see my solar stuff posts). This is a time of decisions, actions and making a brave jump. Need more arguments? Look for example to the change in the valley, where bright minds started switching before spring 2008. 25 Who Ditched Infotech for Cleantech « Earth2Tech

Some 3.0? Yes, emerging.

You are still focused in ICT, GPS, graphs, the web, mobile and stuff? No problem, green and IT make a good couple: Energy efficiency, monitoring, sensors, recycling, new mobility solutions … And “Web 3.0″? Whatever the next innovation wave will be called, with its clouds, tweets, id managment, semantics, sensing, mobility, ubiquity – it is knocking. Microsoft just tries to start a  bit of new thinking: Windows Azure: Microsoft mainstreams the cloud | Software as Services | ZDNet.com