Artificial Intelligence

The word "never" does not exist in a scientists vocabulary. Will Wright (see biography here) stated that "Machines will never achieve human intelligence." I believe this to be a strong assumption. Mr. Wright further states, "Intelligence is whatever we can do that computers can't." See the text and video of the interview on Popular Mechanics here.

This has rekindled a long standing discussion with Franz Dill again, see his post "Prophecies about AI" here.

Computing is currently limited, yet moving at exponential speeds (in gaining speed). As soon as the silicon wafers in integrated circuits are replaced with diamond wafers, we will have a factor of 10 increase in the ability to withstand heat in an IC. What does this do to speed? Currently the science has pushed the existing formula (in practice) to roughly state that (in CMOS based technologies) the heat generated by a processor is approximately proportional to its clock rate, see detailed paper here. So Tera-Hertz is not far.

With such speeds more data processing occurs faster. Generically speaking, human brain stores all, applies patterns of learned behavior and hence the decisions - the key to move from one node to the next in the decision tree, or jump, or, etc. With increase in computational speeds, machines could be preloaded with "human" patterns - resulting in human like decision making. Excellent primer on human brain functionality here.

Yet, with Quantum Computing and organic memory storage and processing available one day... I have to go back to the word "never" as stated by Mr. Will Wright... I am tempted to say that there is never such a thing as never!

Virtual Worlds - Second Life

Second Life (SL) is one of the more successful virtual (online) worlds. I met with SL folks at SIGGRAPH when they first handed out T-shirts! I have one of the original green hand shirts...

I experimented with SL and found it lacking as my expectations are to incorporate all the human senses into an experience... hence, I await haptics. See details on Haptic Technology here. Yet, I feel that generation X/Y/Z are perhaps more apt at relinquishing some of the sensical facilities to establish virtual/online communities.

See detailed reviews and discussion on SL from my friend and colleague Franz Dill here. See Second Life virtual world here.

Report Card for U.S.A.'s Infrastructure

America's infrastructure boom occurred roughly with the industrial age and continued till after World War II. Similar activities are taking place today in places like Dubai, Macau, Beijing, Mumbai, Banglore, parts of Africa, etc.

One of the keys to economic development for a region is quality of life and of various lifestyles that attract the top paying knowledge worker and retains them. America's "report card" on this subject here developed by the American Society of Civil Engineers (details here) is indepth and educational.

World Perspective / Photo - 3 [India Institute of Technology]

Above is the picture of Hijli Dentention Camp at Kharagpur established during the British Colonial Rule in 1930 to accommodate those who were involved in the armed struggle for freedom of the Indian Sub-Continent or the non-cooperation movement.

On the same grounds of the infamous detention camp on the right is the picture of the first Prime Minister of India, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru (see biography here), laying the foundation stone for the first of India Institute of Technologys (IIT) at Kharagpur.

At the ceremony on April 21st, 1956, Mr. Nehru said:

"Here I stand at this place and my mind inevitably goes back to that infamous institution for which this place became famous not now but 20 to 30 years ago- the Hijli detention camp. Here in the place of that Hijli detention camp stands this fine monument of India (IIT) today representing India's future in the making."

Read historical details of the Hijli Detention Camp and IIT Kharagpur here.

IIT Kharagpur today (see the University website here)  is ranked among the top Universities of the World and continues to gain ground in delivering the best in class talent.

[Below is the renovated detention camp serving as part of IIT]

As I post this blog I find it difficult to imagine the pride that the students and alumni of this institute must feel - to deliver and create knowledge through the passion and persistence of humans from the place of human misery created by humans. At the same time, I am confident that the experiences of these student's grand fathers and great grand fathers must reach deep within their hearts to kindle the desire to be the best that only the results we see in the World today can show. I will attempt to obtain a list of IIT Kharagpur alumni conducting the business of the World to post here in the near future.

The statement I make here is not that India has achieved such. The insight is for the astute - that if this has been achieved in such a short time then what is to come in a shorter time from South Asia?

Japan - International Growth Through Purchases / Acquisitions

"Thanks to conservative managers and years of record profits, Japanese public companies are sitting on cash reserves of more than ¥60 trillion, estimates Nikkei, a financial-news company."

States the article in the Economist "The Japanese are coming (again)" here. The figure below gives a visual insight on how Japanese companies have done this at the end of the last two decades also:

Another good article on the subject here from the International Herald Tribune. An excerpt:

"But aggressive expansion also presents challenges, especially cultural ones. Traditionally, Japanese firms emphasize seniority and stability over individual incentive and profits."

Aren't individual incentives and profits couple of the key ingredients to breakthrough innovation?

The Economist's explanation of market destabilization

Excellent diagnosis and analysis of the current economic downturn by the Economist in their special report "When fortune frowned" here.

Wired: Jagdish Bhagwati - Keep Free Trade Free

I wrote a review here of Mr. Parag Khana's letter to the next President of the USA. Below are some of my thoughts on a similar letter to the next President of the USA from Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, see here.

In one word "brilliant". Or is it because he shares or states insights that are similar to how I look at the global market place? Here is an excerpt:

"... China may never be as innovative as the US, which has a stable venture-capital model and an entrepreneurial culture that promotes creativity. Globalization helps nations discover their unique strengths."

[Portrait on right of Dr. Bhagwati by Mario Hugo]

Dr. Bhagwati discusses IP in his article in context of constrained free trade, NAFTA being his example where he states:

"Agreements like Nafta are for free trade among members but increased protection against nonmembers."

Economic constraints (or sometimes protectionism) have an interesting quality that for a short period of time they benefit the ones within the boundary(s). If such continues, different models of conducting business emerge outside the boundary(s) that directly compete with the constrained model.

An extreme example of this would be the difficulties Israel faces in bringing its IP and ideas to the global market place, due to the reasons that are. As the US is one of the most open and international business friendly places for new ventures, at times trumping politics when the economic will is stronger, the US has benefited from a plethora of Israeli breakthroughs using it as the global launch pad. I wonder of the economic impacts if this IP had Asian launch pads for success?

I believe "Political will" to be perception and "Economic will" to be reality - both must be leveraged and managed with a balance. An unfortunate example of the imbalance is the Kyoto Protocol (details here).

[Click the figure above to maximize]

Further emphasizing my thoughts on this subject is a current example of yet another unsuccessful attempt to drive towards free trade and economic models of conducting business on agriculture, industry and services - the Doha Round (details here). An excerpt on the Doha Development Round from Wikipedia:

"As of 2008, talks have stalled over a divide on major issues, such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services, and trade remedies.[1] The most significant differences are between developed nations led by the European Union (EU), the United States (USA) and Japan and the major developing countries led and represented mainly by India, Brazil, China and South Africa. There is also considerable contention against and between the EU and the U.S. over their maintenance of agricultural subsidies—seen to operate effectively as trade barriers."

Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati brings to the forefront the key driver for all decisions that politicians face... economic will. It drives global trade and its leverage can help create better conditions for humanity and development of sustainable products and services.

See Dr. Bhagwati's website here.

Join the Online Debate: "The Value of H20"

The Economist puts forth a proposition for an online discussion:

"Water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value"

Join the debate here.

TheFunded.com - VC Evaluation

Are you an entrepreneur? If so, do you know about TheFunded.com? A decent place to look at evaluations of VCs across the globe and more being added daily.

See details in a Wired article here.

Rashid Khan and Business Process Management

While at Procter & Gamble, I became interested in exploring how to take the company out of Workflow and into something closer to Artificial Intelligence (AI) for business management. Of course, Franz Dill and I joined forces on it who had led multiple efforts in this field at the soap company. See Franz's AI expertise here.

If time allows, I will cover the learning from the research at a later point in time.

AI is still a ways away, yet research led me to the market place of Business Process Management (BPM). I wanted to meet the person who first thought of it and digging through the noise of perceptions and self-proclamantions, I discovered Mr. Rashid Khan who had coined the term "Business Process Management" when he founded Ultimus in 1994 - a BPM software solution company. See here some of Rashid's patents.

Rashid took Ultimus from an idea to I believe now delivering solutions in 80 countries. Rashid also wrote a good primer on BPM called "Business Process Management: A Practical Guide", see here. Franz wrote about the book in a blog, "Good, mostly non-technical overview and easy read... BPM can be seen as a way of modeling processes within a corporation, along with the people who do the work. It has been criticized for too strongly regimenting process steps."

Rashid recently left Ultimus after 14 years to pursue a new venture - a consultancy for senior executives called Leadership BPM. He is also blogging here.

Is it all about Design and Experience?

SCAD

While conducting a seminar on Design Innovation and a Design Charrette at Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), I left the students with the question whether in the final analysis it was all about design and experience of any product before they began their Charrettes?

The deep consumer understandings gleaned at places such as the Innovation Centers at Procter & Gamble enable product companies to capture the sale at the point of purchase - First Moment of Truth (FMOT) as P&G puts it, see definition here. My work at the various Innovation Centers around the world continuously helped me realize that P&G had captured the essence of reaching the consumer - Design enables success at FMOT.

See my friend and colleague Franz Dill's blog here discussing P&G's Innovation Centers and some of the work we did as detailed in Mr. A. G. Lafley's book "The Game Changer". Franz was also the founder of the first Innovation Center there.

While the above is a commercial venture for increasing shareholder value, I was happy to see that in academia SCAD has introduced anthropology and psychology to compliment their excellent curriculum in Industrial Design program, see here.

The quality of experience offered by the product or service may or may not result in repeat business. This is where the product companies of the world are engaging in immersive and experiential environments for learning consumer behavior. See another of Franz's blog here regarding Cargill's Innovation Center.

The SCAD students produced impressive results for the dilemmas I brought to them from UAE and Germany. My friends and faculty at SCAD that is; the Industrial Design Dean - Mr. Victor Ermoli, the Chair - Mr. Tom Gattis and a dedicated Professor - Mr. Robert Fee, should feel proud of their accomplishments as the No. 3 Industrial Design program in the USA.

This Charrette helped me solidify my belief that in the end, yes, it is all about design and experience. Or did Dr. Ivan Pavlov already discover this indirectly in the late 19th century when he developed the concepts of Classical Conditioning?

Company Highlight - live|work

live|work

I want to highlight a service design company, live|work, and a friend Mr. Chris Downs, founder of live|work, with whom a conversation began about three years ago whether it is all about the experience? Chris (if I am remembering it right) was of the opinion that it is all about the service as in the end all products have to provide a service. A lesson learned at Procter & Gamble and the result being the concept - Second Moment of Truth i.e. what happens when the consumers try the product after making the purchase decision. Here is an interesting blog providing insights on this.

I have not seen a "Services Design" firm such as Chris's in my international work that has successfully combined all the varied pieces of use and usability, incorporation of the five senses, pre-present-post emotions, and so on and delivered hard ROI. Have a look at few of the case studies of live|work here.

Read more about "Service Design" here.

See an insightful conversation here that Chris had with NextDesign Leadership Institute's (NextD) GK VanPatter.