The _Harvard Business Review_'s take on emerging
ideas that will affect business this year. More detail on each item at the URL.
Udhay
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrsa/en/issue/0702/article/R0702A.jhtml
The HBR List
Breakthrough Ideas for 2007
Our annual survey of emerging ideas considers how
nanotechnology will affect commerce, what role
hope plays in leadership, and why, in an age that
practically enshrines accountability, we need to beware of accountabalism.
1. The Accidental Influentials *
Duncan J. Watts
In his best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm
Gladwell argues that social epidemics are
driven in large part by the actions of a tiny
minority of special individuals. The idea seems
intuitively rightwe think we see it happening
all the time. Nevertheless, this isnt actually
how ideas spread. Its better to focus on getting
enough plain, ordinary people to sign on.
2. Entrepreneurial Japan
Yoshito Hori
Japans economic rebound is generally attributed
to the turnaround of corporate giants and to
industry consolidation. But it is also fueled by
the emergence of new companies led by
entrepreneurs in their twenties and thirties. An
entrepreneurial Japanno longer an oxymoronmay
ultimately overshadow the much touted start-up cultures of China and India.
3. Brand Magic: Harry Potter Marketing
Frédéric Dalsace, Coralie Damay, and David Dubois
Most brands target a specific age group. The big
problem with this approach is that it positively
discourages customer loyaltyand, as we all know,
its a lot cheaper to keep customers than to find
new ones. To get around this problem, companies
should consider creating brands that mature with their customers.
4. Algorithms in the Attic
Michael Schrage
For a powerful perspective on future business,
take a hard look at mathematics past: the old
equations collecting dust on academics shelves.
Just as big firms need the keen eye of an
intellectual property curator to appreciate the
value of old patents and know-how, they will need
savvy mathematicians to resurrect long-forgotten
equations that, because of advancing technology,
can finally be applied to business.
5. The Leader from Hope
Harry Hutson and Barbara Perry
Most business leaders shy away from the word
hope. Yet hope has been shown to be the key
ingredient of resilience in survivors of traumas
ranging from prison camps to natural disasters.
So if you are an executive trying to lead an
organization through change, know that hope can
be a potent force in your favor. And its yours to give.
6. An Emerging Hotbed of User-Centered Innovation *
Eric von Hippel
Most countries, developing and developed alike,
view innovation as a vital input to their
economic growth and spend varying portions of
their national budgets to support it in companies
and research labs, for the ultimate benefit of
essentially passive consumers. Denmark is taking
a different tack: Its making user-centered innovation a national priority.
7. Living with Continuous Partial Attention
Linda Stone
Continuous partial attentiondistinct from
multitaskingis an adaptive behavior that
presumably allows us to keep pace with the
never-ending bandwidth technology offers. Now
there are signs of a backlash against the tyranny of tantalizing choices.
8. Borrowing from the PE Playbook
Michael C. Mankins
Company coffers are overflowing these days, and
inevitably executives are turning to the M&A
markets in their quest to put the cash to good
use. If theyre to avoid repeating the
disappointments of previous M&A waves, they will
have to take a few leaves from the acquisition
playbook of private equity firms.
9. When to Sleep on It
Ap Dijksterhuis
Use your conscious mind to acquire all the
information you need to arrive at a difficult
decision, but dont try to analyze it. Instead,
go on holiday and let your unconscious mind
digest the information for a day or two. Whatever
your intuition then tells you is almost certainly going to be the best choice.
10. Here Comes XBRL
Robert G. Eccles, Liv Watson, and Mike Willis
A new software standard for financial and
business reporting, soon to be adopted by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, will
make it dramatically easier to generate,
validate, aggregate, and analyze business and
financial informationwhich in turn will improve
the quality of the information companies use to make decisions.
11. Innovation and Growth: Size Matters *
Geoffrey B. West
Newfound general mathematical relationships
between population size, innovation, and wealth
creation challenge the conventional wisdom that
smaller innovation functions are more inventive.
They may explain why few organizations today have
matched the creativity of a giant like Bell Labs in its heyday.
12. Conflicted Consumers
Karen Fraser
Your customer data indicate strong consumer
satisfaction: Repeat purchase levels are high,
and many customers have been with you for years.
Good news, right? Well, appearances can be
deceptive. Buried in the data may be a stealth
segment of apparently loyal customers whose
ethical concerns make them ready to bolt as soon as an alternative emerges.
13. What Sells When Father Knows Best
Phillip Longman
The link between conservatism and fertility is
found throughout the world, and it portends a
comeback for patriarchy and other traditional
values. Business leaders must learn how to profit
from, or at least prepare for, this trend.
14. Business in the Nanocosm
Rashi Glazer
Though the scientific and technological
revolution that may occur as a result of
nanotechnology has been much discussed, the
sociocultural and business implications are of
potentially much greater impact. Nanotechnology
may change society over the next few decades just
as much as information technology has over the
previous fewand in ways that are still hard to grasp.
15. Act Globally, Think Locally *
Yoko Ishikura
Companies are usually told to think globally and
act locally. But thanks to their own global
information systems and the Internet, knowledge
from faraway places can be acquired relatively
easily and cheaply. This means that firms have to
discover and quickly incorporate good ideas from
these diverse sources before their rivals do.
16. Seeing Is Treating
Klaus Kleinfeld and Erich Reinhardt
When several technologies can be leveraged
simultaneously, the possibilities for real
breakthroughs in medical care multiply. That is
occurring today with the convergence of imaging
technology and biotechnology, which promises to
radically change the diagnosis and treatment of
many chronic diseases, greatly benefiting both
patients and the companies that serve them.
17. The Best Networks Are Really Worknets *
Christopher Meyer
The assumption is that if you build a network
platform, people will come. If you expect to get
real value from your initiative, though, you must
think hard and in advance about exactly what
function you want the network to perform. That
will help you choose the participants, the nature
of their experiences, and the technology. In
other words, put the work in network first.
18. Why U.S. Health Care Costs Arent Too High
Charles R. Morris
Contrary to popular belief, health care costs,
broadly defined, are quite probably falling. It
is spending that is rising, which is not the same
thing at all. The benefits of health care for
individuals, society, and the economysuch as
getting people back to work fastermore than outweigh its direct costs.
19. In Defense of Ready, Fire, Aim
Clay Shirky
The bulk of open source projects fail, and most
of the remaining successes are quite modest.
Still, open systems are a profound threat to many
businesses, not only because they outsucceed
commercial firms but, more important, because they outfail them.
20. The Folly of Accountabalism
David Weinberger
Accountability has gone horribly wrong. It has
become accountabalism, a set of related beliefs
and practices that bureaucratize morality and
make us believe we can control our lives by
adhering to specific rules. But grown-ups prefer
clarity and realism to happy superstition.
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((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))