The teacher asked me to share in front of the class about my job or my life. After I shared my story, the teacher asked the other students to take a position in a circle in front of me; nearer if they are inspired by what I shared, or further if they dislike what they hear. Not knowing what I really want to become, I shared with them about the transition I am in, the frustration and confusion, and the failures I have made in the past one year.

Not surprisingly, many of them picked a pretty far position, one even went beyond the circle’s boundary. ”He sounded like giving up”, she said. The teacher was also wondering what has happened with me since the last time we met two years before.

photo credit: EduardoZ

The story does not happen long time ago. It was only last month in a philosophy session on life’s calling and direction. The event is organized by Executive Coaching International (ECI), the same organization that conducts The Courage to Create program.

After a year of silence, I would like to have a chance also to share with you about the updates in my life. Given the choice, I could tell you how the new journey has been in the past one year. From the worst, I could share on the passing away of my father or the disappointing freelancing career; or maybe I can share the best in them, in finding God’s amazing grace again through the teaching of Joseph Prince and Andrew Wommack. As I shared in the ECI session, it was a season of searching and confusion, however I have to thank God that my situation is now much better.

In a short update, I have recently ended my freelancing career. It is a new beginning with a new job, a technology consulting company specialized in web product consulting that includes conceptualization and implementation. It is a 2 years-young company with about 15 staffs, all below 30 years old. It is a company with entrepreneurial and unique culture that has been growing real well.

What’s up in the next year? I will continue my postgraduate study for another year, and I will also focus lots of my time for my current work. I will probably write several articles in the next year, probably it will be more of what I have learned about God’s grace and its impact. If I shared with you more from human wisdom last year and the years before, I hope to share more about God and His wisdom in the future. Probably some will find that my future posts are very Christian, but if you are still reading this blog, I hope that you will stay open-minded and learn as much as you can, regardless of what you believe.

Meanwhile, I just want to say belated Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year ahead.

Keep on smiling,
Robert

photo credit: massimob(ian)chi

Christmas is over, holiday is almost over, and it’s the end of the year. Have you taken some time to reflect on what is year 2009 to you?

If 2007 is a year of change, 2008 is a year of learning, 2009 is a year of questions for me. The surface shows decline and there are seemingly a lot of wrong decisions. It was tempting to resent them and it takes faith to believe that something deeper is at work, even through failures, and they can work together for good.

In year 2008 I learned a lot about myself, partly through the program The Courage to Create from ECI. Together with many books I read and blog articles I have written, it has impacted me to learn and question a lot of what happens in my life, the choices I have made, and the environments I was in.

That could be the biggest suspect of why year 2009 was such as year of questions, and in the surface, decline. Sometimes I was wondering whether it is the side effect of learning. I was wondering if it is better if I stop reading book for a while. Maybe that is the reason why King Solomon at some point of his life decided that everything on earth is nothing, wisdom is nothing, in his book, Ecclesiastes. Was there really something great about learning?

Here is what I learn about learning and why it is by itself is not enough…

1) Learning takes practice

I’m now reading a book on the subject of knowledge assets, preparing for my second semester in Knowledge Management. It is the book written by Max H. Boisot titled Knowledge Assets: Securing Competitive Advantage in the Information Economy, proposing a new model of production function that describes the exchange between data and the physical factor required (such as time, space, and energy). We can reduce the amount of physical resource required by making optimum utilization of the data (and knowledge) we have, and that requires both insight and experience. One without another will not be enough, learning could represent insight but it is not enough without practice and experience. It’s not a one-time event, but a cycle that repeats again and again between insight and experience.

2) Learning takes reflection

Knowledge comes from experience.  However, it is not just raw experience.  It comes from experience that we have reflected on, made sense of, tested against other’s experience. It is experience that is informed by theory, facts, and understanding.  It is experience we make sense of in relationship to a field or discipline.
~McDermott, 1999

Will you stop for a while to reflect on what you learn? Knowledge comes from both insight and experience, but it also takes reflection to internalize what you have learned. Writing is an exercise that I found useful to reflect on what I have learned, relating what I learn to other insights and experience I have. It involves finding similarities and connections, contradictions if they exist, and whether or not they can collaborate to form bigger perspective on the insights and experience.

3) Learning takes context to apply

Maybe one big mistake I made this year was in blindly forcing to apply what I learn to my working place. I really like the idea behind strength-based and performance-based work that I am looking forward (hastily) to apply. It was not for selfish reasons, but for a way how I could deliver the most to the organization that is hiring me. Despite of the noble motive, it takes skills to communicate, courage to influence, and patience to wait and adapt in making the changes. It takes wisdom, and without that, people will mistake you as irresponsible and selfish. I was hoping to deliver the best I could from my understanding, but the message was not clear. Some people are opposed to the changes with their own reasons and perspectives. Inkpen and Dinur, in their knowledge transfer model, call for the analysis of context before transferring knowledge. Ignorance to do so will result in “viability-dissenting direction”; one that we can avoid if only we consider the context similarity before applying what we learned.

4) Learning takes focus

I’m starting at the year 2009 with a goal to make habits, but along the way I missed that out. Instead of taking more habits, I’m dropping more and more habits. Some lose its value, some are difficult to continue. More and more things get my attention away from the habit I’m building. I believe that learning takes practice and persistence, but learning also needs focus. It’s way easier to persist on one thing rather than too many things.

What will year 2010 be?

I was thinking for a number of days to write this article. It’s easy to write the mistakes I made in year 2009, but what should I do differently in year 2010? Should I make some other goals? Some other habits maybe? It seems that the answer is not that, at least from what I see right now.

Having no full-time jobs at the moment gives me lesson to find a cause or work that I can believe in, the focus or direction for which I can put much effort. I want it to be “more others, less self”. If more of the past years I’ve been focusing on self and what I want to learn, I really hope to find a place where I can contribute with all of who I am, my best and my strength, and not focusing on learning this and that.

In overall, I believe that year 2009 is not a waste. It is part of growth and life curriculum I need to take. In fact, decline is really part of growth. You may have known about the sigmoid curve, a repetitive curve of incline and decline in our life, but in fact, you are growing to a new level. Internalizing what you learn requires you to be exploratory and making errors. What we see as decline is indeed a part of the learning cycle we all have to go through.

Whether it is successes or failures, I hope we can close year 2009 with our heads up high and be prepared to enter greater successes and learning growth in the New Year. Closing this article, I want to wish you Happy New Year 2010.

Cheers for a greater year,
Robert

Resources:

1. Max H. Boisot, 1998. Knowledge Assets:  Securing Competitive Advantage in the Information Economy.
2. Michael Miles, 2008.  The Lesson of the Sigmoid Curve.
3. Robert A. Henru, 2008. Do you make these mistakes in Learning?

photo credit: Robb North

Writing could be a hard thing to do. Having no audience or lesser readers could be better. For me, it means lesser concerns on the impacts of my writing. Launching my new theme was made to mark a new beginning. I am now trying to write just like how I started blogging few years ago. Simply write and thinking less of other stuffs. Categorization, direction (or purpose), standards, and keeping good impression are some of the things I want let go. It’s back to the earlier passion of writing.

Nevertheless, writing is still not an easy thing to do. Besides getting back to our old pattern, we sometimes find that our creativity juice is not flowing. Writers call it writers’ block, but I believe we all, knowledge worker that requires creativity, face it at one point or another. Sometimes we ask, ‘Where has that creativity gone?’

In processing that thought I have found some answers and I would like to share it with you in this article.

Where has creativity gone?

Maybe I need some rest. Rest is one main ingredient for creativity. In rest, I’m not referring to sleeping alone, it is the restful heart. Stress and creativity will not work together. Cosimo de’ Medici has believed that pressuring his artists would not get them producing their best works. Restful heart is free from worry and anxiety, from fear of something that will unlikely to happen. Restful heart is a trusting, hopeful, and cheerful heart. Rest gives you time to think and reflect, not merely consuming more materials to spice up your creativity.

Where has creativity gone?

I remembered watching one writer was giving a speech in TED Talk. I couldn’t remember her name, but she was sharing one worry that writers have; that their best work was that of the past, and there is no point to write anymore. It’s simply mind-blowing to me. Maybe it’s the worry that our present work will not match up to our past, putting us to procrastinate on engaging our creativity. It’s one thing to believe that our best work is the next one, but it’s also important to let go our past work as our baseline. Holding fast to our past works could prevent us to create something new, even if at the end it does not turn as good as our past work.

Where has creativity gone?

Is that perfectionism? I want to include more and more reference to what I’m writing. I have to add for the sake of complexity. I have to add for the sake of correctness; I’ve got to have the right and complete sentences I quoted. I have to add for the sake of reliability, showing that it’s not my useless ramblings. Do I have to add not to plagiarize? Or was that cover up of the doubt I have in my opinion? I have to back all my opinions with others’ statement that inspired me. The list can go longer and longer, stealing us from our creativity? What if we can break the rule that we created ourselves? Simply relax, believe, and express your creativity?

Where has creativity gone?

Maybe it is worry that I’m not as smart as what I expected? Has calling myself stupid made it into reality? Or it might be the low IQ, which decreasing over time? Was that why the creativity is not there? Carol S. Dweck noticed the pattern and wrote it into an article she wrote, titled “Belief That Make Smart People Dumb” (Steinberg, 2002).  Inside, she was sharing that our belief of fixed intelligence has prevented us to take courageous steps. For such person, failure is a big thing for it is proving that he or she is dumb or not intelligent enough. Failure disrupts their self-worth, and learning is as risky as the opportunities that will reveal their ignorance and errors they make.

Where has creativity gone?

Maybe it’s simply hard work that is required. Maybe we can enjoy the pleasure of effort and detach its result from our self worth. The word “gifted” might give people impression that they can achieve what they want without much effort. It undermines the hard work and commitment they have to put and invest. Our belief in our “gifted”ness could prevent us to make the commitment, persuading us to give up when we face obstacles. Maybe we should believe the other way round? We should not be bothered by whether or not we are intelligent or gifted. We can believe that we can learn and grow. Our intelligence will grow with it, and only then we will be “gifted” and able to do things easier.

Where has creativity gone?

It’s right here. It might be hidden until you take the first step. It might call you to simply start writing and letting go what you want to say. Just like what I did in drafting this article, my ramblings formed up into an article. It might not be the usual article you will find in the internet. I guess not many people sharing their thought and its complexity like this in a blog. But hopefully it’s a story that you can learn from. It’s not in a point form or bullet point, but I hope that it will help you digging and passing through any writing block or procrastination that has come in front of you. It has made my day; hopefully it makes your day too!

Robert

Resources:

1. Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid by Robert J. Sternberg.
2. To Be of Use: The Seven Seeds of Meaningful Work by Dave Smith.

Painting of The Medici Family

I would like to share one family that has brought enlightenment, to the world, but especially to Europe in 15th to 17th century. It is the Medici, the godfather of The Renaissance. It was started from a small bank that they owned. The family invested in a pirate to sponsor his campaign to become a pope. From pirate into pope, is there stranger investment than that? The Medici saw the potential of that strange investment. Fortunately, it paid off hugely for the family. The papal support brought great benefits to the business.

It was not the only strange things they invested. The family has been recognized for their patronage to unique and talented artists. One that stood up is Filippo Brunelleschi, a maverick architect that has brought back classic style to his design. His eccentric style could not get him much sponsor. Cosimo de’ Medici, however, spotted him, and saw the potential in him. He brought his style to the city of Florence, to the admiration of many people.  His great achievement was the Florence cathedral dome, a proof of his architectural, mathematical, and engineering genius. He is also the inventor of ‘perspective’, a new way to draw three-dimensional objects in two dimensions.

Cosimo brought the beginning of renaissance. Art industry and market grew abundantly in the city of Florence, an opportunity for any artist to introduce his/her creativity and get sponsored. Cosimo, especially, treated the artists not as worker. Rather than pushing them to complete their commissions, he believed that positive morale is important and the precondition of magnificent arts. The family built art school and has raised the greatest artist of the century such as Sandro Boticelli and Michaelangelo, bringing the generation on its peak of creativity.

And as always, success brings criticism. Their success brought critics from Girolamo Savonarola, a priest and leader who condemn the Renaissance art as immoral arts that have offended God greatly. After the death of Lorenzo I de’ Medici, grandson of Cosimo de’ Medici who lead the state at that point of time, Savonarola brought hostility to the Renaissance, burning what he considered as immoral arts and literature.

It was not the end for the Medici. Lorenzo has prepared the next generation to lead a ‘career’ in church. Eventually Giovanni, his second son raised up to become a pope under the name Leo X. To my surprise, he was the one with whom Martin Luther has opposed to. Giovanni was a greedy pope, his extravagant lifestyle has brought great debt, and he covered it by selling letter of forgiveness to people in a large scale, one business that only a pope can do. It brought anger and protest that has split the Christianity into two, the Roman Catholic and Protestant.

Not only in visual arts and sculpture, the Medici has brought a revolution in science as well. His patronage to a genius like Galileo Galilei has brought up new and thought-provoking findings; one of them was the truth that earth is revolving around the sun, and not vice-versa. He was appointed to become a teacher for Medici’s next generation leader. Expressing his gratitude, he named the four Jupiter moons he discovered as Medici stars, carving the name of the family into the universe. At the end of his life, however, Galileo lost the support from the Medici family as he stood against the papal opposition to his sun-centered universe theory. Following the trial, Galileo is under house arrest until the end of his life in 1642.

It’s a story of a family that has brought rebirth, renaissance to Europe. Their open-mindedness brought up the great artists of all time. From the start, they invested their money not to the material things, but to people; artists and mathematical genius that has brought up many inventions and discovery. They are willing to be different and they are believer of human potential. As result, their name soars from a local bank to the universe.

Resources:

• I wrote this article based on a documentary film titled The Medici: Godfathers of The Renaissance.

• For more about innovation lesson that the Medici can teach us, check out the book The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson. Alternatively, you can get the e-book free here in The Pirate’s Dilemma.

photo credit: SuperFantastic

Maybe it is one question I have been asking for many times. I enjoyed formulating my thoughts, but I have constantly procrastinated. I enjoyed writing, but I have constantly resent it. I guess I have to really process this thing. You can consider this post an update, or you can consider it a sharing.

Things don’t really go well on my side, no income for the past 2 months as my mind was divided into 3 areas, my study in Knowledge Management, my freelancing programmer, and my job search in Knowledge Management area, either full or part time.

Seemingly, there are ways for me to pursue either of them, even both of them. But now? None of them is confirmed yet. The uncertainties seems to be numerous, there are a lot I need to improve first, but I believe in one thing…

Everything will work out in the end. If it is not working out, it’s not the end.
~Max Lucado (Fearless)

Back to the question, why is it getting harder for me to write? Here is my answer: in short, it’s fear. You want it longer? Here is what I thought of:

1) Fear of not making the ends meet

The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs seems to be true. If you can’t make sure a bowl of rice on your table, you may not be able to think much about self-actualization. It seems that my worry for financial has overtaken me, and I’ve been putting my hobby aside because of that. Somehow, I believe that I need to stop wasting my time here and I need to put more effort to get me better career.

2) Fear of exposure

You search my full name, and you’ll find my LinkedIn account and the about page in this blog. Knowing that, I want to ensure that I don’t write something that eventually hurt my possibility to get the job I want or I need. Sometimes I worry, am I exposing too much of me here? The idea of open-source life is great, but is it too naive? Someone told me, confession is good for the soul, but not good for the reputation.

3) Fear of inconsistency

I’ve been really disappointed with my writing. It’s not consistent at all. Am I putting my bar too high? Maybe. I am trapped in that all-or-nothing thinking. I chose not to write, rather than write things inconsistently. If I am not doing well, I was thinking why I should bother doing this at all. Maybe I should quit doing this totally like what Seth Godin told me.

4) Fear of no time

No time to share knowledge. That sounds familiar to me. It was one of the presentations my classmates did to share with us the obstacle of knowledge sharing. It happened to me. It’s somehow related to the first fear I shared above. Truly, I was thinking of sharing more of what I learned in my blog. They could be taken from my study, or the books I read. However, knowing that it will take too much time, I’ve got to choose to pick selectively.

Closing thought

There is another thing I have delayed for a while, that is announcing my new blog, KM-4-Life (www.km4life.com). I have written several posts over there in a more professional way, planning that it could be the portal that I will direct my freelance clients to. It’s not been updated regularly yet, as I am still uncertain about the direction of my career right now.

Freelancing is certainly not a heaven on earth. The possibilities could be exciting, but the uncertainties could be scary. It could energize you or drain your energy. It has made me thinking a lot about what I really want out of my life. It is teaching me to live under whatever constraint I have. It is teaching me to have more self-control and discipline. It is teaching me to surrender to God for whatever plans He has in my life. My prayer is for Him to open the right door, and close the wrong door.

Again, I believe in one thing right now…

Everything will work out in the end. If it’s not working out, then it’s not the end.
~Max Lucado (Fearless)

At least now I’m making the courage to write despite the fears above. If you have any thoughts on those fears above, please share them in the comments. Maybe I can learn one thing or two from your comments.

Thank you!
Robert

photo credit: Shandchem

This is part of my assignment for Business Intelligence course, answering how 9/11 terrorist attack in 2001, the collapse of Lehman Brothers financial firm in 2008, and the rise of internet age affected the way multinational consumer electronic firm approach business intelligence, especially in regards to managing business risk.

The Black Swans

The 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and the collapse of financial firm Lehman Brothers in 2008 are examples of what Nassim Nicholas Taleb called as Black Swan as he wrote in his books, The Black Swan and Fooled by Randomness. Taleb uses the metaphors ‘Black Swan’ to describe such events that has three features: “rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability”[5].

Both events are rare and have extreme impact, but do they retrospective? According to Fox Business Network, the two events are not necessarily unrelated.[11] It reported that after the 9/11 event, there is reduction in interest rate to increase market confidence in spending and boost the economy back. The higher liquidity in the market, added with high spending habit of many Americans (even with money they have not earned), has resulted in large sum of money created by debt. Unsurprisingly, the bubble is burst with Lehman Brothers as its first victim.

Hugh Courtney brought up the four levels of uncertainty that business has to manage [2]:

• level 1 (clear enough future),
• level 2 (alternative futures),
• level 3 (range of futures), and
• level 4 (true uncertainty).

Black Swans are examples of the level 4 uncertainty. Even though they are not prospective, they are retrospective. In other words, we might be able to predict or avoid it with enough business intelligence. Hugh Courtney also suggested that we can put our best effort to minimize residual uncertainty – the uncertainty left after the best possible analysis to separate the unknown from the unknowable [2].

A multinational firm in consumer electronics, without any exception, has to face level 3 and level 4 uncertainty as well. These are what they can do to avoid or cover themselves against catastrophic events such as 9/11 terrorist attack and Lehman Brothers’ collapse.

1. Insurance. Firms are realizing the need to cover themselves against catastrophic events, not only the traditional risks such as fire and earthquake, but also the human made catastrophe, such as the terrorist attacks. Within few years after 9/11, insurance industry had seen severe losses, great price rises, and profit records, all in swift succession.[7] As insurance industry stabilize itself, multinational consumer electronic firm can get the benefits by covering itself from the losses due to catastrophic uncertainty.
2. Precautionary actions. Firms are also seen to be more cautious in dealing with uncertainty. Some examples can be observed in the world trade one year after 9/11.[12] Corporations pay close attention to the so-called BERI index (Business and Environment Risk) when assessing investment opportunities in critical countries.  Companies also spread the value chain across various locations or even to multiple continents. Since 9/11, many companies have also radically restricted their number of business trips. Company regulations even specified that board members must not travel in the same plane.
3. Backward strategy analysis. Under level 1-3 uncertainty, the analyst can move forward from situation analysis to the implications for strategy. In level 4 uncertainty, however, an alternative is needed. Analysts are now required to move backward from hypothetical strategy to the assumed conditions or situations needed. Further, analysts are required to challenge those assumptions, gathering information and intelligence to support their beliefs. Analogies and reference cases can be useful in assessing whether those assumptions and beliefs are feasible.[2]
4. Bigger intelligence pool. Two out of four remedies to the strategic surprise suggested by Chester A. Crocker[1] are dealing with enlarging the intelligence pool. First, he suggested that leadership and management structure need to place a premium on open architecture to ensure that multiple inputs and voices are heard and to instill rewards for unconventional thinking. Second, he also suggested that the inclusion to the decision bodies and boards of various sources and expertise will help. With those practices, firm will have access to bigger intelligence pool to gain the “mega view” of the issues at hand, ensuring lesser residual uncertainty.
5. Flexibility. To tame the beast of uncertainty, Lord Levere suggested that a firm needs to respond to the changing risk environment.[7] As uncertainty is always there, maybe the best policy is being flexible or at least include some flexibility into the planning process. As Chester A. Crocker said, “ the implication is clear: if, despite all best efforts, strategic surprises are inevitable, then it becomes imperative to do everything possible to build the possibility of surprise into the planning process and to focus particular effort on coping with and managing its potential effects”.

Nevertheless, consumer electronics firm must avoid “analysis paralysis”. The firm might be required to make a decisive action in spite of the uncertainty and along the way, reiteratively correct and fix their direction. For example, there is a need to increase liquidity after Lehman Brother’s collapse. Consumer electronic firms cannot wait for a perfect product to be launched, they need to come out with products soon to compete and meet the market need, and possibly release patches, fixes, or new versions along the way. Multinational firm with deep pocket is also seen paying their supplier faster to increase market liquidity.[13]

The Emergence of Internet and Web 2.0

This is the era of internet, an information era where user can have access to the abundance of information anywhere, anytime. With the rise of Web 2.0, internet users do not only consume the information, but also produce the information that collectively shaped our modern culture.

However good it may sounds, this also extends another risk that a firm needs to manage; that is the risk towards its intangible asset. Besides intellectual property, Lord Levere, Lloyd’s chairman, also raised up reputation risk as an important asset whose loss may lead to years needed in regaining market position and public confidence.

Reputation risk is one of the intangible asset that has to be managed better with the growth of Internet and Web 2.0. There are customer’s reviews everywhere, from reseller sites (such as Amazon) to the individual blog in the blogosphere. They provided user feedback on firm’s products and services, both the satisfactions and dissatisfaction. Most potential customers will now also search for review before buying a certain product. Hence, customer electronic firm needs to be careful in managing its product quality and its brand reputation. Well-managed reputation will also pay very well as potential buyers put high value on such reviews.

Besides the risk, Internet and Web 2.0 era also brings up bigger pool of intelligence that businesses can be benefited from. As I stated earlier, this is necessary to manage the risk against uncertainty better. Here is some the additional intelligence that the modern internet has brought in.

1. Online community of practices. A firm can benefit from them to learn more about various expertise to get a better bigger picture of the uncertainties they are facing. Knowledge sharing has also revolved in which an individual firm does not only capture information content, but at the same time build contacts and its knowledge networks.[10]
2. Accessible information about their competitors. A firm can find out more about the strategy movement and updates from its competitors faster and easier. They can also find out more about the customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction against their competitors. The firm can then convert it into product idea and strategy to meet the unmet needs.
3. Collective intelligence. Don Tapscott defined it as the “aggregate knowledge that emerges from the decentralized choices and judgments of groups of independent participants”.[8] As more web tools are provided for user to tag and comment on what is good and what is bad, collectively a pattern will emerge and firm will be able to identify what is popular and important for their customers and potential markets.

The ‘Swans’ fly in flock

According to James Shinn, “Swans fly in flock. Though their appearance individually may be close to random, Swans may be linked causally and sequentially in time.”[5]  Shinn also emphasized that they are not necessarily bad. In fact, good and bad swans can be linked together.

To emphasize his point, Shinn shared an example of the bad swan, December 2004 tsunami that has devastated northern part of Sumatra. That tsunami (‘bad swan’) brought along the peace into the island (‘good swan’). The tsunami devastated Sumatra’s Aceh separatist movement, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) that it was finally willing to come to a peace arrangement with Indonesian government.[5]

Similarly, a firm can look into the unexpected surprise they are facing and take another look into the situation. With enough intelligence, business can identify potential trend they can tap into to make profits from them.

Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) President and CEO, Gary Shapiro has a good perspective on the recent economic turmoil as posted by TheTechZone.com[6]. “The CE (Consumer Electronic) industry is resilient but not immune from the business cycle. In a tough economy our products offer high value for entertainment and an entry point for entrepreneurs creating new businesses,” said Shapiro.

Tapping into the good ‘swan’. The economic downturn since 2008 might have affected most industries badly. This can be reflected by the number of job loss and retrenchments. Rather than resenting the current business state we are in, Gary Saphiro raised up a very good perspective that consumer electronic industry can gain advantage from, such as offering high value for entertainment and entry point for entrepreneurs creating new businesses.

In the current internet and collaboration economy, more and more people have access to start their own online business. Competing in the market that previously dominated by the big player, people build alternative products for a specific niche that is not covered by the bigger player. This build what Chris Anderson called ‘The Long Tail’ in sales distribution.[9] More and more players in the market lengthen the tail. With easy internet access, search and advertising, these start-up businesses might also gain a considerable share of the market, and in a way, thicken the tail.

Multinational consumer electronic firm can tap into these trend by taking the role as the Long Tail “aggregator”. Chris Anderson defined it as “a company or service that collects a huge variety of goods and makes them available and easy to find, typically in single place.”[9] Apple with its application store and iTunes is an excellent example of how a consumer electronic firm has successfully put itself into a very strategic role in harvesting profit from such trends.

In conclusion, internet has brought up and widen the expertise and intelligence business can tap into. With proper business strategy supported by enough business intelligence and certain amount of flexibility, businesses can make better risk management and make decisive actions despite the uncertainty and surprises they are facing.

Bibliography

1. Chester A. Crocker ~ Reflections on Strategic Surprise, chapter 13 of The Impenetrable Fog of War (edited by Patrick M. Cronin). 2008.
2. Hugh Courtney ~ 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World. 2001.
3. Robert J. Rhee ~ Terrorism Risk in a Post-9/11 Economy: The Convergence of Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Action. Online: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=898062. 2005
4. Wikipedia ~ Catastrophe Modeling. Online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophe_modeling
5. James Shinn ~ Tracking Asia’s Black Swans, chapter 12 of The Impenetrable Fog of War (edited by Patrick M. Cronin). 2008.
6. TheTechZone.com ~ CES 2009 – Consumer Electronics Industry 2009 Forecast. Online: http://www.thetechzone.com/ttz/index.php/ces-2009-consumer-electronics-industry-2009-forecast/. 2009.
7. Lord Levene ~ Taming The Beast. Online: http://www.lloyds.com/News_Centre/Speeches/Taming_the_beast_-_managing_business_risk_Lord_Levene_Chairman.htm. 2004.
8. Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams ~ Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. 2008.
9. Chris Anderson ~ The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand. 2006.
10. Donald M. Norris, et.al ~ A Revolution in Knowledge Sharing. Educause Review, September/October 2003.
11. FOX Business Network ~ 9/11’s Impact on Business. Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FocoRIyyDSA&feature=player_embedded. 2009.
12. Hermann Simon ~ Terrorism Hurts World Trade. Online: http://www.ip-global.org/archiv/volumes/2002/fall2002/terrorism-hurts-world-trade.html. 2002.
13. Tom Krisher ~ GM to Pay Suppliers Faster. Online: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090928/BIZ13/309289956/1031/BIZ. 2009.

Rev. Dr. Lewis Winkler

I met an interesting person last weekend. Rev. Dr. Lewis Winkler is a faculty staff in East Asia School of Theology teaching Christian Theology. When I asked him whether he is blogging, he said no.

Many people has asked that question to him, but he is still decided not to blog. The reason is his belief that blogging will take too much time from him. It is simply not for his personality. He is a deep person, thinker that blogging and structuring his thought into short article in a blog will simply take too much time. Many other things can be done if he is not blogging, so he is decided not to blog.

He wrote books instead. He’s about to submit one book to one publication in United States on objective study of the differences between Christians and Moslems in handling religious differences. He has also started writing on his second book on the subject of the hidden-ness of God. Many books has been published on how God is real in people’s live, but in this book he is going to share why sometimes God hides himself. God asked us to look at the needy people around us as He is there.

More than what he explained about his books, I learned one message from him. He has not found a publisher, so I asked him why not going for self-publishing. His answer is the inspiration to this article. He writes not for the sake of publication or money, he writes to get his message heard. Publishers know the best about reaching wider audience and that is why he chose to go with an established publisher, even if it is tough.

He taught me to write a book only when we have some message we believe we are the one to speak about. There is simply too many books out there. I don’t know how many authors write just to get their name popular, just for profit or for the sake of writing a book. Dr. Lewis’ message is to write only if you believe you have some message that others need to see and understand, and you are the one that should speak about it. Isn’t that a better perspective?

Knowledge Codification

Knowledge codification is taking too much time, do you agree with me? Putting our tacit knowledge (what we know) into written format is a process that really takes time. If there is a spectrum between sharers of knowledge to the hoarders of knowledge, I might be closer to the sharers of knowledge.

If possible, I want to codify what I learned in life, every books that I read, every inspiration there is to share, every interesting thoughts or imaginations. Unfortunately I have to put things into reality, that writing really takes time. What I learned while starting something on my own, being paid for results rather than time, is that I don’t have much time to codify my knowledge anymore. I have to keep up with my study and make ends meet that I might have no more time to blog. It’s tough, blogging is actually something that I enjoy.

I guess I will blog only when I take a break from my study and work. But after the second thought, maybe not, I will blog only when I have a message to share, message to write, not to gain popularity from people or search engine, not to keep up with certain regularity, not to make me a consistent blogger or so, but simply when I have an important message to share with you.

Share your knowledge, with thoughts, with filter, with purpose!
Don’t simply write to join this information overloaded era.

Best,
Robert

photo credit: cyberuly

People and experts might ask, “why should I even share my knowledge?” They ask, “what’s the benefit for me?”

Rather than sharing, they prefer to hoard their knowledge. They think that it will save them their job, at least as they are the only ones who know that particular knowledge.

They forgot that knowledge grows as they share them.

Knowledge can be regarded as the only unique resource that grows when shared, transferred, and managed skillfully.
~Alfred Beerli

Why do knowledge grows when we share them?

1) Knowledge requires context

First of all, let’s reflect back to the difference between information and knowledge. Information might be able to achieve its meaning in generalized way, but we need application and context for knowledge to emerge.

Our distinction between data/information and knowledge conveys that the source of value does not arise from possessing the information source, but from acting on it in a context of a specific meaning at a specific time.
~Thomas Davenport and Sirkka Jarvenpaa

You may understand information individually and in isolation, but knowledge can only be understood in context, and that includes interactivity and communications with others.

2) Knowledge is a “flow”

Do you think knowledge as a “thing” or a “flow”? Rather than static resource or snapshot, it’s better to think that knowledge is a flow between the various state of known and unknown. It flows between the tacit (subjective) to explicit (objective) knowledge, it exists in the transition between the two, and it also exists in the symbiosis or the combination between the two dimensions. By defining knowledge as a flow, we will see the emergence quality of knowledge and how it can only be realized through practice and knowledge networking.

3) Knowledge can be used in many ways

Traditional use of knowledge may include only acquisition, assimilation, and sharing of knowledge. But in practice, knowledge use includes interpreting, reflecting, creating, applying, realizing, understanding, associating, recognizing, repurposing, and enhancing knowledge.

From that many usages, it is only a limited number that an individual in isolation can do. We need network or conversation to maximize the usage of knowledge. As you will see, more knowledge can be created by asking questions and watching the response provoke cascading conversations, responses, and interactions among the participants.

I hope that this article helps you to see the importance of knowledge sharing. Knowledge grow when we share them. Not only they will benefit other learners, they will also benefit you. With the power of technology that we have right now, it’s much easier for us to share knowledge. My question to you, will you dare to share?

Robert

[This article is summarized and adapted from the article "Revolution in Knowledge Sharing" (EDUCAUSE September/October 2003) by Donald M. Norris, Jon Mason, Robby Robson, Paul Lefrere, and Geoff Collier.]

The idea came when I was trying to restructuring my blog Reason-4-Smile to cater with my variety of interest. I’m sharing more than just for introverts, and hence I was looking for a new theme and a new classification for my articles. I eventually came out with 4 categories, the leader, the human, the engineer, and the blogger. Over there it’s more than just a role, it was the personality as well, courageous leader, humble human, meticulous engineer, and marketing blogger.

Managing your documents

That does not end there, I started to organize my documents in my Mac accordingly as well. As you might have guessed, I am using the four roles again. The engineer includes work I have done in the past, and many materials and e-books on IT and technical stuffs. The human includes all from fun, dvd projects, and transactions that I just need to keep for reference sake. The leader includes career opportunity and toastmaster stuffs. Finall, the blogger includes all my articles, pictures, affiliations, things that are related to my blogging journey.

You might have noticed also that I added two folders,I have two additional roles, those are the student (especially for my KM study) and the freelancer (documents related to clients I have right now and in the future).

Managing your notes

Let me introduce you with Evernote (if you don’t know about it yet). A free note-taking application that you can use widely acrosss PC, Mac, blackberry, and iPhone. You can take note from pictures, webs, emails, audios, and many more.

The application comes with both notebooks (something like folders) and tags to help you organize and find your notes better. And this time, again I’m using role-based taxonomy as the how I want to classify my notes.

Initially I came up with lots of roles as notebooks to help me classify my notes. The list was really big, that I thought that it will be much better if I have secretary to help me find things that I need. Unfortunately I can’t afford one right now, so what I’ll have to do is to keep a list of secretary roles/tasks, and put several roles into hers, virtually.

The line might not be so clear to you, but I simply differentiate them between the one that I thought of as references, I’ll choose to delegate if I can, and the one that I’ll do and keep it to myself.

Of course, with role based taxonomy, you can even have more roles into that, even to the point that you have your own company or organization with different people set up in your notes.

Managing your to-do list

Role-based taxonomy was built-in into one to-do-list application in Mac called Things from Culture Code. Besides the classification of to-do list into timeline and projects, it also classifies their tasks into areas of responsibility, or practically roles. I guess this could be something that I really like from Things. It’s not free but it’s really easy to use, and even more it could be integrated or synced to your iPhone.

Do check out the applications I listed above, hope you have more organized life, a better life to manage all the information that is coming to you.

All the best,
Robert

photo credit: Vironevaeh

I’ve got a new pair of glasses, it’s not sunglasses, or those glasses with transition from lighter to darker color. Its brand is KM, and it’s given by NTU with its Master of Science in Knowledge Management course. And what does it do, it helped me to see things in KM perspective. The world is full of people, and each of them own potential resources to be managed, called knowledge.

Let me give you three examples, how something ordinary, that might have missed your attention could be seen from KM perspective.

As I shared earlier, I recently learned how knowledge can turn into information, and that happens when there is knowledge/information overload. That could happen with your pile of RSS articles, that could also happen a lot in other areas of your life. So what can you do about it? The answer is really simple actually, be different and stands out.

Not the usual yada yada

Google Toolbar

My first example is Google Toolbar, and its post-installation note. You always know that every software installation has come with its terms and conditions, something that we will simply skip and ignore. So how can we actually get user’s attention if there is something important there?

Google came up with some interesting text to get our attention, it says “Please read this carefully, it’s not the usual YADA YADA” I bet that now most if not all people will pause a moment and reading it.

Syltra Lee from Singapore Idol 3

The second example is the Singapore Idol contestant, Syltra Lee. She just got into the top 12, and here is a video of her song in the top 24, the one that got the “best performance tonight” award from the judges.

What’s interesting? It’s how she stands out. She might purposely make her hair a bit blonde, and the most interesting point is how she want to be remembered by the audience. “I want to be known as the girl with the guitar, and my strength is the guitar.” I don’t know about you, but it does capture my attention and made me want to see her performance more.

The Head First Series

Head First PHP & MySQL

This is a technical book combined with a child story book. Let me give you an example from Head First PHP and MySQL, a book that stands out from other PHP book. And why is that? The goal of the series is to create something easy for our brain to digest. They have a lot of pictures and pointers, a lot of space between texts, and maybe a very important feature of the book, it’s storytelling.

And that’s not the end, the story is made with full of exaggeration to help us grasp the concept better. The sample application was to make an alien abduction report, the two different technologies was arguing over a coffee, the security threat was an innocent-looking grandma. And those are only some samples of exaggeration in the book.

Interestingly, storytelling is also one practical idea that was taught in my Knowledge Management course. Why? because story is something that can easily stick to one’s memory.

Yes, knowledge management deals a lot with knowledge sharing, but rather than thinking that knowledge has to be presented in technical manner or points form, knowledge is actually better shared in a story, even better with something that sticks, something that make us grin, think, or smile.

All the best,
Robert