Tom Peters’
Re-Imagine!
Business Excellence
in a Disruptive Age
An Introduction to Crazy Times
03.12.2004
The Change Tsunami
Jobs
Technology
Globalization
War, Warfighting &
Security
Jobs
New Technology
Globalization
War, Warfighting &
Security
The Perfect (Jobs) Storm
Off-shoring
WC Automation
Reluctance to hire
“Behind Surging
Productivity: The Service
Sector Delivers. Firms Once
Thought Immune to
Boosting Worker Output Are
Now Big Part of the Trend” —
Headline/WSJ/11.03
“As Economy
Gains,
Outsourcing
Surges”
—Headline/Boston Globe/11.03
“In a global economy, the
government cannot give
anybody a guaranteed success
story, but you can give people
the tools to make the most of
their own lives.” —WJC, from Philip Bobbitt,
The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History
“14 MILLION
service jobs are in
danger of being
shipped overseas” —
The Dobbs Report/USN&WR/11.03/re new UCB
study
1 in 10 tech jobs
headed offshore by
end of 2004.
Source: Gartner Group/06.03
“Is Your Job Going
Abroad?” —Time/Cover/03.04
“Income Confers No
Immunity as Jobs
Migrate”
—Headline/USA Today/02.04
“A new suspect emerges
in hunt for missing U.S.
jobs” —Headline/FT/02.17.04/on small business
off-shoring
“One Singaporean worker
costs as much as …
3 … in Malaysia
8 … in Thailand
13 … in China
18 … in India.”
Source: The Straits Times/08.18.03
“Thaksinomics” (after Taksin
Shinawatra, PM)/ “Bangkok
Fashion City”/ “managed asset
reflation” (add to brand value of
Thai textiles by demonstrating flair
and design excellence)
Source: The Straits Times/03.04.2004
“The proper role of a healthily
functioning economy is to destroy
jobs and to put labor to use
elsewhere. Despite this truth,
layoffs and firings will always
sting, as if the invisible hand of
free enterprise has slapped
workers in the face.” —Joseph Schumpeter
--79% of U.S. jobs in “structurally changed
professions” (“permanently eliminated jobs”)
(40K of 160K U.S. IBM)
--”As we trade we release more labor from the
service sector because our highly skilled and
highly paid workers lose their competitive
advantage. So we go to the next big thing. We
specialize in innovation. We develop new
products and start new industries.” (Erica
Groshen, labor economist Fed of NY)
Source: CNN/Money/01.07.2004
“There is no job
that is America’s
God-given right
anymore.”
—Carly Fiorina/ HP/
01.08.2004
“Either we modernize or
we will be modernized by
the unremitting force of
the markets.” —Gerhard Schroeder
“WHAT ARE PEOPLE
GOING TO DO WITH
THEMSELVES?” —Headline/
Fortune/ 11.03 (“We should finally admit that we do not
and cannot know, and regard that fact with serenity
rather than anxiety.”)
“Uncertainty is the only
thing to be sure of.” —Anthony Muh,
head of investment in Asia, Citigroup Asset Management
“If you don’t like change,
you’re going to like
irrelevance even less.” —General Eric
Shinseki, Chief of Staff,
U. S. Army
“A bureaucrat is an
expensive
microchip.”
Dan Sullivan, consultant and
executive coach
E.g. …
Jeff Immelt: 75% of “admin, back
room, finance” “digitalized” in
years.
Source: BW (01.28.02)
“Unless mankind redesigns
itself by changing our DNA
through altering our genetic
makeup, computergenerated robots will take
over the world.” – Stephen
Hawking, in the German magazine Focus
“What strategic motto will dominate this
transition from nation-state to marketstate? If the slogan that animated the
liberal, parliamentary nation-states was
‘make the world safe for democracy,’ what
will the forthcoming motto be? Perhaps
‘making the world available,’ which is to
say creating new worlds of choice and
protecting the autonomy of persons to
choose.” —Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles:
War, Peace, and the Course of History
“better material
welfare” vs. “maximize
the opportunity of its
people”
—Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles:
War, Peace, and the Course of History
Jobs
Technology
Globalization
War, Warfighting &
Security
<1000A.D.: paradigm shift: 1000s of years
1000: 100 years for paradigm shift
1800s: > prior 900 years
1900s: 1st 20 years > 1800s
2000: 10 years for paradigm shift
21st century:
1000X
tech
change than 20th century (“the ‘Singularity,’ a merger between
humans and computers that is so rapid and profound it
represents a rupture in the fabric of human history”)
Ray Kurzweil
Vernor Vinge/Mr. Singularity
“The transition time from human
history to post-human singularity
time, Vinge thinks, will be
astonishingly short—maybe one
hundred hours from the first
moment of computer selfawareness to computer world
conquest.”—Esquire/12.2002
“We found that the pace of development
from one societal type to another is
accelerating. The agricultural society
originated 10,000 years ago, the industrial
society between 200 and 100 years ago, the
information-based society 20 years ago.” —
Rolf Jensen/The Dream Society: How the Coming Shift from Information to
Imagination Will Transform Your Business
“I genuinely believe we
are living through the
greatest intellectual
moment in history.”
Matt Ridley, Genome
“In 25 years, you’ll
probably be able to get the
sum total of all human
knowledge on a personal
device.”
Greg Blonder, VC [was Chief Technical
Adviser for Corporate Strategy @ AT&T]
[Barron’s 11.13.2000]
“A California biotechnology
company has put the entire
sequence of the human genome
on a single chip, allowing
researchers to conduct on the
complex relationships between
the 30,000 genes that make up a
human being in a single
experiment.” —Page 3, Financial Times/10.03.2003
Sequenom/David Ewing Duncan/Wired11.02
“Sequenom has industrialized the SNP [single
nucleotide polymorphisms] identification
process.” “This, I’m told, is the first time a
healthy human has ever been screened for the
full gamut of genetic-disease markers.” “On the
horizon: multi-disease gene kits, available at
Wal*Mart, as easy to use as home-pregnancy
tests.” “You can’t look at humanity separate from
machines; we’re so intertwined we’re almost the
same species, and the difference is getting
smaller.”
“Help! There’s nobody in the
cockpit. In the future, will the
airlines no longer need pilots?”
Grumman Global Hawk/
24 hours/ Edwards to South
Australia
Source: The Economist/12.21.2002
“There’s going to be a
fundamental change in the
global economy unlike
anything we have had since
the cavemen began bartering.”
Arnold Baker, Chief Economist,
Sandia National Laboratories
“UPS used to be a
trucking company with
technology. Now it’s a
technology company
with trucks.”
—Forbes, upon naming UPS
“Company of the Year” in Y2000
Jobs
Technology
Globalization
War, Warfighting &
Security
“Historically, smart
people have always
turned to where the
money was. Today,
money is turning to
where the smart people
are.” —FT/06.03.03
“The World Must
Learn to Live with
a Wide-awake
China”
—Headline/FT/11.03
“Asia’s rise is the economic event
of our age. Should it proceed as it
has over the last few decades, it
will bring the two centuries of
global domination by Europe and,
subsequently, its giant North
American offshoot to an end.”
—Financial Times (09.22.2003)
“The world has arrived at a rare
strategic inflection point where
nearly half its population—living in
China, India and Russia—have been
integrated into the global market
economy, many of them highly
educated workers, who can do
just about any job in the world.
We’re talking about three billion
people.” —Craig Barrett/Intel/01.08.2004
Cost of a Programmer, per IBM …
China: $12.50 per hour
USA: $56 per hour
Source: WSJ/01.19.2004
China
Roars!
“China has become a manufacturing hub for the rest
of the world in low-end labor-intensive goods—and
the rest of the world is becoming a manufacturing
hub for China in high-end, capital-intensive goods. …
China may be a threat to certain parts of the global
supply chain that rely on low-cost labor, but it
represents an even greater opportunity via
production-efficiency gains, economic welfare gains
and long-term dynamic potential. Its booming exports
are more than matched by booming industrial imports
and foreign investment opportunities. It has become
the new engine of global growth.”
Source: Glen Hodgson & Mark Worrall/Export Development Canada, in “China Takes
Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes Hale/Foreign Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
1990-2003: Exports 8X
($380B); 6% global exports
2003 vs. 3.9% 2000; 16% of
Total Global Growth in 2002.
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes Hale/Foreign
Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
1998-2003: 45,000,000 layoffs in
state sector; offset by $450B in
foreign investment; foreign
companies account for 50+%
of exports vs. 31% in Mexico,
15% in Korea.
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes Hale/Foreign
Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
50% of output from private
firms, 37% from state-owned
firms; 80% of workforce
(incl. rural) now in private
employ.
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes
Hale/Foreign Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
Population growth = 1%;
two-thirds of housing
privately owned, 90% of
urban Chinese own a home
(vs. 61% in Japan)
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes Hale/Foreign
Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
200 cities with
>1,000,000
population.
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes
Hale/Foreign Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
200,000,000 unemployed; must
create 20,000,000 jobs per year
to offset layoffs; 400,000,000
elderly Chinese by 2030
(currently no pension funds).
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes
Hale/Foreign Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
397,000,000 fixed phone
lines =
90X since 1989.
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes Hale/Foreign
Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
2003: China-Hong Kong leading
producer in 8 of 12 key consumer
electronic product areas (>50%:
DVDs, digital cameras; >33.33%:
DVD-ROM drives, personal
desktop and notebook computers;
>25% mobile phones, color TVs,
PDAs, car stereos).
Source: “China Takes Off”, David Hale & Lyric Hughes
Hale/Foreign Affairs/Nov-Dec2003
“When the Chinese
Consumer Is King:
America’s mass market
is second to none.
Someday it will just be
second.”
—Headline, New York Times/12.14.2003
“As China becomes the world’s
factory and Flextronics becomes
the biggest electronics
manufacturer in China, policy
makers and analysts wonder
whether there will be a future for
manufacturing in Singapore,
Malaysia, North America or
Europe.” —Asia Inc./02.2004
“Going Global: Flush with
billions in foreign reserves,
China is embarking on a
buying spree” —Cover/ Newsweek/
03.01.04/ on China’s aggressive offshore
acquisition activity (buying brands,
technology, etc.)
World economic
output: U.S.A., 21%;
EU, 16%; China, 13%
(2X since1991)
Source: New York Times/12.14.2003
“America, like everyone else, must get
used to being a loser as well as a gainer
in the global economy. In the end, the
21st century is unlikely to be the American
Century.” —“When the Chinese Consumer Is King”/New
York Times/12.14.2003.
“The notion that God
intended Americans to be permanently
wealthier than the rest of the world,
that gets less and less likely as time
goes on.” —Robert Solow, Nobel laureate in
economics/New York Times/12.14.2003
In Store: International Equality, Intranational Inequality
“The new organization of society implied by the triumph
of individual autonomy and the true equalization of
opportunity based upon merit will lead to very great
rewards for merit and great individual autonomy. This
will leave individuals far more responsible for
themselves than they have been accustomed to being
during the industrial period. It will also reduce the
unearned advantage in living standards that has been
enjoyed by residents of advanced industrial societies
throughout the 20th century.”
James Davidson & William Rees-Mogg,The Sovereign Individual
“INDIA—The Next
Manufacturing
Hub?” —Asia Inc./02.04
“With a Small Car,
India Takes Big
Step Onto Global
Stage”
—Headline, p. 1, WSJ, 02.05.2004
Indian GDP/1990-2002: Ag,
34% to 21%; services,
40% to 56%
Source: The Economist/02.04
Level 5 (top)
ranking/Carnegie Mellon
Software Engineering
Institute: 35 of 70
companies in world are
from India
Source: Wired/02.04
“GE is a champion of India’s scientists,
technicians, business analysts and
graduates, thousands of whom work at
the U.S. conglomerate’s offshore service
centers in India. They are the low-cost,
high capability vanguard of GE’s
outsourcing to India. Along the way, GE
has transformed its cost structure,
enhanced its ability to provide technology
services and incubated a rare world-class
industry in India.” —FT/06.03.03
“The Americans’ self-image that this
tech thing was their private preserve
is over. This is a wake-up call for U.S.
workers to redouble their efforts at
education and research. If they do
that, it will spur a whole new cycle of
innovation, and we’ll both win. If we
each pull down our shutters, we will
both lose.” —Indian software exec to
Tom Friedman (NYT/03.04)
“Forget India, Let’s
Go to Bulgaria”
—Headline,
BW/03.04, re SAP, BMW, Siemens et al. “near-shoring”
“CLONING COLLEGE:
South Korea’s
biomedical researchers,
unhampered by politics,
do world-class research
on the cheap”
—Headline,
Newsweek/03.01.04
Jobs
Technology
Globalization
War, Warfighting
& Security
“We are at a pivotal point in
history. … We are at one of a
half dozen turning points that
have fundamentally changed
the way societies are organized
for governance.” —Philip Bobbitt, The Shield
of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History
“September 11 amounts to
World War III—the third
great totalitarian challenge
to open societies in the last
100 years.” —Thomas
Friedman/NYT/01.08.2004
“The world’s new dimension
(computers, Internet, globalization,
instantaneous communication, widely
available instruments of mass
destruction and so on) amounts to a
new metaphysics that, by empowering
individual zealots or agitated tribes
with unappeasable grievances, makes
the world unstable and dangerous in
radically new ways.” —Lance Morrow/Evil
The Breaking of Nations:
Order and Chaos in the
Twenty-first Century
Robert Cooper (as interpreted by Tom Peters)
“This is a dangerous world and
it is going to become more
dangerous.”
“We may not be interested in
chaos but chaos is interested
in us.”
Source: Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations:
Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century
“What happened after 1945
was not so much a radically
new system as the
concentration and culmination
of the old one.” —Robert Cooper, on the Cold
War, from The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the
Twenty-first Century
“What has been emerging into the
daylight since 1989 is not a
rearrangement of the old system
but a new system. Behind this lies
a new form of statehood, or at
least states that are behaving in a
radically different way from the
past.” —Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order
and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century
“The image of peace and order through a
single hegemonic power center [is
wrong]. … It was not the empires but the
small states that proved to be a dynamic
force in the world. Empires are illdesigned for promoting change. Holding
an empire together requires an
authoritarian political style; innovation
leads to instability.” —Robert Cooper, The
Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first
Century
Read
This!
“The new century risks being overrun by both anarchy and technology. The
two great destroyers of history may reinforce each other. Both the spread of
terrorism and that of weapons of mass destruction point to a world in which
Western governments are losing control. The spread of the technology of
mass destruction represents a potentially massive redistribution of power
away from the advanced industrial (and democratic) states and toward
smaller states that may be less stable and have less of a stake in an orderly
world; or more dramatically still, it may represent a redistribution of power
away from the state itself and towards individuals, that is to say terrorists or
criminals. In the past to be damaging, an ideological movement had to be
widespread to recruit enough support to take on authority. Henceforth,
comparatively small groups will be able to do the sort of damage which before
only state armies or major revolutionary movements could achieve. A few
fanatics with a ‘dirty bomb’ or biological weapons will be able to cause death
on a scale not previously envisaged. … Emancipation, diversity, global
communication—all of the things that promise an age of riches and
creativity—could also bring a nightmare in which states lose control of the
means of violence and people lose control of their futures.”—Robert Cooper,
The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century
Reflect.
“The two systems—the
modern based on balance
and the post-modern based
on openness—do not coexist well together.” —Robert Cooper,
The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first
Century
“Before we can talk about the
security requirements for today
and tomorrow, we have to
forget the security rules
of yesterday.”
—Robert Cooper, The
Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first
Century
“IT MAY SOMEDAY BE SAID THAT THE 21ST
CENTURY BEGAN ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. …
“Al-Qaeda represents a new and
profoundly dangerous kind of
organization—one that might be called
a ‘virtual state.’ On September 11 a virtual
state proved that modern societies are
vulnerable as never before.”—Time/09.09.2002
“The deadliest strength of America’s new adversaries
is their very fluidity, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld believes. Terrorist networks, unburdened by
fixed borders, headquarters or conventional forces, are
free to study the way this nation responds to threats
and adapt themselves to prepare for what Mr. Rumsfeld
is certain will be another attack. …
“ ‘Business as usual won’t do it,’ he said. His
answer is to develop swifter, more lethal ways to
fight. ‘Big institutions aren’t swift on their feet in
adapting but rather ponderous and clumsy and
slow.’ ”—The New York Times/09.04.2002
From:
To:
Weapon v.
Weapon
Org structure v.
Org structure
“Our military structure
today is essentially one
developed and
designed by
Napoleon.”
Admiral Bill Owens, former Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
“The organizations we created have
become tyrants. They have taken
control, holding us fettered, creating
barriers that hinder rather than help
our businesses. The lines that we
drew on our neat organizational
diagrams have turned into walls
that no one can scale or penetrate
or even peer over.” —Frank Lekanne Deprez &
René Tissen, Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organizational Limits.
“In an era when terrorists use satellite
US
gatekeepers stand armed
against them with pencils
and paperwork, and archaic
computer systems that don’t
talk to each other.”
phones and encrypted email,
Boston Globe (09.30.2001)
“Dawn Meyerreicks, CTO of the Defense Information Systems Agency, made
one of the most fateful military calls of the 21st century. After 9/11 … her office
quickly leased all the available transponders covering Central Asia. The
implications should change everything about U.S. military thinking in the
years ahead.
“The U.S. Air Force had kicked off its fight against the Taliban with an
ineffective bombing campaign, and Washington was anguishing over whether
to send in a few Army divisions. Donald Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to
give the initiative to 250 Special Forces already on the ground. They used
satellite phones, Predator surveillance drones, and GPS- and laser-based
targeting systems to make the air strikes brutally effective.
“In effect, they ‘Napsterized’ the battlefield by cutting out the middlemen
(much of the military’s command and control) and working directly with the
real players. … The data came in so fast that HQ revised operating procedures
to allow intelligence analysts and attack planners to work directly together.
Their favorite tool, incidentally, was instant messaging over a secure
network.”—Ned Desmond/“Broadband’s New Killer App”/Business 2.0/
OCT2002
“The mechanical speed of
combat vehicles has not
increased since Rommel’s day,
so the difference is all in the
operational speed, faster
communications and faster
decisions.” —Edward Luttwak, on the
unprecedented pace of the move toward Baghdad
“If early soldiers idealized Napoleon or
Patton, network-centric warriors
admire Wal*Mart, where point-of-sale
scanners share information on a near realtime basis with suppliers and also produce
data that is mined to help leaders develop
new strategic or tactical plans. Wal*Mart is
an example of translating information into
competitive advantage.”—Tom Stewart,
Business 2.0
The New Infantry Battalion/
New York Times/12.01.2002
“Pentagon’s Urgent Search for
Speed.” 270 soldiers (1/3rd normal
complement); 140 robotic off-road
armored trucks. “Every soldier is a
sensor.” “Revolutionary capabilities.”
Find-to-hit: 45 minutes to 15 minutes
… in just one year.
“Armies are like plants, immobile,
firm-rooted, nourished through
long stems to the head” …
guerillas: “might be a vapour;”
fighting guerillas “like eating soup
with a knife”
Source: T.E. Lawrence
Eric’s Army
Flat.
Fast.
Agile.
Adaptable.
Light … But Lethal.
Talent/ “I Am an Army of One.”
Info-intense.
Network-centric.
“Float like a
butterfly.
Sting like a
bee.” —Ali
“To fight terrorism with
an army is like trying to
shoot a cloud of
mosquitoes with a
machine gun.”
—Review of Terror in the Name
of God/NYT/11.2003
“Rather than have massive armies
that people can go along and
inspect, it is now about having
rapidly deployable expediency
forces that can be dropped by
land, sea or air and with full
support.” —MoD official, on Defense Secretary Geoff
Hoon’s defense white paper (12.2003)
“We must not only transform our armed forces
but the Defense Department that serves them—
by encouraging a culture of creativity and
intelligent risktaking. We must promote a more
entrepreneurial approach: one that encourages
people to be proactive, not reactive, and to
behave less like bureaucrats and more like
venture capitalists; one that does not wait for
threats to emerge and be ‘validated,’ but rather
anticipates them before they appear and
develops new capabilities to dissuade them and
deter them.” —Donald Rumsfeld, Foreign Affairs
OODA Loop/Boyd Cycle
“Unraveling the competition”/ Quick
Transients/ Quick Tempo (NOT JUST
SPEED!)/ Agility/ “So quick it is
disconcerting” (adversary over-reacts or
under-reacts)/ “Winners used tactics that
caused the enemy to unravel before the
fight” (NEVER HEAD TO HEAD)
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“Fast Transients”
“Buttonhook turn” (YF16:
“could flick from one maneuver to
another faster than any aircraft”)
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“Blitzkrieg is far more than lightning
thrusts that most people think of
when they hear the term; rather it was
all about high operational tempo
and the rapid exploitation of
opportunity.”/ “Arrange the mind of
the enemy.”—T.E. Lawrence/
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a
bee.”—Ali
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed
the Art of War (Robert Coram)
F86 vs. MiG/Korea/10:1
Bubble canopy (360 degree view)
Full hydraulic controls (“The F86
driver could go from one maneuver to
another faster than the MiG driver”)
MiG: “faster in raw acceleration and
turning ability”; F86: “quicker in
changing maneuvers”
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (Robert Coram)
“Maneuverists”
BOYD: The Fighter Pilot Who
Changed the Art of War (Robert Coram)
Thunder Run/3rd Infantry
Division/04.07.2004/”We wanted to
create as much chaos as
possible.”—COL David
Perkins/“Disorient and
demoralize”—DHR
“Strategy meetings held once
or twice a year” to “Strategy
meetings needed several
times a week”
Source: New York Times on Meg Whitman/eBay
All Bets
Are Off!
“There will be more
confusion in the
business world in the next
decade than in any decade in
history. And the current pace of
change will only accelerate.”
Steve Case
“We have no future because
our present is too volatile.
We have only risk
management. The spinning
of the given moment’s
scenarios. Pattern
recognition.” —from William Gibson,
Pattern Recognition
“Save the date.” Dennis
Kozlowski and Mark Swartz.
Martha Stewart. Scott Sullivan.
John Rigas. Walter Forbes and
Kirk Shelton. Frank Quattrone.
Richard Scrushy. Misc. Enronnies
Source: Headline/Business Day/NYT/01.08.2004
“We are in a
brawl with no
rules.”
Paul Allaire
I Believe …
1. Change will accelerate. DRAMATICALLY.
2. We will RE-INVENT THE WORLD IN THE
NEXT TWO GENERATIONS. (Business …
Health Care … Politics … War …
Education … Fundamentals of Human
Interaction.)
3. OPPORTUNITIES are matchless.
4. You are either … ON THE BUS …
or … OFF THE BUS.
5. I WANT TO PLAY! AND YOU?
Successful Businesses’ Dozen Truths: TP’s 30-Year Perspective
1. Insanely Great & Quirky Talent.
2. Disrespect for Tradition.
3. Totally Passionate (to the Point of Irrationality) Belief in What
We Are Here to Do.
4. Utter Disbelief at the Bullshit that Marks “Normal Industry Behavior.”
5. A Maniacal Bias for Execution … and Utter Contempt
for Those Who Don’t “Get It.”
6. Speed Demons.
7. Up or Out. (Meritocracy Is Thy Name. Sycophancy Is Thy Scourge.)
8. Passionate Hatred of Bureaucracy.
9. Willingness to Lead the Customer … and Take the Heat Associated
Therewith. (Mantra: Satan Invented Focus Groups to Derail True
Believers.)
10. “Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes.”
11. Courage to Stand Alone on One’s Record of Accomplishment
Against All the Forces of Conventional Wisdom.
12. A Crystal Clear Understanding of Brand Power.
It is the foremost task—
and responsibility—
of our generation to
re-imagine our
enterprises, private
and public. —from the
Foreword, Re-imagine
“How we feel about the evolving future tells us who we
are as individuals and as a civilization: Do we search
for stasis—a regulated, engineered world? Or do we
embrace dynamism—a world of constant creation,
discovery and competition? Do we value stability and
control? Or evolution and learning? Do we think that
progress requires a central blueprint? Or do we see it
as a decentralized, evolutionary process? Do we see
mistakes as permanent disasters? Or the correctable
byproducts of experimentation? Do we crave
predictability? Or relish surprise? These two poles,
stasis and dynamism, increasingly define our political,
intellectual and cultural landscape.” —Virginia Postrel,
The Future and Its Enemies
“Let’s compete—by training the
best workers, investing in R & D,
erecting the best infrastructure and
building an education system that
graduates students who rank with
the worlds best. Our goal is to be
competitive with the best so we
both win and create jobs.” —Craig Barrett
(Time/03.01.04)
Age of Agriculture
Industrial Age
Age of Information Intensification
Age of Creation Intensification
Source: Murikami Teruyasu, Nomura Research Institute
“The Creative Class derives its
identity from its members’ roles as
purveyors of creativity. Because
creativity is the driving force of
economic growth, in terms of
influence the Creative Class has
become the dominant class in
society.” —Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative
Class (38M, 30%)
The “Ownership Society” (GWB): “This
is a bundle of proposals that treat
workers as self-reliant pioneers who
rise through several employers and
careers. To thrive, these pioneers need
survival tools. They need to own their
own capital reserves, their retraining
programs, their own pensions and
their own health insurance.” —David
Brooks/NYT/12.20.03
“For Marx, the path to social betterment was
through collective resistance of the proletariat to
the economic injustices of the capitalist system
that produced such misshapenness and
fragmentation. For Emerson, the key was to jolt
individuals into realizing the untapped power of
energy, knowledge, and creativity of which all
people, at least in principle, are capable. He too
hated all systems of human oppression; but his
central project, and the basis of his legacy, was
to unchain individual minds.” —Lawrence Buell, Emerson