Wireless freedom

"For you it was incremental - here it is revolutionary", says Isaac Nsereko of MTN, Africa's biggest mobile operator, in order to describe how crucial mobile communications are in the developing world. Mobile phones do not only provide a more convenient way than a landline to people to make calls.According to a recent study, adding an extra 10 phones per 100 people in a developing country boosts growth in GDP per person 0.8 percentage points.

The statistics point to a tremendous growth in mobile subscribers in the developing world and especially in the emerging markets of India, China, Brazil. In the year till March 2009 an additional 128m signed up in India, 89m in China, and 96m in Africa.

It might seem surprising that even people of the lowest class can afford a mobile phone in countries such as India, where only 89 per cent have access to improved water sources, 44 per cent of children below 5 suffer from malnutrition, or the literacy rate (( % of population age 15+) is still approximately 61 per cent (Source: World Bank, 9/24/08)....

I was surprised to see modernity and tradition coming together in India. A lot of women who are attached to their families and homes and serve as housewives but they are mobile and use freely wireless communication on a daily basis.The Indian model in telecommunication services has proofed very powerful and many operators in other countries are adopting it.

A second trend is observed in China. Two of the leading telecoms there, Huawei and ZTE, are building trust with clients and reputation on a global scale because they are focusing on innovation.

I consider the third trend most beneficial for countries in the developing world. In Western Europe, America, and Australia data services have been in existence for a while and have revolved around music downloads and gaming. In the developing world mobile services such as mobile-phone based agriculture advice, money transfer, health care etc will have an immediate economic and social impact.




Source: The Economist Sept 26 - October 2nd

Revolution Money

While looking for companies in the Internet Software and Services space with the same core capabilities of PayPal, I came across a company with the beautiful name “Revolution Money”. Revolution Money provides online payment solutions. It offers online money transfer services and RevolutionCard, an anonymous PIN-protected credit card. Revolution Money was founded in 2007 and is based in Washington, District Of Columbia. eBay Inc. and its subsidiaries provide online marketplaces for the sale of goods and services, online payments services, and online communication offerings to individuals and businesses in the United States and internationally. It operates in three segments: Marketplaces, Payments, and Communications. PayPal, Inc., a subsidiary of eBay offers online payment solutions. The company’s suite enables individuals and businesses to send and receive payments online using a bank account, credit card, or stored balance. Additionally, it provides electronic fund transfer and billing services. (Source: CapitalIQ)

New Revolution Moneyexchange Plug-in for AOL's AIM Service, which is Ameira’s largest instant messaging community. While I have not used the MoneyExchange plug-in and cannot testify to how user-friendly it is, I am sure it allows for spreading the New Revolution services as there is a huge number of AIM users.

As for the RevolutionCard, an anonymous PIN-protected credit card, which Revolution Money provides to its clients, I am not sure how pervasive it will be. A lot of companies provide credit cards and have an option of pin-protection. Revolution Money believes it is has a low-cost payment card network. It prides itself in a proprietary processing technology platform.

In any case, the name of the company is an easy catch for investors and for clients. 

Strategic About Your Time

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/hbr/mcgrath/2008/05/be-strategic-about-your-time.html

An old proverb says, "time is money". No wonder my Training the Street instructor wrote "wasted money" instead of "wasted time", which he intended to write to indicate the period of time we are waiting for projects as summer analysts to be staffed on, checking mail, responding to dozens and hundreds of messages, updating all the possible social networks we belong to.I am global and believe in connectivity...However, unless you are specialized in working in the social networks space like Mark Z or Evan Williams, what is the value you add while twittering or facebooking...0...

Rita McGrath, professor at Columbia Business School, who studies innovation, corporate venturing, and entrepreneurship, writes, "In the frantic buzz of most managerial lives, I see people running from meeting to meeting, consulting their BlackBerrys as though in prayer, desperately working into the night to cope with a deluge of emails and otherwise being busy, busy, busy. The dilemma of all this activity, however, is that it is for the most part what academics long ago termed "non value-added time."

Convenience and efficiency should go hand in hand.While it is convenient to have a blackberry device or an iphone, I also believe it is highly distracting to hear the buzz or the vibration every time I get a message.

People should adapt to change as it comes pervasively. Technology is the prerequisite for development and it certainly needs its space. I am certainly its most ardent advocate. However, it is a personal choice to keep a sanity check on oneself....in the busy, busy, busy life we have.

Twenty Great Books about Revolution according to Amazon

1. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China by Theda Skocpol

2. History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

3. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century by Eric R. Wolf

4. Guerrillas and Revolution in Latin America by Timothy P. Wickham-Crowley

5. States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines by Misagh Parsa

6. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World by Jack A. Goldstone

7. The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement by Dingxin Zhao

8. Theorizing Revolutions by John Foran

10. The Colombian Civil War by Bert Ruiz

11. The Encyclopedia Of Political Revolutions by Goldstone J

12. Prelude to Revolution: France in May 1968 (Updated Edition) (Radical 60s) by Daniel Singer

13. The Cuban Revolution: Origins, Course, and Legacy by Marifeli Perez-Stable

14. Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949-1993 by Yezid Sayigh

15. Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution (Studies in Political Economy Series) by Misagh Parsa

16. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America by Walter Lafeber

17. Modern Latin American Revolutions: Second Edition by Eric Selbin

18. European Revolutions: 1492-1992 (Making of Europe) by Charles Tilly

19. The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalization by John Foran

20. No Other Way Out: States and Revolutionary Movements, 1945-1991 (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) by Jeff Goodwin

Tech Bee and the Inspiration of Blogging

Blogging requires inspiration more than persistently entering blog posts. That is why I am sharing a true passion through this entry.

I have been empowered by technology and business and have tried to think of them as an integrate whole. Feeling that there is a void of an organization on campus which spans both fields, I decided to create an open platform where the two fields come together. The product was Tech Bee or the Business and Technology Society on campus.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~enche20v/techbee/Index.html

The mission of the Business and Technology Society (Tech Bee) is to become an open platform for students of the 5-College area (Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Hampshire College, Amherst College, and University of Massachusetts in Amherst) to learn about the interaction between business and technology as well as about breakthrough innovations in the two fields through both live and online presentations. Furthermore, that will be an outlet for brainstorming, catalyzing what is given and creating what has not even been dreamed of. Marching through concepts such as web 2.0 and 3.0, open source and social networks, we, the tech bees, want to be up-to date and engaged in the new information technology age, that is to live business and technology.

Innovation

Revolutions are born out of innovation. Innovation helps companies remain in market and the lack of it signifies that a firm may not allocate its resources optimally and the created value is decreasing over time.

BusinessWeek and The Boston Consulting Group collaboratively produced the second annual ranking of The 25 Most Innovative Companies.(http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_17/b3981401.htm) In the survey innovation was measured in different contexts – from business model innovation to innovation in technologies, operations and processes. The list of the most innovative firms included the Blackberry producer Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM), Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV ), which reported significant operational improvements helping the company outperform major competitiors in the airline industry, Toyota Motor Corp, which prides itself in its constant manufacturing improvements, Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL ), which is often referred as the king of creativity. Creativity and innovation are not always equated. But creativity in business is a significant driver in business nowadays when consumers can choose from a variety of products and services and firms are forced to push the limits of their innovative and creative capabilities.

On M and A and Market Dominance.The Case of the Acquisition of Sun Micro Systems by Oracle

Mergers and acquisitions always make the news in the finance world. They are more like a sensation and for business-oriented readers who try to be up-dated the M&A news are more catchy than the news on celebrities.
M&A is a hot topic for a number of reasons.
1) As a result of an M&A deal the market dynamics change. Companies increase market share and might end up into a situation of market dominance.
2) M&A typically create synergies and the created value is always higher that the value which is stated separately in the balance sheets of the two firms entering into the deal.
3) M&A are interesting from a legal and competition policy/antitrust perspective. The intervention of the Competition Authority in Europe or the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in the US means that embarking on an M&A deal is more than a business proposition, it is a very strategic in nature decision and the policy making process in the respective country where the deal takes place is a significant additional consideration for the business contractors.
Besides the major considerations in this framework, additional factors which are specific to each case play a significant role.
April 20th, 2009: The breaking news is that Oracle will acquire Sun Micro Systems for 7.8 billion. Given the software synergies and the fact that Oracle is acquiring Sun Microsystems at a low multiple, the deal is a good move. The Sun Solaris/Oracle combination has received a lot of positive feedback. Oracle is enhancing its position in the database market and is probably raising a lot of questions: does the future belong to open source or closed source platforms? Talking about open source and closures, it is inevitable to discuss market dominance. Acquiring so much hardware, will Oracle compete with IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems? When a company starts increasingly ferociously its market share in a field, it is already one step from attempting a closure.

A revolutionary mind, a revolutionary approach, and a revolutionary science

I was confused to find out that I am a champion of private property while at the same time I truly support open source and believe it will be the overarching practice in the future. My thoughts led me to a book recommendation I had gotten recently. “The Opposable Mind” by Roger Martin gives clues to a lot of questions about topics spanning contradictory and very opposing motifs in nature. The ability of the mind to hold two opposing ideas at the same time and use them concurrently is one of the most fascinating capabilities humans have developed.

I think Roger Martin, the Dean of Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, is a revolutionary in his thinking and would truly refer to him as the father of integrative thinking. In his book “The Opposable Mind” he features innovators such as Procter & Gamble chief AG Lafley, choreographer Martha Graham, and Red Hat co-founder Bob Young, who utilize the approach of using the constructive tension from two conflicting ideas to "think [their] way through to a new and superior idea." I have been fascinated by this typically North American approach of integrating various tools to understand, analyze and assess business.  While disintegrating a problem into its parts and solving it might be an optimal way for a lot of people, I believe the holistic approach is the right one for many reasons.

First of all, as a business leader you come up with many options, you face challenges which require decision- making. That is especially relevant for the field of change and transformation management, in which I worked.  So instead of choosing one model, you design a new one spanning previous ones and even maybe contradictory ones at first sight.

Secondly, integrative thinking according to Martin “does typically involve a predictable cascade of four interrelated steps that constitute a heuristic process.” And heuristics is the underlying approach of behavioral economics, a field which might explain a lot of ideas about the not so rational human mind. Through the behavioral finance approach one can explain aspects of the financial crisis which led to the bankruptcy of many giants in the investment banking industry and the downturn in the world economy.  Why would mortgage lenders provide loans to everyone who would know on their doors?  Why would financial institutions bundle and repackage risk-obscuring financial instruments including collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)?The counterintuitive nature of those decisions implies the necessity of cultivating a counterintuitive stance, based on a heuristic and integrated approach. For more than 2 decades, researchers in behavioral finance have sought out the signatures of human irrationality in markets. “Behavioral finance is an intellectual revolution that tries to give a broader perspective from multiple social sciences,” including psychology and sociology, says Shiller, a founder of the field. (Crazy Money, www.sciencemag.org) 

Third, the integrative stance stimulates creativity and the perfection of brand new skills as the central value is placed on learning. Roger Martin and Hilary Austen write in The Art of Intergrative Thinking , “It embodies tolerance for the temporary incompetence that comes with the development of new skills.”

Martin’s ingenuity definitely motivates my respect for him and while I can be a straightforward spokesperson and an ardent critic, I can only say I am truly fascinated by the mind called Roger Martin.

With his expertise in areas of integrative thinking, global competitiveness, business design, and corporate citizenship, Martin makes the perfect example of a (business) leader of the future. That is why I believe an interesting reading on my list would be the one he coauthored with Mihnea C. Moldoveanu, “The Future of the MBA: Designing the Thinker of the Future”.

Private Property

Coming from a former communist country in the heart of Eastern Europe, I cannot dismiss the importance of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 on the modern history of Europe. This revolution marked the transition from a totalitarian regime to a democratic way of government throughout Eastern and Central Europe, brought the consolidation of Eastern and Western Germany and most importantly the fall of the Iron Curtain, which prevented Eastern Europe from developing in step with Western Europe and the US for approximately 50 years. Jeff Goodwin thought that revolutions entail “not only mass mobilization and regime change , but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for state power ." The change of 1989 fully exemplified Goodwin’s definition.
The conflation of private and social life was the most daunting feature of socialism. One of the detrimental mistakes the Soviet Union and Communist Europe made was the state’s monopoly over every single aspect of life. Colin Barker in Marxism and the Revolution of 1989 argued that “the classic Stalinist regimes yoked together government, state and enterprise in a single framework”.
The transfer of state ownership into private hands was one of the most crucial changes to take place after the demise of the Soviet Union economic and political model personal incentive and private property are at the crux of entrepreneurship and the establishment of SME (small and medium size) enterprises. Many debates have been led whether state enterprises are more efficient than privately owned ones..Despite the efficiencies of state monopolies in many industries like railroads, airspace etc, the term state or public ownership in the Soviet context is just a façade hiding the true owner that is Politburo, the Communist Party etc. In a situation of state ownership prices are artificially suppressed by the government (as inflation does exist), output decisions are taken by the Soviet elite; monitoring costs are excessively high, too, just to name a few of the pitfalls in the system.
Questions have been raised about the ethics behind the claims over property and its restoration to its pre 1945-1948 owners. Hans-Hermman Hoppe in The Economics and Ethics of Private Property defends his position that a property right in one’s own body must be justified apriori. Furthermore, his work supports the idea of private property as a trigger of a person’s actions. He writes, “Any propositional exchange requires a proposition maker’s exclusive control (property) over some scarce means. Noone can propose possibly anything and no one can possibly become convinced of any proposition if one’s right to make exclusive use of one’s physical body were not already presupposed.” Therefore, without property to rely upon anyone should feel that they have their hands tied and cannot take action to release their ideas.
The property rights in the former Soviet Union block countries have been enforced by the rule of law over time. However, the management of this same property has turned problematic. It has been an imperative to put socio-political reforms in tact with the required economic changes to ensure the necessary environment for private investment to grow and stir economic development. Victor Nee, Daniel Stark, and Mark Seldan in Remaking the Economic Institutions of Socialism consider the fact that “the reform process has created or strengthened a large variety of non-state ownership forms and activities”. They also acknowledge as a great merit of the reformers that they “allowed or initiated such experimentation [in the variety of ownership forms] with courage and open minds”. I agree that this is a benefit and look forward to seeing how the wheel of change would be stirred over the next decade