tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91156446058333841382024-03-13T21:16:17.380+01:00X de XavierUnos y ceros. A veces, en el orden adecuado.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-60299469013249149962009-11-07T09:42:00.003+01:002009-11-07T10:35:21.910+01:00Peter Drucker was there beforeThe <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/work/handy/drucker.shtml">third episode</a> in <a href="http://xdexavier.blogspot.com/2009/11/handy-guide-to-gurus-of-management.html">The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management</a>, is about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker">Peter Drucker</a>. Now it's a nice time to learn a bit more about him, because right now Drucker's Centenial Week is happening: <a href="http://www.drucker100.com/">http://www.drucker100.com/</a>, and some life webcasts will be on during this weekend.<div><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/xverges/4082632094/" title="Peter Drucker: people vs commodities by -Xv, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2673/4082632094_9a4f13fd57.jpg" width="400" alt="Peter Drucker: people vs commodities" /></a></div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">I suddenly realized that Keynes and all the brilliant economic students there were interested in the behaviour of commodities, while I was interested in the behaviour of people.</span></blockquote>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-59381911356676189422008-05-20T07:50:00.004+01:002008-05-20T07:57:45.601+01:00Why most organizations grow fat<div style="overflow: auto;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1018"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd051908s.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham<br /><a href="http://www.phdcomics.com/">www.phdcomics.com</a></span><br /></div><br /></div>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-52998532998684628032008-05-01T19:39:00.003+01:002008-05-01T23:58:31.161+01:00Back in the U.S.S.R.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Kolkhoznitsa.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">East Germany may no longer exist, but now we have companies featuring central planning by Troikas, mission statements crafted by apparatchiks, quinquennial planning, no right to choose leaders in companies, no democracy in the workplace, a clear distinction between intelligentsia and peasants (top CEOs make 512 times the median salary and enjoy company 'dachas', jets and limos), and 'state' monitoring (time clocks, dress codes, drug-screening, 'employee assistance' plans, e-mail monitoring, smoking and personal conduct rules, as family-life audits).</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">[1]</span></blockquote>This is not a quote from a labor union leader, an anti-globalization essay or a witty comedian. It's from a proponent of democracy and transparency in the workplace that happens to be <span style="font-style: italic;">a business owner putting his money where his unconventional mouth is</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">[2]</span>: Ricardo Semler, in <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_N4CAAAACAAJ&dq=inauthor:Ricardo+inauthor:Semler&ei=5JaLR9XAJJrUswOrpKHQBQ">The Seven-Day Weekend</a> <span style="font-size:78%;">[3]</span>.<br /><br />I loved this book, even if its writing style is not that great. Its main point is showing how Semco, Semler's company is run. When Semler and Clovis Bojikian started changing the traditional command and control ways,<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>"We wanted to demonstrate that the workplace could be a place of satisfaction, not of suffering. Work should be a pleasure, not an obligation. But this wasn’t just some humanitarian thesis. We believed that people working with pleasure could be much more productive.”</blockquote></span>To Semler, <span style="font-style: italic;">it's not about values: it's about competitive advantage</span>.<br /><br />Hurry up and read his book, or take a peek into <a href="http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/content.asp?content=3">The Semco Way</a> by reading a <a href="http://www.cantanchorus.com/doco/semler3.pdf">1989 article by Semler in the Harvard Business Review</a> or a <a href="http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/artigos/docs/76.pdf">2006 article about him in Strategy+Business</a>. I'm sure that it will give you lots of food for thought.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />[1] Soviet/Corpororate parallels quote: It's a funny coincidence that I read this during <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day">International Workers' Day</a><br />[2] <span style="font-style: italic;">Unconventional mouth</span> quote: by Geoffrey Colvin in a <a href="http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/artigos/docs/77.pdf">Fortune article</a><br />[3] Even if Semler is a best selling author, I never heard about him until I recently read <a href="http://jaybyjayfresh.com/2008/01/14/governing-the-twitterfolk-shel-israel-disappears-up-own-asshole/">a post by Jon Lister</a>. Thanks so much, Jon!<br /></span>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-72724965616826704312007-09-18T23:08:00.000+01:002007-09-18T23:49:13.313+01:00Subprime para tontosTanto oir hablar de "subprimes" y crisis hipotecaria, y no había entendido qué demonios es esto de "subprime" hasta que <a href="http://www.sala-i-martin.com/">Xavier Sala i Martin</a> lo <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Exs23/catala/articles/2007/subprime/subprime.htm">explicaba ayer muy claramente</a> en <a href="http://www.lavanguardia.es/">La Vanguardia</a> (mejor leer el artículo que mis citas):<br /><blockquote>La historia empezó hace cinco años cuando, al ver que los tipos de interés eran anormalmente bajos, algunos financieros listos vieron una oportunidad de negocio en las familias consideradas “peligrosas”. Es decir, familias poco solventes, con rentas bajas o con un historial de impagos catalogados como “clientes de baja calidad” (o, en inglés, “subprime”). Al no haber competencia de los bancos normales ya que no quieren tener nada que ver con esos clientes peligrosos, los nuevos financieros podrían concederles créditos hipotecarios a un tipo de interés elevado. El negocio consistía en pedir dinero a los bancos normales a tipos bajos y prestar a clientes peligrosos a tipos altos.<br /><br />(...) ofrecían programas de repago con cuotas muy bajas durante cinco años. (...)<br /><br />Estamos hoy en el quinto año, las cuotas han subido y, como era de esperar, una parte de esas familias “peligrosas” no han podido afrontar sus pagos y los financieros se han visto obligados a quedarse con sus casas. El problema es que los precios de esas casas han bajado y los tipos de interés han subido con lo que esos financieros se han quedado sin negocio y con una enorme cartera de viviendas que no pueden vender.</blockquote>Pero no todo ha sido malo:<br /><blockquote>Al fin y al cabo, aunque todo esto acabe en una crisis, el episodio del crédito “subprime” ha permitido que millones de familias pobres pudieran comprar casas. Y, de hecho, el 97% de ellas ha resultado ser lo suficientemente solvente para devolver el dinero e impedir que eso pueda volver a suceder sería un error.</blockquote><br />No coincido con el criterio de Sala i Martin al escoger americanas, ni al hacer entrevistas (<span style="font-style:italic;">Sr. Montilla, em pot escriure la primera estrofa del Virolai?</span>), ni al hacer páginas web, ni en muchas otras cosas. Pero este hombre se explica siempre muy bien.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-49880201084728217832007-08-10T18:04:00.000+01:002007-08-10T18:37:44.181+01:00I am thinking nowDo not miss (sorry, louder, DO NOT MISS) this <a href="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks">TED Talk</a>:<br /><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/156">Patrick Awuah: Educating a new generation of African leaders</a>.<br /><br />It's not only about Africa. It's about entitlement[1] and responsibility, education, ethics, critical thinking, incompetence, economic elites, empowerment... in any part of the world. 18 moving minutes that will make you think.<br /><br />I'm keeping a quote from it:<br /><blockquote>Every society must be very intentional about how it trains its leaders</blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">[1] I was talking about this to someone and could not think of a good Spanish term for "entitlement". He translated quoting something heard in lots of movies when the hero is in trouble while abroad: </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >I am an American citizen</span><span style="font-size:85%;">. Not that I believe that Americans are worse than in my corner of the world in the entitlement disease, but I thought that it was a very funny and good translation.</span>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-29106297620819275512007-03-30T11:30:00.000+01:002007-03-30T11:40:57.561+01:00Customer Satisfaction and future buying decisions<blockquote>It has been shown that as many as 90 percent of departing customers said that they were "satisfied" immediately prior to their attrition! Contrary to long-held misconceptions, "customer satisfaction" is actually a good measure of "customers' rationalizations of their past buying decisions," but not highly predictive of future buying decisions.</blockquote><br />As a consumer, I think that this matches my buying patterns.<br /><br />The quote is from <a href="http://www.transformingperformancemeasurement.com/">Transforming Performance Measurement</a>, by Dean Spitzer, a nice book even/specially for someone (like me) that tends to hate measurements and metrics. Dean is senior researcher, consultant, and performance measurement thought leader in IBM Research.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-32429324146914383392007-01-04T23:12:00.001+01:002007-01-08T06:26:09.184+01:00Planning PokerI'm reading <a href="http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/index">Mike Cohn</a>'s <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Agile Estimating and Planning</span></span> <span style="font-size:78%;">(<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F0131479415&amp;amp;amp;tag=xdexa-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">amazon.com</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=xdexa-20&amp;amp;amp;amp;l=ur2&o=1" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2Fdp%2F0131479415&amp;amp;amp;tag=xdexavie-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">amazon.co.uk</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=xdexavie-21&amp;amp;amp;amp;l=ur2&o=2" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" border="0" height="1" width="1" />)</span>; so far, a great book. <a href="http://www.cutter.com/meet-our-experts/jhbio.html">Jim Highsmith</a>'s <a href="http://www.phptr.com/content/images/0131479415/forward/0131479415_foreword_highsmith.pdf">foreword</a> is well worth reading.<br /><br />On the chapter of techniques for estimating, Cohn describes <span style="font-weight: bold;">Planning Poker</span>, something that feels so simple and effective that you almost have to run to join your team and give it a try. You can read the description at <a href="http://www.planningpoker.com/detail.html">http://www.planningpoker.com/detail.html</a>. The site hosts a tool to enable distributed teams to play Planning Poker. Disclaimer: I still haven't played poker nor checked the tool.<br /><br />One the nice things of Planning Poker is that it is not tied at all to software development: projects from other domains that have to be sized by guestimates (like writing a complex report) fit nicely in this approach.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-25034088477139435802006-11-23T02:10:00.000+01:002006-11-23T02:12:07.938+01:00Alta tecnologia, estadístiques, premsa, Catalunya i MaltaLlegeixo a La Vanguardia una nota de l'agència EFE:<br /><blockquote style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Alta Tecnología: Catalunya está entre las cinco primeras de Europa</blockquote>"Guau! Potser som un pinxo del <a href="http://blogoehlert.typepad.com/eclippings/2006/05/spiky_world_ver.html">món pla i punxagut</a>!", penso. Segueixo llegint.<blockquote style="font-style: italic;">Catalunya es una de las cinco regiones de la Unión Europea donde las empresas de alta tecnología emplean a más trabajadores, según datos correspondientes al 2004 publicados ayer por la oficina estadística comunitaria (Eurostat).</blockquote>Estic tan sorprès per la bona noticia que vull mirar-ho directament a <a href="http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/PGP_PRD_CAT_PREREL/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2006/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2006_MONTH_11/9-20112006-EN-AP.PDF">la nota de premsa l'Eurostat (pdf, 5 pàgines)</a>. Ups! Resulta que no és "alta tecnologia", sino "high- and medium high-tech manufacturing".<br /><br />I què es això? "<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">High- and medium high-tech manufacturing</span> includes the following industries: chemical and chemical products (including pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemicals and botanical products), office machinery and computers, radio, television and communication equipment and apparatus, medical, precision and optical instruments, watches and clocks, aircraft and spacecraft, machinery and equipment n.e.c., electrical machinery and apparatus n.e.c., motor vehicles, trailers and semitrailers and other transport equipment.</span>"<br /><br />Segueix tractant-se d'una bona noticia, però no és exactament la idea que m'havia fet: les cadenes de muntatge de la Nissan són part d'aquesta "alta tecnologia". La <a href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=es&ned=es&amp;amp;ie=UTF-8&ncl=1152764191&filter=0">noticia al news.google.com</a>, on es veu que La Vanguardia/EFE no són els únics que fan la mateixa simplificació.<br /><br />Em sorprèn que <span style="font-weight: bold;">Malta</span> surti mencionat positivament uns quants cops, i m'adono que no en sé res d'aquest país. Una mica de wikipedia (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta">en.wikipedia.org</a> i <a href="http://mt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta">mt.wikipedia.org</a>) i moltes sorpreses:<br /><ul><li>són 400.000, en un país molt dens.</li><li>entrarà a l'Euro el 2008.</li><li>és de la Commonwealth.</li><li>són oficials l'anglès i el maltès (que és una llengua semítica, l'única a Europa i l'única que fa servir l'alfabet llatí, amb les lletres z, g, c i h que poden portar un barret), tot i què durant molt temps l'italià ha estat l'únic llenguatge escrit (i el preferit per l'elit educada). </li></ul>I com sé unes coses més, ja puc anar a dormir.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0