It was an honor to create this event and be part of this team. Thank you MIT, Thank you panelists.

Millennial executives and Fortune 500 leaders share the same forward-looking views on disruptive technologies. They also agree that the capability to adapt to change quickly is a key to edging out competitors.



No Generation Gap Here: Business Leaders of All Ages in Sync on Tech

http://www.cio.com/article/2849319/leadership-management/no-generation-gap-here-business-leaders-of-all-ages-in-sync-on-tech.html

The digital business fight club – Startups and M&A

One of the main topics of the moment is the digital transformation, which according to Wikipedia is:

“Digital transformation refers to the changes associated with the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society. Digital transformation may be thought of as the third stage of embracing digital technologies: digital competence → digital literacy → digital transformation. The latter stage means that digital usages inherently enable new types of innovation and creativity in a particular domain, rather than simply enhance and support the traditional methods and how companies should.”

This digital transformation is taking us into another movement of entrepreneurs. According to the Kaufman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity (KIEA), the entrepreneurial rate in the U.S. is already well above the dot.com bubble of 15 years ago.

Although we have slipped a bit this year from the high point of 320 new entrepreneurs out of 100,000 adults in 2011, it still adds up to over 20 million entrepreneurial businesses out there today, with more starting every day. It is also important to mention the new start-up ventures are coming more from “Opportunity” than from “Necessity” (see graph below).

On the other hand according to the Delloite’s M&A trends report 2014: “Over the past 18 months, merger and acquisition (M&A) activity has accelerated meaningfully in the U.S. That trend is poised to continue, if not accelerate, in many industries, among public and private firms and for both corporations and private equity firms, large and small, according to the survey findings included in the first annual Deloitte M&A trends report. Of the 2,500 corporate and private equity respondents, 84 percent of corporate executives anticipate a sustained, if not accelerated, pace of M&A activity in the next 24 months. Similarly, the vast majority of private equity executives (89 percent) are expecting average to high deal activity going forward.”

Digital transformation is making the number of new start-ups and M&A increase exponentially every year and sometimes you can ask yourself whether it is going to be the business ecosystem of the future? The clear trend that we saw as the traditional concept of business ecosystem as defined by James F. Moore “An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world. The economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organisms also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they co-evolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies. Those companies holding leadership roles may change over time, but the function of ecosystem leader is valued by the community because it enables members to move toward shared visions to align their investments, and to find mutually supportive roles.” This concept has to evolve to a different level.

In the future, what will define the boundaries of a company in the future? Will this boom of startups and entrepreneurial spirit guide us to business ecosystem rather than just a company?

If we consider the population projected for 2050, according to the UN Report it will be 9.6 billion people, we can ask ourselves whether we are moving to a world of 9.6 billion companies or to the opposite extreme view of a world of 1 Company. If we consider the M&A trends and the elimination of boundaries between sector competitions, in the near future we will be drinking water from Google? The fact is that the traditional business model where the concern was to compete only within the company’s business sector is dead. The new business model is horizontal.

In the past if you were a car manufacture or a financial institution you had to compete and be concerned as a competitor in companies of the same industry, but the new business ecosystem is horizontal and crosses several sectors. For example: today, Audi and BMW have to compete with Tesla. The banks have to compete against other payment systems, such as Apple pay and Paypal.

The way we define management, strategy, leadership, process improvement, innovation and organizational charts must evolve outside the boundaries of the company. Business schools and executives of the future must be able to lead, manage and guide several agents in the business ecosystem (start-ups, small companies, universities, open innovation, etc. ) and many of them will be out of your companies’ boundaries and title.


“Gentleman's welcome to the NEW business fight club”


#1 The first rule of Fight Club is: you ALWAYS talk about Fight Club.
The new digital business ecosystem demands open innovation, crowd-sourcing, external communication, networking, leadership and management skills outside the borders of your company.

#2 The second rule of Fight Club is: you MUST ALWAYS talk about Fight Club!
In your company, do you spend more time thinking about how to protect information than talking about it and sharing innovation? The bigger and older the company the more “STOCKS” they have, which makes it difficult to change.

#3 Third rule of Fight Club: if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is JUST BEGINNING.
Most of the top executives are risk-averse. Everyone says stop and let’s evaluate the risks. Yes, these things are fundamental, but this is not a reason to stop thinking outside of your company’s daily operation. Your daily operation is just 50% of what you should be doing.

#4 Fourth rule: IT IS NEVER two companies to fight.
Forget the traditional sectors competition. The new digital business ecosystem is disruptive horizontally. You are competing with all companies in all sectors. All of them could be future threats to your business.

#5 Fifth rule: SEVERAL fights at a time, fellas.
Yes, you are competing not only against your main competitors. Look at how Apple Pay and Square are disrupting the payment industry.

#6 Sixth rule: the fights are NOT bare knuckle. Everything will be used as a weapon.
Take a look at the example of how Tesla Motors’ innovation from the IT sector to deliver and redefine the traditional car manufacturing industry.

#7 Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to.
Maybe you are lucky and the fight will be like a Cola War (Pepsi vs Coke), with just 2 competitors, but in the digital business model you will have more than only one competitor and the fights for survival will happen every day.


#8 The eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight to survive.”
Please don’t say: They are not our competitors; our strategy, business model and clients are different.


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I’d enjoy hearing from the LinkedIn community about how the digital business is changing the business ecosystem.

It is an enormous pleasure to have you read my post and provide some feedback. Here, at LinkedIn, I regularly write about IT, Innovation, Leadership and Management with a personal touch. Please feel free to connect.

[Photos: Fight Club]

[Data: Deloitte, Wikipedia, Kaufman]

Cross Generational Technology Leaders - Shaping the Present and Redefining the Future

It’s a great honor and privilege for me to create and organize this panel with MIT Sloan Board.


http://www.mitsloanboston.com/article.html?aid=293

The Lies About Leadership. There is No Formula.

This is not one more article about all the good things a leader should be, must be or can be. I would like to offer here a different perspective and a more REAL analysis of the meaning of leadership and this “SUPER HERO” called leader.

With the avalanche of information about leadership: books, articles, training, workshops, movies, etc., we can surmise a leader is all the best things you can say about someone.

Peter Drucker defined a leader as "Someone who has followers," while John Maxwell says, "Leadership is influence -- nothing more -- nothing less." The Free Dictionary defines a leader as "One who is in charge or command of others.

Here are a few words that you can find to describe a leader: committed to a result, team player, honest, decisive, empathetic, confident, optimistic and inspirational. Let’s stop here, because we could spend several hours listing adjectives and qualities of a leader.
Or maybe we can create a formula for leadership, something like this (n=all qualities and adjectives)

(N)Superman + (N)Brad Pitt + (N)Steve Jobs + (N)Einstein+ (N)Shakespeare = Leader.

The truth is, there is no formula
Working with people from different countries, ages and cultures, I’ve learned many things from them but, I probably was not always their leader, because leadership qualities take may occur overtime or get lost over time. In the end, it is a matter of TIME and MOMENTUM in addition to some adjectives and qualities.

A few months ago, I was presenting at the Finance Forum of MIT and I had the pleasure to see a presentation from Andrew Lo (Director, Laboratory for Financial Engineering). It was a truly a unique experience. In that workshop, he mentioned something that I will quote here: “Do you know the difference between salad and trash ? …. TIME”. Yes time, the only thing that money can’t buy. You can buy hours from someone, but no one can buy the time that has already past.

Let’s try this exercise:

Collect all the adjectives that you’ve ever read and think about leadership. Yes, I know this sounds a Big Data task, but let’s try to make it easier.

A few words to start: committed to a result, team player, honest, decisive, empathetic, confident, optimistic and inspirational.

Step 1:
• Pick one adjective that best describes one of your characteristics;

Step 2:
• Take all the rest and put them in a bucket;
• Mix everything;
• Pick one more adjective;

Step 3 – The most important
• With these two adjectives of leadership, think of HOW, WHEN and to WHOM (personal or professional) you will transmit these characteristics. Let’s define ‘transmit’ as showing someone that you have those skills to see whether that person will take on those characteristics for himself with pride.

You don’t have to be a super hero to be a leader. It is all about time, momentum and whether you have the capacity to transmit those leadership qualities to someone else. Maybe you are really good and your leadership momentum could remain for a year or for more than a life time, i.e., Lincoln or Steve Jobs. Maybe your leadership momentum depends on your position, maybe your leadership momentum is one project or one job, or maybe your leadership momentum lasts for just a few moments for someone with no experience and who may simply need guidance.

As in Sports, sometimes a player can be a leader in the field but not make a good coach. However some players can be leaders in the field and also be great coaches. Thus their leadership momentum extends beyond theirs days, years or even for more than a lifetime. Keep your leadership momentum as long as you can, and always seek to transfers that momentum to someone else.

I hope you work hard enough to have at least one leadership experience;

Be good enough to last for several years; and

Have several mentees to transfer your leadership momentum to.

“You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.”
José Saramago, Blindness

Are the IT developers dead? R.I.P.?

In the article of The Economist: “The onrushing wave In 1930 they talked when the world was “suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism”, John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers.”

“One of the worries Keynes admitted was a “new disease”: “technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economizing the use of labor outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labor.” His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested—but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come."

The debate that technology innovation causes unemployment is not new, but right now, in this “everything is IT” world, the time spent from innovation to delivery to the market is incredibly fast and the more “modern” professions such as IT developer and/or programmer could be at risk and under a new continuous attack. Could these developers be the new hand weavers of our time? - one of the first professionals of the world to have their job security affected by the technology and automation.
They will die in the shower like Marion Crane in PSYCHO?

As they mention in The Economist article: “The impacts of technological change take their time appearing. They also vary hugely from industry to industry. Although in many simple economic models technology pairs neatly with capital and labour to produce output, in practice technological changes do not affect all workers the same way. Some find that their skills are complementary to new technologies. Others find themselves out of work.”

A great book for everyone is Big Data : A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think from Viktor Mayer-Schönbergerhe and Kenneth Cukier (even if you are not an IT person).

One story is about how Google and Microsoft created a new method to improve the grammar checker and translation process by using huge volumes of data and advanced algorithms. They weren’t sure whether it would be more useful to put their efforts into improving existing algorithms, finding new techniques, or adding more sophisticated features. The authors mention how our daily life will change forever with the increasing use of Big Data, Predictive and Cognitive Computing.

To develop a product or a system for the users and the market (independently of our methodology) is never an easy process. You have to listen, interpret, evaluate and ask the right question, but at the end, the way you translate that information and data in software and in many cases is totally different than what is expected, which depends so much on human interpretation.

The current avalanche of the 5 V’s of Big Data (Volume, Velocity, Variety , Veracity, Value) well explained by Bernard Marr, advances in cognitive computing and what I call ‘on-line collective intelligence’ can take us to this simple high level imaginary scenario:

1. I’m a business user sitting in front of my computer with a new idea for a system and/or a product;
2. I just start to speak saying that I want a website for my new marketing campaign using information from my back end CRM system and using content from my content management system;
3. On-line right in front of me, I see my screen creating a functional prototype and while I speak, I receive insightful questions to detail what I want and to identify the best scenario considering my competitors and what is available on the internet.

This is a fictional scenario, but in this case, not only the developers are no longer necessary, but neither is the business analyst.

I always encourage my mentees and IT teams to have at least one coding experience. I believe it is fundamental to create a solid base if you plan to develop a career in IT.

In many websites and books, you can read information about new professions such as the “data scientist,” which combines the skills of a statistician, software programmer, infographics designer, and storyteller. But, as with all new technology, the advance demands from the workforce to adapt and merge different types of knowledge and expertise. So for the expert of the past to be the expert of the future, he must be able to consolidate these several high demand skillsets.

Coding, developing and programming are similar to paintings (like Kandinsky, Renoir or just urban art), with totally different visions and interpretations depending on Who and How one looks at it, but each has its beauty. The lines of code suffer the scrutiny of the business world, for judgment or approval and like a painting, everyone can see something different that transports them to different places and brings new horizons. Ultimately, new technologies and IT innovation are here from the brilliant minds of engineers and developers.

I don’t believe Big Data and cognitive computing will be the new Norman Bates and the developers the new Marion Crane. We have already begun to change the way we think, innovate, create, produce, release and review our software/products.

• We’re not too far from the future.
• We’re not too far from the past.
• And this moment won’t last.

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I’d enjoy hearing from the LinkedIn community about their vision for the future of developers and how we design software and products. What new initiatives and projects are being used to develop software and products? What is the future of the IT profession?

It is an enormous pleasure to have you read my post and provide some feedback. Here, at LinkedIn, I regularly write about IT, Innovation, Leadership and Management with a personal touch. Please feel free to connect.

[Photos: PSYCHO movie, The Economist]
[Reference from the The Economist: The future of jobs - The onrushing wave]
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21594264-previous-technological-innovation-has-always-delivered-more-long-run-employment-not-less

The sad part about innovation…. Can we really be innovative without being creative?

A few days ago I read an article from Invention to Innovation by Mohamed A El-Erian, the former CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO. The article made me think more about Invention, Innovation and Creativity.

One of my favorite classic movies of all times is Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin. It is the kind of movie I can watch again and again and it will always make my day. One of my favorite parts is the “invention” presented in the beginning of the movie. This scene attracts me because of two main reasons:

1- The brilliantly implied criticism about the automation of industry;
2- The creative and simple ways to make us laugh like kids;

The objective of this post is to debate a little bit about item number 2, described above; to open a dialogue regarding innovation in our day with the Millennials and the previous generations who I refer to as “classic”.

A crucial part of my job is to identify, evaluate and convince student candidates in order to recruit the best talent from top universities. I also seek to strike a balance between company objectives and new hire expectations. I also have to determine how these newly hired employees will work together with “classic professionals” and how to become a cohesive team.

The hiring process requires a lot of time and effort from all of the different teams within the company. In my humble opinion, this process is the most important for any company’s sustainability. A few months ago, I lead one of these recruitment process events at two top universities in the Boston area. One of the key phases of this process was the group dynamic. Usually, we request that students from 2 or 3 different groups create a product where the only rule is to deliver a new idea (i.e., product or service) in 30 minutes. The students always deliver great ideas through their presentations that become integrated with my candidate evaluation process.


Many of their final ideas are invariably IT related: applications, websites or platforms, even though they come from diverse backgrounds including business, finance and IT. I’m surprised that they do not create simple ideas that improve our lives. I’m not looking for ideas to put in a Sky Mall magazine, but all the ideas now are only IT related. Is there only IT focused innovation and creativity?


Today, IT is part of our reality and like David Kirkpatrick from Forbes said; “Now Every Company Is A Software Company”. We embrace IT in order to take advantage of the shortcuts that IT provides to innovate and to expand the horizon IT has created in the last years.

I miss the simple and brilliant ideas that came together with creativity, like the creation of Velcro for example, that was created from the insight of the Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral, who got the idea when a plant got stuck in his pants. Although he was an engineer and applied science and IT to invent velcro, the creativity was right there too.

Ultimately, I’m happy about this culture of innovation and entrepreneurship that surrounds us on a daily basis, but in my view, innovation mixed with creativity is better. Yes to be simple, creative and innovative may not be easy,but that is because we are in Modern Times, with Modern ITideas.

A safe way to mix pleasure with business; 3 lessons that movies can teach about IT. One Big Data tale.

Probably most of you have had the frustration or pleasure to watch a remake of a classic movie, or maybe, if you are millennial, classical movies are just “NEW” movies. There are 3 things that I’ve learned from movies that apply to IT:
1. We invariably try to “remake” technologies/movies, because they are really good or now is the moment to open the door to new possibilities;
2. Some classics (technologies/movies) you will never be able to reproduce or improve on;
3. In many cases, the “critics’ opinion and market hype” are more important than (technologies/movies) themselves;
In today’s world, we often are not inventing, we are actually RE-inventing and/or improving concepts, especially in IT and in the movie industry. Sometimes the remake of a movie is better than the original. For example, I like the “new” Thomas Crown Affair better than the original (classic). But in some cases, the classic is so good that it is difficult, if not impossible, to improve on, like the movie Casablanca.

IT in many aspects is like a movie; full of remakes and reinventions. Similarly, IT in many ways is really the same, just with different names and buzzwords such as “big data” and “cloud computing”.

Recently, in an article entitled Big Data Expertise Much Tougher to Fake, written by Ashlee Vance for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, he explored how Google has created a new way to analyze huge stores of data (Cloud Dataflow). He mentioned in the article one of the big limitations around Hadoop technology’s inability to do “batch” operations, which means ordering a computer to perform an operation in bulk and then waiting for the result. You might ask a mainframe to process a company’s payroll as a batch job, or in a more contemporary example, analyze all the search terms that people in Texas typed into Google last Tuesday. Here again, we have
the Mainframe concepts rising from the ashes.

My first job, more than 15 years ago, was as a Mainframe Cobol developer. I still remember my IT friends saying, “My God! Cobol is dead, the future is in desktop applications (client - server)”. Still, for a time, I continued as a Cobol developer, but their comments remained in my head. I was spending my time and money on this, but would the technology change?
However, as time went by, I learned IT always changes and reinvents itself. With IT, we always have to study more and more, but the essence, like movies, doesn’t change that much and one day, just when the Mainframe concepts appeared to be dead, cloud computing and big data are here requesting higher capacity and batch processing.

Maybe, like the Thomas Crown Affair, the original, which is about a bank robbery, was perfect for its time, but the remake focused on the heist of a masterpiece and used new technology like the “Gartner” hype cycle. Sometimes, a classic (like mainframe) is so good that we embrace it, and accept that some classics never die or cannot be replicated (like Casablanca).

Don’t get me wrong, today I’m an enthusiast, advocate and provider of new technology in mainly three spheres, with my personal market hype:
• Motivate new generations of eager innovators;
• Reshape the way IT delivers fast business results;
• Create delightful customer experience;

In fact, “don’t (always) believe the hype”: classics serve as the basis for present and future innovations.

Bye Bye Hadoop? Or just Wow… Cloud Dataflow.

Yes, life is a loop!!! IT is a loop!!! And I love IT.