EMBA的小眼睛

The string with an idea at the end

Ideas used to be nicely wrapped up, wrapped in movies or books or some other sort of container. The Harvard Business Review and Fast Company would collect a bunch of them in one handy, easy to carry package. And the way we found those ideas was by going to the place where the containers lived and grabbing one. The bookstore was a valuable showroom for worthy ideas.

Today, ideas spread. We find them from someone we trust, or as they flash across the sky of social media. Today, people with authority and leverage continue to need new and important ideas, but there isn't an obvious idea store to go and pick up the next one. Instead, we listen to the pulse of what's going on around us, and see who is talking about what.

Those conversations are the string. Curious people will follow the string all the way back to the place it came from.

Attaching a piece of string to your idea is the updated equivalent of getting it placed in the right part of the bookstore. Attaching a string and putting it in a place where it can move from person to person.

You are not the lowest common denominator

Internet companies often strive for lock in.

Lock in is what happens once you have a lot of followers on Twitter... it's not easy to switch. Same with all social networks. And operating systems too--it takes a lot of hassle to walk away from iOS.

Once a company has achieved lock in, one way to grow is to appeal to those that haven't been absorbed (yet), to change the product to make it appeal to people who need it to be simpler, dumber and less powerful, because (the company and its shareholders understand) the power of the network becomes ever more irresistible as it scales.

Do the math. Given a choice between serving existing users that are looking for a more powerful tool or creating more simplicity and ease for the newbies, which pays bigger dividends to the network's owners?

Trade officials from Japan and the Philippines are holding a meeting today as part of a series of dialogues to enhance cooperation in making the latter the preferred hub of Japanese firms in Southeast Asia.

Trade assistant secretary Ceferino Rodolfo told reporters the industrial cooperation dialogue between Japan and the Philippines aims to advance the existing cooperation between the two countries specifically on making the latter the preferred destination of Japanese industrial foreign direct investments.

“What Japan wants is to really make the Philippines its manufacturing hub in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations),” he said.

Rodolfo acknowledged that while there are already many Japanese firms operating in the country, there are still those interested in checking out opportunities here.

The meeting is also expected to help position the Philippines a human development hub in the region as well as enhance the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises.

A review sprint

How many short book reviews can we assemble in one day?

Think of a book that's influenced you or made a difference in your life and write a short review on Hugdug. Just type in the name of the book and the site will tee you up to write a few words and share them with your friends.

To get you started, here are a bunch of popular authors and their books to choose from.

It would be magnificent if 1,000 people posted a review today. I hope you'll give it a try.

In search of an argument

Has it ever been easier to experience an emotion at the click of a mouse? It's a choice.

You can instantly become enraged, merely by reading the comments of some blogs. You can amplify your self-doubt by checking out what the trolls on Twitter have just said about you. And if you're really interested in bringing yourself down, go read some reviews of your work online.

Sure, if you want an argument, it's easy to find a never-ending one oline.

The question is, why would you want to?

Connecting dots (or collecting dots)

Without a doubt, the ability to connect the dots is rare, prized and valuable. Connecting dots, solving the problem that hasn't been solved before, seeing the pattern before it is made obvious, is more essential than ever before.

Why then, do we spend so much time collecting dots instead? More facts, more tests, more need for data, even when we have no clue (and no practice) in doing anything with it.

Their big bag of dots isn't worth nearly as much as your handful of insight, is it?