Month: November 2005

Not content with announcing a new on-line service rather than shrink-wrapped s/w sales strategy, Microsoft are pushing ahead with this Open Content Alliance project to scan out of copyright books. I hope the “content” doesn’t become some pawn in the megalomaniac competitive game. [Most recent Google news here.]

I blogged a month or so ago about re-discovering management guru Peter Drucker, and being interested to discover his Vienna Circle history. I notice in this post from Piers Young at MonkeyMagic, whilst stumbling across Drucker, he lets slip his first degree in Philosophy. Kept that quiet Piers.

Incidentally, being 50 next birthday was not the reason that I followed this link. I too have only recently begun reading Gibbon.

No, the reason I followed it was for this Mark Bernstein post next door, on US news priorities. [via Oliver Wrede] Made me smile.

Interesting. Posted several times and exchanged comments with Georganna, that Google is truly amazing in indexing seemingly insignificant little blogs like ours, totally in minutes flat, 24, 7, like amazing, however you look at it.

Matt Mower seems to have dropped off their radar. I wonder how that happens. Is there a blacklist 😉 Conspiracy theorists need not apply.

I posted “dont you just love ’em” (Americans) earlier this week. Here is the opposite view from an American travelling in the UK or rather, exactly the same view from the other side. [From Virginia Postrel via Mark Lerner.]

The usual annual slanging match between directors and unions as the survey of directors remunerations show that directors average pay has “risen steeply” n x inflation for the nth year in a row, etc. They disagree, yet they agree “We must reward success” say the directors, “Yes, we mustn’t punish success” say the unions, blah, blah, blah.

The meaningless news story struck me because I’d just been browsing Tom Peter’s who puts all his presentations up on his web site, even though at this very moment, you could be paying $1750 a head to hear him strut his stuff at Birmingham NEC (Sharing the stage with Michael Porter, Charles Handy and Gary Hamel mind you.)

Tom is still preaching “excellence”, with the same passion as ever, judging by the colour schemes in his powerpoints. Excellence; The relentless pursuit of difference. Innovate or die. The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle. Do we employ enough weird people these days ?. etc ..

Anyway the problem with the management vs employees debate above, is that whilst they are talking success, they are meaning “my slice of the pie” – that objective, measurable, accountable, financial pie of earnings, and in doing so they (or the media reporting them) miss what matters :

Reward excellent failures
Punish mediocre successes

ie Don’t forget the quality.

It’s all slogans, and most of Tom’s are lifted from others, (with acknowledgement, to Phil Daniels in the quote above) but that doesn’t mean they are wrong. Far from it. It’s “pathetic” as he says, that people still need reminding of this stuff. Keep pushing that meme Tom. Of course, that’s why Tom’s slides are freely available, memes rely on replication. Copy and use freely. Aristotle has one hell of a head start on us.

Don’t know much about the “World Science” source of this article, but I was struck by vague parallels with Hofstadter’s “Ant Colony” in this image of fractal patterns arising in a bacteria colony multiplying across the surface of an agar dish. [via David Morey over on MoQ-Discuss.]

The article itself looks quite involved – need to read carefully.

Glad to see Google is pressing ahead with its wholesale digitisation of world libraries. When will copyright holders wake up to the fact that Google’s massive investment gives them an opportunity to exploit their copyright to a far greater extent than any they currently hold. Subscriptions can fund library management of in-copyright / out-of print (or low volume / specialist print) titles too.