http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/contents/rss Quelques thèmes ouverts, parmi d'autres (cf www.davidjf.com ) - Impacts business et sociétaux de l' évolution permanente des TIC , règles pérennes et aspects novateurs - Cohérences utiles et désordres créatifs dans les ... fr-FR Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:50:50 GMT Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:50:50 GMT affinitiz http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/educational-web-2-0-_D039127A-4B33-45DF-8662-7F282C00406A Some posts on the web these times about Education 2.0, Classroom 2.0 and so one... As a lecturer in MBA's, some feelings on all that stuff: - first of all, a nice report , with comments , rather optimistic, showing new trends - then less positive views and comments - some good lists of new exciting tools for education.. I tried, as a lot of professors in Europe, to use and spread those techniques, from informal networks with ning for classrooms to some moodle or dokeos courses. - Informal networks are more used by students for fun and self image promotion than to create efficient student and alumni networks (and why not!) - Education system in Europe favours too often traditional teaching, where professor "pushes" its information to the students instead of modern way where students - work first by themselves on books, dvd's, online material, - then work together, in a cooperative mode, on relevant projects ("learning by doing"), - and only then meet professor than teach "by difference", filling the gaps and transmitting additional relevant knowledge... My deep feeling is that globalization of education (all those new courses in China, in Africa, in central and eastern Europe, ...) is changing the game, with more need, for economic reasons of modern Web 2.0 techniques. But key inhibitor remains professor's culture, habits and traditions.... Thu, 27 Dec 2007 19:50:50 GMT D039127A-4B33-45DF-8662-7F282C00406A http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/web-2-0-goes-on---_096AFB5E-311C-47F1-957A-E6AFEB3E79C3 Web 2.0: a large bag with so different feelings and philosophies. Can "subversive" concepts become institutional? Can those tools and techniques, reflects of self image, with a total appropriation (what do I do now..., my specific passions and friends..., it's happening now..., my special tricky way to access information...,), become a common practice for everybody? Will people seek contact and networks or go back to CAN (Computer aided narcissism) ? This one open the question. That can explain this "war", within organizations, to make Web 2.0 a mainstream. Why this fear for web 2.0? At the same time, Web 2.0 becomes global ... ...And a very good clever blog by Internet visionary Tim O'Reilly, the man credited with creating the term Web 2.0 Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:48:36 GMT 096AFB5E-311C-47F1-957A-E6AFEB3E79C3 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/a-stimulating-video--back-to-blogging--students-are-there--september-----_8028CB0B-687B-487E-91AB-1F38EE78A20E Fantastic video to re-stimulate your minds (if necessary). A Microsoft research using photos of real or virtual objects "scraped from around the Web, creating multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation". Some short thoughts on that: - This idea of making real hyperlinks between photos, videos open the question: Who code the links? who makes the relations. To day the "machine" is still a bit unable to do that (image semantic recognition...) - Real life vs Web virtual life. Have we so much time? Good back to real school and/or to real life after a long summer... Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:59:30 GMT 8028CB0B-687B-487E-91AB-1F38EE78A20E http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/order--disorder--classifications--life--power--real-life--mind-life--------_BCD169EF-020D-4D97-BBC5-8E4D63260E45 I just recently found this David Weinberger fantastic presentation video (alerted by Tony Karrer blog). Very close of my way of thinking. I really love it (content, style, ideology). A bit long (57 mn) but no feeling of time looking at it! ...I permanently have a difficult relation with order (who defines the order? why, for which reason...), I like freedom of choice in existentialist way (and without illusion, knowing internal and external determinisms...). ...I prefer Google search "non classification" than hierarchical access to data (even on my PC). Thanks David for this exciting stimulation (found naturally randomly on the web ...) Mon, 04 Jun 2007 09:18:29 GMT BCD169EF-020D-4D97-BBC5-8E4D63260E45 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/itis-possibly-manageable_B63D0DA1-AFE0-40A1-8BB2-F969540E56DC IT Governance is key, but some good tricks and more there if you want to fail ! And you know that bad IT governance is a big risk ... - Look about IT governance this "perfect" synthesis report by PWC... - And what is board implication in IT governance? and more ... The first objective of IT governance is strategic alignment (this "mechanical" concept !). A rather new magazine focus on that... - Concerning alignment, some nice companies , Staples, Wells Fargo, Dow Chemical and Dell Computer manage their strategies not just one application at a time, but how they attack integration as an end-to-end process, from supplier to customer. - Some new tricks on this alignment topic? There , a good checklist... - Good IT governance implies some ethical aspects ... ...and IT projects still fail !! Only 28% of IT projects succeed these days, down from 34% a year or two ago. Outright failures -- IT projects canceled before completion -- are up to 18%. The remaining 51% of IT projects are "challenged" -- seriously late, over budget and lacking expected features (Standish Group)... - Agile programming is a know set of strategies (and even Extreme programming ... ) in that domain. That impacts portofolio strategy management (one of the key "communication" aspects of good governance !). Can a solution for portofolio management be to implement only 1 program (just a joke), an ERP, solving everything for everybody. What is the real relation between agility and ERP's? Again the same old theoretical and practical key problem, what part must be "mechanized" and what part (of everything) has to remain "organic"... And always, some guidance and toolkits updates: Cobit , so useful to everybody, the need of scorecards and dashboards ... tags: IT governance , IT scorecard, projects Sun, 13 May 2007 20:12:43 GMT B63D0DA1-AFE0-40A1-8BB2-F969540E56DC http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/being-busy-but-back-to-blogging_516263D1-ADCF-465B-B2DC-C44C122962AF (stole the title of this post from there ...) Let's start these posts by this fantastic recent study by Bain about trends on usage of management tools in 2007. This study shows usage and usage satisfaction, in different continents, of the main "management tools" : Balanced Scorecard, Benchmarking, BPR, Collaborative Innovation, Consumer Ethnography, Core Competencies, Corporate Blogs, CRM, Customer Segmentation, Growth Strategy Tools, Knowledge Management, Lean Operations, Loyalty Management Tools, Mergers and Acquisitions, Mission and Vision Statements, Offshoring, Outsourcing, RFID, Scenario and Contingency Planning, Shared Service Centers, Six Sigma, Strategic Alliances, Strategic Planning, SCM, Supply Chain Management, Total Quality Management. I like the results ! But read the full story , with differentiation of acceptance and satisfaction by continents... Sun, 13 May 2007 09:43:03 GMT 516263D1-ADCF-465B-B2DC-C44C122962AF http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/pour-du-pur-plaisir-raymond-queneau-sur-larithmetique-_81F190A3-D562-4308-87EB-02272081BBB7 Voir la video Et grand merci au toujours stimulant forum de l'Oulipo , qui m'a fait découvrir ce bijou... Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:38:45 GMT 81F190A3-D562-4308-87EB-02272081BBB7 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/strolling-these-days-around-km-in-real-life_9F950603-59FC-4BB2-AED3-B90A0EC71DC1 Among existing yottabytes of data , we will use, during our life, billions of information ( data becomes information when it correspond to some conscious or unconscious project or objective I have...), but how much tacit or explicit knowledge (information embodied after really using it, "learning by doing"...)? I always was reluctant to the next word, wisdom , the word appearing a bit too spiritual to me. But competency is a good one. In my opinion, competency emerges when knowledge can, in real life, be applied to some specific and useful process ... In front of a problem, everybody try to find the perfect expertise. This is not so easy, our mind is always balanced between confidence and doubts. We are tempted to trust some nice sources, gambling unconsciously between pleasure of finding fast and cold and unpleasant hard work... People are therefore statistically more tempted by "lovable fools" than by "competent jerks" But KM topic still open ! - How can we separate Wheat & Chaff ? - Back to basics, KM jargon - KM frontiers always moving, from time to time, need of refocus , its relation with HPT (Human Performance Technology) - Companies have still to define their strategy on that... - Some quick wins are possible... What is real value of KM? It is highly of the type of work model we have in an organization, and alignment of decisions with it... - Profit/employee becomes a new key indicator , even for Wall Street ! - But can we measure KM? - Is knowledge sharing so easy? - Must we collect information or can we get it from other sources? The old connection/collection debate... And this dream of learning ? Can learning be made, with a good KM system, without human intermediation? I don't think so. Some steps of learning are: - Illumination (human based, sort of psychoanalytical transfer mode) - Deepening (Can be Information based, personal work) - Project, transforming information into knowledge (Vertical or horizontal human interaction necessary) And, just for pleasure, why not some contest on KM...? - Is KM dead ? - Let's kill KMS (KM Systems) - Let's kill Knowledge Management Tue, 17 Apr 2007 06:22:03 GMT 9F950603-59FC-4BB2-AED3-B90A0EC71DC1 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/not-impressed-by-high-tech-_8AF91DEF-09DD-4F88-A734-4AF27E22AF84 Not impressed by high tech evolution? Just read 2007 ten emerging technologies . And what's new just now? about Computing - Super lenses and chips, to see nanometers... - Intel going on... about Communication - Optical fibers ... and the web - IBM going on... - and all the mobile stuff, changing potentially your life... about Storage - Nanotubes again... - and flash memory on your desktop about Man/Machine interfaces - what about ultramobiles - some virtual earphones - Internet names length - and emoticons ... - and last but not least, if you don't succeed to retrieve information (all those blogs !!!), why not organize your disorder ? Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:13:49 GMT 8AF91DEF-09DD-4F88-A734-4AF27E22AF84 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/do-you-think-it-governance-is-easy-and-to-be-cio--_92BF071D-E389-4BA1-ADC2-56CF66A43B81 Governing IT (look at this PWC perfect report ) is (and that is not new!) key for company performance: Strategic alignment is key , but clearly a subtle adaptive one, not too mechanistic... What are CEO feelings on that? Some new innovative ideas on this old alignment topic, like this definition of IT organizations as fitting into one of three categories, which called Solid Utility, Trusted Supplier, and Partner Player. McKinsey emphasizes on some conditions of success... All that relies usually on CIO. He is responsible of all dimensions of IT Governance (Strategic Alignment, Operational Efficiency, Risk Management, Security, Business Continuity, Change Management, System Integrity, Cost Management, Regulatory Compliance, Value Delivery): Don't forget that sometimes IT can put you out of business ! CIO priorities on theses subjects evolve, and more ... Recently published, on those topics: On Security : Web2 increases security risks and is a new challenge, and globalization is another key issue... On Compliance: Compliance environment in US and more ... On Business continuity ... With such responsibilities, why CIO careers are not more dynamic, does CIO still means " Career Is Over "? Tue, 03 Apr 2007 06:26:37 GMT 92BF071D-E389-4BA1-ADC2-56CF66A43B81 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/soa-is-that-clear-for-everybody_DB824513-FA5C-4B53-BA97-024F028D01F1 SOA story is a nice one! It was at the top of CIO challenges for 2007, and reemphasised in recent C eBit, ... To consider the best way to develop, maintain application is to design them as independant LEGO buiding blocks, exchanging services is a nice creative dream. But... picture, in large companies, of application portfolio shows the real mess: heterogeneous applications, different programming language, weight of history, big amount of usable application, only a small part being used and a smaller part really useful (using Renault CIO typology) In that kind of case, SOA is more a modern (desperate?) programming way to try to make these old (and new) applications communicate, creating a layer of web services (communication layer using web xml protocols...). OK, let's imagine it will work (in some years...) Will that solve the "data base" problem, that created this heterogeneity? Every silo in the company has his own view (about what is client, what is a map, what is a piece of material) and therefore about the meaning, the way it must be coded, the information that must be inside.... Sure, a way to avoid all that is to move progressively to an ERP, insuring communication between silos but nobody can suddenly stop the past and move to a new way. And ERPs have got their own "philosophy of life"... On that: - is SOA DOA ? (Dead on arrival!) - Good SOA synthesis by IBM (clear enough) - SOA governance is a must, teams are key... Mon, 26 Mar 2007 11:58:20 GMT DB824513-FA5C-4B53-BA97-024F028D01F1 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/some-stories-feelings--fairytales-about-web2-and-some-consequences-on-km-_CB095273-25E0-4F4A-86C5-38200B26AA6F This Web2 emphasis is a bit enervating for some people (like me). Any rational? This big Web2 bag contains a lot of concepts and techniques, sometimes rather new (Ajax, long tail, ..), sometimes rather old (social networks, blogging, forums, ...). Some of those concepts where historically peripheral, borderline, even sometimes freakish, and are now becoming, just because technology is more mature, full mainstream. - a first immediate consequence is irruption of merchants, vendors, consultants around the concepts - another consequence is a lack of balance in ideas and marketing. One exemple: it is not because we have now tools that allow people to participate, to contribute that they will do it! Some people prefer to be passive, to be softly manipulated by some ideas coming from the others (marketers, politicians,...) Some recent contributions around these subjects ---- Is Web2 another bubble ? ---- Good rebound on web2 & new marketing. B2BC (Business to Business Consumer) concept seems interesting to develop. ---- That implies to move progressively to Entreprise 2.0. Is that so easy ? ---- At last, companies are interessed in social networks ("the chart behind the chart") ---- ... and a nice survey on that... ---- so, are we that way entering KM2 ? ---- Is enterprise 2.0 term equivalent to KM 2.0? Surely not ! KM really wider! ---- Short stimulating ideas about social networks replacing KM (but you have to pay for it) ! ---- COP's (community of practices) basic rules ---- but... social networks not so simple. Will we have to manage them? ---- The fundamental question is still alive: Will "semantic web", SOA, ..., all those web2 tricks will facilitate impressive new services ? Integrating is sometimes the key. Mashups are in the center. Not so easy ! ---- Is web2 replacing, by direct access, consultants? No consultants for Web2 ? ---- Some happy with blog s ..., some not happy ... ---- May be a better way to understand sociology , but big brother can be there.... but social networks are so nice , so easy to build .... Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:53:58 GMT CB095273-25E0-4F4A-86C5-38200B26AA6F http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/technology-still-moving-fast_5E58CCE1-3DEF-49B9-A31E-7873C972B5AD About Moore's law, Intel still invest strongly in 45 nanometers technology in competition with AMD, IBM, ... For the future, why not quantum computers ? May be not ready ! ..and atom thin graphite to build transistors... And this fantastic technology, RFID, with all its opportunities and risks, now at 50 micrometer size ! Man/machines interface: Suppressing the mouse , eye movement driven computer? It's an old dream. I already tried that in an IBM research lab years ago. A bit disorienting, with a funny feeling not to be allowed to look anywhere, and a sort of sea-sick impression. I hope they improved ! ... and why not connect your brain directly to games? ...and how much data world wide? and what for? If we cannot absorb more than 1 info/s (short term memory size limitation), compute how many information you will be able to absorb during your all life (3 Billions ?). Multiply by the population (6 Billion?)... It give something at the level of zettabytes, considered by IDC as the level of amount of data stored around 2010... So we will zap more and more ! About the advances about programming bots (intelligent agents), look at these social bots ! And the other face, risks are always there, hackers and co ... Sun, 11 Mar 2007 19:50:30 GMT 5E58CCE1-3DEF-49B9-A31E-7873C972B5AD http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/how-to-survive-in-daily-business-life_70BF89C8-443D-4F15-B79E-71076F328EC4 - So many management concepts! Smoking or non smoking management concepts? I really like this one ! Remind me an old chart about management concepts life cycle... - A good manager has surely to be stress tolerant , have to feed his curiosity , ... In daily life, some nice vizualization tools can help him (look at the demos...) Ignorance is his basic state. Can Artificial intelligence , this prothesis to natural ignorance help him? ( "Before we work on artificial intelligence why don't we do something about natural stupidity?" Steve Polyak ) And so much tasks, contradictory, so many mails, sometimes useful, sometimes just "umbrella" mails ("I copy you, so I am clean"), sometimes just business intelligence information. Microsoft showed that over 70% of information workers spend a fifth of their time or more on e-mail related tasks . How do people deal with these queues of "things to do", are their trade-off, to decide to do or not, based on their own personal priority system or on organization priority system ? Recent studies by IDC, the Working Council of CIOs, the Ford Motor Company, and Reuters found that: * Knowledge workers spend from 15% to 35% of their time searching for information. * Searchers are successful in finding what they seek 50% of the time or less. * 40% of corporate users report that they cannot find the information they need to do their jobs on their intranets. * Some studies suggest that 90% of the time that knowledge workers spend in creating new reports is spent recreating information that already exists. * An IDC report suggests that rework costs an enterprise about $5,000 per person per year for an estimated annual total of $12 million dollars across the U.S. Furthermore, not locating and retrieving information has an opportunity cost of $15 million dollars per year. People are still interested in "learning" how to deal with email better. Maybe Web2 can offer some solutions - for a recent analysis of the situation, see Michael Sampson's series of posts on the topic that starts here .. ...but is there a danger that Web2 opportunities amplify the problem ? Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:32:02 GMT 70BF89C8-443D-4F15-B79E-71076F328EC4 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/knowledgable-_ED071941-F5F7-495A-91C9-1353DB9E627F - Just found a good new book about KM and performance manager. It examines the partnership between decision-makers and the people who provide them with information to drive better decisions and suggestions for 42 decisions areas, taking into account the need to understand your data, but also plan and monitor performance. - One way to start KM in an organization is to consider it as a service - KM often needs technology, what do you do in front of that kind of people (good funny story about relation with technology ! I know so many people like that...) More seriously, I like Martin Koser blog , with this relevant post on Management tools and Bain article - The conventional wisdom today is that the flow of knowledge cannot be organized and driven by IT Is that true ? - Management of K is not enough, you have too to do things ! - ...and always this relation between Innovation and KM techniques - Librarians are the historically first "knowledge managers" in organizations. Now, all managers are supposed to be ! Are librarians out? Or any manager is the librarian ? - But classification not so easy: look at this good literature synthesis of some connected concepts - Teaching (I'm a teacher) and KM tools: a relevant list of techniques - PKM, a new buzzword or individual productivity still a key challenge? and Davenport's thoughts about it - Against dominant thoughts, creating knowledge , tagging changes and improves KM... - I like this idea about KM strategy to capitalize on know-how can be counterproductive , in the case the know-how you store is average, too low level. It can inhibit employee's will to experiment. - KM, organizational learning gurus still alive, studying how KM can be a link between NGO and companies , in case they want to cooperate. -...and a good way to use knowledge at the bottom of the pyramid ... - Are incentives on KM good enough to stimulate K improvement? Is BI so far from KM? Where is the real frontier? Does BI concerns more "weak noises", unknown things, intelligence of outside and KM more known things, inside existing knowledge? BI tools can be applied inside, e.g. to discover new concept through BI analysis of internal stream of messages! So, what new on BI? - Good strategy and BI: there is a clear convergence between strategy and BI - Data mining is the central tool of any BI mechanism... Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:59:50 GMT ED071941-F5F7-495A-91C9-1353DB9E627F http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/do-you-love-processes_09CB207C-019C-417E-A4DA-E4891ABE9222 BPM: Processus, toujours un thème central. Ce séminaire a lieu en Europe pendant tout 2007. Some very nice useful charts , from Gartner, about best of BPM, and a lot of additional charts . Among these, this one about BPM and SOA relation, or another one ... but... what about HOP (Human and Organizational Performance)? Must human problems be treated before technological and organizational problems? Old debate. Is corporate performance depending from good management of management processes ? Sure it is a key necessary condition, but not sufficient! Projects and processes are closely related: - What is a process ? many good definitions, but one way is to see it as a never ending project. So you can apply some of project methodologies to processes. Why not, for example, prototype a process as we, in agile companies, prototype projects? - Alignment of projects with strategies is key. To do that, we have to recognize that 90% of projects are created to optimize way of doing, processes. So, project prioritization needs first processes prioritization! ...so what's new about IT projects ? New world of IT projects, towards globalized agile companies... and some still alive good laws about conditions of IT projects success (systems integration, databases, IT governance, cost reduction, and delegating work to IT) Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:58:12 GMT 09CB207C-019C-417E-A4DA-E4891ABE9222 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/it-governance-key-and-still-alive_F51DEB1F-A746-4F0D-84EC-1B0477A64F23 So many publications mentionning this topic. Does that mean that - nobody understand anything? - there are some unsolved problems in the concept and its application? - it is now just a way for vendors (consultants, gurus, SOA solutions providers, scorecard specialists ) to market - Organizations, in spite of the "official speech", are very very far from that? One of the permanent criticism is that too much governance can kill agility, can kill innovation and adaptation. It is sure that governance concepts and techniques are mainly "mechanistic", and sometimes far from systemic and "organic" adaptation. Often too, within governance speeches, a "human" point of view is developed, but is it sincere or just "window dressing"? Some rebounds on that: - Is governance, agility incompatible? May be, not ? - SOX and management decommitment !!! This can occur in some big companies, that are sometimes exceptional at the IT Governance point of view (IBM, ...), and now try to find the right balance between control and need of organic adaptation... - the key Application Portofolio Management ( APM ) again and again - as everybody knows, indicators are connected to Governance. BSC concept is not far, strategic mapping tools too... Some example of comment on a good usage of bsc... ...a lot of education in business schools on BSC, in a lot of different disciplines (financial control, governance, strategy, business plans, ...) examples of students thinking on bsc... CIO is just in the middle of all that. - a lot of choices to do in the permanent pressure of demands ... - ...with end user power at last... - Governance often means contracts. But contracts don't solve everything: SLA (Service level agreements contracts) cannot replace cooperation in case of outsourcing - How can CIO solve application challenges? Replace everything by an ERP ? Bridge everything with SOA and Web services? Good question . - ...And CIO has to use already existing models like ITIL (and others, Cobit, CMMI, ISO xxx, ...) Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:12:12 GMT F51DEB1F-A746-4F0D-84EC-1B0477A64F23 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/searching-and-thinking_57999B08-A611-48C5-9EFA-36F15C5B098C I like this one: MIT's Michael Schrage explains why getting highly relevant results from a search can actually inhibit the iterative process by which we discover and learn. Idea we have about relevance of our search evolves while searching. Creativity can come from that iterative process too: I search something, I am partially dissatisfied of the result, that makes me refocus on new idea about my search, I search again, .... So: If you find what you search immediatly, you stop your brain ! Nice philosophical thought. You can find there nice high level contributions about searching... Just took this one too: Jim McGee talks about the need for businesses to allow employees time to think, and the extent to which thinking can be done in the social public of blogs. About fast thinking, I adore this fast (at the speed of the brain ), intelligent video from Michael Wesch (Kansas State University) about Web2 (but don't like the music, I stopped the sound...) Some additionnal comment on it.... Sun, 11 Feb 2007 09:58:26 GMT 57999B08-A611-48C5-9EFA-36F15C5B098C http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/technologies-hot-news_8CCC075A-AF3A-4CD0-936D-EE2E0203A6C3 What's next after still well living silicium ( yes , 45 nanometers... ) to go-on on Moore's law? Photonic computer is one of the opportunities. Telephone still moving: Ultramobile is the keyword. McKinsey (just register!) shows an interesting study about value of mobile phones... Man/machine interface nice evolutions: - Flexible plastics, flexible screens, even flexible RFIDs . Why not become invisible, with flexible screen as clothing and a camera behind you, reprojecting background image on the screen .... - Night vision with new LEDs and... are you lost in translation ? Mais attention: les technologies portent toujours leurs facteurs de risques ! Sun, 11 Feb 2007 09:37:48 GMT 8CCC075A-AF3A-4CD0-936D-EE2E0203A6C3 http://affinitiz.com/space/davidjf/content/innovate-_3AE2E7D8-2F02-4C5C-ABFD-00AE726756ED Ultimate and permanent challenge for people, companies, societies is to innovate (to survive?) This week, a lot of point of view on this topic, re-emphasizing some basic evident ideas: First, innovation in IT is often nowadays coming from "transgressive renegades" . Continuous flow of new emerging technologies allows permanently unsatisfied end-user to invent their way. A good IT department must consider/absorb these innovations, considered as valid prototypes, and to transform them into reliable professional solid applications... This idea is not far from the need, for organizations who want to adapt and change, to capitalize on "change agents" (This way is the only way! Organizations, closed in their today's paradigm, cannot event imagine the methods of to-morrow. Fortunately, some people, these change agents, are already in to-morrow's paradigm....) Not far too from this idea is the search of "bumpy bits" If the world is flat, seek out the bumpy bits, in an aligned, flat world.... But innovation must be highly stimulated by collaboration, toward collective creativity. That is a new key mission for CIOs... Some people can think there is a conflict then between IT Governance (driving to a flat aligned world?) and creativity stimulation (subversive guys...). Good debate , where opinions (and experiences) are mixed... Informal network concept, illustrated by 1993 famous article " The Company Behind the Chart " in Harvard Business Review, still the key condition, following Booz-Allen-Hamilton , for collective creativity. Some french thinking now... Les universités, lieu d'innovation, devraient quant à elles être en pointe. Mais... Le budget de R&D de la Chine, dont les grandes universités s'inspirent du MIT ou de Stanford, va dépasser celui du Japon... qui achève une réforme sans précédent de ses universités... tandis que l'université de Cambridge investit dans des « hedge funds » pour ses placements !!! Why did I focus on Innovation this week? Just because a friend of mine sent me a personality test, to check if I was really a "strategist" (my official title on my business card...). And guess what? I am not a "strategist", but an "innovator" !!! And you ? Sun, 04 Feb 2007 19:09:24 GMT 3AE2E7D8-2F02-4C5C-ABFD-00AE726756ED