I have recently attended a talk by Chris Messina where he pointed out some interesting issues with the existing social networks. We invest a lot of time on them, we establish a network of friends, exchange ideas, share photos, videos and comments. What happens when that social network ceases to exist? Who owns the data? Why I cannot export my data and bring them to another social network? We lack standards and the willingness of social networks to let us easily switch from one to another. Chris is trying to address those problems and is spreading his vision.

See the video of one of his presentations:

Identity is the Platform from Chris Messina on Vimeo.

the slideset:

Identity is the Platform

and one related and interesting presentation by Jyri Engeström co-founder of Jaiku, which was acquired by Google in 2007.

If you wondered about the scope and meaning in an organization of portfolio management the book Portfolio Management for New Products by Robert G. Cooper, Scott Edgett and Elko J. Kleinschmidt brings some good information about its meaning and explains several techniques used in the industry to improve this process.

Some excerpt from the book:

Portfolio management for new products is a dynamic decision process wherein the list of active products and R&D projects is constantly revised….
It is more than project selection, although that is part of it; it is certainly much more than annual budgeting or resource allocation across projects; it goes beyond simply developing a prioritized list of projects; it is more than strategizing and trying to arrive at the best set of projects to meet strategic needs, although strategy and strategic imperatives are certainly key components.

Three main goals of portfolio management:
Maximizing the value of the portfolio: a prime goal is to maximize the value of the portfolio against objectives, such as profitability or strategic importance

Balance in the portfolio: Portfolios can be balanced on numerous dimensions. The most popular are risk versus rewards, ease versus attractiveness, and according to breakdowns by project types, market, and product lines, long-term vs. short terms, high risk vs. low risk.

Link to strategy: Strategic alignment- strategic fit, project selection, and resource allocation reflecting the business’ strategy – are the issues here.

When looking for disruptive innovation it is useful to target nonconsumers. Nonconsumers are people that due to certain contrainsts are not able to “consume”.

From the Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work (Harvard Business School Press) we get the following suggestions.

There are four constraints on consumption:

skill-related contraints: People lack the requisite ability to “do it themselves.”  Mapping the delivery chain of a product or service can highlight skill-related constraints.

wealth-related constraints: People can’t afford desirable solutions. A consumption pyramid can help identify wealth-related problems.

Access-related constraints: A barrier prevents consumption in convenient settings. Looking for “locked up” solutions or occasions where consumptions can’t occur can help unearth access-related constraints.

Time-related constraints: The complexity of existing solutions, or length of time required to use them makes the investments not worthwhile. Analyze customers who stopped consumptions can pinpoint time-related constraints.

BusinessWeek put up transcripts of some of the interviews with people at Google. You can read the interviews of:

• Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO
• Udi Manber, vice-president of engineering and head of the search quality group
• Amit Singhal, head of Google’s core ranking team in the search quality group
• Scott Huffman, head of the group that evaluates quality in the search quality group
• Matt Cutts, the head of the webspam team in the search quality group

from Matt Cutts blog post BusinessWeek articles on Google.

In a blog post in the HarvaBdbusiness.org, Scott Anthony writes Why I’m Following the Disruption. Scott Anthony has worked on business innovation and disruptive innovations. He has written three books on innovation: Seeing What’s Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change, Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work (Harvard Business School Press), and Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times He is now moving from Innosight’s consulting operations to head up Innosight Ventures, Innosight’s incubation and investing arm, in Singapore. Some suggestions from his post:

I suggest those of you contemplating your own career in the face of the challenges and opportunities presented by today’s economy consider three questions:

• What are you doing to expose yourself to new challenges?
• How can you get closer to the “action” in your field or organization?
• What can you do to get closer to transformational efforts in your company?

It interesting to see how Asia is growing in its strategic importance. Scott is moving to Singapore, and recently HSBC decided to move the CEO to Hong Kong.

Are you still considering the Emerging Markets as emerging? Then read the nice article from the FT Insight: Emerging market label is obsolete

Then read the Economist Up, up and Huawei and China rich list topped by BYD founder by FT.

Strategy is really a safari, I am convinced of that after reading the excellent book of Henry Mintzberg et al. Strategy Safari: The Complete Guide Through the Wilds of Strategic Management

Mintzberg divides the strategy process as conceived by different schools:

The first three schools are prescriptive in nature – more concerned with how strategy should be formulated than with how they necessarily do form.

Is strategy created  or emergent? The answer is both and every strategy process has to combine various aspects of the different schools. Strategy Safari is a great book and it should be read several times to really understand its profound implications on the meaning of business strategy.

Digital convergence makes clear that the boundaries are not well defined and players from different domains are aiming at the same objectives. Vodafone revamps mobile internet service is a nice FT article in which is described the current scenario of Telco operators and Internet companies working on mobile Internet services and social networking.

And, Nokia is to acquire Dopplr, a social networking Internet service connecting people that travel around.

Google has partnered with the Wharton School to launch Fast.Forward, a site with videos on marketing as we know it today, from leading industry experts.

Check the videos at Fast.Forward

Innovation: What’s your score? is the title of a recent article published in the McKinsey What Matters. The article proposes ways to assess and measure innovation in a company.

Another article, from What Matters, tackels  innovation in Silicon Valley, see  Nurturing the innovation reef.