Location Location Location

Location and context-aware applications are a very hot topic.

Google has just launched the Gears Geolocation API for mobile and desktop browsers. The API can determine your location using nearby cell-towers or GPS for your mobile device or your computer’s IP address for your laptop. Google provides this service for free to both developers and users. The news on Techcrunch.

Yahoo has launched Fire Eagle, a geo-location platform. Fire Eagle allows allows developers to include positional data in their applications with a minimal amount of work. Fire Eagle allows users to send their positional data to any partner service from a supported device or website.  The news on Techcrunch, and on Fortune.

The Future of Management

The Future of Management is the latest great book of Gary Hamel (visiting professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School).

According to Hamel, there are various forms of innovation and those forms can be thought as a hierarchy, where higher tiers denote higher levels of value creations and management innovation comes out on top.

The innovation stack:

  • management innovation
  • strategic innovation
  • product/service innovation
  • operational innovation

Management innovation is defined as anything that substancially alters the way in which the work of management is carried out, or significantly modifies customary organizational forms, and, by so doing, advances organizational goals. Put simply, management innovation changes the way managers do what they do, and does so in a way that enhances organizational performance.

The author presents several examples of organizations that have succeeded by adopting management innovation. Overall, a very interesting book.