Khan Academy's TED Talk - a.k.a. technology improving (and humanizing) the classroom

I am serious when I say that I almost cried when I watched it - not because it is emotive, it is not at all, but because of the impact it brings.



I have been using the Khan Academy FOR FUN every night.

Why China copies and India invents

I was on bed and I had to get out of it to write this. I was reading the first paragraphs of White Tiger, specifically this part:

Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs.

And it hit me. I understood everything (as much as you can understand everything while on your bed). One of those eureka moments came to me and it was clear as water why China is a copycat machine, while India has the IT sector of the world in its hands. I might be very wrong because I haven't visited BOTH countries, but I am also an entrepreneur and I am not afraid to fail tonight. I am cocky enough to think I will succeed.

The thing about China and India are essentially about organizational culture. Well, culture, not "organizational", but if you would think both States as "organizations", then it would be organizational culture. 

In China, the government restricts information, tells you how many children you can have, tell you what is right and what is wrong. It holds the truth in its hands, people have to comply. This approach has its merits: efficiency. The well-oiled Chinese machine outproduces the whole world. It is a factory. But only a factory, as in the Apple's products labels "Designed by Apple in California." while somewhere hidden it says "Assembled in China." California has the brains, China is just a glorified tinkerer. Also no question about who gets the biggest share of the money: always the brain.

In India, on the other hand, it is a land of very few blacks and whites: everything is grey. It depends. And it depends a lot. Like Brazil, the government in India is not the most trusted entity: you have to make a living yourself, because suddenly your slum might be erased from the map because of a new government program. No job? Use your imagination and generate some sort of money. Old taboos, such as "girls should not work", are easily forgotten for the sake of practical survival. To hell with the rules, says the Indians, we will do our own stuff. And here they are, the biggest entrepreneurial nation in the planet, where almost anything is up for negotiation. Yes, there are draw backs when everyone is doing their own thing: chaos, organizations (enterprises or government) have more leverage over the disorganized society of the individual. But it teaches you a hell lot of initiative. It teaches you, like a shark, to never stop swimming. It gives you faith in yourself - because if you don't trust yourself, no one else will.

So if China wants a bit more entrepreneurship, it will have to let the danger of freedom enter its doors, because that is the only way innovation can come in too. And if India want some order, might be interesting looking to... hm, not China, please. Maybe Norway?

Again the phrase "culture eats strategy for breakfast" makes a lot of sense. I am fascinated by organizational culture and its influence. Maybe that is what I need to do. Maybe that is my leverage to change the world. Culture change & management. 

Oh, men, just having my trip to India next week is already putting me in a very different mood than the stiff and anti-entrepreneurial organizational culture in Norway.

Good things come to those who act.

[No revision. That is the way I am. Leave me be.]

Bata Management System

Last week I was in Prague to be a panelist in the Forum 2000. It was a very interesting panel with 4 people like me (young, naive and hungry) and other 4 seasoned business men and women on the topic of “what the next generation of leaders want from the market”. We discussed topics like if it is desirable that business tackle global issues (like poverty) and what the next generation value in an employer. The forum deserves a post in itself, but I want to speak about something I learned outside the panel room, more specific in the pub that we went after the panel: the Bata Management System.

Bata (pronounced more or less like “bat’ya”) Management System was basically the way Tomáš Baťa (and his successor, Jan Antonín Baťa) managed the business. Bata is a Czech shoe factory (and retailer) named after the surname of the founder, but the similarities with a Fordian assembly line kind of stop there.

Bata’s first slogan, at the factory gate, was “thinking to the people, labor to the machines”. Bata’s system included whole-system orientation and integration of work (instead of splitting it into small specialized tasks), team and workshop self-management, profit-sharing and autonomy, workers’ participation and co-determination, clearly-defined responsibilities and organizational flexibility. Every employee was a partner, co-worker or associate and all workers were to become owners and capitalists. Salaries were much higher than the industry average (both in Czech and anywhere in the world) and production was always improving. Production and profits were not the ends, but the means towards improving the individual lives of all Bata employees.

An story that shows the craziness of the innovation in Bata is that his office was built inside an elevator (which also had a working bathroom). This way he was everywhere in the factory and at the same time everyone could reach him quite easily. Here there is a picture of the Bata’s elevator/office.

Bata managed to thrive while the world was in a big recession. But I am not talking about the 2008 recession. These guys did all this in the 30’s. Yes, all this “progressive” management almost a 100 years ago (and when Henry Ford was going for the man is a machine approach in the assembly line).

It seems that Bata didn’t need any Forum 2000 to understand what employees (humans!) want from their work. Bata understood that people are superior than machines, all he did was to help foster an environment that didn’t get in the way of their linchpiness. Does generation X and Y changed so much that they want different things? In my opinion, not at all, we are just much more bold to say it aloud and demand to be treated as humans.

Sauvé Scholars Program for young leaders around the world

Applications are currently being accepted by the Sauvé Scholars Foundation for the 2011-2012 Sauvé Scholars Program.

The Sauvé Scholars Program invites young leaders across the globe to apply for the scholarships. These young leaders are those who want to change the world. The Scholars are chosen above all on the basis of criteria laid out by the Right Honourable Jeanne Sauvé: initiative, motivation, vision, imagination, demonstrated communication skills, awareness of international and domestic issues and a strong desire to effect change. Sauvé Scholars are young persons who are 30 years old or less.

During the scholarship period, the scholars are given an opportunity to spend their academic stay at the “internationally-renowned McGill University, in the heart of Montreal, where the student body of about 33,000 includes students from some 160 countries. Through a formal Memorandum of Understanding, Sauvé Scholars enjoy a unique status at McGill: they may audit courses at the undergraduate or post-graduate level (but not for credit) and may participate in the array of university activities and facilities for every taste and interest.

In addition, the Sauvé Scholars enjoy an enriching private program of seminars with eminent journalists, political figures and leaders in business, academia and the arts.

Each Scholar is expected to undertake a new project in his or her chosen field – for example, arts, advocacy, business, communications, government or research – or complete one that is underway. Scholars are also invited to participate in some form of social or civic engagement for the benefit of the Montreal community.”

Only individuals between the age group 23 and 30 years can apply. The deadline to submit applications is 1 November 2010. For more information, visit http://www.sauvescholars.org/

Prosjektdesign

Related to the post bellow, I have been involved in a project for a couple of days that already paid off supreme: I went yesterday to a get to know of the people involved in the project and it was in a school called Prosjektdesign, around the always trendy Grünnerloka. The school is not what you would imagine of a crowded school, but a house where 26 people divided in different teams. The purpose as I understand is to develop different leadership and management characteristics in the best way possible to develop: learning by doing - or, how they say, learning by burning. For those who know about Kaos Pilot, it is a similar concept.

But also very, very similar to AIESEC style, that's why I felt right at home. Almost one of them. The spirit and the sensation when you enter the house that hosts the organization is exactly the same feeling when you enter a bursting AIESEC local committee (or our dear national office): activity, fun, passion, friendship, work hard - in sum, a shiny place to be.

Besides the people from Prosjektdesign, I also met the other ones that are involved in the project and I couldn't have more fun: brilliant people. Including someone passionate about education that is currently doing something about it. I got very cool ideas for my future projects. I somehow was ignoring technology development in my "life school project".

I had tons of fun. I am very privileged that even after I leave AIESEC I will keep considering my job the best fun I could ever had. I am lucky.

Electric highway

So, Brazilian researchers discovered a way to create electricity from the traffic of cars - it's a special material that can be covered by asphalt and remain with its electric properties.

If you have an increasing volume of electric cars and the movement of the cars generate electricity, that would be really cool, especially in a traffic heavy nation like Brazil, where most of the production is distributed by heavy trucks and such. What about if this would be distributed straight to the public lights?

Now it's just thinking how/when this can be implemented in a large scale that would actually make a difference?

Source: Fiat Mio.

What makes for a great entrepreneur?

It's probably a number of things, and a passion for what you're trying to do is certainly one of them. Oftentimes these folks have experienced a problem firsthand and they're consumed with solving it. And they refuse to quit.

A lot of the great founders and entrepreneurs I've worked with are micromanaging, detail-oriented, paranoid people. They want to know everything, and they care about everything. Interestingly, most of my companies have a key executive who never graduated from college, and probably two of my six CEOs never went to college. And the CTO at another company, the star at that company, did not go to college.

See the rest of the interview with Larry Cheng on What Makes a Great Entrepreneur.