Forty years ago, "The Graduate" was released to great acclaim. In the film, Ben (Dustin Hoffman) returns home after his university graduation and falls in love with childhood friend Elaine. The final church scene in which Elaine runs away with Ben from the altar where she was about to marry another man is a classic of movie history. The film also features a memorable Simon and Garfunkel song.
I attended an all-night showing of world commercials at movie theater in Tokyo's Shinjuku district.
In one ad, Dustin Hoffman, now much older, speeds in an Audi car to a church, as the song "Mrs. Robinson" blasts.
This time, though, he is the father of the bride. He re-enacts his old scene: banging on the locked door, racing up the stairs and screaming the girl's name. She runs out of the church. In the car as they drive away, he tells her, "Just like your mother." (The commercial has not been aired on TV here.)
I saw 500 commercials that night. The annual paid event started nine years ago. About 1,000 people spent seven hours enjoying innovative commercials from 50 countries.
Some were so funny that they did not require subtitles. There were also serious ones addressing social issues such as AIDS. Either way, most of them were entertaining and I can understand why the event is popular.
Japanese commercials are usually short, lasting only 15 or 30 seconds. Perhaps because of time constraints, it is difficult to both sell products and entertain at the same time. So I felt the Japan efforts tended to rely more on the popularity of the celebrities in the ads rather than a good story that makes the commercials fun.
A recent newspaper article described a survey that found that some commercials have the opposite effect than intended because of how they are presented.
The survey, conducted by a team of researchers led by Hirobumi Sakaki, a Keio University professor of social psychology, found that 86 percent of viewers feel annoyed when commercials interrupt programs just before the show's climax. Messages like, "We will show you this dramatic ending right after a commercial break" tend to really annoy viewers.
Furthermore, 34 percent said they hate such breaks so much that they refuse to buy the advertised product.
Advertisers cannot afford to lose customers after spending so much on their commercials. Naturally, companies want to cool-headedly measure the effectiveness of their ads.
How can advertisers entertain consumers and also lure them into buying their products? They should try captivating the viewer from time to time.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 27(IHT/Asahi: November 28,2007)
供應商對預測錯誤和銷量低於預期的情況頗有怨言。台灣奇美集團(Chi Mei Group)的Scott Soong說﹕“我們當然希望他們多定購些。”奇美集團是OLPC筆記本顯示器製造商﹐也是OLPC董事會成員之一。據知情人士透露﹐生產筆記本的廣達電腦也很失望﹐今年早些時候該公司被告知首批將會有500-800萬台的定單。
2005 年11月﹐尼葛洛龐帝和安南一起在突尼斯召開的聯合國技術大會上展示了一台樣機。聯合國開發計劃署(U.N. Development Program)高級技術顧問贊布拉諾(Raul Zambrano)說﹐這是整個峰會的主要亮點。聯合國開發計劃署為發展中國家提供援助﹐在此次大會上與尼葛洛龐帝共用一個展台。贊布拉諾回憶說﹐人們拿著現金過來說﹐“我現在就想買﹗”
英特爾和微軟的管理人士在公開場合都毫不掩蓋他們對OLPC電腦的不屑。2005年12月﹐英特爾董事長貝瑞特(Craig R. Barrett)將OLPC的一個早期機型稱為“100美元的小玩意”﹐認為它不太可能獲得成功。在2006年3月召開的一次大會上﹐微軟董事長蓋茨 (Bill Gates)說﹐至少該弄個還過得去的電腦﹐讓你能清楚地看到字、而且不用坐在那裡一邊打字一邊還要費勁搖手柄。
ON THE face of things, a fall in the number of people infected with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) from 39.5m to 33.2m over the course of a single year should be cause for rejoicing. That is the news from this year’s AIDS epidemic update from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNAIDS published on Tuesday November 20th. Indeed, it is good news, for it means there are fewer people to treat, and fewer to pass the infection on, than was previously thought. But the fall is not a real fall. Rather, it is due to a change in the way the size of the epidemic is estimated.
Factor that change in and the number of infected individuals has actually risen since last year, by 500,000. And even that is not necessarily bad news in the paradoxical world of AIDS. As treatment programmes are installed around the world, death rates are falling. According to the revised figures, the peak, of 2.2m a year, was in 2005. Now the figure is 2.1m. Since the only way for an infected person to drop out of the statistics in reality (as opposed to by sleight of statistical hand) is for him to die, such increased survivorship inevitably pushes up the total size of the epidemic.
The best news of all, however, is that the new figures confirm what had previously been suspected—that the epidemic has peaked. The highest annual number of new infections around the world was 3.4m in 1998. That figure has now fallen to 2.5m.
Both the change in the death rate and the change in the infection rate are partly a consequence of the natural flow and ebb of any epidemic infection. But the changes are also a reflection of the hard graft of public-health workers in many countries, which has persuaded people to modify or abandon risky behaviour, such as having unprotected sex, and has also created the medical infrastructure needed to distribute anti-retroviral drugs that can keep symptoms at bay in those who do become infected.
The revision of the figures is mainly a result of better data-collection methods, particularly in India (which accounts for half the downward revision) and five African countries (which account for another fifth). In India many more sampling points have been established, and in all countries better survey methods, relying on surveyors knocking on doors rather than asking questions at clinics, have gathered data from more representative samples of the population.
Sceptics will feel vindicated by the revision. There has been a feeling around for a while that the older survey methods were biased, and that the inflation thus produced was tolerated because it helped twang the heart-strings of potential donors. However, the structures for collecting and distributing money to combat AIDS are now well established, and accurate data are crucial if that money is not to be misdirected.
The new information also means that the goal of treatment for all who need it will be easier and cheaper to achieve. The WHO and UNAIDS are planning to publish a report on the matter early next year, but Paul De Lay, UNAIDS’s director of evidence, monitoring and policy, says that the financial requirements for 2010 will probably be about 5% less than previously estimated, and by 2015 that figure will have risen to 10%. Good news for everyone, then, donors and sufferers alike.
我這封要excite他一下 我剛剛讀了一則"美國文化批評"--如附 才知道美國電視 The Apprentice
The Apprentice is a television franchise that originated in 2004 in the United States. As originally conceived, the show depicted a group of 15-18 businessmen and -women competing in an elimination-style competition for a one-year, $250,000 job of running one of host and executive producer Donald Trump 's companies. The Apprentice was developed by Mark Burnett, who successfully brought Survivor to the US. Since its premiere, the show has spawned many licensed international versions as well as several imitations. The show allegedly popularized the catch phrase, "You're Fired!"
3M is largely abandoning Six Sigma in research and development
John Dodge, Editor-in-Chief -- Design News, November 13, 2007
For the past two years, 3M Corp. has been giving back freedom and decision-making to its researchers following four years of Six Sigma mania under former CEO and Chairman W. James McNerney Jr. Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology and associated toolset for eliminating process defects. Its design component is known as Design for Six Sigma.
“We got a little tool happy (under McNerney),” says 3M Research Chief Larry Wendling, staff vice president, 3M Corp. Research Labs.
While 3M emerged financially stronger from the McNerney era, many long-time 3M researchers, engineers and scientists chafed under the strictures of Six Sigma. Critics argue that excessive metrics, steps, measurements and Six Sigma’s intense focus on reducing variability water down the discovery process. Under Six Sigma, the free-wheeling nature of brainstorming and the serendipitous side of discovery is stifled. Proponents contend such methodologies’ rules keep researchers on track and accountable for producing. Striking the right balance between the application of Six Sigma and unencumbered research is often seen as key.
What makes 3M different from other companies that struggle with how much to reign in researchers and scientists is its size ($24B) and that it relies heavily on continuously commercializing such a diverse set of new technologies. McNerney’s critics at 3M were thrilled to see him take the Boeing CEO job in 2005. McNerney’s impact on 3M’s longstanding culture of innovation is chronicled in a June 11, 2007 article in BusinessWeek magazine.
Under McNerney’s successor, 3M CEO George Buckley has de-emphasized Six Sigma in R&D. At the same time, R&D spending in 2007 has been increased by 11 percent over 2006. “3M is a technology company so it’s essential that we keep investing in and creating new technology and product platforms,” Buckley reaffirmed in October. After all, 3M is the company that brought us Post-It Notes, Thinsulate, Scotchgard and Scotch Tape. What’s more, consumers are generally unaware that many complex and sophisticated innovations come out of 3M in areas as diverse as digital dentistry to “Confirm Laminate” that makes it easier to detect counterfeit passports.
“George is throttling back in the laboratory and in R&D. At the same time, he’s a very strong proponent of lean Six Sigma in manufacturing and our supply chain,” according to Wendling. “Six Sigma has a place, but more in what I’d call transactional activities as opposed to basic research and product development. The key is to selectively use what makes sense in R&D, but not let Six Sigma become the end. For instance, we use (Six Sigma) design of experiments routinely in basic research,” Wendling says. Wendling, who celebrated his 30th year with 3M in September, reports to Dr. Fred J. Palensky, executive vice president, Research and Development and 3M’s chief technology officer (CTO).
Experts agree the blanket approach to Six Sigma is generally not a good idea — at least at a company like 3M.
“These TQM (Total Quality Management) and class of methodologies that are anchored on reducing variability are inversely associated with what we call exploratory innovation. Methodologies help incremental innovation. The more you apply them in R&D, the less effective they are on exploratory innovation,” says Michael Tushman, a professor at Harvard Business School. “There is a place for Six Sigma, but for targeted pieces of the innovation portfolio.”
3M researchers still use elements of a Six Sigma toolset called DMAIC, which stands for design, measure, analyze, improve and control. Since 2000, 58,000 projects at 3M have used some element of DMAIC and more than 55,000 3M employees have achieved the minimum level “Green Belt” training, according to a 3M spokeswoman. An alphabet soup of variants similar to DMAIC have been adopted by other companies.
“DMAIC works, but within boundaries. At its simplest, the assumptions as to cause/effect and repeatability that lies behind the various process methods including Six Sigma mean they only work in fairly ordered situations (manufacturing, order processing, etc). Move outside of that and they are doomed to fail,” says David Snowden, founder and chief scientific officer at Cognitive Edge, a consulting firm in the U.K.
Academics and consultants will forever debate the merits and drawbacks of Six Sigma in R&D, but the methodology can be all but transparent to customers. Phil Overholt, a Dept. of Energy program manager, worked with 3M on the company’s new composite aluminum power transmission technology that reduces heat causing conventional power lines to sag.
“They tended toward the ideal, were extremely thorough in their methods and did their homework. They stayed on schedule and that is not always done,” says Overholt.
Ron Atkinson, board chairman of the American Society for Quality, is a strong proponent of Design for Six Sigma. Atkinson, a mechanical and industrial engineer, is also an executive with an auto maker. “I usually find that once (companies) understand it, Six Sigma aligns very well with engineering methodology. Six Sigma makes sure projects relate right back to the strategic plan of the company,” says Atkinson. Is paralysis by analysis a concern? “(Project) champions can counteract that. They make sure you do not sit on the design phase forever. And there’s nothing to say you have to finish one step before you start the next.” He believes pure research does not lend itself to Six Sigma, but is more the stuff of universities and federally funded projects.
For years, the measure of successful innovation at 3M was the percentage of products in the marketplace that were new or less than 5 years old. Indeed, the BusinessWeek article claimed the percentage of 3M’s new products in the marketplace had slipped from one-third to a quarter of its total. That metric, according to Wendling, is not a true gauge of success; hence, the company’s decision to abandon it seven years ago (or not make it public anymore).
“We have chosen not to share the percentage of new products externally because it’s too complex and people will take it and interpret in their own fashion. The proper metrics for new products really depends on what industry and business you’re in. If you’re in the electronics business where products have a very short lifecycle, you probably need 100 percent new products every three years. But if you’re in the pharmaceutical industry where it takes 10 or 15 years to develop a new product, you have a totally different metric. Think about the diversity of 3M’s business and just adding these things up and coming up with number really isn’t a very good metric. That’s why we went away from that metric,” says Wendling.
Then how does 3M measure the conversion of products developed in the lab into marketplace hits? The answer more than suggests McNerney’s emphasis on top and bottom-line left a deep impression on today’s 3Mers.
“For us, the true metric is: Are we growing at the rate we need to be growing and are new products making their contribution to that growth? In the end, that’s all that counts. I could have these 40 percent (new products) every four years and if the company isn’t growing and meeting our growth targets, my metric is very hollow. The important thing is the company is growing in its top line revenue according to plan and is the new product component making its contribution.”
(For the most recent quarter, 3M’s top and bottom lines grew 5.5 and 7.4 percent respectively. By any measure, 3M is healthy with two of its five main units reporting double-digit growth. Growing at 21 percent, Health Care is the star performer. Display and Graphics was the laggard at 2 percent.)
Wendling is careful to emphasize that research at 3M is aimed at creating commercial products and solving customer problems. For example, Wendling has 700 researchers in his group, but is reluctant to say they focus purely on basic research. “I would not characterize (them) as blue sky (researchers) because they really are connected to the business.” His researchers develop technologies that can be used commercially in 3M’s six businesses each of which has a top R&D executive responsible for product development.
“There’s R&D and I’m R. A very important metric is technology developed in my lab being transferred to new product introduction programs and operating units,” he says. “You develop technology in the process of development, but fundamentally (the R&D executive’s job) is to develop products. The problem is if you put R under the direct control of the businesses, R becomes D. That’s why organizationally, we leave it apart. We all come together under this Corporate Technical Operations Committee (CTOC). You might think these guys would be all over me to do the present type stuff. No. They understand if you invest your hard dollar in the technologies of the present, your future is going to look very much like the present.”
The CTOC is comprised of each unit’s top R&D executive, Wendling and 3M CTO Fred Palensky. They make sure 3M technologies are shared across the company while getting input from the businesses. “It’s constant push and pull,” says Wendling.
3M’s growth and profitability had slowed in the late 1990s which was the reason McNerney was brought in. In 1999, the share price ranged between $40 and $50. Today, it’s about double that.
“McNerney was brought in to improve the operating efficiency and financial return of this company. That’s why they hired the man. Jim did a super job, reflected in our earnings and the stock price, quite frankly. The way Jim did it was to immerse the company in Six Sigma,” says Wendling. “It had not become the end, but he was using it very aggressively to accomplish financial returns.”
Indeed, Six Sigma has been deployed at highly successful companies such as General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America and Starwood Corp. There again, it wasn’t enough to prevent Motorola, where Six Sigma was created, from going through a stretch of tough years when its wide lead in the mobile phone marketplace was lost.
Does this suggest Six Sigma in R&D could be a passing fad? That depends on who you talk to. There’s general agreement that freedom in basic or pure research is preferable while Six Sigma works best in incremental innovation when there’s an expressed commercial goal.
Paul Michaelis, a retired engineering physicist and technical manager for 43 years at the former AT&T Bell Labs, says one key is experience in several technical disciplines. But he adds that there are very smart engineers and scientists who do not possess the innovation gene.
“My take on the innovative process is that the most important component is the people; the process can be formalized, scatterbrained or what you choose. These people should have backgrounds in multiple disciplines and the ability to think “outside the box.” I met and interviewed many highly intelligent and well-educated people who, while good at problem solving, were not capable of being innovative. In my opinion, innovative capability can only be nurtured; seldom, if ever, created.”
Of course it boils down to people, agrees Jim Todhunter, chief technology officer at Invention Machine Corp. in Boston. But that’s not to say they can’t be channeled in a positive direction.
“People can be assisted greatly by processes, communication and infrastructure when these things are coordinated properly. In any organization a positive shift in the effectiveness of its people can have a huge impact on its results.” The review of Six Sigma’s impact on 3M’s financial results would have to be positive. On its longstanding culture of innovation? That depends on who you talk to.
With the recent reports about toxic toys from China, the public is right to be alarmed by the withering of the government’s consumer product safety protections. Congress has been moving ahead on reform bills, but Congressional leaders will have to act deftly to prevent rivalry between the House and Senate from hampering passage of a truly effective final measure. Industry lobbyists are working hard to promote gridlock and stop the tough changes consumers need.
The House has been working on a strong bill to overhaul the Consumer Protection Safety Commission. The legislation wisely focuses on child safety, in light of the agency’s gross failures in spotting dangerous toys. It would tighten lead standards, renovate test labs and require independent third-party testing of all children’s products, both domestic and imported. Children’s crib and car safety standards would be strengthened.
The Senate’s reforms — which are also moving ahead, over objections from the Bush administration — would mandate more safety inspectors, a doubling of the agency budget to $141 million over seven years and the assignment of more consumer safety agents to ports of entry. The House and Senate measures both provide for multifold increases in penalties for violators and stronger recall authority.
The two houses need to agree on a thoughtful blending of these two bills into a law that would force reform on an agency that for too long has been led by foot-dragging political appointees. The safety commission has been reeling backward in recent years, plagued by staffing and budget shortages as it gropes at regulating more than 15,000 consumer products — including the plethora of playthings falling to its single toy inspector.
In the face of the mounting safety scandal, the White House has issued its own “action plan” that, of course, favors allowing the private sector to solve the problem with voluntary reforms. Responsible business leaders are already demanding something stronger in government regulation.
Members of Congress have to resist the industry lobbyists and the administration and pass a strong reform law that puts consumer safety first.
The Securities and Exchange Commission took an important step toward what many hope will eventually lead to a global accounting standard, dropping a requirement that non-U.S. companies with U.S. listings reconcile their results to U.S. rules.
That sets the stage for the SEC to consider whether U.S. companies should be able to choose between U.S. and international rules, as well. If that were to happen it could potentially pave the way for the abandonment of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, the foundation of the U.S. financial reporting system.
The idea is that a single set of global accounting rules would make life simpler for investors and companies alike. Companies wouldn't have to spend as much to compile accounts for their operations around the world, while investors would find it easier to compare corporate results for companies on a global basis.
But even as the drive toward a global standard gains steam, potential problems loom. While markets are global, individual countries and regions differ on whether they should operate to benefit investors, companies or in some cases governments.
That could ultimately undermine a single set of standards if countries and regions take different approaches to formulating and applying the rules. A thicket of different interpretations could make a single set of rules unreliable for investors. That is why some critics say it is too early to move in this direction.
Concerns over dropping the reconciliation requirement were raised by some large U.S. investors, including the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which manages $240 billion. In a letter, Calpers expressed concern about consistent auditing and enforcement of international rules to ensure credible financial statements.
While acknowledging the opposition and 'tremendous' hurdles -- including educating auditors and investors -- to reaching a global accounting standard, the SEC's commissioners voted 4-0 to drop the reconciliation requirement. Chairman Christopher Cox called the step 'significant' and said the agency's acceptance of international rules signaled the continued convergence between these standards and U.S. GAAP.
Non-U.S. companies with financial years ending in 2007 will now be able to stop reconciling their results with U.S. GAAP immediately, if their results comply with rules set by the International Accounting Standards Board. While the SEC's move opens the possibility that U.S. companies could choose between international and U.S. standards, the commission hasn't formally proposed a rule to allow this. The agency is still studying the issue.
Separately, the SEC voted to propose overhauling offering documents, or prospectuses, issued by mutual-fund companies. The proposal, if adopted, would require fund companies to state in plain English a summary of the fund's investment objectives, costs and risks, as well as briefly detail the fund's top 10 holdings at the front of the document. The fund industry's Investment Company Institute applauded the SEC's move.
The SEC also finalized rules to make it easier for small businesses to raise money.
When it comes to accounting standards, some commissioners still worry it's too soon for a complete embrace of international rules. 'If there is wide latitude . . . investors will not only lose confidence in the reliability of financial statements but also will lose the consistency that U.S. GAAP provides,' Commissioner Annette Nazareth said.
Despite the growing connections between international markets, countries and regions still differ sharply in who those markets are intended to serve first. In the U.S. and the United Kingdom, markets are generally investor-driven. Financial statements, and the rules that govern them, are designed with investors' needs generally taking priority over those of companies and auditors.
Elsewhere in Europe, investors' needs often take a back seat to corporate or political goals. In China, meanwhile, companies, markets and investors are all subservient to the needs of the ruling Communist Party.
'I think you could have one set of standards, but given the differences in countries' institutions and perceptions and views the implementation is going to be different and the enforcement is going to be different,' said Teri Lombardi Yohn, an associate professor of accounting at Indiana University who testified last month at a Senate subcommittee hearing on international standards.
Proponents of a single, global accounting system say sufficient protections could assure that the body that crafts international rules, the IASB, is buffered from political interference.
Boston Consulting Group's tool enables researchers and companies to map who's working on what and where, allowing innovative collaboration
By Brian Hindo
Wouldn't it be great if there were a map you could follow to new ideas? A software tool developed by strategy firm Boston Consulting Group doesn't provide exactly that, but it can at least map out where ideas came from—and offer clues to where new ones may lie. The proprietary software, developed in-house by BCG, trawls patent and scholarly databases, then displays the search results, showing who is doing research on a particular topic and with whom. Researchers and companies are represented on the map by circles, with those working on similar projects located close together on the map. Citations to one another's work are represented by links connecting each circle.
The tool has implications for innovation. At a glance, you can see which patents are the most cited, in what direction research is headed, and which people and organizations are collaborating. This could suggest potential acquisition targets or identify a prolific scientist a company should hire. It can be used to shape strategy—a company may be able to spot a "white space," where an innovation can bridge a gap between two networks.
Here's a look at how the Saratoga (Calif.) nonprofit Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF), which researches treatments for multiple sclerosis, is using the tool.
Connecting the Dots
One of MRF's goals is to promote interdisciplinary research. In 2003, when MRF pulled together its initial team of principal investigators, BCG used its network mapping tool to search medical databases for 56 different compounds and proteins relevant to MS treatment. This image shows a part of the map that resulted.
MRF was reassured to see that two of their hires—Brian Popko, a geneticist then working at New York University, and Steve Miller, a Northwestern University immunologist—were represented as relatively large circles. (The bigger the circle, the bigger the volume of relevant research.) The interface is interactive, so executives at MRF could mouse over any one of the nodes to see the underlying research data. Clicking on the node pulls up the actual abstract.
Dotting the edges of Popko and Miller's networks are nodes representing authors of related medical papers. (For readability's sake, the names of the authors of those papers are truncated to the first two letters.) The lines connecting the nodes symbolize either a citation link or co-authorship. And the numbers denote how many papers each person wrote and how many times they cited one another.
Miller and Popko's circles were unlinked. That meant they had not collaborated, or even cited one another's work in any of their published papers. That was something MRF aimed to change.
Mapping the Crowd
Software that maps who is working on common problems is shaving years off research—and honing corporate strategies
Keeping track of the dizzying proliferation of information in the Digital Age can overwhelm managers, and sizing up potential alliances can be daunting. But getting lost can be a costly setback for those with valuable ideas they want to develop.
Maps—specifically, intellectual property maps created by strategic advisers Boston Consulting Group—increasingly are being used by everyone from health-care companies to research scientists. They're deploying them to better manage, and expand, the networks they want to cultivate. By mapping links among people and corporations issuing patents and conducting research on common problems, BCG's software tool can bring to light ways to achieve breakthroughs. Being able to map which scientists communicate—and how often—could help managers focus on new areas of research.
SHAVING YEARS OFF RESEARCH
The BCG mapping software conducts keyword searches of patent and scholarly databases. Unlike other data trawlers, such as Google (GOOG)'s patent search, the firm's tool arranges the data in the form of a map with circles and connecting lines, quickly illustrating which organizations are working on similar technologies and which researchers are citing a company's patents. Companies and people show up as circles—the bigger the circles, the greater the amount of work those companies are doing in fields related to the keywords. Research or patent citations are shown on the map as links between circles.
Companies and organizations have used the BCG maps to survey the state of research in their fields; to scope out potential acquisition targets; or simply to foster more teamwork across disciplines or among employees. BCG declined to say what it charges for the tool, but the fees typically are included in the cost of a broader consulting service.
The Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF), for example, a Saratoga (Calif.) nonprofit, pulls together scientists from various disciplines to research treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS). When MRF founder Scott Johnson, a BCG alumnus, first organized his team of five principal investigators in 2003, he used the network mapper to see how the researchers' work was interconnected. Johnson's team used the software, provided pro bono by BCG, to search medical databases for about 56 different compounds or proteins that are important to MS treatment. The resulting map showed the five MRF researchers and their labs as prominent circles, which represented the many scientific papers they published about the compounds. But there were only a few thin lines connecting the circles, indicating the researchers were largely working alone and rarely citing each other's work.
With a topographical view of their interactions, Johnson has pushed the scientists to work together more often. As a result, the latest map shows the intertwined work of Stephen Miller, an immunologist at Northwestern University, and Brian Popko, a University of Chicago geneticist. Their circles didn't connect on the initial 2003 map. But as the current one shows, they're citing one another and co-authoring papers often. "They've become quite interdependent over the years," says Russell Bromley, MRF's chief operating officer. "Brian has ended up having Steve work with him on projects that are more immunological in nature…and Steve has worked with Brian on projects that really are coming out of his genetics work."
Organizing such a vast array of information in a visual way allows MRF managers, for example, to peek at hard-to-find technologies. MS causes inflammation in the brain and spinal cord, so the team uses the tool to find out what's happening in inflammation research broadly, uncovering the work of unfamiliar scientists in adjacent fields. Without it, Bromley says, the foundation would have to cast its nets the old-fashioned way, asking colleagues haphazardly at conferences or doing a laborious manual search of the literature. He says using the map has shaved years off the process.
Another kind of payoff may come when an intellectual property map is used to shape strategy. Companies can detect early-stage rivals that are working on new technologies, for example. When BCG deploys the software, one goal is to discover "promising white spaces," or blank areas where clients can find opportunities, says Wendi Backler, who runs the firm's work in intellectual property and networking. BCG used mapping to help a health-care company seeking to grow through acquisitions—the company had identified only one potential target. A search of patent keywords brought up hundreds more that flew beneath the client's radar.
Backler recalls another company struggling to grow. It looked at a map of patent activity in its industry and saw a field of circles representing each of its rivals, with lines connecting one another like a constellation. The client showed up as a lonely little dot in the lower corner of the map, like a Facebook user with no friends. The lesson: It was isolated in a networked world.
Hindo is BusinessWeek's Corporate Strategies editor in New York .
Washington Scrutinizes Nursing Homes By CHARLES DUHIGG Congressional hearings were prompted in part by concerns that quality at nursing homes was declining as large chains were acquired by private investment groups.
QUOTATION OF THE DAY "Climate change has ushered in a whole new era of judicial review." PATRICK PARENTEAU, an environmental law professor, on an appeals court decision that struck down Bush administration’s fuel economy standards as too lax.
Court Rejects Fuel Standards on Trucks By FELICITY BARRINGER and MICHELINE MAYNARD A federal appeals court said that new fuel-economy standards for light trucks, including S.U.V.’s, didn’t thoroughly assess the impact of greenhouse gases.
When the shares deflated earlier this decade after the burst of the tech bubble and various corporate scandals, a new cadre moved in: the Fix-it Men. They were lower-key leaders like Charles O. Prince III of Citigroup and Richard D. Parsons of Time Warner, whose job it was to repair the excesses and mistakes of their predecessors.
Now, management experts and longtime watchers of corporate America say the current environment demands, and is attracting, yet another kind of chief executive: the team builder.
“It’s someone who can assemble a team that functions as smoothly as a jazz sextet,” said Warren Bennis, a professor of management at the University of Southern California and author of many books on leadership.
In the last week, Mr. Prince and Mr. Parsons both announced they would be stepping aside. Mr. Prince’s abrupt exit followed huge losses that dragged down Citigroup’s long-stagnant stock, while Mr. Parsons is retiring at the end of 2007 after a five-year tenure, during which he stabilized the company but failed to move Time Warner shares higher.
A third chief executive, E. Stanley O’Neal of Merrill Lynch, was forced out late last month after his firm announced an $8.4 billion write-down.
Mr. O’Neal substantially increased Merrill’s revenue and profit during his tenure but has been criticized for forcing out subordinates he perceived as rivals, while several top executives left Citigroup during Mr. Prince’s reign. Now both companies find themselves searching for permanent replacements.
“They’ve got to have not just the cognitive ability to run a major firm, which Stan O’Neal definitely had, but the ability to make people feel like they’re working together,” Mr. Bennis said.
Merrill and Citi might consider looking at chief executives like A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble or W. James McNerney Jr. of Boeing as archetypes of the new model, according to Mr. Bennis.
“Both felt the need to make sure the top hundred people know that they’re in this together, that their fates are correlated,” Mr. Bennis says. “That’s what it will take to succeed in this century.”
Mr. Lafley and Mr. McNerney have won plaudits not merely for their personal style, but also for their bottom-line performance, with shares of Procter & Gamble and Boeing easily outpacing the likes of Citigroup and Time Warner, as well as the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, over the last two years.
That’s no coincidence, according to Michael Useem, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management there. “The academic research says if you want to predict what the future financial performance over the next one to three years will be, you need to know the top team,” he said.
Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for executive programs at the School of Management at Yale, says the style of today’s best chief executives differs from both the empire builders and the cleanup specialists.
The former were known for public swagger and boardroom-size egos, while the latter often excelled at a narrow set of skills, Mr. Sonnenfeld said. He cited Mr. Prince’s skills as a lawyer who was able to get his company back into the good graces of regulators after Mr. Weill’s departure. Others say Mr. Parsons was a strong administrator, but failed to offer a strategy that satisfied Wall Street.
Mr. Sonnenfeld says Mr. Lafley and Mr. McNerney, along with Anne Mulcahy, chief executive of Xerox, possess the vision of the empire builders without their overpowering egos, while also bringing more personal warmth to the corner office
Ms. Mulcahy, for example, was able to cut jobs and restore Xerox’s profitability “without coming across as mean-spirited,” Mr. Sonnenfeld said. Mr. Lafley “is disarmingly unpretentious,” he added. “He never comes to my summits and I’ve never been a consultant for him, but he towers over other C.E.O.’s when it comes to putting in people stronger than himself or his ability to talk about setbacks.”
Mr. Lafley has spent his entire career at Procter & Gamble, while Mr. McNerney arrived at Boeing after decades at General Electric, long regarded as something of a management boot camp, and after a successful stint as chief executive of 3M. Although clearly an outsider at Boeing, Mr. Sonnenfeld said, “he learned to listen to the culture there.”
This approach, he said, means these leaders were able to “introduce change but people don’t hate them for it; the team comes to them.”
Mr. O’Neal, on the other hand, “fired people who shouldn’t have been fired,” Mr. Bennis said. Mr. Prince, he added, “was always in the shadow of Mr. Weill; he never was able to build his own team.”
And when disaster struck in the form of billions in losses from the subprime meltdown, these weaknesses came back to haunt Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.
“Whenever you have such a stunning decline, errors become much more visible,” Mr. Bennis said.
Of course, just as chief executives shape the times, so do the times shape them. “There’s a theory that the people who get to the top at big companies should be best at solving the problems of their era,” Mr. Useem said.
In fact, Mr. Sonnenfeld said, the original archetype was what he called “the custodian,” leaders who came of age during the Organization Man era of the 1950s, but were overwhelmed by the rapidly shifting economic landscape of the 1970s and 1980s.
They were followed by the empire builders who focused on mega-mergers and financial management in the 1990s to deliver the growth Wall Street demanded while getting big enough to achieve economies of scale and beat back foreign competitors.
The cleanup artists arrived on the scene in the wake of the collapse of Enron and WorldCom and the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation, which tightened government oversight of public companies.
At the same time, investors were demanding quick fixes. In Time Warner’s case, Carl C. Icahn, the billionaire activist investor, pressed for a quick breakup of the company, something Mr. Parsons was able to stave off.
Business schools are also opting for the 3.0 approach. At the Yale School of Management last year, Mr. Sonnenfeld said, the dean and faculty threw out the old first-year curriculum that emphasized individual disciplines like finance and marketing and replaced it with a team-oriented approach, with professors teaching these subjects jointly. In addition, he said, “We have students, faculty and staff assemble their own teams as part of their training to be future execs.”
What will be the main challenge in the next 5 to 10 years? Mr. Useem predicted it would be achieving double-digit growth internally, without the benefit of huge deals or accounting sleight-of-hand. “That’s why I think the baton will go to the manager who will stimulate a division and will be creative and innovative,” he said.
TRW Opens New Japan Engineering Center to Support Japanese Customers
November 09, 2007: 08:00 AM EST
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TRW Automotive Holdings Corp. - the global leader in active and passive safety systems, has opened a new, custom-designed 5,000 square meter Japan Engineering Center (JEC) in Yokohama, housing research and development, application engineering and full product testing capabilities.
The JEC broadens and consolidates TRW's technical presence in Japan and is designed to support all local customers for TRW's full safety portfolio. At full capacity the JEC will house a total of 130 engineers, technicians, sales and support staff.
The JEC significantly expands the company's Occupant Safety Systems presence in Japan and houses the new dynamic crash simulator with full sled testing capability. The facility will also provide a common location for all four engineering groups including steering & suspension, braking, occupant safety, and integrated safety systems and include advanced test equipment for all product lines.
"We are very excited to officially open the Japan Engineering Center today," said TRW president and CEO John C. Plant. "The new center is a reflection of our commitment to the Japanese market and our ongoing effort to provide the best in advanced safety systems to Japanese customers, both domestically and around the world."
The new three-story center features full laboratory and testing facilities for all major TRW product lines, and also serves as the headquarters for the Japan sales team and the executive management team.
"TRW Automotive Japan has introduced its global account management structure to serve Japanese vehicle manufacturers with the goal of sharpened focus and enhanced service to the needs of these customers worldwide. To reinforce this effort, our new engineering center also serves as the overall TRW headquarters, offering our customers one major contact location for our sales and engineering teams," said Shinzo Yotsumoto, president of TRW Automotive Japan. "From our new center we will offer customers a full spectrum of services to support current product applications and develop new ones for the Japanese market with better responsiveness by coordinating with the overseas core engineering teams of TRW globally."
TRW Automotive now has Blackstone Group at the wheel. The private investment group purchased TRW Automotive from its parent company, TRW Inc., in a deal valued at more than $4.7 billion. Northrop Grumman, which bought TRW for its defense assets, still holds a 10% stake in TRW Automotive. The company makes components for automakers such as Volkswagen (16% of sales), Ford (15%), and General Motors (11%). Products include chassis systems (brake, steering, and suspension systems) and safety systems such as airbags, security electronics, and seat belts. Other products include body controls and engine valves.
Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2006: Sales: $13,144.0M One year growth: 4.0% Net income: $176.0M Income growth: (13.7%)
Officers: Chairman: Neil P. Simpkins President, CEO, and Director: John C. Plant EVP and COO: Steven Lunn
U.S. manufacturer of advanced equipment and systems for industry and government. Founded in 1901 as a maker of cap screws, it was incorporated in 1916 as the Steel Products Co. The name was changed to Thompson Products, Inc., in 1926, then to Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc. after a merger in 1958, and to TRW Inc. in 1965. Through its various divisions and subsidiaries, TRW designed and manufactured a wide range of automotive parts, electronic systems for military aircraft, and spacecraft. Its information systems and services segments maintain databases for screening credit histories. In 2002 defense contractor Northrop Grumman acquired TRW for its aerospace division.
毫無疑問，我們已開始看到投資回報。 
雖 然SEC委員承認統一國際會計準則面臨反對意見以及包括培訓審計人員和投資者在內的巨大障礙﹐但還是以4票對0票通過了取消對外國公司的財務報告限制規 定。SEC主席克里斯托弗•考克斯(Christopher Cox)稱這一步意義重大﹐並表示SEC對國際準則的接受表明美國公認會計準則正與國際標準不斷融合。
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