Régulation ferroviaire

Do railroads have a free ride?, tiré de Fortune.

In 2008, the biggest rail companies, like CSX and Norfolk Southern, posted record revenues. Yet their success, especially at raising prices, has made some customers unhappy -- including companies that ship chemicals, coal, and ethanol, all of which have their own political muscle in Washington.

[...]

In the U.S., the industry is dominated by a pair of duopolies: CSX and Norfolk Southern dominate the East Coast, while Union Pacific and Burlington Santa Fe rule the West. Proponents say this structure is inevitable given how expensive it is to run a railroad business.

But politicians who support some of the shippers say the setup has led to price gouging.

Gouvernement américain - App Store + Cloud Computing

Vivek Kundra, le CIO du gouvernement américain, continue de brasser la cage en proposant un app store et l'arrivée du cloud computing (via le nytimes).

Condos vert à Montréal

Abdonance Montréal, un concept intéressant à visiter.

Régime des Rentes

Article super intéressant concernant le programme de Social Security aux USA. Nous vivrons la même situation avec le RRQ ici.

No, it's not a Ponzi scheme as some folks claim. A Ponzi uses money from today's investors to pay yesterday's investors and -- the key element -- lies about it. Social Security, in contrast, doesn't lie about what it is: an intergenerational social-insurance plan, with today's workers supporting their parents (and disabled and survivors) in the hope that their children will support them. It's not a pension fund. It's not an insurance company.

La Chine ferroviaire

Tiré de l'article de Fortune, China's Amazing New Bullet Train.

The result is that when plans are made, they also get executed. In America, jokes Sean Maloney, the No. 3 executive at Intel, "NIMBY-ism [Not in My Backyard] is still an issue. In China, it's more like IMBY-ism. They plan, they build things, and they move fast."

[...] Consider that the Northeast Corridor, between Boston and Washington, D.C., is served by Amtrak's Acela train, which clips along at a stately average speed of 79 miles an hour. There's a lot of talk now, as part of President Obama's stimulus plan, about upgrading the system and building new, faster lines all across the nation. In his stimulus bill Obama has allocated $8 billion over three years for high-speed rail, and 40 states are now bidding for the funds, with results to be released in September. Among the possibilities, California wants to link San Francisco with L.A. via a high-speed link. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wants the private sector to get into the act, proposing a high-speed spur to connect Las Vegas with L.A.

Maybe, after environmental reviews are finished and eminent domain issues settled, those lines will be built. Meanwhile, IBM opened its new global high-speed-rail innovation center last month.

In Beijing.

L'importance du CA

Dans le cadre d'une bataille d'actionnaires ayant aussi d'autres enjeux, 4 membres du conseil d'administration de Target étaient menacés de perdre leur poste récemment. La raison évoquée ? Manque d'expérience et de compétence. Finalement, ils ont conservé leur poste, mais serait-ce le début d'une nouvelle tendance où le conseil d'administration aurait finalement un rôle à jouer ?

On March 17, Ackman launched a proxy battle for five of Target's board seats. He claims that the company's directors lack expertise in retailing, credit cards, and real estate -- all skill sets that would have helped it navigate the difficult economic climate.

Stung, Ackman announced he wanted to replace four directors up for reelection, plus Ulrich. The real issue, he now says, is governance and experience. "This proxy context is not about a deal," says Ackman. "It's about making sure the board is comprised of executives with relevant expertise to help guide and shape strategy going forward."

To convince investors that his slate is superior to Target's, Ackman has issued comparisons of each of his directors with one of theirs. Solomon Trujillo, CEO of Australian telecom company Telstra, for example, is faulted for not having any experience specific to Target's businesses, as compared with Michael Ashner, who runs Winthrop Realty Trust.

Ackman's biggest "get" is undoubtedly Jim Donald, who, prior to being axed from the CEO spot at Starbucks last year, turned around Pathmark and was the architect of Wal-Mart's move into food. Even Deutsche Bank Securities senior analyst Bill Dreher, who calls the fight "a waste of time and money," says that "where I sort of pricked up my ears was potentially being able to get Donald."

Target retorts that its directors are extremely well qualified, that Trujillo's technology experience is helpful, and that Ackman has attacked the board in "an effort to divert attention from Pershing's risky real estate agenda."

Libre choix informatique

Cisco a mis en place un programme qui permet aux employés de choisir eux-mêmes leur ordinateur.

Rebecca Jacoby, Cisco's (CSCO, Fortune 500) top information technology officer, says the initiative, launched last year, should actually save the company money. The fact that employees involved in the pilot program are deliriously happy with it - Jacoby and her peers even get love notes from satisfied road warriors - is a bonus.

Jim Collins: Not risk, ambiguity

Jim Collins: How to Thrive in 2009, tiré de Inc.com.

I see entrepreneurship as more of a life concept. We all make choices about how we live our lives. You can take a paint-by-numbers approach, or you can start with a blank canvas. When you paint by numbers, the end result is guaranteed. You know what it's going to be, and it might be good, but it will never be a masterpiece. Starting with a blank canvas is the only way to get a masterpiece, but you could also blow up. So, are you going to pick the paint-by-numbers kit or the blank canvas? That's a life question, not a business question.

It has to do with your ability to handle risk, no? Not risk. Ambiguity. People confuse the two. My students used to come to me at Stanford and say, "I'd really like to do something on my own, but I'm just not ready to take that much risk. So I took the job with IBM." And I would say, "You're not ready for risk? What's the first thing you learn about investing? Never put all your eggs in one basket. You've just put all your eggs in one basket that is held by somebody else." As an entrepreneur, you know what the risks are. You see them. You understand them. You manage them. If you join someone else's company, you may not know those risks, and not because they don't exist. You just can't see them, and so you can't manage them. That's a much more exposed position than the entrepreneur faces. But there's lower ambiguity on the paint-by-numbers path: very clear but more risky. The entrepreneurial path: very ambiguous but less risk.

[...] [Successful entrepreneurs] defined success on a very big scale. For Steve Jobs, it was about much more than selling computers. For Yvon Chouinard, more than clothing. For Anita Roddick, more than cosmetics. For Howard Schultz, more than coffee. For Jeff Bezos, more than online retailing.

SAS et l'éducation

SAS Curriculum Pathways.

Bob: leçons d'un échec

Billet titré Innovation - The Lessons from Bob, qui parle du lancement du maintenant célèbre produit Bob de Microsoft qui était supposé révolutionner le monde des logiciels.

1) Never underdeliver against expectations.
2) Consumers don't care about strategy.
3) A small marketing budget can work wonders.
4) If you start to get feedback from customers that your product is anything but great, don't forget that you only get one chance to make a first impression.
5) Don't be afraid to take risks.
6) Place bets on smart people who push the envelope.
7) Never forget the crucial role influentials play.
8) If it doesn't work the first time, be open to the idea that it might work down the line.
9) Don't be afraid to poke fun at yourself.

Innovation et nouvelles technologies

The New, Faster Face of Innovation, tiré du WSJ.

Technology is transforming innovation at its core, allowing companies to test new ideas at speeds—and prices—that were unimaginable even a decade ago.

[...] Five years ago, for instance, a leadership team might have reviewed two or three “big” innovation proposals from consulting gurus; executive teams today might compare the outcomes of 50 or 60 real-world experiments to decide which ones to act upon.

[...] All of which guarantees huge changes for corporate cultures. Challenging conventional wisdom, for one thing, becomes immeasurably faster, cheaper and easier.

[...] As more people get involved in experimentation, companies will also need to change their focus in education and training efforts for innovation. Instead of just getting workers to creatively interpret large volumes of data, companies will need to help them develop the skills to rapidly design provocative experiments. Passive analysis will be subordinate to active experimentation.

Cours en ligne

MIT OpenCourseWare.

Like so many other industries, early attempts at delivering online education have generally consisted of making available the same content that’s found offline. While this is a good start, the key to online education is amplifying the way in which we learn when we’re at school — from our peers.

(via bizDeansTalk)

Une belle opportunité pour les systèmes de collaboration.

Le management dans le sport

Discussion intéressante sur le réel apport du management dans le monde du sport.

Une étude de cas pourrait être faite entre autres avec le nouvel entraîneur du club école des Canadiens, Guy Boucher.

Culture d'entreprise

Une présentation de Netflix sur le sujet.

Culture

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

Stats

For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics, un article tiré du NY Times.

I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.

[...] the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data.

[..] I.B.M., seeing an opportunity in data-hunting services, created a Business Analytics and Optimization Services group in April. The unit will tap the expertise of the more than 200 mathematicians, statisticians and other data analysts in its research labs — but that number is not enough. I.B.M. plans to retrain or hire 4,000 more analysts across the company.