Malcolm Gladwell @ PopTech en 2006

Conférence de Malcolm Gladwell dans le cadre de PopTech 2006 qui résume son livre Blink. Exemples traités, tous liés à l'intuition : l'histoire de la commercialisation de la chaise Aeron d'Herman Miller, l'introduction du nouveau Coke pour contrer Pepsi et l'expérience faite auprès du groupe de personnes qui doivent choisir un poster et justifier leur choix.

Conversations intéressantes

Pourquoi autant de gens aiment les TED Talks et autres conférences du genre (PopTech, GEL, BIF, BIL, BigThink, ideaCity, Fora.tv, Cusp, Sandbox Network, Palomar 5) ?

Parce que, peu importe le sujet, les orateurs discutent de leur passion actuelle. Comment ils en sont arrivés là, comment ils voient le futur et qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire pour les aider si ça nous intéresse.

C'est aussi en abordant ces thèmes qu'il est possible d'avoir une conversation intéressante avec quelqu'un qu'on rencontre pour la première fois. En allant au-delà des commentaires sur la météo.

Trois questions possibles :

1. What’s your current passion project – the thing you’re pursuing that you’re most excited about? It could be a result you’re working on, a big problem you want to solve, a breakthrough in your field. Note: this is not the same as your job title.

2. Talk about the specific help that would make the biggest difference for you right now? What are the skills, connections, or expertise that others might be able to help you with?

3. What kind of help do you love to give? What skills or connections do you most love using to help others with their passion projects?

(via ce blog)

Relation d'affaires

Possiblement la meilleure lettre venant d'un client, Mick Jagger à Andy Warhol.

Rail en Afghanistan

Un nouveau projet de construction d'une ligne ferroviaire de 75km entre Mazar-e-Sharif en Afghanistan et la frontière de l'Ouzbékistan.

La bureaucratie chez GM

If you want to understand how the old General Motors stumbled for 30 years until it collapsed into bankruptcy, consider the story of GoFast.

GoFast was a program started in 2000 by Rick Wagoner, then the company's president (and later CEO), to untangle bureaucracy. The idea was simple: When negotiations over an issue reached an impasse, all the interested parties would be put together in one room until they agreed on a decision.

Human resources was assigned to spread GoFast through the company. It trained GoFast coaches, arranged thousands of GoFast workshops, staged GoFast feedback sessions, and distributed GoFast coffee mugs. At one point, GM claimed savings of more than $500 million from GoFast.

But the program took on a life of its own. GoFast workshops were held to eliminate other meetings; eventually the number of workshops reached more than 7,000. In other words, GM held more than 7,000 meetings to discuss how it could hold fewer meetings. Managers might see their performance evaluations downgraded because they weren't holding enough GoFast meetings. "The whole premise of GoFast became going slow," complained one executive.

(via Fortune)

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.