Tuesday, September 30, 2008

More Endorsements from Reowned Strategy Writers


Copyright: 2008 © Collaboration360 Consultants (C360 Consultants).
Copying, posting and reproduction in any form
(without prior consent) is an infringement of copyright


We will be publishing two more endorsements from renowned Chinese Strategy Writers soon.

Any questions on our Strategic Assessment process, you can contact us at service [at] collaboration360 [dot] com

Thanks!

M.E. Hom
Chief Architect of Collaboration360.com

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Process Precedes Technology (3)


Technology connects a team together regardless of the distance.

Can the team make strategic decisions as a team regardless of the distance, the technology, the number of the people and the project culture? With our Compass AE process, they know what are the important decisions and they are ensured that they will make right decision every time.


Does your strategic project process enables your team to do that?

If you have any questions about Compass AE process, you can contact us at service [aatt] collaboration360 [dott] com

Friday, September 26, 2008

The Basic of the Tangible Vision: Insert Performance Metrics

When developing a Tangible Vision, it starts with specific objectives with detailed measures.

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HP's grand vision: measure everything

Perhaps the world's most ambitious nanotech project is underway at Hewlett-Packard. Stan Williams' lab aims to build 'a central nervous system for the earth.'
By David Kirkpatrick, senior editor

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Imagine walking down the supermarket aisle with a cheap device you could hold up to a tomato. If the sensor detects a pesticide residue, you'd know the "organic" label is a lie. Similar tools could track the chemical content of water in a stream, telling you if there was lead contamination and when it got there, or keep constant watch on a bridge and tell if a structural steel beam was at risk of collapse.

Such products are almost certain to become common in coming decades, according to Stan Williams, who heads Hewlett-Packard's Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory.

He aims to develop a panoply of microscopic-scale nanotech devices that will be able to measure essentially anything - and at low cost to boot. Viruses, bacteria, the chemical composition of molecules, vibration, moisture levels, particular sounds - these are just some of the things that the super-cheap devices he envisions will be able to detect.

In an exclusive conversation with Fortune, Williams described in detail a project HP (HPQ, Fortune 500) began way back in 1994. He will speak about it in public for the first time next week at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference. No other company he knows of is developing similar products.

"The theme for the lab is CeNSE - for Central Nervous System for the Earth," he says. Williams feels such a grandiose name is justified. Because these sensors will be built with standard semiconductor technology, they will ultimately be cheap enough to build "in the trillions." That will make it possible to deploy arrays of measuring devices anywhere at a reasonable cost.

In our era of rapidly decaying global environment, such tools could help us know with certainty how our world is changing, and help us make better-informed choices about how to respond.

Applying these devices to monitor the entire planet will take time. None of these nano-sensors will even come into existence for at least two years, and will not be deployed in quantity for 5-10 years. Before we monitor the planet we will likely use those sensors to monitor the strength of a bridge's beams. Others might maintain vigilance over a high-rise building's structure, or the steel in a ship's hull or a train track.

The first versions, emerging in the next several years, will be expensive and are likely to be used to monitor systems in oil and gas refineries and chemical plants, where investments in monitoring vibration and chemical composition will pay off the most. "Think of our sensors as stethoscopes," says Williams. "As soon as something started vibrating a little bit differently we'd know it."

HP has two fundamental types of nano-sensors under development in its lab. The first is a type of measurement device made from a relatively small number of atoms. Because of its small size, even the tiniest changes in the environment can perturb it. And that perturbance can be measured. "When you are able to craft matter at the nanometer scale," says Williams, "you have essentially achieved the ultimate level of control over directing matter, electrons or photons."

Such devices would be able to measure minute amounts of biological material, or ultra-tiny vibrations, with tremendous sensitivity. "We're working on being able to detect individual molecules of whatever you may be concerned about - or individual viruses or bacteria," Williams says.

Because these silicon-fabricated nano-measurers can be put by the millions onto one tiny chip, some of the products HP envisions resemble a nose - with multiple receptors for various "smells."

But another nano-device that Williams has high hopes for would be optical: "A very tiny laser would light up and we could look at the optical spectra of chemicals. Each one is like a fingerprint, with a unique spectral identity. That would be a single universal detector." Though a laser capable of such a task would today cost around $100, Williams thinks they can eventually be produced for about 10 cents.

HP already has working prototypes of various sorts of nano-detectors working in its 90-person lab.

The company would likely license the sensor designs to others and buy back the devices to integrate into its own measurement and control information systems. Only once such sensors are combined with sophisticated database and analysis technologies can their promise be delivered. HP sees its business opportunity in helping customers manage the vastly greater amount of information such monitoring will generate.

While Williams is confident HP has a huge head start (and he's not afraid to talk about the project -"We welcome competition," he says), this work can only proceed so fast. There simply aren't enough capable engineers in this highly rarified field, he says. Though the pathway is starting to seem clear, it remains long.

f. 07.18.2008 Fortune magazine's Fast Forward

Sunday, September 21, 2008

A Great Example of Strategic Assessment


Following is an article on how proper "strategic assessment" is done:

#

Who will win the Obama vs. Obama election?
Willie Brown Sunday, July 20, 2008


... Don't underestimate the right wing and the Libertarian types' ability to make it interesting - because they will.

And Steve Schmidt - the guy who's running John McCain's campaign - is like Karl Rove's son.

Schmidt is probably one of the best targeter of voters in the country. He really knows how to connect one-on-one with voters.

He doesn't just do polling like other consultants - he uses commercial market studies.

He reduces voting to who shops at Wal-Mart, Target and Costco and how to talk to them. He doesn't give a damn about Wilkes Bashford or Nordstrom shoppers.

He checks out what kind of cars voters are driving, where voters shop, what kind of things they buy, what programs they watch on TV, what they do on weekends.

Then he does the assessment and tailors the campaign's message to convince you that his candidate has your deepest interest at heart.

He was part of my team on the Indian gaming stuff and he ran Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign as well.

I can't figure out yet how he's going to market McCain, but I can tell you that just like Rove, we won't know how he did it until the election is over.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/20/BAD511PR2F.DTL

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle


1. Gather information (competitive intelligence) properly
2. Assess the intelligence data properly and punctuality.
3. Build a strategic plan (Tangible Vision) based on the assessed data.
4.
Develop an operational plan based on the strategic plan.

Does it sound simple?

Any questions on our Strategic Assessment process, you can contact us at service [aatt] collaboration360 [ddott] com. More information on us can be found here.

Thanks!

M.E. Hom
Chief Architect of Collaboration360.com

Copyright: 2008 © Collaboration360 Consultants (C360 Consultants).
Copying, posting and reproduction in any form (without prior consent) is an infringement of copyright

Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Importance of Strategic Preparation (1)

"A team that is unable to discern good fortune and misfortune in the as-yet-uninformed does not understand preparations." - Military Methods, 22 (A minor revision on a quote from Sun Bin)


Strategic preparation is not about one thing. It is about many things.

The stages of strategic preparation are:
  • Gather intelligence;
  • Assess the intelligence;
  • Develop a grand plan based on the assessed intelligence;
  • Develop an operational plan that connects with the grand plan;
  • Get the team to connect with the both plans.


"Failure to Prepare is to Prepare to Failure." - Bill Walsh, the Architect of the West Coast Offense. Former Coach of San Francisco Forty Niners (Super Bowl Champions 1981-82, 1984-85, and 1988-89).

A team that knows how to strategically assess themselves, their competition and their settings is a team with a strategic advantage.

Most competitors barely possess the attitude to prepare properly. In some cases, they do not possess the fundamentals of preparing properly. They lack the conscious to assess the opposition. They also have the skills to prepare and plan. These people would rather improvise.

With proper competitive intelligence, one assesses many things. He determines what is happening now and later. Then he builds a proper plan based on that assessed intelligence.

With our Compass AE process, your team builds a plan that enables them to do the following:
  • focus on their critical path while minding their grand settings;
  • focus on the positive situations while avoiding negative situations;
  • anticipate opportunities;
  • adjust strategically;
  • shape the plan and their grand settings; and
  • lead by strategic collaboration.

" ... Organization leads to preparation. . . . Preparation eliminates the unexpected.
Be ready for everything. . . . Overlook nothing. ... " - Brian Billick, Former Head Coach of Baltimore Ravens (Super Bowl Champions 2000-2001 season)


"If you have a plan, and if you have your direction laid out, you can chart your progress to your dreams at each stop along the way. ... And just as important, all along the way you can see how far you've come."
- Michael Shanahan, Current Head Coach of the Denver Broncos (Super Bowl Champions 1997-1998, 1998-1999)



The focus of future entries is on how to prepare your team strategically with our Compass AE process.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Quality Planning = Quality Decisions



How dos one stand apart from the crowd? To most people, it starts with the vision.

In most cases, the vision is not enough. He/she needs a plan that is specific in terms of the goal and the objectives. It must be formatted in a way that the team is able to make quality strategic decisions.

Do you have a strategic process that enables your team to
make quality strategic decisions from their strategic plan?





Monday, September 8, 2008

Another Endorsement of Our Strategic Assessment Process (3)



An endorsement from a Chinese scholar who specializes in the history of Chinese Siege Warfare.

"It is obvious that Mr. Hom understands, at a very fundamental level, the basic principles of Sunzi's Art of War. However, what makes this truly remarkable is that Hom takes this knowledge one step further. The fundamentals of warfare set out in Sunzi's Art of War are as applicable on the battlefield as they are in the cutthroat business environment of today.

Mr. Hom's ability to translate the Art of War principles into a strategic business assessment methodology is quite innovative. It is easy to understand and simple to apply. I believe that his process will be a positive boon to the business professionals who seek a more holistic and comprehensive approach to running, managing and expanding their ventures."
- Liang Jieming, Author of Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity


More information on Mr. Liang's book can be found at http://www.grandhistorian.com/chinesesiegewarfare

Friday, September 5, 2008

Strategic Assessment: The Book


Copyright: 2008 © Collaboration360 Consultants (C360).
Copying, posting and reproduction in any form
(without prior consent) is an infringement of copyright.



Currently working on the book. We have not determine the official title and cover. More to come.