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Category Archives: Alliance management
Patents: Tax or Protection?
I was amazed to realise that the recent dog fight to buy Nortel, was really driven by the patents they had, rather than the value of the operational parts of the business. After an opener bid by Google of $900mill, … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Collaboration, Innovation, Strategy
Tagged Alliance management, change management, collaboration, Innovation, negotiation, Strategy
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Detailed Specifications and Evolution
An ongoing frustration of innovation projects is the apparently always moving goalposts. How often have you heard “wish marketing would make up their minds what they want” This desire to have the end point articulated at the commencement is natural, … Continue reading
A seat at the table, or a spot on the menu?
Negotiation is a process of finding a solution to a question that is acceptable to all parties. It should go without saying that the first step is to actually communicate, setting out to find areas of compromise, and places of … Continue reading
Something old is new again.
It is a bit ironic to think that in the midst of the information revolution that is surrounding us, that we are in some ways reverting to the ways of pre-agricultural humans. Bit of a stretch? Just think, pre-agricultural humans … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Collaboration, Management
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, lean
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New architecture of collaboration
Things have changed, the tools of web 2.0 make collaboration, at least theoretically, really easy, so why it is so hard to get done? Outside the web, where Wikipedia, Linux, Ideo and a few others have rewritten the rules, and … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Collaboration, Social Media
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, communication, Social Media
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The geometry of networks
It is pretty clear to most that the number of connections in a network grows more quickly than the number of people in the network. It is a mathematically consistent relationship captured by Metcalf’s Law, but in summary, you double … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Collaboration, Marketing, Social Media
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, Social Media
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Opposites attract?
Only in physics, in personal relationships we seek common ground, people who under stand instinctively what we are saying and thinking, and who work the way we do. Collaborative teams and alliances of many types often fail from the start … Continue reading
Groups need a purpose
It is a pretty simple observation that for a group to act collectively, there must be a strong central reason for them to do so. The larger the group, the more difficult it becomes to maintain this sense of collaborative … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Collaboration
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, Management, Politics, Strategy
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Conflict within a group Vs conflict between groups
Somehow, there is an evolutionally phenomenon at work that kicks in when a group gets larger than 150-200, the number that social research has repeatedly identified as the number of people that any individual can have a relationship with, … Continue reading
Mutuality and network development
Social networks have boomed, tools to enable the networks abound, MySpace, twitter, face book et al being the most well known, but many more fail than succeed, and they do so based on the degree of mutuality that exists. … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Collaboration, Communication
Tagged Alliance management, collaboration, negotiation, Social Media
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Collaboration lessons from Canberra
This hung election has generated a tsunami of comment, but nothing I have seen on the mechanics of collaboration, a key factor in any lasting resolution to the impasse I would have thought. The idea of a “party” is simply … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Leadership
Tagged Alliance management, Management, negotiation, Politics
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Social networking as Knowledge management
Knowledge Management is all about collaboration, making the 3 + 3 equal > 6, but the challenge has always been how do you codify the knowledge for dissemination and re-use, implying the existence of both strategy, and a management mechanism … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Leadership, Management, Social Media, Strategy
Tagged Alliance management, Innovation, Leadership, web stuff
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Manage through people, not contracts.
Contracts are the point of last resort, they define the exit, should it become necessary. Believing a written contract that details how the dynamics of an evolving relationship will be managed is as dumb as believing the lady in the … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Communication, Leadership
Tagged Alliance management, communication, Leadership, negotiation
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The end, and the beginning?
The momentum of innovation in the auto industry has picked up a notch, as a resurgent Toyota allies with Tesla to re-open the NUMMI plant closed earlier this year to produce a mass market electric car. Toyota got the ball … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Innovation, Leadership, Operations, Strategy
Tagged Alliance management, Innovation, Leadership, Operations
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The Newtonian paradox of groups.
Successful groups have great power, power to identify, understand the causes and implications of problems and opportunities, and come up with creative responses, and once moving can gather great momentum. Most workplaces are now actively seeking to harness the intellect … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Demand chains, Leadership, Operations
Tagged Alliance management, communication, demand chain, lean, Operations
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Successful chains are communities
When people are tied together, when they are in “communities” they tend to develop shared values, aspirations, and courses of action. The incidence of double dealing, dishonesty, personal gain at the expense of the community gain, are reduced. An efficient … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Demand chains, Leadership
Tagged Alliance management, demand chain, Value chain
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“Democtratising knowledge” in demand chains
Democratising knowledge, isn’t this a lovely term! I have heard it used on a number of occasions recently, and it came up again in an extraordinary TED presentation by Stephen Wolfram . In just two words it nails the complex … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Communication, Demand chains, Social Media, Strategy
Tagged demand chain, Innovation, supply chain, web stuff
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Lessons from NUMMI
Whilst we observe the rather sudden tarnishing of Toyota’s quality aura, it is easy to lose sight of the enormous value Toyota has given to our understanding of efficient and flexible manufacturing. The lessons are everywhere, there would not be … Continue reading
To collaborate or not to collaborate
It seems that everywhere there is a drive to collaborate, without any real regard to the challenges of collaboration, the behavioral and cultural changes necessary for success. Collaboration has become an end in itself, rather than a strategy that has … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance management, Change, Demand chains, OE
Tagged Alliance management, change management, Value chain
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