Fifteen years ago venture capitalists [VCs] sought to convince the world that the time had come for digital groceries. With much pomp and circumstance George Shaheen, the alpha-technologist at the über-integrator [Anderson Consulting] switched teams. Mr. Shaheen jumped ship, departing the old world of atoms for the new and much more lucrative world of bits. Three years and more than $800 million dollars later, the co-poster-child of overfunded ideas – the Webvan Group – filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations. [The other poster child was Pets.com]. VCs are a persistent bunch. They are back touting a spectrum of online delivery services “whose time has come.” The question I have is – if executives had applied analytics effectively – “if we had done analytics right” – would we have been able to avoid these value destroying debacles?... Read more

In contemporary culture today, attention, as measured by column-inches and sound bites, elevates hackers, terrorists, mis-behaving divas, twenty-something billionaires and done-something-wrong sports heroes as “persons of interest.” The media pattern today obsessively celebrates creators of disorder. Little remarked upon – in fact essentially invisible to mainstream consciousness are the creators of order – people who get things done, people who move the ball forward in the face of uncertainty. I would like to reintroduce you to a true hero in our complex world – the project manager.... Read more

Adam Smith’s “division of labor” is one of the earliest and most important innovations in early capitalism. By dividing the manufacture of pins into eighteen distinct tasks [essentially creating a pin factory] a capitalist could increase productivity 240 times. The early industrial age manifestation of this concept was to divide those who think [i.e., plan] and those who do. Over time “thinkers” [i.e., managers] began to extract ever increasing percentages of the productivity gains. In some circles the value of “doing” [i.e., action] became an afterthought.... Read more