This CEO perspectives class just gets better and better. Last week, when I walked out the class after Strauss talk, I told myself that is the reason that I took risk to come here, in the middle of my professional path, taking a break to recharge. Tonight we have Jeff from GE. where should I start?? I learned GE Through my undergraduate case study, learning Jeff's leadership style after Jack Welch during my UW graduate school case study, now I sat on the front row, seeing this man, listening his talk, just marvelous!
He started with what current situations means, risk -- the same risk/crisis we faced before, reality -- deficit, slow growth.
--- Financial restructure
--- emerging growth, robust than financials, e.g. Turkey, Korea
--- need to resolve healthcare, reform between government and business
--- if you run a big firm through crisis, what do you do? calm the market, prioritize needs ---> safety first(keep large cash flow, priority, keep competition)
--- his philosophy "make hard decision fast, get complicated things away, people will eventually love you again"
--- Reset company to Renew company, which he analyzed multiple times about how to reset and how to renew, those are hand in hand, want to keep profolio supper consistent, close to the core business, and simplify profolio with 20% up for R&D in business, 80 core spaces to fill out
--- regulation tends to fix past problems, not now
--- bring technology, business model and practice to healthcare, public and private problems
--- hard to figure out nuclear business, last project(huge money lost) is in Finland (quite linked to the project I am working now)
--- he spent his time 30% on people, 30% on company growth, 30% on company's issue and 10% on governess
--- use business school study to find what you like to do, learn to be a good learner, how much you learn leads to how much you can give, "self-relective" is key!
--- you are your worst critics, learning to give yourself personal freedom. Mean to work with confident, not having fear. Do not manage career from fear, but from confidence.
--- his future successor should maintain social strong, a globalist, and good at technology
--- current students are studying past, not ready for future. The best advices he tried to give to students are: use past to learn, find the way, but not trap in the old fashion thinking(I am glad that I am at MIT, where your conventional thinkings are broken constantly.), try new thing, proactive, find out what is next, be part of next.
After class, I chatted with instructor who told me that Jeff has been so great, trying to make his schedule work out to come here. During the talk, he talked about how GE handles the political situations for the business, culture adjustment to keep global business, but he did not let this two hours become one of routine meeting, really challenge us to think hard and deep.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Meeting with Finland Ambassador at Harvard Kennedy School
Feb. 18, Harvard Kennedy school host a breakfast meeting with Finland Ambassador Pakka Lintu. MIT Sloan got 4 spots. I am very fortunate to attend.
Mr. Ambassador talked about Finland's culture, economic development and future focus, mainly about environmental policy, energy and technology. I asked him about Finland's global development focus and their education system impact. Finland has focus on translatic trade, though not the member of NATO; also its education system has been world leading system, I bet every scholar interested to know how they can successful running their educational system consistently well. Finland has did a lot in renewable energy, and focus on use nuclear energy by 2020. It is quite sad to see U.S. behind the game. During Clinton time, U.S. has a lot very supportive green energy initiatives from governments. By Bush time, those were stopped. Now some of those got started again, but U.S. are somewhat behind Europe which once followed U.S. in renewable energy.
What I took back most is his diplomatic speaking. Both Harvard and MIT students have asked a few sensitive and challenging questions, like how he responded Finland's stand regarding to lately climate talk. When most students dislike his diplomatic response (after meeting), I found it very refreshing and fascinating. If you look at country as a family, Mr. Ambassador is the guard to keep communication despite of argument and conflict with neighbor. At my power and negotiation class, prof. specifically recommended us to learn the art of diplomat.
Me, with Mr. Ambassador
Mr. Ambassador talked about Finland's culture, economic development and future focus, mainly about environmental policy, energy and technology. I asked him about Finland's global development focus and their education system impact. Finland has focus on translatic trade, though not the member of NATO; also its education system has been world leading system, I bet every scholar interested to know how they can successful running their educational system consistently well. Finland has did a lot in renewable energy, and focus on use nuclear energy by 2020. It is quite sad to see U.S. behind the game. During Clinton time, U.S. has a lot very supportive green energy initiatives from governments. By Bush time, those were stopped. Now some of those got started again, but U.S. are somewhat behind Europe which once followed U.S. in renewable energy.
What I took back most is his diplomatic speaking. Both Harvard and MIT students have asked a few sensitive and challenging questions, like how he responded Finland's stand regarding to lately climate talk. When most students dislike his diplomatic response (after meeting), I found it very refreshing and fascinating. If you look at country as a family, Mr. Ambassador is the guard to keep communication despite of argument and conflict with neighbor. At my power and negotiation class, prof. specifically recommended us to learn the art of diplomat.
Me, with Mr. Ambassador
Magician in the class
Tonight class(Feb. 15) Speaker is Yet-Ming Chiang, founder of A123, what an interesting name for a company! He is a MIT graduate from undergraduate all the way to Ph.D. and is a faculty here. He and his VC Jeff shared with us about the journey of founding A123. Is that name quite fun? someone from Harvard approached them about creating a new name when their business gets serious. Now A123 is quite a leading company, glad that they still keep the same name.
What I took in:
-- this was not a easy journey. at the beginning, VC did not feel the click, until Yet convince them.
-- Yet brought in a lot of research experience. He has brought a lot of government grants and loan. no wonder, as a research professor, he constantly writes the proposal.
-- Yet explained the entrepreneur trends in last 20 years, shifting from industry to academic field.
-- 3 things to look: people, technology and market; among all three, people is the most important. (I really enjoy how he, a leading researcher, a hard core engineer mind, believes in people as sometimes engineer could get too hung-up with the technology and forget the people part.)
-- government fund is great for start up project
-- from VC point of view, 20 win, 60 ok and 20 failed among their money investment
-- always invest the best people in the field
-- always do du-diligence in business, not same in Technical.
The second half of class was completely surprise. Jason Randal came to present his specialty: magic. At the dinner table, Ken passed around the background about Jason, goodness, have I ever seen someone's experience range like this?? He did an amazing magic show. The whole time, I tried to link what he did with what I try to learn from the class. MIT courses have been constantly break my conventional thinking, so this time, I chose not to make my judgement too early, just observe. Jason mentioned that he just spoke at Harvard Business school this morning, trying to show students what innovation means in different industry. For a magician, he was asked to be creative, using company's new product in his show, within the limited time, he has to come up with a good idea. I like the show, since I sat at the first row, watching closely, I have no clue how he did the magic.
After class, I, along with other classmates shared the our wonders/confusion with instructor.
Here is his reply later, very interesting and totally challenge us to think differently.
"In reviewing your surveys, I noted a common theme in a few responses to the Jason Randal magic performance. While everybody enjoyed Jason and many of you wrote insightful parallels between his work and entrepreneurship, a few of you said you weren’t sure of the connection between his performance and the class subject matter. I have two thoughts:
1. That may be true for you. If you don’t see a meaningful connection, then we’ll chalk this up to an experiment that didn’t work. Not all of them work. I often operate in the same mode as the entrepreneurs we discussed: I try mixing together the ingredients I have in front of me and see what comes out. Jason was in town, I like him, I think there’s something useful there, I gave it a shot.
2. In thinking about how entrepreneurs create value in the world, it’s useful to think of value creation in one of two ways (there are, of course, more than two, so this is an oversimplification… but bear with me). You can change the world so that it is better, or you can change people’s perception so that they experience more value out of the world without you having to change the world. Which do magicians do? Is the latter mode mere trickery? For a fun analysis of this topic, check out a video segment from Rory Sutherland, vice Chairman of the advertising powerhouse Olgivy Group. This clip is from a talk he gave at TED, and is about four and a half minutes long. http://founders.mit.edu/files/rory.mov . I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts."
What I took in:
-- this was not a easy journey. at the beginning, VC did not feel the click, until Yet convince them.
-- Yet brought in a lot of research experience. He has brought a lot of government grants and loan. no wonder, as a research professor, he constantly writes the proposal.
-- Yet explained the entrepreneur trends in last 20 years, shifting from industry to academic field.
-- 3 things to look: people, technology and market; among all three, people is the most important. (I really enjoy how he, a leading researcher, a hard core engineer mind, believes in people as sometimes engineer could get too hung-up with the technology and forget the people part.)
-- government fund is great for start up project
-- from VC point of view, 20 win, 60 ok and 20 failed among their money investment
-- always invest the best people in the field
-- always do du-diligence in business, not same in Technical.
The second half of class was completely surprise. Jason Randal came to present his specialty: magic. At the dinner table, Ken passed around the background about Jason, goodness, have I ever seen someone's experience range like this?? He did an amazing magic show. The whole time, I tried to link what he did with what I try to learn from the class. MIT courses have been constantly break my conventional thinking, so this time, I chose not to make my judgement too early, just observe. Jason mentioned that he just spoke at Harvard Business school this morning, trying to show students what innovation means in different industry. For a magician, he was asked to be creative, using company's new product in his show, within the limited time, he has to come up with a good idea. I like the show, since I sat at the first row, watching closely, I have no clue how he did the magic.
After class, I, along with other classmates shared the our wonders/confusion with instructor.
Here is his reply later, very interesting and totally challenge us to think differently.
"In reviewing your surveys, I noted a common theme in a few responses to the Jason Randal magic performance. While everybody enjoyed Jason and many of you wrote insightful parallels between his work and entrepreneurship, a few of you said you weren’t sure of the connection between his performance and the class subject matter. I have two thoughts:
1. That may be true for you. If you don’t see a meaningful connection, then we’ll chalk this up to an experiment that didn’t work. Not all of them work. I often operate in the same mode as the entrepreneurs we discussed: I try mixing together the ingredients I have in front of me and see what comes out. Jason was in town, I like him, I think there’s something useful there, I gave it a shot.
2. In thinking about how entrepreneurs create value in the world, it’s useful to think of value creation in one of two ways (there are, of course, more than two, so this is an oversimplification… but bear with me). You can change the world so that it is better, or you can change people’s perception so that they experience more value out of the world without you having to change the world. Which do magicians do? Is the latter mode mere trickery? For a fun analysis of this topic, check out a video segment from Rory Sutherland, vice Chairman of the advertising powerhouse Olgivy Group. This clip is from a talk he gave at TED, and is about four and a half minutes long. http://founders.mit.edu/files/rory.mov . I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts."
Monday, February 15, 2010
Lectures crasher
Couple years ago I watched the movie of wedding crasher with my parents, who still do not understand why persons put so much efforts to crash wedding. I joked that they want the free food. same for party crasher, free party, free food, always fun! some MIT students even organized the Red Line(MTBA in Boston, one of main Subway line by MIT and Harvard) Pub Crawl to crash 6-7 pubs. 'Free food' certainly plays a big role.
Lately I go to every MIT Sloan lunch lectures(some are series, and some are not). So many amazing lectures, here is a glimpse what I went this week.
Monday: Consulting, by Christoph Pestinger, Associate Partner at DPDHL Inhouse Consulting
Tuesday: Entrepreneurship, by Frank Altman - CEO of Community Reinvestment Fund(which I have to skip another lecture from HubSpot presentation, one of MIT SDM & Sloan graduate funded company.)
Wednesday: E&E and Net Impact Lunch Speaker - Andrew Jay from Siemens Venture Capital
Thursday: “Design for Mobile Computing” by Nick Oakley from Intel Lead Industrial Designer PC Client Platforms (discuss mobile platform design, concepts and thinking) (Again, I choose this over another also very good lecture)
Friday: Women in Technology
Yes, all lunches are included and I went to all. Really until my last conversation with my parents, who said that I looked like guys in wedding crasher, instead that I crash lectures, wow! I never thought about that phrase! In that way, so far, the happiness to be a lecture crasher is great.
only one small drawback, here in MIT, the class finishes 5 mins early and starts 5 mins later to allow students cross campus, as all classes are scheduled without breaks in between. When I leave whichever the lecture place by 12:55p.m. and made to Class by 1:05p.m., sometimes can be challenging, esp. in lately Boston's weather.
Lately I go to every MIT Sloan lunch lectures(some are series, and some are not). So many amazing lectures, here is a glimpse what I went this week.
Monday: Consulting, by Christoph Pestinger, Associate Partner at DPDHL Inhouse Consulting
Tuesday: Entrepreneurship, by Frank Altman - CEO of Community Reinvestment Fund(which I have to skip another lecture from HubSpot presentation, one of MIT SDM & Sloan graduate funded company.)
Wednesday: E&E and Net Impact Lunch Speaker - Andrew Jay from Siemens Venture Capital
Thursday: “Design for Mobile Computing” by Nick Oakley from Intel Lead Industrial Designer PC Client Platforms (discuss mobile platform design, concepts and thinking) (Again, I choose this over another also very good lecture)
Friday: Women in Technology
Yes, all lunches are included and I went to all. Really until my last conversation with my parents, who said that I looked like guys in wedding crasher, instead that I crash lectures, wow! I never thought about that phrase! In that way, so far, the happiness to be a lecture crasher is great.
only one small drawback, here in MIT, the class finishes 5 mins early and starts 5 mins later to allow students cross campus, as all classes are scheduled without breaks in between. When I leave whichever the lecture place by 12:55p.m. and made to Class by 1:05p.m., sometimes can be challenging, esp. in lately Boston's weather.
Chinese New Year
This is the year of Tiger! My biggest surprise is that Zhiyong came to visit me and spend Chinese New year with me here. I know that we talked about the possibility, but not sure if that could happen despite of schedule.
He flew in on 9th, which my married friends seem so understanding, letting me skip the project meeting to go to airport. They share with me their way of how to keep relationships during this crazy school schedule and suggest me to take some breaks when he is here. What a sweet group!
It is wonderful to see Zhiyong at airport! He came to several of my classes, getting a better understanding of my schedule and meeting with my friends at MIT. wednesday afternoon I sent him to sightseeing in Boston while I am in meeting. Halfway in, someone asked me where zhiyong is, I said he was by another side of Charles river. they asked if I have seen outside, what?? I have not left this building for hours, when I walked to the window, it was heavy snow! ouch, I forgot how bad Boston's weather can be :(
By Friday, my Olympia friend Guorong Liu's daughter Kate Wang invited us to go to her Chinese New Year party. She is totally like her mother, a great cook and wonderful host.
It will be a wonderful year, which I am so looking forward to.
He flew in on 9th, which my married friends seem so understanding, letting me skip the project meeting to go to airport. They share with me their way of how to keep relationships during this crazy school schedule and suggest me to take some breaks when he is here. What a sweet group!
It is wonderful to see Zhiyong at airport! He came to several of my classes, getting a better understanding of my schedule and meeting with my friends at MIT. wednesday afternoon I sent him to sightseeing in Boston while I am in meeting. Halfway in, someone asked me where zhiyong is, I said he was by another side of Charles river. they asked if I have seen outside, what?? I have not left this building for hours, when I walked to the window, it was heavy snow! ouch, I forgot how bad Boston's weather can be :(
By Friday, my Olympia friend Guorong Liu's daughter Kate Wang invited us to go to her Chinese New Year party. She is totally like her mother, a great cook and wonderful host.
It will be a wonderful year, which I am so looking forward to.
CEO Perspectives -- Dan Mudd
This Wednesday our speaker is Dan Mudd. During preparation of this class, I read a few documents/interviews about Dan, wondering how he could have guts to come here, based on his last records in Fannie Mae. Even through the entire evening with what he presented, talked and was questioned by sloaners. I do not know how to position my view, but certainly know little bit better about how complex role he was in and got himself into. no matter what, I view this as a learning way. At one moment, Dan was caught in such unpleasant questioning, how he handled was quite well. One thing strucked to me was that, he responded that he does not regret any of his decision as he tried his best with the knowledge and data he received to make the best decisions at that moment. Sure, that is much easy for us to question the history, pinpoint the stupidity/fortunate of certain decisions. The question for me to ask is, if you were CEO in that position, with congress and market pressures, what decisions will you make(important, pretend that you do not know what happened in the market in 2008.) in fact, we could never pretend the things/decisions which we do not have a chance to do, only remind us that we should do our best, not leave any room for us to regret.
Back to the class, a few what Dan said I agreed, some disagreed. He, now is CEO for Fortress Investment Group.
-- His model of being a CEO: leaders who lead, keep healhty culture (accept bad news and being lion tamer), keep principle -- Focused Disc., and relentless deadlines
-- mentioned a book
-- explain how Fannie Mae is created, the relationship between congress and market (I have never knew this part of history, quite eye-opening)
-- Everyone should be fired once through his career.
Back to the class, a few what Dan said I agreed, some disagreed. He, now is CEO for Fortress Investment Group.
-- His model of being a CEO: leaders who lead, keep healhty culture (accept bad news and being lion tamer), keep principle -- Focused Disc., and relentless deadlines
-- mentioned a book
-- explain how Fannie Mae is created, the relationship between congress and market (I have never knew this part of history, quite eye-opening)
-- Everyone should be fired once through his career.
White Mountains
My classmate Karl invited Zhiyong and I to join him and his wife Kathy to go to his NH ski lodge this weekend for hiking/snowshoeing. Zhiyong and I just talked about how we want to celebrate Chinese New Year, also where I hope to show him around in his trip, so far, thinking about NYC. When the invitation in to go to NH, we happily took this over NYC, which turned out to be an excellent decisions. Zhiyong really enjoyed the time with my friends here, getting to know American cultures. Sometimes the questions he asked me, totally remind me of the time when I first came to U.S. Nowadays, I am too Americanized and start forgetting those transition moments. His questions made me more appreciate this journey to the West.
Have not drive for a while, I had a little bit hard time to navigate around, not sure if that is because I am in Boston or my driving skills got dull.
New Hampshire's White mountain is so famous. We head to Welch's peak. So amazed how much well-prepared gears Karl has and took along, without those poles and yak-track, we will have trouble to cross some icy patch.
without too much efforts, around one hour, we have reached Welch's peak, which you could see the entire valley. Karl told us that spring time, here will be so crowded and we were quite lucky to have all the views by us.
Here are Zhiyong and Karl.
On the way back, Karl asked us if we would like to go sliding. I looked at him wondering where. Soon he took us to the place which has quite steep hit with ice and snow around. I tried to think when my last time went sliding, almost back to college time. We are so glad that Karl suggested it. On the sliding path, there was a snow bump, when you hit it, you will fly into the air. have to say, Karl did the best, and I did the worst, Zhiyong sort of slide in a curve line. just so much fun, we were having a blast, though I have landed both in the funny way causing some aching. Later, I told Karl that I was so happy that he is not those kind of serious no fun person! They are definitely on my fun group buddy list.
Saturday night, Zhiyong cooked several tasty chinese dishes. We played a chopstick game. Both Karl and Kathy surprised us with the skills of using chopsticks. You will pick up a choice of which shape/color of items you will need to use chopsticks to pick up out of a bowl. The competition was on...
Sunday all of us went to RattleSnake(both east and west)trails by Squam lake. The views are great, part of these remind me of Northwest.
Have not drive for a while, I had a little bit hard time to navigate around, not sure if that is because I am in Boston or my driving skills got dull.
New Hampshire's White mountain is so famous. We head to Welch's peak. So amazed how much well-prepared gears Karl has and took along, without those poles and yak-track, we will have trouble to cross some icy patch.
without too much efforts, around one hour, we have reached Welch's peak, which you could see the entire valley. Karl told us that spring time, here will be so crowded and we were quite lucky to have all the views by us.
Here are Zhiyong and Karl.
On the way back, Karl asked us if we would like to go sliding. I looked at him wondering where. Soon he took us to the place which has quite steep hit with ice and snow around. I tried to think when my last time went sliding, almost back to college time. We are so glad that Karl suggested it. On the sliding path, there was a snow bump, when you hit it, you will fly into the air. have to say, Karl did the best, and I did the worst, Zhiyong sort of slide in a curve line. just so much fun, we were having a blast, though I have landed both in the funny way causing some aching. Later, I told Karl that I was so happy that he is not those kind of serious no fun person! They are definitely on my fun group buddy list.
Saturday night, Zhiyong cooked several tasty chinese dishes. We played a chopstick game. Both Karl and Kathy surprised us with the skills of using chopsticks. You will pick up a choice of which shape/color of items you will need to use chopsticks to pick up out of a bowl. The competition was on...
Sunday all of us went to RattleSnake(both east and west)trails by Squam lake. The views are great, part of these remind me of Northwest.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
be yourself, be true to yourself
Saturday I attended 19th Dynamic Women in Business Conference at Harvard. It was very refreshing and recharging.
All the simple but meaningful advice cross the whole day conversation.
Ann Simonds (General mills)
-- not specialist, but generalist
-- moments matter
-- start holistically, for who you are
-- Must Deliver
-- need mentor (I am very thankful for all the mentors in my life.)
-- need critics, need tough medicine, do not always expect applause
-- must own your career, make your choice happen
-- you can not have to do all by yourself
-- give time and patience at hard moment
-- the life you learn with and the life you lead with after that
During the penal sections, you will find the similar interests women to talk with, the successful women in that field sharing their inputs. Regarding to women at male dominate work place, I really enjoy Deloitt senior manager's comments -- do not always push everything link to gender discrimination, without men, this kind of topic won't exist, the efforts should use on how to collaborate and let them aware of difference, and figure out how to work through together, instead of creating many women initiatives and not able to execute.
Consistently, women leaders refers to be yourself, let your passion drive your career instead of money, when you are true to yourself, your individual thinking, opinions and plan will work for you, not one for all.
All the simple but meaningful advice cross the whole day conversation.
Ann Simonds (General mills)
-- not specialist, but generalist
-- moments matter
-- start holistically, for who you are
-- Must Deliver
-- need mentor (I am very thankful for all the mentors in my life.)
-- need critics, need tough medicine, do not always expect applause
-- must own your career, make your choice happen
-- you can not have to do all by yourself
-- give time and patience at hard moment
-- the life you learn with and the life you lead with after that
During the penal sections, you will find the similar interests women to talk with, the successful women in that field sharing their inputs. Regarding to women at male dominate work place, I really enjoy Deloitt senior manager's comments -- do not always push everything link to gender discrimination, without men, this kind of topic won't exist, the efforts should use on how to collaborate and let them aware of difference, and figure out how to work through together, instead of creating many women initiatives and not able to execute.
Consistently, women leaders refers to be yourself, let your passion drive your career instead of money, when you are true to yourself, your individual thinking, opinions and plan will work for you, not one for all.
Seminars
In Human Supervisory Control, we began to analyze human error involved system. I pick up the flight accident last Feb. in Buffalo, NY, NTSB report detailed list the entire investigation, including the redone video of cockpit last minute before crash. How did pilots lost situational awareness? It took me quite a while to detach the emotional feelings. Professor Cummings constantly reminds us to look beyond the accident, what display or automation can we do to better position the situation and help pilots to avoid the accident? even in your own life, will you let yourself adjust situation or alter the situation? A lot of time, adapting is easy and much simple way to go. What about reverse this?
Thursday night I tried out the course "Power and Negotiation", one of several courses not in IT(like energy, aerospace, psychology...). Different from undergraduate study, I found that I have more interests to know and learn these, interestingly, they are all interlink with each other, no field boundary.
at user innovation seminar, one of TA is a hacker and totally looks like a hacker. one of his projects was photography. with little bit script, he and other hackers can let $100 canon camera do the same thing what $2200+ canon camera does, just check out CHDK site. It is legal, a total open-source site, which Canon even watch closely, taking some new innovation into its new product without credit the creator. Hacker does not care, who let us know why they spend so much time on those things.
By the end of Friday, Paul Krugman will give a talk at MIT. This is how energetic this place can be. So many things going on, you have a constant battle to figure out which to choose over many great things. A group of world renown economists and your favorite professors will be just like you, standing in the crowd, hoping for a seat!
Thursday night I tried out the course "Power and Negotiation", one of several courses not in IT(like energy, aerospace, psychology...). Different from undergraduate study, I found that I have more interests to know and learn these, interestingly, they are all interlink with each other, no field boundary.
at user innovation seminar, one of TA is a hacker and totally looks like a hacker. one of his projects was photography. with little bit script, he and other hackers can let $100 canon camera do the same thing what $2200+ canon camera does, just check out CHDK site. It is legal, a total open-source site, which Canon even watch closely, taking some new innovation into its new product without credit the creator. Hacker does not care, who let us know why they spend so much time on those things.
By the end of Friday, Paul Krugman will give a talk at MIT. This is how energetic this place can be. So many things going on, you have a constant battle to figure out which to choose over many great things. A group of world renown economists and your favorite professors will be just like you, standing in the crowd, hoping for a seat!
CEO Perspectives
The first week of Spring semester became the "classes hunting". As there are so many good classes offering here, how could you choose one over another? you go to attend(sort of like shop around). This is a quite new experience for me, to hunt and bid for classes.
So far, I am quite happy that I got in the Wednesday class -- Corporations at the Crossroads: The CEO Perspective. This is such a demanding class, 120 students got in and 81 more on the waiting list. Here is the list of speakers:
Feb 3 Jim Sinegal President & CEO, Costco
Feb 10 Dan Mudd CEO, Fortress Investment Group
Feb 17 Strauss Zelnick Founder and Partner, Zelnick Media
Feb 24 Jeff Immelt Chairman and CEO, GE
March 3 Ray Elliott CEO, Boston Scientific
March 10 Nigel Travis CEO, Dunkin’ Brands
March 31 Dan Hesse CEO, Sprint Nextel
April 7 Wyc Grousbeck Managing Partner & Governor, Boston Celtics
April 14 Jeff Zucker CEO, NBC Universal
April 21* Jim McNerney Chairman and CEO, Boeing
April 28 Bill Ford Chairman, Ford Motor Company
May 5 Mark Templeton CEO, Citrix
May 12 Leo Apotheker CEO, SAP
There will be pre-required reading and 3 executive memos. To have them face to face with you discuss their decisions, esp. during critical times. When we look back history, we could objectively say which is right/wrong decision. But for them, how did they make those decisions at that time, what information they depend on or choose to analyze?
To give you a crazy picture of what Wednesday night class looked like, I came way early with my dinner in hand to secure my seat. Before Mr. Sinegal presents, the room was so full, totally break the fire drill policy, each stair was squeezed 2-3 persons.
Costco, the company built in Washington. I am one of Costco customers, always wondering why they only keep the limited choices, but periodically have some surprise products. Mr. Sinegal presents the history, growth plan domestically and globally. He promotes Costco through his every slides and words, but he does not advertise Costco since he believes the word of mouth and fact of long line of Costco gas station advertise well without paying. During Q&A time, being a Washington LCB employee, how could I miss the opportunity to ask him about Costco lawsuits, which my team has provide a lot of data for AG on those cases. After I describes the lawsuits and background info, he asked me if I ever dealt with Government or work for Government. He is such a brilliant person, still believe that the second case will be like the first one, won over Government.
1. Reward shareholders by doing 4 things: obey the law, take care of our customers, take care of our employees(huge admiration to him on providing good healthcare plan for employees despite what wall street says), respect suppliers
2. think like a small company
3. succession plan: promote people inside, who knows business well
4. merchandising: senior management should understand merchandising, and have right people skills, the rest of knowledge and skills can be trained later
5. carry everything to save money for customer
6. never have an exit strategy
7. constantly figure out how to keep price low
8. good luck & good people (go back to price club relationship)
9. self-service got good satisfaction
10. never keep old generation products(let 45% TV stock sell for only 4% value, in order to clear the stock)
11. no advertise
12. supplier can not determine the price. (this is critical in order to run the low price)
13. do not put corp. money to political party
14. believe every employee should have health care
15. Japan, Korea & Taiwan take 1/3 Costco sales
16. learn tricks how to use existing data(only 20% make sense, this is a hard decision for managers)
So far, I am quite happy that I got in the Wednesday class -- Corporations at the Crossroads: The CEO Perspective. This is such a demanding class, 120 students got in and 81 more on the waiting list. Here is the list of speakers:
Feb 3 Jim Sinegal President & CEO, Costco
Feb 10 Dan Mudd CEO, Fortress Investment Group
Feb 17 Strauss Zelnick Founder and Partner, Zelnick Media
Feb 24 Jeff Immelt Chairman and CEO, GE
March 3 Ray Elliott CEO, Boston Scientific
March 10 Nigel Travis CEO, Dunkin’ Brands
March 31 Dan Hesse CEO, Sprint Nextel
April 7 Wyc Grousbeck Managing Partner & Governor, Boston Celtics
April 14 Jeff Zucker CEO, NBC Universal
April 21* Jim McNerney Chairman and CEO, Boeing
April 28 Bill Ford Chairman, Ford Motor Company
May 5 Mark Templeton CEO, Citrix
May 12 Leo Apotheker CEO, SAP
There will be pre-required reading and 3 executive memos. To have them face to face with you discuss their decisions, esp. during critical times. When we look back history, we could objectively say which is right/wrong decision. But for them, how did they make those decisions at that time, what information they depend on or choose to analyze?
To give you a crazy picture of what Wednesday night class looked like, I came way early with my dinner in hand to secure my seat. Before Mr. Sinegal presents, the room was so full, totally break the fire drill policy, each stair was squeezed 2-3 persons.
Costco, the company built in Washington. I am one of Costco customers, always wondering why they only keep the limited choices, but periodically have some surprise products. Mr. Sinegal presents the history, growth plan domestically and globally. He promotes Costco through his every slides and words, but he does not advertise Costco since he believes the word of mouth and fact of long line of Costco gas station advertise well without paying. During Q&A time, being a Washington LCB employee, how could I miss the opportunity to ask him about Costco lawsuits, which my team has provide a lot of data for AG on those cases. After I describes the lawsuits and background info, he asked me if I ever dealt with Government or work for Government. He is such a brilliant person, still believe that the second case will be like the first one, won over Government.
1. Reward shareholders by doing 4 things: obey the law, take care of our customers, take care of our employees(huge admiration to him on providing good healthcare plan for employees despite what wall street says), respect suppliers
2. think like a small company
3. succession plan: promote people inside, who knows business well
4. merchandising: senior management should understand merchandising, and have right people skills, the rest of knowledge and skills can be trained later
5. carry everything to save money for customer
6. never have an exit strategy
7. constantly figure out how to keep price low
8. good luck & good people (go back to price club relationship)
9. self-service got good satisfaction
10. never keep old generation products(let 45% TV stock sell for only 4% value, in order to clear the stock)
11. no advertise
12. supplier can not determine the price. (this is critical in order to run the low price)
13. do not put corp. money to political party
14. believe every employee should have health care
15. Japan, Korea & Taiwan take 1/3 Costco sales
16. learn tricks how to use existing data(only 20% make sense, this is a hard decision for managers)
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Sounds cool Vs. Dangerous
Today is the beginning of Spring Semester in 2010. My first class is ESD 744: Human Supervisory Control, one of courses that I take a huge step away from my core courses, stretching the area I could learn. Interestedly, knowledge is quite universal. A lot of thinking here are quite supporting with management decision and reshape my mind on design and system thinking!
From 40s plane to nowadays cool design airplane, you will find a lot changes in cockpit for pilot. from totally manual to glass screen automation, the change is supposed to get better and easy for pilot to make quick decision during emergency, but getting better sometimes in design will become to take in some "sounds cool" ideas, which are potential problems for real time flight. From when we allow our life to fill with cool things, some actually purely pleasure without proving functionality. For pleasure, that is fun, but for airplane, what you will put in front of pilot, will you recommend those cool thing?
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been quite demanded. Imagine that there will be fed-ex airplanes without pilot, for sure our shipping fee is low. But when I learned why company so expects unmanned aerial plane, apparently, the pension for pilot has been considered a quite budget on their yearly financial spending. So, will the trend be less pilot, but more ground support? I wonder. "Training" has not been quite friendly considered in flight industry, as how you can define your training manual in the threatening situation of pilot safety. The computer's calculation is a conditional result, how can we avoid the error by introducing training steps, blocking human decision at critical situations? As I ask myself many questions, the new perspectives to system, safety, human fact errors are changing.
What could be sounds cool but also make sense changes?? I really like the unmanned coal mined vehicle, reduced the possibilities of loosing innocent lives. "Dead-man switch" at train, makes you consider how much automation we would like the drivers to do. For sure, the automobile with sensor(night vision) screen at dashboard will not be my choice, as it draw your focus and lead you ignore the surrounding with your usual common sense.
Sheridan’s Span of Control is from manual control, to supervisory control to automated control. Where should we draw the lines among these? Will you let astronaut rest with one red button having full automation control, or will you let them busy work through everything in the space having manual control? too bad, two days ago, the funding for going to Mars plan got canceled, significant group of MIT studies have to seek other opinions. Not too long ago, they were still discussing those controls...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x5IziyOcAg&feature=player_embedded#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77-7EM38MSw
From 40s plane to nowadays cool design airplane, you will find a lot changes in cockpit for pilot. from totally manual to glass screen automation, the change is supposed to get better and easy for pilot to make quick decision during emergency, but getting better sometimes in design will become to take in some "sounds cool" ideas, which are potential problems for real time flight. From when we allow our life to fill with cool things, some actually purely pleasure without proving functionality. For pleasure, that is fun, but for airplane, what you will put in front of pilot, will you recommend those cool thing?
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been quite demanded. Imagine that there will be fed-ex airplanes without pilot, for sure our shipping fee is low. But when I learned why company so expects unmanned aerial plane, apparently, the pension for pilot has been considered a quite budget on their yearly financial spending. So, will the trend be less pilot, but more ground support? I wonder. "Training" has not been quite friendly considered in flight industry, as how you can define your training manual in the threatening situation of pilot safety. The computer's calculation is a conditional result, how can we avoid the error by introducing training steps, blocking human decision at critical situations? As I ask myself many questions, the new perspectives to system, safety, human fact errors are changing.
What could be sounds cool but also make sense changes?? I really like the unmanned coal mined vehicle, reduced the possibilities of loosing innocent lives. "Dead-man switch" at train, makes you consider how much automation we would like the drivers to do. For sure, the automobile with sensor(night vision) screen at dashboard will not be my choice, as it draw your focus and lead you ignore the surrounding with your usual common sense.
Sheridan’s Span of Control is from manual control, to supervisory control to automated control. Where should we draw the lines among these? Will you let astronaut rest with one red button having full automation control, or will you let them busy work through everything in the space having manual control? too bad, two days ago, the funding for going to Mars plan got canceled, significant group of MIT studies have to seek other opinions. Not too long ago, they were still discussing those controls...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x5IziyOcAg&feature=player_embedded#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77-7EM38MSw
Saturday --- Finish Freedom trail
Finally, two weeks later, we completely finished the freedom trail. Have to admit, if U.S. went for independent like the speed we finished freedom trail, we would have waited long time for the moment.
It was a cold day to walk outside, which we walked for several hours in the cold wind, visiting all these Boston historical sites, finally Freedom Trail lead us to U.S. Constitution ship. Listening the navy lady explaining the history of Constitution, I am amazed to stand here looking away the road I walked, wondering what it was like 200 + years ago.
start at Fenny hall
By Sunday, I completely moved out of Sidney Pacific Housing, my sublet place. On Feb. 4 I will move to Ashdown on-campus housing, which is the newest housing building at MIT. Meanwhile, I am 'floating', a very good floating, staying at a friend's place at Harvard Square, who I knew since 2001 in Olympia, what an amazing connection! She cooks such good Chinese food, oh, I got spoiled here.
Monday is MIT registration day, which we do not have class but still trying to see what courses should take on. Again, this is the biggest struggle for many of us, there are just so many good classes on campus, not like priority one over another, but both top priorities, so hard to choose :( I have to let several my favorite classes go.
It was a cold day to walk outside, which we walked for several hours in the cold wind, visiting all these Boston historical sites, finally Freedom Trail lead us to U.S. Constitution ship. Listening the navy lady explaining the history of Constitution, I am amazed to stand here looking away the road I walked, wondering what it was like 200 + years ago.
start at Fenny hall
By Sunday, I completely moved out of Sidney Pacific Housing, my sublet place. On Feb. 4 I will move to Ashdown on-campus housing, which is the newest housing building at MIT. Meanwhile, I am 'floating', a very good floating, staying at a friend's place at Harvard Square, who I knew since 2001 in Olympia, what an amazing connection! She cooks such good Chinese food, oh, I got spoiled here.
Monday is MIT registration day, which we do not have class but still trying to see what courses should take on. Again, this is the biggest struggle for many of us, there are just so many good classes on campus, not like priority one over another, but both top priorities, so hard to choose :( I have to let several my favorite classes go.
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