Yet another funny google ads...

Google seems wasn't aware about the whole story about "Joe the plumber" that's really hot these days. In this story at nytimes.com, below is the google ads.

hey, it got plumbers all right, but it's not really about plumbing, ok?

Today's ESD.36

Today's ESD.36, aka System Project management, is quite... useful. Two points really worth noting:

1. risk management: as mentioned by Prof. de Weck, as you become more and more senior, your role will evolve towards more and more risk management, such as technology, organizational, etc. See the chart below.
2. In the BAE Denver International Airport case, one category of risk, the organizational risk, was really highlighted. In the case, the chief engineer unfortunately died after the project started. This was painted as one of the key reason for the project's failure. The key lesson, in my view, is: whenever you have a star performer, it should raise a red flag to the project manager. The resignation of the star performer could be a devastating strike to the project. I guess this is a dilemma. On one hand, you always want a star performer. On the other hand, you also want there is someone ready to substitute the star performer. As Prof de Weck pointed out to me after class, a redundancy system should be built into the system for star performer role. This, of course, can be really difficult with real systems. In the BAE case, the city can argue that, unlike other public works project, DIA is a one time deal project, so they didn't have an existing redundancy system. BAE, in theory, should have cautioned this to the city...


(Source: ESD.36 System Project Management, Prof. Olivier L. de Weck, 2008)

Disruptive Innovation

I have been reading Christensen's books (Innovator's dilemma and solution). Well, I should have read them in spring. I think it's required reading for tech strategy. Anyway, I am reading for technology based business innovation ESD.57. Awesome books. On the one hand, this book is written for the big executives. On the other hand, it's also a perfect book for start-up. The two key theme, low-end disruption and new market disruption, are very true. Of course, this is not 100% new. It is natural strategy for a start-up to go into a market where there is no competitor. However, the book systematically explains why big firms fall to recognize disruptive innovation.

Strongly, strongly recommended.

Laughable Google Ads

I got some laughable Google Ads in my gmail today. We are talking what to choose for the ESD.36. As suggested by Prof, our target is a project with the delays with A380 and B787. A lot of Boeing and Airbus surfaced in the email. Google then suggested a whole bunch of travel ads, such as Private Jet in 10 hours. However, I give some merits to google for recommending some pilot jobs with Singapore Air.

Here's the screenshot:

Gmail integration with Google Calendar...

Hmm, not sure when it came out, I noticed gmail's integration with google calendar. Hmm, something we wanted to do. See picture below.

Kicked off Speech Training...

It seems I have finally kicked off the speech training on the small SDM cluster. Too bad I cannot use those free athena machines. It appears the job can finish in a month.

Too bad the SDM cluster thing doesn't seem to quite catch on with the SDMers. I guess no one has the need. I really hoped the resource can be shared with the other SDM projects.

The 3-Year SDM Pact

Oh, we entered a 3 year pact with a bunch of SDMers a few weeks ago. The pact is to come back to MIT after 3 years and see... (there might be two versions) version 1. who travels more places; version 2: who is doing better... I'd more supportive of the 2nd one since I am in total disadvantage of traveling.

Look forward to fulfill the pact, guys.