Let loose the waves of knowledge

There has been a lot of talk going on constantly about the importance of education as a fundamental developmental catalyst for third world countries. The premise lies in the notion that if we were effectively able to propagate basic education and hence promote the pickup of basic life skills for the people (especially the young) of these said nations, there would be a much greater potential for these better educated youths to grow up to bring their country out of poverty.

But to further expand on this notion - that the bringing of an increased level of awareness and knowledge to people spurs development. Does it not also apply generally to all peoples of all nations that a further level of understanding of how various things work works in the long haul to improve humanity's condition? Key difference being that we need to stretch beyond what we take for sufficient and push the boundaries of what we want to know.

For most it seems, the quest for knowledge ceases at their penultimate educational milestone of a university degree (which has seen it value plummet somewhat due to educational inflation, but that's another story). Do we therefore only educate ourselves to the mere extent which is necessary to enable us to be identified as having successfully overcome this gauntlet we call the education system?

I believe that educational curiosity does still exist. But somehow, it exists predominantly within a very small population of intelligentsia made up mostly of professors who swap knowledge amongst themselves through journals, conferences and whatnot. Academic style and complexity being a massive hurdle for most mere mortals who wish to read these and comprehend them in a useful fashion. These knowledge then become trapped within ivory towers of the academic elite.

So here's the idea -- what if we could have a system of propagating these new found ideas and intellectual exchanges to a more massive audience, in a simpler fashion. My belief is that the infrastructure already exists in the form of the internet so why are we not making more use of it to push more information outwards?

Hopefully, with the freer flow of ideas and information, a widespread education curiosity can be re-sparked once more.

(To be continued ... ?)

OODA Loop

The OODA or Observe-Orient-Decide-Act Loop is an interesting decision making theory which has it roots in the miltary. The brain-child of Col. John Boyd, it emphasizes the need for quick decision making in a continuous process which pays attention to the reaction of the opposition. Broadly, the four step loop goes like this:

1. Observe - To be aware of the situation in the environment and factors around oneself. This step involves being observant enough to identify objects of interest and to be experienced and discreet enough to pick out only essential elements for the decision making process.
   
   
2. Orient - With the situational information gathered, apply past ideas, cultural background, experience and analysis to gain understanding of what all these elements of the environment mean. Also, trying to understand the opposition (in some cases) and how their decision making process may work given the same set of situational factors will also enable a better decision in the next step.
   
   
3. Decide - Based on the first two steps, select a best fit option to be implemented. There may be several alternatives present in theis stage and some limited mental hypothesis may be used to select the most appropriate one.
   
   
4. Act - The implementation phase itself to put the chosen alternative into action. In some cases, the action may be a limited ones used as a means to test out the effective-ness of complete commitment.

And the cycle doesn't stop here, it continues again as the last action taken affects the situation and one has to start at the observation stage again.

This is a pretty interesting decision making process and probably one that can become faster as one gets used to the schematic framework of this. The resulting increase in decision making speed should be a tremendous advantage in many situations.

( Further Reading : Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War )

5 reasons to read Prospectuses

For a tech company, or for any other industry for that matter, heading down the golden road of an IPO, a lot of technicalities come into play and it generally becomes a time of housekeeping in preparation to launching (and hopefully skyrocketing) on the public exchange. Part of the “necessary evils” of the legal paperwork for companies hoping to list in the States is to file their prospectus with the SEC to give their potential investors more details of the business and its future direction.It’s a chore of sorts for companies but an absolute gem for entrepreneurs and here are 5 reasons why I think you should read them:

1. Learn exactly what the company does -- Often, before a company goes public, there would be quite a buzz on what they plan to do and commentaries following their progress. These are mostly made by industry watchers and may or may not be all that accurate. The prospectus of a firm headed for IPO would typically splash out its mission statement / strategy / strengths in the first couple of pages. Generally I would say that these documents are excellent reads for entrepreneurs are in early stage / business plan writing stage also.
   
   
2. Get an good summary of what the industry looks like -- Firms which hit the IPO stage must have been doing something right to land where they are. Having deep industry understanding and insight would be one of those things that the founders/management possessed and reading about how they write about it gives you a quick headsup on how the industry and market as a whole is faring.
   
   
3. Get a feel of possible pitfalls along the way -- With the good also comes the bad: the firm is also legally obligated to disclose the possible risks that they face in their expansion plans. Similar to their long-honed industry insights, these pitfalls they raise may be important ones that you should be aware of if you have a startup and plan to move into this same field. Chances are the firm planning to IPO may have hit and learnt some of these lessons the hard way and/or spend a good amount of money and resources to identify their potential blind spots when moving forward. Reading their brief points gives you that almost instantly and for free.
   
   
4. Learn more about the important financial and legal concepts -- Have to admit that this is my weak spot so being able to thumb through the financial reporting section helps give an idea of the margins / volume the firm in question has. Bulk of it may be legalese and finance-ese but going through and learning how to understand these are important not only to entrepreneurs but also investors.
   
   
5. Understand corporate structure and other important details a growing company faces -- A tad obscure and may not be spelt out in plain but for some interesting cases (eg: Baidu's IPO) you can learn more about how the firm is structured to cope with regulatory / tax issues. Similarly, some companies like to have the founders expound a little on their growth story so it makes for a good inspirational and informational read on the trials and tribulations a firm faces in its journey from startup to IPO.
   

Just for information, some of the ones I'm trying to go through now are: Google, Baidu and Shutterfly.

Can definitely find more interesting ones on the SEC Filings and Forms website.

Have fun!


(This post was inspired by golden advice from Coen who is right when he says we don't read up enough these days and recommended Google's Prospectus as a first reading.)

5 Key Shifts of the Information Paradigm

I guess no one can deny that information equates to power. But its no longer about just possessing it that gives one an edge anymore. It is important to note what has shifted and how to cope with this new information age when thought and ideas literally travel at the speed of light. Here are 5 ways in which the way we interact with information has changed (from the perspective of a layperson like me) :

1. Having versus Finding information - In the good ol' days before the Internet was born, information was mostly written down in black and white. So, the amount of information one had access was only roughly the summation of one's memory and perhaps the amount of reading material one had access too. Simply put, the genius staying near a library was king then. Now, internet has opened the doors to the masses with its seemingly infinite collection of literature and data. Nearly everyone with an internet connection has equal access to this massive pool of collective knowledge. The shift then becomes that it will be the folks who benefit the most will be those who know how to find what they need, and fast. This is not to say that the ability to find information was not important in the past; it was, but it has become crucial now. And given the diversity of accumulated knowledge out there, knowing how to find information will beat having information any day.
   
   
2. Too little versus Too much information - And with the massive flood of digital information we are now subjected to, the problem we face with information quantity wise is no longer having too little of it, but too much of it. Same information can be presented in different formats these days - text, audio or video. It has taken on more mediums and similarly, begins to confuse us even more. Whereas previously, what every precious bits of information was absorbed and thought about, we have been so swarmed with data these days that we barely give a cursory glance when we reproduce it somewhere else for one reason or another. Most of the time, this adds up to more confusion which negates the benefits we reap from being able to gather data faster.
   
   
3. Relevant versus Irrelevant information - Major bane of academics, statisticians and the ike where the ruling thought is "more is better" Sadly, more is typically less. It confuses, it misleads and it causes us to miss important facts and patterns. This I believe is nurtured in education where plunking down a 10 pages paper seem to net more than a succinct 2 pager. Chances are that it was because it just have confused the heck out of the grader. May work in school but this habit is deadly in business, where getting muddled in useless information is like sinking in quicksand. Messy and deadly in both cases. This is why the skill to present not only relevant data but also the relevant trends is important. The art making tons of complex data into meaninful trends is known as data visualisation which I think is only going to become an increasingly important skill to have.
   
   
4. Accurate versus Inaccurate information - And given the large swarms of data out there, the flipside is naturally that some of it is just, well, incorrect. With the dawn of the internet age, there has never been a better time to be more curious and skeptical. Like when I said I have a list of 5 when there's only going to be 4 points? How many folks would have just read my blurb and assumed there would be 5? And with the way information can be easily duplicated in the digital form, it would be just as easy for wrong data to appear in different places, making it seem credible. Stay critical and observant to avoid this issue.
   

And so, that's how I see the way information works has changed.

So if you want to be a "knowledge worker", better understand these trends well then!


(PS: Finally I get to use the words "shift" and "paradigm" together in a post title. Boy, do I feel like a Management Consultant with a MBA.)