Dave Desforges began piloting "Work From Home" solutions over 3 years ago. His role required identifying additional candidate requirements and necessary remote work practices for both employees and managers at Sun Microsystems. His current work encompasses blending appropriate technology, organizational practices, and workplace environments to support mobile and distributed teams.
Jim McGee is currently a Director at Huron Consulting Group. He has spent much of the last 30 years working to understand, design, and apply information and technology innovations in organizations. Before Huron, Jim taught at the Kellogg School and was one of the founding partners of DiamondCluster International. With Larry Prusak, he was the co-author of Managing Information Strategically (Wiley, 1993). Jim has both an MBA and a doctorate in Information Technology, Organization, and Strategy from the Harvard Business School.
Regina Miller has more than 18 years of experience in Organization Development, Human Resources, Leadership Development and International Operations. Regina recently launched a global consultancy called The Seventh Suite which assists growing companies bolster their competitive edge via aligned strategy and progressive people practices. Her last corporate job was as the VP HR/OD for Oskar (Vodafone) which has been dubbed “one of the fastest growing mobile operators in Eastern Europe.” More info here.
Giovanni Rodriguez - Through a combination of luck and persistence, Giovanni has worked in the company of some of the most interesting and colorful leaders in several worlds: the law, theater, and technology. Today, he is a principal at Eastwick Communications, a Silicon Valley PR agency, where he advises both emerging companies and market leaders on executive leadership, public speaking, marketing strategy and media relations. He has worked for, consulted and advised numerous businesses and organizations including HP, Stanford University, Fujitsu Computer Systems, Cadence Design Systems, VMware, the American Arbitration Association, and the Unified Court System of New York. He is a graduate of Princeton University (Religion and Anthropology), and he has done graduate course work at the Columbia School of Journalism and N.Y.U.
Jim Ware is a cofounder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work program. He has over 30 years experience in research, executive education, consulting, and management, including five years on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. He was the lead author of The Search for Digital Excellence, (McGraw-Hill, 1998), and holds Ph.D., M.A., and B.Sc. degrees from Cornell University and an MBA (With Distinction) from the Harvard Business School.
Today's San Francisco Chronicle carries an important story by technology writer Tom Abate ("Tech engineers fear U.S. is falling behind"). It reports on a recent survey by EE Times magazine showing that only 10% of American engineers are confident the U.S. will maintain its technological edge over time. The survey results are available online, at http://www.mcbru.com/news/insight2005.php. This isn't just about offshoring, however. It's also about the U.S. education system, which is falling way behind the rest of the developed world. And even if you live outside the U.S. and don't care that much about U.S. competitiveness, you have to be concerned about the state of technology innovation in the global economy.
* While the U.S. still led the world in skill certifications, India showed an increase of more than 300% in just two years.
* Eastern Europe, specifically the Russian Federation, has a significant and growing body of IT competence, while Western Europe and Southeast Asia are also on the rise.
* Canada is a powerful player in certifications, especially in customer support.
* The Southern U.S. led the nation in certifications, reflecting population shifts and the growth of “insourcing” business processes to lower-cost areas of the country.
* India led in Java programming, while the U.S. led in security-based certifications.
* While Microsoft products dominate skills tests for applications, both Linux and Unix administration outpaced Microsoft Windows Server certifications worldwide.
Study co-author Mark Healy, an independent consultant specializing in organizational assessment, hiring, and leadership, is quoted in the press release:
“In their efforts to join the global workforce, these people are shaping the very nature of work, changing the society and the world in which we live. It's important to realize that 'globalization' is not merely a corporate strategy or an economic policy: It's fundamentally a human phenomenon, a new chapter in the evolving story of the planet and its people.”
Synovate recently released their Young Asians study, done in conjuction with MSN, MTV and Yahoo! The study covers the age group of 8 to 24 in 8 Asian markets, and reports on spending habits, media consumption, favourite brands, dreams and aspirations.
Some interesting results:
The Internet and digital technology are fundamental to Young Asian lives, fuelling their desire to stay connected and central to their interaction with peers. 62% have their own mobile phone, 45% have their own desktop computer and half of 12 to 24 years olds name the Internet as the most helpful medium for product and service information over TV (32%) and newspapers (10%).
Here's a take on India's results. They are very confident about the future:
Only 7% of GenX Indians are worried about finding employment and a mere 5% get anxious about financial stability,
GenX appears to be defined differently than in the US; it is the "post reform" generation.
The Q&A that particularly intrigues me is as follows:
"WM: What’s the most surprising thing about modern Chinese capitalism?
Arkless: They’re embracing it, and it’s changing quickly. There are still some old characteristics. They wonder why we work on such short horizons when their economy has been running for 5,000 years. The cities have become dynamic and fast-moving. They’ve got the long-term view and the desire to get things running in the short term very quickly. They still call it a socialist economy, but it’s behaving like an open one."
This is precisely the issue that Manpower and others in this position need to be careful about when entering significantly different marketplaces based on different economic models and mindsets.
Having lived and worked (as the head of HR) in a post-communist country (Czech Republic) the average age of our workforce was approximately 26. That meant the workforce had lived half of their lives under communism. (They were in their early teens during the Velvet Revolution.) Their parents lived their lives under communism and the significant clamp down by the Soviets after 1968.)
All I can say is that an executive team who has only lived under freedom and democracy their whole lives will see the world and what's possible very differently. It was difficult to have empathy for a workforce whose DNA consisted of living (even half their lives under communism.) As execs coming from North American we lived a different life and would never be able to understand what that was like to live in a country where freedom was not an option.
One thing I wish we had done as an executive team is actually experienced a simulation of life under communism. We also should have been required to collectively study the history of the country we were living in. The debrief of all of that could have helped us understand the implications of the national culture as we created our corporate culture. Knowing the background of the nation and history of leadership in the country would have given us insight as to why there was no official word for "leadership" and the closest word loosely translated meant "supervision." It would have given insight to the behavior of a nation based on their mindsets not ours ala empathy.
Doing things like this could have helped us be better executives and helped us understand our workforce as we were asking them to change their thinking, their understanding of the world, the world in which they operated and worked. I am not sure what "cultural training" is like these days but hope that it includes more rigorous content than eye contact, body language and asking how to pass the salt without insulting the host. (It also should be more experientially based, occur on-sight and happen about 3-4 months into the assignment. In this way there is already some sense of the biases and issues and makes the "training" more relevant.")
As Mr. Arkless reminds us..."They are embracing it and it's changing quickly." It's important to honor and respect elements of the past so that moving into the future "quickly" is part of the natural progression.
Giovanni Rodriguez
Elizabeth Albrycht
Dave Desforges
Jim McGee
Jim Ware
