Innovation in Asia

I should have written this book. No, no, I don't mean that this is badly written nor its material substandard. On the contrary, this is a marvellous book that grew out of MBA classes taught by the author at INSEAD's Singapore campus. Students in these classes typically consists of captains of industry, CEOs, Senior Executives and other influential people not only from Singapore, but throughout the Asian region. What I mean is that I wished I had this book around when I was doing my Masters Degree a couple of years ago. It would have been a tremendous source of reference for me as I was researching small and medium sized companies in Singapore then.

This book, "Inspire to Innovate" by Arnoud De Meyer and Sam Garg is chock-full of case studies from around the Asian region, in countries such as Singapore, Thailand, the Phillippines, Taiwan, India, etc. This breadth of business experience in the innovative process recounted in this book in itself is worth more than the paper it is printed on. The authors not only relate their stories, but also apply these experiences within the context of the innovation process and its management. While innovation and management processes, principles and practices are not new - many authors have already written extensively on it - what is refreshing in this book is its focus on small and medium sized businesses, with the odd addition of Samsung and the National Library Board which is a Singapore Statutory Board. So such obscure companies as Smart, Tiger Motors, Hindustan Lever, e-Chaupal, Li & Fung, Patkol, Aapico Hitech and other more well known companies such as Dilmah Tea, NIIT of India, Shin Satellite, etc. are used to illustrate how innovation can be realised in the Asian context. The authors also attempts to draw the differences between the Asian environment and the more often studied developed country environments to show how the commonly accepted innovation management practices need to diverge to be effective in the Asian context.

This is a truly unique book, and should be on the shelve of every executive in Asia who are thinking of how to introduce innovation into its organisation.

Innovating at Fedex

Whenever Innovation is mentioned, 3M, Dell, Xerox and Federal Express (Fedex) are often mentioned in the same breadth. These are some of the most successful and admired companies in the world. So when I chanced upon the book, "Fedex Delivers - How the world's leading shipping company keeps innovating and outperforming the competition", it seemed 'passe' to me. So what would another new book (this book was first published just last year - 2005) say about Fedex that has not already been widely recounted, discussed, analysed and dissected in countless learned articles already? But I am always interested in a good story, even if the story is already familiar. I am glad I picked up the book, because the author, Madan Mirla, has given a new 'spin' on the topic of innovation, if only because he is a Fedex insider telling the story of innovation from 'first-hand'.

Of course, some parts of the book read like many management type books, discussing the 'n' ways of achieving your goals, etc., but Mirla has interspersed many of the principles he espouses with examples from Fedex's history. This in itself is worth the read. In the course of reading this book, I jotted down some points that I found interesting:

1. International growth (Internationlisation) is important. Fedex grew from a company managing the overnight delivery of US Federal government cheques (that's where its name originated) to a worldwide shipping company;


2. Innovation can be a very simple act but it can have hugely significant impact on the organisation;


3. Innovation can fail, and if its lessons are learnt well, it can grow the employee and the company;


4. Employees are important, and they need to grow within the organisation, especialliy knowledge workers. Turnover is costly and reduces the company's capacity to innovate. In an age where outsourcing and contracting is becoming popular, this point is worth noting;


5. Related to the above, a organisation must become a learning organisation;


6. Employees can be encouraged to innovate through Permission Statements - a very interesting management innovation in itself;


7. A work-life balance is important in the innovation process. Given that people work from 8 to 8 nowadays, its a point worth noting again;


8. Innovation often comes from unexpected sources and through the combination of diverse knowledge and disciplines. Therefore, a broadbased, cooperative approach is important in the innovation process.

Some of these principles may already be familiar to you. No matter. The Fedex examples cited will give new perspectives to them. I have profited much from this book. I think you will too.

March of Computers

Technology has been moving at a fast, some might say a breathtaking, pace. Compared to the period before World War II, inventions and innovations in Technology has been varied but many of them have been brought together to give us the modern electronic computers. I say varied because today's computers are a combination of vision, enterprise, mechanical engineering, electrical/electronic genius, physics, psychology, military designs and ambitions, business and consumerism. How did so many factors bring about the evolution of the modern computer? What were the driving forces and how were the technological challenges overcomed? Who invented the internet (certainly not Al Gore) and why was the PDA invented? What of the modern smartphones which can almost double-up as computers?

Swedin and Ferro answers many of these questions in their book "Computers - The Life Story of a Technology". This book offers a broad sweep of the history of computers, from prehistoric times till today. They offer a chronology of the key developments from 35,000 BC onwards! Obviously, such a wide scope will mean that their narrative can only be brief on each event that they describe. For example, the story of Intel only got 6 pages of narrative, 9 if you count incidental references, and the account of the development of the Internet did't start until page 118 of this 166 page book. The book is largely chronological although towards the latter half of the book, it tended to jump back and forth, if only because many related technologies saw significant developments at about the same time.

If you are looking for a detailed and comprehensive history, this is not the right book, but if you want a broad sweep, then this book is a good starting point to explore more deeply the key events in the development of the computer. For example, your interest may be piqued enough about the story of the CRAY supercomputer to want to pick up a book devoted to it, or about Xerox's PARC, or about Intel, or about IBM and their development of their very successful System/360, or even about more remote stories about how Eckert and Mauchly built the world's first commercial computer, the UNIVAC, and how their ideas were essentially taken from that of John Atanasoff (now that's a name you rarely come across). There are many stories in this book about people who agonised over the problems of the day, and how they went about solving those problems. Indeed, without their genius and preseverance, the story of computers would be a very different one today.

This is, in some sections, an engrossing book and it will not take too long to finish it. But there is enough in this book that you will come away learning something new.

Harry Potter and the rest of history

There is nobody who doesn't know (that's a double negative) who Harry Potter is now, unless the person is an illiterate or is one who cannot afford or have no access to a public library. I know this describes a large swath of planet earth, but this is another issue.

I am not reviewing the excellent Harry Potter books here. They need no introduction nor recommendation from me. They just sell on the strength of word of mouth. Perhaps because of its runaway success, or because of its subject (wizardry), many people, particularly those on the extreme of the Christian Right, have come out strongly against these stories because of the inherent lifestyle that it promotes - sorcery and witchcraft (actually, more like wizardcraft). There are those who even burnt the books publicly to demonstrate what they think of the stories.

Well, there are, of course, others who go to the other extreme and view Harry Potter as the Divine incarnate. One such book is "God, the Devil and Harry Potter" by John Killinger. Killinger is a liberal Christian whose defence of the Potter novel (against the extreme conservative Christian Right) has, in my view, swung to the other extreme, so much so that he seems to hold the Potter novels as the exact parallel to the Bible. He probably would have named the Potter novels "The Harry Potter version of the Holy Bible", if he could. In his book, Killinger draws many parallels between the events described in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone" with the account of Jesus' birth and upbringing. For example, Harry Potter's humble abode under the staircase of the Dursleys' house is compared to Jesus' own humble beginnings. Jesus' birth was accompanied by the threat of Herod's murderous intentions, just as Potter's was from Voldemort's attempt to kill him (resulting in that 'lightning' scar on Potter's forehead). Killinger even points out that Potter was eventually to be grouped under Gryffindor house, which has the lion as its symbol. Coincidentally (or by design) the symbol of the ancient Israeli tribe of Judah, through which Jesus descended, is also a lion. Actually Singapore is also known as the Lion City, but no, perhaps its too small, insignificant or Asian to merit any attention. Of course, the other reason is that the boy Jesus never came here.

So far, it has been bearable, but Killinger stretches it when he continues to draw these parallels against extra-Biblical sources. The Bible is silent on Jesus' life up to his 30'th birthday. While we do have records of Jesus' childhood and youth, such as his family fleeing to Egypt with him to avoid Herod and the boy Jesus accompanying his parents to the temple (Gospel of Luke 2:39-52), virtually nothing else is recorded in the Bible about his youth. So Killinger turns to extra-biblical sources such as the Coptic Gospel of Thomas and the apocryphal book of James to draw further parallels about Jesus' early life with that of Harry Potter's in the Dursley's household. These books are not as authoritative as the Bible, and certainly have not undergone as great a scrutiny for factual accuracy as the Bible has been subject to over the last 2000 years. Along the way, he also mentioned that Jesus once went to England with Joseph of Arimathea, which explained how the Holy Grail, which was the cup that Jesus used at the last supper, eventually ended up in Glastonbury, in Somerset, England.

Enough is enough. The Bible and the record of Jesus' life is turning into fiction, if you agree with Killinger's thesis and his fantasies. Here, fact has turned into fantasy, as much as Harry Potter's book is fantasy. At least Rowling does not hide that fact! The sad thing is that the Bishop of the United Methodist Church commends the book to its would-be readers!

I do not recommend this book to readers as a good book. But of course readers might want to find out for themselves the art of turning fact into fiction. If this is what interests you, then there is no better book than this.

Benign Superpower?

Ever since the demise of the Soviet Union (USSR), political and military tensions in the world has been reduced significantly. There is now just one superpower - the United States of America. It is one power that is reluctant to make use of its military and political might to dominate other countries. Historically, it has never been a colonizing nation, except perhaps in the Philippines. The era of the Cold War is over, and a new World Order of a freer and more peaceful world is the dividend of the victory of capitalism over communism. Even China today is communist in name only. Many of its leaders have imbibed American ideals and scholarship through their years studying in the US and are adapting what they learnt in reshaping the Chinese nation and economy. By all measures, they are succeeding.

Unfortunately, while the part about the Cold War's demise, communism and China are true today, the sanguine vision of the New World Order has not panned out the way the sole superpower first envisioned or the world hoped for. Chief among the events that changed this is the 9/11 incident. Today, America is more guarded (fortress comes to mine when I look at the US Embassy in Singapore) and it has sent its troops to invade other countries (Iraq and Afghanistan), although not for reasons of domination but liberation. A new enemy in place of communism has arisen, that of terrorism, which is led by extreme elements of one of the greatest religions today - Islam.

How did these develop? Why did 9/11 happen? Why did Europe (except Great Britain) disagree so much with the US over the Iraq invasion? Why are many terrorists typically of Pakistan, Malaysian, Indonesia and Arabic descent? What is wrong with American leaderhip today?

In his book, "Beyond the Age of Innocence", Mr Kishore Mahbubani attempts to address these and other issues that have become the staple of world affairs in the last 15 years, but mainly occurring in the last 5 years. Mr Mahbubani is well positioned to discuss these issues. He was Singapore's Ambassador to the U.N. for 2 terms and is now the Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. Of Pakistani descent, he grew up in Singapore but has spent many years in the US. Thus he has first hand experience and encounters with the many topics that he seeks to address in this book. As a fellow Singaporean, I can appreciate some of the arguments that Mr Mahbubani advances, and the position he is coming from. Some have argued that he is not stating anything new, and that may very well be true. But I think this book has succeeded in bringing together many strands of the underlying issues and forces that has shaped the world today.

One may disagree with him on his wide ranging analyses and propositions, but one cannot fault his earnestness in trying to help a friend (the US) to see the world through an outsider's eyes and thereby convince them to be more circumspect in matters of foreign policy, economic policy and social policy decision-making. He makes the point time and again that the world is a global village where decisions by the US often affects, for better or worse, the livelihood of peoples half a world away. Being a sole superpower is a heavy burden, not least of which many of the world's ills can be traced back to the innocuous decisions made by that superpower. Mr Mahbubani argues that leadership of the highest caliber is expected of America, that it comes with being a superpower, but more so because it comes from a nation that historically, has crafted policy and acted in a benign fashion - a nation that has no stomach for colonizing and domination of other peoples and nations. (Exceptions can be identified though, as Mr M also points out in this book).

This is an absorbing book and the reader will come away enlightened on many of the underlying issues, causes and effects of what is happening in the world today. The time spent on the book is well worth it, whether, at the end, you agree with him or not.

Resurrecting rice in Cambodia

I haven't written a book review for quite some time now. That's not because I haven't been reading. On the contrary, there are just too many book demanding my attention. The latest book I completed is about an agriculture project that was started in Cambodia in 1986 by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is based in Los Banos, Philippines. I first came across IRRI and its work through my Development Economics textbook while in University. Here, I am being re-acquainted with its work in Cambodia.

The political upheavals in the last 30 years has reduced the nation of Cambodia to one of the poorest countries in the world. Its people also suffered greatly under the regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, glimpses of which can be seen through the movie, "The Killing Fields", which stars Sam Waterston and Dr Haing Nor. The atrocities of the Pol Pot regime on its own people is shown in gut-wrenching scenes, particularly the thousands of buried skulls that were uncovered - hinting at the vast killings that occured during that time. It is in this context that the IRRI was invited by the re-constituted government of the Peoples Republic of Kampuchea to repair and rehabilitate its rural economy - particularly of rice production.

In the "The Burning of the Rice - a Cambodian Success Story", Donald Puckridge recounts the story of how the IRRI, through the Cambodia-IRRI-Australia project (CIAP), helped rural rice farmers improve their rice production methods and consequently increased their yields significantly through research, innovation within the local context, and more importantly, through training the locals so that they can become self-sufficient and self-supporting in the long run.

This book is filled with personal anecdotes of the experiences of the mainly Australian and Indian expatriate staff, as well as the locals who worked closely with them through the almost 16 years of the CIAP's existence. It is a story filled with the realities of subsistence farming, of the need to break the cycle of poverty, and how research into new farming methods and rice varieties, as well as training made the difference. After reading this book, I have renewed respect for the Australians, who were the ones on the ground to do the training and drive the changes. This was in spite of the dangers involved in living in a Cambodia that continued to be rocked by violence and political upheaval, such as the coup carried out by the Hun Sen government in 1997 (after they lost the elections to FUNCIPEC). Puckridge also dwells into social and historical issues of the Cambodian peoples today, and how they have been affected by the times they spent under the repressive regimes of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. There is a story behind the picture on the book cover.

For a long time, news reports on Cambodia, and indeed, Vietnam, focused on the political conflicts, humans rights and maneuverings that did not find favour with the western world, which was largely represented by the US. The one dimensional perception has hidden many of the social and economic work that was going on to resurrect the Cambodian people's livelihood. In this respect, Australia not only contributed manpower and expertise, they also gave money to fund the work of CIAP, and through it, enabled many Cambodian farmers to improve their agricultural endeavors and its research expertise.

I now understand Cambodia a bit better and look forward to the day that I can visit the country as an observer to witness the changes that has occurred over the last 20 years - changes brought about not so much by the political situation, but more through the economic and social resilience of its peoples.

For more, see:
The Yielding Fields
AusAID and Cambodia
International Rice Research Institute

Copyright or wrong?

Copying and copyright is an issue that is dogging more and more people because almost everybody in this internet age has become a website designer (yes, even 11 and 12 year olds can design websites nowadays) or a content creator (such as bloggers).

I once had a student who did a website for a commercial firm. This firm subsequently received a lawyer's letter demanding payment of penalty (I think the figure of S$5000 was mentioned) for using one of their maps in one of the WebPages. I don't remember if there was any takedown order. Apparently the copyright holder wanted money more than just their rights, or are these one and the same? I heard of similar cases by WOM and in the press and marveled that this company was doing a side business going around town suing everybody in sight who may have violated their copyrights. I don't quite agree with these predatory tactics. In many cases, as in my student's (he sounded anxious when he first called me to discuss the issue), the act was done without intent to deprive the copyright holder of its revenue, but the copyright holder thought otherwi$e.

When is it right to copy a work? How much of it can be copied. To whom does that work belong, and for how long? These, and many more issues are explored and discussed in John Gantz and Jack Rochester's (G&R) book, "Pirates of the Digital Millennium". This is a highly readable book, compared to others, which tend to be couched too much in legalese that an average reader would get lost in or fall asleep on.

It covers a short history on piracy and the copyright law. It showed me (I am not legally trained) that copyright or the right to copy has not always been, and need not always be the same in different times and different places. Copying is a very natural human activity, anyway. Before the advent of the printing presses, monks were copying valuable tomes of works from other monastaries for their monasteries. Copyright then was never an issue. Meiji Japan had copied the French and Germans in their education systems, as well as US technologies before and after World War II, profiting greatly from them, although this same activity led to the untold suffering of many in the war.

G&R also explored the various parties involved in any intellectual property dispute and looks in detail at one such party - Microsoft. The point made was that much work goes into producing a product, whether it is software or music or movies, and much of these involve a creative and innovative process – typically long and usually expensive. Piracy denies these producers of their rewards (or at least recoup their investments). For smaller players, piracy can drive them out of business. The implication is that piracy is anathema to creativity and innovation. A country will find itself much poorer if it did not have sufficient laws to protect its productive endeavors, as the case of Ghana illustrated. Some nations, especially the US, have swung decisively in recent years, to the side of the producers, culminating in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. In the authors' opinion, this act is flawed as it favoured the producers too much. For example, an innocent child was accused of sharing a Harry Potter video over the internet when in fact, the child had only done a one-page book report on that video. There remains the possibility of abuse by the producers that can scare the living daylights out of everybody through this Act.

The authors conclude their discussion with the economic argument for piracy (with Lester Thurow weighing in here) and the issue of ethics (what you should or should not do argument shorn of pragmatic considerations). They suggest certain actions that both the consumer and producer can take in the future to reduce (not possible to eliminate) instances of piracy.

It’s a good book. Go read.

The dirt in words

Two weeks ago, with some time on my hands, I sat down to watch an old movie. "Glengary Glen Ross" is an award winning movie made in 1992. It had a stellar cast of Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey, amongst others. Adapted from a stage play, this movie has riveting dialogue and a whodunnit. Absolutely seat-of-the-pants.

What lingered most in my mind was how the part played by Alec Baldwin rallied his team of salesman. In that 10-minute scene, I have never heard that much foul language used - ever. What's more, it came from just one person - Blake (played by Baldwin) - who was basically conducting a monologue. The f**k word was used so often, and with some many different layers of meaning and usage that I am dumbstruck by the versatility of this one word. I doubt that that scene can ever be censored because the word is so integral to the entire 10 minute performance.

Foul language, whether we like it or not, is part of our everyday speech. So much so that Ruth Wajnryb has written a book, "Language most foul" about the use of this register, or language instance, in the world today. This book is not for those who cannot stand the sight of foul words (I am not sure about the audio/sound or vocal part) - the work f**k appears in the book with such regularity and frequency that the book would have been labelled profane and dirty if that is the sole measure of the book. It would never pass muster on the list of desirable books and blogger will surely have it flagged.

But before you jump to any conclusion, the book is actually a scholarly (yes, you didn't read that wrongly) tome on foul language. In it, Wajnryb surveys a lists of commonly used foul words such as the evergreen f**k and sh*t, amongst others, and spends considerable effort in tracing their origins and describing their usage over time. Wajnryb makes the point that, because of how frequently they are used today for virtually every part of life that these words have lost their foulness in certain contexts. So, for example, f**k is used as part of the integrated adjective "inf**kingcredible" to add emphasis rather than profanity to the word "incredible". Nevertheless, such words continue to be used in contexts that are offensive to some, if not all, people.

If you think you are up to the language, its a good read. But make sure you don't leave the book lying around for your young son or daughter to pick up. Otherwise, you may end up in hot soup with your wife/husband/mother/father, whichever it is.

Brace yourself for the book with the most foul language I have ever come across. It puts many of the most 'dirty' books to shame.

Availability Note: Unusually, this book is not listed in Amazon.com The closest title (by the same author) is "Expletive Deleted : A Good Look at Bad Language". From Amazon's review of this book, I would say that it is the American imprint of this Australian author's original book. This original is available online at Dymocks Booksellers.

Orwell's Burma

I am planning my vacation, but I cannot decide where to go this December. I am spoilt for choice, except when it comes to Myanmar. There is only one tour agent advertising one tour package to Myanmar. I briefly considered that package, but put it aside quickly. What is it about Myanmar that makes it desirable on the one hand and undesirable on the other, as a tour destination, I wonder?

Perhaps part of the answer lies in the book "Secret Histories - Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop" by Emma Larkin. This book is not a just a mere travelogue. It is this and more. Ms Larkin writes about her experiences traveling through Burma, the old colonial era name of what is Myanmar today, with reference to George Orwell's times and tales there in the mid-1920s. This is an interesting angle to base a book on, but as events in modern Myanmar would have it, Ms Larkin shows how prophetic Orwell is through his now very famous books, Burmese Days, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eight-four. George Orwell, or Eric Blair, his real name, worked in Burma for 5 years as an officer of the Imperial Police Force.

Through her recent travels around Myanmar, Ms Larkin shows how closely its politics and society today mirrors those described in these three books of Orwell's. Though not strictly communist, Myanmar society today is a closed one. Although it pretends to be socialist in leanings, it is in fact authoritarian and dictatorial, much like what the society depicted in Animal Farm turned out to be. The people of Myanmar do not have political freedoms, as demonstrated by the muzzling of its most outspoken daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi. There is no freedom to write and publish. Many who dared are today locked up in one of Myanmar's most overcrowded prison - Insein Prison. A native explained that they cannot speak or write about what is going on in Burma. People who do so disappeared, as happened to a most repected and prolific local historian, much like people in the fictional Nineteen Eighty-four. The education system has become so poor that there are all of 40 candidates for a Ph.D every year - Phoney Doctorates as they are more popularly known.

This book is filled with anecdotes about life in Myanmar and its ordinary people. The author has travelled from Mandalay to Delta, Rangoon, Moulmein and Katha to the places the Orwell once lived and worked to bring us a book full of sketches of its people's experiences, fears, jokes and, yes, laughter, if only of the bitter sort, that permeates life in Orwell's Burma today.

40 years of dictatorial rule has reduced Myanmar to a basket case, needing to import basic necessities such as rice to feed its people. This depressing list of deprivation includes those in knowledge and basic freedoms. If you have read any or all of those Orwell books, you will get a pretty good idea of what Myanmar is today. This is certainly a unique book written from a unique angle about a people which the world has almost forgotten.

It doesn't really matter if you haven't read any of Orwell's books, the stories are human enough for you to relate to immediately. Having a good background in Orwell's works gives you the icing on the cake, so to speak.

So should I visit Myanmar these holidays? Yes, if only to experience first hand what Larkin has written about, but certainly not if the family is coming along.

Ramp-up your brain season

This is examinations season in Singapore's. Its a country where the education environment is highly competitive, to say the least. The exams to be conducted in the next two weeks are also end of year exams, which, for some, will determine the next stage of their young lives, depending on how they perform. For the senior primary school students, their die have already been cast. Their PSLE (promotional examinations) have just ended. For the next three days, their papers will be marked and graded in this nationwide exercise.

Stressful times indeed, for students as well as parents.

Going by anecdotal evidence alone, the informal education market is huge. It seems like every student has a privately engaged tutor besides the school teachers they already have. And the private tutor's job is not for education, it is for drilling and making sure that students keep to their books, and their past exam exercises in order that they can score the best grade possible. You see, both parents have to work to earn a living in Singapore. So like many things in Singapore, and the world, outsourcing is the rule of the day.

But according to Pyschology Today (PT), there is one other source of help - the right food. In the article, A Taste of Genius in PT's July/August 2005 issue, Lauren Aaronson sets forth the good that some types of food can bring to the brain. Some of these may already be familiar to you, being the stuff of urban legend and mother's tales for some time now. First off, oatmeal works its magic through fibre, glucose, nutrients and acids of which it has in abundance, supercharging your brains in the process. Glucose-sweetened lemonade can also "boost recall of events, words, movements, drawings and faces, among other things, with effects lasting long enough to get you through a two-hour exam". Besides food, exercise is also just as important as it "improves the delivery of oxygen to your heart...", which in turn "pumps up your brain", and we are not talking about carcinogens here...

There are lots more tips on the beneficial effects of various types of food for the brain. It is perhaps timely reading in this examinations-laden season.