Kurt Goedel’s incompleteness theorem: Any set of axiomatic rules are either complete and inconsistent, or consistent and incomplete. [Thanks, Paul Dowding in a letter to the FT]

Kao Innovates with Music

John Kao talks about the “how” of innovation, and uses a piano to illustrate his points. Fantastic, use your whole brain! The video is here.

Catch the Wave

Innovation from the individual to the team to the organization to organizational culture. Readable, clear and it has pictures!

[Picture from Amazon.com]

• Writer’s Plot Generator from Pantomime Pony: Funny stuff, nice and concise, yet fleshed out with a few strategically and sensibly placed adjectives

• Fantasy Plotter for fantasy… plots… from Manon at Serendipity: Short, sweet and straight to the point. Also includes names, characters, places, things, costumes, stories. Merci!

• Seventh Sanctum Generators for fantasy: A bit too random and Mad-Libby on the story generator, but a nice wealth of generators for every step of the way

***

I’m not sure I’ve come to terms with not having gone to visit her before I left for school. Maybe I thought she’d still be there when I got back to Manila over Christmas. Maybe she’d be in better shape – maybe we could chat and catch her up on all of the wonderful things I learned in my first few months of the MBA. Never mind that she wouldn’t be able to laugh the way she used to – maybe I could still tell her jokes.

I never got to.

Maybe I should have insisted on taking that trip north – it really wasn’t too far at all. Maybe I could have at least tried to convince Carlos that I would still have liked very much to visit, even if she could no longer walk, or talk.

But I didn’t.

***

So what about Judith C. Cuaresma was so special? What about her made me -and so many others – love her so much? These are the reasons why - presented in the good, old-fashioned IAG way:

***

NOTES ON JUDITH C. CUARESMA

———————————————————————————————–

• For a long time, JD sat at the bureau next to mine (there were no cubicles then – just solid, heavy wood) . Across the vast expanse of tableness, we would chat and exchange ideas. IMF. World Bank. BIS. CMI. How should we phrase this bit? That bit? Is this a good idea? Where should the threshold be? How did you do that calculation?

• One night (or afternoon?), it came up that JD and I both had thinking blogs. We exchanged thinking blog urls, and voila – JD’s blog on finance, technology and macroeconomics was The Republic of Jakakistan’s first (and only) cross-blog [I don't know how you say this in proper blogspeak]. If you notice my blogroll to the right, you will find among the list a link to JD’s blog. It is a goldmine of information and extremely useful links.

• Sometimes, I would vent while she listened, smiling slightly, to my tirades of pent-up frustrations. On one particularly animated rant I had about a working style that was different from mine, I wondered how she could just laugh and be so calm and collected about the whole thing. She made a joke. I got distracted from my anger. She offered sensible potential explanations. She had similar views, but was just duckie. I wondered how on earth she could be so cool about it. But she was, and she worked with this different working style. She just did it.

• Her laughter was remarkable – it was gleeful, child-like and contagious. It  had a volume of 15 on a scale of 1 to 10. It would reverberate past the other group, hit the wall and come back to IAG. JD would also clap. Often, she would wheeze because she was laughing so hard. I would laugh so hard with her that I could no longer breathe. It was pure, mirthful laughter.

• What was so special about JD was not just that she was an excellent professional (she took initiative, she did her work, she did it well, and there was never, ever a word of complaint that I ever remember coming from her lips) and intellectual (she was curious, open-minded, critical) – it was that she was an extraordinary human being. It’s not often that you find someone so happy, chillaxed, understanding, patient and kind.

***

Why the HELL did I even wait until she was dying to even think about visiting her? For over a year, we still worked on the same floor – I had only moved to the other end of the building! If I had to time the walk from the dealing room to the old IAG stomping-ground, I would say it took about two minutes to get there. Less.

How many times did I go back to ID to say hello? Once? Twice? Did I go there just to say hi, or did I go there to request  information from someone, and just say hello on my way out?

How many times did we meet for coffee? Once? A reunion of the triad (me, JD and Normie) just once, because I happened to run into them during break time at the Bridgeway Cafe – which was, for nearly a year, maybe 30 steps away from my chair. Just outside the door to my office.

***

But life’s not meant to be about regrets, right? At least that’s what I believe. It’s about minimizing regrets moving forward, knowing what you have done or failed to do in the past.

So what have I learned from this? How do I minimize future regret (if you can call it that – but that’s just semantics) knowing what I know now?

It’s a lesson I’ve been learning all of my life, mostly with the loss and near-loss of loved-ones:

If you value people, make sure they know it.

Tell them. Show them. Do something thoughtful (which stresses thinking about what they like rather than what you like) for them. However you convey, however they understand – do it.

If you can do it now, do it now. Don’t wait. It doesn’t even take much.

Just do it. Now.

***

The beauty of having a thinking blog is that it helps you think. The beauty of this thinking blog post and bullet-pointing is that it has helped me – just now – realize something so incredibly crucial that I think I’m still a little bit gobsmacked at how I’ve failed to remark it.

I’m checking my Life Map now [yes, I have a Life Map]…

Wow. This event doesn’t even appear on my Life Map!

This is an egregious omission if I ever saw (or didn’t see) one.

***

Once upon a time…

I was sinking. I was sliding down a spiral with my eyes wide open. It was as if I were falling forward – just watching the ground rise to meet my face without putting my arms out to catch myself.

Then, one late night, OT nanaman:

- [Rant] JD, I can’t let this sit. I just can’t. I’ve tried for three weeks to ignore it, but I can’t! I can’t do what I have to do properly! [Rant rant rant]

- Then write a letter.

- But… But… Huh?

- Yeah. You should. Just tell X what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling. I’ll read it before you give it. Give it by hand. [She was always so matter-of-fact]

- Oh. Okay.

- And don’t forget to make this phone call to make sure that ABC. And call Y to see whether this, that and the other.

- Oh! Yeah, I didn’t think about that.

- It’ll be alright, Jax.

The next day:

- Okay I’m ready. I fixed the bits you suggested.

- It wasn’t much, just editorial. It’s well-written, straightforward, professional but from the heart. Good.

- I don’t know if I can do this, JD.

- Of course you can. What’s the worst that can happen? Here. Go. Good luck, Jax!

- Hooookay, here goes…

And the rest, as they say, is…

***

My Tribute to Judith C. Cuaresma

Judith C. Cuaresma was the catalyst of my very first This-Is-MY-Decision-I-Own-It-I’m-Gonna-Do-This-I’m-NOT-Gonna-Let-Life-Happen-to-Me-I’M-Gonna-Happen-to-Life Decision. She was the one who nudged me to take that first step on the long journey of empowerment. JD also contributed to my philosophy on communication, which has been one of the key elements of the wins that I have had in my life – and I expect this to continue to be true in the future. I love her not only for the person she was, but also for the integral role she has played in my life and my success. For this, I am grateful.

If I had gone to her funeral, this is what I should have said.

***

After Facebook told me to help Judith C. Cuaresma find her friends, I opened the link to JD’s blog and had another look around.

It’s funny – I never noticed it before, but on her blogroll, under “Economists”, there’s Krugman, Mundell, Kreuger… and me. Awesome.*

***

Her deathaversary isn’t, I believe, for another few months. But who needs to wait for an occasion to say something like this?

Thanks, JD. I never got to tell you, but thanks.

***

Today’s serendipitous musing was brought to you by Facebook, the social network of champions.

*My thinking blog evolved a little bit out of just economics at some point. To put it JD’s way, it started to overweight capital markets, and diversify into other areas.

I do agree with the essence of the pointers, but I don’t really agree with the style. The advice almost made it look like interviews are a “me vs. you” conversation when in fact, it should probably be “me possibly work with you, you challenge me to see if I can do the job for you”. But maybe I’m being just a bit too pedantic over this one.

***

That hunt for advice was well before the interviews came in. With this one organization at least (but many interviews), I’ve taken away a different success strategy.

The best advice I got from everyone around me was this – be yourself. If one acts at an interview, and one is hired, one might need to put on the act every day at the office. This is a risk, and I really prefer to be in an environment where I can be myself. So if you can’t hire me without me having to put on an elaborate act, then it’s probably best for both of us that you don’t.

So I put my best foot forward (because one must, and the key word is “forward” and not “in my mouth”), but I made sure that the foot I put forward was my own.

Success – I got the job.

• Gathering of Patriots to Bring About World Peace
• World Social Forum

Don’t get lost in the clouds.

Think about these potential pitfalls before you migrate your systems from the earth to the sky.

BOPpin’ away to the top.

• CGAP - Independent policy and research center that works to advance financial access to the BOP
• MicroCred Group – Creating and developing MFIs all over the world
• Blue Orchard – Microfinance investment managers

Google’s gobbling up gaggles of Deals – big ones – and will… deal… with “other” (read: regulatory) issues later.

From what the Department of International Mystery gathers in its… Intel*… on Google’s insides, the DIM wonders if Google’s not tempting fate by ignoring other “other” issues (read: operational capacity). Unless the big G puts its ability to scale its business up alongside the Deal frenzy, it may choke on its own feast.

What does DIM Intel suggest? Google’s insides are, simply put, a mess. If one data point on the Google recruitment and hiring practice is anything to go by, it appears that the revered organization is fumbling its acquisition and management of talent. People are important, and the DIM does not say this from a purely warm-and-fuzzy-feeling point of view. It also seems that, by corollary, that there is a high degree of disorder within Chez Google itself.

So the pieces of the puzzle are:

1. Google’s going on a mega shopping spree.
2. It hasn’t fully unpacked or tidied up its house after moving out of its smaller abode.

Et ca fait:

If Google throws its new toys on top of a precarious pile of things, it might be setting itself up for the risk of a big mess to clean up later (Citi, anyone?).

The DIM humbly suggests that Google deal with sorting out its insides before going all crazy on the Dealing.

* DIM Intel is a puzzle-piecing method based on the use of The Force. This is not due diligence. There are assumptions that need to be vetted, information checked, hypotheses tested.

The wisdom of Steve Blank from “Why Accountants Don’t Run Startups“. [Thanks, Frank at Small World Group and JustinTV.]

What’s the big idea(s)?

• You’re there as a startup peoples to ” search for a repeatable, scalable business model”.
• Search – Pivot – Execute
• “No business plan survives first contact with customers”

• Find business models – diagrams that show how you create, deliver and capture value. [Alexander Osterwalder]
• :. (customer+agile)development = the search for the BM.
• Do not remain a startup! This = fail.

So. In which box do you live?

Know it and live it – don’t get confused between Search and Execute.

Look at metrics, not FA stuff:

• How much does it cost to get a customer?
• How many new customers are brought in by each existing customer?
• How much value a customer brings in its user lifetime?
• What are my (average) P’s and Q’s?
• How much cash do I burn every month? [runways!]

Consider customer validation, not sales:

• Who eats your cake in early stages?
• What pricing and features do you need to tweak?
• Is it not repeatable yet?
• Are there outliers?

Develop your customers, don’t manage your product:

• Test hypotheses.
• What’s the minimum you can offer them?
• Tweak me.

Develop like Jack, don’t engineer like Peer:

• Deploy continuously
• Be a learning being all the time
• Let teams organize themselves
• Minimum offerings
• Tweak me.

Search. Adventure. Pivot.

Finding the flavor of what you’re all up in:

Search

• Personal contribution = Superstar
• Time commitment = 49/12
• Planning = opportunistic and Jack – PIVOT
• Process = hate and eliminate (except for the “non-process”)
• Management style = autocrat
• Span of control = roll up the sleeves…
• Focus = high, passionate vision
• Uncertainty = bring order out of chaos

Build

• Personal contribution = leader
• Time commitment = as needed
• Planning = let the mission and goal take the wheel
• Process = when you need it – manong mission
• Management style = delegate
• Span of control = manong mission
• Focus = Ser mission
• Uncertainty = make like 911

To the left to the left.

Who is Alfred P. Sloan?

President chairman of GM who brought cost accounting to modern American corporations. He was an accountant. B-School product.

Who the eff is Billy Durant?

The Founder. Of GM, then Chevrolet. E-School product.

Bowling alley = 1. Pennies = 0.

Unless… look at founder’s agreement, walk the artline and time your jump?

E-School.

Skills

• Hypothesis testing
• BM testing
• Customer development
• Agile development
• Metrics
• Adventure capital
• Hands are ON

Courses

• Entr. management
• Creativity and innovation
• Tech. entr.
• Patent law for entr.s
• Global entr. marketing
• Entr. finance

Startup Accelerators + Lean/Customer Development + Engineering Schools

L/H/SBS? No. LSE? No. DSE? Yes.

So now, it’s time to digest.

***

Meanwhile, across town…

One statistic to know:

Total debt load and the timing of maturities.

[From investinganswers]

This just in: Osborne has served the FSA a visceral slice [thanks, FT by email!].

5 Things:

• The prime cut will be reincarnated as a new Consumer Protection and Markets Authority responsible for bank regulation and policing
• The “rump part” gets slapped on the back of the BoE as prudential regulator, which will be called [insert name here]

• [insert name here]‘s raison d’etre will be to feed information to a new Financial Policy Committee headed by Mr. King
• The Financial Policy Committee is to stop bubble build-up (using “unspecified tools”
• The re-organization is expected to take about 2 years to pull off

BUT WAIT! There’s more.

Osborne has also commissioned an independent… commission… to review the UK banking system – on menu, a recipe for Cream of Glass-Steagall sauce

Reactions? Seems to be all quiet on the island front, but we’ll see how this develops over the next few days.

3 Thoughts:

1. Macroprudential regulation is a sensible thing – one kitchen stadium, a powerful Iron Chef Financial, sous-chefs letting him know what’s cookin’. Good idea as a final product.
2. But how is this imminent 2-year slow-cook going to roll out? Is that opportunity I smell brewing? How will the diners feel about this? The waiters? The audience, and public at large? The Anton Egos?
3. I wonder, though. Did I miss the memo? Since when did we have utensils to (a) see if a bubble’s coming and (b) stop that bubble from building up? A beef thermometer to figure out when things are heating up and then an Inox  knife or Sterling silver fork to poke an innocuous hole in the embryonic bugaboo before it blows up?

You can get all the right ingredients in all the right kitchens, but without the right recipe and the right utensils, you may be left with rotten leftovers and a bellyache of epic(urean) proportions.

Credits

• Rump Shaker by Wreckx-n-Effect (Much respect to Teddy Riley, but I really like the original better. So this is the original.)
• TAFKAP/Prince
• NKOTB (HA! Am I ashamed to say I never knew the Westlife version was just a cover?? Only slightly.)
• Elvis My favorite one of his)
• Iron Chef (Also Japanese original!)
• Ratatouille

Forecasting demand is apparently done in a sub-optimal manner in many quarters. According to Armstrong and Green (2010), the following should be avoided:

• Intuition
• Unstructured meetings
• Focus groups
• Data mining
• Complex methods

[Thanks, DPRM!]

What’s New in the Market

In other news, JaxiJen, Inc. was… incorporated… today in Fontainebleau. It is headquartered in UG8. The logo is a red integrated J-structure (photo unavailable at this time).

Here is an exclusive excerpt from the JaxiJen internal process as the two stellar ladies conducted business on the lower level of their chic Fonty offices:

Tagline 1 | V1.0

It’s not a problem,

It’s a solution.

- Hey, so you know maximin?

- Yeah?

- What about jaxijen?

- Yeah.

Tagline 2 | V1.0

There is nothing we can’t solve.

… well. There is OOne problem we can’t solve. But [reason 1], [reason 2] and [reason 3]. So it’s not a problem.

Tagline 2 | V1.1

There is nothing we can’t solve. Everything else is not a problem.

– JaxiJen, Inc.

this angle is ideal.

And we can write with our feet from a prone position.

Yes, we are destined to be great.

Interviews progress – it’s a tale of reading and acting, reading and reacting. Five of the tips from Fred Ball that I liked [thanks, BNET]:

• Come prepared knowing your concrete achievements (quantifiable or not… e.g. “trophy wife”)
• Dress for success and enter with a mindset of respect
• Talk about what the interviewer wants to know, not what you want to talk about

• Start by establishing the relationship and doing it their way, then ask the questions to take it your way (and learn how to know when to change tack)
• @ T=0, they are the buyer and you are the seller. After some point, @ T=1, you are the buyer and they are the seller. Winning them over @ T=0 gives you more leverage at T=1.

Saving the World, One Outrageous Idea at a Time

At one International Institutions lecture I attended years ago (ten!? oh my goodness!!), the professor was professing the woes of government.

Corruption, according to one academic paper,  stemmed partly from losing all the talent to the private sector (the implications are clear and need not be articulated here). This is apparently due to a bad incentive structure (yes, it’s intuitive). Intuition backed by scholarly work.

Recently, a well-known SCHOLAR (initials TV) wrote a refreshing letter to the FT editor about how to fix the public servant incentive structure. Variable pay will cure the world’s woes. This delightfully-written piece is here [thanks, HM!].

Have I Finally Found My Roots?

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Oration on the Dignity of Man. Lovely little volume. Upon Wikipedia’ing him today to refresh my poor memory on the orthography of his name, I rediscovered the word “syncretism” [thanks, Comparative Mythology!] and discovered that the term did not, as I had thought, only apply to fusing religions. Here’s the article on syncretism.

Is there an association of, if I may say, syncretists?

Oh! My people! Is it possible that I have found you at last?

Let me Google this and find out.

On another note, I wonder if the Urban Dictioary’s been updated to include verb forms of the proper nouns Google, Wikipedia and Facebook (fully conjugable, even!). (It’s my blog, I’ll turn this noun into an adjective if I want to.)

Credits [or, The Pop Culture that has Shaped Me] (In order of appearance)

• “Electric Boogie”, Bunny Wailer (Neville Livingston)
• The Pink Panther (I think)
• “It’s My Party”, Lesley Gore