Nico Luchsinger

trying to make sense out of stuff

The Worm That Waits

Still think that the erosion of online privacy is threatening? Well, let me put your mind at ease: Apparently, there are much bigger things to worry about.

Here is a great article from The Atlantic about the hunt for «Conficker», a particularly sophisticated computer worm. It has spread all around the world, infected potentially millions of computers. Nobody knows who designed it, and to what end - because Conficker has kept mostly quiet until now. But despite unprecedented coordination efforts, the computer security community has no idea how to get rid of the thing, or track down the people who made it.

Top executives more satisfied with innovation results than employees

Interesting finding from a recent BCG report on innovation:

[There is] a persistent difference in view between senior executives and decision makers and the rest of the company. Simply put, the top brass are far more satisfied. In 2010, the majority of C- and VP-level executives, directors and managers said they were satisfied with their company's return on innovation spending, versus only 36 percent of other employees.

BCG offers no clear explanation as to why this could be, musing only that the top executives have to be bullish in order to make innovation succeed. I would suspect that there are other factors in play, mainly the fact that it is often top level executives who are involved in innovation projects. Establishing an «innovative corporate culture» that allows everyone to contribute could raise the satisfaction in other employees. But I'm only guessing.

Other key findings of the study:

  • Innovation becomes a priority for companies again. (Well, duh.)
  • RDEs (rapidly developing economies) are becoming increasingly innovative.
  • Many companies are not satisfied with how they measure return on innovation.
  • Companies are focusing on incremental product innovation, suggesting they remain cautious.
  • While companies from mature economies are most concerned about idea development, companies in RDEs worry about attracting and retaining talent.
     

Douglas Adams on the internet

Thierry Blancpain pointed me to this great short essay by Douglas Adams about the changes the internet brings upon us. I wanted to post some favorite quotes here, but realized that there are just too many.

So here's what you should do instead: Go and read the whole thing yourself. Done? Great. Now go read it again.

Done? Now think about the fact that the piece was written in 1999 - eleven years ago. It seems to me that the debate hasn't changed a lot since then. I guess that's not a good sign.

Complexity and re-imagination

Niall Ferguson:

«[Historians] are not engaged in model-building. We're not trying to simplify the world of human beings into some kind of mathematical model. Historians live and breathe the complexity of the past. And we accept that there really is a sample size of one. There's only one human history, and we can't re-run it in any laboratory.»

And:

«At the heart of [the historians] enterprise is imagination.»

The combination of understanding complexity and engaging in re-imagination of past thought, argues Ferguson, makes historians particularly skilled to understand «the futures».

Here's the whole thing.