ON THE 14 BUS — I have just read an estimate that we will have generated 35 zettabytes of data by 2020.
A zettabyte is a number with 21 zeros after it. Try writing that out…
Yea, I can’t be bothered either. But man, that’s a big number. What is it all? And who is reading/ watching it?
Technology people say that we ‘create’ data and then others ‘consume’ it.
That makes it sound very posh, doesn’t it? It certainly sounds like something you want to do. And maybe even pay for.
Instead it increasingly feels to me like we are simply ‘throwing off’ data. Like giving off heat. And someone is there catching it.
It’s an image isn’t it? We’re like wet dogs shaking furiously, and that humid cloud of noughts and dashes that flies off is being carefully preserved and made available for others to dig through.
But who wants to dig through that?
It’s brilliant that we have these new tools. That infants in Nando’s can watch cartoons on iPads while their parents stare blindly off into the middle distance. That satnavs mean I never have to know where I am, or where I am going. That the Yellow Pages or Dewey Decimal System are now an anachronism. That I can have a stack 1.5 cms high of unread books on my bedside Kindle.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that stops our most important experiences from being human ones. I will still remember a product by the person who sold it to me, a holiday by the feeling of being there, a business meeting by the jokes or the tie…
In a digital age when the machines are meant to make all the difference, we’re learning that maybe the media is NOT the message. Leaders are not rising up, blinking and unshaven out of their mothers’ basements. They are still people who can interact, express and understand the things that others feel. And do so in person.
Zettabytes are less meaningful than Zelda bites. As F. Scott probably would never have said.
KINGS ROAD — Apple are facing “bad PR” with their Foxconn tie-up. That seems to be what columnists are saying.
(One bank, UBS, said yesterday that the pay rises for employees, brought on by exposés of the loss of life and investigations into explosions at iPhone and iPad manufacturing sites, “will have only a limited effect on the earnings and share price.” Which is something.)
There are in fact many brilliant PR people in the region who can help. (I’m thinking Michelle in Oz, Andy in HK, or Bob in Singapore.) Indeed some of those people are already helping.
No. What Apple, Foxconn, fellow manufacturers Wintek and others, need is to plan and communicate a programme of change.
And others having similar products manufactured by similar suppliers like Nokia, Sony, Samsung, HP, Microsoft, Dell etc. know that they’re only being left out of this because Apple is a bigger, shinier target.
—
Let’s back up.
Foxconn is a Taiwan-headquartered Chinese business that employs 1.2 million people. (There are only about 1 million in the UK’s NHS, and the Chinese army only has an estimated 1.5 million.)
“Taking it to the next level and creating real change conflicts with secrecy and business goals.”
– A former Apple executive
Foxconn is China’s largest exporter. The company assembles an estimated 40% of the world’s consumer electronics.
In 2010 Foxconn hit the headlines (and we wrote about it) when a frightening number of people committed suicide at a plant.
May 2011 an explosion at another Chinese plant was followed by the suggestion that Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions there.
The focus is around the boom-towns of Shenzhen, where suicides started on the campus of more than 500,000 workers in 2010, and Chengdu, where explosions have made headlines. And last month an extensive (but fairly soft) New York Times feature was published to coincide with Apple’s annual results announcement.
“Employees work excessive overtime,” the NYT says, amongst other things.
(Quite brilliantly the FLA President, who’s members have previously primarily been textile companies, was quoted this week in China as saying “I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory.”)
Last night the Disney-owned ABC television station ran a report on Apple.
It was awkward and almost like a corporate tourism video. (And ABC has gone topainful and uncomfortable lengths to explain their corporate entanglements with Apple.)
—
But the story starts earlier. Arguably with an exposé in the UK tabloid The Mail on Sunday in 2006. When technology companies, led by Apple, realised they had an obligation to worry about where their products were coming from.
According to many sources Apple is not alone either. Many companies have suppliers with troubling working conditions: IBM, Motorola, Sony and Nokia too. Foxconn itself also assembles for Amazon, Nintendo and Samsung.
So there’s little here that couldn’t have been planned for and changed. But many would argue that the business imperative has not been strong enough.
The NYT quotes an Apple executive saying “most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from.”
But almost everyone would be disturbed if they saw where their hot-dogs or hamburgers come from — much closer to home. So that’s probably not a strong enough concept.
Everyone who understand macroeconomics and how industrialisation works will recognise that there are many issues at play here.
China is a country undergoing industrialisation, with a massive and motivated workforce. No one wants the jobs to go away.
At the same time the supplier issue has consumed a lot of time at big technology companies for at least the last 7 years. And that’s not just an issue with working conditions. Apple said in January that their results would have been better if they could get more products made…
Managing people, adjusting to change, and engaging employees all seem to be at the heart of the matter. Combined with a better cultural and social understanding.
The media are undoubtedly looking for a story and this makes a good one.
But that need not be the case — if Apple, Foxconn and their peers were simply better at planning and communicating change.
Instead, one immediate impact is that while Apple continues to be embarrassed, Foxconn is now planning to invest quickly and heavily in automation.
Turns out employing millions of young Chinese people and helping industrialise a country is too much of a pain.
MARYLEBONE — This year is a big year of change. In technology, in the world economy, the world of sport, even in the way all our countries are run. There are elections in America, France, India…
What is more significant in a country than a change of government?
And that’s what is promised in India, Malaysia, Taiwan, Serbia, Kuwait, El Salvador, The Gambia, Armenia, Algeria, Madagascar, Libya, Mongolia, Mexico, Cameroon, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Belarus, Ukraine, Ghana, Angola, Bhutan, Guinea, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Togo.
New presidents in Yemen, Senegal, Mali, Russia, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Albania, France, Kenya, Turkey, the United States of America, Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Kosovo and Zimbabwe. Yes, Zimbabwe.
We know that the United States presidential election of 2012 is to be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. It will be the 57th presidential election. And it will get a lot of attention.
But how about the world’s largest democracy?
Yes. That’s India. How about that one?
Or the big red splotch above? Russia.
That’s important too.
There are other changes coming too. Some, we seem to know for sure:
The Internet is going to change. A new IP address protocol will mean that companies may start building two sites for a doubled up Internet — the old one, and the new one.
We’ll all be talking about faster, slimmer smart phones and The Cloud. If you don’t know about either, now is the time to do some research.
Plus many more things you may want to share?
This time next year things will be very different.
I promise.
Businesses will fail. Some will be dominant that you haven’t even heard of. Yours will merge, divest, make a 90 degree turn, or implement similar significant changes.
So, what are you doing about it?
Well it is a topic that is quite dear to our hearts at Able and How. We are launching our Able and How Change Index this year. And our change management work the world over continues at a pace.
We will be keeping an eye on business, political and social trends this year. And keeping you up to date with the Able and How Change List (look for it soon in our News section).
Change is good.
Get into it with us.
/df
P.S. And, by the way, NASA assures us that the world is not going to end. After many years of fielding wild calls, they were forced to put up this website.
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