April 29, 2005
glue
When talking about tech, I always think back to Fred Wilson’s great line (to paraphrase):
Stop looking for the next big thing. Think of ways to solve problems. That’s the way to make money in tech.
Here’s a problem I think would be pretty interesting to solve:
Tom Peters has written about a future scenario where multi-billion dollar corporations are successfully run with only seven employees.
I assume everything would be farmed out to “A Loose Confederation of Skunkworks”. Groovy.
OK, so what would be the glue holding the confederation together? Money? Tech? Conversation? Love? Fellowship? Meaning? Greed? Lust? Fear?
(I don’t know about you, but greed, lust and fear has always worked for me.)
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Interesting. Is a loose confederation of skunkworks, (or LCOSW, or skunkworks,) one company, or many? That is, is your multi-billion dollar company a single skunkworks in the confederation, or the whole confederation?
If it’s the former – the single node in the skunknet – then things get pretty interesting. I’m thinking it probably can’t be fantastically profitable for a single node, though it can be pretty good for every node.
Take as an example a LCOSW that makes, say, a consumer electronics product like iPods; each node creates a bit of value – making hard disks, or batteries, or software – and other SW’s assemble them into products, or produce marketing material, or distribute it.
But since they’re seperate companies, between every SW pairing (eg, final assembly -> distribution) there’s going to be a levelling of profits; if the ‘distribution’ nodes make obscene profits, the ‘final assembly’ will demand a piece of the action; their suppliers will demand a piece of -that-; and so on. The whole network becomes profitable, but no node shovels in the cash.
Put another way, each skunkworks can be competed with by new, potential skunkworks. Since a skunkworks is cheap to start, competition will drive prices down. Anyone who demands too big a piece of the pie will just be routed around and starved off the network.
Steve
The loose confederation where the company is a single node in the net (as Steve Cooper described it) is like a Keiretsu. The problem is that the network ossifies and becomes rigid, because the players become overly dependent on the relationships in the network.
“Tom Peters has written about a future scenario where multi-billion dollar corporations are successfully run with only seven employees.”
sounds like Charles Handy’s “shamrock organisation” to me…
Linky thinking … it’s more than anything a mindset, an attitude, and a way of working based on understandings and agreements.
… rather than instructions or top=down imposed objectives.
A little off-topic, but something I just wanted to ask. I followed the link to Tom Peters blog/site. It seems that Tom Peters doesn’t actually post anything there. I’m relatively new to reading blogs, so if I’m missing something, let me know. I just thought it was kind of weird that he would have 3 or 4 other people posting, but he himself is absent.
Stephen,
Tom Peters dot com is a group blog, and Tom does make the occasional post. I think it’s only confusing when thinking about Tom Peters as a man, when like Ralph Lauren (and many many others), Tom Peters is also a brand.
Thanks, David. That makes sense I guess.