Stuck in reverse, Detroit?

Last month I watched with delight as General Motors launched their Corvette Stingray, the C7. I find the design really really eye catching and the interior was posh. Ford launched their Atlas concept for their F50 pick up truck to remind America who is the King of Pick-up. It is Ford, GM and Chrysler who gave Detroit their identity as the Motor City.

But the city is slowly dying.

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2013/1/29/business/20130129090149&sec=business#1359500745865331&if_height=493

Detroit's population is shrinking, their tax revenue is shrinking due to business dying. Nothing seems to be going right for them and they are contemplating a bankruptcy case. A city; going bankrupt. Can you imagine that?! Now when i read that there are streets without lamps, I am saddened to think that this city is part of America. Reading the news would help my mind to link these images to a place in Uganda, not America!

Now Mr. Rick Snyder, if you are reading this, let me help you out a bit.

Did you know Michigan is the 14th state in the USA to lead in clean energy? Did you know that the future of cars are in clean tech; be it hydrogen fuels and battery? Did you know that Detroit is Motor City? Can you not link those three questions together?

Can you not have the people of Detroit to install solar panels on their homes to provide free energy to their homes? Any extra electricity generated can be sold to the city to power the street lights!

Ok, you might argue, the people of Detroit may not have the money to buy and install solar panels, so this is not going to work. Mr. Snyder, provide a loan for the people to buy up the solar panels. This way you earn via interest charged on them as well.

You cannot jack up the interest rate, this would exaberate the flee out of the city.
You should selectively reduce them for clean energy technology companies. that would theoratically improve the business for Detroit, which will lead to higher tax revenue.

If you really must, in the short term, you can go for a bankruptcy war to make yourself leaner. But without a proper strategic planning, 10 years down the road you would face the same problem. Why not bear the pain of bankruptcy, make youself leaner, and then set a proper path to improve business conditions there?

Start churning out clean tech engineers so that we can have a talent pool to support green energy in Detroit.
Start laying the groundwork for car manufacturers to flourish with clean tech.
Start ensuring that clean tech companies can set up shop there and support the industry.

New world, new challenges and new opportunities

This was posted in one of the blogs i was reading. I posted it here because i find it very refreshing and relevant in today's world.

HBR Blog Network

The Future of You

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic  |   9:00 AM January 1, 2013

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Economic and technological changes are reshaping the nature of work. Having a great job does not guarantee your career success; your competence no longer depends on what you know; and being an affluent consumer matters less than becoming a sought-after product. Welcome to a new era of work, where your future depends on being a signal in the noisy universe of human capital. In order to achieve this, you will need to master three things: self-branding, entrepreneurship, and hyperconnectivity.

Self-branding is about being a signal in the noise of human capital. The stronger your brand, the stronger that signal. In today's world, self-branding matters more than any other form of talent, not least because the mass market is unable (or unwilling) to distinguish between branding and talent.

We are all individuals, but unless we are also a brand, our individuality will be invisible. Being a brand means showcasing that which makes you special, in a way that is distinctive (recognizable), predictable (consistent), and meaningful (it allows others to understand what you do and why). This is why David Beckham and Lady Gaga are much more successful than their more talented competitors — they understood that being a marketing phenomenon is more important than displaying outstanding soccer skills or musical talent, and focused more on self-branding than their counterparts did.

Successful brands are polarizing (they generate strong reactions) and simple. Strong self-branding means removing all non-essentials from your public reputation or, as Antoine Saint-Exupery put it, "perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Entrepreneurship is about adding value to society by disrupting it and improving the order of things: it is turning the present into the past by creating a better future.

We are all busy, but the only activity that really matters is enterprising activity or entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is the difference between being busy and being a business, and the reason why some are able to stay in business.

Everything that isn't already optimized or automatized depends on people, and every transaction between people is a business transaction. The most important commodity in human capital today is people who can grow a business, that is, work on the business rather than in a business.

Today's war for talent is the war for identifying, developing, and retaining true change-agents. Change-agents are hard to find, hard to manage, and hard to retain. Entrepreneurship is about being a change-agent; change-agents are signals, everyone else is noise. If you are not bringing growth, you are replaceable and recyclable.

Whether you are self-employed or employed by others, whether you work in a big business or own a small business, your career success depends on your ability to offer something new: new solutions for existing problems; new services and products; new ideas; etc. Everything that isn't new is old, and if you are doing old you are stuck in the past. In the age entrepreneurship, the future of you is new, and your value depends on your ability to do things differently. As the great Alan Kay pointed out, "a change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points."

Hyperconnectivity is about being a signal in the sea of data and making and shaping the waves of social knowledge.

We are all online, but what matters is being a relevant connector. Hyperconnectivity is not about being online 24/7; it's about optimizing the online experience for others.

Unless you are a hyperconnector, only Netflix cares about what movies you watch, and only your friends care about where you went for brunch. But when you are a hyperconnector, thousands of people will watch the movies you like and your brunch recommendations will shape reviewers' comments on TripAdvisor. In the era of information overload, being a trustworthy source of information is a rare commodity — it is the digital equivalent of being an intellectual and the latest state in the evolution of marketing.

The world's knowledge is too large to be stored anywhere; Wikipedia and Google aren't enough; the Library of Congress isn't enough. Hyperconnectors point us in the right direction. Anybody can upload a video on YouTube or tweet, but only a few can direct us to the videos or tweets we want to see.

The most important form of knowledge today is knowing where to find stuff. In fact, the ability to find stuff is now almost as important as the ability to create stuff. Hyperconnectors are the creative of the digital era because in the age of information overload, where everybody creates online content, effectively curating content is what really matters.

In short, the future of you depends on your ability to be a brand, a change agent, and a link to useful information. Paying attention to your personality and managing your reputation (how others see you) will turn you into a successful brand; paying attention to your ideas and defying the status quo will help you become a change agent; and bridging the gap between social knowledge and collective interests will turn you into a hyperconnector.

More blog posts by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

More on: Career planning

TOMAS CHAMORRO-PREMUZIC

Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority in personality profiling and psychometric testing. He is a Professor of Business Psychology at University College London (UCL), Visiting Professor at New York University, and has previously taught at the London School of Economics. He is co-founder of metaprofiling.com.