The Integrative Stream

Biomedical Enterprise Program in FT

My graduate program, the MIT Biomedical Enterprise Program, is the focus of an article in the Financial Times today. My friend Rupa (who is also here in New Zealand this month, although working with another firm) gets the lead mention. I haven’t done my autopsy yet. Next year.

The BEP is a young program, so it’s nice to see the profile rising.

Mount Doom

Just a quick update. Spent this weekend down in New Zealand’s central plateau. We did the Tongariro Crossing on Saturday, a 17 km hike through the national park. Or, if you prefer, through Mordor. This was where Peter Jackson filmed most of the Mordor scenes in the Lord of the Rings, and you can see why he picked it. The mountain above is Mt. Ngauruhoe, which, with a little digital fiddling, went into the movies as Mount Doom.

Sunday was a little lighter; we visited the “Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland” in Rotorua. The sulphur springs made it quite possibly the smelliest place on earth.

MBA Pay

MBA Pay is up. My friend John suggests that this may be a sign of the coming business apocalypse. As long as the trend holds for another few years…

Green Eggs and Ham

Uncle-Sam-I-Am. Tunku Varadarajan celebrates the classic children’s book-or primer on open mindedness and entrepreneurialism.

IBM DB2 Promotion

Mark Whitehorn over at Reg Developer just wrote a column asking why IBM’s DB2 is so neglected. It is, after all, the best core database platform out there by almost universal acclamation. And it’s the most popular, too, given how well it handles the utterly massive databases required by a company like, say, UPS.

But DB2 never caught on in the small to medium enterprise, even though Windows and Linux versions have been available for years. It’s not on the radar screen for most developers, who don’t need the massive capacity stretch. Oracle tends to win by default (in the Java world) by having better, or at least more visible, developer tools, and, of course, SQL Server does very well in Microsoft land.

It’s a head scratcher. IBM really should think about the DB2 advertising budget, and maybe start coming up with creative ways to get the database in the hands of smaller developers.

Ndiyo’s Low Cost Labs

I recently came across the web site for Ndiyo. This is very clever stuff. They’ve taken a very simple approach to building low cost computer labs for developing countries (or any cost sensitive group). Little boxes, not much more than a network connection and a monitor port, connect to a central computer running Linux. A $800 computer can provide services to six or seven terminals, running web browsers, office applications, or whatever. Their goal is to get the technology down to a level where the adapter box costs a few tens of dollars – or is built right into the monitor.

The opportunities in education are really interesting. At their current price point, each terminal could cost $250 or less, even with flat panel displays. That’s far and away the cheapest way to equip a classroom. And there are maintenance advantages. By having a single server the maintenance overhead falls dramatically. This is really important in small school districts without a lot of local IT support. Configurations could even be managed centrally for an entire district. No troubleshooting required for individual PCs.

Eight or nine years ago I wanted to get into the network computers for education market. I moved on to other things when the network appliances that Oracle and Sun were pushing turned out to be more expensive and less useful than they needed to be. Commodity computers (for use as servers) are cheap enough now that this model should be revisited. The cost of ownership benefits, along with the initial cost savings, could be considerable. I can’t wait to see how much traction these guys get.

Northland Excursion

Yesterday we rented a Toyota Prius and drove 600 kilometers through the Northland. We took highway 1 from Auckland up to the Bay of Islands and Waitangi, and then highway 12 across to the east coast, where we saw the incredible harbor at Ononoie. The trip would have been over a lot sooner if we’d stopped stopping to take more pictures.

We may have had the only Prius in New Zealand. It wasn’t an intentional rental, but by the time we got to the Avis office it was all that they had left. Given gas prices, it wasn’t a bad car to have, and the utterly bizarre shifting and starting process actually made it easier to adjust to the fact that I was driving on the left hand side of the road, which I hadn’t done in over a year.

At Waitangi we visited the Busby House and the Treaty Grounds, where the treaty between the Maori and the British Government was signed in 1840. There’s a nice little museum in the house, along with a capacious gift shop in the visitor’s center, and a really big canoe. The video they show is informative but comical in its production values and general earnestness. They also advertise a Maori cultural show, which was a little lacking: eight people in a small theater. I first encountered the haka, or Maori war dance, watching a New Zealand All Blacks rugby match on TV in a bar in Southeast Asia. It was suitably impressive and intimidating. In this case, I learned that the haka doesn’t have to be intimidating at all, particularly if the dancers can’t keep a straight face. So we’ll have to do that part again.

On the way up we stopped in Waipu for “pie.” Whatever my life expectancy was yesterday morning, it’s less now.

Blog Content Marketplaces

The Boston Globe has an article about a local startup called gather.com, another entry into the social networking/blog content aggregation marketplace.

My initial problem with the concept: when I went to the site, I couldn’t immediately figure out what it was all about. Some exploration showed good stuff, like podcasts from American Public Media (the producers of Marketplace on NPR, among other things), but it wasn’t immediately evident how the site could be useful to me as an information consumer. Search, quite simply, is easier to manage than browsing a content hierarchy, and if I’m going to search, it will take a lot to pull me away from a classical search engine like Google. After all, if I’m doing research, why would I want to limit myself to just blog content?

There may be something here, and I’m going to look at it in more detail later, but on first brush I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Island Living on Waiheke and Rangitoto

Spent yesterday afternoon and evening on the island of Waiheke, in the Auckland harbor. It’s a substantial little island, with about 7,000 widely scattered inhabitants, a 40 minute catamaran ride from the city center. One of the managers at our client lives out there, commuting in daily, and invited us for a tour and a traditional kiwi barbecue. The barbecue turns out to be just like the American version, except the wine is better and there are some nuances with the sausage. We all had a great time, and took the last ferry back to town a bit after midnight.

One of the highlights was a tour of Stony Batter [sic], a World War II fortification overlooking the Pacific. The fort consists of hundreds of yards of tunnels, dug in two years entirely with pick and shovel. A massive gun emplacement guarded the approach to the island. The complex is almost entirely underground. Approaching it, you walk almost a dirt road for most of a kilometer, with a fenced in cow paddock on your right and a whole herd of sheep, well, right there on the road with you. There’s almost no sign of the fort until you’re right on top of it.

Another high point for me was seeing the Southern Cross; Auckland has enough light polution that I haven’t been able to see the stars. I’ve been in the southern hemisphere before, but circumstances always seem to conspire against my seeing this particular constellation. Waiheke is far enough out that views are unobstructed, and it was a pretty clear night. So that was cool.

Today we took another ferry out to Rangitoto island and climbed to the top of the volcano. It’s about a 75 minute hike, and the grade is pretty easy except at a couple of points. The volcano last blew about 600 years ago, so there are still lava flows everywhere and the caldera is almost perfectly conical. You can see the whole bay from the top, and the city skyline in the distance. Definitely worth doing.

We were originally planning on doing the hike tomorrow, but we switched our plans around at the last minute. When we got to the ferry terminal the boat was still there, but as we were buying the tickets they shoved off. The ticket saleswoman told us no worries, picked up the radio, and the ferry stopped, reversed engines, and came back into the dock, at which point we raced on, to bemused looks from the passengers who had actually gotten their acts together in time to make the first departure. Great customer service.

Quite a few additional photos in my Auckland flickr group, which you can get to by clicking on the picture above.

Complications of the Health Care System

Excellent article on diabetes care in the New York Times today (registration required). Casual inspection shows that the system in the US for care of chronic disease is broken: critical, acute care is far more expensive than preventive care (and preventive care is better for patients), but the public health and insurance systems are biased towards addressing clear symptoms after the fact.

The article gives a nice introduction to both the need for preventive care and the negative incentives in the insurance business. As an insurer, you save money by proactively treating your chronic patients. But by providing better treatment, you attract sicker patients.

In the Treatment of Diabetes, Success Often Does Not Pay – New York Times

Auckland Seafood

So far I haven’t had a bad meal in Auckland. Yesterday we had lunch at the SeaMart Deli near the office, which had some of the best fried calamari I’ve ever tasted, along with some great sushi and an incredible prawn* salad.
*shrimp

Mortar Warning

Far and away the best sign I’ve seen so far on this trip. From outside the New Zealand Naval Museum in Devonport, a suburb of Auckland.

Interdisciplinary MBA Approaches

Do business schools use all their available resources? According to the Financial Times, Sloan does a great job at this. Most other business schools aren’t nearly as proactive.

Among the other factors, I credit our proximity to the rest of the campus, and the lack of any clear “MBA privileges” (like at a certain school across the river which has a very nice cafeteria).

CIO Reporting Redux

Just because I’m in New Zealand doesn’t mean that ordinary issues will fall by the wayside.

A few months ago I wrote about CFOs replacing CIOs. Phil Windley of BYU has some comments on the latest survey here. It looks like the trend has shifted. There was a small increase in the number of CIOs reporting directly to the CEO, and a sharp drop in the number of CIOs reporting into CFOs. In addition, the CIOs reporting to CEOs were far more likely to be involved in strategic management than the ones reporting to the CFO.

I’m not sure if I entirely agree with Windley’s assertion that CFOs aren’t strategy focused. Some are, some aren’t. I’d agree that out of any CxO, the CFO is the least likely to focus on strategy. This may or may not tie in with the trend towards phasing out the COO position. I’ve known CFOs who were, and I’ve known CFOs who weren’t. To be fair, I haven’t known a lot of CFOs.

First Impressions

After a six hour flight from Boston to Los Angeles, a fast scamper around the circumference of LAX, and another twelve hours in the back of a 747, I’ve made it to Auckland. Took a walk after getting to my hotel, subcumbed to a brief nap after lunch, and then went out to find a cybercafe.

So far–and my observations are strictly limited–New Zealand seems to be an appealing cross between the US East Coast and England, with a little bit of California mized in. The cab driver waxed lyrical on the subject of Seattle as he ferried me in from the airport. Bookstores are stocked with both UK and US editions, sushi is plentiful, and everything doesn’t shut down at 5pm. Quite a few of the coffee shops and cafes are open 24 hours.

I’m currently sitting in a basement cybercafe with a nice fast network connection, surrounded mostly by backpackers and other tourists. I tried to find a WiFi connection and failed miserably; after going online here and checking the jwire list, it turns out they’re all over the place – they just don’t advertise. T-Mobile doesn’t have a footprint here, so it’s local providers all the way, and they haven’t figured out the bit about putting a sticker in the window.

Finally, some thoughts on Air New Zealand. Advertising enhanced coach accomodations is a dangerous thing when you haven’t actually rolled them out to all your planes. The 747 I was on had not been updated, and however nice the new fittings may be, the old fittings are the worst I’ve had on a long-haul flight in a very long time. Maybe Cathay Pacific, American and–mirabile volu–Virgin Atlantic have spoiled me with their seatback TV seats in economy class. And the footrest below the seat in front of me kept falling down. The movie was “The Dukes of Hazzard”. And so on.

Although, to be fair, the flight left on time and arrived a few minutes early, with both myself and my luggage. And the little folding headrest on the back of the seat (which never seems to stay in place) actually stayed in place. So that was good. Not really looking forward to the flight home, though, since I probably won’t be able to sleep going east.

Kiwi Month at Integrative Stream

Tomorrow afternoon I leave bleak, cold Cambridge behind for a month. I’m heading down to Auckland, New Zealand, to spend a few weeks consulting for a medical software company on esoteric topics that don’t belong in the blog. Once that’s done, I’m taking a week to explore the south island and visit some family members who relocated to Wellington after getting their MBAs. Given everything I’ve heard about New Zealand, will I end up doing the same thing? Probably not. But it’s going to be a good trip.

I will have net connectivity for at least the first three weeks of the trip, and plan to keep up a regular posting schedule, with some more photoblogging thrown in. The precise travel agenda for the last week isn’t set yet, and I’m taking suggestions.

The new AT&T: (at&t)

Last night, while waiting to check up on Dick Clark’s health, I saw the first new commercial for “at&t”, the brand formerly known as sbc and AT&T. The tagline is “Your World, Delivered”, which is entirely forgettable (I just had to go look it up on their web site). The commercial did a good job of addressing why this matters for consumers: AT&T’s ability to invent new technologies, coupled with sbc’s ability to get them to customers, an ability that the old AT&T clearly lacked. Of course, Bell Labs was the source of AT&T’s reputation for innovation, and Bell Labs was torn off and turned into Lucent years ago, but a reputation for technological savvy has still clung to the death star logo. The new company is right to push the connection.

And yet, this morning, the New York Times arrived on my doorstep in an at&t (writing it that way is actually a little painful, given my slavish adherence to the general rules of punctuation and capitalization) promotional plastic bag, complete with the “Your World, Delivered” slogan. What does that even mean, anyway? If at&t wants to compete in the marketplace, it needs to push this idea of a technically advanced company capable of effective operations, not some fuzzy concept of personal relevance.