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    2007-03-23

    Numenta

    http://www.numenta.com/

    AI back to fundamentals. Not skills about divide and conquer.

    I don't expect business success of Numenta but it would be a good experiment. People begin to realize intelligence is not compression but injection in digital form of our incompressible real world.

    Yet much to explore, however, that makes a funny topic.

    2007-03-22

    Cash Curve

    Reading "Payback" by James P. Andrew and Harold L. Sirkin.

    The pivotal idea in the book is cash curve. A powerful visual tool to help you get a clue where your innovation possibly would go. The methodology looks like some business art at first look.

    If that's really the case, it's just beautiful yet useless.

    Something is universally true is also something universally useless. Throughout the book, it struggles between a philosophy and a statistic. If a philosophy, it would retain beauty but lose practical meaning; if a statistic, it would become ugly and make reader confused.

    Simplicity is beauty. But it has to go through the reverse process to become something useful. For cash curve, it does bring fresh air. But only guys knowing how to breathe well would stand out.

    Visualize your idea

    "A picture is worth one thousand words."

    This famous saying tells a fact yet make no explanation.

    The actual philosophy behind it is the human instinct. It's no doubt in the long evolution history, we have developed strong natural feelings. Among all, vision is supposed to be the strongest. Even today, the ability to extract information from a scene remains a mystery and beauty.

    To visualize is to utilize our strongest weapon. Even an outsider, could find thousands of clues in a picture. So the hurdle has been given back to the author.

    Yes, the questions could be stupid after interpretation. But posterior stupid. The questions could be limited. But new territories are opened up as well.

    WYSWYG, as long as we are still the human being as today, remains true.

    2007-03-21

    Apple is back

    The Apple TV finally comes into play as the catalyst as I predicted. But I have turned to Hangseng. Need to take a break from the January Judgment Day.

    2007-03-16

    A Perspective

    "Strategic and Natural Competition" by Bruce D. Henderson. Available at:
    http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Eng231-StrategicandNatur.pdf

    This is a fabulous article because every piece of word is incompressible. No nonsense words, no emotional judgments, no simple restatement of facts. Only necessary facts, right way to interpret and far-reaching insights.

    Henderson has authored some great perspectives which, obviously, have gone through "relentless self-editing". However, other perspectives are shy of excellence.

    2007-03-11

    An excerpt from "Tearing down the walls"

    Said to be part of one of Sandy Weill's presentation:

    Six keys to success:

    1) Employee ownership
    2) Quality balance sheet
    3) Recurring and predictable earnings
    4) Diverse products and distribution
    5) Leader in every business
    6) Powerful brand

    1 is usually implemented by employee's stock or option ownerships. 2 is mostly represented by Weill's cost cutting skills. 3 means low risky businesses. 4 includes cross-selling and other strategies. 5 is done by super-demanding evaluation criteria on employees. 6 is certainly achieved if all previous are accomplished.

    Corporate Culture

    Corporate culture is nonsense, only meaningful to media or so-called researchers in this topic. Anyone wouldn't get reformed by simply getting contact with some corporate culture. He/she would grow slowly or fast, but in both cases, only by empirical working experiences.

    Any concept is some kind of summary. It sure has reason for its existence. However, as the origin where the corporate culture rises, it would be absolutely ridiculous for a company to take that concept as some cure-all.

    2007-03-07

    Murphy's Irish Stout

    Less bitter than Guinness and less creamy than ale. Maybe not served at best temperature.

    Two books

    Recently read two books about Sandy Weill and Citigroup.

    "Tearing down the walls" - A well written story by a WSJ writer. The characters are vivid. However, many things are overemphasized. Sandy Weill seems to be the only one under the spotlight in this book.

    "King of capital" - With more finance logic and more objectiveness, but less readability.

    The two should be good companions with Graham's "The Intelligent Investor".

    2007-03-02

    Time to be a cowboy

    The future is uncertain now and rumors are everywhere. It would be a good time to practice your timing skills. Be a cowboy and enjoy the bull riding.

    China's Private Equity Mkt

    Time to read "The Intelligent Investor" instead of "Jim Cramer's Real Money". Both are outstanding books due to the authors' deep understandings about stock markets, just different focuses.

    Resources related industries like real estate are just first step in reform. Private equity market would be the next and also a signal of a more mature market. It's something which can fundamentally change the structure.

    Of course, current uncertain and unregulated China's private equity market would see more bystanders instead of explorers. Some forerunners' wrongdoings only deepen people's misunderstanding on this change. But there is going be the first and that day isn't far away. No need in a rush but stay in the game.