Predictions

Innovation of Institutional Cultures

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John Hagel is in a small category of thinkers who manage to routinely be thinking ahead of the curve ( he calls his blog, where he features longer but more infrequent posts than is typical, Edge Perspectives). I want to draw attention to the core conclusion of his latest:
Challenging Mindsets: From Reverse Innovation to Innovation Blowback

Innovation blowbackFive years ago, John Seely Brown and I wrote an article for the McKinsey Quarterly entitled “Innovation Blowback: Disruptive Management Practices from Asia.” In that article, we described a series of innovations emerging in Asia that were much more fundamental than isolated product or service innovations. We drew attention to a different form of innovation – institutional innovation. In arenas as diverse as motorcycles, apparel, turbine engines and consumer electronics, we detected a much more disruptive form of innovation.In these very diverse industries, we saw entrepreneurs re-thinking institutional arrangements across very large numbers of enterprises, offering all participants an opportunity to learn faster and innovate more effectively by working together. While Western companies were lured into various forms of financial leverage, these entrepreneurs were developing sophisticated approaches to capability leverage in scalable business networks that could generate not just one product innovation, but an accelerating stream of product and service innovations.

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In Honor of Ray Kurzweil’s Interview in “H+”

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— which is here (h/t Instapundit):

There will be no trucks after the singularity. Plenty of delicious lunches and really great furniture, though.
There will be no trucks after the singularity. Plenty of delicious lunches and really great furniture, though.

Conservative Overconfidence

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Anyone who is unclear on this point should compare the hopefulness of many online conservatives and libertarians with the sobering election odds displayed on Intrade. Republicans may score big gains in the coming election cycles, but they may not. And even if they win big there is no guarantee that they will behave better in office than they did during the Bush years. Meanwhile the Left, having rampaged through the universities and media, is now very deliberately restructuring the federal bureaucracies and writing legislation whose destructive effects won’t be fully apparent for years. You can bet that the inept Loony Left appointees who have garnered public attention are only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of others, less flamboyant but equally committed, are doing their best behind the scenes to entrench themselves in power and make it difficult for their ideological opponents to reverse the changes.

Penumbra Obliterated

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I’ve got a question for any of our readers that happen to be lawyers.

Free access to abortion services appears to be a shibboleth of the Left that they hold particularly dear. That, at least, is the unmistakable conclusion one must draw when considering the actions of the Democrats.

For example, the abortion question was at the forefront of the news all during the Bush administration. Just about every time the President nominated a jurist to fill a vacancy on a court bench, it seems that the Democrats wanted to spend most of their time during the confirmation hearings endlessly grilling the potential judge on their views concerning abortion. If memory serves, it started with Priscilla Owen, who had to wait through four years of wrangling and filibuster before her nomination ever came to a vote! In fact, she would probably still be stuck in confirmation hearing limbo if it wasn’t for the so-called Gang of 14.

There were other issues that got the Dem’s fur up, but it seemed to me that the abortion issue certainly took center stage more often than any other.

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You heard it here first.

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How soon until the news media starts investigating, harassing and ridiculing Police Sergeant James Crowley, and his wife and family?

Obama’s media allies defend him by trying to impose personal misery, and if possible, professional destruction, on anyone who crosses him.

Obama chose to get involved in this, so it is about him now.

Sgt. Crowley and his family are next.

Watch.

UPDATE: While some of the facts are not yet in — statements from other witnesses for example, which I have not seen, though they may be on the Net somewhere — it appears for now that the police officer was doing his job and that Prof. Gates was out of line to the point that he was within the scope of the Massachusetts disorderly conduct statute. I base this on the police report, in large part, as well as the known facts, i.e. that there was a report of an attempted break-in, that there had been break-ins in the neighborhood, that Gates was locked out and trying to get into his own house, that the police arrived to investigate, and (some speculation) that Gates was probably in a foul mood, sensitive to real or imaginary racial slights, and failed to exercise self-control. Do cops lie on police reports? Yes, some do, from time to time. Do cops act abusively, or condescendingly or blusteringly? Of course, we have all seen this from time to time. Do we have any basis to say this officer did anything wrong or inappropriate? Only if you accept what Gates says and discount the police report to zero. I am inclined to see the conflicting stories as at best a wash, with Gates’ story making less sense overall. Were there witnesses to this episode? Yes, apparently there were. Can they confirm or rebut what was in the police report versus what Gates says happened? Maybe. Will this investigation continue? Apparently not formally. Will the news media keep it alive as a controversy? Likely. Will we get more clarity, or only heat and not light? Too soon to say. I am open to contrary facts, but I am not seeing them yet. So far, I see no basis to assume that Sgt. Crowley was (1) racist, (2) stupid, or (3) abusing his authority.

My point is that since Obama inserted himself into this, I predict his allies will rally to him and use all available means to smear and intimidate and harass someone who has found himself adverse to Obama.

UPDATE II: Mr. Gates lives in a city with a black mayor, a state with a black governor and a country with a black President.