践墨随敌 (Jian Mo Sui Di) essentially means one must do proper planning, do them ahead of time, but once the plan is done, it is important to be flexible and change the plan when the environment or the assumptions of the plan change.

It is easily said then done. Most likely than not, we don't plan early enough for changes. Worse, we don't plan at all. For things that we do so often, we take for granted and don't plan anymore.

Sun Zi has the wisdom two thousand years ago to put emphasis on planning but yet understand the importance of NOT following the plan stubbornly.

The Chinese word 践 means execute。 Came from the phrase 实践。 墨 literally means ink. But this word came from the phrase 绳墨 (Sheng Mo)， which is the string that ancient Chinese carpenters used to measure and trace the straight line to saw on the wood. So the word "Mo" means planning, ie planning where to saw. 随敌 means following the enemy, as in adapting the plan with the changes in the enemy or changes in the competitive environment.

“Core competence, as it is used by many managers, is a dangerously inward-looking notion.  Competitiveness is far more about doing what customers value than doing what you think you’re good at. And staying competitive as the basis of competition shifts necessarily requires a willingness and ability to learn new things rather than clinging hopefully to the sources of past glory.”  -  The Innovator’s Solution,  Clayton Christensen.

I find this concept very useful – Competitiveness is an outward-looking concept that is defined by the value others place on what we do rather than what we think we are good at doing.    The same concept applies to individuals as it does to companies.

The other important concept to note is that competitiveness changes over time.    As the market shifts and as society changes,  the value perceived by others on what we do changes as well.

As Professor Christensen rightly pointed out, many people hold on to a dangerously inward-looking understanding of competitiveness.    Some people have worked all their lives in pretty much the same job, in the same company and in the same industry.   Naturally,  they become very good, probably the best at what they do,  but what they do not realize is that their competitive advantage could be so tied to a specific environment that once they are out of that environment,  their competitiveness disappears.    On the other hand,  the environment around them may also be changing rapidly in a way that will make what they are good at obsolete.

As Professor Christensen pointed out,   successful companies often follow a path that is an extension of their past successes,  but this path could lead to a disastrous end if the market shifts.    Typically, the more successful a company is,  the more insensitive to market shifts they become.     They even deride those who suggest that their competitive advantages might be challenged.      When these companies eventually realize that their competitiveness is eroded by disruptive technologies,  it often is too late.   By then,   some of these incumbents might have been made completely irrelevant by the new technologies.

Likewise,  individuals are the same.   The more successful we were in the past,  the more likely we will focus on doing whatever that made us successful.      The danger is that sometimes,  by doing so,  we stop learning new skills,   we brush off trends that seem alien to us,  and continue to develop a fall sense of security.

We continuously adapt our skills and mindset to the environment we operate in.  The more we adapt,  the more successful we become.  The more successful we become,  the more comfortable we are with the environment.   That is what we call comfort zone.   Once we are stuck in our comfort zone, it is very hard to get out.

I have seen some senior executives who have pretty much work in the same company, in the same industry for all their lives.    They know their organization, the people,  the process,  and the culture so well that whatever that is a hindrance to an equally capable new comer turns out to be an unfair advantage for them.    This unfair advantage over others consequently make them more successful than they would otherwise be.    It gives them a sense of achievement,  but at the same time,  make them more dependent on the environment for continued success.     Therefore,   the longer these executives stay in their comfort zone,  the more painful it will be when they finally decide to or are forced out of it.

Hence, it is imperative that we continually analyze our ‘real’ competitiveness.   Are we competitive because of specific environment or are our skills and experience really portable?    What trends are there that might make our skills and experience obsolete?      Always ask ourselves,  if we are retrenched tomorrow,  which other companies will value our experience?   If your answers are mostly your competitors,  then that’s still rather dangerous as well because your entire industry can be destroyed by disruptive technologies.

People whose jobs are very tied to specific processes that are unique to a company is vulnerable by nature.  For example,  people who process paper work or manage a unique internal process all day long will find their experience not very transferable outside their companies.   Don’t think that this only applies to a low-level employee.     Even a company’s vice president who are so accustomed to one way of doing things because that’s how he has been doing it for twenty years in the same industry,   will realize that once outside this industry,  his experience and what he thought is his competitive advantage may turn out to be his liabilities.

The only way to avoid this trap,   an individual must continuously do an honest accessment of his value relative to the ever changing market.    It is always useful to look at what people outside his company and his industries are doing.   Read diligently about trends that potentially are going to change the dynamics of his industry.    But the most important is to be paranoid.   If things don’t turn out as what you think,  it’s always better to be on the side of being paranoid than being over-confident.

Often, in personal life or in our career,  we tend to focus on the immediate issues.   We fire fight.   We give excuses about not having the time to look at the bigger picture.  We tell ourselves when there is no short term, there is no long term as if that is the perfect reason for not lifting our heads up to see what’s really going on around us.

As the economy goes through tough time,  the most common response is to hunker down.    The argument is when going is tough,  there is no time to talk about strategy.   Those are fluffy stuff.  Let’s hunker down and focus on doing what we are good at.    Be focus on execution.   Cut cost.   Stop doing anything that does not bring immediate benefits.    That’s what an average company will do.   It is natural but that is not necessarily the right option.

A great company will actually do the exact opposite.  It will take this opportunity to re-prioritize and focus on the big picture.   It will invest more,  instead of less,  to shape its destiny.   When everyone else is hunkering down,  the cost of acquiring market share,  the cost of hiring talents,  the cost of moving into strategic positions will be less.   It’s unintuitive, but that’s exactly what great companies do.

Listen to what Craig Barrett,  Intel’s Chairman,  said in a recent interview : “You can’t save your way out of a recession, you have to invest your way out, and so we’ve always kept a rainy day plan to accommodate that.”    One might think only a company as rich as Intel can do this.   In my view,  the opposite logic is true – it is because Intel relentlessly focuses on where the puck is going to,  they continue to dominate one segment after another.    Great companies do not become great because of what they are doing today but more so because of the vision they adopted and the strategies they invested in years ago.   Great execution is a given.  You have to have it but if you didn’t invest in the right strategies,  great execution will make a company good but not great.

Another example is Facebook.  Facebook continues to invest despite the economic slowdown to acquire new customers.   It is very apparent from the chart above that since late last year when the sub-prime issue surfaced,  Facebook’s customer base has continued to rise.   It overtook MySpace to be the number 1 social networking site early this year.

Likewise,  for an individual,  now is not the time to hunker down.   Yes, it is prudent to delay buying the new BMW.  However,  now is time that we look at the big picture, re-think, re-prioritize and invest in our future.   Now is the time that we invest in the course that we procrastinated for so long.     Now is the time that we invest resources to build up our network beyond our immediate work environment.    Now is the time to figure out where is the puck really going to.

It is more important now then ever to focus on what is to come in the next 10 years.   Which industries will prosper ?  What will the workforce look like?    What kind of skills will be highly sort after?   As a professional, as an investor,  as a parent,  these are important questions to ask.   It is not the time to hunker down.  Instead,  it is the time to get up and do something about your future.

Recently I read a book on this topic.  It’s called “The Extreme Future”.   An interesting,  entertaining and thought provoking book.   You might not agree with everything the author says and might even brush off some of the predictions as pure speculation.   However,  I find the trends to be plausible.   The most important things that this book prompted me to ask myself are :  What if some of the predictions come true? Am I future-ready?   Are my children future-ready?

Well… in my view…. we won’t know for sure what the future will be like,  but as long as we don’t habituate in our comfort zone and be paranoid when times are good and don’t hunker down when times are bad,  we will always be more prepared,  be it rain or shine.

When I first joined Intel back in 1991, I remember the first meeting with my hiring boss.

He said to me, “Let me tell you something important -  the company doesn’t owe you a job.  You owe yourself  “employ-ability”.    Every year,  your performance will be reset to zero and you have to prove your worth in order to continue to work in this company.   What this company is great at, however,  is that it will support you in many ways to increase your career value, but you must take the ownership to define what you want and take pro-active steps to enhance your skills and experience.”

Not exactly what you would expect from a boss on your first day of work, but as it turns out,  this is the best career advice I have ever had.    As I progressed in my career,  the more I appreciate why a company that pushes you to the limit and always keep you paranoid is a better environment career-wise than one that always give you the warm and fuzzy feeling about how great you are and let you habituate into a comfort zone.    I have come across real cases where people were shocked when they were laid off because they thought their jobs were safe.     They worked hard and their companies often reminded them that they were in the best companies in the best industries at just the right time.    They thought the company will take care of them….    Does this sound familiar ?

Many people who have progressed high up in the career ladder,  tend to forget that career-value is like seafood – it gets stale over time unless you do something to freshen it up.    The great majority of people, especially the successful ones,  often think that whatever that brought them success will continue to carry them higher in the future.   This is very dangerous.    As technology changes,  as society changes,  as the workforce changes,  things that made us successful in the past maybe the very same thing that will bring us down.

Just look around -  how many marketers continue to do nothing more than beautifying presentation slides, how many sales people are essentially order takers,  how many engineers are one-trick pony and how many senior managers are nothing more than merely a executioner of instructions from the top.     The reality is more opportunities are available to talents today but at the same time there are much more competition.  During the 80s when I graduated from university,  we only need to have a good degree from a reasonable university and get into a growth industry (at that time IT was the industry to be),  you would be set for life.   Those were the years when the Asian economies have just started to boom.   Every year people expected salary increase and every few years, there will be a promotion.

However, today the world is very different.  Technologies obsolete skills and experience faster and faster.   Networks and experience that you built become less useful when the market changes.   There are millions of new graduates from China and India every year,  who are as smart as you,  willing to work longer hours,  willing to relocate and don’t mind less than a quarter of your pay.    During an economic down turn,  companies will be force to re-think,  re-organize, and re-prioritize.   No jobs are safe.    Even CEOs might get the pink slip.   When companies go on diet,  they will cut the fats.   Are you part of the fats?

I think the more important question is,  has your employ-ability kept up with times ?    When was the last time you learn a new skill?   When was the last time you established a network of contacts beyond your current work ?   When was the last time you even learned how to do things differently in your existing role ?

Well…. my advice and also a reminder to myself  -  everything resets to zero every year.   No one owes anyone a job.   We owe ourselves our own career value.    I have to thank my ex-boss for ingraining this concept so deeply in my mind.

Recently,  Mozilla  launched Geode,  a plug-in for the Firefox browser that allows you to be located as long as you are online.   It’s pretty cool.   It brings us one step closer to the vision of location based service.

Geode Logo

I tried out the Food Finder demo which will find available restaurants or cafe around you.   It actually works.

In the future,  with the adoption of mobile internet devices and WiMAX,  people will be connected to the internet all the time, just like how people are always connected to the mobile phone network today.    Location based technologies will allow people to receive services in ways that were not possible before, and companies who can figure out how to leverage on this technology will increase their competitive advantage over competitors.

It is also important for the sales and marketing professionals to get familiar with this technology because this technology will add to their arsenal of tools as well as change how they will reach their potential customers.

Obviously, this will raise privacy concerns.    There are steps taken to ensure that consumers do not get constant SPAMs due to this technology.   Consumers must opt-in to receive messages or services rather than being inundated by unsolicited messages.

Kudos to Mozilla for bringing this technology to Firefox !

When Intel introduced the Atom processor and the concept of netbook and nettop,  many people in the industry was skeptical.   I remember watching Sean Maloney, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Intel with Jonney Shi,  CEO of Asus Tech showing off the first netbook prototype on stage in IDF Taiwan 2007 more than a year ago.   At that time, many people thought of netbook as a toy.   No one, including Intel themselves, expected the take off rate one year later.

The biggest fear in the industry today is whether netbooks will cannabalize mainstream notebooks.   Intel positioned netbook pretty ideally – it is supposed to be for those who only do simple things with their PC, like surfing web and writing emails.    It is also a good second PC for those who frequently travel.

The problem is for the past three decades,  leaders in the PC industry has successfully trained end users to look for faster CPU, bigger hard disk,  better graphics,  bigger screen size, etc. when they buy a PC.   The reality is PCs have over shot the true demand of many users for a long time.   However,  the industry kept pumping out better specs in order to keep the selling price from falling too fast.   Netbook broke that paradigm.

Intel is right in saying that those who need to do simple things don’t really need that sophisticated a PC.   However, it is also true that most users belong in this category.   In reality,  an average user doesn’t really need a powerful CPU nor a big HDD nor a high resolution graphics card.    Netbook actually is a great value proposition for a lot of people.

I bought myself a notebook some months ago just to test it out.   I was pleasantly surprised that even as a power user,  I can do most of my daily work with it and even watch youtube.  The only problem is the 8.9″ screen is too small, but normally I connect it to my 22″ LCD when I’m at home.  So there’s very little difference between that and my full featured notebook unless I need to do more heavy duty stuff.      This is truly a classical example of innovator’s dilemma.

The nightmare for all the PC component makers will start when enough users realize the power of netbook is good enough for them and they start to expect notebook to be priced at the $300 – $500 range.   This will pull down the price range for the entire notebook segment.    A Centrino CPU costs around $80 to $100.  Now, the Atom costs $25 or less.   Motherboards,  LCDs,  and O/S for netbook all came down in price signicantly and hence OEMs as well as users are expecting other components like HDD to follow.

On the average, HDD for the notebook PCs costs around $45.   That $45 used to be a much smaller percentage of a notebook PC BOM cost, but now it is the second most costly component next to the LCD.   HDD in a netbook is much more expensive than the CPU,  the motherboard, the graphics,  or the operating system.   This puts signficant pressure on the HDD vendors to provide a low cost product or else they will see their margin erode very quickly.    I can see the HDD vendors race to the bottom in this segment very quickly.   In the meantime,  netbook opens up new requirements for lighter and thinner HDD, both which add cost to the design.

In the longer run,  the netbook trend will favour SSD.   Some in the HDD industry are saying “That’s not true.  More and more netbook models come with HDD instead of SSD”.   Well that’s true ….. for now.   The reason is the cost of SSD is still prohibitive.    In order to fit the budget,  only 4GB to 16GB can be used.    That’s still too small even for moderate PC users.    When 64GB SSD falls to $45 or less, which is similar to an average HDD price for mobile PC, we’ll see PC vendors start to adopt SSD in a much bigger way.

In addition,  the current generation of SSDs are still not delivering the promised benefits.    Therefore, when users see that they are not getting a better experience with SSD but they have to pay a much bigger price for it or have to make do with tiny capacity,  many of them will choose HDD over SSD today.

However, as I mentioned before,  I feel the tipping point for SSD will happen in 2011 or 2012.   That’s when the SSD prices will reach sweet spot and presumably many of the technical issues will be resolved.

If we look at Intel’s forecast :

The market for Atom based mobile device will grow to pretty significant size in 2012.   That’s when the HDD vs SSD battle will really heat up.

Another trend that the HDD vendors must watch out for is the fact that Intel pretty much controls the PC hardware architecture.  It is conceivable that Intel will try to move SSD closer and closer to the CPU overtime.   While HDD is still stuck at the south bridge with most other peripherals,   Intel is championing the Open Nand Flash Interface (ONFI) which can enable SSD to eventually jettison the archaic HDD interface such as SATA and adopt something that delivers much faster performance and interface directly with the CPU, just like DIMM.    When that happens,  HDD will be at a signficant disadvantage compared with SSD.

Therefore,  HDD vendors should feel paranoid about the trend.   They should develop a lower cost HDD as fast as they can,  before SSD reaches its sweet spot pricing.   On the other hand,  they should also spend more effort enabling applications that fill up storage space quickly, such as video.    If HDD vendors continue to focus solely on delivering bigger capacity,  they will find themselves racing each other over the cliff.

As the cliche says it well…. Only the Paranoid Survives !