Another Microsoft key hire

Posted on January 17, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: In 2007, Walt Disney shot up the ranks in two separate “Most Innovative Companies” lists. On Business Week’s annual list of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies,” Disney zoomed from #43 in 2006, to #8.  Similarly, “The WIRED 40,” WIRED Magazine’s “tenth annual list of the most innovative companies in the world,” saw Disney come from nowhere – not even on the list in 2006 – to rank at #29.  

Analysis: Microsoft again made both lists, including a stellar #5 in Business Week, but rivals Apple and Google held down the top two spots on each list (trading positions).  Not to rest on its laurels, and to gain leverage against such innovative engines, Microsoft today announced it has lured away Disney’s CIO Tony Scott to come to Redmond and bring some of the Mouse’s magic way of supporting innovative spark with a robust and cutting-edge internal IT environment.

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Space Race 2025: Does Manned Exploration Return its Costs?

Posted on January 13, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: According to a Houston Chronicle editorial urging increased funding for NASA, “The NASA budget approved by Congress is just over $17.3 billion. [A]dded funding is needed to shorten a dangerous 5-year gap between the decommissioning of the three aging space shuttles in 2010 and the first scheduled flight of Orion [the next generation U.S. manned spacecraft] in 2015.”

Analysis: NASA and its long-running race with the Russians is on my mind a bit, for two nifty reasons: first, NASA’s Dr. Lisa Porter is joining the intelligence community to lead advanced R&D (see my post last week), and I serendipitously found a stunning collection of vintage Soviet and European science-fiction images, oh-so-retro, and intend to redecorate my walls with them (or would if my wife would let me).

soviet-sci-fi-art-1953.jpgDoes NASA need more money? The answer may depend on whether there actually is the potential of a new space race… and if so, toward what goal, and does the U.S. need to win that race.  This week’s shot across our bow seems to indicate some Russians are eager for a race to Mars. Lev Zelyony, director of Russia’s prestigious Space Research Institute, was quoted as saying “We lost the race to the moon,” but that reaching the red planet by 2025 would bring “scientific and political prestige” and is “technically and economically achievable.”  He added that they have “a head start” in the race, such as it is.

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IARPA’s First Director: Dr. Lisa Porter

Posted on January 9, 2008 by lewisshepherd

Fact: IARPA has a new Director.

Analysis: The well-known DARPA (part of DoD) will now at last have a full-fledged intelligence-community counterpart. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity – prosaically called “IARPA” – was created last year, but has been stepping out slowly because [/opinion on] of lack of leadership [/opinion off], with only “interim” place-holder leaders.  Many of my friends who were recruited or absorbed into IARPA at the beginning, as it swallowed the old Disruptive Technologies Office for example, felt that the new org was spinning its wheels without traction, for lack of a strong and stable hand at the helm.  [Note also this recent post on IARPA.]

Today the Director of National Intelligence named Dr. Lisa Porter as IARPA’s first Director. She’s been at NASA, and before that DARPA itself.  She and I were at Stanford at around the same time, although hanging in different crowds – she working on her doctorate in Applied Physics while I was over doing the real heavy lifting in the hardest of all sciences, Political Science 🙂  

I’ve never met her, unless I don’t recall from old DARPA visits, so I did a tiny bit of surfing to clip a few salient tidbits from her DARPA work.

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Blogs & the Death of Stealth Mode

Posted on November 23, 2007 by lewisshepherd

Fact: “Folks at Path101 are doing a very interesting experiment. They are liveblogging their start up. Everything about the startup is out there, including their to-do list from Monday meetings – with items such as preparing presentations for investors, etc.” (from Toni DasGupta’s BizOrigin, 10/29/2007)

Analysis: Silicon Valley chronicler Michael Malone used to say that the greatest new company in the Valley is the one being formed late tonight by two engineers sitting in a back booth at a Mountain View Denny’s, bouncing ideas off one another with napkin sketches. Today, the napkins would be personal blogs, and the engineers may never have met and may be sitting halfway around the world from each other, working for different companies, but engaged in the same technically promising pursuit.

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VC-like Beauty Contests for Government

Posted on November 13, 2007 by lewisshepherd

Fact: In Mumbai, according to a Wall Street Journal/Hindustan Times Livemint report, “Thirty start-ups have made it to the business plan showcase at TiE-ISB Connect 2007, which closed submissions on 30 September. The annual networking event for entrepreneurs organized by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) along with the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, will be held from 14-16 November. TiE received close to 400 entries this year….”

Analysis: The Bubble Redux has brought with it a resurgence in business-plan competitions, typically with a panel of venture capitalists as judges. Now along comes YouBeTheVC.com, launched by Mark Modzelewski of Bang Ventures in Cambridge, Mass, who says the competition combines “venture capital and ‘American Idol’ with a little bit of wisdom of the crowd thrown in.” And, believe it or not, he’s got Curt Schilling (yes, of the Red Sox) as a judge – along with web-based voters.

That idea may only surface new contenders for Henry Blodget’s “Bonehead VC Pitch of the Month,” but I’m considering starting a new competition, a beauty-contest to find the best business-plan beauty-contests.

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Moving money to the left

Posted on September 19, 2007 by lewisshepherd

Fact: “[Microsoft’s internal] IT organization now spends almost 45% of its budget on new product development, as opposed to maintenance and ongoing support, a notable improvement from 30% in the past.” [source]

Analysis: An increasing challenge for our enterprise IT organization at DIA has been optimizing our performance to the point where we can take money out of operations & maintenance (O&M), and invest it instead in innovation. Why? The intelligence business demands change, reformation, and dramatically improved capabilities. Intelligence isn’t alone; at Gartner’s annual Symposium last December, “driving Innovation” was promoted as an absolute business imperative, and infrastructure consolidation and optimization was billed as a primary enabler to disinvest in tired old-school technology, allowing re-prioritization in innovative approaches.

It all comes down to moving money to the left, earlier in the enterprise IT life-cycle.

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