It's very quiet in the lounge

A few teams have left for dinner. One team is allegedly out buying matching shirts (don't ask). Most of them however are sequestered in their rooms working feverishly. Panic has not set in yet and I'll keep you updated if it does.

Behold India!

Ok, so as an Indian, I just HAVE to say how proud I am that we have 16 Indians participating in this weekend's competition.

Go Desis!

A conversation with Shankar

Asst. Professor Ganesan Shankaranarayanan from the IS department (affectionately known as Shanky to his students) was very kind to give me a few minutes of his busy time to speak on the subject of seamless mobility, always-on connectivity and his take on technology trends.

A little background on Prof. Shankar - along with being one of the most accessible professors on campus, Shankar holds his own in the tech arena. He has a PhD from the University of Arizona and is very active in publishing articles and papers on data management (among others). See his profile to learn more.

According to Prof. S., the over-arching question for today's competition is whether technology drives business or if business drives technology. Many businesses force technology to change and adapt it to their needs and conversely, many businesses have taken the opposite tack with adapting themselves to better use technology to their advantage. In his opinion, the team that does a better job of justifying what drives what will prevail in today's competition.

I asked Prof. Shankar how connected he was given his background, his work and his disposition and he said he wasn't very connected - and I think he likes it that way. Even though he's a techie, he hates technology. Now before you gasp in horror, read on. He hates the kind of technology that is invasive and takes away from the time that he needs to sometimes just be alone to do his work. Having his email ping every 3 seconds is prohibitive to his working process and even though he finds that in this day and age, it is almost impossible to do work without having access to the Internet, on occasion he just wants to be left alone to be able to think. He points out, and quite rightly, that sometimes people stop thinking and start looking for solutions online - has this problem been solved before? Can I find it? Can I download a report on it? Can I use it?

While all this access to information can be useful, there is a certain balance that needs to be maintained by us as consumers of information - what is original thought and what is the remnant of some snippet of information you read online?

In Prof. Shankar's view, the majority of the population wants this dichotomy. There is a sense of existence that evolves by being stayed-connected to the rest of the world. I suggested that unlike in the past where the line between the techies and the non-techies was fairly well defined, today that is not the case. People today are not afraid to go buy themselves the latest mobile phone gadget but they do it mostly for the features it brings rather than the fact that it may be a superior telephony device. One of the consequences of how pervasive technology has become today is that everybody is turning into a closet techie.

When asked whether he thought that the world as a whole is becoming more productive, if we as a community, as a nation, as a race are bringing more to the table, our discussion took an interesting turn - one that I think is vital in trying to understand this shift in the way we do business today. People today can do whatever they want, mostly whenever they want it. On the commuter rail, in airports, on the bus, even during the morning jog, people are getting things done. Crosswords and Sudoku have been replaced with Blackberrys, laptops and Bluetooth. The concept of stepping away from your desk to relax has gone away. With seamless, pervasive connectivity, people are more productive at times when they normally wouldn't be in the past. But is this "extra" productivity taking a toll on us? Are we burning out sooner? Are people not people anymore?

In our (mine and Prof. S's) view, popular media would like us to think so. However, consider this - one of the consequences of seamless mobility is that we know we can work from anywhere at anytime. Our days are longer. 24 hours stretch into 36. We are ok with wasting time during normal business hours because we know this. We are comfortable with it. We (and our bosses) have made our peace with it. So when you see people working when they normally don't, why do we automatically assume that they're getting more done?

One of our topics of discussion extended into the realm of what makes a good technology strategist. Prof. Shankar is of the view that it is not the breadth and depth of our understanding of technology that is to our benefit. The secret lies in being able to out think the technology.

We also spoke about how increased, enhanced and pervasive connectivity increases the onus on producers of content and entertainment to keep media interesting for the consumers. This increased burden has led to the advent of the age of consumer-generated content. I asked Prof. Shankar if he thought that all this increased access to information took the excitement away from the media we consume - if you already knew what the results of tonight's American Idol are going to be, would you still watch it? You could search for websites that will monitor the voting and provide you with statistics that will tell you who is in the bottom two hours before the show airs. Does that take away from the edge-of-seat-ness you experience when you tune into the show? Of course it does. But this doesn't mean that people will consume less entertainment and process more information - it just means that increased connectedness will increase your awareness of what you are consuming. Producers of content (traditional and consumer-generated) now will have to deal with this shift as well. Make entertainment more entertaining. Sort through the noise for us. Make extra efforts to show us that shadow on the lake or the wind in the trees or the actor emoting on screen. The competition is going to get tougher and tighter and in a way, the teams today have to capture the business model associated with that.

Prof. Shankar ended by saying that right now people are still enjoying the noise and the excitement around being connected. It is this blogger's view that this is a wave and we as CTOs, CEOs, teachers, researchers, technologists and students have to figure out the best way to stay on the crest of that wave. There will be some that will lose balance and momentum along the way and drop off but the ones that can stay on top and ride that wave to the shore ready to get back out to catch the next one, will prevail.

Thank you Prof. Shankar for your valuable minutes and your even more valuable insight. Readers, if you would like to join this discussion please feel free to comment on this blog.

Teams still going strong

See Flickr for a few more pictures of teams working away. Most of them are too engrossed with solving the problem to speak to a nosy blogger but hopefully I'll be able to get some more thoughts from them later.

Photots on Flickr

Be sure to check out the pictures of the event updated regularly on Flickr. You can check out the page as often as you like or you can subscribe to the photo feed.

"Show me the money!"

All 11 teams have now been briefed and they're currently taking a tour of the building so they know where the emergency exits are (in case of crazed team members pursuing with sharp objects). The briefing was done by Prof. N. Venkatraman and Dean Chalykoff with Dean Lawson sitting in. The teams were given flash drives that contained white papers, videos and other materials to give them a head start on the research required. Prof. Venkat wrote the case (as he did last year) and spoke to the teams about what the problem was that they were expected to solve.

The case is about the business behind Motorola's vision of seamless mobility. Given Motorola's recent initiative of Goodbye Disconnected - mobility that works on any network, any device, anywhere - today's case is about what initiatives Motorola can take in the media and entertainment space to succeed.

Entertain Me. Across domains. With changing architecture. A global perspective.

In the words of Prof. Venkatraman -

Motorola has launched some very cool new products for which they have won a number of awards. They have no problem asserting their leadership in the product development domain but they need to go beyond products and awards. The company's financial performance needs to impove to demonstrate value to their various constituenties. It's time to go from vision to execution. From cool products to cool experiences. Or from hot products to hot experiences, depending on what you think is cool is hot or hot is cool.

He went on to say that Motorola's new initiative takes them beyond just being your mobile phone. They want to be your television, radio, diary, MP3 player, contacts, camera... everything. The one stop for all your entertainment needs. The case today with its focus on entertainment showcases Motorola's network DVR, the Follow Me television home media solution. Prof. V. spoke about some of the potential competitiors in this field, about Google, Apple and Microsoft and some of their initiatives and with the 'Make Cool Experiences' video from CES defined the problem for today -

What is the best way for Motorola to win in seamless delivery of media and entertainment?

How best to translate the vision of 'cool experiences' to compelling business models?

Show me the money.

The teams have to think 12-24 months into the future and suggest to Motorola how they can go from what they have done so far, in terms of cool products and market leadership, to make money in this space. The teams are allowed to access any information in the public domain but not permitted to access private consulting reports on this problem.

As Prof. V. said, "the problem statement is clear, the answer is not clear", I'm sure the teams will have a very enjoyable time over the next 24 hours to come up with their vision of the future.

An interesting piece of news - all the presentations will be sent to Motorola so I'm sure this is additional incentive for the students to really bring their best to the table.

A picnic lunch has been laid out for the students. Stay tuned for lots of pictures!

Team MotoMing

Team MotoMing is represented this weekend by Matthew Galloway (team captain), Rajesh Rajasekar, Nitin Magoo and Tom Shohfi. I didn't get to speak to them much unfortunately but I did learn that their internal selection process involved the submission of resumes to a committee which consisted of their faculty and the Executive Club and the selections were done mostly based on past experience. For prep work, they analyzed last year's case, did some Motorola research and they feel confident that their experiences with last year's competition (three members are veterans of this game) and a good team with members from varied backgrounds will give them a leg up on this competition.

Stay tuned for more about MotoMing's experience this year!