Project Failures

The numbers tell you how your business is going, not why........ Jonathan P. Siegel

Wanda Holbrook was a maintenance technician, she was trapped by robotic machinery and killed.

Wanda Holbrook’s job was to inspect and adjust the process on the assembly line at Ventra, which makes bumpers and trailer hitches

The robot loaded hardware onto Holbrook’s head and crushed her skull

The lawsuit says “The robot from section 130 should have never entered section 140, and should never have attempted to load a hitch assembly".

Holbrook family says "the robots were not properly designed, manufactured or tested and hence, unfit for use.”
The case is currently awaiting trial.

Project failure is rampant across all sectors, industries and fields:

• PricewaterhouseCoopers reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries and across various industries, and found that only 2.5% successfully completed 100% of their projects.
• McKinsey & Company studied over 5000 projects and found that 56% delivered less value than expected, 45% were over budget, and 17% unfolded so badly that they threatened the company’s very survival.

Business innovation, growth and profitability is directly dependent on completion of successful projects.
Avoid these five common causes of project failures:
Lack of Visibility
Lack of Communication
Lack of Technology
Lack of Resource Management
Lack of Project Culture

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom but to set a limit to infinite error.......... Bertolt Brech

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Investing in Digital Currencies

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought .... John F. Kennedy

 
A new decentralized global financial system is possible with cryptocurrencies by removing layers of intermediation.
Every major financial institution in the world is doing blockchain research at the moment and 15% of banks are expected to be using blockchain in 2017.

Blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list of ordered records, called “blocks.”
The first major blockchain innovation was bitcoin, a digital currency experiment in 2007 .
The market cap of bitcoin now hovers between $10–$20 billion dollars, and is used by millions of people for payments.
Blockchain has remained resilient to attack and it supports a robust payment system.

Cosider just 10 years of work by an elite group of computer scientists, cryptographers and mathematicians:

• A higher degree of reliability than the current system
• International currency transfers will go from days to a few minutes
• Auctions can now be universal and global
• A scaled blockchain is expected to be fast enough to power the internet of things
• Go head-to-head with the major payment middlemen (VISA and SWIFT) of the banking world.

With these suddden changes to existing business models and e-commerce, blockchain will disrupt the financial system much
like what the internet did to media and adevertising. Such a fundamental restructuring of a core part of the economy is a big challenge to all.
Preparing for these changes means investing and experimentation.
Those who do so will be well placed to thrive in the new, emerging financial system.

While Investing in Digital Currencies, Reflect on these three Propositons:
 1. Globalization is a major driver of growth and prosperity
 2. Technological progress enriches our lives
 3. Shareholder returns reflect businesses contributions to society

Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them.... Francis Bacon

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Tax the Robots

"There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better."-------Elon Musk

23% of routine jobs have largely been replaced by robotics and automation,
robotic production lines like Tesla’s will continue to eat away at manufacturing jobs.

This is just the beginning of the disruption;

There are now more robots on the internet searching for news an updates than humans

Robots are now taking over a range of jobs from security to checkout clerks.

At one restaurant in China, you can order a bowl of noodles made entirely by robots.

Japanese life insurer Fukoku Mutual replaced 34 insurance claim workers with IBM Watson Explorer software

Self-driving cars and drones will be able to pay for services (charging pods) with block chain 

There are just a lot of things that machines can do better than human beings;Jobs like teacher, doctor,
financial advisor, stockbroker, marketer, and business consultant.

Doctors and Consultants will never be able to keep up with every new publication in their areas of expertise.  Instead, they must rely on a small number of personal experiences rather than the complete knowledge in their field.

Humans can’t just plug in more servers when we reach our limits of processing new information

Many skilled jobs follow the same general workflow that robots perform better:
Gather data
Analyze the data
Interpret the results
Determine a recommended course of action
Implement the course of action

There is a social cost:
The avarage human with an income of $45,000.00 will pay income tax, pay social security tax, pay for services at the grocery store, restaurants, school, clinics, banks and run a family.

With the jobs gone, the entire social fabric is at risk.

Casting the blame of job losses on migration and globalisation is for small minds. These families are barely making enough to survive.

Plugin and Tax the Robots.

A powerful idea communicates some of its power to the man who contradicts it........... Marcel Prous

Unconventional Business Thinking

 The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.
We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.... —Albert Einstein

Everything you want, and everything you need is somewhere in the world around you. And it’s closer
than you think. All you have to do is develop the ability to sense it, feel it, see it, and hear it.
But first, you have to believe it. Belief gives birth to passion. Passion gives birth to action.

If you’re shooting at Eagles, don’t focus on where the Eagle is now. Focus on where it is going to be.

Great entrepreneurs and innovators resist “success as usual” syndrome, They try to keep the big picture in mind and are wary of being too efficient and too optimized. This perspective helps them promote unconventional ways of thinking, solving problems, and challenging the status quo.

They know the goal is not to chase a fixed horizon but to understand when and how the horizon moves as they approach it.

For example, if you bet one dollar that the coin will fall on heads, your odds of winning are 50/50.
But if we happen to win 6 times in a row on head, we subconsciously believe that the odds of the coin landing on heads the seventh time are mysteriously in our favor. But they are not. The odds of the coin landing on heads are still only 50/50.

But most of us would optimise and bet all our dollars on the 7th flip; that’s when we lose it all.
We have rationally defined the odds; Our perception of the risk has become skewed by our most recent string of success.

Every time you define something, you subtract from it.......Herb kelleher

Each time you start a new business the odds are againts you, no matter your past success, the odds are still againts you, the odds does not change.

Step forward with instinct and caution each time.

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Becoming an Entrepreneur

Learn the business skills and startup mindset you need to excel.

Becoming an entrepreneur involves more than just starting a business — it’s about solving real problems, taking calculated risks, and building something valuable. 

Here's a clear, step-by-step guide to help you get started:

1. Understand What Entrepreneurship Is

• It's not just about making money — it's about identifying a problem, creating a solution, and delivering it in a sustainable way.
• Entrepreneurs take ownership, deal with uncertainty, and often wear many hats in the beginning.

 2. Identify a Problem or Opportunity

Start by asking:

• What frustrates people?
• What needs aren't being met?
• What could be done better?

Example: Uber started because of the frustration of not being able to get a taxi easily.

3. Validate Your Idea

• Don’t build a full business before confirming there's demand.
• Talk to potential customers.
• Create a simple prototype or landing page.
• Offer a service manually before building tech.

Tip: Read about the Lean Startup methodology.

4. Learn Basic Business Skills
At a minimum, you should understand:

• Sales
• Marketing
• Financial literacy (profit, loss, cash flow)
• Negotiation
• Time management

Success Tips

• Education (formal or informal) in business basics can be helpful but is not mandatory.
• Start small and test urgency and market demand for your idea.
• Prepare financially to cover personal and startup costs for several months.
• Use research and feedback to refine your business model and marketing

Becoming an entrepreneur involves a mindset shift towards problem-solving, identifying specific 

problems or opportunities, validating ideas with potential customers, and taking concrete 

steps like business planning, launching, and managing a business. Success often requires 

resilience, learning from failure, building a strong network, and possibly finding mentors.

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Economics of New Economy

A courageous leap is the most valuable coin of a creative thinker................Emmanuel sodipo

Imagine you’re about to leave the house to pick up your kids. As you grab your keys, a device from your coffee table interupts:
“It looks like you’ll use the last of your milk tomorrow, and yogurt is on sale for $1.29. Would you like to pick up an order from Shoprite, for a total of $4.95 before it closes for the xmas break?” You say yes. Alexa confirms; The order will be ready for delivery in 20 minutes.

The next generation of smart assistants and connected devices will learn from user habits and pick up on behavioral and environmental patterns in order to make these experiences more predictive. Devices like the Echo will access data from everyday interactions to predict specific opportunities for a transaction.

The future of predictive retail requires designing new ecosystems for commerce. These systems will be built around the human, rather than around a particular device or around online/offline experience. These systems will need to incorporate human connection, spatial design and lots of data.
Companies everywhere are making investments to build their digital businesses.

Decisions about digital platforms can make the difference between high growth and high margins or limited growth with declining margins. Unlike other technology and business investments, the digital business gets to the core economics of the company: revenue, growth, and margins.

The right digital business investments are of paramount interest to the CEO and critical to its long-term agility and margins. While questions about revenue, viral growth, and privacy receive attention, it is the agility and margins that ultimately determine the success of most digital businesses.

However; the Economist and the CEO differ in Approach:

Digital economics is set to upset markets trends and change everything. But economists don’t buy into the hype largely because the old economics lens remained useful for looking at the changes taking place.

The economics of the “New Economy” could be described at a high level;
Most human activities can be described by five high-level components: data, prediction, judgment, action, and outcomes.

For example, a visit to the doctor in response to pain leads to:
1) x-rays, blood tests, monitoring (data)
2) diagnosis of the problem, such as “if we administer treatment A, then we predict outcome X,
but if we administer treatment B, then we predict outcome Y” (prediction),
3) weighing options: “given your age, lifestyle, and family status, I think you might be best with treatment A; how you feel about the risks and side effects” (judgment)
4) administering treatment A (action)
5) full recovery with minor side effects (outcome).

As machine intelligence improves, the value of human prediction skills will decrease.

Machine prediction will provide a cheaper and better substitute for human prediction, just as machines did for arithmetic.

However, human judgment skills will increase as it complements prediction.

I believe the CEO and Economist prediction requires some human judgement.

Have a Perfect Holiday 

Redefining Work

The rate of unemployment is 100% if it’s you who is unemployed................ David L. Kurtz

Joshua Brown, a 40-year-old entrepreneur and technology enthusiast from Canton, Ohio, was cruising  his Tesla Model S sedan at 74 miles per hour in self-driving Autopilot mode when suddenly a tractor-trailer turned across his path. The Tesla failed to register the white tractor-trailer and
Mr. Brown didn’t engage the brakes in time. He died.

That was a brief snapshot of when machine intelligence fails us. But how does this affect work?
Autopilot and machine intelligence is when machines learn by experience and improve their performance over time through the entire production lifecycle.

Researchers are trying to predict its impact on jobs.
- Optimists suggest that intelligent machines will free human workers to do more
“creative” tasks
- Pessimists predict huge levels
of unemployment, as nearly half of existing jobs appear prone to automation. Hence, extinction
.
This view, in effect, calls for a re-examination of what a “job” actually is:
-How it is structured?
-How it should be reconfigured?
-How should companies rethink the value of a job, in terms of increased performance?
-What set of skills should companies invest in?
-Which jobs should remain within the company or outsourced?

This view further challenges modern culture of capitalism; how to generate a sustainable economic growth that is built on high-value well-paying jobs which is at the core of entrepreneurial societies.

Lets look at an interesting viewpoint from Martin Sorrell (CEO WPP):
"I’m actually somewhat suspicious when people use the C word—“culture”—because it’s often used by people who don’t want to do what we want them to. That said, several things have radically changed organizational culture. One is technology. Digital is now 40% of WPP’s business; data is 25%. Then there’s the fact that we operate in 113 countries. It’s impossible to run the company from the center; you have to have local sensitivity. Lastly, we now need to be purpose-driven, to appeal more to customers, to clients, and to our own talent".

With this redefinition of work, the male specie is the most endangered; for generations, he took pride in adapting to physical nature ofwork to care for his family, he now has no physical advantage over the female specie. Perhaps, it played out well for him in the recent US election with a Trump win, but for how much longer?

My mania for analysis exhaust me, excites her but educates us........Emmanuel Sodipo

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