Nov
21
Tales of the Joseon
Filed Under B2B, Big Data, Blog, data analytics, Education, eLearning, Industry Analysis, internet, mobile content, Publishing, Search, semantic web, Uncategorized, Workflow | Leave a Comment
I have always felt that the further East you travel the more wisdom you encounter, and the prejudice was sharply confirmed earlier this week in a conversation with Dr Myungdae Cho, Director of the Linked Data Centre at the AICT (Advanced Institute for Convergent Technologies) at the Seoul National University. We had met to discuss the state of linked data in our two very different countries. But all of a sudden the conversation soared away over the skyscrapers of modern Seoul and we found ourselves debating some of the fundamentals of human understanding and communication. As well as a computer scientist my interlocutor is a historian, and his project has been interlinking the documentation of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty And which other civilizations can boast a 500 year dynasty? So then, take all of that documentation, and all the scholarly work associated with it, and begin to work on advanced taxonomies, on inference rules and on semantic analysis until an ontological framework begins to emerge. This then becomes the focus for a development which allows scholars to survey the period from a higher hill, with an additional dimension. Then add the art, the images, the objects from the Internet of Things and a platform of study emerges which opens up analytical perspectives which previous scholars simply could never have grasped. Yes, says my companion, it really is easier to view the future when you are looking backwards.
So why, I wonder, has it taken so long to get the Berners Lee vision of semantic analysis, now the linked data movement off the ground. Unsurprisingly, the answer was that timelines are a poor guide to progress in these matters. So we discussed instead the great change points in communication. First the origins of natural language as a descriptive code for communicating shared experiences. Then pictograms, writing and the source of the alphabet, of which Korea can proudly claim it’s Hangruel as a very early example. Then printing, where Korea and China come much earlier than Europe. What do we make of the fact that these elements, each of which represents not just a step forward but also a radical change in the type and style of communication, seem to happen in similar ways in societies with little or no contact with each other? And is what is happening now, supported by the promise of linked data, a further radical forward motion in the type and style of communication comparable to printing or writing? And anyway, he said, we had been inept in explaining the concepts – and even in naming them. Were expressions like “triple stores” readily understandable? Especially when they were “quadruples”, as his often were? And who named RDF? Even calling it the Resource Definition Framework did not help. He thought and spoke about it as the “logical glue” which kept the elements in place. If we had such difficulty in describing things how could we communicate them?
The essential point is perhaps that we do not know, and cannot tell. But every time Samsung produces a voice agent that sends your messages as texts or emails we must begin to wonder. And while some technology in Korea seems to be heading into a cul de sac (the hotel industry pre-occupation with heated toilet seats could be an example) here is a society which, when it already had 300 kph trains (UK please note) concentrated its infrastructure development on 40 mgb wifi nationally. And much of it is free, certainly in every hotel encountered this trip. Another milestone change from my last visit, in 1981!
So I decided to test the thinking of Myungdae Cho on a young student encountered on the fast train to Busan. Did he think we were facing a revolution in human communication? He was 26, had just finished his national military service and was on his way to visit his parents, after months away from home. But while Myungdae Cho looks back to Loughborough as an alma mater, this young man was a product of Illinois at Champlain-Urbana. Yes, he certainly believed in the internet as the place to do business. His plan was to return to Seattle or Portland, where he felt the spirit of Silicon Valley culture now lived, and build his own business. He already had elements of a team and the beginnings of a plan. Now the next struggle was to persuade his cardiac surgeon father that this was a good plan too! Did he think the internet was the frontier? Of course, but it also enabled you to build your own business quickly. This was almost a definition of freedom. And what was the opposite? Going to work for Samsung, having a “career”.
A few conversations mean little in the great sum of things. But I suspect that even if Korea is a less entrepreneurial society than it once was, it remains a place where the big patterns can be appreciated. I think that Myungdae Cho’s faith in the development of knowledge structures is not misplaced, and that however those forces move through global society Korea will be an early adopter and remain an important player. And when he has made his fortune on the West Coast I am certain that my young friend will return to Busan. After all, where else do you get wonderful spas, sandy beaches and kimchi!
Oct
31
Giants in Transformation Contrast
Filed Under B2B, Big Data, Blog, data analytics, eBook, Education, eLearning, Financial services, Industry Analysis, internet, Pearson, Publishing, Reed Elsevier, Search, Thomson, Uncategorized, Workflow | Leave a Comment
There are some major similarities and differences between the giant market players in the information/publishing media sector which are not all about markets and competition. For example, Wolters Kluwer and Reed Elsevier have clearly become portfolio strategists. If rumours in New York a month ago about leaving the law market, and rumours in London about a major entry into credit rating are anything to go by, markets clearly see Reed as a player who now has the scope to restructure the portfolio. But Pearson and Thomson Reuters, both in the $6-9 billion USD range in annual revenues, are not at all like that. The transformation they seek is about global markets and building bigger sectoral presence in order to dominate the workflow of professionals with solutions that become a requirement in markets which are duopolistic at most. Perhaps it is time to catch the flavour of “transformation”.
Pearson and Thomson Reuters, despite the differences in their marketplaces, are thus an important comparison in the Transformation Game. T-R have appointed a Chief Transformation Officer, and when they announced third quarter results this week pointed to 3000 job losses as a first transformational step. Let Jim Smith, CEO of Thomson Reuters have the first word (from his quarterly results press release):
“Our improving track record on execution gives me the confidence to now move even faster in our transformation work,” said Smith. “We will pick up the pace of efforts to simplify and streamline our organization, to shift resources behind the most promising growth opportunities and to use every tool at our disposal to drive value creation for all our stakeholders.”
And then again in a leaked memo to staff (www.jimromanesko.com):
“The answer is to accelerate our evolution into a platform company – one that delivers to customers not just a portfolio of products, but the power of our entire enterprise. We have made progress on that front, but there’s still much to be done. To take the next step, today we set aside funding to further accelerate the transformation of our Financial business and to better align resources to our most promising opportunities.”
Here then is a strategy that remains wedded to the idea of cross-selling and cross-solutioning financial services, law and tax professionals, and then moving outwards to the clients of those professionals. It uses the word “platform” both in a technology and marketing sense, and the word becomes a metaphor that suggests that when all the content and all of the customer knowledge is in one place, T-R can use its skills to quickly generate agile services that fit local needs in a global context. To do this you need to eliminate the turf wars which have been such a feature of these great corporations: in my Thomson years it was easier to partner a complete stranger than share a venture with another Thomson division. Mr Smith has indicated that the politicking must stop, and be replaced by an ethic that is mindful of the overall gain, but changing cultures is one of the toughest elements of transformation, and there are few records of success to use for guidance.
But some things are swinging in Mr Smith’s direction. Sluggish early sales of Eikon are now moving forward and have passed the 100,000 installations mark. Job losses will enable the re-organization of skills and assets needed to permit the transformation, as well as improve margins. The share price has risen by a third in the last year, a welcome sign that markets see what is happening and support it, and the latest results seem to underline that. But problems remain. The platform technology architecture is far from in place, and indeed the historical divisions seem locked on historical technological solutions that have real problems in talking to each other. This is surely a frontline issue for a Chief Transformation Officer.
Over at Pearson, John Fallon, chief executive, said: “In trading terms, 2013 has begun much as we expected. In general, good growth in our digital, services and developing-market businesses continues to offset tough conditions for traditional publishing. Our strategy is to transform Pearson into a single operating company that is sharply focussed on the biggest needs in global education and on measurable learning outcomes. With our restructuring programme on track and the reorganisation of the company under way, we are making significant progress towards that goal.”
In other words, investors are invited to see a picture of a new CEO trying to get a global strategy in place (as against a big US core of 10 years ago, plus some good but small geographically dispersed education assets). Today the balance is much more equal, the US is clearly much less influential in the revenues and margins analysis, and the company i.e. recognized as the sector global market leader. Yet every one still gets worried when college textbook sales are described as “soft”. The share price goes off by 6%, even though Pearson is a company that makes most progress in the second half of its financial year. But this year sets challenging targets if they are to end up within reach of their goal.
The big investor question at Pearson was always “can all this globalization, re-platforming and occupancy of the whole education services and solutions niche, not just the learning content bit, be done without a huge debt burden?” So far, this miracle has happened, and with more non-core assets yet to be sold there is great scope for further acquisition-led growth. And education markets in some sectors outside of US College are picking up, so there is a warm reception to the idea of restructuring the company managerially, reducing duplication and unnecessary cost and getting the right technology in place to re -platform for rapid product development.
Nothing in the managerial changes was a surprise except that technology leadership seems to have been dissipated. Investors expect that when markets give Pearson the signal the tech environment will allow product developers anywhere to have access to the whole corpus of Pearson data/content/knowledge to produce very rapid iterations of innovative services and solutions which can be redeveloped and re-iterated in flight. As with Thomson, the fluent use of the whole data environment, of data analytics and of what we might have called Big Data six months ago becomes crucial to the way in which both players relate to their major customers. Does the Pearson divisional structure allow for this, and does the tech unity and architecture exist to permit it? We do not know yet because markets are not quite warm enough to try out a lot of things, but having been sold the idea of Pearson as a global growth vehicle by John Fallon, there will be an expectation of performance over the next 18 months, and a greater degree of immunity to old sectors like college textbooks giving everyone the shivers.
The important fact that investors must now reluctantly accept is that repeat order, edition-based, price-elastic textbook markets have gone forever, and that Pearson are clearing the decks for what comes next even if no one is always quite sure what that is! But for both companies there is a certainty that it is not just change, but “transformation”. And that the market and technology philosophy around “platform” lies at the heart of it. Markets will of course exercise a great deal of concern at the periphery of these momentous changes. They will want to know what assets are core and what are non-core? John Fallon is obviously fed up with being asked when he is going to sell the FT to Bloomberg/Thomson Reuters, even while the MergerMarket side of the FT Group is being broken out and prepared for sale. Jim Smith and his Chief Transformer will no doubt get the same treatment around Thomson Reuters IP and Science activities. But the future of both players is not decided there and for them this is no longer a portfolio game.
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