Nested Is The Word To Describe Our World...

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The SEO makes a better CEO?

This post is part of a series on enterprise longevity and good product architecture. 

At TEDxBoston, Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen said, “The world is, in many ways, organized in a nested system. So we have nations, within those we have industries, within industries we have corporations, within those we have business units, within those we have teams, within the teams we have people, and within the people we have brains.” (TedxTalks, 2012)

To ensure enterprise longevity, we need to recognize that the world we are living in is nested. Almost everything (if not everything) is part of a nested system. The company product must be seen as part of a larger system. Defining the boundaries of the product is crucial, because it determines the exact deliverables of the enterprise. Next is to identify the other objects in the nested system. Emergence is a property of nested systems, where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The product will be dysfunctional if it operates alone. 

Almost certainly, one of the objects in the supporting system will be the operator, who is the intelligent agent. Both the product and supporting systems have boundaries. Everything that crosses these boundaries needs to be coordinated and facilitated by interfaces. More importantly, holistic comprehension of the whole product system lays the foundation for further downstream tasks.

Why do we see more gasoline cars than electric cars? Think of the coordination and interfaces between the boundaries (see below). Which is better? Electric or gasoline?

Nest, Nests, Nested. 

Thanks very much for reading. 

Credit

TedxTalks. (2012, July 17). (TedxBoston, Producer) Retrieved December 9, 2012, from You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvos4nORf_Y

The SEO Makes A Better CEO?

It's been a while since I last posted. The past few months has been super busy, but filled with joy and fulfillment. I'm thankful. 

So who is the SEO and why does he make a better CEO? This post is the start of a series where I will write about the ingredients of enterprise longevity. 

All companies exist because there are jobs to be done. Automotive companies exist because they produce cars that perform the job of transporting people from place to place. Airliners exist because we need them to do the job of providing air travel. As long as companies can continue to do the jobs, and in some cases doing the jobs better than anyone else, they will survive and even prosper. 

Longevity is not simply about maximizing revenues and minimizing costs. Such an approach is extremely shortsighted. The fundamental driving force that keeps companies going is their abilities to fulfill the jobs to be done, or even create the jobs to be done. In essence, all that companies are doing are fulfilling needs. 

Every company exists because of its product that does the job. Good product architecture is key to enterprise longevity. The ingredients of good architecture are Success, Elegance, and Operations. 

I have taken the framework from MIT ESD.34 System Architecture class (Crawley & Cameron, 2012), and expanded it to incorporate the elements of longevity. 

Good architecture and longevity consist of three ingredients. Success requires understanding the world we are living in and stakeholders' needs, well-defined goals, and good concept selection. Product elegance is determined by modularity and simplicity. Operations must be given due consideration. I assert that the CEO/SEO needs to understand the elements of success and operations in order to deliver elegance, and hence enterprise longevity. 

The SEO is the Systems Executive Officer. Does he make a better CEO? 

More to come for this series. 

Thanks very much for reading.

Credit

Crawley, E., & Cameron, B. (2012). ESD.34 System Architecture Class. MIT, ESD.