Day 1

The discussion of the five cycles of development, and the fact that Doug mentioned that we (current MBAers) are perfectly positioned for the fifth cycle, reminded me of a similar concept from Gladwell's newest book, Outliers: The Story of Success. In this book, Gladwell links success to recent innovations and the birthdate of an individual. For example, the leaders of the computer age, Gates, Ballmer, Allen, Ellison, Schmidt, and Jobs, were all born between 1953 and 1956. The importance here is that they were all about 20 years old when in 1975 the first personal computers were available. At 20 years old, these folks were experienced programers since each had exceptional access to mainframe computers at their high schools or at local universties that allowed the students to build their programing skills. The age of 20 years old also means that neither of these folks had families or "real" responsibilities that would distract them from leveraging their skills maximize the utility of the personal computers that hit the market in 1975. After reading this book, and hearing Doug's thoughts on Day one of class, it is amazing how important demographics are in influencing one's success.

I'm excited about this course and ready to learn about the nuances of how exactly the intersection of business and technology really drive innovation. I am also looking forward to challenging my perception that so many folks look to technology as a silver bullet. I understand the reasoning, but there are so many additional opportunities to positively influence business results.