An article I wrote - 'Mind Your Language' will be published in the: IEE Engineering Management Magazine. Here is an excerpt, enjoy!

Mind Your Language was a comedy series that used to appear on the BBC channel in the late 1970s. The comedy depicted issues faced by immigrants when attempting to learn the English language. On immigrating to the UK, individuals from different countries (Italy, Japan, China, Pakistan, India, Sweden, Spain, and France) were asked to learn English from a British instructor. The comedy vividly displayed how issues of communication, coordination, and organization got disrupted due to lack of common language, context, and expressions. While some of the plots may have been exaggerated for the sake of humor, most of scenes were realistic of issues faced when individuals who speak different languages attempt to communicate and engage in joint work. In organizations, the concept of language is central to the occurrence of organizing, language is what connects the various entities and enables for the flow of information and knowledge.

Language is what differentiates human species from others in our environment. Language is a medium of signification, i.e. language helps us use signs for expressing thoughts. Today, with the omnipresence of global and multinational corporations, I am always surprised by how little care is taken by senior executives in their use of languages. Most organizations commit blunders when communicating with their constituents who are in foreign locations. One example comes to mind, a senior and seasoned executive in the Middle East was giving a presentation in Chicago, Illinois. The Executive opened up his remarks with, “Good morning gentlemen” and then proceeded into his presentation. He obviously forgot to take a good look at the audience to realize that half of them were ladies. Obviously, he had turned off half of his audience and his message fell on deaf hears. Other common errors that occur when language is not properly accounted for have to do with faulty advertisements. Chevrolet naming its car “Chevy Nova” and trying to sell it in Latin America, where “no va” means “it doesn’t go”. Bacardi attempted to introduce a new fruity drink in the German market called "Pavian" to suggest French chic, however "Pavian" means "baboon" in German. Parker Pens translated the slogan for its ink, “Avoid Embarrassment- Use Quink" into Spanish as "Evite Embarazos-Use Quink" which means "Avoid Pregnancy-Use Quink". In today’s world, where conducting business globally across borders is the norm, we must be cognizant on how we communicate with people from different cultures. Failure to do so will result in poor work practices, project failures, employee hostility, and poor sense of “organizing”.

I read an interesting article - Rethinking the Midmarket, by Aaron Ricadella, in InformationWeek (September 12, 2005, p. 53-58) [Available at InformationWeek], outlines Microsoft’s proposed strategy to target midsize companies. As noted by Ricadella, “Microsoft is making a big strategic shift in its 5- year-old business-applications division toward a simple but so-far elusive idea: Different kinds of workers use computers differently, and software should be designed for an employee's role in the company. After two years of research, Microsoft managers have identified more than 50 everyday job roles at midsize companies they believe will benefit from desktop environments created just for them--everyone from a president or CFO to account managers in a sales department to workers on a manufacturing floor. Receptionists, too, get a unique data view on their PCs…” Workers will benefit from getting access to information they care about, rather than being inundated with all organizational information. Microsoft also plans to simplify its ERP software and make it more accessible to midsize companies. And finally, software may actually be designed to meet the challenges of current work environments. As noted in Ricadella’s article, “To understand the jobs people do at midsize companies, Microsoft's engineers and managers spent two years studying their workdays in excruciating detail, recording their conversations, snapping photos of people at their desks, and generating 15,000 pages of transcripts. The conclusion: Most workers don't like their software, because it forces them to work with business automation and personal-productivity apps that are often incompatible. In other words, today's business software doesn't look like today's business…”

Dissertation Update - I have now completed the data collection and data recording phases of my dissertation. I have also completed the first round of preliminary analysis of the data. Next steps – deeper analysis, write-up, and then defend the research.

In the next few months, I will step away from the Engaged Enterprise. I will join the Information School, of the University of Washington as an assistant professor. I will begin there in December, and will be making the move to Seattle in the next few months.

Innovation! Innovation! Innovation! I am going to be attending the Seattle Innovation Symposium (Sept 13-14), hosted by the University of Washington. The goals of the symposium are (1) to come up ideas of new billion dollar industries, and (2) to find ways to shrink the innovation cycle, i.e. from ideas to market. Here is my two cents on innovation. I split innovation into two phases – the invention and the commercialization. Inventing calls for breaking old ways of thinking. In order to innovate we must be able to question fundamental assumptions, confront the obvious in novel ways, and synergize multiple sources of expertise. Once we have invented, we must then begin the commercialization process. Here, you must have a structured, optimized, and tested methodology in place. Inventions are the loose and creative bits, commercialization of inventions needs to be structured and optimized.

I have been quite busy these past few days. Some of the events include: (1) a trip to the East Coast (Washington D.C., Wilmington DE, Pittsburgh, PA), (2) got involved in a car accident (car got totaled, I am recovering from slight injuries), (3) trying to get my sixth book going, (4) finishing up a few writing projects, and last but definitely not the least, (5) making good progress on my dissertation work.

It is about that time again. Desouza is anxious and wants to get involved in a new book project. I have just agreed to edit a book on “Agile Information Systems”. The book will bring together researchers, practitioners, futurist, and thinkers, all of whom will discuss how do we conceptualize, construct, and manage these information systems. If you are interested in writing a chapter, please feel free to contact me. The publisher for the book is Butterworth Heinemann.

I will address the Contingency Planners of Ohio on August 10, 2005. His talk titled, "Mindful Crisis Management", will take place at Fidelity Investments in Covington, Kentucky. This talk will be based on some of my recent work on integrating knowledge management with crisis management.

Meet me for a discussion of my new book - Engaged Knowledge Management (co-authored with Yukika Awazu). The discussion will take place on-line via the KnowledgeBoard Portal (see http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=143380). If there are questions you want me to answer, please send them to me via email. I will be glad to think through your questions and come up with thoughtful responses. Cheers!

I have a new book accepted for publication: The Outsourcing Handbook – How to Implement a Successful Outsourcing Process. I have co-authored this book with Mark Power (President, ROS Incorporated) and Carlo Bonifazi (Vice President, ROS Incorporated). The book is currently in the production process and will be released early next year by Kogan Page.

Well, I am done teaching my last class at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My feelings are one of excitement yet sadness. Excitement that this signifies I will be getting a bit closer to completing my doctorate, and sadness because I am going to miss interacting with a good bunch of students. To all of my students – Thank you for the memories. I have my gripes about the way the classes are conducted, the rules placed on graduate students in how they should handle classes, etc. But, these do not take anything away from the fact that I have thoroughly enjoyed my two years serving the students of a great institution. Cheers!

I am going to be working on a new book. Do you want to know what it is about? Well then drop me an email. I will announce the book project as soon as I get the contract from the publisher. Here is a little hint: the book is about knowledge management (big surprise there!), security management (no really!), competitive intelligence (are you kidding me!), and information technologies (c’mon you are just killing me!). Well for those who know my work there should be no surprise in the above topics, but the book concept will surprise you!!!

The attacks on the citizens of Great Britain are horrific and saddening. But, make not mistake they are not going to change the course of history or nature. Freedom will reign. I send my personal condolences to all that have been directly and indirectly affected by this tragedy.

Science, according to me, is the act of creative discovery of novel relationships in nature. Here are some words from the wise:

• French mathematician Poincaré remarked, “Fruitful combining which reveals to us unsuspected kinship between facts, long known but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another”.
• Alfred North Whitehead commented, “We must beware of what I call ‘inert ideas’ – ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, tested, or thrown into fresh new combinations”.
• Marcel Proust stated, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes”.
• Jean Baitaillon warned, “Really we create nothing. We merely plagiarize nature”.

Barnes and Noble (www.bn.com) is offering a 20% discount on my two books. These are for pre-orders. So do not wait, order them soon. The discount is only for a limited time. You can get my book – New Frontiers of Knowledge Management for $76.00 (regular price $95), and Engaged Knowledge Management for $68.00 (regular price $85).

I will be giving a talk to KM Chicago, a group of practitioners interested in improving the state of knowledge management in their organizations. The talk will be titled – “Plug-n-Play Knowledge Management”. For those in the Chicago area you are welcome to attend the talk. It will be held at Factiva, 1 South Wacker Drive, 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL. Directions: Proceed to the 22nd floor, enter the Factiva offices and follow signs to the conference room. (see http://kmchicago.blogspot.com/ for more information)

Lady Burton stated it succinctly, “Men are four: He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool--shun him; He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is simple--teach him; He who knows and knows not he knows, he is asleep--wake him; He who knows and knows he knows, hi is wise--follow him!”

Questions:
[1] What kind of man (woman) are you?
[2] What kind of man (woman) is your boss?
[3] What kind of man (woman) are your peers?

Bill Cosby! You got to love this guy. One of the few people I know of that is not afraid to speak clearly, honestly, and openly about difficult issues. If you do not face the fact that there is a problem, you are never going to try to find a solution. Those who want to distract the attention of his message by playing the race card or by digging into his life are just wasting time. Evaluate the man on his intentions and better yet, evaluate him on the message he is delivering.

Positive attitude is all that you have at times. Recently, there have been some geniuses who have been getting on my case. I have to wonder what are their goals and objectives. If they think putting up road blocks is going to stop me from attaining my goals, they are sadly mistaken. I have been coached well, and will not let up. I will attain my goals due to perseverance and a positive attitude. Here are some interesting words by Herm Albright (1876 – 1944) – “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort”

What do you think about this Runaway Bride? My opinion: She is selfish and has caused havoc in the law enforcement arena. Some day a real person is going to be stranded and we may not take that seriously. Moreover, what kind of a society are we, where stunts like this get rewarded by exclusive interviews and movie deals? That is just rubbish.