A good friend of mine, Scott Manner, is CIO of Mimeo.com, a company which enables digital printing over the Internet. I interviewed him when Mimeo was 10 employees.
Scott worked for NYNEX, KPMG and McKinsey earlier in his career before joining the Mimeo startup. He introduced me to things like the S curve, in depth QA processes, how to implement TQM, the teachings of business thinker Peter Drucker and much more.
Today Mimeo has a few hundred people employeed. Ranging from the people who print and bind, to Drew Marsh, Chief Architect and Microsoft MVP, to Adam Slutsky, CEO and co-founder of Moveifone.
Scott needs to manage the requirements across these different demands. Reminds of the line:
Soon the gypsy queen in a glaze of vaseline
Will perform on guillotine
What a scene! what a scene!
So I offered to get his feet wet with blogging. Below is his first post as CIO at Large.
Wave vs Surges or Implementation vs Innovation
When I was in my teens I use to go to Long Beach Island (NJ) to ride the waves on my oversized surfboard (since that was back in the early 70’s). I would sit on my board and check out the waves that were approaching. Once I noticed the wave that would curl at the right moment, I would depend on timing and paddle speed to “catch the wave” and ride it to shore. Sometimes the wave was attainable; sometimes the wave puttered out, or threw me to the icy water.
One day I ran into an older man while waiting for the wave (he must have been in his thirties). He taught me a great lesson that I have continued to develop and follow throughout my corporate career. “Do not look for the wave, because you are at the critical point and there are so many intangibles that come into play that your success factor is vulnerable. Look at the surge – further out at the horizon, and see how the waves form. Your judgment will become more acute, the risk criteria diminish and your successful rides through the sunset will be more plentiful.”
What does surfing have to do with corporate life? Well just looking at the wave as it forms is a strategy of only implementation (reactive) – you see the problem or objective, and just ride the wave, sometimes you are successful, others you fail. Where innovation (proactive), looks at the surge and predicts the potential of a wave that will meet the objective. The observance of the surge, allows you to plan and play out the strategy many times in your head. You can imagine your success, well before you have the opportunity to catch the “perfect wave” as you ride it to the shore line, just to turn and run into the ocean again to be successful.
Scott Manner, CIO at Large
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I don’t have my site up yet.
Good post.
I like it!