viernes, septiembre 28, 2012

T.I.M.E. de cine: los 400 golpes

Aquí en imdb



***

Extraordinaria. Simplemente porque ellos (los chicos) tendrían que ser siempre lo más importante :-)

"Jason Korsner
Updated 28 February 2001
BBC Film Reviews

This film is a landmark in modern cinema, launching the French New Wave and turning François Truffaut from a critic into one of the world's most distinguished film makers.

12-year-old Antoine Doinel lives in a tiny flat with his mother and stepfather, who are poor and generally inattentive. A ruthlessly domineering teacher makes life at school more unbearable than at home. His only escape from the shackles of everyday life is to bunk off school with his one friend, go to the fairground, or visit the cinema. His problems deepen as frustration, desperation, and loneliness lead to his expulsion from school and subsequent running away from home.

There are two outstanding talents in the film. As Antoine Doinel, the young Jean-Pierre Léaud delivers a tremendously deep, sympathetic, and convincing performance in the role which he would reprise four times in the following 20 years. And Truffaut himself, in his first feature, displays the directorial flair that would make him such an influential auteur. Take, for example, a remarkably revealing scene in which Antoine opens up to a psychologist: it's shot from her point of view, with Antoine confessing his feelings directly into the camera.

"The 400 Blows" is more than semi-autobiographical. Both Antoine and the young Truffaut were social outcasts - failures at school, who turned to delinquency, ran away from home, and ended up in custody. But most significantly, as would become apparent throughout Truffaut's career, the one thing that made their lives worth living was their passion for cinema."

jueves, septiembre 27, 2012

miércoles, septiembre 26, 2012

El DNA de los innovadores (1)

Aquí su página en Amazon

The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators
Jeff Dyer (Author)
Hal Gregersen (Author)
Clayton M. Christensen (Author)


***
En esta página:

1. Referencia a los principales libros recientes que valen la pena sobre el tema; incluidos los dos con lo que Clayton Christensen comenzó su revolución sobre la innovación en las organizaciones: El Dilema de los Innovadores, La Solución de los Innovadores.

2. Advertencia: se tratará en el libro sobre CREATIVIDAD, pero únicamente desde la perspectiva de interés para los negocios.

3. Anuncio: todo lo que usted encontrará en el libro proviene de una investigación formal, que presupone que en las personalidades innovadoras que han probado ser tales en el mundo de los negocios, se puede rastrear la clave del "gen" de la innovación.

martes, septiembre 25, 2012

Un homenaje a los ingenieros (que además de calcular, soñaron :-)

Aquí galería completa :-)

Aquí referencia bibliográfica


S69-34882
The Apollo 11 crew relaxes during training
May 24, 1969


AS11-44-6550
Earthrise viewed from lunar orbit prior to landing


AS11-37-5454
view from LM window just after landing
July 20, 1969


AS11-40-5927
Aldrin unpacks experiments from LM


AS11-37-5528
Armstrong in LM after historic moonwalk


AS11-44-6642
LM approaches CSM for docking / earthrise in b.g.
July 21, 1969


S69-40023
Mission Control celebrates after splashdown
July 24, 1969


S69-40147
Apollo 11 astronauts, still in their quarantine van, are greeted by their wives upon arrival at Ellington Air Force Base
July 27, 1969

***

Sin palabras (de la emoción :-) y en señal de respeto a la grandeza alcanzada :-)

lunes, septiembre 24, 2012

Google Project Glass

Aquí desde el blog oficial de Google para el tema

Aquí (comentarios) desde el blog de Nicholas Carr

Aquí el visual-demo:



***

¿Qué podemos decir?

1. Que lo vimos antes en películas (Terminator creo que fue la primera)

2. Que es un paso más en la "fusión" de los "mundos" (el de siempre y el ciber-nuevo)

3. Que será muy difícil al cabo, oponerse a tales fusiones (¿Quién no usa hoy un cel?)

4. Que la puerta queda, sin duda, abierta a las "aplicaciones" (las que muestra el video demo son calificables como mínimo de ingenuas... para lo que veremos)

5. Que Google acaba de entrar (abril 2012) por la puerta grande al mundo de los "terminales" :-)

viernes, septiembre 21, 2012

Innovacioncita...

...originada en personalidad obsesiva (la mía)

Quisiera que en todo lugar donde se maneje efectivo, y se atiendan clientes, haya una "maquinita" que le enderezca las puntas a los billetes, esto es, que los deje tras realizar su trabajo (la "maquinita"), como recién salidos de la otra maquinita que los fabrica.

No me importa tanto que parezcan como nuevos, es imposible que así sea, lo que me importa es que no estén doblados, en su cuerpo, y en especial que no estén doblados en sus (pu... :-) puntas.

Así se consigue que entren dócilmente en la billetera, y además ésta no termina siendo un amasijo de "papeles", gorda e inmanejable :-)

***

PS1 (lo dije: personalidad obsesiva la que da pie a esta humilde solicitud)

PS2 (Ni siquiera tendría que decirlo, el trabajo hoy de enderezar las (pu... :-) puntas, lo tengo que hacer yo con mis manos, mis uñas, y conlleva toda la molestia que se pueden imaginar :-/)

jueves, septiembre 20, 2012

Just a question ( a sort of :-) ...

... Why stop dreaming when you wake up!

miércoles, septiembre 19, 2012

T.I.M.E. de (la otra :-) poesía: Michael Laudrup



Desde la Wikipedia

"Michael Laudrup[1] (born 15 June 1964 in Frederiksberg) is a retired Danish footballer and current manager of Premier League club Swansea City. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players ever, he played for Spanish club Barcelona, with whom he won four straight La Liga championships. He famously moved to arch rivals Real Madrid in 1994, with whom he won his fifth La Liga title in a row. He made his debut for the Denmark national football team on his 18th birthday in 1982, and scored 37 goals in 104 appearances. From November 1994, he captained Denmark for a total of 28 matches,[2] including the victorious 1995 Confederations Cup tournament. He retired as an active player in June 1998.

In 1999, he was voted the Best Foreign Player in Spanish Football over the preceding 25-year period[3] and in April 2000 he was knighted, receiving the Order of the Dannebrog. In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Denmark by the Danish Football Association; their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.[4] He was officially named the best Danish footballer of all time by the Danish Football Association (DBU) in November 2006.[5]

After ending his playing career, Laudrup took up coaching, and became assistant manager of the Danish national team. He got his first manager job at former club Brøndby in 2002, whom he guided to the 2005 Danish Superliga championship. He chose not to extend his contract with Brøndby in May 2006. He took over as coach of Getafe, Madrid's third club, and had notable success there. He brought the club comparative success in the Copa del Rey and UEFA Cup, and the team's attacking style brought plaudits. On 15 June 2012, Laudrup was appointed the manager of Swansea City, signing a two-year contract.[6]"

Years Team Apps† (Gls)†
1981–1982 KB 14 (3)
1982–1983 Brøndby 38 (24)
1983–1989 Juventus 102 (16)
1983–1985 → Lazio (loan) 60 (9)
1989–1994 Barcelona 167 (49)
1994–1996 Real Madrid 62 (12)
1996–1997 Vissel Kobe 15 (6)
1997–1998 Ajax 21 (11)
Total 479 (130)

martes, septiembre 18, 2012

El hombre del marketing: Sir Martin Sorrell




Aquí su wikibio

Aquí se lo puede ver pronunciando unas cuantas palabras formales (dirigidas a los accionistas de WPP)

Un resumen de su vida profesional, que es la historia de WPP:

"Group history

Below is an abbreviated history of WPP.

1985

Martin Sorrell takes stake in Wire and Plastic Products Plc , a UK manufacturer of wire baskets, following his search for a public entity through which to build a worldwide marketing services company

1986-87

Sorrell becomes chief executive of the renamed WPP Group
Builds below-the-line capabilities with acquisition of marketing services companies in the UK and US

1987

Acquires J. Walter Thompson Group for $566m, including ad agency JWT , PR firm Hill & Knowlton Inc and market research network MRB Group

1988

Listed on NASDAQ exchange in New York
Continued acquisition of US and UK-based marketing services companies

1989

Acquires The Ogilvy Group for $864m, including ad agency Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide , Ogilvy Direct and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
Research firms Millward Brown and Research International join WPP

1990-92

WPP named the world's top agency group by Advertising Age
Group financial re-structuring

1992

Launches CommonHealth , an international healthcare communications network drawing on specialist skills of professionals across the Group

1994

IBM consolidates its global advertising at Ogilvy & Mather, moving from 40 agencies to a single global agency

1995

Establishes Kantar as internal parent company for the Group's research interests
WPP makes a number of strategic acquisitions and investments in new media (digital) companies

1997

Introduces worldwide stock option program for all WPP people
Launches new generation media planning, buying and research company Mindshare , in Europe and Asia
Invests in Batey Holdings, Singapore-based advertising group, Chime Communications and Latin American media research business IBOPE

1998

Forms strategic alliance with Asatsu-DK Inc , Japan's third largest advertising agency
Continued acquisitions (30+) across all disciplines to strengthen existing networks, including US-based global retail consultancy Management Ventures Inc
Joins the London Stock Exchange's FTSE 100 Index

1999

Mindshare launches in the US
Kimberly-Clark consolidates its global advertising account with JWT
Acquires corporate identity specialists Lambie-Nairn,and sports marketing company PRISM Group

2000

Acquires Young & Rubicam Group , including Y&R Advertising , Burson-Marsteller , Landor , Wunderman , Cohn & Wolfe and Sudler & Hennessey
35+ acquisitions including Spafax (in-flight media) and Premiere Group (the sports marketing/sponsorship company)
Commissions BrandZ research tool from Millward Brown

2001

Launches Red Cell , fourth agency network; acquires US creative advertising agency Berlin Cameron & Partners
Acquires Tempus Group plc. Tempus' media agency CIA joins forces with The Media Edge to form Mediaedge:cia
Acquires majority interest in Korean advertising agency AD Venture Worldwide; 25+ further acquisitions including Penn, Schoen & Berland , MJM, VML , Finsbury , Glendinning and Ziment

2002

Strengthens presence in China and Taiwan through stakes in Shanghai Advertising Agency , H-Line Worldwide (China) and Era Public Relations (Taiwan)
Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam take controlling stake in LG Ad Inc , Korea's largest ad agency

2003

Acquires Cordiant Communications Group, bringing Bates , Fitch , 141 Worldwide and HealthWorld into the Group. Bates re-launches as a standalone Asian agency brand
WPP forms GroupM to oversee Group's media investment management interests
Red Cell strengthens in UK via stake in HHCL

2004

WPP teams win global HSBC and Samsung accounts, representing more than $1 billion in new business
Strengthens creative and media presence in China and Taiwan
AGB and Nielsen Media Research create international TV ratings company AGB Nielsen Media Research

2005

WPP acquires Grey Global Group
Poster Publicity and Portland merge to create global outdoor media company Kinetic
WPP strengthens position in Russia via new venture with Video International
WPP acquires Bridge Worldwide, a leading US-based interactive and relationship marketing specialist

2006

China presence further strengthened by acquisitions in advertising, media, specialist marketing and market research
WPP invests in digital partnerships with Visible Technologies, WildTangent and Spot Runner
Launch of BrandAmp, a musical and brand partnership between WPP's GroupM and Universal Music

2007

WPP Digital created to harness digital media opportunities; forms further digital partnerships with 24/7 Real Media, JumpTap , iconmobile and mMetrics
WPP adopts carbon neutral strategy by introducing a Groupwide carbon offset program and setting CO2 reduction targets
Continued acquisitions and investments in strategically-important regions and disciplines
Dell appoints WPP as worldwide marketing partner

2008

Launch of PARTNERZ, a powerful sponsorship research tool covering the fields of sport, the arts, music, film, festivals and entertainment
The Group’s digital capabilities strengthened with further acquisitions in China, Hong Kong, Europe and the US
WPP creates a new UK-listed, Jersey incorporated parent company to be called WPP plc and changes its domicile to Dublin, Ireland
TNS is acquired by WPP and joins the Kantar Group, which becomes the world's second largest market research group
Google and WPP launch a Marketing Research Awards Program to support research into online media and its influence on consumer behaviour

2009

Kantar streamlines its structure and combines TNS Custom with Research International to create the world's largest custom research group
WPP forms strategic partnership with leading analytics company Omniture to help clients optimise their marketing spend
Group companies accumulate a record number of awards at the Cannes International Advertising Festival
WPP strengthens its presence in Africa through investments in Kenya-based Scangroup and The Jupiter Drawing Room & Partners and Smollan Group in South Africa
OgilvyInteractive, VML and Wunderman named as Leaders in the Forrester Wave TM report on US interactive agencies

2010

Through GroupM, WPP forms a new corporate trading division, The Midas Exchange, to help clients secure media credits in exchange for under-performing assets
The Group continues to build its digital expertise through acquisitions, joint ventures and partnerships, with investments in China, Brazil, Singapore, the UK and the US
WPP forms a strategic partnership with Buddy Media, the Facebook management system of choice for seven of the world's top 10 advertisers, to help the world's largest brands scale their marketing efforts on Facebook more effectively
RECMA, the agency research firm, ranks WPP No.1 for the number of digital staff employed, with more than 17,400 digital specialists, or over 12% of its people (including associates) worldwide
WPP and Millward Brown launch the inaugural BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Chinese Brands, the first time China's brands have been ranked through financial data and consumer perception

2011

WPP develops further its presence in Africa with additional stakes in Mindshare South Africa and Ogilvy South Africa
WPP Digital combines four of its interactive agencies, Schematic, Bridge Worldwide, BLUE and Quasar, to create a new global network, Possible Worldwide
WPP expands its digital presence further in Latin America by taking majority stakes in two leading Brazilian digital agencies, F.biz and Gringo
WPP is named Holding Company of the Year at the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
The Group co-launches China’s first professional marketing diploma course
WPP is ranked 41 out of 500 in Newsweek’s Green Rankings 2011

2012

For the second year running, WPP was named Holding Company of the Year at the 2012 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
WPP ranked the Most Effective Holding Company in the 2012 North American Effie’s Effectiveness Index Rankings
Acquisitions and investments continue in strategically-important geographic markets and disciplines, including a stake in multinational retail marketing agency, Barrows
GroupM named Holding Company of the Year in the Gunn Report for Media
The Group’s international footprint increases to 108 countries, with Ogilvy & Mather taking a stake in Myanmar’s Today Advertising"

***

¡Impresionante!

De seguro no es el hombre que más sabe de marketing...pero sí, sin duda, el que más lo hace, a diario, en la tierra :-)

lunes, septiembre 17, 2012

Innovando la innovación: Big Idea Group (BIG)

Aquí su sitio web


"BIG is an open source innovation company.
We complement traditional, internal approaches with an effective and efficient open innovation process. Our particular expertise is in insight discovery, innovation generation, and innovation execution.

We have worked with clients on a variety of projects in consumer products and services, and at different stages of the innovation process. Whether a company wants to hire us from insight discovery to on-shelf product, or for just one segment of development, BIG's open innovation resources and processes will powerfully augment internal efforts.

BIG was launched in 2000. It is partially owned by WPP, one of the world's largest communications service groups."


***

¿Por qué sí podría ser útil para usted (en particular), y (al mismo tiempo) no necesariamente para todos?

1. (Porque es parcialmente owned by WPP, nada menos :-)
2. Porque el camino de la "innovación abierta" ha probado sus bondades en múltiples industrias y escenarios de retos de innovación
3. Porque (en verdad) no se arriesga mucho probando :-)

viernes, septiembre 14, 2012

T.I.M.E. de cine: una (otra más) de las extraordinarias películas de Federico Fellini: Roma

1. Mucho (pero muchísimo) mejor que "Barcelona" o "Roma" de W.Allen

2. La magia de saber mirar desde arriba, por dentro, atrás, adelante y alrededor

3. La valentía de mirarse mirando, y conseguir así una mirada más

4. Federico F.: ¡nadie miró mejor que tú! (y a Roma se vé que la amabas :-)






jueves, septiembre 13, 2012

miércoles, septiembre 12, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 24 - final)

p.404 [desde su diario]

“10/9/42: Mankind is prepared to believe anything except the truth.”

“5/29/43: Humanity does not care for freedom. The mass of the people realize that they are not up to it: what they want is being fed, led, amused, and above everything, drilled. But they do care for the phrase [freedom].”

martes, septiembre 11, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 23)

p.358

“The case for capitalism, says Schumpeter, “must rest on long-run considerations.” In the short run, it is impossible for people generally, and even intellectuals, to ignore what seem to be un reasonable “profits and inefficiencies.” They therefore have difficulty in seeing long-range trends in which capitalism is benefiting society as a whole. Uniquely among economic systems, therefore, capitalism “creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.” With its bountiful production, it underwrites the education of a class of hostile intellectuals who have no “direct responsibility for practical affairs” and little experience in managing anything.

In the larger sense, the emotional feelings of human beings are so complicated that there can be no assurance that people in general are “happier” or “better of” under industrial capitalism than they had been in medieval manors or villages. Economic efficiency is only one of many human goals, and not necessarily the most important to every individual. Thus the future of capitalism cannot be assured on the basis of its superior economic performance alone.”

lunes, septiembre 10, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 22)

p.356

“In pre-capitalist times, he writes, no economic achievement, by itself, could advance anyone into the living standards of the ruling class. But when capitalism began to spread, persons of “supernormal ability and ambition” could now reach a much higher standard of living, provided they would pursue business careers. Yet business success did not confer the charisma that had attached to feudal lords and others leaders of earlier times: “no flourishing of swords about it, not much physical prowess, no chance to gallop the armored horse into the enemy.”

As time passed, however, the economic juggernaut of capitalism began to subvert most of the underpinnings of feudal society –knightly service, the craft guild, the village, the manor. In place of the old webs of reciprocal personal responsibilities –lord and knight, landowner and peasant, patron and artisan- capitalism substituted impersonal efficiency and opportunity. People were no longer part of an organic social system. They could achieve material gains, but they also became “free to make a mess of their lives.” They now had sufficient “individualist rope” to hang themselves.”

viernes, septiembre 07, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 21)

p.356

“It seemed plain to Schumpeter that continuous technical innovation and organizational remodeling, not monopolistic profits, accounted for the prosperity of most great companies. “These units,” he says in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, “not only arise in the process of creative destruction and function in a way entirely different from the static schema” but often actually make their own markets: “They largely create what they exploit.” Monopoly profits might flow for a while, but only briefly, in the form of big but single-pay-off “prizes offered by capitalist society to the successful innovator.” Pushing his analysis to its limits, Schumpeter identifies capitalist entrepreneurship with technological progress itself. As a matter of historical record, they were “essentially one and the same thing,” the first being “the “propelling force” of the second.

Schumpeter ends this part of his discussion of capitalism with a remarkable statement that foreshadows the ironic style he uses later in the book:

[Schumpeter:] I am not going to sum up as the reader presumably expects me to. That is to say, I am not going to invite him, before he decides to put his trust in an untried alternative advocated by untried men, to look once more at the impressive economic and the still more impressive cultural achievement of the capitalist order and at the immense promise held out by both. I am not going to argue that that achievement and that promise are in themselves sufficient to support an argument for allowing the capitalist process to work on and, as it might easily be put, to lift poverty from the shoulders of mankind… I am not going to argue, that on the strength of that performance, that the capitalist intermezzo is going to be prolonged. In fact, I am now going to draw the exactly opposite inference.

He next lays the foundations for his much-quoted argument that capitalism has developed the seeds of its own destruction –not for economic reasons but for social ones. To show how this happened, he forthrightly traces the evolution of capitalism from its origins down to the present.”

jueves, septiembre 06, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 20)

p.355

“The reader of these passages should make no mistake about the radical nature of what Schumpeter is asserting. He is indicting his own economics profession for what amounts to a capital crime: failing to acknowledge that continuous innovation is “endogenous to” (inherent in) capitalism. If this one conceptual alteration were adopted in orthodox economics, then a whole series of methodological shifts would ensue. To the extent that economists become more focused on change, they would pay more attention to the record of change. They would have to pursue a much more thorough investigation of economic and business history, as Schumpeter himself had done in Business Cycles. And against that historical background, they would recognize that large-scale units of control were not merely to be tolerated as necessary evils. Instead, they would see big business as part and parcel of “the most powerful engine of [economic] progress and in particular of the long-run expansion of total output” that the world had ever witnessed.

Schumpeter then returns to the question of monopoly, mounting an attack on many American’s mistaken idea that monopoly and big business are the same thing. The word monopoly itself, he says, is a label “sure to rouse the public’s hostility” because of its association with privileges bestowed by British kings during America’s colonial period. Then, too, the evils of monopoly had been invoked by scores of American statesmen, from Andrew Jackson to Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and now by Franklin D. Roosevelt. But under modern capitalism, long-run cases of monopoly are almost nonexistent –even rarer than instances of perfect competition. Hence, high entrepreneurial profits are always temporary. And on balance, big business is unquestionably a positive force for innovation and growth.

It was perverse, Schumpeter believed, that so many people in the United States had confused monopoly with big business and made the latter into a whipping boy. The country was, after all, the seedbed of giant firms. Because of its huge internal market and its entrepreneurial culture, it was the home of about a half of the world’s largest companies. Schumpeter felt very strongly about this issue, even more so than he reveals in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. And he believed that he had found a psychological reason for it. As he wrote in his diary: “American opinion is so anti big business precisely because big business has made the country what it now is and in doing so it has set the secret standard of the American soul: who is no part of big bus., feels he does not meet the standard and by compensation turns against it.”

miércoles, septiembre 05, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 19)

p.354

“In real life, anything approaching perfect competition is extremely rare.

Instead, much of modern business in advanced industrial countries has evolved into a form of organization known as “oligopoly.” This word was introduced by Sir Thomas More in Utopia (1516), then revived 410 years later by Schumpeter’s Harvard colleague E.H. Chamberlin. It now refers to industries in which a small number of large and powerful firms compete with one another in the same line of business: oil, steel, automobiles, chemicals, and a few others. Most of these companies are engaged in mass production, mass distribution, or both; and they often require very large capital investments. In oligopolies, Schumpeter writes, “there is in fact no determinate equilibrium at all and the possibility presents itself that there may be and endless sequence of moves and countermoves, an indefinite state of warfare between firms.” Hence the analogy with military strategy. But these new situations –like others aspects of Schumpeter’s theories, such as the pivotal importance of entrepreneurship- do not easily lend themselves to equilibrium analysis and to mathematical modeling.

One result of the alternative approach Schumpeter proposes would be a sharper focus on product quality and marketing as elements of competition. This new perspective would reduce what had been an overwhelming emphasis on the analysis of price. “In capitalist reality as distinguished from its textbook picture, it is not [that kind of] competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology, the new source of supply, the new type of organization.” This kind of competition “strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.” It is effective even “when it is merely an ever-present threat. It disciplines before it attacks.” A theoretical analysis that “neglects this essential element of the case neglects all that is most typically capitalist about it; even if correct in logic as well as in fact, it is like Hamlet without the Danish prince.”

martes, septiembre 04, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 18)

p.353

“In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter next mounts a spirited assault on the idea of “perfect competition,” a key theoretical tool used by academic economists in his own time and in ours as well. Models of perfect competition cannot take business strategy into consideration because they assume that every industry contains innumerable firms, each of which is by definition too weak to affect the economic landscape through strategic behavior. Perfect competition assumes unlimited numbers of both buyers and sellers, all of whom possess complete information about all product and services being bought and sold. Such models contemplate frictionless transactions, with no need for lawyers, accountants, brokers, partnerships, corporations, contracts, or other essential accoutrements of actual business.

Perfect competition lends itself very well to mathematical modeling, however, and that advantage has been almost irresistible to economists. But because it neglects the dynamics of creative destruction, Schumpeter finds perfect competition wholly unsuitable for understanding a modern capitalist economy. When, for example, a new product or process is introduced, all buyers and sellers cannot possible have complete information about potential markets. “As a matter of fact,” Schumpeter writes, “perfect competition is and always has been temporarily suspended whenever anything new is being introduced.” And the continual emergence of new products and new ways of doing things is “the fundamental impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion.”

Despite its irrelevance to perfect competition, he continues, big-business capitalism has proved its superiority, in the long run, at expanding total output and raising living standards: “The actual efficiency of the capitalist engine of production in the era of the largest-scale units has been much greater that in the preceding era of small or medium-sized ones. This is a matter of statistical record… the technological and organizational possibilities [of firms in the perfect competition model] could never have produced similar results. How modern capitalism would work under perfect competition is hence a meaningless question.”

lunes, septiembre 03, 2012

J.A. Schumpeter (desde su biografía - 17)

p.352

“Since creative destruction is an evolutionary process, the performance of capitalism must be judged “over time, as it unfolds through decades or centuries.” Here, Schumpeter criticizes the approach of his fellow economists to the study of big business. It is useless, he says, to analyze a large company’s behavior at a single point in time –that is, to “accept the data of the momentary situation as if there were no past or future to it.” Yet this is the customary method. The typical economic theorist or government commission does not see the behavior of a major firm, “on the one hand, as a result of a piece of past history, and, on the other hand as an attempt to deal with a situation that is sure to change presently- as an attempt by those firms to keep on their feet, on ground that is slipping away from under them. In other words, the problem that is usually being visualized is how capitalism administers existing structures, whereas the relevant problem is how it creates and destroys them.”

Creative destruction constantly sweeps out old products, old enterprises, and old organizational forms, replacing them with new ones. “Every piece of business strategy acquires its true significance only against the background of that process and within the situation created by it.” Strategy, he goes on to say, “must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction; it cannot be understood irrespective of it or, in fact, on the hypothesis that there is a perennial lull.” Any investigator who does not recognize these essential characteristics, Schumpeter concludes, “does a meaningless job.”

In using the term “business strategy” and likening corporate initiatives to military behavior, Schumpeter helped to set off a revolution in the analysis of business that is still thriving today. “Business strategy” and “corporate strategy” have gained extremely wide currency not only in the business press but in popular media as well. Numerous consulting firms specialize in strategy, and all business schools teach courses in it. Most of these schools have an entire department with the word “strategy” or “strategic” in its name. Hundreds of business books and thousands of articles published over the last six decades include “strategy” in their titles. It has been one of the most significant new ideas in business thinking since the 1940S. [Nota al pie:] “Schumpeter did not coin the term “business strategy,” but his use of it here was quite important in popularizing the idea. […] It is almost certain that in discussing business strategy along with entrepreneurs, Schumpeter was using a military analogy. As he wrote in 1946, “In my youth, I did, for instance, under a man who was considered an authority, some work in the history of strategy and tactics. The one thing that still stands out in my memory is that there is no unitary type of ‘military man’ or ‘great general’ and that the attempt to construct such a type only falsifies our picture of military history.”””