Recently, I predicted that India would be the eventual winner of the talent war. This is because they have the people, the culture, continually increasing capital inflow, education, the will, and an increasing amount of openness – in contrast to the US, which is more intent on keeping just about everyone out than letting innovators in.

I’m not going to make a prediction as to who’s going to win the innovation challenge, because innovation takes more than just talent, but I am willing to predict that, the way things are going, it’s not going to be North America. (I’m also excluding Canada because, these days, you can’t be Prime Minister unless you’re willing to take your lead from the US President, whomever that happens to be.)

Basically, I agree with John Kao, as quoted in The Age of Mass Innovation. I think America will lose its global lead and become “the fat, complacent Detroit of nations“, even with Silicon Valley. As Mr. Kao points out, America’s under-investment in physical infrastructure, its pitiful public schools, and frostiness towards immigrants – even though immigrants built North America into what it is today – is the first step on the road to complacency.

Furthermore, as pointed out in Revving Up, China now makes half the world’s motorcycles and India’s Tata Motors is working on a “people’s car” that might radically change the process of design, manufacturing, and distribution in an effort to achieve its target price of no more than $3,000. Today, China is the country that’s pioneering new types of management techniques – that’s a long way from the low cost country we still like to think it is. The fact is, developing countries now have higher levels of “early stage” entrepreneurship than just about every country in the developed world.

And let us not overlook the fact that, as pointed out by Diana Farrell and quoted in The Fading Lustre of Custers, the real problem holding back innovation in many developed countries is too much government in the form of red tape and market barriers. These days, the government has to regulate everything – including the things it knows nothing about.

Considering that we’re full-tilt into the “knowledge economy”, with manufacturing down to a fifth of economic activity in rich countries, it’s down to innovate or die.

A couple of weeks ago, I told you the doctor is not an analyst!. This inspired a counter-post from the one and only Jason Busch (in “Analyst vs Bloggers Continued”), which in turn inspired a plethora of comments, including some that argued against what the comment authors hallucinated I said (which, of course, makes for good entertainment value, so you should consider checking the comments out as well as the post).

In this post, I’m going to summarize some of the finer points made by myself and others, left out of my first post, as to why I think it’s better to be a(n independent) blogger.

Independent bloggers don’t have to write about anything we don’t (fully) understand.
As an analyst, if a company is paying your company for a piece about them or their software, chances are you have a publication date you have to meet. Maybe that’s enough time to get a good grip on what the company and / or product you’re writing about does, maybe it’s not. Either way, you have to hit the deadline or risk repercussions. As an independent blogger, I can choose whether or not I want to write about something. If I don’t think I understand something well enough to write a decent post, I can sit on it for a while.

Independent bloggers can choose whether or not we want to respond to events “almost in real time” and whether or not we want to write a “report”.
Needless to say, when I posted the above comment, at least one reader hallucinated that I said “independent bloggers don’t write about anything they don’t (fully) understand”, which is obviously not the same thing. It doesn’t take much surfing to figure out that many bloggers are compelled to respond to events almost in real-time and quite happy to publish their initial half-baked half-wit thoughts on whatever just hit the newswire. However, just because an independent blogger chooses to do so, doesn’t mean he or she has to do so. (Note that I keep saying “independent blogger”. Bloggers who work for publications often have daily blogging as part of their job requirements and, like journalists and analysts, have deadlines to meet. Thus, they may not have the choice as to whether or not they respond to events almost in real time.) Also, there’s nothing stopping us from writing a “report” if we so choose – and publishing it all at once or as a well thought-out multi-post series.

With respect to software, in order to perform a deep and accurate analysis, you really need to to understand what code and architectures can – and can not – do, and this holds true for bloggers as well as analysts.
Eric Strovink summed it up best when he said that what the Excel power user would not be able to evaluate, though, is a new technology for spreadsheets that could have downstream implications far beyond the external functionality of Revision One Point Zero – for that sort of insight, you do need a reviewer with a strong technical background. While I will admit that it is true that an Excel power user is perfectly capable of reviewing a competing spreadsheet product with respect to functionality and usability, it’s not necessarily true that such a reviewer would be able to understand the capabilities, merits, and applicability of an entirely new type of spreadsheet product – or a spreadsheet 2.0. In the sourcing context, if you’ve only ever been exposed to e-Auction products as a means of collecting bids and allocating awards, would you be able to adequately review a combo RFQ-Optimization product? Would you even understand what it was? And, more importantly, if it was implemented correctly? You really need a strong technical (and, in this, also a strong mathematical) background to review such a product.

However, even more important than these comments,
Independent Bloggers can say what they truly think of a new product offering (within reason) – whereas analysts can’t completely shred a product if said product is made by a company paying their company hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for research and analysis pieces.
If I think a new product is a piece of junk, as long as I express that as my opinion (hey, even bloggers can theoretically be sued for defamation or libel if they present their opinion as a statement of fact – especially if they reside in the US), I can say I think it’s a piece of junk. Now, to be fair, one should also indicate why one thinks something is a piece of junk, because it’s mean to trash anything without a reason. Unless, of course, one thinks the reason is obvious, in which case they can just resort to satire ( which is protected speech ).

The elephants in the room and the barney deals aren’t the only problems plaguing our industry. Dangerous myths are constantly infecting the minds of those who will listen to the fear-mongers and the melancholics. Some of these myths are fairly well known, like the myth that once prices are locked in a contract after an e-Auction, those savings are guaranteed. But some of these myths have not been adequately exposed, which is not surprising as some myths are still being promulgated by the major vendors (like the myth that a “supplier network” has value in and of itself and that a supplier should pay for the privilege of just being a member).

Thus, in addition to exposing the elephants in the room, no matter how quiet they are or how hard they try to hide behind that floor lamp, I’m also going to tackle some of the more dangerous myths now and then. Today I’m going to make Skeptic, who apparently didn’t like my Feel-Good Friday post on Collaboration, happy and admit that collaboration and knowledge sharing doesn’t necessarily add value.

I know right now you’re probably still in shock from that statement, especially since I constantly promote how valuable collaboration and knowledge sharing can be, so I’ll give you a few seconds.

Okay. That should be enough time. That’s right, what should be among the most valuable activities you undertake does not necessarily add any value to what ever it is that you’re doing. The reality is that a collaboration initiative or knowledge sharing initiative, like any other initiative, is only valuable when done right.

Specifically, collaboration will only be valuable when it is undertaken with honest intentions and each side makes a genuine effort to make it work. Just like you can have a barney deal, you can have a barney collaboration project. Each side sits down at the table, says they’ll work together, but then goes their separate ways and rarely says two words to each other again. That’s not collaboration. That’s lip-service.

Collaboration requires both parties to work together as a team on a regular, often daily, basis. To jointly plan, implement, and monitor the project. To work together to identify a problem when it arises as well as its solution.

Similarly, knowledge sharing will only be valuable if real knowledge is shared that’s relevant to the project or problem. Simply sending over the contract that was struck the last time the project was undertaken with no accompanying explanation or twenty documents that may or may not be related to sourcing direct materials is not knowledge sharing. That’s nothing more than a data dump. And a rather useless one at that.

Knowledge sharing requires actual knowledge to be shared that is relevant to the project being undertaken. It requires the knowledge to be in a form that is digestible by the party that needs the knowledge. Furthermore, it requires the amount of knowledge to be appropriate. Too little knowledge and the recipient will be left more confused than before she started the project. Too much and the information overload will prevent the right knowledge from being appropriately absorbed.

Do you have any myths you’d like the doctor to go mental on?
Send them his way (the doctor <at> sourcinginnovation <dot> com).