The Dumbest Moments in Business - 2007

Before saying good riddance to 2007, take a look at Fortune's Dumbest Moments in American Business.

Gadgets or Autos? The Ultimate Mashup

On the surface, there might not be two more dissimilar events than the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week and the upcoming North America International Auto Show in Detroit. The CES and Vegas highlights the best early adoptive thinking with its gadgets and youth orientation juxtaposed against the declining fortunes and perceived sloth mentality that has plagued the domestic auto industry's reputation for years.

Superficially, these shows represent industries moving in decidedly different directions - lift the hood and peek underneath (so to speak) and you quickly realize that nothing could be further from the truth. Autos represent mobility in its purest form and from that point of view, computing solutions, whether business, entertainment or social, only recently are begininng to allow people to use the way they live - mobil and moving.

The ulimate mash-up? Perhaps it is Rick Wagoner speaking at the CES event last week - the first time the CEO of a domestic automaker has ever addressed the throngs at CES. The concept Cadillac Provoq present at CES demonstrates the new edge of GM thinking - green, efficient, technologically proficient and in the sweet spot for CES attendees' wants. Futuristic and unrealistic? Hardly, like the Chevrolet Volt that was the hit of the '07 Auto Show, the Provoq's combination of fuel cell/lithium ion battery technologies are technologies that are on the cusp of being delivered to market.

Transponders that identify on-coming traffic 1/4 mile away, robotics that navigate a route without human assistance, guidance and mapping tools along with on-demand emails, Ford/Microsoft's Sync Technology, handsfree communications and fully featured mobile entertainment, gaming and DVD solutions demonstrate that there is lots of life left in the innovative abilities of an domestic auto industry that gets overshadowed nationally.

Take note - 2007 was profoundly transformative for the domestic Big 3, with Chrysler now privately held, massive buyouts by Ford/GM and new contracts that establish VEBAs which shift the health care burdens. The race isn't around who is #1 in vehicles sales (Toyota takes that title in '07 or '08) but rather, which automaker takes advantage of the new economies of $100 a barrel oil to transform transportation for the coming generation.

"As bad as it is, it could be worse," said Tom Libby, senior director of industry analysis for J.D. Power and Associates. "If you think about it, all three have taken big steps. None of them will have the strength they used to have in the near term. But they have some good new product in the pipeline and the drop in costs is going quicker than they anticipated."

Beginning with the 2008 Auto Show next week, the model years between 2008 and 2010 may represent the most transformative period in a generation. Transformation more than ever needs to be on-demand (read more on GM)

This type of transformation demands speed, agility, innovation and new workprocess and solutions - On-demand. When the automotive industry adds the agility of technology based work processes to transformative strategies, good things happen.

Big Machines for complex quoting, Steelwedge and the complex demand forecasting and operation management and Salesforce for sales and CRM solutions bring SAAS on-demand solutions to auto suppliers, automakers - to my thinking, SAAS can become a critical contributor to the renewed vitality to achieve the technology mashup visions of a renewed auto industry.

Ask Bluewolf to show you how we can Blueprint success.

Change For A New Year

As much as the holidays, this is my favorite time of the year - the welcome return to a new year feeling invigorated.

The holidays were wonderful once again. Celebrating in NYC, San Fran and Chicago with my new friends at Bluewolf is a welcome contrast to this time a year ago. Lori, Emily and I offer our thanks to associates and friends for the support in 2007.

Change in '08 began in Iowa, where caucus results drove home change as the political theme for '08. Obama and Huckabee tapped into change politically and will set the tone for the primary season. John Edwards' commented that 'whenever agents for change speak out, attacks from the status quo are quick to follow' reminds me of the challenges of my new professional world.

Railing against the status quo is pure Americana. Bridging the gap between politics and real world, rhetoric and action, real change vs. perception often proves tougher.

For me in '08, change is more clearly defined and is the basis for this blog. Change "On-demand" through Software as a Service (SAAS) will continue to change the way we live and work. Today's networks, both professional and social, are rapidly converging to create paradigm shifts that become tomorrow's success stories.

At this time a year ago, YouTube was an infant, Linkedin.com barely a blip on the radar, Facebook was considered a social diversion for twentysomethings, Google Docs posed no threat to Microsoft Office and Salesforce.com was the breakout pioneer in the on-demand sales and CRM sector. These were the Obamas of the technology world, attractive players not yet ready for prime time when stacked to the status quo.

In his excellent new book, "The Big Switch", Nicolas Carr argues that the most sweeping changes to occur through the Internet are yet to come. he compares this point in time to a century ago and the formation of the national electrical grid which brought sweeping work, culture, communication changes over the exisiting generator-based non-connected models.

Compare that to today as the maturation of computing grids begins to allow faster, cheaper, scaleable access to a proliferation of professional, personal, social and scaleable solutions. What companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook and dozens of others have enabled individuals to access - business solutions offered by Salesforce.com are bringing to business. The playing field for business big and small is leveling as points of entry and expansion become more cheaper and the speed to market continues to compress.

In my view, 2008 will be the year at which the tipping point for hosted solutions and SAAS models garner true momentum that alter the competitive landscape.

Eyes on change, where the possible meets the practical - thats where I will be spending my time in '08. What about you? Are you an Agent for Change or the Status Quo?

Insights in an on-demand world.

Video - Eric Berridge of Bluewolf