Knowledge Sharing From Public Lecture/Seminar

[chenchow]

Hi all, I believe that most of you have attended some public lecture or seminar that its knowledge would be very beneficial to Recom members. We hope that you could share the knowledge that you grasp, and we could have a healthy discussion and pondering on those knowledge.

[chenchow]

Public Lecture by Richard Albrecht, Vice Chairman, VP of Strategy & Technology at Moog Inc. He got his M&AE bachelor's degree in 1966 and PhD in 1970 in Cornell University.

He gave a public lecture on Why Manufacturing Matters?

He cited the book Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith 1776, which in those day, Adam Smith wrote: 3 commercial activities that create economic wealth in a nation: agricultural, resource extraction, manufacturing.

Currently, almost every country indulge in manufacturing, perhaps except Switzerland which is almost purely a Service-based Economy.

A trend comparison from 1800, when US economy is about 90% agricultural and about 10% of manufacturing, to today's about 30+% each of service, information and manufacturing and 4% of agricultural.

Richard claimed that the key technologies that drive productivity gain is:-
a) Graphical User Interface (GUI)
b) Network
c) Flexible Databases
d) Imaging.

Moog currently operates in 20 countries, employ 6000 employees and have an annual sales of about $900 million, of which $300 million of sales are out of US.

He gave comparison of the cost of $100 per minute to make a phone call from New York to London in 1930, to $15 in 1960 and today, it is almost costless.

He also cited a book by Chris Freeman And Francisco Louca "As Time Goes By", where the authors said that the New Techno-economic Paradigm are:-
Information intensive, computer aided design, concurrent engineering, customized(like Dell), rapid changes in product mix, flexible production system, systemation, network, outsourcing, flat horizontal structure, integrated organization, service with product and not product with service, distributed intelligence, multiskilling, government information, coordiantion and regulation, and vision.

He cited The Lexus and The Olive Tree by Tom Friendman, a New York Times columnist.

Tom claimed that to be a global player, a country needs to :-
a) a free market economy (analogy: hardware)
b) open macroeconomic policies (Operating System)
c) laws and regulations (Software)
Companies need to have a global outlook to be the winner in their market.

Tom also written the 9 Habits of Highly Effective Countries:-
a) Speed of Change
b) Translate Ideas to Products
c) Value is in light weight product. The lighter a product, the more value it brings.
d) Regulatory environment.
e) Transparent legal system.
f) Government officials know what drive economy, how to response with policy etc.
g) Willing to close business and move on?
h) Good at making friends with other countries.
i) Country's reputation.

The speaker spoke of the most important thing to learn in college is to learn how to learn. Technology will change and everything will become obsolete very fast. it is very essential that we can pick up new information very fast and apply that effectively and efficiently.

[chenchow]

This is a sharing from a Leadership Seminar I attended yesterday. It was given by Andrew Molner, a Cornell graduate of 1994, who specializes in team leadership development.

The Value of Trust & Communication

Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing. Trust is the foundation of all relationships - strong relationships are necessary to build a successful team. The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I". And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I". They don't think "I". They think "we"; they think "tea,". They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to the task done.

[I remember what Pak Lah said when he accepted the Prime Minister position, by saying that he hoped that people would NOT work FOR him, but work WITH him. This is a clear illustration of what mentioned above.]


"Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can't get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn't even matter." ~ Gilbert Amelio ~ President and CEO of National Semiconductor Corp.

Ways to Establish Trust
a) Listen
b) Have Patience
c) Establish a Common Mision
d) Be Honest yourself
e) Have an open mind
f) Be willing to lead
g) But always be prepared to follow
h) Create an inclusive environment


Being an Efficient Team Requires:-
a) Planning Ahead
b) Think (as a group) before you act
c) Working together - Using all your resources
d) Establishing a goal that everyone understands
e) Delegation - Allocating the appropriate skills to complete tasks.
f) Focus
g) Time Management
h) Seeing the Big Picture, while not forgetting the details
i) Keeping Up Morale
j) Staying Determined - Not Losing Interest
k) Being Organized

An effective team leaders are able to place the needs of team equal to or above their own needs (TEAM >= YOU)

Reasons Teams Fail:-
a) Miscommunication
b) Lack of Responsibility or Indifference
c) Pride
d) Too Many Leaders
e) Unclear Goals
f) Lack of Integration
g) Lack of Trust
h) Lack of Healthy Conflict Resolution
i) Losing the Larger Vision in the Details

The Four Secrets to Create Powerful, Authentic Teams
a) Establishing Guidelines
b) Active Listening
c) Effective Conflict Resolution
d) Keeping the Larger Vision in Mind

Authenticity:-
Atmosphere in which people feel safe to share openly and honestly, both positive and negaive ideas, feelings.
(Authenticity = Honesty + Support => Best Results)

Establishing Guidelines:-
a) Guidelines are specific behaviors that a group commits to in order to greatly enhance its effectiveness.
b) People need to know the context they are working in (rules of the game)
c) Guidelines set the foundation for efficient tasking, trust and healthy conflict resolution.
d) Everybody commits to contributing their fair share.
e) Encourage each other (No negativity/cynicism/put downs)
f) Speak for yourself, not group
g) Listen actively - No interruptions
h) Share concerns openly

Active Listening:-
a) "We have two ears and one mouth in order to listen twice as much as we speak"
b) In a team, active listening helps us understand others, which in turn facilitatesthe discovery of the best joint decision.
c) True team synergy is achieved only through active listening.
d) Active listening is putting one's thoughs aside in order to hear and understand the thoughts and feelings of another person.
e) Use the EAR model (Explore, Acknowledge and Respond)

Effective Conflict Resolution:-
a) Myth #1: Conflict is bad
b) Myth #2: Conflict means there has to be a contest, a win-lose
c) Myth #3: Great teams have an absence of conflict

Myths are wrong thinking, which should be abandoned at all cost.

CAPS Model of Conflict Resolution:-
a) C: Cool Down
b) A: Agree to Work it Out
c) P: Sharing Points of View - Feedback
d) S: Share the Problem

Feedback: timely, specific, disarming, reaffirming, keep focus on you.

Keeping the Larger Vision in Mind:-
a) Shifting from pathology to vision crafting.
b) Pathology: problem solving, which is fixing, reactive and past-oriented
c) Vision Crafting:- Possibilities, what you want and how to get there, future-oriented
d) People get energy by focusing on visions/goals, not obstacles/problems that are in the way.
e) Difference between goals and vision is that goals can only motivate and usually for specific measurable thing, whereas vision is to inspire and picture/feelign where we are heading and is for long term

He ends with a citation from Kenneth Blanchard, the author of One Minute Manager:-
Praise in Public, Criticize in Private!



Hope that all of you can learn something from this seminar. Hope that others would share what they have learned from any seminar/lecture etc..

[masterof_none]

A very Wonderful Posting!. Cool, Chen Chow!

I learn a lot now, you have no idea ;-)

Hope we all can share stuff / lectures so that we learn.

The more we learn, the more we know, the more we enjoy!.

[chenchow]

This is another piece of public lecture, i gotten from Cornell Electrical and Computer Engineering Career Forum given recently:-

Skills that are hoped for, or expected, by most companies:-

1. Leadership
- History of leadership assignments, self-assertive personality, and often display initiative.

2. Communication
- Single highest rated criteria for employment
- Demonstrated written and oral skills

3. Complementary Teamwork Skills
- Working with a partner or many partners on complementary assignments - not two people sharing the same task.

4. Business Judgement & Problem Solving Abilities
- Do you understand what it takes for a product to be successful: marketing, technical feasibility and profitability

5. Management Potential
- Companies expect to find many of the leaders of their firms for the future, so evaluating someone in terms of management potential is common.

6. Success Drive
- Do you have the "Need to Achieve" and do you exhibit the energy needed to get there?

7. Human Relations Skills
- Interpersonal skills, people skills, tact/diplomacy, helping others achieve their best

8. Flexibility
- Ability to adapt to diverse situations and handle such situations on your own, seeking assistance of others as needed.
- Looking for self-starters who network with others to get the job done.

9. Maturity
- Exercise good judgement
- Developed and executed a thoughtful and mature career plan, like Where do you want to be in 5-10 years? Why did you pick this area? What will you contribute to the company?

10. Project Management Skills
- Mostly from Systems Engineering area and project courses.


------

Hope that everyone would get a bit from these postings. I had attended 2 talks today, one by VP of IBM and another one by VP of Merrill Lynch. Those would be up soon... Hope that others would share their experience too...

[chenchow]

This is what I have learned from the public lecture by Dr. William R. LaFonaine, Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Support, IBM Technology Group in Cornell on 5th November 2003.

Common Sense Ways to Succeed in Academic & Business World

He has worked 1.5 years in Tokyo and 2 years in Singapore. He is a Cornell PhD graduate in 1980s.

Graduate School
a) No one cares who you studied under and you would forget most of what you have learned. The end product you create become irrelevant shortly after you leave. So, your thesis would not be that useful after that, despite you spend thousands of hours on it. What you leave behind is memories. But what is important is that graduate school teach you on HOW TO THINK....
b) Understand that intelligence is not enough; drive and perseverance is the key.

Job Search:
a) elevator presentation (30 second presentation)
b) NETWORK
c) Selling your self
d) Thinking outside the obvious
e) Build a portfolio of experiences and capabilities

Employer needs:
a) Self confident and have energy to create ideas & run with them.
b) Problem solvers who are committed to do a quality job for their curstomers. No matter what it takes, but always with unyielding integrity.
c) Innovators who don't accept things the way they are, but come to work looking for a better way, every day.
d) Communicators who can excite teams and inspire them to act.
e) Talented and decisive leaders who have fun.

Success Stories:
a) Take it slow. Learn how things are done in company. Adapt to culture and keep eyes and ears open.
b) Organizational maze brightness. Notice how people communicate and work together. learn the acronyms and understand the political climate.
c) Manage your expectation, prepare to be surprised and bureaucracy.
d) Have savvy subordinate and get a mentor. Bring solutions along with problems. Discuss your professional development with your mentor. Meet once in a few months.
e) Never disclose any company confidential info. It spreads easily.
f) Impression Management. Your actions magnified in their impacts.

Kets to Success in Business World.
a) Do what you love and love what you do and deliver more than you promise.
b) Avoid the interesting but irrelevant.
c) Network inside the company and network outside the company.
d) Prople take care of you to the extent that it does not cost them too much. When it begins to cost too much, they will cease to take care of you.
e) It something does not work, kill it and move on.
f) Be creative.
g) Learn the annual reports of companies you are trying to apply and call after interview to talk about more.

Politics & Realities in Workplace
a) Assume everything you say would be spreading around
b) Be careful not to close off any opportunity. Even a question like your boss asking you whether you like to live in US? May be your boss is considering to send you as a promotion to US...
c) Trust your instincts.
d) Build a good reputation.

[wwhong]

thank you chen chow. please post more. waiting to read more.

[chenchow]

I would definitely post more...having a lot more to post, but time is not on my side... check out this section coming weekend...after i finish these series or exams and papers...

[chenchow]

Sorry for not posting in this section for so long. More would come up soon.

This is a public lecture by Professor Eric Clemons, from Wharton School.
on 7th November 2003 in Cornell.

Alternative Futures For Customer-Focused E-Commerce

Strategic Uncertainty:-
- What will e-Commerce look like?
- Need to plan for the future
- Need to plan before it is clear

Importance of previously learned behavior and previously solved problems. Here, role of maps and expertise play a role.

Question-Driven Planning:-
- Embraces Uncertainty
- Useful where data do not exist, or where data cannot be helpful
- What data should be taken?
- What is the market share?
- Does not start by trying to get data, but start by asking what data would be useful, if only it existed.

Early Warning System
- Receive and understand reliable early warnings.
- Recognize and remember the future.
- rapid response, know in time to react.

Mapping The Process
- Clarifying focal issue and key decisions
- Listing drivers and environmental forces
- Selection of key drivers for scenario matrix
- Development of scenario logics
- Strategic implications of each scenario
- Leading indicators
- Strategic implications and key decisions
- Priorities & Options.

Drivers' Uncertainties
- Customer behavior
- Not technology capabilities
- Not technology cost
- Not aggregate number of website hits
- Not number of net users
- New number of ISPs

Consumer Behavior
a) Scope of Interaction
- Narrow or broad scope
- Single good or bundles of goods

b) Duration of Interaction
- Short or long duration
- Single transaction?
- On going, value-adding relationship.

Realizing lock-in, highballing, lballing,...

[chenchow]

This is another public lecture that I went on November 21st by Professor David Murray, a Professor at William & Mary Business Schools. He currently manages IT infrastructure of that B-Schools. He previously worked in numerous corporations for 20 years, including Anderson, Indian Railway, etc. He is an alumni of University of Michigan.

Supply Chain Management

Consists of various systems, including engineering system, marketing system, manufacturing system, logictic system and management system, which are interrelated.

Engineering System:-
- Product Design Decisions
- Process Design Decisions

Marketing Systems:-
- Product Decisions
- Promotion Decisions
- Price Decisions
- Decisions on place, how, where, how much...)

Manufacturing System:-
- Production capacity decisions
- Production scheduling sdecisions
- Shop floor decisions

Logictic Systems:-
- inventory decisions
- transportation decisions
- sourcing decisions

Management Systems:-
- Strategic decisions
- Measurement decisions
- Reward decisions
- Financial decisions

Look at Supply Chain Integration

We need to integrate information, business processes, decision making between various entities like raw material suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, customers.

Various tools to complement Supply Chain Management:-
- Computer-Aided Design (CAD), CAM, Management Resources Planning (MRP), Inventory Control, Transportation Control, Timekeeping, Distribution Requirement Planning, EFT, Account Receivable, Order Processing...

Basically all those above would be at Transactional Processing System

For Decision Support System, we would look into issues like:
- Strategic Planning models, balanced scorecard, TCO, productivity analysis, profitability analysis, reverse logistic, warehouse management systme, cross-docking, facility location, vehicle routing, dynamic sourcing, inventory planning, demand forecasting, demand management, data mining (OLAP), business warehouse, cycle time reduction, production planning, discrete scheduling/ optimization, pick and pack optimizations, SC network designs, benchmarking ...

Supply Chain Management encompass the traditional record-keeping systems and sophisticated design systems, adding element of integration to those systems and the Supply Chain Management components respect interdependent nature of business processes and decision making within the firm.

Supply Chain Functionalities:-
- Point of sale, e-procurement, vendor managed inventory, e-commerce, auction, tracking and tracing, logistic provider evaluation, contracts, negotiations, just in time deliveries, auto replenishment, customer relationship management (CRM), supply management, supplier evaluation...

SCM Fits in Enterprise System:-

Strategic Level (Highest Level) :
Executive Information System (EIS)

Management Level :
Decision Support System (DSS)
Management Information System (MIS)

Knowledge Level:
Expert System (ES)
Office Automation System (OAS)

Operational Level (Lowest Level):
Transaction Processing System (TPS)


We have Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP)
- Integration of various components, including production data, production master table, accounts, sales, expense, product cost data, order table.


(Hope that those of you who are interested in certain aspects discussed, we could create a forum topic and discuss about it. Lots of interesting idea out there.)!!!

[chenchow]

Sorry for not being able to add more of the talks that I had attended, hopefully will be able to put in more often.

I will put the knowledge I have gained from a talk I attended todya, by Sam Wennberg, Vice President of Engineering, Kulicke & Soffa (www.kns.com)

The topic of his talk is Globalization: Lesson Learned. K&S is a middle size company wiht 2500 employees, with 70% of its revenue is derived in Asia. It has supply chain in JB and Penang. He has been working with Asians for nearly 24 years.

It specializes in wire bonding, where it had 50% market share.

The talk started by the trade value of various countries. US export was near $700b, whereas its import was near $1.15 trillion, so with huge trade deficit. Germany with export of $608b and import of $487b, so with pretty high trade surplur, Japan $384b export and $292 import, China $326b export and $295b import, Singapore $127b export, $113b import and India $45b export and $54b import.

He went on to talk about trade barriers, especially India people who are still uncomfortable with export and import and with pretty high tariff.

He predicted that by 2010, India is the world's 3rd largest economy, China will surpass US as the largest economy by 2013, Russia will become 5th largest economy by 2013.

First he concentrated on China. He highlighted 3 of the main economic zone, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, ShenZhen/HK. He talked about the need of China to imporve its poor standard Business Law, codes and prractices, and also China is more interested in having jobs for laborers rather than elites, which is predominantly the policy of India. China produces 3 times more engineers yearly compared to US.

He further talked about the power of guanxi, which is knowing the right people and done favor for others and owed favor. One of the reasons that he gave for China low import from US is due to fear of supply uncertainty. He reminded the audience that US has global arms embargo after Tiananmen Square. And he also lamented on the lots of paper work to sell high tech product out of China.

He gave statistics of walmart which purchased $12b per year from China and the presence of Walmart in many parts of China. China has started a 4% value-added tax for export since January 1st this year, a move that caught many investors off-guard. He talked about the uncertainty of policy. Another thing would be that China does not allow one economic region cannot accept direct shipment from other parts of China. So, for instance to transship something from Beijing to ShenZhen. It needs to be transported from Beijing to HK and from HK imported back to ShenZhen.

However, he mentioned that his observations of China is that the time to money, i.e. the time since you start investment and the time to get back revenue, is much shorter in China. In China, you can start building something and get complied with the law as you build, whereas in US, you must get everything clear before you start... China should also work on maintaining solvency.


That's all temporarily for now. I will update more on this talk soon. There will be more knowledge from more talks soon and hope that others who had gone for talk could share their knowledge too. Knowledge that I would learn from Bill Gates talk on 25th Feb will be on ReCom soon!

[chenchow]

Sorry for not being able to add more of the talks that I had attended, hopefully will be able to put in more often.

I will put the knowledge I have gained from a talk I attended todya, by Sam Wennberg, Vice President of Engineering, Kulicke & Soffa (www.kns.com)

The topic of his talk is Globalization: Lesson Learned. K&S is a middle size company wiht 2500 employees, with 70% of its revenue is derived in Asia. It has supply chain in JB and Penang. He has been working with Asians for nearly 24 years.

It specializes in wire bonding, where it had 50% market share.

The talk started by the trade value of various countries. US export was near $700b, whereas its import was near $1.15 trillion, so with huge trade deficit. Germany with export of $608b and import of $487b, so with pretty high trade surplur, Japan $384b export and $292 import, China $326b export and $295b import, Singapore $127b export, $113b import and India $45b export and $54b import.

He went on to talk about trade barriers, especially India people who are still uncomfortable with export and import and with pretty high tariff.

He predicted that by 2010, India is the world's 3rd largest economy, China will surpass US as the largest economy by 2013, Russia will become 5th largest economy by 2013.

First he concentrated on China. He highlighted 3 of the main economic zone, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, ShenZhen/HK. He talked about the need of China to imporve its poor standard Business Law, codes and prractices, and also China is more interested in having jobs for laborers rather than elites, which is predominantly the policy of India. China produces 3 times more engineers yearly compared to US.

He further talked about the power of guanxi, which is knowing the right people and done favor for others and owed favor. One of the reasons that he gave for China low import from US is due to fear of supply uncertainty. He reminded the audience that US has global arms embargo after Tiananmen Square. And he also lamented on the lots of paper work to sell high tech product out of China.

He gave statistics of walmart which purchased $12b per year from China and the presence of Walmart in many parts of China. China has started a 4% value-added tax for export since January 1st this year, a move that caught many investors off-guard. He talked about the uncertainty of policy. Another thing would be that China does not allow one economic region cannot accept direct shipment from other parts of China. So, for instance to transship something from Beijing to ShenZhen. It needs to be transported from Beijing to HK and from HK imported back to ShenZhen.

However, he mentioned that his observations of China is that the time to money, i.e. the time since you start investment and the time to get back revenue, is much shorter in China. In China, you can start building something and get complied with the law as you build, whereas in US, you must get everything clear before you start... China should also work on maintaining solvency.


That's all temporarily for now. I will update more on this talk soon. There will be more knowledge from more talks soon and hope that others who had gone for talk could share their knowledge too. Knowledge that I would learn from Bill Gates talk on 25th Feb will be on ReCom soon!

[chenchow]

Today, 25th February 2004, attended a talk at 4pm by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft at Kennedy Hall, Cornell University.

It was a much awaited talk with all of the 602 seats in the lecture theatre were fully taken. Bill Gates is covering UIUC, CMU, Cornell, MIT and Harvard. Bill Gates started by visiting the ultra modern Duffield Hall and after he gave a talk, he was having meeting with Microsoft officials, before giving a live interview with Time Magazine. A bunch of people, including me, were waiting at -8 Celcius for about 100 minutes waiting for Bill Gates to come out and shaking his hand, hopefully snapping a photo or getting an authograph. Only manage to shake his hand...nothing more...

Below is what I jotted down from his talk.

It started with President of Cornell, Jeff Lehman introduced Bill Gates. Cornell ties with Bill Gates are illustrated as follow:

"When Steve Sinofsky, a technical advisor to Bill Gates, visited Cornell Univeristy early in 1994 while scouting for talent, he noticed that students were hip to the Net, using it to send e-mail and cruise Gopher sites on search missions. This prompted Sinofsky to write Gates an e-mail titled "Cornell is Wired! And that is the turning point of Microsoft's involvement in Internet!"

In the talk, he talked about his drop out from Harvard in 1975 as a junior. It was mainly due to the competition from Microprocesson Based System, and it was the timing issue. Paul Allen and Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft started the company with a mission statement of every home having a computer. He encouraged college students to finish college and not drop out!

The program he wrote as he was a drop out from Harvard, was writing a basic interpreter for 8KByte. At that time, that was great, but compared to today's technology that was nothing.

He talked about the need for the continuous improvement in hardware level, and to work on parallelazation where as number of transistors are increased, performance needs to be imporved.

He talked about the capacity of disk double every 15 months or so, and even if anyone who typed non-stop for all his life, he wouldn't fill up the entire disc capacity.

He talked about the need of very high resolution monitor. His office has 3 parallel 20 inch monitor. He was visioning having very high resolution monitor to enable readability of newspaper and magazine online. He envisioned that soon people will prefer reading online completely.

He talked about wireless where information moving around and hopefully it would reached the rural area in the developing nation.

He showed the Spot Watch which is a Smart Watch with MSN Direct. It is running at 30MHz with 640K Memory.

He talked about the present situation where after data is collected, it is not readable. There is a huge need to enhance the readibility and organization of data. Data mining and as such gain insights on various human behavior.

He talked about having software to record meeting and having meeting time spent more efficiently. He acknowledged that 50% of meeting time was not spent ideally.

He talked about the current data mining and processing where it is working at clear weather day. But when error exists, like invoice is wrong, mismatch etc, you would need human intervention.

He talked about the need to bring information and only those wanted information to people at the best platform. Citing Tablet PC and other technology, he talked about real time acknowledgment of flight delay status etc at real time. He talked about the need to reduce and if possible, minimize spams. He showed 3 spams that he has received, i.e. uni diploma, legal service and out of debt.

He was visioning a photographic system with GPS data, where you would be able to identify where, when and who you took the photo with. It would have better visualization and better interface.

He showed Media 3D, where you can easily navigate and organize data. He also showed Media Frame Browser where you can categorize photo, like it can automatically select photo taken outdoor, indoor, faces etc. It could also find similarity or even sort using date and you can increase or decrease the groupings.

He also demonstrated Creative Portable Media Center as well.

He talked about Microsoft spent $6.8 billion this year in R&D, concentrating mainly on Window, XML, security (trustworthy computing) and web services. The 3 pure research group of Microsoft is at Seattle, Beijing and Cambridge. He also credited Cornell Theory Center for its high tech development.

He talked about having speech recognition, where people can just talk to its handphone and it would automatically navitage, made calls etc. He was saying that in fact, if there is no noise, microphone is perfect and no human prior contact, computer performance on recognition is almost compatible ot human kind.

He mentioned about a survey done in China where they fastest typist in China lost in speed to the speech recognition.

He also talked about artificial intelligence where it is utilized in games and many other application.

He talked about computer science collaboration with astronomy, where take lots of data and do modeling and propose theory and coming out with schema to solve the problem using state of the art technology.

He lamented that broadband cost is a hindrance and hopefully it could be further reduced. He talked about Mesh Network which would hopefully be able to break the bottleneck.

He talked also about Gates Foundation where $3.2 billion has been donated, espcially for AIDS and malaria. He talked about 50,000 computers sponsored by Gates Foundation this year to libraries all over the US. He also talked about Millennium Gates Scholarship, where it allowed minorities to finish college education. 50 of those scholars are in Cornell and they came out to say thank you.

He hoped that education can be further enhanced and the entire population can be involved!

That's all what he mentioned in his speech! I tried to queue up to ask a question during Q&A, but I didn't get the opportunity. I was hoping to bring out the fact that he is the International Advisory Panel Member of Multimedia Super Corridor...

(I am sorry if there is any mistake in the above summary, as I jotted down in limited time and I do not really know much about CS). Enjoy~!

[chenchow]

Today, 25th February 2004, attended a talk at 4pm by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft at Kennedy Hall, Cornell University.

It was a much awaited talk with all of the 602 seats in the lecture theatre were fully taken. Bill Gates is covering UIUC, CMU, Cornell, MIT and Harvard. Bill Gates started by visiting the ultra modern Duffield Hall and after he gave a talk, he was having meeting with Microsoft officials, before giving a live interview with Time Magazine. A bunch of people, including me, were waiting at -8 Celcius for about 100 minutes waiting for Bill Gates to come out and shaking his hand, hopefully snapping a photo or getting an authograph. Only manage to shake his hand...nothing more...

Below is what I jotted down from his talk.

It started with President of Cornell, Jeff Lehman introduced Bill Gates. Cornell ties with Bill Gates are illustrated as follow:

"When Steve Sinofsky, a technical advisor to Bill Gates, visited Cornell Univeristy early in 1994 while scouting for talent, he noticed that students were hip to the Net, using it to send e-mail and cruise Gopher sites on search missions. This prompted Sinofsky to write Gates an e-mail titled "Cornell is Wired! And that is the turning point of Microsoft's involvement in Internet!"

In the talk, he talked about his drop out from Harvard in 1975 as a junior. It was mainly due to the competition from Microprocesson Based System, and it was the timing issue. Paul Allen and Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft started the company with a mission statement of every home having a computer. He encouraged college students to finish college and not drop out!

The program he wrote as he was a drop out from Harvard, was writing a basic interpreter for 8KByte. At that time, that was great, but compared to today's technology that was nothing.

He talked about the need for the continuous improvement in hardware level, and to work on parallelazation where as number of transistors are increased, performance needs to be imporved.

He talked about the capacity of disk double every 15 months or so, and even if anyone who typed non-stop for all his life, he wouldn't fill up the entire disc capacity.

He talked about the need of very high resolution monitor. His office has 3 parallel 20 inch monitor. He was visioning having very high resolution monitor to enable readability of newspaper and magazine online. He envisioned that soon people will prefer reading online completely.

He talked about wireless where information moving around and hopefully it would reached the rural area in the developing nation.

He showed the Spot Watch which is a Smart Watch with MSN Direct. It is running at 30MHz with 640K Memory.

He talked about the present situation where after data is collected, it is not readable. There is a huge need to enhance the readibility and organization of data. Data mining and as such gain insights on various human behavior.

He talked about having software to record meeting and having meeting time spent more efficiently. He acknowledged that 50% of meeting time was not spent ideally.

He talked about the current data mining and processing where it is working at clear weather day. But when error exists, like invoice is wrong, mismatch etc, you would need human intervention.

He talked about the need to bring information and only those wanted information to people at the best platform. Citing Tablet PC and other technology, he talked about real time acknowledgment of flight delay status etc at real time. He talked about the need to reduce and if possible, minimize spams. He showed 3 spams that he has received, i.e. uni diploma, legal service and out of debt.

He was visioning a photographic system with GPS data, where you would be able to identify where, when and who you took the photo with. It would have better visualization and better interface.

He showed Media 3D, where you can easily navigate and organize data. He also showed Media Frame Browser where you can categorize photo, like it can automatically select photo taken outdoor, indoor, faces etc. It could also find similarity or even sort using date and you can increase or decrease the groupings.

He also demonstrated Creative Portable Media Center as well.

He talked about Microsoft spent $6.8 billion this year in R&D, concentrating mainly on Window, XML, security (trustworthy computing) and web services. The 3 pure research group of Microsoft is at Seattle, Beijing and Cambridge. He also credited Cornell Theory Center for its high tech development.

He talked about having speech recognition, where people can just talk to its handphone and it would automatically navitage, made calls etc. He was saying that in fact, if there is no noise, microphone is perfect and no human prior contact, computer performance on recognition is almost compatible ot human kind.

He mentioned about a survey done in China where they fastest typist in China lost in speed to the speech recognition.

He also talked about artificial intelligence where it is utilized in games and many other application.

He talked about computer science collaboration with astronomy, where take lots of data and do modeling and propose theory and coming out with schema to solve the problem using state of the art technology.

He lamented that broadband cost is a hindrance and hopefully it could be further reduced. He talked about Mesh Network which would hopefully be able to break the bottleneck.

He talked also about Gates Foundation where $3.2 billion has been donated, espcially for AIDS and malaria. He talked about 50,000 computers sponsored by Gates Foundation this year to libraries all over the US. He also talked about Millennium Gates Scholarship, where it allowed minorities to finish college education. 50 of those scholars are in Cornell and they came out to say thank you.

He hoped that education can be further enhanced and the entire population can be involved!

That's all what he mentioned in his speech! I tried to queue up to ask a question during Q&A, but I didn't get the opportunity. I was hoping to bring out the fact that he is the International Advisory Panel Member of Multimedia Super Corridor...

(I am sorry if there is any mistake in the above summary, as I jotted down in limited time and I do not really know much about CS). Enjoy~!

[iQing]

It?s a blessing for u to have the chance to listen to Bill Gate?s talk. he?s really enlightening...

I have read his book recently... the title is "the road ahead"
although it?s written many years ago but we really can learn a lot from it...

shall we find a way to gather all his wisdom?
it would be interesting if we all talk about bill gates and his wisdom.

[iQing]

It?s a blessing for u to have the chance to listen to Bill Gate?s talk. he?s really enlightening...

I have read his book recently... the title is "the road ahead"
although it?s written many years ago but we really can learn a lot from it...

shall we find a way to gather all his wisdom?
it would be interesting if we all talk about bill gates and his wisdom.

FYI, Bill Gates is no longer in the IAP of the MSC.

http://www.mdc.com.my/msc/iap.asp

He seems to be focusing more on China and India, a smart move indeed considering so many talents are there.

FYI, Bill Gates is no longer in the IAP of the MSC.

http://www.mdc.com.my/msc/iap.asp

He seems to be focusing more on China and India, a smart move indeed considering so many talents are there.

[chenchow]

Hi,

In fact, if you look closely, it was mentioned as IAP Representative, and Microsoft is represented by its CTO of Asia Pacific region. And as far as I know, Bill Gates is still the IAP, but he did not attend the IAP meeting in 2003. I think he had attended only twice the meeting in 7 years... Not that good... Hope that we redouble our efforts~!

[chenchow]

Hi,

In fact, if you look closely, it was mentioned as IAP Representative, and Microsoft is represented by its CTO of Asia Pacific region. And as far as I know, Bill Gates is still the IAP, but he did not attend the IAP meeting in 2003. I think he had attended only twice the meeting in 7 years... Not that good... Hope that we redouble our efforts~!

[chenchow]

This is from a module that I got from the Student Tools and Resource Skills (STARS) from Lockheed Martin.

"Putting The Word OUt" - How To Craft The Perfect Presentation to Get your Point Across

As Mark Twain said, "It usually takes more than 3 weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech".

The objective of this module is to help you become:-
a) Multifaceted, using a variety of presentation structures.
b) Impeccable - Building unimpeachable credibility
c) Mesmerizing - Creating interesting and compelling presentations
d) Clarivoyant - Anticipating Q&A to make it go your way.

The rules of repetition in giving a presentation is:
Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you have told them.

Presentation consists of 3 main parts.
a) Content - where it is the point of view or info that you want ot convey. Educatiion is needed to grasp your conclusion and keep it simple.
b) Structure - Have a logical beginning, middle and end and be sequenced and paced, so that the audience can follow your train of thoughts.
c) Packaging - Add color (humor, fun facts, startling discoveries and neat analogies) and well-designed (looks cool)

Basically there are 3 types of presentation
i) Informative, which is the general lecture type and not promoting any point of view.
ii) Persuasive, which is typically with a persuasive tone and with a strong and subjective point of view.
iii) Entertaining...

Five types of structure:-
a) Sequential structure, where you use "if then, therefore", and you have subconclusions, before final conclusions. Slowly build up.
b) Hierarchical structure, where you break topic into subtopics and into subsubtopics...
c) Question structure, where you introduce a problem and try to find a solutions with its pros and cons... bring the audience into discussions.
d) Pyramid - this is like newspaper way, where you have bigger details slowly goes to smaller and smaller details and resonate your main details all along.
e) The typical one. A clear beginning, middle and end.

Spice up your presentation, create connection and sustain interests. Use humor, color, shock, surprise, emotion, excellence, stories, anecdotes, metaphors, fear, sadness, physical involvements...

Bring up something that the audience can link to and before giving the presentation, get to know the audience. Identify what matters most to them and create connection. Apply our own persoanlity or creativity. When we present, we must showcase credibility. So, select good sources when we cite and know about the opposing view points too.

[chenchow]

This is from a module that I got from the Student Tools and Resource Skills (STARS) from Lockheed Martin.

"Putting The Word OUt" - How To Craft The Perfect Presentation to Get your Point Across

As Mark Twain said, "It usually takes more than 3 weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech".

The objective of this module is to help you become:-
a) Multifaceted, using a variety of presentation structures.
b) Impeccable - Building unimpeachable credibility
c) Mesmerizing - Creating interesting and compelling presentations
d) Clarivoyant - Anticipating Q&A to make it go your way.

The rules of repetition in giving a presentation is:
Tell them what you are going to tell them
Tell them
Tell them what you have told them.

Presentation consists of 3 main parts.
a) Content - where it is the point of view or info that you want ot convey. Educatiion is needed to grasp your conclusion and keep it simple.
b) Structure - Have a logical beginning, middle and end and be sequenced and paced, so that the audience can follow your train of thoughts.
c) Packaging - Add color (humor, fun facts, startling discoveries and neat analogies) and well-designed (looks cool)

Basically there are 3 types of presentation
i) Informative, which is the general lecture type and not promoting any point of view.
ii) Persuasive, which is typically with a persuasive tone and with a strong and subjective point of view.
iii) Entertaining...

Five types of structure:-
a) Sequential structure, where you use "if then, therefore", and you have subconclusions, before final conclusions. Slowly build up.
b) Hierarchical structure, where you break topic into subtopics and into subsubtopics...
c) Question structure, where you introduce a problem and try to find a solutions with its pros and cons... bring the audience into discussions.
d) Pyramid - this is like newspaper way, where you have bigger details slowly goes to smaller and smaller details and resonate your main details all along.
e) The typical one. A clear beginning, middle and end.

Spice up your presentation, create connection and sustain interests. Use humor, color, shock, surprise, emotion, excellence, stories, anecdotes, metaphors, fear, sadness, physical involvements...

Bring up something that the audience can link to and before giving the presentation, get to know the audience. Identify what matters most to them and create connection. Apply our own persoanlity or creativity. When we present, we must showcase credibility. So, select good sources when we cite and know about the opposing view points too.

[chenchow]

I have attended many talks and this one seems to be among the best that I had attended. It was on 5th of March 2004, 7:30pm at Alumni Auditorium in Cornell University.

It was an event coincided with the Cornell Commitment Convocation and it features a keynote speaker in Ms. Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize and Founder of International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She is one of the only eleven women in history who have received Nobel Peace Prize.

Ms. Jody Williams was introduced by Jesse Corburn, who is a Cornell Tradition Alumnus and currently a Teach For America Corps Members. He is currently doing 2 year of voluntary teaching in a school at Harlem, teaching history to 9th graders.

He talked about his experience in a very captivating way. He explained about how students in the school perceive history, as being the most boring stuff in the world. The students crave for Jennifer Lopez and other stuff, but not history. He decided to experiment a new teaching style. He created a plan, where he tells the students about bringing them back to history, where he talked about all those Indus, Gangris, Mesopotamia etc. The students were so hyped-up. (Sorry that I was unable to tell you all as interesting as he did, but he is a fantastic story teller). Before they started, he asked the students to sign a pledge, pledging that they would follow his instructions, do what were told and if they disobey, one of them would be mummified. He noticed that some of the students were startled, and stunned. He watched the emotions of those 9th graders, who were in a state of shock and uncertainty. They did not know how to react. Suddenly their clear mind was being tainted by this teacher. And many students were asking whether this is real. He depicted it as a very emotionally. Some of the students were terrified etc.

And later he told the students that he would want them to follow his instructions, get interested in history and they would not be mummified. And his moral was that, the students were clearly being influenced by teachers. And teachers play a very significant role in students' life. How a student shaped depends on the teachers and if the teachers are responsible in imbibing knowledge and values, the students will be a responsible citizen of the world, and vice versa if the teachers fail in their duties. And with that, he urge every teacher to be dedicated in their duties, as the world's younger generation depends upon them.

And now, it comes Ms. Jody William's talk, "The Individual's Impact on Social And Politics". Ms. Jody reminded that we should do the right thing even when no one sees what we are doing. And she started by apologizing for having to speak from a prepared text. She explained that this is the 3rd time in history that she had to prepare her text in her nearly 30 years of service and presentations to many dignitaries. Her dad passed away 9 days ago and her heart was very fragile. However, she came on to stage and deliver the keynote speech. She was emotionally unstable, but she delivered a fantastic speech.

She was in University of Vermont in 1968-72, where she counted herself lucky to get the opportunities to be the first one in her family to get college education. She talked about many younger generations that she had seen contributing to the world with prodound leaderships. She talked about her 20 + years of experience as an activist trying to improve the socio-economy, life and peacefullness of the world.

(Before I go on any further, I would want fellow ReComers to reflect on ReCom's struggle and vision, as we see how Ms. Jody William in her struggle. I was reflecting upon ReCom while hearing her talking.)

She talked about the measurement of an individual is not about how they word themselves. Words count for nothing. Promises count for nothing, but it is the actions and work that have been done that matters. A little bit changes by each and everyone that believe in the struggle makes the world a little bit better and with the accumulation of everyone's struggle, we can make a difference. She recognizes and urges everyone to give back just a little bit, and it would go a long way in strengthening the fabric of society.

She talked about in November 1991, when 2 US Vietnam War Veteran asked her to stop the daily terror of landmines, which do not recognize peace. After war, all the guns, tanks, fighter jets etc will return to its place, but landmines will stay there continuing threatening the life of people throughout many years to come. She made up of an international network of committed individuals, whom she managed to inspire them to join. She mentioned about the successfulness of a campaign would depend on whether the people believe and support it!

She talked about government as being part of the puzzle, especially in her efforts to ban landmines, as armies are the main usage of landmines. She talked about her biggest challenge was to get the vision, information across to people and to grow the network, and to empower people, as the campaign grow. She has to ensure that she has to pass on the right info to the right people at the right time. A network is just as strong as its weakest part of the network. She talked about working hard with passion and planning to achieve success and it requires a lot of commitment, follow up and follow through.

Her efforts have since grown to 1300 organizations in 90 countries, within 12 years. She managed to get 122 countries to sign the treaty to ban landmines in September 1997, and as of currently, 150 countries have signed it and 141 have ratified. She talked about the real reward from the effort is not the Nobel Peace prize, but rather to make millions of people feeling safe, turning a utopian dream into a virtual reality, building a better world, as the absolute result of hard work. Success is through the touch base with the sensitivity of poeople and to break out from the norm and to collaborate to bring the change.

She stressed about the ability of everyone to reach for their own capacity to make significant change. It is decided upon oneself whether someone wants to make the significant leap to pursue the motion of change with passion and action. Empathy is just mere irrelevant, as it won't make anything. She talked about as human being, it is not about title, but as a service and work, especially for those who are privideged and you can look back at what you have done, and you have a good smile in your heart with pride.

When asked about who she most admired? She mentioned that she knew people from Dalai Lama to Kofi Annan to PM and Presidents of various countries, but the people that she respected the most are the people who service in anonymity, whether they are ever recognized. They do because of their belief in making changes.

She ended with an urge for everyone to interact and to embrace own passion and build on work that has been done to create a change and make contribution in life. Although some change would be little and may seem irrelevant, but it would be very meaningful to those who have received the change. They may have received transformation in their life. She reminded that each and everyone of us, is just all, but a small part of social fabric.

(Hope that everyone will ponder over what Ms. Jody Williams has said and reflect upon ourselves.)

[chenchow]

I have attended many talks and this one seems to be among the best that I had attended. It was on 5th of March 2004, 7:30pm at Alumni Auditorium in Cornell University.

It was an event coincided with the Cornell Commitment Convocation and it features a keynote speaker in Ms. Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize and Founder of International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She is one of the only eleven women in history who have received Nobel Peace Prize.

Ms. Jody Williams was introduced by Jesse Corburn, who is a Cornell Tradition Alumnus and currently a Teach For America Corps Members. He is currently doing 2 year of voluntary teaching in a school at Harlem, teaching history to 9th graders.

He talked about his experience in a very captivating way. He explained about how students in the school perceive history, as being the most boring stuff in the world. The students crave for Jennifer Lopez and other stuff, but not history. He decided to experiment a new teaching style. He created a plan, where he tells the students about bringing them back to history, where he talked about all those Indus, Gangris, Mesopotamia etc. The students were so hyped-up. (Sorry that I was unable to tell you all as interesting as he did, but he is a fantastic story teller). Before they started, he asked the students to sign a pledge, pledging that they would follow his instructions, do what were told and if they disobey, one of them would be mummified. He noticed that some of the students were startled, and stunned. He watched the emotions of those 9th graders, who were in a state of shock and uncertainty. They did not know how to react. Suddenly their clear mind was being tainted by this teacher. And many students were asking whether this is real. He depicted it as a very emotionally. Some of the students were terrified etc.

And later he told the students that he would want them to follow his instructions, get interested in history and they would not be mummified. And his moral was that, the students were clearly being influenced by teachers. And teachers play a very significant role in students' life. How a student shaped depends on the teachers and if the teachers are responsible in imbibing knowledge and values, the students will be a responsible citizen of the world, and vice versa if the teachers fail in their duties. And with that, he urge every teacher to be dedicated in their duties, as the world's younger generation depends upon them.

And now, it comes Ms. Jody William's talk, "The Individual's Impact on Social And Politics". Ms. Jody reminded that we should do the right thing even when no one sees what we are doing. And she started by apologizing for having to speak from a prepared text. She explained that this is the 3rd time in history that she had to prepare her text in her nearly 30 years of service and presentations to many dignitaries. Her dad passed away 9 days ago and her heart was very fragile. However, she came on to stage and deliver the keynote speech. She was emotionally unstable, but she delivered a fantastic speech.

She was in University of Vermont in 1968-72, where she counted herself lucky to get the opportunities to be the first one in her family to get college education. She talked about many younger generations that she had seen contributing to the world with prodound leaderships. She talked about her 20 + years of experience as an activist trying to improve the socio-economy, life and peacefullness of the world.

(Before I go on any further, I would want fellow ReComers to reflect on ReCom's struggle and vision, as we see how Ms. Jody William in her struggle. I was reflecting upon ReCom while hearing her talking.)

She talked about the measurement of an individual is not about how they word themselves. Words count for nothing. Promises count for nothing, but it is the actions and work that have been done that matters. A little bit changes by each and everyone that believe in the struggle makes the world a little bit better and with the accumulation of everyone's struggle, we can make a difference. She recognizes and urges everyone to give back just a little bit, and it would go a long way in strengthening the fabric of society.

She talked about in November 1991, when 2 US Vietnam War Veteran asked her to stop the daily terror of landmines, which do not recognize peace. After war, all the guns, tanks, fighter jets etc will return to its place, but landmines will stay there continuing threatening the life of people throughout many years to come. She made up of an international network of committed individuals, whom she managed to inspire them to join. She mentioned about the successfulness of a campaign would depend on whether the people believe and support it!

She talked about government as being part of the puzzle, especially in her efforts to ban landmines, as armies are the main usage of landmines. She talked about her biggest challenge was to get the vision, information across to people and to grow the network, and to empower people, as the campaign grow. She has to ensure that she has to pass on the right info to the right people at the right time. A network is just as strong as its weakest part of the network. She talked about working hard with passion and planning to achieve success and it requires a lot of commitment, follow up and follow through.

Her efforts have since grown to 1300 organizations in 90 countries, within 12 years. She managed to get 122 countries to sign the treaty to ban landmines in September 1997, and as of currently, 150 countries have signed it and 141 have ratified. She talked about the real reward from the effort is not the Nobel Peace prize, but rather to make millions of people feeling safe, turning a utopian dream into a virtual reality, building a better world, as the absolute result of hard work. Success is through the touch base with the sensitivity of poeople and to break out from the norm and to collaborate to bring the change.

She stressed about the ability of everyone to reach for their own capacity to make significant change. It is decided upon oneself whether someone wants to make the significant leap to pursue the motion of change with passion and action. Empathy is just mere irrelevant, as it won't make anything. She talked about as human being, it is not about title, but as a service and work, especially for those who are privideged and you can look back at what you have done, and you have a good smile in your heart with pride.

When asked about who she most admired? She mentioned that she knew people from Dalai Lama to Kofi Annan to PM and Presidents of various countries, but the people that she respected the most are the people who service in anonymity, whether they are ever recognized. They do because of their belief in making changes.

She ended with an urge for everyone to interact and to embrace own passion and build on work that has been done to create a change and make contribution in life. Although some change would be little and may seem irrelevant, but it would be very meaningful to those who have received the change. They may have received transformation in their life. She reminded that each and everyone of us, is just all, but a small part of social fabric.

(Hope that everyone will ponder over what Ms. Jody Williams has said and reflect upon ourselves.)

[chenchow]

Public Lecture:
Who: Jeff Immelt, CEO and Chairman of General Electric
When : 15th April 2004
Where: Kennedy Hall, Cornell University.

This talk is in conjunction with Hatfield Address, Johnson School 20-year anniversary and CSE Conference on Energy Demand and Sustainable Development.

Dean of Business School and a Board of Director of GE, Bob Stedinger introduced Frank H.T. Rhodes, President Emeritus of Cornell and former Board of Director of GE (1984-2002).

Jack Welch, former CEO of GE was the 1984 Hatfield lecturer on 26th April 1984.

Jeff Immelt became the CEO of GE on 7th Sep 2001, 4 days before 9/11. It was the day when 4 aircrafts powered by GE engine and under GE insurance crashed into World Trade Center and Pentagon. GE is an 126-year-old company with 300,000 employees.

Jeff tied his personal compensations to GE?s performance and he built on the six-sigma incentives started by Jack Welch. He tried to return GE into its traditional corporate route. He has also opened research lab in Bangalore, Shanghai and Munich, where he built on local strength and high economic growth. GE has been concentrating on molecular imaging, alternative energy, power sourcing and nanotech as the focus for the near future. In GE, 50% of its senior executives are women, minorities or foreigners, which showcase GE?s commitment towards diversity.

Jeff was named as the Businessman of the Year by Financial Times in 2003. He holds a degree of Math from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

The title of his talk is ?Innovation Imparity?. He first talked about GE employing 513 Cornell graduates currently and 54 more Cornellians have been recruited to join GE for internship or full time employment this summer. 3 of GE?s senior executives are Cornell graduates and GE has been contributing more than $3million to Cornell these few years.

He talked about the economy is getting better than any time in the past 4 years. The interest rate is low and Japan has been seeing its first growth year. In overall, there is a great stimulus. However, he warned of the possibility of inflation creeping back and there would be an excess of capacity.

He talked about 5 main issues:-
a) Currently we are living in a slow growth time, where there is a capacity overhang and not sufficient job worldwide. There aren?t sufficient great ideas to drive the economy and the world would grow systematically slower.
b) It is a changing face of global economy. The growing of competition from China, India and Eastern Europe, especially in terms of intellectuals, where he mentioned that 3 engineers in India is cheaper than 1 production worker in US.
c) He also talked about global competitiveness, where he talked about the business transformation in the last decade has been relying on distribution. He cited the example of success of eBay, WalMart and Dell, which each capitalizing on distribution.
d) He talked about demographic, where health care is going to take a staggering 20% of US GDP. He also talked about the growth of China and he had an advice to Cornell students, which is to learn about health care and China.
e) He talked about the volatile world, where it is essential to have cultural and financial stability.

He talked about non-comparison between Jack Welch and him because both of them are leaders of GE at different period of time. He talked about the need to think of operation model, business that can excel and initiative that can drive growth.

He talked about his business model, which emphasizes on generating cash flow for reinvestment, cultural productivity and global competitiveness. He stresses on the need to be transparent and ethical.

He also talked about the criteria of every business that GE would invest on. It must have strong technical foundation. It must have its own direct-to-customer interface, global interface, multiple revenue stream, great capital efficiency so that reinvestment is possible.

He talked about the ability to generate growth, where he has increased the R&D funding of GE to $5billion per year. He talked about going to the same side as customers and GE has increased 5000 more sales and marketing force since 2001, and to take the company on global front.

He talked about China with $300 billion of infrastructure going to be built in the next decade. That showcases a huge lot of opportunities. Currently 25 airports are being built in China. He talked about the need to drive innovation and continue to lead.

He stresses about the need to focus on people and processes. He talked about when he headed GE. Out of 175 VPs, only 7 are engineers, whereas 17 are lawyers, so he thought that it was not well-positioned and he positioned Scott Donnelly, Senior VP into research lab and work on various engineering stuff. He stressed of the need of people with technical and commercial background.

He talked about the change process, where GE would do 3 year-plan every July. It used to be on financial figure and little on marketing and product. However, he has transformed into customer-based, technology, trend and competitor and not merely number. He stressed again the importance of innovation.

Currently, Jeff personally supervised 40 projects which he called imagination process, where he went to front line and get a feel on the innovation drive. He mentioned about the importance of focus and making good bets.

He talked about the last 20 years of being innovation that was built based on technology, whereas on the next 20 years, innovation would be built on economic of scarcity, where energy efficiency, renewable energy, effective and affordable health care, personalized medicine and security to be the main thing.

He talked about making product with less weight and making big and effective bets. He talked about for a company like GE, it is important to utilize its scale of economy and size to an advantage. GE has its pride of turning $1M business into $1B business, which is GE?s core competency. It is essential to take risk and globalize and leverage on its size. Make collaborations and minimize bureaucracy.

He mentioned about GE is fond of making many simultaneous investments. For instance, GE just took over a Photovoltaic company in Bangalore which is near bankruptcy to do research on photovoltaic.

He talked about the need to know how to make money. Any innovation without customer is nonsense. He talked about the need to constantly build innovation which would have a pipeline for long term. He talked about as a company; GE would need to look into its short and long term earnings.

He talked about 9 essential qualities of people that GE is looking for:-
a) adaptable and equally comfortable in any corner of the world.
b) Have antenna up to learn continuously
c) Decisive and determined.
d) Know how to be in an inclusive culture, and engage on alliance, joint venture, basically working together.
e) Know how to learn and teach. Have passion in learning
f) Innovative
g) Passionate, but still have process-minded.
h) Confident
i) Willing to compete, and wanting to take a challenging and rewarding future

He mentioned about the need to be competitive. No one is guaranteed of success. We have to fight for it and we need to be compassionate and innovative. Be willing to take opportunities and risk.

[chenchow]

Public Lecture:
Who: Stephen Friedman ?59 , former Chairman of Goldman Sachs, current Chief Financial Advisor of George Bush Jr and Chairman of National Economic Council
When : 1:30pm 4/15/2004
Where: Statler Auditorium

Stephen Friedman first talked about his weekly Wednesday meeting with other advisors of White House on economic matters and presents the suggestions to President. If it is consensus decision, typically President will decide whether to accept or reject that proposal, however if there is no consensus, typically President will be decisive enough to make the decision. He talked about during Tax Bill, they had daily conference.

The advisory main goal is to maintain US competitive edge. He talked about US is just suffering from the biggest bubbles and the 9/11 effect, where 1.8 million of jobs were lost during then. Another effect was the Iraq war last March. That caused many corporate people to be risk averse and there is also slow growth abroad. Federal Reserve was talking some time back about the possibility of even deflation.

However, he mentioned that if we look at it objectively, US growth has been double the growth of Europe for the past year. US unemployment rate is also much lower than the unemployment rate of France and Germany. He attributed that to Fed monetary policy, US fiscal policy and flexibility and resilience of American.

He talked about the Fed adjusts rapidly and help household balance their liability. It also keep corporate sheet healthy and it is a major kick start to economy. He mentioned that investment is correlated with consumer demand and stock market is correlated to confidence level of the people. He also touched on tax and dividend relief.

On fiscal policy, he talked about business capital spending and there is an increase of depreciation lately, which is a good sign. There is also an improved stock market to talk about and to build a less pessimistic stock market.

The third stage would be to turn the labor market and make it sustainable and to maintain competitive edge, where government will help to create the environment. He talked about the strength of Americans? adaptability, but he warned that we should not take things for granted.

He also stressed that education is crucial. He mentioned about two potential internal threats to US. One is the increase in litigation cost, and the other one is health care cost.

He talked about the benefits of free trade, where he mentioned that US is still the world?s freest country. He mentioned that due to Uruguay Round and NAFTA, an average American family gains $2000 and if only 1/3 of the global trade barrier is removed, each family will gain another $2500.

He talked about Toyota just invested $10 billion in US with $15 billion of spending on purchasing parts for the manufacturing and $4 billion for service, besides the $2 billion payroll per year contributed to Americans.

He mentioned about the need to build human capital. He mentioned that US has the world?s best graduate and higher education, however, US has failed to deliver on K-12. There has been a growing gap between degree holders and non-degree holders. He lamented that US K-12 is less rigorous and spent less hour than most countries abroad.

He talked about the difficulty to make economic forecasting. He also talked about the danger of continuously increasing productivity. An increase of productivity would mean that we would need fewer people to work on the same amount of work and if there is a lack of growth rate, then many jobs would be eliminated and in the end, the productivity growth would just cause unemployment rate to rise.

[chenchow]

This is from the talk of William Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd President of United States this morning, 29th May 2004 at Cornell University Class of 2004 Convocation.

Before Bill Clinton gave his speech, Esther Tang '04, the senior class President gave a fantastic speech on the experience of Class of 2004 in Cornell University.

Bill Clinton started his speech by giving credits to the campus for various efforts taken, towards promoting international cooperation, including the Cornell Weill Medical Center at Qatar, Mars Rover expedition etc.

Bill Clinton talked about 21st century as the century of Information Technology, Biology and Chemistry merged together. It is a century with immense opportunity and threat. He challenge the graduating class to redeem the service and sacrifice by various Cornell alumni all over the world.

He cited the humble yet bold words of the US founding. He commented on the choice US has made to end slavery, to move from agricultural based to industrial based and he mentioned that US has grown a lot based on successful choices of path.

He talked about the age to be age of interdependence, where international cooperation should be further enhanced. Trade, traveling, human genome project, international space station, AIDS epidemic, global warming etc have encompassed international cooperation. He encouraged the strive of building a global community, where people share benefits and responsibilities and make more friends in the world.

He talked about attitudes towards racial and ethnic diversity. We usually utilize that diversity for the betterment, rather than destruction. He talked about half of the world's population are not able to enjoy the benefits of globalization and 2 billion people are still living below $2/day. 10 million children died a year due to preventable diseases. 130 million kids were unable to go to university and he talked about only a very small fraction of the cost of defence spending is used, it will be more than enough to provide proper schooling for these 130 million kids for 6 years. This is the way, he said US should work on to make friends all over the world.

He talked about the easiness to tear down the infrastructure etc of our enemies, but it will be impossible to solve the problem. It takes more than unilateral efforts to solve the problems. He talked about the stand of current administration of act alone whenever can and cooperate when forced to and he said this should be instead be cooperate whenever can and only act alone when forced to.

He talked about US power is not weapon. He asked the audience to imagine the day that US is not superpower. If US has made friends all over the world, assistance would come, but if US is being looked as an arrogant superpower, people will be cheering on US's downfall.

He cited the beauty of diversity. In a school at Manhattan which has 600 students. Those students came from 80 ethnic groups or countries from all over the world. He talked about Cornell being a global village too with students of all races or ethnic groups were present, spanning 126 countries.

He emphasized on the need to move from isolation to interdependence to cooperation.

He cited that in Human Genome, more than 99.9% of genes are similar in every person. The difference between each person is just very small fraction and the genetic difference within ethnic group is greater than the difference between group and group.

[chenchow]

A long list of Public lectures that I have been. I will try to update here.

Johnny Applestix's co-founders Mark Kuperman, Tony Bellamano

They were Cornell graduate in 2003, and as of now, they have opened 3 stores of their new fastfood chain. And they are opening their 4th one on 1st Nov.

They have given some advice to new entrepreneurs.

1. Find Old People
- They talk about being green, which means that others would assume you not to have experience and don't understand the industry. Hence, they talk about the essentialness of the Board of Directors, where they provide experience/knowledge and credibility.

2. Make Mistakes Now
- Being entrepreneurs would mean that you would need to take calculated risk and would definitely make a lot of mistakes in the process. Try to go out and work in the field and learn from larger companies. Take risk as you can, and basically make the mistakes early.

3. Don't to afraid to move to new area.
- The speakers tried to start at LA, but failed initially and eventually they got some VC to fund them $450K and get them started at Cleveland. As early entrepreneurs, they lacked capital, reputation and business network, so have to be open for outside opportunities and may need to make sacrifice in personal life.

4. Raise Money, Make a nice picture
- In the early stage, you need to sell the idea to the investor and must transform it to something tangible. Try selling it and/or build something out of it, even a conceptual picture, like they make a 3D visual of the store, and like Google's founders make the initial concepts using Lego.

5. Don't Fall in Love with Business Plan
- It is essential tool for raising capital, and vision for company which haven't had anything. Once business is launched, need to always improve and keep up to the market needs, like in this case, they change and broaden their menu.



-- I will update more public lectures soon.