All posts in English

  • Thinking about 2011

    I’m not going to write a full-fledged predictions post, but have been thinking about what’s on the horizon in terms of big changes. First off, who knows what’s coming on the economic front, but when you have guys like GE CEO Jeff Immelt saying that we’re in a reset period, you know big things are happening on the digital innovation front.

    In technology, it’s interesting to see the tablet movement as the virtual and physical worlds continue to meet (accessing digital information is becoming more transparent). Forrester just revised their tablet forecast and says that tablets should overtake laptops by 2015.

    Finally, the whole cloud computing thing continues to accelerate. The disruptive power of this technology which levels the playing field for smaller companies that want to “act” biggger and bigger companies that want to “act” more agile, continues to play out. As BusinessWeek published a couple of days ago, the M&A activity in cloud computing will really heat up in the coming year as HP and others look to buy their way into innovation.

    Finally, I’m pretty psyched about the kick-off of the Foundation Institute initiative here in Colombia and expect a good turn out of people attending the launch event.  Last night, I finished my next Kienyke article about  this launch and hope to get interesting feedback from it.

  • Colombia Startup Initiative Launching in 2011

    It’s been a wild ride this past year and, now, in 2011, I feel that a lot of things will come together. My mantra for the coming years is helping get Latin America, as a region, competing at the highest level. This means, working with startups (getting them off the ground, giving them visibility, etc.) and working with established technology companies, training traditional companies in Digital Innovation, evangelizing the need for all of this, and, finally, actually executing (hands-on) some amazing strategies for companies.
    With respect to the first objective (getting world-class startups off the ground), I’ve been insinuating for a while that I’ll be launching something in Colombia, where I see a major need for this. I’m finally ready to pre-announce what it is I’ve been working on.
    Here’s the pre-announcement: On February 25th, we’ll be executing the first program for Startup founders in Colombia connecting successful international founders (especially, from Silicon Valley) and successful local founders with promising future entrepreneur/founders here in Colombia. We won’t be reinventing the wheel since we’ll be bringing an established program called the Founder Institute (created by Adeo Ressi) for the first time to Latin America. I have a counterpart in Chile who will be executing it there also.
    I’ve seen a lot of initiatives here in Colombia and many of them have merit, but I haven’t seen initiatives which, in my opinion, take startup space (specifically, startups that make use of technology to innovate) to level that’s really required to get Colombia more competitive (especially when compared with Chile, Argentina and Brazil). I’ve gotten some criticism down here for saying that Colombia isn’t on a par with the aforementioned countries, but none of this criticism was based on sufficient objective arguments to convince me otherwise.
    I’ll be writing more about this initiative in the following weeks. If I’m able to get sponsors on board, they will help tremendously in making this initiative much less costly for entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, I’ve already met with quite a few people that represent large organizations (government, companies and universities), which would benefit greatly from co-sponsoring this type of initiative, but that doesn’t mean that they actually will do it.
    Ok. That’s enough computer work today. Now it’s time to have some great wine with a great pal named Guido…

  • Excellent way to end the year – with a workshop

    Digital Innovation WorkshopLast Wednesday, a group of 16 people and myself had an excellent time during the Digital Innovation Workshop that I directed at Microsoft’s offices in Bogota, Colombia.  For me, the best part was the interaction between the participants as well as between them and myself. It was a truly rewarding experience as I’m sure the next workshops will be also.

    Each day, I’m astonished by the continual disruption happening in industry after industry where new competitors pop up from unexpected places in the same way that a computer company (Apple) disrupted the music business and the way that DVD rental-by-mail company (Netflix) disrupted the cable business.  We looked at these and many more examples and discussed the implications for each particpants’ businesses.  Participants came from companies such as Colmedica, Banco de Bogota, Belcorp, Legis, Intergrupo, Federacion de Cafeteros and others.

    Finally, we ran through three interactive and stimulating exercises so that everyone would leave the workshop with the necessary tools to start rethinking their own businesses and collaborating with colleagues on how to proactively anticipate innovations in their own industry and innovate with new business models. It was truly a great group of people and I thank them for the stimulating discussions and the energy and passion that they put into this unique learning experience.

    Digital Innovation Workshop from Tropical Gringo on Vimeo.

  • Latin American Star Developers

    As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m developing an interesting project to provide programming talent to web startups in the states and perhaps other regions such as Europe. The concept continues to evolve with the focus now being on finding superstar programmers instead of the typical software factory with a variety of skill levels.

    I really think that companies such as Globant have proven that, if done correctly, one can build a successful business by offering top-notch programming talent to interesting web companies.  Realizing the potential of such an endeavor has as much to do with creating a vibrant company culture in tune with the needs of the programmers and the company’s potential customers.  Here, in Colombia, I think a company such as Koombea, which has won international coding competitions, is further proof that the potential certainly exists.

    Eventhough I’ve been looking forward to building my own web app (and a company around it), there are so many things pulling me in this direction, that I just can’t ignore it any longer.  I’ve had qualms about going full force into a services business (like outsourced development), but, after further reflection, it’s finally clear to me that this path has a lot of positives.

    Like I said, building a vibrant company culture is a big part of doing this successfully, but I’ve had great experiences doing this for others.  Fifteen years ago, when I moved to Colombia from the states, I got the chance to build a services organization from 2 engineers to more than 20 at Compaq Computer and we achieved such a level of excellence that our country (Colombia) had the best customer satisfaction levels (our measure of success) in the whole world.

    The incredible thing is that when I established that BHG (Big Hairy Goal) three years prior, I got a ton of snickers from the team and I’m sure they were convinced that they were dealing with one “gringo loco” (that part was true).  Nevertheless, after five years in the valley (Silicon Valley) and a little flexibility in my adjustment to the Latin American culture, I saw that amazing things were possible.

    I’m continuing to develop this project and will, firstly, make sure that I start locating top-notch talent before offering anything to potential customers (startups and other SaaS and web companies).  I’d really like to get some young raw talent that can absorb a ton of high performance culture and values from Silicon Valley type companies instead of going whole hog for senior developers who might have acquired a few too many stodgy bad habits along the way.

    What are your thoughts on what I’m embarking upon?