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 In an age in which the average tenure of CEOs has shrunk to about five years, and theories about how to manage successfully through economic turmoil have the lifespan of a tsetse fly, it is interesting to reflect on the amazingly prophetic writings of Peter Drucker who died nearly four years ago at the age of 95. Drucker, considered the father of modern management, in a Harvard Business Review article published in 1993, wrote this:
 Peter Drucker “Every few hundred years throughout Western history, a sharp transformation has occurred. In a matter of decades, society altogether rearranges itself–its world view, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions. Forty years later a new world exists. And the people born into that world cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. Our age is such a period of transformation.”
“In this society,” he continued, “knowledge is the primary resource for individuals and for the economy overall. Specialized knowledge by itself produces nothing. It can become productive only when it is integrated into a task. The purpose and function of every organization, business and nonbusiness alike, is the integration of specialized knowledge into a common task.”
The issues, according to Drucker, are: “Society, community, and family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability and to prevent, or at least to slow, change. But the modern oranization is a destabilizrer. It must be organized for innovation , the systematic abandonment of whatever is established, customary familiar, and comfortable.”
“It is the nature of knowledge,” he observed, “that it changes fast and that today’s certainties always become tomorrow’s absurdities.”
 Professor Leon Chua There is a new word lurking in the arcane language of electronics that may describe a breakthrough in the science of artificial intelligence. It is “memristor”.The more familiar elements of electronic circuits are resistors, capacitors and inductors. An electronics engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, Leon Chua, was convinced there was a fourth missing element that seemed to be present in nature. It turned out to be the elusive memristor.
According to New Scientist Magazine “within the past couple of years, memristors have morphed from obscure jargon into one of the hottest properties in physics. They’ve not only been made, but their unique capabilities might revolutionize consumer electronics.”
Scientists believe memristors might solve the puzzle of how nature makes what is described as “the most delicate and powerful of computers-the human brain.”
A team at Hewlett Packard is working on ways to link a memristor-based chip to a complex model of brain synapses. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, where the Internet was born, announced an effort called the “Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics Program” SyNapse for short.
Chua was quoted as saying attempts to create electronics that can mimic the awesome power of a brain may have achieved little success simply because they lack crucial electronic components, namely memristors.
 Tim Berners-Lee Is Web 2.0 a distinctly different application of Internet technology or, as Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee described it a “piece of jargon”? This is a serious question for marketing executives grappling with issues about where to spend advertising and promotion dollars in puzzling economic times.Initially the Web was used as a way of publishing and retrieving information. Viewers were limited to viewing content only the site’s owner could modify. Web 2.0 refers to Web development and design capable of communication, secure information sharing, and collaboration.
Web 2.0 applications like Facebook, You Tube and Twitter have redefined politics, but continue to find resistance in the corporate world. An article in Chief Executive Magazine offered this explanation:
“Traditionally, the architecture of corporations has been vertical and closed. Corporate cultures are characterized by rigid hierarchies managed as top-down organizations. The architecture of Web 2.0 platforms, by contrast, is essentially social and their design is open, horizontal and transparent.”
However a new day may be dawning. Forrester Research forecasts accelerated spending on Web 2.0-from $764 million in 2008 to $4.6 billion in 2013. Here’s the way Chief Executive Magazine summarizes the situation:
“Corporate executives, once intrigued only by the hype and buzz around Web 2.0, are now embracing social media to boost productivity, foster innovation and market their new products.”
However, it would be surprising if there were not critics. Author Andrew Keen, who half-seriously thinks it would be a good idea to abolish the Internet, writes:
“The Internet is creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels.” He calls it a cult of digital narcissism and amateurism which undermines the notion of expertise.
 Forler Massnick For about 90 years the leaders of society have been implored to THINK, most notably by IBM which adopted it as a slogan. That’s not good enough for today’s tumultuous times, according to the author of a book on the subject. The imperative watchword today is RETHINK. It keeps showing up in business, government, education and healthcare. Think is reflective and passive. Rethink implies challenging everything and shaking it up, says the author.
In his book Rethinking the Corporation, author Forler Massnick contends that businesses satisfied with the status quo are doomed to extinction. The central issue is the fact that science and technology are advancing exponentially while business methods and practices loll around in”business as usual”.
Massnick says there is a yawning gap to be addressed by challenging all of society’s ways of doing things. He points out that shakeups like this have occurred every 200 years for the past one thousand years. The last time it was the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s. Do the math, he says.
Massnick offers examples of rethinking, department by department and function by function, as a guide to leaders who are challenged by the stark reality that advances in science and technology can blindside them, suddenly and without mercy.
To illustrate his point he sprinkles interesting vignettes throughout the book that remind readers of the humble ways in which inventions have popped up unexpectedly and changed the world dramatically. Often they obliterated existing companies and created new industries and enterprises.
Massnick identifies three major obstacles to rethinking: A not invented here (NIH) attitude that blocks innovation from outside; Middle management resistance to change as a way of protecting its turf; Emphasis on coping with the economy resulting in ignoring the 800 pound gorilla of advances in science and technology.
Dr. Dick Judy, retired dean of the business school at the University of Wisconsin, said if he were back in the classroom he would make Rethinking the Corporation required reading for all of his students.
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