Ged Carroll

Category: economics | 經濟學 | 경제학 | 経済

Economics or the dismal science was something I felt that I needed to include as it provides the context for business and consumption.

Prior to the 20th century, economics was the pursuit of gentleman scholars. The foundation of it is considered to be Adam Smith when he published is work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith outlined one of the core tenets of classical economics: each individual is driven by self-interest and can exert only a negligible influence on prices. And it was the start of assumptions that economists model around that don’t mirror real life all the time.

What really is a rational decision maker? Do consumers always make rational decisions? Do they make decisions that maximise their economic benefit?

The problem is that they might do actions that are rational to them:

  • Reducing choice when they are overwhelmed
  • Looking for a little luxury to comfort them over time. Which was the sales of Cadbury chocolate and Revlon lipstick were known to rise in a recession
  • Luxury goods in general make little sense from a ration decision point of view until you realise the value of what they signal
  • Having a smartphone yet buying watches. Japanese consumers were known to still buy watches to show that they care about the time to employers when they could easily check their smartphone screen

All of which makes the subject area of high interest to me as a marketer. It also explains the amount of focus now being done by economists on the behavioural aspect of things.

  • Boa + more stuff

    Boa server hack

    Hackers breach energy orgs via bugs in discontinued web server – state-backed Chinese hacking groups (including one traced as RedEcho) targeted multiple Indian electrical grid operators, compromising an Indian national emergency response system and the subsidiary of a multinational logistics company. The attackers gained access to the internal networks of the hacked entities via Internet-exposed cameras on their networks as command-and-control servers. – The software being hacked is the Boa web server. Boa was originally written by university student Paul Phillips. Phillips became CTO of Go2Net.

    One Nation Under CCTV

    Go2Net ran several websites including 100Hot – a website ranking service; payment processing service Authorize.Net, metasearch engine Dogpile, Haggle Online who provided online auction and PlaySite who ran multiplayer games.Prior to being acquired by InfoSpace Go2Net touted their technology behind these sites and selling services to customers.

    Boa’s afterlife on IoT systems

    So having a CTO who had written a small footprint web server like Boa made a lot of sense. At some point, Phillips stopped working on Boa. Instead maintenance was handed over Larry Doolittle and Jon Nelson who maintained the code for three years or so. Since then, Boa has not been maintained. Its small size made it very popular with Internet of Things products including CCTV systems. Which is the reason why Boa server software has been repeatedly hacked.

    China

    Carmakers try to frustrate US push to cut China from EV supply chain | Financial Times – the US government’s biggest challenge is quisling companies wedded to shareholder value above all else

    Consumer behaviour

    Gen Z networking | Wunderman Thompson Intelligence

    How you treat the ‘non-elite’ is key to beating populism | Financial Times – Middle-status people, social scientists have shown, are more conservative and cautious than the poor (who can afford to take risks because they have so little to lose) and elites (whose privilege allows them to bounce back from failures). They show more respect for authority for a simple reason: being “disruptive” may be highly valued among Silicon Valley elites but, in blue- or pink-collar jobs, it merely gets you fired

    Ethics

    Kanye West Used Porn, Bullying, ‘Mind Games’ to Control Staff – Rolling Stone – West looked down at his foot, stared up at the woman, and told her, “I want you to make me a shoe I can fuck.” Adidas representatives — including a vice president involved in the apparel giant’s billion-dollar licensing partnership with West’s influential brand — did not confront West about his alleged remark, the two attendees claim. The woman took a leave of absence before moving to a job elsewhere at Adidas (in an email, she declined to comment and requested that her name be withheld from this article.) Former Yeezy and Adidas employees, however, point to the alleged incident as one of many experiences — over the course of a decade — in which, they say, West used intimidation tactics with the staff of his fashion empire that were provocative, frequently sexualized, and often directed toward women. – what were Adidas doing and why the sudden change of conscience now, when all this was going on for the best part of a decade?

    Hong Kong

    6 former senior staff of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily plead guilty to collusion charge in national security case – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP – basically they held an editorial meeting

    Innovation

    The airport of the future is the airport of today — and that’s not good. – Papers, Please! 

    Japan

    Metabolism and the capsule building were a uniquely Japanese phenomenon. Its a much more expansive vision of manufactured housing than post war pre-fab housing in the west.

    The weak yen is an opportunity – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion 

    Korea

    Amazing retail and exhibition space in Korea’s second city, Busan: HYUNDAI MOTORSTUDIO BUSAN

    Luxury

    Rolex Is Reportedly Building a New $1 Billion Factory – Robb Report – it sounds like a large amount of money. However tooling on a car production line would be 150+ million pounds alone. Rolex makes everything on site, rather than relying on a range of supplier partners. 1 Billion dollars almost sounds cheap.

    Media

    Zuckerberg says WhatsApp business chat will drive sales sooner than metaverse | Reuters 

    ‘We’re mandating its use’: Estée Lauder turns to TikTok marketing after reach on Instagram stalls – Digiday – When Estée Lauder’s reach on Instagram started to slow across EMEA, its marketers turned to TikTok.  Obviously, there’s more to it. The early success of the brand’s global TikTok account, for one. But the crux of the brand’s decision to be on TikTok came down to Instagram. Estée Lauder’s marketers realized that no matter how big they tried to go in terms of reaching more people on the Meta-owned social network, they were stuck talking to a limited part of its desired audience, said Lubna Mohsin, the social media and content manager for Estée Lauder. Moreover, it was the same core people in the same cohort who were being reached over and again

    The tragic romance of China and Hollywood – The China Project – “Beijing offered up access to its market in exchange for a decade-long tutorial from Hollywood on how to replicate its filmmaking process.” Now that China has caught up (somewhat), there’s less incentive to collaborate. Beijing-based director Daniel Zhao agrees, with a caveat. “The overarching policy of the central government now is to build a self-reliant ecosystem (自循环 zìxúnhuán), but I do see gaps where China still needs to import international technology and personnel,” Zhao told The China Project. He has worked in China’s film industry for over a decade, including a stint with Fenton’s company DMG. China’s film industry has made great strides, thanks in part to its Hollywood’s partnerships. It is now home to some of the largest production sites in the world. China is rapidly developing new virtual production capabilities and improving its 3-D animation quality. In recent years, China has demonstrated that it can pioneer fresh aesthetics and produce domestic successes without Hollywood’s guidance.

    Amazon plans to invest $1B a year in movies for theaters – BNN Bloomberg 

    Online

    How retailers are reshaping the advertising industry | Financial Times – shopper marketing for e-tailing. Interesting how this budget would likely have been previously spent on paid placement in Google Shopping etc. and yet now in the shift to mobile Google (and other search engines) are now losing out on the opportunity for product search. Part of this is them re-optimising around local search like where’s the nearest coffee shop with free wifi and CBD infused kombucha? Meanwhile online retail destinations like eBay and Amazon became product search engines

    Evernote’s Next Move: Joining the Bending Spoons Suite of Apps | Evernote Blog – that looks like a sad end for an interesting app

    Which 3rd-Party Traffic Estimate Best Matches Google Analytics? – SparkToro – TL;DR none of them provide great results but SEMRush seems to do the best on balance. All of them have massive variances

    What about the layoffs at Meta and Twitter? Elon is crazy! WTF??? | I, Cringely – I first arrived in Silicon Valley in 1977 — 45 years ago. I was 24 years old and had accepted a Stanford fellowship paying $2,575 for the academic year. My on-campus apartment rent was $175 per month and a year later I’d buy my first Palo Alto house for $57,000 (sold 21 years later for $990,000). It was an exciting time to be living and working in Silicon Valley. And it still is. We’re right now in a period of economic confusion and reflection when many of the loudest voices have little to no sense of history. Well my old brain is crammed with history and I’m here to tell you that the current situation — despite the news coverage — is no big deal. This, too, shall pass – vintage Bob Cringely

    Technology

    Google’s Open Source Hardware Dreams – by Jon Y 

    Web of no web

    Defence industry catches up with the civil aviation world’s use of augmented reality to aid in aircraft maintenance and repair.

    Is Alexa working? — Benedict Evans and Amazon Is Gutting Its Voice Assistant Alexa | Business Insider – Alexa skills from Uber, Disney and Dominos Pizza failed to get engagement. Developer community was declining as well. I know that they focused on hospitality and healthcare like care homes later on

    Ways to think about a metaverse — Benedict Evans 

  • Michelin Snow Sock + more things

    Michelin Snow Sock

    The Michelin Snow Sock or to give it its proper name SOS GRIP(R) Evolution does a similar job to studded tyres or snow chains (often called RUD Chains after the German company RUD Ketten – a famous manufacturer of snow chains).

    snow sock

    The Michelin Snow Sock looks much easier to store and fit than snow chains and is likely to be less damaging to road surfaces. This new Michelin Snow Sock seems to rely on the black bands across the face of the tyre.

    A key difference is that snow chains can also be used in really muddy conditions and can be used to protect the tyres in hard surfaces such as quarries and mines – although this is usually the domain of a specialist product. You can’t doe these things with the Michelin Snow Sock.

    Inspecting a car before purchase

    Interesting tips on inspecting a car that you are interested in buying. Its interesting how democratised specialist tools have become.

    Twitter

    Professor Scott Galloway talks to Christiane Amanpour about the current economy and the rollercoaster moves at Twitter. My favourite quote from this, describing the recession as a ‘Patagonia vest’ recession affecting knowledge workers the most so far.

    Junya Watanabe Menswear Fall/Winter 2022

    I am about 10 months late to this, but Junya Watanabe did a menswear collaboration with Jay Kaye from Jamiroquai mirroring his mid-to-late 1990s style. Its a mix of indigenous wear that was popular from gap year students (or people who wanted that boho look), rave culture and Goa trance, sports wear and technical outdoor clothing.

    Here is the mini video look book that Junya Watanable made for the menswear collection.

    Here is the original video for Virtual Insanity

    Behind the scenes on how the Virtual Insanity video was made. How the effect was achieved was quite surprising.

    Shakatak

    I didn’t realise how popular jazz fusion group Shakatak was in Japan. To me there where pre-house UK dance music. I found this Japanese festival performance by them.

    The Tokyo Crossover Festival was was originally organised by the Kyoto Jazz Massive member Shuya Okino.

    It was April 2002. I was invited to the Future Jazz Festival held at Zagreb, Croatia. The well select lineup for this 3-days event was Victor Davies, Jessica Lauren, Rainer Truby, Azymuth, Zero dB and many more. The huge success all owed to Eddy & Duss and their incredible local support attracted 1500 enthusiastic people each day! Frankly, and forgive my ignorance, I was quite shocked. This was Zagreb, Croatia. The media that I was exposed to depict the negative image of an on-going civil war for all what I remember. Needless to say, I was inspired and at the same time wondered why Japan never had such festivals. Sure we have money-flowing mainstream Rock Festivals and Techno Festivals but nothing such as Deep House or Future Jazz festivals – which is surprising especially when Japan holds the biggest market share for such music. What is more depressing is that the “traditional” Jazz summer festival seems to be loosing its energy every year… I waited. I thought someone would eventually do the future-jazz festival here in Japan. There were few attempts but did not leave strong impact. Waited few more years…and thought it was time for me to take some action. I called it “Tokyo Crossover Jazz Festival”! This is the first year and I am treating it as an introduction or presentation for the successful year to come. Therefore, it will not be a gigantic outside “typical” festival but the main purpose for this first festival is to cause Crossover Jazz awareness and for artists who have same music vision to gather together. Of course, I am aiming for the fan-pleasing exciting showcases. We have a good “crossover” jazz scene in Japan and I want the fans, all over the world, to know. In the future, the festival will feature artists from Jazz, Techno, Hip- Hop, House and the music will cross all over – the ideal festival that I keep visioning and working hard for! At the end though, all I want for everyone and myself is to…have a good time!

    Shuya Okino (Kyoto Jazz Massive)

    Internet explained in five levels of difficulty

    I showed this to my Dad and he loved it. So I thought I would share it here too.

  • Unionism + more things

    Northern Ireland Unionism

    The Twilight of Unionism by Geoffrey Bell: what’s next for Northern Ireland | The Sunday Times – a united Ireland poses as many questions as it does answers which this article doesn’t to a good job answering. It also neglects to mention a minority of the catholic community who are quite comfortable where they are under the Good Friday agreement.

    • What happens to the unionist community identity with it being so bound up to being part of the UK and their otherness to the local Irish population?
    • Would Northern Ireland Unionism see the UK as having spurned them and what would the blowback be? The honest answer would be which branches of unionism?
    Ulster Unionist mural, Shankhill

    The various strands of unionism

    Unionism means different things to different people. Below are three very broad brush stroke portraits of unionist groupings.

    • The staunch religious unionists who may be regular attendees at the likes of the Free Presbyterian church who believe that their rights are divine and would view papists in the same category as satanists and pedophiles. Even worse are people with secular beliefs in things like gay marriage or abortion on demand.
    • The working class unionists who might not be regular church attendees but hatred is tradition, the Troubles were only one generation away and in a time of globalisation, any advantage is needed. In many respects the more active members of this community look and sound similar to right wing populist supporters on the mainland and elsewhere. With low education attainment, a united Ireland would have a limited upside. In previous generations these were the people that Carson fired up and volunteered to die by the thousand in the First World War.
    • The middle class unionist. In the past they may have voted for the Ulster Unionist Party which was a house for a wide range of unionist views from the moderate Terence O’Neill to more hardline candidates. More likely to be in the professions, a medium sized business owner, farmer and university educated. Economic considerations are more likely to have a bearing on any voting decisions.

    Unionism was begat from a displaced people

    The curious aspect about unionism is the origins. The people who founded the Ulster plantations, were disconnected from their King who had moved to London to rule over the whole of Great Britain. They were given land to make them feel like they were still cared about.

    Later generations that were brought in were themselves displaced from land holdings in Scotland previously by landlords The eviction of tenants went against dùthchas, the principle that clan members had an inalienable right to rent land in the clan territory. Since the Middle Ages the clan has been the principle social organisation / construct. The plantations led to the founding of many of Ulster’s towns and created a lasting Ulster Protestant community in the province with ties to Britain. It also resulted in many of the native Irish nobility losing their land and led to centuries of ethnic and sectarian animosity, which at times spilled into conflict.

    The problem now for unionists is that a majority of mainlanders feel ambivalent at best towards their Ulster kinsmen and the desire for union with them is one-sided.

    China

    NEW SPEECH: MI5 Director General Ken McCallum on threats and risks from Chinese authorities 

    Toronto businessman allegedly focus of Chinese interference probes: sources | Globalnews.ca – The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has investigated Wei Chengyi for his alleged role in a covert scheme that facilitated large-fund transfers meant to advance Beijing’s interests in Canada’s 2019 federal election, sources said. According to RCMP sources, national security investigators are also probing Wei for possible links to several properties in Toronto and Vancouver allegedly used as so-called Chinese government “police stations,” which are believed to secretly host agents from China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS.)

    Europe is too dependent on China for technologies, Finland’s PM says | Reuters 

    China’s President Xi Jinping Signals Pivot in Whirlwind Week of Diplomacy – Bloomberg 

    Economics

    Wealth is partly imaginary – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion 

    Russia’s Road to Economic Ruin | Foreign Affairs – At the beginning of the war, in February and early March, Russians rushed to buy dollars and euros to protect themselves against a potential plunge in the ruble. Over the next eight months, with Russian losses in Ukraine mounting, they bought even more. Normally, this would have caused a significant devaluation of the ruble because when people buy foreign currency, the ruble plunges. Because of sanctions, however, companies that imported goods before the war stopped purchasing currency to finance these imports.  As a result, imports fell by 40 percent in the spring. One consequence was that the ruble strengthened against the dollar. In short, it was not that sanctions did not work. On the contrary, their short-term effect on imports was unexpectedly strong. Such a fall in imports was not expected. If Russia’s central bank had anticipated such a massive fall, it would not have introduced severe restrictions on dollar deposits in March to prevent a collapse in the value of the ruble. Economic sanctions did, of course, have other immediate effects. Curbing Russia’s access to microelectronics, chips, and semiconductors made production of cars and aircraft almost impossible. From March to August, Russian car manufacturing fell by an astonishing 90 percent, and the drop in aircraft production was similar. The same holds true for the production of weapons, which is understandably a top priority for the government. Expectations that new trade routes through China, Turkey, and other countries that are not part of the sanctions regime would compensate for the loss of Western imports have been proved wrong. The abnormally strong ruble is a signal that backdoor import channels are not working. If imports were flowing into Russia through hidden channels, importers would have been buying dollars, sending the ruble down. – One of the more interesting pieces of analysis on sanctions

    How China Will Achieve Hegemony by Carl Bildt – Project Syndicate – Mr Bildt is too polite to mention it but it looks rather like the mercantilism of the 19th and early 20th century European empires

    Finance

    What Should Jittery China Investors Do? by Dambisa Moyo – Project Syndicate – less of a roadmap, more an atlas to the not great options available

    Germany

    Mercedes Slashes China EV Prices By Up to $33,000 as Sales Lag – Bloomberg – local brands dominating marketplace and handing Mercedes its ass on a plate. A secondary effect of this will be a smaller desire by German large corporates to continue being quislings

    Health

    So Many People Are Using a Diabetes Drug for Weight Loss That Actual Diabetics Are Having Trouble Getting It – disclosure Novo Nordisk weight management brands Saxenda and Wegovy were a client

    Hong Kong

    Covid Curbs Hit Hong Kong Property Market, Agents Resort to Desperate Ads – Bloomberg 

    Ideas

    The Center for Strategic Translation – Starting in the summer of 2023 the Center will host a series of seminars to teach young journalists, graduate students, and government analysts the tools of “Pekinology.” Led by a carefully selected set of senior scholars and retired government personnel, these seminars instruct students in the open-source analysis of Communist Party policy, introduce them to the distinctive lexicon and history of Party speak, and train them how to draw credible conclusions from conflicting or propagandistic documentary sources

    Innovation

    China tops U.S. to take research crown at global chip conference – Nikkei Asia 

    Porsche backs Xanadu with $100m for fault-tolerant quantum computer | EE Times 

    Japan

    Japan seeks wealthier western tourists to address China deficit | Financial Times 

    Luxury

    Watchfinder and Nordstrom Are Now Selling Watches in Select Stores – Robb Report – interesting that Watchfinder has extended into department store concessions

    London Shops Struggle As Tourists Go To Paris & Milan for Luxury Goods – Robb Report 

    Online

    OnlyFans to offer shopping features as it competes for influencers | Financial Times 

    Biden’s Data-Transfer Order May Soon Unlock EU-US Pact – Bloomberg 

  • Errolson Hugh + more stuff

    Errolson Hugh

    Acronym Designer Errolson Hugh Sees the Future | GQ – “People often use the word ‘dystopia’ or the phrase ‘cyberpunk’ in relation to us,” Errolson says. “But really, our whole thing is, Acronym is really about agency. It’s about enabling somebody to do something they couldn’t otherwise. It’s inherently optimistic.” – Errolson Hugh and the design team at Acronym cross a number of different areas or disciplines. You could look backwards and see Hugh and Co. as materials innovators with martial influences walking in the footsteps of Massimo Osti who founded C.P. Company and Stone Island.

    Errolson Hugh
    Errolson Hugh via Bicycle magazine Japan

    There is also a clear connective thread in terms of style between Errolson Hugh’s Acronym, Yoon Ahn & Verbal (Ryu Yeong-gi) of Ambush and also Paul Nicholson of Number 3.

    Consumer behaviour

    Despite Long Odds, Rural Chinese Continue to Bet on Education | The Sixth Tone – part of this is down to the Confucian system where centuries of civil service exams allowed families to elevate themselves if there was a bright kid in the family

    Economics

    Challenging the narrative about China’s rise. As with most things the truth is decidedly more complex in nature.

    China’s coronavirus test providers hit by payments crunch | Financial Times – I heard that COVID kits accounted for about 1.5 per cent of GDP, the collapse in the housing market meant that the local government finances have been battered

    How will the world pay to support its aging population? – economic growth will falter, since working-age populations will shrink. In the US, real potential GDP growth is projected to drop from 2.4% currently to 1.5% in 2043. Some of this can be offset. “If inflation starts eating into savings, people will want to come back to work,” Pradhan said—something that’s happening even now in the US. Any official move to raise the retirement age will not go down well with people who have been used to thinking of stopping work at 60 or thereabouts, Pradhan said. “Even in Russia, at a time when Vladimir Putin had a lot of popularity, he found it hard to push the retirement age up,” he said. But even if, de facto, people retire later, Pradhan is unsure of “how much this can be juiced. Already, by reducing pension benefits, we’ve made people aware of this.” In the EU, for instance, the labor force participation rate for people between the ages of 55-64 rose from around 43% in 2005 to around 64% in 2019. “I’m not sure how much higher we can drag that,” Pradhan said. – in some economies this can blunted through women’s increased participation in the workplace.

    Finance

    China circles El Salvador’s economy as country edges toward crypto plunge | The Guardian 

    Hong Kong

    MPs and peers urge Sunak to sanction pro-Beijing Hong Kong officials 

    Covid-19: Hong Kong eases curbs for visitors, but keeps cinemas and ice rinks on restricted list in late change

    Criminal records checks of lion dance performers necessary, Hong Kong security chief says – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP – “Given the unique nature of lion dance activities and attendant martial arts displays, it is necessary for the Government to ensure that public order is not disturbed and that public safety is not affected when such sport activities are conducted in public places,” he said. As of last month, the Hong Kong Chinese Martial Arts Dragon and Lion Dance Association had around 190 organisation members. In the year of 2018-2019, the association organised five dragon and lion dance competitions with funding from the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The competition saw more than 200 participating teams and more than 2,100 participants in total. – National security implications given the lion dance’s close association with kung fu practitioners? There is also the subversive history of the lion dance.

    Lion dancing gained its greatest fame during the Ching Dynasty. The Manchu reign at that time was an oppressive, inhumane government. Thousands of Chinese were massacres without any known cause until, it is said, “their blood literally reddened the rivers.” Ming loyalists attempting to foment rebellion against the Manchu warlords, expressed their hatred by inventing the green-faced lion. With brows made of twin steel swords, each measuring 1 foot 6 inches in length, the green lion represented the Manchu Government during the Ching Dynasty. Fighting the lion meant combating the Manchus. 

    Since lion dancing was performed in villages all over the country for the purpose of celebrations, the rebels would use the opportunity to exchange information and to collect money for the revolution. As part of the dance, the lion would eat lettuce — which is where the money would be hidden. The lead dancer would cry, “Choi ching!” (“get the Ching!”) to signal that he was a fellow revolutionary and, therefore, it was safe to pass information to him. However, informers soon figured out the battlecry. So, since chiang (meaning “green”) sounds very much like ching, the revolutionary passcode was changed to “Choi chiang!” (“get the green”). To this day, this revolutionary cry is used when the lion “eats” the symbolic lettuce and good luck money. 

    Qin, S. Lion Dancing. Ancient Worlds (Orient)

    How to

    3 things you need to do now, before Revue gets shut down | AWeber – shutting down at the end of the year. Its a casualty of Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

    Innovation

    China’s semiconductor output posts biggest ever monthly decline in October amid weak demand, fresh US tech export controls | South China Morning Post 

    Luxury

    Estée Lauder acquires Tom Ford in $2.8 billion deal | Vogue Business – Estée Lauder has confirmed it is the new owner of Tom Ford, bringing its successful beauty licence in-house. Ermenegildo Zegna Group will produce the brand’s fashion.

    2023 Porsche 911 Dakar: Lifted Rally Car Right From the Factory | Jalopnik 

    Media

    Nearly two thirds of full-time UK creatives are worried about job security, WeTransfer says | It’s Nice That 

    Search Ad Spends Declined by 20% in Q3 2022 

    Media, marketing, communications and PR list of Mastodon users – Google Sheets 

    Game over for Warcraft in China, as NetEase and Blizzard end their 14-year deal from January 2023 | South China Morning Post  – part of a wider decoupling of media and entertainment between the west and China

    Online

    Tencent to ‘distribute’ most of its $22bn Meituan stake in dividend | Financial Times 

    Retailing

    Fashion firm Joules falls into administration putting 1,600 jobs at risk | The Guardian 

    Hong Kong Customs seize over 100,000 suspected fake jerseys ahead of Qatar World Cup | Hong Kong Free Press 

    Security

    U.S. FBI director says TikTok poses national security concerns | Reuters 

    US court sentences Chinese spy to 20 years for stealing trade secrets | The Guardian 

    Hostile states are targeting you, Speaker warns MPs – BBC News 

    China playing ‘long game’ as it co-opts UK assets, warns MI5 chief | Financial Times 

    Taiwan

    ASML expands in Taiwan and Korea to capture opportunities | DigiTimes 

  • Disruption crisis

    The idea of the disruption crisis came from a series of conversations that I have been having in recent times and recent online news.

    disrupt_4634
    TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2012 Day Two – May 23, 2012 (Photo: Devin Coldewey)

    What is the disruption crisis?

    The rise of big tech such as Meta, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Bytedance, Alibaba and Tencent drove a wave of digital disruption over the past quarter century. Now the disruptors are being disrupted themselves and I think that they may precipitate a disruption crisis.

    Continuing to look to these digital disruptors is the equivalent of Jimmy Swaggart or Jim Bakker being held up as an exemplar of a good husband and faithful spouse.

    Mass lay-offs

    Others have talked about the layoffs in more depth, so I have included a video explanation.

    I started my agency career during the dot com bubble. We had going for growth at all costs. They talked about trying to move at ‘internet speed’. This was down to the go for growth funding model that drove start-ups through their angel and VC funding rounds and beyond. Common sense was often set aside. if this sounds 180 degrees away from the lean start-up model you’re not wrong.

    Product lines are being shredded

    3 things you need to do now, before Revue gets shut down | AWeber – Revue is an email newsletter platform that was acquired by Twitter and will be shut down by the end of year.

    Amazon, in Broad Cost-Cutting Review, Weighs Changes at Alexa and Other Unprofitable Units – WSJ – Amazon is apparently getting rid of its Alexa speakers, Fire streaming devices and Kindle e-readers. This seems to be a short termist approach to improving profits, at the expense of the long term.

    …Amazon made big bets on long plays, willing to sacrifice immediate profitability to boost its overall position in blue ocean markets. When Amazon’s had to play catch-up, it largely hasn’t worked: the Kindle Phone is maybe the most high-profile mistake/missed opportunity, just to name one. It’s hard to deny that this loss-leader approach has been key to Amazon’s success, although it often made the company a mystery to Wall Street. This would signify a huge shift, totally aside from the 3% of employees who will likely leave the company.

    Hacking away at the Devices and R&D divisions is the most perplexing to me. These are the sources of Amazon’s most signature successes, with the Kindle, Alexa/Echo, and Fire TV. They’re what hook customers when they’re still kids, and that customers above all associate with the company, even as they help ensure loyalty and drive their share of media purchases and retail revenue. The Kindle, like the Echo and the Fire Stick, was always supposed to be a loss leader: you sell the razor at close to cost and make your money back selling the blades. How many books has Amazon sold because of the Kindle? How many Prime subscriptions? How many impulse purchases do people make on their Echos and Fires?

    Tim Carmody, Loss Leaders. (Issue #50) Amazon Chronicles

    Consultants have taken the idea of transformative technology and scrappy startup methodologies to try and reinvent business, or facilitate digital disruption. The problem is that the examples they use as exemplars are failing, casting doubt on their doctrine and fuelling a disruption crisis in boardrooms and the consultants that advise them.

    Unilever – a cautionary tale

    For instance, I contracted at Unilever. I worked rolling out digital brand assets for their Family Brands product line. This was a line of margarines, due to organic growth it has different names in different markets:

    • Blue Band
    • Country Crock
    • Flora
    • Fruit d’Or 
    • Margarina Primavera
    • Plantta
    • Rama

    While I was doing this work, I worked closely with the Becel functional foods and Bertorelli brands. Family Brands was being put into a separate business to develop a ‘startup mentality’. The thing was Family Brands hadn’t been a startup for decades. In fact, it hadn’t been a startup since the 1870s when Antoon Jurgens branched out from trading in butter and started to manufacture margarine. His company merged with rivals Van den Bergh’s, Centra, and Schicht’s to form Margarine Unie (Margarine Union) in 1927, by which time it had a dominant position in margarine manufacturing.

    Three years later, Margarine Unie merges with Lever Brothers Limited to create Unilever and the rest was history.

    Margarine as a substitute good

    Margarine historically was a substitute product for butter. My parents (both of whom came from farming families in Ireland) used to talk about how poor children in the towns would have eaten margarine rather than butter. As a child, we might use margarine to bake a cake, but if we wanted the cake to keep a while my Granny or my Mam would only use salted butter. Despite butter (which we kept in the fridge) being so hard that it might break up the surface of the bread, we used it on our sandwiches, toast or to fry with. Margarine just wasn’t the done thing.

    One of the most damning things that my Granny once said about a friend of hers was:

    She uses margarine to make the ham sandwiches when you’re invited around for a cup of tea.

    One of the first courses that I had at university was in economics, where they used margarine as an exemplar for a substitute good.

    Healthier option

    Margarine started to be considered a healthier option due to concerns about heart disease and cholesterol. Much of this was down to Flora, invented in 1964, which contained polyunsaturated fats derived from sunflower oil. At the same time wholemeal bread started to become preferable due to the requirement for fibre in the diet.

    Yellow fats category decline

    However Although 21st century sales declined as many consumers switched to butter. This was down to changes in consumers wanting a more natural product and heart health improvising. In the five years leading to 2014, sales of margarine fell 6%, while sales of butter rose 7%.

    It was in this atmosphere that the startup narrative was fired up for Family Brands.

    The other shoe dropped when Unilever narrowly managed to fight a hostile bid from 3G Capital a couple of years after I was there. Paul Polman got rid of business lower margin businesses as an attempt to increase earnings. These were still great businesses which is why KKR were happy to take the business off Unilever’s hands.

    Unilever didn’t spin out a startup. It wasn’t disruptive thinking, it was an act of desperation to fend off takeovers or possible greenmailing. The problem with with this is Unilever now has a lot less buying power on global supplies of oils and fats needed for its ice cream, mayonnaise, food additives and personal care businesses – which was the rationale for forming Unilever in the first place.

    Foundational technologies in crisis bringing crisis

    Foundational technologies were cited as new elements that would cause digital disruption. The fall of these technologies and the companies that have championed them have fuelled this disruption crisis.

    Cloud services

    Microsoft and Amazon both saw declining sales in SaaS and related services, as businesses has less employees and needed less seats. Amazon has been cutting deep in its R&D function and devices. This means that Alexa for the hospitality industry and health sectors are likely to be borrowed time.

    Web 3.0 (blockchain, NFTs, cryptocurrency)

    Here’s what my friend Nigel Scott had to say about FTX on LinkedIn:

    There has been a lot of commentary over the weekend on the #ftx #cryptocurrency #exchange collapse

    A lot of words have been typed and spoken but in the end I think the numbers probably sum it up best

    Back in 2018 there was an estimated 200 Crypto Exchanges scattered around the globe

    Over the past 3 years an estimated 200 Crypto Exchanges have either collapsed or disappeared

    This rate of attrition is nothing new. Back in 2014 – after the Mt Gox event – it was estimated 45% of all #Crypto Exchanges had either collapsed or disappeared

    The harsh truth is the risk of failure has always been central, rather than peripheral, to the Crypto Exchange model

    Today there are almost 600 Crypto Exchanges open for business

    The only question that needs to be asked is what fraction of them will still be in business in 2023, 2024, 2025 and beyond?

    and, more importantly, what is the probability of picking a survivor, never mind a winner, in such a volatile environment? 

    Which is to say, contrary to most of the commentary I have read over the weekend, the #ftxcrash isn’t the exception, it’s the rule – what makes it exceptional is the scale, not the probability of the failure 

    Blast radius

    Meteor Crater

    One edition of the Axios Login newsletter used the headline ‘blast radius‘ describe the impact that FTX and other crypto economy problems were having on the wider Web 3.0 ecosystem of decentralised services. Creating a disruption crisis.

    This has forced El Salvador to pursue a free trade deal with China, with the Chinese government buying $21 billion dollars of Salvadoran government debt: China circles El Salvador’s economy as country edges toward crypto plunge | The Guardian 

    Less than four years before disruptive technologies had become mainstream when IBM brought a ‘better way’ of managing supply chain for Walmart by putting their heads of lettuce on the blockchain. Just writing that last sentence made me like my IQ number was dropping; but just four years ago, this was a point of validation…

    Metaverse

    Prior to Meta’s recent financial results and job cuts you had the likes of McKinsey cheerleading for the metaverse.

    With its potential to generate up to $5 trillion in value by 2030, the metaverse is too big for companies to ignore.

    Value creation in the metaverse – McKinsey & Company.

    To give you an idea of how far we are from the much vaunted metaverse, have a look at my discussion paper.

    Social media marketing

    Alphabet has seen a decline in YouTube advertising and search advertising is down by about a fifth in October. Twitter is heading towards bankruptcy as brands stopped advertising on the platform. Meta has also shown a decline in advertising revenue. Snap is doing much worse. TikTok seems to be the outlier.

    Accenture and the disruption crisis

    A quick search of Accenture and disruption yields about 628,000 results. Accenture has latched itself onto disruption in the same way that IBM glommed on to e-business during the first dot com bomb, Sun Microsystems became the ‘dot in dot com’ and the whole of the entire enterprise IT industry latched on to the millennium bug.

    Better than ‘the dot in dot com’

    Some bright minds at Accenture came up with a concept that was ownable, not time-bounded like ‘e-business’ or ‘the dot in dot com’ – you’re kind of done when everyone has a website that can do transactions of some sort.

    Sun Microsystems advert circa 2000

    Accenture welded itself to disruption with the Disruptibility Index which looks at how disruption affects different vertical markets.

    Dark thoughts

    Disruption tapped into deep negative behavioural emotions. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. As tech executive Andy Grove had constantly repeated ‘Only the Paranoid Survive‘. Disruption didn’t necessarily promise a thriving business due to sustained competitive advantage, like earlier generations of technology companies and consultancies. Instead it promised, merely survival in a globalised hostile world, with constant waves of disruption coming at the c-suite. This is the business equivalent of Adam Curtis’ video essay Oh Dearism.

    This gives your internal champions on the client side a bit more political space if their digital transformation projects doesn’t hit all the goals that we would like it to hit.

    Of course all of this could come off the wheels if a great disruption crisis hit, wouldn’t it?

    The disruption crisis doesn’t just toll for Accenture

    It would be remiss of me to just single out Accenture. They have been part of a much bigger movement across professional services, finance, the technology sector and academia. Here are some of the people across academia have had a similar idea to Accenture; they’ve written books like these over the past 10 years or so:

    It has been the fodder of countless conferences around the world. For example here’s a representative of Euromonitor International speaking at a conference of the International Homeware Association (IHA) on digital disruption.

    I am not putting this in here to make fun of the IHA – it is the professional association of a market worth 80 billion dollars a year globally and deserves our respect. Globalisation has centralised a lot of homeware production in the Far East due to globalisation over the past quarter of a century; but it still plays a central, if less visible part in our lives today.

    Instead I am using the IHA as an exemplar of how digital disruption has pervaded all parts of the economy as a central organising principle in modern business thinking.

    That central position in corporate thought means that the disruption crisis becomes much more alarming. Which makes the advice Judy Estrin‘s 2008 book Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy even more urgent