

Hacking the Industrial Economy - colortone
http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/05/last_week_i_asked_how.html

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mynameishere
You'll find the word "hack" serves no real purpose when you're put into
administration. Detroit's problems are related mainly to old union agreements
and oil prices, as well as scewed demand curves related to mpg requirements
that didn't apply to light trucks and artificially low interest rates. Using
the word "hack" 200 times in an article just obscures a subject.

~~~
colortone
I'd be curious if you posted this comment over at HBS (although Umair has been
known to lurk here)...

What you're missing is that "administration" as you're grokking it is
optimized for industrial economics, not the low cost, low risk, high speed
world of networks (globalization, mobile phones, etc).

Also suggest that you go back and read the previous article on "Hacking
Detroit" with a keen eye on the "auto making platform" strategy.

To borrow a meme from today's Venture Hacks:

"Bug Labs for cars"

BOING!

~~~
mynameishere
Administration, ie. administration by a bankruptcy court, which is the
pressing issue facing Detroit carmakers, rather than mobile phones or
whatever.

There isn't anything new in the auto industry. Hybrids are typically
laughable. Diesel electric power systems (that is, "hybrids") are basically
what replaced the steam age. Everything else is marketing.

~~~
colortone
Can you see how the argument you're making proves his point?

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swombat
Good article, but seems to lack any concrete substance. It seems to imply that
"Hacking" stands for everything that's good and modern.

Now, I'm all for good and modern, but it doesn't have to be labeled "hacking"
to be so.

~~~
colortone
He's using "hack" as a management/strategy heuristic.

You may find that his articles "lack substance" because Umair generally works
within a kind of Socratic method that demands more of the reader than spoonfed
pedantry like TechCrunch, et al.

PG has said a lot of this implicitly or explicitly in his essays.

~~~
swombat
Don't patronise me. I put plenty of my own in while reading this article. I'm
familiar with many usages of the word "hack".

The first thing I did as I started reading this article was share it on Google
Reader. I was obviously putting plenty in.

Then, after I got to the end, I removed the article from my Google Reader, for
the simple reason that this article doesn't just require you to put something
in - it requires you to put the entire substance in.

There is no discernible pattern in what it describes as "hack". "Hack", going
by this article, is anything that the author (and the reader) consider good
and that was done in the last 10 years. So effectively, it means "good
change". It provides no pattern which could be used to help generate more of
those hacks, however.

The best way to expose this is to summarise the article.

The summary is: "Cool stuff, wow, please do more."

Now, I have nothing against an article which conveys that message - but it
needs to do so honestly. This article pretends to be presenting a good idea,
when in fact it is completely idea-free.

This is my opinion and you may of course disagree, but please formulate that
disagreement with fewer TechCrunch innuendos and other patronising devices.

Also, if you disagree, it'd be good to hear what ideas you think Umair
actually puts forward in this essay.

~~~
colortone
There's a world of inspiring thoughts in the article. I'm not an engineer at
all, but I love the mindset and have learned an incredible amount from
YCombinator, Ray Kurzweil, et al.

I'd point to the link on P&G's Connect & Develop strategy as something that
has a TON of concrete value for startups/hackers/etc.

Finally, I probably get more excited about this kind of thing than hackers who
already practice the naive idealism, pragmatism, and humble irreverence that
Umair describes for the reason that I outlined in my comment on the original
article: the more people that look at problems through a hacking-esque
mindset, the better off the world will be.

(Also, I didn't really mean the tone of my comment to be directly at "you" per
se, just in general...there's a lot of "this lacks substance" blowback about
Bubblegeneration...I was just trying to be short (but not curt); sorry!

~~~
swombat
Ok, fair enough. Sorry for getting prickly, but somehow in a few very short
lines you managed to make me feel like you were implying that I'm "one of the
TechCrunch masses", I "need to be spoonfed", I "don't know what 'hack' stands
for", and, incidentally, that I missed the point of the article.

(Disclaimer: I am not an official spokesperson for hackers at large, nor do I
intend to suggest I am, and so I'm speaking for myself)

I don't think the hacker idealism is naive, or humble for that matter. You
could call it naive, but only in the sense that it's willing to question
everything. As for humble, there's nothing humble about believing that
everyone else might have had it wrong for the last 50 years and that you might
know a better way :-)

Being a proponent of that approach, I certainly agree that the world could use
even more idealism, pragmatism and not-so-humble irreverence, though :-)

~~~
colortone
LOL! I suppose I was naively idealistic about describing naive idealism!

Your last sentence really sums it up for me. THE POWER of what Umair is saying
is: "I have done the research, and it is razor-sharp, economically-grounded
strategy to be idealistic/irreverent/naive/etc."

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sealedidentity
Great insightful article. Top notch. Thanks for posting quality stuff.

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TrevorJ
I love the example given in the article of real-world hacks, especialy
kiva.com Really great idea.

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hobbs
Call me skeptical if you will, but the article's flavor contains a hint too
much breathless exuberance for my taste.

