Entitlement or Independence (CU Week 7)

Techonomics predicts massive upheavals in three significant markets: healthcare, education, and energy. You have the power to change things from the Oval Office (after all, its an election year!) – pick a societal challenge and offer your suggestions for corrective policies or reasons that things ought to be left alone.

Virtualization (CU Week 6)

One of the key trends pointed to by Techonomics is that we are headed to a “virtual” world – the ability to do more and more (productive output) with less and less (resources) until we will be able to do just about anything with almost nothing (virtualization). List things that you do “virtually” today that you used to do in person. Anticipate something that you do in person today that you may do virtually in the future.

Expand the list of things you currently do in person that you anticipate will be done “virtually” within 5 years. What needs to be done to enable each new entry?

Outsourcing (CU Week 4)

Name one function performed internally by an organization that you are involved with that could be more effectively outsourced and support your reasoning. Do you think that outsourcing is a good or bad business practice and why?

 

Revolutionary Change from Technology Advancement (CU Week 3)

The Apple iPod has revolutionized music (and is headed to do the same with video). Discuss any observations that you have as to 1) why digital downloads are overtaking other distribution methods, 2) why Apple has established such a dominant position in this market, and 3) strategically, how do you think can Apple keep its lead in this marketplace?

Transactions (CU Week 2)

What is the fundamental transaction that drives your organizations success? How could the provision of this transaction be improved from either performance or cost standpoint?

Our organizations are a composite of the transactions they make and the partners they do business with. Describe one activity in your company or personal life that could probably be done better through either outsourcing or a change in the provider. Why?

Economic Engine (CU-Week 1)

I am learning to use the tools needed to teach Techonomics remotely. This is the first of a series of blog posts for my MBA distance class in Techonomics at Cumberland University. I look forward to the thoughtful responses of my students. Jim Collins in Good to Great describes the “economic engine” of a company. This term relates to the fundamental value proposition that company makes to its customers. It is also the jumping off point for the development of metrics (in our case techonomic metrics) to measure the performance of an organization in pursuit of its economic purpose. Describe the “economic engine” of an organization that you are involved in. As products become information and production capacity becomes virtually infinite, discuss the ramifications for supply and demand and how a company can establish and maintain sales prices and margins.

Techonomics: The End Game

Techonomics is about predicting trends and trends can often lead to destinations. The destination of

the techonomic effect on any industry can be summed up as follows:

The ability to do more and more with less and less until you can do just about anything with just about nothing.

What is this saying? We are engaged in a forced march toward ever increasing efficient use of resources (material, human and capital). Competition is the forcing motivation,

Nick Negroponte in his book Being Digital, put it in these terms – we are in a journey from atoms to bits.

Next time your get frustrated by your competition, try being thankful for it instead as it is competition that brings improvement and improvement that brings success.

Lee Martin – Chairman, Abunga.com

Techonomics: The Founding Assumptions

Techonomics is a framework – a worldview – that seeks to bring understanding to the observations of chaos in the economy.  Every framework needs foundational assumptions upon which to stand.

Techonomics: The Economy from an Engineer’s Perspective

I wrote a book, Techonomics, for the CRC Press targeted for engineering economics and technical MBA students last year.  The word Techonomics is a combination of Technology and Economics with the root idea being that technology is the driver of change and economics is the determiner of which changes have lasting impact.  The book is available on Abunga.com at (http://abunga.com/?d=product&productid=9780849370670).  It is an engineer/entreprenuer’s explanation of the anecdotal thoughts in The World is Flat. From time to time on this blog, I will share thoughts about Techonomics and the major societal issues that are facing our country.  I hope you will consider these observations and give feedback as to your grounded opinions.  The business model aspects of Abunga are centered around lessons learned in Techonomics, although the heart of Abunga is centered around supporting worthy causes. - Lee Martin, Chariman  

Techonomics: A Worldview of Change

Greetings,

Before joining the Abunga team, I wrote a book, Techonomics, based on my observations of the .com boom and my experience of growing a company at that interesting time. Techonomics is an entrepreneur’s-eye view of the impact that technology is having on how business is conducted. As I was writing the book, Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, was released and there are many similar thoughts arrived at from completely different thought processes.

Abunga.com is a business built around the organizational models learned from the experience that resulted in Techonomics. This blog will describe, from time to time, the Techonomic approach as it actively applied in the Abunga operations.

- Lee