"Businesses ought to be like artists, not paperclip maximisers"

Na conversa da passada sexta-feira, o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras falou-me de uma aplicação de inteligência artificial que o tem fascinado. Falou-me de vários postos de trabalho que rapidamente terão os dias contados e perguntou-me como será a competição no futuro quando todo o know-how estiver disponível na ponta dos dedos.

Eu não tenho a veleidade de saber o futuro ...

"Vaidade das vaidades, tudo é vaidade!"

Mas respondi com uma ideia que há muito partilho aqui no blogue: a arte!!!

Recordo:

• de Abril de 2017 - A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção
• de Março de 2020 - Em que lado do teste do lápis está a sua empresa?

 Entretanto, ontem cheguei ao fim do último capítulo de "The Unaccountability Machine" de Dan Davies e encontro este trecho:

"they don't work by defining an objective function and seeking to maximise it. This is the paradigm shift that might be required - that organisations and systems can be like people, having purposes without a single goal. An artist doesn't have a successful career by maximising their art; they do it by repeatedly producing work that they are proud of.

That's what the world could look like if we got rid of the blind spots. Businesses ought to be like artists, not paperclip maximisers. The economic concept of optimisation, and the institutions of management and government which enforce its use, effectively act as a brutal information-reducing filter. By taking away the pressure to maximise a single metric (and therefore to throw away information that doesn't relate to it), organisations could apply their decision making capabilities much more effectively. They could innovate more, design more sustainable solutions and build less adversarial, longer-term relationships with their people."

Já nas últimas páginas leio:

"Any system which is set up to maximise a single objective has the potential to go bonkers.

It follows from the mathematics of constrained optimisation, combined with the basic laws of cybernetics. Setting up a maximising system involves defining an objective function, and throwing away all the other information. Sooner or later, the environment is going to change, and something which isn't in the information set any more is going to lead the system into destruction.

Consequently:

Every decision-making system set up as a maximiser needs to have a higher-level system watching over it.

...

You can't have the economists in charge, not in the way they currently are.

If every maximising system has to have a higherlevel system governing it (to make sure it doesn't go bonkers), then that logically implies that the top level of any decision-making system that's meant to operate autonomously can't be a maximiser. And so, the governing philosophy of the overall economic system can't be based on the constrained optimisation methodology that's currently dominant in the subject of economics. Otherwise there's a risk that the system will go bonkers, and that it will start pursuing maximising objectives, oblivious to the danger that it's on course for making human life impossible. Like it actually has done."

Recordo de Janeiro deste ano Não é impunemente ... 

Arte, estratégia e epifanias

"Eisner is known most for being a champion of art in education. He argued that the de-prioritization of the teaching of art across the formal educational system is bad for students and for the world in general. 

...

Sadly, their fight (and mine too) has been like attempting to hold back the tide. Art was continuously deprioritized throughout Eisner’s career and has continued to be ever since. The things with greatest sex appeal in business today are data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Quants and coders dominate — and the education system has followed suit. It is sad but true.

...

Perhaps what was most outraging was that Eisner argued that it is possible to be rigorous in qualitative research. That is an anathema to most: rigor is associated solely with quantitative research. And I felt that way when I was first exposed to his thinking. But in due course, I came to appreciate that he was right and virtually everything I had been taught about rigorous analysis was substantially wrong.

It took me on a long journey of connoisseurship. For the three decades since, I have been working on my ability to make ever finer qualitative distinctions in my field of strategy. In some sense, I have been working to become a sommelier of strategy. That is, I want to be able to determine that this strategy is superior to that one in these subtle ways — like a sommelier can make distinctions between different wines. My task requires the ability to understand how qualitative dimensions relate to one another — i.e., this aspect of customers interacts with that aspect of competitor dynamics in this particular way.

...

We are all taught to converge on the ‘right answer.’ If you get the right answer, you get a red check, a gold star, and/or full marks. The quest is for that singular right answer. It characterizes powerfully our entire educational experience.

In contrast, Eisner argued that in most domains of human endeavor there are multiple solutions to problems. There isn’t one answer that is obviously ‘right’ and the rest therefore ‘wrong.’ There are different solutions each of which with its own set of benefits and drawbacks."

Trechos retirados de "Artistry & Strategy" escrito por Roger Martin.

Recordar os postais neste blogue, ao longo dos anos, sobre a arte:

• 2016 - Qual a alternativa?
• 2020 - Em que lado do teste do lápis está a sua empresa?

Recordo o postal de 2011 onde cito Hilary Austen.

Recordo a doença anglo-saxónica.

Por fim recordo as palavras do presidente do so-called Forum para a Competitividade e como se relacionam com a arte.

Scale is the force that commodifies

"The belief in scale and speed and efficiency has a commodifying effect. In the absence of a special consciousness and care, they extract our humanity. And so our workplaces are soon well structured, roles are defined, behavior is prescribed, and what was a startup now becomes a place we call work. Even when, as in a startup, freedom faces the resistance of so-called marketplace reality, we still are quite ready to surrender it. The code for this is "taking it to scale. Scale is the force that commodifies our way of being together."

Já não estamos no século XX, já não vivemos da produção em massa, já não temos demografia para a suportar, temos de apostar na arte, temos de apostar na diferenciação. A estratégia não pode passar pelo tamanho.

Trecho retirado de "Confronting Our Freedom: Leading a Culture of Chosen Accountability and Belonging" de Peter Block. 

"you need to spend time doing things that feel ridiculously unproductive"

Excelente mensagem, para pessoas e empresas, em "You Need to Practice Being Your Future Self".

"You see, the reason Sanjay is stuck — and the reason many of us feel that way — is that we focus on what’s present for us at any particular moment.

On the other hand, what most of us want most is to move forward. And, by definition, paying attention to the present keeps us where we are. So, sure, I can help Sanjay be a better “present” Sanjay. But I will have a much greater impact if I help him become a successful “future” Sanjay.

It’s a familiar story: You’re busy all day, working non-stop, multitasking [Moi ici: Recordar "Quando o quotidiano assume o comando"] in a misguided attempt to knock a few extra things off your to-do list, and as the day comes to a close, you still haven’t gotten your most important work done.

Being busy is not the same as being productive. It’s the difference between running on a treadmill and running to a destination. They’re both running, but being busy is running in place.

If you want to be productive, the first question you need to ask yourself is: Who do I want to be? Another question is: Where do I want to go? Chances are that the answers to these questions represent growth in some direction. And while you can’t spend all your time pursuing those objectives, you definitely won’t get there if you don’t spend any of your time pursuing them.

...

[Moi ici: E o sublinhado final ... pensando nas estruturas super-magras, com decisores sempre ocupados com os problemas do presente e as consequências dos problemas de ontem. Pensando nos futuros decisores que em vez de pensarem no futuro, conduzem empilhadores, não porque seja uma emergência, mas porque não vêem nada mais produtivo para fazerem] You need to spend time on the future even when there are more important things to do in the present and even when there is no immediately apparent return to your efforts. In other words — and this is the hard part — if you want to be productive, you need to spend time doing things that feel ridiculously unproductive."

Como não recordar aquele: 

"Não fazemos arte depois de nos tornarmos artistas. Tornamos-nos artistas ao fazer arte incessantemente."

Agora é a arte!

A leitura de "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War" é uma sucessão de surpresas boas. Depois da concorrência imperfeita, agora é a arte e os Muggles.

"The theoretical conflict between the forefathers of today’s mainstream economics and the forefathers of the alternative canon has existed since the 1622– 23 debate between Gerard De Malynes (Malynes, 1622, 1623) and Edward Misselden (Misselden, 1622, 1623), where Malynes represented a static theory rooted in barter and Misselden represented a theory centred on learning and production. In the history of economic thought, their debate is interpreted as being about exchange controls and the balance of trade. However, by going back to the sources, one finds that the main line of attack by Misselden against Malynes is his ‘‘mechanical’’ view of man – Malynes has left out Man’s ‘‘art’’ and ‘‘soul’’. Misselden quotes at length a paragraph from Malynes, where Malynes reduces trade to three elements, ‘‘namely, Commodities, Money, and Exchange’’. Objecting to this definition, Misselden says: ‘‘It is against Art to dispute with a man that denyeth the Principles of Art’’. Misselden scorns Malynes for not seeing the difference between a heap of stones and logs and a house – because Man’s productive powers produce the house but his soul has been left out. A similar criticism can be made of neo-classical economics.

Misselden represents the acute Renaissance awareness of the enormous territory to be covered between Mankind’s present poverty and ignorance, and the enormous potentials."

A fase "wonder"

Neste vídeo, que já tinha citado aqui, Simon Wardley refere o uso da palavra inovação em diferentes fases evolutivas de um negócio ou de um modelo de negócio. A inovação na fase Genesis, na fase "wonder", não tem nada a ver com a inovação na fase Commodity, nas fase "war":

No entanto, usamos a mesma palavra inovação para as diferentes situações.

O que me faz recuar a Março deste ano onde neste postal, por causa da escrita deste manual, escrevi:

"dei comigo a pensar que a inovação que o calçado precisa nesta altura não é mais do mesmo, não é a “sustained innovation” de que Clayton Christensen falava, e ao qual o fluxograma acima se aplica

As empresas de calçado devem manter e tirar o máximo partido da actividade que conseguem ter através do modelo de negócio actual. Paralelamente, devem criar uma empresa, ainda que virtual, dedicada a desenvolver o negócio do futuro. E para desenvolver o negócio do futuro essa empresa tem de se comportar como uma startup: sem clientes, sem negócios, apenas com hipóteses de produtos e de clientes."

As empresas de calçado têm de fugir da fase "war" e avançar para a fase "wonder"... "wonder" é magia, é surpresa, é ... arte!!!

Ainda esta semana numa empresa alinhavam-se mentes em torno da relevância dos nichos para o futuro da organização. Porquê nichos? 

Onde estão os potenciais clientes/utilizadores apreciadores de "arte", corajosos o suficiente para serem pioneiros e viverem na fase "wonder"? 

A fase "wonder" é a fase de uma intensa relação com o produto.

Só esta liberdade e criatividade

"What the patterns of an artist’s progress show are the human capacity to find meaning and to make lasting work not by planning it but by remaining open to the possibilities they see inside and around themselves. This argues against forcing predetermined expectations and goals onto our experience of life and for an alert way of being, open to noticing and responding to the future as it emerges.

...

prescribed rules can’t give individuals, companies, or countries the alertness they need to evolve and adapt. 

...

In an age of uncertainty and change, being able to sense what to do in advance of reliable prediction can make businesses or nonprofits smarter, more inventive, and more relevant. The intuition for change and the capacity to pursue it energetically is what markets applauded in Steve Jobs, a man who wasn’t an artist but thought like one.

...

When it comes to the future, it matters more to invigorate the search than to try to determine the outcome.

...

Allowing people at work to think like artists takes more than colorful walls, toys, murals, and open spaces. To have insights that are relevant to life requires having a life, one rich in experiences and the time to internalize them."

Este é o tipo de mensagem que encontro no livro de Margaret Heffernan, “Uncharted”, e que tanto aprecio. Perante a incerteza, deixar o engenho humano dar a volta através da "arte". As mentes eficientistas agarram-se às leis do século XX, (a tríade do tempo da troika) ou ao pré-histórico socialismo, mas a União Europeia também não é melhor ao propor abordagens homogéneas independentemente do estado de desenvolvimento de cada país e da sua cultura.

Só esta liberdade e criatividade pode dar a volta a previsões pessimistas.

"We become what we do"

Comecei a ouvir o último livro de Seth Godin durante as viagens de carro para fora de Gaia. Seth Godin é um autor que escreve para os humanos de Mongo, os humanos que fogem do século XX e abraçam a arte em todas as suas facetas.

BTW, recordar o que escrevemos aqui ao longo dos anos sobre a arte e o eficientismo. Por isso, apelar à arte fere o mindset assente no século XX.

"For the important work, the instructions are always insufficient. For the work we’d like to do, the reward comes from the fact that there is no guarantee, that the path isn’t well lit, that we cannot possibly be sure it’s going to work.

It’s about throwing, not catching. Starting, not finishing. Improving, not being perfect.

No one learns to ride a bike from a manual.

...

Art is what we call it when we’re able to create something new that changes someone.

No change, no art.

...

It’s a form of leadership, not management. A process without regard for today’s outcome, a commitment to the journey.

You were born ready to make art. But you’ve been brainwashed into believing that you can’t trust yourself enough to do so.

You’ve been told you don’t have enough talent (but that’s okay, because you can learn the skill instead).

You’ve been told you’re not entitled to speak up (but now you can see how many others have taken their turns).

And you’ve been told that if you can’t win, you shouldn’t even try (but now you see that the journey is the entire point).

Art is the generous act of making things better by doing something that might not work.

...

“If we believe that it’s not our turn, that we’re not talented enough, we’ll do whatever we can to make that story true. We’ll sit back and wait to be chosen instead. [Moi ici: Algo que li recentemente como sendo o efeito Forer]

That’s backward.

Most of the time, the story we live by came from somewhere. It might be the way we were raised, or it could be the outcome of a series of events. Burn yourself on the stove and you might persuade yourself that you should go nowhere near a stove. Grow up in a home with low expectations and it’s possible you’ll begin to believe them. The story we tell ourselves leads to the actions we take.

If you want to change your story, change your actions first. When we choose to act a certain way, our mind can’t help but rework our narrative to make those actions become coherent.

We become what we do.”

Trechos retirados de "The Practice" de Seth Godin.

“Or consider the Forer effect. This is the strong tendency that subjects show to believe feedback from personality tests, regardless of whether those results are bogus.”

Trecho retirado de "Uncharted" de Margaret Heffernan. 

Estórias que alegram a travessia do deserto

Um dos livros que herdei da biblioteca do meu pai foi “Small Is Beautiful” de E.F. Schumacher. Acho que nunca o li, o que é estranho para alguém que escreve sobre a democratização da produção e sobre Mongo.

Esta semana comecei a ler "When More Is Not Better" de Roger Martin (claro que irei escrever mais do que uma vez sobre um livro que ataca a paranóia do eficientismo). Ao ler a longa introdução dei comigo a discordar das razões do autor para a origem da deriva de desigualdade que afecta a economia americana a partir de 1972. O empobrecimento da classe trabalhadora americana e europeia se calhar tem muito mais a ver com o enriquecimento das classes trabalhadoras no chamado Terceiro Mundo. O capital existe para apoiar empreendedores e muitos deles sofrem da doença anglo-saxónica. Se existem trabalhadores mais baratos noutra parte do mundo... porque não deslocalizar a produção para essa outra parte do mundo e obter um maior retorno?

Por isso, sonho com Mongo, sonho com a democratização da produção, sonho com a salvação pela arte.
Por isso, sonho com uma economia que não aspira ao crescimento desmesurado, mas à paixão.
Por isso, sonho com uma economia de makers recheada de ateliês e cooperativas.

Por isso, aprecio estórias como esta "Want to Make It Big in Fashion? Think Small Like, Evan Kinori":

"Evan Kinori, 32, operates a one-man clothing label. Here — or rather in an adjacent garage — he creates garments that are manufactured mostly within a one-mile radius of his workshop in small hand-numbered batches, in patterns and fabrics that change by subtle degrees from one season to the next and that, as GQ recently noted, “sell fast and never reappear.”
...
Mr. Kinori does not call himself a tailor or even a designer. Rather, he is a craftsman, somewhat in the tradition of people like the great Bay Area architect Joseph Esherick, who throughout his career concerned himself less with creating branded monuments to himself than with making harmonious, humane spaces.
...
Mr. Kinori’s clothes bring to mind those houses — careful, deliberate, free of ostentation, handmade. They are cut from patterns he devises himself and sewn with French seams on single-needle machines. They are pieced together from cloth sourced from dead stock or traditional Irish tweed makers like Molloy & Sons in County Donegal or Belgian linen manufactories or kimono cotton mills in far-off Japanese prefectures. When he works, he thinks less about the demands of the industrial fashion machine than a desire to create durable objects."

Não sou ingénuo ao ponto de pensar que operários transformam-se em criadores-fazedores com um golpe de mágica.
Não sou ingénuo ao ponto de pensar que se fica rico, mas ganha-se a vida de cabeça erguida, é-se independente e livre.

Tenho de ter a paciência de viver os 47 dias incipentes, a travessia do deserto, antes da transformação.

BTW, a direita política não aprecia Mongo porque retira poder às so-called elites rentistas. A esquerda política também não aprecia Mongo porque lhe retira peões.

Acerca do modelo de produção do século XX

"In his forthcoming book, Craft: An American History, scholar Glenn Adamson traces the relentless erosion of craftsmanship that occurred as the U.S. transitioned from a nation of artisans to an industrialized economy. In it, he retells a familiar story about Henry Ford and his newfangled assembly line with an interesting twist, which is worth quoting at length:
.
In the first year of the assembly line, so many workers walked out of the Ford plant in disgust that more than 52,000 had to be hired just to maintain a constant labor force of 14,000. Though the company had massively deskilled the process of assembly, each new employee still had to be trained. This was an inefficiency Ford had not counted on. Famously, he raised wages to five dollars per day, far above the industry norm, just to keep workers on the job. Later this was spun as a brilliant maneuver to help his own employees afford Model Ts, turning them into consumers. Actually, it was a means of coping with a self-inflicted management crisis. In any case, Ford did not have to pay these high wages for long. As the entire industry shifted to the assembly line—and then other sectors of the economy followed suit—workers had little choice but to submit to the new manufacturing techniques."

Os humanos gostam de variedade, gostam de se diferenciar, não apreciam a uniformidade da produção em massa. No entanto, no século XX, tiveram de se submeter a ela para ter acesso a bens baratos. Há muito que escrevo aqui que praticamente toda a gente acha que o modelo de produção do século XX é o modelo definitivo e que qualquer desvio face a esse modelo é um ataque aos trabalhadores.

Como não sorrir ao comparar essa crença a estes picos:

Daqui a 100 anos os humanos vão olhar para trás e horrorizar-se com o modelo de produção do século XX.

Venha Mongo!

Trecho retirado de "Restoring craft to work"

Em que lado do teste do lápis está a sua empresa?

Há anos que recomendo às PMEs a ARTE!

Por exemplo:

• Arte, sempre a arte (Maio de 2018)
• O futuro da economia é a arte (Abril de 2018) 
• A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção (parte II) (Abril de 2017)
• Qual a alternativa? (Maio de 2016)
• O papel da arte! (Abril de 2016)
• Arte e PME (Novembro de 2015)
• Acerca da paixão nas PME (Março de 2015)
• Passion Rules!!! (Maio de 2011)
• Há sempre uma alternativa (parte II) (Maio de 2011)
• Paixão e relações amorosas (Fevereiro de 2011)

Há muitos anos que uso a frase:

Há anos que descobri o caso da Viarco:

• Inovação na ponta do lápis (Agosto de 2009)
• Mandamentos para os gestores das unidades com futuro (Novembro de 2009)
• "Nós fazemos as contas ao contrário" (Setembro de 2014)

Estou já na fase final da leitura de um livro simplesmente delicioso, "The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century" de Adam Davidson. O capítulo 9, “Don’t be a commodity” é acerca de uma empresa que produzia o produto mais commodity que se possa imaginar, lápis escolares, e que depois de ser esmagada pelos chineses deu a volta por cima.

"I came to think of them as exemplifying the single most important rule for thriving in a twenty-first-century economy. The rule applies to manufacturers, but also to bankers and artists and teachers and middle managers at large corporations. The rule is simple: Do not be a commodity.
.
Commodities fit a few key criteria. They are undifferentiated. That means that people who buy them don’t see any qualitative difference between competing versions. Instead, commodities are bought based on price and convenience. Most people gravitate toward buying the cheaper dish soap, the cheaper lumber, or the cheaper light bulb instead of the more expensive version on the same shelf.
...
General Pencil had so many orders from so many school districts that it no longer needed to be at the cutting edge of innovation.
The American pencil business had by then become what economists call a mature business.
...
This sleepy world was overturned in the 1990s when something entirely new began to happen. Ships arrived in the nearby Port Newark with huge containers filled with pencils made in China. These pencils looked identical to the ones General made.
...
[Moi ici: Anos depois, a filha do dono da empresa de lápis teve uma ideia] In that moment, Katie realized that she had come upon an enormous hole in the U.S. pencil market. She couldn’t possibly be the only person who wanted a solid, reliable drawing utensil, something between the two extreme options. [Moi ici: Os dois extremos eram os láis chineses de um lado e os de engenharia, de origem alemã] Parents, she knew, would happily pay a reasonable premium for pencils custom-made for their kids. She picked up the phone, called her dad, and offered him an idea that might just save the family business.
Katie eventually created a line of kits that included drawing supplies and instruction books based on her classes.
...
There would be kits with entire lines of colored pencils, and there would be kits with charcoals for high schoolers who had more ambitious goals and wished to develop more comprehensive skills.
...
The companies that shipped container loads of Chinese pencils were too large and distant to worry about such a niche market. They were still satisfied selling commodities. The German companies, which needed to maintain their professional reputation, were reluctant to dilute their brand image by focusing on children. [Moi ici: Como não recordar o truque de Roger Martin para avaliar se uma estratégia é mesmo uma estratégia. O contrário de uma estratégia a sério não é estúpido, mas representa uma brutal fricção para quem a queira seguir] This is why Katie was able to charge a dollar apiece for her pencils. The parents who buy General Pencil kits for their kids are happy to pay a premium, since they are getting a product precisely designed for them.
...
I have come to think of “the pencil test” whenever I am confronted with a question of how best to thrive in a rapidly changing global economy. There is no product more commoditized, more easily reproducible, than the simple No. 2 pencil. Yet General Pencil was able to get out of commodity competition. It was able to thrive and profit by identifying a specific audience with clear needs and serving that audience thoroughly. [Moi ici: Qualquer empresa em Portugal está de um lado ou do outro do teste do lápis. Ou são uma commodity ou são algo com valor acrescentado para um grupo de clientes-alvo que outras empresas nunca poderão oferecer porque estragaria o seu modelo de negócio]
...
[Moi ici: Depois, vem o final do capítulo para fechar este postal, tal como ele começou, a arte] Katie was far more of an artist than an industrialist. Her passion lay in sketching nature, not in looking at spreadsheets, worrying about the rising cost of graphite and the bottleneck at their Midwest distributor. That was stuff her dad loved and would never be for her.
But while working with her dad developing the pencil kits, she found herself becoming fascinated by some of the very things she assumed she’d hate. Distribution, she realized, isn’t just a dull corporate word; it’s the way she can get pencils in the hands of children and artists. Finance isn’t a deathly dull spreadsheet; it’s a language that allows her to make better decisions about the experiments she wants to conduct, and it guides her as she invents different kinds of kits and assesses which ones have successfully found a market. She would never make distribution and finance the core of her work. General Pencil has plenty of experts in those areas. But she learned that there could be as much joy and creativity in business as there is in art."

BTW, neste artigo de Julho de 2011, "Uma Sildávia na América", comentei o estado da empresa antes do tal telefonema de Katie

"we must redefine art"

Em "A alternativa", um postal de maio de 2016, e em "A ascensão do artesão e da arte na produção, um postal de Abril de 2017, voltei à arte como a alternativa para fugir às estratégias cancerosas que nunca serão sustentáveis num país pequeno e pouco habituado a rigor e planeamento.

Como diria MacGyver:

That's our edge!

É afinal o twist na estória de David vs Golias, enquanto Saúl pensava que o puto David ia combater de igual para igual, David tira um seixo branco de um saco só com seixos pretos (parte I e parte II).

Ontem, apanhei este texto de Esko Kilpi, "Art, entrepreneurship and the future of work":

"Art creates suggestions for fresh ways of defining the world we live in.
...
Artists are like entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs are like artists. They turn nothings into somethings. Thus, artists give a form to ideas that for some other people might be nothing more than vague notions or emotional impulses. But it is often not easy.
...
Fostering creativity is a genuine goal for all in the post-industrial society. A creative economy needs individuals with the freedom, courage and capacity to think, learn and live imaginatively. We need people who can conceive ideas and who can realize them. Maybe all schools in the future are going to be art schools and all offices creative studios.[Moi ici: Mas não com a Nomenklatura que por lá anda agora]
.
But we must redefine art. Art today often stands apart from everyday life. It is a pastime and an indulgence, admired in a gallery, museum or a concert hall from a contemplative distance.
.
In the future art are not only objects we contemplate, but also experiences we possess and create."[Moi ici: Relacionar com o tema dos artesãos, dos nichos e Mongo]

Arte e eficiência não conjugam bem

“Art is anything that’s better than it needs to be.”

Arte e eficiência não conjugam bem

Recordar a minha luta contra o eficientismo e a minha defesa da arte como o futuro para as PME.

Trecho retirado de "The crucial difference between content marketing tactics and content marketing strategy"

Mongo e a arte

A minha mãe estava a folhear o Jornal de Notícias e vi um título.
- Espera, deixa-me fotografar esse artigo.
- Não sabia que gostavas de motos!?
- Não são as motos, é a costumização...

Não são as motos, é Mongo!

"É uma forma de arte. [Moi ici: Arte e Mongo, uma conjugação que faço aqui há muitos anos] Transformar motos de série em peças únicas, que se distinguem pela sua singularidade e apostas arrojadas, num visual alternativo, é uma paixão que ganha adeptos em Portugal. Este sábado, algumas dezenas de entusiastas da customização dos veículos de duas rodas juntaram-se em Espinho.
.
O mote para o encontro foi o 1º Motorcycle Design Contest, promovido pela "Backdoor Shop", onde diversas motos se perfilaram num desfile de originalidade."

Uma realidade transitória

Da próxima vez que ouvir alguém dizer que o paradigma do Normalistão, o século XX, é o normal de que não nos devemos afastar, pense neste gráfico:

Recordar "Mais outro exemplo: Provinciano, mas muito à frente":

"Há anos que escrevo sobre o futuro do trabalho, sobretudo acerca do fim do emprego estabelecido como paradigma pelo século XX, e que a maioria acredita ser algo milenar, algo eterno."

Imagem retirada de "This is what 150 years of US employment looks like"

"shifts toward particular logics can be reversed" (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

"The beer item collectors association BAV also published a bimonthly magazine that frequently reported on historic Dutch breweries. A number of writers also began addressing the history of Dutch beer brewing. As a result, there was growing awareness of the history of Dutch brewing, and a growing amount was recollected and curated, increasing the availability and accessibility of the remnants of the craft logic.
Thus during the first stage of logic reemergence, institutional change took off once ties between the previously dormant and dispersed custodians of the decomposed logic were regenerated. This involved restorative activities as dormant actors were reawakened, ties between them were reestablished, and the remnants of the decomposed logic were again made available and accessible. It also involved transformative activities as the dormant custodians of craft became organized in new ways, new recruits became absorbed in these networks, and foreign entities also came to be regarded as representations of a craft-brewing logic that had decomposed in the Netherlands.
...
PINT’s membership grew from 30 in 1981 to over 1,000 by 1994, and its bimonthly magazine attracted an increasingly wide readership in the Dutch beer-brewing field. But since PINT became organized around multiple local chapters that kept close ties with local pubs, hobby brewing associations, and eventually nascent craft breweries, which were not necessarily members of the association, the texts it produced were indicative of a developing national discourse and captured the regenerated vocabulary of practice surrounding craft brewing that began to emerge from reestablished networks. PINT not only provided a platform for alternative voices in the beer industry but also deliberately disseminated texts about what was ‘‘wrong’’ with the beer industry and what remedies were needed according to emerging ideas that were constitutive of this discourse.
A recurring component of these texts was the use of frames in which prototypical examples of modern brewing, industrial brewing corporations such as Heineken, were depicted as a foil to provide a favorable contrast for craft brewers."

Impressionante como uma revolução pode ser gerada por um movimento de base, que vai agrupando de forma ad-hoc indivíduos e grupos gerando um todo coerente.

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "What Is Dead May Never Die: Institutional Regeneration through Logic Reemergence in Dutch Beer Brewing", Administrative Science Quarterly 1–44 (2018) de Jochem J. Kroezen e Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens.

"shifts toward particular logics can be reversed" (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

O interessante é como este renascimento

começou a partir de um movimento de base, sem grandes recursos, sem patrocínios, sem intervenções governamentais.

"A key development was the emergence of five independent beer pubs that were not contractually tied to any industrial brewer and that began to import modest amounts of traditional foreign craft beer, predominantly Belgian ale, as an alternative to Dutch industrial lager. These locales, where individuals with ‘‘strange tastes’’ could meet (to quote a representative of one of these pubs), were Cafe ́ De Beyerd in Breda, Gollem in Amsterdam, Jan Primus in Utrecht, ‘t Pumpke in Nijmegen, and Locus Publicus in Rotterdam and Delft. The idea to import foreign beers emerged when the founders of these pubs came in contact with traditional beer styles that were still being brewed in Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
...The owners of pioneering beer pubs started with very modest means and ambitions and were surprised by the impact of their actions. Their initial success was followed by an emerging network of importers that began to specialize in foreign traditional craft beer.
...
The attention given to traditional alternatives reawakened actors with marginalized or dissolved roles, who were dissatisfied with the state of the Dutch beer-brewing industry. The exposure to foreign traditional craft beer led to these actors’ growing perception that something had been lost in the Netherlands with the shift toward industrial brewing. The pioneering beer pubs gave these actors a chance to meet and (re)connect. One of these, Gollem in Amsterdam, began to organize an annual beer festival in 1978 for alternative Dutch beer. Initially, this was a very small-scale affair, but the festival grew from 65 to over 300 visitors within two years and would eventually attract more than 10,000 visitors...The pubs and their festivals thus provided an important space for marginalized actors, like enthusiast consumers, brewmasters, and pub owners, to connect and discuss the state of Dutch beer brewing. Importantly, these groups contained both individuals with access to institutional remnants and individuals who were entirely new to beer brewing.
...
A group of Dutch beer enthusiasts who frequented the pioneering pubs also regularly traveled to London to visit pubs there. They noticed that the diversity of beers and brewing practices was higher in the UK and that there was a consumer association—the Campaign for Real Ale or CAMRA—promoting the revitalization of traditional craft brewing. This group would go on to establish the Dutch beer consumer association PINT.
...
The establishment of PINT initiated the emergence of an ecosystem of new collective organizations that all contributed to a nostalgia-infused movement for change in the industry.
...
In 1983, Nico van Dijk co-established a foundation for beer item collectors (BAV), which fueled greater awareness of traditional Dutch craft brewing. In 1984, the first modern brewers’ guilds—De Roerstok and Twents Bierbrouwersgilde—were established to encourage hobby brewing, inspiring a new generation of brewery entrepreneurs. The Bier Keurmeesters Gilde (BKG) that trains judges for the independent examination of the quality of amateur beers during competitions and tastings was established in 1986. And in 1987, an association for specialty beer pubs (ABT) was established, which acted as a catalyst for the distribution of craft beer. Collectively, these initiatives amplified the initial effect of the pioneering pubs. They revitalized marginalized actor groups by reawakening traditional members, providing them with spaces to reconnect and reflect, and attracting new recruits."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "What Is Dead May Never Die: Institutional Regeneration through Logic Reemergence in Dutch Beer Brewing", Administrative Science Quarterly 1–44 (2018) de Jochem J. Kroezen e Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens.

"shifts toward particular logics can be reversed" (parte II)

Parte I.

Voltemos à tabela 1:

O que vemos ali dentro da área sublinhada é um retrato fiel do paradigma económico do século XX.

Não admira a evolução do número de sobreviventes:

No modelo económico do século XX, o modelo gerado pela Revolução Industrial e que atingiu o seu apogeu no século XX, só existe um pico na paisagem competitiva. No final só pode existir um vencedor.

Mas em Mongo, o modelo económico deixa de ser único e abrem-se muitos outros picos:

Cada pico representa uma hipótese de procurar o sucesso. E ter sucesso num pico pouco tem a ver com ter sucesso num outro pico. Daí a minha exortação, concentrem-se nos clientes-alvo e não na concorrência.

Recomendo uma comparação das duas colunas, na figura acima, entre "Traditional Craft Brewing" e "Modern Industrial Brewing" - dois modelos tão diferentes!!!

O que é que aconteceu para que o renascimento típico de Mongo ocorresse a partir dos anos 70 do século passado?

"The dominance of the large industrial brewers led to substantial diminishment and, ultimately, dissolution of the roles of field actors who used to carry traditional craft brewing. But this decomposed logic left behind institutional remnants that continued to be at least partially conserved [Moi ici: Isto faz-me lembrar uma empresa de calçado que conheço que tem uma fatia muito grande de trabalhadores reformados. Gente com mais de 65 anos e que continua a trabalhar. A quantidade de gente que domina a arte de cortar pele à mão é impressionante. Sobretudo nestes tempos de balancés e máquinas de corte.]
...
While these remnants appear to be important resources for institutional change, regenerating them was rife with challenges due to their significant degree of decomposition. First, although there were individuals who could act as custodians of these institutional remnants, they were dispersed and had either become disembedded from the field or had completely switched to modern industrial brewing. Until 1980, there had been no collective efforts in the field to maintain or conserve elements of the craft-brewing logic. Craft-brewing remnants were therefore scattered around the field. Second, the remaining remnants provided only an incomplete set of representations of the traditional logic, which was insufficiently actionable.
...
Traditional craft brewing had come to be associated with inferior quality as compared with modern industrial brewing, in part because of the political efforts of the modern industrial brewers. Compliance with increased ‘‘quality’’ regulations imposed in 1926, which had resulted in part from industrial brewers’ lobbying efforts, required substantial investments in ingredients and equipment, which many traditional breweries were unable to make [Moi ici: Tão típico! ASAEs et al são criações dos gigantes para afastar concorrência. Recuo a 2010 onde escrevi "Quanto mais maduro estiver um sector para consolidação, maior a torrente de legislação e regulamentação sobre ele. Antes de começar a comprar concorrentes, há que expulsar os mais fracos do mercado, ou criar-lhes dificuldades extra para que sintam uma oferta de aquisição como um alívio bem-vindo."]. These policies, which had institutionalized crisp industrial lager as the dominant and qualitatively superior product, combined with the natural stigma associated with failure initially disqualified remnants left behind by the traditional carriers of craft brewing as legitimate building blocks for later change efforts.
In spite of these challenges, however, the craft-brewing logic reemerged in the Netherlands through the establishment of 489 new breweries between 1980 and 2016. These new organizations collectively regenerated the institutional remnants of craft. This led to fundamental institutional change, as these organizations contributed to the restoration of the institutional orders of the community, family, professions, and religion in the field.
...
The process of regenerative institutional change in Dutch beer brewing began during the early 1970s, when networks of actors with marginalized roles—such as brewmasters and members of traditional brewing families, who were the dormant custodians of craft brewing—were restored and transformed. These groups were reawakened when they were exposed to the surviving elements of traditional craft brewing in surrounding countries and began to mix with other marginal actors who were attracted to a budding hobby-brewing scene. Out of these interactions developed a growing sense that something of value had been left behind with the shift to modern industrial brewing. This fueled an interest in Dutch beer-brewing history and the mobilization of resources to promote nostalgia-infused change, ultimately leading to the rediscovery of what was left of the decomposed craft-brewing logic."

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "What Is Dead May Never Die: Institutional Regeneration through Logic Reemergence in Dutch Beer Brewing", Administrative Science Quarterly 1–44 (2018) de Jochem J. Kroezen e Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens.

"shifts toward particular logics can be reversed" (parte I)

"Many organizational fields in which modernity has seemingly taken hold may experience a revival of traditional arrangements. Revival dynamics are visible in organizational fields as diverse as cattle farming, retail banking, radio broadcasting, and whisky distilling. Such cases pose a puzzle for institutional change theoreticians, who, ... have long depicted change as a process of modern institutional arrangements destroying and replacing traditional ones. Institutional change can thus paradoxically also occur through the reemergence of traditional arrangements that challenge modern ones.
...
Regenerative institutional change thus refers to shifts that occur due to the reemergence of logics that had previously experienced decline and decomposition due to modernization. The development of the grass-fed livestock market in the U.S. as a result of the revival of traditional farming practices suggests a reemergence of particular logics that had previously dwindled in importance due to a shift toward industrial agriculture. The microradio movement in the U.S. spurred the reemergence of communal, religious, and educational radio stations by way of restoring low-power radio technology that had previously been abandoned as a result of increasing corporate concentration and federal regulation. And the reemergence of community banks in areas in the U.S. that were previously subject to acquisition activity by large national banks also suggests that shifts toward particular logics can be reversed.
...
craft revival followed an extensive period of total domination by industrial brewing. 

...
Modern industrial brewing. The Industrial Revolution, the invention of the corporation, and substantial improvements in the transportability of perishable goods ultimately enabled both the proliferation of modern industrial breweries and the emergence of a very different institutional logic around the turn of the twentieth century. [Moi ici: O Normalistão] Although there were many other examples, Heineken is the epitome of industrial brewing. It was established in 1864, when the son of a trader in cheese and butter acquired a struggling traditional brewery that had recently become a limited liability company. Heineken quickly developed into one of the largest breweries globally by focusing on mass production of industrial lager. The economic rationalization of beer brewing by Heineken and others led to a dramatic homogenization of products, such that by 1980 all of the beer produced in the Netherlands could be classified as industrial lager and traditional breweries had failed en masse. As an ideal type, modern industrial brewing involved a concern with profit, market power, and economies of scale; an automated and standardized brewing process; and a highly rational approach to the organization of production and sales, in which brewmasters became operations managers who were hierarchically subjected to financial and sales managers. Table 1 contrasts the ideal-typical logics of traditional craft and modern industrial brewing."

Trechos retirados de "What Is Dead May Never Die: Institutional Regeneration through Logic Reemergence in Dutch Beer Brewing", Administrative Science Quarterly 1–44 (2018) de Jochem J. Kroezen e Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens.

Mongo e o emprego

O que digo aqui sobre Mongo e o emprego?

• O fim do emprego modelado pelo século XX e elevado à categoria de modelo único e eterno.
• A ascensão dos artesãos
• A perda de valor no mercado dos cursos superiores porque já não haverá CV para apresentar, só um portfólio de projectos em que se participou

Tudo a ver com "Teenagers, Forget Engineering. Your Future Is Craft":

"A report by Altagamma, the Italian luxury goods association, estimated that some 50,000 people working in the luxury goods industry in Italy are close to retirement and that it will be a struggle to find qualified personnel to fill those jobs.
.
The problem is, recent generations of Italian youth have increasingly shied away from traditional handwork, opting instead for seemingly more contemporary sectors like engineering, and cooking."

Recordar as preocupações com a automação... Mongo é sobre um mercado cada vez mais heterogéneo. Por isso, faz cada vez mais sentido fugir da produção em massa, e apostar na proximidade para fazer batota com a interacção e a co-criação. Assim, os robôs deixam de ser problema, porque tem de existir o criativo que interage com o cliente.

Em Mongo o futuro passará pela arte, pela criatividade, e longe do vómito.