Hacking the Industrial Economy

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/05/last_week_i_asked_how.html

by colortone • 18 years ago

14 13 18 years ago

discussionleader.hbsp.com

sealedidentity• 18 years ago

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

TrevorJ• 18 years ago

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

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

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.

colortone5• 18 years ago

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!

mynameishere2• 18 years ago

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.

swombat3• 18 years ago

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.

colortone5• 18 years ago

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.

swombat3• 18 years ago

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.

hobbs• 18 years ago

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

Hacking the Industrial Economy

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