Category: Blog

Facebook and Groucho

Posted on by tomglocer
I am a big Facebook fan. I like the simplicity of the model; I admire the openness of the platform; and I think Mark Zuckerberg really grasped the natural tendency of humans to affiliate themselves in groups academic professional or social. However when I hear rumors of a $10-15 billion valuation I am immediately reminded of that old Groucho Marx pearl: "I refuse to be a member of any club that will have me."
Perhaps Groucho got it right. My own experience suggests he did. I abandoned Linked-in as soon as too many people joined trying to sell me things; I emigrated from MySpace when the site began bombarding me with ads. Will efforts to commercialize Facebook to recoup a $10+ billion valuation ruin the service? If yes there will be a long list of new momentarily exclusive clubs to take its place.
So with apologies to the mustachioed master I posit the Groucho 2.0 Rule: "I refuse to participate in any social networking service that seeks to capitalize on my membership."
Caveat emptor

Alan Greenspan and Adam Smith

Posted on by tomglocer
This morning Reuters hosted a very timely and important discussion on the impact of the ongoing credit/liquidity crisis on the financial stability of major economies. After a warm introduction by Prime Minister Gordon Brown Alan Greenspan former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve shared his thoughts on the crisis. These remarks have been well reported elsewhere – most notably of course on reuters.com.
In a private chat after the event I had the chance to explore further with Dr. Greenspan the observation he made during his formal remarks that after a long and distinguished career as a central banker he had concluded that human beings were naturally inclined to create and fall victim to speculative financial bubbles (e.g the tulip bubble the South Sea bubble and more recently the equity and housing bubbles). While this somewhat psychological explanation might seem at odds with the classical economic position often ascribed to Adam Smith Dr. Greesnpan noted that one needed to read the far better known and widely read The Wealth of Nations alongside Smith’s other great work The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
In reaching for a more holistic interpretation of Adam Smith’s legacy Dr. Greenspan is of course very much in keeping with the recent work in behavioral economics which has come to challenge the view that all market participants are fully rational actors who will only act in their own self-interest. If this summer’s market shenanigans are any indication this more humanistic side of the "dismal science" will be working overtime on new empirical data

The Mets and Project Management

Posted on by tomglocer

For those of us who are life-long Mets fans it has been painful to see them self-destruct in September. However the eternal optimist in me is not yet thinking of next season. Instead I am already enjoying the thought of a calm month of October not spent staying up late in London hunched over my SlingBox player stressed to the max.

The baseball season is so long that I now realize I have allowed modern management practice to supplant my earlier and simpler love for the game. I follow the Mets on an "exceptions basis" as I would any large project. I pay a lot of attention at the beginning and end of the project monitor several metrics like won-loss record and number of games lead in between and only really pay attention when these stats show that some pre-set threshold has been breached. As with any good project I also do the occasional "deep dive" by either attending a mid-season game or reading a commentator’s analysis.

For the 2007 Season it is clear that the project has died – I think I will just go back to enjoying the game next year.

Sometimes a Rowboat can be Cutting Edge Technology

Posted on by tomglocer
Innovation through the application of leading edge technologies has always played an important part in Reuters business and it remains for me a cornerstone of business strategy in the digital information market. I have often said that Reuters has proven itself "light and agile on its technology feet" by reinventing its value proposition each generation in a way that leverages technology but does not encumber the company with legacy systems.
At the core of our use of technology is an obsession with speed accuracy and usability. Thus capabilities which allow us to collect and distribute information faster and more faithfully and then display it or permit it to be searched or consumed by man or machine more readily are at the core of our business.
One must however adopt a fairly broad definition of technology. For a 156-year old company it is not just a story of IP delivery. Thus at various periods in Reuters history everything from the telegraph to pigeons and rowboats have been the leading technology of the age. The story of the use of carrier pigeons by the original Baron Reuter to bridge the gap that existed during the mid 19th Century in the telegraph wires between Aachen and Brussels is well known. Not only did the pigeons represent a significant improvement in transmission speed over the prevailing "technology" of the day — horses but by sending more than one pigeon at the same time I claim (somewhat tongue in cheek) that the Baron actually invented Reliable Multicast.
The rowboat story is less well known. In the 1860s news from America used to take over a week to reach London since the best transmission medium of the day was the mail boat. Again Baron Reuter innovated by hiring enterprising oarsmen in Southern Ireland to intercept the mail boats coming from America and then telegraph the news to London once back on shore. It was using just this rowboat packet delivery that Reuters scooped the London market by DAYS with the news of the death of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
I tell these stories not to trumpet Reuters ingenuity or long history (OK well a little bit) but more to make that point that innovation through better technology can take many forms and that the true innovator is the one who sees the opportunity to do things in a new way. Today IP technology running on silicon is the prevailing norm and it is difficult to imagine another model; however in a few years we may find that a new paradigm like optical computing has become the standard.
This process is not unique to computing and was best described by the late Tom Kuhn in his seminal book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: The prevailing scientific theory of any era (e.g the view that the earth is the center of the universe) remains in force until the weight of scientific evidence is so strong that the explanatory power of the old paradigm breaks down and science moves on when a "revolutionary" posits a new model (the solar system) that then takes its place. This cycle can obviously be repeated over and over (Newtonian to sub-atomic to quantum physics); what is interesting is how long the old paradigm stays in force until disrupted by the new view. This I submit is why it is so important to "stay light on our technology feet". The winning model and the winning company is the one that is agile enough to see the new model (e.g. a search engine is really an advertising placement and monetization engine; the television set top box and computer will be one machine).
The moral of my story and one that I think Reuters has shown through its history is to always question the prevailing tech wisdom; never assume like the infamous head of the US Patent Office that everything useful has already been invented; and above all don’t confuse the value of your business with the machines and pipes that carry the content in any given era. Even if your business is those machines or pipes think about generalizing or abstracting your model to include a possibly radical next generation of transmission (hello wireless).

No I am not dead nor silenced by the PR machine

Posted on by tomglocer

Some of you have noticed that I have not posted in a long time. I am not dead nor is there a conspiracy by the Reuters PR or Legal Departments to silence me. The truth is that I have been very busy working on the Thomson-Reuters acquisition and when not at work playing with my kids on the beach.

Planning for the acquisition integration is still taking up most of my time these days but I am eager to begin writing again. I read some very good books over the summer including What is the What by Dave Eggers; The Yiddish Policman’s Union by Michael Chabon; Suite Franciase by Irene Nemirovsky and An Equal Music by Vikram Seth. Now my reading has returned to the usual dull but worthy marketing and finance memos.

Lots of interesting things going on in the world including the credit/liquidity crisis; a hotly contested presidential election in the US; new leaders in France and the UK; and the melting of the polar ice cap. Meanwhile getting an LBO done in September is about as likely as a resurgence in CD music sales.

Stay tuned.

Dying to Tell the Story

Posted on by tomglocer

On Thursday photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen 22 and driver Saeed Chmagh 40 of the Reuters Baghdad bureau were killed in the eastern part of the city. This brings to six the number of Reuters journalists and staffers that have been killed since the beginning of the war in Iraq – all too often as a result of "friendly fire".
To me the journalists who work for Reuters in Iraq and other conflict zones are true heroes. Working under incredibly dangerous conditions they risk their lives to tell the world what is going on in their country. Here are some excerpts from how Namir’s and Saeed’s colleagues remember them:

"However I describe this man I will not be doing him justice. If you asked him for money he would borrow off someone else to help you out. He always felt an obligation to help the weak."

"I knew him before the war even began. He was a man of principles and high values. He used to always think of his family especially his mother and father who needed constant medical care after his younger brother died in an accident. He was the only man who supported them and three other families.":

"[He] was a very humble and polite gentleman. He was a very loyal friend who was there for you at every moment. [He] supported three families as well as his parents but never complained of the burden and even committed himself to helping other families in his neighborhood.

We are assaulted in many parts of the world with some truly awful gossip mongering and celebrity stalking that passes as news; we should not forget the noble members of the profession who literally die to tell the story.

Sun Valley II

Posted on by tomglocer
The ground rule for all sessions at the Allen Conference in Sun Valley is that all discussions are off the record. Reuters has always honored our sources so I will not repeat what Mayor Bloomberg and former Prime Minister Blair discussed. However I can hazard the guess that if the 250 or so attendees could vote for anyone as the next President of the United States either speaker today would trounce the field.

Sun Valley 2007

Posted on by tomglocer
It is time once again for the annual (25th Annual) Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference. Many of the sessions seem like sequels to prior year blockbusters: Meg Whitman of eBay interviews Warren Buffet Barry Diller (IAC) and Howard Stringer (Sony) interview each other and Bill Gates tells us about the Digital Revolution.
What is new each year is a showcase of the latest hot start-ups disrupting the media/technology world. Last year featured Sling Media (maker of the eponymous Slingbox) Linden Labs (Second Life) and FON. A conversation with CEO Philip Rosedale after last year’s presentation led to Reuters oft-mentioned participation in Second Life.
This year’s presentations included Joost the new peer-to-peer video over the internet service; Ning a toolkit to create white-labeled social networks; and Spot Runner a service which allows small businesses or any size business to create professional looking video ads and target them to local viewing markets. So far Reuters is only working with Joost run by the talented Mike Volpi ex of Cisco.
More tomorrow when Tony Blair and Mayor Mike appear.

Musings on China

Posted on by tomglocer
I am just back from a week in China (Beijing Shanghai and Hong Kong). I have grown accustomed over the years to see the incredible pace of construction and westernization taking place in Shanghai. Hong Kong is of course a familiar and well established First World city. However what really impressed me this trip is how fast Beijing is transforming from the dull militarist capital into a thriving commercial as well as capital city. From the new financial district to the bold Olympic sites Beijing is modernizing in every sense of the word.
This lead me to ponder on the long plane ride home what must be the central question being debated in the inner sanctum of the Communist Central Party: To what extent should China embrace a market economy so as to make the pie bigger for everyone and thereby help raise the standard of living of the large rural population and to what extent should it centrally constrain that liberalizing impulse to avoid large inequalities which could foster revolt?
To me this question is immediately linked to a core socio-economic debate: Are individuals rational economic animals who respond to direct improvements in their standard of living or are we actually wired to only appreciate relative improvements in our economic status?. That is if my income goes up from $500 to $700 per month will I be satisfied with the governing system that has delivered this 40% improvement? Or will I only be happy if at the same time the gap between my income and the richest segment has not increased?
I believe the Chinese government is acutely aware of this debate made all the more immediate by the spread of television and other media across all of China showing to rural laborers for the first time the luxury consumption of the ascendant urban professionals. Is it any wonder then that Government of President Hu is so focused on stability and "social harmony" and that his government continues to go to such lengths to wall off the internet and control the media?
This is not just a philosophical debate. China has a long history of civil rebellions starting in the countryside. The government knows it is playing with fire in attempting to mould a "socialist" market economy. Without the "market" part there is no engine for economic growth and therefore no larger pie to divide. However taken to the laissez-faire extreme the resulting inequalities now beamed to every corner of China could cause great unrest.
I’ll stick to running companies.

Feral Beasts

Posted on by tomglocer

As part of a long-standing series of lectures by statesmen and other prominent speakers called Reuters Newsmakers Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke at Reuters this past week on “Leadership in the Media Age.” See Photo in Gallery.

The Prime Minister said little of controversy other than politely pointing out that it had become very difficult to govern under the intensely pressured always-on news cycle. He went on to acknowledge that his own Labour government spin-meisters had contributed to this situation but refused to take 100% of the blame. Instead he sought answers on how to make this government/media pas a deux work better for future governments.

In many reports over the succeeding 24 hours the media grabbed the following quote somewhat out of context:

“…the fear of missing out means today’s media more than ever before hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.”

I did not hear the attack that the thin-skinned among the audience claimed.

Friday the Daily Mail who in my mind truly deserve the term feral pack on a daily basis wrote:

“To the horror of his journalists chief executive Tom Glocer 47 applauded extravagantly Tony Blair’s speech attacking the media as a ‘feral beast’. My source at the event says: ‘Reuters is one of the most famous names in the news business. Yet Glocer was clapping wildly. His own journalists were embarrassed.’”

Was it a similar lack of independence when I applauded Michael Howard the former Leader of the Opposition when he appeared at a Reuters Newsmaker in 2005? The Reuters Trust Principles which set out the standards by which we at Reuters seek to report and conduct our business require independence and freedom of bias not rudeness.