Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Entrepreneurial culture: Silicon Valley

Performance culture concept is at the front and center of entrepreneurial ecosystems such as Silicon Valley



Let's look back at the 110-years of Silicon Valey history



And stories like those of Leland Stanford -founder of Stanford University-



Frederick Terman



Hewlett-Packard



Shockley and Fairchild semiconductors





What lessons can we apply to our PII ecosystem culture?

7 comments:

Alberto Félix said...

There are a variety of examples of how culture can be the best ally or worst enemy to the success of a mission. There are in history important wars who have been win by exploiting the culture of the conquered people, like the Spanish conquered the Aztecs who for some reasons including culture saw in the Spanish the arrival of a God, because many elements like date of their arrival and their physical features, their horses, were consistent with his beliefs and the Aztecs had a rational fear because Quetzalcoatl had come. Another example is how you can sees even today there are still people who believe that the computers and the internet are a thing of the devil and preferring to stay away.

Perhaps now, after 110 years, Silicon Valley is itself a culture and people who currently participates in a culture is forged according to this medium in a special culture, however as recorded in the videos, since the early year has been the cultural element that has influenced to become the headquarters of technology instead of other places like Japan or Alemany may have had in that time the most prestigious universities and technology centers with the highest level.

Be sensitive to the culture in the design of a strategy is crucial. No matter how strong the intent to cause an organizational change or introduce new products and services in a market, when methods are used are indifferent to the customs, change process in the best case it will be too slow and exhausting. By contrast, good design of the strategy including the culture will shorten the time for results; will demand less energy and success will be accordingly. Our projects should consider that.

Antonio Salazar Campos said...

2 months ago, was reading a artiulo about how the economy is being configured differently, surprised me quote from: The empires of the future will be empires of the mind, in this moment, im ready a book about make a diference when the culture is autodestructive, the book´s name is Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, this one try to explanin abou make changes in the organizations for example: Yet another strategy for change is to train people to adopt a “growth mindset” in which challenges or failures are treated as opportunities for improving and acquiring skills. That contrasts with a “fixed mindset” in which ability is viewed as basic, unchangeable quantity.

In other words, the people can change even if other countries conquered emergency countries, all is inside, the person has the power of change the things and the reality

Antonio Salazar Campos said...

Profesor, Jesper B. Sørensen launch a question about

Why do some geographic areas — such as California’s Silicon Valley — produce so many entrepreneurial companies?

The answer may be workplace peers.

Make or building companies with entrepreniurs people, help to former a business mindset, "Entrepreneurism seems to be a self-reinforcing phenomenon — once you have one entrepreneur, you’re likely to have more, as that person influences others,"

In other hand the economist jagdish baghwati make mention that countries whit a hot area geografical like brasil, mexico, africa can´t emerging how rich countries, in other wise, texas is so hot and california is so hot but the GDP is more than mexico brasil or africa together.

Is simple, Dr. Bernardez it calling HUMAN CAPITAL

see more in: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/sorensen_peers.html

Maria Dolores said...

How to transform a ‘bad’ into culture into an innovative,
optimistic and entrepreneurial one

1) Make people feel valued, that their contributions are appreciated
In a bad situation, you have people who will do the minimum work and actively
trying to find work somewhere else, because the constant messaging is that
things are bad, and each individual’s effort won’t make any difference. What you
say and do in the ‘big’ and ‘little’ moments are the ones that are remembered,
and looking a beleaguered employee in the eye and tell him/her that you
appreciate their effort and results, is a small but easy way to turn things around.
2) Reward new ideas
Set up a system where employees are rewarded for bringing ideas to the
executive team, even if it’s ‘only’ public recognition. Better yet, encourage them
to actively seek new ideas that they implement on their own.
3) Pick good people to work with-pick those with vision for the future.
This is obvious, I think. Recognize the strength of the staff you have, encourage
the stragglers to get on board, and allow the ones who don’t like the new
direction to move on. Many will self-select themselves out, the others will have to
be made to move on.
4) Imagine new ideas
Try new things out, hopefully your staff will be bringing new ideas to your
attention, and implementing new things for everyone’s benefit.

Roger Kaufman said...

Marial Dolores' comments are important. In addition, I suggest that the reward scheme is pegged directly to measurable performance and not just generic "feel good" statements.

cperal said...

Beyond Universities, companies and other organisms, we should seriously consider the great power released by a strong culture of same dreams, same visions, same concerns.
Almost every single person has the needed IQ, energy and initiative to do well in business and in life. Even though most of the people get to perform near to his “expectations”, the real key to succeed in life, is to develop the capacity to do things through others by turning them on!!!. These are the leaders, those who make things happen motivating other to perform well, those who are kind to others and give credit to their initiatives and performance. It’s the people that turns on others that people want to be led by. This thoughts relate to the required leadership and culture in our pii projects in order to have a motivated organization, performing as the best.
Talking about people´s performance we now that left hand characteristics (behavior, temperament, character) are not forbidden to anyone. They are all achievable. We can have any pattern of behaviors that we wish. We just have to develop the habits, and the sooner they are developed in life, the better. These habits can be promoted in our new culture, both individually and collectively.
For the last 110 years, Silicon Valley has been a magnet for talent, entrepreneurship and venture capital. Silicon Valley has created an infrastructure for entrepreneurship. It permeates not just the mindsets, but also the business practices and infrastructure. This is the way we, as a company (GP), should define our vision. And in some way we have that clearly identified in our own vision:
GP develops and promotes the sustainability of “ecosystems” that develop and utilize knowledge, technology and alliances to create higher level, and better quality of life. We now need to create the culture that motivates working and highly performing towards those objectives.

cperal said...

Successful companies create value; they commit to fill the need. They discovered how to innovate in ways that really benefit people, and make money in the process. But it´s all in the people. The mindset of the west coast entrepreneurship is inventing new things and disrupting the market. Create products and or services that transform the market, that transform people´s lives.
In those high performance environments, no one cares about credentials, nationality and/or beliefs. All they care about is if people can do the job, if they are passionate, if they have values, if they can commit to doing a great job. And those are the real values that matter in this world.
People that has worked for HP has learnt great values on how to work, how to lead, how to manage. They have developed new technologies through research developed internally and in conjunction with universities. Now, it is a company of annual revenue of 100 billion US dollars
Silicon Valley´s success has been possible because of Stanford University convergences entrepreneurial policies, the examples of great entrepreneurs like Hewllet, Packard and the Schockley brothers, and the beautiful climate.
The spirit of SV is to learn from failures and not be stopped by them. If we want to play safe and be conservative, we will never break new ground. The best education we can give our people is that they should not be afraid to make mistakes. They are inevitable, mostly if you are trying to create something inexistent.
We should “vigorously engage” in every activity related to developing, producing, retailing and end consuming food products (and services).

Take aways to our project:
- GP should clarify, share and communicate and promote/ motivate and be passionate at our vision (dream), our values, our concerns.
- GP has to be a magnet to great talent, be the best at selecting, developing, and supporting them and their families along their careers.
- GP should develop the leadership in the middle to upper management levels: their capacity to turn-on others and motivate them to do a great job and deliver on expected results for the common benefit.
- Promote habits that will lead us to a strong culture, high performance and quality of life organization
- Search for venture capital that will share and complement our organizations culture and requirements
- Make a solemn oath among all the stakeholders to be faithful to our vision, values and goals, no matter the circumstances.