Now that we’ve completed the book (The SAIC Solution), I’ve been wondering what topic I should take on for the next book. I’ll bounce ideas off you as I think of them. If you have ideas, I would like to hear them. One thing we’re doing is establishing a FED publishing program, which will get underway soon. The mission of the program is “To continue to build the legacy of the founding generation of SAIC by promoting and extending the innovative business philosophies and techniques developed during SAIC’s early and expansion years.” We have appointed an editorial board (on which I will serve, along with Mary Ann Beyster, Peter Economy, Jim Russell, and Bill Ralston) and plan to embark on an aggressive publishing program of articles, essays, and more over the next several months. We will use the book as our foundation, but also go beyond the book to address related issues and topics. Please submit your ideas for topics that you think should be addressed. I have ideas for articles in three areas I would like to address soon:
- Governance for an employee-owned company, which we discuss in some detail in Chapter 13 of the book. I didn’t really have as much time to investigate this area as I would have liked to.
- What’s happening with nuclear power? The Wall Street Journal and some experts on nuclear waste management (including Ed Rumble, in his postings on this blog) seem to believe it will play a large role in our energy future. However, as Ed points out, the nuclear utilities are having difficulty licensing storage facilities for their waste.
- There is a lot of activity going on in the area of data warehousing — SAIC has many people working in this area now. There’s a company called Greenplum that appears to have some unique capabilities in the area, along with others. It all boils down to algorithms, how you extract quickly information from the warehouse. If the warehousing systems do what they say they will, the benefits will be significant. It might be fun to research that topic.
Click on the comments link to share your thoughts.
– Bob