Networks competing with networks is the future for supply chains. Harvard Professor Marco Iansiti in his book "The Keystone Advantage: What the New Dynamics of Business Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innovation and Sustainability" predicts that the future business competition will not be between companies or even supply chains but between networks.

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Home-shoring is replacing off-shoring

Matt Keating, writing in Phone home for The Guardian (Saturday October 15), reports that “Virtual call centres” (aka home-shoring) where staff work from home over the web can save employers significant infrastructure and accommodation costs and also keep workers happier.He also notes some of the management challenges in keeping the remote workers connected with their employers.

I just received a Christmas Card from the Monitor 360 group which identified 14 "Consequential Ideas for 2009". The ability to collaborate effectively in large groups is fundamental to (at least) 3 of them: Resilient Communities, Guerilla Journalism and Crowdsourcing.

I spotted two seemingly trivial comments in the UK Daily Telegraph which when put together indicate the difficulties organizational teams face these days. Staff resent dead wood colleagues reports the results of a YouGov poll of 2,500 employees that 8 out of 10 staff are unhappy about “dead wood” colleagues in their organisations who do not pull their weight but yet nothing is done about them. One CV in four is a work of fiction reports that according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development one in four jobseekers tell, not just one but, three lies on their CVs.