Is Albuquerque a Great Place to Live?

Not long ago while traveling, when I told some people who I had just met that I live in Albuquerque, one of them responded with the knee-jerk response "Albuquerque is a pit." At the time, I was startled because I could not reconcile his opinion with the city that I love. I believe that Albuquerque, with its cultural diversity, its long history, its awe-inspiring landscapes, its access to numerous outdoor activities, its down-to-earth people, and what is arguably the best climate anywhere, is one of the most desirable places for my family and me to live. After some introspection, I realize that much of the world may not see my city in this same way, and I further realize that there are aspects that need vast improvement.

21st Century Infrastructure

Recently, there has been much discussion about the need for more government investment in our infrastructure. Most of us think about bridges and roads when we hear infrastructure. The world is changing rapidly and our infrastructure investments need to keep pace with those changes. Instead of building transportation infrastructure to connect us physically, why not build 21st century infrastructure to connect us electronically?

Holiday Wishes

The following is adapted from the year-end wishes that I shared with the outstanding small company that I am part of. It speaks to the values and culture within our startup.

As we conclude the year, I commend each one of you for helping to make 2012 another great year at ZTEC Instruments. Economic uncertainty has made 2012 more difficult than we expected. The year was challenging, partly due to market conditions, and partly due to our choice to aggressively invest in the wireless test market.

Success in the Future

Today's business environment is more competitive than ever before. Goods and services can be produced anywhere and sold worldwide via the internet. Enabling technology is pervasive and inexpensive, allowing low-capital startups to spring up everywhere. Education, hard work, and creativity are being adopted by cultures across the globe. On average these trends are lifting the world's standard of living, and there are winners and losers. Developing economies are extending prosperity and opportunity to more, and developed countries are under pressure to become more competitive or risk falling back. This is especially important for populous nations such as the United States that must employ many citizens in this highly competitive world marketplace.

Outliers

In statistics, an outlier is an unusual occurrence that falls outside of the normal statistical distribution. These random and rare occurrences often seem inexplicable. Consider rolling dice and getting snake eyes 100 times in a row.

Malcolm Gladwell's book by the same name, Outliers discusses unusual patterns of achievement and success. In the book, Gladwell identifies logical causes for what would otherwise be considered statistically impossible events. He identifies cause and effect relationships for statistical outliers.

Collaboration, Innovation and 5G WiFi

The IEEE standards association is a fantastic model of collaboration that brings together competing organizations, ideas and interests to advance technology and the framework for innovation. Companies from all over the world send highly talented engineers and scientists to develop standards within IEEE working groups. Competing companies collaborate to develop the standards that enable interoperability, innovation, and ultimately competition between those same companies. The consumer is the biggest winner of this cooperation and standardization. With a common and open standard, the marketplace creates the competitive environment that leads to innovative new products and drives prices down over time.

A standard that you will likely hear more about is the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN (a.k.a. WiFi) standard. A new 5th generation (5G) WiFi standard, designated 802.11ac will deliver multi-Gbps data rates. This is significant because 802.11ac will enable faster wireless data rates than most of us now have with our wired 100 Mbps connections. The 802.11ac standard is still in draft form and not expected to be completed until later this year, but already there are 5G WiFi products available. This shows the pace of market-driven innovation. 

We Are Living in Exponential Times

The world is changing more rapidly than ever before and that rate of change is accelerating.

This YouTube video about the rapid progression of information technology was shown at a Sony executive conference last year. Here are some excepts:

• The first text message was sent in 1992. Today, the number of messages sent every day exceeds the number of people on Earth.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people, TV 13 years, the Internet 4 years, the iPod 3 years, and Facebook 2 years.
• The number of internet devices in 1984 was one thousand, in 1992 one million, in 2008 one billion.
• 4 exabytes (4 x 10^19) of unique information will be generated this year: more that the previous 5,000 years combined.
• The amount of technical information is doubling every year.
• The most in-demand jobs of 2010 did not exist in 2004.