At this time of year every Microsoft employee is asked to consider the last six months, evaluate what they have achieved and plan for the coming six months. Part of the planning will always be about evolving work that has been taking place in the first half of the year, and part of it will be about thinking about the year ahead in terms of the personal and business goals that the employee wants to carry forwards.
Working for any large corporation in a pan-Asia role presents some unique challenges in terms of setting measurable and well defined personal goals. The region is about as diverse as can be, developing economies sitting side by side with some of the richest and most prosperous nations in the world.
Part of my role in the coming year will be focused on continuing to evolve Microsoft’s role in the development and adoption of ICT standards in the region, another part of my role will be to continue the conversations that have been started over the last six months around the use of technology in the region from which we continue to learn a great deal, and a further part of it will be to work internally with the wider corporation to understand the implications and responsibilities that both of these activities bring to the rest of the business.
When I begin to think about what I would like to add to the goal sheet for the coming year or so I have a few thoughts buzzing around in my mind that needs a little more consideration. One of those stems from a speech that Muhammad Yunas gave at Microsoft’s Government Leader’s Forum in Beijing in April ’07.
For those who may not know him, Dr. Yunas was the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2005, the prize was awarded based upon his work establishing Grameen Bank and the subsequent success that the bank had in pioneering micro-financing alongside communities in Bangladesh.
As part of the question and answer session Dr Yunas was asked why he was so passionate about working on innovative projects in the developing world, his answer has been the subject of a great deal of thought for me over the last nine months or so and it was as follows; (this is from memory, so I apologize if it is not word perfect!)
“Imagine all the inventions that you know in the world today, and consider the fact that the vast majority of those have been brought to us by less than a fifth of the population of the planet while the remaining four fifths struggle with issues of education, healthcare, and access to the basic necessities of life. Now imagine what the world would be like if we could solve these problems, releasing the creative talents of another five billion people, what type of world would we all be able to live in then?”
When I think about that statement and why it had such a profound effect on me I end up with the following two conclusions.
The first is that these problems are not property of one part of the world but all of us, solving these types of issue has the potential to bring substantial benefits to every individual, not just those who are disenfranchised today. Frequently I see individuals and corporations trying to “help” with projects in developing nations, if I am understanding the point that Dr. Yunus was making it was that it is not so much help that is needed as a levelling of disparities, one result of that levelling being advantages for all of us.
The second is a thought around scale. In recent years I have witnessed many experiments involving technology in the developing world, many are approached with the technology in mind rather than the actual problem that is being solved and many of these projects aim to prove that a problem can be solved but then fail to scale beyond the initial project.
So, what is the additional personal goal for 2008?
I think it is a simple sounding goal of self education. I’m keen to start by understanding the problems at hand and what can be done that will truly help by companies like ours, and I’m keen to understand what role software has to play in the wider solutions that are needed as the developing nations around Asia find their rightful place in the world economy.
There are, of course, large numbers of people in Microsoft who spend their days thinking about the role of software in the developing world, but I want to build my own understanding and then see if I come to the same conclusions as the wider corporation.
There are quite a large number of regional individuals who read this blog now, including a growing contingent from India, China, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. I would welcome any pointers that you think are relevant to this topic, however basic you think they might be. I’m not starting from scratch, but am happy to review whatever preconceptions I currently have. Please feel free to hit the “contact” button above, or post ideas in the comments section of this post.