iReadNo.215

文/mr.6

今早受訪忙碌，因此拿出之前曾想寫的主題，當時看到《紐約時報》有一篇報導極有趣（另一篇見此），它說，近二十年來，全世界的大學的畢業典禮都流行一句「口號」，這句口號跟著所有年輕人進入職場，並跟著在職場陪伴這些年輕人經歷高潮與低潮，每當遇到工作上的挫折，或是面試沒過、老闆罵人，就會有如一條雄壯威武的軍歌，搥打著這些年輕人的心肝，讓他們充滿希望……。

這個神奇的一句話，就是──

「跟著你的熱情走！」(Follow your passion)!

「不管一切，只做自己！」

節錄自 遠見雜誌，2010年7月出刊，No.289
本期《遠見》主要訪問MIT各領域大師，再橫跨到台灣大陸等地知名專家，一同帶讀者進入未來十年的20個大未來。
大未來1：未來不會再發生經濟蕭條，只會有循環式的經濟衰退。在這次受訪的MIT大師中，史隆管理學院前院長、知名經濟學家梭羅（Lester Thurow）提出他對未來十年全球經濟的看法：「未來肯定會再發生全球經濟衰退，這是資本主義加上全球化的關係。」
大未來2：政治方面，最受矚目的就是中國的崛起。MIT政治系副教授，美國的中國專家謝德華（Edward Steinfeld）認為，中國的經濟開放已帶動政治制度鬆動，比起20年前，中國社會更開放、更自由。政治「也許」有可能在未來十年解禁。
大未來3：管理領導在未來十年的大變革是，課本學的都要丟掉，管理是沒有一體適用，也沒有案例可學。史隆管理學院院長施米特林（David Schmittlein）坐在他位於查理斯河畔的大辦公室內說著，未來領袖就有如飛機駕駛，隨時可能是在起飛後發現降落的跑道只有原本的一半，駕駛被迫在三萬英呎高空重新設計飛行方式，而他所擁有的資源，就只有飛機上的那群人。怎麼辦？

英國小說家瑪麗．韋布（Mary Webb）曾說：「在騎上夢想之前請先擺上馬鞍。」策略的重要性不下於夢想本身，可是人們還是疏於規劃，忙著仰望天空，忽略腳踏實地。
　以下是筆者對於實踐夢想所採行的策略原則，希望讀者覺得很有用，值得記起來：
　● 標明個人所有定位
　追求夢想的過程，很像是開車藉助GPS（全球定位系統）抵達目的地。讓GPS知道你的位置，再告訴它你要去哪裡，它就能為你建構一幅地圖。而你不同於GPS之處，在於你必須自行定出每一個轉折的方向。馬克．吐溫就堅稱：「出人頭地的密訣是踏出第一步。踏出第一步的密訣，是把複雜、難以招架的苦差事，分割成一些可以應付的小部分，然後從第一件開始做起。」你必須先定位自己目前的位置、未來的位置以及現在與未來之間的位置。
　● 檢視個人所有行動

作者: 鄒景平/資訊科技專欄作者

四十年以前，大學畢業生最大的希冀，就是申請到美國大學的獎學金，出國留學，那時很多人拿到的是助教獎學金，一邊在研究所唸書，一邊幫大學部的課程擔任助教，然而現在的美國大學，對於助教的工作，有了新的思維。他們改變僱用學生來擔任的模式，而嘗試把助教的工作外包給專業的公司來執行。
　原因跟美國大學的教學環境有關，由於老師有限，所以大學部的主要課程，都採取大班方式進行，例如計算機概論、統計學、經濟學、物理、化學等課程，一間教室有數百位學生，學生跟老師間難以互動，雖然有助教，但卻學校不容易掌控助教服務的速度和品質，更難以達成個人化的教學。
　如今，休士頓大學(Univ. of Houston)、西山線上學院(west hills college online)、U21global(美國線上企管研究院)等校，已經開始把批改學生作業的工作，外包給一家叫做「Virtual-TA」的公司來執行，這家公司翻成中文就是「虛擬助教」，他們在網站(：http://www.virtual-ta.com)上，不但舉出服務成功的案例，還條列了使用他們服務的效益。
　Virtual-TA公司還在網站上列舉他們能為大專院校提供的效益：

作者: ：【嘉豐資本】投資合夥人黃紹麟

◎傳統出版社的三大功能

賣書的生意還能做多久？會提出這個疑問並不代表著認為（紙本的）書籍會消失，而是認為「出版」這個產業的樣貌會被大大的改變。數位音樂跟隨網際網路發展到現在已經十多年，而音樂CD照樣有人買。因此這並不是誰取代誰的問題，而是誰成為主流的問題。

內容產業重組，無非是「舊中間人被邊緣化，新中間人變成主流」。報社是讀者通向新聞的中間人，現在變成入口網站。唱片公司是樂迷通向音樂的中間人，目前還沒有人能取代他的地位，但音樂的流通管道變成了網際網路（免費）及蘋果iTunes之類的音樂商城（付費）。

以往的出版產業大約可以概分為四種角色：作者，出版社，書店，消費者。其中，出版社擔任的工作是最為關鍵的，沒有出版社在其中謀劃一切，出版這件事情就不會是現在的樣貌。而出版社最重要的功能有三，第一是企劃管理，包含尋找作者與主題，出版前後推廣行銷等。

Google Inc. plans to begin selling digital books in late June or July, a company official said Tuesday, throwing the search giant into a battle that already involves Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Barnes & Noble Inc.

Google has been discussing its vision for distributing books online for several years and for months has been evangelizing about its new service, called Google Editions. The company is hoping to distinguish Google Editions in the marketplace by allowing users to access books from a broad range of websites using an array of devices, unlike rivals that are focused on proprietary devices and software.

Chris Palma, Google's manager for strategic-partner development, announced the timetable for Google's plans on Tuesday at a publishing- industry panel in New York.

目前在美國的高等教用書與在職用書市售額僅佔整體教科書產業的 0.5%，但最近根據美國 MBS Textbook Exchange 二手書批發商旗下服務的 Xplana 教育機構所公佈的一項研究報告顯示，預估到 2014 年，教用書籍數位版本的銷售額將會攀升至將近 20%，這個數據將為數位化教科書產業帶來估計 10 億美元的市場商機。

根據《紐約時報》轉載該 Xplana 研究報告主持人 Rob Reynolds 的說法，他認為數位版本教用書的銷量在接下來五年間會逐漸攀升，主要原因來自於市面上平板電腦或數位閱讀器如：蘋果 iPad 和亞馬遜 Kindle 的產量逐漸擴大，而閱讀器的價錢以及數位內容的取得也越來越變便利，再加上一般讀者對線上閱讀的興趣逐漸增加，在在提升了電子書時代的來臨。

基於這項報告，目前預估 2010 年在美國的數位教用書銷售額會以 100% 的正成長率逐年攀升，推估到 2014 年，每五本教用書中就有一本是數位版本。

Building a great business and operating it well no longer guarantees you'll be around in 100 years, or even 20. In 1958, the average length of time a company remained on the S&P 500 was 57 years; by 1983, it had dropped to 30 years; in 2008, it was just 18.

Shorter business life cycles require a new sort of management discipline capable of leading an organization through an ongoing process of transformation and renewal. To thrive in today's marketplace, to be built to last, every business now must be built to transform.

Consider Amazon (AMZN), which emerged from the dot-com bubble one of the few winners and continued to blaze a trail of impressive growth (from about $4 billion in 2002 to nearly $20 billion in 2008). One of the most unexamine facets of Amazon's high-profile success is its unabashed embrace of transformational growth in its white space. Amazon survived the dot-com bust because it had a viable and innovative business model built around a market-changing customer value proposition and a radical profit formula, which upended the staid book industry. Then it quickly expanded beyond books to include all sorts of easily shippable consumer goods, growing from its core into near adjacencies. But Amazon didn't stop there.

A few years later, the company seized its white space when it devised a new value proposition, offering a commission-based brokerage service to buyers and sellers of used books. Then it moved into its white space again by developing a model to serve an entirely different customer: third-party sellers. By opening up its storefront to other retailers that were essentially competitors, Amazon transformed its business from direct sales to a sales-and-service model, aggregating many sellers under one virtual roof and receiving commissions from the other companies' sales.

Then Amazon did it yet again, identifying a new area of potential growth by finding another new customer—the IT community. Serving this new customer's needs required different processes, different resources, and a different profit formula—in short, another new business model. In 2002 Amazon launched a web services platform. Perhaps it was risky for a young company that had only reached profitability in that same year to invest its innovation resources in new business models rather than stick to its core, but within five years the site used by Amazon's web-services platform had grown into the seventh-largest in the world. And Amazon kept going. In late 2007, it set up Lab126, whose first product, the Kindle e-book reader, came to market wrapped in a business model not only foreign to Amazon's DNA but also potentially disruptive to the entire publishing industry.

Internet retailer Amazon.com (AMZN) may need to write a new chapter for the Kindle in the face of fierce competition from Apple's iPad.

Since Apple (AAPL) announced on Jan. 27 that it would sell a versatile tablet computer that lets users read electronic books and perform a range of other computing tasks, analysts have said the iPad would likely take a bite out of sales of dedicated e-book readers such as Amazon's popular Kindle. In light of Apple's Apr. 8 announcement that it sold 450,000 iPads in less than a week, Wall Street analysts are already slicing their forecasts for Kindle sales.

Charlie Wolf, a senior analyst at Needham & Co. who has a "buy" rating on Apple shares, on Apr. 9 cut his forecast for Kindle sales this year, settling on a range from 2.5 million to 3 million units, in place of a previous forecast of 3.6 million units. Wolf estimates that Amazon sold 2.2 million Kindles in 2009. "It's not a compelling product," he says of the Kindle, because Apple's iPad offers more features, such as the ability to play video, plus a more compelling design.

Piper Jaffray (PJC) analyst Gene Munster, who has an "overweight" rating on Amazon shares, cut his 2010 forecast for Kindle sales by 400,000 units, to 3.45 million. Amazon's top-of-the-line Kindle DX, which is designed to let users read e-books on a black-and-white screen, is selling for $489, just $10 less than Apple's least-expensive iPad.

The iPad starts at $499 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage, a color touchscreen, and a library of 60,000 e-books. It also affords users the ability to watch videos, listen to music, and run a wide variety of applications. "No one in their right mind is going to buy a Kindle DX," says Munster.

Two days ago, the first buyers of Apple's iPad began putting it through its paces, playing games, navigating the Internet, and downloading electronic books.

That groan you heard was from dozens of book publishers across the United States, reeling from yet another onslaught against their bread and butter: the paper book. First it was Books on Tape, followed by books on phones, and then the king of business model killers, Amazon.com's Kindle.

"Traditional trade book publishers are scared."

Now the iPad, with its magnificent color display, glitzy "bookshelves," and easy-to-use interface, is poised to take another bite out of the hearts (and profits) of companies from Doubleday to Putnam.

"Traditional trade book publishers are scared," says Harvard Business School professor Peter Olson. "The world that they have known, of print books and brick-and-mortar bookstores—the whole fiscal distribution system—is on the cusp of changing fundamentally."

iPad介於手機與筆電的移動中端中，很多人認為首當其衝的會是Kindle，但iPad則擁有更棒的閱讀體驗和更多功能，兩者的用戶不會完全重疊。 蘋果平板電腦iPad現身，讚美與批評聲四起。許多科技玩家認為這是一款規格不如預期的電腦。有人說iPad像放大版的iPhone/iTouch，邊框太厚、外形不購炫、缺攝影機、無電話功能、沒有USB介面、不支援flash，沒有太多功能。從表面上看，它的確不像蘋果執行長喬布斯形容的那麼「光彩奪目」，但iPad成熟的設計理念仍足以令其成為迄今為止最棒的殺手級產品。

iPad不是電腦，喬布斯說蘋果是一家「行動裝置製造商」，不是電腦製造商。而「行動裝置不等於電腦」，不是硬體，不是作業系統，而是以應用為導向，以消費者為核心的思維。放眼蘋果過去的創新產品，讓iPod活起來的是音樂，讓iPhone活起來的是上網與上萬種應用軟體，如今蘋果打算拿電子書的應用讓iPad活起來。

蘋果有恃無恐的是什麼？在過去18個月中，iPhone的軟體平台上，發布了14萬個iPhone手機應用軟體、吸引超過30億人次付費下載的App Store。iPad勢必承襲蘋果一貫的設計美學和用戶體驗，而相關的內容商:諸如遊戲、電影、傳媒等行業，將從中發現下一個10年的新商機。

中間產品空間大

iPad明顯具有「中間產品」特徵，試圖搶攻蘋果過去認為時機不夠成熟的市場。1997年，喬布斯否決了蘋果的第一款平板電腦Newton；2003年，當工程師們造出了第一台iPad原型機，當年的原始版iPad耗電極兇，光是電池造價就高達500美元；難怪被喬布斯批評為「除了能用來在廁所上網之外還有什麼好處？」，直到2010年推出新款iPad，這一等就是12年。法人認為，iPad的推出將左攻電子書，右打小筆電。