I asked 10+1 Questions on Innovation to Hermann-Josef Lamberti, member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank AG.
See his reply below.
10 +1 Questions On Innovation to: Hermann-Josef Lamberti, Chief Operating Officer, Deutsche Bank AG.
Hermann-Josef Lamberti was appointed a member of the Management Board of Deutsche Bank AG in October 1999.
He is also a member of Deutsche Bank™ Group Executive Committee.
As Chief Operating Officer he has global responsibility for Human Resources, Information Technology, Operations (excluding Securities Settlement according to MaRisk), Cost and Infrastructure Management, Building and Facilities Management as well as Purchasing. He joined Deutsche Bank in 1998 as an Executive Vice President, based in Frankfurt.
Hermann-Josef Lamberti began his professional career in 1982 with Touche Ross in Toronto and subsequently joined Chemical Bank in Frankfurt. From 1985 to 1998 he worked for IBM, initially in Germany in the areas Controlling, Internal Application Development and Sales Banks/Insurance Companies. In 1993, he was appointed General Manager of the Personal Software Division for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at IBM Europe in Paris. In 1995, he moved to IBM in the U.S., where he was Vice President for Marketing and Brand Management. He returned to Germany in 1997 to take up the position of Chairman of the Management of IBM Germany in Stuttgart.
Hermann-Josef Lamberti studied Business Administration in Cologne and Dublin and graduated in 1982 with a master’s degree in Business Administration.
1. What is “Innovation” for you?
Innovation is implemented creativity which adds value. Value could be many things, from tangible or intangible business value for the owners or employees of a company, through to innovations which protect our planet.
In an organisational context, innovation is the lifeblood of an organisation. Successful companies are the ones who can remain agile and reinvent themselves not only to remain top of their game, but also to survive.
2. Who are your favorite innovators?
My favorite innovators are the staff at Deutsche Bank who constantly impress me with their level of creativity.
Innovation is one of five core values at Deutsche Bank, it is something we attach a great deal of importance to, whether it’s product, people, process or management innovation.
Thomas Edison is a good role model for how constant experimentation and failing fast and often allows one to succeed sooner. Edison innovated on innovation, being the first to build an Industrial Research Laboratory, a process for constant innovation. Edison holds 1093 US patents and his businesses live on today in the form of General Electric. A testiment to an innovative culture and business success, GE is one of the original 12 companies to be listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896 and it is the only one to still be listed on this index today.
3. What do you consider are the most promising innovations of the last 3 years?
There are so many to choose from, the pace of change is getting faster. Working in a knowledge industry, I’m interested in Social Networking and the value this can add to an organisation. There is a human need to communicate and interact and a business need to democratise knowledge, to allow it to flow as freely as possible within defined groups. On the internet we’ve all seen the fast growth of Facebook and YouTube, this is a largely untapped area within large organisations.
Another area of innovation which especially benefits those in the developing world is microfinance via mobile phones.
Microfinance is nothing new, as part of our long-standing and wide-ranging commitment to society, Deutsche Bank has been involved in structuring and managing microfinance funds for 10 years (for more information see here).
By combining existing tools, the microfinance loan and the mobile phone, this enables the local microfinance institutions to reach more of the world’s poor to help them with the seed capital to build their own businesses.
4. What does it help to become a successful innovator?
As per Tom Kelley’s book The Ten Faces of Innovation, there are many roles and characteristics required to realise an
innovation. In no particular order, I believe the following are some of the things required to become a successful innovator:
Funding, Supportive Environment (all ideas are good ideas initially, fail with impunity, experiment), Insight (get to the
customer’s unarticulated needs), a good Network, Self-belief, Risk Taker, Persistence, Knowing when to call it a day, Celebrating Success!
5. Is there a price to pay to be an innovator? Which one?
There should be some failure & learnings along the road to a successful innovation, then to the victor go the spoils.
6. What are the rewards to be an innovator?
The definition of reward is clearly unique to each person, within Deutsche Bank we have internal innovation award programs
to recognise and reward our innovators. In the broader context, I think it’s similar to mountain climbing. It’s hard work, it’s
enjoyable, it’s a challenge, there may be some slips which you get back up from, then the satisfaction and view from the
summit makes it all worthwhile. Some people are wired this way more than others.
7. What are in your opinion the top 3 criteria for successful innovation?
Success is in the eye of the beholder, one person’s success can be another person’s loss.
1. Beneficiaries benefits from the innovation (even if not the originally intended value or beneficiary)
2. Stakeholders in the innovation (those who have provided resources) also realise value from the innovation and continue
to provide resources for future innovations
3. The benefits outweigh any negatives (the innovation should be morally and socially responsible)
8. What would you recommend to young people who wish to pursue innovation?
Go for it. Generate lots of ideas. Expect to fail many times before succeeding. Develop a deep insight into a given area and
experiment. As the bird starts to fly the nest, nuture it, feed it. If it lands on the ground, try again, if it flys, you’re off! Innovating when young is a great time to start as orthodox thinking has not had as much chance to set in.
9. In your opinion how can we create a culture that supports and sustains innovation?
By setting the behavioural tone from the top.
By visibly recognising and rewarding the behaviour we want to see, encouraging this behaviour in others.
By proving resources and a safe environment.
By connecting the passionate.
Through diverse backgrounds within groups.
Through internal and external networks.
Through story telling and myths.
10. What do you think stops/slows down innovation?
Not doing the above.
10+1 .Do you think becoming an innovator can be taught?
Yes. Everyone is creative, even people who think they are not.
Everyone has a role to play in realising an innovation.
ODBMS.ORG in numbers…
I am happy to share some numbers for ODBMS.ORG.
ODBMS.ORG is a vendor-independent resource portal with free materials on object database technology and the integration of object-oriented programming and databases. The portal’s goal is to promote and further the use of object databases.
Launched on September 2005, ODBMS.ORG has quickly established itself as the most up-to-date collection of free materials on object database technology on the Internet.
Over the course of its first two years of existence, more than 242,000 visitors have used the site and downloaded 42,645,954 Bandwidth (KB) of resources on object databases such as papers, lecture notes, and software.
Over 32,000 visitors have visited the download section,
18,000 visited the Introduction to ODBMS section,
14,000 visited the Expert section,
8,000 visitors have visited the News section,
13,000 visitors have informed themselves about books,
10,000 visitors have investigated the list of vendors.
ODBMS.ORG was created to serve faculty and students at educational and research institutions as well as OO software developers in the open source community or at commercial companies. It is designed to meet the fast-growing need for resources focusing on object database technology and the integration of object-oriented programming and databases.
All materials and downloads are free.
A Panel of currently 96 internationally recognizable Experts from academia and commercial companies provides the content for this portal.
Thank you to all who contributed and visited the portal.
Roberto V. Zicari
Editor ODBMS.ORG
As I have anticipated, I have published in ODBMS.ORG a white paper on Next-Generation Object Database Standardization written by the OMG`s Object Database Technology Working Group.
It is a very interesting readings!
I asked 10 +1 Questions on Innovation to Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL AB.
See his reply below.
10 +1 Questions On Innovation to: Marten Mickos, CEO, MySQL AB.
Mårten Mickos joined MySQL AB as CEO in 2001. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a start-up to the second-largest open source company and the fastest-growing database vendor in the world. Prior to MySQL, Mickos held multi-national CEO and senior executive positions in his native Finland. He holds a M.Sc. in technical physics from Helsinki University of Technology.
1. What is “Innovation” for you?
Some new thing or way of doing things that brings economical
value to a customer.
2. Who are your favorite innovators?
I admire IKEA for innovating the production and distribution process, Apple for innovating usability (mostly from existing
components), and the free and open source software movement for having innovated a great new way to produce and distribute software.
3. What do you consider are the most promising innovations of the last 3 years?
I don’t make such assessments! I’d rather spend time helping innovators than assessing them. I follow Wayne Gretzky’s principle that “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
So I think we should try to get more innovations done, not try to find the top 3. The markets will pass their judgment on the innovations anyhow.
4. What does it help to become a successful innovator?
Curiosity. A meticulous ability to make observations. A desire to contribute. An ability to let go of old thoughts.
Perseverance.
5. Is there a price to pay to be an innovator? Which one?
Every passion has its price. Most innovators never hit a home run. But all innovators have to give up something else (mostly time).
6. What are the rewards to be an innovator?
I am not an innovator myself, but I believe that the best reward an
innovator can get is to see his or her innovation in productive use.
7. What are in your opinion the top 3 criteria for successful innovation?
Frugality, combination, meticulousness.
8. What would you recommend to young people who wish to pursue innovation?
To start innovating in their everyday life, and to not give up even if it takes years to develop the ability to see new solutions and make them happen.
9. In your opinion how can we create a culture that supports and sustains innovation?
By making heroes of the innovators.
10. What do you think stops/slows down innovation?
I believe that the propensity to innovate is fairly stable across the world and over time. But there also needs to be a full set of supporting functions (investors, sales channels, labour market, etc.) and those we can influence.
For instance, I am not sure Silicon Valley is any more innovative on a base level than any other place, but Silicon Valley has all the functions that you need to make an innovation come true.
10+1 .Do you think becoming an innovator can be taught? If yes, how?
I believe there is an amount of passion needed that you cannot teach.
But I think you can wake up a dormant passion for innovation by exposing young people to successful innovators.
This is the principle of “hanging out and drinking beer with Nobel laureates”. It is extremely stimulating.
Also, I think you can teach the techniques of innovation, as well as the skills you will need to bring the innovation to commercial success.
Hope this is useful!
///mgm
I will be shortly publish in ODBMS.ORG a white paper on Next-Generation Object Database Standardization written by the OMG`s Object Database Technology Working Group.
Here is the abstract of the White Paper:
“Following the dissolution of the Object Data Management Group (ODMG) in 2001, standardization efforts for object databases languished. What has emerged since is a fractured marketplace where each vendor has developed a unique set of programming interfaces and features and no truly portable way of interacting with an object database exists. In 2005, the OMG’s Object Database Technology Working Group was formed as the successor to the ODMG, and our first effort has been to create the object equivalent of the relational calculus. We believe that the foundation for this “object calculus” can be found in the research done by Prof. Kazimierz Subieta and his students at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology. We have prepared this white paper to serve as an introduction to Prof. Subieta’s “stack-based architecture” (SBA) and to define the OMG version of it. The definitions and semantics of SBA will, we believe, allow the construction of a complete and correct object model that supports a powerful object query language as well as a complete and correct set of equivalent native programming language bindings. ”
What is the goal of this initiative?
Quoting the white paper: “What we would like to have in the end is a new standard for object databases that is based on a sound theoretical framework with precise and complete definitions. Prof. Subieta’s work is a great starting place because it shows what must be available in an object store in order to support an advanced query language. What we imagine is a new standard which could be fashioned after the ODMG 3.0 specification, something like this:
OMG “Next Generation” Object Database Standard (“ODMG 4.0”)
Chapter 1 – Introductory material
Chapter 2 – New object model based on the abstract store model and an abstract stack-based object query language (AOQL), includes definitions and detailed semantics of all optional features to be standardized
Chapter 3 – XML/XSD specification for data import/export as replacement for “ODL”, provided for all conformance levels
Chapter 4 – Full syntax of abstract query language, provided for all conformance levels
Chapter 5, 6, … – Programming language APIs for specific language bindings
Our new specification would not have to be done in this way, but such an organization would be familiar to those who have used ODMG 3.0 in the past. Of prime importance would be clear definitions and explicit semantics (especially in chapter 2), even including the use of state diagrams or Petri nets as needed to convey the semantics of how certain features are supposed to work in conformant products.
Looking forward, the plan is (assuming there is sufficient vendor interest) for the ODBTWG to prepare (and then issue from its parent task force) one or more RFPs that together will establish the full and complete definitions of the abstract query language (AOQL) and the semantics of the abstract store models, as well as, the semantics and behaviors of optional features (compliance points). This will be the Platform Independent Model (PIM) for a conformant object database. When the PIM is defined, it will serve as the basis for a series of RFPs to develop specifications for concrete implementations of the “Next Generation Object Database” in Java, C++, etc., i.e., Platform Specific Models (PSMs).”
It will be interesting to see if this initiative takes off and if sufficient vendors support it.
I will be writing about it in my next posts.
Roberto V. Zicari
ODBMS where did they go?
September 26, 2007–
If we look back at the history of ODBMS. one sees how when the first generation of ODBMS were introduced, expectations did not really meet reality, notwitstanding all the efforts and enthusiams put on it.
So one asks himself a question. What happened to the ODBMS? Where did they go?
And perhaps a more interesting and actual question is what are the realistic chances for the “new wave” of ODBMS products?
As always, part of the answers can be given by trying to understand the past.
The first wave of ODBMS failed partially because the market conditions were not ready.
In particular, object technology (in particular object oriented languages) were not as diffuse as they are now.
So the issue of “impedence mismatch” between programming languages and databases, was mainly an interesting
academic issue, but not really felt by the market.
I visualize it like a sales person who is trying hard to sell a mini sport convertable car to a family with a number of kids who is not really interested in that…
Things have changed in the meanwhile. Object Oriented Programming Languages (OOP) are widely used.
It is estimated that today we have between 3 and 4 million Java developers. Also, very important in my opinion, for the acceptance of the use of OOP, was the decision of Microsoft to develop Csharp. The Microsoft development world has changed with the introduction of the .NET Framework.
Object Modeling is no more fragmented in several different methodologies like in the early days (the first object-oriented modelling languages began to appear between mid-1970 and the late 1980s, and went up to more than 50 during the period 1989-1994. Most notably Booch, OOSE/Jacobson, OMT).
It has now found a de facto standard, UML. UML is not merely an object modeling software methodology. Many companies are incorporating UML as a standard into their development process and products, which cover disciplines such as business modeling, requirements management, analysis and design, programming, and testing.
UML being a standard has helped the acceptance of OO technology, especially in certain domains.
And relational databases are still there… They changed, yes, but they are still there.
Moreover, new marked opportunities arise. For example, with 1.2 billion cell phones in the world, mobile software development has become a lucrative industry.
So what are the *real* chances for the new generation of ODBMS?
I have decided to work on this issue and try to come up with a reasonable answer. I am planning to collect some relevant information and hopefully this will be assembled in a white paper I am planning to write for December.
In the meanwhile, if you have any input, feedback you wish to give me, there are very welcome!
Roberto V. Zicari
O/R mismatch: What is the Problem?
August 28, 2007
There has been quite a discussion recently on the so called “O/R mismatch”.
This is a quite interesting discussion. The bottom line is that after so many years, still object persistence does not seem to have a fully adequate solution.
This is ackward, bringing programming languages and databases seems still a rather diffcult task…!
There are a number of interesting resources I have recently published on this subject on ODBMS.ORG.
In cooperation with FranklinsNet, ODBMS.ORG has published the transcript of the panel discussion “ORM Smackdown” between Ted Neward and Oren “Ayende” Eini on different viewpoints on Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) systems.
It is an interesting reading. Pls check: ORM Smackdown
I have also published Ted Neward’s follow on essay discussing solutions to the problems
of Object/Relational-Mapping titled “Avoiding the Quagmire”.
This new essay is a follow on to Neward’s “The Vietnam of Computer Science” , which compared
the inherent problems of object/relational mapping to the quagmire in the Vietnam war.
The initial “Vietnam” essay was first published in 2006 and widely discussed in the industry.
“Avoiding the Quagmire” discusses the impact of choosing to integrate object concepts into the database as opposed to using relational concepts or object/relational mappers.
Neward states that while using an object oriented database management system (ODBMS) will not completely eliminate all of the problems described in the intial “Vietnam” essay, it does address some of the more egregious problems. ODBMS thus frequently provide the developer a better chance of avoiding the quagmire and allowing them to focus more clearly on the problem at hand.
Pls check: Avoiding the Quagmire
I published a copy of Ted Neward’s “The Vietnam of Computer Science”.
Neward argues that the O/R mismatch is a quagmire where current approaches including object-relational mappers (ORMs) are subject to decreasing marginal returns. He lists the abandonment of objects (as a programming paradigm) or of relational data structures (as a database paradigm) as the only wholehearted solutions, while living with the pain or full integration of ORMs into languages or databases are other approaches.
I personally do not like the analogy with Vietnam… but the article has a number of interesting points. The article as you may immagine has received a mix feedback from the readers….
Here is the reference: The Vietnam of Computer Science
10 Questions On Innovation
August 2007–
In my work as Editor of ODBMS.ORG
I started a Section on Innovation.
I believe this is important. In the IT industry innovation plays a key role.
But how does innovation occur? I thought the best way is to ask who did some mayor innovation..
So I asked:
Ivar Jacobson. creator of OO methodologies
Alan Kay, pioneer of OOP, PC, and GUI
Vinton G. Cerf, father of the Internet
Philippe Kahn, founder of Fullpower, LightSurf, Starfish, and Borland
You can read in this blog their answers to my 10 Questions On Innovation.
Learning from great innovators is one source of inspiration, but not a guarantee of course…
Enjoy.
— Roberto V. Zicari
August 2007– I wote a research paper together with my colleague Jesper Holck while I was at the Copenhagen Business School:
A Framework Analysis of Business Models for Open Source Software Products with Dual Licensing
Working Paper, CBS/INF, No. 1, January 2007
Jesper Holck, Roberto V. Zicari
Copenhagen Business School
Department of Informatics
Howitzvej 60
DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark.
Abstract
Aim of this research is to identify the key elements that play a significant role in the success of business models for companies which produce software products based on open source using dual licensing. For that we have defined a new framework analysis that can be used to evaluate existing and new business models.
More on our reseaerch at the DBIS Web site,
August 2007– Last semester I did teach at the Copenhagen Business School a master course on
“E-services and business models for the Web”.
For the course I have created a resources page where you can download interesting material: E-BMW Resources
I am interested to receive up to date resources that I can add to the course resource page.
