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The writing is enjoyable to read, enthusiastic...and humorous!...
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This book began in July of 2002. And, while the the creation, writing and editing was extremely difficult, the authors fought mightily to accomplish our goal: to build LEGO robots both suitable for Master Builders and worthy of this book's title! Amazing PneumADDic II and Synchropillar by Kevin as a computer processor specialist and creator of LPub and LSynth. Splendid Stair-Climber by Doug who is a well known creator of several Omni Drive Vehicles. And, two awesome works - Learning Brick Sorter and The LEGO Turing Machine that were invented by the famous Ferrari brothers - they are co-authors of the best selling "Building Robots with LEGO Mindstorms" and have been called the "DaVincis of LEGO". Biped robot expert Miguel created complex SSCT faithfully based on the real robot that was active for life search and explore in WTC, New York. Lastly, a robotic arm driven by 10 motors and feedback system - CyberArm IV that I have created as a series in four years. All of these are the real robots that are backed by real robotics - only the materials are LEGO! We are very pleased that we could explore a new frontier in LEGO Mindstorms, and be able to offer it in book form.
As the one of pioneers of LEGO robots, I have had my experience of the results in the MIT Media Lab fortunately in the middle of the 80s, and the result of my writing of over half year keeping is included in bundle CD-ROM as a over 50 pages bonus chapter. I have tried to write about a lot of topics to explain the world of robots and LEGO Mindstorms - history of LEGO robot or their philosophy of the LEGO Group, precious list and description of early LEGO educational sets for control learning, personal robot boom in the 80s, from a more than 300-year-old Japanese automata (the Karakuri) to the latest state-of-the-art robotics. I believe that my discussion and description about the way of thinking and creation - included building, programming, CAD and even about Art - are useful in particular.
We hope that this book will never lose its value and that it will become loved by people of all generations.
From Tokyo
Hideaki Yabuki
Media Activist
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In this context, Kevin Barham and Claudia Heimer summarize their objectives in writing this book: document the story of the merger, ABB's growth and global expansion; catch more than a glimpse of the real story behind the company's ongoing success; raise some key questions for the future of ABB; highlight some lessons from ABB's experience for managers in other organizations facing international and global challenges. And thus they organize their book into three main parts:
I. The Birth of A Modern Giant - In this part, by telling the story of the two main partners-ASEA of Sweden and BBC of Switzerland, and by outlining Percy Barnevik's concepts regarding the strategy, structure, control mechanisms and people development of the newly merged/emerged company, they describe early days of ABB.
II. Giant Steps to the Globally Connected Corporation - In this part, by defining ABB as a 'globally connected corporation' (global and local, big and small, and radically decentralized with central reporting and control), they show the stages of global expansion.
III. Reaping the Harvest - In this part, they look at the organization a decade after the merger to find out how the masterplan has worked out to date and at how ABB has started to reap the harvest resulting from all the hard work it has put into building its structure and implementing its strategy. And they also focus on CEO Goran Lindahl and his priorities for ABB in the future-innovation in human resources and information technology.
Finally, end of this invaluable study, they list 15 giant steps to a global organization. I briefly summarize these steps as follows:
1. You don't need to have all the answers when trying to achieve change on such grand scale as the ABB merger.
2. Decentralization to profit centres around the world is the key to creating an entrepreneurial mindset.
3. Stay close to customers around the world during a merger to reassure them and not lose market share.
4. Don't delude yourself that you can forecast the future-you can only see breaks in trend lines, and you won't always see those.
5. Understand which parts of the business are more global and which are more local and act accordingly.
6. Multiculturalism is not an ethical issue, it is a practical business need.
7. Set challenging targets, but don't keep changing the formal organization.
8. Communicate, communicate, communicate to 'fire people up'-even at the risk of competitors listening.
9. Globalization requires transparency and connectivity accross time zones and geography.
10. Every manager, including the CEO, should aim to have two to three succession candidates ready at all times.
11. You don't necessarily need lots of global managers-not everybody has to be global-but you do require a pool of cross-culturaly capable people from which you can draw your global managers.
12. Results-oriented learning on the job gives management development credibility and makes line management take responsibility for developing people.
13. Don't assume that all your organizational values are fully applicable across the world.
14. Keep it practical. Concepts are only 5 per cent of the building of a global organization. Execution and the ability to engage people around the world are 95 per cent.
15. Long-term shareholder value is the ultimate measurement of performance in a global company.
Highly recommended.