Midiendo la Productividad

Un problema fundamental de los trabajadores del conocimiento es la medición de su productividad. ¿Como medir la productividad de este intangible?

En el 99, Peter Drucker propuso esto como el gran desafío.

Drucker, P. F. (1999). Knowledge Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge. California Management Review, Vol.1 No. 2, pp. 79-94.

Un interesante consejo que esta trabajando sobre esto es,

http://www.iwproductivity.org/

NineSigma - Sourcing Innovation Worldwide�

NineSigma - Sourcing Innovation Worldwide�

This is an extremly interesting private Firm. The role of they is to match Innovation Managerns with Solution Providers.

Really interesting. People making money out of this.

Estudios Economicos en Espania

www.fedea.es
banco de espania www.bde.es/informes/be
Centro de Estudios Economicos BBVA
Instituto de Estudios Fiscales www.ief.es
Instituto Universitario de Investigacion Ortega y Gasset www.ortegaygasset.edu
Servilab

Fundacion Rafael del Pino

Tiene un estudio de emprendedores

No me queda claro el perfil de la fundacion.

http://213.172.47.21/inicio.asp

IVIE

Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Economicas

www.ivie.es

Highlights

• Tiene un estudio de productividad sectorial www.ivie.es/news/ws_euklems.php

Instituto de Estudios Economicos de Espana

El Instituto de Estudios Economicos de Espana

http://www.ieemadrid.com/IEE.htm

Highlights

• Instituto para ayudar a las empresas privadas y al funcionamiento del mercado
• Trabajos de investigacion por todas las areas

Madrid I+D

Este es el link a las oficinas de Transfereencias Tecnologicas de Madrid

http://www.madrimasd.org/

Highlights

Nose

Centro de Estudios Economicos Tomillo

Este centro de estudios ofrece una muy amplia oferta de recursos de conocimiento para las empresas

http://www.ceet.es/

Highlights

• Falta "un" modelo de referencia que haga acumulacion de capital. Este puede ser el elemento diferenciador.

Environmental resources

This is a web site that aggregate information about environmental problems.

http://www.envirolink.org/

Project SCRAPBOOK

To help rural people use technology (electronic communications and information system) as a tool to meet current and future challenges.
From: America
Funds: Kellogg Foundation.
http://mira.wkkf.org/

Highlights

• It is interesting that it is specific. Not generic. People knows what to search.

Dynamic Foresight

Dynamic Foresight is a web site that manage knowledge for innovation.
http://www.dynamicforesight.com/toc
It is involved the UK government.

Highlights

• There are focus areas (particular innnovations) which are organized through table of contents (TOC)
• There are many interesting projects related to: WISER for instance. http://www.webindicators.org/

World Bank Project

TechNet is a world bank project. The link is http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/technet/

Relevants Items

• Knowledge, Science and Technolgy for Development is one of the main issues that the project rise.
• They identify themselves as a cross-cutting thematic group.
• "Encourage understanding of, and promote the use of knowledge, and in particular in education and informatic development".
• Marshaling Technology for development.

Individualism, Capitalism, Keynes and BIEN!

Individualism, has been the main source to explain the efficiency of "the invisible hand", which lead to the foundations of Capitalism (Notice that efficiency does not mean, equality of income).



Keynes, in chapter 24 of The General Theory, announce the mechanism that would lead to the end of "Capitalism",

it would mean the euthanasia of the rentier, and, consequently, the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit the scarcity-value of capital. [...] I see, therefore, the rentier aspect of capitalism as a transitional phase which will disappear when it has done its work.

If I am not wrong, Keynes thought that the capital would never change. In other words, that there is not technological change that increase the diversity of capitals, making the 'new type of capital' scarce.



I am not sure, whether Keynes prediction will eventually work. However, it seems to be that there are organizations that are thinking about alternatives to the pure individualism. It seems to be that there is altruism around and it is possible to coordinate it in order to obtain 'efficient and well distribuited' results.



BIEN, is an alternative way to think about the distribution. Take a look at it, and have a thought.

Laissez-faire

I strongly suggest to read this Keynes' article to anyone that is interesting in understand the state of mind at the beginning of the ninteen century, related to individualism and laissez-faire.



Keynes, links Hume, Paley, Burke, Rousseau, Godwin, Malthus, Cobbett, Huskisson, Bentham, Coleridge, Darwin (yes the father of evolutionism) and the Bishop of Oxford to explain that state of affair.

Beautiful, really beautiful.



"I do not know which makes a man more conservative -to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past"



In a clear sense, economists furnished the scientific bases of individualism and laissez-faire.



This article is important to understand Keynes. As any clever man, Keynes accept the dangerous of dealing with gray area, without jumping to blacks and white.

Small Things

I want to make a point which I would like to work it out. Of course, together with my Keynes journey.

The small things that make the world better. I would define, the small things that change the world as things that from an standard macroeconomic point of view, could be considered not important.

I am wondering whether these small things that change the world are interesting to be considered or not.

Let me develop one. The University of Kuopio has been promoting Health, Environment and Well-being. Days ago, an interesting program has been implemented in a city in argentina, Balcarce to improve the health (particularly hearth related) of the population. The program, (This is the news in spanish) impact all the population of the city.

Does this program contribute to the Sustainable Development of the city? Does the program increase the employment in the city? Does it reduces inequality?

The first question deal with a big problem: Sustainable Development. Second and Third questions deal with more traditional problems in the school of economics.

Introduction

I am during these days reading Keynes. I will read The General Theory, and play around with his ideas. We will see what I obtain.

John Myrand Keynes was born the 5 June 1883 in Cambridge. (What a nice place to be born and to be an economist!) He died 21 April 1946.Here is a nice links with his biography http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Keynes.html

By the way, he lived both world wars, he was alife at the same time than Ludwig Wittgenstein (1890-1951), may be he was aware of historical results or debates as Hilbert’s problems, Russell and Withehead Principia Mathematica or Einstein (1879 - 1955) Relativity Theory.

I assume that the amount of information difussed among the universities was neither high nor extremly specialized at those times.

So, is not obvious that he was influencied by all (and a lot of more) of these results. However, those were good times in the science literature!

Wittgenstein and others

This links mention an interesting search by Hayek, to see whether Wittgenstein and Keynes exchange letters.

p29



This is a links to a book where there are letters written by Wittgenstein to: Russell, Moore, Keynes, Ramsey and Pietro Sraffa. Guuuauuu!!! what a nice team!

p29

Language and Philosophy

What is the relation between Language and Philosophy? Why the language seems to be at the root of Wittgenstein work?

In PI Wittgenstein introduces the idea of language-game. In a language-game there are rules that we simply follow and eventually entangled us in them.

Let me cite him in PI

124. Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language; it can in

the end only describe it.

Language is where we are entangled and the work of the philosopher is to describe such a complexity. Not to solve it.



Around language, in Wittgenstein opera, are concepts as: proposition, thought, meaning, logic, rules.

I am not interesting here at finding out my answers... but Wittgensteing ones. As I do not know them, I better stay quiet... but confussed. :)

Ludwig Wittgenstein [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

I found this link interesting to me, as a beginner. It has many interesing comments.



Ludwig Wittgenstein [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]: "And these pictures can only serve to describe what we are to do, not justify it"

About Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations

There are big differenes between these two books.

Tractatus (T) is written by someone who really believes that he understood the problem. I feel that there is an strong formalization of "life" through the language. This initially really caught me. I found it very interesting, this triggered my desire of reading Wittgenstein.

However, now that I am reading Philosophical Investigations (PI) there is in the middle a huge change. This is not an original claim about Wittgenstein work, however I am happy because I feel it.

Doing a paralell, I feel as if (T) were mathematics without impossibility results (before Godel), whereas (PI) is the result of matematicians (I should say Wittgenstein) accepting that there are impossibility results, and therefore re-writing (T).