Lifeboat Foundation

Fast Company Staff — Fast Company

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Dorinda Elliott — Fast Company


China’s most powerful Internet company is headquartered in a bland, glassy tower in southern Shenzhen. Unlike Silicon Valley’s funky campuses, there is nothing to reveal that this might be a hub of creativity. An insurance company, perhaps? In the middle of its nondescript, corporate lobby, an information desk stands next to the only sign of personality: a pair of giant plush penguins, the Tencent mascot times two. Nearby, an iPad displays stats on the company’s messaging services. But when I pull out a notebook and start jotting down the numbers, the receptionist waves her hand. “Oh no, that’s not updated!” she says. “It’s just for show.”

I’m here for a “tour” of the company, but am only allowed entrance to a museum-like exhibit of Tencent products. The experience feels like a throwback to the tightly controlled Communist Party–sponsored trips reporters went on back in the 1980s, before the country really started opening up to the outside world. An attractive, young, fluent English speaker shuffles me from one screen to another. The three other public relations officers with me offer no analysis of the firm, saying they will get back to me on any questions I have. I ask about the management style of the somewhat mysterious CEO, Pony Ma, and there is an awkward pause. Then the guide brightly tells me: “It’s very equal here. We all call him Pony!”

And that’s the tour.

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Chris Dannen and Michael Grothaus and Matthew Rosenberg — Fast Company

The word around the Bay Area is that it’s impossible to build a “real” technology company anywhere else. They say the talent, the culture, and the money are all here.

Some people think it’s such a perfect incubator for new, progressive industries and lifestyles that it should be designated a kind of experimental, low-regulation zone overseen by a CEO-type political official.

Now–don’t get us wrong–this is an experiment we’d love to see executed. The world is dying to know what life is like when all the coffee shops are cashless, all the mail is reverse-delivered, and people actually use Path.

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The White Swan’s Beyond Eureka and Sputnik Moments: How To Fundamentally Cope With Corporate Litmus Tests and With The Permanent Impact of the Dramatic Highly Improbable And Succeed and Prevail Through Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! [TREATISE EXCERPT]. By © Copyright 2013, 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini — All Rights Reserved Worldwide — « www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini AND www.AMAZON.com/author/agostini » — The Lifeboat Foundation Global Chief Consulting Officer and Partner, Lifeboat Foundation Worldwide Ambassador —

(An Independent, Solemn, Most-Thorough and Copyrighted Answer. Independence, solemnity, thoroughness, completeness, detail, granularity of details, accuracy and rigor, hereunder, will be then redefined by several orders of nonlinear magnitude and without a fail).

[TREATISE EXCERPT].

To Nora, my mother, who rendered me with the definitiveness to seek the thoughts and seek the forethoughts to outsmart any impending demand and other developments. To Francisco, my father: No one who has taught me better. There is no one I regard most highly. It is my greatest fortune to be his son. He endowed me with the Agostini family’s charter, “…Study and, when grown up, you will neither be the tyrants’ toy, nor the passions’ servile slave…” I never enjoyed a “…Mom…”, but considerably enjoyed a gargantuan courageous Mother, Father, Grandparents and Forbears.

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LIST OF UPDATES (MARCH 24 THROUGH MARCH 30/2014). By Mr. Andres Agostini at The Future of Scientific Management, Today! At http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Smartphone app reads blood oxygen levels, forewarns of life-threatening pre-eclampsia
http://www.kurzweilai.net/smartphone-app-reads-blood-oxygen-…-eclampsia

Stanford lab launches new privacy-based social network
http://www.kurzweilai.net/stanford-lab-launches-new-privacy-based-social-network

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Futureketing: How to Systematically Understand and Succeed in a World of Frantically Accelerating Pace of Change! ─ An Omnimode Exploration. By © Copyright 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini ─ All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

(This Proprietary Book excerpt may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.

Please recall that “…if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.…”)

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The Future of Space-Age Risk Management: Transformative and Integrative Risk Management! [BOOK] By © Copyright 2014 Mr. Andres Agostini (AA) ─ All Rights Reserved Worldwide ─ « www.linkedin.com/in/andresagostini »

(An Independent, Solemn, Most Thorough and Copyrighted Answer. Thoroughness, hereunder, will be then redefined by several orders of magnitude and without a fail).

What is a White Swan?

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Information Technology Vis-à-vis Technology Per Se! Is all “…technology…” an “…information technology…” only? Aren’t there other technologies above and beyond increasingly indispensable I.T.? The Most Authoritative and Functional Elucidation of the Technology Concept! By Mr. Andres Agostini at http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

With the advent of personal computers and the Internet, whenever anyone pronounces the word “…technology…” there is an unprecedented expectation to mean information technology. Something similar happens with the word system that goes, by far, further than just meaning "...computer system(s)…” But, let us just focus on technology now.

In addition of addressing I.T., it will also be coped with B.T., that is “…Business Technology …”, also called Business Technology Management (BTM).

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Beyond and Above Dr. Strangelove and Royal Dutch Shell: The Future of Omniscient Scenario-Planning Methodology, Today! By Mr. Andres Agostini.

This is a personal yet summarized and copyrighted P.O.V. that is professional, thorough and complete. This independent exploration is based on 30 years of practical experience and pragmatic expertise.

When I was 25 I was fully introduced and indoctrinated on worldwide Royal Dutch Shell’s scenario-planning methodology by Shell’s nationalized company Maraven. That introduction and indoctrination came through the kind deeds and executive decision of and by Maraven President, Dr. Carlos Castillo and the high-ranking strategic planners under his command.

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