Thomas E. Ricks:

VOICE
Warnings for the U.S. military about innovation and the information age: The Pentagon looks like a minicomputer firm

Here I want to focus on Michael Horowitz’s warnings for the U.S. military in his book The Diffusion of Military Power. They include these:

“The information age may portend a much greater level of risk for U.S. conventional military superiority than some previous authors have envisioned.”

Don’t get too comfortable just because you enjoy current dominance. Horowitz cites the example of Digital Equipment Corporation, which was a power in minicomputers, but failed to understand the emergence of the personal computer market. It had the resources, but lacked the imagination, and so failed to deal with changes in the environment — I would say a bit like our national security leaders in September 2001.

A great danger, especially for mature organizations such as the U.S. military, is investing in “incremental improvements to the last great thing, rather than the next great thing.” So don’t confuse innovations that enhance your current way of doing business with innovations that may require a new way of doing business — but may also produce much greater gains.

Eric Jackson:

Instead of market predictions, I asked people for their best “sleeper ideas” for 2014. A sleeper idea is something that few people see coming. It’s a little followed idea that suddenly goes mainstream.
 
 In 2013, few people were talking about 3D printing and Bitcoin in January. Yet everyone was at the end of the year.
 
 So when I approached people for this year’s list, I simply said, “give me your top 3 “sleeper ideas”… they could be a public company (to go up or down), a private company, or a trend or other type of idea.
 
 In order to get the best collection of “sleeper ideas,” I knew we had to approach more than just traders. Therefore, you’ll notice that the respondents this year come from tech, venture capital, hedge funds, as well as trading.
 My hope when I started compiling these lists three years ago is that we would all learn from each other sharing our thoughts together. I think this year’s collection of ideas – from 55 of some of the smartest people I know — is the best yet and I want to thank each participant for taking the time to look forward and take their best shot at guessing which ideas are ready to shine in 2014. Here they are (in no particular order):

Sydney. Vienna. Paris. Santa Cruz. Twin Valley. Charlotte. Johannesburg. San Diego. New York. Home to just a few of the fellow travelers I met while driving through the Yucatan Peninsula recently. Travel is a blessing to be savored.

But it was the Pemex gas station attendant whose friendly Spanish and English words remained with me as I queued with paperwork to return my rental car.

Pemex, Mexico’s national oil company, will soon lose its monopoly status likely changing their auto service culture.

I pondered this while visiting several Pemex facilities over the past few weeks. Not that I had an opportunity to choose other brands, much less price shop petrol. I noticed just one non-Pemex station during our 1360km journey.

I often saw full service attendants standing next to fuel pumps when arriving at a Pemex station. In one case, a bit of competition broke out as our non-swift Nissan rental pulled into the station. Two attendants waved and urged me to choose their pump. I chose the left pump.

The attendants sometimes wash your windshield (mosquito detritus) unprompted, though in larger cities, street entrepreneurs, as in the USA, dart between cars when stopped at an intersection and do the job using a presumptive close.

In all cases, I was urged to pay cash.

We further managed to communicate our need for air in the tires, twice.

One of the attendants responded warmly to our somewhat serviceable Spanish. He mentioned (Spanish & English) with a big smile that while working in a US hotel in 1970, “no one spoke Spanish, no one knew anything about our culture”. “Today, many people speak Spanish, people love our food, culture, the salsa“.

He warned us to make sure that Pemex attendants start the petrol pump at 0 and wished us a joyous journey.

Full service gas station nostalgia explored the deeper recesses of my mind, bringing back memories of a largely lost business. Riding with parents and grandparents while they filled up generally included a bit of time sharing the latest with the attendants while they looked over the car. Full service stations fueled your car, washed your windshield, checked the engine oil and tire pressure. These stations often performed maintenance as well.

In many countries fuel stops today serve as an appetizer for 7-11 style retail businesses featuring a plethora of high margin fast food and road related products.

It had been too long since I visited Mexico. Our journey could not have been more interesting, relaxing and enjoyable. Where might our Pemex oracle might find himself in ten years time?



Related: Daniel Yergin: Behind Mexico’s Oil Revolution.

Jonathan Fahey:

The average amount of electricity consumed in U.S. homes has fallen to levels last seen more than a decade ago, back when the smartest device in people’s pockets was a Palm pilot and anyone talking about a tablet was probably an archaeologist or a preacher.
 
 Because of more energy-efficient housing, appliances and gadgets, power usage is on track to decline in 2013 for the third year in a row, to 10,819 kilowatt-hours per household, according to the Energy Information Administration.
 
 That’s the lowest level since 2001, when households averaged 10,535 kwh. And the drop has occurred even though our lives are more electrified.
 
 Here’s a look at what has changed since the last time consumption was so low.

Ford:

Currently, SYNC AppLink allows users to seamlessly control over 60 smartphone mobile apps – on both iOS and Android platforms – using the car’s voice commands, enabling drivers to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel. Ford is the first automaker to offer an open developer program, www.developer.ford.com, to help keep customers connected inside the vehicle and will continue to add new SYNC-enabled smartphone apps to enhance the driving experience.
 Today, consumers continue to demand more personalized, simplified and integrated in-vehicle experiences. And, with consumers spending more time with digital media than with any other, Ford hopes to turn the connected vehicle into an intelligent vehicle, one that simplifies and personalizes the in-vehicle experience for the consumer.
 
 Beyond the in-car experience, Ford’s ultimate goal is to use connectivity and digital to transform every aspect of the ownership experience, and to build the foundation for future mobility initiatives. With the eventual proliferation of embedded telematics capabilities for Ford Motor Company’s SYNC system, as recently announced on Lincoln MKC, a newly aligned organization will manage connectivity across the entire enterprise.
 
 “SYNC launched a sort of connectivity arms race in the industry,” said Jim Farley, executive vice president, Global Marketing, Sales and Service and Lincoln. “The opportunity is much bigger than just in-car technology – it’s now about connecting the vehicle to a larger ecosystem leveraging ‘the Internet of things.’ We are creating a seamless and immersive experience for customers that begins with their first visit to our digital sites and continues throughout their ownership experience.”

Meanwhile, Google has apparently cut a deal with Audi for an in-car OS.

Daniel Thomas:

But how much information is potentially available on the average smartphone user? As an experiment, I decided to access my own data files from third parties to find out.
 
 The results were surprisingly revealing, showing my favourite lunch locations, sporting preferences and even the methods I use to get our newborn son to sleep at night.
 
 All companies in the EU will now give users data held on them on request, but the telecoms groups have come under particular scrutiny given how much information they hold is shared with government departments.
 
 Even a relatively superficial trawl of the data they hold can be used to compile an accurate log of movements and communications.
 
 A request to my mobile operator resulted in hundreds of pages of information, which would also be accessible to public sector bodies and civil servants under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 in the UK. The information included who I called, texted or emailed, as well as when and where I was when messages were received, but did not stretch to the content of these communications. The telecoms groups need to keep records for up to a year and will hand over details if requested by a government body with sufficient authority. Last year, public authorities submitted 570,135 requests for communications data.

Teresa Rivas:

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported mortgage application data for the week ending December 20, and purchase applications were down 3.5% week-over-week, following last week’s 6.1% drop, the lowest level since February 2012. The index is down about 11.5% year-over-year so far.
 
 Raymond James analyst Buck Horne expect that the disconnect between these figures and other more positive housing indicators are only likely to widen as time goes on, thanks in large part to the high prevalence of cash buyers in the market. Cash buyers are more active in the existing home market than the new home market, they write, a situation created in part by stringent underwriting standards, higher interest rates and price increases earlier this year, among other factors. Last month, 32% of existing home sales were all cash purchases.

Jonathan Laing:

It’s no secret that U.S. home prices have enjoyed a healthy rebound in 2013 after the nightmarish 33% drop over the previous five years that triggered an orgy of mortgage defaults and wealth destruction. These days, monthly home-price reports regularly show double-digit percentage jumps over the year-earlier period, whether it’s the 13.3% annual increase for September of the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index or the 12.2% annual rise for October logged by CoreLogic’s home-price index.
 
 Yet, at least some observers question how much longer the home-price recovery can continue. A jump in mortgage rates along with the torrid increases in home prices have hurt transaction volume some. The market has been overly dependent on all-cash buyers such as vulture funds, which earlier this year accounted for about a third of all sales. What will happen when they have eaten their fill? Increasingly, the home-price growth will depend on conventional buyers, who must borrow from a mortgage-lending industry that is still imposing stringent lending standards on new mortgages.
 
 
 William Waitzman for Barron’s
 Still, after talking to various industry experts and analyzing disparate data, Barron’s thinks that home-price appreciation should continue for the next three years, albeit at a slower pace than the double-digit increases seen this year.

Experientia:

“What we’ve learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried. Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it. Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives. Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on to cooler things.
 
 Instead, four new contenders for the crown have emerged: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp. This teaches us a number of important lessons about winning the app war.”

Philip Guo:

There are now two main cultures in computing: Most computer users treat software as a tool for getting tasks done, while programmers hold conversations with their software. One big challenge when teaching programming, no matter in what language, is getting students used to a conversation-oriented programmer culture, which is very different than a tool-oriented user culture.
 
 The Two Cultures originally referred to the schism between the sciences and humanities. However, I’ve noticed a similar schism in computing between users and programmers, which makes it hard to teach programming to beginners.
 
 User Culture
 
 In computer user culture, each piece of software is a tool for getting something done, like a virtual notepad or paintbrush. For example, Microsoft Word is for writing reports, Excel is for managing budgets, Spotify is for listening to music, and the iPhone Camera App is for taking selfies.