Recently I learned from colleague at RSC a new term BHAG - Big Hairy Audacious Goal that was proposed by James Collins and Jerry Porras in their 1994 book entitled Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Idea that company should have long-term goal, and long means dozens of years, is very appealing. In fact so appealing that i thought of what would be name corporate goal that may go beyond dozens of years, goal that only next generation may benefit from.
And new term HBAG - Huge Bold Audacious Goal - was born.
But idea should be realistically achievable. One of example of non-HBAG might be idea of building Communism in Soviet Union, as possibility to build completely "just" society is utopia by definition.
Probably best current example of HBAG would be Ukrainian dream to become member of European Union. While originally introduced by Leonid Kuchma back in 2002 with goal for associate membership in 2011, the idea than would qualify as BHAG - 9 years program is big, but not huge. But implementation of "European Choice" over last 10 years was such a catastrophic that as of now it may be easier to convince Ukrainians in building Communism then to reach membership status in European Union.
So to research the matter and brainstorm in details the LinkedIn group "UAIX - Ukraine America Ideas eXchange" was created.
Welcome to discussion!
Roman Havrylyak
Monday, November 5, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Eastern European Olympic Games
Last month while watching London Olympic Games i remembered one of the most wild ideas i ever had...
Sometime in year 2002 then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma declared "European Choice" program that set goal for Ukraine to reach associate membership in European Union by year 2011. My first reaction was not to question whether Ukraine qualifies or has mature enough democratic processes and institutions, but simply why Associate and not Full membership. Why goal is set low?
Impromptu brainstorming session at UkrNet, internet service provider i worked for then, revealed unanimous support for European Choice among colleagues. On the way home daydreaming about new opportunities that membership in European Union will open for Ukraine, and especially for my hometown Uzhgorod, i noticed Olympic rings printed in newspaper. The most craziest idea hit me - for Ukraine to achieve full membership in European Union is to host Olympic Games 2012, and not alone but with cooperation with western neighbors: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
5 Olympic rings mapped to 5 countries represented by 5 cities:
The fact that only Ukraine has borders with all other countries would grant Uzhgorod a status of official capital of Olympic Games.
As fast as the idea came to mind more than decade ago that fast it was forgotten... Well until last August when London Olympic Games resurfaced old dream.
Interestingly enough at the same time my hometown friend Andrey Shovargo and cousin Ruslan Kopcha were discussing idea to establish non-profit organization to support youth involvement in sports for quite a while, since December 2011.
“It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” Paulo Coelho
Roman Havrylyak
Sometime in year 2002 then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma declared "European Choice" program that set goal for Ukraine to reach associate membership in European Union by year 2011. My first reaction was not to question whether Ukraine qualifies or has mature enough democratic processes and institutions, but simply why Associate and not Full membership. Why goal is set low?
Impromptu brainstorming session at UkrNet, internet service provider i worked for then, revealed unanimous support for European Choice among colleagues. On the way home daydreaming about new opportunities that membership in European Union will open for Ukraine, and especially for my hometown Uzhgorod, i noticed Olympic rings printed in newspaper. The most craziest idea hit me - for Ukraine to achieve full membership in European Union is to host Olympic Games 2012, and not alone but with cooperation with western neighbors: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.
5 Olympic rings mapped to 5 countries represented by 5 cities:
The fact that only Ukraine has borders with all other countries would grant Uzhgorod a status of official capital of Olympic Games.
As fast as the idea came to mind more than decade ago that fast it was forgotten... Well until last August when London Olympic Games resurfaced old dream.
Interestingly enough at the same time my hometown friend Andrey Shovargo and cousin Ruslan Kopcha were discussing idea to establish non-profit organization to support youth involvement in sports for quite a while, since December 2011.
After short discussion and few weeks of legal paperwork on September 14, 2012 non-profit organization "Olympic Generation" was founded in Uzhgorod, Ukraine.
And although "Olympic Generation" goal is nowhere close to Olympic Games, it's definitely a spark in right direction to eventually start Olympic flame in Eastern Europe!
And although "Olympic Generation" goal is nowhere close to Olympic Games, it's definitely a spark in right direction to eventually start Olympic flame in Eastern Europe!
“It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” Paulo Coelho
Roman Havrylyak
Sunday, June 3, 2012
ORACLE - forbidden fruit
When i found on internet following quote-joke from Larry Ellison - co-founder and CEO of Oracle:
I started to study Mathematics at Uzhgorod National University, Ukraine in year 1988. After couple of years of generic mathematics we finally get to specialty computer courses, one of which was Databases led by Professor Jozsef Holovacz (Головач Йосип Гнатович). At that time the course was based on dBASE III and dBASE IV, later we had chance to learn FoxPro and Clipper. And i remember at one of lecture Prof. Golovach mentioned ORACLE - relational database from USA, and with very intriguing voice made statement that maybe somebody will be lucky to work with ORACLE if embargo is lifted from USSR. That's how i first heard about ORACLE and built association to it as "forbidden fruit".
Fast forward few years and in year 1998 i was asked to substitute Prof. Holovach, while he went to Hungary. I had to teach young students course for Databases and Knowledge Bases at Uzhgorod State Institute of Informatics, Economics and Law. Not much changed since i studied, there were no dBASE anymore, but still FoxPro; and for Knowledge bases we used PROLOG. And at one of lectures it was my turn to intrigue my students with same statement - that if you study hard and get lucky maybe you get chance to work with ORACLE.
Fast forward to year 2001 and being director of IT department at ISP UkrNet and after our in-house custom built solution for Billing and Accounting started to choke due to workload i was sent to Moscow, Russia to Billing and Telecommunications conference with task to find new software for Billing and Accounting. While there were dozens of different solution providers one of them - Absolut from ServoComp - stood out.
It was ORACLE based!
My heart was captured immediately. And in summer 2002 we started implementation of Absolut at ISP UkrNet. At one of the smoke breaks ServoComp consultant started discussion about ORACLE Express products for reporting and analytics, so i very confidently interrupt him and said that ORACLE is just a database.
"With all due respect, colleague, but you are wrong!" said consultant and continued that ORACLE has even its own accounting system - Oracle Financials.
Since then "Colleague" became such a buzz word for me that during AT&T project in Atlanta, Georgia one senior manager asked for me using statement "Where is that consultant that calls everybody Colleague?".
And it was first time i heard about Oracle Financials. Later in 2003 i started new job as junior consultant for Oracle Applications, but that's another story...
"You know, if the U.S.S.R. had Oracle and some decent computing power, they'd never have lost the cold war. A small number of people could run a very large gulag."it brought memories about how i got to work with Oracle, memories going all the way back to USSR.
I started to study Mathematics at Uzhgorod National University, Ukraine in year 1988. After couple of years of generic mathematics we finally get to specialty computer courses, one of which was Databases led by Professor Jozsef Holovacz (Головач Йосип Гнатович). At that time the course was based on dBASE III and dBASE IV, later we had chance to learn FoxPro and Clipper. And i remember at one of lecture Prof. Golovach mentioned ORACLE - relational database from USA, and with very intriguing voice made statement that maybe somebody will be lucky to work with ORACLE if embargo is lifted from USSR. That's how i first heard about ORACLE and built association to it as "forbidden fruit".
Fast forward few years and in year 1998 i was asked to substitute Prof. Holovach, while he went to Hungary. I had to teach young students course for Databases and Knowledge Bases at Uzhgorod State Institute of Informatics, Economics and Law. Not much changed since i studied, there were no dBASE anymore, but still FoxPro; and for Knowledge bases we used PROLOG. And at one of lectures it was my turn to intrigue my students with same statement - that if you study hard and get lucky maybe you get chance to work with ORACLE.
Fast forward to year 2001 and being director of IT department at ISP UkrNet and after our in-house custom built solution for Billing and Accounting started to choke due to workload i was sent to Moscow, Russia to Billing and Telecommunications conference with task to find new software for Billing and Accounting. While there were dozens of different solution providers one of them - Absolut from ServoComp - stood out.
It was ORACLE based!
My heart was captured immediately. And in summer 2002 we started implementation of Absolut at ISP UkrNet. At one of the smoke breaks ServoComp consultant started discussion about ORACLE Express products for reporting and analytics, so i very confidently interrupt him and said that ORACLE is just a database.
"With all due respect, colleague, but you are wrong!" said consultant and continued that ORACLE has even its own accounting system - Oracle Financials.
Since then "Colleague" became such a buzz word for me that during AT&T project in Atlanta, Georgia one senior manager asked for me using statement "Where is that consultant that calls everybody Colleague?".
And it was first time i heard about Oracle Financials. Later in 2003 i started new job as junior consultant for Oracle Applications, but that's another story...
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