Recognizing competing hypothesis as complex

In order to improve the economic performance of an industry or a territory, it is important to recognize the current Status Quo of the economy. This is basically to understand “what is?”, but to also understand “what is possible next?”. You may think that local stakeholders, firms and public officials will know the answer to “what is going on now?”, but every time I have done such an assessment I have discovered new suppliers, new innovations, new demands and many new connections between different actors.

The benefit of being a facilitator, process consultant or development expert, is that we can move between different actors, observe certain trends, recognize gaps and form an overall picture of what we think is going on. It is very difficult for enterprises to form such a picture as they can only observe other firms from a distance.

The main challenge is about figuring out what can be done to improve certain gaps or to change the patterns that we observe. These are answers to “What is possible next?” questions . As Mesopartner, we always insist that any process to diagnose an industry or a region starts with the formulation of various hypothesis. This hypothesis formulation before we commence is not only about revealing our bias, nor only about figuring out what exactly we want to find out. It also helps us to figure out what kind of process is needed, the scope of the analysis and what different actors expect from the process.

Unlike in academic or scientific research, hypothesis formulation does not only happen in the early stages of a diagnostic or improvement process, it should be constantly reflected upon and expanded as we go on during the process of meeting stakeholders and analyzing data. This is where the importance of recognizing competing hypothesis within our team and between different stakeholders are important.This process is not about convergence, but about revealing what different actors and the investigator believes is going on.

Economic development practice is full of competing hypothesis that all seem to be very plausible. In a recent training event with Dave Snowden the consequences of not recognizing or revealing these competing hypothesis struck me. According to Dave, competing hypothesis that plausibly explains the same phenomena indicates that we are most likely dealing with a complex issue. For instance, in South Africa we have competing hypothesis about the role of small firms in the economy. One hypothesis is that small firms are engines of growth and innovation, therefore they deserve support. A competing hypothesis is that large firms invest more in innovation and growth, and that they are better drivers of economic growth. Both hypotheses are plausible – the issue is complex. Recognizing this complexity is very important, as the cause and effect relations are not easy to identify and they might even be changing – the situation is non-linear. (Marcus Jenal and I wrote a working paper on complexity in development). This simply means that to get a specific outcome, the path will most likely be indirect or oblique – cause and effect is not linear.

Why is it important to recognize competing hypothesis, or to know when some patterns in the economy or complex? The answer is that it is almost impossible to analyze a complex issue with normal diagnostic instruments. Complex patterns can only be understood by engagement, that is, through experimentation. Again, according to Dave Snowden, you have to probe a complex issue by trying several different possible fixes simultaneously, then observe (sense) what seems to work best under the current circumstances. The bottom line is that you analyze a complex issue by experimenting with it, not by observing or analyzing it.

The implication of this insight in my own work has been huge. By recognizing that many issues that I am dealing with are complex (due to competing hypothesis that are very plausible) and can only be addressed through direct engagement has saved me and my customers a lot of resources that was previously spent on seemingly circular analysis. I now use the hypothesis formation with my clients to try and see if we have competing hypothesis of “what is” and “what must be done”. Where the hypothesis seems to be straight forward, we can define a research process to reveal what is going on and what can be done to improve the situation. But when we have different competing hypothesis of what is going on, we have to immediately devise several simultaneous experiments to try and find an upgrading path. I thought my customers would not like the idea of experiments, but I was wrong.

The conditions are that you must take steps to ensure that there are many different experiments that are all very small, and that by design take different approaches to try and solve the same problem. This takes learning by doing to a new level – because now failure is as important as success as it helps us to find the paths to better performance by reducing alternatives and finding the factors in the context that makes progress possible. The biggest surprise for me is that this process of purposeful small experiments to see what is possible under current conditions (context) has unlocked my own and my customers creativity.

Perhaps a topic for a separate blog is that to really uncover these competing hypothesis we have to make sure that we do not converge too soon about what we think is going on. Maintaining divergence and variety is key – this is another challenge for me as a facilitator that is used to helping minds meet!

Preparing for a different manufacturing future

In Africa, we face the challenge of a manufacturing sector that often manufactures products in low volumes. In a country like South Africa, we manufacture a wide range of products but often at low scale. Even our manufacturers that manufacture in larger volumes are still small compared to European or Asian competitors. In some parts of Africa we are further challenged by not having very sophisticated domestic demand in many sectors. When demanding customers are far away it becomes much more difficult to be innovative and well informed of what is possible and what can be done to exceed or at least meet the demands of customers.

But I can sense an important change taking place. I am frequently visiting manufacturers that are becoming much more knowledge intensive. They are smaller and more flexible than their more established competitors, and they combine different skills sets, technology platforms and knowledge bases.

In a forthcoming paper [1] that I co-authored with Garth Williams of the Department of Science and Technology and Prof. Deon de Beer (Vaal University of Technology), we offered the following definition of Advanced Manufacturing.

Advanced manufacturing is an approach that

  • Depends on the use and integration of information, knowledge, state of the art equipment, precision tooling, automation, computation, software, modelling and simulation, sensing and networking;
  • Makes use of cutting edge materials, new industrial platform technologies [2], emerging physical or biological scientific capabilities [3] and green manufacturing philosophies; and/or
  • Uses a high degree of design and highly skilled people (including scientific skills) from different disciplines and in a multidisciplinary manner.

We also argue that Advanced Manufacturing includes a combination of the following.

  • Product innovation: Making new products emerging out of new advanced technologies (including processing technologies).
  • Process innovation: New methods of making existing products (goods or services).
  • Organizational innovation or business model innovation: Combining new or old knowledge and technologies with traditional factors of production [4] in non-traditional fields or disciplines in unique configurations.

I am very proud that our definition of advanced manufacturing was also taken up by the Department of Trade and Industry in their next Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP) 2014/15-2016/2017.

The implication is that our technology development, technology transfer and education programmes need to change in order to be better able to equip and support manufacturers. Manufacturers increasingly need to be able to manage multidisciplinary teams using different technologies. These manufacturers must not only be able to learn fast from the market around them, they must be harness and pro-actively develop new combinations of knowledge within their enterprise. Existing or potential manufacturers must also think differently about manufacturing. Smaller factories, using more modern equipment in a flexible way is now a competitive advantage. The entry costs for starting a small manufacturing enterprise has never been so low. For instance, the cost of an automated electronics surface mount production line has come down by more than 70% in less than 10 years. Additive manufacturing allows tooling and products to be developed in parallel, but also makes it possible to develop new products very fast.

Where do South Africa enterprises learn to become more knowledge intensive at the moment? The answer is: At European Trade Shows. If you are a manufacturer or a potential entrepreneur, start saving up. There are many excellent trade shows throughout the year.

Which Meso-organisations offers the best examples, technology demonstration and training on this? Again, European Universities, Technology Transfer centres and universities. (The US and Canada also provide brilliant services, but it is much harder to access for us). If you cannot find a local expert or academics to help you, reach up to Europe.

What do we have to do? Think of ways to get as many of our entrepreneurs curious or interested in the newer technologies available, and learn from our (larger) competitors. Also, we have to get our universities to be more involved in technology adaptation and participating in new research areas. The academia should focus less on publishing in journals and get involved in real research collaboration that gives our industries (exporting) opportunities and that at the same time address unique needs in our domestic markets.

Oh, and by the way. Start reading up on the “internet of things”. Maybe my next post should focus on that.

 

Notes:

[1]  Our paper will be presented at the International Conference on Manufacturing-Led Growth for Employment and Equality in Johannesburg on the 20th and 21st of May. The paper is titled “Advanced Manufacturing and Jobs in South Africa: An Examination of Perceptions and Trends”.

[2] Such platforms have multiple commercial applications, e.g. composite materials, and exhibit high spill-over effects.

[3] E.g. nanotechnology, biotechnology, chemistry and biology.

[4] Labour, materials, capital goods, energy, etc.

 

Assisting firms to improve their Research and Development activities

In my daily work I deal with two kinds of manufacturers: those who have formal or informal research and development activities, and those who don’t. While there are certain tendencies for some industries to be more R & D intensive than others, I found some very innovative firms even in traditional sectors.

The first step to assist firms to improve firms to depend their R & D activities is to disconnect R & D from product development that responds to complaints, suggestions or requests from customers. While in some firms product development is the result of R & D, in most, product development is not purposeful, pro-active or inventive. I am always surprised to realize how dependent many firms are on their customers for specifications, product or ideas, especially in more traditional industries.

So if you disconnect R & D from responding to customers product demands then what do you connect it to?
From my experience, I found that establishing a cross functional team within the organization that has a mandate to question anything, any process, any routine, or that can investigate any problem is a good start. Thus I try to connect R & D firstly with reducing internal costs, solving internal products, mastering existing technology and knowledge domains. The key is to get very different people together, not based on their rank, but based on their curiosity and different expertise.

Next step is to then start thinking about the science behind current products, processes and core assumptions in the firm. Are therw substitute materials, solutions or processes for what is used now in the firm? Can we create some experiments, or can we explore alternative ways to achieve the same results? The purpose here is not to successfully develop new products, but rather to broaden the knowledge used within the firm not only about is core processes, but also about alternative markets, applications and production approaches. If you are lucky enough to have a great team together, then you can even play with questions such as “what else can we make with what we have?” or “if we partnered with a firm nearby, what crazy stuff could we make together?” But, I am sad to acknowledge, this does not happen often.

Only when we have a core team in the manufacturer curious about different ways of doing things, different ways solutions are used, alternative ways of creating solutions – only then do we look at new ways of pleasing current and existing customers with innovative new products. At this point the firm is inquisitive enough to value conducting research into new ways of doing things. We are ready to consider how a more formal Research and Development approach might look.

REPOST: The difference between academic and industrial science

In the last 5 years I have posted my blog articles on the topics around my work. I re-use many of these articles in my ongoing consulting and training work. Below is an article that I originally posted on 20 August 2011. This is one of the popular posts on my blogsite that was posted before I had the current following.

For my frequent readers, please forgive my trip down the archives!

One of my favourite authors on the topic of science is the late John Ziman. Ziman played an important role in popularising science and its role in the technological evolution of societies.  

In his last book, Real Science, he made an important distinction between science in academia, and science in industry. This is relevant to me because I am assisting universities to conduct more relevant scientific research that will benefit industry. At the same time I am assisting industries to intensify their scientific research.

According to Ziman, academic science works towards the Mertonian norms introduced by Robert K Merton in 1942, also known as CUDOS. Merton advanced our understanding of the ethos of the scientific process. I like Ziman’s (2000) discussion of the Mertonian principles. CUDOS is as an acronym that denotes good academic research and stands for:

  • Communalism – fruits of academic science should be public knowledge (belongs to the whole scientific community), and the communication and dissemination of results are as almost as important as the research itself,
  • Universalism – researchers and scientists relate to each other regardless of the rank and experience of the researcher. The norm of universalism requires that scientific findings are evaluated objectively regardless of the status, race, gender, nationalism or any other irrelevant criteria,
  • Disinterestedness – academic scientists have to be humble and disinterested. Work is done in a neutral, impersonal and is often recorded in the passive voice. It disassociates with the personal or social problems, and focus on advancing knowledge or solving a very specific problem in an almost clinical way.
  • Originality – every scientist is expected to contribute something new to the archive, while building on the knowledge of predecessors. Unfortunately this also sometimes constrains how creative academic research can become. “new” could mean new data, questions, methods and insights.
  • Scepticism – This norm triggers important brakes on scientists, as it involves critical scrutiny, debate, peer review and contradiction before being accepted. It is important as it deepens understanding and knowledge from different research perspectives, and should not seen as being completely negative, rather it should be seen as being necessary.

 

Industrial science works towards what Ziman (2000:78-79) calls PLACE:

  • Proprietary – the knowledge is not made public (or at least as little as necessary is made public),
  • Local – it is focused on local technical problems rather than on increasing general understanding,
  • Authoritarian – Industrial researchers act within a hierarchy and must work to please senior management, in other words, it is not serendipitous,
  • Commissioned – it is undertaken to achieve practical goals rather than to just improve knowledge, and
  • Expert – industrial researchers are employed as expert problem solvers, rather than for their personal creativity and writing or teaching skills.

 

Ziman argues that when universities undertake contract research for industry, they somehow cross the boundaries between these two approaches to research. For instance, industry is more interested in solving a specific technological challenge and would prefer that senior researchers work on a problem. In the last 50 years it has increasingly become necessary for universities to raise 3rd stream income, so it a universally accepted practice that universities undertake research for and in cooperation with industry.  However, a university must prioritise the development of interns and junior researchers (and achieve other social goals). Furthermore, industry may not be interested in registering a patent (immediately), otherwise their secrets gets shared with the whole world. Academic researchers on the other hand, are expected to deliver publications when they cannot deliver patents or licenses, thus there is another conflict of their objectives. Perhaps a last comment is that universities are under pressure to solve social problems that are deemed “relevant” by prevailing political pressures, while industry prefer to solve problems that are immediate, relevant and that may even be in contrast with the desires of the prevailing political and social debates. Practically this means that at the moment industry may need to automate to remain competitive, thus incurring job losses, while government and the society may be demanding job creation for people with little or no technical education.

 

Universities must understand this tension, and must operate within and between different modes of conducting research. Current legislation perhaps assumes one standard approach to university research, that always results in something that can be published and or patented (licensed), and it further assumes that the value (and cost) or research is known at the time of start of the research or after completion. Practical experience indicates that this is not always the case. Sometimes the value of research only becomes apparent when it faces market forces.

 

Sources:

ZIMAN, J.M. 2000.  Real Science: what it is, and what it means. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 ZIMAN, J.M. 2003.  Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.

Humor: A Sketch about being an expert

I found this link to a sketch about the pain of being the only Engineer in a Business Meeting. I think the less I say before you see it the better. It is misleading to call this humor, because it is actually quite sad….

The video was posted by the Laughing Squid website, a site dedicated to featuring compelling art, culture and technology. The description of the video is as follows “The pain of being the only engineer in a business meeting is perfectly illustrated in the comedy sketch, “The Expert.” The sketch was written and directed by Lauris Beinerts and is based on the (Russian language) short story, “The Meeting,” by Alexey Berezin“.

 

I frequently feel like the “expert” in this sketch when I have to explain that keeping competitors out of a country by raising tariffs does not really make a domestic industry more competitive or innovative. Or that import substitution does not lead to local innovation. Or that innovation is not simply the commercialization of very clever research and development, but that innovation is something that should happen all the time.

Lets have some fun. Without mentioning names of people and organizations, when did you feel like the expert in this clip?

 

 

Linking: Gregory Mankiw article “when the scientist is also a philosopher”

In the last two years we (Mesopartner) have been exploring how complexity science affects development practice. Well, we were quite shocked to realize how much of development is based on preference and bias, and how little is actually based on proper scientific research. Frequently practitioners takes little bits and pieces of different theoretical bases to create a construct of an approach that is suitable to them because it meets their own hypotheses of how the world works. It is important also to not confuse evidence based monitoring and evaluation with scientific evidence.

The famous economic thinker, Gregory Mankiw, has published an article in the New York Times where he goes into this topic with his usual easy to understand arguments. The title of his article is “when the scientist is also a philosopher”. He argues that a danger of economics (I would argue of all economic development) is that we are not aware of our bias, and we do not depend on proper scientific methods. He recommends that we offer our advice with a healthy dose of humility, as we are often not aware of how complex the economy is and how our advice will affect other systems, or whether our advice will work at all.

Gregory Mankiw was a great inspiration for me during my PhD research and I am grateful to have stumbled across this article. He is currently an economics professor at Harvard.

Linking: Change: simple, but not easy by Tim Kastelle

I am humbled that Tim Kastelle has quoted a paragraph from a recent blog I wrote in an article he just published on Change and why it is simple but not easy.

For my students and online learners, I recommend that you also subscribe to Tim’s blog as he deals with many issues relating to innovation and especially business model innovation.

 

Entrepreneurs and markets

While most entrepreneurs depend on functioning and competitive markets to survive, there are those entrepreneurs that actually thrive in imperfect markets. These are the entrepreneurs that creates a business around something like an information failure, high costs of finding suppliers or customers (brokering), or overcoming economies of scale (for instance by leasing expensive equipment on a pay-per-use basis).  Their services or products are valuable to the societies that they create their businesses in, as they overcome barriers to entry and barriers to upgrading. However, there are long term consequences to an economy that is riddled with market failures especially when these failures become very profitable for some. But more about that later.

Anecdotal evidence would suggest that entrepreneurs that exploit market failures to create new markets often earn disproportionate returns. They take huge risks as governments could address the market imperfection if it had the will, the competence and the resources to do so. Once these entrepreneurs are established they often have near monopoly market dominance. Unequal income for me is not such a big problem (it basically tells me there are many systemic failures), rather unequal opportunities is a much bigger issue as it is more widespread. For instance, can the cycle of inter-generational poverty be broken in a society? Can a child from a poor rural location one day choose to become a lawyer, engineer, or teacher; or are they trapped with few options? Is the society creating opportunities only for a few entrepreneurs that have connections and that can protect their interests, or are we creating markets where many entrepreneurs can compete in?

In a European country, with layers and layers of competition and market policies, most entrepreneurs compete on a more-or-less even playing field with markets that are carefully designed, or regulated as they emerge. In Africa, many entrepreneurs are competing in markets where government actually introduce imperfections, largely because markets and competition is not trusted (it is called the Law of Unintended Consequences). The situation is also made worse in that our market regulating and shaping institutions are often not resourced sufficiently and over-run with both creating market systems and coping with ongoing change.

How to overcome this situation?

Industrial policy in developing countries cannot be driven only from the perspective of trade and industry, as many other departments (or policy areas) are introducing market failures into the system in for instance health, education, science and agriculture. These conflicting policies then creates market imperfections that if exploited by a few entrepreneurs will lead to huge profits and a firm market footing. Society may benefit in the short term from a particular solution being available, but in the long term society may be stuck with a market that very quickly develops its own interests that may not necessarily be in the interests of the wider society.

Furthermore, market institutions must recognize and identify the patterns that plays out repeatedly in a society, and try to address these. We should not celebrate when one entrepreneur jumps on an opportunity (although this is still better that nothing). We should celebrate when many entrepreneurs are crowded into a market. I don’t know whether it is naive to ask policy makers to also think about the unintended consequences of their decisions. This is the reason why we’ve had to delve into complexity theories to try and curb the damage being done by well-intended policies.

If we do not succeed in building the right market systems that are based on fair competition we will forever be creating opportunities just for a few entrepreneurs. In the meantime, we depend on a few entrepreneurs that combine intelligence about an opportunity with the right resources and the right competences.

For bottom up development to work, you must go up

For about 6 years I was intensely involved in establishing, promoting and cheer leading Local Economic Development in South Africa and elsewhere. In a country where so much planning, allocation and overall coordination came from the top, these were exciting years. I was always amazed and delighted to find hard working champions in the public and the private sector in every town, city or community where we worked. Our GIZ programme identified private sector and governance experts; and we trained, developed methods, and supported these experts to provide hands on services to local communities, the private sector and the local governments over several years. A small group of experts emerged out of this that are still actively involved in Local Economic Development in South Africa and in many other countries.

While Local Economic Development is something NGOs, Business Associations and donors understand and value, it was often a hard sell to local government, provincial government and even national government. In many parts of the world where societies are more homogenous and where social trust is high, many important economic decisions are in fact made at the local level – this is even thought of as common sense. But not here in South Africa, and also not in many of the other countries in Africa where we worked (our communities is not homogenous and is often divided along ethnic and political lines, our social trust is low even within these ethnic and political groups). This is because the ideas generated by local communities and priorities expressed by business did not always tie in so well with what planners or public sector managers had in mind (I call this top down development as it is rooted in someones authority to decide on behalf of communities).

Everybody who appreciated local ownership, local self determination and participatory approaches liked our logic and could integrate our concepts into their activities, but for many public sector managers our ideas created tension. I must add, on a few occasions we also faced resistance from business, especially as participatory approaches often challenge those in powerful positions.

But the experts, many local government champions, and industry often felt frustrated (see the irony of bottom up development). A group of people actively engage in diagnosing the local economy, and lots of energy would be unleashed. Often, the disconnect between government plans and the real issues confronting business would sometimes become visible. Or the power plays between different politicians and even between different business interests would be revealed. The same patterns emerged in different places, and we could not address these at local level. Unfortunately, many funders of these local processes did not have a mandate nor an interest to go beyond their pilot or designated areas. For instance, an international donor funding an Local Economic Development process in a particular town wanted to see local action that would result in jobs, gender equality, etc. They did not want to rock the boat by questioning local, provincial or national policies and programmes that often made their primary objective unreachable. Even in cases where local government was strongly in support of local action, their funding for economic development often came from national or provincial funding programmes that had different priorities, resulting in good ideas not being implemented because of a lack of funds or too much bureaucracy.

In 2008 I decided to switch my attention to innovation systems, private sector promotion and applying science to industry. I remained committed to bottom up development and decentralized decision making, but felt that I had to get away from depending on local government. However, here too the same challenge emerged, but this time it was not the fault of local government. Reflecting on the last few years and relating it back to my years in Local Economic Development I realize that there is an important lesson in all this for me. The same patterns emerge when I work with universities, a small local chamber of business or a city.

For bottom up development to work, you must go “up”. Sounds simple. But think about it. You cannot just focus on working in a local community as if it is an eco system on its own. Many policies that are undermining local development, trust building, etc. are coming from outside the designated area. The same applies to value chain promotion, cluster promotion and any other flavor of development. Creating a little isolated area where things are working for a particular designated group while the greater system is not working (or creating incentives for contrasting behavior) is wasting resources – when you withdraw your external resources things go back to how they were (see my post here about how we draw boundaries). While I would never regret empowering more local champions to do their advocacy and development work better, I must wonder what would have happened if we could have taken more of our insights to higher levels BOTH within the countries where we work, BUT ALSO to the international agencies that often funded these programmes. Not that we did not try, but often our efforts to communicate what was wrong was challenged on the basis of a lack of data supporting our arguments.

We do not want “bottom development” only. While this may suit the priorities of an NGO to equip a small group of designated people, we should strive to identify patterns, find new paths, and then communicate and use this insight elsewhere in the economy to reinforce what is working and address what is undermining local development. One of the reasons why we as Mesopartner dived into complexity thinking is because we realized that much of the answers to the questions that effect local stakeholders and economic systems are not to be found in the traditional, silo based (also called focused development) that are increasingly becoming “evidence based”.

Bottom up development remains important as we recognize that economies are complex adaptive systems and that the way to make an economy healthier is to equip its agents (business people, local government officials, communities) to make better decisions based on the signals they receive and the factors that affect them locally (local here means close to a particular context).  Our task in development is to try and identify patterns that can be amplified, or to assist agents to probe and try low risk experiments to create new paths for upgrading, decision making and wealth creation. This will require that we challenge how development programmes decide where to work, what to do and what outcomes to expect. Mesopartner is actively involved in the international discussion about how this complexity insight will challenge our development paradigms.

A final reflection. Perhaps our objective in Local Economic Development was wrong to start with. It is not (just) about empowering local stakeholders. Our objective should have been to use the insight from what is possible and what is not possible at the local level to try and affect top down strategy. Or maybe it was about holding up a mirror for top down and bottom up champions to see their effect and role in the system. These questions are at the heart of our new thematic area in Mesopartner looking into bottom up industrial policy, and will be a theme in our 2014 Summer Academy event in Berlin. Remember to apply soon as the early bird discount deadline expires at the end of March.

Recent Mesopartner Working paper on complexity theory and development

This article was originally posted by Marcus Jenal on the systemic-insight.com website in December 2013. I co-authored this paper with Marcus. It is an output of the theme of applying complexity theories to economic development.

For the last 3 years we at Mesopartner have been purposefully experimenting with complexity and systems theories in our practice. Not only did we change our company logo and strapline based on our new learning, we started to dismantle and question almost every aspect of our instruments, tools and theories.

This was a steep learning curve for us and for our key customers who agreed that we could embark on these serendipitous journeys together. While we still believe in bottom up development, we are wondering about how to achieve developmental change within the typical timelines and resource constraints that development projects often face.

One of the results of this process is this website (http://systemic-insight.com), where we want to share our thoughts and invite our followers to contribute to the discussions we have.

A new Mesopartner working paper now provides a theoretical grounding for the work we have done in the last three years and will continue to do. We consider some definitions, ponder the implications and try to formulate some responses to some of the key challenges that systems and complexity theories confront us with in our field of bottom up economic development.

We see this paper as an input into a broader discussion with our close collaborators, our close clients, and the broader network that we form part of. We ask  you to send us your thoughts and add your comments to this and future posts.

We thank the colleagues that have already commented on the paper. Many of the suggestions are already incorporated into this version. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. Shawn and Marcus