Building Blogs of Blocks of Thoughts of Something of Everything

Consulting Company Spoof

2006-04-24T20:18:00.000+08:00

Huhcorp.com Welcome to the world's most dynamic e-business marketing, design and consulting agency. We provide distinct clients with groundbreaking business strategies and cutting-edge designs to aggressively and creatively compete in a changing economy.

Our consulting ideas will entice and excite you. Our professional design solutions will give you the confidence to succeed. And our web site will make you think we know what we're doing.

It's quite hilarious, so check it out.

Tags: Spoof, Humor, Consulting

There is no ending without a beginning, attempts to improve are no different.

2006-04-20T21:49:00.000+08:00

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it"-- Lord Kelvin

To improve can be roughly defined as making it better. Something can only be better in relation to something else, something it can compare itself to. Better is a relative/comparative word. It has to be better in relative/comparatively to something, it's not possible to be better in relation to nothing. So in the case of improving your service/product or your processes, that something else, can be your current status, your status quo; how is your service/product or your processes doing now? By answering that question, by knowing how you're doing now, you will clearly know if you need to improve it and if you do, it gives you a sense of direction of what and where needs improvement and how much you have improved after your improvement initiative. Not knowing where you were when you started your improvement initiative is like asking for directions through the phone without telling them where you are now, wherever you turn to, they can't tell you if you are any closer or farther from where you want to be because there is nowhere to compare to. Sort of the blind leading the blind, they have no idea where you are because they have no idea where you were. If they know where you were and all the lefts and rights you made, they should have a pretty good idea where you are now or how far you've gone and where you need to turn to get to where you want to be.

Knowing where you were (your starting point) and how far you've gone, is the key to understanding how much you have improved(positively or negatively). By measuring and comparing from where you are now (after the improvement initiative) to where you were at the beginning(before the improvement initiative), you will know whether you have gotten better or worse.

Tags: Improve, Measure, Direction, Relative, Comparative, Status

When Cash Cows Jump the Shark, Shoot It!

2006-04-19T22:46:00.000+08:00

Recently, I learned of an interesting expression called "Jumping the Shark" from Jory Des Jardins in her really cool blog, Pause. According to her brother, a program has jumped the shark when the...

"...program hits a point of dwindling energy, and nothing will revive it. There are no more original plot lines, characters have lost their coolness, or the show starts to rely on gimmicks to keep the audience engaged. Yet the show remains on the air and becomes a pop-cultural joke."

One of the things that I've learned is to be prepared to kill the cash cow when its time has come. When is it time to kill the cash cow? When it has jumped the shark. When nothing you do can make it better; no form of tweaking, upgrades or marketing can make it more attractive to consumers or bring in more sales. The cow no longer excites or delights people, dozens of competitors offer the same thing and more, the cow is placed at the far corners of shelves, even free gifts no longer attract and the only buzz near it is from a fly. Just like people still watch X-files after it jumped the shark when Fox Mulder is no longer in the show [by the way, many still voted that it has not make the leap yet. Honest. You can check it out here], the cow still brings in some dough, but the number no longer brings in the goods and margins are getting thinner. Guy Kawasaki says it best here:

Kill the cash cows. This is the only acceptable perspective for both intrapreneurs and their upper management. Cash cows are wonderful?but they should be milked and killed, not sustained until?no pun intended?the cows come home. Truly brave companies understand that if they don?t kill their cash cows, two guys/gals in a garage will do it for them. Macintosh killed the Apple II: Do you think Apple would be around today if it tried to ?protect? the Apple II cash cow ad infinitum? The true purpose of cash cows is to fund new calves.

In conclusion, before your cash cow jumps the shark, shoot it. Even if it is sacred cow, coz not even sacred cows last forever. Shoot it and fund new calves.

Tags: Cash Cows, Change, Expression, Sacred Cows

Putting Wanted Ads in the Hands of Consumers

2006-04-18T22:42:00.000+08:00

This advice from 5 Blogs Before Lunch got me thinking:

For all of the theories, and all of the advice, the best I can say is "follow the consumer. He'll tell you what he wants, and how he wants to learn about your product."

I remember a short while back, there was this device that you can use to record a short snippet of an unknown (to you) song on the radio, plug it in into your pc and their web service will tell you what's the song, singer and so on. From what I remember, it didn't do so well, that it did not really catch on (if anybody knows otherwise, please correct me on it).

How about a device that can have you aim and click on any item(clothes, furniture, cars, etc) in a sitcom or a movie, and have it either directly (sponsored by the product sponsor) tell you what it is and where you can get it (highlighting those closses to you) or do a search for all that offer that product, it could be an internet search through the likes of Google, Yahoo or Amazon for example.

The advantages of it:

It does not interupt the consumer, in fact they choose when to interrupt or to be interrupted
The consumer themselves are telling us what they are interested in/interested to learn more about
With the permission of the consumer and through their directive, we provide them with relevant ads

What do you think?

Tags: Ads, Innovation, Permission, Marketing, Consumer, Ideas

I Give Up Too

2006-04-18T22:19:00.000+08:00

What was Tom Peters giving up on? This...

The New York Times [registration required]reports that Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon, collected $19.6 million in compensation last year, up 48 percent. The stock, meanwhile, fell 26 percent. Earnings dropped 5.5 percent. The firm's credit rating was downgraded. And 50,000 managers had their pensions frozen. The Board justified the pay packet, claiming that Seidenberg exceeded "challenging" performance benchmarks.

Something must be seriously flawed in the performance benchmarks that they set. The fact that someone can "exceeded challenging performance benchmarks" and have stock and earnings drop dramatically is questionable. Were they measuring the right things? As an outsider peaking in, I'll probably not know for sure, but honestly, I doubt it.

What's worse? Granted that good decisions might still produce unfavorable results, meaning that he may have made all the right decisions, but due to unforeseeable events, it did not turn out so well and therefore warrant some form of compensation. Regardless, there is absolutely no grounds, absolutely none, for someone to be compensated as such while 50,000 of their managers had their pension frozen. From my point of view, there is just no justification for such reckless decision.

I give up too

Tags: Benchmarking, Compensation, Decisions

Reversal of the Division of Labor

2006-04-15T21:49:00.000+08:00

Reading Dan Pink's recent post (4/12) got me thinking about the future and the future of the division of labor. Michael Hammer, in his book "Reengineering the Corporation," may have announced the need to reduce the division of labor or specialized labor in corporations to better serve customers, to be able to adapt better to change and competition. But in terms of a society, the division of labor is as important (or necessary) as ever, if not more. Most of us play an active role in it. Some people grow the food we all eat, some people dig for oil we all drive with, some people build the roofs above us, some people manufacture the automobiles we use to get from A to B to Z, some people keep the broadband lines alive (thank goodness), some people put together web services for us to express ourselves or to publish(thanks Blogger.com) and so on. Even if we only use some of those stuff, we can't produce, create or manufacture all of it by ourselves. We all in some way or another depend on others to produce all the other things we use that we don't or can't produce ourselves by ourselves. In some ways, we are 'outsourcing' some of our work.

In his post, Dan posted articles from USA Today and one by him in Wired.com about some folks abandoning the utility companies and generating their own electricity from the wind and the sun. Reading it got me thinking a bit about the future. Here's one of the things I was playing around in my head.

As of now with more technologically advance and innovative technology and stuff, we are more able to produce more of the stuff that we use by ourselves. For example, reported in the USA Today article, some folks are bypassing the utilities company and generation their own electricity. What's more, they can sell the extra electricity they generate but don't use to others who need it. It is true that we still need people to create and produce these innovations that can "sustainously" produce our needs and wants, but it would seem that we could reduce more and more of the labor to produce our needs and wants that we used to divide to or depend on others to produce for us; sort of a reversal of the division of labor. In some ways, we are 'insourcing' (not exactly in the way Thomas Friedman uses it) back our work.

Is it possible, that in the future we will be able to self-sustain ourselves, our needs and our wants (most of them at least, I can think of a few unattainable ones due to limitations of ours or of resources), all by ourselves?

Tags: Division of Labor, Future, Outsourcing, Insourcing, Technology, Society

Helpful Critical Guy Syndrome

2006-04-14T19:21:00.000+08:00

How many times has this ever cross your mind?

"...if I could just sit down with this-or-that famous person for about 20 minutes I could ?straighten everything out."

It doesn't have to be a famous person. It could some CEO of some company or the company you are working in, management, your boss and so on.

If you do, then you are suffering from what Scott Adam calls Helpful Critical Guy Syndrome. I do, and chances are, you do as well. I believe that we all had symptoms of it at some point.

Read more about it in my comments here

Being Accountable...

2006-04-12T19:52:00.000+08:00

As I was reading Hillbilly PhD's post on being accountable, I reflected on a mistake that I made recently. It was like any other six sigma project that I have been involved in, except that this one was taking a little longer than expected; so there was some sense of urgency to get it moving a little more briskly. Maybe it was due to the quicken pace of things that made it less obvious (at least at the time) that I made the mistake, of guiding the project and the team towards a different path. Different not as in flat out wrong, but certainly not where we should be. Anyway, at that time, I was confident and happy about the progress that we made. It was one morning a short while later that, while I was reflecting on the project, I realised my mistake. It was at that moment that a number of things were going through my mind.

It may not be my project, I was just helping out, but it is still my mistake. It may be because I was asked to get the project moving and I went in at a time when it seriously had to get moving, hence the sense of urgency, but it is still a mistake; an honest mistake of mine. It was clear as crystal what I had to do. Admit my mistake, take responsibility of it and sort it out, get the project back on track, to where it should be. But as Hillbilly PhD says, being accountable is not easy. Why? Well... for me at least, it's because I felt that I was the person people relied on to get things done, to make the right decisions, to sort things out back to its 'right'-ful place wherever that may be, that I've always delivered, and seemingly will continue to do so; but not this time. Did it made me question my abilities, what I felt I was good at? Did it strike my confidence? Did it make me think of what people thought now of my abilities, of their belief in me? To a certain degree, yes. It may have been just one bad decision, but time and resources were wasted, we have to move two steps back just to get back on track. Serious results of a bad decision. My decision, My mistake. But...

But I believe in being honest. Something which I take a certain pride in. But I always say that honesty is both my gift and my curse. At times there is a price to pay for our honesty. It's no different this time. But the opposite is far worse, which makes it rarely an option (I would rather say never, but I guess there are situations that warrant it). Furthermore, as someone famous once said that we wouldn't need such great memory if we only told the truth. And I don't exactly have the best of memories.

But I've always believe that everyone makes mistakes. Everyone. And we will do so many more times in our lifetime. It is inevitable. It's only human. I'm only human. Even machines produce defective products. I made a mistake, but I will not let it become a failure. A mistake becomes a failure if we fail to acknowledge that it was a mistake and especially if we fail to take the time to understand and to learn from it. And the best way to acknowledge it is to be accountable for it; to admit and to take responsibility for it.

And that's exactly what I did.

It is not always easy to do the right things, but, we can save ourselves a whole lot of time and trouble if we invest a lttle more time to do things right the first time. It is much more difficult to clean up a mess than it is to avoid it. Believe me, I have done my share of cleaning up the messes I have created. Most of those messes were created by trying to avoid something I should have faced in the beginning. Things I did not want to admit to or work through. I am learning that personal strength is based on your character. character is a by product of your integrity and your sense of personal accountability.--Hillbilly PhD

Tags: Accountable, Mistakes, Failure, Learning, Honesty

From Water to Land. Here We Come!

2006-04-06T22:14:00.000+08:00

Speaking of evolution, a cool website on evolution I stumbled upon and introduced in my last post, in the news today are reports of a discovery of a new fossil that will fill the gap between aquatic and land animals. The new fossil is of an animal with fish-like fins and scales, crocodile-like head, and neck and ribs of a land animal. They name it Tiktaalik Roseae. More details in The Times Online and Reuters UK.

Tags: Evolution, Science, News

Stumbling upon StumbleUpon

2006-04-05T23:27:00.000+08:00

Today I stumbled upon an interesting webtool, introduced by Seth, called StumbleUpon. It's a browser tool that helps you share websites, that you 'stumbled upon' by accident or intentionally, with like-minded people or absolute strangers, and vice versa. Was playing around with it for awhile and Seth's right, it gets a little addictive. But it's certainly fun and cool in its own way. You may stumble upon websites that you may have never came across on your own. Warning: May be a little too addictive for those with a curious mind, like me.

Here are some pretty cool websites that I (ok, I promise it's the last time I'll say these two words in this post) stumbled upon:

Neave Imagination - It's pretty cool. And creative. The author certainly had a lot of time in their hands. And I'm glad they did. It's addictively fun, so try it out, click and twirl your mouse here, there and everywhere.

Paper Plane Designs - I was never much of paper plane maker, so it makes this seem so much cooler.

Evolution - this you have to see for yourself, evolution evolving at your own pace.

Tags: StumbleUpon, Webtools

The Difference between Symptomatic and Fundamental Solutions

2006-04-04T22:17:00.000+08:00

In Tom Asacker's blog, A Clear Eye, is a post on STRESS. As pointed out by the author, the problem with the Forbes article's list on cutting stress is that "it doesn't deal with what's causing the stress." See for yourself, to list a few:

1. Find An Outlet - A hobby, like fishing
2. Get A Massage - And light a candle
4. Have A Sense Of Humor - Lighten up, dude
9. Meditate - It's not just for Buddhist monks

They are what Peter Senge, in his book "The Fifth Discipline," calls "Symptomatic" solutions. It may solve the problem quickly, but only temporarily. This is because it only addresses the symptoms of the problem; in this case, the stress. The cause of the stress is untouched, and possibly building up; building up to a point when symptomatic solutions can no longer relieve the stress.

1. Be passionate - About how your work improves people's lives
3. Stay focused - On what customers truly care about
4. Communicate unceasingly - Your passion, vision and strategy
5. Stay tuned in - To the rapid and endless changes in today's marketplace
8. Trust others - Which is not the same as telling them what to do
9. Give back - To customers, employees, the needy, and the environment

The second list represents what Peter calls "Fundamental" solutions, solutions that are far more effective in solving the problem. In this case, it's because it addresses the causes of stress. Would you prefer to feel the pain and then take painkillers to relieve it, or preventing the pain from happening at all?

The problem with symptomatic solutions is that it feels like a quick fix when it's nothing more than a quick but temporary relieve. With a quick temporary relieve, it feels like it's an effective solution and therefore, we become less and less aware of a need for fundamental solutions, solutions that will address the causes of the problem and attempt to reduce or remove it completely. Additionally, Peter points out that symptomatic solutions often have side effects that lead to more problems.

For example, some people turn to alcohol when stress at work is overwhelming. For the time being, alcohol relieves the stress (symptomatic solution). Because the stress is relieved, they don't feel the need to reduce the causes of the stress (fundamental solution). In the long run, as the stress keeps building (because the causes of the stress are not addressed), the alcohol keeps pouring. Due to long-term alcohol abuse, health problems (side effects) may start to pop up.

In conclusion, avoid as far as possible symptomatic solutions. Always try to find the causes of the problems/unwanted symptoms and brainstorm for fundamental solutions.

Tags: Peter Senge, Fifth Discipline, Cause+Effect

From Processes to Hierarchies

2006-03-30T22:03:00.000+08:00

In Reengineering the Corporation, Michael Hammer wrote about how times have changed, that specialization and division of labor of complex processes into simpler steps processed by a vast number of people are ways of the past. Efficient they may be, but no longer effective at satisfying customers. And therefore, processes of the past have to be reengineered. One of the main reasons is that as the number of steps increases, so does the likelihood for errors and/or delays. As I was recalling back some of my readings of Michael's book, it got me thinking about how it applied to organizational hierarchies.

Try this exercise. Get a number of people together. Privately tell one of them a story, any story. Then have that person tell the next person, also privately, the story that you told him/her. Continue till the last person has been told the story. Have that person tell you back the story. Chances are very high that the story will be a little different from the one you told the first person. Try the same exercise a few more times but with a larger group every time. How different the story will be roughly correlates with how many more people the story has to go through and how long before one person tells the next. Furthermore, the feel, the energy, the vibe and the conviction of the story will equally suffer, especially if the time it takes between the person being told the story to telling the story to the next is long.

So imagine an organization with many layers of hierarchy, how likely will a right decision be made if it's has to be evaluated at each layer. With each layer, the likelihood of the idea, information or even a problem to look, sound and feel the same decreases. It takes only one person to say no or make a wrong decision to stop a potentially very good idea or raise awareness of potentially serious problem in the near future from reaching the key decision makers. How will each and everyone in every layer be able to make the right decision when the 'story' is a little more different with each passing person?

Tom Peters wrote a similar post in his blog:

...let's consider a 6-layer organization making a decision?evaluating the right and wrong choice at each rung of hierarchy's ladder. And let's be generous, and imagine each level has a whopping 80% chance of making the right decision. So the odds of eventually getting the thing right are 0.8 to the 6th power?and that's 0.21, or 21% (just like emerging in the F4 if you're a #1 seed). Not so hot. It's like the communications game in which 10 people whisper a simple message to the person next to him or her. We start with "Jack's a smart guy to consider the middle-age market," or some such. Ten dilutions later, no malice involved, we end up with a simple, "Jack's an idiot"?or something quite close. It's a heck of an argument for de-layering in any situation.

Read the complete post here.

Tags: Organizational Hierarchy

...a little more learning from Bean

2006-03-29T22:59:00.000+08:00

In '...learning from Bean', I talked about how Mr. Bean achieved moments of brilliance through his 'ignorance'. After reading a post in the Creating Passionate Users' blog, I'm beginning to think that 'cluelessness' is more of the case for Bean:

The clueless accomplish amazing things--not necessarily because we're bold, brilliant innovators, but perhaps because we just don't know any better. We see the simplicity of the forest while Those Who Know are overanalyzing the complex subtleties of the trees (and miss the point). Sometimes NOT knowing about a "problem" weakens (or eliminates) it.
Perception is a powerful tool. Believing there's a limitation can sometimes create that limitation. And for the clueless who don't know about the limitation, well, it's as if it doesn't exist.

The Clueless Manifesto is a really good post, read the complete post here.

Nothing Works Equally Well Everywhere Everytime Part III

2006-03-29T21:21:00.000+08:00

Imagine now that you've found the right management practices for your organization(Part I). With it a little adjusting and tweaking here and there to match your organization, its industry, its market and its culture, it's implemented successfully(Part II). It's so right for you and your organization that it has taken you guys to new heights. So. What now? An infinite ride on the sacred cow to nirvana? No. At least not infinitely. Why? Coz whatever magic it may have brought you for the last 5 to even 10 years (unlikely at this age), nothing, absolutely nothing, will work equally well... forever.

Thinking Faster blog has a good post on Sacred Cows, below I've snipped a few key phrases of the post:

Sacred cows are anything that may have made sense at some time in the past, but are now more likely to get in the way, but no effort is expended to change them

Sacred cows are usually things that made a lot of sense at one time, but did not evolve and change as the organization grew. They've now become roadblocks to productivity and innovation, which energetic and innovative people simply find ways to work around.

I fully recognized that tried and true processes are comfortable and easily understood, but many firms fail to achieve productivity gains because they stick with processes and systems which are less than optimal because someone says they've never done it that way before. I think that argument was probably used to avoid:
- the first caveman cooking meat rather than eating it raw
- the first person to build a shelter rather than live out in the open
- the first person to drive a car rather than a horse
...culture creates sacred cows. A strong culture in an organization seeps into everyone, and group think becomes somewhat inevitable. A strong culture encourages teams to focus closely on some aspects of the business and ignore others.

Read more of it here.

In conclusion, periodically evaluate your 'cows.' Are they still effective, relevant, suited to the change in times and your organization, or has it become unexplainable 'sacred'? Some form of change is inevitable. It's only a matter of time. Only a matter of time before your 'cows' no longer produce the results it was initially bringing in, possibly even causing more harm than good, but yet remains 'sacred' within your organization.

Tags: Sacred Cows, Change

Nothing Works Equally Well Everywhere Everytime Part II

2006-03-28T23:24:00.000+08:00

I came across a recent Harvard Business School Working Knowledge article that I would like to add to my previous post, "Nothing Works Equally Well Everywhere Everytime". In the article, "Three Myths of Management," Stanford professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, writes about three of the most common decision poor decision practices:

Casual Benchmarking
Doing what (seems to have) worked in the past
Following deeply held yet unexamined ideologies

Doing what (seems to have) worked in the past is similar to my previous post, that just because it has worked for someone else or even for you somewhere else really well, it does not mean that it will be just as successful here and now.

Described best in the words of the authors, Casual Benchmarking is when the "problem lies with the way that benchmarking is usually practiced: It is far too casual. The logic behind what works at top performers, why it works, and what will work elsewhere is barely unraveled, resulting in mindless imitation.

...Instead of copying what others do, we ought to copy how they think.

...The problem is that companies often have different strategies, different competitive environments, and different business models?all of which make what they need to do to be successful different from what others are doing. Something that helps one organization can damage another. This is true particularly for companies that borrow practices from other industries, but often is true for organizations even within the same industry"

And last, but definitely not least, Following deeply held yet unexamined ideologies, is when people hold deeply on to ideologies for no sound or factual reasons because someone higher up the hierarchy believes that it will work well with their people and organization that success will soon be knocking on their door.

In conclusion, even when you find the right management practice for you and your organization, do not just blindly imitate how it has been done in case studies or similar companies. Find the underlying philosophy of the practice and change, customize, adapt and/or tweak the practice to fit your organization, your people, your culture.

Nothing comes straight 'right' for you. What is right for you is what you have 'right-ed' for you.

Tags: Benchmarking, Management

Nothing Works Equally Well Everywhere Everytime

2006-03-28T22:10:00.000+08:00

Besides the fact that I enjoy reading and that I'm a naturally curious person, I've never let off an opportunity to learn about other business/management styles, methodologies and philosophies. What I mean by others are other than those which I've read about and personally believe to be really good. The main reason being that I believe that no one single management method/philosophy will be equally effective in all industries, organizations, cultures, markets or situations. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses at different times, in different spaces and in different environments. I think Business 2.0 magazine's article on 25 of the Best-Kept Secrets of the World's Best Companies goes to show that as well. The fact that there is 25 of them at the top goes to show that there is no one perfect match for everyone everywhere. Not even the top 25 will be a perfect fit for every business or organization. Be Excellent blog has a quick list of the 25 here.

So, never stop learning new things, even if what you are doing now is working really well. Who knows, you might find some obscure management style that will propel your organization to new heights. And into the next 25 Best-kept Secrets.

Tags: Learning, Management

Here's why I'm a 1.5 tasker and not a multitasker

2006-03-25T17:08:00.000+08:00

In my previous post, 1.5-tasker, I explained what is and why I'm a 1.5 tasker. Of course, I do wish at times I could do a little more in the same amount of time. Maybe be able to multitask a little, rather than being a single tasker with a .5 task distraction distractor. Well... not anymore, I'm glad to a certain degree that I can't really multitask. From the Creating Passionate Users' blog:

But where I once believed that the myth of multitasking was about time (that doing four things simultaneously takes much longer than to do those same four things in sequence), scientists now know it's also about quality. And it gets worse... it's not just that the quality of those four things in parallel will suffer, it's that your ability to think and learn may suffer. Some researchers believe that all this constant, warpspeed, always-on multitasking is causing young people, especially, to become less able to follow any topic deeply. (more on that in another post)

Read more about it and Time magazine's article on it here

Tags: Multitasking

Why is it always "Us Against Them"?

2006-03-25T16:04:00.000+08:00

I've been in the workforce long enough to witness countless "us against them" situations. Whenever there is a problem, it is always "It's not our fault", "It's not our problem", "It's theirs, let them work it out" and countless other variations of it.

Why? Apparently, it's because we're wired like that. Read about the BusinessPundit's introduction to David Berreby's book "Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind" here

For you to decide if it's true...

2006-02-27T21:57:00.000+08:00

Top Ten Reasons Why nobody reads your blog

...if there is a 'you' reading this blog to actually decide.

A Customer's POV of Customer Service

2006-02-23T21:58:00.000+08:00

Here is a really good post by Kevin Meyer on his "Adventures in Customer Service".

On a separate note, Kevin, I would like to reach out my condolences to your recent loss.

Tags: Customer Service

1.5-Tasker

2006-02-23T21:11:00.000+08:00

Women have always been considered very good multi-taskers. Being able to do and concentrate relatively well on multiple things at a time. Men, on the other hand, are more single-taskers. In my case, I consider myself a 1.5-tasker.

For the most part, I am a single-tasker. But I need an additional point 5(.5) task to be completely comfortable and focused. Back in college, as a philosophy grad student, I had papers after papers to write, including preparing lectures for my classes. And for most of the time, while I was working on a particular paper or lecture, especially during baseball season, I kept the tv on, but usually with the the volume muted. In some ways I was watching, and in some ways, I wasn't. I needed the partial task/distraction to help me to, u know... really get it going on the work at hand. Just music also works, but not as well as tv.

Even though I always believe that I'm normal and that it is everyone else who is weird, I did think it was a little weird. So... it is comforting to know that there is an explanation for it. The explanation can be found here at Creating Passionate Users blog. (Whew... thanks guys!) Me weird? Nah....

Tags: Multitasking

Global Warming...

2006-02-12T18:56:00.000+08:00

A couple of days ago, I left a comment to Christian Sarker's post "What Global Warming?" that I would like to share with you here.

Christian, like many of us, are genuinely concerned about the recent surge of talk about global warming; that it's real and if we don't start doing something about it soon, it's going to get a lot worse. However, he argues that all the news, research and all is not going to do any good, cause the people who need to listen, just aren't:

Dream on, scientists. The people who deny global warming don't believe in science. They believe in money. And the money says there is no global warming. They won't believe it even if they see it...

And this was my comment:

Well... like you said, they believe in money, and money says there is no global warming. But it is fair to say that when the serious effects of global warming does come about, it will affect everyone. And everyone's money. The problem is that that time is not now, or now enough; so the money still says there is no global warming. Like any form of pitching, for start-up funding or a project proposal, the potential of start-up may be so clearly obvious to us and we have the numbers and research and all to back it up, but it may not be as obvious to others. So we need to find a way to communicate all these ideas, findings and such in to them in a way that's important to them, that will strike a chord. In our case here, we have to communicate to them in the only language they know and will listen to, Money.

But that's not enough. As good as you have been so far, the people you are pitching to for funding, will have probably listened to dozens of others on what great investment it would be to fund their start-ups. And they would have narrowed down their list on what they feel are good potentials. But they can't provide funding to everyone of you at the same time. So, in addition to communicating to them in their own language, we have to create a sense of urgency on to them as well. "With our limited resources, why should we invest in to yours now? if ever? over the rest of them who seems to us to be as potentialialy good as an investment as yours?" And that's exactly what is happening now. It is exactly why the money says there is no global warming. The opportunity cost of everything they do (except investing for ways to reduce the causes of global warming) to make money (that is contributing to global warming) is not urgently costly enough to worry about or even to acknowledge it exist. We need to find ways to communicate through to them that urgency: that the time is NOW. That if they take things like this for granted now, it's going to cost them a lot, lot more than what they're making now.

I know that it sounds a lot easier than it actually is, and that many, in the number of (my guess) hundreds and thousands of people, have tried. And all seems in vain. I don't care how cliched this sounds. But giving in, or giving up signifies the end of it all.

In silence, our fate is playing poker blindfolded, gagged and restrained,

...decided by the odds that the rationality of humankind will prevail,

...with the odds that it will happen to people who now denies the existence of the problem,

...with the odds that it will happen to people who are in the position to do something about,

...with the odds that they will,

...with the odds that the money will not make them change their mind.

Only in our voices can hope be given a 'real' chance to be real.
Tags: Global Warming, Pitching

Opening the Book and its numbers to the Crowd

2006-02-06T20:03:00.000+08:00

For the last couple of days, I've been putting my thoughts on two books that I felt would compliment each other quite well; Jack Stack's The Great Game of Business and James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds. About how they would ultimately synergize is still not the clearest of pictures. Nevertheless, I'm convinced that there is enough here to push it forward.

Jack Stack's The Great Game of Business

In The Great Game of Business (one of my recommended reads), Jack writes from experience about the Whys and Hows of Open-Book Management. Open-Book Management to Jack is "the practice of communicating with people via the numbers":

...numbers are the language of business... Only the numbers can tell you how you are doing, show you where you need to focus your attention, allow you to identify and solve problems, let you see how your day-to-day actions affect everything and everyone around you--the people you work with, your company, your community, your family, your hopes and dreams.

Everyone knows how the organization is has been and is currently doing financially. Every achievement and every failure are reflected in the numbers(e.g. finacial statements, balance sheet), everyone understands their role from the numbers and how what they do or don't do as individuals and as a team affects the numbers; the bottomline. Open-book Management functions by helping people understand the numbers and sharing the direct success and the risk of failure by tying bonuses and/or other forms of profit sharing (e.g. stock options sharing) to those numbers.

In effect, open-book management teaches people to quit thinking of themselves as hired hands (with all that implies) and to start realizing that they are businesspeople (with all that implies). Their job security, their chances for advancement, their hopes for the future all depend not on the whims of some boss or department head but on the company's success in the marketplace and each person's contribution to it.
Excerpt from John Case's Open-Book Management

Beyond understanding the numbers and how success sharing are tied to the numbers, the key component of Open-Book Management is Empowerment. John Case provides a good summary of this:

Empower People to Make Decisions based on What They Know
Representatives from SRC's departments and divisions meet once every two weeks to report their numbers and their opinions about the upcoming weeks and months. As at Foldcraft (no coincidence -- Foldcraft modeled itself after SRC), they generate an income statement, a cash-flow statement, and a forecast, which people take back to their own units.
In the units is where the work gets done. Managers help employees address problems. Every unit is accountable for its own numbers -- and every man and woman in that unit shares in the accountability. The units report new numbers to the corporate offices each week. If they're on target, fine. If they're off, those same men and women had better have an idea of why, and of how to fix it.

In short, every one has a say, or to be more exact, everyone has to say and decide the best course of action for every one's own benefit.

James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds

I've not actually read more than a couple of flips of pages while browsing at the bookstore. I am, for now, going on the assumption that James' arguments are as good as I've heard about and around. I will make an effort to study it through some time in the near future. And if my stand on his argument changes in any way, I'll provide full disclosure of it -- hope he doesn't pull a James Frey/Hwang Woo-suk on me; more Woo-suk than Frey, but in any validated case of exaggeration/fabrication pops up, I'll say it straight out, "I've been duped" and save on the long distance call to Larry King ...sorry I couldn't resist... -- but for now it sounds too promising to resist, especially to the connection that I'm trying to make.

According to James, "...under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them," and that "a crowd's 'collective intelligence' will produce better outcomes than a small group of experts, even if members of the crowd don't know all the facts or choose, individually, to act irrationally."

Jack, meet James
Ok, here's what I'm trying to get to. The reasoning is pretty straight-forward and simple: The argument for the wisdom of crowds reinfoces Open-Book Management because if the wisdom of crowds is in effect better than a select few smart individuals, then a crowd of well-informed people will produce better ideas, judgement and decisions than if left to a few smart managers. And that's exactly the reason why Open-Book Management empowers the people (including the managers) to make decisions together. At the same time, Open-Book Management provides the crowd with the motivation and desire to make better and wiser decisions through the numbers.

Tags: Wisdom of Crowds, Open-Book Management

ME W-A-N-T COO-KIEEEEEE... COO-KIEEEEEEE... COO-KIEEEEEEEEEEEE....

2006-02-01T14:36:00.000+08:00

Cookie Monster? Death Metal? Yes and yes. They may differ in words, but they share one thing in common. Singing. According to the WSJ Opinion Journal;

Death-metal vocalizing is also known as Cookie Monster singing, if not in tribute to, at least in acknowledgment of, the "Sesame Street" puppet that blurts in a guttural growl, his words discharged so rapidly that they tend to collide with each other.

Myth? You can't love Mythbusters if you don't have the Discovery Channel?

2006-02-01T14:09:00.000+08:00

I love the MythBusters, eventhough I don't actually have the Discovery Channel. I catch an episode here and there at my gf's place (gf's parent's place -- to be exact). Sad... but true. And if you do as well (love mythbusters I mean; not planning your visits to your gf's place inline with the tv schedule to catch your favorite shows) or have no idea what i'm talking about, here's a feature article bout the show, the Busters themselves and putting Star Wars to the test.

If you love Simon Cowell...

2006-02-01T09:48:00.000+08:00

And you can't get enough of him, BOY... Do I Have Good News For You. Hot of the press (server--to be more exact), Simon has a new competition show in the works called American Inventor.

And he has re-signed with American Idol for 5 more years. Read more bout the shows, new and old, and Simon on the Trumpster here.

I love food

2006-01-31T21:40:00.000+08:00

And if you love food in all of its forms , at barebone minimum, I recommend you watch and read three things:

Jamie Oliver's shows. The Naked Chef is a good start.
Iron Chef. Reruns only. Stay away from the American Version, it's not even close.
Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio.

West, East and the rest of the world respectively.

Parasites that can manipulate the behavior of their hosts... including make men more jealous?

2006-01-31T21:24:00.000+08:00

Carl Zimmer:
Toxoplasma, a parasite found in cats, can make women more outgoing and warmhearted, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious.

Read more about at Corante.com

Kids! Eat your veggies. They're not only good for you, they may soon be all you're going to get...

2006-01-31T20:18:00.000+08:00

Global warming. Is a hot topic again. The news this time is that it's worse than we thought. Average temperature has risen 1 Fahrenheit in the last 30 years. According to Nasa, at this rate, by the next century, we could living in a very different planet. And if we don't do something soon, within the next 20 years, it may be irreversible.

The Norwegians are doing something about it now. Nothing that will stop the rising tides. But no less important. Treehugger.com reports:

On the icy island of Spitsbergen, 600 miles from the North Pole, the Norwegian government will soon begin building a subterranean vault to hold samples of the worldâ€™s crop seeds, some 2 million of them. The collection of seeds is intended as a gene bank able to survive a global catastrophe, allowing agriculture to rebuild after an event such as nuclear war, massive climate change, a meteor strike, or other Day-After-Tomorrow-ish scenarios.

To lie, or not to lie? ... but if I don't...!

2006-01-30T23:03:00.000+08:00

Inc. reported that "a recent international study by the American Management Association found that trying to meet impossible goals set by business owners and managers was the number one reason employees lie, cheat, and steal." Beyond communicating ethical values and regardless of whether they have an official code of conduct or not, it is no doubt that the main culprit is not the goals, however impossible they may be, but fear of the repercussions of failing to meet those goals. At times, the fear is unfounded; fault of the employee. At times, it is not unjustified, unpleasantness has come swiftly in the past to them or their colleagues and possibly will again if they fail; definitely fault of the manager. Mostly, I believe, is due to poor leadership and communication; and since communication goes both ways, it's a tie.

It reminds me of a scene in a Bollywood movie I came across one afternoon. A man is told with all honesty by his younger brother that he was late for this very important ceremony because he had quite a late night drinking the night before. As the younger brother walks away, his assistant, noticing that he screwed every other latecomer, asked him why he let his brother go easy for being late for such an important event. His response was,

"He told me the honest truth, which was exactly what I asked of from him. If I were to punish him for that, what kind of message am I sending him?"

"Let me get this straight..."

2006-01-30T20:29:00.000+08:00

Posted on Tom Peter's blog, Steve Yastrow briefly introduced Michael Pollan's Botany of Desire. About how four species of plants have exploited different human desires to help them thrive. It reminded me of a comic strip I came across some time back. I can't remember which comic strip it is from. But it goes something like this:

Martian to Dog:"Let me get this straight. He puts a roof above you, feeds you, takes you for walks, cleans after you, and... he is your master?"

...rough start to the year for Lean and friends

2006-01-23T22:30:00.000+08:00

Process improvement initiatives or any other management tools/methodology that bring about change has always brought in its fair share of resistance. Some believe that they are already doing good and any change might bring about negative results; some lack a clear understanding of such initiatives and possibly fail to understand how it could work or what good it might bring; some may believe that management is initiating it just because it is the current fad and that it will probably not do much and simply fade away like the other process improvement initiatives. There are probably many more reasons for resisting, but I believe more often than none is the thought of how it would affect their work, especially their jobs as a whole after one of these many improvement methods. From what I read from Gemba Panta Rei, Merck and Chrysler are certainly not making many sleep any better or making it any easier for businesses seeking support for improvement initiatives.

According to the Wilson Daily, the plant manager indicated that, "Determining job cuts are part of the lean manufacturing system aimed at streamlining."

Since when?

First lean... who's next? six sigma?

I can just imagine,"...due to dramatic decrease in defects, dozens of workers and control inspectors will be laid off as part of a successful Six Sigma initiative as reduce defects resulted in reduced numbers of rework and inspections required; therefore, we are more than capable in fulfilling all orders with fewer workers and less inspections." Fictional as this may be, chances are it has already happened somewhere; it is just a matter of time before some corporation, big enough to make the news, to do and say something like that.

To Olin College: "Would Flipping It Work?"

2006-01-18T21:34:00.000+08:00

It is one of four problem solving tools in the form of questions in Nalebuff and Ayres' book, "Why Not?" They believe that most original ideas comes from problems in search of solutions and solutions in search of problems.

Would flipping it work? is about "looking for potential symmetry and then turning things around offers unexpected solutions." And Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering has found a way to use it with their approach to learning; read Wall Street Journal Online reports on how the college is "Building a Better Engineer" (the flipping is illustrated and stated in paragragh 4 and 5 respectively)

...learning from Bean

2006-01-17T22:12:00.000+08:00

As I was flipping between channels, I came across an old rerun of Mr. Bean (played by Rowan Atkinson). At the end of it, I realized that for all his mis-guided-ness and silliness, his sheer "kiasu-ness" ('extreme fear of losing') and possibly ignorance does bring him a moment or two of sheer brilliance.

For example, tonight's episode placed him with a row of maids and butlers awaiting to greet the queen. He realizes that every gentlemen had a nice handkerchief neatly folded and tucked in the front pocket of the tux except him. And of course being Mr. Bean, he had to have one too and having no handkerchief is not going to stop him. So he takes out what looks like a postcard or a photo, folds one side to a pointy tip, tucks it neatly into his pocket and that's it. For a brief face-to-face with anyone, I would think one would barely notice the difference; but the lack of it would have been more obvious, which would have been unthinkable for someone like Bean. More importantly, how many of us would have thought of it?

I am not endorsing that we should do anything that Mr. Bean does. I am however, as strange as it may sound, suggesting that we not do the same thing that he did not do. Huh? you say. Allow me to explain. He does not let anything get in the way of him achieving his goal because he does not let anything get in the way of his thoughts. Think about it, how many of us would do something that our first thought is already telling us that its impossible. Of course, in his case, he is naturally void of anything in the way of his thoughts. We, on the other hand, have to first clear our mind from all presuppositions except those that form the boundaries or contraints of which any solution must abide to. Presuppositions of what can work may prematurely cut short the thought process from considering alternatives, possible better ones. Presuppositions of what can't work are not proven, so do not let them build non-existent obstacles to creative and innovative thought until proven to be a matter of fact. What we should be doing first before we go about thinking outside the box, is to first know where the box is in the first case; in their book Why Not? Ian Ayves and Barry Nalebuff calls this "Principled Problem Solving":

This approach[Principled Problem Solving], observe Nalebuff and Ayres, not only aids in filtering solutions and determining which are actually workable, but offers real models that give a clearer picture of the underlying structure of a problem and in turn, make it easier to find solutions.

In Bean's case, most of us would have thought that he had no handkerchief on him, he had no time to get one and besides stealing from the guy next to him, that's it. Wrong. His only real constraint is that it had to look a certain way (maybe at minimum, only as good as one of the other guys and for at most, a minute) and he had only a couple of minutes to sort it out. From there onwards, is television history.

...a tragic truth

2006-01-14T15:38:00.000+08:00

Scott Adams on "The Devil"

"I think it's interesting that when you pray to God for a new bike, it hardly ever materializes in your bedroom within seconds. But when you throw stones at the devil, quite often you get an immediate response. That's an example of good customer service."

Tags: Customer Service

"With Great Powers Comes Great Responsibility"

2006-01-13T22:38:00.000+08:00

Those were Uncle Ben's last words of wisdom to Peter Parker (aka Spiderman). And that was the first thing that came to my mind when I came across Seth's blog today,"I was wrong." The very powers that we put into the technologies of today to aid us have also made us somewhat dependent on them. I'm not talking about life-saving, economy boosting cutting edge techs; I am grateful for every atom of their existence. I'm talking about something as simple as word processors' spelling check, our dependence of it and our irresponsibility.

Spell check has saved many of us from countless embrassing (and job-saving) mistakes. Unfortunately, it has also handicapped many of our generation and will no doubt continue to diminish the spelling ability of future generations, at least until we take responsibility. Formally from the academics, I have seen its ill effects first hand; and spelling is one thing, grammar ...is off the charts. I'm no exception, but we are responsible for how we choose to use some of these services/products such as spell check, so we have to learn to be a responsible users; attempting to correct errors before right-clicking on it (for suggestions of spell corrections). And to constantly remind ourselves why we are using it in the first case, that it is an aid - for one of those days when the words just weren't coming together or learning to spell a certain word for future uses - and never should we be dependent on them, as Seth spells out the danger of our dependence:

The danger zone is when only some of the obvious mistakes are caught. We're being trained to be sloppy, and expecting that [it] will always work. Watch a kid search on Google--they don't even try to get the spelling right. Why bother?

Bothering to spell right is the first step to taking responsibility.

Tags: Responsibility, Power

...here goes ...my first block of thought

2006-01-12T21:59:00.000+08:00

For awhile, I have resisted the thought of writing my own blog. Not that I have not something to say, but that I did not have something to say; something of interest to anyone but me. Recalling Guy Kawasaki's first blog, I wondered, why would people give a shitake about what I have to say? But someone dear to me insisted that I should, that i did have a word or two worth sharing. Well... also because I do have some aspiration to write (an article or two, or even a book) someday; that added to just about enough to convince me. But rest assured that this is no half-hearted attempt. As I always say (though you're probably only hearing this for the first time), "If you're going to do something, do it right, do it the best you can, or don't bother doing it at all."

As the title of my blog suggest, I'll be extroverting my thoughts of something of everything from day-in day-out interesting sights and sounds, to thoughts and interesting reads about business, management, innovation, philosophy, sports, movies and books. I am a relatively new lad on the block, and because of that I will be wrong on many matters, but also because of that, I hope to be able to offer some fresh and occasionally new perspectives on many others.