After many years of blogging, and consistent with my desire to move toward retirement, we have ended the Insights blog. Thanks to Doug Bedell for his years of blog support.

Crisis Lessons That Go Unlearned

Posted on June 8, 2011
Filed Under Business, Government, Technology | Leave a Comment

Michael Coston has eclectic interests, so on his Avian Flu Diary he writes about the continuing mishandling of the communication aspects of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant accident. “When, oh when, will they ever learn?” one is prompted to ask. The question seems to hold both for the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the plant’s operator, and Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA).

The earthquake-initiated accident was much worse than first reported, with three of the six reactors on the Fukushima Daiichi site experiencing meltdowns, and two of them possibly being melt throughs, with nuclear fuel actually “melted through the walls or floors of (the) reactor vessel.”

Yet the accident’s severity “was held at a 5 for a full month (the same as Three Mile Island), before being raised to a Chernobyl-comparable level 7 on April 11th,” Coston notes.
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Keeping Statistics Simple, Yet Profound

Posted on May 12, 2011
Filed Under Business, Government | Leave a Comment

Knowing what we’re doing requires ready, reliable observational methods – preferably, a method. The best method we know (though we wouldn’t claim to be expert in it) is statistical process control (SPC) based on principles espoused by the late Dr. W. Edwards Deming and the work and writings of Deming disciples like Donald J. Wheeler.

Dr. Deming was a godlike statistician who had a profound understanding of his discipline, so profound that he expressed it simply, and really caught your attention (if only on videotapes) with questions like: “What do you want to accomplish?,” “By what method will you accomplish it?” and “How will you know?”

Donald Wheeler had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Deming in 1972, working with him thereafter and writing or editing materials about him. He and his wife, Fran, founded SPC Press in 1986, which published Deming’s biography, The World of W. Edwards Deming, by his long-time secretary, Cecelia S. Kilian, in 1992. (Dr. Deming’s own “bible,” Out of the Crisis, was published by MIT a decade or so earlier.)

We noted that Don Wheeler is to receive the 2010 Deming Medal from the American Society for Quality (ASQ) in Pittsburgh this weekend, and felt it appropriate to note Dirk Dusharme’s May 4 interview with him at Quality Digest.
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Siemens Renewed Via Vision and Values

Posted on May 1, 2011
Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

Businessweek provides an example of why focus and inspired priorities are so important to building, or rebuilding, a business. Siemens’ return to prominence after a bribery scandal more than three years ago is a tribute to its new President and CEO, Peter Löscher, who, the magazine advises, put first things first and is keeping them there.

Vision, values and the processes to insure they are taken seriously are crucial to corporate renewal. “Being good today means you have to be better tomorrow, and even better the day after tomorrow,” Löscher says. “The biggest risk is complacency.”

Evidently, complacency almost brought Siemens down. The company was run as a collection of corporate fiefdoms with little accountability (values) by divisional managers. Now, under a new management roster, it’s been restructured partly around “green” businesses (vision) .

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A Crisis – No Time for Stoicism

Posted on April 22, 2011
Filed Under Business, Technology | Leave a Comment

Our colleague Doug Bedell has another post on the communications aspects of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant crisis.

Let’s Hope For ‘Silicon Sustainability’ This Time

Posted on April 19, 2011
Filed Under Business, Technology | Leave a Comment

Gee, it must be tough being an angel investor in Silicon Valley, especially when things get rolling out there, as they are now.

You’re not assured that your money is appreciated. You might even be turned away, or have to cope with a “class system,” reports Monica Langley in The Wall Street Journal. The bigger guys, billionaires, may be shutting out smaller ones, mere millionaires.

The really good news is that this high tech boom in the West may be more sustainable than the one ended in 2000, when a bubble broke, leaving a lot of investors in the same state. “There are a bunch of rich people and firms subsidizing tech entrepreneurs, but this time the entrepreneurs are better,” The Journal quotes David Lee, a managing partner of SV Angel as saying. “These companies have millions of engaged users or actual profits. It’s not just sloppy money coming to the table.”

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‘Yammer’ Needs Managerial Allies

Posted on February 18, 2011
Filed Under Business, Technology | Leave a Comment

We can well remember work days when our colleagues spent much of their time critiquing the effectiveness of departments they didn’t visit regularly, if at all. Gossip can have grim results. Better to bring it all to light and move things along, but how?

Well, we just heard about Yammer, and it looks terrific for the purpose of internal communication. Haven’t experienced it directly, but the concept sounds great. Read more

Amazon Numbering Its Electronic Pages

Posted on February 8, 2011
Filed Under Business, Technology, The Writing Life | Leave a Comment

You’ve got to hand it to Amazon.com, one of the most relational – if not the most relational – of the high-tech web companies. They pioneered in reader reviews and comments, allow you to buy books at lower prices from associated bookstores and have a great Kindle electronic book reader. Now they’re adding page numbers to the pages of Kindle books that will match those of the paper editions.

Why? “Our customers have told us they want real page numbers that match the page numbers in print books so they can easily reference and cite passages, and read along side others in a book club or class,” Amazon said in a statement.
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Older Not Always Wiser (Financially, At Least)

Posted on December 16, 2010
Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

Be more mindful of your investment options as you grow older. You’re more likely to make snap, unprofitable, decisions as you age, say neuroscience researchers.

Interesting. It’s young people who are supposed to be more impulsive, but maybe that doesn’t hold for money management at the investment level. Read more

OSHA’s ‘Wake-Up’ Calls

Posted on December 3, 2010
Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment

There is much abstract, politically charged talk these days about the role of government. Which government functions are necessary, and which aren’t? We don’t know about all of them, but we’d champion the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

OSHA’s business isn’t simply  enforcement, it’s about prompting change. Read more

Ralph Lauren’s Alternative Reality

Posted on November 12, 2010
Filed Under Business, The Writing Life | Leave a Comment

Wd don’t attempt to keep up with events in the fashion world, but when one of those events incorporates advances in visual technology – fusing movies, 3D projection and fashion – it gets our attention. That’s what Ralph Lauren’s “4D” shows did this week at their New York and London stores. Read more

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