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Awesome CatCam

Posted on June 10, 2007  Comments (0)

CatCam - photo of the famous cat photographer CatCam - cat photographer on the run CatCam - cat photographer get picture of another cat

I posted this to our science and engineering blog last week: Awesome Cat Cam. It doesn’t really have anything to do with management: I suppose I could make a case for creativity… but basically it is just really cool (it also illustrates some good product design and testing points). CatCam by Juergen Perthold – this great project involved taking a digital camera and some additional equipment to create a camera that his cat wore around his neck which took pictures every 3 minutes. The pictures are great. The cat got photos of several other cats and seemed to like spending time under cars. You can now order your own CatCam.

Sometimes I have some challenging ideas, or crazy like some other people would say. This time I thought about our cat who is the whole day out, returning sometimes hungry sometimes not, sometimes with traces of fights, sometimes he stay also the night out. When he finally returns, I wonder where he was and what he did during his day. This brought me to the idea to equip the cat with a camera. The plan was to put a little camera around his neck which takes every few minutes a picture. After he is returning, the camera would show his day.
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For the second try I used the plastic package of a child toy (Kinderueberraschung), put a stone in it for loading it with some weight and attached it again to the cat collar. This time the part returned – dirty and scratched outside, water inside. What the hell is the cat doing !? This raised the requirements for the camera protective housing a lot
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Big moment no. 1: attach the collar with the camera to the cat. The reaction was not very happy but finally accepted. Reality check passed :-)

Related: The Cat and a Black Bear – Automatic Cat Feeder – The sub-$1,000 UAV Project

Boston Travel Photos

Posted on May 28, 2007  Comments (0)

Photo of Boston

After I presented the Deming Seminar in Boston last year a spent a few extra days in to enjoy the city. See photos from my Boston visit including: Boston Fine Arts Museum, Boston Science Museum and Boston Common.

Related: Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky – New York City Photos – Glacier National Park photos
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Deming Institute Seminar

Posted on March 16, 2007  Comments (0)

The Deming Institute is sponsoring, How to Create Unethical, Ineffective Organizations That Go Out of Business, 23-25 April, 2007 in Lansing, Michigan. I will be co-presenting the seminar. Let me know if you sign up.

Twenty-seven faulty management and corporate governance practices create most of the problems in any organization. These practices will be identified, and better practices recommended. It will be shown that as better practices are introduced, quality of products and services increases, costs decline, and you create a globally competitive advantage for your organization.

Learn how governance practice leads to the heaviest losses, how inconsistencies between policy and strategy create sub-optimal outcomes, how mismanagement of people leads to unethical and ineffective behavior, and how to overcome these problems. Study the theory and practice of management. Not quality management, not good management, not excellent management, not knowledge management, not risk management, not process management, not performance management, not supply or asset management, not technology management, not time management, not emergency management, just plain management.

Related: Curious Cat Management Improvement Calendar – Deming Seminar and Conference – Deming Institute Conference

NCAA Basketball Challenge 2007

Posted on March 12, 2007  Comments (0)

Once again I have created a group on the ESPN NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge for curiouscat basketball fans. To participate, go to the curiouscat ESPN group and make your picks.

Go Badgers and Go Davidson,

Curious Cat Management Improvement Web Site

Posted on February 28, 2007  Comments (0)

The Curious Cat Management Improvement site includes a wide array of resources for management professionals (and has been growing and improving, I hope, since 1996). Our calendar now includes several interesting opportunities including Performance Measures and Statistics Workshop in Richland, Washington, USA by Stephen Prevette. This workshop looks interesting. We have mentioned the presenter in previous posts.

Our management improvement job board currently lists jobs including: Six Sigma/Technical Specialist, Supply Chain Project Manager (Google), Quality Control Specialist (Toyota) and Quality Engineer. The service is free, both to those posting and those responding to jobs. If you are looking to fill a management improvement position or for a position please give it a try.

In addition to the blog we also offer an links to hundreds of articles on management topics we have selected, a dictionary of management terms, annotated directory to management resources and recommened management books.

Please let us know what you like and what we could improve.

Management Blog Tag

Posted on December 21, 2006  Comments (6)

John and Bill Hunter

I have been tagged by Mark Graban of the lean blog: “Tag” – 5 Things You Don’t Know About Me.

      • I spent a year in Singapore and another in Nigeria while I was growing up.
      • Dad, Bill Hunter, was a professor (related to the item above), who co-authored Statistics for Experimenters and applied Deming’s ideas in the Public Sector for the first time. Out of the Crisis pages 245-247 include a write up on that effort with the First Street Garage. Peter Scholtes, at the time worked for the City of Madison, and played a big part in the effort. He went on to write the Team Handbook and The Leader’s Handbook.
      • I was on the Wisconsin Badger Basketball camp championship teams in 7th and 8th grade. The second year we played the championship game on the regular Badger Basketball home court. The Badger’s are a bit better now then they were then.
      • I have flown on “Air Force One.” Not technically, since it the president was not aboard, but while working for the White House Military Office I flew on the plane on a couple test flights. It is officially “Air Force One” only when the President is flying.
      • I spent many Thanksgivings beating John Dower, my father (and other of the family members of both) at Oh Hell. Some might claim I remember more victories today than took place at the time.

John Hunter. The small person is me, the bigger one is Dad.

I tag: Kathleen Fasanella, Mike Wroblewski, Peter Abilla, Karen Wilhelm and John Dowd.

More on Madison’s Quality efforts: Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin – Quality in the Community: One City’s Experience

Mason Neck State Park Photos

Posted on December 18, 2006  Comments (0)

Belmont Bay, Mason Neck State Park, Virginia

Photos of Mason Neck State Park, Virginia
National park photos: Grand Canyon, Great Falls, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton…
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Weblog Awards: Best Business Blog Finalist

Posted on December 10, 2006  Comments (0)

award button

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog is a 2006 Weblog Awards finalist in the Best Business Blog category. 10 blogs from each category are selected as finalists. Voting opened last week and continues through December 15th.

For those visiting from the award site you may want to take a look at our popular posts including: Stop Demotivating Employees – New Rules for Management? No! – Toyota IT Overview – Eliminate Slogans – Quality and Innovation – Manufacturing Jobs data USA and China
And some others: Distort the System – Improving the 401(k) System – Righter Performance Appraisal – More on Obscene CEO Pay – Housing and the Economy – Usability Failures

Management Improvement Search Engine

Posted on October 25, 2006  Comments (0)

Google has launched a nice new feature that allows users to create customized search results. I have talked about this idea before: Improve Google. Last year I posted about Rollyo, which allowed what Google now does (using Yahoo for the underlying search). I liked Rollyo but the new Google offering is better, so I have switched to using Google.

Try our Management Improvement search engine

This searches, using Google technology, over 50 management improvement web sites that I have selected. Sites include: (this blog, Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections, Curious Cat Management Library…) and the best management improvement sites (in my opinion), including: The W. Edwards Deming Institute, Lean Blog, Panta Rei, Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement, Superfactory, Got Boondoggle?, In2:InThinking Network, Peter Scholtes, Center for Quality of Management, and many more. I will also be adding more; please share your suggestions.

Add the Management Improvement Search box to your site.

South Carolina Photos

Posted on September 24, 2006  Comments (0)

Huntington Beach State Park

South Carolina photos from my visit last September to Huntington Beach State Park (photo above), Charleston and Cypress Gardens. More travel photos – travel photo posts.

Continue reading →

Appalachian Trail Photos

Posted on August 20, 2006  Comments (0)

Cool neon green bug

I just posted some photos from a couple short hikes on the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania during September 2003.

More Curious Cat Travels hiking photos: Grand Canyon National Park – Olympic National Park – Bull Run, Virginia – Yellowstone National Park – many more
Continue reading →

Curious Cat Articles

Posted on July 29, 2006  Comments (0)

We have added several articles to Curious Cat Articles. Recent articles added include several by Katie Gatto: Antibiotic Resistance and You, Cost of Health Care, To go or not to go, when is a virtual internship right for you? and 30 Year Old Intern.

Other articles include: Manage what you can’t measure by John Hunter and Invest in New Management Methods by William G. Hunter.

Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky

Posted on July 19, 2006  Comments (1)

photo of Shaker Bedroom by John Hunter

Photos from my visit to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, Kentucky. The design of the spaces (living and working) and tools was beautiful and, in fact, very much reminiscent of lean thinking ideas like 5s.

On this trip, I also visited the Abbey of Gethsemani (where Thomas Merton was a monk) and Louisville.
Continue reading →

Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog

Posted on June 17, 2006  Comments (0)

We have updated the design of the Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog. Please share your comments on the design: we plan on moving this blog to a similar design. Continue reading →

New York City Photos

Posted on May 27, 2006  Comments (0)

Egyptian Art, the Met, NYC

Irises by Vincent van Gogh, the Met, NYC

These photos are from my New York City trip in 2005, see more photos of: Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). The Met is an incredible museum with a huge amount of amazing art. Continue reading →

Shenandoah National Park Photos

Posted on March 26, 2006  Comments (0)

Topic: ,

photo of vista in Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, lies in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a few hours from Washington DC. Skyline Drive runs the length of the park as does the Appalachian Trail. I hiked several trails in October, 2004 and took these pictures.
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NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge

Posted on March 13, 2006  Comments (0)

Once again I have created a group on the ESPN NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge for curiouscat basketball fans.

To play, sign in to ESPN and register, if you need to, or sign into your account (using the link at the very top of the page).

Once you create your entry, you will see a link to “create or join groups.” Click that link. Then enter curiouscat in the find group box. Select the curiouscat group and enter cat as the password.

Glacier National Park photos

Posted on January 1, 2006  Comments (0)

I have posted photos from one of my most enjoyable days from last year: photos from hikes in Glacier Waterton International Peace Park


Me on the top of the Bear’s Hump trail in the park, Waterton, Canada. A great, very steep trail.
Continue reading →

Engineering Education: China, India and the USA

Posted on December 13, 2005  Comments (0)

I just added a post, USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates, to our Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog on a new report from Duke concerning data on engineering degrees from China, India and the USA: Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate. I think it is a great report. If you have any interest in this topic I strongly recommend it.

Related posts:

Firefox 1.5 and Rollyo

Posted on November 29, 2005  Comments (1)

The new Firefox 1.5 web browser is available. It is a great browser I have been using for at least a year. It is free, secure and has great features.

You can also try a search “roll” I have setup for the various curiouscat.com sites (via Rollyo). This allows you to search those sites I have included in the “roll” and only those sites.

I have also setup a management “roll” which includes some of my favorite management sites. This is a great tool that lets you search a predefined list of sites (including blogs). You can also setup your own “rolls.” I think this is a very nice feature, let me know what you think.

You can add these search rolls to your Firefox search box (so you can select to search using Google, Yahoo… or one of these search rolls).

Also, if you have not looked at Open Office yet, take a look at it also (previous post: OpenOffice 2.0). We also have a page with some of the freeware we think is worthwhile.

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