Guest post from John McConnell, Wysowl Pty Ltd

Dr. Deming opened his first Australian seminar in 1986 with the question, “What are we here to do”? After some discussion he answered his own question with, “To learn”, and “To have a good time”.

He repeated this opening at subsequent seminars.

The Fifteenth Point
Mr. Murray Mansfield of Melbourne has what I believe to be the only completely up to date version of Dr. Deming’s famous Obligations for Top Management. After a long discussion with Murray during his last Australian seminar, Dr. Deming agreed that there ought to be a fifteenth point. He took Murray’s notes turned to the page containing the fourteen points and at the foot of the page wrote:

15.     Have a good time!

Related: I Don’t Know - Find Joy and Success in Business - posts on respect for people - Destroyed by Best Efforts - Lets Play Work - Seven (plus 2) Deadly Diseases of Western Management

Malcolm Gladwell presented at the New Yorker conference on the Challenge of Hiring in the Modern World. As usually, he provides some great thoughts. I wrote on Hiring the Right Workers

Malcolm Gladwell doesn’t use the same language but I think he says many of the same ideas: “Insisting on managing by the numbers even when the most important figures are unknown and maybe unknowable.” etc. This idea he frames as a mismatch problem.

Related: Hiring: Silicon Valley Style - People are Our Most Important Asset - Malcolm Gladwell Synchronicity - Hiring, Does College Matter? - Interviewing and Hiring Programmers - Gladwell (and Drucker) on Pensions

Here are the blog posts from 3 years ago this month on the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog: From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking - Targets Distorting the System - Dilbert and Deming.

The Dilbert site has learned to take advantage of the web and allow embedding of the strips on blogs and web pages. Good for them, but you really would have thought they would have lead this trend not delayed so long.

David Heinemeier Hansson Talk at Startup School 2008 (Paul Graham’s Y-combinator school). It is helpful to appreciate the importance of some simple ideas. Working on web focused businesses people often get carried away with the huge potential and sometimes lose touch with reality. While the ideas are more obvious when looking at web related business their is plenty here for many companies (the second half might be more helpful for many).

In this talk David does a great job of explaining how 37 signals has chosen to work. They are not concerned with becoming large. They focus on doing what they want to do - creating great software solutions (see: Systemic Workplace Experiments). And on making money to allow them to stay in business.

Some tidbits of advice: create great applications, charge people money, make a profit. Yes to those outside the web world this might seem obvious… He discusses a very similar idea to the idea of 1,000 true fans. He mentions to bring in a $1 million, all you need is 2,000 customers paying $40/month. 37 Signals has done well focusing on small business. Don’t be in such a hurry.

Related: Why is 37signals so arrogant? - Complicating Simplicity - Joy in Software Development - Great Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation

Kiva provides loans through partners (operating in the countries) to the entrepreneurs. Those partners do charge the entrepreneurs interest (to fund the operations of the lending partner). Kiva pays the principle back to you but does not pay interest. And if the entrepreneur defaults then you do not get your capital paid back (in other words you lose the money you loaned).

They do an excellent job of using the internet to allow people like me to feel connected to people we can help. And in so doing, they do an excellent job of implementing their strategy (providing funds for micro-loans) to achieve their goal (to alleviate poverty). “Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.”

Today I added $450 to my loan portfolio with Kiva and donated another $100 to Kiva. I added 5 loans in: Tanzania (2 loans), Uganda, Paraguay and Ecuador.

I am happy with the success of the Curious Cat blogs but I do have one item I wish would improve. I wish more Curious Cat readers would take advantage of Kiva. If you lend through Kiva, please add a comment with a link to your Kiva page and I will add you to our list of Curious Cat Kiva Contributors.

The Kiva web site includes all sorts of data on the partners making the loans (the capital at risk is provided by Kiva donors but a local organization services the loans…). For example, see the profile for Tujijenge Tanzania Ltd. This shows for example the Amount Repaid Vs Expected Rate (100% for this partner - no defaults or delinquency). The rates for all Kiva loans are 3.75% delinquent and .12% defaulted. They also show the Average Interest Rate Borrower Pays To Kiva Field Partner (which is 24% in this example) and the Average Local Money Lender Interest Rate (which is 60%).

One of things I really hope to see is some research on the results Kiva is producing. What kind of changes are these loans bringing about: specifically looking at Kiva. And also looking at various factors such as the interest rate and whether targeting my lending to those with lower average rates results in greater benefit. There is a great deal of unknown and unknowable numbers involved but some data would be interesting as well as analysis even without numbers of results.

Related: Using Capitalism to Make the World Better - Frontline Explores Kiva in Uganda - Providing a Helping Hand via Kiva - Expanding Credit Access: Using Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts - Microfinance research links

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

This year we also have a second challenge, using sportsline, that rewards picking upsets. So those that enjoy the tournament please join the fun. The password for this one is cat

Go Badgers and Go Davidson,

Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car would be powered by compressed air. Certainly seem like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production:

The car is said to have a driving range of 125 miles so by my calculation it would cost about 1.6 cents per mile. A car that gets 31 mpg would use 4 gallons to go 124 miles. At $3 a gallon for gas, the cost is $12 for fuel or about 9.7 cents per mile. I didn’t notice anything about maintenance costs. I don’t see any reason why the Air Car would cost more to maintain than a normal car. Five-seat concept car runs on air

Now does that sound like the Toyota Production System to you? It should. If I were an executive at Toyota I would sure examine this to see if it really is as promising as it looks. And if it is Toyota sure has plenty of cash and the management practice to make a very compelling case for allowing Toyota to produce this globally. The engineers desires closely match what Toyota has learned. Both seek to eliminate the waste of transportation (friction).

Related: Click Fraud = Friction for Google - Manufacturing Takes off in India - Electric Automobiles

Latest robot in Toyota’s line showcases violin skills

As I have mentioned before Toyota continues to invest and plan for the long term. And that future is not limited to automobile manufacture. We posted previously on Toyota’s partner robots. The Curious Cat Engineering Blog Robotics category has a great deal of posts on robots.

On the Toyota web site they list the following areas of non-automotive Toyota business (I don’t understand why robots are not included here): financial services, new business enterprises, marine and most surprisingly Biotechnology and Afforestation.

Related: Toyota as Homebuilder - Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind - Toyota’s iUnit webcast (personal transport) - Toyota’s Early History - Interview with Toyota President - More on Non-Auto Toyota - 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update
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“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
- George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

That quote sprang to mind when I read the great post - In praise of the lazy employee

My view of myself places me in both of these camps (lazy and unreasonable). But, honestly, I have become more reasonable over time and while it makes me less difficult to put up with I think I am less effective (my performance appraisals are more positive so maybe I am wrong or maybe my opinion of performance appraisals is right).

I have mentioned Kiva before: Microfinancing Entrepreneurs (on our Curious Cat Economics and Investing blog). In addition to being a good cause Kiva really shows some great management strategies. The use of Information Technology to connect people directly is a wonderful example of using IT effectively (understanding psychology).

Kiva lets you loan money directly to an entrepreneur of your choice. Kiva provides loans through partners (operating in the countries) to the entrepreneurs. Those partners do charge the entrepreneurs interest (to fund the operations of the lending partner). Kiva pays the principle back to you but does not pay interest. And if the entrepreneur defaults then you do not get your capital paid back (in other words you lose the money you loaned). I plan to just recycle repaid loans to other entrepreneurs.

I have just placed an additional $150 in loans to 6 business entrepreneurs (in Honduras, Indonesia[2 loans], Tajikistan, Uganda and Ukraine), along with a $100 donation to Kiva (adding to my previous Kiva loans of $350). Since our last post the Oprah Winfrey Show, President Clinton’s newly released book Giving and others have sung the praises of Kiva and made it a challenge to find entrepreneurs of Kiva to lend to (Kiva is working on building their capacity - to keep up with the demand. That seems to have been partially fixed (for awhile the supply of the entrepreneurs was completely exhausted) in last few weeks (though still they limit you to no more than $25 per entrepreneur - in order to allow the large numbers of people that want to lend to at least have the chance to loan something).

If you lend through Kiva, add a comment with a link to your Kiva page and I will add you to our list of Curious Cat Kivans.

Related: Kiva: Microfinance Loans - helping people succeed economically - Thinking About the Future

Comic by Joe Sayers, Wanna play work?

A good laugh, but also a reminder of an important idea. We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking I know). Read the respect for people posts for some ideas on how to make your workplace better. If you think a new job might be the answer - find management improvement jobs via Curious Cat Career Connections.

People are entitled to joy in work - Dr. W. Edwards Deming

Related: What Business Can Learn from Open Source - Stop Demotivating Employees

Google Gadgets are small tools and toys that integrate with iGoogle. Google is funding developers to work on creating gadgets through Google Gadget Ventures. Great idea. They offer:

1. Grants of $5,000 to those who’ve built gadgets we’d like to see developed further. You’re eligible to apply for a grant if you’ve developed a gadget that’s in our Google gadgets directory and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views. To apply, you must submit a one-page proposal detailing how you’d use the grant to improve your gadget.
2. Seed investments of $100,000 to developers who’d like to build a business around the Google gadgets platform. Only Google Gadget Venture grant recipients are eligible for this type of funding. Submitting a business plan detailing how you plan to build a viable business around the gadgets platform is a required part of the seed investment application process.

Google continue to make good moves to manage in a new world. With this program they are not investing in creating an infrastructure to develop software, support software, hire staff… Instead they get to tap the drive and capabilities of those developers working on products which increase the value of iGoogle through small cash incentives. Previously they offered Google Gadget Awards. They also fund Google summer code - to support software developers creating open source software and reducing computer waste (where they didn’t stop with improving the servers they use but to making a broader impact on society). They really do a great job of leveraging their efforts well.

Related: Google Innovation and Entrepreneurship - Google Custom Management Improvement Search Engine - Experiment Quickly and Often - Innovate or Avoid Risk

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.
…
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
…
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

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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Fun A4 Paper Art - unrelated to an A3 report. Another innovative use of paper: Teaching Engineers Experimental Design With a Paper Helicopter by George Box.

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,

This podcast on Lego Mindstorms NXT, Lead Users, and Viral Marketing is interesting. The discussion does a good job of explaining how factors like web 2.0 and “open source” can allow business to operate in a new way and take advantage of new opportunities. Understanding these ideas is much more innovative than most of what I read in the “business press.” And the message is explained clearly, so one does not need to understand these concepts to appreciate the business opportunities. See links below: Lego Mindstorms are also just cool.

via: eContent

Related: Open Source for LEGO Mindstorms - Lego Learning - science and engineering podcast libraries - Gadgets and Gifts - Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation - Better and Different

Ok, I am going to build upon the z-list meme. Hopefully my modification will be seen as acceptable. I have modified the zlist to shorten it to management related blogs. I was added to one with: Making Z-List and Checking It Twice. I don’t really see how Seth’s blog is a “z-list blog” [more like a-list] but it is the first place I saw the a z-list and knowHR included it and it is excellent so I included it.

Management Z-List:

Bob Sutton
Creating Passionate Users
Seth Godin
KnowHR Blog
Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
Chief Happiness Officer
H.R. eSources
Lean Blog
Evolving Excellence
Panta Rei
Shmula
Got Boondoggle?
Lean Builder

For other bloggers that want to pick this up and add to it (via the KnowHR): “The trick is to pick up this list from here and add your blog to the bottom along with a few more Z-List links that you think people should know about. I copied the list from Seth by grabbing links in the page source…you can do the same.”

I received a custom made photo book from my brother. It is amazing. It is a hardcover book, full of photos. The quality is amazing. The book is printed by blurb. Looking on their web site the pricing is surprisingly cheap: 150 page full color hardcover book - $39.95 (for 1 copy! - 10% discount at 25 copies…), as little as $18.95 for a full color softcover book up to 40 pages. The site says books are normally printed in under a week.

I have not tried it but it appears printing your own great looking book is about as easy as creating a blog. I knew it was getting easier to print books, but still I find this very cool. Blurb can import photos from Flickr and Picasa.

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