Mar 31, 2011 | Collaboration, Social Media
Social media can be seductive, the chase for the raw numbers, without considering the quality of the numbers.
I am little different, I like to see the numbers, which whilst relatively low, are steadily building on this blog, as the scattered individuals who find value in what I write slowly find me, and offer the opportunity to engage. However, amongst those who find me are those who will never take any value, or add any value to the content and debate I try to encourage, or who just want to sell me something. No use to me, or readers of this blog, so they must be filtered out, or they dilute the value.
Analysing the numbers becomes increasingly important as they grow, because in order to engage effectively, you must filter the electronic wheat from the chaff.
There are many tools to do this, Google analytics being the best known and widely used, but for a 60 year old non techo to install it on this WordPress hosted blog proved to be difficult, until this suggestion came along.
Thanks Paul.
Hopefully I can add some value by posting the link that will assist others as it helped me.
Mar 30, 2011 | Lean, Management, Operations
The clarion call for improvement, in everything from the minor shop floor activities to big picture strategic implementation is clear. We all need to do more with less, and this requires that we identify which bits of our current activities should be changed, redirected, or trashed.
In effect, there are three questions that should be answered:
- What are the underlying drivers or causes of problems?
- How can we build predictability of outcomes from any particular activity, and group of activities?
- How can we ensure the mistakes of yesterday are not repeated today?
These seemingly simple questions lie at the core of all improvement I initiatives.
Mar 28, 2011 | Lean, Operations
Another story about a US company going against the trend and “on-shoring” to shorten supply times, improve quality and certainty, and gain control over their operations.
Forward thinking companies in developed economies are starting to recognise that manufacturing is a foundation stone of innovation, that manufacturing really matters, despite the decades of being told it does not.
Previously, I have made the point that labor costs alone do not make the case for producing product off-shore, largely in China, and the message seems to be filtering through, as firms start to rethink and bring manufacturing home.
Labor costs are easily measured in the P&L, so can be cut, but time is not measured by traditional accounting, making cutting it a less obvious benefit to many, but if you ask a consumer when they want a product, the answer is usually “now”.
Besides, the bean-counters do not mind inventory, as it is in the books as an asset, not usually measured by cycle time, and the velocity of cash through a business. Not checking item level inventory and cash velocity through a business is like a doctor not taking your blood pressure and heart rate at in a check-up.
Mar 27, 2011 | Customers, Lean, Marketing
Last week I had a problem with my mobile internet connection when changing plans. Usually a simple process, something went array in the supplier, and I could not connect and as the “new improved” plan rolled into service, I had nothing, at a most inconvenient time.
I got onto the carrier, and their technical help desk fixed it quickly by stepping me through a process on my computer. All that is OK, but it seemed that the problem should never have been occurred, so fixing it quickly was good, but it was just bolting the stable door.
The following day I got a call from a researcher setting out to get my feedback on my experience with their techos. A very polite young lady, whose first language was not English took me though a series of 1-10 options ranging from outstanding to poor along a number of parameters, each sought measures of my experience with the technician. He scored very well. However, she did not have any questions about the cause of the problem, or how I felt about the fact that it happened, and when I tried to explain that my high marks for the tech assistance should not be confused with the dismay at having had the problem, it all got too much for her.
Customer service is all about preventing problems in the first place, when you cause them your customers are grateful that they were fixed, but will not necessarily forgive you for causing them. To be effective at improving service, they should have investigated the cause of the problem, so they could take steps to prevent it happening again, not check that an empty stable had been well cleaned.
Mar 24, 2011 | Change, Personal Rant
I am getting pretty sick of being told by blathering pollies and nuts from both sides that I am either:
1. An ignorant climate change skeptic, or
2. A proponent of a new tax that will the “roon of us all”
Both are wrong, I am neither, yet there appears to be no sensible middle ground in what passes for debate in this country. It seems that if you oppose the tax, by definition you do not accept climate change, and our part in it as fact, but equally, if you accept climate change, it seems you must by definition, be in favour of the tax. This either/or logic is fundamentally flawed, or more plainly, crap. It is not a game of mutual exclusion.
In fact I:
- Am a believer in the impact humans have had on the climate, and that we need to do something about it or our kids and grandkids will have a huge bill to pay. The weight of scientific opinion appears compelling, and
- I am an opponent of the carbon tax as it has been pronounced, as I see little value in adding more burden onto the already fragile part of the economy that is not mining by making them more uncompetitive by the addition of a further cost impost relative to their international competitors than they currently are.
Imposing a carbon tax knowing that it will do absolutely nothing for global warming, just export jobs and capital at an increasing rate seems to be a simple minded, shallow, and emotional response to what is really a fundamental and extremely serious challenge to Australia Pty Ltd, and we should treat it as such.
If we really want to take the lead to reduce carbon emissions from coal fired power stations, get serious and legislate to end coal mining, and subsidise the building of nuclear plants around the world contracted to use our uranium, offer free roof top units to all households (wouldn’t that make the pink batts rort look like Kindergarten time), and pour any money we have left into fuel cell, wind, and geothermal power innovation.
Such an extreme reaction is as dumb as what is being proposed, but just as simple.
