Tuesday, November 23, 2010

thank you

As a child growing up ten miles from the middle of nowhere, I enjoyed abundant wildlife in the woods surrounding our home.  Winter or summer, a gaggle of turkeys would walk close to the house, their shrill gobbles announcing their presence and calling us to the windows to watch them.

I think of these mornings especially around Thanksgiving.


Thank you for your support to WE llc and for following me on this blog!  Your comments and private emails encourage me to keep writing.  I've been nose to the grindstone on a recent project and have let a few weeks of blogging slip by.  I'll continue after the holidays.

I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

appropriate technology & right sizing


In his TED talk, Steven Johnson talked about using appropriate technology for your target user.  He talked about using technology that people were familiar with and could fix, operate, teach about, and the like.

Plunking a machine built for one company in a specific city or country, won’t necessarily work somewhere else. Remove to a second world country and it’s another ball of wax. I love that phrase, my grandfather used to use it.

Steven specifically cites an example in Africa about medical x-ray equipment built with car parts.  Why car parts?  He says it’s because Africans are really good at keeping their old cars running.  If the x-ray machine had parts like a car, it’d be familiar enough to encourage their fixing, right?  It’s true.

Where else are they really good at keeping their cars running?

Mexico.

I visited Mexico for the first time in 1998.  Right away I noticed all the old model cars on the road. I actually recall saying out loud, “they really know how to keep their cars running.  Are you designing equipment for Mexico?  Maybe listen to Steven’s talk again before your next design review.

Organizational systems can be similarly designed to fit the culture and size of a company.  What works for a 500 person organization will be a tad cumbersome for a 12 person operation.  I’m working on right-sizing a Quality Management System currently.  While it’s always a goal to minimize paperwork, it will be especially critical to minimize control and documentation for a team where each member wears many hats. 

This right sizing will start with leaner processes and combining of tasks to keep it as simple as possible.  That acronym didn’t catch on for nothing.

What in your job is really painful - paperwork or process wise?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

participation

When you participate:

  • you effect,
  • you change,
  • you experience.

As much as we’re the same, I find that we’re also very much unique in how we approach oppor- tunities and problems.  (For example, several of you will look at those two words and think them the same thing)

This unique quality is what I love about working in teams.  Team work simply makes whatever it is you’re working on better.  Constructive participation by everyone creates trust, confidence, momentum, and a better product.

Similarly, participation in our community will make everything better too –

  • If you volunteer, you directly effect the quality of someone’s life
  • If you donate, you increase the security of someone’s life
  • If you help your neighbor, your relationship is stronger, he’s encouraged to help someone else, your neighborhood is better, and it spreads.
  • If you vote, your country will have leaders who represent its views

In my opinion of course.

Please vote today.