Maintaining product quality should always start from the source. This means that quality control should be enforced across a company's supply chain. A failure in any part of the supply chain will affect the quality of the end product.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
The Empathic Civilization: The Evolution of Empathy, and how it has shaped civilisations
An animated video of how empathy has such a profound impact in the various civilisations that rose, and fell across the ages.
How much does it cost to be Batman? The financial dark side of being an anti-hero.
Do you want to be a hero? Well, it doesn't come cheap to save a city, much less the world. Being the most realistic non-meta anti-hero in the DC, Marvel, and other comic superhero universes, it takes a lot of more than good looks, and a 'spiffy' costume to maintain a consistent performance in saving the day.
By the way, having a trusty butler is not only handy, but a priceless asset. No superhero sidekick would make sure that you are properly taken cared of, such as the making sure that you're properly fed, and a consistent laundry schedule that ensures you have a costume available in your every foray against the bad guys. Personally, I think a trusty accountant should be considered as essential; a bean counter will make sure that you have enough funds to purchase the next generation of villain-neutralising gadgets.
Is Big Data Bullshit? (Babbage; The Economist)
THE IPCC on mitigating climate change, the big data backlash and reusable rockets.
It's interesting to note that such macro issues can, and will have an impact to our daily lives in the very near future.
http://econ.st/1h3MrES
Evolution of Knowledge Management
There's knowledge, and there's its management as well. A lack of a storing and management system of information means that knowledge cannot be accumulated for future use. We have come a long way from the oral tradition of passing knowledge to the next generation. However, there's always room for more improvement, as we move to the digital age.
Pets: How to look out for signs of heatstroke
For pet owners, especially of dogs, do keep a lookout for signs of heatstroke during the warm season. It may not be rocket science, but the fact is that they can't talk, so they can't directly tell you that they're hot and thirsty.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Where did all those corporate jargons come from? Well, Emma Green of The Atlantic has an idea.
The Origins of Office Speak What corporate buzzwords reveal about the history of work (and what a corporate-buzzword quiz reveals about you)
Where and how did the office jargons we use came about is not really a mystery. You just need to read the article by Emma Green from The Atlantic. Just click the link above.
And if you have time, why not try out the What Kind of Office Speak Dominates Your Brain quiz. I already took the quiz, but I'm not telling... (-;
The Economist explains: Why doing a cost-benefit analysis is harder than it looks
The Economist explains: Why doing a cost-benefit analysis is harder than it looks
WHEN it comes to assessing the viability of a large project, governments are increasingly likely to commission a cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The aim is to provide an impartial, evidence-based judgment of the costs and benefits of a particular policy or project, without regard to its political ramifications. The British government is particularly keen on CBAs: having pioneered their use in the 1960s it has recently relied on them to make the case for HS2, a controversial high-speed rail link between London, Birmingham and Manchester, and to justify a cull of badgers in the countryside. In theory, putting together a CBA is simple: you simply tot up the costs in one column and the benefits in another. But the reality is rather more complex. With large amounts of money at stake and projects that can last for decades, economists have to use a number of wonkish techniques, some of which are controversial, to come up with a decent CBA. How do they do it?
The simplest and most important concept is a dull economic term: “consumer surplus”. This is the difference between what you are willing to pay for something and what you end up paying. If you’re willing to spend £1 on an apple, but get it for 40 pence, your consumer surplus is 60 pence. Consumer surplus is important because big projects like railways are often not sustainable from a purely commercial perspective. In the case of HS2 one estimate puts the expected revenue from fares at £15 billion, but the overall costs at £25.5 billion. But that is potentially a narrow way at looking at the benefits of such a project. Governments can also look at what they are saving citizens. Consider the case of someone who is used to paying £100 to get from Manchester to London. If HS2 is built, they could pay £40. The commercial benefit of the project is a mere £40; but the CBA will take into account the £60 worth of consumer surplus as well (because that sum is, in effect, unlocked to be spent on other things). Big infrastructural projects often make economic sense only when consumer surplus is taken into account.
To make costs and benefits fully comparable, further economic trickery is needed. Adjusting for inflation is an obvious first step. Then you must convert the calculated costs and benefits at various times to values at a single point in time, so that they can be compared. Economists refer to this as “net present value”. Wonks also need to think about how money invested in a project might be better spent. The government could just choose to shove the money into a bank account and gather the interest, or invest instead in another project that offers higher returns. Economists call this idea the “opportunity cost of capital”. There are no golden rules for choosing the appropriate rate—sometimes called the “discount rate”, though it often corresponds to what people could get by buying government bonds. In an analysis of the badger cull the British government went for 3.5%. The higher the discount rate, the smaller the future benefits will seem. Some worry that those opposed to big investment projects deliberately exaggerate discount rates.
As CBA has become integral to large projects, the limitations to its methodology have come under greater scrutiny. CBAs struggle to put monetary values on things like environmental quality. Crafty economists try to get around this problem by calculating “willingness to pay”: working out how much money someone would spend to clean the air or purify water. In addition, no two CBAs are alike, so it is hard to compare different studies. And sometimes the assumptions can be heroic, to say the least. An early analysis of HS2 claimed that people did not do any work on trains, thereby increasing the benefit of shorter journey times. This idea was subsequently scrapped and the focus became more on the economic benefits to the north. But despite being controversial CBAs are popular. Governments will rarely approve a big project without first submitting their proposal for wonkish scrutiny.
The Best Ever Instant Noodles (It is the best for me, and I don't care what others may think)
Nothing beats a steaming bowl of Nissin's Sesame Oil Instant Noodles. It's a comfort food that is simple and exquisite in taste. I particularly like it Hong Kong-style. Who wouldn't? (-;
When in Hong Kong...
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
9 Ways To Miss The Mark With Your Infographic
Yes, it's true; producing an infographic doesn't mean that it's automatically a good one. See the 9 ways how you can mess up your infographic.
For those that cares to have more details, read on: 9 Reasons Why Your Infographic Stinks
How much food do we waste?
A simple infographic that shows how much food and water is wasted in one of the most industrialized country in the world. Mind you that the impact to those in the lower rung of the social ladder is tremendous, as indiscriminate wastage is a factor in a price inflation of goods related to food and water.
This infographic only shows food and water wastage in a country; imagine how the figures would look like if all countries were factored in. We only live in this planet, and there's nowhere else to go. Minimizing food and water wastage is one major facet of maintaining a more sustainable economic activity in the world. In the simplest of terms, minimizing food and water wastage 'will help more hungry people be less hungry.'
The Wheel of Productivity: What do you with your time? You'd be surprised!
What do you exactly do with your time? Are you 'productive' in how you use the time available in a day, sans the standard 8 hours of sleep? One way to measure in how productive you are with your time is to use the The Wheel of Productivity. It's a simple measuring tool that can give you an overview of your time-usage productivity level, thereby pointing out where improvements can be made.
With 3 simple steps, you can easily try it out. So what's stopping you?
.JPG)
Keep It Simple - How Apple Went from Underdog to Cult in Six Design and Innovation Strategies from the Early Days
How did Apple do it? By 1997, Apple was keeling over, and believed to only have less than a decade before it disappears ignominiously into obscurity. Then Steve Jobs came back on-board in the same year, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Apple is considered as one of the most valuable company, if not the most, in the world. It has a stock valuation of over USD$500 billion, and a cash reserve of nearly USD$150 billion. No other company, except Google perhaps, has such influence, and leverage in the technology industry.
It was Steve Jobs who rescued Apple from the brink; and one his central tenets is to 'keep it simple.' By streamlining, and 'keeping the product line simple', Apple was able to concentrate resources of products with market viability in their respective target demographics. He passed away in 2011, but his legacy, and impact in the world of consumer hardware and software cannot be denied.
There are other strategies Apple pursued under Steve Jobs, and these are the following:
- Make Apple’s design a game changer again … by returning to the classic values of “simple is best,” invigorating the products through fresh ideas, and re-focusing the overstretched product lineup.
- Make peace with Microsoft and Bill Gates. The Macintosh platform had been eroded to low single-digits market share, and Apple needed to tap into the life-saving software suite, Microsoft Office. Therefore Steve had to repair Apple’s relationship with Microsoft. In the “peace talks” that followed, Bill Gates actually came to Steve’s family home in Palo Alto and, during several walks around the block the two men forged the beginnings of a working relationship. Afterward, Microsoft invested $50 million in Apple. The announcement of their alliance at the MacWorld conference in Boston was greeted with boos from Apple’s die-hard fans, but both the alliance and Microsoft’s support built trust in the marketplace — and helped Apple’s battered balance sheet.
- Make Apple a leader in “digital consumer technology” by converging “consumer electronics” into digital technology and media content. Convergence already was a reality; computing and communication were converging, along with media content from information to music to movies, with the Internet and the Worldwide Web providing an asynchronous distribution platform. Within the new marketplace these advancements were creating, Steve’s biggest concern was Sony, [which], as a leader in micro-electronics that also owned Sony Music and Sony Studios, could be Apple’s most dangerous competitor. But … Sony was asleep at the wheel, as was Samsung and a number of mobile phone companies such as Motorola and Nokia, who were expected to move into the emerging market of universal digital convergence. These companies made good and well-designed products, but they didn’t understand that they actually were putting computers into people’s hands, which could enable them for a totally new experience and culture. . . . We advised Steve to take on the competition with a product strategy focused on people’s real needs and proven innovations — a strategy that would avoid stupid risks. Instead of looking for inspiration in the developments of its existing and potential competitors in the space of consumer technology — whether Dell, HP, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Samsung, Canon, or others — Apple needed to focus on creating new ways to exploit the potential of proven technology to fulfill people’s unrealized dreams. In fact, Apple had to make real the dreams people didn’t know were dreamable.
- Create a Virtual Apple “community.” By connecting its customers, followers and fans and enabling them to communicate with each other, Apple could establish its brand beyond technology, as part of a lifestyle. In that environment, innovation would be defined by what people could achieve with an Apple product, rather than by the product’s level of advanced technology.
- Out-innovate and integrate television, audio and communication into a new paradigm. We projected that digital technology was going to replace analog line-interlace standards in television (NTSC, SECAM and PAL) and so Apple should create its magic and put away with the primitive user interfaces that still reigned in those technologies. Sound had already made the digital leap, both in 44.1KHz CDs and 92KHz PCM tapes.
- Explore and pioneer smart physical-virtual devices and useful robotics. We encouraged Steve to make Apple interfaces “human,” with controls activated by gestures, speech and emotional sounds. We also recommended that Apple form strategic partnerships for co-creation with MIT and other top universities around the world with programs in mechatronics, nano technology and advanced brain research.
- (Jonathan Ive’s and Thomas Mayerhoffer’s sensational iMac design would become the urgently needed game changer, and Jonathan Ive also would reconnect Apple’s design approach to its Snow White roots. Steve made the right move and had Jonathan Ive working as an Executive Vice President directly with him. Again, leadership in design was at the top, and ranked equally with all other top executives at Apple. . . . There is no other way to make design the core of a human-centric company.”
The Basics Of Being Strategic About Change (Erika Andersen, Forbes.com)
People have been uttering the phrase, 'Change is good', that it is becoming a cliche. Change is good, but the right question that one should ask is, when and how to change. Erika Andersen talks about change that should be pursued strategically.
Philip Evans: How data will transform business
What does the future of business look like? In an informative talk, Philip Evans gives a quick primer on two long-standing theories in strategy — and explains why he thinks they are essentially invalid.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)