need a business buzzword
my-wings
"re-engineering." I've got an assignment to find information on this topic,
and I haven't figured out any magic phrases to load into google that might
lead me to it.
Supposedly the activity is like re-engineering, but concentrates more on
where you want to be in the future than in analyzing what you did in the
past. To make it even more interesting, I won't recognize the term when I
see it because I've never heard it before. This is something my boss heard
that intrigued him, but he can't remember the term(s) that were used to
describe it. Presumably, he will recognize it when he hears it again.
I would appreciate any help or suggestions! (And I promise to report back if
any of them turn out to be the answer!)
Alice
John Dean
Izzat the old Disney thing - imagineering?
--
John Dean
Oxford
De-frag to reply
Martin Ambuhl
> I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes the next generation of
> "re-engineering." I've got an assignment to find information on this topic,
> and I haven't figured out any magic phrases to load into google that might
> lead me to it.
Try "re-inventing the wheel" and "repackaging old ideas and selling them
as new." The person who trades in his old lamps for new may be giving
away a fortune.
sand
Novotech
Jan Sand
sand
Sorry about that. I looked up novotech on google and there are
millions of firms that use it. But how about inoveering? Nobody so far
has that one.
Jan Sand
sand
>On Sat, 12 Apr 2003 22:17:36 +0300, sand <jan_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 12 Apr 2003 14:36:59 GMT, "my-wings"
>><night_...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>>I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes the next generation of
>>>"re-engineering." I've got an assignment to find information on this topic,
>>>and I haven't figured out any magic phrases to load into google that might
>>>lead me to it.
>>>
>>Novotech
>Sorry about that. I looked up novotech on google and there are
>millions of firms that use it. But how about inoveering? Nobody so far
>has that one.
One further thought. You might pick a bright mind from the past and
turn it into a verb, such as teslafying, edisonizing. davincizing etc.
Jan Sand
Ray Heindl
There's a book called "Beyond Reengineering: How the Process-Centered
Organization Is Changing Our Work and Our Lives", so maybe "process
centering" or something of the sort is what you're looking for.
Or there's "Beyond Reengineering: Toward the Holonic Enterprise". But
"holonic enterprise" sounds a bit too Star Trek for a good business
term.
Another title is "X-Engineering the Corporation", which sounds
promising. Or how about "Management by process", or MBP -- a term with
its own TLA must be a good one.
--
Ray Heindl
(remove the X to reply)
Jitze Couperus
<night_...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
One that was in fashion here just before the dot.com bust
was "intrapreneuring" or "the intra-preneurial approach" - the idea
is you encourage your worker droids to think and behave like
entrepreneurs, but within the confines of the team enterprise (sic)
Jitze
my-wings
"John Dean" <john...@frag.lineone.net> wrote in message
news:b79am3$gc3$1...@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
> my-wings wrote:
> > I'm looking for a word or phrase...<snip>
> >
> > Supposedly the activity is like re-engineering, but concentrates more
> > on where you want to be in the future than in analyzing what you did
> > in the past.
>
> --
That sounds way too fun for what I think management has in mind! (But I'll
see if it rings any bells with my boss...)
Thanks,
Alice
my-wings
"Martin Ambuhl" <mam...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:3E9861C6...@earthlink.net...
I'd be willing to bet that you've heard this one before:
"A consultant is somebody who borrows your watch and then charges you
$25,000 to tell you what time it is."
If only that were the only damage they caused!
Alice
speaking from experience
my-wings
news:47sg9vc27mlu0bd5f...@4ax.com...
An good collection of words for the next big idea in changing processes.
Right now, though, I'm looking for a word or phrase that's already emerging
so that I can learn the theory that drives it and produce reports that will
satisfy the people who think it's cool. (And I probably just dated myself
with THAT word!)
Thanks for your response, though!
Alice
my-wings
news:3e989652...@sd.znet.com...
> On Sat, 12 Apr 2003 14:36:59 GMT, "my-wings"
> <night_...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> >I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes the next generation of
> >"re-engineering."
<snip>
>
> One that was in fashion here just before the dot.com bust
> was "intrapreneuring" or "the intra-preneurial approach" - the idea
> is you encourage your worker droids to think and behave like
> entrepreneurs, but within the confines of the team enterprise (sic)
>
Oh, I remember this! After 30 years of watching business fads come and go,
I'm beginning to believe that there are really only two: centralization, and
decentralization. "Centralization" is responsible for the whole "command and
control", functional silos, rigid structures, etc. and "decentralization" is
the driving force behind cross functional work-groups, intrapreneures, and
the "empowered workforce." I'll bet there's (yet another) book in there for
somebody!
Alice
my-wings
"Ray Heindl" <rhe...@nccwx.net> wrote in message
news:Xns935BAC2F...@216.168.3.44...
> "my-wings" <night_...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes the next
> > generation of "re-engineering."
>
> There's a book called "Beyond Reengineering: How the Process-Centered
> Organization Is Changing Our Work and Our Lives", so maybe "process
> centering" or something of the sort is what you're looking for.
>
> Or there's "Beyond Reengineering: Toward the Holonic Enterprise". But
> "holonic enterprise" sounds a bit too Star Trek for a good business
> term.
>
> Another title is "X-Engineering the Corporation", which sounds
> promising. Or how about "Management by process", or MBP -- a term with
> its own TLA must be a good one.
>
By Jove! This sounds like the stuff! My money is on "process centered" or
the MBP thing. "Holonic" certainly might catch on, but my boss didn't
mention anything about "funny words."
Thanks so much! I'm going to use this as a place to start!
Alice
Skitt
> "Jitze Couperus" wrote
>> "my-wings" wrote:
>>> I'm looking for a word or phrase that describes the next generation
>>> of "re-engineering."
>
> <snip>
>>
>> One that was in fashion here just before the dot.com bust
>> was "intrapreneuring" or "the intra-preneurial approach" - the idea
>> is you encourage your worker droids to think and behave like
>> entrepreneurs, but within the confines of the team enterprise (sic)
>
> Oh, I remember this! After 30 years of watching business fads come
> and go, I'm beginning to believe that there are really only two:
> centralization, and decentralization. "Centralization" is responsible
> for the whole "command and control", functional silos, rigid
> structures, etc. and "decentralization" is the driving force behind
> cross functional work-groups, intrapreneures, and the "empowered
> workforce." I'll bet there's (yet another) book in there for somebody!
I'm sticking my neck way out on this one, but I have noticed that businesses
are now run by people with MBAs and not the experts in the particular
product line. I find it interesting that those MBAs have been taught by
people who never ran a business or produced a product of any kind. It all
makes me wonder, but it also explains some of the things that have been
happening with the books of some of our very large companies.
Shall I run and hide now? Perhaps I have misunderstood those mission and
vision statements, as well as the core purpose of the whole shtick.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel (Fawlty Towers)
R H Draney
"my-wings" says...
>
>Right now, though, I'm looking for a word or phrase that's already emerging
>so that I can learn the theory that drives it and produce reports that will
>satisfy the people who think it's cool. (And I probably just dated myself
>with THAT word!)
Yep...smack into the Fonzie folder!...(incidentally, for those who followed a
related thread here recently, there was some discussion of youngsters being
"grounded" in yesterday's "B.C." comic strip; in about a week I'll be able to
post a link to the strip)....
All seriousness aside, a couple of phrases I hear a lot that seem to touch on
the area your boss is interested in: "POA" (for "point of arrival") and "vision"
(sometimes "future vision", which in this context borders on the tautological,
but that's never stopped them before)....r
John Dean
If we're dusting off the old ones ...
A person flying in a hot air balloon realizes he is lost. He lowers the
balloon and spots a man down below.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" says the man in the balloon.
The man below says, "Yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above
this field."
"You must be a consultant," says the balloonist.
"I am," replies the man, "but how did you know?"
"Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically
correct, but it's of no use to anyone."
The man below says, "Then you must be a manager."
"I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going,
but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position as you
were before we met, but now it's my fault."
R F
> Right now, though, I'm looking for a word or phrase that's already emerging
> so that I can learn the theory that drives it and produce reports that will
> satisfy the people who think it's cool. (And I probably just dated myself
> with THAT word!)
That depends. What's your take on _West Side Story_?
my-wings
That's good, although I'm a little bothered about the implied sympathy for
the consultant. On the other hand, it does a nice job of slamming the
managers who hire them. :) For my money, some of the best consultant-bashing
occurs in the Dilbert cartoons, but since this is a non-binary group, just
the url will have to do: http://www.dilbert.com/
Alice
my-wings
"R F" <rf...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.44.030412...@sparky.cs.nyu.edu...
sleeves holding cigarette packs on the shoulders of guys with lots of grease
in their hair, some girl named Maria, and lots of singing and dancing at
what are no doubt wildly improbable moments.
Alice
culturally deprived
Tony Cooper
>I'm sticking my neck way out on this one, but I have noticed that businesses
>are now run by people with MBAs and not the experts in the particular
>product line. I find it interesting that those MBAs have been taught by
>people who never ran a business or produced a product of any kind. It all
>makes me wonder, but it also explains some of the things that have been
>happening with the books of some of our very large companies.
>
For your observation to have any merit, one would have to assume the
learning process of the CEO stops when leaving graduate school. Most
CEOs spend several years in business, functioning at several layers of
management, before they have a chance to run a company. They may have
acquired the basics of their thinking process from a person that has
never run a business, but they have also acquired the experience in
being in a business that you imply is not there.
I assume that thinking that being an expert in a particular product
line is a thinko rather than your real thoughts if you thought about
your thoughts. Product line experience as a requirement for CEOship
would require automobile executives to forever remain in the
transportation field, and cosmetic company executives to forever
remain in the perfume and powder industry.
In actuality, the nature of the product line is a fairly minimal
aspect to running a large organization. People, finance, cost
management, law, marketing concepts, and skills in many other areas
are far more important to successful top management than knowledge of
the product line.
If I were to hire an engineer, I might look to product line
experience. If I were to hire the boss of all engineers, I would look
for wider experience and for experience in other areas not unrelated
to product line.
--
Tony Cooper aka: tony_co...@yahoo.com
Provider of Jots, Tittles, and Oy!s
R J Valentine
It's got its "cool" moments, and it's a re-engineering of sorts. It's
even got a Tony.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net>
John Ritson
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> writes
>I assume that thinking that being an expert in a particular product
>line is a thinko rather than your real thoughts if you thought about
>your thoughts. Product line experience as a requirement for CEOship
>would require automobile executives to forever remain in the
>transportation field, and cosmetic company executives to forever
>remain in the perfume and powder industry.
>
>In actuality, the nature of the product line is a fairly minimal
>aspect to running a large organization. People, finance, cost
>management, law, marketing concepts, and skills in many other areas
>are far more important to successful top management than knowledge of
>the product line.
>
>If I were to hire an engineer, I might look to product line
>experience. If I were to hire the boss of all engineers, I would look
>for wider experience and for experience in other areas not unrelated
>to product line.
The danger comes when CEOs make the natural, flattering assumption that
increases in company profits must be due to their own management skills
rather than to a general boom in their sector. They then search for new
sectors in which to apply their superb management skills and spend the
corporate profits on buying into new areas, possibly encouraged by
incentive schemes based on raw corporate earnings . Billions are wasted
trying to hammer square pegs into round holes, treating retail
businesses as if they were heavy industry or vice versa. After a decade
or so, the next generation of management starts talking about 'focusing
on core business areas' and the cycle starts again.
--
John Ritson
my-wings
"Tony Cooper" <tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:hdph9vcbmt0hk85rv...@4ax.com...<snip>
>
> I assume that thinking that being an expert in a particular product
> line is a thinko rather than your real thoughts if you thought about
> your thoughts. Product line experience as a requirement for CEOship
> would require automobile executives to forever remain in the
> transportation field, and cosmetic company executives to forever
> remain in the perfume and powder industry.
>
> In actuality, the nature of the product line is a fairly minimal
> aspect to running a large organization. People, finance, cost
> management, law, marketing concepts, and skills in many other areas
> are far more important to successful top management than knowledge of
> the product line.
>
This management philosophy got its start in World War II, when Charles "Tex"
Thornton established a corp of Harvard-educated Statistical Control officers
to monitor and analyze anything and everything that could have a number
attached to it. He received a Legion of Merit medal towards the end of the
war for his efforts. After the war, he took ten of his top guys and made a
deal with Henry Ford II to come in and salvage the Ford Motor Company by the
same means. Hundreds of the managers that would later run other American
corporations were brought into and up through the Ford ranks, and the number
crunching "I don't need to know the product, just give me a calculator"
philosophy essentially set the standard for American business for the next
half-century. It has its drawbacks.
You might find the book _The Whiz Kids: Ten Founding Fathers of American
Business--and the Legacy They Left Us_ an interesting read. I know I did.
> If I were to hire an engineer, I might look to product line
> experience. If I were to hire the boss of all engineers, I would look
> for wider experience and for experience in other areas not unrelated
> to product line.
>
I agree that the skills needed to manage people (and corporations) are
different from the skills needed to design and manufacture products, but I
do not believe that top management can operate effectively when divorced
from an understanding of--even a passion for--the product itself. I spent
most of my career working in a subsidiary of a company in a totally separate
business. Some of the decisions made at the corporate level were, at best,
laughable. In some cases, they nearly put us out of business. In the end,
all of that fancy managing has to produce a product or service, and if a
company's top management doesn't feel that the product is the most important
part of its process, the company's customers surely will.
My personal take is that the best companies, both the work for and to buy
from, are those whose top management has a deep understanding of the
business.
Alice
did you touch on a hot button, or what?
Tony Cooper
<jo...@jritson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>The danger comes when CEOs make the natural, flattering assumption that
>increases in company profits must be due to their own management skills
>rather than to a general boom in their sector. They then search for new
>sectors in which to apply their superb management skills and spend the
>corporate profits on buying into new areas, possibly encouraged by
>incentive schemes based on raw corporate earnings
It wouldn't be so bad if they spent only the company profits.
Instead, the profits are spent on looking for the new sectors, and
then the company is immersed in debt following the pursuing the new
sector.
If your stock broker reported on a company that you were considering
investing in, and pointed out that "earnings have been flat", that is
considered a bad thing.
In actuality, that can mean that the company has been turning a profit
for several years, and continues to turn a profit. Knowing that
people will regard just turning a regular profit to be a bad thing,
the company might then embark on some new program involving heavy
costs, increased debt, and dilution of effectiveness in the primary
market. The company with flat earnings then becomes a company with
without earnings.
Tony Cooper
<night_...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>I agree that the skills needed to manage people (and corporations) are
>different from the skills needed to design and manufacture products, but I
>do not believe that top management can operate effectively when divorced
>from an understanding of--even a passion for--the product itself. I spent
>most of my career working in a subsidiary of a company in a totally separate
>business. Some of the decisions made at the corporate level were, at best,
>laughable. In some cases, they nearly put us out of business. In the end,
>all of that fancy managing has to produce a product or service, and if a
>company's top management doesn't feel that the product is the most important
>part of its process, the company's customers surely will.
I cannot say that I disagree with what you say, but I can't say I am
in full agreement with it. There was a time in American industry when
the top executive of the company knew the product as a matter of
course. The present nature of American industry no longer allows
that.
The CEO of the Ox-Bow Manufacturing Company, Inc knew ox-bows, how to
make them, how to sell them, and how to fit them on an ox, Then, he
added leather reins to the product line since the same people that
purchased ox-bows were in the market for reins. The CEO then had to
understand working with leather as well as working with wood and how
to know how to hire a good leatherworker as well as a good woodworker.
Then someone in authority from the village told the CEO that the
dumpings of the leather tanning processes were ruining the local water
table and affecting the taste of the locally produced moonshine. So,
the CEO had to curtail his interest in acquiring more knowledge about
making reins supple and learn about formulating chemicals that were
less harmful to the environment.
This new interest in chemicals led to the company adding a product
line of bag balm for bovines. This required the CEO to further divert
his involvement with methods of shaping ox-bows and smoothing the
brass rivets in rein making and to start a learning process on bovine
bag balm packaging methods.
The company, now known as OBMCo, so the market wouldn't niche them
into ox-bows, was then informed by another village official that the
employees that mixed the bag balm ingredients and the leather tanning
ingredients were exposed to dangers of inhalation, skin irritation,
and eye injuries. The CEO then had to become familiar with
occupational safety requirements and, eventually, the hiring of expert
witnesses and other legal defense gambits.
The CEO developed a series of Magic Lantern slides to train new
employees on safe working practices. Discussing this with the CEO of
a nearby manufacturer of ox-drawn plows at the Agricultural Machinery
Exposition, he found that there was a market in selling Magic Lantern
slide presentations to other businesses that were being harassed by
their local officials. So, he added a Magic Lantern slide
presentation studio and hired a group of clever writers to produce
scripts of the verbal portion of the slide show.
The clever writers found that being wordsmiths paid less money than
being blacksmiths, and staged a walk-out. The OBMCo CEO then spent
the next few weeks negotiating with the head script writer and the
brass stud pounding work group from the company's new fancy carriage
harness manufacturing division (an off-shoot of the ox reins division)
who had walked out in sympathy to the writers. It was a difficult
negotiation since the CEO wasn't really aware of the function of brass
stud pounders in fancy carriage harness making because he had been so
busy in other areas of the business.
The company formerly known as OBMCo, is now Ozalix International (a
name chosen by a computer generated random assignment of letters that
don't mean anything offensive in any language program) and builds
time-share resorts in Central America, operates a telecommunications
satellite system, manufactures Kevlar vests for American diplomats
abroad, owns a chain of discount dentistry clinics, and has several
joint-venture projects in the deep sea exploration field. The CEO
doesn't have the slightest idea of what else they presently
manufacture. He spends his time in Washington carrying bags of cash
to lobbyists that give Power Point presentations to Senators on
committees that allocate government bail-out funds. All he really
knows is that he has a helluva golden parachute contract.
Skitt
[...]
concluding with:
> The CEO
> doesn't have the slightest idea of what else they presently
> manufacture. He spends his time in Washington carrying bags of cash
> to lobbyists that give Power Point presentations to Senators on
> committees that allocate government bail-out funds. All he really
> knows is that he has a helluva golden parachute contract.
Precisely. That, and the company is losing money, but not according to its
cooked books. The end is near. What a way to run a business.
Ray Heindl
>
> "Ray Heindl" <rhe...@nccwx.net> wrote in message
> news:Xns935BAC2F...@216.168.3.44...
>> There's a book called "Beyond Reengineering: How the
>> Process-Centered Organization Is Changing Our Work and Our
>> Lives", so maybe "process centering" or something of the sort is
>> what you're looking for.
>>
>> Or there's "Beyond Reengineering: Toward the Holonic Enterprise".
>> But "holonic enterprise" sounds a bit too Star Trek for a good
>> business term.
>>
>> Another title is "X-Engineering the Corporation", which sounds
>> promising. Or how about "Management by process", or MBP -- a
>> term with its own TLA must be a good one.
>>
>
> By Jove! This sounds like the stuff! My money is on "process
> centered" or the MBP thing. "Holonic" certainly might catch on,
> but my boss didn't mention anything about "funny words."
>
> Thanks so much! I'm going to use this as a place to start!
Try a Google search for "beyond reengineering"; that's how I came up
with the above examples.
Ray Heindl
> An good collection of words for the next big idea in changing
> processes. Right now, though, I'm looking for a word or phrase
> that's already emerging so that I can learn the theory that drives
> it and produce reports that will satisfy the people who think it's
> cool. (And I probably just dated myself with THAT word!)
You can continue using the word, but spell it "k3wl" and everyone will
be awed by your hipness.
Mary Shafer
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>If I were to hire an engineer, I might look to product line
>experience. If I were to hire the boss of all engineers, I would look
>for wider experience and for experience in other areas not unrelated
>to product line.
This is the old "a good manager can manage anything" line and explains
how the current Administrator of NASA is unable to answer any question
more technical than "Can the Space Shuttle go to the Moon?" (No, it
can't.)
Accountants are not engineers and are not able to read a Schaum's
Guide and pretend. Nor can lawyers, which is why Congress told JPL it
couldn't do the whole Grand Tour but only half of it, as if they had a
choice.
Mary
--
Mary Shafer mil...@qnet.com
Retired aerospace engineer
"The guy you don't see will kill you." BGEN Robin Olds, USAF
Tony Cooper
>On Sun, 13 Apr 2003 00:38:04 -0400, Tony Cooper
><tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>If I were to hire an engineer, I might look to product line
>>experience. If I were to hire the boss of all engineers, I would look
>>for wider experience and for experience in other areas not unrelated
>>to product line.
>
>This is the old "a good manager can manage anything" line and explains
>how the current Administrator of NASA is unable to answer any question
>more technical than "Can the Space Shuttle go to the Moon?" (No, it
>can't.)
>
>Accountants are not engineers and are not able to read a Schaum's
>Guide and pretend. Nor can lawyers, which is why Congress told JPL it
>couldn't do the whole Grand Tour but only half of it, as if they had a
>choice.
This is the old "my industry is different" line. The fact that your
field presents some unique problems does not mean that all industries
and organizations present a similar set of unique problems.
I have no idea what a Schaum's Guide is, but it would be my guess that
aeronautical engineers wouldn't do much of a job in keeping the books.
Not that NASA cares about a plus or minus billion or so.
The question arises if it is O'Keefe's job to administer how to get to
the moon, or to administer a program that's objective is to get to the
moon. There is a difference.
The "get to the moon" is purely allegorical above.
Mary Shafer
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 13 Apr 2003 23:33:16 GMT, Mary Shafer <mil...@qnet.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sun, 13 Apr 2003 00:38:04 -0400, Tony Cooper
>><tony_co...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>If I were to hire an engineer, I might look to product line
>>>experience. If I were to hire the boss of all engineers, I would look
>>>for wider experience and for experience in other areas not unrelated
>>>to product line.
>>
>>This is the old "a good manager can manage anything" line and explains
>>how the current Administrator of NASA is unable to answer any question
>>more technical than "Can the Space Shuttle go to the Moon?" (No, it
>>can't.)
>>
>>Accountants are not engineers and are not able to read a Schaum's
>>Guide and pretend. Nor can lawyers, which is why Congress told JPL it
>>couldn't do the whole Grand Tour but only half of it, as if they had a
>>choice.
Schaum's are sort of the Cliff's Notes of the hard sciences.
>This is the old "my industry is different" line. The fact that your
>field presents some unique problems does not mean that all industries
>and organizations present a similar set of unique problems.
No, but managing certain kinds of organizations, such as research
organizations, requires a certain familiarity with the technical field
involved. Managers of manufacturing companies may indeed be fungible,
but managers of technology are not.
The president of Boeing who bet the company on the 747 did so knowing
the technical feasibility of the project. Someone who doesn't may
find themselves trying to manage a Mach-3 biplane design because they
don't know such an airplane is impossible.
The Red Cross has demonstrated the problems of having people
unfamiliar with the US blood supply system making decisions about that
supply. Or people unfamiliar with charitable giving habits managing
the distribution of charitable funds, such as diversion of funds given
for victims of 9/11 to other projects, including internal funding.
Not to mention the Concorde flights....
>I have no idea what a Schaum's Guide is, but it would be my guess that
>aeronautical engineers wouldn't do much of a job in keeping the books.
>Not that NASA cares about a plus or minus billion or so.
He wasn't hired to keep NASA's books. He was hired to be the NASA
Administrator, to manage the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration. He can't judge the value of aeronautical and space
projects because he just doesn't understand diddley about physical
science.
>The question arises if it is O'Keefe's job to administer how to get to
>the moon, or to administer a program that's objective is to get to the
>moon. There is a difference.
It's part of his job to answer questions about the Columbia accident,
which he doesn't appear to manage to do. He was so busy playing
political games, assuring the country that NASA would have done
everything it could have to save Columbia and the astronauts hadwe but
known, that he didn't get around to acknowledging that NASA did
exactly as much to save them on this flight as could have been done
had we known, which was nothing.
>The "get to the moon" is purely allegorical above.
Would that it weren't.
The point that the lawyers in Congress missed about the Grand Tour was
that the planets were lined up so that a mission to half of them, any
half, meant a mission to all of them, purely on the basis of orbital
mechanics. To say that JPL couldn't fly by all of them, only half, is
nonsense.
Peter Moylan
>I'm sticking my neck way out on this one, but I have noticed that businesses
>are now run by people with MBAs and not the experts in the particular
>product line. I find it interesting that those MBAs have been taught by
>people who never ran a business or produced a product of any kind. It all
>makes me wonder, but it also explains some of the things that have been
>happening with the books of some of our very large companies.
There does seem to be a growing trend towards having chief executives
who don't have the faintest idea what their company produces. This
is tied in with the current theory that you don't actually have to
produce anything to create wealth. The entire dot-com boom showed
that some people could amass large fortunes without having any
tangible product or service. Some of the corporate high-flyers
come from that culture; they, and the people who hire them, haven't
yet noticed that the bubble has burst.
Worse, the people who hire them never seem to notice that the
candidate's previous company is in deep trouble. Or perhaps they
just don't consider that that deep trouble could have something
to do with mismanagement.
At first sight there is nothing inherently wrong with having a
CEO who doesn't understand the business. That, after all, is the
job of people further down in the chain of command. The real
problems come in a less direct way, primarily (in my opinion) from
two causes.
1. If the management people make more money that those who
design and build things, that means they're more important. Right?
Right! So that means that the way to increase corporate profits
is to hire more managers and sack the production people. Look
at maintenance, for example. Least profitable division in the
entire company, and an obvious candidate for being closed down.
Don't laugh. Some of our very biggest companies are being run
(and run down) by people who think that way.
2. Commonly the people (engineers, for example) who deal with
tangible products are conservative thinkers who favour a steady
profit stream over a risky venture. The top managers got where
they are by being willing to take gambles; and gamblers, by
their nature, are likely to deemphasize the company's core business
and concentrate more on corporate takeovers, equities trading,
and so on.
Many of the recent major corporate failures occurred in businesses
that were fundamentally healthy at the production and sales
ends, but which were driven into bankruptcy by unwise investments.
>Shall I run and hide now? Perhaps I have misunderstood those mission and
>vision statements, as well as the core purpose of the whole shtick.
Mission and vision statements were and are part of the rot. They
are a sign that some bureaucrat has too much time on his or her hands.
In our last national census, one of the questions asked was "what is
the main activity of your employer". One of my colleagues
answered "Producing mission statements".
On a related topic: next to me is a box of printer paper, and on
the side of the box is the statement
"REFLEX is made in Australia to the stringent quality
requirements of International Standards Certification
under ISO 9001."
For those who don't know, ISO 9001 has absolutely nothing to do
with producing high-quality paper. It is, instead, a certification
that your business is suitably bogged down in red tape, i.e. that
you have diverted resources away from product quality in order
to become a major consumer of filing cabinets filled with
meaningless waffle. This is the concept known as Quality. The
people who wrote ISO 9001 had obviously never read "Zen and the
Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", and they most certainly would not
understand Dilbert.
--
Peter Moylan Peter....@newcastle.edu.au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software)
Tony Cooper
Moylan) wrote:
>Mission and vision statements were and are part of the rot. They
>are a sign that some bureaucrat has too much time on his or her hands.
I have spent most of my business life as an owner of a business.
Prior to starting my own business, I was employed by some major
corporations: a division of Dun & Bradstreet and a division of
American Hospital Supply Corporation.
I was once assigned to write a Mission Statement for one of those. It
was "Let Tony do it. He can write stuff." I did write it. It had
absolutely nothing to do with the corporation. I read a few Mission
Statements of other corporations, put together some "buzz phrases"
common to Mission Statements, used short, punchy sentences and
scannable paragraphing, and took it to the Corporate Group Vice
President. He glanced at it, said it sounded good, and it was printed
in the next Annual Report. To the best of my knowledge, no one in the
entire corporation other than the CGVP ever read it or knew about it.
Richard R. Hershberger
> Tony Cooper wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> concluding with:
>
> > The CEO
> > doesn't have the slightest idea of what else they presently
> > manufacture. He spends his time in Washington carrying bags of cash
> > to lobbyists that give Power Point presentations to Senators on
> > committees that allocate government bail-out funds. All he really
> > knows is that he has a helluva golden parachute contract.
>
> Precisely. That, and the company is losing money, but not according to its
> cooked books. The end is near. What a way to run a business.
Tony has a good point that it is impossible for senior management to
have intimate, hands-on experience with everything a large corporation
does. The problem I see is that this has led to the belief that
actually knowing something about what the company actually does is
irrelevant. By implication, therefore, learning about what the
company does is a waste of time better spent on the imporant task of
fiddling with spreadsheets. By further implication, anyone who *does*
actually know something about what the company actually does is not
executive material. A real executive will hire such a person, and
might even listen to his advice, but certainly doesn't let such a
person make actual decisions. This is an exaggerration, but not a
huge one.
Richard R. Hershberger
Robert Bannister
I see two sides to this. Firstly, when I was a teacher, there was a lot
of talk (so far not implemented) about selecting school principals from
business trained people rather than from teachers. This always seemed to
me to be a bad thing, but I'm not totally sure.
The other side is as you say. Did you ever read or hear of the "Peter
Principle"? It begins with an example of an expert craftsman being made
foreman. The person is gradually promoted until he/she reaches a level
at which he/she is totally incompetent, at which point he/she is
'promoted sideways', thus accounting for the large number of 'chiefs' in
big business. Again, I relate this to my own experience: I was, I
thought a fairly good teacher. I ended up Head of Department, where
although I was still teaching 4/5 of the time, my main duties, according
to my job description, were administrative - something in which I had no
training whatsoever. As it happened, I think I learned enough on the job
to make a good go of it, but I saw colleagues who definitely did not
measure up.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> In our last national census, one of the questions asked was "what is
> the main activity of your employer". One of my colleagues
> answered "Producing mission statements".
Ha! If only! What they actually do is demand the workers produce mission
statements, which the employer then has neatly bound and filed. It is
alleged they sometimes read them, but I doubt this.
--
Rob Bannister
Tony Cooper
<rob...@it.net.au> wrote:
>The other side is as you say. Did you ever read or hear of the "Peter
>Principle"? It begins with an example of an expert craftsman being made
>foreman. The person is gradually promoted until he/she reaches a level
>at which he/she is totally incompetent, at which point he/she is
>'promoted sideways', thus accounting for the large number of 'chiefs' in
>big business.
Certainly. It was the buzzword expression of the time: A man in
business will rise to the level of incompetence. We said that about
all of our bosses.
mickwick
My local parish council, a voluntary body with very limited powers, has
a brand new mission statement. It is included in an attractive 12-page
booklet I have just received called _Parish Plan: a blueprint for the
future_ and it is 125 words long. (That's one word for every two
households in the parish. The 'blueprint' itself is printed in full
colour on thick, glossy card and was developed at a cost of £26 per
household in the parish.[*])
There are a couple of oddities amongst all the usual platitudes and
buzz-phrases. One is this:
Provide a better need based quality of life
Does anyone know what that might mean?
And at one point in the Executive Summary, the phrase 'life time
learning' appears to be used as a euphemism for 'elderly'.
Provision of services for young indicated that over 55% said
they were inadequate; with 42% for mature and 17% for 'life time
learning' also recording inadequacy.
Have I got that right? That paragraph appears all by itself without any
further clues as to its meaning. (And I haven't missed any words out.)
[*]: Mostly met by a grant from the central government.
--
Mickwick
Donna Richoux
>
> My local parish council, a voluntary body with very limited powers, has
> a brand new mission statement. It is included in an attractive 12-page
> booklet I have just received called _Parish Plan: a blueprint for the
> future_ and it is 125 words long. (That's one word for every two
> households in the parish. The 'blueprint' itself is printed in full
> colour on thick, glossy card and was developed at a cost of £26 per
> household in the parish.[*])
>
> There are a couple of oddities amongst all the usual platitudes and
> buzz-phrases. One is this:
>
> Provide a better need based quality of life
>
> Does anyone know what that might mean?
>
> And at one point in the Executive Summary, the phrase 'life time
> learning' appears to be used as a euphemism for 'elderly'.
>
> Provision of services for young indicated that over 55% said
> they were inadequate; with 42% for mature and 17% for 'life time
> learning' also recording inadequacy.
>
> Have I got that right? That paragraph appears all by itself without any
> further clues as to its meaning. (And I haven't missed any words out.)
>
>
> [*]: Mostly met by a grant from the central government.
Well, it's hard to understand from what's given. But "life-time
learning" has a well-established meaning and it just doesn't make sense
that it could mean "elderly."
I suspect that what you're seeing is faulty parallel structure, and in
reality the survey had lines like these (among others):
Do you find provision of services for the young people in this parish to
be adequate? (55% said no.)
Do you find provision of services for the mature people in this parish
to be adequate? (42% said no.)
Do you find provision of services to promote lifetime learning in this
parish to be adequate? (17% said no.)
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> There are a couple of oddities amongst all the usual platitudes and
> buzz-phrases. One is this:
>
> Provide a better need based quality of life
>
> Does anyone know what that might mean?
[skipping the other one]
I work for the US Navy, so I know the symptoms of a dropped hyphen
when I see them. "Provide a better need-based quality of life."
"Need-based" means something like "responsive to need." Translation
-- Take care of people's needs."
Bob Lieblich
Almost ashamed of getting it
mickwick
>mickwick wrote:
>> There are a couple of oddities amongst all the usual platitudes and
>> buzz-phrases. One is this:
>>
>> Provide a better need based quality of life
>>
>> Does anyone know what that might mean?
>
>I work for the US Navy, so I know the symptoms of a dropped hyphen
>when I see them. "Provide a better need-based quality of life."
>"Need-based" means something like "responsive to need." Translation
>-- Take care of people's needs."
Thanks, but I had guessed about the 'need-based'. What I couldn't
(can't) understand is how a 'quality of life' can be 'need-based' - or,
more accurately, how a 'need-based quality of life' can be a good thing.
Even with your 'responsive to need' translation, it doesn't make any
sense: 'A quality of life that is responsive to need.'
I can see how being responsive to someone else's needs might improve
that someone's quality of life. But 'need-based' modifies 'quality of
life' not 'provide[r]' and a quality of life characterised as driven by
need sounds like breadline stuff to me. Either that or rampant
consumerism.
But I see that I asked what it might mean, not what it does mean. Your
rewriting - 'Take care of people's needs' - is probably what the writer
meant to say. So I'll stop going on about it.
--
Mickwick,
easily irritated by fatuous and expensive gibberish printed on glossy paper
mickwick
>mickwick <mick...@use.reply.to> wrote:
>> And at one point in the Executive Summary, the phrase 'life time
>> learning' appears to be used as a euphemism for 'elderly'.
>>
>> Provision of services for young indicated that over 55% said
>> they were inadequate; with 42% for mature and 17% for 'life time
>> learning' also recording inadequacy.
>>
>> Have I got that right? That paragraph appears all by itself without any
>> further clues as to its meaning. (And I haven't missed any words out.)
>
>Well, it's hard to understand from what's given. But "life-time
>learning" has a well-established meaning and it just doesn't make sense
>that it could mean "elderly."
>
>I suspect that what you're seeing is faulty parallel structure, and in
>reality the survey had lines like these (among others):
>
>Do you find provision of services for the young people in this parish to
>be adequate? (55% said no.)
>Do you find provision of services for the mature people in this parish
>to be adequate? (42% said no.)
>Do you find provision of services to promote lifetime learning in this
>parish to be adequate? (17% said no.)
I think you're right. I must have been blinded by irritation.
I still don't know what 'life-time learning' is, though. Akin to the
University of Life? Evening classes? Perpetual resits? (Rhetorical
questions. I'll Google in a minute and see if anything intelligible
crops up. Thanks for your help.)
--
Mickwick
mickwick
>I still don't know what 'life-time learning' is, though. Akin to the
>University of Life? Evening classes? Perpetual resits? (Rhetorical
>questions. I'll Google in a minute and see if anything intelligible
>crops up. Thanks for your help.)
Ah! Another problem.
'Lifetime learning' appears to mean 'Keeping up with the latest
developments in one's trade, usually on one's own initiative', or
perhaps 'Not assuming that a twenty-year-old qualification means you
still know what's what in your field but instead endeavouring to make
sure that you stay up-to-date by reading the relevant publications and
going on the relevant courses'.
What the hell does that have to do with a parish council?
It seems likely that if 17% said they thought the parish council's
provision for 'life time learning' was inadequate, at least 17% didn't
know what 'life time learning' meant.
Or perhaps they didn't know what a parish council does. I'm not too sure
myself but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve helping chicken-pluckers
stay abreast of the latest chicken-plucking techniques.
And another thing ...
--
Mickwick
Donna Richoux
In my experience, it covers all sorts of adult educational opportunities
-- recreational, personal, etc -- not just job training. The parish
might have been trying to get a very general sense of whether needs of
the people in the community were being met.
Maria Conlon
The "Parish Council" is also an "advisor committee" (for lack of a
better term) for an individual Catholic Church. Basically, the council
assists the priest in running the parish. "Parish," in this case, is the
membership served by the individual church.
The "parish" is part of the diocese, which covers (here) the entire
metropolitan Detroit area. There's more to all this, but I won't get
into it.
It's strange to hear "parish" used for a non-church unit, but the two
uses are related. I think the civil government use of "parish" probably
stemmed from the church usage ages ago. (AFAIK, Louisiana is the only US
state which uses "parish" to mean a governmental unit; a Louisiana
parish is the same as a Michigan "county.")
(It's still Easter Sunday where I am.)
Maria Conlon
Charles Riggs
<mcon...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>(It's still Easter Sunday where I am.)
What is the moment when the new year starts? If anyone can establish
it, shouldn't that be the one people celebrate, rather than the local
ones?
Comments?
--
Charles Riggs
mickwick
>mickwick <mick...@use.reply.to> wrote:
>> Or perhaps they didn't know what a parish council does. I'm not too sure
>> myself but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve helping chicken-pluckers
>> stay abreast of the latest chicken-plucking techniques.
>
>In my experience, it covers all sorts of adult educational opportunities
>-- recreational, personal, etc -- not just job training. The parish
>might have been trying to get a very general sense of whether needs of
>the people in the community were being met.
I'm sure you're right. However, having got this general sense (at a cost
of £26 per household), the parish council makes a lot of promises that
it can't keep, such as resolving to ...
Provide learning for life and community enrichment opportunities
(That's part of the 125-word Mission Statement.)
A foreword to the Action Plan acknowledges that 'The Parish Council
cannot deliver, by itself, many of the objectives in the plan.' What
seems to have happened is that the parish council found itself with a
large amount of 'free money' (a government grant) and in order to spend
it all - and why not? - it had to produce something that was far in
excess of what is appropriate for a parish like this. Thus the glossy
booklet, the first-class postage (it spent about £2 in postage
communicating with me alone), the questionnaire about everything under
the sun, the mission statement, and the grandiose promises (including
some that directly oppose local opinion as measured by the survey).
But all that has nothing to do with English Usage and I know you are
good about that sort of thing.
--
Mickwick
Maria Conlon
> Maria Conlon wrote:
>
>> (It's still Easter Sunday where I am.)
>
> What is the moment when the new year starts? If anyone can establish
> it, shouldn't that be the one people celebrate, rather than the local
> ones?
>
> Comments?
Well, wouldn't the moment be 12:00:001 AM on January 1st (unless you
mean some other New Year) and wouldn't the place be the west side of the
GMT line? That's the spot where the new day/date starts, so it should
also work for a new year.
Right now, GMT is some minutes after midnight on April 22nd. For me,
being behind by five hours, it's some minutes after 7:00 PM on April
21st. So my solution seems sound. The only thing people have to figure
out in order to celebrate at the same time is how far they are (in
hours) behind or ahead of GMT. Mistakes would probably be made.
(Btw, my first thought was the International Date Line, and that doesn't
seem to work.)
Maria Conlon
Eastern (Daylight) Time.
Maria Conlon
> Charles Riggs wrote:
>> What is the moment when the new year starts? If anyone can establish
>> it, shouldn't that be the one people celebrate, rather than the local
>> ones?
>>
>> Comments?
>
> Well, wouldn't the moment be 12:00:001 AM on January 1st (unless you
> mean some other New Year) and wouldn't the place be the west side of
> the GMT line? That's the spot where the new day/date starts, so it
> should also work for a new year.
>
> Right now, GMT is some minutes after midnight on April 22nd. For me,
> being behind by five hours, it's some minutes after 7:00 PM on April
> 21st. So my solution seems sound. The only thing people have to figure
> out in order to celebrate at the same time is how far they are (in
> hours) behind or ahead of GMT. Mistakes would probably be made.
>
> (Btw, my first thought was the International Date Line, and that
> doesn't seem to work.)
Why didn't it work? Because I wasn't thinking clearly. That happens once
in a great while. :-)
So: I'm changing my mind. Now I'm back to the International Date Line as
the beginning of the new day, new year. Forget, please, that I said
anything about the GMT.
Maria Conlon
Charles Riggs
<mcon...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>So: I'm changing my mind. Now I'm back to the International Date Line as
>the beginning of the new day, new year. Forget, please, that I said
>anything about the GMT.
That would be the most logical choice, I agree. It'd make for some New
Year parties at very odd hours in many locations, but the blast would
be bigger, for it'd be simultaneous around the world. Another
advantage is the new colonists on Mars will know when to celebrate the
Earth New Year, as they will do in the first few years there.
How many time zones are there on Mars, Jan? A similar number to ours,
I believe. A most Earthlike place, eh what?
--
Charles Riggs
Mike Oliver
> On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 21:51:28 -0400, "Maria Conlon"
> <mcon...@sprynet.com> wrote:
>> So: I'm changing my mind. Now I'm back to the International Date Line as
>> the beginning of the new day, new year. Forget, please, that I said
>> anything about the GMT.
>
> That would be the most logical choice, I agree. It'd make for some New
> Year parties at very odd hours in many locations, but the blast would
> be bigger, for it'd be simultaneous around the world. Another
> advantage is the new colonists on Mars will know when to celebrate the
> Earth New Year, as they will do in the first few years there.
But would you pick 0000 1 January as seen on the clocks epsilon to the East
of the IDL, or epsilon to the West? They're an entire day apart, and
the politics of the choice could get messy.
> How many time zones are there on Mars, Jan? A similar number to ours,
> I believe. A most Earthlike place, eh what?
No controlling authority has yet ruled on the subject.
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>Charles Riggs wrote:
>> How many time zones are there on Mars, Jan? A similar number to ours,
>> I believe. A most Earthlike place, eh what?
>
>No controlling authority has yet ruled on the subject.
Okay, but isn't the Martian day something like 23 Earth hours long?
Shirley, we'll have time zones there. Will we redefine the second to
make the Martian day 24 hours long or will we keep our defined second?
Shirley died yesterday, or was it the day before? Or as they used to
say, Ase ofte ase heo wolden ţencchen schirliche of God, ant makien
clene bonen.
--
Charles Riggs