U

 

RantsCounterRants:  We are soooo screwed...

 

This paragraph from a CNNMoney article sums up all my fears:

 

"The Fed is being very serious when it says this labor market remains exceptionally weak -- in fact, it's the weakest [since World War II], by many measures," said former Fed economist Wayne Ayers, now chief economist with Fleet Boston Financial. "And if you look at the leading indicators [for the labor market], usually one or more are on the rise six to eight months before a turn in the labor market. Right now, none are on the rise."

 

I will rip the lips off the next person who says to me, “So what have you been doing since you worked last?”

 

Or I’ll be sorely tempted to smart off:  “I’ve been sitting here on my cushy tuffett eating bon-bons and partying on my dividends and tax cuts while my yard man polishes my Jag-yu-are…whaddaya’ think, you Republican moron?”

 

Thank goodness for blogging or I’d be really depressed by this economic news. 

 

Or really quite uncivil about it.

 

  5:11:34 PM    comment []

U

 

RantsCounterRants:  About a decade late

 

Ray Ozzie praises the recently published Power to the Edge, written by Drs. Dave Alberts and Richard Hayes.  It’s ostensibly about reducing cycle time on information, getting people at the critical point of contact (the edge of the organization) information how and when they need it to make for a more effective organization.

 

What an untimely load of crap.

 

Why did it take so damned long for it occur to these guys that it’s critical to military (and business) success that information gets to key people on the front end FAST?  I can see them saying, Wow, this is a GREAT concept!!!  Yeah, it WAS.

 

Corporations have been streamlining in a BIG way for more than a decade – ever hear of something called “reengineering”?  Yeah, that’s in a large part why this country is so damned productive these days.  Entire layers of corporations have been stripped away to reduce redundancy, speeding up the decision – and information -- cycle time.

 

One rather large corporation with which I am intimately familiar went through this same reengineering in 1993.  We called it “March Madness”, when entire fleets of middle managers were escorted out the door each day that month.  A year later the dominoes were still falling; people who had serviced those affected businesses were still being culled as redundant.  All in all, a multi-billion dollar global corporation with twelve layers of personnel between the lowliest shop rat and the CEO cut itself to six layers.  From co-op student to CEO, six layers of personnel at the deepest part of the organization, so that everyone in that entire food chain would be no more than a quick slap away from making a critical business decision.

 

On the heels of that long shakeout came the integration of a single global financial reporting system and a shared, distributed network to speed up the information cycle.  Yeah, 1995, the year SAP came and squatted all over my budgeting and cut my timeline by 30%, the year 30,000+ of us got the same standard PC’s, the same network, the same desktop productivity software and email.  Information screamed out of our offices.  Reporting’s only gotten faster and more granular since then -- exponentially so.

 

So what does this new fandangled text, Power to the Edge, have to offer to speed up decisions?

 

Jack squat – if you’ve already done your homework for the last ten years.

 

If you haven’t, there are far better texts.  And you’d better catch up in a damned hurry.

 

Here’s just a few to get you started:

 

Learn about the OODA loop and why you need to be INSIDE it, not outside (p.s. it’s all about getting information faster for faster decision making).

 

Reengineering the Corporation may be a decade old, but you can make it fresh by asking as you read each example: where’s the key business information in the old organization and in the new organization, how does the speed of the information change in a distributed network?  And do we really manufacture products or information?

 

Improving Performance is what it’s all about.  While you read this, keep in mind those white spaces between business functions are places across which business information must pass.  The smaller the gaps, the shorter the cycle time, the greater efficiency.

 

The Fifth Discipline will explain how important systemic thought processes are to efficient and effective operations; getting inside that OODA loop will be damned hard without systems thinking.

 

If you’re in manufacturing, you’ve probably heard all about “lean manufacturing”; it’s reengineering, all over again, this time at its optimum level.  Not only have business functions pared down, but the information cycle has tightened considerably with them.  Check out what MIT’s reading on the subject, if you want to catch up.

 

I’m sure there are many more texts our friends in the blogosphere would recommend over Power to the Edge.  I’ll be watching to see what they volunteer.  (Empowerment, in particular, is another critical factor; if your staff "on the edge" isn't empowered, it doesn't matter how damned fast you get them information.  Anybody got a recommendation on texts for empowered staff?  Theory Z by William Ouchi is a place to start; I'm sure there's more and better.)

 

What really scares me is that our military might not already have known about all this stuff because they’ve been waiting for more than a decade for people like Drs. Alberts and Hayes to publish this.  Tell me this isn’t so, please!

 

  2:53:08 PM    comment []

HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY TO ME!!!

A round of Bloggy Marys for everybody, bartender!

Pass around those hats, throw some confetti, toot the horns!  It's a BLOG PARTY!!!

Thanks to all of you who've stopped by, ranted and raved, stormed off or stayed, lurked or commented in the past year; you've been so important to this blog.  This experience exceeded my expectations by miles; it (and you) kept me sane at a time when it would have been so easy to slip off the edge.  Or perhaps I've actually been pushed over the cliff and I don't realize it, but I've got lots of fine company...

After this first year, would I recommend blogging?  It's not for everyone; if you want an awesome learning curve and are eager to write often, want to join a fine community of folks with similar desires, it could very well be a good fit for you.  It's a cheap source of entertainment, that's for sure -- but costly if you want to do it well.  Not in terms of dollars and cents, but in terms of dedication and time.

The worst part of blogging?  The addiction.  There've been times when I've felt like George Jetson -- "Jane!!! Stop this crazy thing!!!" -- and wanted to yank the power cord in frustration yet I wouldn't give up.  There've been times when I've been crazed with the idea that I had to post whatever it was I was observing and I couldn't get to my computer for hours and hours.  Can I give it up?  Well, I suppose, if I must...there might be a time when I absolutely have to, after all, there's no denying that.  But would I want to?  No -- I've actually started to see myself differently because of my blogging.  I like what I see: someone who writes, who writes often and has developed a personal discipline about it.  I've recovered some of the person I used to be, before I got on the hamster treadmill of the 8-to-5 world; I'm again someone who reads a lot, who enjoys learning a diversity of things.

What will the year ahead bring to this blog?  I can only hope and pray that I can write about a new job, about a new home, about the thrill of political activism and a new president.  And I wish as I blow out the candles on the cake for another year of excellent companionship that I've found here in Salon blogs.

Wish you all the best!  Thanks so very much!

 

  10:53:51 AM    comment []