Category: Uncategorized

Good (old) news: MBA students defend having ethics programs in business school. Bad (old) news: MBAs don’t value ethics during job selection. Bad (new) news: MBA students are more likely to cheat than those in other disciplines.

Mixed news: Business schools are targeting younger, less experienced candidates.

Good news: Business schools adapting their programs to address the lifestyle needs of females.

Good news update (9/21/06): Management guru David Maister shares his perspectives and increases the dialogue on improving the relevancy of business schools.

Mel Gibson has been the top search term on Technorati for like 3+ days methinks. The stuff going on in the world is very disconcerning, but I have to say Daryl Cagle’s mass compilation of 10 pages of Mel Gibson by top professional cartoonists made me smile (and cringe) a bit on a Friday.

As I have mentioned before, I have been watching the bird flu developments with concern. Seeing how things have spread (e.g., here  and here [animation dated on later link]) – well the graphics help people to visualize what has been going on.

But what draws me to write this post is how markets and polls sometimes seem to diverge substantially in terms of predictions. For example, CNN reports that 60% in the US worry about the bird flu but that less than one-third think it will show up in the US this year. In December of 2005, InTrade (one of the exchange markets carrying futures contracts on whether bird flu will hit) announced, "Trading on Bird Flu — 65% probability of U.S. case by March 2006!".

Although I’m no expert in reading the financial stats associated with the InTrade contracts, what I glean from information is that the predicted probability of bird flu hitting the U.S. by March 2006 (as per the InTrade market) has fallen substantially since December. Of course, I’d venture to say that much of this has to do with the fact that the expiration period of the futures contract is approaching.

There is a general belief that an incented market (e.g., the Intrade market) where parties are financially motivated to make good predictions generates better predictive results than pure polls where people have no vested interest to be right or wrong in their predictions. In any case, betting for or against bird flu seems weird. But I suppose there is value in using these types of markets for planning purposes and for greater understanding.

In a prior post, I mentioned how empathy plays a role in consulting. But I wonder how many consultants are really empathetic a la this test? I tested as a 47 (average for women is 47 versus men is 42). One person (past consultant) I know very well basically tested as an autistic (score of 25). Interesting.

Judgment of Paris, written by George Taber, is about the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. When I first skimmed the book at the bookstore, I have to say it looked like a very dry read. That said, I found the book very interesting from the perspective of entrepreneurship, economics, and romance over a period of time that outlasted the history of most businesses (remember there are relatively few businesses that are over 100 years old). Three perspectives I gleaned from the book:

1. Stories of Entrepreneurship – Dreams are nice, but reality is that winemakers often needed to get cash flow positive faster than the minimum of five or so some years to go to market with red wines. Thus, white winemaking became an early recognized business model of getting things rolling with its shorter (closer to two year) timeframe. Like the hopeful winemakers than envisioned getting their dream red wines to market while producing white wine in the near-term to build up credibility, entrepreneurs of today also find that they often need to get to cash flow sooner than later while making progress (e.g., to prove out their business models and build brand reputation).
2. Backdrop of Macroeconomic Conditions Affecting the Landscape – As one might find today with traditional industries and functional areas getting turned upside by web 2.0 (e.g., PR world changed by blogging, brick and mortar bookstores displaced by Amazon.com), the rigid and regulated French wine industry was "overtaken" by entrepreneurs (that is, the entrepreneurs closed a big gap and redefined the game). Californian winemakers were not encumbered by regulations as imposed in France to make wines with 100% of such and such grapes, etc. The California winemakers were able to experiment by creating wines with blends of grapes (e.g., to mellow the taste), use refrigeration techniques in conjunction fermentation research conducted in the university, etc. They slowly experimented and chipped away at a problem of making serious wines. Although the US winemaking industry was almost decimated by the Prohibition era (and both the supply chains and demand chains took many years to recover), its was a combination of entrepreneurs and survivors (the cockroaches of the wine industry) that played a key role in democratizing wine and making it what we know today (as opposed to just a sweet, jug wine industry).
3. Romance of the Senses and Commitment – I have never wanted to learn how to make wine before reading this book. This book romanticizes the process of love with wine more than I can describe. With the winemaker cross tasting barrels, walking up and down the rows of the vineyard and sampling the taste of each grape until the optimal 3-4 days of harvest, watching the weather with great hope, and then turning ecstatic when things come together or being disappointed when rain brings in the mold … When I think about the fact that some of the entrepreneurs in the winemaking industry violated commonly believed codes of startups by trying to solve both supply and demand issues (as opposed to just solving existing problems with solutions 1-2 orders of magnitude better than the past), well it just makes the book even more romantic for me.

The book is not for everyone, and I have to admit that had I not learned more about wines in the past year, I might not appreciate this book to the extent I do now. What I will say is that if you are interested in learning more about wines beyond tasting, this is a good book to explore. You may not get the same experience I did, but you may still find that by reading and exploring multiple sources of info that you get an enriched view of either people, wines, international history, business, and/or marketing.

This vacation I had a chance to watch some TV, in addition to spending time with the family, reading some books on wine and music, etc.

The most eye opening thing that I saw over vacation was some TV show on human chimerism, with at least two cases where people did *not* have any visible/physical signs of the genetic condition, but where they had two full sets of DNA in their bodies.

The term, "chimerism", comes from Greek mythology and refers to a multi-headed creature combining serpent, goat, and lion physiology (picture).

Now in human chimerism, there can be very visible markers. For example, in some reports of human chimerism (which is very rare as I understand things), people have documented checkerboard skin patterns on the chest where there is essentially a line going down the middle of the body, and where alternating squares (perhaps one inch by one inch blocks) of skin have light and dark pigmentation. To a casual observer, the checkerboard pattern may look perfectly square. In other reported cases, the person has adopted both male and female DNA. Again with a line going down the middle of the body from the head to the belly button, one half of the body may have male organs versus female. Surgery may be required to adjust the person to reconstruct the person as one sex or the other.

What blows my mind, however, is the case where the person looks and feels perfectly normal. As in turns out, it is believed that these people came to being by the fusing of two fully fertilized eggs as with Siamese twins, but because the cells did not split (say by day 4 of conception – don’t quote me on the specifics here since I’m doing off the top of my head), the embryo started to develop as one single baby with two *full* sets of DNA. Based on genetic, surgical, chemical, etc. research, it is believed that in these subset of cases that I am talking about, that while the person’s body consists of two full sets of DNA, any given organ may predominantly develop with one full set of DNA or the other (e.g., liver could have one full set of DNA from one egg, but the skin could have the full set of DNA from the other egg).

The cases caught on the TV show kind of blew my mind in terms of implications and how assumptions can be challenged. To make a long story short, two female chimeras from totally separate walks of life where shown to not have direct genetic connections to at least one of their children (by birth and eliminating possibilities of surrogate motherhood). One of the women was trying to prove that her kids were genetically hers, but DNA testing failed. Subsequent and more elaborate DNA testing showed that her kids adopted the DNA of some crazy combination of her father and her brother (this was after a court ordered that the birth of her forthcoming child be witnessed and have a forensic lab person collect blood, DNA material, etc. during childbirth – a DNA match between her and her child was negative).

DNA has often been used in courts of law to substantiate heinous crimes or to vindicate wrongly accused. DNA has often been thought of as having a one-to-one mapping with a person. Now the cardinality of the relationship may be challenged. (Note: to put some of this in perspective, however, the TV show stated that there may only be 40-60 cases [don’t quote me on number] of chimerism reported in the world, regardless of whether condition is physically visible)

Not a normal post by me by any means. But these are things that make me go …. hmmm. When I feel my (stereotypical) female traits coming through, well this discovery gives me moment to pause.

Update (2/21/06): See comments below on Siamese twins. It is likely that my reference to Siamese twins is incorrect.

Virginia Postrel has a very nice new article that describes some theories supporting how job hopping may positively contribute to innovation. She cites the case of comparing Silicon Valley to Route 128 as I did in an earlier post (but where I cited the scenario in the context of venture capital and employee-friendy laws in California over Boston as a key explanatory variable on differences in amount of venture money).

There’s a paragraph in her writeup that triggered another thought. Here’s the paragraph:

When employees jump from company to company, they take their knowledge
with them. "The innovation from one firm will tend to bleed over into
other firms," Professor Rebitzer explained. For a given company, "it’s
hard to capture the returns on your innovation," he went on. "From an
economics perspective, that should hamper innovation."

I don’t necessarily agree (or disagree) with Professor Rebitzer here. Just because an employee (a supplier) can take their knowledge over to another firm does not mean from an economics perspective that innovation should be hampered. I offer another hypothesis (which is not supported by any data) – that employees in Silicon Valley look at their employers as a market. That net-net employees will choose to work for firms that have better business models and can appropriate the returns of good ideas. Perhaps because of better business models (or better hype), such companies have better future free cash flows and can pay better. Thus, the good ideas that come out of innovation will naturally travel to where the market of employers can best put it to use. This does not necessarily mean that innovation will be diluted across firms as suggested above.

But back to those Silicon Valley people, are they just not loyal to their employers if they are hopping around so much? Maybe time just moves faster in Silicon Valley … 😉

Comments from a recent reader have made me think a little bit more about how I post as a management consultant. I suppose that these are some of the factors that I consider (a bit of a work in progress although some things are just plain legal requirements without flexibility):

1. Confidentiality agreements – As do many other employed people, I have to abide by these as signed with former employers and clients. It is not unusual for the survivability of confidentiality clauses to last more than five years or even indefinitely.
2. Client name confidentiality – For some management consulting firms, confidentiality is strict enough that you cannot even mention the names of client companies you work for, let alone what type of work you are doing from them. Many consulting firms also have prohibited trading lists for its management consultants (i.e., you cannot trade in the stocks of client companies because you often have inside information as a management consultant).
3. Sensitive current project – Cases where client may be aware of consultant’s blog and may contrue everything on blog to be about them when I don’t want them to ("you’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you …"). May stay away from certain subjects, disguise people, places, and company, plus delay from blogging for many months or even years.
4. Casual conversations with people not familiar with either blogs or me – This is to respect people’s privacy. I don’t think all bloggers follow this process, but I try to get someone’s permission to use information in a blog before using it. Even after getting permission, I may use references (like people’s titles) as a shortcut to set the business context (e.g., GM’s have profit and loss responsibility, VP’s don’t generally have profit and loss but have oversight over functional area). Using titles to guesstimate/gauge span of control, purchase authority, etc. is a bit of a black art though as someone may need to take additional context from the size of company (e.g., start-up versus Fortune 100), industry company is in, and geography (e.g., I frequently have to clarify titles when working with my German contacts).
5. Information embargoed at request of provider until a specific date – I try to honor these even if I am not required to.
6. If none of the above items govern the situation, then when in doubt as to whether one should be specific or less-specific in a business context – either don’t blog about or disguise it very well using some of the things I’ve mentioned above.