Category: Uncategorized

One of these tends to believe that all companies can be fixed. The other tends to believe that some companies cannot be fixed. What do you think? What’s your makeup or tendency?

There have been many folks trying to reach me at my normal, personal email address at s4management. Email is broken for me. Severely. Suffice it to say the problem has been going on for more than a month, and there is no immediate resolution path (given my lack of time and the technical severity of the problem). I am setting up a temporary Yahoo email address – for those that have a need to know you can find it on the bio page. Sorry for the troubles.

The last four articles I associate with wine:

• The Fountain of Youth at the Bottom of a Wine Bottle (wine slows aging)
• Substance in Wine Found to Combat Obesity, Diabetes (wine fights obesity and diabetes)
• Red Wine Component Revs Endurance in Mice (wine increases endurance)
• Drink Up for a Longer Life (alcohol [including wine] makes you live longer on all dimensions)

Too good to be true?

Excellent NY Times article which sheds light on how families and single parents are continuing to spend time with kids in spite of women working more and individual parental workload increasing (see chart along the left side). Although not all families have two parents, it would have been interesting to see total parental workload depicted. By adding the breakdowns for mother and father together, it appears as if (from 1965 to 2000) total parental workload has increased, total housekeeping has gone down, and total time spent with kids has gone up. It is interesting to note that average father’s housework time has increased. It also interesting to note that average paid work time for fathers has gone down (Note: this latter item is not one that I would have suspected).

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.