Category: Uncategorized

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.

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.