The Improvement Guru

Profits "Not the Main Thing"?

2013-05-05T09:53:00.000-05:00

I had someone comment to me that profits at Chick Fil A "were not the main thing for them"? Did I hear that right? Since when is a business not there to make money and profit?

I scoured Chick Fil A website and found the following purpose statement under the FAQ. What is the Corporate purpose of Chick-Fil-A?

Answer: "To glorify God bybeing a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positiveinfluence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A."

Excuse me. You are a business and not a non profit organization. I understand having a social mission and social responsibility as a business but this is not your main purpose. Your main purpose is making money for the owners. The owners of Chick-Fil-A are good people with a good purpose but they are interested in profit of the business. All businesses exist for this reason.

Deception of the public comes in many forms and many corporations are ashamed to say they exist for profits. This is one way they can disguise the real purpose for their existence.

If you visit Coca Cola's website it is clear profit is a major part of their corporate vision. Dell, the computer manufacture goes to great lengths to report on financial performance. Let's not kid ourselves, companies financial performance is very important. Profits are very important to Chick Fil A or the company would not be in existence.

The Dragonfly Effect is a website and book that reports on three studies conducted that associates how our society relates high profit motive with low social values. It seems the more money companies make the less social value they are perceived to have. The end game here is that to be successful companies now have to disguise the profit motive under a social purpose umbrella. The example of TOMS shoes is mentioned where the company donates one pair of shoes for everyone purchased. It seems to be working for them. The question I have, Is this really benefiting the consumer? My thoughts are we are paying a higher price for a pair of shoes if this company has enough profit to give a pair away and still make a profit. Well maybe it makes us feel good.....

A Famous Type I error by Science

2013-05-05T07:19:00.000-05:00

Probably the greatest example of the scientific community making a type I error is the reported Cold Fusion debacle in the 1980s. A type I error is an error by obtaining a false positive or believing to be true something that is false. In 1989 Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons published and announced the discovery of cold fusion. A process by which nuclear fusion could essentially be created at room temperatures.

The biggest problem was that the experiments they reported just could not be replicated. Cold Fusion didn't work. Despite publication in the Journal of Electrochemistry and support by the University of Utah cold fusion was a bust. Over the next five years several scientists and organizations including the US Navy tried to replicate the work but to no avail. The initial research started at about $100 thousand dollars but before it was over Fleischmann and Pons had squandered some $40 million.

Ultimately the scientific community dismissed this work. The lesson from this is not about cold fusion but about the scientific process. Having work be peer reviewed is very important before publication. Also the process of verification and replication of work should happen before announcements of this sort. The scientific community often has an uphill battle with regard to the general public as a whole and scientists really should be confident and certain before work is published and announced.

Carl Sagan wrote, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" in his book Cosmos. This is very true. The more important the news the more evidence should be amassed for the announcement.

Scientific Skepticism - Addressing Fake Science

2013-04-30T06:02:00.004-05:00

Having a healthy scientific skepticism is a good thing. People need not blindly follow what they read or find in the popular media.

Things you should not believe in:

NASA faked the moon landings
Astrology
Paranormal - ghosts, ESP or other phenomena such as remote viewing
Aliens - either ancient or current time.
Most conspiracy theories (Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman)
Alternative medicines
Intelligent Design

There are a couple of real good websites that help promote this type of thinking. Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait is one of them os Bad Astronomy. Phil has written a couple of real good popular books on the subject and encourages skeptical thinking.

The other website to investigate is Skeptic. Dr. Michael Shermer has authored several books covering things from Climate Change, Evolutions and other weird topics people believe in.

Irrational beliefs in society are very normal, however they are not very healthy. Demand scientific studies and evidence before drawing conclusions. ESP and the paranormal for example have never been confirmed with legitimate scientific experimental designs. If ESP was real no state would ever be able to conduct a lottery and horse racing could not exist. We would know the winner of the superbowl or world series before the season started. This would in fact take the fun out of most sports wouldn't it. In any event ESP and paranormal just does not work.

I could go on about some others, but leave it to the reader to investigate more. Checkout Bad Astronomy and Skeptic for more information.

Best Numbers - Superbowl Pool

2013-01-15T06:20:00.002-06:00

OK, its close to Superbowl time so time to dust off an old post about how those superbowl boards work. Good luck with this years picks.

Last posted in 2010:

To give you a heads up on favored numbers I looked at team scores from 736 football games from the 2008 and 2009 seasons. Here is a table of the most frequent numbers.

Now of course the Superbowl Pool board is two dimensional so we have to look at the probabilities of two numbers occurring at the same time. The rule of independent probabilities apply so we multiply the result probability value for Team 1 times the probability value for Team 2 to get our exact probability of winning on a particular square.

Table of Probability of Final Digit Combinations

Total probability here since these are independent and mutually exclusive events adds up to 0.079 or about a 1 in 12 chance which is considerably better than the 1 in 20 chance of selecting five if it were completely random. And since it is a zero sum game someone else will have a lower probability of winning to even things out.

Some people don't like this aspect of these pools and will select numbers randomly to place on the board after everyone has selected their squares. You can still use this table to estimate your chances once you know the numbers. Good Luck!

Balancing and Egg and the Spring Equinox

2011-05-16T10:29:00.001-05:00

I am currently reading "Bad Astronomy", by Philip C Plait. So far a good Myth debunking book. One of the things you always hear is how you can only stand an egg on end during the spring equinox. This is completely false you can stand eggs on end anytime. In fact I did one just recently. See attached pic. Try it, this may take a few tries but you can balance an egg. No salt, that's cheating.

Ebay Rant!

2011-04-08T20:44:00.002-05:00

This is just a short rant about what happened to Ebay! What used to be a good web auction application for individuals selling second hand items has turned commercial. As far as I am concerned they can do away with the Buy It Now! feature and send their Ebay Stores packing. If I want to shop at a store, I will use Amazon or some other internet outlet. When I go to Ebay I expect an auction not a storefront. Most of the Ebay listings are now just online merchants listing items at an opening price comparable to a market value. The auction is long since dead on Ebay.

Using Wikipedia - More Reliable than you have been told!

2010-10-16T09:10:00.001-05:00

I have worked with a lot of students in Research and Evaluation classes. Often students tell me that other instructors have told them that Wikipedia is not a valid or reliable source for information and should never be cited as a reference. I think academics is going overboard on this. Wikipedia suffered a bad reputation
after its startup because it does allow anyone to change information. Some hoaxes did occur. Since then they have made changes. I would challenge anyone to look up a list of facts in Wikipedia and find out just how accurate the information is. Hands down Wikipedia is fast, free and very accurate. Certainly for PhD dissertation or Masters Thesis writing you would want peer reviewed journal articles for background information on complex topics. However for day to day fact finding, starting point of research. Wikipedia is a great tool to have at our fingertips.

"The Elephant Never forgets." - Try Evernote!

2010-08-18T19:34:00.000-05:00

I recently started using a "Cloud" based service called Evernote which syncs my personal and work notes between my home computer, office PC, phone and iPad or any computer with access to the web. I have to say that it has saved me on several occasions now by providing an amazing ability to retrieve important information. The service is the hallmark of a new concept called e-Memory.

Finally we have the ability to use the computer to recall personal information from almost any location with the freedom of using any device. Our daily lives are cluttered with receipts, meeting notes, phone calls, audio notes, photos, scans, documents. You name it. Evernote has the ability to collect these for you and organize it in such a way that your electronic tidbits can be recalled through the use of automatic text indexing plus user tagging.

Evernote's User Interface for Mac OS X

Evernote's applications are available for both Mac OS X or Windows formats.   They have applications for iPhone, iPad and other devices such as Android and Blackberry.    Primarily I use this application for work, but it also allows different notebooks to be setup so you can segregate personal notes from work related notes.

Getting information into Evernote is also easy.   You can scan, email, record audio, or even voice call information through a service called voice2note.

If you want to read more about the use of computers to improve your recollection of personal data and information read "Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution will Change Everything" by Gordon Bell.    In Chapter 9 of this excellent primer on technology and memory, Bell (a former Microsoft Employee) teaches you the steps to getting started on a journey to being paperless and recording the tidbits of information that passes us during our daily activities.

User Review: Early Edition and Instapaper: iPad App winners!

2010-05-09T15:09:00.001-05:00

Two Apps for the iPad that I have found to be instant wins are the Early Edition RSS reader from Glasshouse Apps. This newsreader has a beautiful user interface taking your favorite RSS feeds and organizing them into a slick looking newspaper for you to page through. This type of application is exactly what the iPad was designed for as a reading device and ultimately can replace your morning paper if you have not already done it.

Once you find an article you like you can easily drill down and view the original article or you can choose to save it later for reading with another great application called Instapaper for reading later. Once you are on the article you simply choose to forward it to Instapaper.

Browsing is easy with in Early Edition by selecting the feeds button you can choose to set up your newspaper with all feeds or a specific feed you want to browse.

I would say the only awkward part of the Early Edition is how you setup your RSS feeds. You have to either enter them manually or cut and past them for the source links. I exported my newsreaders from the FLOCK browser to a text file and then was able to cut and paste the RSS html code to the setup in Early Edition. In the end the user interface for Early Edition is worth Five Stars and worth the $4.99 for the application.

Now for Instapaper. The Instapaper Pro App also $4.99 provides some added utility for news reading. The idea is that if you do not have time to immediately read from Early Edition you can send your articles to read later on Instapaper. The Instapaper App turns out to be more of a book reader, you can archive articles to folders and read them at your leisure. The interface is not pretty but it does have some good features including reverse text on a dark screen which I find easing on the eyes. (This is a feature the iBooks App lacks but Amazon's Kindle App has. It is the primary reason to favor the Kindle App over the default Apple iBook app.)

The combination of Early Edition and Instapaper Apps on Apples new iPad makes this a powerful internet newsreader that has the potential of replacing your daily newspaper forever. I recommend both applications. Incidentally Instapaper also has a "READ LATER" bookmark for your Safari browser that allows you to send any web page to Instpaper for reading later. The only limitation I have heard is that there is a limit to the number of articles Instapaper will hold for you. I think it is about 250.

Blogging from iPad

2010-05-02T17:26:00.001-05:00

This is my first attempt at blogging from iPad using BlogPress and this software seems very easy to set up and configure to Blogger.

The App Store price is $2.99, which seems reasonable. Holding the iPad horizontal gives the best keyboard arrangement. It still requires a two finger approach. Not as comfortable as when sitting at the computer, but still very quick. There is a spell check function that really helps with typos as you go.

This will be a great app while traveling.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Apple - Masters of Suspense

2010-04-22T19:43:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that Apple has mastered the marketing psychology of holding customers in suspense. I think its proven fact that an experience is enjoyed the more you delay or anticipate its occurrence. This is exactly what Apple is doing with the introduction of the iPad and establishing the pre-orders. Customers waited almost a month for the WiFi version and I have now waited more than a month for the WiFi 3G model which is not expected to arrive until late April.

The trick to Apple's magic is the introduction of occasional press releases or "leaks" regarding timing of deliveries to allow anticipation to build further. Regardless of how well the device will operate, once obtained anyone who waits 6-8 weeks for delivery will proudly use, showoff and display the device. The brand loyalty is enhanced.

One more week!

Where have all the IP Addresses gone?

2010-04-19T22:16:00.003-05:00

I was reading today in the May Issue of MacLife that all the IP addresses will be used up in less than two years. The current IPv4 system apparently only has 4 billion IP addresses available for use. (Note: I calculated 8.97 billion but it's likely I don't know exactly how the system works.) The Internet Protocol addresses are the unique identifiers for our computers that allow us to connect with each other over networks. So where did all these addresses go? I can never find my IP address when I need it so maybe they all just got lost (that was humor.)

According to article, IPv6 will be heading our way allowing for 340 trillion,trillion,trillion IP addresses. That is a big number and I suspect it will be a long time before those can be used up. The transition will not be easy. Bottom line for the article was that it looked like a new business opportunity for network consultants and they will be hard to find when the time comes around. Is this going to be the next Y2K?

Do you need help in Statistics Class?

2010-04-14T21:36:00.001-05:00

If you are taking a business statistics class the following links might be a life saver for you.

Not a great deal of help but maybe something here will make the light's go on!

Earthquakes are Up?

2010-04-13T21:26:00.000-05:00

After seeing today's news about yet another earthquake, this time in China, I was beginning to wonder about if the frequency of earthquakes is up? The answer is no. According to the USGS there are about 152 magnitude 6 or above quakes per year across the globe. This amounts to about one every second or third day. Dave Schumaker at The Geology News Blog has already done the statistics.

Facial Recognition: iPhoto '09

2010-04-12T20:57:00.006-05:00

I am certain there have been plenty of reviews on iPhoto '09 - Apple's photo viewing and slide show software. I discovered this weekend the FACES feature of this program and am really impressed at how successful the software is at facial recognition of photos as you upload it into the program. Once you tag a face with a name the software ingeniously goes out and finds similar faces making recommendations for you to confirm. The more you confirm the better the recommendations get. Of course there are some errors or false positives, but it is uncanny that even in the false positives there are similar features in many of the faces. When finished you have your entire family and friends organized neatly into groups for viewing. iPhoto has so many good features, I am not sure why I had waited so long to use it. My motivation was the purchase of Apple TV which allowed the slide shows on TV. Apples system of syncing devices such as iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV and Mac's really had great utility for users interested in simple systems that just plain work.

Tom Izzo: Is he the real March Magician?

2010-03-31T21:15:00.009-05:00

This past week much as been written and talked about Tom Izzo at Michigan State as being the March Magician. The Spartans and Tom Izzo have delivered 6 Final Fours out of the last 13 straight NCAA appearances. Tom Izzo has been head coach at MSU now for only 15 years. The real question I want to answer is how unlikely is this success.

According to Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com, Tom Izzo should have succeeded only twice to the Final Four according to seedings. Nate presents a very interesting logistic regression that ties the seeds to the probability of reaching the final four. According to the seedings the Spartans have over performed. This making the accomplishment of 6 final fours in the last 13 years to be an unusual event.

I did some analysis myself and come to some slightly differing conclusions:

First, you might think going to the NCAA tournament 13 of 15 years is a difficult accomplishment. However with 347 teams in the NCAA Div I someone will due this just by chance and here is why. The selection process gives 30 bids to conference winners and 34 bids at large split among the 8 major conferences. This gives the Big Ten conference about 5.25 bids each year on average. For any given Coach the odds are against you, but remember in the Big Ten there are 11 coaches playing the game and in the 8 conferences about 80 coaches competing against each other. As such the probability that one of these coaches makes 13 out of 15 years is about 0.5102 probability. This is about 1:1 odds. In the end its a good likelihood that somebody does 13 out of 15 years in any 30 year time period.

Now the problem is conditional. Once you are the one who makes a tournament 13/15 years what are your chances of making the final four for 6 or more occasions. It is important to know that of the 347 schools, only 43 of these have made the final four in the past 26 years. Since there are four final four selections each year, then on average these 43 schools have had multiple final four appearances. (Following list is shortened.- Data since 1985)

The average probability of making the final four of the schools from this select group of 43 is approximately 0.205. Now using the binomial distribution function again in Excel for 6 or more final four appearances in 13 trials, the probability of this occurrence is 0.0317.

Since we have two independent events 1) making the NCAA 13/15 years = 0.5102 and 2) winning 6 of 13 final four appearances 0.0317, we multiply the two to obtain our final probability for any coach matching Izzo's accomplishment.

Prob(total) = 0.5102*0.0317=0.0162
Odds = 100/1.62-1 = 60.7:1
(Recognize my figures are not a result of detailed analysis but an estimate. )

In conclusion, Tom Izzo did not really accomplish a very unusual event. Only about 1 in 61. Interpreting this it tells us that given the 15 year career of 60-70 coaches this accomplishment is bound to happen to one of them. A good start to Izzo head coaching career. In fact, certainly this is a lifetime career start for any coach. However it is within the realm of feasibility that it happened. After all 1 in 61 events do occur. If you look at the average frequency that Duke or North Carolina convert to the final four, MSU still lags and is not the best performer by this metric.

So is Tom Izzo the March Magician. Of course he is! Certainly, not only does he benefit from some luck, during March he finds ways to get more out of his team. MSU does still have Magic! Good Luck on Saturday against Butler.

User Review: Using Google Analytics

2010-03-26T08:11:00.007-05:00

It's been a year now since I started using Google Analytics to track the blog and I am impressed with the quality and level of information obtained.

In the past year "The Improvement Guru" Blog has:

Received visits from 2,335 Unique Visitors
Visits from 83 countries and territories across the globe
Visits from all 50 states within the United States
A rate of 33% for returning visitors - Loyalty is increasing.
And an average time on site of 1 minute and 31 seconds.

For the most part referrals to the blog come from Google, Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn, Bing, Digg and Facebook in order. I have only recently started using Facebook so it's not a surprise that this is low on the list. I was really surprised to see Technorati 19th on the list, I was expecting more from the site dedicated to cataloging Bloggers.

As for content, clearly "Best Numbers for that SuperBowl Pool" was the most popular post of the year with 514 page views. Not surprising the Superbowl is a popular event. In second place was the post on "Wendy's vs McDonalds" Probably these get googled quite often. User Reviews of Software on Risk Engines and Berkeley Madonna Software were also 3 and 4 respectively.

Overall, Google Analytics is easy to use. After sign up you place some tracking HTML code to your blog. Google does the rest. Reports are easy to manage and review. There are good print report features as well. They will benchmark your site relative to similar web sites. Also a new feature I have yet to set in play is Intelligence and Alerts about about usage.

If you like statistics and have an interest in finding out how your website compares to others, Google Analytics is a great FREE tool that can be used to obtain some primary data on traffic and content on your website.

About False Positives. Do you have XYZ disease?

2010-03-21T14:49:00.006-05:00

We spend a good portion of the Research Statistics classes discussing Type I and Type II errors. Type I error is also known as a False Positive. If you go to the doctor and are tested for a rare disease and the results are positive, does this necessarily mean you have the disease. Sometimes the tests are in error and will give a positive answer when they should give a negative result.

Here is a brain teaser I offer to my classes:

"Let's discuss a situation that can occur in real life in the medical field. Let's assume you go in for a test for a certain disease and the test returns positive. It could be cancer, HIV or other things. Suppose the lab test has a false positive (type I) rate probability of 0.05 or 5% of the time it returns a false positive. Now considering this the incidence of the disease in the general population is 0.01 or 1% or about 1 in 100. Can you calculate the probability that you actually have the disease? Incidentally, most Doctors are not good with probabilities and are likely to give you the wrong information in this situation."

Most people will see the false positive rate as 5% and assume there is only a 5% chance the test was wrong. Doctors will often advise you there is 95% certainty you have the disease. They will get it wrong also.

The answer is best seen though the use of a Venn Diagram:

Let's assume 100 people are tested for a certain disease - XYZ.

Knowing we have a 5% false positive rate we will have we will have 5 people test positive but these will not have the disease.
Knowing the incidence rate is 1 in 100 or 0.1% we will have 1 person that tests positive that actually has the disease.
94 people will test negative for XYZ

To answer the question about the probability of actually having the disease it is realtively easy to calculate. 6 people tested positive and 1 person had the disease. The probability is 1/6 or about 16.7% chance of having the disease.

The conclusion is that whenever we test positive for a medical issue it is important to know three things.

What is the false positive rate for the test.
What is the incidence of the disease in the general population.
If I am not in the high risk group what is the incidence of the disease outside of the high risk group.

It's an interesting problem for students to think about especially when studying probabilities and statistics.

Best numbers for that Superbowl Pool?

2010-01-20T18:35:00.017-06:00

It's that time of year for that office Superbowl Pool. Do you know what numbers to pick for your Superbowl Pool? You know, you pick squares that represents the combination of final digits of the games score. If your combination of numbers comes in for the final score of the game you win. You can read the rules at eHow.com. As luck has it when you are picking those squares they are all not created equal. Of course anything can happen, but some combination of numbers occur more frequently due to the scoring rules in football.

To give you a heads up on favored numbers I looked at team scores from 736 football games from the 2008 and 2009 seasons. Here is a table of the most frequent numbers.

Now of course the Superbowl Pool board is two dimensional so we have to look at the probabilities of two numbers occurring at the same time. The rule of independent probabilities apply so we multiply the result probability value for Team 1 times the probability value for Team 2 to get our exact probability of winning on a particular square.

Table of Probability of Final Digit Combinations

Now a little analysis. Assuming everything was random we would expect each square to be worth 0.01 or 1 in 100. You will notice that some squares are valued higher than others. Combinations of 7,3,4 or 0 do very well. Combinations of 2,5,9 and 8 are not so good. If you choose to play on multiple squares, you simply need to add all your probabilities up to estimate your probability of winning the total game. Let's say I have selected five squares as follows:

Total probability here since these are independent and mutually exclusive events adds up to 0.079 or about a 1 in 12 chance which is considerably better than the 1 in 20 chance of selecting five if it were completely random. And since it is a zero sum game someone else will have a lower probability of winning to even things out.

Some people don't like this aspect of these pools and will select numbers randomly to place on the board after everyone has selected their squares. You can still use this table to estimate your chances once you know the numbers. Good Luck and Geaux Saints!

Did you win that Gold Medal by Chance?

2009-12-31T10:45:00.011-06:00

When I visited Gloria Ferrer Winery in Sonoma, I was duly impressed by this display of gold and silver medals some of the wines had been awarded. This was until I read two articles in the Journal of Wine Economics by Robert T Hodgson. Nothing against Gloria Ferrer as they make some great wines but it turns out that winning at these competitions may strictly be a matter of luck and not so much a statement about the quality if the wines.

Statisticians are putting the world of wine on edge. In "An Analysis of the Concordance Among 13 U.S. Wine Competitions", Robert T Hodgson analyzed over 4000 wines entering 13 competitions across the U.S. What he found was that a wine winning a Gold Medal in one competition seldom won a second Gold Medal. You would think that a truly excellent wine could win repeated gold medals. He found that when wines did win repeated Gold Medals the frequency that this occurred at was no better than that of random chance according to a binomial distribution with a probability of p=0.09. For my statistics students, you may recall that binomial distribution is based on a process called a Bernoulli trial in which outcomes of repeated trials are wither win or lose. These repeated trials are independent and the probability remains constant from one trial to the next. A good example is a coin toss with heads or tails as the outcome. The inference from Mr Hodgson's work is the best way to win these competitions is simply enter as many of them as you can. Random chance will dictate that you will win some of them.

There may be an oversimplification here. Obviously some wines are better than other wines and probably do deserve recognition. Wineries probably choose to enter their best wines into the competition. Since all the wines are relatively good, then judging is the primary concern. This is the other area of research by Mr. Hodgson. In "An Examination of Judge Reliability at a Major U.S Wine Competition", Mr. Hodgson concluded that only about 10 to 20 percent of panel judges could replicate there scores on repeated tastings of the same wine. In total using Analysis of Variance techniques Hodgson showed that only about 50% of judges were influenced by the wine quality alone in their scoring. From a practical standpoint the other 50% of judges were not consistent and simply did not measure things the same.

The take away message from these articles is that judging of taste in food competitions or wine competitions may not be based on quality alone. Other factors are at play which may make the whole process random.

References:

"An Analysis of the Concordance among 13 U.S. Wine Competitions", Journal of Wine Economics, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 2009, pages 1-9

"An Examination of Judge Reliability at a major U.S. Wine Competition", Journal of Wine Economics, Vol. 3, No.2, Fall 2008, pages 105-113

Is Expensive Wine really Better?

2009-12-28T08:26:00.013-06:00

When you visit Napa and Sonoma you may observe a certain level of arrogance, prestige and quality at different wineries. Even within the same winery they may offer different levels of tasting experiences depending on if you are interested in the basic offerings or the reserve offerings. Wineries are trying to differentiate their brands and aim them towards consumers tastes and preferences. They want you to think that your personal image is associated with a particular brand and price level.

Answering the question do more expensive wines taste better, Robin Goldstein and Alex Herschkowitsch have published, THE WINE TRIALS 2010. The book is supported by an large academic research survey of over 6000 participants, details are published in "The Journal of Wine Economics" article entitled, Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better, Evidence from a large sample of Blind Tastings.

In the research study the participants were subjected to blind taste tests where an expensive and inexpensive wines were rated without prior knowledge to label, price or quality. The findings indicated that without prior knowledge to price, the participants rated less expensive wines higher than more expensive wines with statistically significant results. It was interesting that when a $150 Dom Peringon Champagne was compared against $12 Domaine Ste. Michelle Sparkling Wine from Washington State, participants favored Domaine Ste. Michelle by about 2 to 1.

What does this mean for the everyday consumer? In the book, Robin Goldstein encourages readers to conduct their own blind tastings. Decide for yourself what you like and don't like. The book presents reviews of 150 wines selling for less than $15 and decided on winners in this category.

If you subscribe to Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate, you may be influenced by the 100 point ratings they assign to wines. The authors suggest biases exist in the Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate rating systems favoring more expensive wines. These biases could be the result of an acquired taste or "perfect palate" of the expert wine drinkers. The majority of consumers are just not trained taste testers and probably cannot differentiate between black currants, blueberries, blackberries, cloves or other fragrances and tastes associated with wine.

Bottom line take away from this research study - Just because something costs more does not mean you will enjoy it more.

You may find more information at Robin Goldstein's website BlindTaste.com

Chance Encounters - What are the odds of that?

2009-12-15T18:41:00.002-06:00

Our world is filled with systems, patterns and biases. The laws of physics and the universe demand a certain amount of order in nature and our surroundings. Yet despite this we often encounter random or sometimes unexpected events. At a distant airport while traveling on business you bump into a colleague you haven’t seen in 10 years. On vacation while waiting in line to enter the Magic Kingdom on the 4th of July in Orlando you see an old acquaintance. These are coincidences that seem to be unlikely random events. Just how unlikely are these encounters.

One view of these encounters is to look at the probability on any given day that any two people in a population will meet assuming they are independent events.

Let’s take Disney for example. According to the 2008 Attraction Attendance report by TEA/ERA about 17,063,000 people visited the Magic Kingdom in Orlando for 2008. This means on the average day, the park sees about 47468 visitors. The probability of any given individual being in Orlando might be 47468/304059000 or 0.000157. This is one chance in 6368. If everything was considered independent we would say that the probability of Bill and his old acquaintance being in Orlando at the same time would be:

P=0.000157*0.000157 which is 2.64E-8 ( This is a very small probability number).

The odds might be expressed as one chance in 40.5 million. Wow this seems extremely low, however, this is not how the problem is solved.

Assume Bill is a moderately connected networker that can keep track of 500 contacts between family, friends, work associates and old classmates. Now we have to know a little about Bayesian probability and look at the probability that given a person is already at the Magic Kingdom, what are the odds an acquaintance is there. For this we have to look at the probability that Joe or Greg or Marge or Megan are there. There is literally a pool of possible candidates that may be at the park the same day of your visit. We add the probabilities together.

P=0.000157+0.000157+….. for all 500 contacts. This now gives a probability of 0.078 or about 1 chance in 13 that one of the acquaintances are at Disney on the very same day. Factor in the 4th of July and 20% additional attendance and the probability changes to 1 chance in 10. Since most people enter in the morning through the same set of park gates, there is good likelihood that you may be there at the same time as an acquaintance.

Airports, Malls, Amusement parks are large hubs where people gather and often at specific times based on schedules or seasons. It is not all that uncommon to hear stories of two people meeting that have not seen each other in years. These types of events although random may not be as unlikely or coincidental as we think.

Piloting a 1969 Jaguar XKE

2009-11-25T18:23:00.008-06:00

When was the last time you had fun driving? Most of us are caught in the drudgery of the 9-5 commute in our Toyota Corolla’s or Nissan Altima. Inspired by my wife on our recent vacation to San Francisco, we rented a classic 1969 Jaguar XK-E 4.2 convertible from Club Sportiva in San Jose California. Talk about the excitement. First of all the ‘69 XK-E is no ordinary car. The six cylinder 4235cc (265hp) sports car purrs instead of whines.

The ride is smooth and the car floated down the California highways. The drive took us from San Jose to Monterrey bay and the 17 mile drive through Pebble Beach and then back to San Jose. Once at Monterrey, the Jag was at home in the class and surroundings it deserves. Whenever we stopped this car drew attention and admiration.

What is on your list of exciting cars? I don’t know the top three cars you would like to drive but in addition to the Jaguar, trying out a Shelby Cobra or a Porsche 911 from the 60s and 70s era would really be a thrill for me. These are the types of automobiles that can put the fun and thrill back into driving. Club Sportiva is the answer for most of us who cannot afford to own these types of vehicles. Rick Gann and Sia Bani of Club Sportiva are enthusiastic about the club’s business model. Members can get checked out in a portfolio of vehicles including Maserati, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Lotus and more. Various levels of memberships are available and for those occasional visitors like my wife and I, rentals can be arranged. If the condition of the Jaguar is representative of all the other vehicles at Club Sportiva you will find them well maintained and in top mechanical condition. If you would like more information on Club Sportiva you can visit www.clubsportiva.com or call (415) 599-2360 and ask for Rick or Sia.

Book Review: "How to Implement Lean Manufacturing" by Lonnie Wilson

2009-09-22T19:29:00.006-05:00

If you have read “LEAN THINKING” by James P Womack and Daniel T. Jones, you may have been left wondering what Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System was all about. It may have seemed mysterious and not well defined. Lonnie Wilson’s “HOW TO IMPLEMENT LEAN MANUFACTURING” is a guidebook to Lean Manufacturing that will take the mystery out of process for you. It is a practical HOW-TO guide that can be used by plant managers, executives, quality managers and production personnel to implement the Lean Systems within their facilities.

This book not only addresses the strategy on how to implement Lean Manufacturing but also addresses cultural change necessary for a successful transformation. In the end you have to sustain the gain and the book tells you what is necessary.

What makes this book standout from other Lean texts is that the book itself is written in a Lean style of writing. Lonnie uses “Points of Clarity” to highlight important concepts within the book. Additionally he uses hundreds of visual graphics and tables that draw the reader’s attention. Visual clues and organization is a key concept in Lean. I don’t think you can turn two or more pages without being grabbed by a new visual to help make a point in the book.

I was impressed with the level of practical detail. Need to calculate OEE or the proper KANBAN size? Does Value Stream Mapping have you confused? The book provides the formula’s necessary. It places these concepts in context to the big picture of efficiency, lead-time or cycle-time reduction. The book is filled with personal examples from Lonnie Wilson’s career leading transformation efforts. Case studies are also given to drive home and follow the complete process of a successful Lean project and some that are not so successful.

This is a book I would personally recommend to anyone getting ready to attend a Lean training workshop. Read this book first and you will be prepared for your class. As a university instructor, I like to tell my students, “The answer is in the book”. I think you will find many insightful answers about Lean in Lonnie Wilson’s “HOW TO IMPLEMENT LEAN MANUFACTURING”.

Which Strategy is Best - LEAN or Six Sigma

2009-09-11T06:24:00.001-05:00

The question is asked under what conditions Lean Manufacturing or Six Sigma should be applied. Examining the strategy of the two methodologies might help with answering this question. Lean strategies focus on elimination of waste by using tools such as KANBAN, 5S, Kaizen and Total Productive Maintenance. The roots of lean are footed in the Toyota Production System. Meanwhile Six Sigma strategies are targeted for the elimination of variation within processes. Six Sigma focuses on a structured system of Master Black Belts, Black Belts, Green Belts armed with tools such as SPC, Capability Analysis, Process Mapping and Quality Function Deployment. In their article “Lean Sigma”, Antony, Escamilla and Caine (2003) suggest companies today are seeking to identify what strategy fits the culture of their organizations the best. In some cases the authors suggested a blended or mixed approach would be beneficial.

There are cultural differences between the two methodologies that suggest one might choose Lean vs. Six Sigma or vice versa. In “Where Lean Meets Six Sigma”, Drickhamer (2002) indicates lean programs are firmly rooted in a teamwork centered culture while Six Sigma has an “elitist” factor utilizing highly trained black belts and specialist working on long projects in distant offices from the factory floor. The author also suggests benefits from a blended or mixed approach.

The proper sequence to apply a blended approach might be with Lean first and then bringing in Six Sigma tools as needed. This approach is suggested in a Works Management article (Anonymous, 2003). The statement is made that “the key lean principles generally offer the broader base from which to assess current performance…and will be the best starting place”. Six Sigma can be a final pillar for a Lean program.

Finally, there is no clear answer to the question about when to apply lean and when to apply Six Sigma. Recent literature is recommending a blended or mixed approach to gain greater benefits by using the best elements of each approach.

References

Anonymous (2003), Does Six Mix?, Works Management, 56(6), p14-16

Antony, J., Escamilla, J.L., and Caine, P. (2002), Lean Sigma, Manufacturing Engineer, 82(2), p40.

Drickhamer D.,(2002) Where Lean Meets Six Sigma, Industry Week, 51(4), p55.