I have wanted to note the brilliance of Cardboard Gods for probably about a year. I don’t watch as much baseball as I used to, but I still love reading about the game. There is something about baseball that lends itself to excellent writing. I highly suggest checking out Josh Wilker as he navigates his life with help from signposts of his past, a late 70’s baseball card collection. I sometimes wish I had that beacon to guide me in the tribulations of adulthood.

“Failure is never a stranger for long”

I have long admired Toyota. I always try to instill the values of Toyota’s lean practices (part of the Toyota Production System) in my day to day work. My employer is pushing a Lean Six Sigma program and I applaud them for that, but I have a feeling that it will be hard to make the program work. James Surowiecki identifies part of the reason I feel this way in his latest Financial Page column at the New Yorker.

In the nineteen-nineties, a McKinsey study of companies that had put quality-improvement programs in place found that two-thirds abandoned them as failures. Toyota’s innovative methods may seem mundane, but their sheer relentlessness defeats many companies. That’s why Toyota can afford to hide in plain sight: it knows the system is easy to understand but hard to follow.

I hope my employer will stick with the program, but that is just half of the issue. The employees have to buy into the concept of continuous change. This means management not pushing for the big win and staff constantly looking for opportunities to constantly get better at their jobs. I have reservations at work, but I will try to lead by example.

I have had a lot of Johnny Marzetti in my youth. It is a staple of schools across Ohio. It is a simple concoction, short noodles, sauce, peppers, ground beef, and seasonings. I was not aware that it was actually invented in Columbus. It may not be as popular as Cincinnati Chili, but I guess it is something Columbus can call it’s own.

As the spring fund drive for both of public radio stations in Columbus (WOSU and WCBE) pushes on for a fifth day; I keep thinking there was either some fortuitous timing or a bit of collaboration. They even tend to have the hourly pledge updates overlap. I have often wondered why this did not happen more. I could easily change the channel and listen to the other station while they talked about the benefits of membership, but not this time. One of these days I may get around to donating; perhaps when Erica is out of school.

I am not sure what to say about this aside from shocking:

Urban school district graduation rates at a glance

A look at graduation rates for the main school systems in the nation’s 50 largest cities, according to a report released Tuesday by the America’s Promise Alliance. Researchers estimated the likelihood that a 9th grader would complete high school on time with a regular diploma. They used school enrollment and diploma data but did not use data on dropouts as part of its calculation.

City Principal School District (03-04 percentage)

Columbus, Ohio Columbus Public Schools – 40.9 –

41%. I had no idea that Columbus Public Schools only graduated 41% of students.

In the more than two centuries since then, we have struggled to balance the same forces that confronted Hamilton and Jefferson – self-interest and community; markets and democracy; the concentration of wealth and power, and the necessity of transparency and opportunity for each and every citizen. Throughout this saga, Americans have pursued their dreams within a free market that has been the engine of America’s progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and opportunity for generations of Americans. A market that has provided great rewards to the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon for science, and technology, and discovery.

Barack Obama highlights the positives of a free market. I can understand why people like to listen to him. The man can speak.

The long rumored deal to bring Menards, a home improvement store, to the old Northland Mall site is done. Menards is to anchor the redevelopment of the site.

I believe that climate change is happening and it poses a great threat to modern life. I also believe that markets are the best solution to effect positive change to the environment. Two articles have come out recently detailing what a market based solution may look like. The New Yorker looks at a variety of options such as a carbon market. Richard Sandor created the sulfur-dioxide market in the early 1990’s that curbed emissions so sharply that it’s byproduct, acid rain, has been virtually eliminated. Sandor, in 2003, created the Chicago Climate Exchange. This new market trades in carbon. Sandor explains his belief in markets with the following quote:

People tell me, well, these are bad guys, and corporate guys who just want to buy the right to pollute are bad, too, and we should not be giving them incentives to stop. But we need to address the problems that exist, not drown in fear or lose ourselves in morality. Behavior changes when you offer incentives. If you want to punish people for being bad corporate citizens, you should go to your local church or synagogue and tell God to punish them. Because that is not our problem. Our problem is global warming, and my job is to reduce greenhouse gases at the lowest possible cost. I say solve the problem and deal with the bad guys somewhere else.

That is my belief as well. I come from the Realist school. We need to focus on outcomes; especially with a challenge as big as the future of our planet.

The second article I found recently was in Wired. Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund is a private enterprise focused on environmental causes. He is willing to work with companies to gain positive environmental outcomes. One minor qualm with this assessment by Mr. Krupp:

Wired: But won’t our economy get hammered by China and India?

Krupp: It’s inevitable that those countries will adopt caps, too. We will gain a competitive advantage by going first. The real question is, do we want to import clean tech from Germany, Japan, and China or export it to the rest of the world?

I guess I do not see cap adoption inevitable in India and China, but the first mover advantage may ensure a thriving American business sector for the foreseeable future. The Environmental Defense Fund‘s motto is “Finding the Ways that Work”. That is certainly something that I agree with.

CrimsonCup is offering coffee fiends a chance to be a barista (for a day) at their flagship store on High Street in Clintonville. Crimson Cup serves a good cup of coffee and are very skilled a preparing their coffee drinks. They are cut above many of the coffee shops around town. They are also very involved in the community.

Crimson Cup
4145 N. High St.
Columbus, OH 43214

Microsoft faces an uncertain future. It is not a given that people will continue to buy Windows over Mac OSX or Office over Open Office and Google Docs. I have wondered what strategy Microsoft would pursue. Microsoft seemed to pursue a web and services strategy with the ascension of Ray Ozzie to Chief Software Architect. Robert Cringley has a different idea:

Same for Microsoft, which with its Yahoo acquisition will quite consciously try to convert itself into the next General Electric, a company that uses its sheer economic power to make most of its money.

It is an intriguing idea, but short on a method to make it happen. I think that Cringley may be underestimating the what it took for GE to go from a 19th century electrical parts manufacturer to global holding conglomerate. I think it will take far more than a style injection that Yahoo would provide. It might be interesting to see a future Jack Donaghy working for Microsoft as Senior Vice President of Mobile Computing Platforms, Medical Devices Manufacturing, and U.S. television news programing. I might just watch a show based on that premise.