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October to December 2007 Selected Posts

• Science Sortof Explains: Hiccups - The internet is very cool... I used Google to find out why. That lead to - MayoClinic on Hiccups
• Lean IT Systems, Not ERP - Information technology solutions should liberate people to be more flexible with designing processes, PDSA... not act to enforce rigid rules.
• Can I Afford That? - So the money in my checking account basically is how much I have to spend. If I have the money and want to spend it, I can afford it. If I don’t have the money, I can’t afford it. I can just save until I can.
• Toyota Winglet, Personal Transportation Assistance - Toyota has invested in personal transportation and personal robotic assistance for quite some time... The aging population worldwide (and others) will benefit greatly from improved personal mechanical assistance.
• Spending Guidelines in Retirement - The recent Business Week Retirement Guide is very good. In Spending Safely, they explore how to spend while preserving your capital in retirement.
• Do What You Say You Will - There is the saying "It is better to be thought a fool than speak, and prove it." Well it is better to be thought a pointy haired boss than to ask for feedback, then ignore it, and prove you are a PHB.
• Keeping Good Employees - I like direct, simple, questions. What can we do to keep you? What do you enjoy about your job? What do you dislike? What can I do to increase your joy in work?
• Copywrong - Copyright is a taking of a public benefit for a private entity. The idea was that taking from the public to provide the creator a limited-term, exclusive, government-granted, right to their work would encourage individuals to invest their time in creating works that would benefit society. The current system is broken.
• Outcome and In-Process Measures - In-process measures can be valuable in providing actionable information sooner than the outcome measure would allow action.
• 500 Year Floods - With the new data showing a flood, (it seems to me) most any model is likely to show an increased risk (and pretty substantial I would think) of it happening again in the next 100 years...
• Save Some of Each Raise - A tip for improving your financial health: anytime you get a raise split the raise between savings, paying off debt (if you have any non-mortgage debt), and increasing the amount you have to spend.
• Better Meetings - Meetings are perennial problems. People sit through meetings and then complain about how big a waste of time it was. Here are a couple very simple tips to try and actually improve
• How to Protect Your Financial Health - There are external risks to your financial health. Many people ruin their financial health even before any external risk can, but lets say you are being responsible then what risks should you seek to protect yourself from and how should you protect yourself?

John Hunter has over 15 years experience in Deming management, management improvement, customer focus, process improvement and related areas. Since 1995, I have used the internet and internet technology to improve the results of management improvement efforts.