MBA Books

I now hold in my grubby little hands the books that I will use for my first term at Norwich University. I got them in the mail yesterday. There are three of them.

The smallest of the three is Essentials of Organizational Behavior by Stephen Robbins and Timothy Judge. This book looks very interesting, and I can’t wait to jump in. By the price that Amazon.com is asking for it, you would think it was printed in 18k gold. But I’m not that lucky.

This masterfully crafted introduction provides balanced coverage of all the key elements comprising the discipline of OB, in a style that readers will find both informative and interesting. This includes not only traditional topics such as personality, motivation, and leadership; but also cutting-edge issues such as emotions, trust, work-life balance, workplace spirituality, and knowledge management. Source: Amazon.com]

The next book is Strategy Maps by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. For a thick book, it is pretty light. This book appears to be big on business processes. This is another subject I tend to enjoy.

More than a decade ago, Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton introduced the Balanced Scorecard, a revolutionary performance measurement system that allowed organizations to quantify intangible assets such as people, information, and customer relationships. Then, in The Strategy-Focused Organization, Kaplan and Norton showed how organizations achieved breakthrough performance with a management system that put the Balanced Scorecard into action. [Source: Amazon.com]

The final book we’re using is Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm.

These authoritative authors continue to define the MIS course by integrating coverage of essential new technologies, their applications, and their impact on managerial decisions. [Source: Amazon.com]

Management Interviews

It’s time to interview candidates at my place of business for a management position we have open. This person will manage 15-20 people. Finding exactly who I want is difficult to say the least. Here are some of the questions I ask.

Define productivity.

How is productivity measured in a call center?

How confident are you that you can successfully perform the duties of this position and why?

Tell me about a situation that would show the confidence your coworkers have in you.

Tell us about a pressure situation you were in that would demonstrate your ability to work under pressure.

What are some constructive methods of dealing with stress?

Briefly describe the most significant responsibility you have had in your career and what it taught you?

What additional training will we have to provide for you if we hire you?

Describe a typical day at your present position.

Why do you want to leave your current job?

What decisions are easiest for you to make and which ones are the most difficult? Why?

What items of information do you typically need before you make a decision?

Tell me about the worst decision that you’ve made on the job.

What is the purpose of a performance appraisal?

An employee approaches you with a sexual harassment-related problem. In your discussion with the employee, what items of information will be of the most importance?

What qualities make for a good boss?

Vacations during the holidays are popular among employees. Describe the actions a supervisor can take to insure that service levels are unaffected during these times.

What are some of the signs that you’re staff may be suffering from burnout?

What is your greatest weakness?

Define leadership?

What personal qualities should a leader have?

Provide us with an example of your leadership ability.

Relate to me a confrontation that you’ve had with your supervisor. Who was wrong and why?

Tell me about a successful team of which you were a member. What was the most outstanding characteristic of that team? What did you contribute?

In reality, I should not have to ask all of these… a good candidate will speak of some of these topics on their own without any prodding from me. Rarely does that happen. That’s why I have the long list of questions.

Who is That Dean Keeton Guy?

Do you live in a city that has a major street that is obviously named after someone, but you’ve never heard of that person? Austin has a street like that. And if you aren’t a Texas historian, or a graduate of UT Law, you might have made the same observation. For years, I’ve wondered who “Dean Keeton” was.

Previous searches came up fruitless, and now I know why. “Dean” wasn’t a name. It was his title. Werdner Page Keeton is the name of the man I was looking for.

Recently I was able to solve the personal mystery of Dean Keeton. First, I read about a prominent oil and gas attorney passing away. I learned that he worked with long-time UT law school Dean (A title, not a name) Page Keeton. After a quick look-up on Wikipedia, I found him.

“Dean” was just a title he held for over a quarter of a century. I guess at some point, it took the place of his first name. He also has some political lineage in him. W. Page Keeton was the father of former Texas Comptroller and gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn. He’s the grandfather of Scott McClellan, former White House Press Secretary, and Mark McClellan, current Medicare director and former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

I will sleep better tonight knowing this, and the next time I get on that death trap known as I-35, I’ll look up at the sign that bears his name and wonder no more.

Posterizing the Modern GOP

One might think (or hope) that the people responsible for the timeless “Got Milk?” ad campaign could come up with something a little more creative than this. I guess the lack of creativity spills over into the advertising world, too! Misery loves company.

“Silverstein, who as co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners was behind the famous “Got Milk?” ad campaign and the Budweiser frogs, had such a grasp of what makes for effective communication in radio, movies, TV, and online, that I thought he might have some ideas on how to help the Democrats, who continue to struggle with framing an election where they are holding all the cards. He did. When I suggested that he blog about his ideas, he said that since he usually expresses himself best in visual terms, he wanted to see if he could ‘blog visually.’”

Here … blog this (visually): Uhhh… Not so much. Try again.

Buildings and Signs

I am starting a new category in the photo album called ‘Buildings and Signs‘. Here is a picture taken in Giddings, Texas. Giddings is a city in Lee County, Texas, United States situated on the intersection of U.S. Routes 77 and 290, 55 miles (88 km) east of Austin. It is the county seat of Lee County, and its population was 5,105 at the 2000 census. The city’s motto is “Giddings Texas: Experience Hometown Hospitality”.

BTC 6300CL is Very Cool

Picked up one of these the other day. Great keyboard. Very cool with the back lighting. You should get one too.

I’ve always been a fan of BTC keyboards. They feel just like a good laptop keyboard, and doesn’t feel like you are typing on cookie dough. I just place it right over the existing keyboard on my Dell M1710 notebook. Works like a charm. The back light is very geeky.

Evening Clouds and Contrails

The fall is a great time to catch some awesome cloud formations. New pics in the cloud gallery.

Wal-Mart PC a Very Hot Item

Either we have a supply-chain / mass production problem, or the Linux geeks are sucking this up like a free lap-dance!

Wal-Mart has been on the radar in tech circles lately because of their $199.00 PC that evidently runs Linux very well. The reviews for this product have been spectacular. But after a little searching, this thing may be hard to get.

They are currently out of stock for online purchases, so I did a search (Find In Store) by zip code to see who might have one. The results are stunning.

We found 1 store within 100 miles of 77089 (Houston, Texas). Only stores that carry this product are shown below. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.) Store was OUT OF STOCK.

We found no stores within 100 miles of 78758 (Austin, TX) that carry this product. Please try a new search. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.)

We found no stores within 100 miles of 75214 (Dallas, Texas) that carry this product. Please try a new search. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.)

We found 3 stores within 100 miles of 20110 (Northern Virginia). Only stores that carry this product are shown below. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.) ALL 3 stores are OUT OF STOCK.

We found 4 stores within 100 miles of 90210 (Beverly Hills, California). Only stores that carry this product are shown below. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.) All 4 stores were OUT OF STOCK.

We found no stores within 100 miles of 98106 (Seattle, Washington) that carry this product. Please try a new search. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.)

We found 6 stores within 100 miles of 10011 (southern NY, northern NJ). Only stores that carry this product are shown below. (In-stock status is approximate and was last updated on 11/11/2007 at 7:37 AM, E.T.) All 6 stores OUT OF STOCK.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!

Gizmodo talks about it here …

The Economics of Gas for Guns

First 450 people who show up at Cleveland’s convention center with a working handgun will get a $100 gas card.

(1) Who in their right mind would spend money on a gun, only to surrender it for a gas card? With gas being around $3.00 a gallon, that’s only one tank of gas in my Chevy Avalanche. The answer to the original question is: Not any law-abiding citizen with any interest in self-preservation would take part in or support such a program.

(2) Will known criminals show up and turn their weapons in, risking the chance of getting their fingerprints lifted from weapons that may have been used in a crime? Probably not. Then again, programs like this are more than likely ‘no questions asked, no I.D. required’, which is even more of a facilitator, and doesn’t help the police solve crimes that may have been carried out with that gun.

(3) If we stipulate those two items, then the primary source for the guns that are turned in could very well be through theft. Getting guns out of the hands of criminals is a good idea. Nobody is arguing that. But programs like this entice more crime than they solve, and create revolving door of crime.

(4) Anti-gun people are creating incentive because they can’t get around the Second Amendment, and desperately need to do something to prove their worth to the community.

Let’s look at the vicious cycle. Anti-gunners can’t come into our homes and take our guns, so they do so by proxy via theft and incentive.

Let’s say Johnny Criminal does turn in his gun. Unless he’s renounced crime all together, and parted ways with his criminally-minded friends, he’ll need a gun sometime soon. This creates the need to steal again. (Remember that convicted felons can’t legally purchase firearms).

Johnny Criminal breaks into a home owned by a law-abiding gun owner, then turns the guns in at the next city-sponsored buyback event. When Johnny needs a gun, he’ll just go steal another one. You see where I’m going with this.

People who run local governments and municipalities will do everything they can to entice those people who don’t or can’t think for themselves. This is a prime example.

Boston tried a gun buyback program for $200.00 each in 2006. There are countless other programs out there like this, and it just seems to me to be throwing money into a black hole. Those spending money on these programs can’t measure the impact the programs have. I think these programs are designed to make the weak and uninformed feel strong and confident.

Others think the same way. [here...] [here...] [here...] and [here...] These programs don’t work and aren’t measurable, but your tax dollars are feeding the frenzy of a feel-good measure that ultimately makes others look good.

Accepted!

I was notified this morning that I was accepted into the MBA program at Norwich University.

The Economics of Blogging

From BlogWorldExpo:

Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
Over 57 million Americns read blogs.
1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
9% of internet users say they have created blogs .
6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog.
Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs.
over 120 thousand blogs are created every day.
There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day.
22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs.
120,000 new blogs are created every day.
37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
51% of blog readers shop online.
Blog readers average 23 hours online each week.

So, what are the economics of this?

Let’s stipulate that blogs exist because of readers (customers). Without them, there would be no need for blogs. Let’s also stipulate that all bloggers want people to read their stuff. Why set up a blog if you and your mother are going to be the only ones reading it? Now … on to the numbers.

Look at a blog in terms of a car dealership. Let’s even replace the term ‘blog’ with ‘car dealership’.

There are 12 million car dealerships in America that are open and ready to sell you a car. There are currently 147 million potential car buyers out there, but only about 57 million of them drive cars.

Over 120,000 new car dealerships are going into business every day, and 1.4 million new cars are being produced to be shipped out to the car lots in hopes that someone will buy them (every day). What this means is that the supply is going way up, the opportunity for the dealerships to differentiate themselves from each other is getting more and more difficult, and eventually there will be so many car dealerships that some won’t even get a look when someone drives by in their car they bought down the street from a guy selling the same vehicle.

There are probably 50-100 “popular” blogs out there. Unless the world comes to an end, these sites will probably remain popular. The other 120,000 sites that come online every day will need to work to set themselves apart from the rest. Every second that passes, this task becomes harder and harder to accomplish.

Furthermore, the value (economics) of each blog post becomes lower because everyone has one already. There is no demand. And if there were demand, people can go create their own. What is the incentive to go to “blog X”to read information about a topic that I can find on “blog Y”?

I would also like to know the net (not gross) number of blogs coming online every day. There has to be some blog-attrition factored in somewhere. This is a staggering number and I’m too tired to think about it.

Creating Art With Paint Shop Pro Photo X2

Started playing with Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 today. It’s got a lot more features than the previous versions. This is a quick 2 minute creation based on one of my other photos I took a while back.

ROFL

I am starting a collection of pictures of personalized license plates. I’ve missed quite a few lately because I didn’t have a camera with me, but this morning is different. I got this one from a motorcycle.

Batalla De Los Tambores

Batalla De Los Tambores is mucho bad-ass. If you’re into percussion, this video is for you. If you’re into Godsmack, it’s REALLY for you. One of the best videos I’ve see in a while. It makes me want to go buy a $20k drum kit just to have something to do.

Asking the Hard Questions

If you choose to run for President, you deserve every hard question asked of you. As a a matter of fact, you should be ostracized from the political process for refusing to directly answer hard questions, or dancing around the issue (which is the most popular way of answering questions in today’s political landscape). The unfortunate part is that this is what people have come to expect, and when the politicians are really put to the fire, there are a few who believe that the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment has been violated.

For this reason, there are some liberals who don’t like Tim Russert.

Some like the status-quo. Some take offense when their candidate is made to account for how they really feel. I’m glad someone is finally asking the hard questions. It brings out the stupid in people. That’s a great thing if those people want to lead the country!

Also see:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign said late Wednesday that she supports New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan for illegal immigrant driver’s licenses, a clarification required after a twisted campaign performance Tuesday night left people guessing her position.¹

This is in the papers now because she could not take one side or the other when a large percentage of likely Democrat voters were watching on TV. Again, a direct result of Tim Russert’s line of questioning.

“Waaaaahhhhhhh” -Hillary Clinton

1. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307247,00.html [↩]