February 2006
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On pre-sliced, preserved apple slices…
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1 min read
Twelve Easy Pieces… Not since the canneries of the early 20th century have food processors sought merely to preserve perishables. Processing foods now means redesigning them, making them easier to eat for a population that is steadily less willing to go to any trouble at all. Given the childhood obesity epidemic and the longstanding economic…
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Thinking numerically
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1 min read
I’m taking a class in financial models to round out my skill set. The instructor said something interesting last night, taking care to put us in the right frame of mind for this work. He said, “Teach yourself to see the world in numbers. Try to think numerically.” In that comment I hear that quantitative…
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Positive solutions that are neither left nor right
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2 min read
In this Bruce Mau talk on Global Creativity, he mostly discusses the Massive Change exhibit. But at the end he drops this, without making it clear how it’s tied in… (my paraphrasing) Why are we seeing things on the political right and left that are both interesting? They should be at odds. What we realized…
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Malcolm Gladwell’s Troublemakers extends his Blink thinking to how we generalize. The takeaway is “It doesn’t work to generalize about a relationship between a category and a trait when that relationship isn’t stable — or when the act of generalizing may itself change the basis of the generalization.” In the article he asks whether pit…
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U.S. jobs aren’t shorter, but they are riskier
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1 min read
James Surowiecki’s Lifers reviews some statistics and concludes that — contrary to popular belief — long-term employment in the U.S. hasn’t disappeared at all. But what has changed is the amount of risk employees are expected to shoulder in terms of… Benefits: Health benefits and pensions have decreased Stratification: “Companies now tie compensation more closely…
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Books on European Innovation
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2 min read
A day after my recent musings, the Wall Street Journal looked at three books on European growth… Cousins and Strangers is written by the last British governer to Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner. Most of the text seems to mirror the kind of Bush administration bashing that progressives in the US already do,…
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If an 8-year old can do it…
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1 min read
Here’s a great story from David Hornik of how his 8-year old son started an Internet business. All the things we’ve struggled to make will be tools our kids use to build wonderful new things.
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The Innovative Europe
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3 min read
Continuing on the Europe theme, I see a lot of potential for innovation there if the EU, governments, and companies are willing to address the current challenges with a view of the current situation as helpful constraints rather than roadblocks. State-based benefits are a competitive advantage that should be leveraged more. The obvious example is…
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Who’s innovating?
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1 min read
While pretty much everyone everywhere is freaking out about the future rich country status of China and India (can you say self-fulfilling prophesy?), the ability to innovate is what will keep the rich countries rich. So who’s innovating? According to this EU report, the innovation leaders are Sweden Switzerland Finland Japan Germany United States Denmark…