Nose news is bad news

I'm a huge skeptic on most pharmaceuticals, (OTC, prescription and alternative). There have been two exceptions to this rule for me - Tylenol 3 and Zycam. Tylenol 3 without question relieves pain. Zycam, in my mind benefited from its modest (and unprovable) claim; it shortens the common cold.

As someone who used to catch a lot of colds, I've used it a dozen or so times though the years off and on. I thought it worked. I guess it still might but with a big side effect. It potentially kills off the sense of smell. It's not worth missing out on the bouquet of a nicely aired out Bordeaux.

Today's new word is . . . .

"Ringelmann Effect". This is a new one for me.

Back in B school, we were taught this was something called the "diminishing marginal utility of labor", and it had more of a manufacturing sensibility to it. The naming convention that I learned also has a more sterile, less judgmental tone to it than Ringelmann's flavoring of the idea . His incorporates the notion of "social loafing", which I can't argue with but consider to be beside the point in any practical applicaton.

By whatever name though, it is a tremendously useful management insight. It is also habitually ignored. In my experience it's pretty astounding how often this time-tested, never-fail concept is not even considered. Almost always the response to project stall out is to "throw more bodies at it". I have never seen that work, and it almost always makes things worse.

If you want something done (and probably done mostly right and fast) in an organization, assign it to either one or three people.

By the way, the concept showed up in a new business book with the off putting yet begging for attention title of "I Hate People" With that as the title it will be interesting to see how it sells.

The good, the bad and the ugly

I had a phone interview for a pretty cool job this morning. Some good folks I've met through networking helped me get to that point. Many thanks to Chris, and Mike. I made 13 outbound networking calls today. That is a near capacity for me. That's the good.

Only spoke with 4 of the 13. That's the bad.

The ugly is this weather! It just goes on and on being gray!

The race does not alway go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,

but that's the way to bet.

Beat 'em on both counts this week.

I was proceeding at a safe and legal speed the other day on westbound I-80, when "the man" pulled me over on a trumped up speeding charge. Had to fight that one. Even though it meant going up against the formidable Dallas County prosecutorial machine. The officer noted on the citation that my court appearence was at 9:30 PM. I showed up and I was alone in that! No prosecutor. No judge. No arresting officer. Turns out the courthouse (picture above) closes at 4:30 PM.

Net result? Case dismissed.

Slow and weak takes this round. Nice looking courthouse though, isn't it?

I know that we promised to be upbeat here. . .

but this a pretty cool graphic. At least it's in happy colors.


Double click the image to see the whole thing or here is the link.

The surprising thing to me on this representation is that the auto company asset base has shrunk so much.

And look how big Refco was. It didn't strike me at the time, but that should have been more of a coal mine canary than it was. Oh well, none so blind . . . . .

WaMu and Lehman combined tip the scale at just over a Trillion. Sounds about right, but that is a very serious number.