Posted by: Lee Prosser
on Dec 09, 2009
Tagged in: Untagged
I cannot stress the value of having a good mission statement. At the moment I am not going too far into what a mission statement should say. Nor am I going to tell you what to call it. There are lots of names for mission statement like vision statement, business creed, business principles and so on. Recently I received a link to a website regarding mission statements. Here it is http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/video/made-to-stick-writing-a-mission-statement-1 and I would suggest you visit it: titled “Made to Stick: Writing a Mission Statement”. When I looked at this I was reminded of what is important to us will impact our business.
Dan Heath talked about two companies: Johnson & Johnson and ExxonMobil. Both have mission statement but call them different things. Both companies have had a major incident that required top management to respond to. Both companies reacted just how their mission statement set their values.
Posted by: Lee Prosser
on Dec 01, 2009
Tagged in: Untagged
Posted by: Lee Prosser
on Nov 12, 2009
Technically the meaning of quality is simple. Quality is meeting specification. For an object this may mean meeting the size as specified on a drawing. A good example of this could be a 1- cup, measuring cup. A drawing of the cup would include dimensions of the cup such as height, diameter and wall thickness. And with each of the measurements there would be a tolerance. The question is why a tolerance? Why should we have specifications in the first place?
First off, nothing is perfect. There are variations in every thing we do and make. Think about the situation where you are diving on a highway. The speed specification for this example is 60 miles per hour. How simple is it to keep to the 60-mph speed limit? What you find is some drivers are driving less than the speed limit and some are driving over the speed limit. Actually not everyone is driving at the same speed. Now this can get very complicated because we could start talking about the precision of speed measurement, the calibration of the speed odometer, and terrain of the road as a few examples of causes for variation. The real issue is how far from 60-mph can you go before the police will issue a ticket for not following the speed limit. So the ability of a driver to stay within a speed limit means their quality of driving is acceptable or not. That is the driver is meeting specifications of the road.
Posted by: Lee Prosser
on Nov 03, 2009
An interesting question was once asked: If a tree falls in the forest and there is know one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Physics says yes it does make a sound. It has too! Just the act of falling and the release of energy requires there be sound. The question is much deeper than that. If there is know one to hear it, then does it mater if there is a sound or not?
The response to the question is yes. The reality is that when this question was first asked there was very little noise in the forest. The new reality is that we now live in a forest that is very noisy. Think about a business that is trying to start up. How many other businesses are out there competing for the same market? Or are these other businesses making noise (marketing) for customer attention? The physics has changed.
