Spark of Ingenuity

A match a tool for starting a fire under controlled conditions. It is also a British football magazine, a clone of Superboy, a supermarket chain in Hungary and a carbonated soft drink sold in Japan. But I digress.

This week, a look at the history of matches.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (US novelist, 1926 - )


Spark

Gum

Chewing gum in various forms has existed since at least 5,000 years ago, as chewing gum with tooth imprints, made of birch bark tar, has been found in Finland. The ancient Aztecs used chicle as a base for making a gum-like substance. Forms of chewing gums were also used in Ancient Greece, made from the resin of the mastic tree. The American Indians chewed resin made from the sap of spruce trees.

Most chewing gum companies have since switched to synthetic gum bases because of their low price and availability. Thank goodness we don't need to chew on trees anymore.

This week, a look at the history of chewing gum.

TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!" - Yuri Gagarin (Soviet pilot and cosmonaut, and the first human to journey into outer space, 1934 - 1989)


Chew

Golf Balls

Shady Acres. More than just a miniature golf course, it was a magical spot for a youth. Handing over less than a dollar would result in receiving a couple of putters, two beat up golf balls and a score card. We would pass through the windmill, the long "L" and the pesky volcano, where I always took the 6 strokes after 5 tries.

I never graduated from Shady Acres to a real golf course, so the allure of air pressure, turbulence, and aerodynamics all rolled into a golf ball escapes me to this day.

This week, a look at the history of the golf ball.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails." - Bertha Calloway (African-American community activist and historian, 1925 - )

Dimples

Top 10 reasons why Darth Vader was an amazing project manager

A project manager can have the responsibility of the planning, execution and closing of any project. It requires individuals who are intelligent and adaptable and can fine-tune the immediate strategy and manage particular tasks effectively while focusing on the main goal.

While organizations typically have subject matter experts, they also recognize that project management requires a different set of specialist skills. The tools and techniques of project management can be applied on any project and a good Project Manager should be able to add value to any environment, whether it's an IT implementation, a hotel build, an office refurbishment or construction of a Death Star.

Nice segue, huh?

Think about it. Vader takes personal charge (as the new Project Manager) to get the project back on track. After all, he built C3PO and a pod racer from scrap earlier in his life, and who was going to point out he had no major construction project experience? He also understood the business case and was fully committed into realizing the benefits on his project as soon as possible.

This week, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, a look at the top ten reasons why Darth Vader may have been a good project manager.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience." - Paulo Coelho (a Brazilian lyricist and novelist, 1947 - )

Top 10 Reasons Why Darth Vader Was an Amazing Project Manager

Harvesters

You reap what you sow. Farming metaphors worked well in societies dependent on agriculture, and the idea of “you reap what you sow,” is that actions will have consequences and people can expect to harvest the fruit of their behavior, just as farmers expect to harvest the crops that they plant.

Of course, if you are that farmer, you actually reap what you sow. And until the combine harvester thresher came along, reaping wasn't always easy.

This week, a look at the history of the combine harvester thresher.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning." - James Russell Lowell (American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat, 1819 - 1891)

Fruit

Talking to Kids About Quality Improvement

Like many people, I carry home the smells of my job. My last stop each day for one employer was the bakery, so those days I smelled like cinnamon or cookies. I have also arrived at home smelling like peanut butter, onions, garlic and cooked fruit. All of these odors helped me describe to my daughter what I really did each day at work, as trying to explain to a child what quality control and assurance was really about was not on my list of things to attempt.

I never considered using M&Ms to explain quality to anyone before. Maybe it is because always eat them first and ask questions later.

This week, a look at how to talk with your kids about quality improvement.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be." - Douglas Adams (English writer and dramatist, 1952 - 2001)

How to Talk With Your Kids About…Quality Improvement

Shape

The shape of an object located in some space is a geometrical description of the part of that space occupied by the object, as determined by its external boundary – abstracting from location and orientation in space, size, and other properties such as color, content, and material composition.

Most shapes occurring in the physical world are complex. The shape of the Coca-Cola bottle...well, it doesn't defy traditional mathematical description, but it may require analysis by differential geometry to explain.

This week, a look at the shape of the Coke bottle.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "So Einstein was wrong when he said, 'God does not play dice.' Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen." - Stephen William Hawking, (British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, 1942 - )

Shape