In my literary travels, I recently learned that Helvetica was originally called… Neue Haas Grotesk. And indeed, the name was changed for marketing reasons.
That reminds me of the case of the Chilean sea bass, the yummier-sounding fisheries label for the creature otherwise known as the Patagonian toothfish...
(image from Wikipedia)
Back from a Rockies roadtrip with the in-laws, the highlight of which was when a black bear family — a mother with two cubs — sauntered past our (parked) car on the road to Miette Hot Springs, near Jasper. Below was the best picture: with my photographic skills, I managed to override the autofocus feature on the camera on the others. 
We first noticed the stopped cars on the other side of the road, so we turned our hazards on and idled our way forward. When we saw the bears heading our way, we parked, not wanting to distract or otherwise irritate the ursine family. After picking at some roadside dandelions, the mother bear decided to cross the road — and the cubs followed, in tow. I didn’t appreciate how much they actually look like teddy bears. Now, the term “teddy bear” comes from an incident between a bear and US President Theodore (”Teddy”) Roosevelt. But unlike legendary Simpsons-hometown founder Jebediah Springfield, Roosevelt neither killed nor was killed by that bear.
As the mother bear passed by the driver’s side front-bumper, cubs in tow, it belatedly occurred to me to roll up my window. 
Still, it was very cool to come within about five feet of a sloth of bears in the wild — sloth being a term for a group of them, like a “murder” of crows, “crash” of rhinos, “clowder” of cats and personal favourite, “bloat” of hippos. It was cooler still, that we were safely ensconced in an automobile at the time.
The photo also got picked up by Yves Smith on her economics blog, one of the half-dozen or so on my daily reading list. It was Sunday’s “antidote-du-jour“. The backstory to her pseudonym is that it’s a play on the Biblical Adam and Eve, and Adam Smith being the codifier of capitalism.
Workplaces, like consumer products, involve the interplay of multiple systems: everything from accounting to manufacturing to research to… uh… the zeitgeist-tracking of a marketing department needs to work together reasonably smoothly.
The book was found on a pilgrimage to Powell’s Books in late 2009 and immediately targeted as a future book club read. While most companies work together reasonably smoothly, those companies whose departments function with seamless ease, are likelier to enjoy greater success. (Such is the Darwininan nature of business.) As such, learning more about how complex systems function, was thought to be of high value.
As always, if you find the summary useful, please consider supporting the author by purchasing the book.
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I was recently told that two local behemoths — BC Hydro and Best Buy — brought consulting firm Accenture in, to run their IT groups. The idea is that Accenture’s expertise will enable them to provide the IT function cheaper than the two aforementioned behemoths would be able to, even with a profit margin.
This immediately made me think of mitochondria, the “engines” of living cells. The thinking is that a couple billion years ago, advantages accrued to cells which had assimilated / “swallowed” mitochondria: the latter were very efficient at generating ATP, a chemical used by the cells for energy.
In the corporate analogue, BC Hydro and Best Buy would be the host cells, and Accenture (or other outsourced IT service providers like IBM) would be the mitochondria. The key measure is whether the aforementioned firms do indeed enjoy advantages through this activity — or whether they decide to return to the DIY path, down the road…
Innumerable sources talk about how peer recognition matters for more people than money… though the latter itself has some importance too.
I imagine that at most companies, pay is assigned at approximately market levels based on the responsibilities incurred. As such, CEO pay tends to drift higher than junior engineer pay, because the market has been assigning a higher value to the former — despite the many examples where this has proven incorrect.
For their part, markets are mechanisms for establishing the price of a good through transactions, based on perceived value of the participants. If not enough buyers feel a banana is worth $3, they will tend not to buy until the price drifts to levels they’re willing to pay; if not enough sellers feel a banana is being properly valued at 3 cents, they will tend divert their productive elsewhere, until the price rises.
If we call the grouping of people in a market “peers” we could easily say market prices are a peer phenomenon — a peer assessment of value of the service / good in question, such as a year’s worth of junior engineering time. Market prices are a form of peer recognition-of-value, or to be more precise, peer perception-of-value. Presumably , if Ahab makes more money than Baal, that means he’s perceived to be more valuable.
In which case pay serves as a proxy for peer recognition (how you’re recognized among your peers, and/or by your peers, depending how hierarchical one’s firm is). Which would go a long way towards explaining why it can be such a sensitive subject…
In light of the company’s focus (energy) a decision was made to cover a few books about the energy sector. Jeff Rubin’s wordily-titled book on the subject of peak oil — or at least, peak cheap oil — was chosen as the first volume of what has turned out to be (thus far) a trilogy.
Since few of us can relate handily to the volume of a barrel of oil (about 160 litres), and thus price-per-barrel numbers are somewhat abstract, the book review includes Litre-equivalent-prices to accompany the per-barrel figures. While numbers like $80 / barrel sound expensive ($80 is a fair amount of cash after all), putting this in the perspective of it being 50 cents per Litre, provides valuable context.
As always, if you find the summary useful, please consider supporting the author by purchasing the book.
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(Originally written June 14. Posted, with modest supplemental info, June 17.)
For those who follow my investing adventures (or “monetary misadventures”, depending on how the year’s going ) gold made it onto the front page of the New York Times this past weekend. An example of the “magazine cover indicator“, this strongly suggests that it’s due for a plummetting pummelling.
I’d expect this for gold priced in Euros — its slope was nearing positive infinity with the various crises (see the blue line in the image below). And in market arrangements, things which rise sharply in price — whether the Nikkei index circa 1990, Nasdaq circa 2000, or Shanghai circa 2008 — tend to fall back sharply when the upward momentum stops. Gold in Euros (blue) dropped sharply after seeing soaring gains in ‘06 and ‘09 — and fell sharply after rising sharply against the US dollar in ‘06 and ‘08 (red).
With the magazine cover, it seems highly probable gold will be cheaper in a couple months’ time, regardless of what might happens in the next couple weeks, as the investing classes find other amuse-portfeuilles for their wallets. (On account of other self-fulfilling indicators, summarized finely by the pseudonymous Jesse here, I figure its price is due for a modest surge in the very near term.)
Euro-wise, the news has been so bad out of Europe for so long, that the Euro seems likely to strengthen for the next little bit: everyone who wanted to sell, has already sold. As such, the trading algorithms of government-moneyed investment-bank speculators (whose predecessors Adam Smith characterized as an “idle class”) are likely trading dollars for Euros using some of those very same complex instruments which necessitated their bailouts. Ah, few things match the hypnotic stupor of a flatlined learning curve — as long-suffering Leafs (and Canucks) fans will surely attest!
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(Originally written June 14. Posted June 17.)
I was grudgingly happy for the Blackhawks’ recent Stanley Cup win — seeing as the Flyers made it into the playoffs on a shootout in the last game of the regular season (!) it wouldn’t've seemed fair for them to win. Their loss means that the unbroken streak of Cinderella Cup Finalists losing, continues; karma remains strong, among the hockey gods. That, and it’s a shade less frustrating when it’s the Cup winners who eliminate your perennially underperforming team…
On the topic of perennially underperforming, the Chicago Blackhawks’ recent Stanley Cup win — their first in 49 years — means the mantle of “longest Cupless drought” now moves to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Here are a few factoids about the last time they won, back in 1967:
Yes, that’s right, Toronto hasn’t won a Cup since its goalies started wearing masks. Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but if in a few years you hear the Maple Leafs ownership floating the idea of making goalie masks optional, you’ll know where they’re coming from.
The Blackhawks’ win also means that Marian Hossa managed to avoid becoming the probably-first player to lose three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals for three different teams. (He played for the Penguins in ‘08, when they got beat by Detroit. Looking to win, he then signed with Detroit, only to lose in game seven to… the Penguins.) Claude “Turtle” Lemieux notably won with New Jersey and Colorado in consecutive years, back in ‘95 and ‘96. And the first year, he was even the Conn Smythe Trophy winner!
Below: a photo of Maple Leafs’ maskless, Cup-winning duo of Johnny Bower and Terry Sawchuk.
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Through a link on the usually-relevant, often-irreverent FlowingData website, I also found a brilliant little visualization of Stanley Cup finalists in the past eight decades, which puts Leafs’ fans misery in perspective.
On the other hand, since the Canucks have been around since 1970-1971, it’s not exactly as if we’re doing much better here on the Left Coast…! The Vancouver Millionaires did win back in 1915 (probably before goalies wore jockstraps) though fortunately we’re not the worst-off in that regard. The Winnipeg Victorias won in 1902, and so hockey-inclined Winterpeggers have waited even longer than Cubs fans for another championship. Mind you, Winnipeg didn’t have an NHL team for most of the ensuing eleven decades, so they aren’t quite as overdue as Cubbies’ fans are.
Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom’s The Starfish and the Spider was the ninth book club selection. It was selected based on a desire to learn about decentralized team structures. A positive review on military analyst John Robb’s blog Global Guerrillas, also helped.
As of June 2010, it has proven to be one of the most cross-referenced texts in subsequent book summaries and discussion.
As always, if you consider the review useful, please consider supporting the authors by purchasing the book.
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The Starfish and the Spider - summary
(Aug 2010 update - relinked to PDF, which didn’t seem to be working)