Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:22:53 GMT | no comments
Many business are built entirely around extrinsic motivators – carrots and sticks. That’s actually fine for many kinds of 20th century mechanistic tasks. But for 21st century cognitive tasks, monetary rewards just don’t work.
This has been confirmed over and over again. Dan Ariely found that when tasks called for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance. The London School of Economics reports: “We find that financial incentives can result in a negative impact on overall performance.”
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:07:11 GMT | no comments
John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, has a great definition of what a business should be:
“Business has noble purposes: to provide goods and services that improve its customers’ lives, to provide jobs and meaningful work for employees, to create wealth and prosperity for its investors, and to be a responsible and caring citizen.”
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:57:33 GMT | no comments
What would you think is the safer car to drive – the Toyota Camry at 3300 pounds or the Ford Explorer at 4800 pounds. Would you believe the lighter Camry?
Safety statistics show this to be true. For every million Camrys on the road, 41 Camry drivers perish in crashes and an additional 29 people die in accidents involving Camrys. However, for every million Ford Explorers on the road, 88 Explorer drivers die and it kills 60 other people. So driving an Explorer is twice as dangerous as driving a Camry!
Why is this? The bigger Explorer can’t avoid accidents as easily as the nimbler Camry and is more prone to rollovers.
So next time someone says they feel safer in a big car, point out that the smaller car is actually safer.
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:47:25 GMT | no comments
Many organization are looking for ways to reduce their garbage and increase composting of the disposable cups. However, it turns out that the styrofoam (also known as extruded polystyrene foam or XPS) versus paper question is more difficult than it first appears.
One big problem is that the coating on the paper cups which keeps it from leaking also makes it difficult to recycle or compost. And the cups themselves contain very little recycled paper.
An old study from Science shows that on almost every count, except cooling water and biodegradability, the styrofoam cups are more eco-friendly.
A newer study also concludes that to process the raw materials about six times as much steam, 13 times as much electric power, and twice as much cooling water are consumed to produce the paper cup as compared to the styrofoam cup.
The same study found that landfill disposal of the two items under dry conditions will occupy similar landfill volumes after compaction and neither will decompose much. Under wet conditions, styrofoam will not readily degrade but may help other materials to do so, while the paper will decompose giving off methane, a significant greenhouse gas.
Another possibility is to recycle the styrofoam cups, although this is hard to find. There are mail in recycling centers in Redwood City and Hayward that take them and Imagine Surfboards makes surfboards out of used styrofoam cups.
It is too bad that there isn’t an easy solution to making disposable cups more eco-friendly.
Posted by Max Dunn
Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:39:13 GMT | 1 comment
With the recent financial breakdown, it was refreshing to hear of a new type of bank at the VLAB event Upside of the Downturn on January 20th, 2008.
Renaud Laplanche, Founder & CEO of the Lending Club described how normal banks pay 2-3% but collect 16%. Lending Club lenders on the other hand, get 10.29% while borrowers pay 13% on average. The Lending Club narrows the spread rates by transacting over the Internet and having people lending to other people. As a lender, you can choose which borrower to lend to which creates a connection and social responsibility among users. Borrowers are also carefully screened and 85% are declined, so only prime borrowers are accepted. This leads to a low default rate of 2.7% and a late rate of 3.8%. The Lending Club is experiencing high growth rates of 50-100%, and in December of 2008, $2.5M was placed.
Maybe this is a new model for more sustainable banking!
One of the main points that Mark made was that it is difficult to tell how eco-friendly a product is without a in-depth study. As an example, he had us discuss which we thought was more eco-friendly: paper or polystyrene coffee cups. (Polystyrene is sometimes called Styrofoam or Polyfoam.) We all pretty much all agreed that paper cups were better, and then Mark showed us this study:
On almost every count, except cooling water and biodegradability, the polystyrene cups are more eco-friendly.
In raw material requirements the paper cup required about 2.5 times its finished weight of raw wood and about the same hydrocarbon fueling requirement as is needed for the polystyrene foam cup. To process the raw materials about six times as much steam, 13 times as much electric power, and twice as much cooling water are consumed to produce the paper cup as compared to the polystyrene foam cup. Emission rates to air are similar and to water are generally higher for the paper cup.
Another interesting ramification this study pointed out is that in a wet landfill, the polystyrene will remain stable while the paper will decompose giving off methane gas and contributing to the instability of the land surface.
This just goes to prove what Mark taught in this class – it isn’t always obvious which products are eco-friendly.
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 04 Apr 2008 17:26:58 GMT | no comments
The other day, I was talking to my friend Bill Keller about the best way to hire people. He mentioned that it was important to have a defined company culture and to hire people that fit in with that culture. I thought this was a good idea. We also agreed that the normal process of interviewing people across a desk was almost worthless and only proved whether people had interviewing skills, but not whether they had the necessary job skills.
Another thing we agreed on was that most people will only hire people that are not as good as they are. Generally this is a self confidence issue because people worry that the person they hire could take over their job.
I certainly have fallen into this, in particular in a job a had right before I graduated from college. I had to hire a programmer to continue my work while I went home to fulfill a summer obligation. I was very conscious to hire someone that was good, but not too good so that I would have a job when I got back!
So if this is how most people behave, what happens when you allow a large group of people to decide who to hire? You end up with someone that is less capable than everyone making the decision!
So while it is good to involve other people in the hiring process and get their feedback, the worst thing to do when hiring someone is to do it based on the consensus of a group.
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:30:28 GMT | no comments
The Surfline report said this morning about 38th Street:
Pretty much flat this morning
and about Pleasure Point
Maybe you could get up on a longboard but its pretty desperate.
Well Mark and I went anyways and were rewarded with a fantastic day of surf. For the first 40 minutes, we were the only two out at 38th Street. Then a few other people came, but it never got crowded. The waves weren’t big, lots of 2 and 3 foot waves, but they had nice shape and Mark and I caught a ton of waves and had a great time practicing walking on the board. The water was still a little cold, but the sun was out and the weather was nice and warm. I am not sure if Surfline meant this as an April’s Fool joke, but the bad report sure kept away the crowds and made it a fantastabulous day for us!
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:48:20 GMT | 1 comment
It is amazing how distorted a story can be when you hear only rumors about it. For instance, it was my impression that the recent trouble in Tibet was caused by the Chinese cracking down on the Tibetans, and this was also the impression of several people I talked to. But then I read “Trashing the Beijing Road” in the March 22nd, 2008 edition of The Economist and got quite a different picture.
It turns out that it wasn’t the Chinese security forces that started the trouble – the Tibetans started rioting after hearing rumors that the police beat a couple of Buddhist monks. The Tibetans smashed into non-Tibetans shops, pulling merchandise from the stores and lighting it on fire. Many Han Chinese were quick to flee, otherwise the death toll might have been much higher than the 13 people the government reported were killed by rioters, mostly in fires. Shops owned by Tibetans were marked with traditional white scarves – almost every other one was wrecked. During the night, fire trucks were sent in, backed by armored personnel carriers with riot police, to put out the biggest fires. But the police did not immediately move into the alleys where rioting continued for a second day.
Overall, the efforts of the security forces appeared relatively measured. Rather than going in with guns blazing, which was the tactic used in the last outbreak of anti-Chinese unrest in Lhasa in 1989, they chose to let the rioters vent their anger, then gradually go in several days later. The government’s decision not to declare martial law showed its concern about the Olympics, since the Olympic flame is due to arrive in Lhasa on June 20th.
While the rioting was started by the Tibetans, the Chinese government is not completely blameless. The surge of spending in Tibet and the region’s high growth rate has been seen as benefitting mostly the Han Chinese. Tibetans also resent the hardline tactics of Tibet’s party chief – a Han – who is seen as harassing the Tibetans and stepping up the official criticism of the Dalai Lama. Nonetheless, whether or not it was true the the monks were beaten, it was the Tibetans that started the riots and the security forces that showed restraint.
So here is an example where the real facts of a story were quite different from the initial impression. We should all keep this in mind when hearing rumors and wait for the full story before making any judgments.
