Management
mikethemadbiologist | August 18, 2011I've been meaning to get to this post about Albert Alfred Hitchcock and the auteur myth by Jonah Lehrer. He writes:
I certainly don't meant to disparage the genius of Hitchcock or Steve Jobs or to defend uninspired data driven design. But it's also important to remember that nobody creates Vertigo or the iPad by themselves; even auteurs need the support of a vast system. When you look closely at auteurs, what you often find is that their real genius is for the the assembly of creative teams, trusting the right people with the right tasks at the right time. Sure, they make the final decisions…
mikethemadbiologist | February 17, 2011One of the justifications for outsourcing (firing productive U.S. workers and shipping the jobs overseas) is that it will lower costs. Then there's reality, in which firing productive U.S. workers and shipping the jobs overseas actually costs more. Consider this from the CEO of Boeing about their new plane, the 787:
One bracing lesson that Albaugh was unusually candid about: the 787's global outsourcing strategy -- specifically intended to slash Boeing's costs -- backfired completely.
"We spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we ever would have spent if we'd tried to keep the key…
mikethemadbiologist | February 11, 2011Dean Baker wins the internet today. The set up:
The Wall Street Journal ran a piece on how some companies are unable to fill positions even when more than 14 million workers are unemployed....
All the people used as sources for the article complained that they were unable to find qualified workers. For example, Josh Williams, the chief executive of Gowalla, a social networking start-up, is quoted complaining that: "most people we want are employed somewhere already. We don't get a lot of applications coming in."
And the snark:
The way employers are supposed to deal with this situation is to…
mikethemadbiologist | January 8, 2011I can't figure it, myself. By way of driftglass, we come across this report indicating massive employee dissatisfaction:
Workers can't wait to dump their employers: 84 percent of respondents to a survey say they plan to actively look for a new job this year.
That's up from 60 percent who said they planned to do so last year. Only 5 percent said they intend to stay in their current position.
The survey was done by Manpower subsidiary Right Management. "It's staggering," said Joanne Stroud of Right Management.
Senior leadership within organizations is largely to blame, Stroud said. While many…
mikethemadbiologist | December 21, 2010Education 'reformers' constantly talk about how schools need to be run more like businesses. Now, like Comrade PhysioProf, I do think good management is important. But what does good management have to do with business? So asks David Carr (italics mine):
On Wall Street and on Silicon Valley office campuses, in hedge fund boardrooms and at year-end Christmas parties, it seems you can't have a conversation without someone talking about the movie that finally lays bare America's public education crisis.
"Waiting for 'Superman' " is one thing that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg…
mikethemadbiologist | October 4, 2010You might have, by now, seen that obnoxious article by Scott Kern bemoaning the sorry state of the cancer research facility at which he works. Apparently, the building is nearly empty on weekends, so people aren't working hard enough, and thereby killing cancer patients. Rebecca sums up the tone of the article:
There have been a few responses (updated: Janet has one also) to this chuckleheaded essay by Scott Kern (pdf) chiding, well, basically anyone who isn't in the lab 60+ hours every week about how they lack passion about their research, and are essentially letting sick people die…
mikethemadbiologist | June 2, 2010Despite what Tyler Brûlé writes at The Financial Times. Brûlé writes:
When an e-mail bounces back with: "I'm travelling on business in New York (or Rome, Taipei, São Paulo ...) and will have limited access to e-mail," such messages usually pose the following questions: is this individual employed by a company that can't afford BlackBerrys or iPhones? Can this person not manage their time away from the office? Or are they simply away having a laugh at my company's expense? Unless they work in the public utility business and are 200ft below the streets of New York repairing the sewers…
mikethemadbiologist | May 17, 2010One of the things that never ceases to amaze me is that our entire political class (both politicians and the mandarin hangers-on) still does not comprehend that the balance of accounts must sum to zero. That is, aggregate savings (all the stuff private entities, from corporations to individuals to non-profits, own) require government deficits (one way around this is trade surpluses, but we try to deal with the real world around here). It is impossible for the government and the entire private sector to both run surpluses. This isn't political theory or ideology, it's arithmetic.
So when…
mikethemadbiologist | March 17, 2010And Evacuation Day, which truly is a silly holiday, is a wonderful way to allow everybody to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day without violating all that church and state stuff. One unique Massachusetts tradition is that, on this day, some tightwad state representative rails against how much Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day cost the state. Yes, Evacuation Day isn't a particularly momentous occasion in terms of U.S. history, but the Battle of Bunker Hill is kinda important--we should remember it. If the colonists had lost the battle, our history would be very different.
Besides, nobody's…
mikethemadbiologist | July 27, 2009Dr. Mom raises an interesting point about the amount of time she spends working as a scientist:
I work about 40 hours a week every week. I rarely work at home.
It seems like most of my colleagues (women and men) work crazy 10, 12+ hour days. Often you hear people comparing the academic version of war stories almost as if it is a contest to see who has worked the longest day. But I have never been like that.
At my Midwestern R1U I am considered fairly successful [Mad Biologist: I'll stipulate that she seems very successful]....
Dr. Mrs. Supersuccesful asked to talk to me and we discussed…
mikethemadbiologist | June 9, 2008There's been a lot of discussion about why women in academia have fewer children than those in medicine or law. Unfortunately, it seems to be veering dangerously close to the 'pro-kids, anti-kids' argument that ultimately breaks out, when instead, I think the problem has less to do with children and more to do with a fundamental problem within academia (and academic science in particular)--we suck at management.
As bad as we supposedly are at defending evolution (if Randy Olsen is to be believed), we really do a piss poor job at managing. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Dr. Crazy at…