Autopsis

What Do You Make?

Here in the United States, this is a holiday weekend.

The holiday is Labor Day, which was established to celebrate the work and efforts of all who toil to earn a living.

Like most holidays, it has accrued additional meanings and symbolism over the years.

For some, it is a fashion milestone, signaling the time to store away the white shoes, belts and dresses until next summer.

For others, it’s the traditional end of summer frolic and time to return to school.

And for others, it’s the beginning of long anticipated American football amateur and professional sports seasons.

But, the root and purpose of the holiday is to feature and appreciate the efforts and labors of every working man and woman in the country.

Along those lines, I came across this video today in a post by a VC.

The video relates what happened when a lawyer ridiculed a teacher at a dinner party regarding the teacher’s relative abilities, income and contribution to society.

I find it particularly appropriate for this Labor Day weekend holiday.

As those of us here celebrate this holiday and our friends around the world pause for their weekend, it’s good for all of us to ask ourselves, “What do you make?”

Link to video: What do you make?

Tags: education, income, labor day, teachers

Posted in Business, Cultures | No Comments »

Today’s WSJ perception of the flyover states

This photo in today’s Wall Street Journal caught my eye. It accompanied an earnings report story on John Deere.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903639404576513981361991242.html?mod=ITP_marketplace_4

I thought about the conversation or email that must have solicited this image back from the media library people: “Need 4 column photo for Deere & Company” Somebody down there dutifully ran a keyword search for “Deere & Company,” perhaps even including “tractor,” and this is what they picked from the results.

The media library sent the photo up to editorial and it got inserted and then at least one editor reviewed the layout, clicked on “approved,” and out it went to the world.

The Wall Street Journal’s perception of Deere & Company, agriculture and the Midwest, all nicely summed up in a photo.

How very quaint.

As the story states, Deere & Company is the world’s largest manufacturer of farm machinery by sales.

Deere & Company is currently projecting a full-year net income of $2.7 billion. That’s billion with a B and that’s net income, meaning revenue minus costs, also known as profit. They had revenues of $8.37 billion last quarter alone and reported revenues of $26 billion in 2010. That same year, 2010, Deere & Company ranked 107th on the Fortune 500 list.

In 1837 John Deere was a one-man show operating out of a blacksmith shop. Today, it is a very big company, employing over 55,000 people and selling more than $26 billion dollars in products and services worldwide.

Their current top of the line wheeled farm tractor is a 9630.

This particular example, a used 2009 model with 2,014 hours of operation, will set you back $234,900.

You can build a quote for a new one here: http://www.deere.com/servlet/ProdCatProduct?tM=FR&pNbr=9630_RW

So, we’ve got a $26 billion dollar company that sells quarter million dollar tractors, and what photo does the WSJ pick to illustrate its products and market?

This one:

I’ll pause here for snickers and guffaws from those who grew up around farms.

To those of you who are not from agricultural states, the hilarity of this image may escape you.

The reasons the photo is so inappropriate include, but are not limited to:

1. The tractor is an antique. I’m not a John Deere aficionado, so I can’t be sure of the exact model, but it looks like a 4020 era tractor to me. The 4020 was introduced in 1963.
2. There are farmhands in the photo. In the late 1800s, around 80% of the U.S. workforce was employed in agriculture. Currently, agriculture employment is less than 2% of the economy. Almost nobody works down on the farm anymore, especially baling hay.
3. They are using a small square baler. And, it’s not even a John Deere baler. Since nobody works down on the farm anymore, most farmers use large round or large square balers and handle the resulting bales with tractors. Small balers are rare, and if you find them, they include a mechanism to throw the bales up into an enclosed hay rack or they drop the bales onto the field for later mechanized collection. As to the brand, John Deere sells a full range of balers, including small square balers.
4. They are using a flatbed hay rack. As illustrated in the photo, this requires two guys on the hay rack to stack the bales. Meanwhile, back at the barn, there are three or four guys offloading a hay rack onto an elevator and up into the hay loft, where the bales are manually stacked to the ceiling. Yes, it’s a very hot job up in the hay loft on a muggy August afternoon. In total, that’s a crew of five to six, not including the farmer on the tractor. See point #2.

So, as a photo of a bygone era that almost perfectly captures my memories of baling hay as a kid, yes, this photo is almost optimum (I baled a lot more hay than straw).

However, as a photo to represent a $26 billion dollar global behemoth, not so much.

I think the folks at the Wall Street Journal would profit from a group field trip out to learn where meat comes from and what modern agriculture looks like.

Tags: agriculture, John Deere, Wall Street Journal

Posted in Business, Media | 1 Comment »

Two Adobe Lightroom related photo metadata utilities

I’ve posted about the unmitigated hell that is digital photo metadata in the past.

In the intervening years, it hasn’t gotten any better. In fact, you can make the case that it’s only gotten worse.

For instance, in the latest update to Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE), a photo tool that Steph uses, every photo is automatically time shifted relative to the computer. I’ve poked around on the PSE user forums and I cannot find any evidence of a groundswell of users clamoring for this feature. In fact, I’ve never met, seen or talked to a photographer anywhere at anytime who ever expressed a need for this. Sadly, this unwanted photo metadata driven capability has created havoc for PSE users, who are all now anxiously awaiting a fix in the next release.

I’m currently working on a big photo project and I ran across some metadata issues related to the tool that I use, Adobe Lightroom.

Consequently, I took some time this week to create a couple of utilities to address two challenges:

1. Synchronizing / matching / equalizing the date/time across all metadata fields in all relevant files. Photo organizing and editing tools often enable users to change the photo capture time. This can fix photos that were created while on vacation in other time zones, to display properly with photos created on a different camera on the same day or that need to be aligned with a GPS track for geoencoding. Unfortunately, when the user edits the photo create date and time, they are only editing one of many date/time metadata fields that are stored in a wide variety of places in the digital photo files. It’s bad enough with a simple JPG file where there are only 25 possible date/times storage slots available, but if you are shooting RAW, there are three different files and 56 different places that date/time information can be stored for every single image you create.

Just about every photo organizing or editing tool, as well as every different web photo hosting site, uses a different one of those date/time fields to sort, display or organize the photos. Consequently, you can be faced with a total mess if you change the capture date in one photo organizing or editing application and then try to upload those photos to your favorite photo web site. They can sort and display just as you expect them in your desktop application and be a total mess on the web, or visa versa.

Even something as simple as sharing a photo with somebody gets to be complicated. On your photo tool, the photo can display a completely different date and time than what appears for your friend when they view the very same photo you emailed them.

To make things even worse, it seems every single photo organizing or editing tool and web site labels the date/time fields differently.

Which of these photo tool date/time labels is the time you shot the photo?:

• Modify Date
• Date Time Original
• Capture Time
• Photo Date
• Create Date
• Date Created
• Digital Creation Date
• Date Time Digitized
• Date Acquired
• Timestamp
• Metadata Date

Sometimes, the same date/time field is labeled differently even within the same tool. For instance, Adobe Lightroom labels the very same date/time data “Capture Time” and “Date Time Original” depending on where you are in the tool.

You will search long and hard for a photo organizing / editing tool that accurately labels date/time information or enables you to see exactly which of the 23 or 59 different possible sources it is using for the date/time the tool is showing you.

2. Synchronizing / matching / equalizing the caption, copyright, credit, etc. information across all relevant metadata fields in all relevant files. Everything that is true about editing digital photo date/time data is doubly true about editing captions/descriptions, titles, labels, creator/artist, copyright, etc. Just about every photo organizing or editing tool available enables the user to edit this information. Again, the edit is only to one of many possible places to store that information. What is displayed in your tool is very unlikely to be displayed in another tool or on your photo hosting web site. This is very commonly seen with photo captions and titles, but it’s true of everything else you can edit as well.

All told, for every single JPG photo you create, there are 66 different places to store caption, copyright, credit, etc. information. If you are shooting RAW files, then for every frame you create, there are 172 different possible places to store caption, copyright, credit, etc. information.

And, again, photo organizing and editing tools all use different labels for these different pieces of information, often within the same tool. For example, Adobe Lightroom uses different labels for the same data for the name of the person who shot the photo and for the caption of the photo depending on where you are in the tool.

Just as with date/time, caption, copyright, credit, etc. information is total disarray in the digital photography world. One tool calls it caption, another description, another abstract, and on and on and on.

Create or edit a caption in one tool and you may never even see it in another. Put a title on your photo with your editing tool and it may not show up on your web photo hosting site.

And, of course, you will never know which of the 66 (JPG) or 172 (RAW) different possible sources for every single image that the caption, copyright, credit, etc. came from that you are editing or viewing.

If you are working with both types of data, date/time and caption, copyright, credit, etc., then there are 91 different places the information could be stored for every single JPG image and 228 different places for every RAW image and its sidecar files.

Which of those places are you editing?

Which of those places are you viewing?

Where, exactly, does your photo caption live?

Where, exactly, does the image create date and time for your photo live?

Welcome to digital photo metadata, where chaos reigns supreme.

To try and restore a little harmony, I created two photo metadata synch tools.

One synchronizes date/time information and the other synchronizes caption, copyright, credit, etc. information.

After running the utilities, all photos are fully populated and synchronized with all relevant date/time and caption, copyright, credit, etc. data.

The good news is that after the photos are synched, no matter what tool or web hosting site you use to view, display, edit, sort or organize your photos, the photos will always sort and display properly and show the same date/time and caption, copyright, credit, etc. information.

Notes:

• Both utilities are structured and optimized for Canon photo files and Adobe Lightroom.
• If you shoot with another brand of camera or use a different editing package, you may need to change some of the configuration information in these utilities.
• Both utilities are built to run on Windows and have been tested on Windows 7 / 64 bit.

Requirements:

• Both utilities require an installed copy of ExifTool by Phil Harvey, which is a free tool you can download here: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/exiftool-8.61.zip Unzip the file, rename the file to exiftool.exe and put a copy of it in your windows folder or in the folder containing the photos you wish to synchronize.

Utilities:

• The date/time equalize utility is here: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/lr-datetime-equalize.zip
• The caption, copyright, credit, etc. equalize utility is here: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/lr-ccc-equalize.zip

For both utilities, unzip the files and place them in the folder with the photos you wish to synchronize. In Windows Explorer, double click on the lr-datetime-equalize.bat or lr-ccc-equalize.bat file to run the utility.

Warning:

>>> BACKUP YOUR PHOTOS BEFORE USING THE UTILITIES <<<

More info:

If you are interested in learning more about the 228 possible different places the date/time and caption, copyright, credit, etc. information is stored, check out these two spreadsheets:

• date/time: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/photo-metadata-datetime.xls 
• caption, copyright, credit, etc.: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/photo-metadata-ccc.xls

More information on photo metadata is available here:

• Photo metadata overview: http://www.hackneys.com/travel/docs/metadataoverview.pdf

Tags: Adobe, author, caption, copyright, credit, description, digital photography, Lightroom, metadata, photo

Posted in Photography | No Comments »

One More Shot

On Saturday, 2 July, 2011 Steph decided to surprise me with a trip to witness the final space shuttle launch.

On Tuesday, 5 July, she told me about the trip by way of a hand-made book.

Read the rest of the story of the book and our trip to see the last shuttle launch here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/one-more-shot.pdf

Tags: Atlantis, manned space flight, NASA, shuttle, space flight, STS-135

Posted in Sci / Tech | 3 Comments »

Political Destiny

Demographics is destiny. — Arthur Kemp

The political destiny of the U.S. for the next 25 years is sealed.

Here’s how:

In the United States, the proportion of the population aged >65 years is projected to increase from 12.4% in 2000 to 19.6% in 2030 (3). The number of persons aged >65 years is expected to increase from approximately 35 million in 2000 to an estimated 71 million in 2030 (3), and the number of persons aged >80 years is expected to increase from 9.3 million in 2000 to 19.5 million in 2030 (3). In 1995, the most populous states had the largest number of older persons; nine states (California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas) each had more than one million persons aged >65 years (4). In 1995, four states had >15% of their population aged >65 years; Florida had the largest proportion (19%) (5). By 2025, the proportion of Florida’s population aged >65 years is projected to be 26% (5) and >15% in 48 states (all but Alaska and California) (5).

(source: CDC http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5206a2.htm )

Here’s how it looks graphically in one of those demographic pyramid charts I’m always ranting about. (Note that the axis scale changes; what’s important is the shape)

(click image for larger size)

(source: US Census Bureau)

The disaster of Japan’s demographics:

(click image for larger size)

Sources: Japan Statistics Bureau, Japan MIC, Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Note the inverting demographic pyramid as Japan moves through time. The point is that there are not enough young workers to pay for the social cost of the aging, non-working population, especially health care. Northern and western Europe and Russia exhibit similar demographic pyramids.

The only reason the U.S. chart doesn’t look like Japan’s is immigration. Immigration is the only chance to have enough young workers to pay for the older population. If you strip out the immigrant population in the U.S., the demographic pyramid looks a lot more like Japan’s.

So, what’s the point of this as it relates to politics?

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Cultures, Geopolitics, Outside the Fishbowl, US Politics | No Comments »

Motorcycle Instincts and Startups

There was a good post today on the Fortune blog titled “Motorcycle Instincts and Startups” here: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/04/motorcycle-instincts-and-start-ups/

I think the post is a good read and draws useful parallels for a few aspects of motorcycling and startups.

I’ve been riding motorcycles for over 40 years both on and off road and on six continents through most of 43 countries.

I’ve personally started about a half dozen businesses (depending on how you count them) and been part of starting dozens more.

You could say this topic resonates with me.

I’d add the following to the author’s list:

1. In loose conditions, loosen your grip, let the bars wander a little and increase your speed to plane over the surface, otherwise you a) get exhausted / arm pump and b) sucked into the surface and will die duck walking at crawling speed. Biz version: You must maintain a rate of progress and advancement that keeps you above the minutia of your market and your business, otherwise you will exhaust your available resources long before you reach your goal.
2. Don’t commit to a blind line until you can see the exit. When you can see the exit and are off the apex, roll on the power. (street riding survival) Biz version: Don’t blindly commit to a strategy or tactic until you think through and/or can see where it will lead. When you can see the goal is achievable via the strategy or tactic, apply available resources.
3. It doesn’t take much talent to go fast in a straight line. Biz version: A rapidly expanding bubble or fast growing market makes everyone look like a business genius. Be realistic about how much of your success is due to external factors. Be ready for the inevitable downturn of the business cycle.
4. Wait for the rider ahead to clear the obstacle before you make your run or they will often become part of what you must overcome. Biz version: If a competitor is creating a train wreck in the market, then you’ll need to expend resources to climb over their wreckage (this is particularly applicable to massive flame outs or failures in your market segment when you need capital to expand; you will be fighting PR comparisons to your competitors’ failures for years).
5. MSF instructors crash a lot. Biz version: Overconfidence leads to failure. Stay humble.
6. Watch out for the four wheelers. Biz version: Your advantage as a startup is speed and nimbleness. You win by leveraging your advantages, you lose by being a fixed, immobile target for a massive competitor.
7. Commit to a line, but be ready to change it. Biz version: You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t commit to a strategy and get moving. You’ll almost never get there in the way you thought you would, so be ready to adjust along the way.
8. It’s not about the bike. It’s about the experiences. Biz version: Building and polishing the perfect business plan, business model, team or collection of technical tools and equipment is all meaningless. It’s what you do with those resources that counts.
9. It’s not the crash, it’s the sudden stop at the end. Biz version: Having a business fail or exiting a business before you’re ready isn’t the painful part, it’s what happens next that hurts.
10. Just put me back on my bike. Biz version: You will make mistakes. You will fail. It’s not the mistakes or failures that matter, it’s picking up the bike, getting back on and going again that matters.

Posted in Business, Motorcycles | No Comments »

Questions for the Next Gig

I was asked to provide career coaching feedback on a new employment opportunity, so I worked up these questions. These questions are equally applicable to a startup or other business opportunity, with suitable modifications around manager / company / product or services .

Ask the questions before you become emotionally invested in the opportunity. Once you get past that line, your emotional investment will color or skew your perceptions to the point you will not be able to be objective about the answers.

Use as many objective, fact-based data points as possible, and keep a log or spreadsheet that rates and weights the answers.

Questions #1 – #3 are absolute show stoppers.

It can be possible to overcome #4 if you can see a clear path to obtaining the necessary skills, etc. Most entrepreneurs get to where they end up by answering “Yes, I can do that,” to every challenge and figuring it out as they go along. That approach does not disqualify you for opportunities, but you need to be honest about how that changes your risk profile.

The answers will never come back all positive, but the goal is to have the majority of the answers to questions 5-11 come back positive. Some negative responses, such as those around customers, products and services, etc., may provide leverage points for negotiations.

Questions for you to ask:

1. What are your life goals? What are the most important, top-three things on your list of life priorities? Would this role advance you towards those goals? If so, proceed.
2. Will this opportunity be a positive or negative impact on your marriage/primary relationship(s)? If positive, proceed.
3. Other than money, what intrinsic and extrinsic rewards does this role provide you? Are those rewards sustainable over the mid- to long-term? Do those rewards provide for most of what you need? If so, proceed.
4. Are you qualified for this position? That means, do you have the applicable skills, experience, motivation, network, health, outlook and capabilities to be successful in this role? Be honest. If yes, proceed.
5. What will your life be like on a Tuesday morning four years from now if you take this opportunity? What will an average day be like? Does that sound like a day you want to be living then? If so, proceed.
6. What is this market segment? What is its current size in number of customers and total sales? What size is your territory or accessible market (the market you can reach with your available resources)? Is it growing or shrinking in sales and customers? How many viable customers exist in your territory or accessible market? Are there more and more or less and less? Is this a growing, vital market, a “walking dead” market or a shrinking, dying market? Do the answers to these questions add up to a positive opportunity? If so, proceed.
7. What is the competitive position of the company? Is it a market leader? Is it growing in sales? Is it financially successful? How many employees does it have? What do former and current employees say about the company? What do current, former and prospective customers say about the company? Do the answers to these questions add up to a positive opportunity? If so, proceed.
8. What is it like working for your prospective new manager? What do former and current employees have to say about him/her? How secure is he/her in his position? Is he/she working under “golden handcuffs” after an acquisition or other employment agreement? If so, how much longer is he/she contractually obligated to work for the company? What happens if he/she leaves? What are his/her sales targets? Are those targets part of the acquisition or employment contract? Are those goals achievable? Do the answers to these questions add up to a positive opportunity? If so, proceed.
9. What are the products or services? How many products or services will you sell? Will you be a “one trick pony” or have a range of products or services that can meet the needs of a variety of customers and markets? Does the product or services line put you at risk for a particular segment of the economy? What is the reputation of the products or services in the marketplace with customers? What do past, current and prospective customers have to say about the products or services? For customers who no longer buy the products or services, why did they stop? For customers who don’t buy the products or services, why don’t they buy them? Is it possible to overcome those objections? Is there enough margin and commission in the product or services line to add up to a decent life and make up for the downsides of the role? Do the answers to these questions add up to a positive opportunity? If so, proceed.
10. What do past, current and prospective customers have to say about this opportunity? Talk to ten to 20 past, current and prospective customers of the products or services. Ask them straight up about the company, products or services and if they would take a job with the company. Do the answers to these questions add up to a positive opportunity? If so, proceed.
11. The last thing to worry about is the money. If the answers to #1, #2 and #3 are good, then the money is not a very big consideration. Money is the worst reason to take a job, since the motivation of money fades very quickly. You’ll be a lot happier if you concentrate on the other things the job brings other than money. If you like the people you work with and your customers, then your life will be happy. No matter how much they pay you, it will never make up for bad people. Will the money cover what you need it to cover and provide a little extra for some things you’d like to do? If so, proceed.

Posted in Business | No Comments »

U.S. states compared to countries’ GDP and Population

This is an interesting graphic from The Economist magazine. It compares U.S. states’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and population to their closest match among the countries of the world.

Tags: GDP, population

Posted in Econ / Finance, Geopolitics | No Comments »

Snow Coasties – There Really Is A Difference

My coastal friends often needle me about my fly-over state sensitivities, and rightly so. The issue sometimes becomes more of a cause than an observation for me, and that’s always a dangerous slipperly slope.

However, in my defense, I offer this tweet by Lance Ulanoff, Editor in Chief of PC Magazine.

Interesting Idea: Crowdsourcing the snow removal: http://nyc.snowmageddoncleanup.com/

I’ve never met him, but I’m sure Mr. Ulanoff is an intelligent person and a nice enough guy.

But, wow, does this ever cast him as uninformed, culturally isolated and elitist.

In the snow belt areas of the U.S. outside the coasts, people have been crowdsourcing snow removal since the first settlers arrived.

My great-grandfather and his brothers helped dig out the snow bound trains that ran through their small village and farms.

My father and I cleared heavy snows from the sidewalks and driveways of our neighborhood.

In the fly-over states, that just what people do.

Apparently, the coasties are just figuring it out; but nonetheless, I’m glad to see it finally happening.

It’s a good thing to help, and know, your neighbors.

Posted in Cultures | No Comments »

What we’ve really been up to

The views were impressive looking out of the mansion, across the expansive lawns and down to Santa Barbara and the Pacific Ocean spanning the western horizon.

I don’t think I ever knew how many rooms were in the place. More rooms than Steph has shoes, of that I’d wager confidently. But, of all of those sitting rooms, drawing rooms, ballrooms, etc., we’d gathered around the kitchen table, which was somehow fitting.

Clusters of kids flitted in and out of the kitchen, snatching handfuls of nourishment and then disappearing into the various wings, swallowed by the long hallways and flights of stairs. Some of the children were blood related to our hosts, Neil and Susie. Others were familiar neighborhood kids, part of the ambiance of the home. Others were less known, and were very possibly living surreptitiously in forgotten rooms or levels, but were, as all, clutched into the warm bosom of hearth, health and home that so defines Neil and Susie.

Soon after the opening pleasantries of our visit and in between sweeps of locust-like teenage consumption, Neil turned to me, pinned me down with his piercing gaze and demanded, “So, what are you two really up to?”

At the time, we were on our way to the docks, in the last stage prior to shipping our overland expedition vehicle to South America, the start of a planned two- to four-year, multi-continent extension of our world explorations. We’d just spent nine months building the vehicle and a few additional months testing it across the western U.S. It had been more than four years since I’d shared a keynote podium with Neil, a friend from my years in business intelligence, and walked away from that career.

Neil’s certainty that, no matter what else we did, there was something that we were really doing, was and remains a common belief among our friends and family. Some younger members of the family (and, truth be told, some older members too) are convinced we are secret agents. Some friends and former colleagues harbor a conviction we’ve been stealthily incubating a business startup for the past seven years that will burst forth and sweep all before it. Many, if not most, have never been able to quite figure out what it is we did or are doing, no matter how many books and essays I write, articles magazines publish or blog posts we share.

Last Spring Steph and I both decided that since we a) were going to be back in the U.S. for a while, b) don’t play golf and c) don’t watch television, we needed to get something going or both our heads were going to explode. Subsequently, the speculation has only grown even more intense. The more we poked around, attended conferences and explored business models, the more fevered the theories amongst our friends and family has become. Just about everyone is now, more than ever, convinced that there is something that we’re really doing.

A few years ago, sitting at Neil and Susie’s kitchen table, I hesitated to answer his, “So, what are you two really up to?” question. It wasn’t as if we were really hiding anything. After all, we were just doing what we were doing. Finally, I blurted out, “Nothing, nothing, we’re not really doing anything. We’re just heading overseas.” Neil and Susie’s doubtful looks were identical as the room resonated with uncertainty, if not outright suspicion. They didn’t buy it.

So, after all these years, to finally answer Neil’s question and to end, once and for all, all the speculation as to what we’ve really been up to, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0aAX2biCio

Posted in Business, Travel | No Comments »