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Boomervision Ends, finally.

The race for the White House by the Clintons- and yes, there are two of them running for the same post- appears to be underpinned by one general fallacy: that boomers live forever.

I think that the Clintons still see themselves as wearing an REI backback, Vibram-soled Danners and trudging steadfastly through the perfect and gentle snow of youth to the next poli-sci class at college.

Gotta revolution. Almost cut my hair. Four and twenty. Two cats in the yard. Wave my freak flag high. Paul is dead. Butterflies across our nation. The government. The man.

The impending revolution never amounted to much. Everybody cut their hair in '73, got jobs- temporary, of course- at the branch bank and made fun of every working person besides themselves while smoked up at some cool friend/dude's cabin in the woods on the weekends. When the revolution comes!

Hey, when no one is looking I admire my white patent leather loafers in the full length mirror at Gimbels and feel the 'tightness' between those reflectors of purity on my feet and the baby blue edwardian suit on my bod. I look pretty good. Hey, disco is stupid but I'll just goof on it and have a good time. Until the revolution comes.

Yeah, it's an Apple II. Oh, that's VisiCalc on there. It does numbers and stuff, kinda like a calculator only more. I use it at the bank- I'm only there temporarily- and we do, like, numbers for idiots with more money than sense... investments? Well, yeah, kinda. But, I'm really not into that financial thing, you know.

Some dude was offering stock in a software company, like the the stuff I use at the bank, only it's for the common man and not 'The Man'. I'm in for 20k shares, top at 23, take me out if it hits 15. Uh, yeah, about the revolution.....just a sec.....'No, all wheel drive is not the same as four wheel drive.'..... you were saying? Right. It's time for The Man to get what's coming.... uh, hold on..... 'Could you honestly see me wearing cross trainers to ANYTHING in Westchester county?. Didn't think so.'

I am all about winning, you know. The guys above me are such dolts, always whining about their retirement plans- I'm here to make things happen. Stir shit up. Get rid of the fat middle management layer. Did you notice that I work out during lunchtime? While listening to Tom Peters tapes on my Walkman? Revolution?

Either get with this PC thing, or get out.

I bought Redhat at two dollars and sold it at five hundred. Revolution. Thank you for not smoking in the Grand Wagoneer.

Vente.

Grande.

Baby Einsteins.

Knitted brow. Every thing is an outrage.

I just moved the assembly offshore to China. Those morons on the assembly floor wanted a raise, I said, 'I will give this whole thing to someone in the Orient who cares more about the product than themselves, if you make me. Don't make me do it.'

They made me do it. To retaliate I bought a Cayenne. Built a seven thousand square foot house complete with an outdoor kitchen and a fire feature. Irish setter. Oliver Peoples glasses frames. Indifferent khakis. Turnbull & Asser. Carrying a hundred people on my back- those dolts who just aren't winners and risk takers like me.

Then, the revolution came.

Change. It is not a bad thing, to hear the Clintons talk, but, the Clintons are now 'The Man'; they are now the 'Government'. They are old but just won't admit it-Danners notwithstanding. The Clintons just don't get it.

Comes a black man with no experience and no credentials, to hear the Clintons talk, and this black man is coming forward like Kennedy. Not Jack, but Robert.

Boomers don't live forever. Just until the revolution comes.

The revolution has come.

The end of Boomervision is near. Temporary, of course.

Sister Blog - Industrial Ribbon

If you have an interest in restoring industry and manufacturing in the United States, you may find the work at "Industrial Ribbon" to be of interest.

A group of engineers, social professionals, artists and philosophers are banding together in Philadelphia to explore issues surrounding redevelopment of the city, which is in dire need of economic stimulus.

The group expects to borrow heavily from Chris Alexander's earlier work in pattern communities and especially the pattern of integrated industrial and residence neighborhoods called 'industrial ribbons'. Hence, the name of the group and blog.

Philadelphia has an incredible inventory of vacant factory buildings with adjoining neighborhoods, hundreds of miles of rail access, an underused port system and a skilled workforce- all begging to be put back to work.

Many project developers in our area could easily advance such a concept within a community but most fall sadly short in addressing the social dynamics of the neighborhood which is left behind. These future factories and jobs will need to be operated in a new manner to be successful and I strongly urge you to become of aware of the work in the 'lean' manufacturing world in general and the Toyota Production System (TPS) in particular.

You can learn more about lean and TPS at Mark Graban's "Lean blog".

Hope to see you there.

The part of Frederick Taylor will be played by Eddie Haskell

One of the better blogs about 'Lean' manufacturing and Toyota Production System (TPS) is written and managed by Mark Graban, which see, and I revel in knowing that professionals are still focused on improving our industrial base.

I have noticed, however, that lean proponents seem to place themselves in direct counterpoint to the work of one Frederick Taylor of the late nineteenth century. Taylor was one of the first practitioners of what we now know as the science of management. Sometimes the dialogue with lean folks invokes the word 'Taylorism' as if to describe what are surely unspeakable draconian practices taking place under the low hanging sulfur clouds wafting about in the factory boiler house. This allusion may be quite unconscious.

Taylor broke new ground in task modeling at a time when few, if any, understood the path which industrialization would take.
Industry as we know it today grew from cottage and craft endeavors managed by trades masters who taught their apprentices the craft and set the expectation for the 'how much' and 'when' for the produce of the workplace. The market view was inside out: so long as the shop was busy, then the shop was being efficient.

Following the lead of Adam Smith, Taylor understood that true wealth/efficiency begins with the division of labor much like butchers with excess meat selling some cuts along with the tallow to the candler who has no farm to raise livestock, nor any care to do so. The butcher and the candler are serving each other's needs and creating an ad hoc 'kanban' or sorts.

The nascent industrial age followed much the same paradigm by subdividing the crafts into subgroups which serve each other's needs. No individual craft could create the entire product so the cottage becomes compartmentalized. As economies of scale were realized from the subdivisions of labor and craft, there was room for the industry proper to increase it's measure. For example, foundries could cast many products from one 'heat' using this compartmentalized construct. Going even further into the division of labor, industry soon came to understand that training a person to be good in one task, or task group, was more economically efficient than cross training a group of people who would then rotate their tasks, as did cottage craftsmen. This would have created a group of highly skilled and experienced managers whose experience levels were beyond that required for the basic work at hand.

Taylor modeled each work function (task) and through methodical observation and statistical metrics was able to discover waste within each process which could then be engineered out of the process. The present day TPS task modeling and analysis is really not that far removed from Taylor's studies except that Taylor took his 'task allocation' to the granular levels where man ceased using a tool for craft and became caretaker to the machine.

This calls to mind a particularly appropriate reference taken from Chris Alexander's work:

"The craftsman himself", says Ananda Coomaraswamy, a man equally competent to talk about the Modern West as the Ancient East, "the craftsman himself can always, if allowed to, draw the delicate distinction between the machine and the tool. The carpet loom is a tool, a contrivance for holding warp threads at a stretch for the pile to be woven round them by the craftsman's fingers; but the power loom is a machine, and its significance as a destroyer of culture lies in the fact that it does the essentially human part of the work".

Taylor was no saint, but his work seems to be carried on even today by those who strive to improve the lives of the many through the toil of the few, to mildly paraphrase Adam Smith.

Industrial Dismantling and Hat Trading

The dismantling of American industry continues with today's announcement that Indian industrial giant, Tata, has purchased American soda ash producer General Chemical.

Financial Times link here.

Somewhere buried in the press release from General Chemical will be the standard boilerplate about maximizing shareholder value, I would imagine. For whatever the reason, we have proof, yet again, that the rest of the world remains willing to engage in heavy, primary industry while those here in North America busy ourselves hand wringing over the old economy being dead.

Then, we have Microsoft offering to buy Yahoo! for around $US44bn which is sure to excite nearly everyone in the 'new economy' entertainment industry CNN story here. which amounts to both of those giants of dubious world value selling each other hats.

But, does anyone really notice? Probably not.

Gilbert Clee and the New World Enterprise

When it comes to the balance of industrial trade, many who support China's rapidly increasing share of the global manufacturing pie attempt to invalidate those of who do not by arguing that globalization is inevitable and that we should just 'get over it' and move on.

But, are those Middle Kingdom sycophants, bunting hangers and flag wavers really talking about globalization in it's pure sense? Maybe not.

In 1959, Gilbert Clee, of McKinsey & Company, described a 'new world enterprise' where corporations could procure raw materials from anywhere across the globe; manufacture it's products wherever labor was the cheapest and market it's products, without limitation, to any country on the globe. Clee treated labor and raw materials as commodities which could be competitively interchanged with any combination of countries in order to arrive at a profitable 'bottom line'.

In Clee's view, the corporation was elevated to super-political status and given the ability to step across the world with it's seven league boots any way it saw fit. This vision was only slightly better than pure colonialism where one country simply rode into another country taking whatever it needed and leaving whenever it was good and ready.

Todays' 'world enterprise' is much different than Clee's original hypothesis forewarned. When we talk of globalization we are actually describing 'multi-localization' where a corporation becomes an active partner in foreign enterprises in many countries rather than operating as a passive consumer of foreign commodities per Clee. Few nations today are willing to allow foreign companies a free reign within their borders. Those who have done so have, as of late, reversed their decisions via ugly street battles calling for the nationalization of foreign businesses.

Contemporary China serves as a good model of multi-localization. China contract manufactures products in factories jointly owned by Chinese and foreign interests. The products are designed by the foreign partner and marketed through sales channels managed by the foreign partner, as well.

In exchange for it's investment, the foreign partner's cost for it's product is far below that of a similar item produced domestically. In addition, the foreign partner is relieved of any responsibility for social, energy and environmental issues within the product cycle which, in the corporation's eyes, adds cost to a product but no value. You may be sensing an imbalance of social responsibility whilst reading this section.

If a modern day Connecticut toolmaker decides to design it's tool offerings domestically but produce those tools in China, then it is bypassing the very heart and power of it's company- it's manufacturing prowess.

The word 'industry', as used during the early part of the industrial revolution had more to do with personal diligence and a passionate drive to excel at a craft and less to do with sweat shops, draconian working conditions and child labor, all of which would come much later. The essence of the industrial revolution was the transition from craft and cottage work toward mechanized and standardized work.

In the early days of our country, farmers, shopkeepers and ship chandlers crowded alongside the forges of village smiths and into the cramped cottage workplaces of wood and metal craftsmen to ask for wares produced specific to their individual trade and purpose. As the country grew, these custom products were desired by a growing complement of users and it became necessary to expand the scope of industry into what we now know as manufacturing.

To meet the burgeoning demand, parallelism was introduced to the workplace and even more craftsmen needed to be trained in the trade. Those who would learn in earnest and be industrious in the shop or factory were rewarded with a skill worth a lifetime of gainful employment. A factory full of skilled tradesmen provided a hotbed and incubator for innovations to grow from ideas to fully tested and market ready products. In short, the skilled worker was the heartbeat of the organization and hardly a commodity to be 'traded' across the globe.

That Connecticut toolmaker we spoke of earlier can now stand on the dais at a hotel ballroom and report increasing corporate earnings to a roomful of shareholders, giddy from head spinning at all the newly found wealth in their possession. Of course, this newly found wealth was mostly created by replacing high cost, 'unproductive' labor in Connecticut with outsourced contract production units which have few days off and absolutely no legacy pension liabilities. I would be willing to bet that none of those overseas contract production unit members will be found sketching out ideas for improving the product he or she is making.

Gilbert Clee at once overestimated a nation's willingness to move to a purely borderless economy and underestimated an American worker's desire to be industrious in the historical sense of the word and for this I am thankful.

The Future of Computing: high energy costs and pollution problems

If you take a walk along the decks of the USS Eckert and Mauchly, you may notice water seeping up through the chinking of our giant ship of undelivered promises and general all around purposeless entertainment formerly known as the computer industry, at least in the pre-Web 2.0 days.

It is 6:38 AM: I am sipping coffee and offering up electronic dialogue from my perch high atop the clock tower at Rearden Industries here in Philadelphia. My text musings will engage not only my brain, but will also engage the hardware of my computer, monitor and Wi-Fi connection here, and will proceed to engage servers, gateways routers, firewalls, switches and any other technical paraphernalia imaginable downstream along the message routing pathway. Even being armed with knowledge of the full complexity of sending my message across the ether I perceive my message to consume very little energy and, therefore, my hands are clean in this whole environmental versus energy debate.

Were my words of critical importance to the well being of the world, I would find justification for all the wanton, rampant severing of hydrogen atoms from carbon atoms that I am bringing to bear but, I fear that my words probably fall into that wide category of the mostly forgettable in the larger scope of reality.

Our nation spends an incredible amount of it’s financial and energy resource capital on what can only be described as electronic distraction and personal entertainment. Cell phones, Blackberry devices, PDA’s, iPods, laptops, desktops- all contributing to an exponential increase in consumer demand for electricity over the past twenty-five years.

It would be interesting to compare the proportion of consumer spending for telephone/electronic entertainment/connectivity services to gross income for the years 1969 and 2007, I think that we would be stunned by the dollars spent on such transient, volatile pastimes.

In 1969, we were probably more concerned with paying our mortgages, buying hard goods of lasting value and saving money than we are today but, in 1969 we were more engaged with one another in a realistic fashion which seems to have been gone away over time. Although we enjoy a certain degree of independence from each other, we still find it difficult to sit in quiet idleness at airport concourses without searching for a wi-fi signal or a wall plug to recharge our laptop; we can stand but a quaint few moments in our cars before we scroll though our cell phone address book looking for someone, anyone, to call during our journey. We are so afraid to be alone with our thoughts.

The greatest minds of our common era were able to plumb the profundity of intellectual creativity without email, text messages, YouTube or a MySpace account and brought forth wonderful inventions- this computer included.

Is all of the connective ’soothing’ really worth the environmental price to be paid? I personally do not think so. I’ll just repair to the park with my Moleskine and draw carefully on the paper all of my thoughts. I just can’t survive happily in this Hand Staring Age of Distraction.