Down the Rabbit Hole

Another Tale of Choice vs. Control

My kids and I enjoyed Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland this evening. Beyond all of the Hollywood fixtures that made this an eye-popping joy to view -- including seamless special effects, Disney 3D animation, great acting and perfect voice-overs -- was the underlying old-school tale of good vs. evil, or more precisely, the tale of Choice vs. Control.

Alice is being forced to marry someone she hardly knows and for whom she does not care. Her sister is married to a philanderer, her would-be mother-in-law is a heartless control freak and her busybody peers insist she must accept the surprise marriage proposal because of the potential groom's political station.

All of this pressure causes Alice to bolt and follow the white rabbit down the rabbit hole leading to Underland, an alternate world she has visited before as a child and referred to as "Wonderland". Upon her return to Underland, she is quickly informed of a prophesy controlling her every action. She rebels again and decides to choose her own path -- all while thinking she is simply dreaming.

The movie is a masterful compilation of the classic Lewis Carroll tales Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, The Hunting of the Snark, and Jabberwocky. While Carroll's writings are hailed as prime examples of "literary nonsense", this film makes perfect sense. Example after example of the happiness associated with Choice and the misery accompanying Control. The Red Queen laments several times "It is better to be feared than loved."

With the background of economic distress, it is interesting that Disney Studios would produce such a forceful Choice vs. Control project as the Conservatives and Progressives battle to the death over the ideas of free will and limited government vs. supreme central control. Perhaps 150 years from now Wikipedia will characterize this debate as "political nonsense".

Choice as Competitive Advantage

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

-Henry Ford, remarking about the 1909 Model T in his autobiography - My Life and Work (1922)

Henry Ford is well recognized as the innovator of the assembly line - enabling the technology of mass production. His game-changing developments in the interchangeability of parts and labor produced mechanized assembly lines that increased the production of automobiles from 2 per day to over 6,000 per day. Instead of requiring each craftsman to master every component of vehicle production, individuals were trained and cross-trained on localized system components. Leveraging advances in tool technology and automation, the individual components were produced at a frenetic rate -- drastically reducing time and cost of production.

The fabled Ford assembly lines are the archetype for the "Mindless Machine System Model". This wild improvement in product availability soon led to customer demands for customization (a not-so subtle code word for "choice"). This Mindless Machine comprised of gears, tools, transmissions and semi-skilled workers only functioned when all of the parts operated in unison. Different visions of how to improve the process could not be incorporated "on-line" or "in-line" -- they required development "off-line" and the upgraded components were included only when the assembly line was retooled. While a fantastic innovation in production efficiency, this solution did not allow for continuous innovation within the system.

Alfred Sloan of MIT Sloan School of Management fame, innovated the creation of Divisions within large organizations which enabled them to "predict and prepare" for inevitable customer choices at a more rapid rate. The resulting "Uniminded Biological System Model" incorporated the use of budgets and forecasts that allowed for planned upgrades and innovations. Individuals were tasked as "Directors" and "Officers" of the organization, charged with researching future customer desires. However, this model suffers from an inability to distribute the vision throughout the organization and the need to manage conflict between competing ideas and divisions.

In 1881, Joseph Wharton - a successful scientist, businessman and co-founder of the Bethlehem Steel company, established the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the world's first collegiate business school. While at Wharton, the late Russell Ackoff, Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science, developed the "Multiminded Social System Model" of Purposeful Systems. Ackoff championed the innovation that organizations have a purpose. Rather than being formed as a reaction to forecast changes in consumer demand, these systems have choice and can choose their future. Instead of a mindless machine, or a uniminded organism, all stakeholders of a multiminded social system participatively design a future and realize it through experimentation and successive approximation.

As an example of Google's success, Blogger.com this week introduced a new feature called the Blogger Template Designer. Rather than predict the design features and color schemes in vogue with users, the Blogger Template Designer permits deep customization of the blogger's website. Customers can choose black-on-black if they desire, or any other color scheme for that matter. All while Google learns from the compilation of user choices so it can glean trends from the data and learn how better to serve their customers in the future. If folks have difficulty understanding Google's success, it is only because they chose not to look.

Choose to Change

Change Management is Reactive - Choice Management is Proactive

Teaching in the Department of Integrated Science, Business and Technology, we are all about studying the Process of Innovation. Innovation is defined as

...a new way of doing something or "new stuff that is made useful".

A new way of doing something presumes the existence of an "old way". Presenting the new way can be viewed as an inevitable, unavoidable change, or as an opportunity to accomplish things in a better way. Assuming things will not change is to assume a universe without energy. The study of energy itself relies on the concept of displacement -- "where you are now minus where you were before." If there is no change, then there is no flow of energy and you have a very static, boring system. A system having no flow of energy can very legitimately be referred to as "dead".

As we study systems in the processes of innovating, we find those organisms and organizations that choose to adapt and those that cannot or chose not to adapt. Those that do not embrace change become outmoded and die. The buggy whip maker that choses not to make steering wheels; the floppy disk manufacturer that choses not to make flash memory sticks; the software company that refuses to move their applications into the cloud -- all examples of entire industries that fail "unexpectedly" and blame their failure on uneducated consumers or worse, on the lack of effective regulations needed to prop up a sector that is "too big to fail".

As soon as you deliver the next greatest innovation you and your organization had better have version 2.0 in the pipeline and a vision for 3.0 on the drawing board. To have great success producing a new technology without choosing to anticipate change only hastens the need for its epitaph.

Philadelphia Mayor Proposes 435% Tax on Sugar

Let the Carbon Taxes Begin

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports today that Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter proposes a 2¢/fluid-ounce tax on beverages containing sugar. That would add 24¢ to the cost of a can of soda from the vending machine, $2.40 to the cost of a six-pack of 20-oz Pepsi bottles and $1.35 to a 2-L bottle of Mountain Dew. The city is in desperate need of cash, so sure... why not randomly add a quarter to every can of Root Beer and $2.56 tax to every gallon of chocolate milk sold within the city limits.

I don't have a degree in mathematics. But I do have a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry...Maybe I can use my 3rd grade arithmetic to muddle through the sticky math -- although I assure you it is not sticky due to sugar.

So the Coca-Cola company reports their 12-oz can of Coke Classic contains 140 Dietary Calories (that's 140 kcals for those in the know).

• The American Crystal Sugar Company claims 1 gram of sugar contains 4 Calories

• If we divide 140 Calories in 12-oz Coke / 4 Calories per gram of sugar we calculate 35 grams of sugar in a 12-oz can of Coke Classic

• Dividing 35 grams of sugar per can / 12 oz per can we calculate 2.91 grams of sugar per ounce

• The proposed tax of 2¢/oz leads to a calculation of (2¢/ounce)/(2.91grams of sugar per ounce) which equals 0.69¢ tax/1 gram sugar

• Sugar is commonly sold at the store in 5-lb bags. Given 5-lbs equals 2,268 grams, (2,268 grams/5-lbs sugar) * (0.69¢ tax/1 gram sugar), simplifies to $15.65 tax/5-lbs sugar

• A 5-lb bag of sugar typically sells for $3.60

• Calculating the ratio of Tax/Item, ($15.65 tax/$3.60)*100% = 435% Tax per 5-lb bag of sugar

Why stop there, Mayor Nutter? Why don't you propose a 650% tax on coffee and a $20/oz Sewer Usage Fee to dispose of it?  The city's reputation as the Cradle of Liberty is going down the drain anyway... might as well tax it.