Building A Better Skunk Works

Friday, March 18th, 2005

In 1999, IBM realized that it was killing off promising young projects to focus on the bottom line. Things have changed. From Building A Better Skunk Works:

Adkins was a guinea pig for developing what IBM calls ‘emerging-business opportunities,’ or EBOs. The mission is to find areas that are entirely new to IBM and can grow into profitable billion-dollar-plus businesses in five to seven years. So far the program has been an extraordinary success.

[...]

Harreld, who runs the program, promised the board that EBOs alone would produce two percentage points of growth for IBM. Given Big Blue’s awesome size, that ain’t hay: It means about $2 billion of new revenue every year. The actual results have wildly surpassed all expectations. Since the program’s inception in 2000, IBM has launched 25 EBOs. Three failed and were closed down, but the remaining 22 now produce annual revenue of $15 billion, a figure that’s growing at more than 40% a year.

But the impact reaches further than today’s results. These internal startups are beginning to influence IBM’s culture. “Through EBOs, IBM has become more of a learning organization,” says Caroline Kovac, who built a new $1 billion, 1,000-employee business in computing for “life sciences” clients, such as pharmaceutical and biotech companies. “We’ve become more willing to experiment, more willing to accept failure, learn from it, and move on. It’s more a part of our culture and our official processes. Now being an EBO leader is a really desirable job at IBM.” Harreld says he doesn’t even have to recruit EBO leaders anymore: “Today I have my peers coming to me and offering to run these.”

The executives put in charge of these emerging business opportunities need to shift to an entrepreneurial mindset:

At first, the process is confusing and difficult for the transplanted executive, who’s still stuck in the mind-set of running an established division. “It takes me and them four months at least to stop the crap,” Harreld explains. “In an established business it’s all about keeping things under control. These guys are so buttoned up. You bring them into a new business area, and it’s almost hilarious.” When Adkins embarked on his new venture, Harreld re-calls, he showed up at his first few monthly meetings insisting that there were no problems. “Rod came from a culture where the senior managers feel they’re expected to know all the answers to all the questions and deal with the issues themselves,” explains Gary Cohen, who helped Harreld run the EBO program from its inception until last year. “You understand a mature business because it has a level of predictability. But with an EBO, there’s a lot you don’t know, and you have to discover, learn, and adjust.”

The second big cultural bump usually comes when EBO leaders try to empire-build, Harreld says. “Everyone tries to staff up because in a company like this, how do you measure stature? One, revenues. Two, people. Having run and built businesses, I’ve learned the hard way that you shouldn’t staff up before you have clarity.”

So EBO leaders begin working alone, or maybe with a single colleague, as Kovac did with the Life Sciences initiative. Harreld gives them a little money, and they try to tap IBM’s collective expertise. “We wanted to be Tom Sawyer getting the rest of the company to paint our fence,” Kovac says.

IBM’s EBO leaders start out by proving the concept behind the venture through small pilots. They try to “go deep” with market experiments involving just a few prominent customers. “Whether it adds up to $1 million or $50 million may not be a good measure,” says Cohen. “But it will tell you a lot about whether customers and clients think what you’re doing is valuable.” If these small pilots meet specific milestones for success, only then does IBM make the decision to pour resources into the project.

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Study Shows Manatees Have Brittle Bones

Friday, March 18th, 2005

Study Shows Manatees Have Brittle Bones:

“When you pick up a manatee rib, it’s much denser than a cow bone or human bone. Most people would think these ribs would be really strong, as they’re so heavy. But in fact, they behave like ceramic material,” Reep said.

The bones of the endangered sea cows have no marrow cavity, which is why their bones are so dense. But that density makes them more fragile.
[...]
The researchers are using an air gun to hurl a 2-by-4-inch board toward a manatee bone target to reconstruct the ways various forces are distributed through the bone.

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Lucas Calls New ‘Star Wars’ a Titanic Tearjerker

Friday, March 18th, 2005

From Lucas Calls New ‘Star Wars’ a Titanic Tearjerker:

“I describe it as a Titanic in space. It’s a real tearjerker, and it will be received in a way that none of us can expect,” he told theater owners at the ShoWest convention.

It will be received in a way that none of us can expect. My question: can one expect to be disappointed?

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Will Heavier Manhole Covers Deter Thieves?

Friday, March 18th, 2005

How far is your society from collapse when people are stealing manhole covers? From Will Heavier Manhole Covers Deter Thieves?:

Johannesburg will replace its cast iron manhole covers with heavier concrete versions that are more difficult to steal and have less scrap value to deter night-time criminal gangs, Johannesburg Water said Friday.

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Rock’s Oldest Joke: Yelling ‘Freebird!’ In a Crowded Theater

Thursday, March 17th, 2005

Rock’s Oldest Joke: Yelling ‘Freebird!’ In a Crowded Theater provides an apocryphal origin to the phenomenon:

How did this strange ritual begin? “Freebird” is hardly obscure — it’s a radio staple consistently voted one of rock’s greatest songs. One version — and an important piece of the explanation — anchors Skynyrd’s 1976 live album “One More From the Road.” On the record, singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was killed along with two other bandmates in a 1977 plane crash, asks the crowd, “What song is it you want to hear?” That unleashes a deafening call for “Freebird,” and Skynyrd obliges with a 14-minute rendition.

To understand the phenomenon, it also helps to be from Chicago. When asked why they continue to request “Freebird,” Mr. Hicks’s tormentors yell out “Kevin Matthews!”

Kevin Matthews is a Chicago radio personality who has exhorted his fans — the KevHeads — to yell “Freebird” for years, and claims to have originated the tradition in the late 1980s, when he says he hit upon it as a way to torment Florence Henderson of “Brady Bunch” fame, who was giving a concert. He figured somebody should yell something at her “to break up the monotony.” The longtime Skynyrd fan settled on “Freebird,” saying the epic song “just popped into my head.”

Mr. Matthews says the call was heeded, inspiring him to go down the listings of coming area shows, looking for entertainers who deserved a “Freebird” and encouraging the KevHeads to make it happen.

But he bemoans the decline of “Freebird” etiquette. “It was never meant to be yelled at a cool concert — it was meant to be yelled at someone really lame,” he says. “If you’re going to yell ‘Freebird,’ yell ‘Freebird’ at a Jim Nabors concert.”
[...]
But did “Freebird” truly start with the KevHeads? Longtime Chicago Tribune music writer Greg Kot says he remembers the cry from the early 1980s. He suggests it originated as an in-joke among indie-rock fans “having their sneer at mainstream classic rock.”

Other music veterans think it dates back to 1970s audiences’ shouts for it and other guitar sagas, such as “Whipping Post,” by the Allman Brothers Band, and “Smoke on the Water,” by Deep Purple.

They may all be right: It’s possible “Freebird” began as a rallying cry for Skynyrd Nation and a sincere request from guitar lovers, was made famous by the live cut, taken up by ironic clubgoers, given new life by Mr. Matthews, and eventually lost all meaning and became something people holler when there’s a band onstage.

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The Straight Dope: Could you jump off a bridge or a tall building and survive the fall?

Monday, March 14th, 2005

Could you jump off a bridge or a tall building and survive the fall?:

Scientists have long been fascinated by what happens to people who fall from great heights without a parachute. Unsurprisingly, most of them get killed; perhaps surprisingly, a few don’t. A prime example of the latter was a 17-year-old male who in 1979 leaped off the Golden Gate Bridge from a height of 250 feet. According to one report, ‘he recount[ed] a slowing of time initially, and mid-fall, when fully realizing the oncoming impact, strove to adjust his attitude to the vertical feet-first position. An almost perfect entry was achieved. Although dazed, he swam to shore’ and checked into a hospital, where his worst injury turned out to be several cracked vertebrae.

Walking away from something like that is rare. The Golden Gate Bridge is said to be the most popular suicide location in the world — at least 1,200 people had jumped as of 2003, of whom fewer than 20 survived. A more typical outcome was that of a stuntman calling himself Kid Courage, who jumped off the bridge in 1980 trying to set a free-fall record. He landed flat on his back and was dead when pulled from the water with massive internal injuries.

More examples:

  • In a 1942 paper, physiologist Hugh De Haven told of eight people who survived falls of 50 to 150 feet on dry land, many with only minor injuries. The common denominator: something to break the fall or soften the impact, such as loose dirt, the hood of a car, or, in one astonishing but verified case, an iron bar, metal screens, a skylight, and a metal-lath ceiling.
  • In 1963, U.S. Marine pilot Cliff Judkins’s chute didn’t open after he bailed out of his crippled fighter. He fell 15,000 feet into the Pacific, suffered numerous broken bones and a collapsed lung, but lived.
  • U.S. Army air force sergeant Alan Magee fell 20,000 feet from an exploding B-17 in 1943 and crashed through the skylight of a French train station. (A lesson emerges: Aim for the skylight.) Though his arm was shattered, he lived too.
  • When his bomber was shot down in 1942, Soviet lieutenant I.M. Chisov fell 22,000 feet into a snowy ravine. He was badly injured but recovered.
  • Luckiest of all was RAF flight sergeant Nicholas Alkemade, who leaped from his burning bomber in 1944 without a parachute at 18,000 feet. After a 90-second plunge, he crashed through tree branches in a pine forest and landed in 18 inches of snow. His only injuries: scratches, bruises, burns, and, in some accounts, a twisted knee.

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"Battered Women " by Benjamin Wallace-Wells

Sunday, March 13th, 2005

Before I’d seen any women’s boxing, I assumed that they’d fight like lightweight men — fast, technical, but not necessarily powerful. Then I saw a women’s match, and it was a complete and utter brawl. A few more women’s matches, by top-ranked fighters, confirmed the trend.

In Battered Women, Benjamin Wallace-Wells notes the same phenomenon:

The worst male fighters know how to play defense, but these girls looked like they’d never been trained. They didn’t even try to protect themselves. There was no effort to dodge, no shifting of weight, no clever, calculated movement of feet. Both girls just kept charging, swinging both fists at the same time. It was like watching six-year-olds fight before they’re old enough to realize that they might be hurt: All you want to do is make it stop. The action in the middle of the ring was an inchoate tangle of limbs and fists. Thirty seconds into the whirling, Angie fell down, striking the mat violently, as if she was attacking it. Jessica waved her arms above her head chaotically — a caricatured Rocky gesture — a huge grin on her face. I thought to myself that these two must be the worst girl fighters in the world. But it turned out that six months earlier, Jessica had placed second in her weight class at the National Golden Gloves — this was as good as it got. [...] I’ve been to more than a dozen women’s fights since that first one, and nearly all were just like it, 45-second bloodfests.

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"Seven Mistakes Superheroines Make" by Christina Larson

Sunday, March 13th, 2005

Christina Larson lists the Seven Mistakes Superheroines Make — or, more accurately, the seven mistakes filmmakers make when making superheroine films:

But the good news for Hollywood — and audiences — is that there is an enduring formula that works. Superheroines since the 1970s — from Wonder Woman to Princess Leia, Charlie’s Angels to Lara Croft, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to “Alias’s” Sydney Bristow — have all followed a few simple rules to find success on the big and little screen. And every would-be action babe who has flopped has broken at least one of them. So what’s the secret?
  1. Do fight demons. Don’t fight only inner demons.
  2. Do play well with others. Don’t shun human society.
  3. Do exhibit self-control. Don’t exhibit mental disorders.
  4. Do wear trendy clothes. Don’t wear fetish clothes.
  5. Do embrace girl power. Don’t cling to man hatred.
  6. Do help hapless men. Don’t try to kill your boyfriend.
  7. Do toss off witty remarks. Don’t look perpetually sullen.

As Dan Drezner pointed out, “one of Buffy’s best seasons was when she had to try to kill her boyfriend — but that’s nitipicking.”

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As Border Tightens, Growers See Threat to ‘Winter Salad Bowl’

Friday, March 11th, 2005

Increased (but still fairly lax) border security has disrupted the lettuce industry, which depends on (nominally) illegal immigrants for labor. From As Border Tightens, Growers See Threat to ‘Winter Salad Bowl’:

At least half of the 1.8 million crop workers in the U.S. are undocumented, according to the Department of Labor. They sustain an industry valued at $30 billion annually. They also make lawbreakers out of thousands of employers who hire them to do work they say Americans are unwilling to do.

All told, about 10 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S. Without them, experts say, industries like construction, lodging and agriculture would be forced to radically change how they operate — sharply boosting costs for consumers or curtailing the services they provide. An illegal work force “defines whole industries and whole sectors of the labor market,” says Doris Meissner, the immigration chief under President Clinton.

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South Korean Aid To North Increases Tensions With U.S.

Friday, March 11th, 2005

South Korea is worried about what will happen if North Korea begins to collapse (in earnest). Thus, they’re trying to reconcile, but the two nations are very different. From South Korean Aid To North Increases Tensions With U.S.:

“North Koreans look so poor. It’s like South Korea in the 1960s,” says 56-year-old Paek Jae Hyun, the chief executive of a chemical company in the South, returning from a recent visit. “We have to help them a lot.”

But the Northerners are also seen as alien. In 2003, a group of visiting North Korean cheerleaders caused a stir when they leapt from their bus to rescue pictures of Kim Jong Il getting soaked in the rain. They were teary eyed that images of the country’s “great leader” should be subjected to such treatment. North Koreans are taught to revere likenesses of Mr. Kim and his father, and can be punished for disrespecting their pictures. The cheerleaders’ devotion appeared so outlandish that it prompted one weekly magazine in Seoul to ask on its cover: “Are we really one people?”

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For Finicky Drinkers, Water From the Tap Isn’t Tasty Enough

Friday, March 11th, 2005

For Finicky Drinkers, Water From the Tap Isn’t Tasty Enough:

Bill and Rhonda Fels could never get their 3-year-old, Jason, to drink enough water, and he was chronically dehydrated as a result. So they were delighted when Jason finally found water he liked, from a glacier-fed river Mr. Fels crossed during a hike with Jason in the mountains.

Mr. Fels made regular trips to bring back more river water for Jason. When neighbors started mooching his supply for their own problem drinkers, Mr. Fels spotted a business opportunity and started a bottling company to sell the water.

Jason is now healthy and hydrated. As a bonus, he has stopped drinking from the toilet. The spaniel-retriever mix is now chief product tester for the Felses’ company, Springmill Products Inc., which ships a line of bottled water called PetRefresh for finicky critters nationwide. From their new headquarters on a former tobacco farm in Lawsonville, N.C., the Felses sell their pet water for $1.49 per 20-ounce plastic bottle.

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Rumsfeld Details Big Military Shift In New Document

Friday, March 11th, 2005

Rumsfeld Details Big Military Shift In New Document:

In the document, Mr. Rumsfeld tells the military to focus on four “core problems,” none of them involving traditional military confrontations. The services are told to develop forces that can: build partnerships with failing states to defeat internal terrorist threats; defend the homeland, including offensive strikes against terrorist groups planning attacks; influence the choices of countries at a strategic crossroads, such as China and Russia; and prevent the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by hostile states and terrorist groups.

No surprise here:

Of the military’s services, the Marines Corps right now is moving fastest to fill this gap and is looking at shifting some resources away from traditional amphibious-assault missions to new units designed specifically to work with foreign forces. To support these troops, military officials are looking at everything from acquiring cheap aerial surveillance systems to flying gunships that can be used in messy urban fights to come to the aid of ground troops. One “dream capability” might be an unmanned AC-130 gunship that could circle an area at relatively low altitude until it is needed, then swoop in to lay down a withering line of fire, said a defense official.

The shift is reminiscent of the situation in the early 1900s, when Marines fought a series of small wars in Central America and were frequently referred to as the “State Department’s soldiers.”

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How to Start a Startup

Thursday, March 10th, 2005

From Paul Graham’s How to Start a Startup:

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.

Where to find ideas:

If you want ideas for startups, one of the most valuable things you could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a couple weeks just watching what they do with computers. Most good hackers have no more idea of the horrors perpetrated in these places than rich Americans do of what goes on in Brazilian slums.

Amusing:

There is more to setting up a company than incorporating it, of course: insurance, business license, unemployment compensation, various things with the IRS. I’m not even sure what the list is, because we, ah, skipped all that. When we got real funding near the end of 1996, we hired a great CFO, who fixed everything retroactively. It turns out that no one comes and arrests you if you don’t do everything you’re supposed to when starting a company. And a good thing too, or a lot of startups would never get started

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Childhood in America

Thursday, March 10th, 2005

In Childhood in America, Joyce Carol Oates reviews Huck’s Raft:

As Steven Mintz argues in this often fascinating and massively documented exploration of four centuries of American childhood, ?there has never been a time when the overwhelming majority of American children were well cared for and their experience idyllic. Nor has childhood ever been an age of innocence, for most children?.

How bad was it in Huck’s Missouri?

In Hannibal, Missouri, in Huck?s time, before the Civil War destroyed Southern slavery, life for many Americans was likely to be nasty, brutish and short: even among the middle class, approximately one child in four died in infancy, and one individual in two before his or her twenty-first birthday. The notion of a lengthy childhood, ?devoted to education and free from adult responsibilities, is a very recent invention, and one that became a reality for a majority of children only after World War II?.

The myths have clouded public thinking about the history of American childhood:

These are: the myth of the ?happy childhood?; the myth of ?home as a haven and bastion of stability in an ever-changing world?; the myth that childhood ?is the same for all children, a status transcending class, ethnicity, and gender?; the myth that the United States is a ?peculiarly child-friendly society, when in actuality Americans are deeply ambivalent about children?; and the most prevalent myth, ?the myth of progress, and its inverse, a myth of decline?.

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Toy Makers Dial Up ‘Tween’ Set

Thursday, March 10th, 2005

Somehow, I managed to survive through childhood without the Internet and without a cell phone. I’m sure my children and grandchildren will be shocked. From Toy Makers Dial Up ‘Tween’ Set:

Companies are designing cellphones for the so-called tween market, a demographic loosely defined as 8- to 13-year olds. Toy maker Mattel Inc. plans a new phone that comes in a kid-friendly design influenced by its popular My Scene line of dolls. A phone from Chicago-based Firefly Mobile Inc. includes just five buttons, and only allows kids to call home, 911 or a handful of other preprogrammed numbers.

Already, cellphone use among young people is growing: A study from research firm IDC found that 22% of 10- to 14-year-olds had cellphones in 2004, up from 17% in 2003. Toy designers are hoping to attract even more tweens by marketing their products to parents who want to keep track of their kids but feel uncomfortable giving them expensive, fully functional handsets meant for adults.

The phones use prepaid service.

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