Ideas- Economics, Energy, and Policy

Welcome to our ideas.  mbarq technologies was started based on a simple principle- do something.  Something you like.  Something that others will like.  Not everyone, necessarily, but enough to make it worth your while- and worthy of efforts to build expertise.  Feel free to join our forums or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

 

 
Manmade Global Warming- a Data Driven Approach E-mail

The calls for action to do something about global warming have reached a fever pitch.  Cap and Trade, potential EPA regulations, and calls to paint roofs white are front page stories that could very soon affect every American.  The idea is to slow global warming before it becomes a catastrophe- or to blame global warming for current catastrophes.  The predictions of mass extinctions, floods, drought, and famine are very scary indeed.

Meanwhile, a vocal opposition to manmade global warming theory has arisen.  Professors from MIT, Harvard, UAB, UVa, Pasteur Institute, etc.. have put their credentials on the line by publishing research that directly contradicts previous UN IPCC findings.  Senator James Inhofe, who was nearly the lone opponent to cap and trade a few years ago, has been joined by dozens more in the Senate, putting climate change legislation passage very much in doubt.  And some scientists are now predicting a new ice age.

The question is- who is right?  On a topic this important, leaders should investigate both sides of the argument, and manage data collection to

 
Anything worth doing E-mail
Written by Dirk McCoy   
Thursday, 26 March 2009 18:05

"Anything worth doing is worth doing mediocrely until you can do it well"

I remember my grandmother showing me "Every Good Boy Does Find" on a piano keyboard when I was about 12 years old.  And that was the last piano lesson I ever had.  Knowing kids who too often could not come out and play because they had to practice piano put me off the idea of wanting to master the piano, and I had plenty of other interests as I headed into my teen years.  But I had an ear, and enjoyed plinking around for fun, even if I wasn't very good. "Rip my Britches", "Heart and Soul", "Chopsticks", I learned all the three finger classics.  Then I figured out how to play chords, and inversions, then melodies with more fingers at a time- and by the time I went to college, I could play Fur Elise and similar tunes mastered by serious 10 year old pianists.  Forward ahead a couple decades, and I found myself playing in church and with a group in a city park.  While I'll never play Carnegie, I found it was worth doing poorly until I could do it well.

Starting a company is the same.  I firmly believe you don't have a business until you have a customer.  But once you do- you're in business.  And you have to work to uphold that trust, especially when you make a mistake.  Never underestimate how critical that is.  Give me a brain surgeon with a large office, the latest tools, and a large advertising budget, and my first question is- does he know what he's doing?  A good one does- but he's not perfect.  Somewhere along the line, he put the scalpel in not fully knowing what he was going to do.  But caring, and accepting responsibility, pushed him forward.

There are two valid reasons to be in business in my opinion:  first, to do something better, second, to do something cheaper.  There are variants in between, but if you're in business to provide less for more (the opposite of value), then you're not really in business.  If, on the other hand, you're committed to getting better and trying to be the best- then don't let perfection become the enemy of good enough.  You can't try unless you try.

I don't know all the small companies that need a less expensive SPC program.  I don't know all the companies that need a better way to serialize their assemblies.  I don't know who will manufacture the other six products I have in mind.  But I know how to ask, and get answers, to those questions.  Meanwhile, I'm committed to providing more, for less.

I had never run a company before my last one, and being a startup compounded the challenge.  But, we managed to grow 50% a year for the first seven years, win major customers, become primary suppliers, and survive the tech crash that killed five of our top seven competitors.  And we found a way to build the world's smallest hearing amplifier, cut the cost of the world's top selling optoelectronic driver module 75% so the market could expand 100-fold, and ramp production on numerous occasions from zero to tens of thousands of assemblies per week. 

If you're here because you're looking for SPC software or serialization schemes, please consider mrSPC or muichip.  Otherwise, feel free to email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and let me know what you wish someone would invent- I can't guarantee I will, but I know lots of people.  And giving them an opportunity to find your solution is something worth doing...