Educational Inequity

Educational Inequity: Why Businesses Should Care About Their Community’s Education

    A big problem that I have noticed while working in a warehouse setting, is the lack of basic skills needed to be a productive employee. Some of the warehouse associates (general labor) are lacking in problem solving, computer, mechanical, and in some cases even language skills (this may be due to English being their second language). So where does this problem come from and how can we solve it? I’m about to offer a solution that would kick-start an end to educational inequity.

    As you can imagine, one of the biggest problems companies face is finding talented employees. That applies to all companies, from giants like General Electric to your local corner store. But the difference is that General Electric, because of their sheer size, has more freedom in who they can employ and where they choose to be located. Those corner stores and small businesses don't have

Great Lakes Science Cennter & MC2 Campus

the same luxury. They have to find their employees from their surroundings because it would be too costly to relocate. Now what if their surroundings are filled with with high school dropouts? In effect, they will be forced to hire lower-skilled employees because they can't afford the expensive personnel searches that larger corporations can. The staffing of lower-skilled employees will likely inhibit their growth. This low skilled labor environments also means that large corporations are not as likely to move their operations to those communities. They would be unable to obtain enough skilled laborers willing to make the commute. This combination could create a "dead zone" where there is little economic growth either from inside or outside i.e. small local businesses growing or large corporations coming in.

     So what does this mean to those local businesses? In short it means they should take interest in the education that is occurring in the communities they will be hiring from. Local businesses and school districts need to be involved in a two way dialogue that starts with the question "What can I do for you?" They need collaboration.

    Two schools come to mind for me when I think about this type of collaboration: Robert A. Taft Information Technology High School & MC2 STEM High School. Those schools  have partnered with

Robert A. Taft IT High School

Cincinnati Bell and General Electric, respectively. While GE's partnership is quite a bit more extensive than Cincinnati Bell's (part of the MC2 STEM H.S. is inside of GE's campus) they are quite similar in many ways. Both companies are providing their high schools with invaluable resources like dedicated tutoring & mentoring program and internships that could offer the students a direct path into a full-time job, In GE's case there are even content  instructors for MC2's project-based learning.

    These partnerships are just a small part of the greater solution to educational inequity that needs to being corrected in all of our communities. Consider that after MC2 enacted their partnership with GE, the graduation rate has almost tripled from 31.1% in 2003 to 91.4% in 2010. Partnerships create opportunities for educational growth that otherwise would not be available to underprivileged  students. So if you run a local business in your community or know somebody that does, it can't hurt to start the conversation. Who knows, it might help your city grow.

Training & Development for Businesses: A Literature Review

Training & Development for Businesses: 

A Literature Review

     This admittedly is a bit different from my normal postings but sometimes a change is refreshing and this is my attempt to be a bit more academic in my writing. I recently had the chance to lay the groundwork of a leadership development program for one of the largest third party logistic providers & freight managers in the world at their largest North American location with over 1000 warehouse associates and leaders. While I have "field experience" in leadership I saw this opportunity as a way to expand my academic understanding of what leadership is and how you develop it. Before you are several summaries of articles that I have reviewed to help give you a guided tour through what you should or shouldn't do and why these programs are important.

Article #1

(Cappelli, 2008)

This paper sets the stage and discusses the broader topic of talent management within companies and how to carry out the entire process with the best ROI. There are four basic principles: 
1) Make and Buy to Manage Risk; too much talent is expensive to retain. Underestimate the talent you need and then higher the rest from outside but, be careful in the areas in which you do this because some are easier (less expensive) to fill from the outside than others.
2) Adapt to the Uncertainty in Talent Demand; break up development programs into shorter periods or create organization wide talent pool that can be used by any business unit. 
3) Improve the Return on Investment in Developing Employees; get employees to share in costs of development. Ask them to take on additional assignments on a voluntary basis. Maintain relationships with employees that leave in hopes that they will come back, bringing back your investment in them. 
4) Preserve the Investment by Balancing Employee-Employer Interests; Involve them in the conversation of where there career is going within your organization, this may prevent another company from stealing the talent you have already developed. This approach is almost like a queueing in supply chain management but with human capital instead.

Article #2

(Pierre Gurdjian, 2014)

This article discusses the 4 major mistakes that came up when the authors interviewed hundreds of executives (the authors work at McKinsey & Company) in regards to their leadership development efforts. 

1) Overlooking Context, “A brilliant leader in one situation does not necessarily perform well in another.” The type of skills and leadership you want to develop will be determined by what you are trying to do with your business. This leads you into refining the development process to 2-3 core competencies to train on and the program should have a clear beginning and ending skill level. 

2) Decoupling reflection from real work, classroom training has its place but studies show that learning by doing is a much better development process. “Tie leadership development to real on-the-job projects that have business impact and improve learning.” The immense amount of challenge that is involved in this type of process will produce much better results from your program and might just end with a fantastic business improvement. 

3) Underestimating mind-sets, this is usually accompanied with difficult conversations that have to be hand because what may have to change is a personality trait or a style of leadership, I.E it may be hard to tell somebody they are a micro-manager or tell somebody that you want to change the way they do things even though they already do them well but your way would make them even better. Challenging and pushing people out of the comfort zone is the only way you will get already effective leaders to flourish even more. 

4) Failing to measure results, you track results of new products or business functions why would you not track the effectiveness of your training or leadership programs. Not only will you fail to improve the program if it didn’t work but you won’t be able to justify its continued use if it does. Being able to quantify its success is key in determining it’s return on investment. This analysis can range from determining the productivity of workers before and after a training program to tracking their careers to see if those that have gone through development program have fared better than those that have not. 

In conclusion you spend plenty of time and research on developing and launching products or business lines why would you do the same for your employees?

Article #3

(Dostie, 2010)

This paper examined the effects of OTJ and Classroom Training in businesses throughout Canada from 1999 to 2006. They used statistics from the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) conducted by Statistics Canada. While they are relatively confident in their findings they do admit some factors that may have skewed their findings such as: worker turn-over inhibiting long term gains from training and less productivity-enhancing subjects being taught. The article has found that employees who have received classroom training are 11% more productive than employees who have not.  They also find that OTJ training creates 3.4% more productive employees but could be higher if the turnover rate is controlled for.  During a cost benefit estimation in the article they have outlined that the “11% productivity gain yields approximately $8000 in additional value added per trained employee per year.” However they found in WES that “average classroom training expenses per (trained) employee being approximately $1000. This would mean that each $1 invested in classroom training yields a maximum of $8 in value added.” This however is generalized across a large subject sample and may not be replicable in every business environment. 

Article #4

(Bartel, 2000)

This article discusses commonalities between various literature throughout that analyse returns on investments (ROIs) to companies when they conduct training programs. While the article was written in 2000 (the current atmosphere may be different) they found several glaring issues with research; companies did not effectively (or did not at all) measure ROI due to the lack of productivity data before and after training was conducted, they did not compare their measured group to a control group to determine its overall effectiveness, and the companies did not continue to measure productivity well after training to determine the depreciation of the productivity created from that training. In two case studies that measured and analysed everything correctly the companies had ROIs of anywhere between 100 and 200%.

     In summary what should you and your business do? Honestly I wouldn't even start developing a program until you find that it might be worth creating. I guarantee that if you thought about doing it another company before you thought about it and then did it. Reach out to your contacts in similar businesses and see what their outcomes were and if they think it was worth it or not because if it wasn't then that money and time could be used best in another area. If it was worth it take a measure of those that you want to train and then set a goal for where you want them to be after. This gives you not only the pre-training data to analyse ROI but will also give you an idea of what type of training you will need to incorporate in order to bridge that gap of skill you have established. Next is understandably the hardest part, developing the curriculum of the program. You want the content to be challenging in order to encourage growth but you don't want it to be too hard or too easy because that may ruin your ROI. Lastly don't make the mistake of not measuring the progress of your employees, before, during, and long after they have completed the training. The whole reason of creating the program is to improve the business and you can't measure improvement if you don't effectively track the outcomes of the program.

     Investing in human capital through training & development is just as important as research & development of a new product, I would even argue that it is more important. If you have a good product but you don't have productive employees then you won't be able to manufacture and sell that product. If you aren't developing your workforce then you aren't developing your business and that is a recipe for failure. Hopefully after reading this you will be inspired to create your own recipe for success. 




Shout out to the Scholars (Aka Bibliography)

Bartel, A. P. (2000). Measuring the Employer's Return on Investments in Training: Evidence from the Literature. Industrial Relations, Vol. 39 No. 3.

Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent Management for the Twenty-First Century. Harvard Business Review, 1-8.

Dostie, B. (2010). Estimating the Returns to Firm-Sponsored On-the-Job and Classroom Training. The Institue for the Study of Labor, IZA Discussion Paper No. 5258.

Pierre Gurdjian, T. H. (2014). Why leadership-development programs fail. Mckinsey Quarterly.

Has Fast Casual Been Perfected?

Pie Five: Fast Casual Piefection

     "You have got to try Pie Five" said Kelina, "What is that?" I said with a grumpy attitude after a long day of work. With an enthusiastic attitude she said "It's this new pizza place over by Panera that you can get a customized personal pizza in five minutes!", I fired back with "you would love that place". Cue a death stare from Kelina. The next day she dragged me to Pie Five to try out this new "phenomenon", I was admittedly quite skeptic. I had no idea what I was getting myself into...

Two Custom Creations

     Yes that is some pizza from Pie Five, and yes it was done in 5 minutes, it is quite shocking how fast you can get pizza here, good pizza at that! But before we go any further you can get that pizza for $6.99, yes, for under $8 tax included you can get gourmet pizza. But wait...with literally any number of toppings you want (we'll get into how they make money later). To back track a bit here is what they offer: 4 types of crust including gluten free for an extra charge, 4 cheeses, 7 sauces, 8 meats including meat balls and giant pepperoni slices, and 16 different types of veggies roma tomatoes, 3 different olives, red & green peppers, mushrooms, red onions, marinated artichoke hearts, and sun dried tomatoes to name a few. Besides the 10 different types of house pizzas you can order a personal pizza about a million different ways, which if you got different ingredients every day would last you about 2700 years without repeating a choice...talk about variety! Long story short their pizza is amazing.
     Got it, the product is amazing, what about the rest of the place? Well, I am so glad you asked. If you could perfect a store format for fast casual I think Pie Five has found it. An easy line to navigate with menus you can take with you down the line to order ingredients. A few feet away after a quick check out is a "freestyle" coke machine with over 100 choices. Next you have enough comfortable

seating to have a chat over your pizza, some even have outdoor seating to enjoy your pie under the sky. But don't stress there are outlets near most of the seating so you can charge your phone while you eat. But What if you forgot your wall charger? Well they have USB outlets too, yeah USB outlets. Did you try too many coke flavors or get greasy hands from the pizza? Oh no worries, there is a state of the art bathroom. In reality the toilet is just a toilet, but the sink, my god! Auto water, auto soap, and auto super duper jet dryer that blows the excess water off your hands and down into the sink. The restaurant is an attempt to target a younger crowd; attempts at consciously sourcing food, witty decorations recyclable pizza boxes, no paper towels in the bathroom, USB outlets, freestyle coke

machines, oh, well, and delicious pizza. To top it all off they have a rewards program that gives you a free pizza every 20 points with 10 points to start and 2 points per every regular priced pizza or salad that you buy.
     Immediately upon ending my meal with Kelina I enthusiastically said "Damn that was good" followed up by a calm and serious "I need to find out if they are public". Long story short Pie Five is not a public company, they are however wholly owned by RAVE Restaurant Group that also operates the Pizza Inn brand which is a chain that franchises over 300 stores worldwide. Rave also franchises 55 Pie Fives in the U.S. in 15 states and Washington D.C. the first one opening in 2011 in Fort Worth, Texas. Now would it be a good investment? No, at least not right now. First they are extremely small, with a market cap of about $120 million they are a micro cap. They also don't seem to be growing that much since the inception of Pie Five. Revenue is down $1 million and Net Income is down $2.93 million (215%) since the Pie Five debut. Their assets, specifically property/plant/equipment, are growing but with a franchise business I can't give you an  honest assessment of why that is. Lastly I have serious reservations about how their franchisees' make money, with premium ingredients and only a price of $6.99 their business model can't be anything other than getting as many people through the line as possible. After all their main selling point is a good pizza in less than five minutes. While RAVE has been public since 1994 their flagship product "Pie Five" is quite young and small as they only have 55 stores since 2011. I would seriously keep an eye on this company and their Pie Five product. This restaurant has the potential to have Chipotle like success. Oh yeah and they have dessert pizzas! But don't take my word for it, do your own research and get a pizza!

Listen But Don't Trust: Your Instincts

 

Listen But Don't Trust: Your Instincts

 

     Sometimes we make bad decisions and when we make those decision we are rarely thinking, rather we are using past experiences to determine a future outcome on the spot. Think back to when you were a child for the first time you saw people playing pokemon, you saw them laughing and smiling. You knew that from past experiences that kids laughing and smiling signified people having a good time. Automatically you wanted to spend the next 12 months of allowance from your parents on pokemon cards.

...Flashforward 20-30 years...



    

     "Dude, you have to get a pair of these shoes?!?" said one middle aged dad to another "I don't know man, they look pretty lame." said the other middle aged dad "Not the fanciest but they are like work slippers, I can do anything in them, every other guy I know has a pair." Said the other middle aged
dad that was wearing a pair of shoes called CROCS (NASDAQ: CROX).  The third middle aged dad was standing by eves dropping and heard the name "CROCS" and "everyone is getting them" his wife just so happened to tell him that we should start thinking about investing for retirement. He googled CROCS and found out he could purchase shares in their company in hopes to build a future for his family. With the popularity of CROCS the third dad thought he was making a great buy and snagged CROCS at $27.34 on April 27th of 2007 (a bit over a year after going public).
     Middle aged dad went with his instincts, he knew from past experiences that popular things usually do quite well (Pokemon). In a split second his instincts told him that Crocs would be a great investment. However what that middle aged man didn't know was that it wasn't, or there were just better options out there. What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI), a term created by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman to explain how the human mind makes decisions. We make decisions based off of only what we know from life all the way up to that point and rarely spend the time to gather further information, this is an Instinctual Decision (gut decision). While instinctual decisions have their place for circumstances like heavy traffic or wet floors (life or death situations), they have no place in investment decisions. Investment decisions have good or bad long term consequences, but to ensure that the majority of them become good consequences you must make an Informed Decision.
     Informed decisions are exactly what they sound like, they contain information, information that you do not yet know of but need to know in order to make the correct decision. To make these decisions you must go in search of the information that will help you come to a conclusion, and not necessarily the one that you want, more so the one that you need.

Sometimes fads aren't just fads

     While he made the right decision in putting money into the stock market he made the wrong decision in which stock he chose. He based his decision off of what he knew at the time, the shoes were comfortable and everyone was getting them, he also knew that popular things usually do well so he bought into the stock. But he didn't know alot of things about Crocs as a company and it's industry of fashion retail. He didn't know that it was a fad that was growing at amazing rates but would eventually fall very hard. With a little bit of digging he would have found that fashion retail is a very poor industry to invest in when compared to others, and that CROCS was a poor company to invest in when compaired to other fashion retail companies.
     The stock market is a good neighborhood to invest in, but CROCS is not a good house to entrust your future in, there are literally about 4000 other actively traded companies that you can choose from. While you should not ignore these instinctual decisions you rather should question them. Questioning them will bring about new factual evidence that will either refute or defend your first gut feeling. And if you end up being correct (and bought the stock) then you can rejoice in earnings and almost more importantly a correct decision. But whatever you do, do your own research before you decide, because what you see (or have seen) is sometimes not all there is.



Fiber v. Copper

Fiber v. Copper: 

How will our networks support our data

   
     Think of our global data network just like our water infrastructure. There are places where we store our data just like we store our water at reservoirs. The water coming directly out of the reservoirs is transported in huge pipes because it needs to supply an increasing population just as data does. From the huge pipes it goes into smaller pipes located in the cities and eventually into the small plumbing in the houses and businesses that supply water to the end users just like data does. The only difference is that the end user data usage is changing quickly to ever increasing levels. This means that the current infrastructure at the end user level won't be able to support massive amounts of data that we want and need.
   
     Fiber optic network cables have been around for a very long time. It was first developed in 1970 by Corning Glass Works a precursor to Corning Inc. the famous Gorilla Glass producer. But it was not widely used until about 1990 and is now the backbone of data transfer over the world just like those huge pipes that transfer our water.
     Copper cabling is not going anywhere, it will be here for the foreseeable future because it is the only way to transport electricity. But for networking purposes we are going to need something that will be able to handle massive amounts of data to the end user.

     Copper Cabling can hold up to 10 gigabit ethernet (at short distances) but that won't cut it in the future for data transfer because of one thing, the attenuation or loss of strength that occurs during transmission of data. Copper can support ever increasing amounts of data but when that occurs you shorten the distance that you can transport that signal strength. This requires highly engineered cables that may be to expensive for the customer and need to be upgraded in the future to hold larger data demands.
     Fiber however can transmit massive quantities of data, over longer distances, with lighter & thinner cables. This allows for use of existing framework of networking like the cabling ducts in building and pipelines underground. The only negative to fiber is that some networks may need to be completely overhauled.

Copper vs. Fiber Networking

     There are some very attractive long term savings for switching to fiber networks. The number one advantage is the overall longevity of the fiber network. The fiber network will be able to hold data loads well into the future because of it's immense capacity. Data requirements will catch up to copper networks much faster meaning an overhaul would be needed sooner. Fiber networks are also more durable than copper ones and will require less replacement of cables.
     Fiber networks require much less energy to operate. Copper networks require electricity to transmit and cool networks because of the heat created by the electricity flowing through the network. Because signals are transmitted with light on fiber networks they require much less electricity to transmit and almost none to cool. This also means there will be very little risk of a fiber network being a fire hazard for your building. Overall reduction of electrical usage will make your building much more environmentally friendly and less costly to operate.

Advantages of Fiber

     Copper networks need to be engineered carefully because of the electro magnetic interference they create. This interference can ruin the signals of other surrounding wires and can also be monitored by outside sources that you may not want monitoring your network. Fiber optic cables on the other hand do  not emit electro magnetic fields because there is no electricity flowing through them. This means there is no interference with other cables and the only way to monitor the data would be to physically
tap into the connection making it's physical security very easy to control.

     The advantages of fiber networks will materialize when the Internet of Things comes to full fruition. The amount of data being transferred when everything is connected will be chocked by copper networks inability to handle it's demands. Company's that switch their networks to fiber will not only be saving money in the long run do to less maintenance, upgrades, and electrical usage but can reap the benefits of having a business connected to the Internet of Things.
   


     

     

iWatch, Definitely Not

iWatch, Definitely Not

     The iWatch is set to come out April 24th, 2015, is meeting mixed reviews and I have one simple question...Is keeping your phone in your pocket worth the $350 you will spend on and iWatch? If that doesn't help realize it's weakness maybe this will. 

     Smart watches have been in existence for almost 45 years, been compatible with computers for about 30 years, have been making phone calls for 16 years, and running apps for about 12 years. The most popular (current) smartwatchs are the Pebble versions which has basic applications. Some of the applications allow you to receive updates about who has called or texted you, track fitness, turn on and off GoPro style cameras, and receive weather updates among other applications, for a low price of $99. Has the pebble really made a impact in the wearable tech industry? No, specifically because I do not know one person that has one, and in total it has sold about 400,000 watches. 

     The basic things that iWatch can do are send and receive calls, receive social media updates, track fitness, read emails, talk to siri, and basically do all the cool things you need it to do to prevent you from taking your phone out of your pocket. The unfortunate part of the iWatch is that it isn't waterproof, has less than a days worth of battery power, and requires an iPhone in close proximity (like a pants pocket). The Samsung Gear is extremely similar to the iWatch and only sold 800,000 units at $199. If the iWatch does the same things and costs $150 more will consumers buy it? 

     My prediction is that the iWatch will be released and met with consumers that don't want to buy it. It does not simplify the consumers life enough to the point where it is worth $350 especially since it requires you to still have the iPhone in close proximity to fully make use of it's features. If the iPhone is that close you might as well take it out and use it instead of fumble with a tiny screen on your iWatch. Wearable tech will be a market in the future but definitely not in the close future. I see this market advancing like PC's and Laptops, steadily as available technology makes it more practical for the consumers. Unfortunately we are not there yet. 

     

The War Begins: Netflix v. Theaters

The War Begins: Netflix v. Theaters

     Since I could remember movies were enjoyed on the big screen in a movie theater or a drive-in. Drive In's have all but disappeared and the decline of movie theaters is in it's beginning days, citing a CBS article published in 2014 "Last year the number of frequent movie-goers in the crucial 18- to 24-year-old age group plummeted 17 percent. Among 12- to 17-year-olds, admissions were down almost 13 percent." However in the long run revenues are up because of increased ticket prices. While this will offset the decreased traffic it won't fix the issue that people no longer want to see a movie when they can watch it from the comfort of their home. This is especially true today with streaming entertainment sources like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon coming out with original content that is actually pleasing and many times award winning. This track record will soon follow into their ventures into major motion pictures. 
     
     The war has started with Netflix's announcement that they would simultaneously air a sequel to "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" online and in theaters. It has now spilled over to their newest movie "Beasts of No Nation" both being rejected for screening at big time movie theaters such as AMC, Cinemark, and Carmike. In a related note Netflix has penned a deal with Leonardo Dicaprio to begin producing documentaries for their streaming service. While he is not starring in films the association will only give Netflix more validity within the "Hollywood" community. 

     What does this mean for Netflix? Bottom line up front, big movie theater chains are scared and legitimizing Netflix through this dismissal of Netflix produced movies. Any media coverage created through this will only push more sales towards Netflix (as long as it isn't centered on content quality). Netflix only stands to gain more via any sort of negotiation from here on out. If theaters allow the release then Netflix will not only garner a profit from ticket sales but will more than likely attract more subscribers via viewers of the movie enjoying the content. 

     What does this mean for theaters? Bottom line up front, theaters will lose this battle because any plan of attack will lead to a loss of revenue. If theaters shun the movie then they are missing out on ticket and concession sales. If theaters decide to allow the movie to release in their establishments then they will reap some benefits from ticket and concession sales but will lose some because of people staying home for their viewing experience. 

     My prediction is that this war will end with Netflix out on top but big theaters will not give up without a fight. Netflix and all streaming content providers will stand to win from this outcome of the war. What I see in the future for not only Netflix but all streaming companies is a pay per view style of viewing for "premium" content on their sites. Subscribers would be billed normal monthly payments but if they want to watch the providers original content then they would have to pay a fee to see it sooner than everyone else. Eventually at a predetermined amount of time (just like movie theaters) the content would be released to all subscribers for no additional charge. 

     Final outcome is that movie theaters are then turned into a novelty as drive ins were. While I don't think this will happen anytime soon consumers will only pay a certain amount for that "movie theater" experience. When that threshold is reached they will lose and Netflix will win.