Gaussling’s Curio Shop of Links

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Ever notice how the seats in the gate waiting areas at the airport usually have arm rests next to every position? There is a reason for that. The Blog Architectures of Control, Design with Intent is devoted to the design of artifacts in our public spaces that encourage or discourage certain kinds of use. 

The use of the apostrophe is detailed in this site. According to author, yours truly could be an actual moron.

Concerned that the government isn’t adequately monitoring schizophrenics?

I knew that Leonard Euler had a number, but I didn’t know he had a disk too.

Looking for something new in the Vampire genre? Try “the Nymphos of Rocky Flats“. The adventures of Felix Gomez, Vampire and PI.  So far, friends who spent their careers at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver have been strangely neutral on the book. I smell conspiracy.

The Black Art of Procurement

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The act of consumating a business deal can be very exciting and fulfilling. It can also be a moment fraught with anxiety. [A variety of unwholesome metaphors could be brought in at this point, but I’ll resist.]  A business deal requires a buyer and a seller. The buyer has to satisfy needs that have an inverse relationship with the seller. The buyer wants a low price and high value per $. The seller wants a high price and a nominal value per $.

All buyers have a list of requirements: First, the buyer has to bring home a service or a product. Second, the buyer needs some kind of assurance that the transaction won’t go afoul by slow or non-delivery, poor quality, or shabby service. The buyer often has a third need, one that may or may not be evident from the beginning to the seller. Most buyers have a need to demonstrate that they have gotten a bargain. It is not enough to have merely purchased a thing- most people have a real need to bring back a kind of buyers trophy.

What many sellers may not appreciate is the kind of pressures that may be on a buyer in the B2B world.  The value of a buyer to his/her employer is the ability to get the lowest price under the best terms. The ability to put the squeeze on vendors is a highly prized attribute among buyers.  Some organizations actually consider their purchasing department to be a kind of profit center.

A company that is involved in technology development for their own use or for licensing may have several kinds of buyers. They may have a conventional purchasing department for paper clips, hardware, and commodity chemicals. This department is charged with sourcing and buying fairly ordinary things.

But the same company may also have a procurement group that focuses on the sourcing and purchasing of specialty items. In the fabulous world of chemical industry, a procurement manager may specialize in items that must be custom made or are otherwise scarce, highly technical, patented/licensed, or just plain expensive.

Some materials are particularly critical to a company. It may be a key chemical feedstock, a special reagent, a catalyst, or something that is difficult to make or is highly specialized. The procurement of specialized materials often requires the attention of a chemist. So, it is not at all uncommon to find chemists involved as procurement managers in the chemical industry. In fact, many high level procurement people I know were chemists early in their careers. 

Procurement people are quite important players in a company. They have heavy responsibilities and are always under pressure to perform. They deal in dollars and days. Their performance is easily monitored by their superiors by the simple metrics of dollars and delivery times. To put the delivery puzzle together, they have to negotiate and enforce specifications, price schedules, supply contracts, secrecy agreements, delivery schedules, and often international multimodal logistics. 

If a procurement person flubs a detail, like delivery of raw material on a certain date, a process shutdown at the plant could be the result. Depending on the magnitude of the fiasco, this could be a career ending injury for the manager.

We live in the age of just-in-time delivery of feedstocks. Raw material inventory sitting in a warehouse is equivalent to having a big pile of money sitting there. Extended warehousing of raw material inventory means that some amount working capital is is not only unavailable, but is not earning interest in an account somewhere.

Every query a buyer issues is an opportunity to work on lowering prices. Some materials are purchased regularly while others are more episodic. Some companies have a policy of buying under contract and others are satisfied to issue a spot purchase order as needed. Some buyers may have favorite vendors and others may not. Shopping for the best price usually means that multiple vendors are tagged for quotations.

Sourcing information is increasingly dependent on the internet.  Mysterious job shops in Asia or the Ottoman Empire are as easily found on a web search as are the venerable giants BASF or DuPont.  A lot of filtration has to be done by the buyer to sort out the authentic from the wannabe’s. It has been my experience at trade shows and on the web that many Asian suppliers are so anxious to cash in on the export trade that they will say yes to virtually every query.  They are not dishonest, really. They just have a severe can-do attitude. I’d do the same thing.

In the end, a seller needs to remember this about procurement people- Always do your best to make them look good in front of their bosses. That means offering a decent price and an honest assessment of delivery dates. A good price followed by poor delivery will harm a relationship as fast as anything. Be honest, earnest, and on time and your buyer will be good to you.

GOP Economics- Cash for Election Year!!

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It was just announced that Congress and the Whitehouse have reached an agreement that will flood 117 million households (or families) with $600 to $1200 in mad money tax rebates. It supposedly amounts to 150 gigabucks.

Time to invest in Apple and Disney Resorts, because a lot of new iPods are going to be worn on trips to Disney theme parks. Same idea with flat screen TV’s.

Gold sounds like a good choice on which to spend the money.

Warren Buffett and Jim “Mad Money” Cramer see this latest Wall Street fiasco as a rat that will eventually pass through the python. 

While Wall Street sorts itself out, the rest of us need to understand what the Finance MBA’s are learning in B-School. The finance geniuses wizards seem to have an endless supply of schemes for brittle financial instruments. Yet another house of cards has collapsed. 

Deficit spending and the low value of US currency are huge problems that the GOP should be held accountable for before Bush the Lesser slinks out of DC. Where does Bush think the money will come from with his rebate? Obviously, it’s from the presses at the treasury or debt in the form of T-Bills.

Question of the day: What value does a country that is busy exporting its industry derive from a devalued currency? 

Bicarbonate Vulcanism

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I’m taking thursday off to judge a middle school science fair. Should be a hoot.  I don’t know what I’ll say if I see an 8th grader with a volcano experiment. Hopefully we’ll see some hypotheses, measurement, data reduction, and conclusions rather than just demonstrations. I’ll try not to make anyone cry.

Update:  By my estimation, the science fair was a success. I was impressed by the number of students who obtained results that did not align with their hypotheses. I made a point of suggesting to them that experiments which give results that are unexpected are the most interesting of all.  We talked about what success really means in experimentation. Most seemed relieved to hear that their efforts weren’t wasted.

After we discussed this, I placed an epistemological time bomb in their consciousness. I asked the question “When people speak with great certainty but never do experiments, what are you going to think about their assertions?”

There were no volcano displays. That is elementary school stuff. But there were several Mentos/Coke Cola research studies. One kid built a potato cannon that used hairspray and a lantern igniter to launch the spuds. I predict that this kid will eventually lose body parts.

Bis, Tris, Tetrakis

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For many seasons, Th’ Gaussling was the keeper of part numbers and nomenclature in his village.  Fellow peasants would stumble out from the dark and dank mines to plead for new part numbers and names for the new products. As always, outsiders are surprised to learn that this is an actual “job”, but in fact it is. When you make new stuff, eventually you have to call it something. And what you call it has to be recognizable to the barbarian tribes outside the walls.

Peasants and grandees alike would take the names in gratitude for the everpresent fear was that they themselves would be called to toil in the muck of nomenclature as I have.

The dark world of nomenclature is split into two hemispheres- IUPAC and CAS. I don’t know what the deal is with Beilstein. It seems to be a sinking ship with a few deckhands polishing the brass knobs as the bow submerges.  Arguably, CAS has become the default system for nomenclature and identification in much of the world. The CASRN is increasingly the standard for unambiguous substance identification. The US EPA relies upon CAS to keep track of the TSCA inventory. Chemical sellers all over the world rely on the CASRN system to identify products and as a search term to attract internet search engines to their websites.

The major problem that I have encountered is that nomenclature from the 9th collective index (9CI) is often incompatible with our accounting system. The system does not accomodate Greek letters (kappa and eta) and the numbering system leads to sorting and format problems with list generation and subsequent retrieval. The complex system of numbering schemes and nested hierarchies plays havoc with the system as well, if for no other reason than the character count exceeds what is permissable in the data field.

Even more troublesome, the complex names are largely inaccessable to non-chemists. It is very hard for administrative assistants and temps to comprehend accounting data when they are fundamentally unsure of what the identity of the product is and why various materials show up in the bill of materials. To non-technical folks on the business side, chemical names are often just a complicated character string that is prone to data entry errors.

I’ll have to admit that nomenclature from earlier indices (6CI to 8CI) is often more user friendly in this regard. So when it is time to choose a name, 9CI doesn’t always win. This is a propagation step in the retention of obsolete nomenclature and I am guilty as hell of keeping it going.

Unhappy Chemicals

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We all have experiences with chemicals that stick in our memory. Experiences where we have witnessed just what chemical potential really means.  Proton or electron transfer can be downright frightening sometimes. Rude and abrupt phase changes or angry exotherms. Sometimes nature rages back at our feeble attempts to take the dragon out for a walk on a short leash.

I can name many exciting materials, but I think that chlorosulfonic acid is one of the more exciting and obnoxious substances that isn’t explosive or neurotoxic.  What are your favorites?

Thumpin’ the Good Book at 5000 Watts

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It’s Sunday and the airwaves are positively crackling with overmodulated, firebreathin’ preacher-men poundin’ the pul-pits and spreadin’ the good word. AM radio in particular is an interesting place to dial in some of the more colorful characters preachin’, witnessin’, and evangelizin’ the Gospel. 

Around these parts we have an AM station that specializes in the Messianic message that broadcasts on a low power transmitter over what they call the American Freedom Network.

Between phone-linked sermons (homilies for the survivalist, really) you’ll hear infomercials hawking colloidal silver cure-alls, dubious gold investments, nutriceuticals, and other market flotsam. For a time there was a fellow who was reading off seismic data and coordinates for earthquake enthusiasts. It appeals to that quiet voice in the back of your consciousness that urges you to move into a small cabin and become a hermit. I’m afraid that one day while driving I’ll have a deer crash through my windshield because I was distracted by this stuff.

When I hear these people talking about getting religion back into the public arena, or “bringing God back” into public life, I’m mystified.  Many of the religious talking heads are striking back at the recent popularity of skeptics like Dawkins, Shermer, or Harris. These fellows have made a cogent and thoughtful appeal to the use of analysis and reason. I doubt there are more atheists per capita today than before. But it is evident that atheists and agnostics are a bit more vocal in public today.

Despite their popularity, they represent a minority view of the physical reality of religious concepts.  Their ideas will certainly never catch hold in the USA as a majority view because our very brain architecture predisposes us to adopt a belief in the supernatural. Only a few people seem to be able to break away from this notion. They (we) will always be in a minority.

But I can’t help but conclude that when the call is made to “bring religion back” to public discourse, the intent of those making the call is perhaps not what the rest of us might conclude from their words.

Bringing back religion to the public arena is not meant to imply that we will openly examine religion. It is not a call for analysis. It is a call for devotion.  In my experience, the evangelical elite tend not to examine their belief system scientifically or analytically. Rather, they tend to approach it devotionally. This is the big difference between those who dwell under the religious magisterium and those who do not.

The call for public implementation of American-style religiosity through the framework of the public commons of the government does not simply mean that we would suddenly be free to pray in the post office. We already have that. You can stand in the post office and make a silent prayer anytime and anywhere you want. I have prayed to any supernatural being who would listen that my tax return would arrive on time. There is no consequence for uttering a tackful plea to the prime mover. Only the most clumsy, clueless authority would attempt to subdue an individual who was quietly praying.  Of course, if one were to handle serpents or chant in tongues, the constable may be summoned to quiet the commotion of those frightened by the spectacle.

What I think the evangelical impresarios really want is to hold services in the pubic commons. They want to make a show of their humility. They want expressions of devotion and ultimately alignment to their way of thinking. They want to see a universal protestant Jesus haunting that pervades every aspect of our lives. Preferably with a Southern Baptist twang.

Rendering the commons religious in some way is only a blueprint for social upheaval. It is worth recalling that the Puritans did not come to the new world for freedom of religion. They came for freedom from other peoples religion.

What could people mean when they suggest that we govern according to Gods law? If this picture looks like Deuteronomy, I’m moving to Canada.  What does Gods law say about the uniform building code or municipal zoning or the transport of hazardous goods or ten thousand other ordinances and statutes that have the most real impact on our lives?

I’m pretty sure that the bible is silent on most of the code that affects our daily lives. But you can bet that people will line up to tell us what the Almighty has to say about it.

On Expired Patents

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The website Latepatents.net has collated a top 100 list of companies with a link to their individual expired US patents.  Said patents have expired due to failure to pay maintenance fees and not due to normal expiry. I checked a random sampling at the USPTO and found that indeed the patents were expired.

Readers will have to determine for themselves the value of these heaps of company treasure lying about the Public Domain landscape like so many abandoned Buicks, tanks still full of gas.

Given the quality of the companies that have the prematurely expired patents, and the resources they surely spend on IP management, I’ll hazard a guess that most of these patents were allowed to expire on purpose.

Patents are obtained for many reasons. One invention might lead to prompt and exclusive sales and profits for its owner. Another invention might lead to possible cash flow in the future if certain circumstances align properly. Some patents may be intended to be put up for lease or sale. Still other inventions serve to block competitors from facile entry into your line of business, so called “picket fence” patents.

It is not unusual for a given bit of intellectual property to become obsolete before the natural expiration of the patent. Technology can advance sufficiently such that a process or composition is no longer competitive. A company can move away from a technology package for business reasons having nothing to do with the suitability of the patented art.

Finally, I think that some patents are obtained simply because the company has a “policy” that requires the disclosure of inventions and subsequent mechanical submission to the attorneys. If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you’re running an intellectual property office, every disclosure looks like a patent. 

If too many “improvements” turn into applications, it may not be the fault of over-eager patent attorneys. More likely, it is the result of choices made by company management. I have witnessed a few circumstances where managers have been reluctant to exercise business judgement and have heaped the decision to patent solely upon the hapless attorney. What choice does the attorney have but to prosecute the patent?

It is my opinion that business people far too frequently allow their attorneys to make IP business decisions for them. The typical excuse is that it is a “legal matter”. The question for a business person is this- Can we make a choice that prevents the issue from becoming a legal matter?  Sometimes we use lawyers because we need a surrogate to do the dirty work for us.

The common default choice found in IP is that if it can be patented it should be patented. This is an expensive and weak-minded philosophy and I’ll wager that the patents in the aforementioned list are expired as a result of some second thoughts on the value of these inventions.

Aurum Oracle, What Say You?

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Watching the market take on water like a leaky Liberian freighter, I’m wondering about the wisdom leaving my assets in the 401(k) plan.  It’s a fact that the market goes up and the market goes down. The question is, what kind of games do the fund managers play as share prices fall? Do they sell-off many low priced shares for fewer shares of stronger stocks? If so, how does that affect your recovery as the market strengthens? I don’t know. Sounds like its time to understand this better.

Gold has been steadily increasing in value since at least June of 03 (near the limit of my horizon). Since stock prices started to nose downward in early 4Q2007, the slope of gold price growth increased. The inverse price trend with investor confidence in stocks is normal behaviour for gold.

But looking at the upward trend in gold prices this decade, I’m left to wonder if there isn’t some fundamental change happening. If the price is rising due to global demand, who is out there steadily driving up prices? Are there big players who are in the know?  And what are the consequences for individuals?

The Astute and the Cagey

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It is possible to split business organizations coarsely into two camps- Old Testament and New Testament. Old Testament organizations tend to be conservative along all of the organizational degrees of freedom. Employees have conservative mannerisms and dress, decorum is strenuously observed, desktops are always neat and tidy, and the management of personnel tends to be rigid. Lots of complicated rules and no mercy.

New Testament organizations on the other hand, tend to be more tolerant of iconoclasm and Bohemian values. The New Testament company is all about redemption and mercy. Ties are hastily donned for visitors from Old Testament businesses because Friday business casual lasts all week. Startups tend to be New Testament.

New Testament businesses are like friendly Unitarians and liberal Quakers, while Old Testament businesses are like sober Pentecostals and Mormons. One is not necessarily better than the other, though if you are caught in the wrong “denomination”, you are probably very unhappy.

Having once experienced the transition from New to Old Testament management, I can say that it can be a very uncomfortable ride. This transition can cause people to elicit interesting or unexpected behaviour. One of the insights that I have had relates to the manner in which people may engage in discussion or negotiation.

Some business managers are naturally very shrewd or astute individuals. They are able to achieve penetrating insights into relationships and circumstances where others might just see a toothy grin or hear a plausible excuse. After all, even Freud had to admit that sometimes a cigar was just a cigar. But the astute business person may be able to intuit a more creative view.

Sometimes, however, astute is confused with cagey. A cagey manager can be shrewd, but the difference is that a cagey person is one who is fundamentally unwilling to reveal information. Why is this important? Because information is the currency of trust. Information truthfully (and carefully) revealed is what allows relationships to move forward. Information about your intent and interest can go a long way to make a potential customer feel better about the business decision to buy your products.

Cagey managers may go well beyond simple mistrust of everyone. They may also be convinced that they understand what the customer “really” wants or what their real intent is. It is possible for smart people to step across the line and enter a space where they believe they can see what is happening behind the curtain. It is a very dangerous thing for a manager to think he is smarter than the customer.

The time tested optimum path is to take the customers word at face value, even if it means that you will get taken advantage of now and then. Give the customer what they ask for and not what you think they really mean. You can’t fall off the floor.