E-Performance improves client experience in supermarkets

This video shows an interesting application of e-performance helping a smaller Korean supermarket chain to outperform its competition in superior customer experience without increasing the number of stores -and thus, the capital expenditure-

Think of ways to make technology work for the client experience and you will find strategic applications of existing -and often unexpensive- technology

Food for thought... and thoughts that (thanks to e-performance and smart phones) become food.

Understanding Mega variables with dynamic stats: Gap Finder

"Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own data"

Rep. Daniel Moynihan, 1970

"If you can name it, you can measure it"

Roger Kaufman


Research-based theory and practice requires concepts to be measurable in quantitative terms.

Gap Finder, a Website created by Prof. Hans Rosling can be a useful tool to that end-




Gap Finder presents global statistics in dynamic graphs and tables as shown in the video that starts this article.

Gap Finder graphs allow you to combine two or three variables -such as in the following example are life expectancy and per capita GDP at Power Purchasing Parity (PPP) and see how these indicators evolve in time series, combining them with a third variable -such as population or GDP- visually represented here as a circle area.

You can compare the evolution of almost 120 countries -as we did here with Argentina, Brasil and Chile- and visualize trends very easily


I invite you to explore the site and to check this video that summarizes 200 years of social evolution among 120 countries in 4 minutes




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References

• GapFinder

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Thinking Mega for Africa: Mo Ibrahim and the anti-corruption award and Index

For those who follow the raging spread of anti-government rebellions that is currently shaking Middle East's oldest dictatorships, the work of Mo Ibrahim and his Ibrahim Foundation might seem largely unknown.

For those who live in Africa, Ibrahim is nothing but famous for his crusade to improve African countries' governance.

A wealthy entrepreneur that made his fortune disseminating cell phones in rural Africa, Ibrahim -once a follower of the anticolonialist rhetoric of early sixties' leaders such as Patrice Lumumba or Kwane Nkruma and Nasser- learned first hand about the gap between the promises of independence and the realities of post-colonial corruption.

He recently summarized those realities for The New Yorker as follows:

"We are a very rich continent, the second-largest continent in the world, lush-green, plenty of resources Everything we have. Yet, we are the poorest people on Earth. So, rich continent, poor people. After fifty years of independence, I don't think we can continue to blame the colonialists.

The problems since are due to a catastrophic failure of leadership and governance. There is no other explanation. We have had to a very large extent very lousy leadership in Africa: too many dictators, too many megalomaniacs, too many thieves, who bled this continent for their personal and family interest.

All those leaders lover Western culture when it comes to expensive French wine, expensive American cars, mobile phones, airconditioning, aircraft, whatever. They love Western culture. When you speak about human rights they say, "No, no, no, no. Those are Western values"

Auletta, K. (2011) The dictators index.The New Yorker, March 7, 2011, Page 45

Ibrahim earned a PhD from Birmingham University in 1981 and a large fortune with his telecomunication companies, and decided to to something about the Mega picture he didn't like.
He created a 5 million award for government leaders who met four standards:

1. Being elected to office in free elections
2. Promote democracy
3. Do not steal from their own people
4. Cede power peacefully

In addition to the award, the Ibrahim Foundation -dedicated to develop leadership and governance across Africa-, publishes an annual Ibrahim Index of governance that compares all African countres' performance on four key factors:

1. Security and rule of law -personal security, rule of law, accountability, corruption and national security-
2. Participation and human rights - political participation, rights, gender-
3. Sustainable economic opportunities - public management, private sector, infrastructure, environment and rural sector-
4. Human development - Wealth and welfare, education

(Click here to download the 2010 executive summary)

The Ibrahim index is published every year in every country in Africa, and the Foundation communicates through the local media when a country loses its ranking.

The Ibrahim Foundation index measures many of the elements of the Minimal Ideal Vision and by providing feedback and rewards to governments and citizens, aims to foster governance and improve African social ecosystems.

Some good news from Africa, finally.

What would happen if a Ibrahim-like award were created for the Americas?

Food for thought, to be continued

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References

• Ibrahim Foundation
• Ibrahim Index
• Auletta, K. (2011) The dictators index.The New Yorker, March 7, 2011, Page 45

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Honduras tries Mega in dealing with its cities: the "charter cities" approach

A new approach to create positive social impact is to think in terms of cities as business ecosystems able to protect and promote entrepreneurship.

Economist and expert in innovation Paul Rohmer proposed the idea of creating "charter cities" in the example of Hong Kong



China successfully replicated Hong Kong's business friendliness by creating 17 Special Economic Zones in the coastal areas. India did the same with "tech cities" built around its Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT)

More from Rohmer in developing



and financing charter cities



Now is the turn of Honduras, where president Porfirio Lobo adopted and sponsored Rohmer's proposal in no uncertain terms:



We proposed a similar plan for Colon City, Panama recently

Planning "outside-in" and thinking Mega is growing around the world.

What about us?

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References

• Charter Cities Blog

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Parenting and educational accomplishment: the Asian vs. Western

Author and consultant Amy Chua ignited a considerable polemic with a WSJ article provocatively titled "Why Chinese mothers are superior" and her new book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Chua is John McDuff professor at Yale and a prolific author, never shy to tackle controversial topics such as the acritical "export" of free market models to unprepared societies and their consequences



In her last book, Chua -mother of two girls- describes what she thinks is the reason why Asian-American students top Western students in academic performance and accomplishment in the US and Europe.

According to Chua -who describes in the book how she was educated and raised her children following her Chinese parents traditional model- the reason for such gap in academic achievement is simple: Asian parents are more demanding and focused on high standards than their Western counterparts.

Chua considers that Western parents put too much emphasis on letting children play and follow heir own preferences in the belief that that will foster their self-esteem and make them happier.

In Chua's experience -she is a Harvard-educated Yale professor that raised two daughters to be piano and violin virtuosos by practicing with them tiressly several hours a day- the outcome of the Western approach is the opposite: children tend to be self-indulgent, demanding towards others but not of themselves and settling for lower scores and mediocrity.

Asian parents -particularly first generation migrants- do not let their children decide what and when to study: they choose for them and demand nothing less than straight "A's". They do not let them watch TV, play videogames or sleep over in other homes until they reach college age.

Chua's extreme positions and her description of her parenting methods created a storm of controversy that -as all real challenges to "conventional wisdom"- helped question some basic assumptions of modern education translated into Western parenting at a time when Americans do a lot of spuld-searching about the reasons for the declining educational performance of their children and schools.

Perhaps the most important contribution of Chua's books is to move the focus from schools to families and parenting as the key factors -often forgotten- of educational success or failure.

And the book certainly describes practices that not too long ago were common in the West and were replaced by "modern" pedagogy after World War II with questionable results.

Is it time to rethink and consider that perhaps "modern" doesn't necessarily mean "progressive"... and "progressive" doesn't necessarily mean "better".

Food for thought, especially those of you in the parenting and educational business.

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References

• Chua, A. (2010) The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
• Chua, A. (2004) World on fire: how exporting free market democracy breeds ethnical hatred and global unstability. Anchor

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New approaches to tackle Mega challenges: homelessness

A recent article in The Economist comments on new approaches to address Mega-related problems such as homelessness y Great Britain.

Traditionally assisted by "middlemen" NGOs or government agencies and agents, homeless people tend to relapse into the "big three" affections -drugs, alcohol and mental disease- that tend to accompany those living in the streets.

The Roundtree Foundation in London and Professor Roland Fryer -a Harvad economist- tried a different approach: instead of housing in shelters or attempting to rehab homeless people, they asked them what kind of direct help they wanted to get out the streets and provided it.

Significantly, the average sum required by the homeless was 1,277 dollars -against an average 12, 000 dollars spent per homeless person by conventional government and NGO programs- and none of the requirements were for drinking, drugs or bets but for simple and practical things like clothing, shoes or a trailer to live in a trailer's park.

Homeless reaction to this approach was enthusiastic, because they were offered control of their lives instead of being "bullied" into hostels.

According to the Roundtree Foundation report, 11 out of 13 homeless people living in the streets of London -aged 4 to 45 years- that received cash or what they required to leave the streets actually did it by their own will and applying by themselves those resources.

Self-sufficiency -a key factor in Megaplanning's Minimal Ideal Vision- proves to make a bigger difference than a difference in "resources".

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References

• The Economist (2010) Homelessness: cutting the middle men
• Roundtree Foundation full Report
• Roundtree Foundation Website

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Online content resources

Two new Web sites provide free academic content in Spanish ( http://utubersidad.com/) or English (http://www.khanacademy.org/) . Here are some samples of the classes available in both Web sites and Youtube.