work – Solving Citizen

Modern day Trading and Bartering

The term trading and bartering seems ancient. One might think of cavemen trading shells or Indians trading beaded jewelry but what some people don’t realize is that it’s very common today even with the biggest corporations. Take Facebook and Google for example. They offer what seems to be a free service, but actually they are just trading that service for information.

The idea is to create value for somebody else through a service or product. Then that value is traded for other value from another party. Through this basic concept of exchanges in the market, economies will thrive. In fact I have traded a service in this very blog post. In exchange for coverage of my blog I have promised another I would mention him in one of my blogs. I can’t think of a better blog post to mention him in then the one I could use him as an example. (Thanks Tim it’s nice to work with like-minded people)

I met Tim through a bartering service called Simbi. Simbi is a place where you can trade a product or service for another product or service. They also have their own credit system they use Called Simbi’s. The information on my website to the particular services I offer are here. I have had somebody come and clean my house, come and trim my dogs nails, and cut down some metal shelves for me and more, through services on Simbi. In exchange I have done things from critiquing resumes to helping people move.

Trading and bartering seems to be becoming more and more common as more people struggle trying to fill the holes in their finances. I have had family members who had their automobile professionally painted through an exchange of another service. Also people are starting to sell more and more items online through services like Craigslist or the Facebook market in addition to services like eBay.

I want to talk a little about the purchaser and vender relationship. Services like Simbi and The Facebook market bring an aspect to buying and selling things that is missing from our society today. Because we use money for an exchange of goods and services the transaction is impersonal. This is because it’s quick and there is rarely a long-term relationship developed between purchasers and vendors.

W. Edwards Deming (who I have talked about in the past) says this about purchasing:

“economists teach the world that competition in the marketplace gives everyone the best deal. This may have been so in the days gone by, when the baker had his customers, the Taylor his, the cheese-maker his, and so forth. In those days, it was fairly easy to make an intelligent purchase.

It is different today. The price tag is still easy to read, but an understanding of quality requires education.

The purchasing department must change its focus from lowest initial cost of material purchased to lowest total cost. This means education in purchasing. It is also necessary to learn that specifications of incoming materials do not tell the whole story about performance. What problems does the material and counter in production?”

If you plan on managing ANYTHING Out of the Crisis by Deming is a must read.

He also explains why it is so important to have a strong relationship between supplier buyer. He says it is important with continuing delivery of material. Although your vendor might have a higher price than their competitor, over time you will pay less. This is true even if you were to buy at the lowest cost from another vendor.

Ultimately, the greatest value of any transaction is the relationship between the two parties. The cooperation of the two will create long-term quality both will benefit from and become prosperous.

-Brandon

Rule your organization by defining your systems

There are many types of systems to dictate the way life is run. There are the judicial system, immune system, ecosystems, computer systems and many more.

While operating your business or start up it is important to start out by defining your business. What is your purpose, and why do you exist? The simplest way to go is to make a mission statement. No I know that sounds corny, but it is the simplest way to start measuring your business.

Again, it is important to define what it is you’re doing, and if you can’t define what you’re doing then you don’t know what you’re doing. Defining your Organization is the most important part of the business. It allows you to measure what you’re doing, and metrics allows you to control your business.

In addition to a project charter, you can use SIPOC diagrams, Process Flow diagrams, and Project Charters.

Process Flow Diagram

SIPOC Diagram

In a side note, I would like to thank you all for reading. I have been absent for the last month for vacation, illness and I have also been working on a big project I plan to roll out within the next 6 months or so. I wish I could tell you more but be patient because it’s going to be huge! Please keep sharing with your friends we we can continue this momentum and grow into a community that will make dedicated hard workers wealthy.
-Brandon

Defining the Truth

We hear many phrases today like “alternative facts” “bias media” or “false flag” and the more we hear that kind of noise the more it seems the truth is slipping from our grasp. The truth is tricky to define because it is literally different from person to person. So where do we look to define it? You compare it to a known standard.

History reveals that governments do a poor job of defining the truth for us. Laws are a great comfort zone for many people to define what is right and wrong, but just because something is legal doesn’t make it right. Oscar Schindler was somebody who frequently broke the law to do what we all know is right, but his society deemed wrong. That does not necessarily mean that laws are bad, there is a standard dictated by Natural Law. Natural Law was used by the founding fathers of the United States to shape the constitution. In fact Thomas Jefferson helped define the nonaggression principle.

The nonaggression principle or NAP was started by John Locke during the Age of Enlightenment. The NAP can essentially be defined as: don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff. Even the United States constitution uses the NAP as a Standard to define the truth in their laws and morals.

Now let’s get the most value out of the truth and move from what we should do with it to what we can do with it. While running a business, there are many different universally excepted standards such as ISO or ASME.

Probably one of the most valuable tools you can use to analyze data and look at the facts is statistics. With statistics you use tools like Lean and Six Sigma. Six sigma was first used by Edward Deming. Collecting data and using facts to operate business quickly got him notice because it reshaped manufacturing. we moved from the industrial age to the information age.

Deming’s 14 points are used today in the most successful organizations around the world. The truth is a powerful tool that cannot be ignored when it is used properly. Whether you use it for politics or for business knowing the truth will separate you from your competitors and make you very successful in your ambitions. No matter what people think the truth is, we all know what the truth is we see it.

-Brandon

ISO

Teaching with automation in mind

If your old enough you might remember how different life was before the internet. It was practically a different world. Think of how many people were impacted negatively in the growing pains of that progress. If history teaches us anything it is that it repeats, and if we want to avoid becoming a victim of progress we must focus on increasing the skills of ourselves and the next generation.

Whatever the cause, the quality of our education is declining. This makes it hard for businesses to find workers with the skills that are required to step up to new rolls in developing and maintaining automation. On top of that we are in the brink of the Augmented Age which is throwing a learning curve to students while adapting to Artificial Intelligence.

This announcedmovement toward progress will inevitably hurt people in our economy by replacing some major roles humans play in the workforce today. Take driving for example. Elon Musk owner of Tesla Motors has announced that self driving cars can roll out in as early as two years! Think of how many people in our economy rely on this skill to acquire a living wage. Once this form of automation gains steam, driving could go the way of the horse and buggy. If driving is your best or only skill then you will quickly hit poverty.

In fact up to 80% of the roles humans have today could be replaced by automation. So what do we do? We work on continually building our skills. We move to the next step in everything we do. If you use Microsoft Excel, then you need to learn Visual Basics and write macros. If you operate or set up a machine for manufacturing, then you need to learn how to write the programs and read the G-code for that machine. Even if you have a WordPress account to make a website for you, you need to learn the HTML-code.

Not only must we do this for ourselves but we must have patience with the adaptation of our children and young coworkers who are stuck between old education and new. Parents and companies must step up and fill the gaps left behind in our education system and evolving technology by implementing training for performance. This will ensure that people with dedication will have access to a living wage. We need to focus on education which is still not jeopardized by the Augmented Age (yet). Focusing on fields that will add value to others like nursing, or teaching will make us masters over machines. I think we can all agree that it is far more desirable to work like the master over the machine.
-Brandon

Using 5S

5S can be a powerful tool to help you identify when something is out of place. The idea is to maintain order by having a place for everything and for everything to have a place. Knowing when something is out of order will help you to quickly identify and address problems. This tool is also useful because it implements preventative maintenance by utilizing check sheets and encourages all employees who are affected by a process to have a say in changing and maintaining that process.

5S is as follows:

Sort (Seiri)
Set in Order (Seiton)
Shine (Seiso)
Standardize (Seiketsu)
Sustain (Shitsuke)

Sort: Go through the work place and red tag everything that is not being used.

Set in Order: Put everything in a logical order and place. Keep things ergonomically correct.

Shine: Things must be clean and ready for white glove inspection.

Standardize: Document a process and keep check lists to maintain order.

Sustain: Perform audits and involve workers in continuous improvement to controle this cycle.