Keith Sketchley

Engineering Integration & Enterprise Leadership
capability for real investors, producers & users.

ALERT:
The cretin who was blasting out spam using sending addresses of one of my web sites has been blocked.

(Scummies do various dishonest things, including stealing target addresses from individuals and companies and reselling them to use to send their phishing spam to.

Perps can be and are found and charged with criminal offences as well as sued successfully for civil damages. Penalties include confiscation of computers and prison sentences.
To protect yourself and help ensure a decent society you should vote for more policing.

Enterprise Resources

Usability Bear

Contacting Keith

Legalities and link to personal page are at bottom of this page.

BUSINESS & TECHNICAL ADVICE/NEWS: (In chronological order - newest at the bottom of section.)

Every piece of product starts with function. If it's not functional, we shouldn't do it. I think that insulates us from other apparel brands. - Lululemon CEO Laurent Potdevin, quoted by Assocated Press, Times Colonist newspaper of August 19, 2016, in the context of competition in the clothing business field. Smart

"If I was worried about food trucks or any other restaurant taking business away from us, .... ...I would worry more about what I was doing wrong and improve there first before blaming external factors." - Mike Dawson, co-owner Tacofino restaurant in Victoria BC, former operator of a food truck. (Quoted in Douglas magazine.) A productive person.

"Whether you're a food truck or a restaurant, the strong will survive. So do great food and people will come to your place." - Lisa Ahier, co-owner SoBo restaurant in Tofino BC, former operator of a food truck. (Quoted in Douglas magazine.) A productive person.

Design for growth The late 2016 issue of Douglas Magazine out of Victoria BC has an article pointing out that you should set your business up to cope with growth, instead of saying you don't want to grow too fast. Of course you have to have a great product service and be able to sell it with consistent profitability. (I understand that the airline Wardair was setting itself up to grow, but failed to get the attention of enough potential customers soon enough.)

Honda aimed high for portable generator The result was good sales. Note that Apple computing company did the same. (They put the original iPod design on the shelf until storage density became good enough to be useful to customers.)

TEACHING POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS I note businesses that go out of their way to teach potential customers. One is Cowichan Auto Repair in the Duncan BC area. They offer workshops on maintaining your own car, the first oriented to females and taught by Natasha Smith and Elly Ruge. Those of neo-Marxist bent should note that the business is teaching people how to spend less on its services. (That's not a rare thing, I've even encountered it with lawyers. Of course it motivates people to deal with that business in the future, and tell their friends about it.)

Good values statement By GMC Projects, a building developer in the Victoria BC area. Clear sound principles help employees efficiently produce quality ethically.

“..... on every record, you used all your powers to get that record into a hit record.” “That's what you did every take, you put your all into every take. I mean, you never rested anywhere. It didn't matter if it's a slow tune, if it's a fast tune, if it's a love song. If it's happy, if it's a dying song or whatever, you put all your efforts into making that record a hit record, because if it fell flat, then you weren't going to be working next year.” - successful recording session guitarist Carol Kaye, interviewed on SongFacts_com A key to success, with satisfaction from pride in work an important bonus.

“The accomplishment that I’m most proud of is where our group is in terms of the locker room, their attention to wanting to get better, . . .” said Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney. “In order to achieve anything, you need to have that culture in your locker room,” Vanney said. “That for me is the proudest thing from where we were to where we are now.” TFC captain Bradley isn’t surprised with his team’s success. “We’re taking it 90 minutes at a time,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to block everything else out.”

"The world's number 1 selling tractor" brags an ad for Mahindra tractors in the program for an agricultural fair in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. Certainly many people growing much food in India. (They have a 7 year warranty on the power train, and claim "toughest tractors on earth" (for small agricultural ones at least).) Blowing your horn is good practice if it is true.

Tesla Motors using old Detroit produce-fix system Rather than reducing number of defects in manufacturing, which is the Toyota approach. Tesla may be trying too hard to get manufacturing statistics up.

A niche business - access panels in buildings Someone making money providing a better product for a niche market - openable panels for access to equipment. Secret doors? ;-)

Why Sears US went bankrupt Supposedly the rescuer of KMart and Sears tried, but not smartly enough.

He didn't tolerate fools Chris Kraft organized the mission operation section of NASA’s manned space program. Engaged with employees while insisting they do their job, sticking to basic solutions necessary for missions to succeed, not the obsessiveness of approaches like Boeing’s MCAS on the 737MAX. A real leader

Website translation mistakes to avoid. In my experience translation is tricky. One example is that another language may not have equivalent words, or may not have quite the same grammar. For example, some aviation people say that the Dutch language lacks the 'ing' form of verbs. You want a translator is who is fluent in both languages, including a broad vocabulary - synonyms especially, and has some knowledge of the subject - to ensure meaning in the result. You get what you pay for and select for.

An example of awkward translation. Plaque honouring a local sailor is in English, on an island with Danish heritage.

An example of succeeding with dedication to quality.. In-and-Out burger joint even limits expansion to within a driving radius of its own hamburger patty making facilities, to maximize freshness.

And allegations of laziness and plain dishonesty at McDonald's. That's the nature of bureaucracies - good people keeping the business going while bad trie to destroy it without realizing what they are doing.

Plus advice on growing a niche product line.

OLDER BUSINESS ADVICE/NEWS

Kurmudgeon Keith's Critical Comments: (In chronological order - newest at the bottom of section.)
That's the Lululemon company that got bad publicity for its slow response to customer complaints that its yoga tights were too sheer (revealing). Recall that the Chairman said that some women shouldn't be wearing Lulemon. He was probably right in that, but.... ....it turned out that the factory in east Asia had changed the product in subtle ways, so the same size pant on the same size body did appear different. You have to get deep into problems quickly. (And recognize that quality control is even more crucial for high performance products.)
Yes, good businesses sometimes do stupid things Butchart Gardens rejected a couple who were wearing old-style clothing, as those two individuals often like to do. Never mind the variety of attire today, from orange hair with tie-died clothing through baggie shorts to short shorts on nubile teenagers. (Talk about a distraction! Does Butchart turn them away?) Lack of sense resulted in the potential customers telling 19,000. people or more on the Internet and in newspaper articles.
Yes, good businesses sometimes do stupid things - example 2. The company making Rumble protein drink crashed financially because it deliberately missed a payment on a key loan, so that it could fund more prodct to meet high demand. The lender called the loan, thinking the company had a serious problem. Ethics?
Viewers shutout glitz in hockey broadcasts. The Walrus magazine of December 2016 reports that Rogers Communication spent nets full of money for TV studio production of NHL hockey broadcasts, all the better to see ratings drop 30% then slide to a total drop of 61% during NHL playoffs. Did they forget what the product actually is?
Just plain lack of sense A collection of botches, some emphasizing PR instead of Performance. Didn't anyone actually think?
What marketing people need to heed: “Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” – C.S. Lewis And in my more kurmudgeonly moments I refer to the fable of the boy who cried wolf.
Island Farms adds primary seals to milk Dairy adds a pull-off top seal to its milk jugs, already having a twist-off cap seal. More cost to protect against scum. (Metal pieces and sponge material were found in some jugs, police are investigating the possibility that tampering was the cause, not mechanical failure or sloppiness in production.)
“I’m a prude. I don't do drugs. I think it's stupid. I think for people to be into drugs and to die on stage, I think that's so stupid, and totally unnecessary..” "And you know that something that feels like a party is not going to be a hit record. It's not the feeling of sitting down and cutting a record, which is business. You've got to take care of business." - successful recording session guitarist Carol Kaye, interviewed on SongFacts_com And John Fogerty had a similar view. No drugs, this is business. (He was the driving spark behind Creedance Clearwater Revival, whose hit records included Proud Mary about a paddle wheel steamboat.) Singer Dione Warwick had a similar view of sticking to business in a session, related by Wolfman Jack regarding an efficient quality recording session for a TV show in Vancouver B.C.
Keith says the Toronto Football Club's method is continuous improvement and focus.
...and they didn't ask for a discount! Ad by Impeccable Jewelry in Duncan B.C. begins, complete with photos of the customers: "Julia, Jennifer, and Cameron all wear Kibela ...
"Doing it right, the first time, even when no one is looking." ... so if you were lucky enough to find a job you did your very best to keep it. (Owner Jason Dupuis tells of learning early to do good work.)
In the story of bankruptcy of Sears USA is accusation that Sears staff could not grasp new ways of doing business. Leaders need credibility One of the problems of reforming businesses is fads and lurching, employees are very skeptical of the second and subsequent attempts at a 'big change'. For example, decades ago Sears Canada dumped traditional men's clothing at deep discount to stock with merchandise it thought appealed to younger people. It didn't attract them, and it lost loyal traditional customers.
I received early education in colloquial/idiomatic traps. Among words the first French teacher I had in high school taught us was the verb form ‘baiser’ meaning to kiss. But then we got a young teacher from England who was fluent in French from spending summers in France working as a nanny. She giggled when one of us used that word, saying it had a somewhat more intimate meaning then. (That she wouldn't reveal to us.)
I don't understand the mentality of web weenies. Trying to view a web page, I am often obstructed by advertisements pushed by Gurgle, popups covering the right half of the page, and other barriers. Among annoyances is the government of BC's 'COVID Assistant' popup on _every_ page. If I close the Gurgle ad popup and select reason as 'covers content' it promises not to show that ad again - IOW they haven't thought their message through. Web Weenies are like two-year-olds with hammers - they understand action but not purpose. And have ADD - they don't focus. Yes I am pushy and derogatory. Just call me 'Useablility Bear'.
OLDER COMMENT

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