BCSW Building Competitive Services & Wares: 2013

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

BlogIndex

BCSW Building Competitive Services & Wares Blog Index

54. BlogIndex (This Blog) 5/18/2015

53 New Ways of Looking Outside the Box - Social Progress Imperative - PIE - Quality
(Under Construction) 5/18/2015

52. Productive Innovative Engine (PIE)    12/1/2013

51. Preface Pope Five Finger Prayer   9/24/2013

50. PIE …. Engineer – Architect Functions   4/29/2013

      RE: Architecture vs. Engineering Infographic

49. PIE ... Big A's ... Experts offer strategies for Entrepreneurs   4/11/2013

48. Word Clouds ... SEGCA ... PIE ... F4K   1/24/2013

47. PIE Logo Impressions ...   11/20/2012

46. Rudder for the Future Economy    11/4/2012

45. Quality Adage Updated 7/9/2012

44. Virtual Town Hall - Piedmont Voice 4/19/2012

43. Service-Learning PIE Wrapup 3/15/2012

42. Service-Learning: SEE-PIE SWOT Focus 1/27/2012

41. Project Based Learning (PBL) ... PIE   1/23/2012

40. How Big is your Spiritual Fish? 1/11/2012

39. A Better Way ... Triple Bottom Line Impacts 1/7/2012

38. Frame Works: P21 - PIE - bestChoices ... 12/20/2011

37. HOW MUCH CAN I MAKE ... WORK KEYS ... 12/6/2011

36. Service - Learning PIE Sustainability ... 12/4/2011

35. Service-Learning PIE ... 11/25/2011

34. I-STEAM PIE Engine connects future economy to jobs ... 11/9/2011

33. Paradigm Shifts ... 10/3/2011

32. New Ways of Thinking Inside and Outside the Box ... 5/24/2011

31. What Grows an Economy> ... PIE? ... X-Factor? 12/6/2010

30. Design Funnel ... Fish-Hook-Fry Metaphors ... 8/25/2010

29. Quality - White Gloves ... 8/24/2010

28. Wanted Economy with a motor ... 8/12/2010

27. Create Job Opportunities with PIE ... 8/7/2010 Post Scrip 12/7/2010

26. People .... 6/21/2010

25. Industry Mentor Teams ... 6/19/2010

24. Connecting Students to the Future Economy ... 6/16/2010

23. The "I" in "I-STEM" ... 6/3/2010

22. CTE-I-STEM Cookie .... 12/28/2009

21. I-STEM .... 10/8/2009

20. Growing America Through Entrepreneurship (GATE) ... 8/17/2009

19. Making Schools Stronger ... 8/5/2009

18. Virtual Support Organization .... 7/27/2009

17. Entrepreneur Hats .... 7/20/2009

16. Repurposing continued .... 7/18/2009

15. Repurposing Buildings .... 2/21/2009

14. NC Research Parks .... New Backbone .... 1/12/2009

13. Seeing the Invisible ... 12/2/2008

12. Inspiring Entrepreneur .... Letter to Editor ... 10/26/2008

11. Quality Education ... 8/9/2008

10. Paradigm Shifts .... 21st Century Skills ... 5/5/2008

9. Global Value Streams .... 21st Century Skills 4/18/2008

8. M21C .... HEIFER 4/1/2008

7. INNOVATION .... Customer   3/29/2008

6. SIN vs ACTS   3/21/2008

5. PET Factor ... 3/18/2008

4. Civility .... Gracious Profession .... Quality 3/11/2008 Post Scripts Sep 2009, Dec 2010

3. ... Product of the Process 3/8/2008

2. Building Competitive ....   3/5/2008

1. Quality comes from ... 3/5/2008

Graphics will be added as time permits.....

Friday, November 29, 2013

PIE

Entrepreneur Productive Inovative Engine (PIE) Teams

We hope this web site will be helpful for creating PIE Teams that will create jobs! Please advise if you find information useful lhbaxley@ieee.org

What has been said about PIE Teams:

When I introduced Entrepreneurial PIE Teams George Clopton - Polo Ralph Lauren, he responded "That sounds like 'The Skunk Works'". I procured a copy of Skunk Works and read it; this was the group in Lockheed that came up with the U-2 and Stealth Technology. It appears that there was a lot of PIE Hat Thinking going on there, I highly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in creative and innovative thinking and the challenges of implementing this thinking and products. July 2010
"Entrepreneurial PIE Teams is an exciting approach. In concept, it is compatible with the case study approach to learning that I advocate as an important education tool. I see teams could be interdisciplinary (ie involving various business entities like engineers, sales persons, marketeers, accountants, etc) or intra-disciplinary (chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, etc...). Regardless of the groupings chosen, students will not only have an opportunity to exercise their skills in their field of study but also learn the important contribution that their skills may contribute to accomplishing innovation on a broader scale.

Another contribution is the interpersonal skills developed as being a part of such a team. I have done some work with elementary kids, allowing them to create things with simple shapes - circles, squares, rectangles, triangles. After voting on the best design, an assembly line was created. Then I witnessed the same organization behavior and dynamics as being played out with adults in industry: some productive and some counterproductive attitudes to the mission at hand. If we use "PIE" like teams as a catalyst to teaching students how to better collaborate interpersonally as partners to complete a mission, businesses will be more highly productive in their work teams.

Again thanks for exposing me to the exciting important work you are doing."

Dr. Ida Pittman July 2011
"... You have wonderful, entrepreneurial programs with IEEE. While f4k isn't solely entrepreneur focused, I believe we can connect kids to entrepreneurs and get them excited about careers and industries ---> 'Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow' ..." Susan Milliken Sanford - executive director www.f4k.org. August 2011
Guilford County Schools Future Economy Task Force adds "Students will utilize the PIE framework to develop service learning experiences" as part of "utilize Service Learning opportunities in their career exploration" Goal. October 2011
"The information you've provided below is incredibly valuable and topical not only to entrepreneurship, but to providing early and continued exposure to principles and tools useful in vision-directed creativity and career development from the earliest ages.

An important factor in your design is that application of engineering principles to pursuit of an endeavor, which I find absolutely critical to venture success.

I am a big fan of the PIE approach and happy to market it and otherwise help in any way I can."

Roger Cubicciotti - President www.nanomedia.com November 2011
"Great stuff"

Dr. Dianne Welsh - Director, Entrepreneurship Cross-Disciplinary Program UNCG January 2012

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Entrepreneur Productive Innovative Engine (PIE) Teams

The August 2010 blogs discuss the PIE Teams concept in more detail.

Create Job Opportunities with PIE

We hear Jobs, Jobs, Jobs; we need jobs. This blog brings to the table a view that we must have a proactive approach to creation of jobs. Drawing on Metaphors from M21C thinking, the concept of planting PIE Teams is a proactive way to get people thinking about the primary functions that create Things and therefore Jobs. The graphic expresses this with emphasis on hands and fingers. A new metaphor for the six hat team is presented using the fingers of a hand and the arm. MORE >>>

Wanted: Economy with a motor ...

The graphic shows this headline along with two views of PIE Team and the workforce by skill level.

In the report "Tough Choices or Tough Times" the graphic "Profile of Successful U. S. Firms in the Future" shown below right. A modified version is developed with relative salaries for various levels of the workforce; it also has the creative work emphasized. It depicts a diamond area of creative work which is very similar to the PIE Team as discussed in several blogs. A modified version shows the profile of work types also with relative salaries. In addition to Creative Work, a chart shows Operations & Maintenance Work, Outsourced Work and routine work that has been Automated. MORE >>>

Quality - White Gloves ...

This blog brings the concept of Quality to bear on the PIE Team. “Quality comes from Ownership with Integrity and appropriate working Resources in a healthy Paradigm – lhb.” Note, that an

“O” and an “I” make a “Q”. Starting with Ownership, Integrity and appropriate Resources; it was realized that you could have Ownership, Integrity and appropriate Resources, but not necessarily have Quality. When you have an environment that is at cross purposes and discourage things working compatible together, that is not a healthy Paradigm and Quality suffers. The Quality Hand must be vested with competence and authority to over ride poor decisions made by the PIE Team and others. In other words Safety and Quality must not be pre-empted by schedule or profit drivers. MORE >>>

Rudder For Future Economy ...
Our economy has been experiencing a rambling path similar to the one that the Bismarck ship experienced during WW-II when a torpedo disabled the steering mechanism.

This blog expands on previous thinking of the Entrepreneurial Productive Innovative Engine (PIE) Framework to include the concept of the hands of the PIE team clasped together as a rudder for steering the future economy. MORE>>>

Design Funnel ... Fish-Hook-Fry Metaphors ....

Research and study using the latest versions of Microsoft Expression Studio and Visual Studio, I have been impressed with how they have treated the design and development area. In the book “Dynamic Prototyping with Sketch Flow in Expression Blend” by Chris Bernard & Sara Summers QUE c 2010 there is a nice chart shown here that does a good job of presenting the gap between design and development. It fits well with other thinking as discussed in other blogs. MORE>>>

Innovation …. CustomerThe ISCORPIO Metaphor in M21C describes eight petals related to various aspects of a Business; this topic addresses two of the petals, Innovation and Customer. Looking at the ISCORPIO diagram the left pointing (West) facet represents Innovation and the right pointing facet (East) represents the Customer. These are fundamental to a successful business that builds competitive services and wares. As discussed in other entries of this blog, the Customer is the most important since they are the ones that pay money for the solutions of businesses. To stay competitive, Innovation becomes the primary focus. MORE >>>

What Grows an Economy? …. PIE? ….. X-Factor?

The “What Grows an Economy?” article in the November 22, 2010 Forbes issue by Rich Karlgaard has some very interesting information which I find gives validity to the concept of planting PIE Teams. I suggest if we want to solve the problem of Jobs and a slow economy, we need policies that encourage PIE Teams to experiment with creating new products and services that have the potential for growing into big companies i.e., X factor effect. The concept of Entrepreneur Productive Innovative Engine (PIE) Teams is that they are planted in Schools, Jobless Networks and within Industry as potential spin offs that will get those participating into a frame of mind of creating products and services that will result in new jobs. In Industry these Teams may be called "Skunk Works." MORE >>>

TryEngineering.org

Tryengineering.org is a resource for students, their parents, their teachers and their school counselors. This is a portal about engineering and engineering careers, and we hope it will help young people understand better what engineering means, and how an engineering career can be made part of their future. Students will find here descriptions of the lifestyles and experiences of engineers, and on the different disciplines within engineering. We provide hands-on experiments and activities, referrals to summer programs and internship opportunities, and search tools for schools that offer engineering programs. Useful tips on course selection, applying to university programs and financial aid are included. Students can also use this portal to browse questions answered by engineering students in universities and practicing engineers.

Case Studies: Honda Jet

Games: TryEngineering | Plantville

This Blog is under construction to replace a previous Blog on a site that was decommissioned in November 2013

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Preface for Pope Francis’ Five Finger Prayer Metaphor ….

"Good way to organize Prayer"

Pope Francis created a Five Finger Prayer metaphor prior to becoming the pope. My daughter, Vicki Camp, recently informed me of this prayer method. The graphic with the five fingers identified to help with a person praying is shown below.

A Simple Prayer Method From A Simple Pontiff By Omar Gutierrez gives insight into the simple prayer method. This link http://www.catholicvote.org/a-simple-prayer-method-from-a-simple-pontiff/ addresses this.

As author Omar Gutierrez notes “It has been around for a while, but several sources are saying that it was written by Cardinal Bergoglio. I should note as well that it was attributed to him well before he became Pope Francis.

So here it is:

Pope Francis’ five finger prayer guide :

1. The thumb is the closest finger to you. So start praying for those who are closest

to you. They are the persons easiest to remember. To pray for our dear ones is a

“sweet obligation.”

2. The next finger is the index. Pray for those who teach you, instruct you and heal

you. They need the support and wisdom to show direction to others. Always keep

them in your prayers.

3. The following (middle) finger is the tallest. It reminds us of our leaders, the governors and those who have authority. They need God’s guidance.

4. The fourth finger is the ring finger. Even that it may surprise you, it is our

weakest finger. It should remind us to pray for the weakest, the sick or those

plagued by problems. They need your prayers.

5. And finally we have our smallest finger, the smallest of all. Your pinkie should

remind you to pray for yourself. When you are done praying for the other four

groups, you will be able to see your own needs but in the proper perspective, and

also you will be able to pray for your own needs in a better way.

This is a simple way to prayer that even kids can get. “

When I shared the graphic with my Bible Study class at Southeast Baptist Church on September 8, 2013, Dee Bryson felt something was missing. It did not give our relationship with God proper attention.

Having reflected on this I agree with Dee that there is a need for a preface to the prayers to set the stage. My blog http://bcswonline.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-big-is-your-spiritual-fish.html should help in this regard. When I was preparing my Sunday School Lesson plan somewhere around the turn of the century, there emerged in my mind a visual of two arcs; the Human Domain as a downward cupped arc and the Spiritual Domain as an upward cupped arc. The graphic illustrates this concept of the spiritual fish in the overlap.

Our relationship to God is reflected in the size of our spiritual fish.

It occurred to me that the praying hands may be an effective way to preface the “Five Finger Prayer”. Therefore, in my humble opinion, I propose the following graphics as a potential method to use the praying hands as the preface to establishing a spiritual attitude before conducting the Five Finger Prayer. It should help organize the prayers.

The following blog gives other perspectives on the concept of “SIN vs ACTs”:

http://bcswonline.blogspot.com/2008/03/sin-vs-acts.html

Also the following blog gives another perspective where the praying hands are giving insights into “Rudder for Future Economy”:

http://bcswonline.blogspot.com/2012/11/rudder-for-future-economy.html

It is hoped this blog will act as a vehicle towards guiding you to your full potential in God’s Will and He will be glorified by your service.

This blog http://www.bcswonline.com/blog/index.html is an index to other blogs, feedback is welcomed.

Monday, April 29, 2013

PIE …. Engineer – Architect Functions

The Newschool of Architecture + Design has a nice graphic that compares the differences between an Engineer and an Architect see Architecture vs.Engineering Infographic.

As the graphic shows it focuses on the Left Brain thinking as Engineer and the Right Brain as Architect. A PDF version of the infographic is available here.

It compares functions of Engineer and Architect for

Character Traits
Design
Cost Estimation
Project Management
MATH + Physics Expert
Licenses
Specializations.

I like the graphic in how it shows circles with indications of significance of Left Brain and Right Brain for each of these areas.

In the Productive Innovative Engine (PIE) frame work the six team hats are as follows:

· b - Business - Project Management

· e - Engineer - Design & Development

· s - Scientist - Applied Research

· t - Technologist - Production/Service

· C - Customer – Marketplace

· l - Logistics – Global Supply Chain

Examining the two graphics of PIE and the Architecture vs Engineering shows parallels of creativity.

The above graphic is the back of my business card depicting the PIE Framework. More information is available at http://www.bcswonline.com/PIE/index.html.

www.TryEngineering.org is an excellent website that gives background regarding different types of engineering. It is a great site for students that can benefit from the games and other content. The university search engine gives information on where to study and what to study.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

PIE …. Big A’s … Experts offer strategies for Entrepreneurs ….

Advisors and Advocates (Big A’s) are essential to the success of Productive Innovative Engine (PIE) Framework Teams. Previous Blogs have concentrated on the core PIE Team functions that create products, services, solutions or experiences, which in turn create jobs. This in no way means there aren’t other functions which are important and must be put in place that will address potential areas of failures.

The article “Legal Experts Offer Strategies for Entrepreneurs” by John R Platt in the April 2013 IEEE Institute has some valuable advice for Entrepreneurs and PIE Teams.

The article states “A new company can be doomed if the right legal, financial, and intellectual-property protections are not put in place at the very start. That was the message from experts speaking on “Legal and Patent Strategies for Entrepreneurs,” a recent event jointly sponsored by the IEEE Boston Section’s Consultants Network and Entrepreneurs' Network. The Consultants' Network helps IEEE members establish themselves as freelance or independent contractors, while the Entrepreneurs' Network supports members who want to go into business for themselves.

“As you launch a business, it’s really important to set up its foundation,” says Thomas Durkin, one of the speakers and a managing partner in the law firm Gesmer Updegrove LLP, also in Boston. “You only have one chance to get it right.”

In the bestChoices concept these functions were addressed in the Common Core structures.

The “Blunder-Wonder” graphic from the article illustrates the dilemma too often encountered by Entrepreneurs in the start-up phase of their dream.

In the original focus on “bestChoices” functions the concepts of Mr. Platt’s article are addressed in the Common Operational Resource Environment (CORE). Due to the stress on the PIE six Team hats these have not been given emphasis, but should not be forgotten. Many business articles expend efforts on these and short change the important functions of PIE Framework.

Hopefully this blog will bring balance to various essential functions related to starting and creating businesses that truly produce sustainable jobs.

BCSW Building Competitive Services & Wares