Koop

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. Isaac Asimov

The recent passing of C. Everett Koop is an appropriate time to reflect on the impacts of public health policy on the welfare of the people. However, before getting into the thicket of his political life, his transformational impact as a pediatric surgery must be acknowledged. Anyone who has had the misfortune of watching their child undergo surgery owes, ultimately, a debt of gratitude to this trail blazer in surgical techniques.

It was outside of the operating room where Koop would rise to global fame. He took strong positions on AIDS, turning panic of a plague like outbreak with demands for mandatory testing and quarantine, into thoughtful discourse on behavior modifications and long term care. He infuriated both extremes of the debate on abortion by demonstrating that abortion was not a public health concern while at the same time calling it morally abominable. He challenged our basic prejudices and misunderstandings on the rights of infants with birth defects, providing the scientific basis for the Baby Doe legislation.

Koop was also an aggressive critic of the tobacco industry. Perhaps in this role he is often over credited with driving change, as by the early 1980's when he became Surgeon General, there was already a clear downward trend. That trend was started by then Surgeon General Luther Terry in 1964 who first declared definitive causality of lung cancer and the probable causality of heart disease from smoking.



CDC graph

Koop understood that through a balance of scientific thought and moral conscience, it could BE different.

Home Alone

The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. Dwayne Andreas

Thanks to my friend Erik Pages, I'm going to be lazy this week and send you to his post.

The key quote is "....when it comes to innovation, US firms are 'home alone.'  If they develop a new innovation, it’s solely up to them to scale it up and bring it to market.  In contrast, foreign manufacturers can tap into a diverse network of resources...."

We can keep to a failed philosophy, or we can recognize that with a bit of pragmatic policy that it could BE different for US Manufacturing.

Good is Not Good Enough

There is no country in the world where it's as easy to find venture capital in the stock market as the United States. Ron Chernow


You don't have to read many of my posts to know I am not a fan of the metaphor. (Copyball, Don't Skin the Turkey, Moldy Cheese, and Don't Spend Billions on a Metaphor). So it is with much hypocrisy that I publish this post about the investor and the entrepreneur.

"An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.

A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, 'Can I also sit like you and do nothing?'

The eagle answered: 'Sure, why not.'

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. Suddenly, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

The moral: If you are going to sit and do nothing, it is best to do so very high up." author unknown

As an entrepreneur, don't forget that the investor is perfectly fine doing nothing. Showing an investor a deal that is good is not good enough. Even showing an investor a great deal isn't good enough, if someone else has a greater deal.

This is perhaps the biggest mistake I see from people (and me) looking for money. They have good deals, but they don't have great deals. And for an investor, who already has a big pocket full of cash, why would they risk moving for anything other than a deal which clearly screams it could BE different.

What the Customer Always Wants

They didn't want it good, they wanted it Wednesday. Robert Heinlein

The following is a rather popular cartoon.

On first read, I think anyone whose been involved in the development of a new product would chuckle with a sense of familiarity.



But the last frame is wrong.

The reality is that customers want a product which will make them money (or have a lot of fun, or eat a great meal, or whatever)......for free (or better yet, get money)......It's not enough to ask customers what they want, because that will always be what they want.

To develop and sell a new product, ask how you will make money in a way that engineering can design, that manufacturing can make, that marketing can distribute, that meets regulatory requirements AND that provides the customer improved value. And expect a few hundred iterations until you get it right.

It's not easy, but it is the only way it could BE different.

Vision and a Plan

Everyone has a plan, 'til they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson

It was Martin Luther King, Jr. day and it seemed rather appropriate to blog on a man whose name is synonymous with change. This post is late because it took me some time to find what I was looking for.

It's relatively easy to find his speeches. They are, after all, amazing oratory that are both visionary and inspirational, but also superficial. Now I've heard thousands of visionary, inspirational speakers in my life. Most of whom failed to actually create change. In the end, they had no plan and no reasoning, just imagery and emotion.

I knew that King had to have a deeper understanding of the issues and a real sense of how to implement change - as I believe the speeches and leadership would have failed without it.

I found rather quickly that this was the opinion of many of the King scholars; however, I didn't want to read what others thought of King, but wanted it in his own words.

I found what I was looking for in a  Letter from a Birmingham Jail. A thought filled, logical, persuasive work that explained his tactics and reasons to his fellow clergymen who were critical of King's methods. While not exactly a tome of wisdom at about six pages in length, it was concise and pragmatic.

So take a few seconds to read his 'I have a Dream Speech,' but then read the Letter. And consider whether it could BE different without the depth of thought contained in the latter.

Dreams and Teeth

You take unacceptable risk, you have to be prepared to face the consequence. Carly Fiorina


The next time you jump on a plane, remember that there is more new technology in your toothbrush.

Patents issued for the toothbrush:      1,937
Patents issued for the airplane:          1,505
(since 1976)

Before you start wondering why there are so many toothbrush patents, let me cite some other patent counts:  laser 63k, computer 125k, automobile 12k, television 15k, boat 7k - since 1976.

So the big question is not why are there so many toothbrush patents? (although, honestly, it would still be an interesting question) but rather, why are there so FEW airplane patents?

Look no further than today's New York Times headlines Deepening Crisis for the Dreamliner.

In Boeing's words "The Boeing 787 program has consciously designed in new, state-of-the-art features and performance that reduce cost and increase airplane availability. These features will lead to additional savings and greater revenue for Boeing customers. The 787 reflects a new life-cycle design philosophy that has dictated some significant changes in the way the airplane will be built. These changes include extensive use of composites in the airframe and primary structure, an electric systems architecture, a reliable and maintainable design, and an improved maintenance program. Taken together, these changes will offer customers a guaranteed reduction in maintenance costs."

Consider the billions of dollars that Boeing invested in the design, development and retooling of manufacturing facilities. And after all that investment, they were three years late in their first deliveries. Then, on top of all that, the DOUBT over the new technologies has resulted in the planes being grounded.

On top of that, there are still huge long term risks that Boeing has taken on. For example, the airplane wasn't made with aluminum, but with composites. No one really knows how those materials will perform in real flight operations over twenty years.

So when you consider if it could BE different, keep in mind that in some markets the cost of change is astronomical and the risk of failure is huge.

Early Charm Ventures

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi


I'm pleased to announce the creation of Early Charm Ventures, LLC. (www.earlycharm.com)

Actually, it's a renaming of an old company, MBM Technology, LLC - but there is a lot more to it than a name change. Our new name, Early Charm for short, has its roots in our home, Baltimore, "The Charm City".

But to understand why we like the name so much, it would help to understand a bit about how The Charm City got its name.

In mid-70's Baltimore (before Harborplace, Maryland Science Center, the National Aquarium, and the prominence of Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland Medicine) was perhaps best described by native son Mark Kram who wrote in Sports Illustrated at the time, "is an anonymous city even to those who live there, a city that draws a laugh even from Philadelphia, a sneer from Washington, with a hundred tag lines that draw neither smile nor sneer from the city: Nickel Town, Washington's Brooklyn. A Loser's Town."

So the mayor, in 1975, asked Baltimore's leading advertising executives to re-brand the city. One of those execs, Bill Evans, wrote 'Baltimore has more history and unspoiled charm tucked away in quiet corners than most American cities out in the spotlight.'

Soon the ad execs began calling Baltimore "Charm City." Indeed, a charm bracelet was displayed at the bottom of each ad; there were only about five of them. But "Charm City" had been born, and set into Baltimore legend. The ads ran in The Sun, and featured the charm of Charm City: White steps, steamed crabs, beer, Mount Vernon, the Preakness, Mencken, museums, quiet neighborhood streets, Babe Ruth, row houses and raw bars.

Local disk jockeys created music to promote the slogan. They gave it their best. But it was an idea whose time had not come. The city did not have the money [or, yet the attractions] to sustain the program and it died. abbreviated from a Baltimore Sun article.

Well, it really didn't die. It just took a lot longer for the name to match the reality than the Mayor wanted. Today, that vision of a few and commitment from the many has transformed Baltimore into the Charm City.

And, so, at Early Charm, we celebrate those who know that creating change is hard, but want to do it anyway. We support those who see the opportunity and are willing to carry it through the grime. And most importantly, we share their spirit that it could BE different.