Analyzing Everything

Dinosaurs: Part 1, Fossil Remains

2023-11-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

The Civil War a Reenactment

2023-09-28T20:43:00.004-07:00

Federals Lookin Sharp

Camp in the Morning

Camp Life

Fixing Buttons

The Captain

Weapons

Marching Out

On the March

Sabre's Drawn

Through the Brush and Smoke

Battle!

Take Aim

Fire!

Battle's End

Family Time

The Unit

More Photos of the Event

All Photos (Reverse Chronological Order)

2023-09-28T19:43:00.002-07:00

A Journey in the Stock Market

2022-12-03T22:14:00.010-08:00

I've been having fun in the stock market for 14 months or so. I don't have a particularly large nest egg (my retirement savings went into the divorce so hit restart about 10 years ago). So perhaps with less to risk I was more willing to try out the market.

I didn't do it to get rich, or "catch up" or anything like that--I did it mostly because it seemed like it would be fun. Thought I’d share a bit about the experience so far.

(Note, I don't recommend this experience for most people. As you read through this I hope you will understand why. I'm a VERY conservative investor and it's STILL a crazy ride.)

By most standards I suppose I’m a “boring” investor. My goal is to put together a portfolio to save up to buy a house and provide an income stream in retirement. I’m not looking for quick wins. Just a basic buy and hold strategy—similar in that regard to Warren Buffet.

The obvious choice for the buy and hold investor is index funds. But, most indexes contain some companies engaged in business activities I don’t agree with. Furthermore, I thought it would simply be fun to build my own fund.

Buy and hold sounds simple. But, what to buy and when? For a “hold” investor is there ever a time to sell? If so, under what circumstances? Building my own investment fund means ultimately figuring out my personal strategy for buying and selling.

Compared to most people I have a rather different view of risk. I’m not worried about market volatility in the least. Since I’m mostly buying right now I prefer a down market. The risk I am concerned about however is company bankruptcy. If a company vanishes—the investment vanishes too! To minimize that risk I’m currently putting no more than 1% to 1.5% of my total portfolio into any one stock. My 401K currently has 93 companies...

Buying that many companies is a unique experience. Decisions don't just come out of a vacuum. There is a reason we choose one thing over another. Whether we acknowledge it or not, buying and selling decisions are based on philosophy of some sort.

Initially, my stock market philosophy was not very well developed. So, not surprisingly, a number of my early buy decisions that I thought were pretty smart moves, didn’t go very well.

One of first “smart” purchases was Roblox. Roblox is a wildly popular computer gaming platform for children. It has a huge mind share arguably rivaling giants like Lego, Pokémon and Minecraft. So it should be a great investment right? In the long term, perhaps yes. But right now, down 60%. Ounch. :-)

Another of my “smart” early purchases was Tesla. I’m very bullish on the long term potential for Tesla. They’ve worked through the difficult transition from an innovative company to a company that produces solid products. Over the next couple decades their product line will almost certainly expand along with their market share. However, I didn’t factor in that everyone else thought so too... I believed so much in Tesla I broke my ownership percentage rule and made it 4.5% of my portfolio. Down -49%

I came up with another “smart” purchase idea from personal observation. My son was working at KFC and DoorDash orders were pretty common. Covid was over, but people were still using DoorDash. So clearly it was not a pandemic thing, but a new reality. One I wanted to own. I didn’t realize there was fierce competition in that space and the competitors were spending down huge piles of investor cash in a race to under price each other and steal market share. Down -45%.

After buying into these more speculative tech stocks I thought, my portfolio really needs some “stability”. So I decided to buy a “blue chip” tech stocks to balance these more speculative purchases. I covered my nose and bought Amazon. Turns out when a company has reached market saturation it’s easier to take hits than it is to grow. Down -42%.

Thankfully, I didn’t just make “smart” investments. I made a number of “boring” ones too. I searched the market and found about 20 utility stocks—focusing mostly on electricity stocks. They typically pay strong dividends and have low volatility. For the most part they have performed fairly consistently and formed a solid core to my portfolio. (My portfolio has an average Beta of about 0.9)

In addition to “boring” purchases, I also made a few “dumb” purchases.

Twitter

A few months ago Elon Musk started talking about buying Twitter. Before Elon, Twitter was a money loosing albatross that I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole. But, if Elon was going to buy it there was opportunity. Once he put up his offer the stock settled in at a 5% discount from the offer price. At that point the fundamentals of Twitter as a company didn’t matter—the value was based on the Elon Musk’s offer price. While technically a stock, it was behaving like a bond.

The deal was going to close in about 5 months. Even with rising interest rates, a 5% return in 5 months is amazing! I also thought it would be fun to just be part of history. So I bought some shares figuring it was a pretty safe bet.

Then Elon decided to pull out of the deal and the stock price plummeted. Oh dear. It looked like I was going to get stuck owning an overprice slice of a very real money loosing company. I figured the panic was driving the prices exceptionally low and would rebound. So I held on, hoping for an opportunity to sell without too much of a loss.

They went to court and pretty soon it became clear the deal was going to go through after all. The stock price rebounded to slightly above the point I’d bought. By then I was done risking my money on judges and whatever Elon decided. So I sold out for about a $75 profit and was glad to be out of it.

Manchester United

A few months ago I was cruising the internet and started thinking about publicly traded sports teams. Sports teams are horrible investments. They are “toys for ultra rich people”. As such they are very expensive and have little to no financial return. However, one of the most famous sports teams in the world—the English soccer team Manchester United—is publicly traded. It happened to be wrapping up a really bad season and the price was at a historic low. So on a total whim I bought in. I figured the odds were that sometime in the next few years they would turn around and the price would rebound and I’d sell out. In the meantime it would be fun for a good old boy from Tennessee to own a few shares in a famous English “football” club. :-)

A couple weeks ago news broke that the controlling owners of the club were considering selling. The new buyer will likely buy out the entire team and take it private, so the stock price instantly shot up about 75%. After the Twitter affair I knew something about the risks of buy outs. I wasn’t interested in waiting around and seeing what would or wouldn’t happen and happily sold out. Go Manchester United! :-)

Oil and Gas

Early this year, before Putin invaded Ukraine and Joe Biden had just shut down new oil production in the US, oil and gas companies were taking a pounding. Exxon-Mobile was paying a 10% dividend, but the stock price was tanking. Hmm… I thought. While alternative energy is definitely taking off, it’s going to take decades for oil to phase out—at earliest. Oil isn’t going away. It seemed the market treatment of oil stocks was a bit premature. So I thought, let’s buy the oil sector. So I bought into several different oil companies and a number of companies involved in the distribution of oil and natural gas. Since then they have taken off. If I were in the business of trying to beat the market I would probably sell out now, but they are paying good dividends and I bought them relatively cheaply, so I think I’ll hold them. In 20 years if alternative energy does take over the market I may regret that choice.

Banking

About mid summer the fed started aggressively raising interest rates which put the banking sector into a bind similar to what oil had faced. Bank stocks fell as investors panicked about the impact of interest rates and a potential rescission. I figured the banks would suffer a hit, but many are too big for the government to allow them to fail. Also, I thought the recession panic was a bit extreme. So I went on a bank stock buying phase and bought into about 15 different banks. Got them at a good price. Will they weather the recession? We’ll have to wait an see.

Consumer Goods/Manufacturing

Supply chain disruptions also offered similar opportunities in some consumer goods/manufacturing stocks—panicked investors fearing a melt down dropped prices on major companies like 3M and Kimberly-Clark. So picked up a few of those. Unfortunately, I wasn’t watching packaging companies at that time (International Paper, Packing Corporation of America, Westrock) and missed out on a good buying opportunity. The jury is till out on whether a large recession will materialize or not. The rebounding stock market suggests most investors now believe the recession will be fairly mild.

Interesting Financial Moves

Since I’ve started buying stock I’ve had a couple companies spin out subsidiaries and a company get bought out. No bankruptcies—hoping that trend stays!

Summary

With all the ups and downs, how did it turn out? I lost money, but beat the S&P so I'm very happy. This is an exception though. As a buy and hold investor I expect that over time my returns will trend towards the market average. The reason is that as my portfolio grows, the new stock I buy will make up a smaller and smaller percentage of the total. So, even if I do a great job picking stocks, it's simply not going to have much impact against the inertia of the existing portfolio. Yes, I could churn my portfolio, but my goal is to build a portfolio that I want to own. So I'm good with just holding on and enjoying the ride.

Looking back over the last 14 months is there any general principles that seem to be emerging from the experience?

General Principles

1) I am completely unable to “outsmart” other investors on short term market shifts. Unexpected things happen and I’m as surprised at the result as the next guy. So instead of looking at the market for profit, I’m looking at the companies I own to turn a profit (and share that in the form of dividends and/or stock buybacks.)

2) For the most part the market tends to accurately reflect the true value of companies. There does however appear to be one possible exception. It seems that investors believe too strongly in the long-term effect of the present. For example, when the economy was going well investors imagined a wonderful future and priced companies like Tesla far too high. When the economic outlook weakens, or government policies change, investors imagine those new conditions lasting long into the future and price companies like Exxon-Mobile too low.

The problem is investors imagine current trends will remain unchanged and make market decisions based on that future. A more rational perspective is to assume a moderately growing economy with moderate opportunity. Then purchase stocks that will be profitable in that environment (but are resilient enough to withstand a downturn).

Summary (Part 2)

So, I’ve started looking for market segments (and occasionally individual companies) that are facing particularly challenging problems and buying in when prices are down. (This works the best when the entire market is down.)

Obviously, great care needs to be taken to distinguish temporary headwinds from an imploding market segment and/or company. For example, it looks like Carvana is imploding. I’m not the least bit interested in buying into that drama! Is the current tech downturn temporary headwinds or an implosion? I’m not sure, so I’m playing it safe and for the most part avoiding tech companies.

Any suggestions for market segments with good buys?

Inflation: Economics and Psychology

2022-04-09T20:50:00.013-07:00

Given sufficient time. Every field of study will reach a point where the majority of effort is spent perfecting answers to the wrong question. The study economics is no exception. With the recent spike in inflation economics is back into public conversation. A conversation that goes something like this:

Federal Reservist (In a snooty, superior tone):

"Due to the uptick in inflationary activity interest rates are being raised to remove excess liquidity from the economy…"

Anti-Federal Reservist (In an earthy, angry tone):

"This is what happens when you run the printing presses non-stop..."

These opposite views create the illusion of balanced debate. However, I think there is good reason to believe both of these viewpoints are answers to the “wrong question”. To find the right question let's return to the fundamentals.

Fundamental #1: Money is a commodity.

Just like copper, wheat, soybeans and gasoline. The value of a commodity changes based on two things:

1) How much is available (economists call this “supply”)

2) How much people want it (economists call this “demand”)

For example, in front of my house is a tree that grows very small pine cones. (Less than an inch long.) They are kind of cute and can be quite useful in various art projects. So a few years ago I harvested several hundred of the cones and sold them on eBay. As you would guess there are very few sellers of tiny pine cones. During that time I was probably one of the top suppliers in the world. That would suggest these rare cones have a high value, but it turns out demand for tiny pine cones is similarly small. I made a few bucks and it was fun for awhile. But today several hundred tiny pine cones are rotting undisturbed in my front yard.

Fundamental #2: People Decide Value

In theory, if either the supply or demand on a commodity change then the value of the commodity will automatically change. But that is not the case. Humans collectively decide on value. Psychology, not economics plays the critical role. If a commodity is in short supply—toilet paper in the early Covid days—one would expect prices to skyrocket. However, excepting a few scalpers, prices remained relatively “normal” and stores simply sold out.

We generally accept that prices will go up or down. But we revolt against major shifts. The bigger the change in prices, the more justification must go into it. And the justification must be acceptable. A great example of the unacceptable justification plays out every few years on the Gulf Coast of the US. From time to time a major hurricane will come rolling on shore sending residents fleeing into the interior. Gasoline supplies quickly become scarce. Would the imminent threat of a hurricane justify dramatically raising prices? Nope. Not a chance.

Summary: Fundamental #2 is much more powerful than fundamental #1.

Bringing it All Together: How we got to today’s inflation

When Covid hit in early 2020 no one was sure what would happen. One thing was certain however, the electorate of both parties expected government to do something. The Federal government responded with a combination of “stimulus payments” and extended long-term unemployment. State and local government lock-downs created a brief burst of layoffs. The combination of layoffs with stimulus and unemployment payments created a financial incentive to stay unemployed. Remote education provided additional motivation for parents of small children to remain unemployed to care for their children.

This combination had a unique result in the economy. Stimulus and unemployment dollars added to the economy. However, many people were not gathering pay checks. So the supply of money available to consumers remained relatively stable.

If we graphed it, it would look something like this:

This isn’t actually quite accurate. The stimulus was sent to everyone, not just the unemployed. However, no one knew what to expect with Covid, so instead of rushing out to spend the money, many people simply threw it into emergency savings. The combined result was that everything stayed about the same. The money may have been coming from different sources, but the amount of money being spent remained relatively stable.

However, not everything remained exactly as before. Companies were down a significant number of employees. The Taco Bell waiting line went from 5 minutes to 45 minutes.

When times are good companies staff up to provide the best service possible. (Otherwise competitors steal customers.) Now everyone was providing minimal service. Because everyone was equally terrible the customers couldn't leave. So company income remained basically stable. However, with the shortage of workers labor costs were way down. For companies lucky enough to be categorized as “essential” during the lock downs this was a good time.

W e can diagram it like this:

But this didn't last long. Nobody likes to work like crazy to provide minimal service. So across the board lots of companies had the same idea: “We’re making good money, let's hire some people!” Any company that didn't come to that conclusion soon realized “If we don’t raise our wages we’ll loose all our people.” So wages shot up across the board. Pretty soon labor costs were back to what they were before Covid. (Although with fewer people).

Thus we reached a stability that carried us through 2020 and 2021.

In theory prices should have been increasing. The supply of money in the hands of consumers was definitely up. However, company budgets were balanced so there was no psychological justification to raise prices. So thus things continued unchanged.

But then in mid 2021 something began to change. Students started to go back to school in person. Long term unemployment benefits began to run out. The last of the stimulus payments came and went.

Even though companies were spending as munch money on labor as they had before Covid, they hadn’t forgotten the “good old days” with more people. The empty positions remained on the company books and slowly began to fill with more people.

Now companies were faced with a dilemma. People don’t take pay cuts easily. Certainly not large pay cuts. But they were bleeding cash and if something wasn’t done they would go broke. (Going broke is barely less palatable psychologically than pushing out pay cuts.) Caught in that squeeze companies had only one option left—raise prices. In many cases the customer of a company is another company. So not only were companies facing their own labor cost crisis, but also increased material costs. So across the board everyone raised prices.

Because companies affect each other it's been a rolling adjustment. But, I suspect the peak is behind us and from here on out price increases will start to decline.

What is fascinating is that none of this has anything directly to do with either money supply or demand. It’s simply how the psychology of the thing plays out.

Where does it go from here?

Unfortunately, this drama will go virtually unnoticed. The Fed will continue to increase interest rates for the purpose of "taming inflation". As the round of price increases slows and then stops (without any regard to what the Fed is doing) the Fed will be given the rare gift of having "fixed" inflation. The story of how the Fed fixed this looming crisis will become the stuff of legend, perhaps even a movie!

Unfortunately, in the process the Fed may drive mortgage rates up to the point where the housing market stalls, or possibly crashes. The higher cost of loans for business investment may also drive us into a recession.

The anti-fed people will change their story to claim that ending the stimulus is what ended inflation. But the change will come too late and be too contrived to have credibility. Which is unfortunate, because it will actually be (indirectly) right.

Disclaimer

For clarity I’ve laid all this out as if it were a certainty. It’s not. It's definitely not. I’ve been wrong plenty before. Please don't make any financial decisions based on this. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Please feel free to leave comments. I'd love to have some lively discussion on this topic.

Why Big Companies Can’t Innovate – A Psychology of Innovation

2021-01-03T17:48:00.004-08:00

Big companies can innovate, but usually they don’t. It’s astonishing. The elements for successful innovation are present—money, business assets, brands, distribution channels, buildings, equipment and technical specialists. The ranks of large company management are filled with bright and motivated leaders with track records of getting things done. Yet it’s not unusual for a couple kids living in a basement subsisting on ramen noodles to run circles around large companies in the pesky little domain of innovation.

In popular media big companies are displayed as bungling, bureaucratic monstrosities. Real life Dilbert cartoons. Truthfully, that reputation is fairly earned. But, what is ignored because it has become so common place is the exceptional productivity of large companies. The ability to produce a literal cornucopia of products. Big businesses regularly execute massive projects of mind boggling complexity. Billion dollar plants, multi-million dollar upgrades. Teams of thousands of people working together to launch rockets, build cars and fill your pantry.

If big companies were truly incompetent there is no way they could do these things. Thus, we can rule out incompetence as the source of innovative failure. By the same standard we can rule out any simple or surface problem as our cause—those would have been solved long ago. Instead, failure to innovate must be caused by a very deep and fundamental problem. It’s time we find and understand that problem.

Other authors writing on the subject have suggested that autonomy(1), different performance targets, mindsets and skillsets(2) are critical to innovative success. I agree with their arguments. However, the continued difficulty of large businesses to innovate suggests additional deeper factors at play.

Let’s start our journey by considering Apple Inc...

No. No, we won’t. Most people start by looking at innovative companies. It seems intuitive. I started there too. But, like everyone else I found that looking at innovative companies led straight into a fowl, smelly, swamp of causation vs. correlation conundrums. Wandering around in that for a bit brings to mind the famous Dr. Phil question, “How is that working for you?”

So, we’ll turn our back on innovative success and look in the most unlikely place: innovative failure.

Innovative Failure: A Story

We’ll start with a fictional story of a large business and two ambitious young people, Mary and Mike. (For those of you that like to look for real life connections, don’t bother. This story is entirely illustrative and was NOT inspired by any real life events and does not reflect the experiences of anyone I personally know.)

Mary and Mike were both average students holding freshly minted high school diplomas. They were tired of sitting in class all day, so they applied to work for a large business and were both hired. Both were conscientious, hard working and inclined to show up to work on time. In addition they were both fairly organized and socially skilled. Mary was “down to earth” and practical. Mike had a streak of creativity and curiosity.

Within a few months they both started to make their mark within the company. Mike made a few suggestions for improvement. One of them even won the “Suggestion of the Quarter” award. However, most of his ideas were clearly impractical and passed over. His manager liked his work, appreciated his commitment to the company and the winning suggestion was definitely the highlight of the quarter. But sometimes she found his endless ideas a little tiring, even irritating. She found herself involuntarily rolling her eyes just a little when he came up with another idea...

Mary also was making her mark. If there was a need she got it done. It wasn’t long before she became the go-to person in the group. Soon she was promoted to lead. A role Mike was considered for, but his known tendency to get distracted worked against him.

A few months later there was an opening for supervisor training and Mary’s manager encouraged her to apply.

The years went by. Mary signed up for online college classes and completed a bachelor’s degree. She went on to complete an MBA and in time became a well respected middle manager.

Mike’s career is also not without progress either. After a couple years in his current position he saw another job posting that looked interesting. He moved into that role and mastered those skills before moving on to another position. Before long his wide ranging skill set guaranteed a lead position wherever he went within the company. He become a respected leader among the hourly staff due to his wide ranging experience.

One day Mary’s boss came to her with an exciting new project. An innovative solution was needed and project “Create” was born. Mary was given a small staff to develop this new project. As a competent, manager and organizer she felt confident in the new role. Compared to other projects she’d managed in the past this project seemed fairly small and straight forward. However, she didn’t use that as an excuse to cut corners. Her team put together a solid plan and project “Create” began to move forward.

By chance Mike ended up on the project team. He wasn’t working directly for Mary—by now she was a couple levels above him. But Mary did remember him and they enjoyed a few fun minutes chatting about old times.

As the project proceeded Mike noticed some things about the plan that just didn’t “feel right”. It seemed to him that they should experiment more and make sure they are really doing it the best way. When he suggested this to his manager he told him it would be nice if they could, but they have a tight schedule to meet and besides, the plan will work

Over the next few months Mary struggled valiantly to make it work. And succeeds. Well, sort of. However, the result is far short of what was needed to be sustainable. Finally, upper management reviewed the project and mercifully pulled the plug. Mary’s reputation takes a hit, but her skill set remains in demand so she moves laterally to an open position, but in a less desirable area of the company. Skilled employees like Mike are hard to find so he’s quickly snapped up by another group.

This fictional story illustrates an interesting phenomena about large companies that’s often over looked in the discussion about innovation. That is, employees in management are almost always “get it done” people. Creative people are almost never promoted into management. People like Mike tend to get stuck at the bottom levels, or find their way into isolated groups of specialists at the margins of organizational power—marketing, public relations, software engineers, etc.

Both “get it done” people and the creatives may be may be very intelligent. But their minds work in very different ways. That shouldn’t be surprising. The human body can vary greatly—tall, short, strong, agile, etc. A defensive tackle on a football team has a radically different body than a figure skater. What’s less recognized is the mind can have just as much (if not more) variety.

“Get it Done” vs “Creative”

To help us understand the mental differences between “get it done” people and “creative” people imagine setting Mary and Mike down with sets of paint and two easel’s holding blank canvases.

Mary will certainly want to start with instruction. Mike may too.

However, they soon diverge. Mary will stick very close to the instructions. After she finishes she will self-evaluate how closely her picture matches the expected result. Of course, she would apply a handicap to herself based on her (in)experience. She may find the famous saying of the television painting teacher Bob Ross, “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents” reassuring, but not very convincing.

Mike on the other hand will start with the plan, but rapidly diverges from it. He will start exploring various ideas as he goes. “What if I use dark blue instead of black here….” When he finishes (if he finishes—because exploration never feels done) he will also perform a self evaluation of the results(3). However, his evaluation is very different than Mary’s. He’ll think about the ideas he’s explored and what he discovered along the way. The completed painting is only part of what success means to him.

These two ways of thinking play a critical role in how different types of projects play out in a workplace environment.

Execution Tasks vs Innovative Tasks

First, lets dig a bit more into what makes up a task. Let’s break down our tasks into two parts—known activities and unknown activities. For example, if I’m going to build a house, all the activities are known. Concrete must be laid, framing, electrical, roofing, all follows established processes with known methods. We’ll call these “execution tasks”. Because the work is known that allows it to be directly managed. Often it can be broken down into parts and assigned to different people or teams to accomplish. It can be described in documents and people can be trained how to do the work.

Execution tasks can be as small and simple such as “loading the dishwasher” or as large complicated as as “launching a space shuttle”. Even unusual tasks like building new plants or replacing equipment are almost always execution tasks.

The vast majority of work is made up of execution tasks. Execution tasks build our houses, put food on the table and cars in our driveways.

Because the work of an execution task is known, the outcome is also extremely predictable. If I successfully execute on my task to “fill the dishwasher” when I’m complete I can reasonably expect to find that the dishwasher is filled. Good planning and follow through are the keys to success with an “execution task”.

In fact, so many tasks are execution tasks that when most people think of “work” they typically think of execution tasks. In fact, it may not occur to many people there is any other kind of task.

However, there are. Imagine a diplomat is tasked with stopping a war in a small foreign nation. The diplomat may have a set of negotiation skills that are learned/known and may start out with a rough plan. But, the diplomat knows that getting to a solution is not simply a matter of following the plan. The plan is actually discovered while working on the task.

This has huge implications for how this type of task is managed. An execution task is managed through planning. But, how do you do plan a task where the plan materializes as part of the task itself? The answer is, you can’t.

We’ll call tasks that discover their own plans, “innovative tasks”.

The Merriam-Webster's online dictionary(4) gives the following definition to the word “Innovate” as “to make changes: do something in a new way”. Thus innovation is the task of searching the unknown for an unknown number of unknown things to find something you may not have known you needed.

The space industry gives us a great example of the difference between innovation and execution. During the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s governments and large organizations engaged in a race to build more rockets to launch more and more satellites into orbit. It was a static, fixed formula.

More Rockets = More objects in space

Then Elon Musk and his company developed an entirely new way to do rockets: rockets that landed themselves for reuse. Now multiple companies are racing to do the same thing. The actual construction of these new rockets is (as it’s always been) an execution task. The difference is that innovation fundamentally changed the type of rocket that is produced. Now the same level of execution produces multiple launches instead of just one.

The new formula is:

More objects in space = Multiple launches of the same rockets

Getting to the Heart of Innovation—Understanding the Unknown

Innovative projects have a close relationship with the unknown. Referring back to our Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of innovation is “a new idea, method, or device”(5). To state the obvious, to be new it must first be unknown. It may be known in another context or for another purpose. For example, people have been reusing dishes for thousands of years before Elon Musk started cleaning and reusing his rockets. Nor was reuse entirely new in the space industry—the Space Shuttle and parts of the solid rocket boosters were reusable. Nonetheless, he took the concept of reuse to a previously unknown level within the space industry.

In fact, the unknown is almost everywhere we look. For example, imagine the sewer in your house starts to back up. That is definitely in the middle of “unknown” to most people. However, there are experts who “know” such things, so we call one of them.

When the expert arrives they may already have a good idea of what is wrong. But, there is still a small element that remains unknown. Likely the first words out of their mouth will be something like “Can you show me the problem?”

After seeing the problem it may take only a brief glance for the expert to determine what work needs to be done. While the unknown did exist in this task, it doesn’t lead to innovation. Rather, it leads directly to which execution task to perform. By the time the job is done the expert is likely to have spent 95% (or more) of the time implementing the solution and 5% (or less) figuring out what to do.

This is fairly typical of non-innovative projects.

However, just because execution projects are made up of known processes doesn’t mean the small unknown elements are significant. For example, let’s say you decide to remodel the kitchen in a lovely century old house. The processes used for remodeling houses are well understood. These are definitely execution tasks. However, a major unknown element also exists. If mold or asbestos is discovered your timeline and budget may blow up entirely. That tiny percentage of unknown can have devastating consequences.

So consider the impact of the unknown on a project that’s 50% or more unknowns…

Lets look at another example, this one with a much lager unknown element. Let’s say I want to commission an artist to make a painting of my two pet cats. So I give the artist a photo and ask them, “So what’s the painting going to look like?”

A good artist will say, “Lets talk a bit about it first.”

Why can’t the artist tell me up front? The artist is the expert! They know exactly how to make great paintings. However, the artist also knows that good art doesn’t come from simply converting a photo into a painting. To do a truly magnificent job the artist needs to go through an extensive learning process. They need to see the cats. Learn about the personality of each one. Discuss my relationship with my cats. Listen to stories about my cats… In other words they recognize they are facing an unknown—namely they know very little about my cats and how those cats relate to me.

By filling in that void of knowledge they can start creating a plan. A unique plan tailored to my specific situation. A plan that turns canvas and dried pigment into something amazing.

Again, innovation creates it’s own plan.

Since both execution project and innovative projects can include the unknown, what is the difference? The key difference is that in execution projects the unknown elements are resolved by applying known solutions. By contrast, innovative tasks search the unknown not to figure out which known solution to apply, but to extract or build something entire new from that unknown.

Because of this, typically (but not necessarily) innovative tasks contain a higher percentage of time spent searching the unknown that execution tasks do.

In general, the less unknown there is surrounding an execution project the better things will go. Conversely, the more unknown that is searched in an innovative project typically raises the likelihood of producing great results. As the famous inventor Thomas Edison is quoted to have said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”(6)

Ultimately, it’s important to remember that neither innovation or execution projects are inherently “better”. Just like the football tackle and the figure skater together create a richer athletic world, the business world is stronger when both execution and innovation projects thrive.

Innovation In Business

When we look at American business we find that execution projects are thriving. Compared to much of the world American innovation is thriving. But, to be honest, it's only thriving in limited areas and select companies. So let’s dig a bit deeper into what’s going on.

The minimum level of innovation in a business often goes by the name “continuous improvement”. As new technologies, equipment and ideas become available it’s wise for companies keep an eye open to how these opportunities can be integrated into their company at all levels of their organization. Improvement philosophies are not intended to turn companies into creative engines with people running around in shorts and flip-flops spouting philosophy. Instead they focus on making the small innovations that keep a company thriving.

A word of caution: The process of constantly looking for new innovations can easily result in a tendency to jump from one innovation to the next too quickly to see the benefits. (Colloquially known as the “flavor of the month”.) But in time balance can be found and the majority of companies find continuous improvement philosophies to be very beneficial.

In spite of the power of continuous improvement it does have a limited scope. Its purpose is keeping an established business thriving. If a business is facing a major disruptive challenge or attempting to become disruptive themselves these philosophies alone simply don’t have the innovative horsepower to do the job. The tortoise may beat the hare, but some hurtles are too tall for even a hare to clear.

The problem is most companies have to work extremely hard to just implement some form of “continuous improvement”. They simply don’t have the capacity to successfully move on to more ambitious innovation. (That doesn’t mean they don’t try. They just rarely succeed.)

The Difficulty of Innovation

To understand why it’s so difficult let’s return to Mary and Mike’s experience with project “Create”. When Mary took over the project she sat down with her team to develop a list of tasks to fulfill the objectives company leadership had defined for the project. The tasks were then organized and the first to-do lists created. It took a few meetings, but finally the team headed out to start working on the tasks.

What she didn’t realize is she had already set in motion a sequence of events that would make the project the most difficult one of her career. Within a day of beginning work several people on the team encountered something unexpected. Considering that project “Create” was exploring the unknown it should hardly have been surprising. The unexpected items fell into two categories—problems and opportunities. I’m not talking about problems that are re-branded as “opportunities” either. But true problems and true opportunities.

The scope of the problems and opportunities varied significantly—some were very minor and others very significant. However, because so much was unknown it was often impossible to tell if a particular problem or opportunity would be a big deal or just something minor.

By the next team meeting some of the major problems had become apparent and they dominated team discussion. Some opportunities had also become apparent. Mike discussed one of them with his supervisor, but was told that they needed to focus on fixing the problems first and hopefully they’d be able to look into the opportunities later.

Later of course never came. More and more problems and opportunities kept showing up. Working through, around, past, the problems kept the team fully engaged. The worst problems were the ones that initially were hardly apparent, but over time slowly revealed themselves significantly disrupting the schedule which slipped further and further. There was no time to pursue opportunities.

What few people on the team realized is this didn’t need to happen. If the team had taken a more flexible approach they could have side-stepped many of the problems and taken advantage of many opportunities. Instead of forcing the plan onto the project they should have let the project create the plan.

A Model of Flexible Innovation

To help us understand how flexible innovation works let’s build a simple model. Let’s think of the project crossing a range of mountains to reach the objective. Problems are the mountains that block progress. Opportunities are flat valleys that provide easy progress.

At the beginning there always a path that appears to be the easiest. Very often however that appearance is deceiving.

Lacking detailed information on the interior of the mountains the team sets up a plan that looks like this.

At first, great progress is made. The team deviates just slightly to take advantage of the small curve in the river. However, they soon run up against the first mountain (problem). The team is presented with three options—the relatively easy paths to the north and south, or fight the mountain and proceed west anyway.

The good progress so far lulls the team into believing the mountain can’t be that hard, so they continue fighting on towards the west. The steepness of the mountain causes the team to deviate slightly from the planned route. Only after great struggle the team finally gets past the mountain only to run up against another major problem—a steep valley with another mountain on the other side.

The only practical options left for the team is to travel north and hope that leads to a good passage to the west. Or turn sharply south to the valley that appears to run west from there. By now the team is significantly behind schedule and are disinclined to take the risk of heading towards a hoped for northern valley. So the team turns south, backtracking slightly. Rounding the edge of the mountain the team finds relatively good passage and begins to track back towards the original path. Until they find that path blocked by another mountain.

The team compromises by forcing a path across the lower portion of the mountain then turning northwest rejoins the original path. The team has reached it’s goal, but only through herculean efforts.

Before we are too hard on the team for taking such a difficult path, let’s consider the information the team had available to make these decisions. The gray region below shows what they could see. It’s a region almost entirely made up of mountains. The path of the team through the gray zone is not bad at all. In fact, the team should be lauded for making good decisions based on the information available. The one thing the team did do wrong is failing to realize they were making decisions of limited information.

If instead of focusing on forward progress, the team had focused on sending out scouting expeditions (orange lines) they would have discovered the wide pass in the south. Thus totally avoiding the mountain filled second half of the original journey.

A great innovative team would have followed up the first scouting expeditions with a second round of of expeditions to clarify the discoveries of the first expedition. This would have resulted in even better paths.

Either way, a team that scouted would lead their parties across the mountains while the first team was struggling past the first mountain.

Making Innovation Concrete

Naturally the question comes up—how much exploration is enough? Not enough will leave the team mired in problems. Too much could slow progress through distraction.

First, anyone who asks this question is probably not exploring enough. (If you are not asking the question, you may be exploring too much!) That’s because personality plays a major role. People who are doers (like “Mary”) will naturally focus on movement towards the goal and perceive exploration as a distraction. A “Mary” will have to work very hard against their personality to succeed in an innovative project.

If a creative (like “Mike”) is leading the opposite is true. A “Mike” will naturally want to explorer everything. An innovative project will thus be easier for a "Mike". (Where “Mike” will struggle is with execution projects.) However, creatives like “Mike” do need to make sure they drop out of exploration mode occasionally to make sure the results of their exploration turn into concrete action.

Managing Innovation

In an innovative project, the project creates it’s own plan. So how can it be managed? It can be managed. It’s just a very different kind of management. Instead of quantitative metrics (i.e. where are we on the Gantt chart) managing innovative projects requires qualitative tools.

The first “metric” (I use that term very loosely) is the ratio of discussion by team members on problems vs opportunities. In a healthy innovative project the majority of discussion will be about opportunities. The reason is that when the team gets busy pursing opportunities many problems are avoided altogether. Most of the rest are solved as part of the process of pursuing the opportunities. Therefore, the team finds little need to discuss problems. If team conversation has turned to problems then almost always the reason is that a plan has been imposed on the project and the team is trying to make the plan work, instead of letting the search create the plan.

Note: “exploration” is NOT problem solving. Exploration is simply learning the “lay of the land”. Basically it's “map making”. The map may be very rough (this is unknown space after all), but it does show where some problems and opportunities lie. That is enough to start threading a path through the unknown space to reach the opportunities. Often the maps exist only in the minds of the explorer and for small projects (and perhaps many large projects as well) that’s good enough. With a map in mind the next step is to simply head towards the opportunities and loop around the problems. Often it's beneficial to spin off more detailed explorations to further clarify the path as it emerges. Very often the path will lead in a completely opposite direction from where the original problems were located. Which is perfect.

In general it’s best not to be too formal when defining the path. Simply let it emerge. The path creates itself. So don’t waste energy looking at or gold plating the path. Instead monitor if anything practical is emerging from the project. That sounds a lot like monitoring the path, but it’s not. The path is the route that leads between practical outputs. On an execution project measuring progress along the path is a reasonable proxy for progress towards the practical output. However, on an innovative project the path is winding and unpredictable. A step along the path might lead 10% of the way towards the next practical output or 0.01% of the way. It's not possible to know until the destination is reached.

Thus using the path as a proxy for progress (like you can on an execution project) is at best a waste of time. At worst it deceives and disappoints stakeholders. Instead, monitor when practical benefits have emerged from the project. Remember that the ultimate goal of innovation is to create something new that can move from “unknown” into “known”. So measure when that happens.

Of course the rate at which practical results emerge from an innovative project varies somewhat randomly. But, in general healthy innovative projects that are focused on opportunities will regularly produce practical results. If that rate is trending downward over an extended period of time something may be wrong. Some possible causes:

• The team has adopted a predefined plan and has become stuck against a stack of problems. (This will be accompanied by a shift of team conversation from opportunities to problems.)

• The explorers may be distracted by other work and they are no longer actually working on the project.

• The explorers may have gone to far in their exploration and are finding opportunities that are beyond the capacity of the business to exploit.

• The project may have simply achieved as much as it reasonably should and maybe it’s time to hold a celebration and bring the project to a close.

In addition to watching when practical results are emerging, innovators should also monitor the impact of these results. Typically, the most beneficial practical innovations tend to come early in a project as teams harvest low hanging fruit. As the impact of results start to diminish it’s important to monitor ROI. When the benefits of the innovation drop to a certain point it’s time to have a celebration and move on to new unknown areas with more potential.

How to Make it Happen...

Looking back at the story of project “Create” you can now see how difficult this project would have been for Mary. She is a great manager and a great person, but her DNA is wired to make plans. As the team encountered problems everything she had ever experienced in the past would be screaming in her head to double down on the planning. Unfortunately, this would only make the problems get worse. To be fair to Mary she was doing the right thing. Just in the wrong context.

What she needed was a new set of managerial tools. Tools she didn't have. But that wasn't everything. Even if she did have the tools her natural mental inclination would have made it difficult for her to use them effectively. It's much like taking a football tackle down to the ice rink. Providing good instructions will help. But, you can hardly expect the tackle to perform as well as a real figure skater.

So as a general rule, innovative projects work better if a creative person like Mike is put in charge. Someone who understands how exploration works and can keep the momentum focused on finding opportunities.

However, putting Mike in charge is not enough. Innovative projects must have Mary. Not to impose a plan on the innovation, but to take the output the innovators find and turn those discoveries into real life operational masterpieces.

The same pattern should be applied to execution projects, but in the inverse. Mary needs to be in charge of those projects. But, Mary needs Mike as a creative assistant who has the vision to see the small ways in which the general plan can be significantly improved upon.

If the business is an even split between execution and innovation, co-leaders may be an effective solution.

While simple to state, accomplishing this can be difficult. Company cultures often have deeply ingrained execution mindsets. This is further compounded by the fact that people tend to identify very strongly with others who think like them. (Often secretly believing that any other way of thinking is second rate.) As a result people tend not to support people who think and work differently than they do.

Yet, the best results for execution or innovative projects can only come when doers and creators are sharing their unique talents to bless each other. Harmony isn't when everyone sings the same note. Harmony is when different voices on different notes come together.

Hopefully this paper will help in some little way to grow the appreciation and respect that will then bless the world with some wonderful new innovations.

Appendix:

Building an organization where innovation thrives:

1) Understand task execution.

2) Understand innovation.

3) Understand what good execution processes look like.

4) Understand what good innovation processes look like.

5) Understand why a good process for the one is necessarily a bad process for the other.

6) Understand why people that are good at one are rarely good at the other (and know which you are).

7) Learn how to build good respectful working relationships between people with the opposite skill set and methods of work.

References:

1. Maxwell Wessel, Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2012/09/why-big-companies-cant-innovate

2.Rebekah Caompbell, Financial Review, https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/leaders/why-big-companies-can-t-innovate-20190910-p52ptn

3. I know because I am a creative.

4. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovate

5. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation

6. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_a_edison_132683#861gy5AZlSiFPYVo.99

Example Code for HC-SR04 Sonic Distance Sensor

2018-12-23T16:24:00.002-08:00

//Example Code for HC-SR04 Sensor

const int triggerPin = 7; // Trigger Pin of Ultrasonic Sensor

const int echoPin = 6; // Echo Pin of Ultrasonic Sensor

void setup() { // put your setup code here, to run once

Serial.begin(9600);

}

void loop() { // put your main code here, to run repeatedly

long duration, inches, cm;

//trigger

pinMode(triggerPin, OUTPUT);

digitalWrite(triggerPin, LOW);

delayMicroseconds(2); //two millionths of a second

digitalWrite(triggerPin, HIGH);

delayMicroseconds(5); //five millionths of a second

digitalWrite(triggerPin, LOW);

//echo

pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);

duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);

//Speed of sound at sea level = 340 m/s

//Thus 34 milliseconds. Since we have a 5 millisecond trigger we'll subtract that and end up with 29. The

//soundis going out and back we divide by 2.

cm = duration / 29 / 2;

Serial.print(cm);

Serial.print("cm, ");

//Same basic logic but for inches instead

inches = duration / 74 / 2;

Serial.print(inches);

Serial.println("in");

delay(100); //one hundred thousandths of a second

}

Conclusion = Hypothosis?

2015-02-08T20:49:00.004-08:00

Real things I've been wrong about:

The team I was sure would win the Super Bowl

The smart investment move

The right speed to navigating a curvy road

So how did I get to these wrong conclusions? A simple model:

Facts

(Leads to)

Conclusion

I think that's a bit too simple. If you give two people the same facts they often come to very different conclusions. Why?

Maybe it's context? General philosophies in which we organize and make sense of individual facts.1

Facts

(Seen through)

General Philosophies/Frame of Reference/Schema

(Leads to)

Conclusion

This assumes the "rational observer". I am NOT. A more realistic model:

Facts

(Seen through)

General Philosophies/Frame of Reference/Schema

(Affected by)

Personal Desires

(Leads to)

Conclusion

Therefore, a conclusion (including this one!) is so separated from fact that it's basically a question without the question mark. In essence I think a conclusion is a hypothesis. Something to test:

Hypothesis: The team I was sure would win the Super Bowl

Test: The Game

Result: The other team won (just barely!)

Hypothesis: The smart investment move

Test: Moved my 401k from stocks to bonds

Result: I made 1%! (but missed out on a 20% gain when the market recovered--oops)

Hypothesis: The right speed to navigating a curvy road

Test: Cruising along...

Result: Slid off the road, one bent the axle, one more careful driver

Cover Feedback

2011-02-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine is working on a self publishing project. Here is the cover he's been working on. We'd like some feedback--what you like about it, what you don't like, etc.

Thanks

Why I Like the Filibuster

2011-01-24T17:20:00.000-08:00

In my work I am regularly called upon to make difficult technical decisions. My best work is done in a slow methodical way. Decisions made quickly in the passion of the moment are often regretted. Some of my best decisions have taken months to solidify in my mind. I don't find it strange at all that groundbreaking legislation can take months to work through Congress. In fact it should!

I've always respected the U.S. Senate for it's policies and procedures that delayed and inhibited the legislative process. Good decisions only come after the emotion has passed and thinking takes over. If you hear anyone talking about "streamlining" government by removing the filibuster please remind them that the legislation that got us into the Iraqi war was was passed VERY EFFICIENTLY. Is that the model for legislation that we want? If anything we need more barriers not fewer.

FCC vs. the Internet

2010-12-20T16:35:00.000-08:00

Over the past twenty years the Internet has grown from a small academic community into a worldwide phenomena. In the process transforming how we work and think. Over the same period the US Government has stumbled from one failure to the next becoming increasingly mired in debt and ineffective policies.

Today the big news is that the FCC is going to get involved in regulating the Internet in the US. Considering the track record of these two worlds I can't image that the injection of government is going to be anything but a disaster.

Please contact your congressional representatives and beg them to get government out of one of the last pieces of our economy that is still working!

Wikileaks--Providing a Valuable Service?

2010-12-08T16:14:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting that nearly all the coverage of Wikileaks makes the implicit assumption that organized governments are against Wikileaks. A good analysis of the situation however leads me to question that assumption.

1) Wikileaks has operated with impunity for a remarkably long period of time and until fairly recently from Amazon.com servers. If wikileaks were as big a threat as the 6:00 PM anchor implies they would have been pushed out of the mainstream far sooner.

2) Wikileaks provides a great opportunity for America (and it's allies) to embarrass political (and/or military) opponents (and get away with it). That is a rare and unusual privilege. It would be hard to argue that government agencies haven't at least considered "leaking" certain documents.

3) Wikileaks provides political justification to ratchet up "oversight" of security agencies. In an age of growing privacy concerns this is another valuable commodity.

4) Too much drama. Sexual scandal, hiding, then jail time while fighting extradition. The media blitz is extraordinarily and just a little too dramatic to be believable.

What I can't figure out is whether Wikileaks is fully orchestrated by a government agency or if it's a "public/private partnership". I suspect it's the latter, but in any case the Wikileaks side is playing their role beautifully. This could be a truly historic moment--the first widespread internet based misinformation campaign. If so I have to give a round of applause to however organized it--this has been very, very well done.

I don't have any "evidence" to "prove" any of this. I just analyze things. But, like the old saying goes, "When you see hoof prints think horses not zebras". Right now everybody is talking zebras and that doesn't analyze.

How many democrats would vote for Health Care if George Bush was Running it?

2010-03-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many of the house democrats would vote for this bill if George Bush was president? A democratic president won't be in the white house forever. . . we've got to think ahead people.

The 30 Second Health Care Bill Summary:

1) After the bill goes into effect the only health insurance available for purchase will be through government exchanges.

2) Existing plans may not add anyone.

2) In five years your existing plan will start to look a lot like a government plan.

The 2 Minute Version (Directly quoted from the Bill section 102):

1) "Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.

2) "the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1."

3) "plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section 121."

Attention Span

2010-01-04T18:06:00.001-08:00

Ever notice that pay is largely determined by attention span? Low paying jobs typically require very short attention spans--make a burger, ring up a sale. Higher paying jobs require longer interactions. The highest paying jobs often have steps requiring months if not years to complete. What is your attention span? Could you make it longer?

Great Visualization of Bank Failures

2009-12-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

http://computationallegalstudies.com/2009/12/13/visualizing-bank-failures-2008-2009/

Excellent Course on Business

2009-12-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

Lonnie Wibberding a long time friend has made available a free short course in business/economics. He is an excellent writer and thinker. Take advantage of this rare opportunity at SmartFocusCoaching.com

Conflict of Interest Journalism

2009-12-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

Thriving Small Business Still Struggling to Get Loans is a CNN.com article about a business man who can't get a loan to expand his successful small business without putting up his home as collateral.

I smelled a rat.

First, the premise of the article is based on ignorance. Just because business owner Andy Shallal can run a successful small business with 3 small stores does not at all mean he can run a larger business with the same degree of success. It's not unusual when a small business starts to thrive for the owner to believe they own the next Starbucks.

They borrow like crazy to expand and then crash spectacularly when the new investments turn out to be less productive than the original. In fact, small businesses are often successful because of the special efforts/knowledge of the owners. The larger a business grows the more diluted those talents become.

Banks have been around long enough to know the hubris of the small business owner and are extremely hesitant to loan money to small businesses borrowing money to grow. Every bank would love to have financed Starbucks, but for every Starbucks there are a thousand wanna-be's that will fail. Banks can't absorb very many of those losses without going broke themselves. So they set their standards very, very high. Thus the requirement for additional collateral.

Andy Shallal doesn't like those standards. Instead he wants the government to hand him cash. If he fails (the odds are he will) we taxpayers take the loss. If he succeeds--he gets the benefit. How nice. . . for him.

But there's still that rat. Small businessman Andy Shallal is no ordinary businessman. He's a liberal activist that uses his business to promote social issues. There is nothing wrong with that. Let me repeat--there is nothing wrong with his decision to be a liberal activist and use his business to promote his beliefs. It's a free country. Go for it.

But don't use my tax dollars to fund it. Don't use my tax dollars to fund conservative or libertarian projects either. Tax dollars belong in non-political projects like building roads and paying soldiers. If we start down the road of raiding the public treasury to support various competing political agendas it will take us straight to fiscal ruin. (If we aren't already there yet)

There is a huge potential for conflict of interest when a liberal activist seeks government money to build up a business that actively works to promote a liberal agenda. It is morally objectionable for CNN to report on Andy's desire for government loans without mentioning a word of this. Disclosures matter.

Best Peice of Financial Reporting I've Ever Seen

2009-11-22T11:47:00.001-08:00

Kudos to Latoya Egwuekwe this is amazing.

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/latoyaegwuekwe/multimediafinal.html

Did You Feel Dumb Today?

2009-09-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel totally dumb. Maybe I made a stupid decision or missed a key piece of information. While I feel bad I rarely go away from those experiences without learning something. Often those lessons have turned out to transform my life. The days when everything goes well feel awesome. It's good to have good days, but rarely do they pack the long term benifits.

Perhaps it's not such a bad idea to purposefully include a "dumb" moment in every day. Start reading a challenging book. Sign up for a stock market simulation (for the business noob) or fantasy football league (for the sports noob). Talk to a smart friend about something they are good at.

Have you created an opportunity in your day to feel dumb?

Welcome to Analyzing Everything

2009-08-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

It's said the best thing about the NPR show "All Things Considered" is that everything is considered. It's also said that the worst thing about "All Things Considered" is that everything is considered. Perhaps the same is true for analysis.

I've always been an analyst. People and processes have always fascinated me. I did my first formal analysis back in high school when I analyzed my school's mission statement. In recent years I've worked as a software analysis. I've even been known to do an analysis on a cartoon. . . So here it is, my version of "All Things Analyzed".