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Lose weight by weighing less: bad taunt, good science!

Published October 26, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Lose weight by weighing less

So said The Atlantic in a side-swipe at Gary Hamel, the management professor.  They meant to damn him  They meant to say he was being tautological – or in plain language – saying black is black.  Unknowingly, they were being profound!  What they don’t realize is that management theory has moved on.  Like modern psychology, it has expanded its horizons.  The mathematical models we use have changed and to say we lose weight by weighing less is sound modelling.

Cause-and-effect was our first question

One hundred years ago, we were captivated by questions of cause-and-effect.  What causes overweight, we might ask. And we came up with models that said the more food went in the more fat on our body.    Food is is food.   Fat is fat.  They are different and one causes the other.

And so it went on.  We said intelligence led to success in later life.  We said that eating well led to intelligence.  On and on.

Actually few of these factors are independent of each other.  Fat is transformed from food.  And intelligence is a make-believable variable that exists only because it is associated with success.

Now we ask how a phenomenon changes over time

That said, we aren’t that interested in these models any more or the general question of what causes what.

These days we are more interested in recursive models.  Lose weight by weighing less is exactly what interests me.  Today I might way 60 kg.  Tomorrow I may weigh 59.9 kg or 60.1 kg.  What is the natural fluctuation in my weight and what leads to the weight getting greater (or less) and then reversing direction.

We know weight is caused by what goes in and what goes out.  And both of those are dependent on each other.  I will eat more more I have skipped meals and I will exercise less when I’ve had too much or too little to eat.    We are interested in all the relevant factors change in time and how they interact with each other in a highly fluctuating yet essentially self-correcting and stable system.

What doesn’t change may well be sick

Illness comes from lack of fluctuation. We should worry about utterly static weight and a completely constant appetite.

How do we shift systems?

Anyone who has tried to shift their typical weight, for vanity or to please their doctor, knows that it is quite hard to do.  There seems to be homeostatic levels which remain fairly constant given any set of circumstances.  Complexity theorists know that systems are self-replicating.  They also know the “shape” of the system matters.    We expect a system to fluctuate a lot but like our weight, in a general range.  When we get no fluctuation, or when our weight rockets or plummets, then we are ill!

Shifting entire systems requires a different form of thinking.  More on that another day.

For now, yes – we can lose weight by weighing less.  It is a weak system of change to look at the scales each day.  But it will work.  Just weigh less every day and you will lose weight.  Perfect mathematical model. Perfect science.

Sorry The Atlantic.  Misguided taunt.  Another one of these areas where the world has changed a lot in the last five years.  Now we do recursive models not cause-and-effect models.

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MyersBriggs *SF* vs *NT*

Published October 25, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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The great distinction between the *SF* and the *NT* of the our world!

Overheard in a “period” novel on BBC Radio 4 from one sister to another who is more of a blue stocking:  Things remain the same even when we think them out!  And so we hear the great distinction between the *SF* and the *NT* of the world!

*SF*

.  .  .  say the facts don’t change when we understand how they come about.

*NT*

.  .  . say we will generate opportunities when we understand how the facts came to be.

And herein lies the paradox and limits of psychology

If I had to bet on who was an “optimist”, I would bet on the *SF*.  They are are usually more worldly and easier to get along with.

Yet the *NT* are more likely to be the innovators of the world and what is innovation if not optimism – faith in human nature for a start!

As a good *NT*, I agree with Kurt Lewin that there is nothing so practical as a good theory.  The explanatory power of old fashioned psychology has well-been reached.  We really should encourage psychology students to study literature too and celebrate and enjoy paradox!

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A currency of visions not a currency of force.Thank *** we live in the 21st century!

Published October 25, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Masculine cultures are not about ‘guys’ – they are about force

Yesterday, I heard two female politicians bickering on BBC Radio 4 – talking over each other as the male moderator said amiably. A tedious, wearisome listen.

This ‘spectacle’ (what is the auditory equivalent?) neatly illustrates the point that masculine cultures are not to do with ‘guys’.  Masculine cultures are to do with the currency of force.

Britain’s masculine culture

Britain has long had a masculine culture.  Though smooth and very often, very witty, British culture is not so much controlled as controlling. When it is relaxed and funny, as it often is on BBC Radio 4, it is also complacent.   The funny people live in the certain knowledge that their status in the world is not being challenged, let alone threatened.

Watch how they react if they have to account for themselves! That is the test of a culture.  How do we respond to the huge variety of visions in the world – and our need to fit our visions into the visions of others?  What do we do when people long-ignored want room to pursue their visions?

Sadly, we often move to defend “our right” to live as a law unto ourselves.  We often demand that the newly-enfranchised make room for us, even though we have never made room for them, and certainly don’t intend to start now.

Britain’s masculine culture in the literature and film

The masculine culture of Britain is an old story and is often told in literature and film.   For utter complacency, read P.G. Woodehouse and the relationship between Bertie and his butler Jeeves.  For the ongoing struggle, read Rumpole stories and his manouvering around institutionalized class in the legal system.

And for an alternative to a ‘masculine culture’, find yourself a copy of Goodbye Mr Chips -the old musical or the modern version with Martin Clues – both are great.  Settle down for a charming 1.5 hours and the better possibilities a feminine culture.

I am so glad to be living in the 21st century!

What a relief!   Not least for guys who must be heartily sick of the pushing-and-shoving they have been required to endure.

In the 21st century, our currency will be less of force and more of visions.

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Help your fellow noobe – or shush up. Some of us see right through you!

Published October 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Yesterday, I was looking at my Alexa Rankings and was pleased, as ever, that people spend time on my blog.  My style of writing is on the heavy-side; so that is pleasing. I am not frightening people off all together!

Noobes!  Find a richer set of questions than whether the big, cool kids like you

Alexa Rankings have also taught me an important lesson about being a noobe generally.  We have to find a rich mix of questions to guide our adaptation in a new place.

The general question, “How am I getting on?” won’t help us at all.  It only draws us into a cul-de-sac of a pecking order.  Do the big, cool kids like me?

It’s a funny thing. The big, cool kids will never like a noobe. But they have a good thing going making you think you should be liked by them.  This is how it works.

Noobe Fail #1

Big, cool kids stop being big and cool when they hang out with noobes.  So they will never hang out with noobes.  Big, cool kids are going to ignore me anyway.  Their reputations depend on that

Noobe Fail #2

The other noobes probably don’t get point #1 and they think I am cool if they think the big, cool kids like me.  That tempts me to pretend that the big, cool kids like me. Instant path to fame and glory? Or a total waste of time?

Noobe Fail #3

If this is how the world works, why do we care?  Can we all be fooled so easily? Surely, everyone can’t be wrong.

The sociologists have a big word to described what is going on : hegemony.  Hegemony is when the big, cool kids have persuaded us

  • they are big and cool
  • we can’t define something else or some one else as big and cool
  • we all go along with it

AND we don’t benefit, even though we go along with it.

Hegemony.  Genius.  You believe you are right and I am wrong.  And you persuade me of that too!

Yup, we can be fooled. The world works like that.

Noobe Fail #4

The difficulty with challenging the hegemony is that we take on a lot of people.  We are going to cut in to the ‘bigness and coolness’ of  the big, cool kids.  And they are going to sort us out!

It is a bit like telling the Emperor he has no clothes on. The only person who will shout that out is a three year old boy. Anyone older is wiser – not because the Emperor will get mad. He is only one person after all. We don’t say anything because the mob will get mad. They will look pretty foolish too and they aren’t going to like it.

That is how the whole system works. The big, cool kids, the emperor’s with no clothes, don’t have to do their own dirty work.  They will have many willing helpers who will get suckered into it.  Yet, the noobes who beat us up won’t gain any respect from the big, cool kids – far from it.  They’ll be seen as suckers.  But there will always be plenty of volunteers hoping for a quick ascent up the pecking order.

Another term sociologists use to describe this system is “masculine culture“.  Now we all know girls and women who play this game much better than guys.  It is not a guy thing. It’s a label. When the culture is all pecking order, when the Emperor has no clothes and no one is going to say anything, we say it is a masculine culture. It is just like teenage playgrounds that have nothing going for them except the pecking order.

So how do we break out of senseless pecking orders?

#1 Solution One.  Go along with it, if it is worth it.

Join up to playground which has such attractive toys that you can be bothered with the pecking order antics.  Most of us feel that way about good schools, good universities and good workplaces.

But choose wisely.  Don’t forget the pecking order game is a con trick.  Don’t join a queue just because it is there.  Ask people in the queue how long they have been there and what they have got out of it!

# Solution Two.  Go round it.

Spend more time learning the rules that lead to gain than worrying whether you are in with the big, cool kids.  They’ve done a fine job persuading you that they control the goodies.  The truth is they have done a find job persuading you . . .  the rest of the sentence is in our imagination.

But you will have to control your panic.  We are scared of being excluded or beaten up.  Rightly so.  That’s how pecking orders are maintained.  Fear.  Justified fear of getting beaten up. It’s your job to learn how can you get around the fear.

Learn the rules by asking richer questions

In the blogging world, the rich information of Alexa Rankings helps us learn what the rules really are. I am not as big as the A-listers who have been around much longer. But people spend 5x times a much time on my site and my bounce rate is 1/3 of theirs. I have points of leverage that go beyond begging them for attention.

But where can we find rich information in other worlds?

I thought I would test myself by writing down the rules of networking.

Networking

Let’s imagine ourselves at a networking event and let’s compare the typical networking tactics, which I can The Fail Method, with tactics that acknowledge the power dynamics between the ‘big, cool kids’ and the ‘noobes’, which I’ll call The Tortoise Method.

The Fail Method:  Most people at the networking event are judging us by whether we can lead them to the ‘big, cool kids’.  The big cool kids aren’t going to speak to them anyway; but they are convinced there is some magic to it.  So what do they do?

#1 Stand with a bunch of cool looking people

Fail:  No one is going anywhere!  Yep, it looks momentarily as it this group has cracked the code.  But hang on.  The same guys have been talking together for a good half-an-hour.  They are just too scared to talk to anyone else.

#2  Have a great looking card and a great elevator speech that is recited no matter what

Fail:  I am going to ask you whether you know someone who can help me and what are you going to say or do?   I am going to find you out in 5 seconds.

#3  Tell everyone how successful you have been

Fail:  How come you are in the noobe corner?  If you were successful, you would be in the successful corner.  You’ve no more idea of what is going on than I have!

#4  Tick off your successes loudly

Fail:  Some of the people listening have done some of the things you mention and know how they work.  They ‘suss’ your inexperience in a flash and tell others.  Try some genuine conversation.  They they might give you the answers you desperately need!

The Tortoise Method of networking

The Tortoise Method:  I’ll call this the tortoise method because the tortoise really does win the race.  Yes, the hares look down on the tortoise, initially, but that is a good thing.  Because if they realized the tortoise would win, they would get a bit mean and nasty.

#1  When someone is snooty or domineering with their elevator speech  or other bragging, cool.  Find out what they know.

Once you have your bearings, you can loop back and include them on your team in roles they can perform.  But can they perform any at all? The trouble is all the noobes are swanking about hoping to be taken for a ‘big, cool’ kid.  The only thing to do is to be kind and notice they don’t really understand power dynamics.

That is the thing to notice. Those who swank and swagger are going to need management.  A lot of of it.  They don’t have skills and they don’t have smarts.

#2  Figure out the essentials of being a noobe.

The things we need to know right now are rather basic. Where are the ‘loos’?  Where is the food?  What is everyone’s name?  Who are the bullies to be circumvented?   What are the rules and which much be followed and which can be ignored?  What are the signals (bells, notices, etc) that mean something?  What are the hacks?

Make a list of the essential questions. Ask them. When someone can answer them, say thank you, trade some information you have, and remember them as a person whose feet are on the ground.  They are your future team-mates.

#3  Listen to the stories that non-noobes tell

The stories are probably about pecking order – take that for granted.  The stories might not even  be untrue. That’s doesn’t matter. What matters is who are they trying to impress and how they understand (or misunderstand the rules).

By the way: Maybe you are only meeting noobes. Open our eyes.  Listen to bartender, the room cleaner, the door man.  Stop looking past people who aren’t the ‘big cool’ kids! Listen up to the people who have something to offer.  Swagger is only intended to defraud.

#4  Who is really successful in the system?

They probably won’t talk to you, but watch them closely. How do they spend their time?  And are they telling?

In pecking order systems, successful people often do their work behind closed doors.

  • First, they don’t want to say who helped them.
  • Second, they don’t want to admit who didn’t help them.
  • Third, they don’t want to admit in public that working hard is more important than the people who are throwing their weight around.
  • Fourth, many would rather tell you to do the wrong thing so they don’t have too much competition.

Paranoid – am I?  We just joined a system based on pecking order.  There is no generosity here -this is peck or get pecked!

Watch closely and take any opportunity to get behind the closed doors to see what is happening. Fetch the coffee. Become a “gopher”. Do the printing and photocopying. Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut. Firmly shut.  ‘

#5 Don’t ask people to introduce you to the ‘big cool kids”

In asking for that favor, you show you don’t understand anything at all! Don’t follow the big, cool kids around. You perpetuate the system. You learn nothing. AND YOU SHOW EVERYONE THAT YOU DON’T GET IT!

Do your own thing, with other noobes. I am not contradicting #4. You help a big cool kid, if and only if, you get behind close doors – if you see him in his underpants so to speak. If you get to see how things really work. If you get to see the action not the polished, spun version of the action. Otherwise, don’t follow them. Stop being such a burke! Do your own thing.

Does The Tortoise method work?

Well, not fast. But you weren’t going any where very fast anyway. That was just in your imagination! You were going along with the con job. Remember, what is too good to be true, is too good to be true.

The tortoise is a wise animal. They look dumb but

  • They know which race they are running, where it ends, and whether they want the prize
  • They know the route
  • They know what to look for along the route
  • They put one foot ahead of the other, quite calmly
  • They ignore the hares hopping along (and sleeping along the way).

Of course, if you are hare by nature, then this story is not for you! If you like the rough-and-tumble of the pecking order, go for it.

But get out of the noobe corner. Showing off to noobes is taking you nowhere.  If you stay, help your fellow noobe with something concrete. Or shush up. Some of us see right through you!

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Noobe? To break away from crude pecking orders, get rich information

Published October 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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It is such a pain being a ‘noobe’ – any place, any where

We are dazzled, momentarily, when we arrive.  Woot!  We are here.  We start to build relationships; we start to climb our way up the pecking order; and reality sets in.   We are jostled by every one we pass, and we shove back or skip past, depending on our taste for conflict or the weapons at our disposal.

The rank structure of the bloggersphere

In the blogging world, the first disillusionment of the noobe blogger comes when we understand that there are already kids in charge of the block.  They are called the “A list” bloggers.  By dint of being around longer, A-list bloggers command the playground.  One word from them and we are made!

We cluster around the A-listers hoping to be mistaken for the in-crowd.  We tweet them, @ClayShirky for example, hoping that our friends think we actually know them.

And the A-listers ignore us, just as the cool kids ignored us all those years ago at school.  Oddly, the more we fawn, the easier it is for them to ignore us.  You’d think we might have learned something from school.

The long road to a stronger blog ranking

In the blogging world, longevity really matters.  A stopped stone gathers moss, readership and Google page rank.  Life in the blogosphere is as simple as that.

We newcomers have a long journey from 4 page hits to 40 to 400 to 4000, from the very occasional comment to comments daily, from occasional readers to regular readers.

On the journey, we worry.  Is my writing too light? Is it too heavy?  Should I be more provocative or less?  Should I used better keywords, or not?

Rich information from Alexa Rankings

I use Alexa Rankings every few weeks to give me a sense of how I am doing.  And then I do a comparison with the big old established sites!

Pointers from Alexa Rankings

I can stop worrying that my writing is too inaccessible.  People spend more than 10 minutes on my site.  Not an easy read – sure – but people are reading.

My bounce rate is a lowish 30%.  Many A-listers have bounce rates of 70%.

And my visitors look at an average of 8 pages.  That’s very high.   (Thank you!).

Moreover, as these are averages, the people who stay are staying for a long time.  (A double thank you!)

Rich information helps us understand our role in our new playground

These figures are much better than most A-listers.  That gives me heart that I am doing something right.  I wish I had more comments though!  It would be nice to be able to shape the blog around topics and styles that you find interesting.

But I thank you anyway!   More people are coming and my site continues to climb the rankings at home and abroad.  Alexa kindly gives me the details and I can track my progress against my goals, which includes getting progressively more traffic from the UK

I also get some idea of what to improve.  I don’t get a lot of traffic from search, for example. I could obviously do a bit of SEO!

If you are a ‘noobe’,  Alexa Rankings are a good monthly stop.  The rich information provides the perspective every noobe needs to understand the rules and to break away from the crude rankings and pecking orders that rule all playgrounds!

Break the tyranny of the pecking order

Whenever we are new, somewhere in some place, we need to look for the equivalent of Alexa Rankings to escape the tyranny of crude pecking orders.  Look! Find!  Ask a richer set of questions  than whether the A-listers know us.

Get oriented!  Sanity for we noobes!

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The not-so Artful Dodgers! Networking in post-Thatcher Britain

Published October 23, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger in Oliver!, the...
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In brisk, post-Thatcher Britain, we go to a lot of networking gigs

Post-Thatcher Britain, you may know, is an elbows-out sort-of-place.  Everyone is touting their wares like a scene out Dickensian Britain.  Do you remember the song “Who will buy?” from Oliver.  Well, it is like that. Except, people don’t sing so well.

Wannabe Artful Dodgers

There are wannabe Artful Dodgers at every gig.  They are not up to making-off with your wallet and silk handkerchief.  But you can see that is why they joined such a convenient crowd!

Fagin will be unhappy

When they get home, they will be in trouble with Fagin, their conscience, who asks them the wrong questions.

  • How many business cards did you give out?
  • How many business cards did you collect?
  • How much free food and drink did you score?
  • Did you find someone to give you some work?

They need to get a better conscience and a better Fagin to ask them these questions:

#1  Did they promise at least 5 favors to at least 5 different people?

If there weren’t at least 5 people at the gig who needed something they could do with their littte finger, they are sooo at the wrong gig, or soooo under-qualified to eat and drink with those people

If they were the Artful Dodger, they would pick a neighborhood better suited to their skills, or start to behave like the people in the neighborhood they’d chosen.

Or, they were so obsessed with themselves, they found out nothing about the other people there.

If they were the Artful Dodger, they would start to watch the crowd while Oliver stood in the shadows, singing mournful songs!

#2  Did 5 different people offer them 5 different favors?

Hmm, did they look at a lot of gift-horses in the mouth?  Maybe they talk too much and not give the other person even a few seconds to chip in and some assistance?

Oliver got help from all over because he was cute and un-pushy.  The Artful Dodger was admired but never got help from  anyone.

Had he washed his face, people may have helped him.  But then he wouldn’t be the Artful Dodger!

I suppose we really have to decide whether we want to work sooo hard or whether want to let luck find us!

#3  Did the person they help, or the person who took their card, write to say thank you?

Did they just hand out their cards like a free newspaper and walk away?  Or did they stay with the conversation to the point that they could offer to do something specific for the other person? Or ask them to do something specific and useful? Did they take the conversation through the stages of forming, storming, norming to performing?  Or. did they jump from forming to adjourning?

The Artful Dodger knew the endpoint – to hand his pickings over to Fagin.  But he didn’t jump there in one fell swoop. He watched, he followed, he ducked, he dived.  He fell into the other person’s rhythm.  Then he cleanly picked the other pocket and moved the contents smoothly to his own!

#4  Did they write to thank people who gave them their card?

Did they have anything at all to say to the people with whom they spent an evening?  Did they waste more time by sending an automated message when they got home?  Or did they talk to people in sufficient depth to remember them and be remembered?  Does their note reflect something they ‘did’ together?

The Artful Dodger would remember the people he met -more clearly than they would remember him.  He would know exactly how many pockets in each person’s suit, and exactly what is in them!

Which is your next networking event?

Maybe I will see you there!  I hope I remember you and you me!

I wonder what we have in common and what we could do for in each other, right there, in the few moments we share together!

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Do you have the courage NOT to be happy?

Published October 23, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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If you came here saying “Yes!”, you probably also sat up straighter, jutted out your jaw just a little, and felt more determined.

We need one defensive pessimist on every team

You are probably what psychologists call a ‘defensive pessimist’.  You are essential to business and family life.  You think ahead and make sure things get done!

But do you really dare not to be happy?

What if I told you that happiness lights up different parts of your brain?  And in your steely resolve, you are shutting down processing power that you need, badly?

In short, you are running, well limping, like a computer that needs to be cleaned out sooner rather than later.

An organized person finds time to be happy

If you really are as organized and determined as you say, then you WILL find 5 minutes at night for some quiet time to reflect on the day.  You will have time to tick off everything that went well and you will have time to ask yourself a simple question: Why did I do so well?

So often, you’ve done well because you think ahead, because you are reliable and because you are persistent.  Carry on doing that!

Be organized.  We need you.  And be happy too.

Ask “Why did I do so well?” and marvel at how much better you sleep, how much you begin to enjoy hearing the birds sing, how much your appetite levels off (not too big or too small), how much you don’t have to push so hard but you get things done anyway.

You don’t believe me?

I thought you were the thoughtful one!  You can’t tell me I am wrong until you have tried.

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Getting wise to printing costs: 5 steps for comparing printer costs

Published October 22, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Computing and printing costs in an office

In my early days as a young academic and energetic and ambitious psychologist, I had many spirited discussions with the Director of our Computing Center.  A full Professor of Chemistry, he favored computing power.  Like many psychologists, I wanted better peripherals.

When we use computers in business, the cost of

  • inputting data and
  • printing reports

is far more expensive than an extra ten minutes or so every week on number-crunching.

Our costs come from

  • The peripherals for putting in data
  • The time to tap in data
  • The time to check the data
  • The time to print reports
  • The costs of peripherals otherwise known as printers
  • The costs of consumables

And for that matter –

  • The cost of checking out the best deals
  • Designing an efficient system and training people to use it.

A good inexpensive black-and-white office printer

This week someone asked me to recommend a printer and I’ve looked around for the best printers available right now.

Brother are still making their ‘disposable’ printers that are well worth looking at.

The cost structure of a printer goes like this:

#1 Do we need color printing and any additional facilities like copying?  If not, look for a MONO LASER printer.

#2  Search for the best deals locally and on Amazon

  • The two will give you a good comparison of cost prices and Amazon has good reviews.
  • Amazon will help you consider what extras you should buy.
  • You can also compare the cost and time of driving to your neighborhood big box store with buying from Amazon.

#3 Now think how much printing you do

You have three things to think about: how fast you must print and how often you print and how much you print each year.

  • I’ve found 15 to 20 pages per minute (ppm) quite fast enough, but some printers promise 30 ppm and are horribly slow.  So keep an eye out for complaints on the reviews.
  • Every printer has a limit to what you can print per month without overworking it.  200 to 500 pages is typical for an entry level machine.  That is a lot of paper – half to one ream! Do you do more than that?  Will you make your machine distinctly unhappy?
  • Your annual print is 12x your monthly print, of course.  This number is important for costing your printing and planning ahead.  So read on!

#4 Laser printers come with five costs: the printer itself, a drum, toner, a USB cable and shipping

  • The USB cable is cheap – a few British pounds.  Just make sure you have one. Printers often ship without one!  If you are discarding an old printer, you may have one that is in good repair.
  • Some printers combine drum and toner.  The advantage of Brother machines is that they separate the drum and toner.  Here is where it gets interesting.  The drum is almost as expensive as a printer.  Hence, when the drum is ‘kaput’, you throw away the whole printer and buy another one!

The drum comes with an expected life in pages, say 12 000 pages!  Yay! You can plan ahead.  If you print 500 pages a month, give-or-take, your printer will last you for two years!  If you are chancing the monthly print rate (see above) and printing 12 000 pages a year, your printer will last you, say, one year.

One cost – the administration cost of buying your printer – has just plummeted because you can plan ahead!

  • The toner usually has a lower rating – say 1500 pages.  Toner is not cheap, so it is a good idea to cost it for the lifetime of the printer – or the drum, in this case.  Divide the toner rating into the drum rating and work out what ink will cost you for the life of the printer.  You can buy enough toner for the life of the drum.  If you don’t print a lot, you can bear in mind that toner does have a shelf life and there can be other reasons why a printer may not last several years (coffee, theft, lightning strikes), so maybe buy enough toner for a year ahead.  Also consider whether the model is new or nearly obsolete and whether toner will be on the market in two year’s time.
  • And then there is the cost of the printer itself.  Usually entry-level mono lasers cost as little as a good inkjet and ship with the drum and a small toner cartridge worth 3000 pages or so. The documentation is usually vague on this but you can ring up the local store and ask!

#5 Work out your printing costs!

  • Now you can cost your printer – purchase cost (plus tax) + USB cable if you need one + shipping or trip to the store + drum (no cost because it comes with the machine) + toner for one year.

Brother HL- 2037

As at end of October 2009, Brother has a machine selling through Amazon with the following costs:

  • Printer including drum worth 12 000 pages – GBP70.00
  • Cable – GBP3.00
  • Shipping – GBP0.00
  • Toner – 1 included, but good for unknown pages. A new TN1005 is good for 1500 pages (3 reams) that sells anywhere between GBP55.00 and GNP35.00
  • The machine should be good for a further 6 lots of toner using up the 12000 page life of the printer.

I am going to recommend this printer and wish I had bought one for myself.  I used a similar version when I was teaching.

I bought one at the start of each year and bought enough toner to last the life of the drum.  It worked perfectly (though as an academic I used one with longer drum life of 25 000 pages which lasted roughly one year.)

For a lot of small businesses, 12 000 pages will last many years.  S0 it is important to buy a new model and the Brother HL-2037 is the newest.

Amazon Associates

I am also going to use this to check the Amazon Associates scheme so if you want to “buy me a cup of coffee”, you can follow this link!


In Association with Amazon.co.uk

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Found on a British train! The lost art of slick administration

Published October 21, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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I learned from the masters of administration!

I went to a university where we moved through a degree programme in lock-step.  In year one, we took 2.5 subjects, 2 compulsory papers from each of the first 2, and one paper from the third.  In year two, we took 4 papers from one of the first two subjects and 1 from the second.  And the same in year three, but a different set.

The sum of variation allowed was changing the order around 5:0 and 3:2, or if you were really smart, taking a 6th paper.

The university waited for no one

Not even babies!  The university took a simple view that examinations were taken once and once only and deferred only for matters totally outside our control.  Sporting matches, babies that after all arrive on quite a predictable schedule, family celebrations – were all deemed matters under our control.

Even being detained without trial by various rogue governments wasn’t deemed a reason to vary the schedule!  The university made a slight concession and brought you exam to your in jail!

Good administration leads to assured output & a productive life

The net effect of this policy is that the university opened and shut on time. People began degrees and finished them. The simplicity of the administration in that university was just stunning.

All requests had to be made before the event. Nothing was considered retrospectively. All decisions were made on facts marshalled on one piece of paper.  Decisions were made against clear criteria that were public and you knew what you could request from whom and on what grounds. All decisions were reviewed at the next level up where they were considered against new criteria.

A lecturer (professor) graded your paper and the lecturer’s colleagues approved the mark. Those marks were put together and an inter-Department committee approved your GPA/class of degree. An inter-Faculty committee checked that the Faculty committees weren’t being too lenient or too hard.  An eminently logical, rational, fair and transparent environment.

Lock-step systems can be inefficient when misunderstood

Lock-step systems don’t always produce efficiency or fairness, though.   I came out of that system quite well, and I am not unhappy that I studied psychology, sociology and anthropology. But I had actually wanted to study psychology, economics and mathematics – which I was very good at.

Novices need guidance not on the system but how the system will serve their goals

To achieve that combination, someone with knowledge of the system needed to sit my 17 year old self down and ask me what I wanted to do.

The answer would have been for me to enrol in the Arts Faculty for a B.A , to read psychology (2 papers) & economics (2 papers) in the Faculty of Social Studies, and Mathematics (2 papers) in the Faculty of Science!

Apart from being too complicated for a noobe to find, that solution would have made me a little insecure because a BA (General) has a lot less status than a B.Sc. (Hons) and I wouldn’t have read Sociology (upsetting my father).  I would have studied though what I wanted to study and created the choice of transferring in second year to a straight Honours in any of the three subjects, or continuing with a more general mix including picking up Sociology in second year.

Would I have been better off if I had taken this road? Who knows!  What I do know is that the system was more concerned with its lock-step, which was very efficient, than making sure I developed to my full potential.

Lock-step systems require highly qualified front-line staff who understand the values and goals as well as the plan

I quite like lock-step systems because they give people a clear model of what to do.  We need to ‘see ahead’ when we are a ‘noobe’.

But we can waste resources and time too easily when we don’t distinguish values from goals from plans.

  • We had three values in our case– broad first year, Honours (meaning specialize) in 2nd and 3rd year, and finish neatly in three years.
  • The plan is the lock-step system I described at the top of the post.
  • The goal was my goal – to study psychology, economics and mathematics.  That got lost.

To make sure that the (usually) naive client pursues their goal, we need good frontline staff who can find out what my goal is – or what the client’s goal is.  That is paramount.

  • We only use the model to communicate the values concretely. It shouldn’t be a strait-jacket.
  • Then we make a plan that fits our streamlined system, adheres to our values, and allows the client to pursue their goal directly in the comfort of our well run service.

Most systems in Britain are plan-led.  Lock-step supersedes common sense.

I see so much in Britain where the plan seems to override the goal.

We’ve borrowed 175 billion this year to keep going. That is 3000 pounds per man, woman and child. Not that much, hey?

I bet we could simplifiy our services to cost less and achieve heaps more by having

  • much simpler models (a lock-step model to convey the idea)

  • spending more time finding out the goals of individuals

  • and lastly creating an individual plan to navigate the system.

This wouldn’t put people out-of-work, it would just allow a lot more to be done at a fraction of the cost, allowing the country to make more money to pay the bills!

We the unhappy punters would feel better and get more done. We would spend less time on the phone talking to call centres and officials whose main job it does seem is to fill in meaningless bits of paper for meaningless procedures whose ultimate destination is a a database left on a train.

P.S. The people who thought up the systems at the well-run uni were Scots.  We have the expertise.  We just don’t seem to be using it.

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Pay professionals – data slurpers – data visualizers – wanted

Published October 20, 2009 by Jo Jordan

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Do you believe that executives are worth their pay?

85% of people voting on The Economist debate beginning today vote NO.

You can vote as well! 

Yes or No?

Do you have a professional interest in pay?

If you are a

  • work & organizational psychologist
  • HR manager
  • union official
  • manager
  • politician
  • political activist

I encourage you to log in to the debate and read the comments.  It is free.

I usually skim over the contributions from the public because I doubt anyone is reading.

But this time, the comments from the public on executive pay provide invaluable data.

Would you like to join a research team on the executive pay debate?

This is an unusual opportunity to document the pay debate and to establish a reputation in compensation management.

Could you help with

  • recording the comments (or slurping them off the net)?
  • listing the arguments by parsing and analyzing them with software or by hand?
  • summarizing which questions were asked & answered?
  • writing up the report?
  • preparing compelling visual presentations?
  • marketing & distributing the report?

Please let me know what you can do, and I will put together a team.  If you aren’t particularly internet-literate, that is fine too.  We could do with people who contribute substantive questions and who review and edit the project as it proceeds.

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