Uggy Blob, Meringue, and Solar Energy

What happens when you soak a raw egg in vinegar?

Which kind of bowl will let you make meringue 'peak' faster?

What angle on a solar panel will yield the greatest current from a stationary light source?

These are examples of the varied questions the young scientists of Saint Charles School 5^th – 8^th grades explored for their annual science fair. Will some of these students become renowned scientists, like Benoit Mandelbrot, who developed the fractal – the study of roughness of surfaces?

The Junior Academy of the Washington Academy of Science, provides scientists and other professionals to judge science fair projects at Saint Charles School and other schools in the DMV area.

I was fortunate to be one of the judges for this event and found the students to be eager to present their finding, quite knowledgeable about their experiments and findings, and how their experiment fits into a bigger context of science. In fact, many of the student scientists, after being judged, would seek out additional judges to view their project display so they could present their findings yet again – and they did so with zeal and enthusiasm.

To an individual, the students had fun doing the projects and offered thoughts about how they could improve it next time to learn more. Presenters for projects about behavioral science showed a model of the brain and explained (in rather technical terms) which area of the brain was involved in the experiment and what functions it controls in the person.

As always, I learned much from the students – about the area of inquiry, as well as how they approached the experiments. In addition, the poise and energy of these young scientists is impressive (and much different from what I recall of myself and my classmates at these ages).

Answers to the opening questions:

What happens to an egg soaked in vinegar – over about 4-7 days, vinegar will dissolve the hard egg shell – which is made of calcium carbonate - to an uggy blob (not a scientific term), leaving the inner membrane to contain the egg white and yoke unharmed. Even without the shell, the remaining 9 other components of the egg are intact and keep the yoke safe and protected.

What kind of bowl is fastest to make meringue 'peak' – a chilled copper bowl is about four times faster than a chilled plastic bowl (temperature is a key element to successful meringue, binding the ingredients as they are agitated, and the copper holds the chill better than other materials).

What angle of the solar panel yields the greatest current from a fixed light source: The greatest current output was when the panel was at 90 degrees to the fixed light bulb. The student explained that the light source struck the panel sensors with the greatest intensity when it was bathed from directly above instead of washing the panel on an angle where the intensity diminishes as it spread out on the horizontal axis.

The kids had fun and learned from the judges; the judges enjoyed hearing from the kids what they had found and learned from them as well – perhaps a new scientist or two may evolve from talking with experienced scientists.

Check out the Junior Academy for additional stories of young scientist accomplishment.

Reagan Leadership

Not Ron, but Henry/Frank/Danny/Jamie Reagan  of Blue Bloods, a four-year series on CBS.

How many people follow Blue Bloods?

In a time of changing mores, Blue Bloods is an examination of how to live, how to act, where to focus.

There are four male protagonists. They are all at different levels in the family business, NYC police. , Henry, the grandfather is the retired police commissioner, Frank, his son is the current police commissioner, and Frank’s two sons, Danny (elder), a hotshot detective, and Jamie, beat cop, just out of law school. That’s former CEO, current CEO, mid level and junior level.

Episodes often show how an issue affects three or four of these characters at their different levels, and how they have different tools to work with.

Their core belief is Family First. That is not always the key issue, but they spend a lot of time reinforcing Family First. How that belief works is different every time.

I noticed in the Reagan family that belief is not shared by one or a few, but is passionately shared by all. That makes them different from many families.

Scalability
Not only does Blue Bloods scale through the characters examining situations from several points of view, Family First also scales, from immediate blood relations. The same behavior goes to friends, partners on the beat, members of the same organization, government, city, nation.

Advancement
Blue Bloods has a lot of blue collar aspiration. Advancement comes from the needs of the organization or the world. Advancement is not sought, but worked for and arrives from doing the right thing.

In the second season, we learn that Commissioner Reagan’s relation with the Mayor started when he was a beat cop and opened a basketball court in the Bedford Stuyvesant projects on weekends. The mayor was one of the players. Frank Reagan wasn’t supposed to do that; he thought it was the right thing to do. Turns out it was.

Life Is Not Fair
Last season, Jamie Reagan is working a car accident with a little kid who asks him to go with him to the hospital. Jamie gives his word, just before a new boss comes on site and orders Jamie to personally stay and write the accident report.
Discussion doesn’t help, and Jamie makes the case to attend the scared kid and have his partner fill out the report.

Jamie gets a week suspension for disregarding a direct order as he didn’t want the scared kid learning to distrust the word of a policeman and decided to do what he thought was right.

Winning is often decided by others in Blue Bloods, so they all figure they have to do what they think is the correct action. On Jamie’s week off, the family understands that he made the choice he thought was correct, and because he had the time off, some good things happen. There is not a lot of sympathy for clueless or stalling management.

In one episode Jamie’s partner is caught misrepresenting an arrest. She doesn’t know what to do.

Jamie tells her several times, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut.” I didn’t like that, as my experience is the Lord helps those who help themselves. However, the matter is successfully resolved by the higher ups, who are supposed to resolve it, and I realized I am generally at the mercy of feckless management. Jobs get harder as
you advance.

Blue Bloods Is A Fantasy
Blue Bloods is not reality. It is a television show, and has its own rules, primarily keep the audience.

When you stick out your hand and say, “bang!” do people fall over?

People who can stick out their finger, say “bang!” and have people fall down show skills beyond mine.

Eight family members sitting down to Sunday dinner week after week, acting like adults show skills beyond what I observe.

Staying on a problem until a successful resolution is myth and Google.

Owning up to a miscarriage of power, in person, even though it’s not your fault, isn’t done in any organization I know.

Family First is not without responsibilities. The whole family knows that “Please don’t hurt my family,” means hit the dirt, shooting is about to commence. That’s way beyond teaching a kid their name and phone number before sending them to school.

Blue Bloods serves as an example of what might be, and perhaps makes others come closer to their path. 

What lessons do you draw from Blue Bloods?  

The truth about Management Reports

Indirect Economy, Direct Benefit

I was sitting in a board meeting when the subject of sponsors came up. It has come up in several organizations, actually. Usually goes around the table and then doesn’t go anywhere.

When all is said and done a lot more is said than done.

The refrain is we’re outa money, they’ve got money. Let’s get us some of that money.

I’ve sold sponsorships, some inadvertently, and the key is knowing what you are providing and how someone else can use it. Those inadvertent sponsorships occurred when I didn’t know the sponsor had the need. However, the sponsor did when they heard what I was providing. I was clear on what I was providing.

If you’re outa money, it’s often because you haven’t defined what you are providing so that partners and customers can want it. Heck, you may not understand it, really.

Getting that initial deep understanding of the real benefit I am providing makes appealing to other, different stakeholders quicker and easier.

Nobody’s going to sponsor anything because it’s really important to me.

What is the best thing you offer the world?

Interested in Knowledge Work?

Wrong Perspective

In the last 90 days I’ve seen more than ten promising organizations shut their doors. They just didn’t see a way to continue.

A couple blamed a lack of monetization strategy. They couldn’t find a get rich quick scheme.

Several others said they had key contracts winding down.

I suspect the other two bored themselves to death.

What I noticed was that they all made a change to increase efficiency, curtail constructive time wasting.

Each had found a promising new service to deliver, then turned it over to a fulfillment team. That fulfillment team decided that their work created the value and therefore all revenue was theirs, which meant work expanded to require the resources available.

Which meant there is no hope for further work.

Some time ago, I started the second fulfillment factory for a national marketing firm. Previously I had played a role in developing our systems at the main office. My second attempt delivered the same results in less time and at one third the cost, which caused distress among the HQ crew.

I endured a rash of audits, inspections, and threats before the owner told his minions to back off.

Why did it take an 800 mile move to cut our costs by over 60%? Actually, we had to get space, vendors, and new customers. It would have been a lot less effort at HQ, but it also wouldn’t have been possible. Too many people had the wrong perspective.

Clayton Christensen says look out below for disruptive competition. A corollary is to figure a way to reduce cost and improve service every week to stave off disruption. If I don’t figure it out, some other guy will.

Part of improvement is working with prospects to define an offering they want more than what they are getting. That’s not sales, that’s self preservation. I figure that’s over 40% of value.

Joy’s Law – The real talent pool.

Square, Triangle, Circle

I admire artists and always wanted to draw. I’ve bought books about different sides of the brain, kits for drawing, cartooning, sketching, and a continuing stream of implements.

Yesterday we went to Ed’s 2 hour class So You Think You Can’t Draw at Plaza Art and got slung into the mainstream.

I’ve gone to many free seminars for technology, financial products, services, philanthropies, and government. I’ve even designed a couple dozen. This was the best one I’ve ever seen and here’s why.

Ed was standing at the front of the room, but his ego didn’t join him. He passionately wanted to share what he considered the fastest way to start drawing, and he wanted us all to get it before we ran out of time.

Yes, it was a demonstration, because he did everything he wanted us to do. But we were all with him, step-by-step. I drew over 40 sketches in an hour and a half.

Toward the end, we started playing “Stump The Artist,” asking how he would draw anything that interested us. He would draw it and we would draw it. There was not a previous artist in the audience.

What was the secret?

There were several. First, I admired how Ed quickly gave us a new context for understanding what we were about to do. I had wanted to do this for years. In five minutes he made me believe that this time I might be successful.

Drawing is primarily about seeing. I had read and heard that before, but I didn’t know what that meant.

Ed shared a discipline of seeing things as made up of three shapes, the square, triangle, and circle. He showed us how to combine these three shapes to form complex objects. He showed us that adding dimension could turn a square into a cube, a circle into a tube or a sphere.

He gave us three minutes on perspective when we needed it, an artist’s view of paper, and the top dozen uses of a drawing pencil. He showed us his favorite tools, and explained why he liked them.

Finally, he shared how we could get good, asking us to draw 20 objects in the next day. He said he would be around the store if we wanted to come back and show him what we had done.

Based on how far I had come under his care, I took the pledge and by 9 o’clock that night, had another 27 sketches completed. Did a fairly complex building front this morning, just to see if the magic was still there.

He didn’t try to sell us anything, although I was fortunate to be able to purchase his complete kit. You haven’t lived until you’ve played with a tortillon.

So why did this work?

In hindsight, Ed passionately wanted us to become fluent artists in less than two hours. He carefully chose what to tell us and the order of instruction so we could learn as fast as we could absorb it. I’m sure he knows other things that are impressive, but his goal was to have everyone create a body of work that would give them confidence and a desire to continue. He was starting a relationship.

All we had to do was show up. He took care of the rest.

I’m ecstatic just for what I can now draw. The unexpected benefit is a new model for communication and joy.

More Alternate Reality, Quotes From Dune - Frank Herbert on Leadership