Air Show Time!

Yesterday was the first day of the Bell Fort Worth Alliance Air Show.  If you are in the area, you might still have time to go see it today.  It is only the second time I've ever attended an air show, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The lineup this year included the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels as well as an F-16, F-22 Raptor and an F-35.  The performance of all of those aircraft is impressive and it is no wonder our military forces dominate the sky.

To me, though, the aircraft that brought a lump to my throat is the one in the image above; the P-51 Mustang which arguably was the most innovative of its time and gave the British and U.S. forces the edge they needed to win the air war in World War II.  The speed and maneuverability of this plane is impressive even today, almost 80 years after it first rolled off the assembly line.

A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress even made a low-level flyover pass.   It has been a workhorse for the U.S. military for over 50 years and is expected to remain a part of our military presence until after 2040.

If you have never attended an air show, I would encourage you to do so.  The Alliance Show is one of the bigger ones, but there are many smaller venues around the country.  In the meantime, here's a link to a video (not mine) of the Blue Angels.

Investing and Ingenuity

Sometimes you make do with what is available.  I couldn't resist taking a photo of this shovel I spotted on a trip to Niger some years ago.  I've replaced a number of shovel handles through the years, but never had to go find a tree, cut a branch and trim it to fit.  I usually just went to the farm store and bought a handle.  Some people replace the shovel.

I have to applaud the ingenuity of whoever did this.  It was leaning against the wall in a small enclosure where there was a group of young men making mud bricks.  You will notice the wall behind the shovel is made of mud bricks and plastered over to seal it.  Most of the housing in the village where I spotted this was made of the same mud bricks and plaster.  The building materials were primitive, but effective.

I've been involved in a number of startup businesses through the years.  Some burn through cash on the biggest, best and brightest.  Those for which I was responsible for running operated a little differently -- we did our best to get by on ingenuity.  Where possible, we made do with what we had, found an inexpensive way to accomplish the task, or, if it couldn't be avoided, focused our spending on the things that were most critical to growing the business.

I guess my thinking came from both my father and grandfather (maternal).  Both had a knack for figuring out ingenious ways to either build or, substitute something else for what was needed to get things done.  They were the "hands on" type.  They didn't hire someone to change the oil in their pickup, they did it themselves.  Grandpa's barn was a place of repairs.  He had tire-repair tools -- some of which had been made in his shop with a welder and cutting torch -- for patching the tires on the many wheeled trailers, implements and vehicles on his farm.  It didn't make sense to take a tire off and haul it 10 miles one-way to town to have it fixed.  He had a tire patching kit and did it himself.

I wonder today if many new businesses fail because they don't know how to "make do" but, instead act as though they are already successful, spending money on things they could do themselves.  Those are the things "behind the scenes" that are away from the customer eye.  You want your public persona to be polished and professional, but there are always things behind the scenes that don't require the biggest and best -- like the desk and high-dollar artwork on the wall.  If you don't need $5,000 computers, why buy them? Don't sink money into brick-and-mortar until you have to -- rent.  If you don't need a full-time bookkeeper, hire a service.  "Fix your own flats" -- or, replace the handle in your own shovel.

Each situation is different and requires a thoughtful approach.  My point is that if you start a business spending money like a Hollywood Movie Star your chances of failure increase dramatically.  Conserve your resources until they begin to build.  Then, rather than burning through cash, invest back into your business in ways that are meaningful -- that will help it to continue growing.

I remember back in the 90's the primary stockholder of a company I worked for brought his wife, a former beauty queen, with him to see a prototype of a machine my group had been developing.  She was on her knees, looking under the equipment, studying it, trying to understand how it worked and asking great questions.  I'll never forget her comment -- "It's important to see what we are investing in.  I know we are making lots of money but, we don't see much of it; it all goes back into the company!"

It changed my perspective.

Chickens and Evolving Agriculture

Our neighbor's chickens like to come across to our place on their never-ending hunt for bugs.  They do a great job of reducing the grasshopper population in the area where they forage.  There are multiple varieties of the chickens, but I thought these two Plymouth Rock hens made a great photo because of how they blend into the grass.  When they sit still they are difficult to see.

One of the popular movements around the country is for "free-range" chickens.  These definitely fit the category -- at least the survivors.  They like to roam onto the county road occasionally where they sometimes fall victim to an automobile.  They also sometimes succumb to a less-than-totally-domesticated canine that prowls the area.  I'm sure their nests are visited by skunks and other egg-loving predators -- often there is the faint odor of Mephitis mephitis (striped skunk) drifting gently on the breeze.

Free-range, at least for the chickens, isn't all it's made out to be.

I remember as a small child my grandmother raising chickens.  A couple of them usually fell to her hunting skills and became Sunday Dinner (that's what we called a big family lunch in the country).  She could catch, kill, pluck and clean a chicken faster than you would realize what was going on.  It was part of her persona that you didn't want to mess with her.

Chickens have traditionally been woven into the everyday fabric of farm life.  They once graced the yards and barnyards of nearly every farm in the country.  They were a source of eggs, meat and even feathers to be used in stuffing mattresses and pillows.  They also carried tiny little critters (lice) that sometimes infested the heads of youngsters who played in those same yards and barns.  They helped to control insects and snakes and they served as an alarm clock.

I suppose I became "burned out" on chicken when I was growing up.  It was an inexpensive meat then, just as it is now.  Then, because they foraged on their own and required little expense for maintenance.  Now, chicken is inexpensive due to its rapid and very efficient growth in controlled environments.  Carefully selected genetics and modern production practices have made chicken one of the most pervasive sources of protein available in this country.  It just isn't my protein of choice.

I prefer beef.  When asked if I want chicken for a meal, I sometimes find myself involuntarily commenting, "No, thank you.  That stuff is just fowl." -- the double meaning being clear that "fowl" equates to "foul."  I have a friend who is also in the beef business.  The first time I recall giving him a hard time about ordering chicken in a restaurant rather than steak he informed me he occasionally had to do "competitive meat research."  I have to give him credit for a good comeback.

We are blessed in this country to have abundant supplies of meat -- whether chicken, pork or beef.  Modern production practices make it available at an affordable price to virtually everyone.  Can you imagine what it would be like if every home had to raise its own food?  We sometimes hear, or see, chickens in our community, but they aren't pervasive.  What would it be like if every household had a couple of dozen chickens, a milk cow, a hog pen and maybe even a calf being raised for beef along with an acre, or more, of garden to supply vegetables?  When you think about it, there is no way it works so that a large population can be supported.  Modern agricultural methods are necessary to feed the masses.  The back-to-small-mother-earth methods cannot possibly feed enough people.  The "footprint" would be completely unsustainable.  It would require much more land than is currently employed to produce our food.

I certainly understand the sentiment of those who wish for the "more natural" methods of farming used in days long ago, but the numbers just don't work.  I don't have those numbers in front of me but, I have enough exposure to and experience of those methods to know that they are much more labor intensive, require a larger "footprint" and are far less efficient.  Expense and efficiency are inversely related.  Low efficiency equals greater expense.  If cheap and abundant food is desired to feed the masses, modern agricultural methods are the answer.

Now, are there better ways to do things?  Most likely, yes.  Innovation is needed in many areas of food production, but going backward isn't the answer.

Becoming Innovative

The way we each go about solving problems tends to become entrenched within us.  When we find an approach that works, we subconsciously register that success in the "win" column and are likely to turn to it when the next challenge arrives.  Over time, we may build on that approach so that it becomes somewhat more "elaborate" and it will change slightly over time to incorporate new things that we learn.

Innovation comes with scrapping the old and bringing in the new.  It is difficult because our natural tendency is to turn to the tried-and-true methods that have previously brought success.  We "know" what works because experience has informed us that a particular approach provided a solution.  The problem is that we accept "a solution" as a "win" whether it was the best solution or, not.

One way to becoming more innovative is to look at how others solved similar problems.  We sometimes do this with friends, neighbors and acquaintances, but rarely look much farther.  Until we look beyond our circle of influence, we aren't likely to see radically different methodology.  This hit home with me years ago on a trip to Niger.

I was extremely interested in agriculture as practiced by farmers there.  I went with the preconception that the mega-farm approach using mechanization was the solution to all of their difficulties.  I quickly learned that I needed to lose all of my assumptions and start asking questions.  I didn't understand their situation and overlaying my experience was not truly applicable to solving their issues.

Finding that my "bucket of knowledge" was almost useless in their situation forced me to think differently.  What I learned there has helped me here.  Looking beyond the same old pool of experience is necessary to stimulate thought that leads to innovation. 

I realize this brief commentary doesn't include much in the way of details.  That is intentional.  My goal is to stimulate thought, not provide solutions....

Introducing Innovation

Developing the business case for a new product, or service, can sometimes be difficult.  It can be a matter of "the chicken or the egg" when putting together the cost/benefit analysis.  By that I mean that in order to have data from which to develop and refine the benefits, one must first have enrollment in, or acceptance of, the service or product.

There are many concepts which appear to have value which are never accepted by a particular industry because the purveyors of those concepts failed to generate adequate initial uptake to develop the necessary quantity of evidence to gain wider acceptance.  There are usually a few innovators that will try almost anything that sounds like a good idea.  It is their experience that, if quantified and analyzed correctly, can open the door to the early adapters who then lead the way to general acceptance.  They key is "quantified and analyzed correctly."

Business has become more sophisticated while becoming more insular.  Often, advanced tools are used incorrectly in evaluating opportunities simply because the opportunity being examined comes from outside the normal channels.  If you are not an insider and not utilizing the well-developed pattern of product introduction which is institutionalized in most industries, you have little chance of receiving a fair hearing.  Ideas may be rejected simply because you are not "one of us."

This attitude makes it difficult to achieve cross-pollination between industries -- or even between different segments within the same overall industry.  It adds to the "fortress" mentality of those who may be in desperate need of "trade" with the outside world -- or, more specifically, new ideas.  Nepotism, in the form of hiring from within rather than from without an accepted pool is part of the problem, but more importantly, it leads to an incestuous stagnation of the "thought pool" from which to draw innovation.  Industries stagnate because they fail to cross-pollinate.

How does one introduce a new idea into a stagnate industry?  The first key is to identify the innovators.  However, when approaching them, one must be prepared to share risk and must also have a solid plan for measuring and quantifying results that will produce meaningful information to approach the next level of adoption.

One of the best ways to do this is with a money-back guarantee.  This is an inexpensive way to gain meaningful data.  It should never be given without gaining something in return -- expressly, the data needed to develop the product or, service further.  It demonstrates "belief" in what you are selling while gaining the "trial data" needed at a relatively low cost.

I guess you can tell where my mind is this morning....