by Gary Mintchell | Sep 4, 2018 | Education, News, Organizations
OPC Foundation’s continuous improvement program extended with the addition of new Chair for its Board of Directors. I haven’t had an OPC Foundation conversation since April. Based on conversations with numerous leaders in Hannover, I think this is a great step forward by the Foundation’s board of directors. I’m not sure what precipitated the addition, but I’ve met Schmid-Lutz and she’ll do an excellent job of bringing cohesiveness and direction to the organization.
OPC UA is solid technology used by most automation and IoT companies. These moves to strengthen the organization can only be positive.
This from the original press release—In this key position, the Chair manages the strategic and tactical directives of the Board of Directors and ensures the marketing, technical, and overall business activities of the OPC Foundation consistently align with its vision and objectives. In addition, the Chair organizes and calls the Board of Directors meetings and engages directly with the organization’s infrastructure. The Chair position requires a dynamic leader who can navigate the political, business, and technical challenges associated with a standard setting organization.
Veronika Schmid-Lutz was honored by the trust and confidence placed in her by her fellow board members and noted that “being elected as the Chair of the OPC Foundation’s board is a great honor for me. My focus will be to strengthen and pursuing all aspects that make interoperability between devices, machines, and business systems as simple and as secure as possible.”
Thomas J. Burke, President of the OPC Foundation commented on the importance of the Chair position and why Ms. Schmid-Lutz was the right person to fill it, “Veronika clearly demonstrated her excellent leadership and business skills as a member of the OPC Foundation Board of Directors. Based on this I believe she is well suited to now serve as the Board’s Chair. With Veronika at the helm of the business, I look forward to see her facilitate and successfully drive the OPC Foundation vision into the next era.” Mr. Burke concluded saying “It’s a great honor to have Veronika accept this important leadership role. We look forward to see her oversee communicating the importance of OPC UA into the IT world.”
Recognizing the value of both the organization and its deliverables, Veronika Schmid-Lutz emphasized the importance of OPC UA by noting: “Easy interoperability is an important enabler for intelligent systems leveraging new technologies in software and hardware. SAP strongly supports OPC UA as it simplifies and accelerates information exchange between heterogeneous systems and devices which is why Platform Industrie 4.0 has made OPC-UA a key component of its RAMI architecture. The board looks forward to continue enhancing the value of both the organization and its deliverables.”
by Gary Mintchell | Aug 13, 2018 | Education, Podcast, Productivity
What you fill your mind with is what you become. You can spend your life listening to bubble gum for the brain or stuff designed to stir up your emotions–or, you can fill your mind with positive thoughts and material designed to teach and expand you.
I listen to podcasts. At least an hour a day. I just finished one that is a must-listen. (Of course, other than mine 🙂
This is the podcast of Tim Ferriss (4-hour Work Week, Tools of the Titans, etc.). He just interviewed George Raveling in the most fascinating conversation I’ve heard in years.
Learn about his reading habits and how he takes notes. He gifted Ferriss with a number of books including one of my favorites–Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer-Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. I read it in the mid-60s and the ideas have formed much of my outlook. He wrote it in 1951, but it is just as relevant today.
Raveling was the first black basketball head coach in the PAC 8 (later PAC 10) at Washington State and then the first black head basketball coach in the Big 10 while at Iowa. Later he coached at USC. He became Global Director of Sports Marketing at Nike and was instrumental in signing Michael Jordan and beginning the Air Jordan dynasty.
He was born in Washington, D.C. and essentially orphaned at age 13. He tells the story of getting into a Catholic school, his many mentors, and how he wound up on the podium during Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.
For your own personal growth and development, you need to listen to this.
A couple of quotes:
“I’ve always had this theory that, if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll always get what you want.”
“If it has to be, it’s up to me.”
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 13, 2018 | Education, Productivity
Just give them a pencil and paper and let them write whatever comes to mind with no thought of spelling, grammar, or coherence. We don’t want to squelch a child’s creativity.
I’ve heard this “advice” until I am sick of it.
Study any artist. Especially the great (and creative) ones. They all learned, usually through a teacher and mentor, the basics of color, proportion, composition, and anatomy. The creativity came with using the basics in new ways–seeing things others had not. Picasso was great as a “realistic” painter, but then he decided to try to find the essence of the object or person he was painting. He pushed the boundaries with cubism.
You could pick up a guitar and start strumming and picking. Or–you could learn sounds and notes. Tune the guitar. Learn some basic chords. You only need to learn D-C-G and you can play hundreds of rock and folk songs. Just experiment different rhythms within the pattern. Maybe try an added note–go ahead, throw in a C-9 to the progression. If you only learned C-A minor-F-G, you could play around with the progression and play another hundred early rock songs. You’re only truly creative when you can build on the foundation of what works.
Writing is communication. Humans have known just about since the dawn of communication about logic. When you are expressing something, it must proceed logically. Spelling helps us convey the correct word (and it helps if you turn off autocorrect on your iPad, for example). Grammar helps us express a clear idea. Try the book “Eats Shoots and Leaves” or is it “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves”.* Do you get the different meanings? Logic helps us lead our reader to understanding.
We do the same thing in automation or software. We know the essentials of if-then-else logic or arrays or programming APIs. We build on them to construct systems.
No, it’s not “creativity” that we need to worry about in that way.
The real crime is when we kill a child’s (or an adult’s) curiosity.
I love this little poem from Rudyard Kipling:
I have six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. There names are What, and Where and When; and Why and How and Who.
*There is a story about a Panda who walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich and eats it. He then pulls out a gun and shoots the bartender. He left. Lying on the bar was a field guide to Pandas where an editor had inserted a fatal comma.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 2, 2018 | Education, Leadership
How about you? Do you feel like you know everything you need to know? Do you hate asking people for directions?
Whether you are in business or ministry or family–do you have all the answers?
While I usually write about technology, I’ve learned the hard way that people are as important as the technology. I’ve seen my technology implementations fail because of the failure to get people on board. And how often have we seen people in critical situations fail to communicate at the cost of people’s lives? All through failure of asking appropriate questions.
Edgar H. Schein writes in his book, “Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling,” that many people would rather fail than admit their dependency on another person. That is, by asking them a question and admitting that someone else has an answer.
How about succeeding together?
Try Humble Inquiry. Asking questions implies that someone knows something I don’t–even if they are a subordinate, or younger than I, or from a different background. I must humble myself to ask someone placing myself in a position of learner to someone superior to me in this situation. It is the opposite of what we are taught in our culture which places emphasis on telling.
I’ve talked often about the skills of listening. Often we need to ask questions to elicit something to listen to.
Schein says, “The kind of inquiry I am talking about derives from an attitude of interest and curiosity. It implies a desire to build a relationship.”
We must slow down to ask and then listen.
Again Schein says, “I find that the biggest mistakes I make and the biggest risks I run all result from a mindless hurrying. If I hurry, I do not pay enough attention to what is going on, and that makes mistakes more likely. More importantly, if I hurry, I do not observe new possibilities.”
Let’s think about this comment in the context of hazardous situations
He points out in our “Do and Tell” culture, the most important thing we need to learn is to reflect. Before doing something, apply Humble Inquiry to yourself. “Ask ourselves: What is going on here? What would be the appropriate thing to do (Wow, there are hundreds of men right now who wish they had asked themselves that question)? On whom am I dependent? Who is dependent upon me?”
In other words, become more mindful.
“The toughest relearning, or new learning, is for leaders to discover their dependence on their subordinates, to embrace Here-and-now Humility, and to build relationships of high trust and valid communication with their subordinates.”
Schein was an MIT professor and business consultant. You can substitute parent for leader and use the ideas in family.
Read and digest the book. It’s short and not technical. Good read.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 5, 2017 | Education, News, Workforce
How much should we worry about the next generation manufacturing workforce? An email came through late last week from an organization that I’d heard of but never had any dealings with—Junior Achievement. Press release was titled, “Labor Day Blues: Three-in-Four Parents and Teens Concerned Global Competition and Automation will Make it Difficult for Next Generation to Have a Successful Job/Career”.
A new survey from Junior Achievement USA (JA) shows that 77 percent of parents are “concerned” about their children’s ability to have a successful job or career as adults in light of global competition and automation. The same percentage (77%) of teens said they share similar concerns about having a successful job or career in the future because of global competition and automation. The survey of 1,204 parents of school-aged students and 1,000 teens was conducted by ORC International for JA.
So I thought, this is interesting, but is it new? My parents were worried about my future employability when I graduated from high school a long, long time ago. I probably had some concern about my kids, but I’m generally more optimistic and have higher expectations, I guess, than others. (They are both doing well.)
Just wondered if they had run this survey every year for the past 50 would there be any trend? Or, are they just rushing to capitalize on the current state of media who relishes negative news?
Then I thought about some (not all) parents I run into through my soccer work. I’ve met the “helicopter parent”. They have kids who referee soccer, too. I’d imagine parents with that mindset would be concerned—probably for the rest of their lives.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t let my optimism get in the way of preparation. The JA CEO is on the right track here.
“Education and skills are going to be critical for the next generation’s success in an ever-changing workplace,” said Jack Kosakowski, CEO of Junior Achievement USA. “Many of the entry-level jobs we know today won’t be around in the next decade, and many of the jobs of tomorrow haven’t even been conceived of yet. It’s important we encourage our young people to explore post-secondary education, whether that be a university, community college, or a technical or trade school. Having some level of technical training is going to be critical for future career success. A high school diploma or GED just won’t be enough for many jobs.”
The Future Workforce Survey
In the survey, nearly half (45%) of parents said that they were “extremely or very” concerned about their children’s prospects for future employment, while almost as many teens (40%) had the same level of concern.
The survey was conducted in conjunction with the fall rollout of Junior Achievement’s work- and career-readiness programs. For more detail on these and other JA programs, visit JA’s programs page.
Methodology
This report presents the findings of ORC International’s Online and Youth CARAVAN surveys conducted among a sample of 1,204 parents of school-aged children and 1,000 13-17 year- olds. These surveys were conducted live from June 29 to July 6, 2017, for the parents’ portion and from July 11 to July 16, 2017, for the teens’ portion.
Respondents for this survey are selected from among those who have volunteered to participate in online surveys and polls. Because the sample is based on those who initially self-selected for participation, no estimates of sampling error can be calculated. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to multiple sources of error, including, but not limited to sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question-wording and response options.
About JA
Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to giving young people the knowledge and skills they need to own their economic success, plan for their future, and make smart academic and economic choices. JA programs are delivered by corporate and community volunteers, and provide relevant, hands-on experiences that give students from kindergarten through high school knowledge and skills in financial literacy, work readiness, and entrepreneurship. Today, JA reaches 4.8 million students per year in 109 markets across the United States, with an additional 5.6 million students served by operations in more than 100 countries worldwide.
–Gary Mintchell
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 20, 2017 | Education, Marketing
Are we too old to be creative? I don’t even know you, but I know the answer.
No!
When I reached 30, I was really bummed. Over the hill. No great mathematician, so they said, ever had a significant discovery after age 30.
But then, I was no mathematician. But still, was life over?
Be Creative
Actually I have never been more creative and productive than over the past 20 years. And I’m way past 30, now. And The New York Times this month ran an article with some proof that creativity does not necessarily end at 30. It leads with a 94-year-old inventor.
It states, “There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that late blooming is no anomaly. A 2016 Information Technology and Innovation Foundation study found that inventors peak in their late 40s and tend to be highly productive in the last half of their careers. Similarly, professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Hitotsubashi University in Japan, who studied data about patent holders, found that, in the United States, the average inventor sends in his or her application to the patent office at age 47, and that the highest-value patents often come from the oldest inventors — those over the age of 55.
Keep reading. Try new things. Learn a different language. Go for new experiences. Ask questions.
Marketing
Speaking of geniuses. Did you hear about the TV advertisement that instructed your Google Home (OK Google) to search for ingredients of its sandwich? There is another reason not to have one of those devices that is always listening to you. The other being Amazon Echo (Alexa, buy a book…). I do not have one installed. There is one disconnected in my closet. Here’s a New York Times article on the ad and one from TechCrunch.
The question is how obnoxious do you need to be to be an effective marketer?
I hate, Hate, I say, those pop-ups on Websites. And all the other tricks I see to get you to click. Ever seen those things at the bottom of the WeatherBug app? Even the marketers know that most clicks are due to error. People are frantically trying to click the vanishing X that makes the ugly thing go away. Then they click the ad and get carried off to some place they don’t want to go.
But Website owners need money. Marketers will pay well even for obnoxious, accidental click ads. The poor users, well, we just get a degraded experience. No wonder we don’t go to the Web like we once did.
Digital Thread
Can HMI/SCADA Software Be the On Ramp to the IIoT Digital Thread?
Craig Resnick, vp at ARC Advisory Group wrote a provocative article on the role of HMI/SCADA and the IioT.
These are interesting comments about the state of manufacturing software, “The Digital Thread often combines manufacturing software that provides real-time, role-based HMI dashboards with Ethernet networking technology, using Big Data, HMI/SCADA and analytics software, sensors, controllers, and robotics to help optimize industrial asset performance and availability in an edge to cloud world. This enables end users and OEMs to collect and analyze asset performance and operational data in the network, often from connecting disparate systems, from the factory floor to ERP, providing an ‘industrial-strength’ data analytics solution that combines role-based manufacturing HMI dashboards with real-time manufacturing KPIs for decision support.”
“The Digital Thread has, for example, driven the convergence of HMI/SCADA and MES platforms. Increasingly, these converged HMI/SCADA and MES platforms help users visualize both key automation and business metrics and KPIs, such as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and energy savings, to help maximize the productivity and profitability of their businesses.”
This idea of things converging around MES is intriguing. There are so many applications gaining traction, along with interesting standards for data transfer, databases, analytics, visualization. All this, and I’m not sure where the money-making places are right now. Maybe writing smaller communication apps and mobile apps that can be sold to big companies?
