Category Archives: Blogologue

200 Billion


Water go down the hoooole.
Toilet paper go down the hoooole.
Diaper go down the hoooole.
Nana go down the hoooole.
Ducky go down the hoooole.
Toot Toot go down the hoooole.
Kitty go down the hoooole.

The Potty Years

According to this recent article in Fortune, telecom investors might be “the 21st century’s biggest chumps”, and they might be right. Since 2000, the United States’ telecom tab is down 22% in inflation-adjusted dollars. In other words, the telecom networks have destroyed nearly 200 Billion in value over the last ten years — despite the fact that cell phone use has tripled, that high speed residential internet connections have jumped from 2 Million to 24 Million, and that wifi is almost ubiquitous.

So what happened? The article puts forward three hypothesis that, taken together, paint a compelling picture.

1: Internet protocol networks are like Pac Man. Eventually they will eat everything.

The days of expensive, custom-built communication networks for a single purpose — radio, telephone, cable tv — are over. Now, everything flows over the internet in packets. Packets here. Packets there. Packets, packets everywhere.

2: If a customer likes it, then it doesn’t matter what it does to your economics — it’s going to happen.

The cell carriers fought wifi tooth, nail, and claw for years to prevent cuts to their (sometimes ridiculous) margins, but it happened anyway. Eventually a carrier realized that offering wifi would result in a huge increase in customer base, it happened, and now every cell carrier supports hybrid wi-fi devices in an effort to keep their customers.

3: Anyone who relies on the fact that they own a scarce distribution resource is going to face ten years of turmoil.

It’s a new age for telecom and no longer are networks analog, expensive, and single purpose. Now they are digital, ubiquitous, and multi-purpose.

The question is, will the telecoms adapt? How much more will be lost as they try, competing with each other for a consumer base that becomes less profitable by the day? And will it be worth it in the end? Is it a situation where last man standing wins a defacto monopoly, pumps up prices to cover the losses, and profits big in the end (just like Google, who won the search engine war)? Or will an entirely new type of network provider emerge and wipe out the telecom industry as it exists today.


Water came back.
Water came back.
Water came back.

But will the 200 Billion come back?

Is The New India Greedy?

Some of the greediest business people that the doctor knows, especially in sales / marketing / business development roles, are Indian, but I’ve never looked upon India as “greedy” compared to, say, us — especially since these individuals often have a generous side where friends and family are concerned. But a recent article over on BBC News on the good, bad and ugly of Indian life seems to suggest that, in the New India, greed is good.

I know India faces greed from the west (led by the good ol’ U.S. of A.), the east (in China where greed allows you to be creative in business and put melamine in the milk, lead in the paint, and diethylene glycol [antifreeze] in the toothpaste and be seen as a successful business person who should be admired), and the north (led by the U.K. and a few of its money-grubbing European neighbours), but I had hoped it would hang on to its Gandhian heritage with dear life and balance the need for greed with the desire to make the (business) world a better place.

The article notes that when the head of the government’s main anti-fraud body, Pratyush Sinha, retired last year, he estimated that one in three Indians is corrupt. I know bribery is rampant, but that’s just the way business was done for a long time. People were underpaid, so if you wanted something, you paid a bribe. It might not be “ethical” in our world view, but at least when you paid the bribe, something got done. (And most of the time, the bribe was just to facilitate a legal service.) Here, you pay a service fee and wait to see whether or not a government worker will get around to your paperwork. He also said that “When we were growing up, if somebody was corrupt, they were generally looked down upon. There was at least some social stigma attached to it. That’s gone now. There’s greater social acceptance.”

According to the author, Pratyush was right. Recently cabinet ministers, wealthy businessmen, members of the armed forces, and politically well-connected organisers of the Commonwealth Games have come under the microscope. According to the author, one day his morning paper ran five different major corruption stories on its first eight pages. And now, even Ratan Tata, is speaking of the dangers of a “banana republic”. It doesn’t sound very positive. We certainly can’t wait for a commission of inquiry lasting 20 years. What do you think? Is it a short term blip or a long term problem? And if the latter, what is this going to do to your supply chain? India is already one of the most expensive countries in the world where logistics is concerned due to its bad roads and lack of airports. The last thing you want is greed in this industry.

Making You Smarter

One of Sourcing Innovation’s primary goals is reader education. If you don’t learn something on a regular basis, SI is not doing its job. While some bloggers simply spread the latest gossip to come their way, the editor of Sourcing Innovation slaves over a lit keyboard day-in and day-out to make sure that fresh new insights are delivered to you on a regular basis. But has it all been for naught?

According to this recent article that asks if “this font will make you smarter” (Globe and Mail), jaunty childish font[s] will improve your memory retention, help your kids do better in school, and make your wife love you more. Seems that all the editor had to do was find some random drivel, wrap it in a Comic Sans font, and you’d be better for it.

As per the referenced article over on LiveScience.com, research conducted at Princeton University has discovered that funky fonts may help students learn. In a research project, which presented two different groups of volunteers with the same list of words (one set in a common font and the other in a funky font), the groups were distracted for 15 minutes after studying the lists for 90 seconds and then tested. The group with the funky font averaged 14 percentage points higher. Now, the research project has not yet been repeated and it was led by an undergraduate, but it was reviewed by a faculty mentor and then peer reviewed before publication in Cognition, so the study can’t be discredited with the wave of a hand. The reason for the better performance may not be understood, but the message is clear. If SI wants to make you smarter, less knowledge, more funky fonts.

Want Money For Nothing?

Then take a lesson from these faggots* at the CBSC (Canadian Broadcast Standards Council) and censor classic songs from radio airplay because some prick*2 complained about the use of a word which has taken on an additional meaning in modern times.

For those of you who don’t follow global news, I’m referring to the recent decision by the CBSC to censor Dire Straits‘ classic Money for Nothing because one person in the backwoods of Newfoundland (amidst the Rocks and Trees) complained because it used the word “faggot”, which, in England, even today, is still used to refer to a bundle (of twigs, iron, or chopped meat), a junior who performs duties for a senior, and a guy (who may or may not be homosexual) who is just creepy. In the Dire Straits classic, while it is obviously being used in a derogatory manner to describe someone who has reached a station of life that he obviously does not deserve in the eyes of the song’s protagonist, it’s obvious that the contempt from which the comment springs from the song’s protagonist is non-sexual in nature and the definition (of the many that have been applied to the word since its inception almost 800 years ago) is more along the lines of “a guy who is a creep*3“. As such, there is no grounds for complaint and no grounds for censorship.

As far as I’m concerned, this decision is just disgusting. Not only was the song written well before the creation of the CBSC, but it was written before the creation of the CAB (Canadian Association of Broadcasters), which was the precursor organization. In my view, this should make the song ineligible for censorship. And even if it wasn’t, whatever happened to literary license and this thing called free speech?

While we’re at it, should we rewrite Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” which is an American classic that won the Pulitzer Prize in the year of its publication (1960) for its rather realistic portrayal of what life was like in the 1930’s in Alabama small towns? After all, from a modern perspective, the language in that book is much more offensive than Dire Straits’ use of the word “faggot” in Money for Nothing. Consider this line from Chapter 9: “My folks said your daddy was a disgrace an’ that nigger oughta hang from the water-tank!” Said with intent, it might even cross the line into hate speech, but that wasn’t the intent of the author who wanted people to understand what life was like in the 1930s.

In the same light, when Mark Knopfler use the word faggot, he was attempting to describe how hard-working labourers saw music stars at the beginning of the MTV generation. You played a few riffs, sang a few songs, and made a million dollars. They broke their backs and barely paid the bills.

Let’s not forget that a song is a story, and stories are not hate speech. They are artistic forms of communication meant to broaden our understanding of the world around us and the people in it. And if you don’t understand that, then a faggot*4 has more smarts than you do.

Have a nice day.
(And support Halifax’s own Q104 in their protest! F*ck you*5 CBSC. I hope you get one million complaints.)
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* where this blog is using the classic, now obsolete, meaning of the word faggot which was once used to refer to a “man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster” because I can’t believe they were hired on suitability for the job at this point

*2 where this blog is using the slang definition of the word which means “an obnoxious or contemptible person” because only a truly contemptuous person would complain about the use of a word completely out of context and insist that free speech be censored when no slur was made or intended

*3 note that the slang definition of creep is “an obnoxious person” and not “pervert” as some people seem to think it is these days

*4 in this case, the blog is using the other classic meaning of the word faggot, which is “a bundle of twigs”

*5 and I mean that in the most common utilization of the phrase in modern times