Category Archives: rants

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Hopefully you caught The Brain’s much needed lesson in statistics back in January, as it was very informative. (If you didn’t, you can still go back and read it. Heck, even if you did, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to go back and read it again.)

The reason I’m pointing it out again is that I just noticed that Knowledge and Wharton put out a great summary of some of the key points in their article on “The Use — and Misuse — of Statistics: How and Why Numbers Are So Easily Manipulated”. Even though they had to go and use, what is in my view, the waste-of-time, waste-of-print, and waste-of-breath story on Roger Clemens and his alleged (ab)use of steroids as a background, they still made some great points regarding statistics, which need to be reiterated every now and again (because it seems that the vast majority of people who like to do statistical studies and quote statistical results still don’t understand what statistics is really all about).

  • Correlation is not Causation!
    As the article notes, a chain of retail stores may analyze its operations for a set period and find that those times when it reduced its sales prices coincided with times that overall sales fell. The chain might conclude that low prices reduce sales volume when, in fact, it could be the case that stores run semi-annual sales during known down periods. In other words, low sales are causing price declines and not the other way around.
  • It’s much easier to isolate and exclude extraneous data when you have experimental or hard-sciences data.
    In post-activity analysis in a business setting, it’s much more difficult to isolate the effects of a variety of other influences — and any attempt to simplify will most likely lead to incorrect results.
  • Comparing your situation only to those that produced positive effects is selection bias — and it’s wrong! Samples must be random.
    The example the authors use is that the Clemens report tried to prove he didn’t do steroids by noting that there are other examples of professional baseball players, like Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Curt Schilling, that also enjoyed great success in their 40s. However, that’s atypical behavior. The vast majority of players, and pitchers in particular, steadily improve in their early careers, peak at about 30, and then slowly decline. Clemens started declining in his late 20’s and then rebounded and improved in his 40s.
  • A single, short-term study on a small population is not conclusive! Especially if the population is not representative of the population at large!
    The example given here is a lawsuit filed against the Coca-Cola Company’s marketing for Enviga, it’s caffeinated green-tea drink, that states it actually burns more calories than it provides, resulting in ‘negative calories’. The claim is based on a clinical study of a small group of individuals with an average BMI (Body Mass Index) of 22. However, the majority of the American population has a BMI of 25 or more. Thus, its not statistically reasonable to say that the study would be representative of the population at large.
  • An accounting of the entire testing process is required for proper perspective in interpretation.
    So you found a statistically significant effect, correlation, or difference between some set of variables. If you don’t report the twenty-one insignificant tests you did before you found that one significant result, how do you know it wasn’t a fluke and that the test should probably be repeated?
  • Data-driven studies can’t always tell you the right answer.
    All they can tell you is which answers to eliminate because the data does not support them. The true value of a statistical analysis is that it helps users to properly characterize uncertainty as opposed to a “best guess”, to realize what outcomes are statistically significant, and to answer specific hypotheses.
  • You have to understand what the drivers behind the variables are if you are to have any hope of making a correct interpretation!
    Consider the example of major league baseball outfielders. A hypothesis going into such a study might be that outfielders have a harder time catching balls hit behind them, which forces them to run backwards. You’ll likely find that the opposite was true – that outfielders tend to catch more balls running backwards, even though this seems counter-intuitive at first. However, when you consider the hang-time of the ball, and the fact that balls hit farther are in the air longer, which gives the outfielder more time to catch them, it starts to make sense.
  • The validity of a statistical analysis is only as good as it’s individual components.
    And if even one component is invalid, the whole work is invalid.

Stop the Presses! Sourcing is its own Profession!

Who would have thunk it! Even though purchasing was recognized as an independent function by many railroad organizations in the 1800’s, apparently it wasn’t a legitimate profession until this year! At least according to the IAOP (the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals) and a recent article in Global Services.

And you know what else? Apparently, sourcing professionals play the key role in making sourcing engagements work and the management of an outsourcing relationship is also getting more strategic. And we do more than just manage people … we manage outcomes! Wow! I never knew! And yes, I’m being sarcastic as all get out!

I must say, as great as it is to see the profession recognized outside of the small select group of publications dedicated to the space and a handful of blogs, it’s very discouraging to see what’s probably the world’s third oldest profession (and I’ll let you guess the first two) consistently getting the shaft, which is what happens every time sourcing / supply management / spend management is introduced as a brand new function or one that only now can have a tremendous effect on the bottom line.

And do we really have to be introduced again and again? Every business that sells also has to buy. Even if you produce raw materials, you have to buy finished tools and machines to create those raw materials. You have to buy office supplies and computers to create the bills of sale and track your receivables and cash. Business have needed to buy since they started selling.

But what really stings is the fact that no one outside of purchasing seems to realize how hard it is to buy well versus how easy it is to sell. To sell, all you have to do is part some fool from his money. But to buy, you have to get what you need while still retaining enough cash on hand to cover all of your other expenses. And if you want to stay in business, you have to find a way to get more value than the other guy – when the seller only has to do one thing: part you from as much money as he possibly can.

So, although we need to thank each and every publication that gives the profession the nod, at some point we have to say hey, give us a break! Stop overplaying the fact that we’re still under-recognized and jump right to the part about how much of an impact we can have on the bottom line. Then you’ll really be doing us a favor!

IT : The Biggest Threat to our Energy Future

I’m normally not alarmist, and I’m usually not one to bash IT, especially since it’s the foundation of my living (no IT, no internet; no internet, no web-based software or blogs – and not much for me to do besides go back to academia and do philosawfical research), but, whereas environmental sustainability is concerned, the biggest threat to our future is not pollution from coal based factories, not the (over-exaggerated) dangers of nuclear energy, and not the continually impending shortage of oil – but computers! And I’m not talking about the bleak future painted by Arthur C. Clarke in his Space Odyssey, William Gibson in his groundbreaking Neuromancer, or any other bleak picture of the future where automated intelligence takes over the world and either tries to enslave or kill us, but the very real future where the crushing energy demands of data centers bring down the grid as their energy demands exceed what we’re able to produce.

The fact of the matter is that a single data center requires more energy to run than a small city of 40,000 people (The Greening of the CIO). And that’s just a small data center built two years ago. Today’s large ware-house size data centers (like those that would be required by companies like Google and Microsoft), which pack even more machines into the same amount of space, thanks to Moore’s law and continually decreasing hardware size, can require as much energy as a city of 100,000 to run! According to this recent article in PhysOrg.com, U.S. Data Centers cosume 45B kWh annually, and this is is expected to grow by 40% by 2010, according to another recent article in Environmental Leader. That’s over 70B kWh by 2010!

Now, it’s true that this is still a small fraction of the total energy consumption of the US, but it’s a fraction of use that is growing rapidly – and it doesn’t take into account all of the energy sucked up by computers which usually outnumber employees in an average office these days, or all of the energy sucked up by computers in the home. With over 200,000,000 computers in the US, sucking up 300-plus watts of power per hour, often around the clock (as many people don’t turn their computers off and many (backwards?) companies have policies that network computers must be left on around the clock, even when not in use, to enable network-based updates), even assuming they are only on half the time, that’s roughly another two hundred and sixty five (265) Billion kWh of energy, which is also increasing annually by a considerable percentage (as the number of computers continues to multiply like Fibonacci’s rabbits). This means that, in the US alone, IT is sucking up over 310 Billion kWh of energy annually, and that’s a very significant percentage – closing on 20% when you consider a a 1999 Green Earth Society study that found that computers consumed 13% of the entire electricity consumption of the US in 1999, and that this power consumption was expected to increase to at least 35% by 2020! (Source: Wikipedia.)

The reality is, as pointed out in a recent post by Tyler Shears on Gimmie the Scoop, every time you search Google you could power an 11-watt light bulb for an hour. But that’s nothing compared to the energy utilized every time you access YouTube (which takes up 10% of Internet bandwidth). It’s not just your computer, your ISP’s infrastructure, and the YouTube data centers that consume power to fulfill your request – but every computer and network device in between! The reality is that we’ve left the information age, and entered the energy age – an age where we need more energy every day just to function in our ultra-connected lives. (So think about that next time you think you’re doing good by accessing your Green social network every waking hour of the day!) I don’t know about you, but you should be startled by the fact that Google is using 1.8 Billion watt-hours of energy a day just for basic search queries. Believe it or not, that’s just a fraction of internet traffic!

So again, just like I pointed out in Ten Green Ideas That Work – I, it’s not your SUV that’s the problem, it’s your computer (and your internet addiction), and the fact that almost 19%, or one fifth, of power in the US is generated by the burning of petroleum products (oil) or derivatives (gas and diesel). (In comparison, natural gas accounts for over 29% and coal roughly 31%. Nuclear is about 10% and clean sources such as wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and biomass combined account for barely 11%.) So what can we do about it? I’ll address that in upcoming Green IT posts.

Free Content for Fair Use

As many of you know, the doctor is not your average blogger, but as many of you might not know, he is one of the few independent bloggers in the space that makes his living off of content generation, which include the blog posts created and published on this site (as well as the results of his content generation services).

As a result, copyright, “fair use”, and “fair dealing” are very important to him and he gets quite upset when he finds content that is being used in a manner that flies in the face of “fair use” and “fair dealing“, such as when entire posts and articles are being copied without permission and passed off by another individual as their own or when big companies try to prevent “fair use” and either demand payment or threaten ridiculous legal action in situations that any reasonable person should deem “fair use”. Both of these have happened in the last week, and needless to say the doctor is not very happy. (Especially since he’s had to personally file two complaints with Google in four business days.)

In the first case, thanks to a tip from a fellow blogger, the doctor discovered the purchasing.org.ua.blogspot.com blog which had no less than 15 posts which were copied, in their entirety, from works of the doctor here on Sourcing Innovation or on e-Sourcing Forum, where the doctor guest posts regularly, without citation, reference, or link. Now, it doesn’t appear that this individual was trying to profit off of this blog (as many individuals who copy content in this manner often try to do), but a number of searches for content that should bring up Sourcing Innovation were bringing up that blog instead, on content I had written. But it didn’t stop there! After extensive research, I found posts that contained content, usually in its entirety, that appeared to have been originally published on over a dozen different blogs or in a dozen different publications, all without citation, reference, or link — on a blog where the author was remaining anonymous. To date, I have verified, through conversations, that at least six other bloggers and three editors at leading publications believe that their content has been republished without their consent in a manner that, in their opinion and mine, violates “fair use”. Of what was almost 300 posts, I was able to track down all but 40 to other sites, which had the same content with an earlier publication date! Needless to say, for-profit or not, when I find sites like this, I get very annoyed … especially when I am usually more than happy to allow others, who provide me the courtesy of a simple request (when required), to re-use my content, in full, for educational and non-profit purposes.

In the second case, the doctor heard that not only was the Associated Press filing a lawsuit (hat tip to Susan’s Web Logs Blog) against The Drudge Retort on claims that the blog violated fair use for publishing entries that contained fewer than 30 words from cited Associated Press articles, but that they were trying to force bloggers to pay them a fee if they quoted a mere 5 words! (Again, hat tip to Susan’s Web Logs Blog). the doctor writes sentences longer than that! It’s bloody ridiculous. I hope that someone, with the willingness to defend your rights just like the Electronic Frontier Foundation does on a regular basis, stands up to actions like this (as my thoughts on the issue aren’t fit to print)!  (Considering that you can usually get away with 20% to 30% if you are doing an analysis or another scholarly work under Canadian and American copyright raw .  Sometimes more.)

It’s true that the doctor regularly covers works generated by third parties, including those published in third party publications, but anytime the doctor quotes content, whether or not it constitutes a significant amount of material with respect to “fair dealing” or “fair use”, he does his best to not only credit and reference the source, but to also provide a link to the original material, when available. (See the link policy.)

And if he directly quotes an amount of material that some parties might consider significant, he does his best to ensure that he adds to the work considerably himself or keeps the total content to a reasonable percentage of the overall work being referenced (relative to the length of work being created and the type of editorial or scholarly analysis being undertaken).

Furthermore, he doesn’t make ridiculous complaints when he finds a large part of his material quoted on other blogs when the author has taken care to properly reference and cite the work at issue and to add to it in some way, even if he disagrees with the contents of the posting (just like he won’t delete any comment that follows the comment rules). (Summary: the doctor does his best not to be a hypocrite.)

Thus, even though the doctor gets very annoyed when content is used in a manner that flies in the face of “fair use” and “fair dealing”, the doctor believes that content should be free for “fair use”, and that those who create content should make an effort to insure that their content is free for “fair use”. To this end, the doctor will not only not bother you if you use his content in a way consistent with “fair use” and “fair dealing”, but is extending the following offer to almost anyone who wants it:

FIVE FREE POSTS FOR FAIR USE

the doctor will seriously consider granting to almost anyone, on request, the right to reprint, or repost, up to five posts (authored by the doctor and posted on the Sourcing Innovation blog) in their entirety for educational purposes, regardless of whether or not you are an accredited public institution or a private for-profit company, as long as:

  • the posts you request are at least 30 days old (and authored by the doctor)
  • no fee of any kind will be charged for the reprints or reposts
  • the posts will not be used with the express intent of commercial gain
  • the posts are not about, or reference, one or more specific vendors
  • the posts are reprinted in whole or in contiguous, unaltered, part
  • full credit for authorship is attributed to the doctor
  • a permalink to the original post is included

To make your request, simply send an e-mail to the doctor using the contact information in the FAQ and specify the following:

  • the posts (up to 5) that you are requesting to reprint or repost,
  • your name and contact information (company, e-mail, and telephone number),
  • the method in which you plan to reprint/republish the posts,
  • the audience you are hoping to educate, and
  • an assurance that no fee of any kind will be charged for the distribution of the reprints/reposts.

I will get back to you as soon as I can, but please allow up to five business days for a reply before resending your request. Thank you.

There’s No Excuse for Food Shortages in the Developed World! II

In our last post, I pointed out that not only does the developed world import more than enough food, but that it has the potential to produce sufficient food for the global population for years to come. The solution that I presented, at least in the mid-term, is quite simple:

  1. Stop Wasting Food
    The US wastes over 20B in food each year.
  2. Stop Wasting Food
    Poor quality monitoring leads to extremely wasteful recalls.
  3. Stop Wasting Food
    Way too much food is diverted to energy inefficient bio-fuel.
  4. Stop Wasting Food
    Crop yields are lower than they need to be globally because the right knowledge and technology takes too long to be applied.

But before you think all of the problems are caused by big business, and that only they need to be part of the solution, I should note that you’re also part of the problem, and part of the solution. So, what can you do?

  1. Stop Wasting Food
    Restaurant single-servings don’t have to be large enough to serve a small family.
  2. Stop Wasting Food
    Leftovers aren’t just for compost.
  3. Stop Wasting Food
    “Prepared foods” generate large amounts of waste.

We all know the saying that “Everything’s Bigger in Texas” (and, in many ways it is), but what we don’t know is that no phrase has created more waste in the food industry than this one. Once restaurants started fighting on portion-size, offering up standard serving sizes that even a northern lumberjack would have trouble finishing, food waste skyrocketed. It’s estimated that as much as 50% of all waste dumped by a restaurant in a garbage bin is food. An average North American eats out 4 times a week, or 20% of the time. This says that the food service industry accounts for roughly 20% of food. If 50% of that is wasted, then the food industry wastes 10% of available food – or, as a whole, they are as bad as our retailers! If we as consumers stopped going to restaurants that served larger portions than we are going to eat, forcing them to either serve portions that were less likely to result in waste or go out of business, we could have a major impact.

I’m sure you’re saying “I put left-overs in the fridge”, and I’m sure you do, but do you eat them? Or do they sit there until they’re discovered growing a new species of mold a month later, and then hit the compost pile. As a fellow Haligonian points out (Food is Not too Expensive, HoserNews), if you properly label food, understand that even mushy fruits and vegetables are still edible (and good for soups), and don’t buy or prepare more food than you can eat before it hits its expiry date, you can minimize your waste. And as for compost, if you mulch when you mow, and re-use your yard waste, you don’t really need that much!

The hot new trend, as noted by Scott Feschuk in a recent opinion piece in MacLeans is buying prepared meals from the grocery store that are ready to eat in minutes (or seconds). Just open them, pop them in the microwave and a-way you go. Now, TV Dinners have been around for a while, but they’re not the problem. (They are a problem, just of a different sort.) The problem is stuff like pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crust cut off. (What happened to the crust?) And store made offerings that lead to food waste when it doesn’t sell by the accelerated best-before date. At least at major food processing plants, if things are set up and run properly, food deemed unsuitable for sale to humans can often be converted into animal feed, which prevents it from being wasted. But at smaller plants and local supermarkets, if you’re lucky it just goes into the compost. If you’re not, it goes into the dumpster. So make the PB&J yourself – the nineteen seconds you spend popping the tops, spreading the peanut butter and jam, and screwing the tops back on really does help the planet – and the people on it.