VAK learning test – what it’s all about?

Is your learning style visual, auditory or kinaesthetic.  I get visual and I get auditory but I wasn’t too sure what kinaesthetic meant.  The VAK test is basically a simple 30 question test that categorizes you to one of the learning styles listed above.  Here’s the website if you want to check it out and give it a try:

http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm

After completing the test it turns out that I have a kinaesthetic learning style.  In other words I have a preference for physical experience.  I perform new tasks by going ahead and trying it out, learning as I go.  I like to experiment, hands-on, and never look at the instructions.  That was the category I rated highest in with 13 points, followed by Auditory at 9 and Visual at 8.  Sometimes I read the instructions first, I swear.

I think it’s important to have mixed learning styles in groups or teams that are building something new.  For example, if a team was developing a new technology it would be pertinent that the different learning styles clash to help foster different points of view and bring out the “thinking outside the box” methodology.  On the contrary, if the technology already exists and a group is in charge of a simple upgrade or maintenance it would make sense for everyone in the group to have the same learning style.  This would allow “the change” to be explained and understood quickly, thus the needed actions would happen promptly and efficiently.



Apple - Business Model Canvas

Below you will find the Apple business model canvas.  Please let me know if you can't read the small print and I will e-mail you a copy.  I haven't learned how to attach a file in blogland yet...

Shark Tank – Take a deep breath and jump in

Shark Tank is a show about entrepreneurs seeking investments from wealthy venture capitalist (aka the sharks).  I saw an episode the other night about a guy that invented a better, faster way to connect a fire hose to a fire hydrant.  Long story short one of the sharks made him a deal to buy his business for 1.5 million and gave him guaranteed employment for 3 years at 100K per year.  From an outsider looking in this seems like a pretty amazing deal.  There is so much stuff that happens behind the scenes that we (the people watching TV) have no clue what actually happens.

One of the sharks kept making “low ball” offers.  When the entrepreneurs rejected or countered the shark would go off on how greedy people were.  Really?  This bothered me – I could tell that the greediest people in that room were the sharks.  It was interesting how the conversations progressed and deals were finally sealed.

The most impressive part of the show was the elevator pitches that were presented by the entrepreneurs.  No one choked or stumbled over their words – in my opinion the business ideas were convincing and well pitched.  It’s kind of interesting how someone could have a really great idea but if it’s not pitched well it would be bound for failure.  It’s kind of like have words to a really great song but if you’re a terrible singer you can forget about a record deal…

I-MOS: Why I wouldn’t invest

Suppose I was a venture capitalist with, oh…I don’t know, say 1 million burning a hole in my pocket and looking for a good startup company to invest in.  The folks from I-MOS stop by, give me their elevator pitch, show me some convicting analytical models and drop off their business plan for my review.  I take a few days to ponder over the business plan that describes this innovative and ground breaking semiconductor technology.  I-MOS gives me a phone call a few days later and gets right to the point:  Would I be willing to invest in I-MOS?  My answer would be ABSOLUTELY NOT!

 

Reason #1:  I-MOS states that they developed a disruptive transistor technology that reduces the static power dissipation by 1000x and provides a 30 percent increase in chip performance without increasing semiconductor manufacturing cost.  They don’t state this incredible breakthrough in chip technology once, twice, three times, four times or even five times.  They make this statement about 100 times throughout their business plan – talk about trying to amp up potential investors.  This comes off more like a used car salesman pitch where the same “great” point is reiterated over and over until you just say yes, fine, sure, let’s make a deal.  Except in the case of this business plan the “great” point is not understood by the average investor.  Which brings me to my second point…

Reason #2:  I don’t know enough about this technology to make a logical and reasonable decision.  It all sounds pretty convincing and don’t get me wrong, this business plan is well written and appears to cover all of the bases.  That said, I would never invest my hard earned money into a technology that I don’t completely understand.  As an engineer I would make it my mission to sign an NDA and go through every calculation until I felt comfortable that the new semiconductor chip technology made sense and would be feasible to produce in a very competitive and growing market.

Reason #3:  I-MOS states that they have extensive modeling and simulation results that show this new technology works.  It has also been proven at a micron level.  Sorry folks, come back when you can demonstrate your new chip works in a simple circuit board.  All too often analytical models miss very important variables that makes the concept look like a gem on paper but when it’s scaled up, the rubber hits the road and “real life” products get created it’s a whole different ball game (in a bad way).

To sum up my take on I-MOS:  I would like to know what the acronym I-MOS stood for – that’s never stated in the business plan.  I know that MOSFET means metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor but I’m not sure about I-MOS.  I thought the business plan was very well written and convincing to the average Joe.  It appears that they covered all of the main bases and I really liked the projected income statement…some serious profits could be made presuming the plan went accordingly.  I didn’t see any back-up plans or different tactics that would be taken assuming that things didn’t go as planned.  I understand you can’t predict the future but it is never a bad idea to have 2 or 3 escape routes just in case.

Product Innovation - Where has it gone?

I recently read an article that discussed how most companies face challenges and fall short when deploying new innovations for older products.  This is not a hard concept to understand.  When I first came out of school and got my first job I entered into my new “real world” engineering position and was ready to innovate, change, patent, and invent new ideas as they came to me.  Within my first two months of working I had at least 5 ideas that would make a part better, cheaper, the process flow easier, etc.  My first couple of ideas were brought up to senior engineers and shot down for various reasons – some of which included this is how we’ve always done it, shutting down the production line to initiate the change would take too much time away from production, the part can’t be made with that material because it has never been tested, no resources available to do the testing, etc, etc, etc…

 

I started to become frustrated as I realized that I was surrounded by old engineers who have worked at the company for 20 or 30 years and have become brainwashed to how things “have always been”.  They agreed that some of my ideas were good but they lacked the spark that it took for the idea to go from paper to reality.  They have become stuck in the “why bother” mode.  Assuming that they put in a little extra effort to think outside of the box and create a better process or part; they wouldn’t get more money, in fact, they wouldn’t get anything positive.  The company would benefit but who cares?  There mindset was go to work, put in enough effort so they won’t get fired, drink enough coffee so they don’t fall asleep at their desk and collect their paycheck.  Why would they want to listen to some young and energetic college graduate fresh out of school?

I quit and got a new job at a R&D (research and development) company.  For sure I would be able to come up with new innovative solutions that others would appreciate and implement.  Within no time I had some good ones.  Others agreed but once again they never turned into a reality due to big nasty process blockages.  You would think that an R&D company would be a fast paced, prototype environment.  Nope.  New management came in and insisted that we will be a production facility.  I’m not sure how outputting four products a year is a “production environment” but employees are buying it…after all, management says no lie, so it must be true. 

 

Sadly many companies are getting away from rapid prototyping, inventing, and coming up with new and genuine ideas.  The economy today has squeezed companies hard and the first thing to get scratched off of the finance sheet is the R&D department.  The mindset is; Work on increasing output of the “good old products that work”, increase revenue and forget about the innovation departments.  Hopefully things turn around soon and companies begin to bring back the departments that are in charge of creating new and innovative products.