Improve Google

In response to post by Matt Cutts:

Is there a new product or feature that you wish Google offered? Is there anything on the web that annoys you because there's not a useful product that does exactly what you need? Is there an extra feature of Gmail, AdWords, Google Maps, AdSense, Google News, or another product that you wish we offered?

I can think of a lot of new features or products that I'd like to have, but I don't want to skew the opinions. This thread is completely open-ended: I'm looking for any feature or product that a regular user might want.

I have suggested all of these for years and I still want them:

1) Let me chose the type of files searched (exclude pdfs, word, power point..). Then if I can't find what I want I can expand to include them. At the very least give me some way of making the type much more visible (I realize it is there now but I often click before my mind notices...).

2) Let me remove web sites from my default searches. I would imagine this could even be used to help Google's normal search results by getting a sense of sites huge numbers of people "block" The same spam sites show up for searches and I would rather block them if Google can't figure out how to do so.

3) Let me create site search lists, where I create lists of sties I want searched - then I can target my searches how I want. Actually now that rollyo does this I don't care that much but since they use Yahoo to do so, I would figure maybe Google will finally make this available. It would be nice if you suggested sites others with similar site lists included.

New requests:

1) It would be cool if I could rate sites and that was factored into my returned results. This could obviously use the Google toolbar for user input pretty effectively, I imagine. A simple 1-5 or 1-10 scale. It would probably be a good idea to let users have some simple way of say having all their bookmarked files automatically give the web site the highest rating so they don't have to manually enter every one. Then they could edit the results. Same with the search lists in item 3 above. It should also be setup so I can accept other users settings. So if I trust John Battelle or Sean Stickle I can have their ratings (obviously only for ratings people make "public") reflected in my results. That would involve complications when one person I chose to include says a site is a 1 and another says a site is a 5 but I figure Google is very capable of figuring out a good way to make that work.

2) I don't have too much trouble with this on Google search results now (but Google News does), let me block non-available content (behind paid or unpaid walls) in the default search (then let me "whitelist" certain sites so they show up - for sites I either just want to see anyway of sites I have registered for...).

I still think Google is excellent but honestly the value of Google's results compared to Yahoo and MSN is much less than it was 2 years ago, in my opinion as a search engine user. To me the others are closing the gap with Google and Google needs to make some improvements more than ever before (assuming Google wants to stay ahead of the others which I think is a fair assumption). It isn't a feature but improving the results is also important - too many spam sites are returned now.

W. Edwards Deming Outstanding Training Award

Topic: Management Improvement, Public Sector

W. Edwards Deming Outstanding Training Award from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Graduate School. The award honors W. Edwards Deming for his 22-year association with the Graduate School, USDA as a mathematics and statistics faculty member and curriculum chair.

Award Eligibility:

The W. Edwards Deming Outstanding Training Award is presented annually by the Graduate School, USDA to a federal government unit or department that has successfully completed an innovative and impressive employee development and training initiative that has achieved measurable results. Individuals are not eligible for this award.

Request a 2006 Deming Nomination Packet (mailed in April 2006)

The Graduate School, USDA names the Naval Surface Warfare Center the winner of the W. Edwards Deming Award for 2005.

The Graduate School, USDA has named the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division: Naval Systems Command the 2005 winner of the W. Edwards Deming Award. Faced with the prospect of substantial attrition of senior managers due to retirement, in 2001 the Center developed a Management Succession Program. An established training institution delivered two sessions, which honed management skills through improved competencies and action learning. Participants were mostly first-level supervisors, and the courses focused on problem solving, conflict management, leadership and communication skills and the ability to build coalitions and affect organizational change. The first class has achieved concrete results. In just three years these trainees hold more than 20 percent of department head or equivalent positions. The Center anticipates further organizational gain.

Runners-up for the Deming Award are three offices in the Social Security Administration - the Office of Systems Electronic Disability (eDib) Training for the IT Professional, the Office of Training in the Office of Human Resources and the Allegation Management Division in the Office of the Inspector General - and the Fundamentals Training Staff at the National Park Service.

The Graduate School presents the W. Edwards Deming Award to a federal government organization or civilian branch of the military that has completed an innovative employee training initiative with measurable results.

Deming Management Method
Deming Prize
2005 Deming Prize Awardees
2004 Deming Prize Awardees
How to Create Unethical, Ineffective Organizations That Go Out of Business, W. Edwards Deming Institute, I will be co-presenting this seminar - John Hunter.

Glacier National Park photos

I have posted photos from one of my most enjoyable days from last year: photos from hikes in Glacier Waterton International Peace Park


Me on the top of the Bear's Hump trail in the park, Waterton, Canada. A great, very steep trail.


Iceberg lake in Many Glaciers area of Glacier National Park, Montana. I started with a hike to Iceberg lake in the morning. Then drove up to the Canadian portion of the park.


And snapped this photo of a rainbow just before eating a great diner at the Prince of Wales Lodge.

More Glacier National Park photos from June 2005. During June I hiked at various parks in the Pacific Northwest, see pictures from: Mount Saint Helens, Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park.

America's Manufacturing Future

A Wake-up Call From Asia by Patricia Panchak:

China and India very aggressively are pursuing advanced manufacturing. Increasingly, China's exports to the U.S. are composed of advanced-technology products.
...
J.P. Morgan said it would add 4,500 employees in India by the year 2007, mainly by setting up operations in Bangalore to support its growing structured finance and derivatives businesses globally. Such jobs are not the simple, low-value call-center work that up to now we've associated with this developing economy. And J.P. Morgan isn't alone; UBS and Goldman Sachs earlier made similar announcements.

From my previous post, Relative Engineering Economic Positions:

The hope some retained that the United States would retain the highest end work and others would work on the less complex work is not what the future holds. The future will prove to be an international marketplace where the United States is a significant but not dominant player. That future can still be bright but it requires a different vision than one in which American dominance is taken as a given.

The challenges to USA manufacturing will continue. The best hope, as I see it, for retaining manufacturing leadership in the USA is through increasing the adoption of management improvement methods including lean manufacturing.

Even so, I believe it will be very difficult for the USA to remain the leading manufacturing economy; China seems poised to take that position. Still that is not a certainty, even though many act as though it happened long ago. And even if China were to take over the number one position, it is still possible for the US manufacturing economy to grow.

From 1990 - 2001 China's manufacturing output grew by 251%, while world manufacturing output grew by 22%. still the US manufacturing economy grew by 39% meaning we gained a larger share over those 11 years of total world manufacturing - World Bank data)


Related posts:

• Companies Not Countries
  
• Manufacturing and the Economy
  
• Toyota Chairman Comments on India and Thailand
  
• Hopeful About India's Manufacturing Sector
  

Quality, SPC and Your Career

Topic: Management Improvement

Lead To Succeed (pdf document) by Stephen S. Prevette:

* Succeed as a quality professional by branding yourself and providing a service or product your manager and organization deem worth paying for.
* Lead your manager "your customers" by providing the data they need in a form they can understand.


This is a great article on how to apply quality (Deming, Statistical Process Control, Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing) ideas and move forward professionally; even when those ideas are not always shared by the organization.

I caused this increase by using tried and true quality techniques that are more than 75 years old. My work at Hanford has been noticed favorably by people at the Fluor Corp. They believe I am cutting edge. Hmmm.

I will say yes, I am making use of modern computers and software to implement these 75-year-old techniques.

Of course, I like to see my beliefs cast in a positive light. I believe far too often we look for the newest ideas and miss all the great ideas that have been known for decades but are not practiced widely. The key to success is applying good ideas well - not just applying new ideas.

Transforming managers so they are willing to use SPC is not easy. My first interaction with a Fluor manager resulted in my hearing, "We don't know why Westinghouse employed a statistician. Fluor doesn't do statistics."

Success is not as easy as we might hope. Just discovering the ideas of Deming or Toyota or Ackoff is not enough. The great ideas don't, by themselves, convince managers to try a new way of managing. There is a great deal of education needed for most organizations to get to the point where they realize they could improve by applying "old" ideas such as: control charts, lean thinking, spc, not tampering...

The application of SPC and other quality tools can be rewarding. It can provide both financial and professional fulfillment. I believe my application of Deming's management theories has been crucial to Fluor Hanford's success.

More articles by Stephen Prevette.

Rebirth of American Industry

William Waddell excellent posts on the Evolving Excellence blog are always an interesting read. He, and Norman Bodek, have published a new book, Rebirth of American Industry. Read the full Excerpt from the book. The Evolving Excellence blog also has a post: A New Must-Read Book - From Our Own Bill Waddell.

Norman Bodek has also written: Kaikaku, The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen (with Bunji Tozawa) and The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen (Workbook) (with Bunji Tozawa). He also recently started his own blog: Kaikaku.

Articles by Norman Bodek:

• The Best Factory in the World, from his book, Kaikaku: "Pictures of areas of the factory or the office hung throughout the plant. Workers were encouraged to look at the pictures and talk about them together, then to make improvements."


• Lean Six Sigma - A Perspective, "Lean focuses on identifying value as perceived by the customer and then eliminating everything that isn�t value, the waste, out of the process. Lean comes from the industrial engineering discipline, whereas Six Sigma comes out of the statistical quality control discipline. Six Sigma focuses on reducing variability in the key output variables that are important to the customer."

Should GM be Removed from the DJIA?

Topic: Investing

Should Dow boot GM? by Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com:

GM's market capitalization has fallen to about $11 billion, less than half that of the next smallest Dow stock...

"It is coming," he said of the idea of a foreign Dow component. "This whole globalization situation is making that more and more likely."

He said he doubts that GM would be replaced as long as it is still the world's leading automaker, but Toyota could claim that title from GM as soon as 2006.

"That would be the time to replace it, not before," said Hirsch.

I agree removing GM makes sense, though I see no reason to wait. Whether to replace it with Toyota (market cap: $167 Billion), DaimlerChrysler or something else is an interesting question. Of course the whole idea of the Dow Jones Industrial Average pretty much outlived its usefulness decades ago. The S&P 500 has long been far better measure of the stock market but still the dow has retained its status as news worthy, for some reason (View the current dow stocks).

As for the S&P 500 it looks like my guess that Google would be added to the S&P 500 by the end of this year is going to be incorrect. I must admit I think that failure was really a mistake by S&P, and not just because it makes me wrong. The market capitalization, trading and import of Google make it an obvious choice for the S&P 500. But I would rather be wrong about that and right to have bought it, than the other way around. Google's market cap: $126 Billion.

I will post more details soon but if you are interested the "10 stocks for 10 years fund" I am managing via Marketocracy has performance results available online.

Investment related:

• Annual Report by Warren Buffett
• Curious Cat Investment Books
• Curious Cat Investment Dictionary
• Curious Cat Investment Library
• Beginning of the End of Housing Bubble?
• 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Rates
  

Planet Kaizen

Toyota has a section on their web site called Planet Kaizen: "what happens when you dig a little deeper and peel back the sheet metal to discover what makes a Toyota a Toyota."

It requires flash to view Planet Kaizen. I think it has amazingly bad visual controls (as do many flash applications). I can't figure out why it would be done in flash - other than some marketing person, or IT person, thought it would be cool. I certainly don't see how kaizen practices could have produced such an application. It seems to me one of the examples of how far Toyota still has to go.

Of course, as an automobile manufacturer failing to develop web applications well, is better than failing at manufacturing cars well. I would guess that this "planet kaizen" was not created by Toyota employees but instead outsourced to someone else. If it was done internally, I think Toyota's management of marketing with technology may be in as much need of help as GM's entire management is. In any case the non-manufacturing parts of Toyota, while some are managed well, still have plenty of room to improve.

• New Toyota CEO's Views
• Flash: Flash: 99% Bad - Flash and Web-Based Applications