June 13-14, 2011, Harvard club, Boston Massachusetts
Now there is an executive summit for busy Life Sciences IT professionals. It is a two day program that will cover technology advances on both sides of the drug approval process:
eClinical Ecosystem and the stages in clinical trials management.
Business Ecosystem looking at the issues of manufacturing and supply chain management, sourcing, direct-to-consumer programs, quality management/safety, distribution and revenue leakage issues.
Repetitive strain injury (RSI) continues to be a malody which afflicts many persons who do certain fine-motor-muscle tasks (typing, chopping, assembling parts on a manufacturing line, etc.) repetitively over a long period of time. The results (in certain persons) can be inflammation of tendons, pain, numbness, tingling, weakness and inability to function with that particular lamb (finger, wrist, arm, etc.). Afflictions which fall in the umbrella of RSI include carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, thoracic outlet syndrome, tendinitis and others. RSI may also be referred to as cumulative trauma disorder (CTD).
Some statistics point to RSI as being the most costly injury faced by industry. For example, I was in a recent presentation by a voice-recognition software manufacturer, in which they indicated that Intel (one of their customers) has actually deployed software throughout its firm which monitors the number of keystrokes which each employee types. Once the employee has exceeded a certain threshold of keystrokes for that time period, the employee is required to go home for the rest of the week. I was unable to verify this fact, but it sounds plausible.
RSI is more easily prevented than cured. Accordingly, here are some resources to give you more information on the topic.
kayak.com used to be my favorite travel search engine. It is a meta-search engine which compares the listings from a variety of other travel search engines.
Well, a new player in town takes the concept to a new level. Hipmunk provides the same meta-search capabilities, but provides them in a very useful, streamlined user interface. It also leverages an “agony algorithm” which ranks flights by a combination of price, duration and number of stops.
Fast Company magazine provide some additional description in its hipmunk review. Or just check out the hipmunk.com site and form your own opinion…
(Oh, and here are some additional “tips for flying” from Chris Brogan.)
It is rare that successful people trumpet their failures. Most communication effort seems to be centered around the applause-winning successes.
However, I came across a business publication which included some compelling failure-lessons:
Endeavor (a global organization for high-impact entrepreneurs) learned you can’t always win. In the business mantra, “Go big, or go home,” we need to spend a lot more time on the second half: “Go home.” Knowing when to shut down a failed initiative is as vital as knowing when to start one.
Three lessons from a Humane Society activist: (1) Don’t declare “mission accomplished” too early. (2) Trust, but verify. (3) Court both adversaries and allies, and use self-interest as a motivator.
Mohammed Ali teaches the studio chief of Colombia Pictures that “getting knocked down is part of being in the business. It’s inevitable. But once you know you can get up, no matter what, you become stronger and resilient.”
After surviving extraordinary challenges in a failed attempt to scale Mount McKinley (aka “Denali”), a mountaineer found that “nothing I have faced in business or in my personal life—nothing—has seemed insurmountable.”
I have not written on success and failure in a while now…
This morning, Chris Brogan distributed an interesting post on the concept of “failure as a business imperative.” In addition to the common concept of ”failing fast,” he went so far as to state that “every bit of success I’ve had has come through failing.”
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He included some interesting references, including Sam Walton, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and colleagues at HubSpot.
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Click here to read his post. I think you may find a useful gem (or two…).
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(You can also find this and a few of my other posts on “success/failure” here.)
