The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.
Benjamin Disraeli Why self-publish, then? The answer is that self-publishing enables you to determine your own fate. There’s no need to endure the frustration of finding and working with a publisher. You can maintain control over your book and its marketing, receive a greater percentage of revenues, and retain all rights and ownership. A successful self-publisher must fill three roles: Author, Publisher, and Entrepreneur—or APE The first good reason to write a book is to add value to people’s lives. Will your book add value to people’s lives? This is a severe test, but if your answer is affirmative, there’s no doubt that you should write a book. The second good reason to write a book is the same reason I play hockey: to master a new skill, not to make money. In my book (pun intended), a book should be an end, not a means to an end. Even if no one reads your book, you can write it for the sake of writing it. Memoirs, for example, fit in this category. And the number of people who want to read a book of such a pure origin may surprise you. Good Reason. The third good reason to write a book is to evangelize a cause. A cause seeks to either end something bad (pollution, abuse, bigotry) or perpetuate something good (beauty, peace, affection). Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is an example. Her cause was the environment, and her book resulted in the ban of DDT and catalyzed the start of the environmental movement. (The fourth readon is that ) Writing is therapeutic. It helps you cope with issues that seem gargantuan at the time. The process of expressing yourself about a problem, editing your thoughts, and writing some more can help you control issues that you face. APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book by Guy Kawasaki, Shawn Welch I loved this book.
Makers by Chris Anderson is one of my favorite books of 2012. This is the final bit from it, I would recommend you buy a copy and get started creating a business. D So in this appendix, I’ll (Chris Anderson) give a guide to starting with that, using the best recommended tools as of this writing. Getting started with CAD Why? All digital design revolves around software. Whether you’re downloading designs or creating them from scratch, you’ll typically need to use some sort of desktop authoring program to work with the design onscreen. CAD programs range from the free and relatively easy Google SketchUp to complex multithousand-dollar packages such as Solidworks and AutoCAD used by engineers and architects. Recommended 2-D drawing programs • Free option: Inkscape (Windows and Mac) • Paid option: Adobe Illustrator (Windows and Mac) Recommended 3-D drawing programs • Free options: Google SketchUp (Windows and Mac), Autodesk 123D (Windows), TinkerCAD (Web) • Paid option: Solidworks (Windows Recommended 3-D printing solutions • Printers: MakerBot Replicator (best community), Ultimaker (bigger, faster, more expensive) • Services: Shapeways, Ponoko Recommended 3-D scanning solutions • Software: Free Autodesk 123D Catch (iPad; Windows) • Hardware: MakerBot 3-D scanner (requires a webcam and pico projector). Use the free Meshlab software to clean up the image All in all, I recommend that you either do your laser cutting at a local makerspace such as TechShop, or send it to a service bureau that can also source the raw material for you cheaply. Recommended CNC Solutions • Hobby-sized (Dremel tool): MyDIYCNC • Semi-pro: ShopBot Desktop How to start being a Maker in electronics This is the emerging “Internet of Things,” and it starts with simple electronics such as the Arduino physical computing board. All you really need to get started with digital electronics is an Arduino starter kit, a multimeter, and a decent soldering iron. There has never been a better time to find what you need, and companies such as Sparkfun and Adafruit offer not only all the parts you’ll need, but also tutorials, If you want to take it further, you can get a digital logic analyzer, a USB oscilloscope, and a fancy solder rework station. But for starting, the items listed below will take you further than you may have thought possible. Recommended electronics gear • Starter kit: Adafruit budget Arduino kit • Soldering iron: Weller WES51 soldering station • Multimeter: Sparkfun digital multimeter Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson This second option is a future where the Maker Movement is more about self-sufficiency—making stuff for our own use—than it is about building businesses. It is one that hews even closer to the original ideals of the Homebrew Computer Club and The Whole Earth Catalog.
The idea, then, was not to create big companies, but rather to free ourselves from big companies. This hearkens back to the Israeli kibbutz model of self-sufficiency, which was forged in a period of need and philosophical belief in collective action, or to Gandhi’s model of village industrial independence in India. Of course we’re not all going to grow our own food or easily give up the virtues of a well-stocked shopping mall. But in a future where more things can be fabricated on demand, as opposed to manufactured, shipped, stored, and sold, you can see the opportunity for an industrial economy. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson What makes these new models so powerful is that they tap the “dark energy” (or, as writer Clay Shirky calls it, “cognitive surplus”) that’s been all around us already. It’s the ultimate market solution: open-innovation communities connect latent supply (talent not already employed in that field) with latent demand (products not already economical to create the usual way).
Every few generations, the fundamental means of production is transformed: steam, electricity, standardization, the assembly line, lean manufacturing, and now robotics. Sometimes this comes from management techniques, but the really powerful changes come from new tools. And there is no tool more powerful than the computer itself. Rather than just driving the modern factory, the computer is becoming the model for it. Infinitely flexible and adaptable, general-purpose industrial robots can be combined to create the universal Making Machine. And like computers, they work at any scale, from the mile-long NUMMI plant to your desktop. That—not just the rise of advanced technology, but also its democratization—is the real revolution. In the mid-1930s, Ronald Coase, then a recent London School of Economics graduate, was musing over what to many people might have seemed a silly question: Why do companies exist? Why do we pledge our allegiance to an institution and gather in the same building to get things done? His eventual answer, which he published in his landmark 1937 article “The Nature of the Firm,”33 was this: companies exist to minimize “transaction costs”—time, hassle, confusion, mistakes. When people share a purpose and have established roles, responsibilities, and modes of communication, it’s easy to make things happen. You simply turn to the person in the next cubicle and ask that individual to do his or her job. But in a passing comment in a 1990 interview, Bill Joy, one of the cofounders of Sun Microsystems, revealed a flaw in Coase’s model. “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else,” he observed, stating what has now come to be known as “Joy’s Law.” His implication: for the sake of minimizing transaction costs, we don’t work with the best people. Instead, we work with whomever our company was able to hire. Even for the best companies, that’s a woefully inefficient process. Makers: The New Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson A business is like a aircraft carrier. It is a city on the ocean, a massive machine filled with thousands of people, most of them young, and inexperienced, and it they rotate through continually, and yet it runs like a machine, efficient and effective.
How? Processes. Every single process, machine, switch, thought that can be had or done on a aircraft carrier has been reviewed, the best way to handle found, the process documented, written down, everyone trained, and then the process is reviewed to insure that everyone is following the process, and to insure nothing has changed and the process needs to be reviewed again and possibly modified. There should be only way way to do anything in your business, so everyone that does that process does it the same way. It is your job to make sure that your team can only do it the right way. When I work on a new project, particularly one that I know little about, I first find the rules, how does it work today. What tells you it is working, how do you define success, how it is not working, and then you find the rules and principles that make it work the same way consistently and create a virtual machine to make that happen. D How to fix your systems process errors for $.05 and make yourself a hero in your business10/29/2012
My job is to know is to know why some process at a customer doesn't work and then find the easiest and most cost effective way to fix it, and each time, my first step is always the same. This tool only costs $.05 in materials, a child could do it and often does, and it solves the process problem almost every time.
Anyone can do it, everyone should do it, but most never do. They should, but usually overlook it as too simple or obvious. It has worked for me in manufacturing plants, plant and warehouse layout problems, sap integrations, Microsoft AX integrations, paperwork flow, and many other applications. It is pretty much a universal tool. This tool is a Swiss army knife of business problem solving. What is it? It is simple. - Draw your process out. A nice simple rough sketch. Get a piece of paper and a pencil. Draw the work flow. Make sure that you have people with you who are involved in all steps in the process and they are helping you create the sketch. Make sure you get every move, every transaction, every single delay, every person, all the issues. Your drawing will be messy and that is good, just make sure to draw out the flow of the process you are working on as accurately as possible, no editing until done. Put it up on the wall. Does anything in the process get handled twice? If it does, there is a problem, because nothing should be handled twice. Is there dead inventory, material stuck at stations? Draw it. Inventory is there to hide a problem, if everything is working, you do not need extra inventory. Are there feedback loops so that people who aren't of the process know the results of their actions, and see when they are doing well, or not doing well? This important, because people need to know how they are doing, if there is no feedback, they think it doesn't matter. Put times on your drawing, it will surprise you. Draw your problem and every time the solution is there as well. I am a visual learner, and I see structures where others hear words, but it works for every one. Once you see the problem, the answer is obvious, you need to fix a machine, train more, redo the process line, fix process errors that cause quality errors. It is also makes you truly know your process. D |
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