Other stuff

Cheapeners make life really fantastic for all of us – the radical cost reductions in technology

It isn’t the initial idea of a technology that makes life so fantastic for all of us. It is the next round of people who figure out how to make it ridiculously cheap that lets everyone enjoy the really cool inventions. So explains Matt Ridley, of the Wall Street Journal, in Three Cheers for the Cheapeners and Cost-Cutters.

 “A feature of innovation is that the greatest impact of a new idea comes not when the light bulb goes on over the geek’s head, but when the resulting technology eventually becomes cheap enough for many people to use—perhaps decades later.

This is the driver behind the tremendous productivity gains in the last few centuries.

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Jim Ulvog

What’s the dollar value of what a church contributes to the community?

Christianity Today points to a study which starts to answer the question.  Their article What’s a Congregation Worth? provides a nice illustration of a 1997 study by Professor Ram Cnaan. 

In his study, he quantifies an urban congregation contributes around $140,000 of value to the local community.  CT states he updated his estimate to $476,000 in 2009.

Some of the factors quantified:

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Jim Ulvog

Convergence report from La Piana Consulting, blurring boundaries – part 4

Previous posts here  and here mentioned four emerging trends identified by La Piana Consulting in their report called Convergence- How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector.  Will now discuss the last trend they have noticed.

As mentioned previously, I will be quoting from their report a lot.

 “Sector boundaries are blurring” – (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Creative visualization – astounding use of a map to show statistical data

(cross-post from Attestation Update)

A graph of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia shows the devastating losses suffered during the advance on Moscow and retreat.  It is the best illustration I’ve seen of creatively presenting a complex body of information.  Dare I say it is a beautiful graph?  Why is this of interest to us?  It shows a powerful way to communicate statistical data.

You can see the graph here at Cartographia.  Click on the map to enlarge.

One sentence of explanation allows you to interpret the entire view – (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Creative visualizations-military history illustration

(cross-post from Attestation Update)

I’ve been interested lately in creative ways to show data.  We accountants are great at absorbing a lot of numbers and finding the patterns.  Other people who don’t have our mind-set can not see what we see.  We need to find new ways to explain things.

How would you summarize the location and intensity of wars over the last several centuries?  One of my favorite historians would do that verbally over the course of a full-length book or a dozen columns.  (And I’d love every word of it too!)

Jordi Colomer has done so in a 5 minute video:

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Jim Ulvog

What you do after a discrimination claim can get you into REAL trouble

(duplicate of post from Attestation Update)

Attorney Jay Shepherd gives us 500,000 reasons to worry about retaliation claims.

He explains that when something bad happens to an employee after filing a discrimination claim, it makes it look like the employer retaliated against the employee for filing the claim.  Looks like payback.  That is a bad thing.  Very bad.  That is a serious offense in the eyes of the law.

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Jim Ulvog

Do you really need an audit? Ask the question

Might be worth your time to ask your funders if they really need to see audited financial statements.  If the only reason you’re having an audit is to meet the requirements of a few foundations, call them to see if they still need it.  Perhaps they would be happy with reviewed financial statements.

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Jim Ulvog

Did you know churches are underregulated?

Perception is reality – I really dislike that statement since it excuses people from trying to understand things they don’t understand, but then that is just my perception (yes, the last phrase is a joke!).

God knows, an article in The Economist, shows us the magazine’s perception of the church community.  Their perception is likely to be representative of many people.  (more…)

Jim Ulvog

Great example on how to apologize. Also, how to own your problem.

After the Cooks Source fiasco discussed here and other posts, it is delightful to see a company that knows how to apologize and takes clear ownership of their problem.

37signals provides a number of collaborative software products.  I don’t use their services, but I thoroughly enjoyed a book they wrote on the lessons they have learned in their business.  Enjoyed it so much I wrote an Amazon review, which I discussed here.  I read their blog everyday.  I heartily recommend it.

Anyway, last November and December their flagship program had a lot of intermittent outages.

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Jim Ulvog

Peering forward – We all need to be Futurists!

The last half of the article by La Piana Consulting in the Winter 2010 Outcomes has a section title that says Be a Futurist.  In this section they talk at length about how organizations can learn about the changes going on, study them, and then adapt. 

This will require studying the changes around us, listening to uncomfortable analysis, and putting forth the serious intellectual effort to grasp new things.  That is essentially becoming a futurist. 

Making that transition will be hard.  (more…)

Jim Ulvog