Frank Paolino's Ideas...

Understanding the size of the U.S. National Debt

2011-06-21T15:06:00.001-04:00

The national debt is at its current legal limit (the "debt ceiling") of $14.3 trillion dollars. Big number. Incomprehensible number. Lots of zeros... $14,300,000,000,000.

Let me put it in perspective that we you can relate to.

There are approximately 80 million single family homes in the U.S. The average value is $170,000. Multiplying, that comes to $13.6 Trillion dollars.

Think about this for just a minute. The Uniited States government, with our alleged consent, has deemed it appropriate to borrow money "on our behalf" equal to the entire value of the single family housing stock in the United States!

So, to get an idea of the magniture of this borrowing, if you were to fly a plane from San Diego (California) to Boston (Massachusetts), looking out your window at house after house after house, know that the value of each and every home, large and small, new and old, added together and all sold (to whom?) would not pay for the national debt that has been accumulated by our government.

This is staggering, and it would be criminal for anyone else to do this except the elected government.

And for those of you who spend 40 years paying off your home mortgage, it will take the same amount of time, 40 years, for most Americans to pay off the National Debt.

Or you could have purchased a second home, but that may not be possible, and for the people who can barely afford one home, that will be out of reach, due to either increased taxes or sufficient inflation to wash away the debt.

Amazon's Appstore for Android is Brilliant!

2011-06-17T17:15:00.001-04:00

The Amazon Appstore for Android lets you try out an app on your computer before downloading it. It is a fantastic simulation of the way the app will look on your device. It supports screen gestures, like finger swipes, by using a mouse drag across the screen. In my tests, it worked identically to how it works on my Android device. Brilliant!

Here is my Heian Shodan karate app with the Test Drive Now option (click here to go to the test drive).

Here is a short video of the "app simulation" directly from the Amazon App Store. The "finger" on the screen is actually my mouse moving left to right.

How do they do it? I wasn't sure, so I checked on the Amazon website and found this:
Clicking the “Test drive now” button launches a copy of this app on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), a web service that provides on-demand compute capacity in the cloud for developers. When you click on the simulated phone using your mouse, we send those inputs over the Internet to the app running on Amazon EC2 — just like your mobile device would send a finger tap to the app. Our servers then send the video and audio output from the app back to your computer. All this happens in real time, allowing you to explore the features of the app as if it were running on your mobile device.

Android Kata App

2011-06-01T11:37:00.000-04:00

I have ported the Heian Shodan kata app over to the Android platform. It work identically to the iphone version.

It is now posted to the Android Market.

Find Heian Shodan on the Android Market

Next up will be Heain Sandan, Heian Godan and some Iaido kata from Barry Poitras.

2011-04-18T16:01:00.000-04:00

Shotokan Kata Apps for the iPhone and iPad
Heian Shodan Shotokan karate kata shows the kata move by move by swiping a finger. It also lets you look at the kata from all four sides to see the moves from different directions.

With your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad in your hand, you can review the moves of the kata in slow motion, then practice at full speed.
There are buttons to repeat a move, go backwards and start over.
The benefit over a YouTube video (and we have these, too, posted at doshikai.net) is the ability to easily stop and go back just one move, or work on 2-3 moves over and over again.
This approach offers students a way to learn the movements of a kata at their own pace, or the ability to review a kata outside the dojo, then be able to practice it in class without worrying about the moves or the sequence, thus allowing more attention in the class to correct performance of the techniques.

Heian Shodan Shotokan karate kata performed by Frank Paolino from Master Matsuyama's DoShiKai karate school.

Frank Paolino had the original idea for this app. It was designed jointly by Frank Paolino and Poul Williams

View App on Apple Appstore

DoShiKai website

Reinventing the Pizza Box

2011-03-28T14:05:00.000-04:00

Reinventing the Pizza Box

Who would have thought that the pizza box could be reinvented? I have seen hundreds of these over the years and the thought never occurred to me to ask "could this be designed any better"? Well, ecovention has done it in a creative way, using parts of the box as a serving dish and the remaining part as a small storage container that fits in the refrigerator.

BTW: I am a fan of pizza, and made my own pizza oven:

Projection Building Art

2010-11-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

This was a fantastic display of four seasons projected on the
Chapelle St Etienne de Beaune (Côte d'Or), a building in Beaune France. We were at first amazed at the artistry and creativity, and weren't sure that is was the wine from dinner ....

Global Warming Calculation

2010-11-07T11:02:00.002-05:00

I googled "Global Warming Calculation" to try to find out how much "man-made" activities are actually heating the earth. I could not find any. The idea to actually do the calculation happened over drinks when there was a lot of conversation about "of course man-made warming is real".

I pictured millions of homes burning oil, cars, truck, etc. and wanted to know what effect they have as "thermal pollution". In my mind, they would have to, but alternatively, once I am outside my house, I cannot feel the heat inside even though I know that all that heat eventually leaks outside (otherwise I would only have to heat my house once for the winter!).

I got tired of the Global Warming "Debate" based on "feelings", mine as well as others. That is when I decided to use some simple math.
So I decided to calculate how much energy it would take to heat the Earth's atmosphere one degree. It turns out if we take all of the oil produced for 56 years and burned it (assuming 100% efficiency and 100% heat retention) we could raise the temp of the atmosphere 1 degree.

Here are the calculations, which I think are accurate to within 10% (+ or - 6 years). These numbers do not prove or disprove "Global Warming", but are simple data that I thought was missing.

The Mass of Atmosphere (in kilograms) x energy needed to heat one kilogram of gas one degree.

The answer is: 9.46 x10^21 Joules.

Worldwide, 84.455,000 barrels of oil is produced daily. That is 1,294,695,150,000 gallons per year. Oil contains 1.3x10^8 Joules per gallon, making the energy 1.6831E+20 Joules per year.

Dividing 9.4576E+21 by 1.6831E+20 gives 56 years to heat the atmosphere 1 degree.

Here are the calculations:

Total Worldwide energy produced by burning all the oil produced:

84,455,000	x	365	x	42	x	1.30E+08	=	1.68E+20
barrels/		days/		gallons/		joules/		joules/
day		year		barrel		gallon		year

Total Amount of energy needed to heat the Atmosphere 1 degree. 1840 is the specific heat of air in joules.

5.1441E+18	x	1840	=	9.4651E+21
kg		joules/		joules
		kg

Dividing these numbers, we end up with years:

9.4651E+21	/	1.68E+20	=	56.24
joules		joules/		Years
		year

New NotesAppStore Reviews!

2010-06-28T16:53:00.003-04:00

New Notes App Store

2010-06-28T16:48:00.001-04:00

Vibrant Apps Community

The point of NotesAppStore is to show that there is a vibrant community building customer-tested apps for Lotus Notes. Anyone looking at Google apps can find many comparable apps in Lotus Notes. However, the Lotus Notes apps are more mature and have been field tested, some for many years. The variety and functionality of these apps also is unrivaled by anything Google offers to businesses.

The other huge distinction is vendor support. Most of the vendors in the NotesAppStore are small to midsize businesses (SMB) who are available to help install and support their Apps. They will answer the phone. This excellent app support will be critical when there is a problem. And they have references to prove it!

NotesAppStore Site Features

Under the Company Listing, I put all the Twitter name and company blogs that I could find, along with a link to the management page of each website. Again, most of these Lotus Notes App vendors are approachable leaders of small to midsize businesses who are quite visible in the Lotus community.

You can also Search for anything on the site.

There is also a place to Recommend an App and another place to Post a Comment to help make the site more useful.

So, Lotus Notes and Domino users, finally we can say "There is an App for that" !

Technical Support Done Right

2009-03-09T16:50:00.021-04:00

I often joke that, unlike in college, I face problems where the answer is not in the back of the book. Technical Support Done Right, as described below, focuses on how I find a way to solving a problem through

Subject Matter Knowledge
Ownership and
Tenacity.

Tech Support, as it is generally defined, implies giving information to a customer so they can resolve the problem. But that is not how I look at it. That definition lacks a certain quality that is critical to my own definition of Technical Support, the ability to solve problems. When you look at it from the perspective of solving problems, the definition takes on an enhanced meaning. Problem Solving means active participation in the problem until it is fixed. A minor difference? Not at all. In my mind, a Problem Solver needs to have a spirit of can-do in every case. This spirit is not just wishful thinking, but it is based on my multiple successful experiences making things work in a variety of environments.

Subject Matter Knowledge

So, as a Problem Solver I see a problem or "challenge" and I think "I have fixed many similar to this one before" and "I can certainly fix this one, too!". This makes me as a Problem Solver an optimist, not in the sense of blind optimism, but in the sense that my experience and training, combined with an attitude of "can-do" provides the tenacity to try different solutions until a successful outcome is achieved.

Ownership

Problem Solver also means taking ownership of a problem. The word "ownership" is abused via overuse, and is usually just lip service. However, for those who actually practice ownership, it is truly empowering. "I am assisting a customer" generally does not create ownership. Thinking that this is my problem to solve moves me towards action. This is an element often ignored in Tech Support organizations.

Lack of ownership manifests itself as passing the buck. I have been copied on too many tech support emails requesting my help with a support problem which are really just a form of passing the buck to me under the guise of "he is more knowledgeable". If a company had a rule that said "if you have to ask others for help, then you don't belong here", there would be a lot less people dumping their problems on others. Oftentimes the problems are hard and cause people to do hard work, which most people avoid. Work is hard, especially problem solving. If work was easy, they would call it "tennis".

Tenacity

So what does Problem Solving look like in practice? My own experience is that total immersion in a problem is not only required, it is the only way to be sure of success. I become very creative and, because I feel ownership, I start finding resources that help to resolve the problem. It is up to me as the Tech Support person to find the resources even if it is not immediately apparently what those resources are.

I often find that the biggest problem can be finding the information to help solve the problem! That is where tenacity is vital. Tech support must be tenacious in searching and researching solutions, finding others who are knowledgeable for information or blogs or other internet resources that have solved similar problems. My experience is that you make your own luck. When I dig and dig, I get lucky and find relevant information. You really don't need to know where to dig. It is the digging that is critical to finding an answer.

So, when I am solving some problem, my strategy looks a lot like this:

I have Google open in multiple windows to search for clues
The customer computer systems is visible in another window (Sametime, WebEx or GoTo Meeting, for example)
My own personal test computer system in a third window (every problem solver should have a dedicated system for testing ideas)
Additionally, I have any email or KnowledgeBase information open
One or more IM chat windows with other staffers who have similar experience.

So, think of it like "Who wants to be a millionaire". We chase the solution with the tenacity of a contestant close to the ultimate prize, we use 50/50 split to eliminate options, we "shout out" to a friend, and use all of our collected knowledge.

So, the elements of problem solving are:

Subject Matter Knowledge
Ownership of the Problem
Attitude of "Can-Do"
Tenacity when dealing with obstacles
Tapping into others who have similar experiences and knowledge
Never Quitting until there is a Solution

In my way, the job of "Tech Support" is not a dreary road, but actually a game show played by one. The prize isn't one million dollars, but I sure feel like a million dollars once I have figured it out!

Frank Paolino manages Technical Support at Maysoft.com

Kaizen in Medical Care

2009-01-07T10:14:00.003-05:00

Tom Daschle is now the Health Care czar. His ideas are laid out in his book "What we can do about the Health Care Crisis". A key aspect of this his approach is a "Federal Health Advisory Board", an innocuous sounding idea that is effectively a governing board of allowable medical procedures. It looks like a cost-savings approach to increasing health care costs. In truth, it is a powerful approach that will effectively stop payments to physicians for any procedure that is not approved by the Board.

This is not Health-Care Rationing. It is significantly worse than that. This is anti-Kaizen for healthcare. This is "no improvement" for health care, locking down treatment and limiting future health care developments. Sound unbelievable? Let me prove it to you with a little thought experiment, which I will call "It’s a Wonderful Life”: Picture the year 1950, just after the end of WWII. If we had a Daschle-esque plan implemented, with allowable care guidelines listed, creative people (physicians, University professors, pharmaceuticals and affiliated hospitals and the businesses that fund them) would have stopped innovating as their products and procedures would not be "allowed" to be purchased.

With medical care frozen in 1950, we would have polio with us today. Anyone who can remember this knows what a scourge it was, and how it ruined many good people.

Jonas Salk would have invented the vaccine in 1952, but he never got the funding to continue his research.
CT scanners were not invented by Hounsfield and Comack and they did not win a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979.
The MRI was not developed in the 1970s.
The birth control pill was not invented in 1952.
Artery stents were never invented.
Cholesterol reducering drugs do not exist.
Genentech did not develop synthetic insulin in 1980 to help diabetics.

Fast forward to today, in 2009, we do not have thousands of drugs, life savings procedures and knowledge. The list would be all the innovations of the last 50 years. Scary?

Well, with 1950s Daschle-care, we will never see some of the innovations that are being discussed, as funding for new ventures will dry up. If anyone thinks government can invent these items, they deserve the future they are going to get. His plan should be called "No more Health Care improvements. We have all the medical procedures we need".

So you see, even though the current health care system needs a lot of Kaizen to keep improving it, the wrong answer is to freeze it in the name of controlling costs. The right answer is to find ways to allow life saving innovation to continue, so we don't end up with 2009 healthcare in the year 2050.

Kaizen for Product Development

2008-11-20T08:52:00.006-05:00

Kaizen (改善, Japanese for "continuous improvement") is a very interesting concept. I attempt to apply Kaizen to product development at Maysoft. For me, this means going over each product feature and looking for areas for improvement.

For example, the most obvious feature that needs attention in the world of SpamSentinel and spam blocking in general is the need to continuously improve the block rate. When we released SpamSentinel in 2003, it blocked 70% of spam, and we were ecstatic. 2004 brought us to 90%. 2005 saw 95%. In 2006, we passed 98% block rate. In 2007, we hit 99%. Now, with SpamSentinel v7.6 we added some more blocking logic.

We are at 99.44% block rate, and we are working towards 100%. An external proof of success in the new version block rates comes from one customer comment that we recently received:

We are seeing significantly less mail & spam volume now that we are running 7.6. I have received many comments on how small spam reports are now. Very effective update.

Lee Keener, Knoxville Utilities Board

It may not be possible to achieve 100% spam blocking, but Kaizen does not say "do not try until you are sure you will succeed". In fact, just the opposite. Try little things, every day to build up to a success. Some other sayings come to mind, which I believe support our approach: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again". And Edison's famous "Genius is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration" If you substitute "Kaizen" for "Genius" you get:

Kaizen is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration

which to me means that we need to think of good ideas for improvement 10% of the time and actually work on implementing these good ideas 90% of the time.

Which brings me to urgency, another concept that I believe is intimately linked with Kaizen. Improvements that are conceived need to be implemented right away, now. There needs to be a sense of urgency. If not, Kaizen loses its focus on results and moves into the category of discussion, which produces nothing except words. Tom Peters, in his Search for Excellence book talks about "A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'. I believe you cannot have improvement without action. The risk and costs of "not thinking it through" are smaller, in my experience, than the risk of "doing nothing" or "delaying until the perfect solution is conceived".

Kaizen is a great way to guide one's thinking. You can apply it to every aspect of a product design, not just product features. For example, my Lotus Notes Spam blog is part of my personal Kaizen to improve how we communicate with resellers and customers about SpamSentinel and Maysoft. It was right after Lotusphere 2008 was finished that I decided to start writing about all the things that we were doing to help stop Lotus Notes email spam. I did not really discuss blogging, I just did it, writing the first posting, titled A Successful Lotusphere. Now this blog is an important part of the product, announcing features and explaining new options, and telling a little about how we work here at Maysoft.

For me, Kaizen is fun, as every time I attempt to improve something, I learn something new. Blogging was a whole new world for me, but I learned a lot and now I really enjoy writing these blogs.

So, my overall thought on how to apply Kaizen to work is to never stop asking the question:

How can I start making this better right now?

Three Laws of Customer Support

2008-11-13T16:32:00.000-05:00

Someone asked me why I don't hire cheaper help for our support staff for my company, http://www.maysoft.com/. You see, we only hire experienced Lotus Notes administrators or excellent Lotus Notes developers in our customer support.

So I did a little bit of math on the subject of Customer Support. Having majored in Chemistry, I like equations and formulas. These equations are beautiful, in that they are simple and precise. Today, I attempt to translate some business principles related to customer support into mathematical equations to explain the three laws of customer support.

First Law of Customer Support
(Time to Completion) = (Problem Difficulty) / (Skill Level)
Explanation: We know that (Time to Completion) is proportional to (Problem Difficulty) and inversely proportional to (Skill Level) of the problem solver.
So, the greater the skill level, the faster the problem will be resolved. The denominator, as it increases, reduces the Time to Completion element. Which brings me back to cost. Our top notch support people cost a lot more per person but they perform most jobs in a fraction of the time, so they actually cost less than mediocre talent.

Here is an area everyone likes to discuss, customer satisfaction.

Second Law of Customer Support
(Customer Satisfaction) = ( Skill Level ) / (Time to Completion)
Explanation: We know that (Customer Satisfaction ) is proportional to (Skill Level) and inversely proportional to (Time to Completion). If the time to completion approaches infinity, the (Customer Satisfaction) approaches 0. As (Time to Completion) approaches 0, then (Customer Satisfaction) approaches ∞ , meaning the customer is infinitely happy.

The greater the skill level, the greater the customer satisfaction. Otherwise stated:

Faster service (done well) = Happier Customers

Now for some advanced mathematics, with substitutions. We already saw in Law #2 that:
(Customer Satisfaction) = ( Skill Level ) / (Time to Completion)

and we know from Law #1 that

(Time to Completion) = (Problem Difficulty) / (Skill Level)

So, substituting #1 into #2 gives us:
(Customer Satisfaction) = ( Skill Level ) / ((Problem Difficulty) / (Skill Level))

Simplifying terms gives us our third law:

Third Law of Customer Support
(Customer Satisfaction)= ( Skill Level ) * ( Skill Level ) / (Problem Difficulty)

So, Customer Satisfaction is improved with the square of the Skill Level! This means that a person who is twice as good will deliver 4 times the Customer Satisfaction!

This Third Law amplifies the importance of (Skill Level) as the single most critical factor in (Customer Satisfaction).

These Three Laws are quite simple and are the reason why all of the people who handle customer support are experienced Lotus Notes administrators or excellent Lotus Notes developers. I know these items cannot be measured in units like weight or volume, but the Three Laws are still true, and they help explain results that many of us know empirically, and helps me justify paying a lot more for talented people to talk to our customers, who, by the way, ultimately pay all of the bills!

You can read other postings for Frank Paolino at his Lotus Notes Spam blog: http://blog.maysoft.org/