Can Six Sigma's purpose
help save American jobs?

     A recent feature story in the New York Times reached back almost a year to capture Apple boss Steve Jobs replying to a question about the possibility of American jobs coming home from overseas. "Those jobs aren't coming back," Mr. Jobs replied. Pretty final, wouldn't you say? Another Apple executive said, "The speed and flexibility (of Chinese plants) is breathtaking." He went on to describe how a Chinese foreman roused 8,000 workers from their dormitories at midnight, gave them each a biscuit and a cup of team, and had them at workstations inside half an hour to repair the screens on Apple's iPhone. Other US executives have been heard to say that American companies have stopped training in the mid-level skills that factories need. I couldn't stand to keep reading the Times' story. My mind, as it has been for months, flashed back to Six Sigma--A success method that has suddenly arrived--even though it's been around America and much of the rest of the world for years. I did a piece on it last month (scroll down and click "Archives" to check back to Jan. 1, 2012). But Kristen Terry's explanation of Six Sigma is the best I've heard after scrambling about the Internet for weeks. Says Ms. Terry: "Six Sigma at many organizations simply means a measure of quality that strives for near perfection." Underneath her story, some 48 comments had piled up. One said he wanted to know how to use Six Sigma usefully. Another said he worked under Six Sigma in a well-known telephone company, and found it inhuman. Still another asked how it could be applied to human resource management. Most respondents thanked Ms. Terry and begged for more information. Can many American jobs be saved if our largest and best companies employ the Six Sigma opportunity that has flashed across our computer screens? Worth a shot, I say. Here's Kristen Terry again, "To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications. A Six Sigma opportunity is then the total quantity of chances for a defect. Process sigma can easily be calculated using a Six Sigma calculator." When I began my search for more information on this covert but fast-growing formula, I thought Villanova University was one of the few places that offered it. Wrong. Search for Six Sigma and be amazed. Maybe you'll find it as fascinating as I do. (Thank you, Dick George)

Super Bowl viewers laugh
but soon forget the sponsor

     TV commercials for last year's Super Bowl were sold out by October, 2010. This season all the ads were gone by September, 2011. The 2011 game in which the Green Bay Packers made the Pittsburgh Steelers obsolete was watched by 111 million. That made it the most-watched game ever. Kind of gives you a feeling the game is the most important happening in US history. But it's not the game itself that draws large, some claim. It's the commercials. That worries me. If it's true, the United States is not only headed downhill--it's picking up speed. The senior vice president of sales and marketing for NBC recently verified that when he said, "The National Football League continues to be the gold standard of all programming." Pretty obvious, I'd say, but he didn't mention that the commercials are making morons out of the viewers. Actually selling something via commercial in the Super Bowl is impossible--a fact that's easy to understand if, for example, you're at a Super Bowl party. After a few drinks the viewers lose all sense of composure. They scream and fall on the floor at any TV ad that's even slightly amusing. They don't realize the art directors who made all the funny junk are at home, counting their money and chortling--at the viewers. It's all backwards. But each year I try to make a dent in the Bad Commercials Parade. I bet my friends and your friends that even though I lay out the worst commercials in flawless writing and publish them in my next Post (on Feb. 11) you will never, ever remember who sponsored them. Usually they come from small companies that had to steal to dredge up the $3.5 million it costs for 30 seconds. But they'd do almost anything to see their ad appear in the Super Bowl game. So the ad appears, the sponsor loves it, and it didn't account for a single sale. Such is life at Super Bowl time. Like I said, check my post on Feb. 11, and if you remember even one of the sponsors, I'll admit there was an ad that worked. Maybe.

GBS, Winston
trade classic
quotethroats

     George Bernard Shaw sent the following to Winston Churchill: "I'm enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend if you have one."

Churchill replied, "Cannot possibly attend first night. Will attend second if there is one."

     "He is a self-made man who worships his creator."

     "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"

     " When you are in any contest you should work as if there were, to the very last minute, a chance to lose it."

     "We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent."

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