KnowledgeStar

Only Smart Companies Win

2005-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

Chapter One

What are economic paradigms and why are they important? Why is it important to know the one in which we live? How does it affect your choices for work and earning a living? How does it affect your life?

There have been three economic paradigms in recent history. They started when there was a break from things made on a small scale. They started when the things made and sold by artists, craftsmen, masters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, family farmers, merchants of handmade goods, etc. were replaced by things that were mass produced and mass consumed.

The key point is that mass production is the cornerstone of all modern economic paradigms.

First it was food that was mass produced. So the first economic paradigm was the Agricultural Revolution.

For the first time in history, many people had enough to eat. They stopped worrying about food, did not farm their own crops nor raise and slaughter their own livestock. The mass production of food marks a turning point in history. It gave people something they never had as hunter-gatherers: free time. The ability to move about and travel, even live in new places. Leave the farms and come to what were becoming the first cities.

Owning land became the key to wealth, since land used to grow food was the key to the Agricultural Economy. Land Barons were born. The landed gentry was created. Kings gave land as the highest boon for services rendered. Kings were kings because they owned all the land which is why they could give some of it away. Private property was born. My land was fenced off from your land. New nations opened up huge tracts of land because they knew that making that land productive was the key to prosperity. We managed muscles because farming was a hard, back-breaking job, even for the oxen and horses.

Next came the Industrial Economy. I believe it started with the printing press in the mid-15th century. I also believe it created a period of transition that has occurred with each new economic paradigm.

The incunabula.

The incunabula was a period in which the church still controlled the written word and, until the printing press was invented, 'books' were in limited supply. The idea of providing the masses with ideas was heretical. So the church decided that it would use the printing press for God's work and take the illuminated manuscripts from the scriptoriums in the monasteries, where all bibles were created, and print out the words and send these first 'forms' back to the scriptoriums for illumination. So the monks took the forms and added colorful pictures of devils and angels, ivy and floral scrollwork, visual 'job aids' for learning about right and wrong and what happened to you if your strayed from the path of righteousness. The pictures were important because most people alive then could not read. These first printing press books are called incunabula. They represent a paradigm shift that ultimately effected everything - your work, your play, your family, your thoughts, your life.

Once the Industrial Economy really started to steam ahead, again it was all about mass production, only this time it was the mass production of things. We managed hands.

The first things to become 'industrialized' were farming tools - cotton gin, land tillers, tractors, and more. Other things began to become mass produced as well. Cars. Trains. Ships. Stuff people needed and bought out of the Sears catalog. Typewriters, a personal printing press when you added carbon copies (the origin of cc). And so much more stuff that we not only became consumers of food but consumers in general.

The capitalist world was all about moving capital around to further the production of things (including the industrialized production of food) in order to create wealth. The wealth of nations, as recorded by Adam Smith, was built upon a culture and political system that supported mass production and mass consumption of things.

Owning the means of production was the key to wealth. The great wealthy dynasties of the industrialized world were created at this point in time. If you look at America, you see the Fords, Duponts, Gettys, Rockefellors, Kennedy's ad infinitum owning the means of prodution and becoming the kings of this era.

It also meant we needed to make sure the culture of mass consumers was healthy and working. According to John Taylor Gatto, public schools were created for this very purpose. We did not want a critically thinking, independent population focused on anything other than acquiring things. Work to spend. Spend more and work harder. Make the rich richer while you enrich your life with things. Towards the end of this economic paradigm, we invented the credit card, one of the greatest boons to mass consumption imaginable.

Since we had, in the countries that had embraced and were in the lead in these economic paradigms, all the food we could want (can you spell obesity?) and all the things we ever hoped for, we were ready to move on into the next economic paradigm.

And the Knowledge Economy was born. Peter Drucker in the late 20th century, was prescient enough to see what was coming next and named the people who labored in this new economic paradigm Knowledge Workers. What they mass produced was Knowledge. New ideas. Innovations. Know-how. They spent their days thinking, writing, communicating, meeting, disseminating, rethinking, researching, creating, innovating, designing, reading, listening to the ideas of others, sharing, collaborating. We are managing minds.

The Knowlegde Economy is so new that I think we are in that incunabula period of changeover, when we know that there has been a sea change, and most of us are just not sure what it is.

I say most of us. Not, for example, Bill Gates. The mass production of software is kowledgework. The people who make it are not producing food or cars or toasters (unless they are flying across your PC and I assume you are reading this on your PC). They write code. The meet and talk about features and functions. They compile code. They debug code (or let you play with it and debug it for them). Bill Gates is the richest man (so far) in the new Knowledge Economy because he either smart enough or kew in his gut that they key to wealth in this economic paradigm was the mass production of knowledge and the tools that enabled as many people as posible to produce knowledge for a living.

Several years ago I gave a presentation to the annual gathering of CIO's at Boeing in Southermn California. As the top CIO was leading me into the conference room she told me that the building itself has an interesting history. Originally an orchard grove for oranges, the building was first used as a giant manufacturing facility for the production of airplanes. When the demand for planes was reduced, the building was divided into floors, offices and cubicles and people spent their workdays in front of computers producing, refining, defining, revising, discussing, an communicating ideas. Ideas for new planes. Ideas for improving production of planes. Ideas about related projects that had something to do with planes. One piece of land, three economic paradigms.

The point is all they did all day was produce ideas, work with ideas, think about ideas, write and talk about ideas. There were still a small group of people who ultimately made those ideas into things - planes. But they were followed by the people who had more ideas about how to market it, sell it, teach people to fly it and so on and so on. So the Knowledge Economy is all about the mass production of ideas. Success in the Knowledge Economy is the ability to sift through all those ideas to come up with the ones that can be produced and sold. Turning ideas into money.

Now I wonder myself why is this any different that the previous Industrial Economy? Someone had the idea for the Ford. Someone had the idea for the mass production line. Someone even had the idea of the color choices of the Model T - black. Why were things and the mass production of things the underpinning of the Industrial Economy? Because it only took a few ideas to make a lot of things. And once we all had, in the advanced and advancing industrialized countries, all the things we needed, ideas became the currency of choice. Ideas for new ways of doing things. Ideas about ways to employ new technologies which were new ideas in their own right. Ideas about how to 'converge' the things that were created as a result of the new ideas. Ideas about how to change the old analog world into a digital world.

Here's another example of ideas becoming wealth in the Knowledge Economy. Steve Jobs and iTunes. Technology changes everything and digital technology changes everything faster. So someone(s) had the idea for the iPod and someone(s) else has the idea that music consumers really wanted to have the choice to only buy the music they wanted. This was a whole new idea from the old model. The old model, from the Industrial Economy, forced music consumers to buy the thing, the CD, with lots of tunes they did not want and only a few they really wanted.

The new digital model was one tune at a time. No CD. Download it directly. Pay as you go. Music on demand. A 1:1 relationship between the consumer and the producer. Only on a scale that was mass. So an entire industry was reshaped by an idea. It's happening to television, photography, medecine, and other industries that are artefacts of the Industrial Economy.

So if you want to be wealthy in the Knowledge Economy you need to be able to produce great ideas, or have people working for you who can produce great ideas. Then be able to make them real products or services, or have people who can help you make them into products or deliver them as services. Then market and sell them. And, according to Thomas L. Friedman, since the world is now flat and becoming flatter, and ideas know no boundaries, need no passport, travel in the air without wings, and can just pop into anyone's brain anytime and anywhere, being able to compete in this new Knowledge Economy is not easy. The brains of creative people are the key in this new paradigm. And the brains that take what they imagine and turn it into something or some service (or someplace as the Disney Imagineers do with Disneyland and Disneyworld) are the wealthy. They own the mass production of ideas.

Dirty Little Social Security Secret

2005-12-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT OR INDEPENDENT!

This is an important 2008 election issue for all of us.

GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOCIAL SECURITY

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years. Our Senators and Congresspersons do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago, they voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no Congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan. For all practical purposes their plan works like this: When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die. Simple isn't it?

And their pay will increase from time to time to cover any cost of living adjustments.

For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's seven million, eight-hundred thousand dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA....ZILCH....

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them.

You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds. Yet another great example of our tax dollars at work!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into every payday until we retire (an amount matched by our employer), we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement. That's one thousand dollars each and every month.

We would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits! If I start at 62 that means I only need to live to be 130!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made. That change would be to jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congresspersons. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us … and then sit back... and see how fast they fix it.

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted, and maybe a good and fair change will evolve. This is what blogging was created for in a free democratic society.

Spread the word …

copy this blog, forward it, point everyone you know to this site.

Be Knowledgeable About Bird Flu

2005-12-08T21:49:00.000-08:00

The following is taken directly from the WHO website and is important to know:

Avian influenza frequently asked questions updated 19 October 2005:

* What is avian influenza?
* Which viruses cause highly pathogenic disease?
* Do migratory birds spread the disease?
* What is special about the current outbreaks in poultry?
* Which countries have been affected by outbreaks in poultry?
* What are the implications for human health?
* Where have human cases occurred?
* How do people become infected?
* Does the virus spread easily from birds to humans?
* What about the pandemic risk?
* What changes are needed for H5N1 to become a pandemic virus?
* What is the significance of limited human-to-human transmission?
* How serious is the current pandemic risk?
* Are there any other causes for concern?
* Why are pandemics such dreaded events?
* What are the warning signals that a pandemic is about to start?
* What is the status of vaccine development and production?
* What drugs are available for treatment?
* Can a pandemic be prevented?
* What strategic actions are recommended by WHO?
* Is the world adequately prepared?

What is avian influenza?

Avian influenza, or “bird flu”, is a contagious disease of animals caused by viruses that normally infect only birds and, less commonly, pigs. Avian influenza viruses are highly species-specific, but have, on rare occasions, crossed the species barrier to infect humans.

In domestic poultry, infection with avian influenza viruses causes two main forms of disease, distinguished by low and high extremes of virulence. The so-called “low pathogenic” form commonly causes only mild symptoms (ruffled feathers, a drop in egg production) and may easily go undetected. The highly pathogenic form is far more dramatic. It spreads very rapidly through poultry flocks, causes disease affecting multiple internal organs, and has a mortality that can approach 100%, often within 48 hours.

Which viruses cause highly pathogenic disease?

Influenza A viruses1 have 16 H subtypes and 9 N subtypes2. Only viruses of the H5 and H7 subtypes are known to cause the highly pathogenic form of the disease. However, not all viruses of the H5 and H7 subtypes are highly pathogenic and not all will cause severe disease in poultry.

On present understanding, H5 and H7 viruses are introduced to poultry flocks in their low pathogenic form. When allowed to circulate in poultry populations, the viruses can mutate, usually within a few months, into the highly pathogenic form. This is why the presence of an H5 or H7 virus in poultry is always cause for concern, even when the initial signs of infection are mild.

Do migratory birds spread highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses?

The role of migratory birds in the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza is not fully understood. Wild waterfowl are considered the natural reservoir of all influenza A viruses. They have probably carried influenza viruses, with no apparent harm, for centuries. They are known to carry viruses of the H5 and H7 subtypes, but usually in the low pathogenic form.

Considerable circumstantial evidence suggests that migratory birds can introduce low pathogenic H5 and H7 viruses to poultry flocks, which then mutate to the highly pathogenic form.

In the past, highly pathogenic viruses have been isolated from migratory birds on very rare occasions involving a few birds, usually found dead within the flight range of a poultry outbreak. This finding long suggested that wild waterfowl are not agents for the onward transmission of these viruses.

Recent events make it likely that some migratory birds are now directly spreading the H5N1 virus in its highly pathogenic form. Further spread to new areas is expected.

What is special about the current outbreaks in poultry?

The current outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which began in South-east Asia in mid-2003, are the largest and most severe on record. Never before in the history of this disease have so many countries been simultaneously affected, resulting in the loss of so many birds.

The causative agent, the H5N1 virus, has proved to be especially tenacious. Despite the death or destruction of an estimated 150 million birds, the virus is now considered endemic in many parts of Indonesia and Viet Nam and in some parts of Cambodia, China, Thailand, and possibly also the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Control of the disease in poultry is expected to take several years.

The H5N1 virus is also of particular concern for human health, as explained below.

Which countries have been affected by outbreaks in poultry?

From mid-December 2003 through early February 2004, poultry outbreaks caused by the H5N1 virus were reported in eight Asian nations (listed in order of reporting): the Republic of Korea, Viet Nam, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Indonesia, and China. Most of these countries had never before experienced an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in their histories.

In early August 2004, Malaysia reported its first outbreak of H5N1 in poultry, becoming the ninth Asian nation affected. Russia reported its first H5N1 outbreak in poultry in late July 2005, followed by reports of disease in adjacent parts of Kazakhstan in early August. Deaths of wild birds from highly pathogenic H5N1 were reported in both countries. Almost simultaneously, Mongolia reported the detection of H5N1 in dead migratory birds. In October 2005, H5N1 was confirmed in poultry in Turkey and Romania. Outbreaks in wild and domestic birds are under investigation elsewhere.

Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Malaysia have announced control of their poultry outbreaks and are now considered free of the disease. In the other affected areas, outbreaks are continuing with varying degrees of severity.

What are the implications for human health?

The widespread persistence of H5N1 in poultry populations poses two main risks for human health.

The first is the risk of direct infection when the virus passes from poultry to humans, resulting in very severe disease. Of the few avian influenza viruses that have crossed the species barrier to infect humans, H5N1 has caused the largest number of cases of severe disease and death in humans. Unlike normal seasonal influenza, where infection causes only mild respiratory symptoms in most people, the disease caused by H5N1 follows an unusually aggressive clinical course, with rapid deterioration and high fatality.

Primary viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure are common. In the present outbreak, more than half of those infected with the virus have died. Most cases have occurred in previously healthy children and young adults.

A second risk, of even greater concern, is that the virus – if given enough opportunities – will change into a form that is highly infectious for humans and spreads easily from person to person. Such a change could mark the start of a global outbreak (a pandemic).

Where have human cases occurred?

In the current outbreak, laboratory-confirmed human cases have been reported in four countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Hong Kong has experienced two outbreaks in the past. In 1997, in the first recorded instance of human infection with H5N1, the virus infected 18 people and killed 6 of them. In early 2003, the virus caused two infections, with one death, in a Hong Kong family with a recent travel history to southern China.

How do people become infected?

Direct contact with infected poultry, or surfaces and objects contaminated by their faeces, is presently considered the main route of human infection. To date, most human cases have occurred in rural or periurban areas where many households keep small poultry flocks, which often roam freely, sometimes entering homes or sharing outdoor areas where children play. As infected birds shed large quantities of virus in their faeces, opportunities for exposure to infected droppings or to environments contaminated by the virus are abundant under such conditions.

Moreover, because many households in Asia depend on poultry for income and food, many families sell or slaughter and consume birds when signs of illness appear in a flock, and this practice has proved difficult to change. Exposure is considered most likely during slaughter, defeathering, butchering, and preparation of poultry for cooking. There is no evidence that properly cooked poultry or eggs can be a source of infection.

Does the virus spread easily from birds to humans?

No. Though more than 100 human cases have occurred in the current outbreak, this is a small number compared with the huge number of birds affected and the numerous associated opportunities for human exposure, especially in areas where backyard flocks are common. It is not presently understood why some people, and not others, become infected following similar exposures.

What about the pandemic risk?

A pandemic can start when three conditions have been met: a new influenza virus subtype emerges; it infects humans, causing serious illness; and it spreads easily and sustainably among humans. The H5N1 virus amply meets the first two conditions: it is a new virus for humans (H5N1 viruses have never circulated widely among people), and it has infected more than 100 humans, killing over half of them. No one will have immunity should an H5N1-like virus emerge.

All prerequisites for the start of a pandemic have therefore been met save one: the establishment of efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus. The risk that the H5N1 virus will acquire this ability will persist as long as opportunities for human infections occur. These opportunities, in turn, will persist as long as the virus continues to circulate in birds, and this situation could endure for some years to come.

What changes are needed for H5N1 to become a pandemic virus?

The virus can improve its transmissibility among humans via two principal mechanisms. The first is a “reassortment” event, in which genetic material is exchanged between human and avian viruses during co-infection of a human or pig. Reassortment could result in a fully transmissible pandemic virus, announced by a sudden surge of cases with explosive spread.

The second mechanism is a more gradual process of adaptive mutation, whereby the capability of the virus to bind to human cells increases during subsequent infections of humans. Adaptive mutation, expressed initially as small clusters of human cases with some evidence of human-to-human transmission, would probably give the world some time to take defensive action.

What is the significance of limited human-to-human transmission?

Though rare, instances of limited human-to-human transmission of H5N1 and other avian influenza viruses have occurred in association with outbreaks in poultry and should not be a cause for alarm. In no instance has the virus spread beyond a first generation of close contacts or caused illness in the general community. Data from these incidents suggest that transmission requires very close contact with an ill person. Such incidents must be thoroughly investigated but – provided the investigation indicates that transmission from person to person is very limited – such incidents will not change the WHO overall assessment of the pandemic risk. There have been a number of instances of avian influenza infection occurring among close family members. It is often impossible to determine if human-to-human transmission has occurred since the family members are exposed to the same animal and environmental sources as well as to one another.

How serious is the current pandemic risk?

The risk of pandemic influenza is serious. With the H5N1 virus now firmly entrenched in large parts of Asia, the risk that more human cases will occur will persist. Each additional human case gives the virus an opportunity to improve its transmissibility in humans, and thus develop into a pandemic strain. The recent spread of the virus to poultry and wild birds in new areas further broadens opportunities for human cases to occur. While neither the timing nor the severity of the next pandemic can be predicted, the probability that a pandemic will occur has increased.

Are there any other causes for concern?

Yes. Several.

• Domestic ducks can now excrete large quantities of highly pathogenic virus without showing signs of illness, and are now acting as a “silent” reservoir of the virus, perpetuating transmission to other birds. This adds yet another layer of complexity to control efforts and removes the warning signal for humans to avoid risky behaviours.
• When compared with H5N1 viruses from 1997 and early 2004, H5N1 viruses now circulating are more lethal to experimentally infected mice and to ferrets (a mammalian model) and survive longer in the environment.
• H5N1 appears to have expanded its host range, infecting and killing mammalian species previously considered resistant to infection with avian influenza viruses.
• The behaviour of the virus in its natural reservoir, wild waterfowl, may be changing. The spring 2005 die-off of upwards of 6,000 migratory birds at a nature reserve in central China, caused by highly pathogenic H5N1, was highly unusual and probably unprecedented. In the past, only two large die-offs in migratory birds, caused by highly pathogenic viruses, are known to have occurred: in South Africa in 1961 (H5N3) and in Hong Kong in the winter of 2002–2003 (H5N1).

Why are pandemics such dreaded events?

Influenza pandemics are remarkable events that can rapidly infect virtually all countries. Once international spread begins, pandemics are considered unstoppable, caused as they are by a virus that spreads very rapidly by coughing or sneezing. The fact that infected people can shed virus before symptoms appear adds to the risk of international spread via asymptomatic air travellers.

The severity of disease and the number of deaths caused by a pandemic virus vary greatly, and cannot be known prior to the emergence of the virus. During past pandemics, attack rates reached 25-35% of the total population. Under the best circumstances, assuming that the new virus causes mild disease, the world could still experience an estimated 2 million to 7.4 million deaths (projected from data obtained during the 1957 pandemic). Projections for a more virulent virus are much higher. The 1918 pandemic, which was exceptional, killed at least 40 million people. In the USA, the mortality rate during that pandemic was around 2.5%.

Pandemics can cause large surges in the numbers of people requiring or seeking medical or hospital treatment, temporarily overwhelming health services. High rates of worker absenteeism can also interrupt other essential services, such as law enforcement, transportation, and communications. Because populations will be fully susceptible to an H5N1-like virus, rates of illness could peak fairly rapidly within a given community. This means that local social and economic disruptions may be temporary. They may, however, be amplified in today’s closely interrelated and interdependent systems of trade and commerce. Based on past experience, a second wave of global spread should be anticipated within a year.

As all countries are likely to experience emergency conditions during a pandemic, opportunities for inter-country assistance, as seen during natural disasters or localized disease outbreaks, may be curtailed once international spread has begun and governments focus on protecting domestic populations.

What are the most important warning signals that a pandemic is about to start?

The most important warning signal comes when clusters of patients with clinical symptoms of influenza, closely related in time and place, are detected, as this suggests human-to-human transmission is taking place. For similar reasons, the detection of cases in health workers caring for H5N1 patients would suggest human-to-human transmission. Detection of such events should be followed by immediate field investigation of every possible case to confirm the diagnosis, identify the source, and determine whether human-to-human transmission is occurring.

Studies of viruses, conducted by specialized WHO reference laboratories, can corroborate field investigations by spotting genetic and other changes in the virus indicative of an improved ability to infect humans. This is why WHO repeatedly asks affected countries to share viruses with the international research community.

What is the status of vaccine development and production?

Vaccines effective against a pandemic virus are not yet available. Vaccines are produced each year for seasonal influenza but will not protect against pandemic influenza. Although a vaccine against the H5N1 virus is under development in several countries, no vaccine is ready for commercial production and no vaccines are expected to be widely available until several months after the start of a pandemic.

Some clinical trials are now under way to test whether experimental vaccines will be fully protective and to determine whether different formulations can economize on the amount of antigen required, thus boosting production capacity. Because the vaccine needs to closely match the pandemic virus, large-scale commercial production will not start until the new virus has emerged and a pandemic has been declared. Current global production capacity falls far short of the demand expected during a pandemic.

What drugs are available for treatment?

Two drugs (in the neuraminidase inhibitors class), oseltamivir (commercially known as Tamiflu) and zanamivir (commercially known as Relenza) can reduce the severity and duration of illness caused by seasonal influenza. The efficacy of the neuraminidase inhibitors depends on their administration within 48 hours after symptom onset. For cases of human infection with H5N1, the drugs may improve prospects of survival, if administered early, but clinical data are limited. The H5N1 virus is expected to be susceptible to the neuraminidase inhibitors.

An older class of antiviral drugs, the M2 inhibitors amantadine and rimantadine, could potentially be used against pandemic influenza, but resistance to these drugs can develop rapidly and this could significantly limit their effectiveness against pandemic influenza. Some currently circulating H5N1 strains are fully resistant to these the M2 inhibitors. However, should a new virus emerge through reassortment, the M2 inhibitors might be effective.
For the neuraminidase inhibitors, the main constraints – which are substantial – involve limited production capacity and a price that is prohibitively high for many countries. At present manufacturing capacity, which has recently quadrupled, it will take a decade to produce enough oseltamivir to treat 20% of the world’s population. The manufacturing process for oseltamivir is complex and time-consuming, and is not easily transferred to other facilities.

So far, most fatal pneumonia seen in cases of H5N1 infection has resulted from the effects of the virus, and cannot be treated with antibiotics. Nonetheless, since influenza is often complicated by secondary bacterial infection of the lungs, antibiotics could be life-saving in the case of late-onset pneumonia. WHO regards it as prudent for countries to ensure adequate supplies of antibiotics in advance.

Can a pandemic be prevented?

No one knows with certainty. The best way to prevent a pandemic would be to eliminate the virus from birds, but it has become increasingly doubtful if this can be achieved within the near future.

Following a donation by industry, WHO will have a stockpile of antiviral medications, sufficient for 3 million treatment courses, by early 2006. Recent studies, based on mathematical modelling, suggest that these drugs could be used prophylactically near the start of a pandemic to reduce the risk that a fully transmissible virus will emerge or at least to delay its international spread, thus gaining time to augment vaccine supplies.

The success of this strategy, which has never been tested, depends on several assumptions about the early behaviour of a pandemic virus, which cannot be known in advance. Success also depends on excellent surveillance and logistics capacity in the initially affected areas, combined with an ability to enforce movement restrictions in and out of the affected area. To increase the likelihood that early intervention using the WHO rapid-intervention stockpile of antiviral drugs will be successful, surveillance in affected countries needs to improve, particularly concerning the capacity to detect clusters of cases closely related in time and place.

What strategic actions are recommended by WHO?

In August 2005, WHO sent all countries a document outlining recommended strategic actions for responding to the avian influenza pandemic threat. Recommended actions aim to strengthen national preparedness, reduce opportunities for a pandemic virus to emerge, improve the early warning system, delay initial international spread, and accelerate vaccine development.
Is the world adequately prepared?

No. Despite an advance warning that has lasted almost two years, the world is ill-prepared to defend itself during a pandemic. WHO has urged all countries to develop preparedness plans, but only around 40 have done so. WHO has further urged countries with adequate resources to stockpile antiviral drugs nationally for use at the start of a pandemic. Around 30 countries are purchasing large quantities of these drugs, but the manufacturer has no capacity to fill these orders immediately. On present trends, most developing countries will have no access to vaccines and antiviral drugs throughout the duration of a pandemic.

1 Influenza viruses are grouped into three types, designated A, B, and C. Influenza A and B viruses are of concern for human health. Only influenza A viruses can cause pandemics.

2 The H subtypes are epidemiologically most important, as they govern the ability of the virus to bind to and enter cells, where multiplication of the virus then occurs. The N subtypes govern the release of newly formed virus from the cells

At the Water Cooler of Learning

2005-11-18T21:34:00.000-08:00

We have become obsessed with formal learning in the workplace. In our zeal to learn, we have transferred the formal model of learning into the collective mind of our corporations. Even e-learning is simply less-expensive formal learning at a distance.

Our obsession began when we decided we were in the knowledge economy. We concluded that human assets are the most important element of our collective P&L. The only way to attract, improve, and retain those assets is to offer learning. Learning makes brains physically bigger. Learning also makes them smarter. Smarter translates into faster, newer, better, and more competitive. And the competitive advantage of smarter in a Darwinian business ecosystem eventually leads to more profits. If people in your company learn what your company needs to know and do, you can get smarter. You can have a higher corporate IQ than some other company, and you can win. The only problem is that we have very little idea how real learning occurs. We spend billions of dollars on formal training and education, and then we wonder, where is the payoff?

Sometimes people do learn. They change and improve. Performance temporarily increases. Mistakes on the production line start to decrease. Safety records seem to get better. But most of the time, it’s hard to see why anyone has bothered. Organizations provide the formal learning, but little changes.

Here’s a true story that may shed some light on the matter. I was working as a mailroom clerk (“mailboy” in those days) in a giant Boston insurance company, paying my way through college. The company had no formal mailboy-training program. I just walked around for an unspecified number of days with a senior mailboy, watching and learning, asking and listening. I was a young apprentice on the move. Then, one day, when I was deemed fit and ready, I walked around on my own. And if I had a question, I went over by the water cooler (yes, they did have them back then), where the mailroom supervisor waited. After a few moments of idle chitchat, I asked, trying not to look too dumb, “So, how do you refill that postage meter stamp thing?” From that moment on, I learned everything I really needed to learn by the water cooler.

Real learning, the kind of “aha!” moment that signals the brain has connected the dots, is an absolutely wondrous and amazing mystery. It involves memory, synapses, endorphins, and encoding, and, more often than not, those accidental and serendipitous moments we call informal learning. Most real learning—the kind that sticks to the walls of the brain—is informal. That’s true even in a formal setting such as a school. Informal learning is what goes on around our formal learning process. It’s a hitchhiker sitting unobtrusively in the back seat of the school bus—a place where pedagogy has yet to go. It’s the opposite of the shining and hallowed place where teachers, instructors, professors, and even graduate assistants proudly pontificate, as the Wizard of Oz did before his hot-air balloon took off for a star called Kansas.

Let’s step back here and define “formal” and “informal” learning. Formal learning happens when knowledge is captured and shared by people other than the original expert or owner of that knowledge. The knowledge can be captured in any format—written, video, audio—as long as it can be accessed anytime and anywhere, independent from the person who originally had it. Examples of such formal knowledge transfer include live virtual-classroom courses with prepared slides, self-paced off-the-shelf instructional CBT courses, books, video- and audiotapes, team rooms in which documents are stored, digital libraries and repositories, a real-time seminar on the Web (or webinar), electronic performance-support tools, programs accessed during a job or task, instructor- led courses that follow an outline, repeatable lecture labs, a recorded Web-based meeting, or even e-mails that can be forwarded. Formal learning often requires prerequisites, pre- and post-assessments, tests, and grades, and it sometimes results in certification. It is often presented by an instructor, and attendance and outcomes are tracked.

Consider the limits of formal learning in the workplace. Because of time and cost pressures, people who teach in the corporate environment often do not have the same relationship with learners as can be found in some of the more traditional school environments. In those increasingly rare places, teachers and learners can work together over time, and the formal and informal learning begin to blend. Once you are done with a course in a company, it’s quick back to work, with the assumption that your attendance has translated into knowledge. I recently chose a course only because the marketing brochure promised that learners would have unlimited and extended access to the instructor after the course to make sure we were applying what we learned. Such access was a first for me.

Informal learning is what happens when knowledge has not been externalized or captured and exists only inside someone’s head. To get at the knowledge, you must locate and talk to that person. Examples of such informal knowledge transfer include instant messaging, a spontaneous meeting on the Internet, a phone call to someone who has information you need, a live one-time-only sales meeting introducing a new product, a chat-room in real time, a chance meeting by the water cooler, a scheduled Web-based meeting with a real-time agenda, a tech walking you through a repair process, or a meeting with your assigned mentor or manager.

Virtually all real learning for performance is informal, and the people from whom we learn informally are usually present in real time. We all need that kind of access to an expert who can answer our questions and with whom we can play with the learning, practice, make mistakes, and practice some more. It can take place over the telephone or through the Internet, as well as in person. But if informal access is not built into the formal learning process, the chances of getting past knowing to doing will be difficult at best.

Here’s one of many examples. In the early days of the personal computer, we would all go to the same course to “learn” how to use an application or operating system, and then we would go back to our desks, usually with a thick how-to manual. The problem was that we never used those manuals. Instead, we found the local “power user,” the person who for one reason or another had spent more time playing with the computer, or had taken more courses, or had learned directly from an expert, and we began to pepper that person with phone calls and show up frequently at his or her doorway or cube entrance. Two things quickly became apparent. First, the power user was teaching what people had not managed to learn in the class, and second, the power user had learned how to use the PC in a very different way: what he or she showed you was often not the way it had been taught. But it was the time I spent huddled in front of the power user’s screen when I really learned the word processing and spreadsheet and graphics programs I needed in my work. My learning may have started in the course, but it ended in the huddle.

A study of time-to-performance done by Sally Anne Moore at Digital Equipment Corporation in the early 1990s, and repeated by universities, other corporations, and even the Department of Health and Human Services, graphically shows this disparity between formal and informal learning.

To illustrate the difference between formal and informal learning, let’s consider the game of golf. If you want to learn to play golf, you can go to a seminar, read a book about the history and etiquette of golf, watch a videotape of great golfing moments, and then you can say you know something about golf. But have you really learned to play golf? You can then buy and enjoy a great e-golf game, find a golf pro, take lessons, take a simulated swing on a simulated golf course, practice putting, slice and dice balls at the driving range all weekend. After all this, you think you can do it, but have you really learned to play golf?

From your first tee shot on your first hole, it takes hours of adopting and adapting, alone and in a foursome, in all sorts of weather and conditions. You discover what you know and can do, swing all the clubs, ask all sorts of questions, fail and succeed, practice and practice some more, before you have really learned to play golf. Real learning, then, is the state of being able to adopt and adapt what you know and can do—what you have acquired through formal learning—under a varying set of informal circumstances. It accounts for about 75 percent of the learning curve. In the mailroom, it was 100 percent of my learning curve.

I call this the 75/25 Rule of Learning. We get only about 25 percent or less of what we use in our jobs through formal learning. Yet the majority of companies are currently involved only with the formal side of the continuum. Most of today’s investments in corporate education are on the formal side. The net result is that we spend the most money on the smallest part of the learning equation.

The other 75 percent of learning happens as we creatively adopt and adapt to ever changing circumstances. It happens when we ask someone a question at the water cooler—and get an answer. So the informal piece of the equation is not only larger, it’s crucial to learning how to do anything. Do we take it into account when we think about teaching someone how to do something? Do we consider it in the workplace when we collectively spend billions of dollars on training, learning, and e-learning? Of the hundreds of corporate executives and managers I’ve spoken with and interviewed, the answer today is invariably no.

In the workplace, where everything is focused on performance and performance is everything, we need to add the informal piece into the equation for any real learning to take place. We need to factor those accidental, informal intersections of learning and performance into the process. That’s the whole point of what you are reading, what your eyes are taking into your brain, and hopefully what you are beginning to see and learn. We need to understand that the informal side of the equation requires real people in real time: mentors, coaches, masters, guides, power users, subject-matter experts, communities of practice. We need to foster informal moments of knowledge transfer.

How? There’s an old workplace joke that goes, “See that person? She’s the smartest person in the company. And do you know who is the next smartest? The person sitting next to her.” If we want to become smarter companies, we need to encourage informal learning. We need to create what I have been calling collaborative learning environments, where we seamlessly knit together formal and informal learning. We need to use technology to facilitate the informal as well as the formal transfer of knowledge by including expert locators, e-mail connections with instructors, real-time Internet meeting places, virtual-learning support groups, instant messaging, expert networks, mentor and coaching networks, personal e-learning portals, moderated chats, and more. We need to start taking advantage of the tools and technology that exist today and those coming online tomorrow. We need to create the 100 percent learning solution, in which the proscribed formal learning events and the serendipitous learning moments are given equal value.

Formal learning is only the beginning of the challenge, not the end. I think I’ll go back to the water cooler and see what else I can learn.