Newsletter – May, 2017

On My Mind
Once in a while I discover that a product or service that I LOVE is no longer available. This can be very disappointing and might even involve some minor mourning. Cisco Systems decided to stop manufacturing the Flip Video camera a couple of years ago. I still use my Flip Video camera because of the great HD video quality plus it’s so easy to transfer videos to my laptop. You can still purchase one, just search the internet. A local restaurant called the Excelsior Grill closed over a year ago which disappointed several of us in my family. It was not a chain restaurant and was not fancy, but they served good food at reasonable prices and the staff was always friendly. Now my latest disappointment – the annual Who’s Who in Baseball book was not published this year for the first time in 101 years. I looked forward every year to studying the career statistics of the current players on the thirty Major League Baseball clubs. There is a silver lining in the story in that I discovered a 2015 book titled, 100 YEARS OF who’s who in BASEBALL written by the Staff of Who’s Who in Baseball with Douglas B. Lyons. What a beautiful book! One of the lessons I’ve learned over the years is that I should strive to support and promote the products and services that I LOVE – or they might disappear forever.

Interesting Stories
I’ll be visiting Kathmandu, Nepal in September and so the news of the first mountain climbing death of the spring season in the Mount Everest area was quite sad. The mountain climber was Ueli Steck who was nicknamed “the Swiss Machine.” He was considered one of the best mountain climbers in the world at the time of his death. It is sobering to know that someone so knowledgeable, experienced, skilled, and respected could slip and fall into a crevasse. My thoughts have been with his loved ones.

Company News
There are several public events on the horizon . . . The one day Statistical Methods for Continuous Improvement course will be held May 9, 2017 at the Crowne Plaza in Plymouth, MN. A one day public Continuous Improvement for Leaders course will be held June 6 also at the Crowne Plaza. The next public Continuous Improvement Green Belt course starts June 28. The course brochures are available on the PUBLIC SEMINARS page of this website. There are some other public events coming, but the brochures are not yet available. A one day Leading Successful Standardization Activities is tentatively scheduled for July 26. The next public Strategic Improvement Master Black Belt course is scheduled to start October 10. The 9th Annual Advanced Strategic Improvement Practices Conference is scheduled for October 19. The one day Advances in Strategic Planning course is scheduled for November 9.

Intriguing Reads
I won’t be able to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting on May 6 in Omaha, Nebraska due to a scheduling conflict. I attended the last two annual meetings to learn from Warren Buffet—known as the Oracle of Omaha—and his long-time business partner Charlie Munger. Buffet is known as one of the greatest investors of all time, but it is important to remember that he is the CEO of a publicly traded company with 2016 revenues of $223+ billion. The event will be livestreamed on Yahoo Finance. I just finished studying the Berkshire Hathaway 2016 Annual Report. It is one of the most widely-read annual reports in the world. You can download it from the Berkshire Hathaway website at www.berkshirehathaway.com.