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Truth Or Consequences

From an early age, my life’s goal was to get at “the truth.” There were only two obvious...

And Since You Mention SNAP,

Among others oozing angst about “democratic socialist” Zohran Mamdani’s election were two...

PAST AS PROLOGUE: An Engineering Legacy

1980s photo of the author, right; his father, center; and his sister, left....

Drugs, Crime, And… Homelessness?

A commenter contested my statement that gang murders are a much greater menace to public safety...

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Fred PhillipsRSS Feed of this column.

After a dozen years as a market research executive, Fred Phillips was professor, dean, and vice provost at a variety of universities in the US, Europe, and South America. He is now Visiting Professor... Read More »

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Qualitative Research: Lessons From Rashomon

Qualitative Research: Lessons From Rashomon

Jun 30 2015 | comment(s)

In Akira Kurosawa's timeless 1950 masterpiece (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt004287

Risk Management Turned Upside Down

Risk Management Turned Upside Down

May 22 2015 | comment(s)

A true story. To protect the innocent – and the writer – I’ll use no names.

The president of a large, multi-national engineering and construction firm decided to attract more contracts by reducing customers’ risks. A sound decision, yes? 

It was what he did (which was to offer fixed-price contracts instead of cost-plus contracts) and how he did it (by developing his people and by continuous process improvement) that got him fired - even though the move was showing every sign of success.

So why was he dismissed? The answer lies in that ol’ stereotype of the corporation as an externality-generating machine.

What Business Discipline To Major In?

What Business Discipline To Major In?

Apr 28 2015 | comment(s)

You may find these remarks cynical. You may find them helpful.

Strategy

Ten Commandments For Airlines

Ten Commandments For Airlines

Apr 18 2015 | comment(s)

Following my Ten Commandments for Tech Companies – which changed their behavior not one whit – I offer these shalt-nots for US airlines.

Machine translation poetry

Machine translation poetry

Jan 03 2015 | comment(s)

Nonsensical but oddly beautiful Bing and Google translations from Facebook posts in a variety of languages:

袁嘟嘟第一次以老公的身分參加部門聚會，泡完湯好舒服

12 Common Mistakes In Empirical Social Science

12 Common Mistakes In Empirical Social Science

Dec 29 2014 | comment(s)

Management students entering my thesis prep course without having been involved in research before, or taken a probability course, reliably make these mistakes. Many students go on to do empirical quantitative theses, meaning that their misconceptions about sampling and analysis will come back to bite them.