Wednesday, May 21, 2003

More on initial conditions - The Power of Trajectory and in intervening early in all aspects of life I posted this chart a few days ago which shows how interventions in the first two years of a child's life can have a dramatic impact by grade 10. It has got me thinking more about the nature of initial conditions and trajectory. One of the reason I have been a light poster recently is that the weather has been so nice that I have been working in the garden all the time. Robin my wife has been getting our tomato plants ready for about 6 weeks. She has grown them from seed and under lights, she has provided enormous care. Even now, as we can expect more frost, they are now hardening off in a frame but not planted. Once they are planted, other than watering, there is not much we have to do. They will have reached the tipping point, where they will do most of the work themselves. I am wondering is this not a central truth. Once our children are a certain age, for better or worse they tend to get on with life and much of the destiny of their trajectory has the power. If this is true, then new companies need a huge amount of tending and nurturing in the early years. I wonder if VC would work better if a VC saw his role as a parent of a gardener. It is not enough to provide only the money. It is not helpful to be critical - if this is  a natural model, then the VC's need to find out what are the 2 essential acts that they need to perform. We know in human development that reading and touch are the most highly leveraged interactions. What is the business equivalent? 3:19:03 PM    comment []

Mad Cow - Fear - Markets Close - SARS Reloaded? Canada reports mad cow case. Canada reports its first case of mad cow disease in a decade, in the western province of Alberta. [BBC News | World | UK Edition] Another nail in the coffin of the model of the export model for Food. No matter how well contained, the trust has been lost. In the UK trust in beef has never really come back. Mad Cow and Foot and Mouth in the Uk has lead to a huge acceptance by the mainstream of organic agriculture. As each country moves to surplus or at least sufficiency, it will use any health issue to close its borders. We have seen this in Canada in the case of Wart for Potatoes in PEI, now for Beef in Alberta and using dumping for lumber in BC. Canada's history and current ag policy has ben to use our large land base to grow food for export. It is a moribund policy that cannot be sustained - it also drives terrible use of the land and water. But i think that the uncertainty of markets will do more to stop it than any environmental argument 11:42:58 AM    comment []