serology bulldog: May 2013

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Tripshare wants to remove travel planning pain via real and ... - Tnooz

Like so many trip planning sites, Tripshare?grew out of a desire to apply some modern technology to offline itinerary planning and sharing.

The company was founded in 2011 but only emerged from beta last week with the launch of an enhanced application for iPad.

Founder and CEO Bob Dana, who formerly headed up finance at Virgin America, is joined by Eric Kapke as vice president of engineering and acting chief technology officer. Kapke replaces the original CTO Ken Goto.

To date the company has received $1.47m in funding from three external rounds and it plans to raise additional funding in the third quarter of this year.

Here?s Tripshare?s take on the size of its potential market:

OTA commissions are roughly $15-20 billion, dominated by hotel bookings. If just 10% of such bookings are for trips that would benefit from the use of draft itinerary creation and sharing, then Tripshare?s total addressable market is $1.5-2.0 billion. As an affiliate, our share of this market opportunity is 40-50%. The market opportunity is further reduced because Tripshare?s booking capability is presently limited to the iPad, though the company expects to add booking from the web in Q3 2013.

Competition is just about everyone from OTAs, meta-search engines and flash deal sites to travel supplier direct websites and applications although they don?t tend to offer itinerary creation and sharing tools.

Further competition lies in social travel sites and applications including Igougo, Gogobot (TLabs here), Wanderfly (acquired by Tripadvisor in October), Trippy (TLabs here)and the list goes on although Tripshare sees these as more focused on the inspiration phase with heavy emphasis on sharing.

A third category of rivals is the companies focused on creating real, multi-category itineraries with dates and times such as Tripomatic (TLabs here), Triporama, Yahoo?s Goplanit, Utrip (TLabs here), Plnnr?(TLabs here)and Traverik (TLabs here) although Tripshare says none have the ability to store and update price and availability.

When it comes to making money, Tripshare gets a share of revenue from affiliate distribution agreements in place with content partners including Expedia Affiliate Network, Fly.com, Viator and HomeAway. The hope is to attract users and become profitable via features and functionality.

Describe what your start-up does, what problem it solves (differently to what is already out there) and for whom?

Tripshare is the first travel planning app to let users create bookable itineraries with actual dates, prices and availability for flights, hotels, vacation rentals and tours. Tripshare trips are more than wish lists. They are real and actionable.

It is ideal for complex trips or for people who plan travel meticulously. Tripshare is also a good fit for small groups traveling together to attend weddings, family reunions, or sports events. The team also sees interest from professionals including travel agents, tour guides and B&B and vacation rental owners who seek a better form of communicating itinerary information to, and getting feedback from, customers.

Why should people or companies use your startup?

Online travel offers many services for inspiration and for booking, but between them is a gap ? the need to collect, organize, and share specific information before committing. For complex trips or to collaborate with others, travel planners create draft itineraries. Tripshare?s research shows that 55% of US adults have made itineraries, overwhelmingly for leisure travel. Yet modern tools are lacking; over half of these itineraries are still created with pencil and paper.

Tripshare aims to bring the draft itinerary into the 21st century with multi-category map-based search, a drag-n-drop trip editor, and trip ?meta data? (photos, descriptions, reviews and pricing) that is not only stored with the itinerary but update-able in real time and available to anyone with whom the trip is shared.

Other than going viral and receiving mountains of positive PR, what is the strategy for raising awareness and getting customers/users?

As an iPad app, initially we will benefit from positioning within Apple?s iTunes App Store, eg on May 16th their editorial staff designated us as a ?New & Noteworthy? app in the travel category. Tripshare also hopes to gain traction by focusing on early adopters who actively create and share trips for other people to use. Consumers may see Tripshare as a ?tool for self expression?, creating and sharing trips much the same way they create and share music playlists.

With the introduction of trip creation on our website, Tripshare expects to broaden its appeal to professionals including travel agents, tour guides and B&B and vacation rental owners. We hope professionals will use our product for ?B2C trip sharing? as a way to convert leads into customers. In the second half of 2013 we expect to introduce features that address this market specifically via a Pro account. Each trip shared exposes us to a new potential user.

How did your initial idea evolve? Were there changes/any pivots along the way? What other options have you considered for the business if the original vision fails?

We have remained true to the concept of trip creation, sharing and booking in a single experience. What we learned through our soft launch and feedback from our first 20,000 downloads is that users wanted (i) more browse-able featured content prior to the exercise of creating a new trip, and (ii) a simpler, more intuitive interface. Our new release, Tripshare v2.0 for the iPad, addresses these issues.

If retail consumer adoption proves more difficult than expected, then we will focus more of our resources on the professional community, especially traditional travel agents. Tripshare can replace existing back-end supplier sources with content that is commission-able to travel agents, optimizing our product for that market. If consumers like our product but we find it too time consuming or expensive to build the Tripshare brand, we can pursue white label opportunities as well.

Where do you see yourselves in 3 years time, what specific challenges do you hope to have overcome?

Tripshare?s product strategy is based on making continual advances in four core areas:

Content
Features
Platforms
Community

2013 will be about bringing Tripshare to the web and adding one or two new content partners that add new categories of content, e.g. car rentals. With incremental funding we will also bring Tripshare to the iPhone. 2014 will be all about creating a community.

In three years, we hope to have at least a million active users and to be profitable. We will be delighted if we are seen as ?Tripit for before you book.?

What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that requires another startup to help it out?

We are first and foremost a technology company and we are tackling one of online travel?s hardest problems ? the draft itinerary. People already create draft itineraries for complex trips, to gain consensus on travel decisions, or to persuade others to join them. Our research shows that over half of such trips are still made with pencil/pen and paper.

Our challenge lies in combining multi-category search, cloud-based itinerary storage, real-time synchronization and price/availability updating, and booking into a simple, intuitive interface that consumers can use without a 50-page operating manual. Others have tried and come up short. We hope our winning combination will be based on deep experience, strong technical capability, focus on our core mission, and above all the courage of our convictions.

Tnooz view:

When Tnooz and its team of nodes set out predictions for 2013, mobile apps and B2B startups were tipped by many. Tripshare has both these elements and perhaps it will be those that see it through these first difficult years. And, so far, it?s funded.

However, with just about everyone, old and new as your competitor, you?ve got to wonder how another trip planning service will gain traction. Only last week social travel app Twigmore decided to call it a day, in November Gtrot pivoted to become a gift service while a year ago travel inspiration startup Joobili closed.

All of that said, Tripshare has lots going for it, established affiliate distribution partnerships, an improved user interface after months of feedback and a nifty trip editor tool to name just a few.

Up next will be a bookable website and more funding and if B2C and building a community proves too difficult, time-consuming and expensive the startup will explore further B2B and white-label options.

Tripshare seems to be setting out its store based on the ability to store and update itineraries with the latest pricing and availability and only time will tell if the technology is good enough to alleviate the pain of trip planning (and booking) once and for all.

Just another startup with ?trip? in its name or something more?

Video:

NB: TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.

Fortnighter aims to bring travel writer trip itineraries to the masses
TouristPath wants to be the world?s largest tourism database with social travel planning thrown in
Tripomatic enters busy planning and personal travel itinerary market

Source: http://www.tnooz.com/2013/05/21/tlabs/tripshare-wants-to-remove-travel-planning-pain-via-real-and-actionable-itineraries/

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Flood insurance info available on hotline - The Independent Media ...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? The National Flood Insurance Program has set up a hotline to provide information to Louisiana residents.

Information on the flood program or requests for loss histories on properties can be obtained by calling 800-427-4661.

Policyholders with questions about their claims can speak with flood insurance program specialists at the same number.

DuBos: parallels between shooting and Katrina
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
Sentell finally figures out Lefkowith lives in LA
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
More from Aswell on the online courses
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
Sherman on Jindal's higher ed cuts
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
Too many elections, CB says
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
Jeff Parish officials getting sweet retirement deal
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
Q&A with Pinsonat on this year's session
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
RSD leaves charter out to dry on food funds
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.

Most Read

David Calhoun, ?EB? Brooks join Lafayette Central Park
David Calhoun and Elizabeth ?EB? Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government?s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
Update: PXP creating 600 jobs averaging 100k
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
Remembering Ricky Rees
The veteran police officer remembered by friends for his large and small acts of kindness will be laid to rest Wednesday.
Zachary Barker takes helm of the Opportunity Machine
Zachary Barker continues making waves in Lafayette?s business scene, mostly recently being named director of the Opportunity Machine.
Shakin' at the Shack
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin? going on at Benny?s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and caf?, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.

in case you missed it

COOL TOWN 2013
This year?s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A curious compact
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
Pooyie 2012
It's good, it's bad and it's just plain crazy.
Saving Saturday Night
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Posthaste vs. HART FORTENBERY
Lafayette?s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.

Source: http://www.theind.com/news/indreporter/13940-flood-insurance-info-available-on-hotline

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Papa's Pilar Rum: The Launch Party | Florida Keys Girl

Check out the cool bottle, complete with (non-working) compass on top!

There are a few keys to having a good party: good food, good drinks and entertaining people. I am happy to report that the launch party for the new Papa?s Pilar rum had all three.

The far end of Sunset Pier at the Ocean Key Resort was closed off Friday evening for the party. Papa?s Pilar is a new brand of rum with

The menu from the Cuba station

blonde and dark versions, named, of course, after Ernest Hemingway?s fishing boat, Pilar. The Hemingway family worked with marketing and branding people to create the blended rums. First impressions: the blonde rum, is light but flavorful and stands up well on its own, or in a cocktail; the dark rum is more complex, and is better on its own than in a cocktail. Both are delicious. The rums are blended, and aged in bourbon and port wine barrels and finished in Spanish Sherry casks, making these complex spirits.

Daiquiri-like, make you pucker, yumminess

The launch party was a blast. With several stations serving a cocktail, pass around hors d?oerve and main dish each inspired by a period in Ernest Hemingway?s life, there was plenty to eat and drink. From his big game hunting safaris in Africa come the inspired mojito made with coconut water, maraschino liqueur and grapefruit bitters in addition to the requisite lime, syrup and rum. (This was the most popular station for cocktails, as there were people gathered by that bar all evening.) ?It was paired with a fig and blue cheese crostini pass-around, as well as Jamaican jerk chicken with a black bean salsa as a main dish.

Even the main dishes were easy to eat, as both the chicken and ceviches were served on spoons. (There were

FKGuy having a good time at the party

plenty of those adorable spoons, so party-goers may have had several of one dish. ?I may have been one of those party-goers.) The roast pork (inspired by Papa?s Cuba days) was carved and served with black beans. That one necessitated a plate and fork. One of my other favorite drinks was from that same station. The daiquiri-inspired E. Hemingway Special, with blonde rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur was tangy, light and refreshing. I had several of those.

Mahi mahi ceviche, from the Key West station

Several members of the Hemingway family were on hand to help launch this tasty product, as well as give some insight into the Hemingway Family Foundation charitable?endeavors. Overall, it was an evening not soon forgotten.

If you are in your local liquor shop and see Papa?s Pilar, I highly recommend picking up a bottle. Or three. Have you had this yet? Let me know what you think!

Source: http://floridakeysgirl.com/2013/05/papas-pilar-rum-the-launch-party/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=papas-pilar-rum-the-launch-party

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Golf adopts rule to ban anchored putting stroke

Adam Scott of Australia putts on the 15th green during the first round of The Players championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass, Thursday, May 9, 2013 in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Golf's governing bodies approved a rule Tuesday that outlaws the putting stroke used by four of the last six major champions, a move opposed by two major golf organizations that contend long putters are not hurting the game.

The Royal & Ancient Golf Club and U.S. Golf Association said Rule 14-1b will take effect in 2016.

"We recognize this has been a divisive issue, but after thorough consideration, we remain convinced that this is the right decision for golf," R&A chief executive Peter Dawson said.

The new rule does not ban the long putters, only the way they commonly are used. Golfers no longer will be able to anchor the club against their bodies to create the effect of a hinge. Masters champion Adam Scott used a long putter he pressed against his chest. British Open champion Ernie Els and U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson used a belly putter, as did Keegan Bradley in the 2011 PGA Championship.

"We strongly believe that this rule is for the betterment of the game," USGA President Glen Nager said. "Rule 14-1b protects one of the important challenges in the game ? the free swing of the entire club."

The announcement followed six months of contentious debate, and it might not be over.

The next step is for the PGA Tour to follow the new rule or decide to establish its own condition of competition that would allow players to anchor the long putters. PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said in February the USGA and R&A would be "making a mistake" to adopt the rule, though he also has stressed the importance of golf playing under one set of rules.

"I think it's really important that the PGA Tour ? and all the professional tours ? continue to follow one set of rules," USGA executive director Mike Davis said. "We have gotten very positive feedback from the tours around the world saying that they like one set of rules, they like the R&A and USGA governing those. So if there was some type of schism, we don't think that would be good for golf.

"And we are doing what we think is right for the long-term benefit of the game for all golfers, and we just can't write them for one group of elite players."

The tour said in a statement it would consult with its Player Advisory Council and policy board to determine "whether various provisions of Rule 14-1b will be implemented in our competitions, and if so, examine the process for implementation."

PGA of America President Ted Bishop, who had some of the sharpest comments over the last few months, also said his group would discuss the new rule ? and confer with the PGA Tour ? before deciding how to proceed.

"We are disappointed with this outcome," Bishop said. "As we have said publicly and repeatedly during the comment period, we do not believe 14-1b is in the best interest of recreational golfers and we are concerned about the negative impact it may have on both the enjoyment and growth of the game."

Some forms of anchoring have been around at least 40 years, and old photographs suggest it has been used even longer. It wasn't until after Bradley became the first major champion to use a belly putter that the USGA and R&A said it would take a new look at the putting style.

"It can never be too late to do the right thing," Nager said.

Those in favor of anchored putting argued that none of the top 20 players in the PGA Tour's most reliable putting statistic used a long putter, and if it was such an advantage, why wasn't everyone using it?

"Intentionally securing one end of the club against the body, and creating a point of physical attachment around which the club is swung, is a substantial departure from that traditional free swing," Nager said. "Anchoring creates potential advantages, such as making the stroke simpler and more repeatable, restricting the movement and rotation of the hands, arms and clubface, creating a fixed pivot point, and creating extra support and stability that may diminish the effects of nerves and pressure."

The governing bodies announced the proposed rule on Nov. 28, even though they had no data to show an advantage. What concerned them more was a spike in usage on the PGA Tour, more junior golfers using the long putters and comments from instructors that it was a better way to putt. There was concern the conventional putter would become obsolete over time.

The purpose of the new rule was simply to define what a putting stroke should be.

"The playing rules are not based on statistical studies," Nager said. "They are based on judgments that define the game and its intended challenge. One of those challenges is to control the entire club, and anchoring alters that challenge."

The topic was so sensitive that the USGA and R&A allowed for a 90-day comment period, an unprecedented move for the groups that set the rules of golf. The USGA said about 2,200 people offered feedback through its website, while the R&A said it had about 450 people from 17 countries go through its website.

Among those who spoke in favor of the ban were Tiger Woods, Brandt Snedeker and Steve Stricker.

"I've always felt that in golf you should have to swing the club, control your nerves and swing all 14 clubs, not just 13," Woods said Monday.

Tim Clark and Carl Pettersson have used the long putter as long as they have been on the PGA Tour. Scott switched to the broom-handle putter only in 2011, and he began contending in majors for the first time ? tied for third in 2011 Masters, runner-up at the 2012 British Open, his first major victory in the Masters last month.

"It was inevitable that big tournaments would be won with this equipment because these are the best players in the world, and they practice thousands of hours," Scott said after winning the Masters. "They are going to get good with whatever they are using."

It was Clark's dignified speech to a players-only meeting ? with Davis from the USGA in the room ? that helped sway the tour's opinion to oppose the ban.

Davis and Dawson said their research indicated the opposition to the new rule was mainly in America. The European Tour and other tours around the world all backed the ban.

Players can still use the putter, but it would have to be held away from the body to allow free swing. Mark Newell, head of the USGA's rules committee, said the rule would be enforced like so many others in golf ? players would have to call the penalty on themselves.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-05-21-GLF-Long-Putters/id-b740c2a792c64737a15cce9982249697

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Arduino Yun weds Arduino, WiFi and linux at Maker Faire 2013

The Arduino Robot wasn't the only interesting product the Italian company launched at Maker Faire this past weekend. Arduino Yún combines a Leonardo board (featuring Atmel's ATmega32u4) with a MIPS-based WiFi SoC (Atheros AR9331) running Limino (an OpenWRT / linux derivative). It includes everything you'd expect from a Leonardo board plus WiFi, wired Ethernet, a USB host port and a microSD card slot. The Arduino side can be programmed wirelessly and communicates with the WiFi SoC via SPI and UART interfaces using the new Bridge Library, which delegates networking to the linux side. Out of the box, the board behaves just like any standard WiFi access point with a full web interface -- it even allows SSH access. Arduino Yún is the first of a family of WiFI-enabled products and will be available late June for $69. Check out the gallery below for some closeup shots, and follow the source for more details.

Gallery: Arduino Yu?n at Maker Faire 2013

Filed under: Misc, Wireless

Comments

Source: Arduino blog

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/FiIAQrfYf8w/

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Monday, May 20, 2013

Tea party looks to take advantage of moment

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Is the tea party getting its groove back? Shouts of vindication from around the country suggest the movement's leaders certainly think so.

They say the IRS acknowledgement that it had targeted their groups for extra scrutiny ? a claim that tea party activists had made for years ? is helping pump new energy into the coalition. And they are trying to use that development, along with the ongoing controversy over the Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attacks and the Justice Department's secret seizure of journalists' phone records, to recruit new activists incensed about government overreach.

"This is the defining moment to say 'I told you so,' " said Katrina Pierson, a Dallas-based tea party leader, who traveled to Washington last week as the three political headaches for President Barack Obama unfolded.

Luke Rogonjich, a tea party leader in Phoenix, called the trio of controversies a powerful confluence that bolsters the GOP's case against big government. "Suddenly, there are a lot of things pressing on the dam," said Rogonjich.

It's unclear whether a movement made up of disparate grassroots groups with no central body can take advantage of the moment and leverage it to grow stronger after a sub-par showing in last fall's election had called into question the movement's lasting impact. Republicans and Democrats alike say the tea party runs the risk of going too far in its criticism, which could once again open the door to Democratic efforts to paint it as an extreme arm of the GOP.

"Never underestimate the tea party's ability to overplay its hand," said Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee. "Just because there is universal agreement that the IRS went too far, that should not be misread as acceptance of the tea party's ideology of anger."

At the very least, furor over the IRS devoting special attention to tea party groups claiming tax-exempt status is giving the tea party more visibility than it has had in months, and it's providing a new rallying cry for tea party organizers starting to plot how to influence the 2014 congressional elections. The law allows tax-exempt organizations to lobby and dabble in politics as long as their primary purpose is social welfare.

The tax-agency scandal ? it has led to the acting IRS commissioner's ouster, a criminal investigation and Capitol Hill hearings ? seems to validate the tea party's long-held belief among supporters that government was trampling on them specifically, a claim dismissed by ousted commissioner Steven T. Miller. He has called the targeting "a mistake and not an act of partisanship."

Nevertheless, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., elected in 2010 with tea party backing, said the IRS scandal "confirms many of the feelings that led to the tea party movement in the first place."

"What's happened here is a reminder of, this is what happens when you expand government," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That and the disaster that is Obamacare is going to be a real catalyst in 2014 and beyond."

Tea party activists hope they also can drive support ahead of the elections by stoking widespread suspicions that the Obama administration and State Department are hiding key details about the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The seizure of Associated Press phone records also plays into their argument that government is too intrusive.

Tea party activists have tried to take advantage of the issues that have put some of their central tenets ? limited government and civil liberties ? in the spotlight.

From around the country last week, they headed Washington to hold a news conference on the Capitol steps and meet with members of Congress. Those who stayed home jammed House and Senate phone lines with calls urging congressional action as the IRS saga unfolded. An email from Teaparty.org that was sent to activists proclaimed: "We've worked so hard these past few years and it's paying off! We're witnessing the unraveling of a presidency at an unprecedented rate."

Freedomworks, a national tea party group, spent the week circulating petitions for congressional hearings and encouraging leaders of local groups who believe they have been targeted by the IRS to include their story on a national database to build the case against the agency.

"Perhaps all this attention will break something loose," said Jim Chiodo, an activist from Holland, Mich.

It wasn't long ago that the tea party was the hot new political kid on the block, bursting onto the national scene during the contentious summer debate over health care in 2009. Over the next few years, the loosely affiliated conservatives and civil libertarians would leave their mark on the 2010 elections by helping Republican candidates win Senate races in Florida, Kentucky, Utah and Wisconsin and scores of House races.

Those victories resulted in House and Senate Republican caucuses getting pushed to the right in legislative battles, making life difficult for Obama and his Democrats in an era of divided government.

But the movement's success was muted in 2012 when Republicans nominated the establishment-backed Mitt Romney for president, though he did little to inspire the tea party. He lost, and so did many tea party-backed House and Senate candidates.

Now, tea party activists say they are emboldened and won't be afraid to recruit candidates to run in Republican primaries against incumbents who appear to go easy on the Obama administration, particularly in light of the IRS scandal.

"It's one of those issues we should just raise hell about," said Nashville Tea Party leader Ben Cunningham.

Some say they're now even more suspicious of government than before.

"I personally feel so vindicated," said Mark Falzon, a New Jersey tea party leader. But he added: "What's scaring me now is what's going on below the water line that we're not seeing."

Republicans say that the tea party will have an opportunity come 2014 to make its mark again, particularly with Obama not at the top of the ticket. Also, they say that with Obama's health care law going into effect and with the slew of latest controversies, they now have concrete issues to point to when arguing against government overreach.

"Suddenly, this is a very real demonstration of too much power ceded to government bureaucrats," said Matt Kibbe, president of Freedomworks. "This is no longer theoretical."

___

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Boston and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Follow Thomas Beaumont on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Tom_Beaumont

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tea-party-looks-advantage-moment-131128674.html

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Sing us the song of the century, that?s louder than violent mortality (Unqualified Offerings)

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

96% War Witch

All Critics (48) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (2)

Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen spent nearly a decade researching this docudrama about child soldiers in Africa, and the film feels as authoritative as a first-hand account.

A haunting take on unspeakably grim subject matter, shot on location in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A powerful and upsetting portrait of a young girl compelled into unimaginably horrific circumstances.

Nguyen, astonishingly, manages to wring something vaguely like a happy ending from this tragic story.

War Witch is most effective not when we are looking in on Komona but when we are inside her head.

The powerful things we expect from "War Witch" are as advertised, but what we don't expect is even better.

... driven by a remarkably natural, unaffected performance by Mwanza. And Nguyen, despite relying a little too heavily on the initial voice-over for exposition, is a confident and sensitive intelligence behind the camera.

You're likely to ponder its images, its insights into a very foreign (for most of us) location and the tragic situation of Komona (and others like her) for a long time to come.

Is it accurate depiction of Africa's child soldiers? I don't know, thank God. But it feels authentic to its very core, and that makes it as hard to forget as it is to ignore.

Brutal without turning exploitative, the result is harrowing and heartbreaking.

Nguyen creates a mesmerizing tone through his camerawork, editing, sound and the infusion of African folk imagery and ritual, but it's Mwanza's performance as Komona that makes "War Witch" feel so miraculous.

Nguyen reportedly worked on "War Witch" for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.

Made with extremely clear-eyed restraint from harangues, sentiment, message-mongering, or anything else that would cheapen its central character's suffering and fight.

War Witch features a standout performance by Rachel Mwanza, but the supernatural visions don't really suit the film's tone and mood.

Nguyen's compassion and commitment to the issue is admirable, and at its best, War Witch is devastating.

War Witch is remarkable for the fact that it never strays into sentimentality or sensationalism.

...a love story between youngsters who are forced to become adults all too early in their lives.

This is a straight ahead essay on warfare at its worst and the survival of the human spirit at its best.

An astonishing drama set in Africa that vividly depicts the courage and resiliency of a 12-year-old girl whose spiritual gifts enable her to survive.

It is astonishing that film that contains such violence can have such a serene tone. The source of the serenity is the measured, calm narration by Komona (voice of Diane Umawahoro) that is the telling of her story to her unborn child

An exquisitely made film in direct contrast to the ugliness of its subject matter

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war_witch/

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New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged

Friday, May 17, 2013

Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region.

They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture ?before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.

Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that traditional archaeobotany techniques are not possible.

Now, thanks to a new method of analysis on ancient grinding stones, the archaeologists have uncovered evidence that agriculture could predate the advent of rice in the region.

The research was the result of a two-year collaboration between Dr Huw Barton, from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, and Dr Xiaoyan Yang, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.

Funded by a Royal Society UK-China NSFC International Joint Project, and other grants held by Yang in China, the research is published in PLOS ONE.

Dr Barton, Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, described the find as 'hitting the jackpot': "Our discovery is totally unexpected and very exciting.

"We have used a relatively new method known as ancient starch analysis to analyse ancient human diet. This technique can tell us things about human diet in the past that no other method can.

"From a sample of grinding stones we extracted very small quantities of adhering sediment trapped in pits and cracks on the tool surface. From this material, preserved starch granules were extracted with our Chinese colleagues in the starch laboratory in Beijing. These samples were analysed in China and also here at Leicester in the Starch and Residue Laboratory, School of Archaeology and Ancient History.

"Our research shows us that there was something much more interesting going on in the subtropical south of China 5,000 years ago than we had first thought. The survival of organic material is really dependent on the particular chemical properties of the soil, so you never know what you will get until you sample. At Xincun we really hit the jackpot. Starch was well-preserved and there was plenty of it. While some of the starch granules we found were species we might expect to find on grinding and pounding stones, ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts, lotus root and the fern root, the addition of starch from palms was totally unexpected and very exciting."

Several types of tropical palms store prodigious quantities of starch. This starch can be literally bashed and washed out of the trunk pith, dried as flour, and of course eaten. It is non-toxic, not particularly tasty, but it is reliable and can be processed all year round. Many communities in the tropics today, particularly in Borneo and Indonesia, but also in eastern India, still rely on flour derived from palms.

Dr Barton said: "The presence of at least two, possibly three species of starch producing palms, bananas, and various roots, raises the intriguing possibility that these plants may have been planted nearby the settlement.

"Today groups that rely on palms growing in the wild are highly mobile, moving from one palm stand to another as they exhaust the clump. Sedentary groups that utilise palms for their starch today, plant suckers nearby the village, thus maintaining continuous supply. If they were planted at Xincun, this implies that 'agriculture' did not arrive here with the arrival of domesticated rice, as archaeologists currently think, but that an indigenous system of plant cultivation may have been in place by the mid Holocene.

"The adoption of domesticated rice was slow and gradual in this region; it was not a rapid transformation as in other places. Our findings may indicate why this was the case. People may have been busy with other types of cultivation, ignoring rice, which may have been in the landscape, but as a minor plant for a long time before it too became a food staple.

"Future work will focus on grinding stones from nearby sites to see if this pattern is repeated along the coast."

###

University of Leicester: http://www.leicester.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Leicester for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 47 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128302/New_discovery_of_ancient_diet_shatters_conventional_ideas_of_how_agriculture_emerged

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Video: Invasive crazy ants are displacing fire ants in areas throughout southeastern US

Friday, May 17, 2013

Invasive "crazy ants" are displacing fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. It's the latest in a history of ant invasions from the southern hemisphere and may prove to have dramatic effects on the ecosystem of the region.

The "ecologically dominant" crazy ants are reducing diversity and abundance across a range of ant and arthropod species ? but their spread can be limited if people are careful not to transport them inadvertently, according to Ed LeBrun, a research associate with the Texas invasive species research program at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in the College of Natural Sciences

The study by LeBrun and his colleagues was published in Biological Invasions.

"When you talk to folks who live in the invaded areas, they tell you they want their fire ants back," said LeBrun. "Fire ants are in many ways very polite. They live in your yard. They form mounds and stay there, and they only interact with you if you step on their mound."

LeBrun said that crazy ants, by contrast, "go everywhere." They invade people's homes, nest in crawl spaces and walls, become incredibly abundant and damage electrical equipment.

The crazy ants were first discovered in the U.S. in 2002 by a pest control operator in a suburb of Houston, and have since established populations in 21 counties in Texas, 20 counties in Florida, and a few sites in southern Mississippi and southern Louisiana.

In 2012 the species was formally identified as Nylanderia fulva, which is native to northern Argentina and southern Brazil. Frequently referred to as Rasberry crazy ants, these ants recently have been given the official common name "Tawny crazy ants."

The Tawny crazy ant invasion is the most recent in a series of ant invasions from South America brought on by human movement. The Argentine ant invaded through the port of New Orleans in about 1891. In 1918 the black imported fire ant showed up in Mobile, Ala. Then in the 1930s, the red imported fire ant arrived in the U.S. and began displacing the black fire ant and the Argentine ants.

The UT researchers studied two crazy ant invasion sites on the Texas Gulf Coast and found that in those areas where the Tawny crazy ant population is densest, fire ants were eliminated. Even in regions where the crazy ant population is less dense, fire ant populations were drastically reduced. Other ant species, particularly native species, were also eliminated or diminished.

Edward LeBrun, research scientist at the Brackenridge Field Laboratory (BFL), talks about the invasive crazy ant, and how it's now displacing fire ants in areas throughout the southeastern US.

Credit: Produced by Daniel Oppenheimer.

LeBrun said crazy ants are much harder to control than fire ants. They don't consume most of the poison baits that kill fire ant mounds, and they don't have the same kinds of colony boundaries that fire ants do. That means that even if they're killed in a certain area, the supercolony survives and can swarm back over the area.

"They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests," he said. "There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive."

LeBrun said that in northern Argentina and southern Brazil, where the ants are native, populations are likely held in check by other ant species and a variety of natural enemies. In the U.S. there is no such natural control.

Here the crazy ants can attain densities up to 100 times as great as all other ants in the area combined. In the process, they monopolize food sources and starve out other species. LeBrun said the crazy ants, which are omnivorous, may also directly attack and kill other ant and arthropod species.

The overall result is a significant reduction in abundance and biodiversity at the base of the food chain, which is likely to have implications for the ecosystem as a whole.

"Perhaps the biggest deal is the displacement of the fire ant, which is the 300 pound gorilla in Texas ecosystems these days," said LeBrun. "The whole system has changed around fire ants. Things that can't tolerate fire ants are gone. Many that can have flourished. New things have come in. Now we are going to go through and whack the fire ants and put something in its place that has a very different biology. There are going to be a lot of changes that come from that."

LeBrun said a great deal about the Tawny crazy ants remains unknown, including their potential range. So far, most of the colonies are in fairly wet environments with mild winters, near the coast, so it may be the case that they can't thrive in drier or colder climates, and that fire ants will remain dominant in those areas.

The spread of the Tawny crazy ants may also be limited, even within the more hospitable climates, by caution from humans. The reproductive members of the species don't fly. So when left to their own devices, crazy ant colonies can only advance about 200 meters a year. That means they're dependent on humans to colonize new areas.

"They are opportunistic nesters," said LeBrun. "They can take up residence in everything from a house plant, to an empty container left outside, to an RV. So they're easily transported by us. But the flip side of that is that if people living in or visiting invaded areas are careful and check for the crazy ants when moving or going on longer trips, they could have a huge impact on the spread." Nursery products also appear to be a key way these ants spread, so both buyers and sellers should be watchful for these ants.

LeBrun said that cutting down on the number of transplantation events could slow the spread by years or decades. And that extra time could give the ecosystem time to adapt and researchers time to develop better control methods.

"We can really make a difference," he said, "but we need to be careful, and we need to know more."

###

University of Texas at Austin: http://www.utexas.edu

Thanks to University of Texas at Austin for this article.

This press release has been viewed 34 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128286/Video__Invasive_crazy_ants_are_displacing_fire_ants_in_areas_throughout_southeastern_US

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Now we know why old scizophrenia medicine works on antibiotics-resistant bacteria

May 18, 2013 ? In 2008 researchers from the University of Southern Denmark showed that the drug thioridazine, which has previously been used to treat schizophrenia, is also a powerful weapon against antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococci (Staphylococcus aureus).

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a huge problem all over the world: For example, 25 -- 50 per cent of the inhabitants in southern Europe are resistant to staphylococci. In the Scandinavian countries it is less than 5 per cent, but also here the risk of resistance is on the rise.

So any effective anti-inflammatory candidate is important to investigate -- even if the candidate is an antipsychotic that was originally developed to alleviate one of the hardest mental illnesses, schizophrenia.

Until now, scientists could only see that thioridazine works effectively and that it can kill staphylococcus bacteria in a flask in the laboratory, but now a new study reveals why and how thioridazine works. The research group, which includes professor Hans J?rn Kolmos, associate professor Birgitte H. Kallipolitis and other participants from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Southern Denmark, publishes their findings in the journal PLOS ONE on May 17 2013.

The research team tested thioridazine on staphylococcal bacteria and discovered that thioridazine works by weakening the bacterial cell wall.

"When we treat the bacteria with antibiotics alone, nothing happens -- the bacteria are not even affected. But when we add both thioridazine and antibiotics, something happens: thioridazine weakens the bacterial cell wall by removing glycine (an amino acid) from the cell wall. In the absence of glycine, the antibiotics can attack the weakened cell wall and kill staphylococcus bacteria," explains Janne Kudsk Klitgaard, visiting scholar at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark.

Thus, it is the interaction between thioridazine and antibiotic that works.

And now that researchers know that thioridazine works by weakening staphylococcal cell wall, they can concentrate on improving this ability.

"Now that we know how thioridazine works, we can develop drugs that target the resistant bacteria. And just as important: We can remove or inactivate the parts of thioridazine, which treats schizophrenia, so we end up with a brand new product that is no longer an antipsychotic, "explains Janne Kudsk Klitgaard.

According to her, we are now a little closer to a safe, non-psychopharmacological drug that can save people from potentially fatal infections that do not respond to antibiotics.

"This will no longer be an antipsychotic, when scientists are finished with this task," she says.

Together with her colleagues Klitgaard tested thioridazine on roundworms in the laboratory and have seen that they were cured of staphylococci in the gut. Next step will be testing on mice and pigs.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/KHZgMZHOdQs/130518153742.htm

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Friday, May 17, 2013

Not sure why Medicaid expansion matters? Try living without health ...

Clara Sanders-Stevens works hard every day, directing the Project 21 after-school program for the Oak Park School District. But, because she?s an independent contractor, she?s responsible for her own health insurance. And she just can?t afford it.

I don?t need help with food or rent, but I need health insurance ? especially in the event I have to go to the emergency room or I?m hospitalized. But when you start talking about $400 or $500 a month for insurance, it?s just not going to happen for a lot of people like me.

This is why Sanders-Stevens is a staunch advocate for Medicaid expansion in Michigan. She sees the realities of families living without health insurance every day. Kids coming to school sick because their parents can?t afford the cost of a doctor?s appointment or staying home from work and not getting paid. The same is true for a lot of other self-employed people she knows, or people who don?t get insurance through their work.

Those of us out here working, we?re trying to make good things happen. If people get sick they can?t go to work. And if we?re not healthy, there are no business owners to create new opportunities.

It?s especially frustrating to see this happening to Sanders-Stevens and others like her, who are dedicated to public service. As she explains, for many of them the choice may come down to having to return to the corporate world just to get health insurance instead of doing the kind of ground work that can make a real difference to communities.

Sanders-Stevens considers herself relatively lucky because she can usually afford to pay for routine check-ups. Having had health insurance in the past, she knows what a difference preventive care can make.

My health wouldn?t be what it is today if I hadn?t had all those regular physicals back when I had insurance. When you don?t have health insurance, it?s easy to let things go too far and wind up with something that could have been prevented.

Working with so many families who don?t have health insurance, Sanders-Stevens has seen what happens when people are hospitalized. She says they don?t always get the same care that people with insurance do or they?re released from the hospital sooner than they should be.

Then there?s the cost, she says.

You wind up with $20,000 in medical bills and they come after you for that immediately. They don?t let you work it out, or they want you to make payments of $700 or $800 a month. If people could afford that, they?d have health insurance.

Sanders-Stevens worries about what would happen if she were ever hospitalized. When they take the kids in her program skating, she doesn?t participate for fear of falling and getting hurt. In fact, she says she prays if she?s ever injured that she?s in her car at the time because her car insurance is the only medical coverage she has.

She plans to contact her representatives and urge them to support Medicaid expansion in Michigan. And what does Sanders-Stevens plan to say?

They don?t see how important it is until it happens to them or someone in their family. Our legislators have insurance. I?d never wish harm on anyone, but it just doesn?t hit home until it affects you directly. I see it every day and I can tell you that having health insurance would give so many of us peace of mind we don?t have now, knowing we can be cared for and stay healthy.

Contact your legislators today and tell them to say YES to Medicaid expansion.

Find your state Representative

Find your state Senator

Source: http://www.eclectablog.com/2013/05/not-sure-why-medicaid-expansionmatters-try-living-without-health-insuranc.html

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Insights to Improve Product Innovation Practice in SMEs | Blog of the ...

by Hamsa Thota

In this article Dr. Hamsa Thota defines product innovation and reviews evolution of new product development best practices for over 20 years. He introduces SMEs to a systematic framework for innovation so SMEs can aspire to achieve NPD performance comparable to the best practice companies as recognized by the PDMA.

Introduction

Product innovation is an innovation in the offering of a product or service to the market, in which customers exchange their money to acquire the new product or service offered by an enterprise.

Customers continue to purchase a product or service from the small and medium enterprise (SME) as long as it continues to do the job for them. Repeated purchase of a product or service is the basis upon which money flows from customers into the SME and the SME profits from innovation. performance

Product innovation performance is the market reward for new products measured in products? contributions to sales or profits.

The definition of new products includes radical innovations (i.e. totally new products), more innovative projects (i.e. new product lines), and incremental innovations (i.e. modifications to existing products and derivative products).

PDMA best practices studies

The Product Development Management Association (PDMA) has conducted new product development (NPD) best practices studies since 1982 to discern which practices contribute to higher degrees of NPD success.

PDMA labeled its 1990 research as Comparative Performance Assessment Study (CPAS). Since the 1990 study was published, PDMA?s CPAS results guided managers to improve product development methods and practices and achieve NPD results comparable to the best practice enterprises.

There is definite value to learn from the best practice companies to determine what can be improved; but there is a danger for SMEs in implementing one-size-fits-all solutions.

The NPD best practices such as the use of formal NPD process to support specific enterprise innovation strategy, use of multiple market research tools to gather the voice of the customer, and use of engineering and design tools to build form and function into new products must be tailored to ones own enterprise and the ecosystem in which the SME operates.

Key findings from PDMA CPAS, 1990 ? 2012

In the 1990 CPAS study PDMA found that it took, on average, 3 years to bring new product to the market, and that only 54.5% of enterprises that participated in the study had a well?defined NPD process, and 56.4% had a specific new product strategy. In 1990 it took, on average, 11 NPD projects to achieve one commercial success.

The PDMA conducted its second study in 1995. In the 1995 study, PDMA differentiated between the ?best? and the ?rest? enterprises based on their NPD performance.

The companies were rated the best if they were the most successful or in the top third in their industry for NPD success and above the mean in NPD program and sales-profits success. The 1995 study identified seven NPD practices that separated the best from the rest. The 1995 NPD best practices were:

The use of formal NPD processes.
Having a specific NPD strategy.
Measuring NPD outcomes and expecting more out of NPD efforts.
Using cross-functional development teams.
Using different types of qualitative market research, including voice of the customer, customer visit, and beta-testing techniques.
Using engineering design tools such as computer aided design (CAD) and computer simulations.
Closing NPD projects with completion dinners.

In 1995 the NPD success rate improved to 6.6 NPD projects to achieve one commercial success and the ?best? enterprises killed bad ideas early in the NPD process. This meant that the best were spending less money on developing products that ultimately would fail in the marketplace.

By 2004 computer programs enabled use of simulations in new product design and development. Designers could visualize products before they have been developed and even produced three-dimensional holographic images of concepts so that designers, managers, and potential customers can walk around and view them from different angles.

In the 2004 CPAS, 416 business units participated. 32% of these respondents followed a prospector innovation strategy, being first to market with new products and technologies, whereas 37% pursued a fast follower strategy. In 2004, use of formal NPD process and cross-functional NPD teams to execute it became the norm.

The NPD outcomes in 2004 were generally consistent with the 1995 results. Between 1995 and 2004 the average cycle time for radical innovation projects decreased from 181 weeks to 101 weeks and for more innovative projects it decreased from 78 weeks to 62 weeks. Decline in cycle time for incremental projects was modest, with a decrease from 33 weeks to 29 weeks during the same period. NPD success outcomes such as the percent success of new products commercialized and success rates as measured by profitability of new products remained stable at 59% and 54% respectively.

The 2004 study also found that successful enterprises were more sophisticated in implementing various types of NPD projects. They used ?process owners? such as the general managers of strategic business units (SBU) in radical and more innovative projects to help their cross-functional NPD teams navigate the NPD process better.

For incremental projects, they used overlapping gates or skipped entire stages in the NPD process more frequently. Also About one half of all the projects moved forward with conditional decisions made at the gates, where the conditions for continuance were specifically stated. The 2004 results suggested that a significant number of enterprises had moved from second-generation to third-generation types of new product development processes. Management was found to be more actively engaged in the NPD process in the 2004 study.

Nearly three out of four respondents reported that they had a specific new product strategy to guide development and more than half of them had put in place a well defined structured portfolio management process. Senior management made resource allocation decisions across the portfolio of NPD projects.

The top three techniques used in portfolio management were rank ordering of projects, discounted cash flow and payback periods. The 2004 study also revealed a weakness in the fuzzy front end, especially in idea management. Initial idea selection still seemed to be a very political and champion-based activity rather than guided by new product strategy. Similar to the 1995 study, the top three market research tools used in 2004 were beta testing, customer site visits and the voice of the customer.

Top three engineering tools used in 2004 were design for manufacturability (DFM), concurrent engineering (CE) and failure mode and effect analysis (FEMA). Top three team support tools used were face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, and PERT/GANTT charts. Key trends in NPD practices in 2004 were:

NPD success rates and efficiencies (number of projects started per one commercial success) remained stable.
NPD portfolios became more incremental.
Cycle times dropped dramatically, especially for more radical projects.
Having a formal NPD process was no longer a differentiator. Many enterprises used third-generation NPD processes.
Enterprise emphasis shifted from managing individual NPD projects to managing a portfolio of NPD projects.
Use of multiple customer needs gathering market research tools became a common practice.
Use of a wide variety of software tools for engineering design and project management and support became a norm. Team online support tools were coming of age.

The 2012 CPAS contained a global sample of enterprises from North America, Europe and Asia. In addition to baseline questions from previous studies, the 2012 CPAS also included new questions on culture, social media, services, sustainability, open innovation, and global product development practices.

The 2102 CPAS found that over 2/3rds of enterprises in the study changed their market and user research process to emphasize the front-end of innovation. It also revealed increasing use of social media to gather customer inputs into the front end.

The ?best? firms used discussion forums, ratings and reviews, blogs, branded social network, and innovation hubs significantly more than the rest. In 2012 NPD success rates inched up to 62% as compared to 59% in 2004.? Success rate for North American enterprises was higher at 68% than for European and Asian enterprises at 50% success rate.

As expected, the best practice enterprises outpaced the ?rest? with a much higher NPD success rate of 82.5% vs. 53.8% for the ?rest?. In 2012, gap in new product profitability also widened between the best at 78.2% and the ?rest? at 49%. The best practice enterprises continued to build more efficient NPD process as indicated by, on average, 4.5 ideas needed to generate one commercial new product success versus 11.3 for the ?rest?.

Key lesson for European and Asian SMEs

The 2012 CPAS revealed that North American enterprises are more proficient in NPD than their counterparts in Europe and Asia. For example, the US enterprises need, on average, 6.6 ideas for one success while the European and Asian enterprises needed 10 ideas and 14.5 ideas, respectively for one success.

The 2012 CPAS also found that in Asia, small enterprises were not very proficient in NPD. Where as large Asian enterprises needed 7 ideas for one commercial success in line with the proficiency of North American enterprises, small Asian enterprises needed 18 ideas for one commercial success.

Analysis of contribution to profits from various types of innovation projects for the entire sample revealed that incremental innovation projects contributed more to profits than radical or more innovative projects. However, the best practice enterprises derived more profits from radical and more innovative projects than from incremental projects.

A key lesson for small Asian enterprises from 2012 CPAS is that it is more important to strive to become the ?best? than endeavoring to introduce a large number of new products each year.

A framework to improve innovation practice in SMEs

A fundamental issue facing Asian and other SMEs is how to systematically organize NPD to achieve success rates comparable to those of the ?best? performers. The PDMA CPAS best practices are self-reported NPD practices.Do the ?best? performers actually do what they say they do? PDMA has been recognizing the Outstanding Corporate Innovator (OCI) award winning enterprises since 1988.

In his 2011 paper titled ?Systematic implementation of innovation best practices: Thota Framework for Innovation? published in the Tsinghua University Entrepreneurship and Innovation Journal, Dr. Thota verified that NPD best practices reported in CPAS research, and the NPD practices of OCI award winning enterprises are essentially the same.

What the ?best? enterprises said they did to achieve superior NPD results is essentially the same as what the OCI award winning enterprises did in actual practice. However, the OCI differed widely in how they implemented best practices in their enterprises. Implementation practices are unique to each business.

Each enterprise customized them to suit its own operating environment, specific to the industry in which it competed. SMEs can utilize the Thota framework for innovation to customize implementation of NPD best pratices in their own organizations.

Thota framework for innovation

The Thota framework for innovation supports systematic implementation of innovation in SMES aspiring to improve NPD performance. It is rooted in three organizing principles, and eight actions. SMEs can begin their innovation performance improvement effort by asking three fundamental questions:

How might we enable our people to innovate?
Are our organizational processes supporting our people to innovate?
Are the tools and methods used in our organization efficiently supporting the NPD and innovation processes?

The three organizing principles are:

1.??? People innovate: How can SME leaders encourage people to embrace innovation supportive behaviors? Leaders must recognize that innovation behaviors require changes, and changes trigger ?personal fears? in some people. Adopting innovation supportive behaviors comes at high personal cost to other people. A compelling enterprise purpose motivates people to overcome ?personal fears?, take risks, and strive to achieve ?stretch? goals.
2.??? Process supports people. The primary purpose of an innovation process is to support people who innovate. An inflexible NPD processes such as the basic Stage-Gate? NPD process, especially in the front end of innovation, is harmful to creativity and innovation. The modified NPD Stage-Gate? process remedies the shortcomings of the traditional Stage-Gate? process by the addition of discovery step, a critical step to find market needs in the front end and post-launch step, a step to enable continuous innovation in the back end. Also, one size fits all approach to implement NPD process leads to failure.? Best performing enterprises deploy a variety of approaches to manage different types of innovation projects. Also, they customize their process, specific to own operating environments.
3.??? Tools and methods support people and processes. The tools and methods selected for use in NPD projects must support efficient execution of innovation processes by cross-functional NPD teams. CPAS tells us that the top performing companies utilize more research, design and engineering tools and methods than the underperforming enterprises.

Recommendations to improve SME NPD performance

SMEs are encouraged to make a self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses in how they support their people to innovate, how they customize and renew NPD processes to support their people to innovate and assess if they are utilizing the state of the art tools and methods most suited to meet the needs of their cross-functional NPD teams.

Outcomes from self-assessment can be grouped into eight actions. The Thota framework specifies following eight actions:

Action 1: Develop, train, and engage management in NPD.
Action 2: Develop the best project teams.
Action 3: Use strategy to drive innovation.
Action 4: Customize the innovation process to your enterprise and use it consistently.
Action 5: Use portfolio management as a tool to implement new product strategy.
Action 6: Learn when to use what market research tools.
Action 7: Learn when to use what engineering, design and R&D tools.
Action 8: Learn when to use what innovation team support tools.

In summary SMEs aspiring to improve NPD performance can learn much from the PDMA CPAS results and implement a systematic approach with eight action steps to improve NPD performance in their enterprises.

Note: A full copy of the PDMA 2012 CPAS report can be purchased from Steve Uban, Director 2012 CPAS. Use source code: IBD and contact Steve at this email address

Dr. Hams Thota Dr. Hamsa Thota is the president of Innovation Business Development, Inc., an innovation performance training and consulting company in the USA. He was past president and chairman of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and most recently served as the secretary of PDMA Research Foundation (2006-2012). He is advisor to the ?Art of Science Learning? project (2012-2016), a US National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project to spark creativity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and the development of an innovative 21st century STEM workforce. He was a visiting professor at the Management School of the Zhejiang Univeristy and an honorary professor at the Geely Automotive Engineering Institute in China.

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Source: http://insme.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/insights-to-improve-product-innovation-practice-in-smes/

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