RWL Newsletter #103
Greetings from the rainy and grey University of New Hampshire! Hard to believe this is the last newsletter of 2018. I hope you have enjoyed the holidays so far.
I’ve shifted gears into research mode and am plugging along on several projects. I’ve made a commitment to put in 20 hours of research per week during the break. I use a timer and a spreadsheet to keep track. I shut off the timer when I get up from my desk or flip my browser over to social media. It makes you pretty honest about how you waste your time when you realize it takes 6 or 7 hours to get 4 hours of honest work in. For example, putting this newsletter together has delayed my starting on my research work today, so I will probably be working later in the day than I would like to get my time in. It’s good for discipline, though. Nothing gets done unless your “ass is in the chair” as a former professor of mine was fond of saying.
So, while my ass has been in the chair for this newsletter, I need to get back to work on my projects and send this along to you, otherwise I won’t get my time in today. Have a great weekend, and I hope you have a safe and happy New Year!
(image above was sent to me by J-François Renard . He takes pictures from Flickr and modifies them. The base image is one of my drawings and he modified it and re-posted it. I think it's a fun modification!)
Read
What: Forbes, What Federal Courts -- And Obamacare's Architects -- Don't Get About Pre-Existing Conditions, by Avik Roy
https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2018/12/16/what-federal-courts-and-obamacares-architects-dont-get-about-pre-existing-conditions/#14f69d674e95
Why: Last week I mentioned that a Federal Judge had declared the ACA (aka, Obamacare) to be unconstitutional. Most commentators I have read do not think the ruling will stand further review. This piece doesn’t really get into the issue of the ruling. Instead it has an interesting insight into the effects of community rating vs. experience rating, and why community rating is not necessary under the ACA if the law has guaranteed issue and subsidies.
Watch
What: Hema's New ‘Robotic Restaurant’ (2 min)
https://youtu.be/fcqGnZqQJCQ
Why: The robots are coming for your job. We should be glad. I used to get a kick out of showing these sorts of videos to my micro econ courses when I would talk about the substitution of capital for labor. Much of the gains in our standard of living over the last 250 years have come from the process of substitution of capital for labor. Two hundred years ago, some 95% of the labor force worked on farms and 5% did everything else. Today, thanks to the deployment of capital in the form of highly productive farm machines, that ratio has been inverted, and less than 5% of the workforce is agricultural, and we are all better off for it. This is a cute video showing how much of the server labor could be substituted for by robots. Of course it requires training the patrons to interact with the robots, but it’s still a clever little video and reminds us of what is possible.
Listen
What: Freakonomics, Should America Be Run by … Trader Joe’s? (47 min)
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/trader-joes/
Why: If you have never shopped at Trader Joe’s, you are missing out. It’s an experience. It’s a big chain of quirky little stores with mostly store-brand items that are all high quality and interesting. A few things I did not know about Trader Joe’s were 1) it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Aldi’s and 2) it is the highest grossing grocer (in terms of revenue per square foot). There’s a lot any industry can learn from Trader Joe’s. This is worth listening to as you think about strategy and how your organization adds value. (Thanks to Frank M. for sharing this link)
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
Have a great weekend and do amazing things!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau