Lean Six Sigma Academy

I apologize if anyone had issues with my blog this evening.  I had jacked up some HTML real good.  Luckily I saved it all before hacking it up into pieces. 

All should be fine now… and you may notice the nice little eBay auction ads (focused in on the Lean and Six Sigma niche) in the lower right hand side of the page.  I did this all by myself… aren’t you proud? 

Oh, and for every thing you buy our friend Pete over at shmula gets a free soda from his new eBay boss.  Kidding.  I think.  I am kidding right Pete?

One of the ideas I have been tossing around is inviting others interested in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement in general to “guest blog” here at LSS Academy. 

So if you are a Blogger wanting to contribute or perhaps you have thought about sharing your thoughts with others but just don’t have the time or energy to start your own blog (yes, it is hard work) please email me and let me know.

Also, if you know of someone who may be interested in this please click the “Share This” button below and click on the email tab. 

When I first transitioned this blog over to WordPress (WP) I wondered if I had made a terribe mistake.  Blogger was so easy to use and format.  You can drag and drop things to your hearts desire.  This was gone when I went to a self hosted WP site.

But now that most of the bugs are ironed out I am beginning to reap the benefits of switching.  The benefits are related to the thousands of free “plugins” available. 

With this said, here are some of the latest and greatest features of this blog.

1. You can now check a box and follow the comments of any post.  You will see this when you first submit a comment. 
2. There is a popularity meter that shows which posts are the most popular.  I am not sold on this one but will try it out for awhile.  There are also a ton of reports I can access to learn more about what people like.  I love reports!
3. I found a nice, shmula like, “share it” button that allows people to submit a post to a number of different social networking sites.  You can also email the post to someone from the same button.  This is much cleaner than the way I had it setup before.

Let me know what you think of these new features.  And if you have any ideas for what would make the blog better please do share!

I was recently introduced to the website StumbleUpon.  I didn’t give it much thought until this past Thursday evening.  Me and my blogging pals sometimes share tips via email.  So last Thursday I was exchanging emails with Mark Graban of the Lean Blog and Peter Abilla of shmula.  We decided to do a little test with StumbleUpon. 

We each downloaded the StumbleUpon toolbar which is free and takes about 1 minute to install.  Then, since we all like each others blogs we went to the others blog and pressed the StumbleUpon “thumbs up” button which appears in the the toolbar.  This is what you do when you like a website or blog.  By pressing the thumbs up StumbleUpon then shares your site with other “stumblers.”

Here is what happened in my case.  Pete and Mark both gave me a thumbs up at around 8:45 PM CST Thursday night.  That is two people.  The next day I checked my site statistics and almost fell out of my chair when I saw my traffic spike by over 600% from 9:00 PM to 11:00 PM.  The huge spike leveled off but I am still getting a massive amount of traffic from StumbleUpon.

With this said… I had an idea for how we could literally spread Lean and Six Sigma with thousands of of people who may have never even heard of Lean or Six Sigma.  If everyone that reads this blog installed StumbleUpon and then gave the “thumbs up” to your favorite Lean and Six Sigma blogs we could literally create a Lean and Six Sigma web tipping point.

Of course I would love to have you give this blog the thumbs up, assuming you like what you read, but I also hope you give all the other excellent Lean and Six Sigma blogs thumbs up too.  Just check out my Blogroll to the right if you need help finding them.  They are all great and definitely deserve thumbs up!

And here is the coolest part of all.  You can give a thumbs up more than once.  In fact if you read 5 different posts from the same blog just click on each post to get its unique URL displayed and then give each unique post the thumbs up.

Lastly, the Stumble button is super cool.  You can stumble by keyword if you want.  So, for example, if you typed Lean Manufacturing as the keyword and then hit the stumble button you will come across different websites and blogs about Lean Manufacturing.  This is much more fun than the old Google search if you ask me!  Give it a shot.  You can also use it for any search.  If you like the Dallas Cowboys type that in as a keyword and stumble away.

To make it as easy as possible I have added some links below each post allowing people to submit that particular post to StumbleUpon as well as a few other popular social networking sites like Digg and de.licio.us.

Have fun stumbling and Happy Memorial Day to all of my American friends!

Welcome to the new Lean Six Sigma Academy (LSSA).  After lots of “blogging research” I have decided to move to WordPress.  Blogger is great and very easy to use and I will miss some of their user friendly features.  But I now have my own website in addition to a blog.  This was important to me since I have big plans for this little blog. 

One of my favorite features of this new blog is the rotating “quote” at the top of the page.  I have never been a big “quote” guy but I figure a few words of wisdom from people like Taiichi Ohno and Dr. Deming never hurt anyone.  Along these lines if you have some nice short quotes you like please send them to me and I will add them to the lineup.

I have also, as you have likely noticed, moved away from the “red” theme of my old blog.  The more I read and learn about blogging the more I realize a white background is much easier on the eyes.   Other than that the features are pretty much the same (for now).  

If you have linked to Lean Six Sigma Academy in your Blogroll I kindly request you update the link to: http://www.lssacademy.com.

Additionally, http://www.leansixsigmaacademy.com works too.

Tonight was my 100th post since starting LSS Academy in January of this year. So as I sip on some cheap Sutter Home White Zinfandel wine (California 2003) and reflect on the past few months I would just like to say thanks to all of you that stop by from time to time to see what is happening. I write this blog because of my love for Lean and Six Sigma and my love for all the people who… oh crap the wine is kicking in. I better go before I embarrass myself. Cheers!

I was just made aware that when you post a blog highlighting other good blogging links from the week you should call this a “carnival.” I called it a blogroll a few weeks back. You learn something new everyday!

I started this blog January 15, 2007 and didn’t know what to expect. I must confess and admit I am really enjoying myself. I have met so many cool people via email and have uncovered this underground movement of Lean and Six Sigma bloggers out there. Very cool.In any event, I wanted to share some information with you to let you know how the site is doing with respects to visits. Upon last check, according to Google Analytics, the site has been visited 2,589 times. During these visits there have been 4,419 page views. And finally, what I think is the most mind boggling statistic of all – visitors from 63 countries have stopped by! The Internet is truly an amazing instrument.

As the time series chart above shows there is a decent trend upwards. We still have a long way to go to get to the 600~2000 hits per day some of my favorite blogs like GembaPantarei, Lean Blog, and Evolving Excellence get but perhaps one day we will get there. Interestingly enough today broke the record for the most visits. I would like to think it was my 3 part series on regression that caught people’s attention… but somehow I think the beer launching machine deserves the credit. Funny thing that voice of the customer!

My mission with this blog is to reach as many people as possible sharing the goods news that is Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. So if you are reading this, and feel so obliged, please tell your friends about Lean Six Sigma Academy. The price of tuition is quite affordable.

Until next time, I wish you all the best on your journey towards continuous improvement.

Humility

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaHumility is a quality or characteristic ascribed to a person who is considered to be humble. A humble person is generally thought to be unpretentious and modest: someone who does not think that he or she is better or more important than others. The concept of humility in various religions is often much more precise and extensive. Humility is not to be confused with humiliation, which is the act of making someone else feel ashamed, and is something completely different.I start this blog with this definition since humbleness is what I need this evening. I started this blog a few weeks ago and wasn’t sure what to expect. I have always enjoyed writing, even as young boy in elementary school. I am also passionate about Lean and Six Sigma so I thought what the heck, let’s give it a shot.

Well nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen. I hoped to have at least 50 people visit my blog in the first two weeks. Guess what happened?

Google Analytics tells me, as of this evening, that I have had 415 visits and 788 page views! Now some of my friends at other popular blogs (see links to the left) likely get this many hits in a day but I am proud and humbled by this nonetheless.

The coolest thing is I have had people from the following places visit the blog:

- United States
- Mexico
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Philippines
- China
- India
- France
- Germany
- Romania
- Malaysia
- Australia
- Finland
- Spain
- Turkey
- Denmark
- Ecuador
- Sri Lanka
- Thailand
- United Arab Emirates
- Costa Rica
- Ireland
- Brazil

All I can say is wow. I never expected this and want to thank everyone who has taken the time to check in.

I also want to thank a few fellow bloggers and friends.

First, I would like to thank Jon Miller from Gemba Research for inspiring me to start this blog. I have known Jon for a few years and honestly believe he is the top Lean expert in America running the top Lean consulting firm in West. Let me define top – that would be the best, number 1. I am humbled by the plug he gave me tonight over on his most excellent blog. Thank you Jon. I look forward to learning from you many years to come.

Next I would like to thank Mike Wroblewski over at Got Boondoggle? Mike was the first to give me a plug and much of my traffic is due to this! Thank you Mike, keep up the good work my friend.

Michael Marx, of iSixSigma, was kind enough to plug me in a recent newsletter sent out to thousands of people. Thank you for this Michael and for all of the excellent advice you have given me.

Last, let me explain the most interesting story of all. I came across the Lean Blog from a link on Got Boondoggle? I really liked what I saw so I shot the blog owner, Mark Graban, an email introducing myself. Well after a few emails back and forth we realized that not only do we live in the same town (Keller, TX) we attend the same church! How ironic is this?

Well, that about sums up my first few amazing weeks of blogging. I am planning on jazzing the page up a bit with the help of some folks that understand this HTML stuff much better than I. I also have lots of ideas of future blog topics. If you have any recommendations please drop me a line.

So, again, thank you to all. I look forward to a long blog relationship with all of my new friends from around the world.

Until next time, I wish you all the best on your journey towards continuous improvement.

Hi there, my name is Ron and this blog is my attempt at explaining how I believe Lean and Six Sigma can and should work together in harmony.

Contrary to the name of this blog I don’t believe it’s optimal to merge Lean and Six Sigma into one methodology. This is great marketing to be sure… but the methodologies are different for a reason.

I do, however, believe we should learn as much as we can about Lean AND Six Sigma using them as needed when needed. That, in a sentence, is what this blog is about.

The views expressed in this blog are solely my own and not those of my employer.