In February 1990, W.

Mary Parker Follett, a pioneering business consultant, was asked to help a troubled window shade company. The company’s thinking was narrow and limited. When asked to define their business, they said, “We produce window shades.”

IMTS is almost here, so we previewed the show, considered an important industry-academia partnership within manufacturing, and asked serious questions about the nature of motivation. Let’s take a look:

 IMTS Preview

This week’s show contained a range of fun and interesting content from some of our favorite corners of the world of quality. Here’s what we covered:

During the past decade, advances in understanding of cancer biology have led to the development of targeted treatments that are more effective than the chemotherapies of the past century.

T

he federal government just made it a lot easier to form an employee-owned business.

The way we traditionally define what it means to be brave can be our greatest obstacle. Simply shifting our focus can be the gateway to powerful results.

When it comes to manufacturing, details are crucial. Every part of your product design is meticulously strategized, and quality control is integrated through the entire manufacturing process to guarantee the final product is exactly how it was intended.

A novel encryption method devised by MIT researchers secures data used in online neural networks, without dramatically slowing their runtimes.

What are you intrinsically motivated to do? Isn’t it wonderful? You don’t need a good reason or reward to do what you are doing when you’re intrinsically motivated. You are in a state of flow where time flies, and you have no idea where it went.