Nezahualcoyotl created a sea-wall in Tenochtitlán

Mexico City has suffered from severe floods throughout its history. Today I learned that during Moctezuma Ilhuicamina’s reign, the immense prehispanic metropolis of Tenochtitlan suffered the most severe flood ever.

The emperor, trying to solve the problem seeked counsel from Nezahualcoyotl,  a philosopher, warrior, architect, poet and ruler of the neighboring city-state of Texcoco; he was highly regarded for his wisdom in many areas, one of them architecture.

History says, that after gazing at the flooded valley from a nearby hill, he suggested that “the best solution is to make a wooded and stone wall stronger than the waters to stop them before arriving to the city”. Although it was a hard to achieve task, the advice was taken.

To build it, all nearby empires contributed to the huge project, thousands of men and resources were poured in order to finish it as soon as possible.

The wall, or dam very similar to the sea-walls in the Netherlands, was named in spanish as Nezahualcoyotl’s Albarradón.

The dam had a a length 9 miles (15 kilometers), several of them on water, and a width of 66 feet (18 meters). It comprised 2 parallel palisades with stones and sand in the middle. The vast lake where Tenochtitlan was sitting was divided in two; the east part had salty waters and kept the name of Texcoco Lake, and the west side had sweet water and surrounded the metropolis it was named the Mexico Lake. The finished wall served both as Dam and water dispenser for irrigation. Thanks to it, agriculture flourished, and it was because of it that Mexicas were able to create the artificial islands or chinampas to cultivate multiple crops floating in the lake.

With information from La Cronica Newspaper http://www.cronica.com.mx/notas/2002/12616.html

and from El ombligo de la luna site http://www.elombligodelaluna.com.mx/historia-inundaciones

 

Microsoft reveals its Windows 10 universal apps plans to developers at MWC 2015

Microsoft took some time today at the Mobile World Congress event to reveal some its Windows 10 universal app plans to developers at the conference.

Microsoft is telling that developers will now truly only code once and deploy in multiple devices, hardware, UI’s. Mobile, Tablets, Desktop and web. Developers will only need to upload into a single store and that it. Lets see if its true.

via Pocket http://ift.tt/1DvPbGF

Goldman Sachs Predicts The Slow Decline Of Wal-Mart And Target

Consumers are becoming less interested in retailers like Wal-Mart and Target, according to a recent note by Goldman Sachs. Instead, “consumers appear more focused on some combination of value and convenience,” the analysts write.

This is the outcome of two possibilities: someone took the do-more-with-less mantra way too far away, that or management was not up to the task of working with less than usual. Either way, its rooted on the dark side of doing more with less (human doable work, rather than technology replaced).

My two cents for the day.

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Global Community

In the few weeks since the beginning of my postings, the blog has received visitors from many countries around the world (only Africa is missing, Hey guys come on over and read one of the stories!).
Thank you all who’ve read one (or all) of the posts. I will keep the effort to post relevant, interesting stuff.

Wish you the best! Have a great week!

Map Of Countries That Work Hard

Which countries work like crazy and which ones work hard? Our friend Seth Kadish who runs the fantastic Visual Statistix Tumblr put together this graphic of OECD countries, to answer exactly this question.

Which countries work like crazy and which ones work hard? Our friend Seth Kadish who runs the fantastic Visual Statistix Tumblr put together this graphic of OECD countries, to answer exactly this question.
Ruben’s 2 cents It strucked me that Mexico is at the top in this study, this needs to be in our policy-makers minds; few vacation days and long work hours/days equals a soon-to-be burned-out country. And somehow Mexico also appears in the happiness studies right at the top, makes me wonder what does it mean. But Im not counting on our politicians to answer that, or a new different study for that matter.

via Pocket http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-countries-that-work-hard-2013-9

My son David

This is what my oldest son, David, is thinking now that school started again

Stores…One too many complications for going live in your it project?

How slow is too slow and how fast is too fast?

›In the retail industry, when a big project is “going live” it means touching all the various stages of the company Value Chain: Inside clients, Suppliers, external vendors, and ultimately the mother of the golden eggs goose, the stores.

›Stores… sounds familiar? that entity the company states over and over again is where all the profit comes. And its because of the latter that whenever an IT project will “touch” the store, everyone in the company go nuts: accounting sees monters, operations claims they’re seeing ghouls and so on.

›The big question is, with how many stores and at which pace is politically correct (and secure) to advance?

It project management will usually encounter something as depicted in the following quadrant, where there are no best decisions, and the road to get to it will be a very sensitive one.

Definetively the best approach will be the least disruptive in terms of store operations. While the store can sustain the same service level its customers are accustomed with, only then you can start thinking  of your deployment as successful; it still isnt, but you’re on the right track to make it so.

This will be one of the toughest decisions the project management team will take when a retail chain is about to deploy in the stores, and you should be prepared, because this decision can and WILL change as the deployment evolves.

Ruben M

Conservative Shoppers and Generic Brands

According to a Study of scanner data led by Vishal Singh, Associate Professor of Marketing at NYU’s Stern School of Business, in ideologically conservative areas of the U.S., supermarket shoppers tend to prefer established brands over generic substitutes.

The study shows that a roughly 10% increase in metrics reflecting conservatism was associated with a 4% decrease in generics market share, on average.

So if you own or manage an analytical tool for category management, what are you waiting for? Run and create a new metric to reflect conservatism.

Remember,  doing the correct tinkering in your analytical tool will result in a fine tune to your assortment and will ultimately get you offering the best items to your shoppers!

Rubén M.

Study results published in HBR DailyStat hbr.org/dailystat

Life of Pi and Project Management

Finally, this past weekend I watched the acclaimed movie “Life of Pi”.
It was an unusual saturday night. The kids went early to bed even though its still vacation time, so my wife and I decided to watch a movie. We opened the Xbox video service and rented “Life of Pi”. We never had the chance to see it at the cinema so it was a good option.

I must say that it is a remarkable piece of art, an amazing story with wonderful images all beautifully wrapped up together.
As the story evolved I could not stop thinking on how it related with project management. Perhaps Im one of the few who was under a rock and still hadnt seen the movie; anyhow I believe there are a few more under the same rock I was, so I wont spoil the story, at least not too much.

During one of the climax moments Pi gets confronted with a challenging scenario, one that he had never lived before and that of course he wasnt expecting. His fellow companion during the trip wanted to kill him at times. All this had to be endured by the poor Pi.
Sometimes things like that happen during the course of projects, you start dwelling into uncharted seas, your mates start changing attitudes. What changed Pi’s situation was that he had the calm, against all conditions, to analize his situation, and though it seemed he had everything to loose, being calm and with the nerve to endure the situation he was able to see what his weaknesses were and change them, even he had no assurance of the outcome.
Same thing needs to be done when a project changes for the worst. You need to stop no matter how bad everything is, because if you dont it will get worst, and take actions no matter that you dont have a 100% assurance there will be a good outcome of it.

So, next time you are in a situation like this, do as Pi did and tame your tiger.

Rubén Macías.