Hero's Code

Middle means mediocrity

Many service companies have challenges knowing how to price their offerings.  They tend to set their rates by looking at the both the high and low figures for their marketplace and then making a decision influenced by how they see themselves on the quality spectrum.  If they are a new business they might just rationalise that by seeking the middle ground they will be on safe territory.

There is a trap here that many fall into.  Following this recipe will tell their customers exactly how good the company really thinks it is.

Think about it. If that's how you are setting your price what you are saying to prospects is probably that you are not that great.  The high price position is actually pretty good because it says to clients - we are really good! And now all you have to do is live up to that.

The low price position is probably pretty good too providing you really can make a profit at that level.

The problem with a middle ground price is that you are saying "We aren't the best - and neither is our price - but we aren't the worst either."  Not the most compelling business position to be in.

If you price at the top end you are occupying a niche position and compete with relatively few if any competitors.  If you price to be cheapest - well there can only be one cheapest supplier and who really wants to be down there.  If you price in the middle the sad fact is you compete with just about everyone.

Nanobiomechanics

It seems pretty obvious that diseased cells are going to differ in various ways from diseased ones.  We tend to think of peering through a microscope to spot the difference between health and disease.

Medical researchers have long known that diseases can cause -- or be caused by -- physical changes in individual cells.   For instance, invading parasites can distort or degrade blood cells, and heart failure can occur as muscle cells lose their ability to contract in the wake of a heart attack.
Research at MIT is looking at mechanical effects at the cell interface to get physical about this.

Knowing the effect of forces as small as a piconewton -- a trillionth of a newton -- on a cell seems to give researchers a much finer view of the ways in which diseased cells differ from healthy ones. 

Subra Suresh has spent much of his career making nanoscale measurements of materials such as the thin films used in microelectronic components. But since 2003, Suresh's laboratory has spent more and more time applying nanomeasurement techniques to living cells.

One of Suresh's recent studies measured mechanical differences between healthy red blood cells and cells infected with malaria parasites.  Suresh and his collaborators knew that infected blood cells become more rigid, losing the ability to reduce their width from eight micrometers down to two or three micrometers, which they need to do to slip through capillaries.

Rigid cells, on the other hand, can clog capillaries and cause cerebral hemorrhages.  Though others had tried to determine exactly how rigid malarial cells become, Suresh's instruments were able to bring greater accuracy to the measurements.

Using optical tweezers, which employ intensely focused laser light to exert a tiny force on objects attached to cells, Suresh and his collaborators showed that red blood cells infected with malaria become 10 times stiffer than healthy cells -- three to four times stiffer than was previously estimated.

Eduard Arzt, director of materials research at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, says that Suresh's work is important because cell flexibility is a vital characteristic not only of malarial cells but also of metastasizing cancer cells. "Many of the mechanical concepts we've been using for a long time, like strength and elasticity, are also very important in biology," says Arzt.

Based on news from MIT

A Curious Expansion

Just lately I have been determined to focus on just a few key things - business wise that is.
That means that I haven't written as much, been to London as much, coached as much, exercised as much etc as I did maybe a year ago.  I have focused on my medical device business interests because they really deserve it. At least as much as any abstract "thing" could deserve anything.

You see I have always loved to multi-task. It has been fun to start many projects but I haven't always taken a great deal of pleasure in seeing them through to completion.  So I started a while ago to change my perceptions about work.  I have culled out things that I didn't enjoy and more and more I've sought to focus on a few things and find simplicity.

What is curious about this is that I am busier than ever, more productive than ever and happier than ever - but I am focusing on a few things.  When I look around now I see lots of people who are the way I used to be.  Engaging in struggle and juggling far too many commitments.  What I want to say to them is stop running around - try staying in one place - its curious how busy you will be.