For all the tea in China

A British institution since the 17th Century, tea has developed an entire culture and set of practices around it, including porcelain - translucent, glazed, and heat-resistant - which originally came from China as ballast in ships importing tea.

In the 1660s, everything Chinese suddenly became fashionable, and people wanted to not only drink tea, but also use tea drinking paraphernalia, such as teapots and cups (though the Chinese ones lacked handles). China itself is called china simply after the nation which first produced it.

Chinese porcelain became so popular, it was known as "white gold", and - as there were already continental manufacturers - the race was on for someone in Britain to replicate it. Lund’s in Bristol made a quality breakthrough by adding soapstone (talc) to clay, becoming the earliest manufacturer of soapstone porcelain in the UK. Later bone ash was added by the manufacturer, Bow, which is the source of the name, 'bone china'. Initially, people had a 'dish of tea', until local manufacturers made local porcelain cups, like the existing pottery cups, with handles.

But also interesting is the reason why tea is poured one of two ways: tea first, or milk first. The former is posh, the latter is not. Apparently it is all to do with the quality of the china being used to drink from: fine porcelain can cope with the shock of hot liquid, but poorer quality china cannot. To buffer poorer quality china and avoid it cracking, we put milk in first. Porcelain costs a heck of a lot more than ordinary china: so wealthy people can pour hot tea directly into their expensive cups without risk of the ceramic cracking.

While the aristocracy could afford to buy porcelain, ordinary working folk would not have had the purchasing power for even a single cup and saucer when porcelain was originally being made in the UK. As the BBC documentary noted below mentions, porcelain has an immensely desirable "quality that was desirable and that's thermal shock resistance", which leads us to "the origin of the two types of tea drinking styles: the poor people have to put the milk in first so that the cup doesn't shatter, and the aristocracy who can afford the best quality China, they can pour their boiling tea straight into the cup" (25 May 2017, 6:27).

Class division in the UK goes right back to the origins of British tea drinking. Fascinating.


Sam

References:

• BBC (25 May 2017). BBC Antiques Uncovered with Lucy Worsley and Mark Hill (Part 1 of 3). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/P1_BzuUu0tc
• Freestone, I. C. (2000). The science of early British porcelain. In the proceedings of the Sixth Conference and Exhibition of the European Ceramic Society, 20-24 June 1999, Brighton, British Ceramic Proceedings, 60, 19-27. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238082063_The_science_of_early_British_porcelain

read more "For all the tea in China"

Newsletter Issue 197, March 2011

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 197, March 2011

Hi guys,

Have you heard of authentic leadership before? Then check out Dick Hubbard - an Authentic Leader below.

The rush to urbanisation is not only a western trend. It is happening faster in Asia. Read The Rise of Asian Mega-Cities. 

Inserting Filler Text   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Dick Hubbard - an Authentic Leader

Authentic leadership is aligned with Greek philosophy - that of 'to thine own self be true' to quote Shakespeare (Hamlet). This is a leadership style where leaders model the way to their followers, where they inspire a shared vision, where they challenge standards and processes; they are enablers, empowerers and feed the soul of those around them. Authentic leaders demonstrate consistent thoughts, emotions and behaviours - even when no one is watching. They are positive people with strong ethics and a well-defined social conscience.

Authentic leadership is not merely sincerity, but where the very fabric of the person is aligned; all of an authentic leader's experiences, thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, beliefs, processes, actions and behaviours are consistent with each other.

Preparing learning materials for my students on authentic leadership got me to thinking about Kiwis who typify the style.

Dick Hubbard, the founder and governing director of Hubbard Foods Ltd is described as a ‘tall, somewhat gangly man with a charming smile’ . Son of a Kiwi returned serviceman and a Scottish war bride, Dick was a product of the post-war “get the country going again” paradigm. Dick “was unhappy working for companies [he believed] were dedicated only to increasing profit for shareholders” and in 1990 Hubbard Foods Ltd was launched. Between 1990 and 2000, turnover on breakfast cereal sales increased from $2m to $23m, rising to $30-40m by 2004. A touch of a social conscience appeared early.

Hubbard's reflects Dick’s own values of sustainable development, honestly, hard work and fair play, communicated to customers through the Clipboard Newsletter included in every cereal packet sold. Hubbard Foods has completed 'triple bottom-line' sustainability accounting since the mid-90s, opening the books to all employees, and offering employee training in reading company accounts. A spot of empowering and enabling.  Hubbard's continues to operate in Mangere, despite lures of cheaper rent elsewhere, in order to stay close to their workforce. A long-term supporter of Outward Bound, in 1998, Dick flew all 120 of his then staff to Samoa at a cost of $150,000 (strong ethics, shared vision).

Dick would epitomise, for many New Zealanders, what corporate social responsibility (CSR) really means in practice. He is a past-chair of the Food Standards Committee and the NZ National Parks & Conservation Foundation, past-president of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, and a former director of Business Mentors in the Community. But it is his passion for sustainable business that has spurred much of his service work as a founder and active member of the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development (challenging standards and processes), ten years before sustainability became trendy (social conscience).

Considering selling Hubbard's internationally in 2008 caused Dick to decide that he did not want ownership to leave New Zealand (strong ethics). In 2009, Dick sold a 35% stake in the company to the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust. In 2010, furthering the company’s sustainability theme, Hubbard Foods installed NZ’s largest commercial array of solar photo voltaic panels, at 227.5 m2. This will generate 29,000kW per year, enough to power three and a half houses (strong ethics, shared vision).

Politically naive, in 2004 Dick Hubbard decided to put his sustainability ideas, co-operative leadership values and his desire for the creation of a positive future for Auckland where his political conscience was, and run for the Auckland mayoralty (strong ethics, and a pity that Auckland didn't share his vision!). While Dick focused on serving the city of Auckland, he installed a Chief Executive, Doug Paulin. Hubbard Foods started to slide in market share (from 12.3% to 9.4%6) and net worth (from an estimated $30-40m in 2004 to $14m in 2010), but he retained faith in Doug, who continues in the role today (positivity, strong ethics).

Dick thinks that leadership is “critically important” and that the leader is the “person who defines the cultural base of the company is the keeper of the soul of the company” . He says “it's hugely important to firstly know who you are and to stand for your principles” , and tries to “fix on who I am and what I stand for, what my values are. And then making sure that I can communicate that right through, that I'm a real and genuine person and hopefully one that people can look up to and respect”.

In my view, Dick Hubbard is a very self-actualised person, time after time after time throughout his business career putting his money where his mouth is, while the rest of the world slowly catches up with him.

Dick Hubbard is an authentic leader.

 

References:

• Avolio, Bruce J. & Gardner, William L. (June 2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 16, Issue 3, June 2005 (pp. 315-338)
• Jackson, Brad & Parry, Ken (2001). The Hero Manager; Learning from New Zealand’s Top Executives. New Zealand: Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd (Chapter 5: Dick Hubbard. pp. 97-116)
• Kouzes, James M. & Posner, Barry Z. (2002). In Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (book of edited readings), 2007. USA: Jossey-Bass Inc
• Young, Sam (2011). Dick Hubbard - The Way to Start the Day. NZ: NMIT & AUT.

The Rise of Asian Mega-Cities

The world is 50.5% urbanised (CIA The World Factbook, 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011). However, China, Africa and India are likely to undergo a huge amount of urbanisation over the next few decades. The current population of China is 43% of the world's total, Africa is 33% and India 29% (CIA The World Factbook, 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011). If these countries continue their already growing trends to city-living, we could have more than 80% of our population urbanised by the end of this century.

This brings huge logistical problems as well as the benefits of a consolidated workforce, an active market and income generation. The logistics of moving people to work each day, of removing waste, of providing water, housing, food and governance is a problem that will have cost and planning implications far in excess of what we have seen thus far.

Just 100 cities account for 30% of the world's economy, and almost all its innovation. Money, knowledge and stability come from world capitals that have evolved and adapted through centuries - and sometimes mere decades - of dominance (Foreign Policy, August 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011).

The new rising cities are Lisbon, Brussels, Budapest, Seoul (each of the former already contributing 25% of their national GDP), Delhi, Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, Beijing, Mumbai, Istanbul, Belem, Chongqing and Guadalajara.

• Each day, another 180,000 people move into cities, adding roughly 60 million new urban dwellers each year (Intuit, October 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011).
• By 2050, the global urban population is expected to be 6.3 billion, or 70% of the population at that time (UN, 2009, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
• By 2030, China will have an urban population of 1 billion, and India 590 million. Currently, Europe's urban population is 533 million (McKinsey forecast & UN data, 2009-10, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
• By 2030, China will have 221 cities with more than 1 million people, and India will have 68. In 2010, Europe has 35. During this period, 400 million Chinese and 215 million Indian will move to urban areas, more than the population of the US and Brazil combined (Foreign Policy, August 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
• In January 2011, Chinese city planners proposed merging the nine cities around the Pearl River Delta into a single metropolitan area, containing some 42 million people: more than Argentina, and covering an area 26 times bigger than Greater London (Reuters, January 2011, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)

In addition, China is producing more Science degrees each year than the rest of the world combined. I suspect we will be start naturally looking to China for the new research breakthroughs in the next few years as well. India for IT, China for research.

We live in interesting times :-)

Thanks to Trendwatching for these statistics at http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/

Inserting Filler Text

To insert filler text into a Word, Publisher or other MS document, you can either use the =rand() function, which will insert "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"; or the =lorem() function, which will insert the pigeon-latin text, "lorem ipsum".

You can adjust the amount of text being inserted by entering the number of paragraphs (x) and the lines per paragraph (y) inside the parentheses. Eg =lorem(10, 5) will insert 10 paragraphs of 5 lines per paragraph.

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) for you:

• 555, Five-Five-Five. This is radio-speak for good radio reception or good aeronautical conditions, often used in the USA. Interestingly, most telephone numbers in US films start with 555 too...
• BCC, blind carbon copy. Used for 'hidden' addressee emails, with no link to the typewriter duplicate technology of the past that spawned the term!

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

Over the next few newsletters, we are going to look at all you can do with Function keys. This time it is F2:

• Excel, PowerPoint, Word "Save As" Alt & F2
• Excel, PowerPoint, Word "Save" Alt & Shift & F2
• Excel "Edit a cell comment" Shift & F2
• Excel "Edit the active cell and put the insertion point at the end of the line" F2
• Outlook "Open Print Preview & display the Print Preview properties box" Ctrl & F2 Then Alt & S or Alt & U
• Outlook "Open print preview" Ctrl & F2
• Outlook "Turn on editing in a field (except icon view) or move to a field in the active card" F2
• PowerPoint "Select the text box (with text or an object selected inside the text box) or select the text within a text box (with the text box selected)" F2
• Windows "Rename an item. Type the new name. Key Enter to accept, Esc to cancel" F2
• Word "Copy Text" Shift & F2
• Word "Display the Print Preview dialog box" Ctrl & F2
• Word "Move selected text, Enter to place" F2
• Word "Open File" Alt & Ctrl & F2

Hot Linx

To check if you have a good work-life balance, go to Career Services website at http://www2.careers.govt.nz/quiz_work_life_balance.html and take their quiz.

The Ministry of Women's Affairs has a good set of resources for directors at http://www.mwa.govt.nz/women-on-boards.

For a look on the light side, check out Parkour Training guru, David Belle's BBC ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMAr8y-Vtw, or some younger Brits in Parkour play at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOOlUR9Cg1Q

Tables in Word often don't convert easily for web use. Excel works better, and there is a nice online tool to convert Excel spreadsheets into HTML at http://tableizer.journalistopia.com/. Just copy your Excel spreadsheet there and click "Tableize it!". (this tip from Woody's Watch newsletter)

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 197, March 2011"

Newsletter Issue 153, August 2008

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 153, August 2008

Hi guys,

Check out a nice article on our attitude towards selling in The Law of Probabilities below.

China is the hot new kid on the block; what impact will that have on world business? Read China's Growing Global Impact. 

Using Excel's AVERAGEA   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

The Law of Probabilities

Kenn Butler puts out a newsletter on topics that inspire him, and others, each week. Kenn has kindly agreed to allow me to reprint one of his articles on selling, which I thought you would all find as useful as I did.

When I started my career, initially in Sales, I received the three-part sales training programme, common to a lot of companies I suspect: Here are your client lists, here are your brochures, here is this months renewals and there's the door! Seventy percent of professional sales people have not been trained beyond product knowledge. Many people running businesses have not been in the sales trenches, & they do not appreciate how essential it is for sales people to be thoroughly trained in every aspect of the profession before they are sent out the first time.

No one would ever expect a carpenter to begin building without an apprenticeship under a master who teaches them how to use every tool and skill of the craft. No one would expect a person to walk into a kitchen and become a professional chef without having undergone several years of careful training under a master chef. But salespeople are sent out with little or no training, & are then astonished by the amount of negativity & rejection they get from prospective customers. Leadership I have often found is not much different, especially in terms of dealing with staff & people.

The turning point in my life was when I learned that sales are both an art & a science. It requires ambition and personality along with specific, proven sales skills. One without the other makes it impossible for a sales person to achieve their full potential. Again, leadership is no different.

It is estimated that fully 50 percent of new salespeople quit within the first year because they cannot stand the incredible amount of rejection they receive. However, even though the rejection rate in sales is often as high as 90 percent or more, if you could be guaranteed one sale for every ten people that you spoke to, you would soon be rich. I fondly refer to this as the 25/10/2 rule!

Smiling through Rejection

I heard of one company that started everyone off every morning with a contest. The contest is to see who can get rejected ten times first, before anyone else. Like runners at the starting line, everyone gets ready with their telephone in front of them, & then the sales manager rings a bell. Whoever can get rejected ten times before anyone else wins a prize. All the sales reps immediately start smiling & dialing.

And you know what happens? Because they are so positive & often laughing during this contest, they lose all fear of rejection. Because they sound so positive, prospective customers want to talk to them more about their offerings. Over & over again, sales people "lose" this contest because they are too busy processing new sales.

Some years ago I worked with a salesman who was about to quit his job because of the amount of rejection he was getting. The market was tough and he was making 20 calls to get a single sale. There were 19 rejections for every acceptance. He was becoming discouraged. We sat down & had a coffee & I asked, "How much do you earn in commission from each sale that you make?" He had been trained to track his average commissions, so he knew the answer immediately: $500. I then asked him to divide 20 into $500 to get an average amount that he earned per call, whether the person bought or not. The easy answer was $25 per call. I then asked him, "In what other line of work could you get $25 for every person you call on the phone?"

Suddenly, the salesman's eyes were opened. He realized that he was earning $25 every single time he phoned someone, whether they were polite or rude, friendly or hostile. He merely collected the $25 when he actually made a sale. From that day onward, he telephoned eagerly, all day long. After each call, if the person had said that they were not interested, he would say to himself, "Thank you for the $25!"

All his fear of rejection was gone. He was eager to make as many phone calls, & see as many people as he possibly could every single day. And do you know what happened? The more people he phoned, the better he developed at prospecting. The more people he spoke to personally, the better he began to be at presenting. The more people he saw, the better he was at selling. The more people he presented to, the better he became at answering objections & closing sales.

That year, his sales ratios from contact to close improved from 20:1 to 15:1. They then improved from 15:1 to 10:1 to 5:1 to 3:1. His income increased almost 700 percent. He became the top salesperson in his branch, and eventually in his company. Some years later, he retired as a lifestyle farmer out of Invercargill, & holiday home in Cromwell, where he & family still live to this day.

Make a Point to Get Rejected

Here's my point: As a leader make it a game to speak to as many people & staff & as many times as you can, first thing every day. The more you do so, the sooner it will be that making this time available doesn't bother you at all. At that point, if you are lucky, the dam will break. You will gain the confidence of both people & staff you see. You may have more appointments than you can handle, but time management is another topic.

Remember, every top salesperson & leader started at the bottom. Everyone who is doing well was once doing poorly. Everyone who is at the front of the line started at the back of the line, & had to work their way up through hard, hard work.

During my career I have been involved in sales, management & leadership. In my view sales people make good leaders because they are people persons. There is no profession in the world like sales. You can start off in sales, at any level, & soon enjoy one of the highest standards of living in our society. All you need to do is work hard, continually upgrade your skills, and talk to lots of people. Sound familiar?

Kenn Butler has been in the insurance industry for 35 years, both in senior corporate management and in his own consultancy practice (the latter primarily in the executive leasing and coaching). Holding contracts with the NZ Police & Housing NZ, he is an Associate of the Insurance Institute of New Zealand (AIINZ), a professional member of the Institute of Directors and the NZ Institute of Management (MNZIM).

China's Growing Global Impact

China is now both the largest seafood producer and the largest seafood consumer in the world. Annual per capita seafood consumption in China is currently 26 kilograms, up from 5.5kg in the 1970s. This is expected to increase by 40% over the next decade.

FAO stats state that in 2003 New Zealanders ate 26.5kg of fish per capita. Canadians, by contrast, eat between 9 and 10 kg of seafood a year on average. Per capita consumption in the United States is about 7.5 kg (16.6lb of seafood in 2004).

In terms of production, China alone currently accounts for some 35% of total seafood output, and is the world's largest seafood exporter with exports are valued at NZ$12.8 billion. New Zealand harvested 625,000 tonnes in 2007 valued at NZ$3.8 billion, or 0.5% of the world's total seafood output.

Total world fish production (capture and aquaculture) continues to increase but only thanks to aquaculture. FAO figures for 2006 show a new record of 144 million tonnes (excluding aquatic plants), up from 143 million tonnes in 2005. Production in 2007 is estimated at 145 million tonnes, which would confirm the long-term tendency of modest increases. China confirms its role as the principal producer, reporting 52 million tonnes in 2006, of which 34 million tonnes are from aquaculture.

China's imports are also growing, reaching $4.2 billion in 2007, due, in part, to secondary processing; China imports seafood, processes it and re-exports it. China is likely to soon overtake Spain as the world's number 3 seafood importer behind Japan and the United States. "In essence, much of the increase of total production of fish in the world has not only taken place in China, but has also been consumed in China," says an FAO report (http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai466e/ai466e10.htm).

And what about CO2 emissions? With an 8% national increase, China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions accounted for two thirds of last year’s global carbon dioxide increase of 3.1%. China’s CO2 emissions are now estimated to be about 14% higher than those from the USA. With this, China tops the list of CO2 emitting countries, having about a quarter share in global CO2 emissions (24%), followed by the USA (21%), the EU-15 (12%), India (8%) and the Russian Federation (6%). Together, they comprise 71% of the total of global CO2 emissions. These figures are based on a preliminary estimate by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), using recently published BP (British Petroleum) energy data and cement production data for 2007 (http://www.mnp.nl/en/service/pressreleases/2008/20080613ChinacontributingtwothirdstoincreaseinCO2emissions.html).

 

Using Excel's AVERAGEA

Sometimes Excel's Average function doesn't always give an entirely accurate picture of your data. It only finds the average of a range of numerical values, and skips any text values.

But there is an easy way around that; use the AVERAGEA function, which treats text values (eg 'None') as 0 and includes that value in its calculation.

Very, very clever & easy.

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you:

• CMDB, Configuration Management Database. A database containing all relevant information about the components of the information system used in an organisation's IT services and the relationships between those components.

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

This time I have the task manager shortcuts for both Windows XP & Vista:

• Windows XP: To launch Task Manager - Ctrl, Alt & Delete
• Windows Vista: To launch Task Manager - Ctrl, Shift & Esc

Hot Linx

For those of you who are booking international flights & often get dumped in a poor seat; then http://www.seatguru.com/ is the site for you! Airline by airline layouts for all aircraft models; brilliant!

A new trend in Auckland - http://www.bikecentral.co.nz/ - located in the Britomart precinct, you can purchase secure bike storage, a shower & change, a private secure locker, get a bike service, parts & accessories, buy a bike or hire a bike. Oh, and eat or grab a coffee.

Those of you who are interested in lowering your carbon footprint might like to check out http://www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2/ for a bit more information about estimating and lowering your CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Lastly, check out this great article from the Australian about the covering of our bodies to - uh - avoid sin. This is a nice, thought-provoking piece at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24030640-12274,00.html

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 153, August 2008"