iFailure 2.0

I said, "Do you speak-a my language?" He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich.

In consideration of our 150th entry (thanks in advance for the well wishes that we know will be about to flood our inbox), we here at Honestly Lay Bare today consider a case study of either brilliant product awareness or one of the worst examples of new product governance / risk assessment that has been seen in recent times.

We are erring on the latter because if it was the intention to go for the former it was a seriously weird way about doing it.

What are we talking about?

We are talking about the launch of a variation on the Australian staple, Vegemite and its soon to be derided cousin.

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Firstly for those that may not be aware, Vegemite is a dark brown, salty, slightly bitter and malty Australian food paste made from yeast extract. It is a spread for sandwiches, toast, crumpets and cracker biscuits and filling for pastries. It is similar but not as intensely flavoured as British Marmite and is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite.

At this point it doesn’t really sound like the content for the usual Honestly Lay Bare update does it?

Well wait – there is more!

In September 2009, Kraft Foods – the makers of Vegemite – announced the results of a nationwide competition which attracted more than 40,000 entries to name the new, creamier recipe of the suburban staple.

iSnack 2.0 was the name Kraft Foods selected (we kid you not!).

The move was a bid by the food conglomerate to align the new product with a younger market -- and the "cool" credentials of Apple's iPod and iPhone. That a yeast based spread is not a technology based instrument seemed to allude the minds of the judging panel.

Simon Talbot from Kraft Foods said: "The name Vegemite iSnack2.0 was chosen based on its personal call to action, relevance to snacking and clear identification of a new and different Vegemite to the original. We believe these three components completely encapsulate the new brand."

The product's tag line read: "iSnack 2.0, because it's the next generation Vegemite."

The winner of the contest, West Australian web designer Dean Robbins, told the media ''It's been difficult to contain my excitement; I actually leapt out of my chair when I heard the news. To think that I could go down in Australia's history is overwhelming."

That he will go down in Australian history is not without dispute ... but probably not for the reasons that he wanted.

By the day after the release of the name, the product launch was met with almost universal condemnation by customers.

The internet bristled with indignation at the name chosen with the online world turning on Kraft with a savagery not seen since Coca-Cola changed its recipe in 1985 and rebranded it New Coke.

Soon thousands of negative comments were up on Twitter and a website, Names That Are Better Than iSnack 2.0, also sprung up.

Within three days, Kraft had dumped the brand name (but not the new product which was selling very well).

"The new name has simply not resonated with Australians … particularly the modern technical aspects associated with it," Kraft's Food’s Simon Talbot said.

"At no point in time has the new Vegemite name been about initiating a media publicity stunt.

"We are proud custodians of Vegemite, and have always been aware that it is the people's brand and a national icon."

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And see this is where Honestly Lay Bare starts to have problems with the whole process.

If this was a genuine attempt at naming a new product that would also be in the shadow of a national icon one would have thought that some assessment of likely customer reaction may have been made by ... hmmmm going to a focus group or even asking around.

This is basic risk management - to test out reactions to a potential course of action.

But no, the “personal call to action” seemed to confirm this effort as one of the worst product launches of recent times.

And forever more, iSnack 2.0 will ring out as what you should not do when you are launching a new product.

A Wilpena

False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis

Today Honestly Lay Bare types into the lexicon of internal controls vocabulary a new phrase – a Wilpena Internal Control.

We predict that the usage of the term will soon go viral and when it does we want you to remember that you read it here first.

Now ... before we get to what is a Wilpena Internal Control (some may call it a WIC but we are sticking with the expanded, more pure, form!), firstly one has to take a seat in front of the Honestly Lay Bare film projector and come with Honestly Lay Bare and Mrs Honestly Lay Bare on a journey into one of the remotest corners of Australia.

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To cut a long story short (film nights always drag on), Wilpena Pound is a natural amphitheatre of mountains located 429 kilometres (267 miles) north of Adelaide, South Australia in the heart of the Flinders Ranges National Park. The Pound is the most northern point with access via a sealed road in this part of the Flinders Ranges.

The Flinders Rangers are some of the most stunning natural landscapes that you will ever see (not to mention the many deserted ghost towns along the way) and in mid 2000s Mrs and Mr Honestly Lay Bare were travelling through the Flinders Rangers on holidays.

We soon discovered that one cannot travel through this part of the world without being asked – at every opportunity – whether you have visited The Pound yet.

Whilst we like to consider ourselves seasoned travellers, at the time we had no idea what The Pound was, did or where it was.

But as the days progressed our need to visit something – that days earlier we had never heard of – increased to the point of absurdity.

We just had to get to Wilpena Pound. Just had to.

JUST HAD TO!

When we discovered that there was no accommodation left at The Pound we were shattered.

The value of our collective lives seemed to drain in an instance.

Mrs Honestly Lay Bare had a wonderful idea – to fly over The Pound in a small plane (the story of the flatulent pilot can wait for another day).

We did and that is where the inspiration for a Wilpena Internal Control came from.

The Pound was nothing more than a collection of half sized hills.

We had spent days agonising over the need to visit something that turned out to be the least interesting part of a fascinating journey.

And into the language of the Honestly Lay Bare family came the phrase “that is a Wilpena”.

It means when one stresses over something that is not important or is disproportionately important only to the participant to the event and of no significance to anyone else.

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So what does this have to do with internal controls?

Well – ask yourself; how many times have we identified an internal control deficiency that you are certain is of fundamental and vital importance to the survival of the human race only to discover that there is no one else that shares your concerns let alone your enthusiasm.

Of course there will be times when you have to swim against the tide and speak without fear or favour – but when you are dealing with a Wilpena Internal Control you are not in a life or death situation.

You are dealing with an internal control that – quite simply – no cares about and neither should you.

When you are at that moment – my friend, you have discovered a Wilpena Internal Control.

Hell on Earth

The worst day ever in the history of the State.

In 2009, starting on January 28th, the State of Victoria – the second largest population centre in Australia, experienced its most severe heat wave in recorded history.

Many elderly people died; steel train tracks buckled; in one Melbourne park a thousand fruit bates fell dead from the trees.

By Monday February 2nd Claire Yeo, one of Victoria’s two fire meteorologists, noted that all the facts that create extreme fire weather were evident: high temperatures; strong, gusty winds; and very little moisture.

So terrible was the forecast that, when she had to brief assembled fire chiefs, meteorologists, and other specialists on the situation, she stood at her lectern for some time, hanging her head and unable to speak.

Yeo’s predictions were accurate.

Saturday 7th February 2009 was the hottest day in Melbourne since records began to be kept in 1855. The temperature reached 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 degrees Fahrenheit) in Melbourne and a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit elsewhere in the state.

Humidity was just six per cent and a strong wind was blowing from the northwest.

The six hundred fires that started that day were not just the deadliest that Australia had ever known but among the worst the world had seen for decades.

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These extreme conditions were recognised by the Victorian Government and fire agencies. Prior to 7 February, Victorians were warned from the Premier down that the Saturday was likely to be ‘the worst day ever in the history of the State’.

These dreadful expectations were matched by the calamity that resulted on 7 February.

Many long-serving Country Fire Authority officers had not experienced such fires. The rate of spread of the fires equalled the maximum previously recorded, and the prolific spotting made fire behaviour on the day unique.

Reports referred to flames leaping 100 metres into the air, generating heat so intense that aluminium road signs melted. The plume of the fires created a convection effect that generated winds so strong that trees appeared to have been screwed from the ground.

One hundred and seventy-three people died in the fires.

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A Royal Commission was established to inquire into the catastrophe.

A Royal Commission is an administrative inquiry established by Executive Government which, by long tradition, operates independently.

A Royal Commission is a valuable mechanism by which the circumstances of the involvement of government or government agencies in an event like the 7 February bushfires can be thoroughly examined in a public setting. A Royal Commission has broad investigative powers. It is not under a duty to reach a definitive verdict. It has a duty to report on the nature of its inquiries, explaining what conclusions were drawn from its investigations and what advice it should give the Executive Government based on its deliberations.

A key element of the Royal Commission’s report was on the importance and failings of the communication systems on that dreadful day.

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Timely warnings save lives. The community expects and depends on detailed and high quality information prior to, during, and after bushfires. The community is also entitled to receive timely and accurate bushfire warnings whenever possible, based on the intelligence available to the control agencies.

There were a number of weaknesses and failures with Victoria’s information and warning systems on 7 February.

Warnings were often delayed which meant that many people were not warned at all or the amount of time they had to respond to the warnings was much less than it should have been.

The warnings that were issued often did not give people a clear understanding of the location and severity of the fire and how they should respond.

The methods of delivery of the warnings were also inadequate.

Some techniques for raising awareness such as the use of an emergency warning signal to capture people’s attention when warnings are broadcast were not used. Similarly, other avenues for issuing and raising awareness of warnings were not encouraged, such as the use of local sirens or the use of commercial radio and television.

Finally, the sources of information and warnings that were available during the fire did not cope well with the level of demand. People had difficulty getting onto the relevant websites and about 80 per cent of the calls to the Victorian Bushfire Information Line were unanswered. Often the information available through these sources was incomplete or out of date.

During the afternoon of 7 February the emergency telephone call services (Telstra’s Triple Zero service and the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority) experienced unprecedented demand which resulted in serious failures. Large numbers of calls were not answered and many callers could not be connected to the relevant authorities, leading to a significant number of abandoned calls. The collapse of the system caused extreme stress to both the callers and the operators.

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The Royal Commission recommended the following improvements in Victoria’s information and warning system:

• improving the quality of bushfire information and warning messages by adopting standard language already developed for national usage
• simplifying the format of bushfire warnings
• reintroducing the Standard Emergency Warning Signal to draw attention to broadcast warnings about life threatening fires
• extending the broadcasting of official warnings to commercial radio and television
• allowing the reintroduction of sirens in local communities where there is demand for them
• supporting the acceleration of the full introduction of a nationally developed telephone based automatic warning system
• pursuing research into the development of improved fire danger index systems
• enhancing the role of the Bureau of Meteorology in issuing daily information on bushfire risk
• improving technology and processes to accelerate the updating of common bushfire information on agency websites
• increasing the capacity of the bushfire emergency networks, the Victorian Bushfire Information Line, Telstra’s Triple Zero service and the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority to better handle peak demands, and to work more collaboratively during severe fire risk days.

The lessons of Black Saturday are relevant to any country, society, organisation or family that is seeking to protect its citizens or members in the time of urgent and critical need.

May they be lessons never forgotten.

Based in part on "The Inferno"; The New Yorker October 26, 2009 and the Executive Summary to the Interim Report of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

Choke

A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.

If you have ever found yourself gasping for air and suddenly been bear-hugged from behind by a waiter, his fist, placed just below your sternum, dislodging the food blocking your trachea with one miraculous thrust, you owe the waiter a large tip, but you owe your life to Dr. Henry Heimlich.

He's the maneuver man, credited for three decades as the inventor of the simple, anyone-can-do-it technique for saving the lives of dinner companions who have just begun pointing furiously at their throats while turning blue.

Or at least that is the way that it works in the movies.

In real life there is little evidence to support the assertion that the Heimlich manovuer actually works.

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Dr. Heimlich's first claim to medical fame was a surgical technique that involved replacing a patient's damaged esophagus with a gastric tube. In 1955 Heimlich had published a paper in the journal Surgery describing how he had performed the operation on dogs. A Romanian physician, Dr. Dan Gavriliu, wrote to Surgery to point out that he'd been performing the same operation successfully on humans for four years.

At the 1985 American Heart Association conference, at which a panel of experts in each safety field would decide whether new evidence warranted new recommendations for approved actions in emergencies, the Heilich Maneuver was to be considered. The chairman of that conference, Dr. Bill Montgomery, knew that Heimlich was prepared to do battle with the committee on the topic of choking.

"It was this huge publicity campaign. He was something to be reckoned with," Montgomery recalls. "He threatened to sue us all and write to the presidents of our universities. It was brazen, terrible, unusual."

Different studies reached different conclusions about the most effective method for choking intervention: the Heimlich maneuver, back blows, or chest thrusts, which consist of pushing down on the victim's sternum, as with CPR. There was a dearth of data. As one panel member, Dr. James Atkins, summarizes the situation, the committee could "adopt something that has no evidence, something that has very poor evidence, or something that has mediocre evidence."

Heimlich's evidence might have been even less persuasive, however, had he informed the panelists that his own foundation had financed the one study demonstrating the superiority of the Heimlich maneuver. In fact, they didn't learn this until 20 years later.

Heimlich's rivals folded.

Dr. Archer Gordon, the advocate of back blows, was too scared even to show up at the conference.

Dr. Charles Guildner, the champion of the chest thrust theory, didn't back down so easily, leading Heimlich to make good on his threats: Heimlich accused Guildner of unethical medical practices and petitioned to have his license stripped. Says Guildner, "He tried to bury me.

The panel ruled for the Heimlich maneuver.

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There is, however, one significant problem.

There is actually very little or no evidence to support the Heimlich manoeuvre and the literature is awash with reports of harm and this includes things such as fractured sternums, ruptured livers and other serious consequences of this Heimlich manoeuvre.

Apart from a few case reports there is no other evidence to support what Henry Heimlich has advocated. There's no published data of any substantial nature except for a few case reports and lots of TV programs and there were substantial reports in the literature of harm.

By the late 1980s Henry Heimlich's anti-choking maneuver was world famous, and he was publicly musing over the question, what next? His first priority was establishing the Heimlich maneuver's use in drowning rescue, in lieu of CPR. Second, he vowed he could cure AIDS by treating HIV-positive patients with malaria. He even considered running for president in order to bring world peace.

The maneuver-for-drowning campaign was based on the premise that water must be forced out of the lungs. "You can't blow air into water-filled lungs," according to Heimlich's slogan.

There's just one problem with that thesis. "The idea that inhaled water fills up the lungs in drowning is totally incorrect," says Rear Admiral Alan Steinman, who crafted the U.S. Coast Guard's guidelines for cases of near-drowning. Steinman said that an involuntary response, laryngospasm, seals the lungs at the moment fluid threatens to flow in. Only a very small amount of water ultimately gets into the lungs after the spasm relaxes.

Employing the Heimlich maneuver may be not only ineffective but lethal, according to Dr. James Orlowski, another drowning expert. In 1987 Orlowski published a paper describing a 10-year-old drowning victim who had suffered complications from the rescuer's use of the Heimlich maneuver rather than CPR. A boy who might have been saved slipped into a coma and later died.

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Despite his lack of independent evidence, Heimlich had credibility with the public and the media.

And perhaps – that is all that one needs these days to be heard and believed.