My New Best Friend, the Harvey Ball

So in my new position at The Place Which Shall Not Be Named*, my job is often to present a lot of material in a very little amount of time. In order to accomplish this end, I am quickly learning the wonders of The Matrix.

Not the Meatrix, and not the movie either, but rather an 8x8 chart (or 7x5, or 6x9, or what have you) that usually compares a set of criteria to multiple entities. Here's an example, from a quick image search.

Using symbols instead of words. The most challenging part of using a matrix is that I'm confined to boxes. Not only that, but I'm finding that people like to see pictures instead of words, a further confinement. Sure, I can (and have) developed matrices of text. This works in narrative-style reporting, or in cases when one-to-three words will suffice. It doesn't work so well with the at-a-glance snapshot, however. My solution? A series of checks and check-pluses, stars, frowney-faces** and smiley-faces.

And then I discovered Harvey Balls. Developed by a consultant, Harvey Balls are quick reference indicators of scale. A filled in circle exceeds criteria; an empty circle is akin to a frowney-face. Mostly, I just like saying "Harvey Balls" to people and seeing their reaction, especially in a meeting. There must be a better name for these!

Why "Harvey Balls?" Why not "Criteria Circles" or something resembling the function of the things? Turns out that Harvey Balls were developed by a consultant named Harvey Poppel. Harvey Poppel did not like using check marks on matrices. He had to come up with something that displayed a range for criteria. And then he named that thing after himself.

Harvey Ball did not invent Harvey Balls. Most importantly, when referencing the inventor of the Harvey Balls, remember that it was Harvey Poppel, not Harvey Ball. Harvey Ball is another person entirely. Harvey Ball invented the smiley face.

Let's recap: If you, like me, use a smiley face for matrix criteria, then it's from Harvey Ball. If you use Harvey Balls, then think of Harvey Poppel.

This makes me wonder, were Schweaty Balls invented by Harvey Schweaty? Well, they should have been.

*Thanks to Ralph for the title. It's not that I care if you know where I work; it's that I'd rather it not come up in a search engine. Here's a hint.
**I cannot express enough the strength of response to a frowney face.

Edie's first joke

Unbelievably, I have a moment to kill. One anyway, before 8:30 when I get Sarah up and then it's Edie Edie Edie, until I have to go to work. I suppose I could journal a bit about my thoughts on working while actually just wanting to be at home with Mom and Baby*, or perhaps mention my relief on all the help we've been getting lately, but instead I'd like to share a celebratory moment.

Auntie Katie** sent us an email last week, a couple of days after Edie's birth. In it, she wrote:

Hi Guys,

I mentioned at church that I had friends having a baby and my parish offered to put you in the intention book. We've been praying for you for the last nine months but I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. Anyway, when I told them that you guys had the baby, look at what they did.

Cool, huh.

Katie

To which I responded:

Katie! this is so funny, we all gathered round and had a good time looking at it. Where is it? If it's in Chicago I have to go find it. Expect a blog post :)

To which Katie replied:

Before you do anything, check out the website listed on the sign itself.

And me again:

Shit, I knew that sign was too perfect. I'll have to tell the others --- and of course this just makes the blog post all the better!

My rationale for being gullible (besides the fact that I just am): In case you haven't noticed, church signs are crazy! Maybe I'm spoiled by Blue Monster pics of bad signs, but I have no reason to doubt that a church I've never heard of would put our daughter's name on their sign. Never mind the fact that I've never known Katie to be the church going type***, but her lingo was seamless enough for me not to question.

Regardless of fact or fictive signs, this is but one demonstration of how wonderfully attentive the Chicago Aunties are to Edie. I'm pretty sure that more Aunties will come out of the woodwork, but in the last week we've been showered with groceries, food, and baby-holding-while-Sarah-naps help from Katie, Meghan, JP, and Neighbor Kim. Thanks friends! This is in honor of you:


*Not her nickname, but I called her Baby so much before she was born that I must be in some transitional name phase of some kind.
**Regarding the aforementioned help: Edie is developing a fan club of sociology PhD students who are quickly becoming "The Chicago Aunties." They're not all women, but I'm sure JP wouldn't mind being an Auntie either! Anyway, this footnote is just to say that the Chicago Aunties are not blood related, but still a part of Edie's family.
***Though as a singer, she does frequent a talented Chicago church choir. So it's not that implausible.

something fun (if you count the standardization of manufacturing fun) for wednesday: Assembly Line Footage

I'm showing these Google videos in my class today, and thought they were blog-worthy. Topic? Standardization, the case of the Model T, and the assembly line. A fun thing to do is to compare the specialization of tasks between the Dodge commercial and the Wii assembly line, then ask, Has 50 years made any difference at all? Here they all are: Hopefully the videos are available, if not try again in a few minutes.

Video One: Classic Dodge Commercial, 1950s.



Video Two: Wii Assembly Line, November 2006


Three: I Love Lucy at the Chocolate Factory. Just before and after this clip the fore(wo)man is checking up and speeding the line.



other fun things: The Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass, The Late Greats Gender Mix, Commercial Closet, American Factfinder, NCLB Scores, Census Search

something fun (if you count finding out you don't exist) for Sunday: Census Search

Via Kieran Healy, I found this website, which calculates how many people in the United States have your name. I happen to know that my name is very easy to Google, so I figured that there were not too many people with my name. I turns out that only 720 people in the United States even have the last name of Rittle, and none of them are named Marc. Go me.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Oh wait, does that mean that even I don't have my name?

Hmm. Well Kieran found the same result, but he currently resides in Australia. I don't, though; I'm in the U.S. So with further digging I discovered that this website is based on the 1990 U.S. Census, the last national collection of name data. But I also was in the United States in 1990, so I checked a little further.

Soon I discovered that the data takes both names independent of each other, and measures the probability of the name existing in the U.S. It's true, of 720 Rittle's, Marc might not be very popular. But I do exist, so why doesn't this site catch it? Of course Marc is my middle name, so maybe that has a bearing on it. And of course I do not recall filling out census information in 1990, so maybe that means something too.

In hopes to feel more existant, I checked my name variants and misspellings:

Marc Rittle = 0
Mark Rittle = 3
Marc Riddle = 18 (with 41,996 Riddle's in the nation)
Mark Riddle = 198 (I've actually met one of them. We sometimes get each other's mail)

Compare this with my actual first name: John (not Marc)

John Rittle = 18
John Riddle = 689

Now my first and middle names, with no last name at all:

John Marc = 25
John Mark = 246

Finally, my school library identity, which for reasons unknown, reads "Marc Marc Rittle."

Marc Marc = 1 (must be me at the library)
Mark Mark = 71 (note: not Marky Mark, which equals 0)

other fun things: The Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass, The Late Greats Gender Mix, Commercial Closet, American Factfinder, NCLB Scores

something fun for wednesday (if you count reviewing Chicago's educational progress as fun): No Child Left Behind Report Cards

Ok, so it's not Wednesday. But this is something that I did yesterday, if that counts. While preparing a lecture on inequality in education policy, I discovered that the Chicago Sun Times posts a report card of the Adequate Yearly Progress measure! The AYP is the state defined composite of annual test scores, graduation rates, among other factors. They determine, in time, whether a school will continue to receive state and federal funding through the No Child Left Behind Act.

Without going into too much detail, the two columns to look at in the Sun Times charts are at the far left and the far right. On the left you will see the percent of low-income students for the school. On the right you will see a "Y" or "N" for "Yes this school passed AYP this year" or "No it didn't."

What's interesting, is when you check out the report cards, the schools with lowest percentage of low-income students are the ones that pass. Schools with the highest, don't. This is not a statistical observation on my part, it just comes from eyeballing the charts. Obviously there are other factors besides income (like quality of classroom instruction), and it is not true in every case. But I still think these charts are compelling, a demonstration of how the AYP cannot work as a universal measure, unless these schools begin to receive some additional funding or resources in order to better acheive.

Check out the report cards for any public school in Illinois here. Especially interesting are the Chicago charts (remember to compare low-income percentage to the Y's and N's). I discovered that my alma mater didn't pass last year. Naperville did, though, with a low-income enrollment of a whopping 2.6%!

other fun things: The Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass, The Late Greats Gender Mix, Commercial Closet, American Factfinder

something fun (if you count comparative demographic data as fun) for wednesday: American FactFinder

Since school is starting up next week, I thought I'd post a favorite classroom assignment of mine, especially in introductory classes. It's a comparative community demographic assignment, good for thinking about your own location in the spectrum of social inequality. American FactFinder can be found at the U.S. Census website, and is used by many a sociologist.

Here's the assignment: Plug in your zip code, and choose a couple of variables that you want (your students) to compare. Write down the numbers, and then plug in another zip code. Repeat process. Write a one-to-page analysis on your findings. Or just think long and hard about it.

For example: Let's take a look at comparative racial statistics for communities of which I have lived. My Chicago zip code first (Loyola University)

White ~ 46.5%
Black or African American ~ 29.1%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) ~ 27.0%

Compared to Oswego, Illinois, where I went to High School

White ~ 93.5%
Black or African American ~ 1.8%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) ~ 5.0%

Obviously my current community is more racially diverse than where I went to High School. This could explain part of my teenage dissatisfaction, living in a homogeneous white community [Footnote: see this post for more on High School]. It could also explain why, at my ten year high school reunion, people were actually wearing ball gowns. Ick.

For more demography assignments, take a look at Teaching Tips from Brilliant Sociologists.
other fun things: The Meatrix, Your Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass, The Late Greats Gender Mix, Commercial Closet

something fun (if you count sociological analysis of advertisements as fun) for wednesday: The Commercial Closet

This post is dedicated to Kim, who pointed this one out to me. After successfully using The Late Greats Gender Mix in her Mass Media and Popular Culture summer class (in some variation anyway), her course has moved from music to advertising. I'm not sure why, but I happened to post about advertising last Thursday - accidentally transforming "fashion thursday" into a gendered critique of sexy ads. Sorry, I'll keep Thursdays more benign from now on.

Nevertheless, Kim saw this old Ivory Soap poster and told me about a great website. It's called The Commercial Closet, and their tag heading reads "Bringing GLBT Sensitivity to Corporate Advertising." It's expansive and I'm still perusing it, but one part that I like is a section categorizing ads by "portrayls," that is, positive, negative, neutral, or "gay vague" themed ads. This one above where Mike Ditka tries to sell me some hairspray is outta sight, and a perfect example of heterosexist propaganda - or at least positive reinforcement of the binary Mars/Venus approach to men and women - from Da Coach.

That's my post for today, I'll leave it for you to check out the site and comment with links to your favorite ad. By the way, Duke has convinced me to join his new blog collaboration, The Commercial Music Blog. I might need help with the "sociological analysis" part, so if you're interested check it out and drop me a line.

fun things: The Meatrix, Your Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass, The Late Greats Gender Mix

something fun (if you count offensive objectifying and degrading songs as fun) for wednesday: The Late Greats Gender Mix

This one needs your comment. My friend Kim is teaching Mass Media and Popular Culture this summer, and wants to use music to teach sociology. The specific task is to identify both positive and negative images (physical yes, but also social images) of men and women through song.

I'm not a music guy, so I enlisted the help of my friend and ultimate music resource, Duke of Straw of The Late Greats music blog. Within a week he created The Late Greats Gender Mix, and some folk have already added songs to the effort. We're looking for more. What can you suggest? Comment either on Duke's blog or mine. You will be credited and made famous, as Kim will assign this to her class.

p.s. Duke of Straw is already famous. The Late Greats Gender Mix was featured on VH1's Best Week Ever last week. Thanks Duke, and congrats!

other fun things: Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour, TerraPass

something fun (if you count calculating your car's emissions as fun) for wednesday: TerraPass

TerraPass is an organization that funds clean energy projects, but I just like to see how many pounds of CO2 my car produces a year. I said we drive 8,000 miles per year, but living in the city it could be less. Anyway, here's mine, what's yours?:

Personal emissions report

Your car emits 4,891 lbs of CO2 per year.

Vehicle:

1999 Saturn SL automatic transmission

Mileage:

27 mpg (city), 37 mpg (highway)

Distance:

8,000 miles per year

Fuel use:

250 gallons per year

Emissions:

4,891 lbs CO2 per year

other fun things: Meatrix, Ecological Footprint, Forbes Lists, Capitalism Tour

something fun (if you count the moral justification of capitalism fun) for wednesday: The Capitalism Tour

Ok, I'm trying to find fun things for you all on wednesdays. But I'm not sure if the Capitalism Tour quite makes it. However, it does involve fun pictures (for example, the statue of David ).

Things I like about the tour. It seems that the moral justification for a capitalist state absolutely opposes preemptive war. Here is what they say:

Government is an agency which has a monopoly on the use of physical force.

This legal power -- to use physical force -- only may be used for one purpose: to retaliate against those who initiate force, according to objectively defined laws.

Never is this power to be used to initiate force, but government is only permitted to retaliate and defend against those who initiate force.

So I guess that means that the United States no longer abides by capitalism, definitely does not agree with socialism, leaving us with what? (Starts with F and ends with ISM)

Things I don't like about the tour. (1) The "man" language - you'll soon see (2) Oh, you know, all that stuff about the "individual is sovereign" and (3) the entire site is headed by an Ann Rynd quote. I mean, what does "man qua man" mean, anyway?

Obviously I have a position on the issue. I don't really see a moral justification for a political economic system that, left unchecked, serves to widen the inequality gap. But some may greatly appreciate this site, especially for the pro-capitalist position against pre-emptive war. You decide.

something fun (if you count keeping track of disgustingly rich people and companies fun) for wednesday: Forbes Lists

Here's a website that oddly, I really enjoy. It's Forbes.com

Surprised? I like it because it's targeted toward the average worker. For example, the current front page special report is all about work, and includes several work-related articles from topics as Why your boss is overpaid, Why do the rich keep working?, and Sneak out of work right now. That last one even has a slight jab at the recent U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention's report that women of childbearing age should be considered "pre-pregant." [footnote: Yes, it's true. Check out first the Washington Post essay and then read fantastic feminist analysis at Feminist Law Professors]

But the features of Forbes that I like the most are their lists. The people of Forbes incessantly keep up to date with the richest companies, CEOs, people, and celebrities. They tell you what these richies can afford and own and the tell you that never in your life will you have a chance at affording or owning the same thing. In short, Forbes.com understands wealth inequality.

So without further ado: The Forbes.com listings as of today. [footnote 2: If you click on the links along the way, you will be taken to the most recent and updated information.]

Largest public companies: bank (Citigroup), conglomerate (GE), bank, bank, bank, oil (ExxonMobile), oil, oil, bank, bank.
marc's note: I see a lack of diversity here, anyone else?

Largest private companies: agribusiness (Cargill), chemicals (Koch), candy (Mars), accounting (Pricewaterhousecoopers), supermarket (Publix), engineering (Bechtel), accounting, food distributing (C&S), oil (SemGroup), merchandise (Meijer)
marc's note: more diversity, does this mean more competition in the private sector?

World's Richest People: Bill Gates (software&investments) [footnote 3: his networth is 50 Billion, equal to his age, 50]; investments (Warren Buffet, United States); communications (Carlos Slim Helu, Telecom, Mexico); retailing (Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA, Switzerland); manufacturing (Lakshmi Mittal, Steel, London); software&investments (some other Microsoft guy), investments, investments, media/entertainment (Kenneth Thompson, Toronto), investments.
marc's note: natually, these are all men.
marc's note2: The Walton Family (of Walmart and Sam's Club) used to occupy 5 of the top ten spots. Now I see they occupy #17 - #21. There may be hope after Walmart!

Top Celebrities (according to Forbes' "power ranking" system): Oprah (#2 in pay), Tiger (#4 in pay), Mel Gibson (#3 in pay), George Lucas (#1 in pay), Shaquille O'Neal (#26 in pay, but TV and the press sure like him), Stephen Speilberg (#5 in pay), Johnny Depp, Madonna, Elton John, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt.
marc's note: I included a picture of Johnny Depp because, well, he's just so hot!


Some shorts:

• The fattest CEO paycheck is $249.2 million, and it goes to Richard D. Fairbank, CEO of Capital One Financial.
• The most valuable baseball team is the New York Yankees, worth $1026 Million
• If you must know, the Chicago Cubs don't do too bad. We are ranked the fifth most valuable team, worth $448 Million. And, despite last year's win, the White Sox are ranked at #18, worth $315 Million
  
• Manchester United is the world's most valuable soccer team, at $1373 Million
• The most fattening cocktail is the Long Island Iced Tea, at 740 calories and 56 carbs
• Top earning dead celebrities: Elvis ($45 Million), Charles M. Schulz, John Lennon, Andy Warhol, Theodore "Dr. Suess" Geisel, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, J.R.R. Tolkein, George Harrison, Johnny Cash
• Top fictional characters elevated to the status of real people: Santa Claus, Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, Richie Rich, Lex Luther, C. Montgomery Burns, Scrooge McDuck, Jed Clampett, Bruce Wayne, Thurston Howell III, Willy Wonka

And, finally, the world's most expensive car is a Porsche (surprise), specifically the 10 cylinder Carrera GT. However, it is not the Best Selling car by any stretch. Forbes has done us a favor by showing us the gendered order of car sales, stating that Dodge carries the most masculine (most sales by men) brand of vehicle. Yes, they really named "masculine" versus "feminine" brands of cars. Men purchase, in order of #1 to #5: Dodge, Jaguar, Porsche, and Infiniti. Women purchase, in like order: Pontiac, Hundai, Toyota, Volkwagon, Suzuki.
marc's note: Funny, my Mom just bought a Hundai.

something fun (if you count the depletion of the earth's resources as fun) for wednesday: Your Ecological Footprint

If every person in the world today consumed the resources of one average American, we would require six (6) Earths, or an ecological footprint of 24 acres of land per person. Can you believe it? This of course is for the average car driving, meat eating, McMansion building red blooded American, and for many of us it might be much lower. Still, I thought I was resourceful (as a vegetarian, walker/bicycler, and resident of an apartment building), but found that if everyone lived like me we would require two and a half (2.5) Earths, or 11 acres of land per person. My footprint is too big.

According to Earthday.net our ecological footprint is partly about our personal consumption of resources, but it's also about the community in hich we live. So to reduce the resources that we consume on a daily basis, it involves more of a communitarian effort than it does an individual effort. For example, I live in the city of Chicago, and our public transportation system could use a major overhaul. If the El were more accessible to more people to more places at more times, then maybe we wouldn't collectively use our cars so much. But this becomes a structural issue for the city that effects my personal decision as a resident.

The solution? I don't know, get onto city council? Have local, state, and national governments that actually pay attention to these things? I'm curious what other people's footprints are, so take the quiz and get back to me.

something fun (if you count the end of the family farm as fun) for wednesday: The Meatrix

Since we're on the topic of fast food, here's a safe look at the realities of feedlot beef in America. "The Meatrix" has been around online for a couple of years; last month "The Meatrix 2" made it's debut. Moofius takes us on the true journey of cows and pigs before they become meat; these are not the Happy Cows that you see on TV.







Also take a look at the Meatrix blog for more information on the topic. And, if you are interested in even more, check out the unsafe version of all of this. People for the Ethcial Treatment of Animals maintains a website called Meat Your Meat; these videos are the real thing - no funny cartoons, so beware.