Random Musings:

Custom CDs at Wal-Mart

Walmart has announced it is offering custom CDs. Example news coverage here. Snipets:

The cost to download music from the site is 88 cents per song or typically $9.44 an album, Colella said. The cost for a customized CD of three songs is $4.62 plus 88 cents for each additional song. Shipping costs $1.97.

Analyst Phil Leigh of Tampa, Fla., founder of Inside Digital Media Inc., said other companies have been-there, done-that.

"I think they (Wal-Mart) are going to be disappointed. The price isn't that attractive. It was tried before" by a few startup companies in the dot-com boom and was not successful, Leigh said. Also, other companies, like Apple iTunes, offer downloadable music that provides consumers "instant gratification."

"There's no real cost advantage to what Wal-Mart is offering here," Leigh said.

The Future of Podcasting & Radio?

Vin Crosby reports on the Poynter Institute's E-Media Tidbits on a press release issued by Infinity Broadcasting regarding KYOURADIO, The World's First Podcasting Radio Station. Snipets:

New Radio Platform To Be Featured On San Francisco's KYCY-AM And KYOURADIO.COM

Joel Hollander, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Infinity Broadcasting, announced today the creation of KYOURADIO, the world's first-ever podcasting radio station.  KYOURADIO's content will be created exclusively by its listeners and available in San Francisco at 1550 KYCY-AM and streamed online at www.kyouradio.com beginning on Monday, May 16.

 

Scenario Planning in South Africa

The Business Report, apparently carried in several South African newspapers, has an article reporting the use of scenario planning including the titles of various possible outcomes or endstates. The original work in the 1990s was done by Peter Schwartz and GBN, a well known scenario planning firm. Snippets:

While their elders agonised, a group of bright young South Africans said it was all very simple: select a "dual carriageway", in which strong economic growth runs parallel to the deliberate development of disadvantaged people and communities.

This was the conclusion of a scenario planning exercise, South Africa 2020: Creating the Future. The workshops were hosted by the Montfleur Conference Centre in Stellenbosch.

A team of 29 young professionals identified paths that South Africa might take between now and 2020. As with the original Montfleur scenarios in the early 1990s, the participants came up with titles that captured the essence of the scenarios.

Interactive Scenarios - For Kids II

I've been off writing a proposal, which is now done.

Check out Art Hutchinson's second blogical on scenario planning for kids which is here

Interactive Scenarios - For Kids

Check out Art Hutchinson's blogicle on scenario planning for kids. Great find.

The UK Influenza Plan

The UK government's influenza pandemic response plan can be found here [in PDF format].

Among the points made are that historically pandemics have come in waves:

Pandemic waves

In 1918/19 the A/H1N1 pandemic occurred in three distinct epidemic waves: early spring 1918, autumn 1918 and late winter 1919. The second wave was by far the largest and case-fatality rates were also higher than in the first wave12. The A/H3N2 pandemic caused an epidemic wave in the winter of 1968/69 but a more severe one in 1969/704. In contrast, the second wave of the 1957/58 pandemic in the UK was very small in comparison to the first3. Thus all planning should assume that more than one wave is possible (but not inevitable) and that a second wave could be worse than the first.

Canada's Influenza Pandemic Plan

In addition to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, other national governments have developed action plans for responding to the threat posed by the next global influenza pandemic. For example, Canada's plan is overviewed here and presented here.

In addition to detection and treatment options, the Canadian plan also includes a section deal with mass fatalities [in PDF format]. Such contingency planning is both prudent and responsible. That the Canadian government has published the plan including provisions for worst case situations is both noteworthy and laudatory. Frank communications build trust between governments and citizens.

Research to Blend Avian, Human Flu

Despite what we know about the good Professor Murphy and his law, an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports (in part) as follows. What's unclear is whether antiviral drugs cited in the article would be effective in preventing death should a killer virus somehow escape the BL-3 containment labs where the research is being conducted.

What health officials fear most about bird flu --- that it could trigger a pandemic by acquiring genes from a human flu virus and the ability to spread easily among people --- has not yet been known to happen naturally.

But scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are playing out a scenario that could actually create the dreaded pandemic strain. The dangerous work is just getting under way in a high level biosecurity laboratory off Clifton Road.

The CDC's lab is thought to be the only one in the world where genes from a regular flu virus are being mixed with avian influenza, also known as H5N1.

"We're trying to understand, if this does occur in nature, what the properties of the viruses would be and how serious the pandemic might be," said Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's influenza branch.

Laurie Garrett On Influenza And Bioweapons

Laurie Garrett is among my favorite science writers. She is, of course, the author of The Coming Plague and of Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. Ms. Garrett has written an alarming piece published by the Council on Foreign Relations concerning the bioweapons potential of influenza virus. Scary Near-Miss Shows Bioterrorism Vulnerabilities describes the following:

Shortly before Christmas, some genetic data was--as a matter of routine--posted with GenBank, a mammoth, publicly accessible computer repository located at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. No special phone calls were made, no alarms sounded. But the GenBank posting looked like the genetic code for a new, manmade killer influenza that was infecting pigs in South Korea. Fingers seemed to point to Pyongyang.

Before you have a heart attack, let me assure you that, two months later, it looks like the nightmare of weaponized super-flu did not happen this time. But the scenario that played out is probably pretty close to what might unfold in a genuine bioterrorism incident, and it reveals critical weaknesses in our global security system--or lack thereof.

 

Economic Shock Waves From Avian Influenza Spreading Faster than the Disease

As reported in NewsTarget, consulting firm Bio Economic Research Associates ("bio-era") has published a study suggesting that the economic consequences of avian influenza are spreading faster than the disease itself.

“According to the quantitative measures we developed for assigning relative economic risk exposure to infectious disease outbreaks for countries in Asia, Hong Kong and Singapore are especially vulnerable to the initial economic shock waves that would ensue from a pandemic,” said James Newcomb, Managing Director and principal author of the bio-era report. “However, the secondary impacts on other countries, especially China, could have far-reaching impacts for economies around the world, including the US,” he added.

Pandemics and Scenario Planning

Last month we pointed to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) article on Avian Influenza, or "bird flu," and to World Health Organization (WHO) article concerning bird flu vaccines.

Scenario planning is the tool of choice in dealing with uncertainty. This week we'll focus on key Events, Endstates, and news relating to the possibility of a new Influenza Pandemic. According to the CDC, there  have been 3 pandemics in recent modern times:

During the 20th century, the emergence of new influenza A virus subtypes caused three pandemics, all of which spread around the world within 1 year of being detected.

Bush Order Allows Isolation of Those with Bird Flu

According to a Reuters article on Friday, President George W. Bush issued a directive allowing authorities to detain or quarenteen

President Bush issued a directive on Friday allowing authorities to detain or isolate any passenger suspected of having avian flu when arriving in the United States aboard an international flight.

USNews Avian Influenza Articles

USNews.com is running articles on the bird flu and possible pandemic scenarios. The main article is here.
 

Those counting on the availability of vaccine may want to reconsider:

HHS Awards $97 Million Contract to Develop Cell Culture-Based Influenza Vaccine

According to information published in many news sources, including this Reuters article:

U.S. health officials awarded $97 million to Sanofi Pasteur on Friday for the vaccine maker to buy new technology that could cut influenza vaccine production time in half.

The contract comes on the heels of a chaotic flu season that started with a vaccine shortage but later left health officials scrambling to redistribute unused supplies.

The Future of Music - Part 5 - Scenario Planning

This week's theme is the future of the music industry. A major impetus is David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard's The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution.

A major purpose of scenario planning is to empower people, organizations, and industries to  evaluate a diverse set of possible futures, decide which future they prefer, and to identify those key milestones or Events that lead logically to the desired outcome. In short, scenario planning provides a structured framework for strategy determination and implementation.

Participants can then monitor the environment using War Rooms and similar techniques to identify counter and confirming Events and trends. More importantly, participants can also organize and utilize available resources to pursue the Events that are key to the desired outcome.

We've considered four alternative futures for the music industry:

The Music Utility

10,000 Maniac MTV Channels

The Return of the Artist, and

The Empires Strike Back.