bendoit

There's been fairly interesting data piling up about mandatory helmet laws.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/business/a-bicycling-myste...

> The number of head injuries has increased 10 percent since 1991, even as bicycle helmet use has risen sharply, according to figures compiled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. But given that ridership has declined over the same period, the rate of head injuries per active cyclist has increased 51 percent just as bicycle helmets have become widespread.

...

> Many specialists in risk analysis argue that something else is in play. They believe that the increased use of bike helmets may have had an unintended consequence: riders may feel an inflated sense of security and take more risks.

Cars are more reckless around bicyclists and drive closer to them when they see they are wearing a helmet:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10bike.html

We also see here that bicycles are the lowest risk of head injury while traveling streets and sidewalks:

http://www.howiechong.com/journal/2014/2/bike-helmets

Turns out you're much more likely to suffer a head injury in a car, or walking than on a bicycle. Should helmets be mandated for driving and walking? Evidence suggests it would make more sense for those activities.

Wearing helmets increases the likelihood of neck injuries: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457500...

Feds had to stop claiming bike helmets prevent 85% of head injuries (a commonly cited statistic) after their statistical analysis was found to be bogus:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/19036/feds-will-sto...

Our small town school district has very similar cheating going on with the state tests. The teachers involved are fairly bold about it. The kids would talk about getting advance copies of the final secured tests to bring home and practice with. I made copies of these tests, contacted the state department of education, and tried to report it. That was difficult and there was a lot of runaround regarding who would accept reports. Technically parents and others are not allowed to report cheating, it is to be done only by school staff.

I then contacted several local media reporters. They were surprisingly uninterested, perhaps since nearly everyone around has family members that work for schools in some capacity or another.

After contacting media though the state board must have heard what I was trying to do because the person in charge of testing at the state level personally contacted me, told me that although it might technically be considered cheating it wasn't really cheating, and that there was nothing to report.

Why is all this? Everyone is cheating, everyone knows they're cheating, and they all think they are so clever cheating the system because it results somehow in more federal funding via race to the top grants and the like.

I let my kids finish this school year. But that's the last year in that system, and now we are going back to homeschooling where they can learn something. Despite the advantages of cheating, the school has almost total dedication to test preparation every day of the year and no time for real academics. School is a tedious bore and the students are ignorant.

Yeah, it kind of clashes with the careful Disney like feel good image Campbell has developed and doesn't really indicate a lot of public relations awareness, whether it was private or public.

Here's how I would have handled it if I was in charge of that thing. I'd have read that essay and thought, wow, OK, this does look like an attempt to get a lot of free engineering work and publicity. Then I'd either ignore it and hope it blows away if I had no authority, or if I did, talk to the other executives and point out that the particular issue of not paying travel and accommodations to New York is really not fair at all to the individual hackers and designers (since this is open to individuals and not design firms with a sales team and funding). I'd then publicly thank him for his insightful feedback, insist it was simply overlooked, and announce that OF COURSE Campbells is going to be paying airfare and accommodations to the 30 people that are selected to give presentations, and a family member if they like.

What I would definitely NOT do is pull out my rolodex and "contact every colleague I have client-side and agency-side" (this must be hundreds if not thousands of people) to inform them that a very mean and awful hacker has found my hackathon has some flaws with it in that I'm not paying people for the expenses necessary to comply with my demands, and so will they join in my pile on against him, the stupid annoying hacker, and his filthy company that has DARED, DARED I say to criticize the Almighty Campbells Soup company, which has been around need I remind him longer than he has even been alive the little piss ant!

Because that would be a really very stupid thing to do instead of just offer to pay the accommodations and airfare for these people who are doing free work for my company, and come out all roses having mastered such a minor PR challenge which has such an obvious solution to it.

It's not like Campbells isn't a Fortune 500 company (it is) who drops tens of millions on a Chunky Super Bowl XLVI Sweepstakes without blinking an eye at the cost. Their advertising and software development costs should not be subsidized by hackers. Given that most hackers are under IP contracts that prohibit them from entering something like this in their free time, most of the people legally able to enter are going to be hackers going through a spell of unemployment. Expecting them to do extensive free design work and fly out to meet clients for something that isn't even going to be all that much pay in the end if they do win the contract isn't a reasonable expectation. I expect though that a fair number of people will enter despite this. They might get better quality material though if they are at least willing to pay actual expenses of the finalists.

Jamie Smyth makes some very good points in his economic analysis. Having to pay your own airfare to New York to do a presentation, and then 30 teams building solutions, 29 that would not be paid for. That certainly is a good deal for Campbell, and it sounds like whatever solution they buy for the $25,000 prototype plus $25,000 on completion of the full system with all the changes they request would have cost them a lot more had they hired a design firm to attempt something of this nature, especially in that they get to keep the best of 30 working designs.

Despite all this, much more fascinating than Jamie's post was the following exchange between Campell's brand marketer Sam Niburg and Campell's Global Head of Digital Adam Kmiec.

https://twitter.com/adamkmiec/status/292833747701731328

Regarding Mr Smyth, Kmiec says "Don't sweat it. I shared my opinion about him & his company to every colleague I have client-side and agency-side."

So rather than respond to the very reasonable questions and issues Mr Smyth has brought up, Kmiec publicly brags about having launched a personal vendetta to destroy him and his company.

It's a fascinating exchange between a senior executive and someone tasked with presenting a positive image of the company's brand reputation.

Usually these sorts of open and candid comments between insiders are only seen in private emails. It's refreshing to see inner workings like this out in the open.

I am not female but have been through this.

Keep the kids at home. The only time to work is at night after everyone is asleep and it is quiet. Time trying to work during the day will be wasted due to constant interruptions and thinking about other things, and you'll be frustrated as well.

This means during the 16 day hours you need to take them 8 hrs and your partner needs to take them the other 8 hours. That means you aren't spending much time together. That's right, that's how this will work.

In the old days professionals made enough cash to hire a professional staff to raise the kids at home, and later off to boarding school. This is not possible now since most IT jobs that pay well are in areas that have such a high cost of living there is no money to hire a staff. Staff is for executive level folks that make $3 million +.