Just a quick note that we’ve listened to your suggestions and in the spirit of continuous improvement we’ve implemented some enhancements to the blog:
- You can now listen to new blog entries… at your desk, while driving to work, or while exercising (that puts "lean" in a whole new light!). All new entries are automatically converted to an audio podcast feed. There is a "Listen Now" link on the right, or you can subscribe to one of the podcast services listed to automatically receive the latest audio post. We may play around with the male and female voice… listening to Bill’s posts being read by a female computerized voice may be a bit much!
- You can now read the blog on your mobile phone or PDA. Click on the "WinkSite" button under "Subscribe" on the right to sign up for the feed, which is formatted for mobile devices.
- We have added automatic translation to German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese using Google’s translation engine. Click on the links on the right column.
- We have added a "Recent Comments" section on the left, listing the ten most recent comments.
- For a great browser start page with the latest top world news, top business news, lean manufacturing news, top technology news, and the latest posts from several lean- and manufacturing-oriented blogs, visit the new My Superfactory.
More enhancements coming soon!
Kev says
Excellent little gizmo thing, I wonder if I could use it for standard ops, save having to lean over to study it every line for a new job. Does it just use the text?
Jon Miller says
Beta Google translation engine + Bill’s colloquial American English = Hilariously unreadable in Japanese
Mark Graban says
It’s also a fun game to translate in to German and then to translate back to English. “The stinking animal…” instead of the skunk. Well, sometimes it’s funny.
Bill Waddell says
I write that way on purpose to keep your German and Japanese competition confused. I am sure the thousands of characters in the Cantonese language are woefully short of what it wold take to convey the critical lean secrets of skunks and cans of worms to your Chinese competitors.
Mark Graban says
Sorry to be a gadfly on your gadfly blog, Bill , but the idea of auto converting your blog to podcast format… is that “excess processing” or did you have customers really demanding that?
Kevin says
It was a gimmick at first… I’m a sucker for new tech. But to my great surprise over 20 people have now subscribed to the audio feed in less than a week, and who knows how many subscribe using a method I can’t track. Whether it’s for the content or the comedy of listening to Bill’s posts read by a female computer… not sure.
So what’s the lean lesson in that? Yes, it would initially appear to be a waste of “excess processing”… but if it unexpectedly apparently delivered customer value…?
Kevin