I'm one of ASQ's 40 New Voices of Quality!

If you squint your eyes and look really closely, that's me about 1/4 of an inch under the base of the letter Q, 2nd column from the left. I’m also part of the ASQ Influential Voices program, where I blog regularly at http://qualityandinnovation.com. While I receive an honorarium from ASQ for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own!

Embracing the Spirit of Quality Consciousness


Arthur C. Clarke wrote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." If you believe the dictionary, technology encompasses all of the "ways in which social groups provide themselves with the material objects of their civilization". This means that software, hardware, social and organizational networks, and the many dimensions of quality systems (e.g. ISO 9000, Baldrige, TQM) are all technologies. How can we leverage them to create immense personal, organizational, and social value so they really feel like magic?

[ Read My Articles on Quality & Innovation (2008 - Present) ]

To me, the answer is quality consciousness  [1] [2]. In a quality culture, "quality is approached as a set of values, as a general orientation, and an organizational ideology rather than as a set of tools and techniques." (Cameron & Sine, QMJ, 1999) The organization decides what its values are and tries to get everyone to go along. But what if we took a decentralized approach, allowing an emergent quality culture by adopting personal imperatives to develop expertise through continuous improvement? My quality consciousness concept map, explaining how to combine Quality in Action, Quality in Reflection, Quality in Interaction, and Quality in Education, describes how we can collectively explore this new direction through its critical dimensions of quality in the future.

Quality in Action: I'm working with ASQ Section 1108 and representatives from industry to get students involved in real world quality and process improvement, and practical research driven by immediate needs, in our region. My projects focus on quality informatics which is my term for data-intensive quality improvement activities. Contact me if you have additional projects that we might be interested in!

Improving Production Quality at Starr Hill Brewery: I'm leading a team of 6 undergraduate seniors as they collect and analyze production data, and employ Six Sigma tools and techniques to improve the brewing process and product margins. Each student is applying data mining, statistical knowledge discovery, and intelligent systems/machine learning concepts to improve quality for this prominent regional craft brewery.
Extracting Voice of the Customer (VOC) from Multi-Channel Customer Communications: We're exploring techniques (using clustering and other machine learning mechanisms) for extracting essential information from customer conversations to help companies better understand the needs of their customers.

Quality in Reflection: Part of quality consciousness is continually improving yourself, and your ability to be a good, productive problem solver at home and in the workplace. I'm exploring spirituality, mental health, agility and mindfulness as personal dimensions of quality consciousness and innovative potential. Building on the experience of writing the nonfiction journal Disconnected I've also started writing my first quality-related novel, The Gypsy of Sigma, which I plan to publish whenever it's done. Sometimes it's easier to learn about important life lessons - like how to apply quality tools and concepts - through fiction! (See my Quality in Fiction lineup.)

Quality in Interaction: Embracing quality as a personal value is useful, but much work is done collaboratively or in teams. How does quality consciousness emerge in a network of people who share a goal or concern? I'm exploring agility, collective mindfulness, and energy in networks as interactive dimensions of quality consciousness and innovative potential.

Quality in Education: If quality consciousness (by definition) is a mechanism for achieving renewable expertise, then efforts to cultivate it in the classroom should facilitate achieving learning objectives and stimulate the development of lifelong learners. I'm exploring spirituality, mental health, agility and mindfulness as personal dimensions of quality consciousness and innovative potential in students and in the classroom, and working with the ASQ Young Quality Professionals (YQP) Advisory Board to help connect students with exciting opportunities in the field.

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Updated on October 2, 2012 (broken link to my CV fixed)

 

Slides from ICSQ 2011 in San Diego * Quotes I Like * My CV (Sept. 2012)