Pick 90 - Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)

A distributed ledger is a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. Unlike with a distributed database, there is no central administrator

 

Peter West-- Open Innovation Team

Human intelligence is so remarkable because it’s collaborative. The social reservoir of knowledge is a result of intelligence interacting with other intelligence. Having barriers between two intelligent systems slows down growth because it inhibits connections from taking place. The more connections that happen, the more intelligent something can become. The more intelligent an AI system becomes, the more value it has.

Several concerns have been raised about using distributed ledgers within government:

1. Who decides who the ledger should be shared with? When dealing with sensitive or confidential information, somebody needs to select people to share the ledger with to ensure information does not fall into the wrong hands. However, that person could select untrustworthy individuals, or otherwise use their power in a corrupt manner, negating the advantages of distributed ledgers over a central storage solution.
2. It is impossible to retroactively change information. This makes the technology appealing to financial transactions where records should be historic, but this makes it unsuitable where information may need to be retroactively changed.
3. It may be unsuitable for large numbers of users. Larger-scale use cases should be considered on their need for growth in the number of users and interactions, because right now these may lead to poor performance and significant energy use. But, technological solutions to these scaling issues are in development.
4. It may disrupt established workflows. End-users will have different working behaviors, digital literacies, and attitudes to technology which must be factored in when considering distributed ledger use cases.
5. It is not yet mainstream. Distributed ledger technology currently lacks established standards and legislation, its conformance to existing and emerging standards is unclear. For example, it is questionable whether a hash of personal information could constitute personal information under the GDPR.
6. Is the data to be stored generated in a decentralised way? If the process generating the data has some other point where a single authority has complete say over what the data will look like, then DLT may add very little in terms of preventing tampering and imbuing trust.

 

  In order to maximize connection in society, by 2030, all of our intelligent systems will need to interact with one another. The mass of data being handled is useless if we humans do not understand its value or how to use it for the common good.. So both data and its value must be unobstructed as it moves from producers to providers around the world.

The model that’s beginning to take form is a world where data is a resource of increasing supply thanks to large data providers, IoT devices, and the Internet. The data can be leveraged by AI algorithms that refine it and use it to take intelligent actions in the real world. These actions are facilitated by DLT technology that connect everything together, trigger the reconciling of trade, and record it all in a shared ledger. Once the networks are put in place, they run themselves and can ever grow smarter over time. This is the fourth industrial revolution.

Pick 91 - Recycling Programs

Recently, the NBC News segment “Growing Number of Cities Suspending Recycling Programs Over Rising Costs” showed the example of Casa Grande, Arizona as indicative of a downward trend prevalent among American cities.

 

The segment describes how cities are struggling to finance and maintain curbside recycling programs, especially now that China has stopped buying these materials. It also hints at how and why the end of such programs is problematic. Amid concerns about climate change, there is a real need to recycle, now more than ever.

This is yet another example of substituting Conventional Wisdom (CW) for Knowledge Based Decision Making (KBDM). CW advocates surmise that dumping our garbage in landfills and sites outside of town must be a good solution. That's the way it has been done for centuries. KBDM Advocates learn from scientific studies that landfills eventually emit toxic substances and dangerous bacteria into our air and our drinking water. They learn that people who live near landfills or former dump sites are statistically more prone to disease than those who don't. They also learn of the relationship between methane gas and global warming that scientists claim is the root cause of global climate change. Armed with this information and the knowledge that landfill sites are a major emitter of methane gas, they make recycling decisions that may not be popular but may save thousands of lives in the future.

Could it be that the Chinese Government  is gradually making decisions based on verified knowledge while we are still operating from conventional wisdom?

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Pick 88 - Time Value of Money

 

 

 

Pick 86 - Screen Time Burnout

 

Between video chat happy hours, birthdays, catch-ups with friends and family, along with all-day work meetings, it feels like we’re spending all day on camera. And, according to the latest research, we are.

The daily time spent on video chat apps has increased by 277% since early March 2020

With most countries still using social distancing to battle coronavirus, we need to connect more than ever. But all that time spent on video comes with serious side effects ranging from general fatigue to increased anxiety, stress, and even burnout.

The problem is that few of us have ever experienced what an effective meeting culture looks like. 

 

So how do you fix a problem when you don’t know what the solution looks like? You review to data. 

 

In interviews with close to 1,000 business leaders, in-demand freelancers, top developers, designers, and makers, we discovered what makes effective meetings work, and what turns them into a waste of time.

 

Meeting frequency and length has increased over the past 50 years. Today, most people average 9–23 hours a week on them. That's a lot of time. Especially if that time was wasted on frivolous and non-productive topics. But meetings don't have to take over our lives. Highly effective business leaders use these principles to keep meetings effective and productive. 

Remote communication is a different beast than when you’re in an office. You can’t just try to recreate the processes and policies you used in the office when your team’s at home.

 

Instead of sitting at your desk (where you are all day), take video calls on your phone and get out for a walk. As Dr. Suzanne Degges-White writes:

“It can be less stressful when you ‘show up’ in voice only. When we’re not chained into posing as a ‘living headshot,’ we can move around and step onto our porch or sit outside in the sunshine.”

Not only are non-video, video calls less stressful, but they’re a great opportunity to recover from spending all day sitting. Getting fresh air, taking a walk, and being around nature have all been shown to reduce stress and increase our happiness and productivity.

2. Embrace asynchronous communication (aka, why email isn’t as terrible as you might think)

Video chat apps help remote teams feel more connected. However, one of the best things you can do when working remotely is to actually reduce your meeting time. 

There will always be moments where you need to quickly get together and hash out a solution. However, switching your default to asynchronous communication is an easy way to increase your productivity and reduce stress.

Instead of an in-person interruption that is all-but-impossible to block asynchronous communication lets you choose when you’re available and how people can get in touch with you. 

Every communication app has some form or do-not-disturb mode (or you could just, you know, close them).

3. Set communication expectations early and often (i.e. let everyone know it’s ok to slow down)

The reason most people fail at embracing asynchronous communication is that they haven’t set shared expectations.

The only way you get the benefits we listed above is if everyone understands how to properly communicate. Otherwise, you’ll come out of a peaceful and focused do-not-disturb-mode session to:

There are a few ways you can set proper expectations with your teammates about when you’ll be available. 

• Set “office hours” that everyone’s aware of. Discuss as a team what a reasonable time is for a response and set aside a few hours of the day where everyone is available.

• Use your status, email signature, and other tools to tell people when they should expect a response.  

• Lead by example. When we interviewed more than 700 professionals about their email habits, we found that if you check and respond to emails outside of work hours, your team will too. Set expectations and live by them. If they’re not working, talk it through and find a solution that does. 

Pick 85 - Paul Harvey Letter from God

Pick 84 - Daily Routines vs the Pandemic of 2020

Perhaps the most disruptive force of the COVID-19 pandemic was not its threat to our health, but the stress it provoked by forcing us to change our daily routines. 

In his book on the daily routines of creative people, Mason Curry informs us that  all creative people seem to depend on daily rituals and routines to remain productive. In the process of citing many examples, he forces us to consider the hidden value in the rituals we employ to keep ourselves going.

 

Daily Rituals - How Artists Work

Edited by Mason Currey

Apr 23, 2013 | ISBN 9780307273604 

 How do we do meaningful creative work while also earning a living?

 Is it better to devote ourselves wholly to a project or to set aside a small portion of each day?   

 When there doesn’t seem to be enough time for all we hope to accomplish, must we give things up (sleep, income, a clean house), or can we learn to condense activities, to do more in less time, to work smarter, not harder?

Are comfort and productivity incompatible, or is the opposite true: Is finding a basic level of daily comfort a prerequisite for sustained productive work?

Whether work/learn from home was a welcomed change or a nightmare, most of us might agree that breaking routines, developed in childhood, was a treacherous experience. Being forced to do so by an enemy that seemed invincible, made it all the more so.

 

Routines simplify our busy schedules and give us structure.  Sometimes the only way to make it through the week, even in "normal" times was to switch on auto-pilot, turn off our brain, and just let routine take over.  In fact, Psychologists tell us that our brains need routines and rituals to remain well.

1. Routines help minimize uncertainty.
   • Our brains don’t like uncertainty. Uncertainty engages the fight-flight-freeze-appease part of our brains (the amygdala) which can stifle clear thinking. Routines, however, give us a greater sense of control. This creates certainty.  Our brain loves certainty and stability.
2. Routines make space for clearer thinking.
   • In the front part of our brain, the pre-frontal cortex, executive functions like planning, abstract thinking, social intuition, and emotional control occur. However, that part of our brain tires easily. The more we use it, the more it tires which can affect our ability to think clearly, make wise decisions, and relate to others well. However, when we create routines and habits, the brain stores those routines in our habit centers (basal ganglia). As a result, routines free up working space in our pre-frontal cortex so that we can think and concentrate better on new tasks and relationships.
3. Routines can reduce the drain on our daily energy.
   • Ego depletion refers to the concept that we all possess a limited pool of mental resources available for self-control and willpower. And it gets used up during the day. If we spend that resource on activities that could be routinized, we waste energy that we otherwise could dedicate to more important tasks and relationships. Routines help conserve our energy for what’s most important.
4. Routines help us focus and maintain attention.
   • The ability to pay attention to what’s important is a key to successful living, leading, and learning. When we are scattered (Where did I leave those keys?) attention gets diluted. Routines, however, can help us direct our attention toward what really matters.
5. Routines help quiet the tyranny of the urgent.  

•  The tyranny of the urgent beckons us to worry about insignificant issues that seem important at the moment. The term rumination describes the mental process of rehearsing something that happened in the past or something that might happen in the future. The tyranny of the urgent breeds such rumination. Routines help us focus on the life’s essentials rather than spending precious time trying to prioritize everything
  

Since there is hidden value in those routines and rituals that we once took for granted, we should not forsake them entirely. An effective Life Coach would assure us that realigning our daily routine doesn’t have to be difficult — there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Just adapt it to our current reality. We can continue to do the things we normally did before the pandemic disrupted our lives. Simple routines like waking up and going to bed at the same time each day are still under our control. The rushed breakfast and hour-long commute to work can now be replaced by a leisurely and healthy breakfast. This can be followed up with a second-cup of our favorite coffee or tea. Since we, no longer need to spend time getting appropriately dressed for work, we might just brush our teeth, wash our face, and change into a comfortable sweat  suit just in time for our AM Zoom conference.

Over time, we will develop routines that help us grow more comfortable working and learning in the comfort of our own homes. In fact, many of the WFH veterans have grown so used to their new routines that they do not want to return to the old ways of working. So if employers find that WFH employees are equally or more productive than those who want to gather in factories and office buildings, they may find ways to accommodate both.

 

 

Pick 83 - Gifts for People With Disabilities.

 When your child’s development does not match what is typical for their chronological age, it can be challenging to find age-appropriate gifts that they will truly enjoy. That’s especially true for tweens and teens with significant disabilities.

The Mighty

 To add some happiness and excitement back into gift shopping, look beyond toys and games to find gifts that are both age and developmentally appropriate. The best gift ideas for a teen with significant disabilities can be found in one of these areas:

• Experiences – With quarantines and shut-downs, it is challenging finding safe experiences outside of  home. But, with a little creativity, you'll find ideas that are safe, fun, and often inexpensive as well. Here are some ideas to consider:

• • Zoo pass or membership
  • Drive-in movies
  • Drive-thru Christmas light displays
  • State park pass for trail hiking and walks
  • Botanical gardens

• Room décor – What young adult doesn’t want a bedroom that reflects their personality? You can do a complete makeover that includes painting walls, setting up new organization systems, and outfitting the bed with a new comforter and sheets or a smaller scale project, such as adding a new string of lights, throw pillows or a beanbag chair. Whether it’s a total transformation or a smaller project, tweens and teens usually appreciate an update that makes their space feel more comfy and cozy.

• Personal care – Think about those little splurges that make day-to-day life a little brighter. Some ideas include: scented lotions, fuzzy socks, hair products, lip balm, massage pillows, weighted blankets, bath bombs and essential oils.

• Subscriptions – Teens and Tweens enjoy music and movies, so subscriptions to music and TV services are gifts that can be enjoyed all year round. Also growing in popularity are subscriptions to themed boxes, which can be a wonderful monthly surprise. Check out subscription boxes for items such as books, sensory kits, craft projects, and more.

Finding just the right gift for any loved-one has many hidden values. Greatest of these is finding joy in holiday shopping for friends or family members with developmental disabilities. It can put a little extra magic into your holiday season.

 

Pick 82 - Procrastination

My first find on the value of procrastination came when I started school. My teacher was a Catholic nun whom we called "Sister Janet" or "Sister".

Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash

Sister explained that she belonged to an order of Catholic nuns. It started in Germany a long time ago. She and the other nuns at my school were teachers but other members of her order were nurses. They worked in hospitals.

Preschool or Kindergarten was not an option in those days. Every member of my first grade class was a school newbie. So Sister Janet spent the first day laying out the rules for success in her class.

Her favorite saying was "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today." At our tender age I doubt any member of my class knew what she meant. In our world of play and simple chores, tomorrow was a place our parents often talked about. Our world only existed in the here and now.

Everything was new and puzzling on that day. It was the first time any of us had to sit still at a desk while an adult talked.

Sit still and be quiet was rule #1 in Sister's class.

Do not speak out unless Sister asks you a question. That was rule #2.

Raise your hand if you had a question or wanted permission to go to the bathroom.

Do not leave your seats until dismissed by Sister at break time or the end of the day. A bell would ring to alert Sister, but we were to ignore the bell. Only Sister could give us permission to leave.

I can't speak for my classmates but the end of that day could not come soon enough. The second I heard that bell, I wanted to run out of that classroom. I would jump in my mom's waiting car and get home to play with my neighborhood friends.

The bell rang and Sister gave us each a book to "take home and bring back covered tomorrow." I took the book and met mom. 

 

I told Mom that I had to bring back the book tomorrow. I did not tell her the covered part.

At that time we could play outside until the streetlights came on. That is what I did. I would cover the book when I came back inside. That is when I learned the dangers of procrastination. I was too tired to cover the book. I went to bed believing I could cover it in the morning. That did not go as planned. Mom wanted to leave early. So I took the naked book, and we headed off to school. What happened next programmed me to avoid procrastination for the most of my life. In later life, I discovered there is value in procrastination.

Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But unless you had Sister Janet in First Grade, that may be difficult. As an adult, there are an infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what you focus on, you're not working on everything else. So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well. At times, I am the "absent-minded professor." I may forget to shave, or eat, or even look where I am going while thinking about a writing project. My mind is absent from the everyday world because it's hard at work on an important topic. That's the hidden value in procrastination. Putting off work on small stuff to work on big stuff.

With all due respect to Sister Janet, getting outside to play after school is bigger stuff for a 6-year-old than covering a book.

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Pick 81 - Divisiveness

Divisiveness in American Culture

Strike up a conversation that touches on religion or politics and the sparks of division fly out almost spontaneously. This is nothing new in American culture. It was present even before it found its way into the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

Photo by Max Okhrimenko on Unsplash

Many of the American Colonists were happy with the benefits accorded them by the Parliament and King George III. This included the right of Merchants to trade with other English colonies including those in Canada; protection from piracy at sea; protection from foreign invasion by enemies of England; and a reliable means of transportation between England and the Colonies for both people and merchandise. A hidden value that is often overlooked in the study of Colonial America is the role that divisiveness played in uniting the 13 Colonies against the rule of King George III.

Governance

In royal colonies, governors were appointed by the Crown to represent its interests. Before 1689, governors were the dominant political figures in the colonies. They possessed royal authority transmitted through their commissions and instructions. Among their powers was the right to summon and dissolve the elected assembly. Governors could also veto any bill proposed by the colonial legislature.

Gradually, the assembly successfully restricted the governor's power by asserting  control over budgets, including the salaries of the governor and other officials. A governor could find his salary withheld by an uncooperative legislature. Governors were often placed in an untenable position. Their official instructions from London demanded that they protect the Crown's power from usurpation by the assembly; at the same time, they were also ordered to collect more colonial funding for Britain's wars against France. In return for military funding, the assemblies often demanded more power.

 

To gain support for his agenda, the governor could reward supporters by appointing them to various offices such as attorney general, surveyor-general or as a local sheriff. These offices were sought after as sources of prestige and income. He could also reward supporters with land grants. As a result of this strategy, colonial politics was often divided between a governor's faction (the court party) and his opposition (the country party). So the seeds of divisiveness were sown on American soil long before it became politically acceptable.. 

Divisiveness Within the Councils

The executive branch included an advisory council to the governor that varied in size ranging from ten to thirty members. In royal colonies, the Crown appointed a mix of placemen (paid officeholders in the government) and members of the upper class within colonial society. Members served at the pleasure of the King. When there was an absentee governor or an interval between governors, the council ran the government.

 

The governor's council also functioned as the upper house of the colonial legislature. In most colonies, the council could introduce bills, pass resolutions, and consider and act upon petitions. In addition to being both an executive and legislative body, the council also had judicial authority. It was the final court of appeal within the colony. The combined roles promoted the divisiveness that arises when there were disagreements over legislation that affected wealth or status in the colony. 

Divisiveness Within the Assemblies

The lower house of a colonial legislature was a representative assembly. Members were elected annually by the propertied citizens of the towns or counties. Usually they met for a single, short session; but the council or governor could call a special session  when needed.

 

As in Britain, the right to vote was limited to men with real estate holdings sufficient to ensure they had a vested interest in the welfare of their communities".  Six colonies allowed alternatives to land ownership such as personal property or tax payment that extended voting rights to owners of urban property and prosperous farmers who rented their land. Groups excluded from voting included laborers, tenant farmers, unskilled workers and indentured servants and anyone who lacked a "stake in society"making them vulnerable to corruption.

 

Tax issues and budget decisions originated in the assembly. Part of the budget went toward the cost of raising and equipping the colonial militia. As the American Revolution drew near, this subject was a divisive topic between the provincial assemblies and their respective governors.The perennial division between the colonial governors and the assemblies are viewed, by some historians, as signs of a rising democratic spirit. However, those assemblies generally represented the privileged classes, and were protecting the colony against unreasonable executive encroachments. Legally, the crown governor's authority was unassailable. In resisting that authority, assemblies resorted to arguments based upon natural rights and the common welfare. This supported the notion that governments derived their authority from the consent of the governed. This belief became the tipping point when the Continental Congress met to consider the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Without a belief in consent of the governed, no British Citizen of that era could contemplate Independence because that would violate the Covenant between the king and his subjects--a covenant blessed by God. Fortunately most of those chosen to represent their respective Colony in this matter were more inclined toward the consent view than to the covenant view.

Reunification and Resolve

In May 1776, the Continental Congress called for the creation of new governments "where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established" and "that the exercise of every kind of authority under the ... Crown should be totally suppressed". The Declaration of Independence in July further encouraged the states to form new governments, and most states had adopted new constitutions by the end of 1776. By tradition and the political protocol of that era, the revolt against King George III should never have taken place. We can speculate that  the other colonies under English rule in the 18th Century, including Canada, Australia, and India, were not divided in their belief in the covenant so they never reached the tipping point at which they withdrew their consent to be governed by the Crown. And that is the hidden value we can find in the divisiveness that still agitates Americans. 

 

“Geography divides people only if the people allow it - faith divides people only if the people allow it - intellect divides people only if the people allow it - politics divides people only if the people allow it. So, unless the people allow it, nothing can tear our world apart. Unless you allow it, nothing can tear our society apart.”

― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkanjali: The Sufi Sermon 

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Pick 80 - Consent of the Governed

The phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is only justified and lawful when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised. This idea is called popular sovereignty. The Declaration of Independence had stated this idea clearly when it said: "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

In a democracy, people give implicit consent by accepting the laws and services of the government to which they pledge their allegiance. They also give enforcement authority to that government to deal with those who break the laws. This authority is, itself, derived from the consent of the majority and always expressed in writing that is open to oversight by the judicial branch of government. The role of the judicial branch is to ensure the enforcement of laws complies with the intent of the legislation that created the law. Each decision rendered sets a precedent for future cases. This turns a static set of laws written for one era into a dynamic set of laws that accommodates the changing values of those governed by the laws. It also ensures that the laws are applied equally to those governed by them.

Although the "consent of the governed" was applied in a unique way in those democracies that sprang up in the 18th Century, it is actually an ancient concept that influenced the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Israelites long before it found its way into the Declaration of Independence. The primary difference was in how "consent" was obtained.

• The Egyptians obtained consent by making it part of their religious dogma. Consent to be governed by the Pharaoh was the only path to eternal life. 
• The Greeks obtained consent through logic and rational choice. Greeks loved wisdom and gave their consent to men of wisdom.
• The Roman consent was aligned with an insatiable need for law and order. It also helped when a leader was able to conduct and win wars. Caesar and his linage were especially adept in this feature.
• The Israelites found it easy to give their consent to be governed by Prophets who spoke directly to God. However, in later years they reverted to being governed by kings to whom God delegated this authority. 

In the 20th Century, new methods of gaining the consent of the governed came into play. Coercion, fear, and violence were employed by unscrupulous totalitarian leaders to obtain and secure the consent of those they chose to govern. 
So today we who are fortunate enough to live in a democracy where our consent is given freely and protected in a written contract, We The People need to appreciate the hidden value of that phrase. We get to renew that consent annually on Election Day. Let's use it wisely.

Pick 79 - The Pandemic

The current global battle with CORVID-19 might be the last place to look for hidden value, but this dark cloud may have both a silver and a gold lining.

Masks that might have worked in the past

The silver lining comes in the form of knowledge about dangerous viral outbreaks that might have remained hidden if the outbreak had not occurred in one of the most heavily populated areas of the world. Although the initial response of local authorities was one of denial and cover-up, that changed rapidly once the Central Government stepped in and took charge. It emulated what might happen in an ant colony once the soldier ants realize that the Queen is in jeopardy. The entire colony is put on alert. Infected cells are isolated and all work activities halt until the danger is over.

Had the Central Government not alerted the World Health Organization and governments around the world, the resulting pandemic might have taken the lives of billions of people before it could be contained. Thanks to the cooperation among world leaders and scientists, we now have an arsenal of weapons to stem its rapid advance and may even find way to stop this invisible enemy in its tracks.

Beyond this silver lining, we also have a gold one. We have learned that the human race is not immune to extinction. CORVID-19 is a stealth weapon that humans neither control nor understand. It does not respond to divisive rhetoric or class status. It is not obligated to any special interest group nor does it bow to any earthly power. Our only defense against it is to practice the Golden Rule on a global scale.

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Pick 78 - Universal Product Codes

As you stand in line to check out gifts purchased in any Big Box store this Holiday Season please remember George Laurer. Had he not developed an efficient way for retailers to identify products and their prices at checkout, the lines you now face would be much longer. In fact, last-minute shopping would be a privilege available only to those who had the means to shop at stores frequented by the rich and famous--not folks with limited means like us.

 

Any of you who are old enough to remember what Holiday Shopping was like before Laurer's time  will recall dozens of clerks standing at cash registers waiting to serve customers on normal shopping days. Often, a clerk might enter the wrong price at the register or the purchase price was different from the advertised price. This resulted in an anxious phone call to Accounting to verify the price. Meanwhile, those waiting behind you threw irate glances your way. How could you not know that the ticket price did not match the advertised price?

George Laurer, the engineer whose barcode reader transformed the entire checkout process,  died on December 10, 2019 at the age of 94. He was an electrical engineer with IBM in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park in the early 1970s, when he spearheaded the development of the Universal Product Code, or barcode for a group of grocery stores. It utilized a patent submitted by Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver in 1949 for a code patterned on concentric circles that looked like a bull's eye. The patent was issued in 1952. Silver died in 1963.

Woodland joined IBM in 1951 hoping to develop the bar code, but the technology wasn't accepted for more than two decades until lasers made it possible to read the code efficiently without error. 

Woodland moved to Raleigh in the early 1970's to join a team at IBM's Research Triangle Park, N.C., facility. The team, headed by Laurer,  developed a bar-code-reading laser scanner system in response to demand from grocers' desires to automate and speed checkout while also cutting handling and inventory management costs.

Woodland and Bernard Silver were students at what is now called Drexel University in Philadelphia when Silver overheard a grocery-store executive asking an engineering school dean to channel students into research on how product information could be captured at checkout.

Since he already had earned his mechanical engineering degree, Woodland dropped out of graduate school to work on the bar code idea. The only code he knew was the Morse Code he'd learned in the Boy Scouts.  One day, he drew Morse dots and dashes in the sand as he sat on the beach and absent-mindedly left his finger marks in the sand where they traced a series of parallel lines.

 

It was a moment of inspiration. Instead of dots and dashes he would use thick and thin bars.

According to GS1 US, the American affiliate of the global standard-setting UPC body, IBM promoted his rectangular barcode that led to a standard for universal product code technology. The first product sold using a UPC scan was a 67-cent package of Wrigley's chewing gum at a supermarket in Troy, Ohio, in June 1974. The value hidden in that one transaction has since mushroomed into 5 billion products worldwide every day.

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