This is a simple thought from the National Safety Council.

When you are texting, or changing the radio station, or a million other things you may as well be blind.

You are traveling 60 MPH. A vehicle a football field away is traveling 60 MPH. You are 1 1/2 seconds away from a possible head-on crash.

David Sneed

Safety is the 21st Century Poverty

In 1963, James MacGregor Burns wrote: "Because it has failed to engage itself with the problems that dog us during our working days and haunt our dreams at night, politics has not engaged the best of us, or at least the best in us. If people seem complacent or inert, the cause may lie less in them than in a political system that evades and confuses the real issues rather than sharpening or resolving them."

We find that oil companies are required to have safety plans for offshore drilling. When there was a drilling disaster in the Gulf of Mexico we found that the plan writing was outsourced, no one read it at the oil company, and no one read it at the Minerals Management Service (MMS.) With other disasters we find that newspaper reporters within an hour have determined the cause of the incident. A year or two later OSHA or MSHA confirms that initial report and blames management for failing to prevent the incident. Money changes hands between the business and government and life goes on with no one making any real complaint.

The solutions to so many safety problems are easy but are not done. There is too much money and too many jobs involved in maintaining dysfunction and in responding to incidents.

Hunger is easy to understand. In today's society hunger is mostly a non-issue. Anyone can get food stamps and there are plenty of give-aways. Try offering a meal to a "will work for food" standing at most intersections.

The big issues today involve safety and security. Physiological needs are mostly solved. However, the solutions go beyond simply providing food to the hungry. Often the problems are qualitative and the solutions are complex.

In December of 2011, the compromise solution for the "Jobs Bill," ostensibly to create jobs, was a two month reduction of billions of dollars in contributions to a bankrupt social security fund in exchange for ten years of added fees to new mortgages.

In a campaign time for both parties, the appearance of more take-home pay is more important than grown-up solutions to real problems.

Cowboy Safety is the realization that government is not going to solve safety and security problems and that people, individually, in their own business, and in their own communities need to find a solution.

David Sneed

Law of Misguided Subsidies

T.J. Rodgers, Founder, President and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor has an article in today's Wall Street Journal called "Subsidizing Wall Street to Buy Chinese Solar Panels."

In the article he updates the Law of Unintended Consequences with the corollary Law of Misguided Subsidies: "Whenever Washington disrupts a market by dumping subsidies into it, Wall Street will find a way to pocket a majority of the money while the intended subsidy beneficiaries are harmed by the resulting market turmoil."

In the Cowboy Safety approach the safety model aims to allow the intended beneficiaries to get the subsidies and aims to make a path so that harm is not done. To do this requires knowledge and understanding. It also means planning well in advance often at the point of firm formation. Government also plans well in advance and may even design the subsidy program to make it difficult for the intended beneficiaries to achieve any benefit. That is because they may have another agenda or may themselves be victims of The Law of Unintended Consequences. The Cowboy Safety approach is not to take a political position, not to be critical, but to understand, to benefit and to avoid damage.

Cowboy Safety goes beyond the concepts of tax planning that is looking for deduction s and deferrals. Cowboy Safety puts the business into relevant context and synthesis. Most accountants, and I started out as one, are left brain thinkers. Left brain thinkers can analyze but they cannot synthesize. Left brain thinking worked well with industrial age businesses that transformed low level materials into higher level materials. Each step added value. Left brained thinking cannot handle any other business concept. It cannot handle the dimensions of experiential and transformational business that is borderless not just geographically but borderless in concept and in time. Neither can government.

David Sneed

John Lennon's To Do List

Even the rich and famous find a need to make to do lists. Maybe they are rich and famous because they make to do lists. Below is a To Do list handwritten by John Lennon. For sure it is a way to keep from forgetting things. A principle of Cowboy Safety is to have some way to keep track of what needs to be done. When we learn the wrong way to do something we should make a record so that we do not repeat that mistake. I find that 3x5 cards are a good way to do this. 

David Sneed 

Cowboy Safety and Resource Value

A teenager lost a contact lens while playing basketball in the driveway. After a fruitless search, he went inside and told his mother the lens was nowhere to be found. Undaunted she went outside. In a few minutes she returned with the lens in her hand. "How did you manage it Mom?" the teenager asked. "We weren't looking for the same thing," she replied. "You were looking for a small piece of plastic. I was looking for $150."

Too often we know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. 

The Cowboy Safety philosophy, that learns from the past, established values for every resource, tangible and intangible. This process is not immediately obvious. Once learned it is not easily forgotten. 

David Sneed

Modelling and Record-Keeping

Practitioners of Cowboy Safety need to rapidly create future models of the short term and sometimes very very short term as well as years into the future. There are a variety of well understood and reliable tools for doing that starting with simple spreadsheets.

These practitioners must also keep records of the past even when they do not understand why. It is from these records that models of the past can be made.

"If you can't model the past where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future?"

This is a most succinct quote from William Happer who is the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University. While admittedly not a climatologist, Professor Happer has made the most rational and believable argument why increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to be desired rather than resisted.

Thucydides, author of The History of the Peloponnesian War, wrote in great detail. He wrote in such detail that his book has been called the most boring book ever written. He wrote in detail because he said he did not know what might be needed by future historians.

It is by modeling the past that we can model the future and thus avert the injuries and sometimes disastrous effects of hazards.

David Sneed

A Simple Cowboy Safety Manifesto

I was just reading the February 1917 issue of The Fra being a monthly publication for philistines and roycrofters edited by Elbert Hubbard, a renaissance man if there ever was one.

Hubbard is waxing poetic about price increases of coal, dry glue, sheet copper and leather. He then presents a list of items that could well be a simple Cowboy Safety manifesto.

In one sense I don't want to list these items because some of them have become politicized and may be construed incorrectly. Please think of them in the classical sense. And please bear in mind that there are 21st century applications of these concepts that reflect the exciting new world that is here right now. If your definition of safety is limited to injuries and fatalities your solution is there.

Hubbard summarizes: "My remedy for present burdensome conditions only applies to the individual. But of each would do his share we all would arrive. Here it is:"

Cut out the extravagance.
Refuse to feed the loafer.
Pay cash as you go.
Eliminate waste.
Produce.
Demand reasonable profits.
Pay only reasonable prices.
Live up to your ideals.

David Sneed

Simple Word Pictures for Improved Safety

In 1984, Sam Kinison, comedian and ex Pentecostal preacher, got his breakthrough on Rodney Dangerfield's 9th Annual Young Comedians special on HBO. He did a skit on World Hunger. See link below.

He told of the problem in a quiet voice. He noted the cruelty of the hungry child on the TV commercial. He wondered why the film crew didn't give the kid a sandwich. He presented his idea of how to stop world hunger. It was to stop sending food. Instead send U haul trailers, suitcases, anything to get them to move out of the desert and go to where there was food. In his inimitable way he pretends to pick up sand. He says nothing will grow here. "A hundred years from now it'll still be sand." "Go to where the food is" he screams. We can learn from the style of Kinison and other comedians. To the point real open-minded thinking. Simple word pictures.

Much of safety is wasted money and wasted effort. How much time and money is spent on training workers to know all the different types of fire extinguishers when their worksite, if it has an extinguisher, has only a type C? And the video in the course does not tell the workers where their fire extinguisher is located.

Cowboy Safety is an attitude of looking at the real hazards and planning for a real incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7ehccspao

David Sneed

The Most Fundamental Principle of Cowboy Safety

Cowboy Safety has a starting point.



Everything else in Cowboy Safety is the simplest way to achieve this goal. 

Cooperation

The following is part of the charter of the National Safety Council from 1953 when it was chartered by the Congress of the United States.  

"to cooperate with, enlist, and develop the cooperation of and between all persons and organizations, both public and private, engaged or interested in any or all of the foregoing purposes."

Cooperation is an essential aspect of getting Cowboy Safety, or whatever other names it may be given, to be a part of every small business. It is a part of what will make the coming years to be the best and most profitable ever. 

I can remember when there was complete secrecy within a business. Secrecy was a part of every contract and agreement. No more. Today we can go anonymously to the internet and find anything we want about our competitors or would-be competitors. Prices are readily available. Competitive advantage, strategy, whatever you want. Cooperation is the name of the game today. Making knowledge available on the internet is one of the tactics. 

From the Bible Jesus said "Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give mint your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. " Luke 6:38

David Sneed

The Hazards of Customer Service

I visited a small flower shop for the first time while on a walk with one of my granddaughters. There were no other customers and just the owner. I did mention that we were out for a walk. We certainly were not there for the day from LA. We must be community residents.

When we entered the store I had mentioned that this was our first time in. There was no effort on the part of the owner to grab hold of the event. A brand new prospect had walked in the door without a coupon or as the result of any advertising. This was an event that every business dreams about.

The owner heard me ask my granddaughter if we should get something for grandma. No effort was made to help make a selection.

We did purchase one flower with some added leaves and paper. It was noticeable that even though it was a small purchase I did not ask the price in advance. And I paid in cash. Clues of a potential good customer.

After the sale was complete and I had gotten my change I asked the owner why I should shop there and not at other florists. Her immediate answer was "customer service." I told her that everyone says that. She then outlined various features that are true for any florist. She did say that I could save money in sending flowers to another state to buy from her. That really set me to thinking. If I was sending flowers to another state why would I not just call a florist in that city and give my credit card number and ask them to deliver? Why involve a florist in my city?

There was no definition of customer service. The Cowboy Safety approach is to define what is meant by customer service and have a way to measure it. For sure it is not the same for every customer. She should have struck up a conversation. When I left, most likely never to return, she did not know my name, what I did, the size and location of my family members, whether or not my Mother was still alive or how often I bought flowers. She did not know that I had been pleased that at a grocery store florist a few months back that it was suggested that I set a budget and that I could trust them to design something great. For my first time out I tried $100. They did a great job.

A hazard in any business is that a prospect or customer will not come back.

David Sneed

Should I Adopt Best Practices?

A great deal of lip service is given to best practices. Who could object to it? When we go to conferences we are often challenged to take home a set number of ideas and implement them. Often it is a complete waste of time.

Best practices are by definition something already being done by competitors. That does not bode well for having a competitive advantage. A practitioner of Cowboy Safety does not do something just because someone else does it. Why do something the best when it may not be needed?

Often too a best practice from one location will not be adapted properly to meet the need of another location or a best practice will in fact not be adopted at a new location.

There are many legacy practices that can be eliminated. Most of them can be found in the overhead functions of a business. Rather than try to analyze your needs without any information let's look at something that Henry Ford did. I'll use the words best practices where appropriate.

At one point when bids were requested for engine blocks Ford personally wrote the packaging specifications for the engine block crates. Ford's purchasing people said that the crates were not based on best practices. The casting firms said that no one would need that much of a crate. It did not meet best practices. Ford insisted even though the cost was higher than the best practices approach. A contract was signed.

Ford then wrote the procedures for opening the cases. Again he was in violation of best practices for opening crates. Ford insisted.

Then Ford directed how the crate sections would be the floor boards for the Model T.

While his furniture works might be seeking an award for best practices in making floor board Ford closed the furniture works.

Best practices is actually the status quo.

David Sneed

The Waitress and the Drink Refill

I was at a pizza restaurant in Denver with two of my daughters and a son in law, the husband of one of them.

I'm going to tell you what happened. The issue is not what it may appear to be at first.

One of my daughters asked for a refill of her soft drink. Picture this. The glass contained ice and a small amount of the soft drink. Simple to see.

The waitress brought a glass that was the same size as the one to be refilled. The glass she brought had no ice and was full to the brim. The waitress poured from her glass into the one needing a refill. Remember that the glass to be refilled contained ice and a small quantity of the soft drink.

There was some soft drink left over after completing the refill. That glass was about 1/3 full. The waitress seemed to be unsure what to do with the remainder. I think she considered leaving it on the table. She took it back with her. Did she pour it out or, like sourdough starter, would this be the beginning of the next refill? At her station does she have partial glasses of each type of soft drink?

I will admit that my first thought as the customer was that she must be the stupidest waitress ever. I have nothing against waitresses. They are some of the finest hardest working people anywhere. When I owned a restaurant I could not keep up with it even at the few times that  I waited on tables. Yet I wondered. Had this waitress never done a refill? Why did she not just bring a whole new drink with ice? Is what she did company policy? In any event what she did affected the customer experience. Quite possibly not for everyone but for me and possibly others.

Let's look at another event. One that did not end well.

A few years ago in Alabama a company had its annual fall protection training. It was a boring repeat for the employees. Thirty minutes after the class a supervisor was dead from a fall. He was on an elevated surface and was not using his harness. Dare we call him stupid? Was something wrong with the training?

There is something common with the drink refill and with the fall. In both cases the people were not thinking about the possible outcomes of their actions yet they did base their actions on some aspect of their training.

With the drink refill there was actually nothing wrong with what she did to provide the refill except maybe waste a little of the soft drink. At this restaurant the usual procedure is to use a pitcher. That way several refills can be done with one trip. The customer has no problem with a pitcher not becoming empty. By doing it with one glass there is the appearance that her plan was to transfer all of the drink to the refilled glass. In fact it was good that she brought a glass with more than was needed. I suspect that she did consider that the others in that party all had water and because it was not a busy time there were no other refills needed in her section. Because her training was related to using a refill container she did not stop to think how what she did would look. It would have been better for her to simply bring a new glass with ice and place it on the table though it would not have fit the training.

With the supervisor, and the key word is supervisor, he felt that there was no need for him to use a harness because he was not doing the work and his risk exposure was limited. Safety is often viewed as being done for compliance purposes only. Scheduled training is the most visible feature and employees view it as a waste of time to hear what they already know. While it might not suit OSHA, a better solution might be to emphasize the fall hazard and make the actual harness training optional.

There can be time savings and better results by applying Cowboy Safety principles. What is the result to be achieved rather than the means?

David Sneed

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility. CSR. I wish there was a better term for it.

CSR means to look past profit in the short run.

CSR means to put the interests of customers, shareholders, environment and other stakeholders in the business strategy.

Years ago I knew a man who ran a charter airplane business with one airplane. He was the pilot. This man was one of the most miserable and unhappy people I have ever known. He would frequently do things like beckon with his fingers towards himself and in a solemn manner say "Money coming this way. That's what it's all about." He was a bit extreme or was he?

A common philosophy has been:

"Get all you can, can all you get, sit on the lid, poison the rest."

CSR, or a better term if you can think of one, is a way of making more money by making it not just for yourself but for others at the same time. Resources are better used.

CSR is a basic of anything that is sustainable in the long run. A Cowboy Safety plan measures the use of all resources, in money terms and in some exciting new non-money terms. It also measures value created for society at large.

If I had to pick the opposite of CSR it might be Creative Destruction. Originally this was a word from Marxism. Then later it began to refer to things like downsizing. In today's economy I think it is evolving into the destruction of businesses that become obsolete due to inefficiencies. Inefficiencies that come from a totally selfish make all you can now approach.

CSR is becoming the standard even when the term is not used as such.

David Sneed

Simplicity is Better

The comic strip Pearls Before Swine today is about safety. There are eight valid safety rules that are presented. In the last frame the mouse says "I've never been so afraid of a toaster."

Do these rules really make a difference?

Several weeks ago at Yosemite National Park, three people in their 20s, not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, in the presence of about 100 others in their group, ignored the signs and the barriers, fell into the water and were swept over the falls to their death. Some are calling for more signs and barriers. The usual response to any incident is that the victims were not at fault. That attitude is why safety costs escalate.

At Vedauwoo near Laramie Wyoming there is a simple sign that basically says that if you want to climb the rocks go ahead but you could get hurt or killed. There is really no need to talk about personal protective equipment (PPE), training, classification of skills needed on each rock, guards, guides, or whatever.

David Sneed

Why Johnny Depp May Not Play the Part of Tonto

Walt Disney Studios has shut down production of The Lone Ranger that was due to have Johnny Depp as Tonto. The reason given is that if the Directors cannot cut the budget to $200 million from $250 million, Disney would rather limit its risk with fewer movies.

Movies, like farms, can be high on fixed costs. Fixed costs are incurred even if no one ever sees the film. A farm has a large fixed cost even if nothing is ever planted. Every venture has some amount of fixed costs. Risk is minimized by keeping the fixed cost as low as possible.

That fixed cost has to be amortized over time from the margin on revenues from sale of products and services.

Margin is the total sale less the direct costs of making that sale. In the grocery business the margin on a can of beans is the sale price minus what it cost to buy the can of beans wholesale. In the movie business the margin for the studio is whatever percentage it gets of the ticket price. Sometimes it is most of it. The theaters have to make it on popcorn.

The point at which the fixed costs equals the total margin is the break-even point.

After the break-even point is reached all of the margin is profit.

Is Disney concerned about margins? The Lone Ranger was due to be released in December of 2012. Does Disney have a concern about ticket sales in the future?

There is some belief that there are some structural issues in the economy that will affect margins. For many years the major factor affecting margin has been competition. There are new unknowns about cost of money, inflation, labor, commodities and taxes. Mandatory health insurance will soon be a factor.

It is true that in the long run all costs are variable and that in the very short run all costs are fixed. The new economy is making us rethink everything we have ever known. Is it better to be in a low margin venture with low fixed costs or a high margin venture with high fixed costs and bear the risk of not getting high margins?

There are tremendous opportunities today to minimize fixed costs and at the same time to have high margins with minimal risk. The ability to do just that has become a competitive advantage.

A Cowboy Safety business is open to understanding how this can be done.

David Sneed

Gordon Stoker and Tony Bennett Have Birthdays Today

Yesterday, August 3, Gordon Stoker was 87 and Tony Bennett 85. Always looking for irony I noted the difference in these two singers. I mentioned it at a meeting where the ages of the attendees ranged from 12 to 89. The young folks knew nothing about either of these men. The older ones needed a reminder about Gordon Stoker and his quartet the Jordanaires.

Tony Bennett, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," is a well known singer. He is known for a distinct style that is not easy to duplicate. Using business terms, he is known for delivery of a consistent product experience that appeals to a certain demographic.

What is perhaps not so well known is that Gordon Stoker has at least 100 times as many recordings as Bennet and many more personal appearances. At one point in the 1960s Stoker and his Jordanaires were on 80 of the then current top 100 record singles.

Because my focus is on how to function in the new economy I spotted something here.

Jerry Garcia once said "Don't be the best at what you do. Be the only one who does what you do." I have always interpreted that as being the best in a unique way. Maybe that interpretation is too narrow.

Gordon Stoker and his male quartet the Jordanaires had started as a country gospel group. There were many such groups at that time. All were good though perhaps not "world class" quality. The market was becoming saturated with gospel singers, records and performances. Market share of any one singer or group was small.

The Jordanaires became backup for many "stars" over 45 years. They were with Elvis Presley during his most important first 14 years. When  Elvis began nightly performances in Las Vegas the Jordanaires could not meet the required schedule and still have diversity.

In one way of looking at it Gordon Stoker and the Jordanaires became unique in not aiming to become known for themselves and by diversifying inside of backup music. They did not have to incur large marketing costs.

In today's meta markets the Jordanaires business model is a good model.

David Sneed

Appropriate Technology - Part 1

I think it was Arthur C Clarke who said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

By all means use whatever technology is appropriate to meet the customer need for a product or a service and to meet the desire for an experience.

I have hiked the Samaria Gorge on the island of Crete. The first mile is a switchback drop of about 4,500 feet. There there is a 10 mile walk through the bed of an extinct river and through a gorge that at the end is only 6 feet wide. Even starting early the path can become quite hot from the sun near the end.  Part way into town there is a small not so modern roadhouse that served cold beer. Not warm beer. Not cool beer. COLD beer. Why should that be such a problem in other places? The technology is fairly simple and has been around for a long time. No need for fancy taps, or lights or tvs or anything else. At that point everyone wants a cold beer. They get it.

Cowboy Safety developed during a time of shortages, no electricity, and the absence of many things. It became a way of meeting needs with whatever was at hand. Technology may have been crude but there was an application to meet every need.

In part two we will get into more detail about "appropriate technology" as distinguished from "technology."

David Sneed

Goal Setting in Sustainable Safe Business

This is an old piece that summarizes goal-setting and faith in a sustainable safe business.

"I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more.
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.
For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked or a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked if Life,
Life would have willingly paid."

Author unknown

Common Sense

A key principle of Cowboy Safety is the use of common sense. Common sense in the design of a process can save money and can result in fewer incidents.

American society has many safeguards to protect our freedoms. This often means that something happens that does not seem to make sense. And we have to live with it. The Wyoming Supreme Court recently ruled that nine pounds of drugs ceased in a traffic stop cannot be used as evidence. The driver was stopped because he did not use a turn signal entering the interstate. The wording of the law speaks of turning a vehicle. The defendant's attorney said that he was not turning but was taking the only path straight onto the interstate. The court found that since it would have been easy to be clear about this type highway that the legislature did not intend to require a turn signal at that point. Therefore no probably cause to make a stop. The drugs were inadmissible as evidence

This week at Yosemite three people went over the falls. They were all over 21, there are warning signs, there is a physical barrier, there are trespassing laws, there was no alcohol or drugs involved, there were about a hundred people present who were there with those who went over the falls. Yet it was described as an accident. Prevention expense was incurred yet the incident happened due to lack of common sense. All those present are to blame because the three could have been forcibly pulled back inside the barrier before anything happened.

At the  small town rodeos in Wyoming there are almost no safety precautions. Cheyenne Frontier Days goes to great cost and effort for safety. Are there fewer incidents at Cheyenne Frontier Days?

At one of the small town rodeos that I attend there is an ambulance present by the arena gate. Other than that there is nothing. No deputies, no security people, no signs, children running around everywhere, people bring their own alcohol into the stands or on truck tailgates, people climbing on the fences, and people leaning over a catwalk above the animals. People walk thorough the mud, around animals, trucks and trailers. The culture becomes look out for yourself.

Too often the culture is that someone else must look out for you. Common sense is dropped.

David Sneed

Self Sufficiency

Cowboy Safety goes to the core of a business and where it fits in the economy.

There should be no dependence on government yet there should be nothing taking place that is illegal. The business must exist within the legal framework set up by government. There are many opportunities in doing that.

For basic people safety, compliance is not the sole purpose. Do the minimum of what is required. Then do what is needed to achieve the result of a safe and healthy workplace. This approach is both radical and a cost saver.

Outsourcing is a way to lower break-even point and to avoid onerous mandatory activities.   Outsourcing does not just mean sending jobs overseas. It may mean helping some of your employees become independent businesses. This is not the same as paying someone under the table. They would form a compliant corporation or you would form a compliant corporation. That corporation, doing something other than what is your core business would be able to compete in the marketplace for what it does.

In one case a seafood processing plant had employees who would clean the plant every night after closing. Management was difficult and there were quality problems. A separate business was formed. The seafood processor had a fixed cost and a minimum quality standard. The cleaning company had to perform within that cost and had to meet the quality standard.

David Sneed

Safety vs Security

There is an important difference between safety and security.

Safety deals with unplanned events.

Security deals with planned events.

Generally, roadway incidents, tornados, and a welder falling from an elevated surface are examples of unplanned events. These are viewed as safety issues. The solution involves removing or lowering the probability of occurrence and preparation for what to if it does occur.

Generally a terrorist attack, burglaries, vandalism, carjackings and muggings are examples of planned events. They are viewed as security issues. The solution involves removing or lowering the probability of occurrence and preparation for what to if it does occur. The same as for safety issues.

Somewhat facetiously, though well-grounded in truth, security may well include protection from those who would sell you safety and security solutions that you don't need. Think on this one for a while. Safety and security are basic needs and that means there is a vast market for goods and services that ostensibly achieve those goals.

David Sneed

Is Freedom Enough?

On July 4 there are plenty of speeches using hack worn-out platitudes. Giving those speeches is one of the duties of politicians.

We should be most thankful for our freedoms. I love foreign travel but am always glad to get back to the U.S.A. Here's a new question for you. Is Freedom Enough?

The speeches list the freedoms we have. But does that list really make us free? Application is needed. And to apply these freedoms knowledge is needed. Let's take a simple one. Freedom of speech.

What is the point of freedom of speech if there is no one to hear? To apply freedom of speech we must be with others in person at public meetings even if just around the water cooler at work or virtually through letters to the editor, blogs, books and magazine articles.

What is the point of freedom of speech if we have nothing to say? To apply freedom of speech we should know what others are saying and we must read and meditate. We must have our own thoughts. Freedom of speech does not extend to taking other peoples thoughts literally. That is called plagiarism and may be a copyright violation.

College degrees are not always a necessity. For many things we do and for many careers college can be a waste of time and money. At college one should learn how to learn. Application of freedoms requires specialized knowledge. Specialized knowledge is the knowledge required to mow the lawn, get a plumber's license, start a business and untold other specific things.

David Sneed

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to find evidence to support what one believes. It is a syndrome that is naturally common to mankind. In order to achieve safety and sustainability there may need to be complete changes of thought. For sure new paradigms must be embraced. The effect can be exhibited in ways that lead us down the wrong path.

There is a song that seemed to have some lyrics that did not make sense. I did not recognize the singer's voice. For some time I have periodically searched for the lyrics. I looked for "no stop and go love," "no stop and go love in your heart." I found nothing and was baffled.

I decided to contact the radio station that frequently plays the song. They asked me when I last heard the song so they could search the log. Coincidentally I had been at a drive up ATM when I last heard it and had the receipt with the time on it. The song was "No Stopping Your Heart" by Marie Osmond. The reason that I could not find the lyrics was that I was looking for "no stop and go" when  I should have been looking for "no stopping no." Confirmation bias did not allow me to think that the reason I could not find it was because it did not exist as I thought it to be. I was encouraged in my wrong thinking when I discovered that others had been searching for the same thing as me and were asking on answer websites such as ask.com to no avail.

While the search tool was reliable I was also believing in the search terms. Results were nil. I did not consider that my own hearing had been faulty.

David Sneed

Cowboy Safety Principles

The purpose here is to organize the principles of Cowboy Safety.

There are some conflicts with conventional wisdom.

As an  example Say's Law works on the concept that Supply Creates its Own Demand.

Cowboy Safety often works on the principle that Demand Creates its Own Supply. You may have heard it as "Necessity is the Mother of Invention."

David Sneed

Safety from 1014 B.C.

Cowboy Safety goes way back.

This morning I ran across a new reference from 1014 B.C. It is from the Bible. I use King James. Here is I Kings 4:25:

"And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon."

I could write a book about this. So could you.

This definition  of safety is easy to understand.

There is nothing complex. There is no equipment. No training. No licensing.

If you have ever been to the Mediterranean countries you can understand even better. There are vines and fig trees and olive trees and other types of plants. They provide shade and shelter. I love going to a restaurant. The tables are outdoors under the vines. Relax. There is no rush. Have a cold beer or a glass of wine. In Greece you would at least start with Raki that is already on the table. What would you like to eat? The proprietor is there. He or she will get it for you? "Have you got fish?" "Sure. Come in the kitchen and pick out what you want. My son just caught it this morning right over there." Do you get the point? This is the way to live all the time.

Safety is all about how to always feel that way where everything is what you want when you want it with no trouble.

Cowboy Safety is the technique for how to get it for yourself and your business and how to give it to others.

David Sneed

What is Cowboy Safety?

Cowboy Safety is a common sense approach to safety that reduces injuries and other losses while enhancing profits and company image. It reinvents safety for the 21st century global economy.

Cowboy Safety does not dwell on industry statistics, average costs of a workers’ comp claim or on making and enforcing rules and regulations. It does not concentrate on high-cost reductionist safety management processes that often fail. Press reports of refinery fires, confined space incidents, train and bus crashes and many smaller incidents show that more often than not the obvious is not considered.


Cowboy Safety assumes limited resources yet a job that must be done. The nameless cowboy in Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter survives not just with his technical skills but by constantly anticipating what could happen and being prepared for it. Having a gun on his lap in the barber shop is more important than a stack of training cards. Cowboy Safety starts with real needs and attitudes rather than a safety video filmed in a studio.

While anchored in the past Cowboy Safety is taken from a vision of how things could and should be. Sources may be anecdotal in origin but are scientific in practice. With history and fictional stories, a laboratory is created that is unaffected by the “noise” and familiarity of the present world.

As an example picture if you will three cowboys riding in a pickup truck. Which one is the real cowboy? The answer is the one in the middle. He does not have to drive and he does not have to get out of the truck to open and shut gates. He could be described as lazy and may be napping. In fact he is a pragmatist. There is a lower probability of an incident that would keep him from his real job. Many injuries and fatalities occur and much collateral damage is caused from driving when driving should not be done and working when working should not be done.

In a real incident near Lander Wyoming three men were injured in a head-on crash on a snowy day with low visibility. They observed all of the defensive driving techniques of slowing down, lights on, seatbelt usage, scanning and driving to the right. But why were they driving? They had gone back to the shop for more parts because they had not planned properly at the start of the day. There were costs other than the crash that involved their entire company and its mission. Cowboy Safety would have prevented this incident.
Cowboy Safety programs are customized and localized. The process is boiler plate but the deliverable is not. Each program is collaborative and is reconciled with the business and relevant environmental models. A dynamic safe experience involving social technology is designed that considers all stakeholders. The organization achieves sustainable and measurable improvements with dramatically reduced costs.

David Sneed