I saw the above recently and a) I wondered why does that matter and who cares anyway, and then I thought b) you mean someone has actually investigated this?
I saw the headline on an article from Live Science where it was explained that science now has an answer to the famous question asked in the iconic Tootsie Roll Pop commercial (no idea what that is? Well go check it out on YouTube).
The answer apparently is 1,000. Well that is one answer at least.
The article states that – From the experiments, the researchers created mathematical formulas to explain how fast the materials dissolve. Just for fun, they tackled the “How many licks?” question, and found that a lollipop with a radius of 0.4 inches (1 cm) licked at the equivalent to a flow rate of 1 cm per second would reveal its centre in about 1,000 licks. Of course, plenty of real-world factors affect that number. Online, posts about Tootsie Pop licking experiments report numbers ranging from 144 to 850 licks. “It could be 500; it could be 1,500 … It’s kind of a crude estimate,” study leader Leif Ristroph, a physicist at NYU said. “But it seems like it’s working pretty well.”
In the end though it is not how many licks does it take but it is the pleasure in enjoying the lollipop – remember that – and of course, it is all about your technique, a nibbler, a biter, a full frontal assaulter, or a take your timer. It just doesn’t matter really; the science is just the science; the lollipop is the treat.
In my recent book ‘The Social Project Manager: Balancing Collaboration with Centralised Control in a Project Driven World’ (Published by Gower) I speak about the various aspects of value that social project management, supported by social project management tools, can provide.
I note that collaboration, which is the heart of social project management, means proactively sharing and actively helping.
The best kind of mind-set a team can have is one of proactive sharing. For one thing, sharing enhances collaboration and takes away selfish “fiefdoms.” For example, instead of people hogging info and becoming roadblocks for productivity, project data can be stored in a central database for all to access.
I also observe that self-organization beats top-down management every day.
Self-organizing teams aren’t rogue cowboys doing whatever they want. They’re flexible, responsive teams that decide how best to attain goals and deadlines set forth by management. Thus team members distribute tasks amongst themselves, plan their own work schedules within the set deadlines, and may even decide who is best equipped to lead a certain project.
The goal of self-organization is to encourage self-actualization of team members: to bring out their sense of ownership of the project and their decisions. Studies have shown that if you decide on your own task load, you will feel more responsible for your work, and usually even more motivated to execute at your highest standards.
And finally I declared that communication beats guessing, I trust no-one out there is going to argue with that one?
And that brings us back to the lollipop ‘science’.
Someone has the answer – almost certainly, and if not the answer some real insight in to the potential answer or solution(s) – and therefore the wider your social network extends, the more open and inclusive you are then the faster you will be able to connect with the persons, or people, who know the answer to what you are asking.
And when they do help you out in this way – give them a lollipop, why not?
‘Back, you know, a few generations ago, people didn’t have a way to share information and express their opinions efficiently to a lot of people. But now they do. Right now, with social networks and other tools on the Internet, all of these 500 million people have a way to say what they’re thinking and have their voice be heard’ Mark Zuckerberg.
Now it was whilst writing this article that the question (urban myth it turns out to be) of ‘why don’t duck quacks echo’ came to my mind and so I asked the question, and duly received the answer.
Well the answer as provided by Salford Acoustics is that a duck’s quack does in fact echo and they did this as part of the British Association Festival of Science using ‘Daisy’ the duck. Again, check it out yourself right here.
Ask enough people and you will receive the answer, or possibly several answers, but at least you will be better informed.
Peter Taylor is a PMO expert currently leading a Global PMO, with 200 project managers acting as custodians for nearly 5,000 projects around the world, for Kronos Inc. – a billion-dollar software organisation delivering Workforce Management Solutions.
Peter Taylor is also the author of the number 1 bestselling project management book ‘The Lazy Project Manager’, along with many other books on project leadership, PMO development, project marketing, project challenges and executive sponsorship.
In the last 4 years he has delivered over 200 lectures around the world in over 25 countries and has been described as ‘perhaps the most entertaining and inspiring speaker in the project management world today’.
His mission is to teach as many people as possible that it is achievable to ‘work smarter and not harder’ and to still gain success in the battle of the work/life balance.
More information can be found at www.thelazyprojectmanager.com – and through his free podcasts in iTunes
Tags: answers, apm, capm, ipma, lollipop, peter taylor, PMI, pmp, project, project author, project management, project manager, project speaker, sharing, social, solutions
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