Carragee Consulting

I was on my way home from New Zealand today and I got diverted into the super long customs line because I had to declare the large amount of alpaca yarn I bought.  Between the various agents I spoke to YARN somehow got lost in translation from English to English and as my bag was exploded all over the table I learned why they kept asking me if they had been cooked yet – the Yams that is.

Sheep are a visual hallmark of the New Zealand modern landscape

Wool and natural fibers are in a new renaissance period.  Marketers trumpet the virtues of wool for temperature regulation, odor suppression, durability and ironically sustainability.

I’m on a history reading kick.  I don’t mean John Keagan or Barbra Tuckman I mean the whole set of books with one word (commodity) titles which tell the history of commercialization and industrialization: Cod, Wool, and Empire of Cotton.  Many people are familiar with the mantra, those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it, but who is studying business history?  Where is the application of economic history in the board room?

It seems that a vocal minority of Pricers read the WSJ and HBR and are exposed to case study vignettes, but its not that often that we grant ourselves the time to read a couple hundred page history book.  What I took from empire of cotton is that

Cotton in particular is amazing story of constraints in the supply chain which were consecutively eliminated through technological innovation.  The innovations extend past the cotton jin and the looms of Lowell that I learned about as a kid.  Uncorking the supply chain at each consequtive steps through seed hybridization for longer sturdier strands which could be spun