Swine flu 101

Given the extreme panic that some people have in response to the news on the swine flu outbreak, I was going to post a quick set of common questions & answers on Swine Flu, but found that the amazing David Bradley over at Science Base has already done that.
I’ve copied and pasted most of Bradley’s FAQ below, but the two key takeaways are:

1. You DON’T need to avoid eating pork (big misconception about bird flu was also that eating chicken could give you bird flu – that won’t happen, and neither will eating pork cause swine flu)
2. This is not some government engineered super-disease – scientists have suspected that if bird flu ever fully jumped into humans it would do so via pigs, because bird and human viruses both infect pigs – allowing those viruses to trade genes with each other. At the end of the day, viruses mutate – call it nature, God, fate, or plain statistics – but there’s no reason to suspect this is some sort of bioweapon.

And, without further ado:

What is swine flu?
Swine flu is a type A influenza virus present in pigs. Human infection is usually uncommon except among people who work and live closely with pigs. 

What is unusual about the present strain?
The new strain is a hybrid of swine, human and avian flu viruses and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it can spread from human to human but the level of virulence is not yet clear. 

What are the symptoms?
Symptoms are similar to regular human flu: fever and chills, a cough, sore throat, aching limbs, headaches, and general malaise. However, there are reports of swine flu also causing diarrhoea and vomiting. Pneumonia and respiratory failure can occur leading to death as also happens in regular human flu, which kills thousands of people every year. 

Are there any drugs to treat swine flu?
Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) are the possible pharmaceutical frontline defence and are proving effective in treating patients diagnosed early enough. There is no vaccine.

Has the disease spread to the USA?
Cases in California, Texas, and Kansas, have already been confirmed and tests are being carried out on students at a school in New York.

How can we prevent the spread of swine flu?
People at risk should cover their mouth when they cough. They should regularly wash their hands with an alcohol-based cleaner and and avoid close contact with the sick. Patients with the disease should stay at home. There is no need to avoid eating pork.

Will there be a global flu epidemic?
“We do not know whether this swine flu virus or some other influenza virus will lead to the next pandemic,” says, Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC, “However, scientists around the world continue to monitor the virus and take its threat seriously.”

What does H1N1 mean?
The “H” refers to the viral hemagglutinin protein, and the “N” refers to the neuraminidase protein (enzyme). There are H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3 strains of swine flu endemic in pig populations.

Why pigs?
Influenza viruses can exist endemically in pigs as well as birds and other species. The current strain of interest, swine flu, is endemic in pig populations in Mexico but has now spread to people. 

Recent news?

It’s recently been reported that the swine flu virus is not a combination of genes from avian, human, and swine influenza viruses, but of multiple strains of swine influenza (which probably picked up a mutation allowing them to infect humans). 

Please, don’t validate what is supposed to be a parody of human stupidity on the internet:
(Image credit) (Image credit – XKCD)

EDIT: to reflect reports that suggest Swine Flu is not a composite of avian, human, and swine influenza, but a composite of three swine strains.

Forecasting

As I’ve mentioned before, a good businessperson makes contingency plans. But to make those plans, its necessary to have some insight into what the future will bring – which explains why agencies like Gartner, IDC, and Forrester make millions of dollars selling market research reports to companies who are seeking either:

• insight into the future
• a “market-tested” forecast that people are willing to trust
• both

It also explains why many of the clients of my firm are very interested in contingency plans around the current economic downturn. As a result, my firm (and I’m sure many other consulting firms) is investing in producing a coherent point-of-view on the causes, duration, severity, and impact of the current recession, as well as quick perspectives on how companies in different industries may want to change their game to respond.

The trick behind forecasting, though, is to balance accuracy with believability and reasonable action-items… something that Dilbert’s company economist doesn’t seem to do very well at:

50 Year Old

I know it’s fairly atypical of me to share things like Madonna’s latest Louis Vuitton campaign, but I saw this in my list of Google Reader shared items and the first thought that came to mind:

“SHE’S 50 YEARS OLD!?!?!?!”

Wow – I need to start doing exercise, because I’m less than 25 and I don’t think I look that good…

(Image Credit – Perez Hilton)

It’s just a little bit of G-T-C-A…

I may never run another molecular biology reaction in my life, but if I do, I will probably push my lab to buy a PCR machine from Bio-Rad .

First, my college roommate and Benchpress-partner Eric pointed me to this amazing video a couple of months ago:

Flash forward a few months and Eric points me to the sequel (no you’re not seeing things, I said “sequel”):

Now come on, Roche. Let’s see some more competition!

Try Every Flavor

Two weeks ago, I sat down and had a long overdue chat with a partner on my case about my career and what I should do to make the most out of my consulting career.

And, like a good MBA/consultant, he put together a framework – although instead of it being a 2 x 2 (as is most common in business/consulting circles), he put together a 3 x 3:

Across the top are the three basic types of consulting projects that most management consulting firms partake in:

• Strategy work: Helping a company develop a winning strategy or a successful response to a competitor
• Diligence: Helping either a company or a private equity/venture capital/holding company conduct strategic and financial diligence on a potential acquisition target
• Operations: Helping a company streamline its decision-making or business processes (e.g. manufacturing, call center, etc)

Across the left-hand side are the three types of tasks that consultants need to master to add value to their clients and their firm:

• Analysis: Understanding the analytics and business drivers to allow you to solve the key questions a business needs to answer
• Team: Contributing to team by providing leadership and support for one’s teammates
• Client: Being able to successfully create a meaningful partnership with the client

My partner’s advice to me, unsurprisingly, was to make sure to touch every aspect of the job. Unwilling to go for a simple “diversity is good” argument (as I’m not especially fond of the long hours of diligence work that my firm performs for private equity clients), I pressed him on the reason for this.

In response, he told me about a conference call he had with several other senior partners to discuss the technology client’s future. On the call, the operations guys and the strategy guys all saw different aspects of the project.

The operations guys saw the client through an operational lens – they felt the client was secure due to its strong market position and profitability. They saw opportunities for rapid improvement (cutting out extra waste, etc) to further fund the company’s ability to develop the technology it needed to stay competitive.

The strategy guys saw a different picture. They saw the client as sub-scale in a scale-driven industry. They saw the client chasing the wrong technology and saw the client’s differentiation eroding as the client’s competitors pursued a path towards greater integration with other technologies.

My partner, on the other hand, because of his involvement in cases along each of these dimensions over his 15 years as a consultant, painted a more holistic picture. What he saw was a company that would be in a strong position in the near team (as the operational guys were saying), but would be in a poor competitive position over the long haul (as the strategic guys pointed out). But, to this, he added the perspective he had received from his numerous diligence projects – instead of chasing a strategic or operational strategy to maximize the client’s chances of winning in its market, he advocated that the company figure out how best to sell itself.

In his mind, the client’s struggles was just a small part of a greater backdrop involving two enormous technology titans who would eventually run straight into each other. And much as many developing countries learned to play both sides of the Cold War to their benefit, my partner’s recommendation was for the client to figure out how to capitalize on this struggle to better position the client to win in a new market or to sell itself to the victor.

Of course there’s no way to tell if he’s right or not, but the ability to see the holistic view is something I would value. And, given my lack of experience thus far in the operations and client-facing side of equation, I’ve currently preferenced that my next staffing assignment be an operations-heavy and more client-facing role.

(Image Credit) (Image Credit)

Qualcomm’s Culture is Awesome

Over on Bench Press, my buddy Anthony pointed out one great aspect of Qualcomm’s legendary engineer culture – apparently they have a great tradition of making April Fool’s videos. This year’s will warm the hearts of anyone who’s done biological/life sciences-oriented research:

I particularly like the last guy who lays on the cutting edge wisdom of “my crocodeagles are four times bigger than the shark-falcons so they’re always going to win”. If that’s not MBA-caliber wisdom, I don’t know what is.

Doing a quick YouTube search, I also discovered their April fool’s joke from last year which can only be described with the first line: “This man isn’t crazy, but this new technology is.”

I think my favorite part is the guy who’s on two phone calls simultaneously.

Remind me, if I ever start a company, to make sure something like this is a part of my company’s culture!

Blackberry addict

I love gadgets (I just don’t have enough money to buy them). It’s no wonder that over on Xhibiting, I post a lot about cool gadgets. And its no secret that I’m chained to my Blackberry.

But, I stop short at preferring smartphones to women (HT: Dilbert)

Sounds like somebody needs a Blackberry patch…

(Image credit: CIO.com)