Upon How Many Should you Divide your Charity Money?

What is better? To give your charity money to ten families or instead distribute the amount on one hundred families?

In ecology, when the number of organisms in a certain area increases beyond a specific limit, the population tends to naturally regulate itself and the number ceases to increase either by increased deaths or decreased births or a combination of both. If nature allowed such population to grow in that specific area indefinitely, the size of each individual will keep shrinking and its fitness will keep decreasing since the finite amount of resources in that area will be divided on more and more individuals from that population.

If the amount of charity money you have will be too little when divided on a very large number of individuals, then it is better to divide such charity money on a smaller number of people in need. This will help them survive, grow and develop and perhaps become self sufficient as they develop and some of them may even reach a development stage where they can help others who are still in need.

Two Factors Affecting Business Growth

The potential of an organism to grow and a population to increase increases by the increase of needed resources in a given area in which such organisms are living and decreases with the competition over resources in such area.

In the business world, a similar relationship exists between businesses and the size of a given market and the amount of competition present in such a market from other businesses.

Oscillation Patterns of Businesses within a Market

The degree by which the size of a population is sensitive to density varies from one population to another. Some populations are more sensitive to density than others. A population that is completely independent from density would keep growing in number till infinity, which is not something we observe in nature. The pattern by which a population grows or decreases in number depends on the effective rate of birth and its dependence on density. A population may oscillate till it reaches a stable size.

In the business world, similar patterns may also emerge. The number of businesses working in a specific market may increase or decrease in an oscillating pattern depending on the degree to which the size of this 'population' is dependent on its density in the market.

When Should a Business Pullout From an Overcrowded Market?

The density of living organisms of the same species living in a specific area may affect the growth, development, reproduction and death of those organisms. The higher the density of such population the higher the death rate and the lower the growth and reproduction rates. The density of a population may thus determine the growth and death rates of such population. The effect of the density is not instantaneous, but witnesses a sort of time lag. The growth, birth and death rates within a population is affected by the density of such population but it takes some time for such effect to appear.

Similarly, in economy, the effect of crowding of businesses in a specific market may not show instantaneously. A time lag can be witnessed between the actual crowding of businesses in a market and the effect of such crowding showing on the growth and death rates of such businesses. This phenomenon can be used to the advantage of some businesses which can make use of this period of time to make profits before pulling out from a market that has become overcrowded.

Pursuing a Mathematical Model for Mentoring and Business Coaching

I wold like to develop a model for mentoring or business coaching and how it affects the profit growth curve of the mentee or person being coached. It would be nice to draw two hypothetical profit growth curves, one of them without mentoring or business coaching and the other with mentoring or business coaching included. A third curve can be drawn representing profits of a client after deducting the mentor or coach share. This third curve should be higher, at least on the long term, from that without mentoring or business coaching. The area under the third curve should be greater than that under the first one at least within the first 3 to 5 years.

The question would be how to calculate such numbers, which formula to use and how to come up with a formula for profit growth in the first place? One possible answer is to base this on stats. Mentor or business coach may start collecting stats for those being mentored or coached. Such stats can serve as a way to construct the profit growth curves. It still would not be possible to compare such curves with those of the same person had he or she not been mentored or coached yet it is still possible at least to compare the aggregate of such profit growth curves with those curves of others who have not been mentored or coached. This could provide a clear indicator of the benefits of mentoring or business coaching and, to an extent, quantify the value of mentoring and business coaching.

Company Growth Slows Down as Company Develops

There is a difference between growth and development. An animal can grow in size after it is born then it reaches puberty. The growth after birth is growth, but advancing to the stage of puberty is development because the organism is qualitatively and functionally different. The same case is with plants. A plant can start growing in size and creating more leaves which is a growth stage. Then it can start giving flowers and then seeds and fruit which are considered stages of development. When a plant transitions to a new stage of development its growth rate is reduced or stops completely.

The same can be said for companies as well. A company can start growing till it reaches a stage where it would develop. This stage would see the halting of slowing down of company growth but the company transitions to a more developed stage that is qualitatively different and has new functionality. The halting of the growth is not something bad, actually, the development into company with further functionality makes the company more able and can thus increase effectiveness and profit after that.

Businesses Grow in a Sigmoidal Curve Pattern

Many factors affect the growth of a population of organisms. One factor being the competition among members of that species over resources available at a specific area. Other factors may include predators, disease and changes in conditions at the specified area. Competition from populations of other species living in the same area would also be an additional factor affecting the growth of the population under study. A growth rate of a population based purely on competition among its members in a specific area would often follow a sigmoidal curve.

In business, the same sigmoid curve can be observed when observing the growth of businesses within a given market. The competition among those companies targeting the same market would result in a similar growth pattern for such companies as that observed in the case of living organisms of the same species living together in the same area.

When to Invest in a Company?

A company may go through three stages starting with slow growth followed by rapid growth and finally a stage of slow growth once more that may ultimately lead to downsizing and even death of the company altogether. This process may take anything from a few years or a few decades to a few centuries. Ultimately each company dies same as with living organisms.

In nature, a population witnesses slow increase in number at first when the population size is still small, followed by a stage of rapid increase in numbers as the population increases in size and so does the number of births then this is followed by a third stage of fewer and fewer organisms being born and surviving due to lower rate of birth and higher rate of death ultimately resulting in the decrease of the size of the population.

It is thus wise to invest in a company during the period where it is witnessing rapid growth, this is the most fertile period in which the highest returns on investment can be made. It would be wise also to pull out from such company right  before its growth rates starts to dwindle.

Why Countryside Women did not Need Birth Control

The relationship between growth rate and reproduction ability is dependent on the habitat in which the organism lives. A habitat that is well suited for the needs of the organism and that provides plenty of the resources needed by that organism can maintain the growth of the organism without reducing its reproductive ability except slightly. In contrast, a habitat that does not provide enough resources needed by a specific organism, due to lack of resources or the presence of high competition on those resources, would cause growth rate of an organism to be affected considerably by it's reproduction.

In our modern days in industrialized countries and societies a high birth rate can have an adverse effect on the health of a person. A woman living in a modernized life style might have her health deteriorate if she gives birth to a large number of children. The reason behind this being that food prevalent today for such life style is not nourishing enough and is less nutritious. This mirrors the lack or reduction of enough resources in case of organisms inhabiting a specific habitat.

The above contrasts sharply with other women living in the countryside in the past where food was more nourishing and more nutritious. The high number of births women used to experience at that time did not have a strong negative effect on their health, actually many of them enjoyed great health. It might be argued that at such times the high number of births women experienced did in fact have a positive effect on their health!

Real Reason Behind 18+ Marriage Law

The longer the average age of humans the longer is the age of each generation. The younger the age of marriage the more overlapping that takes place between generations. A child may normally see his grandparents in some communities while in others it is common for a child to see his great grandparents and still in others to see his great great grandparents! When life is longer and age of marriage is less, more generations tend to overlap.

As more generations overlap, populations tend to increase rapidly. Restricting age of marriage to be 18+ tends to cap this a bit. Enforcing such rule on developing countries too assists in restricting their high population growth rate.

Scientifically speaking, some people do not mature physically and/or emotionally even after they are 18 years old while others mature both physically and emotionally way before they are 18 years old. The arbitrary marriage age of 18 years, even if taken as an average of maturity, is just an easy way for law makers to have a one-size-fits-all law that can be easily enforced notwithstanding its inaccuracy and nonconformity to the sciences of biology and psychology.

Companies Propagating as Plants

Some plants propagate by extending their roots laterally then shooting up stems. The plant actually grows using such method and the growing number of stems are actually interconnected at the ground level through an extensive system of interconnected roots. At first, the budding shoot is dependent on the parent plant for nutrition and support. As the shoot grows, it can becomes less dependent on the parent plant and can survive on its own even if the connection to its parent plant was severed through the roots.

Similarly, in the business world, a company may grow by setting off new ventures in different sectors. The new spin-offs may be dependent at first on the parent company but then grow less dependent with time. They might ultimately reach a point where they are completely independent of the parent company and can survive on their own.

Software that Predicts Plant Growth?

It would be nice to come up with predictive systems that can provides estimates of the number of modules (leaves, branches, flowers and so on) of a plant that would be growing provided a set of conditions such as resources of water, nutrients and conditions of solar radiation and temperature. Such models may be statistical. One can use machine learning such as neural networks or artificial intelligence to build such models. That would be an interesting project to pursue. Probably there are already such systems existing, it would be still interesting to pursue this more and expand on them.

Grow your Business Like a Plant

Humans

There are organisms that grow in size but do not change in their form or structure. For instance, humans are born with a specific number of fingers, hands and legs. This form remains the same as a human develops. The size of the parts can grown but the form stays the same.

Plants

There exists other types of organisms that change in form as they grow. Plants first form a seedling which grown roots then leaves. A stem develops then later flowers, which fall, then after that comes the fruits which are also separated from the plant. The number of leaves in a plant keeps increasing as it grows. Unlike in humans, where the number of fingers stays the same but just can increase in size.

Businesses

These two different modes of growth in unitary (like humans) and modular (like plants) organisms can inspire us to think about how a business can also grow. A business may grow by keeping its form yet growing the size of each of its existing parts. A store, for instance, may expand by renting more space and becoming physically bigger. Businesses may also expand by adding more 'modules' to themselves. A retail business may expand by adding new branches in the same way a tree expands by adding more branches and leaves. A company may grown by diversifying its offerings and adding more products that it produces or sells.

It is quite interesting to see how the world of plants and animals can inspire ways of looking at businesses.

Metabolism, growth, development and size

Ideas

Thoughts

1. Science can help predict plant growth and production (equations, variables: temperature).
2. Is that why Africans are tall (the high temperature, leading to a high rate of metabolism)?
3. That's why in hot climates plants grow fast and forests of lush vegetation exist. (Water? Deserts?)
4. That's why my plants grew noticeably during hot days.
5. Prediction is amazing for size and development for plants, in agriculture!

Do

1. Do experiments in balcony on plants.

Digest

• How individuals respond to temperature:
• impaired function and ultimately death at the upper and lower extremes
• a functional range between the extremes
• an optimum within the functional range
• "For each 10°C rise in temperature the rate of biological enzymatic processes doubles, and thus appears as an exponential curve on a plot of rate against temperature."
• Temperature affects:
• rates of growth: increases in mass (linear)
• rates of development: progression through lifecycle stages (linear)
• final body size
• Day-degree: number of days to develop X degrees above development threshold
• Physiological time: a combination of time and temperature required for an organism to develop
• "Together, the rates of growth and development determine the final size of an organism."
• "For a given rate of growth, a faster rate of development will lead to smaller final size."
• Temperature-size rule:
• Development increases more rapidly with temperature than does growth
• Thus final size decreases with rising temperature
• Effects of temperature on growth, development and size has practical importance for prediction.

Question

The effect of temperature on metabolism is quite interesting.