Lumalive

Remember my comment yesterday about mass customization and how nobody will wear the same stuff in the future? Well, I heard about something called "Lumalive" fabric from Philips on the radio yesterday, then my brother left a comment about it this morning. Here's what Philips' website says:

Lumalive fabrics feature flexible arrays of colored light-emitting diodes (LEDs) fully integrated into the fabric - without compromising the softness or flexibility of the cloth. These light emitting textiles make it possible to create materials that can carry dynamic messages, graphics or multicolored surfaces.

Fabrics like drapes, cushions or sofa coverings become active when they illuminate in order to enhance the observer’s mood and positively influence his/her behavior.

So it's a completely unique shirt because it's constantly changing. No doubt wearers will eventually be able to program their own "dynamic messages and graphics." I imagine it's pretty expensive stuff right now, but can commoditization be far away?

You can see it in action on YouTube.

The Future...

It's funny how many science fiction writers & movie-makers envisioned the future. Stuff like 1984 and 2001 portrayed societies where everyone wears matching collarless coveralls, watches the Big Head on the one TV channel, listens to bad classical music and, if they're lucky, drinks Coca-Cola. Fortunately for us all, it hasn't turned out that way yet (even though 1984 and 2001 are both behind us). And I don't think it's going to go that way.

I envision a future where no two people ever wear quite the same thing, or watch the same show, or even listen to the same song, because everything will be tweakable and hackable. I imagine there will be no such thing as a "tv channel" in the future, at least in the current sense of the term. Or maybe there will be as many channels as there are people. Sort of like the "internet channel," which is already serving up whatever video and audio content YOU want, in addition to the text it's provided for the past decade.

I envision a future of nearly complete individuality and a bewilderingly diverse stream of possible inputs... partly because I think we're most of the way there already. I think mass customization will come to virtually every realm of American life, and every single beverage, vehicle and pair of shoes will be tailored to an individual's personal taste, style and bodyshape. (Note: this will benefit manufacturers by limiting the market for used stuff, because reselling used stuff is harder if it's been customized... and new stuff is more appealing if it's made "especially for you).

You want a regular Coke with 1/2 the sugar? No problem - it won't taste like regular coke, but that's sort of the point, isn't it? And you want it in Grape flavor, and the can should be purple, with your name on it? Why not!

Location will also become increasingly irrelevant. As soon as we figure out how to deliver pizzas and take-out Chinese food over long distances using high-speed UAV's (and maybe cook it as it flies), people will leave cities in droves. They'll still want to meet in MeatSpace, for obvious reasons, so some sort of personalized, faster-than-cars transport will be necessary (maybe we'll get our flying cars afterall!).

Of course, predicting the future is notoriously tricky. No doubt I'm wrong on some parts of this (like the flying cars - sigh). But mass customization & exponential growth of consumer content is here already, and it's only going to spread.

What will this do to community? What will it do to culture and a sense of national identity? All sorts of things, no doubt. Some good, some bad. I suspect the US's melting pot culture is better postured to embrace, absorb and survive this trend than many of the older, less dynamic cultures around the world.

We'll see.

Bewildering Architecture Redux

I was chatting with a local security officer this afternoon and discovered the story behind two of the items from my "Bewildering Architecture" series - the pointless arch and the incongruous wall stub. Turns out my assessment was correct - neither structure has a purpose.

I'll spare you the entire story, but it has something to do with a requirement to build structures "as designed," even when circumstances have changed and the structures are no longer needed. It's a perfect example of the foolishness caused by building a fortress instead of a firefight.

A little flexibility and commonsense could have saved a lot of time, money and effort... but since the arch and the wall were part of the original design, they "had to be built" (i.e. they'd already been paid for), even though the need for them had long since passed.

Sort of like designing a fighter jet to counter the Soviet Air Force, and delivering it in 2005... not that we'd ever do anything as foolish as that, of course.

Beemer(tm)

I went to high school with a guy named Glenn Gaslin. He was (& still is) very funny and very smart, and is one of the few people from high school who I've been able to (occasionally) keep track of.

He wrote a great novel titled Beemer, and you can get it at Amazon for $5.99, which is 74% off the cover price (I don't pretend to understand the book industry). What a deal!

I won't attempt a plot summary (but will offer a warning that there is some salty language and several instances of what some reviewers coyly refer to as "adult situations"), but I really, really enjoyed it, and not just 'cause I know the guy who wrote it.

A blurb on the back describes it as "A Super Big Gulp of clever vidpop prose," and another says "If America were an aerosol product, Beemer is what you'd get when you sprayed it into a paper bag and inhaled. A fast, heady, sick, yet satisfying trip."

Here's a little excerpt, from a scene where the main character/narrator has started a job:

My experiment with the working life begins slowly. On most days, as in most offices in most of the world, nothing happens. Or, at least, nothing Big, nothing Breakthrough, nothing worth my attention. As I learn quickly, work is simply being and not doing. Be here for eight hours and we'll call it a job. This is new to me. It is the purpose of the office to remain steady, through anything, so that the few creative minds within have somewhere to stand while they reinvent the toaster or spark a revolution or whatever.

If you're interested in '80's inspired Americana pop culture, hyperconsumerism or the cult of fame, particularly as viewed through an over-caffeinated, surreal lens, then you'll love Beemer. I sure did.

Speaking of Fun...

A friend of mine just created a very cool card game called Stymied. You can order your own set online, for the low, low price of $14.95.

The game was partly inspired by another very cool, very fun game called Fluxx, which is available from Looney Labs. They recently released a "Holy Fluxx" expansion set, in both Christian and Jewish versions. There's also an Eco-Fluxx, which is environmentally themed, and Family Fluxx, for the little ones.

Both are fantastic examples of creative thinking that results in an experience which is funny, stimulating and thought-provoking.

I thinky you'll enjoy them!

Schluss mit Lustig (End The Fun)

The CEO of "Meir and Others," a German advertising and web-design company, just came out with a book titled Schluss mit Lustig (End the Fun). As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up.

Company rules include mandatory uniforms, a rigid 9am to 6pm working day and five-day week, no private telephone calls and no chatting about private matters. Personal decorations on office walls are also verbotten.

She wasn't always a tyrant, however. She describes the early days at the company:

"When we started out we ran the company according to the so-called 'cool'
approach adopted by most of our competitors. This meant that we started work at around midday and drank beer in the office. We ended up working most weekends and half of most nights. In the end we were all exhausted and ended up with a lousy product," Miss Mair said.

Um, maybe the problem was the beer and lack of focus, rather than the fun? Just because a company's implementation of a flexible, humane workplace was poorly done doesn't mean the solution is to throw the concept of fun and comfort out entirely. In my experience, attempts at establishing strict controls only serve to create the illusion of strict control (and have very little impact on quality).

I much prefer the worldview (and practical success) documented in Ricardo Semler's amazing books Maverick and The Seven Day Weekend. Or check out Hugh MacLeod's latest Gaping Void post, titled Meaningful Work or Death.

Up with fun!

New Organizational Storytelling Book!

I just received a letter in the mail from Jossey-Bass, a business publisher.

Strange, I thought. I haven't sent them a manuscript or book proposal in quite a while. Why would they be sending me a rejection letter? Either they're r-e-a-l-l-y slow in responding to something I sent them a year ago, or it's pre-emptive (Dear Aspiring Author, please don't send us your next book proposal...).

Imagine my surprise when I opened the envelope and saw that it was not a rejection letter after all! What a nice change of pace. Now, don't get too excited - it wasn't a contract either... It was actually an announcement that a book I contributed to was about to be published.

The book is titled Wake Me Up When The Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results. I was invited to contribute a story from my Radical Elements book, and I think I wrote some new stuff as well. It was almost a year ago, so to be honest I don't recall exactly what I sent them. My buddy Gabe Mounce sent something too, as I recall.

At any rate, I'm pretty excited to see the finished product. It's due to be released on 29 Sept, and I should have a copy by mid October. Of course, you can all pre-order your own copy at Amazon for the low, low price of $19.77.

Stories rock!

Reading Boomer Sisters

I recently had the rare pleasure of visiting both my daughters classrooms during the school day, to read some chapters of my kid's novel, Meet The Boomer Sisters. The kids seemed to have a great time, and I know I sure did.

I think this shot really captures the spirit of the moment. As you can see, Bethany was kind enough to help act out some of the scenes.

The Risk of Risk

I'm on leave for a few days, and took the opportunity to return a bunch of bottles and cans to the grocery story this morning. Three dollars and twenty-five cents richer, I paused to read the small print on the redemption machine.

As you can see in the photo above, it says "Caution: Do not insert flammable or toxic materials as they may result in a risk of fire or personal injury."

Might result in a risk? How about "might result in a fire" or "might hurt someone"? Sadly, it seems the Timid Good (see the Boomer Sisters book) has struck again, warning people about the possibility of risk, as if risk is the issue.

I mention this because I've come across this upside-down perspective on risk all too often. Process-oriented modernist progam managers, leaders and technologists look at risk as something inherently bad, to be avoided at all costs (and apparently believe risk can be avoided). Don't do X, or there might be a risk, they say. Before long, I'm sure someone will write a book about "the risk of risk." Ugh!

(I love my new camera phone, btw!)

Super

I was at a conference in Denver last month, and came across this word carved in the side of a building: Superincumbent. Naturally, I needed to record the phenomenon in digital pixels, and I finally got around to posting it here.

Obviously, the word was part of a larger sentence, and I'm sure whoever wrote it originally meant well. But it seemed like overkill to me. Was there no other way to convey the concept? Why not use a word people actually understand? Unless of course the intent was to decorate rather than communicate. I suspect that was the case.

The other funny thing about this word is, when you google it, you get a list of pages with titles like "definition of superincumbent" as if the only thing you can do with this word is define it (and in case you're curious, it means "lying or resting on and exerting pressure on something else").

The point? Architecture is not only bewildering, it's also funny sometimes... particularly when people use words to do things other than share ideas and information.

Fire-Flower Lamp

Hanabi is a Japanese word that means fireworks or "flower and fire," which is a perfect name for this lamp. It starts out closed, but when you turn it on, the heat from the bulb makes the petals open.

I just think that's pretty cool.

Podcast Interview

This weekend, I was interviewed by Wayne Turmel (aka The Cranky Middle Manager) for his podcast. The topic was Risk Management for project leaders, but we talked about everything from cynicism to Rogueness to Orbiting The Giant Hairball.

The podcast runs about 28 minutes, but it seemed like 10 when we were actually recording it.

I hope you'll go check it out and leave a comment on his page.

Bewildering Architecture, Part IV

Here is the fourth-and-final entry in the Bewildering Architecture series. I figured it would be appropriate to end this series on a whimper, and thus I saved the lamest for the last.

It's just a wall, built along the side of a building. It's got a passage way cut in it, so it doesn't block anyone's path. The top of the wall extends well above the roof of the building... and for the life of me, I can't figure out why it's there!

Is it a windblock? It's awfully small for that. Some sort of structural support for the building (I can't imagine how). Decoration? Part of a larger, as-yet-unfinished plan? Or is it just a cheap place to store a bunch of extra bricks?

I'd love to hear your ideas.

Bewildering Architecture, Part III

Today's entry is truly Bewildering. It's a rather large arch which obviously serves a mysterous purpose beyond the ken of mere mortals.

Protection from the elements? Nope - it's up too high, and there are no walls, so the wind blows snow and rain right through. Shade? Maybe, but only for a very small area. Security? Um, I don't think so. Decoration? Ah, maybe that's it!

Bewildering Architecture, part II

The Cement Stairs to Nowhere - I chuckle almost every time I walk past these steps. They're quite heavy looking and I imagine are basically immobile. They don't seem to have a purpose or get much (any) use. And they're way too short to reach up to the Doors To Nowhere from yesterday's post.

Maybe it's a caveman's exercise machine, an early StairStepper(tm)?

Bewildering Architecture

This is the first of 4 photo posts on the topic of Bewildering Architecture.

All four are along the same little strip, in between two building near my office. I'm having a tough time understanding why anyone spent the time & money to create these things. I'm sure there was a reason for each...

This building actually has two sets of doors like this - on the second floor, but leading to nowhere (as far as I can tell). The really funny thing is, the building doesn't have a second floor!

Understanding Al Quaida

I watched part 1 of "The Path to 9/11" last night on ABC. I'll let other people comment on any political agendas, historical inaccuracies or the show's artistic merits. This post is about a missing piece, not just in the movie but (maybe) in our general approach to the Global War on Terror.

In the show, the terrorists were portrayed as constantly angry and murderous (when they weren't shaking-what-Allah-gave-them in Phillipino nightclubs, that is). Why are they so angry? American "policies," of course. Several times, the terrorists talked about the terrible "American policies."

Which policies would that be? Ah, they didn't say, and that's the problem.

My experience with idealistically angry people is that they LOVE to spout off lists of their specific greivances (think partisan politicians or commentators criticizing their opponents, i.e. Ann Coulter or Michael Moore). I expected them to say "The USA did this and that and this again..." But apparently, the people who made the film didn't think it was worth while to have the terrorists actually spell out much in the way of specific greivances, aside from the fact that the US supports Israel.

My fear is that we really think the terrorists are simply angry. They hate Israel, we support Israel, therefore they hate us.

I'm not sure it's that simple, and I'd hate to think we have such a simplistic understanding of the situation or the enemy.

Clausewitz explained that wars are won in the enemy commander's mind. The battle may be over when the other side stops shooting at you, but the war doesn't end until the other side agrees it's over. That means we need to get into their heads and get them thinking differently.

So when I say we need to understand Al Quaida (and islamofacists in general), it's not because I think they are poor, misunderstood people who just need a hug. It's because we can't beat them unless we really grasp their motives, priorities and worldview. I don't propose accepting, tolerating or respecting their worldview (I'd like to eradicate it, frankly). I propose understanding it enough to figure out what it will take to convince them that the killing needs to stop.

83 and going strong

Shortly after Sept 11, 2001, my grandfather (who was 78 at the time) found his way onto a Coast Guard boat and helped patrol NY Harbor.

He then managed to get transferred to the CG Auxiliary's Air Flotilla. Now, two or three times a week, he boards a privately owned Cessna and runs patrols up and down Lake Champlain (where my mom & dad live). His job is to be the "spotter," using binoculars to look for bad guys.

Not a bad way to spend one's golden years, I'd say! The local Plattsburgh NY newspaper recently did an article about him (that's him with my dad in the photo). I hope that when I'm 83 I'll be as active and as able to contribute to the world.

Steve Irwin - RIP

It was so sad to hear that Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray. Wow.

I never thought he'd die of something like high cholesterol, of course (not that I'd ever really thought about it), and I suppose he did die doing what he loved. But he's got two kids (ages 8 and 3), not to mention his wife. It's such a loss.

Talking Story - Lively Learning!

I was recently invited to participate in a group blogging event, by a wonderful lady from Hawaii named Rosa Say. She is hosting a month-long discussion of joyful, jubilant learning, and today (Sept 4th) I had the honor of being the featured guest blogger.

I used a brief excerpt from my Boomer Sisters book, which happened to coincide perfectly with Rosa's theme. You can read the whole post here.

Synertia Defined

When synergy leads to maintenance of the status quo, organizations end up with: Synertia!

Synertia - the effect of two or more agents working together to resist change.

Printing On Water

When I started this blog, most of my posts were about cool, weird, surprising technology... stuff that I might have otherwise distributed in an email to a select few people. Since that time, it's become a bit more reflective & business/life oriented, but I figure it's time to once again check in on the world of strange technology you've never heard of.

Check out this device - it uses waves to "print" letters on the surface of water.

Why? For sheer amusement, of course! I'd love to have one in my back yard!

The Seven-Day Weekend

As I've probably mentioned before, I make it a point to not work long hours. I tend to come in early and leave early, and frankly I'm not too picky about the coming in early part...

At the risk of incuring a shoulder injury by patting myself on the back too vigorously, I'll point out that as far as I can tell, I'm also more productive than most of my peers (despite the occasionally abbreviated hours - or maybe because of them?)

My own little correlary to Parkinson's Law (work expands to fill the time allotted) goes like this: Work is compressible. If I really want to get out of the office early, I can get all my stuff done early. If I expect to stay late, I probably won't accomplish that much more...

I mention all this because I'm reading a wonderful book by Ricardo Semler, titled The Seven-Day Weekend. He points out that if we can learn how to read work email on a Sunday afternoon, we should be able to figure out how to go see a movie with our spouse on a Wed afternoon. And he backs it up with decades of real-world / real-work experience. Amazing book - I can't put it down.

So, it's currently 2:30 on a beautiful Wednesday. I'm going home now. Gonna take the kids to a park & play. And it's been a very productive day.

Colbert on Wikipedia

In case you missed The Colbert Report's commentary on wikipedia, you can slip on over to YouTube and watch (it's about 4 minutes long). Then go check out the Wikipedia entry on Elephants, but don't bother trying to change the content to say the elephant population is increasing - they've locked the page down.

I see this as one more piece of evidence of Wikipedia's value, strength and secure place in the constellation of human knowledge repositories. The fact that Colbert refered to it shows how popular it is. The fact that the vandalism he tried to incite was nipped in the bud shows how resilient it is. And the discussion page associated with the Elephant entry shows how thoughtful, intelligent and fun-loving Wikipedians can be.

Of course, I had a positive opinion of Wikipedia already, but this really helps to confirm it.

Meet The Mad Pigeon

I just got a note from a very cool blogger who also happens to be an instructor at the Air Force Academy. He goes by the name The Mad Pigeon, and he got in touch with me after reading the Punk Rock article Quaid & I wrote.

It's always fun to meet a punk-rocking, status-quo defying, conformity-rejecting rogue operator... and knowing that he's teaching at the AFA is profoundly satisfying.

Simplicity Cycle update

I just came across this article by "R. Todd Stephens, PhD," which quotes rather extensively from my Simplicity Cycle manifesto. Too fun!

It was published in something called The Data Administrator's Newsletter (TDAN), which contains articles with titles like "Introducing Date Unification and Harmonization." Stuff I should probably be interested in, but strangely, I'm not. :)

Word Length & Familiarity

I have a long-held, seldom-expressed theory about word length. It's just one of those crazy little things that bounces around in my head, and I wonder if there's any meaning to it.

Specifically, I suspect that familiar objects & activities generally get short words... and the more familiar, the shorter the word. While some very common objects & activies have longish words, I have not yet been able to think of a three letter word for something that is not familiar - can you? Check it out:

arm, leg, gut, eat, die, kid, sky, sun, run, see, hug, kiss (I count the double s as basically one letter), mom, dad, man, boy, dog, cat, cow, moon (see note on kiss)...

As an example of how words change, consider the Horseless Carriage, which became the automobile, and then became the Car. Or the computer becoming the PC (or Mac).

Why isn't water a three letter word? Why isn't "person" shorter? I don't know.

Anyway, I poked around online a little and came across this Ask Oxford site, which presents some data that seems to support my hypothesis... Most of the 100 most common English words are one syllable and in the 2-4 letter range...

Happy Face

I carry a little black moleskine notebook everywhere I go. I use it to capture notes, ideas, sketches, etc. If we've ever had a face-to-face conversation, you've probably seen me whip it out and scribble something down.

Anyway, I guess I left it sitting on the island in my kitchen one day, and sometime later came across this picture, compliments of my 3-year-old daughter Jenna:

She didn't scribble on any other pages - she just opened to a blank page and drew this happy little face. I think it's the coolest thing anyone has written in my notebook (myself included).

One more Exposure comment

If anyone out there is actually reading this blog, you are probably getting bored with the Exposure book. Sorry about that, but I couldn't resist one more posting.

See, I just noticed that Exposure is offered under a Creative Commons license... specifically, an Attribution 2.0 License, which basically says people can do what ever they want with the content, as long as they attribute the work to the originators.

This includes commercial use.

If any of you creative-types out there are interested in 21st century intellectual property management options, please check out the Creative Commons site for the stuff you need.

Gary Larson's Intellectual Property

Ever since coming across the Exposure book, I've been thinking about the whole copyright & intellectual property issue. Actually, it's been on my mind for a while, probably ever since Napster first came out... and then again when I started writing books...

At any rate, I was looking for Far Side cartoons online and came across this crazy note from Gary Larson. I am reasonably certain it's legit, and he basically says "No, you can't put Far Sides online anywhere."

His note strikes me as remarkably dumb.

Doesn't he realize his fame & fortune are due in large part to countless people posting Far Side cartoons on office doors, cube walls, bulletin boards, etc? He got a lot of free advertising from his fans, and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Now he doesn't want that to happen anymore? I'm not a cartoonist, but I have a hard time imaginging there is much "emotional cost to me, personally, of seeing my work collected, digitized and offered up in cyberspace beyond my control." That actually sounds like a good deal, particularly if you replace "beyond my control" with "without any effort on my part." It seems to me he should be saying Thanks, not Stop.

Today's doors and walls and bulletin boards are online - they're called webpages and blogs and MySpace. And Gary Larson apparently wants none of it.

How can he overlook the fact that the value of his ideas & cartoons increases with familiarity (to paraphrase Mr. Barlow's chapter in Exposure)?

If he wants or needs to stop drawing Far Side, fine (and I believe he stopped drawing them some time ago). He can still sell Greatest Hits collections, calendars, etc... but it is unreasonable, illogical and unwise to expect that he will still control the distribution of (and still profit by) stuff he produced 15 years ago.

It's a bit like an author objecting to used book stores, because he or she isn't getting a cut of the action.

It's a bit like a musician objecting to people humming their tunes within earshot of someone else...

It's a lot like the music industry, which has decided to treat fans like criminals.

And in this new digital world, it just doesn't make much sense.

Information Sharing

I just received a (long!) email announcing the release of a report by "the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age." Described as "a must read for all information sharing stake holders," I was intrigued (even though I'm not sure how much steak I hold...)

Even through the message had more buzzwords than a interactive collaboration of dynamic paradigm shifters, I read (ok, scanned) through it and clicked on a link or two. If I'm parsing the techno-speak correctly, I think they're the good guys. Here's a short excerpt...

...a group of over 50+ forward thinking leaders have been working together
to stand up such an Institute for Information Sharing
(IIS)...

Those interested in the Institute for
Information Sharing can find its charter, white papers, meeting notes, GSA
Schedules and related materials at www.ICHnet.org on the right hand margin.
This is an open and non-partisan research institute that leverages lessons
learned from existing information sharing research, testing and implementation
efforts so as to accelerate the planning and architecture process.

With failure rates of major govt IT programs approaching 80%, costing the
tax payer $21.3 Billion a year, our country’s leadership can ill afford to
continue to engage the same processes that continue to lead to failure.

If you're a stakeholder, you might want to peruse the report.... Enjoy!

The Change Function

I recently came across a book in the airport, titled The Change Function. Then I checked ChangeThis.com this morning, and found the manifesto version.

Very interesting ideas, particularly for anyone who's interested in injecting change and/or introducing disruptive, innovative technology into the market (military or commercial).

Don't miss it...

Exposure Quotes

For those who haven't yet downloaded the Exposure PDF (or are too lazy or time-constrained to read the whole thing), here are a few quotes of interest:

(From John Perry Barlow’s chapter, titled “Selling Wine Without Bottles”)

…the rights of invention and authorship adhered to activities in the physical world. One didn’t get paid for ideas but for the ability to deliver them into reality. For all practical purposes, the value was in the conveyance and not the thought conveyed. In other words, the bottle was protected, not the wine.

The best way to protect intellectual property is to act on it.

Our intellectual property protection derives from our being the only real-time source of it.

Point of view is an asset which cannot be stolen or duplicated.

The central economic distinction between information and physical property is the ability of information to be transferred without leaving the possession of the original owner.

[for ideas], familiarity has more value than scarcity… the best thing you can do to raise the demand for your product is to give it away.

Exposure Recap

A group of very smart people got together in 2003. They had a conference, collected transcripts of the talks & papers, and put it all together into a book titled Exposure: From Friction to Freedom.

They printed it as a rather high-end hardcover book. Pricetag: $50. It sold out, and isn't available for purchase anymore.

However, the PDF is available (for free). Turns out, they were charging for the book, not the words. The paper, not the ideas. The Form, not the Function. John Perry Barlow explores this idea with great clarity in the chapter titled Selling Wine Without Bottles.

Now it's 2006. Along comes some guy (me) who wants to help spread the ideas in Exposure (more on those ideas shortly). With the blessing of a former lyricist for the Greatful Dead (who happens to be a brilliant technology writer as well), I uploaded it to Lulu.com and am now selling it for $8 [full disclosure: I make 68 cents on every copy sold].

Yes, you can still download it Now & for Free. You can also get it in hardcopy Next Week for $8. Or you can Wait Forever for the $50 version (which no longer exists).

Options are very good... Power to the people!

Some More Cool Quotes

"Whatever you think, think the opposite" - Paul Arden (Thanks Cecil Hook)

"Law, Medicine, Engineering, Arcitecture....all have higher, transcedant purposes. Business is no different, they just don't know it yet."
- John Mackey, Whole Foods Market

And from our friend, Tom Peters latest presentation:

“A focus on cost-cutting and efficiency has helped many organizations weather the downturn, but this approach will ultimately render them obsolete. Only the constant pursuit of innovation can ensure long-term success.” —Daniel Muzyka, Dean, Sauder School of Business, Univ of British Columbia (FT/09.17.04)


“You can’t behave in a calm, rational manner. You’ve got to be out there on
the lunatic fringe.” —Jack Welch


“The role of the Director is to create a space where the actor or actress can become more than they’ve ever been before, more than they’ve dreamed of being.” —Robert Altman, Oscar acceptance

-Gabe

Learn This Word!

Apophenia: the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. (ala John Nash in A Beautiful Mind)

Klaus Conrad coined the term and defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness".

He originally described it in relation to the distortion of reality present in psychosis, but it has become more widely used to describe this tendency in healthy individuals without necessarily implying the presence of neurological or mental illness.

In statistics, apophenia would be classed as a Type II error (false alarm).

(from the Wikipedia entry for Apophenia)

Here's the reason I think it's an important word / concept / idea / phenomenon: It has been suggested that apophenia is a link between psychosis and creativity.

The other reason this word matters: we are in an age when pattern recognition is more important than ever...

Blogging In Spurts

I seem to blog in spurts. I don't know why.

I don't think it's good or bad. It's just the rhythm I seem to be in...

Exposure book

I recently came across a fascinating book titled Exposure. It's all about intellectual property issues, and you can download the PDF version for free. I can't recommend it strongly enough, for anyone who is interested in thinking about the role of ideas in the digital age.

It's about creativity, compensation, video games, music, writing, morality and the electronic frontier. John Perry Barlow, former songwriter for the Greatful Dead and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (!) is the latest addition to my list of favorite people. His article about "Selling Wine Without Bottles" is brilliant & tremendously thoughtprovoking.

Sadly, the book is sold out. However, as I said, you can download the PDF. You could then upload it to Lulu.com and (for about $8) print a hardcopy for yourself.

Question: What if I uploaded the PDF to Lulu and made hardcopies available for sale to the public? Would it be morally acceptable for me to make a profit on the sale? Would I be obliged to share those profits with the authors who contributed to the book? What if I had a website that said "Click here to get it for free from the original source... or click here to buy a hardcopy from me..."?

Any thoughts?

Never Let Family "Interfere" With Work

For many years now, I have been absolutely committed to living out my belief that family should never interfere with my work. It is only recently I've put that concept in those terms.

Here's what I mean: I work in order to provide for my family. So, when my family's needs conflict with work, family wins... and I don't call it interference, no matter the impact on my work-related plans for the day.

For example, when I'm about to walk out the door & go to work and my daughter shows up asking for breakfast (awake 30 minutes early!) ... I don't tell her to go away. I put my stuff down, feed her, and gladly accept the fact that I'll be a bit late today.

She is not getting in my way. Not even a little. She is not an inconvenience or an interference. She is three years old and she's hungry. Feeding her and giving her a little cuddle is way more important than getting to work at a particular time.

If I don't understand that, if I don't recognize the value & importance of being there and taking care of her, shame on me.

This isn't about indulging a 3-year-old's every whim (which is a tremendously bad idea, by the way). It's about recognizing what really matters.

When work and family conflict, and something has to give, I don't want it to be the family that suffers. And when work gets moved to the back burner, I don't call it "interference." I call it "a good decision."

From "The Adventurer" by Paul Zweig

"Men, it would seem, are worth talking about only when the pattern of their life is broken."

(The Adventurer, by Paul Zweig - amazing book. Please read it!)

Interactive Access

For the past few months, I've been watching a very interesting trend emerge. I call it "Interactive Access," and plan to do some serious writing about it shortly.

Here's the thing - thanks to Google, online banking, Amazon.com, etc... access to all the world's data is basically a present reality. Obviously, some types of data are easier to locate than others, but generally speaking we currently have the ability to locate any piece of information we are searching for.

So, I contend that Access is not really a trend. It's already here, and while it will continue to grow & mature, it's basically yesterday's news.

Interactive Access, on the other hand, is all about the ability to manipulate the data we find. Wikipedia is a great example, because it enables users to add, delete, correct, correlate, expand and generally do stuff with the info. Google Map mashups let people aggregate data from a variety of sources and create interesting new information products. Ancient Spaces lets users contribute to & manipulate a 3-D representation of the ancient world. The list goes on.

Finding data is no longer enough. Interacting with that data, correcting it and adding to it, putting it together in new ways... that is a trend with some very cool implications.

More to follow...

Reading List

A quick look at some of the things I'm reading these days:

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson - author of SnowCrash - fascinating novelist!
The Apple Way, by Jeffrey Cruikshank - very insightful look at what works/worked / didn't work at Apple
Future Singapore, by Moh Hon Meng (thanks, Kurt!) - If you're not studying Asia these days, you're missing something big.

I also picked up Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson (the guy who coined the word "cyberspace"). Haven't started it yet, but am looking forward to it!

What's on your list?

Imagination & Courage

Imagine for a moment that Imagination and Courage matter for an organization's success.

How would you encourage it? How would you reward it? How would you measure, detect or notice it?

Ideas?

DAPA Report - Must Read!

This just in: "The Defense Acquisition Performance Assessment (DAPA) project, headed by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish and including representatives from the military, industry, and academia, has submitted eight major findings and associated recommended actions across the spectrum of the defense acquisition process. The panel presented their findings in a 155-page report, dated January 2006, to the deputy secretary of defense."

I mention this because - brace yourself - the report is actually interesting and worthwhile. It basically advocates pursuit of the FIST (Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny) value-set that I've been advocating for the past few years. That feels good.

Here's an excerpt:

The acquisition process is slow, overly complex and incompatible with meeting the needs of multiple, competing, departmental demands, in a diverse marketplace.

See? Instead of slow, complex and unresponsive, it should be Fast, Simple, etc... You can read the entire report at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dapaproject/documents/DAPA-Report-web.pdf.

Thought of the Day

The 7-Day Prototype

Check out this story of a very high-speed game development effort at Carnegie Mellon University's Experimental Gameplay project. Of particular interest is their chart of the value of teamwork / collaboration.

One big take away - the value of a good thing (like teamwork) is not constant or linear!

The Iron Sun?

According to the esteemed scientific research group known as They Might Be Giants, "The sun is a mass of incandescant gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen it turned into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees."

Or is it?

In the late 60's a chemist named Oliver Manuel began developing a theory that the sun actually has an iron core. I mention this because 1) it's interesting and 2) it led me to a wonderful article about how science works - here are a few excerpts

Manuel fits a popular stereotype, the lone dissenter promoting a new idea that flies in the face of the scientific establishment. In the real world, some of these theories eventually have been proven right but vastly more have been proven wrong. Manuel is under no illusions about the popularity of his idea. "Ninety-nine percent of the field will tell you it's junk science," he says. The evidence weighs in heavily against him. If he's right, however, we need to completely rethink how planetary systems form. Even if he's wrong, some scientists say, at least he has made people think.

Although most scientists don't believe Manuel's theory, they all acknowledge that outlandish hypotheses have been proven correct in the past. It seems especially unlikely in Manuel's case, however...

Still, some scientists see fringe theorists like Manuel as an asset, as they make people reassess long-held theories. "Manuel is a little off the wall," Lewis says. "But science is filled with people a little off the wall. Our great strength is to allow them to express their views." Manuel's views got an airing again at the January meeting of the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, DC, where once again they received little notice.

Meanwhile, Manuel continues to argue his theory with an air of implacable certainty, believing that solar physics is on the verge of a revolution. He talks as though scientists need only to come to their senses and reassess the data. "I'm not trying to refute the professional careers of the scientists whose shoulders I'm standing on," Manuel says. "My work depends on their evidence. It's just a different interpretation."

I like this Manuel guy. I also like the bemused-but-tolerant-and-curious attitude that more mainstream scientists seem to have towards him. And remember "outlandish hypotheses have been proven correct in the past..."

If you want to learn more about the Iron Sun theory (and see some of the data) check out these two links:

http://www.thesunisiron.com/
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/

The Simplicity Cycle

Most of you have probably heard about / read it already, but I thought I'd mention (one more time) that my Simplicity Cycle Manifesto was published at ChangeThis.com.

I've also created a website for the Simplicity Cycle, with some VERY groovy artwork by Ryan McKeel.

Enjoy!

More Thinking Expedition Quotes

A brief overview of a few things I heard while hanging around with the EDS Fellows.

"There are no facts about the future." - Jeff Wacker, EDS Fellow

"I reject your reality and inject my own." - Charie Bess, EDS Fellow

"Until a group feels lost, there are no major breakthroughs in thinking." - Rolf Smith, Lead Guide.

The reverse side also has a reverse side. - Japanese Proverb

I hope I managed to take you somewhere today. - Carl Richards, Artist

There is no perfect time to write. There is only now. - Barbara Kingsolver, author

Types of creativity

One of the great observations that came out of a recent "thinking expedition" goes something like this: The question is not 'Are you creative?' but rather, 'How are you creative?'"

The point is there are many types of creativity. One way to describe / divide / understand these types is using a scale called the Kirton Adaption-Innovation (KAI) Inventory.

In Kirton's framework, adaptors tend to accept the problem definition, while innovators tend to challenge the problem definition. Adaptors tend to focus on resolving problems; innovators tend to focus on discovering problems and avenues to their solutions.

Me? I'm w-a-y at the innovator side of the scale. That doesn't mean I'm more creative than anyone else - it just means the way I approach problem solving tends to have certain characteristics.

And despite my tendency to think of the innovative way as being better, I must admit Thomas Edison is a great example of a strong Adaptor who was VERY creative.

And as that famous guy named Anonymous once said, "I'm not sure I understand everything I know about this."

EDS, SOA & MMOG's

My new friends over at EDS have a blog that's worth checking out - and to get you started, click over to this entry about massively multi-player games like Second Life, and their potential applications to Service Oriented Architectures.

Cool!

"See" With Your Tongue

In the "sensory augmentation" category, the award for coolest innovation goes to: the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.

Researchers there are working on ways to route signals from infrared/night-vision goggles, sonar, cameras and other types of sensors directly to the brains of Navy SEALs and Army Rangers - through a "Brain Port" that uses a narrow strip of plastic attached to a person's tongue. They are doing some actual testing now, and the end result could include things like 360 degree "vision" (at night!).

Weird, cool, and fascinating.

Weird Clouds

Recently came across a collection of photos of the strangest looking clouds I've ever seen. They're called Mammatus clouds, and I'm sure Kevin could explain them. I just can't believe these are actual photographs, and thought you might enjoy them...

Getting Creativer

I was checking out one of my favorite blogs, The Creative Generalist, and came across a posting titled "Avoid Best Practices." The main point there was basically that the so-called best practices are, by definition, not original... and originality matters.

That posting was actually quoting from another article from a webzine called Strategy Magazine... and in addition to recommending that people avoid best practices, that article also quoted Picasso's comment "Never borrow. Steal."

Are those two concepts contradictory? No - I think they're the same basic concept. In both cases, they advocate authentic self expression. They are talking about owning stuff (whether it's your own originality or something you stole from someone). And here I am, "stealing" from two blogs and a dead artist, to make my own point about creativity.

I think it was TS Elliot who said "Talent imitates. Genius steals." I hope you won't be content with mere imitation...

New favorite phrase

I'm doing some research on the topic of innovation, and came across a beautiful statement somewhere. It struck me so hard that I can't recall where it came from (although a google search turns up many places where it's being used). I just stopped reading, grabbed a notebook and jotted these three words down:

Innovation without permission.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's what it's really all about, isn't it? The world moves forward on the legs of those who pursue innovation without permission. Seeking permission to be innovative basically misses the point and waters down the product considerably. Generally speaking, permission is usually granted to things (& people!) which are safe, predictable, etc... which is not exactly condusive to innovation.

OK, I've got a lot more to say on this subject, but I'll stop for now because "Innovation without permission" basically says it all...

You Can't Win...

I was flipping through a copy of Dale Carnegie's "How To Win Friends And Influence People," the other day. Not just because it's an interesting book, although it is. In all honesty, I was looking for a way to keep my latest project from being deep-sixed.

Somewhat to my surprise, I actually found what I was looking for, in chapter 1 of Part 3 (on page 109). Actually, I found it in the table of contents, and scarcely had to skim through pages 109 - 115 because the nugget I needed was right there in the title of the chapter: "You Can't Win An Argument."

Mr. Carnegie explains (in rhyme!): A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still...

The trick, therefore, is to not engage in an argument. Instead of disagreeing, find a way to agree that the other person is seeking / asserting / advocating the same thing as you...

It's not being underhanded or sneaky. It's just recognizing that often the best way to present your position is in terms already familiar to and accepted by the person you're talking with...

Next week: Why arguments are absolutely necessary, unavoidable and winnable (I think).

Obscurity Knocks...

When I was in high school, I listened to a lot of obscure music. I still listen to some of it, and it's really quite good. But I must admit that aside from the quality, part of the pleasure comes from knowing that most people have never heard of Camper Van Beethoven, Big Audio Dynamite, The Lightning Seeds or the Trashcan Sinatras, for example.

Why do I enjoy that stuff? What's so great about listening to music that most people have overlooked? I already mentioned the quality, and most of it was really creative and different from standard radio pop-40. I think it also has something to do with a sense of independence and individuality. I listen to this music because I like it, not because everyone else likes it. But I think there's something even deeper going on here...

If you want to be creative and think differently from the maddening crowds all around you, I think it helps to expose yourself to unusual things (music, ideas, etc). That's one reason I tend to read old books (i.e. G.K. Chesterton), obscure books (i.e. The Hacker Ethic by Pekka Himanen) and otherwise unusual books (i.e. AnOther by ee cummings). And that's probably why I haven't read Gladwell's Blink, or Friedman's The World Is Flat or Levitt's Freakanomics. It's not that those books aren't good - I'm sure they are. Being popular does not make them bad - it just makes them common... and I'm constantly on the lookout for the uncommon...

Presentation Zen & Design

So I just discovered a blog titled Presentation Zen. It's all about - you guessed it - presentations, from the perspective of a zen aesthetic. Found several references to Edward Tufte of "Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely" fame.

The blog is fantastic.

It's funny, relevant, engaging and informative.

Like I said - fantastic.

Among the gems I found there was a link to a video spoof that answers the question "What would happen if Microsoft redesigned the iPod packaging." Brilliant - watch & heed!

Stuff Our Kids Will Laugh About

I'm not big on making predictions about The Future - I have a hard enough time predicting the present. However, I do occasionally pull out the old crystal ball, and today I'm offering my short list of things our kids will laugh at us about.

Our kids will laugh at us for using passwords. In the future, they'll use retina scans, voice recognition, finger prints and/or RFID chips embedded in their brains. Passwords? No way.

Our kids will laugh at us for "dialing up" the internet... or for connecting to the internet (or metaweb or whatever they call it) using any sort of wire at all. In the future, their connections will all be wireless, broadband x 1000 (and quite secure, thank you very much). Wires? No way.
Our kids will laugh at us for our enormous laptop computers (and don't even get them started on the desktop machines). In the future, you'll have access to all the computing power you need via your wristwatch and sunglasses, as you surf the web, hold video conferences and create documents while sitting in a cabin in the woods. Computers measured in pounds and feet? No way.


Our kids will laugh at us for losing data. Sure, computers will still have bugs, viruses and crashes in the future, but your data will be securely backed up automatically, with no effort on your part. Buring all your important files to a backup CD? No way.

Our kids will laugh at us for using iPods. Sure, they're hot now, but in the future... well, I can't imagine what will be the iPod killer in the future (could anyone have predicted the iPod at the height of the cassette-playing Walkman?). Carrying around a $400 device to play music? No way.

Our kids will laugh at us for relying so much on text. In the future, audio / video / multi-media will be king. People will still read books, and some might still read newspapers made of paper, but most of our information will come in non-text forms. Typing? No way.

Our kids will laugh at our cell phones. In the future, your videophone sunglasses (see laptop entry above) will work great. There will be no worries about spotty coverage, dropped calls, poor voice quality or complicated calling plans (ok, the complicated calling plans are probably here to stay). Handsets? No way.

Our kids will laugh at us for relying on batteries. In the future, new power supplies will lead to innovative distribution methods, including ubiquitous wireless power supplies. I sure hope this one comes true. It'll probably be our grandkids, not our kids, but a guy can dream, can't he? Batteries? I hope not...

Got anything to add?

My (new) Favorite Word

Heteroskedasticity
It's a term from statistics that basically means there's something wrong with your assumptions.

To be precise, it means a sample may vary from the norm in self-selected ways not taken in to account by your model… and that’s bad. In statistics, you might assume the error term has a constant variance…This will be true if the observations of the error term are assumed to be drawn from identical distributions. Heteroskedasticity is a violation of this assumption.

Like I said, it means there's something wrong with your assumptions.

Heteroskedasticity - fun to say, and it means something interesting.

Curious George Soundtrack

My birthday was yesterday and I received an amazing, beautiful CD - the soundtrack from the Curious George movie.

I saw the movie last month (with the kids, of course), and although the story, artwork, etc is fantastic, the film is worth seeing for the soundtrack alone. The music is by Jack Johnson, a surfer/singer/songwriter from Hawaii, and it's some of the most mellow, infectious and groovy little tunes I've ever encountered.

I know, this really has nothing to do with technology development, innovation, etc... but it's such a darn good CD I couldn't resist.

What I'm Reading

OK, time for a quick look at some of the stuff I'm filling my brain with:

GK Chesterton's Collected Works, Vol XX - This one contains a travelogue of his trips to the US and Rome. It's fascinating to see a British journalist (from early 1900's) give his impressions of this country. Quite insightful into our national character, and strikingly still relevant & accurate...

The Man Who Knew Too Much, by G.K. Chesterton. A collection of short detective stories - quite good!

Military Mavericks, by David Rooney. Thanks to Kevin for passing this one my way. Short historical vignettes about military men who think & act & fight a bit differently than the rest (think Lawrence of Arabia).

Rough Riders, by Theodore Roosevelt. This guy was absolutely the best president ever, in my opinion. His first-hand account of his adventures with the Rough Riders is brilliant & moving.

And I just finished At The Back Of The North Wind, by George MacDonald. Pretty amazing Victorian fairytale novel about a kid who meets the incarnation of the North Wind... I won't spoil the ending by telling you what her other name is.

And as always there's an assortment of blogs, websites, WIRED magazine...

How about you? What's on your reading list these days?

Getting Artistic

Want to foster creativity, artistic sensibilities and a sense of design passion? (I hope the answer is yes!)... Then spend some time with the artistic output of creative types you admire.

Personally, I'm a fan of ee cummings, Walt Whitman, Jackson Pollock, Renoir and the afore mentioned Polly Paulusma... Steve Martin and Robin Williams are high on that list too.

Art & creativity take many different forms (and yes, comedy is an art), and time spend exposing oneself to it counts as personal development time... just like the time we spend in the gym.

When was the last time you read a poem? Admired a painting (I mean really admired it and let it sink in to your gut)? Listened - really, really listened - to good music?

To neglect that dimension of our personal & professional development is even worse than skipping PT...

Win free books!

Go to the In Bubble Wrap site to sign up for a chance to win free books every day. I've been on their mailing list for a month or so, and have already won three times... but then again, I'm remarkably lucky...

Music

I admit it, I'm a sucker for poetic, melancholoy tunes with clever lyrics and a slightly askance point of view. My latest infatuation is with British singer / songwriter Polly Paulusma. Her single Dark Side is fantastic, She Moves In Secret Ways is amazing, and for that matter, so is the whole Scissors In My Pocket album (which was "recorded largely in Polly's garden shed during the glorious summer of 2003 on a shoe-string budget").

One of the things I love about Ms Paulusma, in addition to her striking musical abilities, is the back story (recording in her garden shed!). She started recording without having a record deal in place - it was just for the love of the music, and that passion really comes through.

And the title of the Scissors album? Let's hear her explain it (from her website):

The origin of the album's title "Scissors in My Pocket" relates to an incident that happened when Polly was just 8, and "obsessed with sailing," (a theme that's still showing up in her lyrics). "I wanted a boat, so I decided to build a raft in our back garden on a piece of old, flat fencing. My parents could see it wouldn't float, but I didn't believe them.

After decorating it with a cabin and putting on lights, I somehow persuaded my mom to take me to the river to launch it. She was great, I was adamant. I tied a piece of rope to the raft and gave her the other end to hold, ostensibly so she could pull me back when I got to the middle of the river, to calm her nerves. But I didn't tell her I'd put scissors in my pocket. I was going to cut the rope and run away to London. But of course, the boat sank instantly as soon as I pushed it into the water.

"When I started making this record, I felt a similar kind of condescension," Polly added. "A lot of people saying 'That's very nice dear, but you can't really make your own record.' You have to stick fingers up to people like that. 'I know this will float, so up yours.' And luckily, this time it worked."

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. She's a very talented Rogue - listen to her music, believe her stories, and let her get inside your head. Then go create what you're supposed to create, record deal or no...

Cathedral & Bazaar redux

If you haven't yet read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric Raymond... please do so asap! It's a brilliant look at open source, collaborative software development practices, and is a must-read for anyone who is involved with software development of any kind.

It is also the foundation for a little booklet I wrote, titled The Fortress and the Firefight, available as a free download at my RoguePress page. AND... (and here's why I' m writing about it today)... it is the subject of an article in the latest issue of Defense Acquisition Review... which I did not write (for a change)...

The article these two guys wrote is titled "The Fortress and the Bazaar" (not nearly as cool a title as mine, imho), and I couldn't be happier! I'm so glad to see Eric Raymond's concepts being advocated in as serious and academically-oriented a journal as AR (not to be confused with Defense AT&L, where I usually publish my stuff). Definitely worth a peek, tho of course Raymond's work is the best of the 3...

Robert Coram interview!

Robert Coram, the author of Boyd, is interviewed on Tom Peter's blog. Great interview, and he even mentions Chet Richards, who some of you met when he came up here to present Boyd's Patterns Of Conflict briefing. Check it out!

The Religious Policeman

Wow, when you get a chance, visit a blog titled The Religious Policeman, written by a Saudi man who lives in the UK. It's fascinating & funny - scroll down to an entry from 1 Feb, titled "A Memo," which sheds some really interesting light on the whole issue of those Danish cartoons which have light off such a firestorm.

It seems to me that one thing often missing from the official pronouncements about these cartoons is any comment on the Muslim world's response. President Clinton said the cartoons were "appalling" - but I didn't hear him say the rioting and destruction was bad...

From France, Chirac "condemned acts of violence aimed at Danes and Danish representatives overseas." That's more like it.

The cartoons may have been offensive and inappropriate, but the reaction some people choose to have was the real crime. We shouldn't excuse their violent behavior, just because some dude made a few disrespectful drawings.

Crazy January

Yikes, January was crazy! The trip to Disney was planned long ago (and was fantastic)... but the pair of TDY's that bookended the week at Disney were not expected... nor were the several days of leave I ended up taking so my wife could go to Plattsburgh to take care of her dad & grandmother as he had surgery and she (grandma) went to the hospital.

Her dad is doing fine, but her grandmother passed away Monday morning...

The point - life is uncertain. If you're expecting to be able to predict and plan everything, get used to disappointment. Flexibility - it's not just the key to airpower. It's the key to being able to respond effectively to the crazy things life throws at ya...

New Year's Resolutions

My resolutions include the following:

1. Don't hit the ground running. Ease back into work after the holiday.
2. Write. Write a lot. Write a ton. Specifically, 10 poems, 1 novel, 7 issues of RogueProjectLeader.com, 6+ articles for Defense AT&L, 1 theology book, and 1 screenplay
3. Get my PM Level 2 certification.
4. Get accepted to the AFOSR-sponsored Screenwriting course at the American Film Institute.
5. Eat more oatmeal.
6. Expand PBL.

Surely there are more, and I could go on about things like spending time with family, but for now I'll just focus on the new, the unusual and the expanded... 'cause spending time with family is far to important to leave as a breakable resolution - it's a daily commitment.

What's on your list?

Pages & Pages of Christmas Loot!

Got lots to read for Christmas - 1500+ pages of GK Chesterton's writings, plus 780 of Teddy Roosevelt's books. For some reason, those two guys strike me as rather similar, and not just because they were both large, wore glasses and mustaches and inhabited the early part of the 1900's...

I'm really looking forward to reading TR's stories about the Rough Riders & his history of how the American west was settled... and GKC's wide ranging stuff, including his account of trips to America and the Holy Land (not on the same trip, naturally). Gotta to some traveling so I'll have time to read...

Seeing Tailorism Clearly in 1856

In 1911, Fredrick Winslow Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management. One of his main concepts was that "to increase production, managers must take control of the process." Thus the method of strictly defined assembly-line work was firmly established.

As the above link explains, "This involved observing workers meticulously, analyzing each step in terms of time spent and energy expended, and using the results to determine the best method for each task. This standard method would be required of every worker, with scaled piecework rates providing incentives for higher output."

Interestingly, 55 years prior to Taylor's opus horribilus, Scientific American magazine had this to say:

"The division of labor, though it may bring to perfection the production of a
country up to a certain point, is most deleterious in its effects upon the
producers. To make pins to the best advantage, it may answer for a time to
divide the operation into 20 parts. Let each man concentrate the whole
of his attention on the one simple work, for instance, of learning to make
pin heads, and on this ever let his time be consumed. It is astonishing the
perfection and rapidity which we will acquire in performing the operation. But
what is the result on the man? His powers of mind will dwindle, and his head
becomes, for all practical purposes, after a number of generations, no larger
than that of one of the pins he makes. He ceases to be a man, and becomes a mere
tool." - From Scientific American, January 1856

And what's one of the big buzzwords in management circles these days? Process! To those who continue to insist that production improvements brought about by a focus on process justify the damage done to the individuals who actually do the work, I can only shake my head. Well, I can also respond with alternatives, but I also certainly shake my head.

Google Earth Update

This recent article from the New York Times is almost boring 'cause the news is so old... but I'm going to mention it anyway.

It seems that some countries like India and Thailand have finally noticed that "Hey, Google Earth provides easy access to overhead imagery of sensitive parts of our country." Um, yeah... and it's been out there for a while now.

Interesting line: India's surveyor general, Maj. Gen. M. Gopal Rao, [commenting on Google Earth's offering of imagery of India] said, "They ought to have asked us."

Right. Google's response is basically (and appropriately): Times are changing, and the best thing to do is adapt to the advances in technology.

The genie is out of the bottle folks. Let's accept that fact and move on...

Wikipedia Update!

CNN.com has a short piece about an article in the journal Nature, which concluded Wikipedia's accuracy is on par with Encyclopedia Britannica, at least for scientific articles.

This is good news (and not surprising)… but the part that made me laugh out loud was this line:

Encyclopedia Britannica officials declined to comment on the findings
because they haven't seen the data.

I think it's hilarious, and really illustrates the genuine strength of Wikipedia. Even on an issue that directly affects Britannica (i.e. the comparable quality of it's prime competitor), the "Britannica officials" haven't figured out how to review the data in a timely manner… while the Wikipedia founder (there are no "Wikipedia Officials," of course!) is all over it!

How much longer will Britannica be able to exist? What do they really bring to the table? Not much, if you ask me...

Just for chuckles, check out the "Why Try Britannica Online" page, where Britannica officials try to make the case for giving them $70/year. Reasons include:

• More Comprehensive - over 120,000 articles! (but Wikipedia has 687,619!)
• Trustworth Results (see afore mentioned Nature journal)
• Less time searching (as if Wikipedia is hard to search?)
• Help for students (um, this is unique?)

Looks to me like the Britannica Officials are making buggy whips...

Internet Perils & Joys

Two interesting things came across my screen this morning... and interestingly, both are from Asia.

First, I learned about a Chinese poet named Tu Fu (or Du Fu). He was born in 712 AD, wrote a bunch of poems and was generally obscure during his lifetime. He is now considered one of the greatest Chinese poets ever, and is compared to Virgil, Shakespear, Horace, Ovid, etc... Thanks to the internet, some dude in central NY can now read this guy's poetry over 1200 years later... in English, no less. Wow!

Then, I got a link to a sad story about a recent trading snafu in Japan. An as-yet-unidentified trader intended to sell 1 share at 600,000 yen. You guessed it - he accidentally transposed the numbers and sold 600,000 shares for 1 yen each. Ouch! They are estimating the financial damage at 60 billion yen. Double ouch!

So, this amazing thing called the internet lets me read chinese poetry written over 1200 years ago by a guy who died in relative obscurity (makes me wonder what people will be reading 1,000 years from now!)... and it also lets people make monumental financial mistakes.

Such interesting times we live in!

Ten Enduring Ideas

Check out this article from strategy+business on ten enduring business ideas... It's kinda long, but worth the time...

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and there's actually an organization designed to help would-be novelists (like myself) tackle the task. Check 'em out at http://www.nanowrimo.org/. I'm planning to have my first novel done by then, so it'll be ready in time for Christmas...

It's a crazy thing to do. Want to join me?

"Create The Future" Design Contest

Some company called Emhart is running their 4th annual "Create The Future" design contest. The Grand Prize is a Toyota Prius... first place is a Segway transporter... not bad!

Oh, and it turns out NASA is involved as a sponsor too...

So all you designer-wannabe's out there, check it out and send in your design ideas. Deadline is 18 Nov.

Overwhelming...

I swung through a bookstore the other day... and I must admit, I got a little bit overwhelmed.

Now that I've published a book of my own, I've got a sense of how much effort, brainpower, emotion, energy, love, passion, creativity, anguish and self goes into making a book... and the sheer quantity of books in that store really took my breath away.

How can these books actually sell? What makes a book stand out? Each individual book is the product of painstaking care and tremendous effort. Each represents hope and optimism... and each one is a small blip in a sea of thousands and thousands of other books.

So that got me thinking - why do I buy a book? What makes me actually pick one up and fork over some $$?

Usually, it's because someone recommended it... and I usually have to hear the recommendation more than once. For example, I'd been hearing about Hairball for a year (from multiple sources) before I ran across it in a used bookstore... and even then, I almost didn't buy it. And it's perhaps the most remarkable book I've ever read (certainly in the top 5).

So... how does one generate persistent, sustained recommendations for one's product or service...? And yes, this has something to do with program management, technology development and general PBL-ish topics.

More to follow...

Apple's Multi-Media Blitz

Wow, Apple is on a roll lately - check out this story from Information Week... some excerpts below. Some seriously important lessons to learn from these guys!

Apple Computer today introduced hardware designed to help the company dominate a market that doesn't really exist yet: online video downloads.

Apple also announced the immediate availability of iTunes 6, only a few weeks after the arrival of iTunes 5.

The new iMac comes with a built-in iSight video camera for out-of-the-box video conferencing.

Jobs began his second act by praising his company’s iPod. "It’s been a huge success," he said. "And therefore it’s time to replace it."

What Did You Do This Year?

I know, the year isn't over yet, but it's not too early to start thinking about what you accomplished in 2005.

Was it cool?

Was it worth while?

In what sense did it change the world for the better? Did it make a difference?

What did you learn... what did you experience... what connections and contacts did you make... what drove you forward and got you out of bed in the morning?

Check out Tom Peter's answer to those questions, if you dare...

The $50K Satellite... Launch Included!

Whoa, check out what's going on inthe world of CubeSats. Small, fast, cheap, powerful, off-the-shelf. They're about 4lbs... and "can fly in formation, dock with each other, carry out science duties, inspect other satellites, scan our planet—and might be used to create an actual Earth-orbiting game of Space Pong."

Wow.

There's a particularly cool project going on called KatySat. It stands for "kids aren't too young for satellites." And we're talking K-12 here. These things are being billed as the personal computer of space...

You can start designing your very own CubeSat right now... http://www.cubesatkit.com/

I dare you to try.

Giant Squids On Wikipedia!

Until just recently, nobody had ever seen a live Giant Squid. Everything we knew about them came from dead squid that washed up on shore or were found in the stomach of their main predator, sperm whales.

Yesterday (27 Sept), scientists released photos of a Giant Squid, which were taken in Oct 2004. This morning, I found those photos on the Wikipedia entry on Giant Squid.

Not only is this a big step forward for marine biology and our understanding of these deep-water mysteries, it's one more example of how the Wikipedia approach is superior to traditional encyclopedias.

Any guesses on how long it will take for the Encyclopedia Britanica to print a new edition with this data in it? I figure it'll take at least a year...

The Personal MBA

I just came across a very interesting manifesto on the Change This website.

It's basically an education plan for earning your PMBA (Personal MBA), and it won't cost you $50K per year, or two years of not working, or any sort of active duty service committment... 'cause you do it yourself, by reading some good books (he's got a list).

Whether you find any of the books on the list interesting & useful or not (and there are many I think are both interesting & useful), I think the whole concept of teaching yourself at the MBA level has real merit. And that's why I came up with the PBL reading list...

You can go direct to the Personal MBA site for more information, but I highly recommend reading the manifesto...

Cube-Hacks, anyone?

I'm trying to see if there is any info out there about modifying, hacking or tweaking your cubicle. I'm not finding much (yet).

What I'm looking for is photos, ideas, templates, etc for cool and crazy things (preferably non-destructive) to personalize one's corporate home-away-from-home.

Yosh's shower curtain is a good start, but I want to think bigger.

Any ideas?

Email gets old-fashioned

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently reported that email is becoming old fashioned. Apparently 75% of online teenagers report a preference for instant messaging when communicating with friends. They tend to use e-mail to talk to institutions and "old people."

yikes.

implications... are profound... particularly given that IM is "instant" and only works if both people are logged in. We think cellphones and email are intrusive and demanding... but the IM star is just beginning to rise... and just wait 'till someone develops the next-gen VIM (video instant message)... or whatever... 'cause the kids using IM today are going to become "old people" someday too, and they'll marvel at the new breed of youngsters and wonder how they manage to use those new-fangled communication methods...

I'm back...

Lots of travel, leave, etc lately sort of bumped this blog to the back burner. I'm sure it'll happen again, but I'll try to avoid that if I can.

Actually, one big reason I haven't added new posts to this blog lately is that most of my "writing juice" is getting used up on articles for Defense AT&L, my 'zine Rogue Project Leader and my book, The Radical Elements Of Radical Success. Other recipients of my creative energy include my new online RogueWear t-shirt shop and two new books I'm working on.

There's something very energizing about creating stuff. I hope you'll all try it too, whether it's books or magazines via Lulu, t-shirts and coffee mugs via Spreadshirt or CafePress, or hardware via eMachineShop. The only thing you need to bring to the table is a cool idea - everything else is getting easier every day...

Ready To Launch!

Remember SpaceShipOne and Burt Rutan's crew from Scaled Composites? They're the team that won the $10M X-Prize. Well, they've officially teamed up with Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Group to create The Spaceship Company, and they're going to build a fleet of sub-orbital spaceships and launch aircraft. No kidding.

They plan to be operating commercially by the end of 2008 - a little over 3 years from now! At the moment, a flight on one of Virgin Galactic's new spaceships will cost ya $200,000... but the price is expected to drop.

As soon as the price gets low enough, I'm TOTALLY going up there (if my wife will let me). :)

It's an exciting new world out there!

Work & Love

"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy."
- from Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet

What I'm Reading

As usual, I've got a collection of books that I'm in the middle of... and I thought I'd give ya a peek behind the curtain:

The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. Gibran was a mystic, poet, philosopher and artist from Lebanon. He wrote this one in 1923 (I love old books)

The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi. A classic book on military strategy, written by a Japanese samurai who died in 1645 (did I mention I like old books?).

How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, by Peter Robinson (former presidential speechwriter). A very affectionate biography of Reagan, full of autobiographical info about Robinson and and interesting look at some of the big events of the 80's (i.e. the end of the cold war...).

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edward Morris. Just got this one in the mail, so I haven't actually started it yet, but I'm a huge fan of Teddy R and can't wait to dive in.

Swiss Army Knife, 21st Century Style

I was flipping through the latest issue of WIRED magazine and came across a little blurb about a new "Victorionox SwissMemory" tool. It's basically your standard mini swiss army knife - scissors, blade, nail file, etc... only this one also has a mini LED flashlight and a USB flash drive, complete with built-in data security software...

At $157 per, it's quite a bit more expensive than the classic, which will only set ya back $16. But hey, can your classic knife carry 512 MB?

Oh yeah, they've also got a bladeless version for airtravelers. Now THAT is 21st century for ya...

In Search Of ISO Value

Interesting bit in a recent issue of Inc Magazine, about ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 certifications, particularly for management & creative-type work. The writer basically asks the question "Is it worth it?" and concludes "Well, sometimes... but not always..."

One of the arguements in favor of seeking an ISO certification is that you need to be certified in order to get certain contracts. One proponent of ISO even acknowledges it doesn't make you better, it's just an entry criteria for working with particular organizations.

I'd suggest that if getting a certification doesn't actually help your organization do the work better, then maybe you don't really want to do business with anyone who insists you get the certification anyway (i.e. they want you to do it even if it doesn't actually improve your performance).

Dancing With Myself?

I want to get a sense of whether anyone reads these postings.

If I'm just talking to myself, I can do that without typing, so if you're reading this, please leave a comment to say "I wuz here"... 'cause if nobody's reading it, I should probably try something else...

Countering TiVo

So there was a commercial on the radio the other day, for some show (Out West, I think) that some network (ABC?) is going to run on Fri, Sat & Sun. Same show, all three days. The line was "more opportunities for you to watch."

They used to call 'em reruns. Then "encore performances." Now, it's a big favor for the viewer, giving them "more opportunities!" (and everyone loves opportunities, right?). But I think there's more going on here than just clever marketing. I think it's actually about TiVo...

What's the main source of revenue for broadcasters? Commercials. What happens when you TiVo a show? You skip the commercials. Do advertisers and networks know this? Absolutely! So, since they can't prevent you from recording a show & zapping the ads, I think they decided to try to make it unnecessary to TiVo this particular show.

Hey, if you want to watch it but you've got plans for Friday night, no need to record it - you can always catch it *live* on Saturday... or Sunday... commercials and all... Lucky you!

Will it work? Dunno. But I won't be surprised if we see more networks try the "More Opportunities For You ('cause we Care!)" approach in the near future...

I Want To Google My House

So a weird thing happened the other day. I was looking for something in my house. Something small. My initial instinct was to do a Google search to see where it might be.

Now, that's a pretty stupid thought, right? Google provides access to lots of information, but it won't tell me where the kids have hidden the remote control. At least, Google in 2005 won't do that.

But once everything has an RFID chip embedded in it, then my Wired House Of The Future could theoretically be able to tell me where everything is. So maybe there won't be an RFID in every piece of every jigsaw puzzle, but things like car keys, eye glasses, cell-phones, wallets, remote controls and other small, easy-to-lose objects could certainly have RFID's in them.

And naturally I won't go to Google.com to search for my own stuff... but it's conceivable to have some kind of "MyHouseGoogle" database residing in the walls and keeping track of all the stuff I misplace.

"House Computer - where are my keys?"

Cone Of Silence

So apparently someone finally developed a personal privacy device for cube-dwellers, akin to Maxwell Smart's "cone of silence." It basically scrambles your voice, so the person you're talking with on the phone can understand you, but the person standing a few feet away can not.

So, where do I get one?