The Total CIO | Andy Blumenthal

App Provides Push-Button Emergency Help

2012-02-01T19:42:00.001-05:00

An important new free iPhone/Android App called CrimePush hit the market today.

It allows you or a loved one at the push of a button to report a crime.

Once you download the app, you can store your name, phone number, and address (so it's there in case something G-d forbid happens).

Further, you can set the App to report crimes with your information or anonymously and with or without your GPS location.

Then you have a screen that provides you with 9 options for the various types of crime or emergency:

- Theft
- Threat
- Altercation
- Sexual Abuse
- Medical
- Accident
- Vandalism
- Drugs
- Harassment

Click on theft, as an example, the date and time are pre-populated for you, and you have a free text area to describe the incident, and the options to add a photo, video, or audio.

Then simply hit the "push" button to submit to the authorities.

My understanding is that more enhancements to the CrimePush App are in the works such as the ability to shake your phone to activate CrimePush, so the police can find you quickly through GPS.

CrimePush has the potential to help a lot of people and ultimately actually help to reduce crime by having people report instead of ignore, and provide information to the authorities faster, more accurately, and more comprehensively using the various multimedia options to capture the crime and the criminals.

(Source Photo: here)

SCADA Beware!

2012-01-30T19:40:00.001-05:00

In case you thought hacking of our critical infrastructure and SCADA systems only happens in the movies, like with Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard, watch these unbelievable videos of what Max Corne seemingly does to the energy, maritime infrastructure, and highway transportation systems.

Max apparently is able turn off (and on) the lights in entire office towers--one and then another, control a drawbridge (up and down)--and has people and cars waiting and backed up, and even changes traffic signals--from speeds of 50 to 5 as well the message boards to motorists.

While I understand some have questioned the validity of these videos and have called them hoaxes, the point that I come away with is not so much whether this guy is or is not actually hacking into these computer and control systems as much as that the people and organizations with the right skills could do these things.

And rest assured that there those out there that can perform these hack attacks--reference the Stuxnet worm that attacks Siemen industrial control systems such as those used in the nuclear industry (June 2010).

I also heard a story that I don't know whether it is true or not, about how a cyber expert personally dealt with a very loud and unruly neighbor who was playing Xbox 360 at 3 AM and keeping him awake. So the cyber expert simply hacked into his neighbor's Xbox game over the Internet and set off a program that whenever his neighbor tried to play it, a timer would automatically turn the Xbox back off again (neighbor turns it on again, hack turns it off again....), until at one point, the cyber expert heard the neighbor pick something up (presumably the Xbox) and throw it against the wall.

In this story, the damage was limited, in other cases as the Max Corne videos demonstrate (in terms of the realm of the possible), when hackers attack our critical infrastructure and control systems, the results can truly be life threatening, majorly disruptive, and can cause widespread chaos.

Every day, there are digital natives (in terms of their advanced computer skills) that are proving what they can do to bypass our firewalls, antivirus protection, intrusion detection systems, and more.

While in the case of the hack attack on the Xbox, that was the end of the problem for the loud playing neighbor keeping this other guy up at night, but in general, the unbelievable ability of some hackers to break into major systems and manipulate controls systems and disrupt critical infrastructure is certainly no game, no laughing matter, and something that should keeps us up at night (Xbox playing or not).

The takeaway is that rather than demonize and discourage those who have the skills to figure this "stuff" out, we should actually encourage them to become the best white hat hackers they can be with it, and then recruit them into "ethical hacking" positions, so that they work for the good guys to defeat those who would do us all harm.

Platforms - Open or Closed

2012-01-29T16:14:00.001-05:00

Ever since the battles of Windows versus Linux, there have been two strong competing philosophies on systems architecture.

Many have touted the benefits of open architecture--where system specifications are open to the public to view and to update.

Open sourced systems provide for the power of crowdsourcing to innovate, add-on, and make the systems better as well as provides less vendor lock-in and lower costs.

Open Source -----> Innovation, Choice, and Cost-Savings

While Microsoft--with it's Windows and Office products--was long the poster child for closed or proprietary systems and has a history of success with these, they have also come to be viewed, as TechRepublic (July 2011) points out as having an "evil, monopolistic nature."

However, with Apple's rise to the position of the World's most valuable company, closed solutions have made a strong philosophical comeback.

Apple has a closed architecture, where they develop and strictly control the entire ecosystem of their products.

Closed systems provides for a planned, predictable, and quality-controlled architecture, where the the whole ecosystem--hardware, software and customer experience can be taken into account and controlled in a structured way.

Closed Systems -----> Planning, Integration, and Quality Control

However, even though has a closed solutions architecture for it's products, Apple does open up development of the Apps to other developers (for use on the iPhone and iPad). This enables Apple to partner with others and win mind share, but still they can retain control of what ends-up getting approved for sale at the App Store.
I think what Apple has done particularly well then is to balance the use of open and closed systems--by controlling their products and making them great, but also opening up to others to build Apps--now numbering over 500,000--that can leverage their high-performance products.

Additionally, the variety and number of free and 99 cent apps for example, show that even closed systems, by opening up parts of their vertical model to partners, can achieve cost-savings to their customers.

In short, Apple has found that "sweet spot"--of a hybrid closed-open architecture--where they can design and build quality and highly desirable products, but at the same time, be partners with the larger development community.

Apple builds a solid and magnificent foundation with their "iProducts," but then they let customers customize them with everything from the "skins" or cases on the outside to the Apps that run on them on the inside.

Closed-Open Systems -----> Planned, Integrated, and Quality PLUS Innovation, Choice, and Cost-Savings

Closed-Open Systems represent a powerful third model for companies to choose from in developing products, and which benefits include those from both open and closed systems.

Hello From Moon Colony

2012-01-28T12:31:00.001-05:00

What can be more thrilling than the promise of space exploration and the virtually limitless possibilities that it holds.

Since the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, the first manned mission to land on the moon, we have dreamed of the next step in terms of an actual colony of humans living there.

In 1975, the science fiction TV show Space: 1999, that many of you may still remember, envisioned what this space colony could look like (until a nuclear mishap sends the colony hurling through space).

From 1984, you can see attached, a NASA's artist rendering of a colonized moon along with astronauts and lunar rover.

Now in 2012, with the presidential campaigning in full swing, we are hearing the promise of such a manned lunar colony once again and it is still just as exciting as ever.

One candidate, called for the lunar colony to be bustling with commercial activity by 2020--wouldn't that be amazing!

While it was funny when this candidate said that once the colony reached 13,000 American inhabitants, they can petition to become a state, it also somehow brought it into a new perspective and made it so real--like could this really happen one day?

The idea of expanding beyond our limits here on Earth, making new discoveries, tapping into potential new resources, and harnessing ever greater innovation from such exploration can bring hope of a better, brighter tomorrow to all.

Note to self: must haves for a lunar colony--aside from a place of worship, a great fitness center and some nice restaurants, we'll need the Internet, iPhone, Netflix, and Xbox (and Facebook would be a plus) ;-)

(Source Photo: here)

Cyber War - The Art of The Doable

2012-01-27T19:52:00.001-05:00

CBS 60 Minutes had a great episode this past June called Cyber War: Sabotaging The System.

The host Steve Kroft lays the groundwork when he describes information or cyber warfare as computers and the Internet that is used as weapons and says that "the next big war is less likely to begin with a bang than with a blackout."

This news segment was hosted with amazing folks like Retired Admiral Mike McConnell (former Director of National Intelligence), Special Agent Sean Henry (Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division), Jim Gosler (Founding Director of CIA's Clandestine Information Technology Office), and Jim Lewis (Director, Center for Strategic and International Studies).

For those who think that cyber war is a virtual fantasy and that we are safe in cyberspace, it's high time that we think again.

Here are some highlights:

- When Retired Admiral McConnel is asked "Do you believe our adversaries have the capability of bringing down a power grid?" McConnell responds "I do." And when asked if the U.S. is prepared for such an attack, McConnell responds, "No."

- Jim Gosler describes how microchips made abroad are susceptible to tampering and could "alter the functionality" of let's say a nuclear weapon that needed to go operational, as well as how they "found microelectronics and electronics embedded in applications that shouldn't be there."

- Special Agent Henry talks about how thieves were able to steal more than a $100 million from banks in less than half a year, not by holdups but through hacking.

- Jim Lewis tells of the "electronic Pearl Harbor" that happened to us back in 2007, when terabytes of information were downloaded/stolen from our major government agencies--"so we probably lost the equivalent of a Library of Congress worth of government information" that year and "we don't know who it is" who broke in.

The point is that our computers and communications and all the critical infrastructure that they support--including our defense, energy, water, transportation, banking, and more are all vulnerable to potentially lengthy disruption.

What seems most difficult for people to grasp is that the bits of bytes of cyberspace are not just ephemeral things, but that thy have real impact to our physical universe.

Jim Lewis says that "it doesn't seem to be sinking in. And some of us call it 'the death of a thousand cuts.' Every day a little bit more of our intellectual property, our innovative skills, our military technology is stolen by somebody. And it's like little drops. Eventually we'll drown. But every day we don't notice."

Our computer systems are vulnerable and they control virtually all facets of lives, and if the enemy strikes at our cyber heart, it is going to hurt more than most of us realize.

We are taking steps with cyber security, but we need to quickly shift from a reactive stance (watching and warning) to a proactive posture (of prevention and protection) and make cyber warfare a true national priority.

Work Off Of Standards, But Stay Flexible to Change

2012-01-22T20:26:00.006-05:00

Interesting book review in the Wall Street Journal (18 January 2012) on Standards: Recipes for Reality by Lawrence Busch.

Standards are a fundamental principle of enterprise architecture, and they can mean many things to different people--they can imply what is normal or expected and even what is considered ethical.

Reading and thinking about this book review helped me to summarize in my own mind, the numerous benefits of standards:

- Predictability--You get whatever the standard says you get.

- Quality--By removing the deviation and defects, you produce a consistently higher quality.

- Speed--Taking the decision-making out of the routine production of standardized parts (i.e. we don't have to "reinvent the wheel each time"), helps us to move the production process along that much faster.

- Economy--Standardizing facilitates mass production and economies of scale lowering the cost of goods produced and sold.

- Interoperability--Creating standards enables parts from different suppliers to inter-operate and work seamlessly and this has allowed for greater trade and globalization.

- Differentiation--Through the standardization of the routine elements, we are able to focus on differentiating other value-add areas for the consumer to appeal to various tastes, styles, and genuine improvements.

While the benefits of standards are many, there are some concerns or risks:

- Boring--This is the fear of the Ford Model-T that came in only one color, black--if we standardize too much, then we understate the importance of differentiation and as they say "variety is the spice of life."

- Stagnation--If we over-standardize, then we run the risk of stifling innovation and creativity, because everything has to be just "one way."

- Rigidity--By standardizing and requiring things like 3rd-party certification, we risk becoming so rigid in what we do and produce that we may become inflexible in addressing specific needs or meeting new requirements.

The key then when applying standards is to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks.

This requires maintaining a state of vigilance as to what consumers are looking for and the corollary of what is not important to them or what they are not keen on changing. Moreover, it necessitates using consumer feedback to continuously research and develop improvements to products and services. Finally, it is important to always be open to introducing changes when you are reasonably confident that the benefits will outweigh the costs of moving away from the accepted standard(s).

While it's important to work off of a standard, it is critical not to become inflexible to change.

(Source Photo: here )

Finding Better Ways

2012-01-21T23:51:00.008-05:00

Saturday Night Live had a funny skit last week about people in the future looking back at us in 2012 as "digital pioneers"--and how silly many of the things we do today looks from the outside.

Here are some examples that may resonate with a lot of you:

- Driving--We drive 1-4 hours a day and "are okay with that."

- Email--We boot up our computers, go to the Internet, log unto to our accounts, and send an email and think that "was so easy, fast, and convenient."

- Clothing--We get dressed in underwear, shirts, pants, belt, socks, shoes, tie, and wrap it all under a jacket and feel that it's "not way too many pieces."

- Bathrooms--We have bathrooms in our homes and have it close to where we eat and that "seems smart to us."

There were other examples making fun of us eating fruits and vegetables, keeping domesticated animals in our homes, and thinking that living to the age of 91 is old.

While we don't know exactly what the future will look like, when we look at our lives today "under the microscope"--things really do sort of appear comical.

I believe that we really do need to look at ourselves--what we do, and how we do it--with fresh eyes--and ask why do we do that? And are there alternatives? Is there a better way?

Too often we believe that the way things are--"is simply it"--when if we would just think how this would look to someone 100 years from now, perhaps we would be quicker to open our eyes to other options and innovations.

It reminds me of the story in the Torah (Numbers 22) where Balaam is sent to curse the Jewish people but ends up blessing them. In this story the donkey that he is riding on refuses to proceed, because it sees an angel in front of them. Balaam does not see the angel and beats the donkey thinking that was the right thing to do. G-d then miraculously gives the donkey the power of speech and the donkey complains about the harsh treatment from Balaam, and G-d opens Balaam's eyes to see the angel, at which point he understands that the donkey really saved his life.

This Biblical story is similar to our lives where we go along sort of blind to the realities right in front of us, and not only that but we keep pushing forward along the very same route not seeing the obstacles or other alternatives that may be better for us.

While we (generally) don't have donkeys talking back to us with feedback or the ability to see angels, I think by sensitizing ourselves more, we can open ourselves up to question the status quo and break the paradigms that we just take as givens.

So when we do get to the next 100 years out--it'll truly be a lot better than today and without the traffic! ;-)

War ---> Peace

2012-01-21T10:47:00.008-05:00

I like this clever poster from the United Nations, published in March 2009 by their Department of Public Information, on "Translating War to Peace" with a dove carrying the letter "A" from the word war to the word peace.

If only peace was as simple as moving around a single letter.

Usually, it not the single letter that is painful, but when it becomes many letters and these letters form words of hate, bigotry, intolerance, and injustice that is indeed painful and where war does not translate to peace, but where war become unfortunately inevitable.

As individuals and a nation, I believe peace is what we all hope and pray for and that this comes from a spirit of brotherhood and unity around the world.

Although there are many prayers for peace, I am reminded of one specific beautiful prayer In Judaism, that we sing called "Oseh Shalem"

"May he who makes peace in high places, make peace for all of us and all Israel, and let us say Amen."

I love singing this and humming the tune for this prayer--it is like a deep calling that resonates.

I noticed online that the United Nations "cancelled as a sales item" this poster for peace (and it's also gone from Amazon), and it should make us all wonder where did that peace go and when will it return?

A genuine peace--more than a single letter and a secure and lasting peace of many letters.

(All Opinions my own)

Clean Water From A Bicycle

2012-01-20T20:34:00.009-05:00

Love this product called The Aquaduct for helping people in developing countries get clean water.

Using the power of pedaling, water that is loaded into the back of the bike is "cycled" through a filter and run into the clean container in the front.

This can be done by actually riding the bike home with the water or refilling the clean container in stationary mode.

The Aquaduct reminds me of some similar products that I saw and blogged about in July at a Peace Corps exhibit that used bicycles for shelling corn and charging cell phones.

What's great about The Aquaduct is that is a simple, all-in-one solution that transports, filters, and stores water--it was the winning entry (out of 102) in the Google Innovate or Die competition.

For 1.1 billion people without clean water in the world, The Aquaduct solves the problem for transporting and sanitizing water.

In Judaism, we say "Mayim Chaim"--that water is life, and this innovative pedal-powered transit and filtration machine can help bring life-saving water to the masses.

That Special Cane

2012-01-20T17:41:00.009-05:00

After seeing one of my colleagues with this souped-up cane at work this week, I learned that this is the special gift for someone reaching their 50th birthday.

This is not an ordinary bamboo cane as you can see, but one with a rear-view mirror for passing, a honking horn for warning people out of your path, and even a little green change purse for the toll. :-)

While I am no spring chicken anymore, I am still not old enough to receive my special cane--oh shucks!

But this did give me pause to think about what it means as we get older and the weeks and months at work turn into years and decades.

Before we know it, the up-hill climb of life, plateau and eventually heads in the other direction.

It reminds me of whenever someone asks my father how old he is...he flips the numbers--so for example, when he was 72, he would say I "turned" 27 and so on

It's not easy getting old(er), we all want to be back in our youth or prime of life, which my father calls the time period, "when the world is too small," and I think what he means is our aspirations are large.

This week at work, I learned that one of my colleagues who retired just a few years ago passed away from one of the horrible "C's" -- it was terrible to hear this.

Moreover, it reminded me of other colleagues who I have seen work hard their whole life, sacrificing and putting off all types of enjoyment, and waiting for that big day when they would retire and then they "could live the good life."

And one guy, I remember, did retire after putting in his time and within about 3 months, he dropped dead of a massive coronary--I don't think he even made it with heart beating to the hospital.

Life is too short! And of course, life is hard--that's how we are tested and grow--but we can't wait for the good times. We need to savor every moment of our lives, appreciate our loved ones , and enjoy what we do day-in and day-out.

Else, we may miss the finest times that we have here on earth and then we really will be left holding that special cane and looking back at our lives in the rear-view mirror wondering why we wasted so much precious, precious time.

How Do You Stop This Thing?

2012-01-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

This is an amazing video of Rollerman (Jean Yves Blondeau) in the extreme sport of roller blading horizontally like a rocket ship.

With wheels on his arms, legs, hands, feet, chest and back, I understand that Rollerman can exceed 70 mph!

No wheel on his helmet? Maybe that's for a future stunt...

See him in the video actually passing a driving motorcycle and following after and going under an armored personnel carrier on the go.

Add a little rocket on the back and I see this sport may soon be going cross-country.

Rollerman takes the curves and manuevers around obstacles and essentially clings to the road at these amazing speeds with ease.

His courage and capability is inspiring.

Aside from how does he do it, what I want to know is where are the brakes on this thing? ;-)

Adapt and Live!

2012-01-15T15:49:00.007-05:00

The Times, They Are a-Changin' is a song by Bob Dylan (1964), it is also the reality of our times today, and how we react to all the change can make or break us.

Like with Agile Software Development, one of the main values is "responding to change over following a plan," to improve the success of software development, similarly in the world today, we need to be able to rapidly and flexibly respond to change in order to successfully compete.

Fast Company (February 2012) has two important articles on this topic--one is called "Generation Flux" and the other "The Four-Year Career."

Generation Flux is about how we are living in a time of "chaotic disruption" and that this is "born of technology and globalization." Generation Flux is a mindset of agility versus a demographic designation like Gen X or Y.

All around us we see the effects of this rapid change in terms of business models and leadership turned upside down, inside out, and sideways.

Recently, we have seen:

- Mainstay companies such as American Airlines and Hostess declare bankruptcy

- Some titans of the Fortune 500 companies ousted, including Carol Bartz of Yahoo, Leo Apotheker from HP to name just a few

- Others, like RIM and Netflix have fallen from grace and are struggling to regain their footwork--some will and some won't

At the same time, we have seen the ascension of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon becoming the "kings of the hill"--driven in part by their agility to get in and out of markets and products:

- In 2010, Google was getting out of China; today Google is expanding its presence once again. In addition, Google continues to start up or acquire and discontinue services regularly; just last year they closed Google Desktop developed in 2005, Google Health Service started in 2008, and Google Aardvark purchased in 2010 (and more)

- Amazon, once an online book and music retailer has now become the premier e-Commerce company as well as the No. 2 in tablets and in the top 3 in cloud computing.

- Apple was slick in developing the navigation wheel on the iPod only to get rid of it completely with the touch-screen of the iPad.

- Facebook continues to adapt to security and privacy concerns, but still has more to do, especially in terms of simplifying choices for their users.

According to Fast Company, to survive, we need to be profoundly agile and "embrace instability, that tolerates--and enjoys--recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions." The article points out that this is just as Darwin has professed, ultimately it is the agile that will survive--not the strongest or smartest.

For organizations, change, agility and adaptability is the name of the game, and they are depending on petabytes of information and the business intelligence to make sense of it all to make the right decision every day.

For individuals, "the long career is dead" (U.S. workers have a medium job tenure of only 4.4 years and have an average of 11 different jobs over a lifetime) and "the quest for solid rules is pointless" (with automation and robotics atrophying low- and middle-skill jobs and part time, freelance, and contract work all on the rise). Now, in an agile marketplace, "career-vitality" or the continuous broadening of individual capabilities is encouraged and expected, and the "T-shaped" person with both depth or subject matter expertise as well as breadth in other areas in becoming more and more valued.

Moreover, hard skills are important, but social skills and emotional intelligence are critical to get along, share information, and collaborate with others.

Of course, not all change is good, and we need to speak up and influence the direction of it for the good, but in the end, standing still in the path of genuine progress is like standing in front of a speeding locative.

While the quiet and serenity of maintaining the status quo is often what feels most secure and comfortable in uncertain times, it may actually just be the forerunner to the death knell for your career and organization. There are no short-cuts to continuing to learn, explore, and grow as the world around us rapidly evolves.

Adapt and live or stagnate and die.

(Source Photo: here)

Underwear, It Can Go Either Way

2012-01-14T11:02:00.006-05:00

While the title of this blog may be humorous, the subject matter is not.

Not since Superman has humankind been so intent on creating the perfect shielded clothing.

In superman's case, his bold blue and red outfit was lined with lead to protect him from the deadly radioactive Kryptonite, which came to earth in a meteorite from his exploded planet Krypton.

Today, the U.S. armed forces are creating their own ever superior protective suits for its warfighters.

In recent times, with the threats of improvised explosive devices in the wars overseas, the U.S. is seeking to enhance the protective armor of its underwear.

In fact, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, "In 2010, 259 service members in war zones were injured in the genital area."

The military's answer is a new protective bomb-resistant brief for men and women--sometimes called ballistic briefs or shrapnel shorts.

The bomb-resistant briefs being tested traditionally were made from materials such as Dupont's Kevlar, however, the Department of Defense is finding that tightly-woven silk is much more comfortable.

Due to the Berry Amendment of 1941 that requires the military to purchase food and uniforms from domestically produced material, the military is looking for a waiver in order to get the needed silk from Asia.

Interestingly enough, unlike the Underwear Bomber who tried to use his underpants as a hiding place for explosives in 2009 to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight, the ballistic briefs are intended to protect people from explosive devices.

The ballistic briefs are serious business--according to Bloomberg, the Army intends to buy 750,000 pairs and 250,000 cup protectors over the next 5 years.

The stopping power of the new protective underpants would even make Superman jealous, although the DoD version doesn't come in bright colored red.

(Source Photo: here)

Cool Pants

2012-01-13T17:51:00.003-05:00

Outside of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, these are the coolest pants I have ever seen.

Honestly, I've never quite seen any pants like these.

Probably the picture from a smartphone doesn't due these pants justice--and hey, don't forget my bad photography skills. ;-)

But first impression--the 70's look is coming back in 2012.

And while I am certainly no fashion guru, these pants were noticeably overflowing, had a wild circular pattern, a variety of colors and textures, and some heavy duty bell-bottoms.

Most of all, what I think really struck me was how bold these pants were in what's traditionally a pretty conservative city, here in D.C.

While I don't know this lady in the cool pants, I admired her ability to live loudly and capture the moment, unafraid of being who she is or wants to be.

Where There Is Life, There is Hope

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

After a very busy week, I can really appreciate this video, called Move, where Rick Mereki and 2 friends travel 11 countries in 44 days.

I love how fast yet seamless this video takes us around the world--like flying through space and time.

There is so much to see and do and every moment is a blessing.

My grandparents use to say, "where there is life, there is hope" and we are so fortunate to be alive and have the opportunity to change, grow, and self-actualize.

And while real life is not as smooth as this video--whereever we are, let's try to enjoy the ride.

Have a great weekend!

Videos of Enterprise Architecture Panel with Andy Blumenthal

2012-01-08T21:57:00.005-05:00

Digital Government Institute (DGI) and FEAC Institute EA Conference and Symposium (May 2011)

Panel: “Former Architects, Now CXO’s Townhall”

Participants: Andy Blumenthal (right), Darren Ash (left), and Randy Hite (Moderator)

A Race To The Future

2012-01-08T17:07:00.007-05:00

This last week, we learned of the new defense policy that shifts the U.S. from a full two war capability to a "win-spoil" plan, where we have the ability to fight one war, but still disrupt the military aspirations of another adversary elsewhere.

While we would all like to have unconstrained capabilities for both "guns and butter", budget realities do not permit limitless spending on anything or anytime.

The Wall Street Journal (7-8 January 2012) had an interesting editorial that cautioned against reduced military spending and latched on specifically to focusing too much on the Asia-Pacific region and somehow neglecting other danger spots around the globe.

Basically, the author says it is dangerous for us to put all our proverbial eggs in one basket. As he writes, this single-focus approach or "strategic monism" is predicated on our ability to accurately predict where the trouble spots will be and what defensive and offensive capabilities we will need to counter them.

In contrast, the author promotes an approach that is more multifaceted and based on "strategic pluralism," where we prepare ourselves for any number of different threat scenarios, with a broad array of capabilities to handle whatever may come.

What is compelling about this argument is that generally we are not very good at forecasting the future, and the author points out that "the U.S. has suffered a significant surprise once a decade since 1940" including Pearl Harbor (1941), North Korea's invasion of the South (1950), the Soviet testing of the Hydrogen bomb (1953), the Soviet resupply of Egypt in the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Iranian Shah's fall from power (1979), the Soviet Union collapse (1991), and the terrorist attacks of 9-11 (2001).

Similarly, Fortune Magazine (16 January 2012) calls out "the dangers inherent in...long-term forecasting" and points how almost comically "the 1899 U.S. patent chief declares that anything that can be invented has been."

The Fortune article goes on to say that a number of the experts interviewed for their Guide To The Future issue stated that "cyberterrorism, resource shortages, and political instability around the world are all inevitable."

In short, the potential for any number of catastrophes is no more relevant now in the 21st century, than at any other time in history, despite all our technological advances and maybe because of it.

In fact, Bloomberg Businessweek (19-25 December 2012) actually rates on a scale of low to high various threats, many of which are a direct result of our technology advancement and the possibility that we are not able to control these. From low to high risk--there is climate change, synthetic biology, nuclear apocalypse, nanotechnology weaponry, the unknown, and machine super intelligence. Note, the second highest risk is "unknown risks," since they consider "the biggest threat may yet be unknown."

So while risks abound and we acknowledge that we cannot predict them all or forecast their probability or impact accurately, we need to be very well prepared for all eventualities.

But unfortunately, being prepared, maintaining lots of options, and overall strategic pluralism does not come cheaply.

In fact, when faced with weapons of mass destruction, threats to our homeland, and human rights abuses is there any amount of money that is really enough to prepare, protect, and defend?

There is no choice but to take the threats--both known and unknown seriously--and to devote substantial resources across all platforms to countering these. We cannot afford to be caught off-guard or prepared to fight the wrong fight.

Our adversaries and potential adversaries are not standing still--in fact, they are gaining momentum, so how much can we afford to recoil?

We are caught between the sins of the past in terms of a sizable and threatening national deficit and an unpredictable future with no shortage of dangers.

While everyone has their pet projects, we've got to stop fighting each other (I believe they call this pork barrel politics) and start pulling for the greater good or else we all risk ending up on the spit ourselves.

There is no option but to press firmly on the accelerator of scientific and technological advancement and break the deficit bounds that are strangling us and leap far ahead of those who would do us harm.

(All opinions my own)

(Source Photo: here)

Occupy Subway

2012-01-07T19:25:00.009-05:00

OMG, I must still be a New Yorker at heart--I love it.

People coming together, randomly on a NYC subway and playing beautiful music together.

Love, harmony, brotherhood.

Go NYC!

(Thanks to my friend Max Cacas for sharing this video on Facebook)

People Watching

2012-01-07T16:19:00.007-05:00

Over the holidays, I was fortunate to be able to spend some time in South Florida--one of my favorite East Coast vacation spots.

Between the sunshine, the ocean, the palm trees, and more generally the beautiful flora and fauna--I am one happy camper!

This time, we actually saw a couple of pretty large iguanas just casually walking along the causeway...not something I see everyday in D.C.

When I'm down in Florida--aside from working out and having a good time--one of the fun things for me to do is just to "people watch."

People come from all over the world--the "Spring Breakers" who party hearty, the South Americans investing in real estate market, the Europeans still enjoying the strong Euro, and of course, many U.S. family "snowbirds" who come for Disney and the other attractions in the warm climate.

In Florida, it is hard not to notice the wide discrepancy between rich and poor--I saw what looked almost exactly like the TV image of an extraordinarily rich man in the open collar and blazer and women in fancy hat and scarf in a Rolls Royce with a little white dog sitting on the lady's lap--these two were just "perfect" and apparently had the perfect life going on.

At the same time, there are so many unfortunate people walking around in tattered clothes, eating from the garbage, and so on, it is heart-breaking and scary.

When the Occupy movement rails against the 1%--I think this is sort of what they must mean.

Then there are the proverbial weirdos--nothing personal--but these are the folks who are do things either for the attention, a little extra cash, or because they may just be at the other end of the "normal" spectrum (would that be a political correct to say it?).

There is the guy who bikes around town with a live chicken on his handlebars, the mime lady in white (head to toe) who stands like a statue all afternoon and evening for some pocket change, and then this guy pictured on the blog who walks around in a pink bikini and red handbag (yes, quite a fashion statement, indeed!).

I wonder whether back home, there are equally strange and interesting people all around, but I'm just not noticing them the same way, because I'm busy with daily life, in "work mode" and not sitting around on vacation just "taking it all in."

It's good to stop a while and "smell the roses" and see the variety of beautiful and interesting things all around us--even if they shouldn't be wearing that bikini in public!

The Internet Lives

2012-01-02T12:00:00.018-05:00

While the Internet, with all its information, is constantly changing with updates and new information, what is great to know is that it is being preserved and archived, so present and future generations can "travel back" and see what it looked liked at earlier points in time and have access to the wealth of information contained in it.

This is what the Internet Archive does--this non-profit organization functions as the Library of the Internet. It is building a "permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format."

In the Internet Archive you will find "texts, audio, moving images, and software as well as archived web pages" going back to 1996 until today.

I tested the Archive's Wayback Machine with my site The Total CIO and was able to see how it looked like back on October 24, 2010.

It is wonderful to see our digital records being preserved by the Internet Archive, just like our paper records are preserved in archives such as The Library of Congress, which is considered "the world's most comprehensive record of human creativity and knowledge"), The National Archives, which preserves government and historical records, and The National Security Archive, a research institute and library at The George Washington University that "collects and publishes declassified documents through the Freedom of Information Act...[on] topics pertaining to national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States."

The Internet Archive is located in San Francisco (and my understanding is that there is a backup site in Egypt).

The Internet Archive is created using spider programs that crawl the publicly available pages of the Internet and then copy and store data, which is indexed 3 dimensionally to allow browsing over multiple periods of times.

The Archive now contains roughly 2 petabytes of information, and is growing by 20 terabytes per month. According to The Archive, the data is stored on hundreds (by my count it should be about 2,000) of slightly modified x86 machines running on Linux O/S with each storing approximately a terabyte of data.

According to the FAQs, it does take some time for web pages to show up--somewhere between 6 months and 2 years, because of the process to index and transfer to long-term storage, and hopefully the process will get faster, but in my opinion, having an organized collection and archiving of the Internet is well worth the wait.

Ultimately, the Internet Archive may someday be (or be part of) the Time Capsule of human knowledge and experience that helps us survive human or natural disaster by providing the means to reconstitute the human race itself.

(Source Photo: here)

Playing The Hand We Are Dealt

2012-01-01T11:46:00.018-05:00

It's a new year--2012--congratulations, we made it!

For the new year, I wanted to share this photo that I came across of "The World's Largest Monopoly Game."

To me, the most striking aspect of this photo is not the size of the game board, but that the people are actually the pieces.

So often life seems like we are pieces in a big game--as if someone is spinning the dice of life and depending on what number comes up--so goes our fortune.

But inside, I don't really believe that--that is too fatalistic and too defeatist. At the same time, I don't believe that we are in control of everything that happens every moment. To me, there are larger forces at work--emanating from G-d, and we must "play" the hand we are dealt.

G-d sends us tests and trusts in life, as Rick Warren says--we do not directly control these.

The tests and trusts give us the opportunity to grow beyond what we are today, to learn life's hard lessons, to care for others, and ultimately to elevate ourselves.

Indirectly, how we do and how well we learn life's lessons--sometimes "hard knocks"--may influence the nature of the future tests and trusts that G-d sends us.

In Monopoly, the roll of the dice or the Chance and Community Chest cards seem to determine our fate--how many spaces we move ahead, how much we have to pay or how much we receive, or whether we end up in the proverbial Monopoly jail. In contrast, in real life, we have the power to choose how we react to to those "chance" events--do we get angry, do we lash out, do we become defeatist or do we fight for what we want and really believe in.

For the New Year, what a great time to resolve to take back some control over lives and to not just be like human pieces in a big game of Monopoly--to choose instead to accept the tests and trusts that you are give and to do the best that you can to grow from them.

This morning, I heard Joel Osteen say on TV that we should prophesize good for ourselves, so that our words can open the door for G-d to bless us.

While, I do not think that our words of desire control what G-d does, I do believe that how we act does influence events, although not always in the way we think.

There is the age old question of why do the evil prosper and the good people suffer? Often, I've heard various answers given that either we don't really know who is good or evil, we can't understand G-d's plan, or the real reward and punishment is in the World to Come.

However you see it--G-d's plan and ultimate justice--what we can constructively do is to try our best everyday and in every way--what a better plan than just circling the Monopoly board like a helpless and hapless piece in one big game.

(Source photo: here)

The Not So Candid Camera

2011-12-31T11:49:00.006-05:00

When you're at the swimming pool, it's a time for swimming, splashing, and fun.

With family and friends, it's even a great time to catch some scenic photos of loved ones having a great time.

You expect to see cameras and smartphones taking some discreet pictures or videos.

Not a new problem, but some people take advantage of the people swimming or tanning to take compromising shots.

When people are knowingly scantily clad in public--people will argue what level of responsibility they have for the way they present themselves.

However, when others take advantage of that--let's be clear, the predator is the aggressor!

At the pool, I saw this taken to a whole new level today--and by someone and in a way I would not have expected.

This older-looking guy, with a hat on, strolls up to the pool with a huge tripod mounted video camera on a WALKER and starts taking rolling video on a pool almost exclusively filled with little children.

There was no warning, no request--"may I", no do you mind, just a video camera mounted on a walker at the head of the pool with lots of little kids, and also some teens, women, and more.

First, I watched to see what this guy was doing...then I thought, I better capture this and I took a series of photographs of the guy--who had no apparent compunction about invading everyones privacy.

But the story isn't over--it get's worse.

All of a sudden, I notice my computer picking up a wireless network with a name that self identified them with a clear inclination for child pornography (I am withholding the actual name so as not to tip off the criminal). I capture this too--with a screenshot. Was it the same guy with mounted video camera or someone else?

So much for a relatively serene vacation, and some quiet private time.

I just saw Dateline's "To Catch A Predator" early this week and I almost can't believe this is happening. I think to myself--is this real? Unfortunately it is.

I reported both incidents to hotel security. At their request, I email them the screenshot of the wireless network name that would make anyone cringe. Next call is to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and CyberCrime.com.

Normally, I believe in live and let live, but we all have to do our part to protect children and other innocent victims.

Are You Thing 1 or 2?

2011-12-30T19:07:00.004-05:00

The old Dr Seuss story of The Cat In The Hat had the crazy part when "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" jump out from under The Cat's hat and proceed to make a messy house disaster even worse.

Recently, I saw some people wearing the matching type shirts--you know the ones that that generate attention--bright red, with one shirt saying "Thing 1" and the other person's shirt saying "Thing 2."

It was cute the way the family members were connected through the shirts, and I smiled to myself thinking, like in the children's story, which one is the bigger "trouble-maker" in this family--Thing 1 or 2?

Today, I saw this picture online of these twins, again with these matching type t-shirts, but this time, one said "Ctrl + C" and the other one had written on it "Ctrl + V" -- these are the well-known Microsoft commands for copy and paste.

I guess with twins, the copy-paste imagery makes a lot of sense--copy kid 1, paste, and there you have it, kid 2.

Generally, t-shirts have messages about peace, rock and roll bands, corporate branding, or satire of some sort--I wouldn't say it's exactly a fashion statement, but more of an identity thing--how we choose to brand ourselves in a world of 7 billion people. It's not necessarily about who we are, but more like how we choose to identify ourselves--a meaningful one for example, is for breast cancer awareness.

I remember as a kid, my sister, who was a budding biomedical scientist, bought me t-shirts from a scientific catalogue--so that I was wearing the Periodic Table and Einstein on my chest from very early on in life. While I always did like science too, it was not what I ended up pursuing, but I would still wear these shirts today, because in some ways, I still identify with science and psychology and learning and so on.

These days, if I had to choose some t-shirt themes, I am pretty sure technology and futurism would be in the mix. Then again, my current t-shirts include a hefty mix of Rocky and Everlast--you see identity is a complex subject. Also, a whole bunch came 4 for 10--who can say no to a sale? ;-)

A simple t-shirt, and the messaging can take you from Dr. Seuss to Microsoft, the Periodic Table and to the future (or even to the bargain bin).

What are you wearing--who are you?

(Source Photo: here)

"Do You Believe in Angels or G-d? I Do"

2011-12-29T19:40:00.006-05:00

Ben Breedlove died at age 18 from a fourth heart attack on 25 December 2011

Here is his story of multiple near-death experiences and how he crossed over in complete peace and faith.

He was diagnosed with a serious heart condition at only 13 months of age and suffered his first heart attack at age 4.

While he finally succumbed to the horrible illness that followed him his whole short life, this video is mission accomplished for Ben.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Bathroom De/sign Winner

2011-12-29T18:34:00.003-05:00

This is a winner to me when it comes to smartest bathroom signage.

From graphic designer, Aliza Dzik.

I like that the signage identifies the wo/men bathrooms very cleverly and simply (and without any obscene graphics).

Intelligence + Simplicity = User-centric

Love it!

(Source Photo: here)

People--What's Inside

2011-12-28T18:55:00.007-05:00

People can perform good and kind deeds--they can love and care and share, they can be giving and help others in need, and they can innovate and create magnificent and beautiful works.

Yet, as we all know, people can also do horrible things. It's strange that when people do such things, we call them inhumane acts--I guess that helps to divorce us from their behavior, which we cannot understand or accept.

In Hebrew School we learned that it's as if there is a good angel over one shoulder telling you to do the "right" thing, and a "bad" angel over the other shoulder telling you to do the base and corrupt thing.

We were told that we all have free choice--to choose good over evil--some succeed and some do not. Unfortunately, there are way too many instances of the latter.

- Last week, I followed in horror the news story out of New York, where an elderly women in an elevator was cornered by a man who proceeded to douse her with gasoline and set her afire with a Molotov cocktail. This woman didn't have a fighting chance. She died a gruesome and senseless death.

- This week, I watched "To Catch a Predator" on Dateline with Chris Hansen. After many sessions airing, it is unbelievable that dozens upon dozens of sexual predators keep coming out of the woodwork and descending upon those who they believe are young teens home alone for what they think will be a "good time." This week, they caught a married man with 3 children of his own, someone who worked for Nickelodeon, and even a doctor!

What is remarkable about the Dateline series is that most of the predators know exactly what they are doing is wrong--they openly acknowledge it--yet they seem helpless to stop or control themselves. Many pursued the children even when they suspected it was a sting operation and they would get caught. The bad angel must really have their ears and consciences!

Of course, these examples are just that--snapshots of scary, bad things that people do every day, every moment in time. The flip side is that there are also good people doing extraordinarily good things too. The "CNN Heroes" series is a great example highlighting people feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, healing the sick, and protecting the downtrodden. These are just but some of these admirable and giving actions of decent people in our society.

Sometimes even it's the simple things that no one knows about or sees, but you know you did good. For example, the other day, there was some trash on the staircase going down to the metro. Someone could have easily slid, tripped, and fallen down the stairs. But after seeing numerous people just walk by it and pretend it wasn't even there, one person stopped and took the time to move it and prevent anyone from getting hurt. A simple thing, yet a small good deed in time.

Regardless of how we choose to live our live, the point is really that every choice/action we make can be a pivotal one--like our actions on a scale of justice--that can throw the world (our individual world or literally the entire world) into judgement for good or bad, and therefore we should choose wisely.

In the Torah, where G-d's angels are sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham tries to negotiate for the cities by whether their are 50, 20, 10 and so on good people there. Good people and their deeds count.

So what's inside people that really counts--it's potential. People have the potential to do the greatest acts of love, kindness, and self-sacrifice. But they also have the ability to do the unthinkable and inhumane.

It's challenging to know who and exactly what we are dealing with every day.

Maybe that's where the expression comes from: to hope for the best, but expect the worst. Judge everyone as if their intentions are good, but don't be too surprised when they are not.

While hope and expectations are part of our daily interaction with others, they are not enough. We need to be demanding of good choices of ourselves. Maybe even harder yet, we need to have the courage and strength to stand up to those who choose to listen to the demons that drive them.

(Source Photo: here)

Toward A User-Centric Government

2011-12-28T13:37:00.008-05:00

My new article in Government Executive is out today.

Called "Too Big To Succeed"--the article talks about the importance of simplifying and organizing large, complex organizations, such as government, to achieve transformational and valuable change.

The article is anchored in the Law of Diminishing Returns and the Law of Large Numbers.

Although the article doesn't use the term user-centric government, this is exactly the point and continuously driving forward with advanced technologies can help us make the leap.

Hope you enjoy reading!

Andy

Raise Your Glass To Great Bosses

2011-12-26T18:57:00.009-05:00

It's a funny time of year. Folks are celebrating the holidays, and for some of them the traditional office party is full of cheer, while for others it’s a nightmare.

In a way it's a paradox for some that they have a holiday party with the same bosses that treat them otherwise badly the rest of year!

This reminds of some of the worst traits a boss can exhibit--here's a “top 10”:

1) Selfishness: Every day it's all about the boss--their power trip, their ego, their next promotion--instead of about the mission and the customers.

2) Amoral: To some, integrity and business do not go together.

3) Discrimination: They tolerate or in too many cases, even exhibit blatant discrimination themselves.

4) Disrespect: This can be overtly or implicitly, hurting the employee professionally and personally as well.

5) Inconsistency: Flip-flopping is not just something that bothers people about politics, but it makes for a bipolar work environment, where employees are damned if they do and if they don't, but the boss can always say, “I told you so (and the opposite).”

6) Favoritism: Plays favorites instead of judging employees only on the true factor, merit. This causes workers to become demoralized as they see people hired and promoted for all the wrong reasons.

7) Insecurity: They are threatened by seemingly everyone and everything--can't give anyone else credit or recognize the good around them--a one-person team who sees anybody else’s success as implying their own failure.

8) Competitive: They have to be the smartest person in the room, and innovation and objectivity is squelched--no risk is worth the wrath of “boss Khan.”

9) Stealing: If someone else does have something of value to contribute, this boss just steals it and presents it as their own (attribution or recognition, what for?)

10) Micromanagement: Looking over your shoulder every minute, redoing your work, not trusting you, they are control freaks, a complete nightmare to work for.

Bosses come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve been fortunate to work for some of the best, and I hope that I do them justice with my own employees over the course of my career.

Here’s hoping that at your holiday party, you were able to raise your glass with a boss who makes you feel valued and respected--that's a holiday party to really celebrate!

(Source Photo: here)

Swarming For Social Order and Disorder

2011-12-25T21:14:00.007-05:00

A swarm is a large number of organisms generally in motion. According to Swarm Theory, the collective exhibits superior intelligence or abilities beyond that of any individual.

Swarms are powerful forces that we see in our society today in everything from the worldwide riots of 2011 to crowdsourcing on the Internet--to put it simply as they say, "there is power in numbers."

And swarms and their immense power dates back to the Bible, where the 8th plague sent on Egypt in Deuteronomy 10:14-15 was the plague of locusts:

"And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt...for they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees..."

This past year, we saw the power of swarms in the riots around the globe--from Tahir Square to Occupy Wall Street. In the case of Egypt, Mubarak was deposed after ruling for 30 years and in the case of Wall Street, the Occupy movement sparked protests around the globe lasting for many months.

Similarly, swarms are being put to the test in multiple military applications from the Army's Future Combat System (since renamed) that envision brigades of manned and unmanned combat vehicles linked via an ultra-fast network creating a highly coordinated and maneuverable fighting force to DARPA's iRobot Swarm Project creating a mesh network of mobile robots with sensors that can coordinate and perform surveillance and reconnaissance gaining dominance over the battlefield.

The power of the swarm is not just a physical phenomenon, but also a virtual one where crowdsourcing is used online to do everything from building incredible sources of knowledge like Wikipedia to soliciting citizens ideas for solving national problems such as on Challenge.gov.

Traditionally, the power behind the swarm (in nature whether bees, ants, or locusts) was the collective behavior of so many to attack an enemy, build a colony, or ravage the landscape. Today however, the swarm is powerful because of its collective intelligence--whether in pooling information, vetting ideas, or just coordinating activities with such sophistication that the group can outwit and outmaneuver its opponents.

Wired Magazine has an article for the new year (January 2012) called "Crowd Control" in which the riots of 2011 are viewed as both "dangerous and magnificent"--they represent a disconnected group getting connected, a mega-underground casting off its invisibility to embody itself, formidably, in physical space."

"Today's protest, revolts, and riots are self-organizing [and] hyper-networked"--and just like a swarm, individuals deindividuate and base their ideas and actions on the shared identify of the group and therein, a social psychology takes hold and with basic communication and social technology today, they can spontaneously form potent flash mobs, "flash robs," or worse.

The age old phenomenon of swarming behavior is intersecting with the 21st century technology such as smartphones and social media to create the ability of individuals to gather, act decisively, disperse into the crowds, and then reconvene elsewhere to act again.

The power of this modern swarm is no longer about "sheer numbers," but about being interconnected through messaging, tweets, videos,and more.

Many today are finding the power of the swarm with both friends and foes. Friends are using swarming to try to accomplish new social and scientific feats. While foes such as Al Qaeda are utilizing swarming for hit and run terrorism--moving agilely between safe havens and targeting their victims with tools of terror such as IEDs, car bombs, and other flash attacks.

Swarming is not just a behavior found in the animal kingdom any longer, today it is a fundamental source for both social order and disorder.

Swarming is now a strategy and a tactic--we need to wise up and gain the edge with social swarming behavior and technology to "outwit, outlast, and outplay" those who want to threaten society, and instead use it to improve and secure it.

(Source Photo: here)

Wheelchairs Get A Boost

2011-12-24T17:45:00.007-05:00

I am very excited by this new assistive technology for personal mobility coming out of Japan that can be used to help the aged or handicapped.

Rather than have to buy a separate electric scooter for longer distances that is heavy and can be challenging for people with certain disabilities to use, the WHILL is a simple add-on that can be attached to and removed from a regular wheelchair and can be steered, like a Segway, simply by leaning in the direction you want to go.

The WHILL is high-tech looking--like a futurist headphone that you place over the wheels of the chair and according to Gizmodo, it turns the wheels with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that powers the chair up to 12 mph for 19 miles and then recharges in under 2 hours.

While pricing information is not yet available, my assumption is that this add-on will be significantly cheaper than a full-out electronic scooter.

One concern that I have about the WHILL is how someone who is wheelchair-bound will be able to attach/remove the drive-train device without the help of an aide or nurse. Perhaps an even more futuristic version will have the U-shaped WHILL built with push-button retractable arms, so that the attachment can simply "open up" rather than have to be removed.

Another question that I have is what safety features will be built in for example for automatic cut-off should someone using it get ill and keel over unto the device causing it to drive/spin out of control. I am thinking a weight-sensor on the WHILL that detects if too much of a person's body weight is leaning on it and then cause a safety shutdown.

Overall, I am encouraged by what WHILL will soon be bringing to help people in need to get around more easily in the future.

Leadership, Beyond Brainwashing and Beatings

2011-12-23T19:41:00.009-05:00

Leading by decree rather than merit usually means that the people are either beaten or brainwashed into submission--this is oddly reminiscent of the age-old question, which is mightier, the pen or the sword?

History is full of examples of tyrants, dictators, and monarchs (this goes for some bosses at work too) who take "the throne" putting anyone who opposes them to either be put to death or be "reeducated."

On one hand, the sword is straightforward though it comes in a thousand varieties--where those who oppose the ruler die:
- in open opposition on the battle field
- in public display in front of a firing squad, by hanging, or even by guillotine
- in more surreptitious ways such as with a knife in a back alley somewhere, languishing in a dungeon of old, thrown in a van from the streets with a hood over your head, or taken in the middle of the night never to be seen or heard from again, or even assassinated by anything from a well-placed bullet to a vial of radioactive poisoning

The sword of the dictator knows no mercy.

On the other hand, the pen is more shady and comes in but one form--where those who disagree with the power(s) that be are convinced to think otherwise. There are many examples from the gulag to the labor camp where reeducation, indoctrination, propaganda, brainwashing, hypnosis and other, harsher forms of mind control are employed.

As a child of Holocaust survivors, who lived through the Hitler rein of terror, I am keenly aware of the devastating impact that dictators can have by sword and by pen. Hitler (may his soul be cursed forever) used both to achieve and hold power, sending millions to die in concentration camps and brainwashing a generation of Germans into believing his rhetoric of hatred, superiority, and megalomaniac ideals for world domination.

This week, watching power pass in North Korea from father to son, now for a third generation gripping unto the leadership mantle there, the potential for abuse is certainly present, but there is certainly also the opportunity for positive change. It remains to be seen who this new leader really is and what he will stand for--especially since he is so young--only age 28 or 29.

Previously, I had read about the sword being used to hold unto power in that country with horrifying prison camps, such as the infamous Camp 22 with 50,000 prisoners (many of them political opponents) living under the most inhumane conditions.

This week, I watched on the news and YouTube, citizens apparently wailing over the death of their leader there--and I wondered with the people starving and living in one of the poorest and most isolated nations in the world, are they really that brainwashed to believe in the absolute greatness (almost like a deity) of their leader or was this whole display staged?

In 2010, the son, was given the rank of a 4-Star General--yet supposedly he doesn't have any military experience.

This week, in the son's first week in power, he was given the title "Outstanding Leader"--even before having the chance to lead.

Today, I read in the Wall Street Journal (23 December 2011) how the "Propaganda and Agitation" department there is working to "quickly bolster [the] new leader's legitimacy." According to the article, their responsibility is "for filing North Koreans' minds with awe, devotion, and unswerving respect for the dictatorial dynasty."

While propaganda and force can create yet another generation whose will is bent to serve its leader, my hope and prayer is that we have a possibility for a new way of thinking and leadership in North Korea, and in many other countries around the world today.

Wielding power can be an opportunity to show benevolence, encourage freedom, and win people over through the power of ideas rather than by physical or mental coercion.

(All opinions my own)

(Source Photo: here)

Getting Control By Getting Back To Basics

2011-12-21T19:03:00.005-05:00

I don't know if you've seen this--it's pretty popular, but I just really liked it:

“Beware of your thoughts, they become your words.

Beware of your words, they become your actions.

Beware of your actions, they become your habits.

Beware of your habits, they become your character.

Beware of your character, it becomes your destiny.”

To me it just makes so much sense--and it's how we can either get ourselves on a track for successful living or potentially into some pretty big trouble:

It starts with a simple thought--good or bad--light bulb goes on, bling!

Utter the thought (in word) and it begins to take form--blah, blah, blah.

Put that thought into action, and now--boy oh boy--what have you done?

Repeat once, twice, three times, and you have a habit--or in Jewish tradition a "Chazakah," something firm or established--think of it as, you're hooked.

Habits sure as heck breed character--and don't pretend otherwise...

And your character is your calling card with others and ultimately with G-d.

The good thing is that we have 5 steps to intervene--to gain control over where we are going with our lives.

And we can turn things around, at any time.

- Change your thinking.

- Clean up your mouthpiece.

- Act with kindness.

- Repeat only the things you want to ingrain.

- Guard your character through regular monitoring and course correction.

(Source Photo: here)

What Arms and Legs Can't Touch

2011-12-19T19:15:00.011-05:00

Unbelievable video of Nick Vujicic coaching people to believe in themselves.

The catch is that Nick himself is missing all four limbs.

Yet he shows how he can--without arms and legs--run, boat, dive, fish, water slide, play soccer, golf, and much more.

I love when he says with conviction:

- "Forget about what you don't have. Be grateful for what you do have."

- Don't be angry at your life and at others.

- You are worthwhile and you are beautiful.

- You have the strength to conquer.

I am inspired--no, I am amazed--by this human being.

Sometimes, like now, when I see such courage and strength, I wonder how people do it!

Life is so challenging even when we have all our limbs and faculties...

I think that G-d must give a special gift to these people so they can inspire others and be role models for us.

So that when times are tough, we can remember them and be elevated to break our own barriers and limitations.

Beyond the Four Seasons

2011-12-18T08:15:00.004-05:00

For anyone who has ever stayed at the Four Seasons, you know it is an incredible hotel.

Customer service reins supreme and that's not just good business, it's good corporate values.

But reading about the Indian version of the Four Seasons called the Taj--it seems like they have taken customer service to a whole new level.

The Taj which has been operating for more than 100 years (opened in 1903) has 108 hotels in 12 countries, including of course India, but also Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and even America (Boston, New York, and San Francisco).

Harvard Business Review (December 2011) describes not just the routine day-to-day service provided at the Taj, but rather how they behaved under one of the most trying events, a terrorist attack.

On November 26, 2008, there began a coordinated 10 attacks across India's largest city Mumbai than killed at least 159 and gravely wounded more than 200. The attack now referred to as 26/11 (i.e. 26th of November) included the luxury hotel, the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower (i.e. the Taj Mumbai).

The Taj Mumbai suffered at least 6 blasts and "stayed ablaze for two days and three nights" engulfing the beautiful domes and spires of this structure.

But while the hotel suffered significant damage resulting in months of rebuilding, the spirit of service by the workers at the Taj was tested to the extreme and thrived.

HBR describes how Taj staff, hearing the blasts and automatic weapons, safeguarded their guests during the attack going so far as "insisting that husbands and wives separate to reduce the risk to families, offering water and asking people if they needed anything,...[and] evacuating the guests first."

The Taj staff did not run out screaming--everyman and woman for themselves, but they not only stayed calm and helpful, but they actually put their guests lives above their own.

This is sort of reminiscent of the firefighters, police, and other emergency first responders on 9-11, who ran up the stairs on the burning World Trade Center to save people--but in this case at the Taj, these were not trained rescuers, they were hotel staff.

In another instance at the hotel, according to the article, hotel employees even "form[ed] a human cordon" around the guests.

This again sounds more like the Secret Service protecting the President of the United States, then waiters and waitresses serving guests.

This is not to say that culture is the driving factor here, for example just this December 9, ABC News reports on how a fire broke out in an Indian hospital and killed at least 89 residents, while the "staff flees" and 6 administrators are subsequently arrested.

So if national culture is not the difference in how organizations and its people treat customers--what is?

HBR explains that it's really a recipe for customer service and user-centricity.

Starting with a "values-driven recruitment system" where the hotel looks for employees with character traits such as respect for elders, cheerfulness, and neediness (this reminds me of a boss I had that used to say she likes to hire employees "who are hungry.").

The Taj follows up their recruitment with a commitment to training and mentoring and empowering employees fully to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of its customers at what it calls "moments of truth."

The values of the Taj go so far toward serving its customers, that they insist that employees actually put customer needs ahead of the company and this is reinforced with a recognition system for those who strive and act for making happy customers.

Is this user-centric orientation limited to just the Taj Mumbai?

Apparently not, when a Tsunami struck at 9:30 AM on December 26, 2004 and killed 185,000 people, the Taj on the Maldives Island affected "rushed to every room and escorted them [the guests] to high ground" and still managed to serve lunch to survivors by 1:00 PM.

Talking about setting the bar high for customer service--how can you beat that?

(Source Photo: here)

Modesty In A Social Media World

2011-12-17T11:33:00.014-05:00

New "love" app out of the U.K. called I Just Made Love (IJML).

This one is not for the modest or privacy-conscious.

The app is available for download for both the iPhone and Android.

Essentially, people are going out and using location-based services (i.e. GPS) and self-identifying their love-making--act by act. We're up to 194,000+ already!

Not to be gross, but the app lets people not only report on doing the act and where, but also using check boxes with icons, you can identify the details such as the context: couch, indoor and outdoor, as well as how: 5 top positions--which is way more information than I care to hear about.

In our often hedonistic society, there are of course, other services such as Four-Square that lets you broadcast where you fulfill other bodily pleasures like eating, drinking, and shopping.

Personally, I don't care to know what people are doing or where--too intrusive for my liking. But I can see why others may want to use FourSquare type apps (not IJML or who knows) with friends and family who may want to connect in this way--like to meet for Happy Hour at Old Town.

And certainly, marketers are interested in capturing valuable personal information on what you are doing, where and with whom, and using it to drive their sales and profits. Maybe you get a coupon out of it. :-)

With the love app, it seems like some people want to brag, appear the Don Juan, raise their "macho" social status, or just perhaps enjoy being exhibitionists.

From my perspective, the main pro of this app is to promote the concept (not the act itself) of love over things like war, hate, discrimination, etc.

Even with that being said, it seems like some things are just better off left as intimate moments between you and your special other.

Interesting to me, this topic of disclosure came up big time in the Orthodox Jewish world with the publication in the Yeshiva University Beacon (5 December 2011) of a much written-about article entitled "How Do I Even Begin To Explain This," where a frum Jewish girl from Stern College discloses her story of illicit rendezvous in a hotel room with a gentlemen and at the same time the "walk of shame the day after."

The dichotomy between her "Orthodox" beliefs and her "secular" actions and her publication of this article in a Yeshiva newspaper and her explicit description of sexual deeds is a perfect example of the tear in our society between privacy and social probity on one hand, and the desire or need to share and be "free" of all constraints on the other.

As a social commentary, we are at a point where it seems that nothing is real unless we share it with others, and that can be good or bad--it can lead to greater wisdom and societal advancement or it can lead us to do things we shouldn't do, are sorry we did, and where we feel shame afterwards.

Decloaking The Adversary

2011-12-16T16:12:00.008-05:00

Yes, we lost a drone in Iran and they won't give it back--that stinks!

Initially, the word coming out was it was a mishap, an accident, but the Iranians claimed otherwise--that they brought it down.

Who believed that they could actually do that?

Then there was word that the craft being displayed by the Iranians was a fake, a mock-up, only to reversed with a confirmation, as reported in Christian Science Monitor, that the drone "is almostly certainly the one lost by U.S. forces."

Well now, InformationWeek is reporting (16 December 2011) that Iran really did bring down the stealth drone as well as how they claim to have done it.

First they jammed the communications of the RQ-170 Sentinel, so that with its command, control, and communications (C3) no longer intact, it was forced to go into autopilot and rely on GPS signals to find its way.

Then, the Iranians spoofed the GPS signal making the Sentinel think it was landing at a U.S. base rather than right into hostile territory.

If this is true, then not only is all the captured sensitive technology aboard the craft (such as radar, fuselage, coating, and electronics) in jeopardy of being comprised by reverse engineering, but also as the article states, the Iranians may have demonstrated the means to be able to literally "divert any GPS-guided missiles launched at targets inside its borders."

Quite a scary thought when according to Reuters reports, Iran is less than a year from going nuclear!

So what is the truth and what is misinformation (PsyOps) to confuse or outwit the enemy and how much does any of that really matter if the Iranians have possession of our advanced technology along with the time and the nefarious partners to study it and use it against us?

Or perhaps, this is a great ruse by us and we intended for the Iranians to get the drone--tick, tick, tick... ;-)

We live in a new sophisticated world of electronic and cyber warfare and that combined with nukes makes for some truly dangerous scenarios.

Finally, we should never underestimate the capabilities or intent of our adversaries--surprise may be the the most potent enemy of them all.

(Source Photo: here)

The Elevator and The Bigger Picture

2011-12-14T18:40:00.007-05:00

Some of you may have watched the HBO series called Six Feet Under that ran from about 2000-2005 about a family that owned a funeral home, and every episode opened with a freakish death scene.

In fact, the father who was the funeral director dies an untimely death himself and bequeaths the funeral home to his two sons.

The series, which ran for 63 episodes, evoked a recognition that life is most precious, too short, and can end in both horrible and unpredictable ways.

This week, I was reminded of this in all too many ways:

First, Brett Stephens wrote a beautiful piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about the graceful death of his father from a horrible brain tumor. Brett describes in vivid terms the operations, loss of sight, debilitating bouts of chemo and radiation, agonizing shingles, loss of memory, mobility, sight, ability to eat, and more. Brett writes: "cancer is a heist culminating in murder."

Then today, all over the news were reports of of a horrible accident in New York, where a woman was killed in an elevator accident when it shot up while she was still only about half way on and she was crushed between the elevator and the shaft in a 25 story office building on Madison Avenue.

Third, I learned from a colleague about a wonderful gentlemen, who served his country in the armed forces and was an athlete in incredible shape, when one day in the gym, he suffered a massive heart, which deprived of oxygen for too long, and he was left horribly crippled for life.

Unfortunately, similar to Six feet Under, in real life, there are countless of stories of life's fortunes and misfortunes, death and the aftermath (adapted from the show's synopsis--I really liked how this was said). Yet, in the end, we are left with the completely heart wrenching feeling of how it is to be without and sorely miss the people we love so dearly.

In the Talmud, I remember learning this saying that to the Angel of Death it does not whether his intended is here or there--when a person's time is up, death shows up and no matter how peaceful or painful, it is never convenient and always deeply traumatic in so many ways.

For one the elevator opens and closes normally and brings a person to their destination floor, and to another the door may close on them, never at all, or the elevator may shift right beneath their feet.

We can never really be prepared emotionally or otherwise for the devastation brought by accident, illness, and death--and while it is hard to be optimistic sometimes, we can try to maintain faith that The Almighty is guiding the events of our lives, and that he knows what he is doing, even if we cannot always understand the bigger picture.

May G-d have mercy.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Chris McKenna)

Words Matter A Lot

2011-12-12T19:22:00.006-05:00

This is a great video on the power of words, but also on the caring of one for another.

We can make a difference with our words!

Words can help and can hurt, they can pursuade and they can punish, but the most important thing is that we are responsible for how we use them.

While we can say we're sorry for hurtful words, they can never really be taken back (i.e. unspoken).

And just the opposite holds true as well--when we use words constructively, the impact for good reverberates.

I still hear the words of the most important people in my life guiding me, always.

Use your words with care, deference, ingenuity, and most important with kindness for others.

This Man's A Real Magician

2011-12-11T20:05:00.004-05:00

One more very impressive act on this Sunday afternoon.

10 illusions in less than 5 minutes.

Hans Klok is amazing--especially impressive to me is how he does the following:

1) Moves so fast--more than 1 illusion every 30 seconds!
2) Actually remembers all 10 illusions--I can't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning ;-)
3) Pulls all the illusions off without a single glitch
4) Changes positions with the roaring lady with his hand sticking out of a locked box at :30.
5) Has the women's legs (just her legs!) pushing a cart across the stage at 2:40--are those legs robotic?
6) Moves the guys head from his shoulders to his belly and back again at 2:50--the guys head falls almost like from a guillotine!

While I am not usually terribly wowed by magic acts, this one has quite a lot going for it including speed, action, humor, and some pretty good accompanying music.

Thank G-d for the Internet and Youtube, which enables us to share and enjoy all this great stuff--anytime, anywhere.

(Also, thanks Cousin Betty for sharing this.)

What is The Secret of Laserman

2011-12-11T14:31:00.002-05:00

This is a terrific performance by Laserman.

He seems to break all the laws of physics and manipulates laser light beams as if it is both a vapor and a solid.

He stops and redirects it, yet at the same time he pushes and twirls it--huh?

While I am not a fan of the movie Tron--I think I actually fell asleep in the theater (and more than once), this performance more than makes up for it.

My favorite piece is at 1:39 when Laserman picks the laser light up out of the stage--people start yelling as no one can believe it!--and he starts twirling it around like a baton now.

Then at 1:48, he breaks the light beam in two and starts twirling both and sticking them back in the stage only to start bending the light again.

To me, this performance is really cool and inspiring--it makes me think of a bright future for all of us--one that is agile, high-tech, heart-pounding, and where natural laws are almost made to be broken.

Someone please tell me how he does this...I promise, I won't tell ;-)

Nuclear Weapons--A Scary Infographic

2011-12-10T18:46:00.006-05:00

As you already know, I appreciate a good infographic.

Unfortunately, I think many of the ones coming out recently are too jumbled, long and complex and read more like a "Megilla" (no disrespect intended).

I was a little surprised to find a infographic on Nuclear Weapons online, but then again it's not a "cookbook" and hopefully those are not being posted.

This one was interesting to me, not only because of the topic of weapons of mass destruction, but also because in 11 factoids, the graphics takes you through a pretty clear and simple overview of the subject matter.

No, its not getting into the physics and nuclear engineering depths of the whole thing, but at the same time, you have starting with the Manhattan Projects in the 30's, some nice history on the following:

Invention
Cost
Types, both fission and fusion
Testing
Use
Inventories, although based on recent articles on the 3,000 miles of Chines tunnels in the Wall Street Journal (25 October 2011) and Washington Post (30 November 2011), the Chinese number may be way too low--the WSJ based on Chinese media reports has it as high as 3,500!
Even numbers "lost and not recovered"--11!--not comforting, who would've thought?

In the graphic, it would be interesting to see a breakdown by land-, bomber-, and submarine-based, (some nice graphics available for that) but perhaps a number 12 item on the infographic would've been getting too much in the weeds.

Also, a similar graphic for chemical and biological weapons while interesting, would be scary indeed.

(Source Graphic: here)

Try Something New, Relax

2011-12-10T14:34:00.010-05:00

So you work hard and play hard.

You're always in "on mode".

Of course, it's a 24 x 7 world.

Welcome to the 21st century.

Well it's time to stop!

Take a time out.

Some time to think.

Enjoy life again.

Become a human being.

Here is your test: Go to Do Nothing for 2 Minutes.

- Your only goal for the next 2 minutes is to look at the ocean, listen to the waves and the birds, and relax--really.

- If you touch the mouse or keyboard, you fail and have to start over again.

See if you can do it.

See if you can calm your mind.

See if you can get off the treadmill.

See if you can free yourself from anxiety and pain.

When you can just do this--for 2 minutes, you'll realize what you've been missing.

Now try Calm--no time limit this go around--you've earned it.

You'll are better for it and your family, friends, and colleagues notice the difference.

It's not a new you, just a rediscovered you.

Find and enjoy peace!

Losing The Edge, No More

2011-12-09T21:49:00.010-05:00

For years, there has been all sorts of uproar about the U.S. and its citizens and businesses losing their edge.

From critics who point out to how our educational system (especially through high school) is not keeping up, how we are not attracting and graduating enough folks in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), how our inventions are freely copied overseas, and how innovation and entrepreneurship is suffering at home whether due to challenging economic or social conditions.

Yet, when it comes to losing our edge, nothing is more maddening than when the technological advances we do have are taken from us--this happens in numerous ways, including:

- Cyber Attacks: According to the Pentagon Strategy on Cyberwar as per the Wall Street Journal (15 July 2011) "each year a volume of intellectual property the size of the Library of Congress is stolen from U.S. government and private-sector networks." Cyber espionage has affected a broad range of our prized national assets: from Space Shuttle designs to the Joint U.S. Defense Strategy with South Korea as del as the plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and more. Moreover and unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. For example, this past August, McAfee disclosed a cyber spying operation dubbed Operation Shady Rat that infiltrated some 71 government and corporate entities of which 49 were in the U.S. and which included more than a dozen defense firms over five years, compromising a massive amount of information.

- Spies/Insider Threats: Spies and insider threats can turn over state secrets to foreign powers or entities causing a major lose to our competitive advantage. This has happened with convicted spies from Aldrich Ames to FBI agent Robert Hanssen, and more recently to Army Corporal Bradley Manning accused of turning over troves of restricted documents to WikLleaks. And despite the amazing efforts to catch these subversives, presumably, there are plenty more where they came from.

- Expropriations: We lose our edge to foreign nations and organizations when our high-technology or intellectual assets are used without our consent or otherwise seized and compromised. This can happen from having our copyrights trampled on, our designs simply copied and "knockoffs" produced and peddled, or even when we are in a sense forced to exchange our intellectual property for basic entry into foreign markets. But this also happens more explicitly and violently when our assets are literally taken from us. For example this happened in April 2001, when Chinese fighter jets intercepted (in international air space) and crashed a U.S. EP-3 reconnaissance plane and didn't return it until July in disassembled pieces. Similarly, when the tail of the stealth modified MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, with sensitive military technology, used in the raid in Osama bin Laden's was recovered and held by Pakistan for weeks before it was returned to the U.S. And we saw this again this week when the Iranians showed off a prized RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone they now have seized, and which secrets presumably may end up in Russian, Chinese, or ultimately terrorist hands.

Developing an edge is not something we should take lightly or for granted--It is based on lots of talent, experience, and hard work and we do not have an exclusive hold on any of these.

We must prize our scientific and technological advances and secure these the way a mother protects it's young--fiercely and without compromise.

No matter how much or fast we churn out the advances, it will not matter if we do not safeguard our investments from those who would take it right out from under us. We can do this by significantly increasing investment in cyber security, strengthening counterespionage efforts, and not letting any nation or organization take something that doesn't belong to them without consequences--economic or military--that restore our edge and then some.

(Source Photo: here)

Life Perspective

2011-12-04T21:01:00.005-05:00

I saw this picture and immediately feel in love with it--it is so simple, yet so brilliant.

Like the 6 days of creation and then G-d rested, this picture illuminates in 6 panes of shades of black and white, the cycle of life of man and woman, and then stops (rests).

From carefree children to growing young adults, love and marriage, old age together, loss and loneliness, and finally together again--returned to the earth and I believe in the after-world.

The tree on the left overhands and follows the path of the couple; it grows, matures, and seems to whither along with them--this is mother earth clearly sheltering and closely intertwined with its children.

The connection between people and earth, between one person and another, and between this world and the next...the whole of life's existence and purpose seems to be expressed here.

The meaning and purpose is inherent in the cycle itself--throughout our growth, we experience trials and tribulation--and our mettle is tested and proven until it ends or perhaps begins again.

The overall story is of time marching on, and we but mortals experiencing so much--growth and decline, connection and separation, pleasure and pain--yet never escaping time's grasp.

This is the cycle of life and G-d is ever at the helm.

To me, this picture brings perspective, understanding, fear, and peace all at the same time.

(Source Photo: here)

The Art of The Fearless

2011-12-04T15:52:00.006-05:00

This was my introduction to Wingsuit Flying.

It's an extension of death-defying BASE jumping off of Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges), and Earth (cliffs) with the added feature of soaring like a bird over the most beautiful terrains.

The wingsuits are bat-like jumpsuits with material stretching between the legs and under the arms enabling a user to glide through the sky, rather than free-falling straight down to the ground.

Essentially the wingsuit gives the human body the extra surface area to get the lift to fly through the sky without any mechanical devices at all or with the addition of small jet engines strapped to the feet for added thrust.

I am amazed at the fearlessness of these wingsuit fliers who jump virtually head first from unbelievable heights, fly close to the ground over extremely dangerous terrain, and only then release their parachutes toward the very end, near landing.

The other thing that impresses me about this is the beauty of this sport--the stunning places they jump from in Norway, Greenland, France and so on, the amazing, intricate colorful fly suits, the choreography of the stunts--alone and in groups--the spectacular filming of the events, and even the great heart-pounding accompanying music.

The talent, beauty, and courage of these sports enthusiasts combine to inspire me and hopefully you to go out and do great things (although hopefully not anything near as dangerous) with our lives--because these guys make it seem like almost anything is possible.

(Source Photo: here)

If We All Just Pay It Forward

2011-12-03T19:00:00.007-05:00

Pretty much everyone knows the Ripple Effect when it comes to a pond of water, but we don't think of this principle as much when it comes to how we treat people.

With water, when you drop, say a rock, into a pond, the water ripples outward in waves extending seemingly endlessly beyond the original point of impact in the water.

Similarly, with people, the way you treat someone, impacts them and others way beyond the original act of kindness or meanness.

I was reminded of this the other day by a colleague who told me about workers she knows that are so mistreated and they themselves suffer not only emotionally, but also in terms of health effects and so on. But more than that she told me, how when these people go home at night from work, it affects their relationships with their spouses who they fight with, with their children who they act abusively to, and even to their pets, as the old saying goes about going home and "kicking the dog."

But like the waves in the Ripple Effect, it doesn't end there, because then the spouse perhaps goes out and abuses drugs or alcohol, the kids get in a fight in school, and the dog goes and bites the neighbor, and so on.

While this is not a new concept, I think it's something we don't always have in mind when we interact with others, at work or otherwise.

We get so caught up in the moment, of whose right and wrong, of our own ambitions and honor, of the use and abuse of power, and so forth that we act out on others without listening to them, really empathizing with them, or generally giving a hoot what affect our actions have on them and those around them.

Too many people act like it's the old paleolithic "us versus them" world, and in that world, where only one person walks away from a confrontation, people make sure that it is them and not the other guy.

But we are not cavemen any longer, and while there is nothing wrong with a little competition or managing a fair performance management system, we need to do it with a kind heart to others, being constructive, making sure others are really okay, and generally with respect and gratitude.

Nobody is perfect--not our staffs and not us, and the way we treat them may not seem all that important in the realm of the mission and our success, but it really is incredibly important because feeding people with good comes back many times over in terms of their loyalty, hard work, improved performance and how they in turn treat others.

Please don't think that I am lecturing from a soap box, but I really see this as a struggle, especially for people in the workplace, where politics and power play an important role every day.

(Source Photo: here by Sergiu Bacioiu)

Who Will Protect Those Who Protect Us?

2011-12-02T18:02:00.007-05:00

This is a video that the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) sent to Congress to appeal to them not to cut funding to all the activities that our law enforcement officers do for us.

While the functions of government can always be more efficient--and we should constantly work to achieve these--federal law enforcement is incredibly important.

From the FBI to the Secret Service and from Border Patrol to DEA, we need to support all our federal law enforcement efforts.

These agents and officers risk their lives every day for all of us, and it's time that we stand by them to protect their mission and jobs.

The Done Manifesto v2

2011-12-02T07:43:00.003-05:00

The Done Manifesto with 13 principles of getting to done has been circulated since 2009 (and recently reprinted in LifeHacker). It was made into a poster and creatively illustrated with Rubik's cubes.

Below are the 13 principles revised and presented as The Done Manifesto Version 2.

(Copyright: Andy Blumenthal)

Of course, there is a 14th principle that could also be considered--I remember this from a poster that I first saw in the local newspaper and candy store in Riverdale--it was illustrated with a little boy on a toilet and a roll of toilet tissue and had a caption that said "No Job is Finished Until The Paperwork is Done." ;-)

Moving Forward in Reverse

2011-11-28T09:26:00.005-05:00

There is "more than one way to skin a cat" and there are those who take the high road, and others who take the low road to get to where they are going.

The Wall Street Journal (28 November 2011) has two articles this morning on how how reverse is the new forward.

"Reverse Mentoring Cracks Workplace" is about how "Top managers get advice on social media, workplace issues from young workers." It's a reverse on the traditional mentoring model where older, experienced workers mentor younger workers; now younger technology savants are teaching their older colleagues some new tricks.

According to the article, Jack Welch championed reverse mentoring as head of GE when "he ordered 500 top executives to reach out to people below them to learn how to use the Internet...fast forward a decade and mentors are teaching theirmentees about Facebook and Twitter.

Really this phenomen of learning from the young is not all that odd, when you think that many, if not most, of technology's greatest advancements of the last 35 years came from college kids or dropouts working out their garages and growing whole new technologies, industries, and ways of doing business.

Another article called "Great Scott! Dunder Mifflin Morphs Into Real-Life Brand of Copy Paper" describes how Staples and Quill have teamed up to market a new brand of copy paper called none other than Dunder Mifflin (from the TV show "The Office" now in its 8th season).

Here again, we are in going forward in reverse. "For decades, marketers worked to embed their [real] brands in the plots of TV shows and movies. Nowadays, they are seeing value in bringing to life fictional brands that are already part of pop culture."

This reminds me of when I started seeing Wonka chocolate bars--originally from the movie, Willie Wonker and The Chocolate Factory--showing up on store shelves.

Whether the young mentoring the old or fictional brands showing up in real life, changes that are the reverse of what we are used too, are not something to "bristle at", but rather are the new normal.

There are many ways to success and we will find them through creatiity, innovation, and entreprenuership--any and every way forward.

(Source Photo: here)

Running IT as an Ecosystem

2011-11-27T12:08:00.002-05:00

The New York Times (27 November 2011) has an interesting article under "bright ideas" called Turn on the Server. It's Cold Outside.

The idea in the age of cloud and distributed computing, where physical location of infrastructure is besides the point, is to place (racks of) servers in people's homes to warm them from the cold.

The idea is really pretty cool and quite intuitive: Rather than use expensive HVAC systems to cool the environment where servers heat up and are housed, instead we can use the heat-generating servers to warm cold houses and save money and resources on buying and running furnaces to heat them.

While some may criticize this idea on security implications--since the servers need to be secured--I think you can easily counter that such a strategy under the right security conditions (some of which are identified in the article--encrypting the data, alarming the racks, and so on) could actually add a level of security by distributing your infrastructure thereby making it less prone to physical disruption by natural disaster or physical attack.

In fact, the whole movement towards consolidation of data centers, should be reevaluated based on such security implications. Would you rather have a primary and backup data center that can be taken out by a targeted missile or other attack for example, or more distributed data centers that can more easily recover. In fact, the move to cloud computing with data housed sort of everywhere and anywhere globally offers the possibility of just such protection and is in a sense the polar opposite of data center consolidation--two opposing tracks, currently being pursued simultaneously.

One major drawback to the idea of distributing servers and using them to heat homes--while offering cost-saings in term of HVAC, it would be very expensive in terms of maintaining those servers at all the homes they reside in.

In general, while it's not practical to house government data servers in people's homes, we can learn to run our data centers more environmentally friendly way. For example, the article mentions that Europe is using centralized "district heating" whereby more centralized data center heat is distributed by insulated pipes to neighboring homes and businesses, rather than actually locating the servers in the homes.

Of course, if you can't heat your homes with data servers, there is another option that gets you away from having to cool down all those hot servers, and that is to locate them in places with cooler year-round temperatures and using the areas natural air temperature for climate control. So if you can't bring the servers to heat the homes, you can at least house them in cold climates to be cooled naturally. Either way, there is the potential to increase our green footprint and cost-savings.

Running information technology operations with a greater view toward environmental impact and seeing IT in terms of the larger ecosystem that it operates in, necessitates a careful balancing of the mission needs for IT, security, manageability, and recovery as well as potential benefits for greater energy independence, environmental sustainability, and cost savings, and is the type of innovative bigger picture thinking that we can benefit from to break the cycle of inertia and inefficiency that too often confronts us.

(Source Photo: here)

Espionage, Social Media Style

2011-11-26T11:22:00.007-05:00

You are being watched!

Good guys and bad guys are tracking your movements, rants and raves, photos, and more online.

For example, The Atlantic reported on 4 November 2011 in an article titled How the CIA Uses Social Media to Track How People Feel that "analysts are tracking millions of tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates around the world."

Further, in January 2009, "DHS established a Social Networking Monitoring Center (SNMC) to monitor social networking sites for 'items of interest.'"

And even more recently in August 2011, DARPA invited proposals for "memetracking" to identify themes and sentiments online and potentially use this for predictive analysis.

The thinking is that if you can use online information to predict stock market movements as some have attempted, why not criminal and terrorist activity?

Similarly, The Guardian reported on 16 March 2010 FBI using Facebook in fight against crime and cautions that "criminals dumb enough to brag about their exploits on social networking sites have now been warned: the next Facebook 'friend' who contacts you may be an FBI agent."

This is reminescent of the work of private sector, Dateline NBC in using Internet chat rooms to catch sexual predators online by luring them to a house where the predators believed they were going to meet up with a underage girl for a tryst.

While these efforts are notable and even praiseworthy by the good guys--assuming you can get over the privacy implications in favor of the potential to have a safer society to live in--these activities should be carefully safeguarded, so as not to infringe on the rights and freedoms of those who behave legally and ethically.

But the good guys are not the only ones using the tools of the trade for monitoring and analyzing social networking activities--the bad guys too recognize the implicit information treasure trove available and have you in their crosshairs.

For example, in the last years Arab Spring, we have nation states tracking their citizens political activities and using their power over the Internet to shut off access and otherwise surpress democracy and human rights. Further, we have seen their use for cyberspying and testing offensive cyber attack capabilities--only the most recent of which was the alleged infiltration of a SCADA system for a Illinois water plant.

Moreover, this past week, Forbes (21 November 2011) reported in The Spy Who Liked Me that "your social network friends might not be all that friendly."

From corporate espionage to market intelligence, there are those online who "steadfastly follows competitors' executives and employees on Twitter and LinkedIn."

In fact, the notion of online monitoring is so strong now that the article openly states that "if you're not monitoring your competitors activity on social media, you may be missing out on delicious tidbits" and warns that "it's easy to forget that some may not have your best intersts at heart."

Additionally, while you may not think your posts online give that much away, when your information is aggregated with other peoples posts as well as public information, it's possible to put together a pretty good sketch of what organizations and individuals are doing.

Forbes lists the following sites as examples of the "Web Spy Manual" with lots of information to pull from: Slideshare, Glassdoor.com, Quora, iSpionage, Youtube as well as job postings and customer support forums.

When you are on your computer in what you believe to be the privacy of your own home, office, or wherever, do not be deceived, when you are logged on, you are basically as open book for all the world to see--good guys and bad guys alike.

(Source Photo: here)

No More Excuses, Please

2011-11-25T18:45:00.003-05:00

The New Yorker (24 October 2011) has a clever take on the urge of some--in this case, the privileged--to try and preserve the status quo. However, this can be applied more broadly.

While not an endorsement of any specific movement, this is an acknowledgement of the resistance to change by both organizations and individuals, and the many excuses offered.

Some typical ones we all have heard, in one form or other:

- It's always been this way.

- We've tried "that" before and it didn't work.

- Change is hard.

- Everything is fine just the way it is.

While change for changes sake is obviously pointless, change to adapt to new opportunities and threats is just good business sense.

Additionally, change to address inequalities on inequities is good moral sense.

Of course, we have to vet proposed changes and ensure they are constructive, the best option available, and really doable, so we are not just jumping into something irresponsibly.

When change meets the mark, then to implement it, we have to give it all we've got!

From our leaders, it takes vision, courage, and determination to see what needs to get done, get past the excuses, and inspire change.

From society, it takes sacrifice and hard work to get us to where we must go.

But if it's a destination worthwhile, then we drop the excuses and move to action.

Hopefully, we can recognize when change is indeed, necessary, and not be blinded by our fears and self-serving resistance that hinders the greater good.

Playing For The Good Of The Team

2011-11-24T11:23:00.010-05:00

Good Morning America"s Play of the Day is called "Man Plays Baseball With Himself."

In this incredible video a Japanese Astronaut on the International Space Station throws a ball, runs and picks up a bat and hits the ball he just threw, and then jumps up and catches the ball he just hit.

An impossibility in Earth environment, but a possibility in the low gravity of space.

One lesson then is that nothing is really impossible--given the right circumstances, the impossible becomes possible, so have faith in your abilities and understand that your limitations are not insurmountable.

A second lesson is that while this astronaut shows what's it's like to be literally a one-man team and to succeed; in the real world, there are no one man teams--we depend on each other, whether to play a game of ball or to accomplish things from major projects to minor tasks.

On Thanksgiving, a favorite pastime is watching football and the NFL has been playing on Thanksgiving since at least 1920. In general, there is a huge appreciation of team sports in America, whether football, basketball, soccer, and more.

Pedople on sports teams and in organizational settings who get ahead understand the importance of team and that collaboration and strategy is the key to success and to "winning." Those who don't get alone, end up on the sidelines of the game and of life.

Playing alone, especially in space, may make a great video, but working through a difficult problem with others is even a bigger challenge and feat accomplished.

Getting alone is something we try to instill in people in our society from the earliest of ages, but it does not come easy for everyone. That why we describe people in the organization who don't get alone with others as "not playing nice in the sandbox."

Perhaps, this Thanksgiving, we can appreciate the ability of those who are team players as well as those who may be more individualist, as long as everyone is playing for the good of team.

(Source Photo: here)

Where The Biggest Nuts Rise To The Top

2011-11-23T13:42:00.007-05:00

According to an article in Mental Floss (November/December 2011) engineers at the Advanced Dynamics Laboratory in Australia in 1996 researched how to mitigate The Muesli Effect, which describes the paradox of how, for example, cereral in boxes tend to separate with the smaller stuff lingering on the bottom and the large chunks rising to the top. This is the opposite of what you'd expect in terms of the larger, heavier pieices falling to the bottom--but they don't.

This is also known as The Brazil Nuts Effect, because the largest nuts (the Brazil Nuts) can rise to the top. While in physics, this may be good, in leadership it is not.

With leadership, the Muesli Effect can led to situations where cut-throat, unethical, workplace operators push their way to the top, on the backs of the masses of hardworking individuals. Unfortunately, these workplace "bullies," may stop at nothing to get ahead, whether it means manipulating the system through nepotism, favoritism, outright descrimination, or political shinanigans. They may lie, steal, kiss up, or kick down shamelessly disparaging and marginalizing coworkers and staff--solidying their position and personal gain, which unfortunately comes at expense of the organization and it's true mission.

Some really do deserve their fortune by being smarter, more talented, innovative, or hardworking. In other cases, you have those who take unjustifiably and ridiculously disproportionately at the expense of the others (hence the type of movements such as 99% or Occupy currently underway). This corruption of leadership begs the question who have they "brown-nosed," what various schemes (Ponzi or otherwise) have they been running, how many workers have they exploited, suppliers squeezed, partners shafted, and customers and investors have they taken advantage of.

Countless such ingenious leaders (both corporate and individual) rise by being the organizations false prophets" and taking advantage of the "little guy"--some examples whether from Enron, WorldCom, HealthSouth, Tyco, MF Global, and Bernie Madoff are just a few that come to mind. These and other examples can be found as well in government, non-profit, as well as educational institutions.

Interestingly, the Museli Effect occurs when you shake a box vertically. However, if you rock it side-to-side, then you reverse the effect and larger and heavier pieces of chaff fall to the bottom letting the precious kernels rise to the top.

This is similar to organizations, where if you focus on working horizontally across your organization and marketplace--on who you serve, your partners, suppliers, investors, and customers in terms of breaking down barriers, building bridges, and solving customer problems--then the real gems of leadership have the opportunity to shine and rise.

In the age of social networking, information sharing, collaboration, and transparency, the reverse Muesli Effect can help organizations succeed. It is time to stop promoting those leaders who build empires by shaking the organization up and down in silos that are self-serving, and instead move to rewarding those that break down stovepipes to solve problems and add real value.

(Source Photo: here)

The Moses Bridge, A Design Inspired By G-d

2011-11-20T20:18:00.005-05:00

Really love the design for this "Moses Bridge" located in Holland.

The bridge is stretched out across a moat to reach a historic fortress built in the 17th century to protect against French and Spanish invasion.

It allows people to cross the parted water and reminds me of when the Jewish people left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea parted by G-d through the hands of Moshe.

The amazing design makes it hard to spot from a distance making it part of the fort's defensive camouflage.

I am not sure how they prevent the water flooding in over the walls when the water rises and drowning the proverbial evil Egyptian armies of yesteryear.

I think the greatest designs are inspired by the hand of G-d and this is one of them.

Source Photo 1: here and Photo 2: here

Will You Survive?

2011-11-19T19:34:00.005-05:00

If you are interested in your chances of survival in the event of a nuclear blast, check out the website for Would I Survive a Nuke?

I ran the simulation as if was still living in my old neighborhood of Riverdale, New York and 50 megaton bombs were hitting 5 cities with populations over 1 million people.

On the map, you can see the horrible destruction--gone is Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

The concentric circles around each blast shows 5 levels of devastation as follows (associated with the colors zones of red, pink, orange, yellow, and clear/outside the blast):

This is not a pretty picture and warrants our consideration of how critically important is missile defense and homeland security is.

This position was advocated by the late Dr. Fred Ikle the former Pentagon official who passed away this week on 10 November 2011--Ikle challenged the status quo policy of MAD asking "Why should mutually assured destruction be our policy?" -WSJ

I, for one, don't like any of the 5 scenarios above and would like to keep our society and way of life going with a strong national security posture that includes the gamut of diplomatic, defensive, and offensive capabilities for safeguarding our national security.

With this in mind, this coming week with the deadline for Super Committee to come up with recommendations for reducing our budget deficit or else the automatic $1.2 trillion cut goes into effect--half of which is to come from the Department of Defense is extremely concerning.

Moreover, with well-known hostile nations having achieved (North Korea) or very near to achieving (Iran) nuclear weapons capabilities, we must take the threats of nuclear attack to us and our allies very seriously or else we can end up with not just scary looking colored concentric circles on a map, but the very real deadly effects they represent.

Milgram And The Moral Fiber Of Leadership

2011-11-18T12:37:00.006-05:00

Four year ago (7 November 2007), I wrote a blog called The Milgram Experiment And Enterprise Architecture, which discussed lessons from this experiment in terms of the awesome responsibility that we all have, but especially people in leadership positions, to do the "right thing."

Today, I sat with my mouth agape seeing the Milgram Experiments repeated 50 years later in a study for television, conducted by the Discovery Channel, where they asked "How Evil Are We?"

I watched one participant after another administer what they believed where painful shocks to a another person with a heart condition screaming and begging for the experiment to stop.

Of 11 people, only one women stepped up, stood up, and refused to participate, saying that she could not harm another human being.

All the rest, continued to administer what they thought were painful shocks to an unwilling screaming participant having heart pain, simply by being prodded by a man in a lab coat at the back of the room saying "the experiment requires you to continue" and "it's absolutely essential you continue."

To the viewers horror, the participants continue to to push the lever to shock the other person at an even higher voltage!

When they ask the people afterwards who administered the shock, who would've been responsible if the person receiving the shock had a heart attack and died? one lady immediately turns around and points to the other man in the lab coat.

Like in the evil Nazi death camps, "authority remains a decisive force" and people will do horrible acts saying they were "just following orders."

In the Discovery program, when they add a second person to the experiment who stops the shocking and refuses to go on, only then does the other person refuse as well.

So aside from the lesson that we must always safeguard our own moral compass and do the right thing even in the face of others prodding us to do things that are immoral, unethical, or illegal, we can also learn that by speaking up when we see something wrong, we can indeed influence others to do what's right as well, and in essence "lead by example".

My hope and prayer is that all of us can overcome negative impacts of nature and nurture to see with clarity when something is not right and have the courage to stand up and say and do something about it.

Like the sole participant who refused to administer the shocks and said that she couldn't go home at night and look herself in the mirror if she did these bad things, we too can live our lives so that when we go home to our maker, we can look at our lives with our consciences clear and at peace, and perhaps even having made a real and lasting difference in this world.

Leadership Is Not A One Personality World

2011-11-16T18:53:00.009-05:00

An article in the Federal Times (13 November 2011) called "To Change Government's Culture, Recruit Leader, Not Loners" was very unfortunate.

According to the author, Steven L. Katz, "Government in particular, attracts, rewards, and promotes people who want to be left alone. As a result we have a government of loners...seen in the scarcity of people with a healthy balance of substantive and social skills who are needed for leadership, management, and bringing projects large and small to completion."

Katz identifies these "loners" as Myers-Briggs ISTJ--Introverted Sensing Thinking and Judging. Moreover, he proposes that we consider "more people who test in the range of Myers-Briggs ENTJ--Extroverted Intuitive Thinking Judging"--to assume the leadership mantle instead.

In other words, Katz has a problem with people who are introverted and sensing. In particular, it seems that the introversion type really has Katz all bent out of shape--since this is what he rails at as the loners in our organizations. What a shame!

Katz is wrong on almost all accounts, except that we need people who can communicate and collaborate and not just in government:

1) Diversity Down The Toilet--Katz only acknowledges two Myers-Briggs Types in our diverse population--ENTJ and ISTJ. He is either unaware of or ignores the other 14 categories of people on the continuum, and he promotes only one type the ENTJ--1/16 of the types of people out there--so much for diversity!

Further, Katz makes the stereotypical and mistaken assumptions that introverts are shy and ineffectual, which as pointed out in Psychology Today in 2009 (quoted in Jobboom) "Not everyone who is shy is introverted, and not everyone who's charismatic and cheerful is extroverted." Further, shy people are 'routinely misunderstood as cold, aloof, or stuck up."

Katz missed the point as taught at OPM's Federal Executive Institute that all of us have something to learn, teach, and a preferred pathway to excellence.

2) By the Numbers--Contrary to Katz's implication that introverts are a small and social inept portion of population that should shunned, a report in USA Today in 2009 states that '50% of baby boomers are introverts" as are 38% of those born after 1981 with the onset on the modern computing age, Internet, and social media. Interestingly enough, Katz is even dissatisfied with these Millennials who according to him: their "dominant form of communication and relationships is online and on cellphones."

Moreover, according to a 2006 article in USA Today quoted on Monster.com, "Introverts are so effective in the workplace, they make up an estimated 40% of executives."

Included in these successful introverts are people like "Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Diane Sawyer, Andrea Jung, and Bill Nardelli"--Sorry, Steve!

3) Situational Leadership Is Key--While Katz is busy searching for personality type scapegoats to government problems, he is missing the point that Myers-Briggs is "neither judgmental not pejorative" and instead "helps assess the fit between person and job" (Reference: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Organizations: A Resource Book).

In fact, according to a recent study published in Harvard Business Review (4 October 2010), introverts are not only incredibly effective, but are "the best leaders for proactive employees." Moreover, HBR points out that "Both types of leaders, the extraverts and the introverts, can be equally successful or ineffectual..."

So for example, Introvert leaders (who are "more likely to listen to and process the ideas") tend to be better leaders in a situation with a extroverted team, while extroverted leaders (who "end up doing a lot of the talking") tend to excel with a more introverted one.

However, the ultimate key according to HBR is "to encourage introverted and extraverted behavior in any given situation"--that is to use situational leadership to lead and manage according to the situation at hand, and not as a one personality type fits all world!

Katz is right that communication and collaboration are critical skills, but he is wrong that there is only one personality type that gets us all there.

(Source Photo: here)

Now That's Flexible

2011-11-15T06:00:00.007-05:00

This couch should be the poster child for flexibility.

Absolutely incredible.

It weights about 40 lbs and extends like an accordian in just about any configuration you can imagine.

One minute it's a chair, a bench, a love seat, a couch--it's straight, curvy, a circle--it's short, it's long--whatever you want.

This is what we should aim for--whether it's with technology, leadership, or life--flexibility to meet the needs of the occasion.

Like this couch--be flexible and adaptable yet stable and reliable--and you will amaze!

Relationships, Our Key To Success

2011-11-14T21:29:00.003-05:00

I have a new article out in Public CIO Magazine called "Investing In Relationship Remains The Key To Success.

"We've all read about the importance of networking and investing in your relationships--not only upward with leaders and managers, but also peers, employees, and everyone inside and outside the organization. Relationships are the glue that hold us together, enabling the trust and communications that ensure endeavors large and small are completed successfully."

Hope you enjoy the article...and what I learned from the success of John Lennon (not the musician) in South Beach, Florida.

(Source Photo: here)

Designer Bobigner

2011-11-13T14:57:00.009-05:00

In a book review in Fortune Magazine (7 November 2011) of "Steve Jobs: The Biography...His Rivalry With Bill Gates", one of Apple's early employees from the 1980's is quoted as saying "Each one thought he was smarter than the other one, but Steve generally treated Bill as someone who was slightly inferior, especially in matters of taste and style."

While Microsoft seemed to lead for many years especially in terms of "business acumen," in the end, Apple built the "more valuable company"--Jobs was the design extraordinare and his imagination for user-centric product designs like the iPhone, iPad, iMac and more touched people in ways that no "other business leader of our time could possibly match."

I have found that not everyone overtly appreciates the importance of design--and in fact, some people make fun of it, almost like children chanting "designer bobigner"--whether because they value function over design or they simply don't have "taste and style" like Steve Jobs complained about his rival.

In either case, I think people who seem or act oblivious to the importance of design are missing the incredible power of those who can develop products with an eye towards beauty, novelty, and functionality combined. A computer is a magnificent thinking machine, but an Apple is generally a work of art.

Think about how people neurotically cover their Apple devices with all sorts of protective cases as if it were a precious jewel instead of a just a phone or computer.

Art is treated as priceless, but a computer is often just a commodity. However, Steve Jobs knew how to combine the functional power of a computer with the design of a master.

While "Big Box" retailers like Wal-Mart and Costco continue to grow and expand, our world seems smaller because of it--their shelves and aisles are stocked high with rows and rows of commodity, look-a-like goods of toothpaste, sweat pants, and TVs; it is easy to forget that those products that are really valuable to us, usually aren't just good to use, but great to hold, feel, and look at.

In this light, I found two product designs that I thought were pretty cool to share.

The first is the white milk container that says Milk and the other is a box of tea bags, each bag with its own hanger for display and use of the side of a cup. The ideas are so simple, yet somehow so creative and appetizing. Two age-old commodities like milk and tea can be made new and special by how we package and meld with it in our environment.

Like the Chinese concept of feng shui, there are brilliant ways to develop our surroundings that energize and inspire, and great design is a magical element in a commodity world and what was not so long ago dominated by the one color black Ford Model-T.

Thank you Steve Jobs and the many other great design minds out there--keep the special things coming that make us say, "I want one!"

(Source Photos: here)

Dale Carnegie's Advice In The Age of Social Media

2011-11-12T12:19:00.004-05:00

Dale Carnegie's book "How To Win Friends and Influence People" is a classic (1936) and has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide.

Carnegie was an expert in techniques for self improvement and he conducted corporate training to make people better with other people.

Dale Carnegie's focus on the human capital side of management was a breakthrough in his day when many other management gurus like Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, Edward Deming and others were focused on the maximizing the production side of management through time and motion studies, functional specialization, and quality management.

Carnegie recognized that to really get things done in the organization or out, first, we need to be able to get along with others--make friends and influence people.

His ideas are principles that are as true today in the age of social media and telework as in the days of line production.

Some examples and how these might apply today:

1) "Don't criticize, condem, or complain"--It's easy to put somebody or their ideas down, but it's infinitely more difficult to be constructive by offering alternatives or a better way. Today, we try to focus on contributing something positive and being solutions-oriented whether through crowdsourcing, answering questions where you are a subject matter expert, innovating improved business processes or technical solutions, or even just rating or liking what you think is a positive idea or share.

2) "Become genuinely interested in other people"--It's easy, especially today, to become self absorbed in the world of social media, putting out new pictures of yourself, slideshows from your work, videos of your doings, and newsflashes from every moment of your life, etc. However, as Carnegie would point out, this will not make you popular or influential. Rather, use the social web to learn about others, interact with them, and build relationships. In the end, it's not about you, but about building more "we" and "us".

3) "Begin with praise and honest appreciation"--I remember learning in one of the oodles of management and leadership classes that I have been fortunate to participate in that we should always sandwich criticism between two layers of praise. Unfortunately, the praise in this context is usually not of the highest quality and sincerity, or deeply felt. But today, in an age of social media, I think we are learning to all be more open and honest with each other. Heaping praise on people, products, and services that are outstanding and putting criticism where it is due to hold unscrupulous vendors and poor quality products to answer publicly online.

4) "Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires"--It is not always easy to see things from some else's vantage point. We all walk in our own shoes and usually can't stand the smell of someones else's. But in the age of sharing and collaboration, it is not really enough to put your ideas out there and always be right; instead we need to look at things from multiple perspectives, vet ideas, put them to the test, let others improve upon them, and build a better "widget" or decision collaboratively. By sympathizing with where others are coming from and looking for the merits of their points of view and why it is important to them, we can better negotiate a solution that is a win-win for all.

In a sense, I think this is really what Dale Carnegie was trying to get across when it came to winning friends and influencing people, it's not creating a win for me, but about creating a win-win for each other, where we all walk away from the table feeling good that we were not only heard, but also understood and worked with. Then, we all own a piece of the solution; we have skin in the game, and we can work together to implement it as a team of one.

(Source Mind Map: here)

Seeing Is Believing

2011-11-11T10:41:00.007-05:00

This robotic seeing eye dog from Japanese company NSK is an incredible display of how technology can help the blind and was profiled in PopSci on 9 November 2011.

While there are reports of many advances in returning sight to the blind through such breakthroughs as stem cell molecular regeneration and camera-like retinal implants, there will unfortunately be medical cases that cannot be readily cured and herein lies the promise for robotic guide dogs.

These dogs do not provide the same companionship that perhaps real dogs do, but they also don't require the same care and feeding that can be taxing, especially, I would imagine, on someone with a handicap.

The Robotic Seeing Eye Dog can roll on flat surfaces and can climb stairs or over other obstacles.

It is activated by a person holding and putting pressure on it's "collar" handle bar.

The robotic dog can also speak alerting its handler to specific environmental conditions and potential obstacles, obviously better than through a traditional dog bark.

The dog is outfitted with Microsoft Kinect technology for sensing and navigating the world.

It is amazing to me how gaming technology here ends up helping the blind. But every technological advance has the potential to spur unintended uses and benefits in other areas of our life.

Recently, I saw an advertisement for MetLife insurance that proclaimed "for the ifs in life" and given all the uncertainties that can happen to us at virtually anytime, I feel grateful to G-d for the innovation and technology that he bestows on people for helping us handle these; sometimes the advances are direct like with Apple's laser-like focus on user-centric design for numerous commercial technologies, and other times these are more indirect like with the Kinect being used for helping the blind, or even the Internet itself once developed by the military's DARPA.

I imagine the technology cures and advances that we achieve are almost like a race against the clock, where people come up with counters to the ifs and threats out there, adapting and adopting from the latest and greatest technology advances available.

Advances such as Kinect and then taking us to the robotic seeing eye dog, bring us a little closer--step by step, each time incrementally--to handling the next challenge that calls.

This week, I was reminded again, with the massive asteroid YU55 speeding past us at 29,000 mph and within only 202,000 mile of a potential Earth collision (within the Moon's orbit!), how there are many more ifs to come and I wonder will we be ready, can we really, and whether through direct or indirect discoveries to handle these.

Tougher Than An iPad

2011-11-10T06:16:00.011-05:00

Panasonic unveiled their ToughPad this week--the FZ-A1.

This is a hardened device ready for outdoor use. Rated for MIL-STD-810G, the device is 4' shock-resistant, rated for extreme temperatures, and is resistant to water and dust with IP65 sealed design.

Currently comes in 10" size, but the FZ-B1 device is slated for a smaller 7" screen in Q2 2012.

The toughPad packs a lot of punch: This is an Android 3.2 device with 1.2 GHz dual core,1 GB RAM, 16 GB storage, 2 cameras (back 5 megapixel and front 2 megapixel), anti-glare multitouch screen 768 x 1024 megapixels, a 10 hour repalceable battery, USB, GPS, WIFI 802.11, Bluetooth, and optional 3G mobile broadband.

Optional accessories for vehicle mounting and hands-free holsters.

Priced at around $1299.

Great option for the warfighter, law enforcement, and homeland security professional as well as others working in challenging environments.

Divorce Is Not Funny, Except on SNL

2011-11-06T18:46:00.005-05:00

For those of you who watched Kim Kardashian's multi-million dollar Fairy Tale Wedding, this spoof by Saturday Night Live on her divorce, after just 72 days, was a classic.

I must say that watching the endless fighting between Kim and Kris leading up to wedding left many of us wondering how long their marriage would last--my guesstimate was 90 days or less!

Hopefully, Kim will focus not on the fairy tale wedding, but on a loving and mutually supportive relationship in the future.

All the best to Kim and the Kardashians--they are generally awesome to watch.

Some of the best that reality TV has to offer. ;-)