Undersea Internet Cables-See Them for Yourself

I've always been interested in maps, geography, and geospatial information systems (GIS).

Coming across Greg's Cable Map--I thought this is sort of idiosyncratic, but fascinating too.

This is an interactive map of our global undersea telecommunications infrastructure.

If you ever wondered how you were able to connect with someone anywhere in the world in split seconds (satellites aside--since we all don't have immediate access to that), here it is.

How it works: Either you can search the list of cables of the right, click on any one of interest and it highlights it on the map for you or vice versa click on a telecommunications link on the map and it bring up in the right-hand column the points of the cable landings and reference to more information .

Another cool feature, is the ability to display the telecommunications infrastructure from before, during, or since any period of time--so you can get a historical perspective of what the Internet for example looked like or didn't look like only ten or fifteen years ago. Can anyone say carrier pigeon? :-)

There is also the ability to click on the bottom of the map on the check boxes for either or both the active or future cable links to see where we are now ("as-is") and where we are going ("to-be") in terms of Internet connectivity.

Next time you read in the newspaper about a large-scale Internet outage like the multiple ones that occurred when undersea cables were cut in the Mediterranean in 2008 causing outages from the Mideast to India, you can look it up here and see for yourself how "the foot bones connected to the ankle bone."

Enjoy and have a good weekend!

Undersea Internet Cables-See Them for Yourself

From Crisis To Stability

With so much chaos going on in the world (natural disasters, political turmoil, extremism/terrorists, multiple wars, economic slump, and more), our society is under enormous pressure.

The images of suffering from around the world recently seems to be rising exponentially with the near simultaneous Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accidents, the fighting all around the Middle-East, the not too distant Deepwater Horizon oil spill that went on for 3 months, and virtually all the world economies under duress.

Here is a quick chart of the crisis factors (on the left) seemingly tearing at our society as well as stabilizing factors (on the right) that are healing to it.

While at times, the challenges we face may seem insurmountable, we can remember that our capacity as human beings and as a society to adapt and grow is enormous.

Let's hold on to our beliefs and work together as a stabilizing force for social order and good in the world (a place where crisis is no longer a stranger, indeed).

From Crisis To Stability

No Ego Leadership

It’s funny that we get so used to the way things are in our country and culture that it becomes difficult to think there is any other workable way of doing things.

The New York Times, 14 February 2010, has an interview with Vineet Nayar the CEO of HCL Technologies, a global services 100 IT company based in India and ranked by Hewitt Associates in the 30 best employers in Asia.

However, reading the interview from the CEO of this Indian company opens up broad new possibilities for the way we can conduct our organizational affairs and perhaps become more competitive in the 21^st century, global market-place.

No single country, industry, company, or person has a monopoly on innovation, and we can learn from some of the outside the box thinking at HCL.

Here are some of Mr. Nayar’s thought-provoking leadership ideas:

Subject	Key Idea
Role of CEO	“My job is to make sure everybody is enabled to what they do well. It’s part of our ‘Employees First’ philosophy.”
Delegation	We “make sure everybody understands that the CEO is the most incompetent person to answer questions, and I say this to all my employees openly.”
Transparency	“All HCL’s financial information is on our internal Web. We are completely open. We put all our dirty linen on the table, and we answer everyone’s questions.”
Hierarchy	“We’ve inverted the pyramid of the organization and made reverse accountability a reality.”
Performance	“My [the CEO’s] 360 degree feedback is open to 50,000 employees—the results are published on the internal Web for everybody to see. And 3,800 managers participate in an open 360-degree and the results—they’re anonymous so that people are candid—are available in the internal Web [as well].”
Information-sharing	“We started having people make their presentations and record them for our internal Web site. We open that for review to a 360-degree workshop, which mean yours subordinates will review it. You managers will read it. Your peers will read it and everybody will comment on it.”
Feedback	Prospective employees will say “I completely disagree. And they will have a fight with me… I want people who will kick my butt on points where we disagree.”
Learning	“I want people to say they want to learn. I don’t want teachers.”

At first glance, the ideas of Mr. Nayar seem almost crazy, because they are so different from what we are used to. But upon deeper reflection, we can see value in much of his leadership style.

To me, this seems a testament that when a leader has no ego and is willing to think innovatively and behave with integrity, the possibilities for positive change is not bound by any box or paradigm. We need to realize that we can learn from everybody, everywhere, and with an open mind and of course some discretion, we can progress our thinking and ways of doing business in ways we may never have even imagined.

No Ego Leadership

Social Media Can Free Us All

An action by a lone decision maker may be quick and life-saving as in response to extreme fear or stress, when a person must in a split second select from the “fight or flight response.”

Given a little more time to make a decision, people have found that there is not only strength in numbers, but also wisdom. In other words, vetting a decision among a diverse group and hearing different sides to an issue, generally yields better decisions than an individual could make alone. Colloquially, we often here this referred to as “two heads are better than one.”

Now, with the power of the Internet, we are able to employ collective decision making en masse. Through Web 2.0 tools like Wiki’s, Internet forums, social networks, and other collaboration tools, we can reach out to masses of people across the social, economic, and political landscape—anywhere in the world—and even from those orbiting the planet on the International Space Station. Soon enough, we will take the power of the collective to new extremes by reaching out to those who have traveled and reside on distance worlds—I think that will probably be in Web 4.0 or 5.0.

What’s amazing is that we can get input from anyone, anywhere and in virtually limitless numbers from anyone interested in participating and providing their ideas and input.

When we open up the discussion to large groups of people like this it is called crowdsourcing, and it is essentially mass information sharing, collaboration and participation towards more sophisticated and mature ideation and decision making.

The concept of participatory thinking and intelligence, to me, is an outgrowth not just of the technologies that enables it, but also of the freedom of people to choose to participate and their human right to speak their minds freely and openly. Certainly, this is an outgrowth of democratization and human rights.

While the Internet and Social Media technologies are in a sense an outgrowth of freedoms that support our abilities to innovate. I believe that they now will be an enabler for continued democratization, freedom, and human rights around the world. Once the flood gates are opened a little for people to be free virtually (to read new ideas online, to vote online, to comment and provide feedback online, and to generally communicate and share openly online), a surge of freedom in the traditional sense must soon follow.

This is a tremendous time for human civilization—the Internet has connected us all. Diversity is no longer a dirty little word that some try to squash, but a strength that binds us. Information sharing no longer cowers behind a need to know. Collaboration no longer hides behind more authoritative forms of decision making. People and organizations recognize that the strengths of individuals are magnified by the power of the collective.

The flip side is that voices for hate, chaos, and evil can also avail themselves of the same tools of social media to spread extremism, crime, terrorism, and anarchy. So there are two camps coming together through sharing and collaboration, the same as through all time—good and evil.

The fight for truth is taking a new turn through technology. Social media enables us to use mass communication and collective intelligence to achieve a high goal.

Social Media Can Free Us All

Lessons from Space for CIOs

There are no CIOs in space. At least not yet. Someday, as we colonize space, there will be. And information technology will be more important then ever as communications, information sharing, collaboration, and new ways of doing things enable people to live and work in distances that are now just the realm of science fiction.

As I read about space tourism in MIT Technology Review, January/February 2009, I realized there are already lessons for CIOs from space travel even in its nascent stages.

• Modernize, as needed—as technologists, some erroneously think that everything has to be swapped out and modernized every few years (for example, many organizations are on na 3 year refresh cycle—whether they need it or not!), but the Russian space program teaches us differently. They modernize, not on a fixed time, but rather as needed. They work by the principle “if it’s not broken don’t fix it.” Here’s an excerpt: “You can look at the original Soyuz, and the same physical design—same molds, even—appear to have been used throughout its history…But anything that has ever gone wrong or failed, they fix. Or if there is some new technology that comes along that would be of significant benefit, they change it also. Isn’t this a novel principle that we can adapt for sound IT investment management?


• Functional minimalism--for many organizations and individuals, there is a great desire to have the latest and greatest technology gadgets and tools. Some call these folks technology enthusiasts or cutting-edge. And while, IT is incredibly exciting and some missions really need to be cutting-edge to safeguard lives for example. Many others don’t need to have a closet with one of every software package, hardware gadget, or new tool out there. I’ve seen mid-size organizations that literally have thousands of software products—almost as many as people in the entire company! However, on the Russian Soyuz space vehicle, we see a different way. One space tourist noted: “It’s sort of a functional minimalism.” You don’t need tons of gadgets, just what is operationally necessary. CIO’s, as IT strategists and gatekeepers for sound IT investing, should keep this principle in mind and spend corporate investment dollars wisely, strategically, and with careful selection criteria. We don’t need one of everything, especially when half of the investments are sitting in a closet somewhere collecting organizational dust!


• Technology is 3-D—Our IT environment is still mostly stuck in a two-dimensional paradigm. Our user-interfaces, controls, and displays are still primarily flat. Of course, many have conceived of IT in a more real three-dimensional portrayal for example using 3-D graphics, modeling and simulation, holograms, virtual controls, and even virtual world’s in gaming and online. As CIO’s, we need to encourage the IT industry to continue rapid transformation from a 2-D to 3-D technology paradigm. As a corollary, in space where there is little to no gravity such as on the International Space Station, “It is cluttered, but then after a while you realize, well that’s true if you’re thinking in 2-D, but once your brain shift to 3-D, you realize that it isn’t.”


• Think strategic and global—The CIO and his/her staff gets lot of calls everyday based on operational issues. From simple password resets to the dreaded “the network is down.” When firefighting, it is easy to fall into a purely operational way of thinking. How am I going to get this or that user back up. But getting all consumed by operational issues is counterproductive to long-term planning, strategy, and monumental shifts and leaps in technology and productivity. One space tourist looking out the window in space summed it up nicely for CIOs (and others) to get perspective: “You’re out there in space looking back at Earth, and in a way, you’re also looking back at your life, yourself, your accomplishments. Thinking about everything you own, love, or care for, and everything else that happens in the world. Thinking bigger picture. Thinking in a more global fashion.” Maybe every CIO need a picture window view from the Internation Space Station to keep perspective?

Lessons from Space for CIOs