Showing posts with label Survival of the Fittest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Survival of the Fittest. Show all posts

February 4, 2022

Stop The Excuses

Change is hard, but often necessary.

As they say, "adapt or die." 

Of course, you can change when you stop:

  1. Procrastinating
  2. Being lazy
  3. Accepting the status quo
  4. Making excuses 

Take control of your life: change yourself before life bites back at you (and maybe hard).

We've got to slay our own demons not only outside, but inside. ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)


Share/Save/Bookmark

October 24, 2018

Herd Mentality

What do herds do?

First there are big mouths and groupthink.

Then there is chasing each others tails.

This could lead to literally going off a cliff. 

Typically, like wolves, they hunt viciously in packs.

When they are stalked, they run scared leaving the weakest to serve as prey. 

When hunted, they are separated and slaughtered. 

Sometimes they stampede and can run over anything in their path.

Occasionally, they even devour their own young to keep the herd fed. 

Herds serve a survival function in nature, but when the herd is dumb, as if often the case, they die off and are left extinct. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

February 21, 2018

From Malware To Malevolent People

So in virus protection on the computer, there are 2 common ways antivirus software works:

1) Signature Detection - There are known patterns of viruses and the antivirus software looks for a match against one of these. 

2) Behavior Detection - There are known patterns of normal behavior on the computer, and the antivirus software looks for deviations from this. 

Each has certain weaknesses:

- With signature detection, if there is a zero-day exploit (i.e. a virus that is new and therefore which has no known signature) then it will not be caught by a blacklist of known viruses.

- While with behavior detection, some viruses that are designed to look like normal network or application behavior will not be caught by heuristic/algorithm-based detection methods. 

For defense-in-depth then, we can see why employing a combination of both methods would work best to protect from malware. 

It's interesting that these same techniques for recognizing bad computer actors can be used for identifying bad or dangerous people. 

We can look for known signatures/patterns of evil, abusive, and violent behaviors and identify those people according to their bad actions.

Similarly, we generally know what "normal" looks like (within a range of standard deviations, of course) and people who behave outside those bounds could be considered as potentially dangerous to themselves or others. 

Yes, we can't jump to conclusions with people -- we don't want to misjudge anyone or be overly harsh with them, but at the same time, we are human beings and we have a survival instinct. 

So whether we're dealing with malware or malevolent individuals, looking at patterns of bad actors and significant deviations from the normal are helpful in protecting your data and your person. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

January 3, 2018

Life Cycles for Carnivores

I thought this was interesting-funny in terms of the the food life cycles for us carnivores:

For meat, it's:
"From farm to fork."

And for seafood, it's:
"From boat to throat."

Either way, we end up eating it. 

Just plain hungry or only the strong survive. 

Vegetarians and vegans can ignore this post. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

November 16, 2016

Make People and Time Count

So there was an article in Slate about how kids think these days.

And it's a reflection of the adults, of course. 

When 10,000 middle and high school students from 33 schools across the country were asked, what's more important--80% chose high achievement or happiness as their top priority vs just 20% who picked caring for others.

The kids who chose their happiness and achievement over helping others tended to score low on empathy and were at greater risk of being "cruel, disrespectful, and dishonest."

Bottom line is that these are our values that we impart when we recognize and reward our children for things like good grades and extra-curriculars, but not for helping or caring about others. 

Pretty much, I think parents worry that their kids should be able to support and care for themselves, because that's what's considered our primary responsibility as parents--to make sure the next generation survives and can go on physically and materially once we are gone. 

In a way, it's Darwinism and survival of the species and of the fittest. 

The problem is survival of our physical manifestation is not equivalent to the thriving of the spiritual being inside all of us. 

It's not enough to live, but we have to live a good and descent life.

Our bodies wither and die, but our souls learn, grow, and go on to the afterlife. 

Yesterday, I had this freakish accident, going through the turnstiles on the Metro in Washington, DC.

The person before me went right through the gates as they opened, but when I put my pass down and went through, the gates had a glitz and closed suddenly right on my legs (and my artificial hips) and I went tumbling forward hard to the floor. 

Amazingly, two wonderful bystanders (not the Metro employees who didn't even flinch or care) came rushing over to me, and literally lifted me up by the arms and handed me my wallet and glasses which had fallen to the side. 

One of the people that helped was especially nice to me, and he asked me how I was and really seemed to care that I was alright--imagine that a complete stranger in the Metro! 

The two people who stopped to help could've literally hopped right over me to rush for the train at the end of the day like everyone else, but they didn't.

To them, caring was more important than their own time. 

Maybe I got the 20% yesterday, but it made me realize AGAIN how terrific some people are and they truly make time count--by making people count--like unfortunately many others may never ever bother to. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal) 
Share/Save/Bookmark

June 27, 2016

Doing It On One Leg


Always finding people with new and creative ways to work out (and torture their bodies).

The gentleman does the stairs on one leg...

Down not so bad (but keeping your balance probably a little challenging). 

Up, one after the other, pretty impressive. 

And he did this routine again and again.

The fitness craze is taking shape...hopefully eclipsing the sedentary and gross carb diets people have adopted over the years.

Carbs, as good as they may taste (although I think you don't even really taste them as people shovel it in), should be banned or at least greatly limited as an addictive harmful substance.

And sitting all day at a desk, not what otherwise healthy people were meant to do, also big no-no.

We can't let ourselves become a society of shlubs getting fat, tired, and unhealthy--it's part of a trend of depressive and destructive personal and social behavior. 

I really think we need a Western fitness revolution--not body-worshiping--just a good healthy balanced lifestyle where we become planetary survivors again and not a bunch of virtual couch potatoes that want to make you puke. ;-)

(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

January 3, 2014

The Happiness Meter

Ever realize that no matter how hard you strive for happiness, it almost always seems just as elusive. 

There are many explanations for this:

Of course, it could also be that just because you think something will make you happy, doesn't mean it will. Often, the fantasy does not live up to the reality, and so rather than achieve happiness, we end up disappointed. 

Another explanation, from economics, is the law of diminishing marginal utility that tells us that more of a good thing, does not make us incrementally happier, rather the benefit and satisfaction that we receive from each additional unit of consumption is lower.  Let's face it, the 5th mouthful of chocolate cream pie is not as satisfying at the first, second, or third. And at a certain point, you actually will want to puke! 

The Wall Street Journal had a brilliant piece on this that explained this from an evolutionary perspective--fitter organisms are more likely to survive and reproduce, so every time we make a positive decision in our life, rather than find happiness, our "happiness meter" resets to zero, forcing us to make the next positive move in our life to make us better, if not necessarily happier. In other words, keeping us unhappy, forces us into perpetual striving. 

So while happiness has been correlated with our genetic makeup, life events, and values (New York Times) or even exercise, altruism, and supportive relationships (CNN), real happiness comes from living a life of meaning, where we find satisfaction in the journey itself, and not rely only on the destination. 

For example, Buddhists understand that life is suffering and that we need to escape the hamster wheel of jealousy, aimless external desire, and quenchless ambition and instead seek to do good and find inner contentment. 

One colleague (ex-army) of mine used to say, "everyday that I am not in Iraq and Afghanistan is a good day" and perhaps we need to think in those terms too, as we all know things can always be worse, so we would do well to find happiness not just in what we have or achieve, but in thanksgiving for what we are spared as well.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Share/Save/Bookmark

August 30, 2013

Pleasure At Pain

Why do people laugh and feel pleasure at other people's pain and misfortune?

The Wall Street Journal (20 August 2013) reviews the book, The Joy of Pain, on this topic. 

Schadenfreude is the German word for feeling pleasure at the calamity of others.

And we see people laugh, point, and otherwise gloat when others are hurting physically, emotionally, financially, and so on. 

When they fail and you succeed, you feel strong, powerful, self-confidant, and that you were right--and they were wrong!

Feelings of pleasure at other people's pain is partially evolutionary--survival of the fittest.

It is also a function of our personal greed and competitiveness--where we measure ourselves not by how well we are doing, but rather relative to how others around us are faring.

So for example, we may be rich and have everything we need, but if someone else has even a little more than us, we still are left feeling lacking inside. 

Thus, we envy others' good fortune and take pleasure in their misfortune.

In a sense, our success is only complete when we feel that we have surpassed everyone else, like in a sport competition--there is only one ultimate winner and world champion.

So when we see the competition stumble, falter, and go down, our hands go up with the stroke of the win!

Anyway, we deserve to win and they deserve to lose--so justice is served and that makes us feel just dandy. 

How about a different way--we work together to expand the living standard for all, and we feel genuinely glad for others' success and real empathy for their pain, and they too for us--and we go beyond our pure humanity to something more angelic. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution for Lukas Vermeer)
Share/Save/Bookmark

January 15, 2012

Adapt and Live!

Train

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)


Share/Save/Bookmark

July 16, 2010

What I Learned From A Beggar and A Disabled Man

This week I was riding home on the metro one day and I witnessed this strange course of events.

Typically, on the DC metro, there is not a lot of panhandling when compared with a city like NY—in fact, it is practically a rarity on the Washington, DC Metro.

So you can sort of image my surprise, when I entered the metro this week and immediately hear a young man begging for money (i.e. “a beggar”) coming down one end of the train car.

What made this particular panhandling scene really stand out though was that the beggar, who appeared young and able bodied, had a serious speech impairment. He kept trying to say something to the effect that he was homeless and needed $16 for a bed to sleep in that night. But he was mumbling, stuttering, and barely able to get the words out, but clearly he needed help and people on the train were giving him money, especially one young family, where the father put some bills into his daughter’s hand who reached out to the beggar, who gratefully grabbed the money and continued trying to repeat the words that seemed stuck in his mouth.

Then, things turned stranger, because there was another young man in a wheelchair with his back to me—so that I could not see what was wrong with him. And all of a sudden this disabled person starts yelling at the beggar to “speak up, get it out, and tell me what’s wrong” – again and again in this horrendous mocking way to the beggar who could barely speak.

The beggar kept trying to get the words out that he was homeless and needed $16 for a bed for the night—but he struggled again and again—mumbling and falling all over himself trying ask for help. And no matter how hard he tried; the disabled man in the wheelchair kept taunting him—as if holding out a bone in front of a dog, but never letting him get any. If the beggar couldn’t speak clearly and ask for the money, the disabled man wasn’t going to give him any and on top of it was going to shame him even more than he already was in front of the crowded train car.

It was devastating to watch; yet everyone did. Somehow, no one could say anything to the disabled man about his behavior—because he was disabled.

After the beggar made it past the wheelchair, staring at the man who mocked him, and made it down to the other end of the car, the beggar turned around one last time, looked at the disabled man in disbelief—like how of all people could you do this to me—and left the train.

At that point, the man in the wheelchair turned his chair and I saw he had only one leg. And he was angry. Obviously angry at the world for his loss and pain and determined to let loose on whomever crossed his path, even a speech-impaired beggar.

I thought about this human tragedy during and long after, and am still obviously thinking about it.

I suppose I expect to find situations where the strong prey on the weak—that’s like Darwin’s theory of the “survival of the fittest”, but I was taken aback by seeing one person down on their luck “getting it” from someone else who was also in pain and suffering. Somehow, I guess I just thought—maybe naively—that someone who knew “how it felt” would have more mercy on someone else in similar shoes.

I come away with a life lesson about leadership and management that for those fortunate enough to achieve these positions, you should never take them for granted. They are not an entitlement because of hard work, education, or other achievements; rather these positions are a privilege, and this teaches me that you should never look down on others or rise up on the backs of others. Each person, each life in this world is valuable. And every person deserves respect and should give respect—whether they are begging and speech-impaired or disabled and missing a leg. We all need to have mercy on one another. The world can be a harsh place indeed.


Share/Save/Bookmark

April 28, 2008

Creative Destruction and Enterprise Architecture

“The notion of creative destruction is found in the writings of Mikhail Bakunin, Friedrich Nietzsche and in Werner Sombart's Krieg und Kapitalismus (War and Capitalism) (1913, p. 207), where he wrote: "again out of destruction a new spirit of creativity arises". The economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized and used the term to describe the process of transformation that accompanies radical innovation. In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power.” (Wikipedia)

From an enterprise architecture perspective, I find the concept of creative destruction an enlightening concept, in a number of ways:

  1. Two steps backwards—enterprise architecture is not just a forward planning endeavor. Sometimes, to move forward on the roadmap, you actually may have to take a couple of step back. To build new processes or introduce new technologies, you may first have to scrap the old ones or at least stop investing in them. Just like with a physical blueprint, sometimes you can build unto an existing house or modify it, and other times, you need to bring in the wrecking ball (take a few steps back) and build fresh from the ground up. (Of course, at other times you may have to change the wings on the airplane while it’s still flying.) It is on a fresh palette that a painter can create a new masterpiece.
  2. Creativity is the future—enterprise architects should not fear bringing in new ideas, innovation, and creative approaches. Just because something has been done a certain way in the past, does not mean that it always has to be done that way in the future. In fact, stagnation by definition means that the existing processes are doomed to be obsolete and surpassed by others who are adapting to an ever changing environment. Indeed, those enamored with the past can and often are a roadblock to doing things a new way. The old guard will stand up and say, we’ve been doing it this way or that way for so many years; who are you to come in here and try and change it; we know better; you don’t understand our environment. And sometimes, they may be right. But more often than not, the naysayers are fearful of and resistant to change. With ample research, planning, and testing we can develop better, faster, and cheaper ways of doing things.
  3. Change can be radical—Much of EA change will be evolutionary, a planned sequence of steps in process improvement and technology enablement. However, some change will be more radical and revolutionary. Some organizational change requires selling off, closing down, merging, acquiring, or otherwise “destroying the value of established companies” in order to innovate and create something new and better. Like the process of evolution and the survival of the fittest, those companies and processes that are not “making the grade” need to be shut down, discontinued, or otherwise morphed into value-add forces of long-term economic growth.

One final thought. Destruction is a darn scary thing. No one wants to see their handiwork taken apart, brought down, and be forced to start again. In fact, it is hard enough in life to have to build something, but to see it destroyed and have to start again can be maddening. The mere fact of seeing something destroyed is destabilizing and demoralizing. The organization and person asks themselves: who’s to say the next build will be more stable, more everlasting, more productive? Who wants to feel that their time has been wasted on something that is now gone? Who can be so confident that their efforts will ever come again to a substantive and meaningful accomplishment, and one that compares or surpasses to what was? However, this is the clincher of creative destruction—while destruction is enormously painful and undermining to self-confidence, “out of destruction a new spirit of creativity arises.” With a fresh start, an organization or person can build anew and perhaps from the lessons of the past, from the pain of building and destruction, from the processes of working something through and evolving it, a better future can be created. And there is hope for a new enterprise or personal life architecture.


Share/Save/Bookmark

August 25, 2007

Darwin and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA seeks the long term preservation, maturation, and growth of the organization and its ability to deliver mission execution.

Charles Darwin stated that "in the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.”

In the book Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan, Darwin’s theory of survival is extended from the individual to the enterprise. “Organizations, like organisms in nature, depend for survival on their ability to acquire an adequate supply of resources necessary to sustain existence. In this effort they have to face competition from other organizations, and since there is usually a scarcity of resources, only the fittest survive.”

Even in cases where resources are abundant and self renewing, organizations are always competing to survive. This competition takes the form of who can supply the end user with the products or services they need better, faster, and cheaper. The competition, in this case, is not for resources, but to be the resource to others. For in being the supplier of choice to its customers or stakeholders, the enterprise thrives and survives in executing its mission.

Indeed, in a competitive economy, there is always the opportunity for a competitor to arise and challenge the organization’s role in the marketplace. It is this competition that is considered not only healthy, but also a cornerstone for continuously improving product and service quality and keeping prices at bay for customers.

Even in government, where some may think there is no competition, agencies not only compete for limited resources (funds, people, and so on), but also for being the provider of choice to the citizens. As one example, in the federal government, there are several agencies that can provide banking regulation, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Office of Thrift supervision (OTS), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve.

In a competitive environment, EA is a tool for business and technology planning and governance that helps an organization deliver on its mission and be the provider of choice to its customers.


Share/Save/Bookmark