Technology, History, and Commentary on Amateur Radio

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.
– Albert Szent-Gyorgi

The most eclectic Amateur Radio site on the Internet

…One of the essays, by Susan J. Douglas, looks at the excitement set off by Marconi’s introduction of radio – the “wireless telegraph” – to the American public in 1899.

“Wireless held a special place in the American imagination precisely because it married idealism and adventure with science,” she writes.

Popular Science Monthly observed: “The nerves of the whole world are, so to speak, being bound together, so that a touch in one country is transmitted instantly to a far-distant one.” Implicit in this organic metaphor was the belief that a world so physically connected would become a spiritual whole with common interests and goals….

The rise of wireless also set off a popular movement to democratize media, as hundreds of thousands of “amateur operators” took to the airwaves. It was the original blogosphere. “On every night after dinner,” wrote Francis Collins in the 1912 book Wireless Man, “the entire country becomes a vast whispering gallery.”

Listen to Amateur Radio in real-time, now, this very moment, on-line here

Burn a feed to this site (RSS) – http://frrl.wordpress.com/feed/
(What the heck is RSS?  Watch this and find out in 3 min. 45 sec.)

A 1960′s Astatic D-104 Mic in the 21′st century – a real baby boomer

I made a pass through my basement to see what “valuable radio artifacts” (some call it junk) I could unearth.  I discovered a couple of Astatic D-104 Microphones.  (See more old Mics).  These Mics were made a long time ago and Astatic has a rich history going  back to 1933.

Here is a bit of history from the Wikipedia on Astatic and the D-104

Introduced in 1933, the Astatic model D-104 was popular for its high frequency response which resulted in very intelligible audio.

Its high output voltage was characteristic of crystal elements and its high impedance allowed for direct grid input. The early D-104 mikes used a 1″ thick case and have a large ID tag along with tapped holes for “ring & spring” mounts. The case thickness was reduced in April 1937 and smaller tags were then used and the ring holes eliminated. The “grip” switch stand (“G” Stand) was introduced in January 1938 but didn’t become popular until much later. The early “G” stand bases were gloss black with metal ID tag.

The D-104 continued in production with little change until the 1960s when a solid-state amplifier was added to the “G” stand. In 1976, an eagle and shield was added to the rear cover to commemorate the US Bicentennial. Other variations appeared from time to time until 2001, when production ceased, 68 years after the first D-104 was offered. [4]

The D-104 is often used by CB radio hobbyists and vintage amateur radio enthusiasts as part of their operating activities.

I bought the D-104′s about 5 years ago for use with my collection of vintage Kenwood (see them) and Heathkit (see them) radios.

It Worked the last time I used it !!

Once unearthed I found that one of the D-104′s worked and one did not.  “It worked that last time I used it” is a familiar phrase well known by all  who attend hamfests or flea markets.  At a hamfest or flea market the seller wants to dispose of items in the most expedient way possible.  To say that it worked the last time they used it is a good use of plausibility deniability for the seller (but bad for you the buyer).  If you’re a seller, don’t test the item.  Ignorance is bliss… and this blissful strategy could make a fast sale.  If you are a buyer, don’t forget to ask the seller about the 30/30 guarantee – 30 feet or 30 seconds.  Doubtful you will get any more than this.

But, both D-104′s really did work that last time I used it.  Really, no kidding. So I have plans for both of these D-104 microphones.  Use one.  Gut one and find out why it doesn’t work – (stay tuned for a posting on this)

The D-104 on a modern radio – the Yaesu FT-7800

The Astatic D-104 was designed in the age of tube radios which require a high impedance microphone.  High impedance is usually 5,000 – 10,000 ohms.  Modern solid state radios generally want a microphone of about 600 ohms impedance.

Would the Astatic D-104′s work with my modern Yaesu FT-7800 dual band VHF/UHF radio?   (read my review of this radio)

Nothing like giving it a try.

Spit and Bailing Wire

Since I was not sure if it would work I jury rigged a setup using a terminal strip, alligator clips, a telephone extension cable, and some paper clips.  It took about 10 minutes to set this up.

700,000 Amateur Radio Operators in the US? Perhaps the real number is 157,000

700,000 Licensed Amateur Radio Operators… ??

So, at the start of 2012 there are supposedly 700,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the United States. Let’s ask some questions…  Is this more or less than in previous years?  What are the historical trends over the past decade? Over that past few decades?  How do certain events affect the number of licensed operators?  What about dropping the code requirement in 2007 – what measurable effect did that have?  What about other countries – Australia, Germany, Japan, and so on.  How large is the population of Amateur Radio operators in those countries and how do those numbers and trends compare with the United States?

If you are a stakeholder with the ARRL then you can ask even more questions… What are the trends in the ARRL sections and ARRL divisions?  How well do the ARRL membership numbers track the growth or decline of licensed amateur radio operators in the US?  What percent of the amateur radio operator population does the ARRL capture as members?  Can you measure the success of the ARRL by comparing the number of members against the number of licensed amateur radio operators in the US?

What other questions can you ask and answer if you had a load of historical amateur radio licensing data and some good statistical analysis?

Tons of Amateur Radio license data at your fingertips

There’s an informative website that provides detailed statistical analysis of Amateur Radio licenses

http://ah0a.org/FCC/index.html

Some of the ready-made reports are:

• Australian Amateur Statistics (thru 30 June 2010)
• German Amateur Radio Statistics (thru 31 December 2008)
• Japanese Amateur Statistics (thru 31 March 2009)
• Spanish Amateur Statistics (thru 31 December 2008)
• U.K. Amateur Statistics (thru 31 March 2009)
• U.S. Amateur Statistics (thru 16 January 2012)
• U.S. Amateur Radio Licensing Trends
• Average Life Table
• US Totals

For US Amateur Radio, you can drill down into ARRL Divisions and Sections

• Geographical Charts: Aug 1999 → Jun-2011
• ARRL Divisions Map
• ARRL Sections Map
• States Map

So, if you want the skinny on the statistics of Amateur Radio licensing sliced and diced in all sorts of ways plus the capability of doing you own data mining and reporting then the site URL above is for you.

Discovery, Insight, and Decision making – Turning data into information

Having the raw  data on licensing along with the statistical analysis might give insight into answering some interesting questions and pose some new questions.  It’s all about discovery and turning raw numbers (data) into information that can inform decisions and provide insights.

700,000 Licensed Amateur Radio Operators – What does it really signify?

As of the beginning of 2012 there were 700,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US. An amateur radio license is good for 10 years before expires.  If the license is not renewed then your are off the list and are not counted in the 700,000.

But this number of 700,000 may be misleading depending on what you think it signifies.  This number does not represent the number of active amateur radio operators – and it’s the active people that matter- not the inactive.  Many people may have gotten a license for the Amateur Radio service, gave Amateur Radio a run around the block, and then lost interest after a short period of time.

This loss of interest, the fact that they have no intention to renew the license, and the 10 year longevity of the license means that this 700,000 number,  if taken to represent that number of people active in Amateur Radio, would be misleading.

The 700,000 number really does not mean a lot if the majority of them have lost interest. It may be of benefit to some to quote large numbers – 700,000 in this case – to try to make a case for significance.  But when it comes to “boots on the ground”, “showing up”, and “making a difference” it’s only the active people that count.

So, if the number is not 700,000 (a best case high-water mark) then what is it?

The ARRL as the only (national) game in town

One clue on how to find the number of active Amateurs in the US might be to look at the membership of the ARRL. The ARRL is the American Radio Relay League. The ARRL is the “only game in town” as a national organization incorporated as a 501 C(3) charity that is dedicated exclusively to the advancement of Amateur Radio.

According to the ARRL’s strategic plan its mission is:

To promote and advance the art, science and enjoyment of Amateur Radio.

And the ARRL has a Big Hairy Audacious Goal:

Amateur Radio will be recognized as a valuable, innovative, technical and public service avocation.

The ARRL, as a national organization, is the public face of Amateur Radio in the United States.  This is the value proposition from the 2006 Strategic Plan:

• Develop strategic alliances, coalitions, and relationships with a varied of public, private, and not-for-profit organizations to advance Amateur Radio.
• Maintain personalized relationships with key, government decision- makers and agencies at the national, state and local level.
• Build a strong strategic position and wide recognition as the credible source of Amateur Radio information.
• Develop positions on key issues of interests and importance to members and the Amateur Radio community.
• Become branded for being a powerful advocate and voice for Amateur Radio.

You can read more about the ARRL on their web site: http://arrl.org

So, of the 700,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators can we get a clue as to the number of active licensee’s from additional statistics based on ARRL membership? Since the ARRL is the only (national) game in town then the hypothesis is that active hams gravitate to the ARRL – there is seemingly little other choice in the United States.

ARRL Membership Statistics

The ARRL publishes membership statistics in its Annual Reports.  These Annual Reports are available on their web site back to 2002.  So, based on the number of licensed operators in the US (from the first web site mentioned above) and the membership of the ARRL (as reported in their Annual Reports) perhaps we can combine the two sets of data and mine some interesting information and ask some new questions.

Here are our current questions

1. How many of the 700,000 license amateur radio operators are actually active?
2. Does the membership numbers of the ARRL give us an insight into the true number of active amateur radio operators?

Here is the analysis based on the data provided on the web site above and data gleaned from the ARRL Annual Reports.

Review: 35mm Film to Digital Conversion

Suppose your parents or grandparent lay on you dozens of boxes of what is shown above.  What are those?  Those are “slides”.  Slides, and the negatives from which they were produced, are a remnant of a past age of photography before the technology disruption to the industry ushered in by digital cameras.

Those slides and negatives hiding in your parents and grandparents closet may have some valuable memories.  But, how to do view those images today, in the age of digital photography?

You can unlock those memories of the past and bring them into the digital universe for less than $100.  A while ago I picked up a very low-end device that can scan these 35mm slides and convert them to digital form.

There are many units on the market that can do this.  This posting is a review of only one.  But the real purpose of this post is to encourage you to go find those slides and negatives from your parents, grandparents, friends, and family and take a look at some history.

Review of the Wolverine F2D 35mm Film to Digital Converter

This is a very low-end device at low-cost.  But, if you want to get your feet wet and take a look at all those 35mm slides and negatives then this might be a good choice for you based on my experience.

The Wolverine is very easy to use.  You don’t need any software to scan the images.  The unit is self-contained including digital storage and a wall wart power supply.  No computer is needed – but of course you will want to use one along with your favorite image editing software after you digitally convert your 35mm slides and negatives.

Scan

The Wolverine comes with two trays – one for slides and one for negatives.  Simply open the tray and load it.  Turn the unit on and scan one slide or negative at a time.  The scans are at 5 Megapixel and it’s fast.  It only takes about 2 seconds to scan each image.  You will find that you spend more time loading and unloading the trays then you will spend on scanning the images.

Trivial editing

The Wolverine does allow some trivial editing of the image before you save it.  For example, the device will scan the image and show you a preview in a small color LCD screen,  You can choose to rotate or flip (mirror) the image before you save it to storage.  If you take a quick look at the slides or negatives before you load them and get the correct orientation in the tray then this trivial editing in not necessary.  No other editing is possible, nor should there be.  This unit is purpose-built for converting 35mm slides and negatives to digital form – that’s it.   Editing can be done after you get the images on to your computer.

Upload to computer

After you scan you slides or negatives connect the device to a USB port on your PC.  As with a traditional digital camera the device will show up as an external storage device.  You can then process the images just as you would with a digital camera.

The resolution of my scanned 35mm slides came out to  be 2520 x 1680.  Certainly suitable for viewing on a large monitor or for printing.

Edit as needed

I scanned about 200 slides and negatives.  On many, the color was off.  This may be due the Wolverine digital conversion process, the age of the slides, the slide processing, or the wrong exposure when the photograph was originally taken.  No matter the source of the color error these images are easily improved with digital photography software that can be had at no lost or up to whatever level of sophistication you desire.

The Take

My family has a huge collection of slides and negatives.  I can remember as a kid sitting in the living room watching the “big screen” while images were shown one by one along with commentary and discussion with the assembled masses.  If you were real lucky/unlucky you got treated to a slide show at a friend or neighbors house while they clicked through the 80 slides in the Kodak Carousel slide projector of their vacation or their family event.  If you saw a stack of a dozen Carousels you knew you were in for quite a night – in more ways than one.

The time when the family or family, neighbors, and close friends sat in a darkened room along with snacks and drinks and the famous Kodak Carousel clicked through the recorded memories of vacations and notable events may not be altogether gone.  Some may have never known such a time.

But, with entry-level 35mm film to digital converters for less than $100, image editing software, and easy one-click sideshow creation by free software programs then perhaps it’s not that hard to re/create this family event.  In this case, the digital image replaces the 35mm slide; the computer or DVD player replaces the projector; and the large screen TV set replaces the big screen with glass beads. The chance to get together with family, friends, and neighbors to relive memories of the past remains the same.  But in this case, given that these images originated as 35mm film in the distant past they may be of special significance to children and grand children. Children and grand children many have never seen these images and events they as part of  family history. To create such an event and opportunity for them would it be worth a $100 investment and a few hours of your time?

From AMC’s Mad Men

What I learned from a Sun Parrot at the Pet Store

A few days ago I went to the neighborhood pet store to pick up some food for my miniature giraffe.  On my way to the back of the store where this item is kept I passed the bird section.

On the end cap I saw a cage with parakeets.  It was a good size cage with about 30 birds in it.  The parakeets looked almost identical – hard to tell one from another.  The price of the parakeets was $25 each.

After I grabbed a bag of food from the back of the store and was making my way back to the front retracing my path I again passed the large cage of parakeets.

But on this pass, I took a look down the aisle where there were other birds on display.

Glancing down the aisle I noticed a large magnificent cage.

In the cage were ladders, bells, a mirror, plastic chains and all sort of bird-toys.  There was a large bowl of food and another bowl of water.

Inside the cage was a Sun Conure

The 30 or so parakeets in the end cap cage had a single communal food bowl and water bowl.  The birds had to take turns eating from the bowl and there was some pushing, shoving, and beak pecks among the birds to secure a position  at the bowl.  The same with the water bowl.  There was certainly enough room for all 30 birds but they all shared the same cage and had take turns with the toys and perching positions.  In the best of all possible worlds, there was enough food and water for all of them.

I looked to see the price of the Sun Conure.  The price was $500.

So it made me think that there was a basic law at work here in the Pet Store

You are treated commensurate with your value

Interesting. The Parakeets in the end cage, which were nearly all identical and common, where $25.  The Sun Conure was $500.

Why?  Was is scarcity? Certainly the attributes of the Sun Conure were more appealing than the common parakeet.

Perhaps there is an interesting analogy here with people.

If you have common skills, if there are many of you, and if there is nothing to differentiate your from the next guy in line then “society” will treat you “commensurate” with your value.

How do you increase your value?  Differentiators and scarcity along in the direction of desirability as judged by the market.  Perhaps the parakeets in the end cap cage need a union.

Preparing for the 21st century workplace: 20 trends to watch

Recently, at a coffee shop, I heard a couple of people talk about sending a resume.  A few of the options were sending the resume by postal mail or sending the resume by FAX.  So it made me wonder about a few things.

What company has a FAX machine?  And even if they did, then where would your FAX’ed resume end up in the scheme of things?  Postal mail?  A resume in printed form is going to be at a disadvantage in a company where the Human Resources department uses software to scan and do content analysis and keyword search on resumes in digital form.  Are they going to OCR-in your FAX’ed resume?  Perhaps you will eliminated at the front gate.

What will a resume be in the digital generation?

I met many people who run away from corporate collaboration sites.  They don’t blog, write, or collaborate via these common digital age tools.  They seem to be “heads down” workers – they do only what they are told to do – no up’s and no extras.

What will be the profile of a successful employee in the 21′st century corporation?

The C-Suite is under fire from the Millennial generation.  Why isn’t the CEO, CFO, CMO, and other C-suite executives blogging?  This is the question that the Millennial generation is asking when they enter traditional hierarchical organizations.  Traditionally,  CxO’s did not have to communicate directly to employees.  Blogging and social media is the air the Millennials breathe.  They’re natural collaborators who enjoy a conversation, not a lecture.  So why doesn’t the CxO blog?  And, I definitely want to be able to post a comment in response.

What will define successful leadership for a 21′st century organization?

In some companies, traditional IT departments along with their CTO’s and CIO’s are being caught off guard by employees bringing wireless tablets to work.  “What is this unregistered device doing on our corporate internal network?”  In response, the employee might say things like.. This is a way I can work more productively… My office is wherever I have my iPad … I can work on the train on my ride to work… Why does my physical office have to be the only place I can work? … Will you implement a ROW? – Results Only Workplace and let me work at home?

Where will your “office” be in the 21′st century?

All of the above is happening right now and it’s a harbinger of the future – if not the present and the future in the making right now.  The above lists are a few trends from my personal experience in a number of companies across multiple industries over the past few years.

I came across this more comprehensive list from the source cited below.  If you are still sending your resume by postal mail or FAX then you might want to study the list below carefully to increase your chances of getting a job in this, the 21st century.

TWENTY PREDICTIONS FOR THE 2020 WORKPLACE (from THE 2020 WORKPLACE)

The 2020 workplace will be full of surprises. The best you can do is start today to adapt to, respond to and prepare for the wild cards that will surely be coming your way. So, to assist you, here are 20 trends predicted to occur in time for the 2020 workplace:

1. You will be hired and promoted based upon your reputation capital. This is the sum total of your personal brand, your expertise and the breadth, depth and quality of your social networks.
2. Your mobile device will become your office, your classroom and your concierge. Mobile phones and tablets will be the primary connection tool to the Internet for most people in the world in 2020.
3. The global talent shortage will be acute. The global competition for highly qualified workers will take shape in 2020. The U.S. Department of Labor predicts that U.S.-based employers will need 30 million new college-educated workers in the next decade, while only 23 million young adults are expected to graduate from college in that period.
4. Recruiting will start on social networking sites. Recruiting for the vast majority of professional jobs will start in one of the highly trafficked social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Bebo, Twitter and Second Life.
5. Web commuters will force corporate offices to reinvent themselves. With the growth of corporate social tech, it will be irrelevant where employees work as long as they deliver results to the team.
6. Companies will hire entire teams. As teamwork becomes increasingly important in the global workplace, companies are seeing the value of hiring and training an entire team to tackle business problems.
7. Job requirements for CEOs will include blogging. Keeping in touch with customers, the marketplace and employees is an important role for CEOs.
8. The corporate curriculum will use video games, simulations and alternate reality games as key delivery modes.
9. A 2020 mindset will be required to thrive in a networked world. The 2020 mindset will incorporate abilities in social participation, thinking globally, ubiquitous learning and cross-cultural power.
10. Human resources’ focus will move from outsourcing to crowdsourcing.“Crowdsourcing” refers to how companies, such as Lego, Procter & Gamble and Boeing, use the wisdom of crowds to develop solutions to R&D problems, designs for products and new ideas for businesses.

Every 60 seconds on the Internet & seeing around corners

There are three kinds of death in this world.  There’s heart death, there’s brain death, and there’s being off the network – Guy Almes

The graphic above has been posted to many sites.

As interesting as this is, what would be more interesting if we knew the growth rate of these things.  The above is a snapshot in time – from about June of 2011.  But, as a snapshot in time, it’s already obsolete.  If we could only have a sort of “flip-book” of these graphics and see the changes in the Internet over time.  If we did, then that would only be a view of the past – what good is that?  Can we infer the future from the past?

Did the post office think they would have a linear future?  How about booksellers, video stores, travel agents, newspapers, or the 100 or so other industries that found their business model disrupted by changes in technology and culture?  The age of long-term strategic planning is gone – the future is discontinuous, emergent, and non linear.  Those who will be successful will need to see around corners.

What about global communications?  How has this changed and who could have predicted it?  In 60 seconds on the Internet …

•         Facebook – 695,000 status updates, 79,364 wall posts and 510,040 comments are published
•         E-mail – 168,000,000+ emails are sent
•         Twitter – 320 new accounts and 98,000 tweets are generated
•         Tumblr – 20,000 new posts are published on the micro-blogging platform Tumblr
•         LinkedIn – 100 accounts are created on professional networking site LinkedIn
•         Skype – 370,000+ minutes of voice calls done by Skype users

Alvin Toffler got it right

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn  – Alvin Toffler

View a related post – http://frrl.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/amateur-radio-when-all-else-fails/

Social media demographics – http://frrl.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/socialmediademographics.jpg

Amateur Radio – Reality Check from the Wife

I snagged this on YouTube

Geez

The above video was created by K6FRC.  Web site – http://k6frc.com/
This must be a tolerant wife (cache web site pages) – http://frrl.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/wa6mhz.pdf

Conversational Challenges

Did you ever encounter someone who could not have a conversation?  Did you ever encounter the opposite – someone who could not stop talking?  Between these two extremes there must be some middle ground, techniques, and operational rules for having a good conversation.

Who better to consult than Scott Adams of Dilbert fame?  Adams has written a couple of blog entries on conversation and listening.  You can find the links to these blog posts at the end of this posting.

Adams has come up with a pretty simple definition of a good conversation

The objective of conversation is to entertain or inform the other person while not using up all of the talking time. A big part of how you entertain another person is by listening and giving your attention. Ideally, your own enjoyment from conversation comes from the other person doing his or her job of being interesting. If you are entertaining yourself at the other person’s expense, you’re doing it wrong.

Adams goes on to say that, by his observation, only 25% of the population has this understanding of a good conversation.

The Challenge

Some people put up a pretty good challenge to having a good conversation.  Here are some miscreants:

1. Topic Hijackers.  These are people who join an existing conversation and hijack it to talk about what they want to talk about without a natural transition.  In a well-ordered conversation one topic generally and naturally leads to another topic in its own time – it’s the natural flow of a conversation.  Topic Hijackers steal the conversation and are generally not good listeners – or, don’t want to listen.
2. Mad Tea Party.  Named after the ride at Disney Land in the context of the stated “infamy” of the ride.   Spinning tea cups on a turntable.  These are people who enter a conversation and change the topic and direction after almost every exchange.  This generally creates conversational nausea.  Changing the topic of conversation may cause the experience of dizziness, loss of balance, and motion sickness.  Perhaps changing topics so often is a sign of lack of depth of knowledge on a topic.  Or perhaps the lack of the ability to sustain attention, direction, or focus on a single topic for any sustained period of time.   (ADD)
3. Conversation as self-entertainment and/or self-indulgence.  These are generally people who talk mostly about themselves.  According to Adams, if the point of the conversation is self-entertainment then you are doing it wrong (If you are entertaining yourself at the other person’s expense, you’re doing it wrong.)  This could also be related to “conversational narcissism“.
4. Failure to merge.  Think of an on-ramp to a highway.  You want to enter the highway.  Done properly, while on the on-ramp you gauge the speed of the traffic on the highway, adjust your speed to match the traffic, and merge seamlessly into the existing traffic flow.  If other cars have to speed up or slow down then you’ve done it wrong.  Same with conversations.  Understand the flow and cadence of a conversation and merge seamlessly.  Some people don’t know how to do this and they create a conversational wreck with other participants.
5. Conversation as monologue.  People who are not capable of “chunking” a conversation.  Sure, you have a lot to say but give the other person a chance to respond without them having to interrupt you.  Conversation is give and take – in short intervals.  If you are talking for more than about 15 seconds at a time without giving the other person a chance to respond then you are nearing monologue mode.  If you are talking too much you are probably not listening enough.

In reading the Adams blog entries I encountered the mention of Asperger Syndrome - which I had to look up.  Folks with Asperger Syndrome have trouble understanding the subtleties of human social interaction – despite a high IQ.

The most distinguishing symptom of AS [ Asperger Syndrome ] is a child’s obsessive interest in a single object or topic to the exclusion of any other.  Some children with AS have become experts on vacuum cleaners, makes and models of cars, even objects as odd as deep fat fryers.  Children with AS want to know everything about their topic of interest and their conversations with others will be about little else.  Their expertise, high level of vocabulary, and formal speech patterns make them seem like little professors.

Children with AS will gather enormous amounts of factual information about their favorite subject and will talk incessantly about it, but the conversation may seem like a random collection of facts or statistics, with no point or conclusion.Unlike the severe withdrawal from the rest of the world that is characteristic of autism, children with AS are isolated because of their poor social skills and narrow interests.  In fact, they may approach other people, but make normal conversation impossible by inappropriate or eccentric behavior, or by wanting only to talk about their singular interest.

Do children with AS get better? What happens when they become adults?|

With effective treatment, children with AS can learn to cope with their disabilities, but they may still find social situations and personal relationships challenging.  Many adults with AS are able to work successfully in mainstream jobs, although they may continue to need encouragement and moral support to maintain an independent life.

So lets add these to the list of conversational challenges

6. Single Topic conversations.  These are people, that no matter how the conversation starts out, will find a way to drive the conversation back to their favorite topic.  They seem to have few other conversational options.  They may have a narrow set of interests; experts in one field but lack breadth of knowledge or general knowledge that would position them to have a conversation with an ordinary citizen.  How many of these folks might be adults with AS?
7. No topic conversations.  These are people who simply have nothing to talk about.  Could also be a sign of the deeper problem of lacking social skills and techniques of social interaction and communication.

By far the most interesting to me are those people who have nothing to say. They have no opinion, no comments, and seemingly no ideas. How can this be? Sometimes I can jump-start the conversation by asking them what they do for a living (people like to talk about themselves). If I get them talking about what they do then maybe I can find a thread to expand the conversation. Sometimes, if I keep feeding them topics they will respond; but only in short pithy sentences.  Stop feeding them questions and they stop talking.  These people never get going - give them a little “push-start”, expect them to get going, but they never do.  Perhaps these people are still trying to find their passion. Left to their own devices, without the conversational jump-start, the silence is deafening.

The only way out of these conversational challenges is to try to actively manage the conversation.  Some people have very little self-awareness that they are committing these conversational sins.  Tread carefully in helping them come to a self-awareness and what a conversation could be in the best of all possible worlds.

But, bottom line.  Success, in any endeavor, requires good communication skills.  Check out this article on How to Master the Art of Conversation.

Perhaps those who have nothing to say are your best opportunity to practice your conversational craft.  And, while practicing your craft you have the opportunity to help someone else become a better conversationalist… which they can then pass on to others… and so on, and so on…

References

Conversation on the Scott Adams Blog – http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/conversation/
Active Listening – http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/active_listening/

More on the Art of Conversation – from the Art of Manliness website
http://artofmanliness.com/2010/09/24/the-art-of-conversation/
http://artofmanliness.com/2011/05/01/the-art-of-conversation-how-to-avoid-conversational-narcissism/

Perhaps it’s time for you to retire – “without cause”

It’s always interesting to watch companies…  what they do…  and what they try to get away with…  and what they hide… and what they disclose… and how they manage their image.

And in all of this, you as – shareholder, employee, stakeholder, or other interested party get to make an assessment of what the company thinks of you when they make public statements that affect your view of the company, its executives, and the company performance in general.  Are they (the company PR) telling you the truth?  Or, are they trying to cover something up?

You may or may not have a stake in the company.  If not, then these events can be pure entertainment and, perhaps, an education for what to watch for in those companies or organizations in which you do have a stake.

So over the past few months we have come to the end of the calendar year.  Christmas and the holidays is a nice time for senior executives to retire.  Of course, upon the announcement of retirement, there will be a glowing and rosy statement of the senior executives accomplishments and achievements over the years the senior executive has been with the company.

But how many of these are voluntary retirements and how many of these are, what I will call, “retirements with cause” at the hands of corporate Board of Directors?

How can you determine if the “retirement” of a senior executive is voluntary or if s/he was “shown the door” by the Board?

Since when does taking vacation mean you don’t show up for work?

Christmas is this weekend.  So this is a good time to watch employees differentiate themselves.

I had the opportunity this morning.
It’s an important project.  We have contract deliverables due at the end of the calendar year and some are late.
We have a conference call each morning at 8:00am for a “plan of the day” to get this done.

Two people who were on vacation today did not show up on the call
One person who was on vacation did show up on the call
For the rest of the team this was a working day and they all showed up.

The person who was on vacation who did show up on the call is also on vacation all next week and will be traveling to her parents house for Christmas & New Years celebration.  This individual has budgets to do which have to be completed by the end of the calendar year.

I asked her is she will complete them.  She told me she is taking her laptop with her to her parents house and will complete them next week while on vacation and submit them by the end of the calendar year as promised.

What to learn

People have plenty of opportunities to differentiate themselves

1. Committment to promises they make (commitments to themselves)  - no matter what
2. Committment to the team – They don’t let other team members down
3. Committment to the project – The project has contractual obligations which have monetary penalties if not delivered on time.
4. Committment to the company – The company’s brand is built on the quality of the projects it delivers

So, for the folks on vacation that could not phone in for a 30 minute conference call for an important project…
… I suppose that “vacation really does means vacation” – no matter what.

Sometimes it’s easy to pick the winners from the losers; the A-Players from the B and C-players…
… and who you would select for your next critical high-profile project.
People just somehow sort themselves out all by themselves.
All you need to do is watch and observe behavior at every opportunity that presents itself.
And those opportunities are plentiful.

On the assessment: “I did nothing wrong”

“The harm here is not measured in the value of property or money,” Judge James B. Zagel said before telling Mr. Blagojevich his fate. “The harm is the erosion of public trust in government.”  – NY Times

A couple of days ago, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich got 14 years in the slammer for corruption (read).  For as long as he was on trial he maintained that he “did nothing wrong”.

A few weeks ago, former Philadelphia schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman filed for unemployment benefits after getting  a nearly $1-million dollar buyout to get rid of her.  (read).  She was quoted saying,  ”I did nothing wrong” (read)

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Former Philadelphia schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who was given a nearly $1-million buyout earlier this year, has applied for unemployment.

School District spokesman Fernando Gallard today confirmed that Ackerman wants to collect state unemployment benefits.

“The former superintendent did apply for unemployment,” Gallard told KYW Newsradio today.

This comes after taxpayers funded a $905,000 buyout when she was shown the door in August (see related story).

As part of her separation agreement, the School Reform Commission agreed not to contest any unemployment claims she might file.

Then there was Mr. Flick.  Mr. Flick, after winning $2 million in the lottery still uses food stamps at the tax payers expense.  Did he do anything wrong?  Can you embarrass him?  Unlikely.  From Mr. Flick: (read)

“If you’re going to … try to make me feel bad, you aren’t going to do it. It ain’t going to happen,” he said.

What about what’s happening in Bell City…  Can these folks say, “I did nothing wrong?”  (read)

But, the essence of the thing is that Bell City Manager, Robert Rizzo, was being paid a salary of $770,000 per year.  Bell City is primarily a blue-collar town of about 40,000 people. A typical salary of a Bell City resident is about $28,000 per year.  About 17% of the town lives in poverty.

The Bell City Council worked it out so that Rizzo would get a near 12% raise each year and they themselves – the City Council – paid themselves about $100,000 per year for part-time work.

Rizzo got fired. But that does not mean he will lose his pension of $709,607 per year. Depending on how long Rizzo lives, the total payout of pension benefits could be close to $30 million dollars.  And that $30 million dollar pension for one person is on the backs of the taxpayers.

Blagojevich

So when Judge Zagel sentenced Rod to 14 years in the slammer the  Judge made a few observation…

Zagel: “I can not comprehend that even if you are guilty, you don’t think you caused harm to Illinois.”

Zagel: “You did good work. But I’m more concerned when you wanted to do good only when it benefited yourself.”

Zagel: “Your personality may not be entirely suitable for public service.”

Zagel: “Blagojevich’s staff did not march him down this criminal path. He marched them.”

Will making tighter laws and rules solve the problem?

It seems that whenever something bad happens there are those who want to pass a law to prohibit this or that bad behavior.  Rather than make  more laws and rules perhaps we need better people in these pivotal decision-making roles.  That is, people who can make better judgements.  What is better?   In the case of those in public office and those who make decisions for organizations and corporations one can ask,  in whose benefit are decisions and judgements made?  To the benefit of stakeholders (citizens or shareholders) or do people make decisions, as Judge Zagel says of Rod,  “You did good work. But I’m more concerned when you wanted to do good only when it benefited yourself.” 

The accounting equation that doing good makes up for doing bad…

There also seems to be another curious idea at work in some peoples minds.  The idea that good and bad are entered into some kind of accounting equation.  And, if the good things you do somehow have more value than the bad things you do then those bad things are ignored or erased.  In some sense, do more good than bad and you will be forgiven for the evil that you do.  When revenue matches expenses in a business you are at the breakeven point.  But I’m not sure that in moral and ethical judgements this sort of accounting and balancing act works so well.  But, some think that it does.

A Gift – The Ambiguity in rules and laws

There is not enough ink or paper or time to codify good behavior.  No set of laws or rules can accommodate every situation.  As such, you need people in political office and leading corporations who can make “good” judgements and have a solid track record of such judgements.

According to Dr. Martha Stout, a clinical psychologist, 1 in 25 people is a sociopath (read)

So, in a group of 100 people  just who are the 4 people who are likely suffering from, what used to be referred to as, “Moral Imbecility“?  Who are the 4 in the crowd of 100 that make decisions that could be considered what Judge Zagel observed of Rod as, “You did good work. But I’m more concerned when you wanted to do good only when it benefited yourself.”  Who are the 4 that put their self-interest above all the rest?  … and try to pass it off as something good for the company, organization, or the citizens?

It is a gift that rules and laws have a “space” that allows for one’s own conscience to make a decision on how to behave and tell right from wrong.  Without this “space” it would be harder for ”us” to determine just who are the 4 people in the crowd of 100 that are the ruthless ones.  (The Sociopath Next Door (paperback) by Dr. Strout)

Can you manufacture a “space” for individuals to reveal their character and judgement?  That is just what the Tru TV Reality Show Bait Car does.  This reality show creates a ready-made opportunity for an average citizen to make a judgement.  Leave an unlocked car with keys in a conspicuous spot and watch individuals that see this car make a judgement of right and wrong.  It’s a benefit to society to catch these folks using a staged “bait car” before they do the damage of theft to an ordinary citizen.

Do we need more laws and more rules to stop bad behavior?  No.  It’s impossible to codify it all.

The Take

Maybe all we need to do is pay closer attention to the “space” in existing rules and laws and let those who make judgements within this space take the bait and reveal their true character, motivations, and judgements.

Catch them in the small things – the small judgements and tiny decisions they make.  Catch them early enough, take then out of play, and maybe this will lessen the damage they can do on the big things – to others, organizations, corporations, political office, and perhaps society in general.

Read a related article on this site about the principal-agent problem -
http://frrl.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/the-principal-agency-problem/

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

I told this story once before.  Relevant to this posting, here it goes again.  When I was in college I took a class on  Mathematical Philosophy.  On the first day of class I sat next to a woman who was an undergrad major in Philosophy.  As part of exchanging basic introductions I told her I was majoring in Physics and Mathematics.  When she heard I was studying Physics she asked me this question:  “Why do you think that the World lends itself to mathematical formulation?”

I have never forgotten this question for these reasons:

First, in my naive way of thinking at the time,  I did not think someone could ask such a  question.  Mathematics simply works.  Using Mathematics one can make predictions about how the World works and verify these predictions experimentally.  Even in Quantum Mechanics, the Schrodinger Equation makes a prediction about the probabilities of outcomes which experimental evidence has proven to be correct over and over.  Some, like Einstein, would hold out for the “hidden variables” theory that mathematical models would predict exactly what would happen if we had a better  model and more information.  In this context Einstein made the famous statement, “God does not play dice with the Universe.“  Einstein could not accept that the way the world worked was based on probability.

Second, it taught me a lesson that I validated over and over again.  The people that will make the most progress in any discipline are the people who can formulate the right questions.  As sort of a corollary, I will always remember this:  “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought”.  – Albert Szent-Gyorgi.

Some who write about the sad state of Physics education today point to the fact that academic institutions are turning out physicists who are more practitioners (technicians and engineers)  than they are  scientists that are adept at framing critical questions and seeing things in novel ways outside traditional paradigms of thought.  Progress in Physics is often about shattering existing paradigms by framing the right (probing) questions and seeing things in novel ways.  But we also need the people who can do the work to test the theories that Einstein, Hawking, and others push out using pencil, paper, and imagination.

If you are one of those who likes to ask hard questions about the nature of Reality from the perspective of modern physics you might want to check out this book by Brian Greene

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

I told the story above because Chapter 10 ( Universes, Computers, and Mathematical Reality) and Chapter 11 ( The Limits of Inquiry)  in Greene’s book treats this issue of the role of mathematics in Physics.  Not only that but these chapters also tie together several other interesting topics.  For example: the ability of computers to simulate the physical  laws of a Universe;  the ability of computers to simulate sentient beings; and finally, whether the reality of the world is exactly the reality of mathematics. (Mathematical Realism)

It’s easy to tie in Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near which predicts a time when human beings, using technology, will transcend their biology by creating computers that can exceed the mental capacity of humans.  As regards simulated Worlds, one only need to look at Second Life where an alternate reality is created by computers and humans animate avatars in this world.  How far is the final step for Second Life?  That final step being that sentient beings become part of the simulation and those sentient beings wonder about their world while “we”  (their creators) look in on their world in sort of a God-like privileged position of creator of their Universe

Here is what Greene has to say about the Reality of Mathematics

For centuries, mathematicians and philosophers have wondered whether mathematics is discovered or invented.  Are mathematical concepts and truths “out there,” waiting for an intrepid explorer to stumble upon them? …

Review of the Amazon Kindle Fire: comparison with the e-ink Kindle (video)

From time to time I check in on the video blog of David L. Jones.

David is an electronics design engineer and, if you are into electronics engineering, he has a great video blog.

Get a cup of coffee and watch this 40 minute comprehensive hands-on video review of the Kindle Fire and comparison with the previous generation e-ink Kindle.

Highly recommended

Review of the Amazon Kindle Fire – Has Amazon lost its way on e-book readers?

It might be unfortunate that Amazon has named its table the Kindle Fire.  In some sense it sets the expectation for potential buyers  that the Kindle Fire is a follow-on (and improvement) to the predecessor Kindle – a dedicated e-book reader.  The Kind Fire does  much much more than the predecessor e-ink Kindle.  But, is the Kindle Fire a better e-book reader than the predecessor e-ink Kindle?  I think not.

After you get past the glitz and all the new capability of the Kindle Fire over the e-ink Kindle and get down to actually reading books on the Fire, I think some people are going to be in for a major disappointment.

Sure, the Kindle Fire has a bright screen and crisp characters but it lacks certain functionality that traditional e-ink Kindle users have come to expect.

Bringing the world of books to the visually impaired – gone

Of some minor note, and appeal to a small segment of the e-book reading population, is the e-ink Kindle voice navigation capability.  For those who have a visual disability or failing eyesight the e-ink Kindle placed in voice navigation mode will speak as you navigate through the menus and move the cursor around the screen.  So, for example, on the home page of your list of books, e-ink Kindle will read the book titles to you as you scroll down the list.  Press enter and go to that book.  E-ink Kindle will tell you where you are in that book.  Use any  menu to navigate the book and e-ink Kindle will tell you exactly which menu item you are on.  Turn on text to speech and e-ink Kindle will read the content of the book to you.

The point is simply that e-ink Kindle can literally bring the world of books to the visually impaired.  I might even say that, with some basic training. a completely sightless person would be able to become engaged in the world of books with e-ink Kindle for a very low-cost.  With the Kindle Fire – all of this is gone.

No more Text to Speech

Even if you are not visually impaired the capability of e-ink Kindle to turn just about any book into an audio book was a great feature that many people enjoyed.  You could do something else and still listen to a book read to you by e-ink Kindle.  I personally “read” more books due to this feature.  In Kindle Fire, this capability is gone.

No Collections – an endless disorganized list of books to infinity

Review of the Amazon Kindle Fire – First Impressions

 

Updated on Friday November 25,2011 with additional comments and links to Kindle Fire Tear down and articles

On Sunday November 20, 2011 I toddled down to my local Best Buy, laid down $208,  and bought a Kindle Fire.

On this particular Sunday there was a feeding frenzy at Best Buy – despite what they tell me about the economy and the fact that people do not have disposable income.  There were plenty of people disposing of their income on this particular Sunday.

Also, this  particular Best Buy has decimated the retail space dedicated to desktops.  The floor space that was dedicated to the display of desktop machines that I saw about a month ago has been reduced to about 1/3 its original size.  Tablet’s and laptops now fill that space.  When I went looking for the Kindle Fire I saw just about every other conceivable tablet on the market being displayed.

Although I went to buy the Kindle Fire, seeing all the other tablets on display, I decided to look around.  I asked the “Blue-shirted one” if they had the Kindle Fire in stock and how many they had.  He said they had the Kindle Fire and pointed to a cage of stock above the wall displays.  I looked up and saw they had about 200 boxes of Amazon Kindle Fire – so I had time to look around.

When I finally decided on the Fire I stood in line to ask the Blue-shirted one to get me one out of the cage.  I was the third in line.  “How many do you want”, he asked.  I said, “Just one’.  The guy in front of me bought six (6) Kindle tablets.  The woman behind me bought one.  When the manager saw the Blue-shirted one coming down the ladder with an arm load of Kindle Fire’s he went off to the store manager to inquire if there was a limit of how many tablets a person could buy at one time.  While waiting in line to pay I watched as the stack of about Kindle tables in the cage was diminished foot by foot.

Can hundreds and thousands of people be fooled into buying a Kindle Fire?  Is the frenzy an example of marketing genius?  Or does the marketing hype deliver on the promise?  Does Apple have anything to worry about?  Is the Amazon Kindle Fire an iPad killer?

After playing with the Amazon Kindle Fire for a few days – here are my first impressions

“What hath God wrought” – The Digital Society in the next 30 years

“What hath God wrought” was the first public American Morse code message sent in 1844, from Baltimore to Washington D.C..  (read about Samuel Morse)

This message was under 140 characters in length.  Was it the first “tweet”, so to say?

To ascribe the invention of the Telegraph to “God” and not to man is significant.

Like the invention (or discovery?) of Radio we now live in an age where we can project our thoughts and things that matter out across space and time… and this changes everything from what has come before.

If “God” gave us these tools for global communication then what will “we” do with them?
If we don’t have a plan, then where will these tools take us?
Do we leave our destination to chance or do we plot a course?

This is the lead in to an interesting talk by John Battelle

Get a cup of coffee and watch this 20 min talk (and shameless plug for a book)

VMWARE Fusion 4 – the apple from the Garden of Eden

You could wonder if VMWARE Fusion 4 is the work of the devil.  Or perhaps it’s the snake from the Garden of Eden.  Or in the ultimate irony and twist of fate, perhaps VMWARE Fusion 4 is the apple from the Garden of Eden, offered by Eve to Adam, which was responsible for the downfall of Mankind.

That’s exactly what VMWARE Fusion 4 seems to be.  It’s a temptation.  Fusion 4 from VMWARE allows Mac OS X users the capability to run a Windows operating system on a Macintosh.  Or worse, it allows the wholesale migration of an entire existing Windows machine into the Mac.  Why would anyone want to do that?

I and other true-blue Mac users know that a Windows operating system should never be installed on a Mac.  To install Windows on a Mac would be like seeing a velvet Elvis hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris.    It simply is not done.  And you don’t have to explain this to people who understand.  You don’t have to convince anyone at the Louvre why a velvet Elvis should not be there just as you don’t need to explain to true Mac users why Windows should never be co-mingled with the Mac.

We all understand why.  Steve Jobs said it best

The only problem with Microsoft is that they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste and what that means is – and I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way – in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas and they don’t bring much culture into their product… Why is that important?  Proportionately spaced fonts comes from typesetting and beautiful books – that’s where one gets the idea.  If it weren’t for the Mac they [Microsoft] would never have that.  I am saddened not by Microsoft’s success – I have no problem with their success; they have earned their success for the most part. I have a problem with the fact they make really third-rate products. – Steve Jobs

Boot Camp

This is why I have avoided Mac Boot Camp.  Boot Camp provides the capability to install Windows in a partition on a Mac computer.  It’s probably the case the Steve Jobs, a good  business person, reluctantly agreed to building this capability into a Mac.  Perhaps this  provided an opportunity to win more Mac users if Apple offered a machine that could run both the Mac and Windows operating systems.  So, Boot Camp may be Apple’s offering of redemption in the post apocalyptic Garden of Eden that we now live in where the majority of personal computers are based on Microsoft Windows.

A moment of weakness

In a moment of weakness I decided to see what the snake was offering.  You can get a 30 day trial of VMWARE Fusion 4 from the VMWARE website.

Breaking Paradigms: life-work balance, non-linear life, diversity

Statements and questions often present decisions that have already been made for you.  Sometimes simple statements encode a way of thinking that may not be a good choice or a good way of looking at things – or even, the only way of looking at things.

The work-life balance. 

I hear this all the time.  To some, this statement is incomprehensible.  To others, the premiss is questioned.  And still to others, the implicit dichotomy of work and life is taken as an unquestioned statement of fact.  In fact, “the work-life balance” can become prescriptive as to how you see the relation of work to life – my life is not my work.  Really?  Why spend so much time on “not your life”?

Could an artist understand work-life balance?  Probably not.  If you do what you love then there is no distinction between your life and your work – it’s a false dichotomy.  Maybe anyone who can say “work-life balance”  and instantly undersand what it means has the wrong kind of job.

When will you retire?

The assumption here is that life is linear.  That is, first you work and then you retire to enjoy yourself.  Why?  If you wait until you are in your 60′s or 70′s to enjoy life (read: retire) then maybe you will be too old to really do much of anything interesting especially if that involves physical exertion.  Does life really need to be linear?  Why not “play hard” and “work hard” – but not wait until you are too old to really enjoy life.

Diversity

A simple word heard in many contexts.  When I hear this in a corporate environments I take the extra time to read what “Diversity” includes and what it excludes in that particular company.  Usually, Diversity is defined in terms of ethnicity.  What about age diversity?  In any large company there are 4 generations that need to work together, be motivated, be rewarded, and form relationships. How is this accomplished across generations that may have fundamentally different values?   Shouldn’t Diversity programs include age diversity?  Or, is age diversity now more dangerous to talk about than diversity related to ethnicitiy?

Choice Architecture

All of the above can be seen as forms of “choice architecture”.  Choice architecture is a sort of gentle “nudge” or “shaping the conversatino”  to get you to make a decision, think in a certain way, or not question something. 

It’s a form of steering people without those people being aware that they are being directed in a certain direction.  Sometimes, it’s even unintentional but the results of both  intentional and unintentional choice architecture and steering is the same.  What if no one ever told you about “Work-life” balance as an implicit dichotomy?  Why wait to retire before you have fun?  And it seems that the challenge of “diversity of ethnicity” is now somehing that has a well-worn history in the past – working across the generations is a new challenge for many large companies.

Read a couple of articles on Choice Architecture and people who want to help you make choices in “your best interest”.

Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin at the Food Court: the Concept of Libertarian Paternalism

When Nudge comes to Push and Shove…

Read about the generations -
http://frrl.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/the-generations-cadence-and-dropping-out/

The Museum of Broadcast Communications

If you are interested in the history of broadcast communication you might want to check out -

http://www.museum.tv/

Read more about the history of radio on this site – http://frrl.wordpress.com/tag/history-of-radio/

What are your limits?

Delivery Assurance

A week ago or so, I attended a program review meeting at a large company.  In attendance were a dozen project managers.  These project managers (PM’s) were juggling about two dozen projects which had complex interdependencies, tight contractual deadlines to deliver on specific dates, and a history of missed milestone dates and financial targets.  It was not a pleasant situation for any of them including the executive sponsor who was responsible (read: outcome) for the whole program.

Aside from the obvious project management challenges (resource constraints, critical paths, etc), a few of the project manager complained about the amount of time it was taking them to do reporting.  Many of them  were working through the weekend to get these reports ready which were due each Monday.  The project was managed with Microsoft Project which automatically presents various dashboards on progress and financial metrics.  But there were some reports that had to be done in EXCEL.

Much of what was needed in EXCEL could be done in a few clicks using EXCEL pivot tables.  But some PM”s did not use this – they did it “manually” – although they knew what pivot tables were.

This is not a posting on project management, Microsoft project, or pivot tables.  It’s about making an assessment of people and their capabilities.  Sometimes, it’s the very small things about people that can tell a big story.

The self-imposed limits people set for themselves

It’s always an interesting observation to look for the limits that individuals set for themselves.  What is the self-imposed boundary of what people will learn and what they will not learn?  How much “peripheral vision” do people have in what goes on around them as opposed to a laser-like focus on just what they are responsible for directly as defined formally.  If people get in trouble with a difficult task what do they do – ask for help, stew in their own juices, get frustrated, give up, what?  How do people deal with frustration and uncertainty?  What is their level of commitment.. what do they “say”…  and how do they demonstrate it?  Is that they say, and what they do, in conflict?

For some of the project managers above it was an interesting tradeoff on this very simple issue of reporting.  Do you spent a few hours learning about pivot tables knowing that it can reduce the workload on yourself?  Or, do you just “cut and paste”, count and filter, format and align, and work in a way you have always done before and with which you are comfortable?  You can differentiate people based on their choices in simple matters like this.  For some, learning is hard.  For others, learning is easy and interesting.  For some of these project manages, no doubt, they will choose to spend the weekend time doing the work as the option that is “least painful” to them.  Everyone will make a choice now that everyone knows there does exist a simple way to do the reports – at the expense of the cost to each of learning something new.  Is learning hard or easy for each of these individuals?  What does their choice say about their long-term potential as project managers or perhaps, beyond this, leading to a role in a Project Management Office (PMO).  Who do you pick for the PMO to lead project managers in delivering the set of programs and projects that deliver the corporate strategic initiatives?

A further observation is worthy of mention.  Those PM’s that already had a pivot table working to do the reports never shared it with the others.   Nor did the PM’s that were struggling ask for help from the other PM’s.  The dozen project managers were all working on the same program.  The program as a whole would succeed or fail (on deliverables and financially) based on the collective and collaborative work of all of them.  Some PM’s were so focused on his/her own work that most failed to see the larger picture of the value of their collective work.  None of the PM’s have any financial incentives; they all are on salary and they will get the same salary no matter how well the program succeeds or fails.  Not only that, there is no collective incentive that would encourage them to work together to make the program a success.  In short, the PM’s have no skin in the game.

… and for executives as well…

More thoughts on the Amazon Kindle and ebook readers in general

I’ve owned a Kindle for the past 5 months.  Over that period of time I have used almost all the features of the device.  I have several hundred books on the Kindle including purchased books, free e-books, PDF’s, and other assorted files such as MP3′s.

So, I’ve “been there, done that”.  Here are some observations after 5 months

1. The most useful feature to me is the  ability of the Kindle to read a book to you.  The Kindle can play media that is a true audio book but, more importantly, the Kindle can turn almost any book (unless specifically disabled) into an audio book through generalized text to speech capability.  The voice of the Kindle is actually very good.  It is tolerable to listen to the synthesized female voice – at least, I got used to it.  So, I find that I “read” more books when I don’t have time to “read” a book when I can listen to the book being read to me.  The advantage of having  a book read to you is that you can concentrate on listening and thinking rather that combining the act of reading and listening.  The Kindle has a set of speakers on the back, and a headphone jack, so take your pick for the listening mode most enjoyable to you.
2. Library books.  My local library and the library system to which my local library is a member is now offering to lend books in the Kindle format.  Basically what happens is you check out a book in the library collection and if there is a Kindle edition you get re-directed to the Amazon.com web site.  You download  your public library loan from Amazon.  The lending period is 7 or 14 days ( your choice).  You can download the book to Kindle or you can have Amazon deliver your library loan over wireless.  When the loan period expires the Kindle the library book is no longer readable on the Kindle (Digital Rights Management).  When the loan expires, you have a choice to purchase the book (good partnership for Amazon) or delete the book (unreadable) from your collection.  Public library lending in Kindle format mediated by Amazon is a real win.  Add the fact that most of my public library loans were “speech enabled” books you not only get a book in traditional form but also an instant “audio book” of the loan.
3. Shared highlights.  Another win.  Since College, I have been reading with a pen or highlighter.  Most of the books I own are marked up.  Kindle lets you highlight and mark-up library loans.  If you borrow the book again, you get your highlights back.  If you buy the book, you get your highlights.  With the ability to highlight and with Amazon mediating the whole mess highlights can be shared.  On a recent loan, I found sections  of the book that were highlighted by hundreds of people.  It’s interesting to look to see what other people think is important.  Kindle makes reading a community event.
4. Great battery life.  I only charge the Kindle once a month for traditional reading.  If you use the text to speech capability (or playing MP3 files) then you will get about 16 hrs of use before a recharge.
5. Kindle e-mail drop box and conversion utility A capability that I seem to use more and more is a capability provided by Amazon to convert and transfer documents to your Kindle.  Every Kindle has an e-mail address that is hosted by Amazon (e.g. yourid@Kindle.com).  So, send a PDF, or any supported document to this address and Amazon will convert it and store it.  Next time you turn on the wireless on your Kindle, Amazon will transfer these documents (or converted documents) to your Kindle.  I use this a lot.  Send interesting things that you find during the day at work or web surfing to the @kindle.com address and you will find it waiting for you on the Kindle.
6. Web Surfing.  The Kindle tries hard to make this work for you.  It has an “article mode”.  If you are reading a web page and the browser on the Kindle can find something that looks like an article (for example, an article in a newspaper) it will try to reformat it for you so you can page through it in readable text.  Nice try.  But, surfing the web on the Kindle has to be an “on emergency” basis.

The downside

I still  can’t get past the fact that, for me,  reading a book on Kindle is a diminished experience compared to a traditional (“real”) book.  Earlier this week the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson was released.  Since this book was available in Kindle format I could have gotten the book “instantly” – there is no inventory problem and there is no waiting for a physical object to be delivered to you.  You don’t even have to travel to the bookstore to get it.  But, I didn’t want to read it on the Kindle.  Why?  Don’t know.  So, I waited and got the real thing.

The Kindle or any e-book reader will never replace a book filled with pictures, illustrations, and art work.  Unfortunately, these days, many books are only text.  Perhaps the advent of the Kindle and other book readers will motivate traditional book publishers to “up their game” to produce more beautiful books.  Books are about content for sure, but it’s also about the presentation of that content that make the reading enjoyable and extends the literary meaning of the words with imagery and illustrations.  Words alone can not express all that can be communicated.  For some books, art, illustrations, and photographs communicate what worlds alone can not express. The current format ebook readers can not reproduce this sort of rich communication – at least until that e-book reader was the size of a coffee table book.  And any e-book reader that big would not be viable.

The Social Consequence of Kindle

I found one of the Kindle commercials very curious.  In this 30 second commercial an attractive young woman asks a guy to go to the bookstore with her to get a new book.  The guys says that he has that book on his Kindle and it only took 60 seconds to download it.  So, no trip to the bookstore for these two.  And no trip to the bookstore means giving up any social interaction that this would have entailed.

In my neighborhood the bookstore is a social meeting place as much as it is a place to buy books.  This Barnes and Noble bookstore has the traditional Cafe as well as regular entertainment and lectures from authors.  The Cafe has an amply supply of board games available for free use and it is not uncommon to see people in the Cafe playing a game of chess or checkers or having a conversation on the topics of the day.  This Barnes and Noble has several book discussion groups that read different genre’s of books.  We certainly have fallen far from the Salon’s of France in the 17′th century but I could imagine, with a stretch of light years (in both distance and time), that when I see what goes on at my local bookstore there is a faint glimmer of what these used to be like.

So, when I see a commercial like this I wonder if the Kindle will create a generation of people reading books “alone, together”.  Weren’t you going to the bookstore?  Bookstore’s deliver a social experience that can not be delivered wirelessly to any e-book reader in 60 seconds.  Expediency at the cost of loss of social interaction.

You can read other articles on this site related to the Amazon Kindle here -
http://frrl.wordpress.com/tag/kindle/

The Hammer of Witches

Halloween is just a few days away.  If you missed the posting from last year you can read it this year.

Read The Hammer of Witches -
http://frrl.wordpress.com/2010/10/30/malleus-maleficarum-the-hammer-of-witches/

Perhaps a nice story to tell the children on Halloween in the back yard around the bonfire.
History can be scary… !

Real Men in the Digital Age

A while ago I went wandering into the local Microcenter.  Microcenter sells lots of stuff – computers, cameras, printers, books, calculators, and all the rest.  Basically, they sell computer stuff.  They also sell T-shirts.  What sort of T-shirt would I find at Microcenter?

There was a display for “Geekware” in the corner.  What sorts of T-shirts would be in the bin?  I took a look.  One of the T-shirts had this in white letters on a black shirt.

“Real men don’t use computers, they BUILD them.”

Curious.  I searched on-line to find a picture of this T-shirt for this posting.  Couldn’t find one.  But, I did come up with this which is a similar sentiment.

So, lets stick with “Real men don’t use computers, they BUILD them.” with all deference to those who build elevators.  Obviously, the intent of this saying presupposes someone would buy this T-shirt as a status symbol.  If this saying is a status symbol to a certain demographic of buyer then what are these people  thinking?

I remember hearing this sort of  thing from IT (Information Technology) System Admins:  “These machines would run better if there were no users logged in.”  There was a recent episode of the The Big Bang Theory where one of the guys was going to spend an enjoyable evening installing a dozen operating systems on this machines while his roomate was planning to go on a date.

Bottom line, seems that some folks think of  technology as an end in itself.

I picked up the new book on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and am working through it.  What strikes me about Steve’s conception of the Macintosh computer was that it would “change the world”.  The computer was to be an enabler for people to do wonderful things.  And so it has – Desktop publishing, digital darkroom, music, movies, and all that the computer has enabled us to do on the Internet.

Real men don’t use computers?  Really?

Building computers today is assembling pre-manufactured functional parts (case, disk drive, motherboard, CPU, memory chips, etc.) using little more than a screwdriver.  Today “they build them” is not what The Woz did when he designed, built, and wrote the software for the first generation of Apple I computers.

I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.

Some look at an airplane and see a half-million parts flying in formation.  Other’s see it as transportation to see the world.  Some see computers as an assembly of components with the goal of little more than to run an operating system.  Others see computers as a tool that enables and extends human creativity and imagination.

In the book on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson there is a picture of Steve in his home in Palo Alto.  The picture was taken in 2004.  The caption has this quote.

I like living at the intersection of the humanities and technology.  — Steve Jobs

What is the value of technolgy without people and society and art and design?

In Apple products, the technology exists only for and because of the user.

Apple products are the convergence of technology, art, and design.  People love holding, looking at, and using  the iPad, iPhone, Macbook Air, and the rest of the product line.  These products are not stamped out pieces of sheet metal that characterize so many consumer products. 

Steve Jobs had the kind of  thinking that enabled Apple to become the second largest U.S. company by market capitalization behind Exxon Mobil.  Apple surpassed $300 billion dollars in valuation in 2011.

Think Different!

The difference between leaders and managers

From Seth Godin’s Blog on 22 Oct 2011

Managers work to get their employees to do what they did yesterday, but a little faster and a little cheaper.

Leaders, on the other hand, know where they’d like to go, but understand that they can’t get there without their tribe, without giving those they lead the tools to make something happen.

Managers want authority. Leaders take responsibility.

We need both. But we have to be careful not to confuse them.

And it helps to remember that leaders are scarce and thus more valuable.

The difference between leaders and manager is a well-worn topic.

Here is another take

Management is about results. A manager is given certain assets – people, money, and equipment – and they are expected to make the most of them to deliver an expected outcome. Management is quantifiable, measurable, and almost a science. Companies gain a significant advantage over competitors by being more adept as practitioners of the management discipline.

Leadership is an art. It’s the secret ingredient that makes people commit more of themselves to their work, to make extra effort, and make work personal and not just part of their job.

Management is almost mechanical and  a well-understood discipline.  Leadership is selling the vision and engaging people and is not so easily learned or replicated.

Managers focus on yesterday and today.  Leaders invent tomorrow.

People report to managers, but they follow leaders.  

People who have no followers are not leaders – no matter where they are in the organizational hierarchy.

Admired leaders focus their time and attention on others. They do not place themselves at the center; they place others there. They do not seek the attention of others; they give their attention to others. They do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires; they look for ways to respond to the needs and interests of their constituents. They are not self-centered; they are constituent-centered.

At times leadership has to be tough.   Leadership is also about getting the right people in the right jobs and getting the wrong people out.

By about age 25-35 it’s interesting how people sort themselves out in the workplace – Leader, manager, or individual contributor.  And generally, the choice they make will follow them to the end of their careers.

Who better to consult in this topic than Steve Jobs. Here are a few quotes

On employees

My job is not to be easy on people. My job is to make them better.
—CNNMoney.com/Fortune, February 2008

On firing employees…

It’s painful when you have some people who are not the best people in the world and you have to get rid of them; but I found my job has sometimes exactly been that—to get rid of some people who didn’t measure up and I’ve always tried to do it in a humane way. But nonetheless it has to be done and it is never fun.
—Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, April 20, 1995

On a culture of excellence…

People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.
—Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward, 1987

On corporate culture…

It’s not just recruiting. After recruiting, it’s building an environment that makes people feel they are surrounded by equally talented people and their work is bigger than they are. The feeling that the work will have tremendous influence and is part of a strong, clear vision—all those things.
—In the Company of Giants, 1997

On Accomplishment…

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me.… Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful—that’s what matters to me.
—CNNMoney/Fortune, May 25, 1993

Steve Jobs, a life well-lived

What is there to say about Steve Jobs?
There is everything to say, and nothing to say.
There is nothing to say because what Steve accomplished – the demonstration of his talent – says it all.
There is everything to say because of what can be learned from him.

Personal Stories about Steve

I met Steve Jobs twice.  It was in the mid to late 1980′s when Steve founded NeXT after getting booted out of Apple.  On both occasions a small group of people from research universities were invited to come see the NeXT factory in Redwood City California and talk to Steve about the NeXT computer in education and research.  We got treated to dinner with Steve at a nearby restaurant  and had some Question & Answer time with him. 

Many people have stories about Steve.  There is the public Steve and the not-so-public Steve.  At one of these events at NeXT, during dinner, I was talking with a 20-something CEO of a company that was doing NeXT software development.  Near the end of dinner we saw Steve sitting by the bar by himself.  We wandered over there to have a one-on-one chat.

On the day that Steve died many people were asked to tell a personal story about Steve.  Some of these folks were caught a bit off guard and really did not have too much time to think about what they were going to say.  They told a story of a personal encounter which portrayed a Steve Jobs that was very blunt, to the point, and had little regard for the use of delicate language.

That was my experience with Steve.  He is very direct, to the point, and has excellent use of the language – in all its forms.  What I did not expect is for Steve Jobs to give the 20-something year old some unsolicited advice about women.  But he did.

The Reality Distortion Field

I also did experience what some have called “The Reality Distortion Field”.  This is a field surrounding Steve Jobs when he is talking about an idea or vision.  If you are within the reach of this field it’s hard NOT to see the future he describes.  But once at a short distance outside the reach of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field you wonder if it’s at all possible.  An example of the Steve Jobs RDF is NeXT to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate and personal investors.

“I want to put a dent in the Universe” – Steve Jobs

What is for sure is that Steve Jobs was the heart and soul of Apple.  Some people go through life never finding their passion or their place.  You ask people in grammar school, “What do you want to do?”  They don’t know.  You ask them again in High School.  They don’t know.  You ask them in College.  They still don’t know.  And in life, their job, is a choice by accident and they can’t wait to retire if they only had enough money.  Retire to do what?.  They don’t know.

I believe that Steve Jobs always had an answer the question, “What do you want to do?.  And the answer was simple, “I want to change the world”.  His whole life was a demonstration of that simple principle.

So, who’s next and what’s next for Apple?

Steve Jobs hand-picked Tim Cook as CEO of Apple before stepping down as CEO due to his illness.  Why?  It does not seem an obvious choice.  If you read this postI tried to make the point that there is a huge difference between those who are creative and visionary and those who are operations and support people.  A company needs both – Vision and execution.  Both sets of skills in the same person is unlikely

Who is Tim Cook?  From the Apple Web site

Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple and serves on its Board of Directors.Before being named CEO in August 2011, Tim was Apple’s Chief Operating Officer and was responsible for all of the company’s worldwide sales and operations, including end-to-end management of Apple’s supply chain, sales activities, and service and support in all markets and countries. He also headed Apple’s Macintosh division and played a key role in the continued development of strategic reseller and supplier relationships, ensuring flexibility in response to an increasingly demanding marketplace.

Prior to joining Apple, Tim was vice president of Corporate Materials for Compaq and was responsible for procuring and managing all of Compaq’s product inventory. Previous to his work at Compaq, Tim was the chief operating officer of the Reseller Division at Intelligent Electronics.

I suppose I can ask the question many people are asking.  Tim Cook is clearly a guy that can keep the lights on and the “trains running on time”.  But can he lead a visionary company like Apple given the track record of the shadow of Steve Jobs?  Given Tim’s experience, I’d say, “no”.   (read more)

The Take

Having grown up using Apple Products and following the career of Steve Jobs I can say that Steve Jobs is an example of a life well-lived.  His life and his work should be an inspiration to everyone.

Some links which may be of interest

• Ideas@Innovations: Remembering a legacy
• Steve Jobs told students: ‘Stay hungry. Stay foolish.’
• Timeline: Key dates from the life and work of Steve Jobs
• Poll: What will be Steve Jobs’ greatest legacy?
• Steve Jobs and the Beatles
• PHOTOS: Life of Apple’s Steve Jobs
• Apple fans: Jobs lives on through products
• Steve Jobs, visionary behind Apple, dies
• What inspired Steve Jobs to innovate
• Putting Steve Jobs in perspective
• Video highlight from The Wall Street Journal
• VIDEO: From garage startup to industry leader
• Steve Jobs: Apple, Pixar, inspiring innovation
• Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO
• VIDEO: Steve Jobs stepping down as CEO
• Putting Steve Jobs in perspective
• Apple campus flags at half staff
• Tim Cook, here’s how to lead Apple
• Apple hits and misses

What to do next: the most important decision in your career

This is another plug for Seth Godin’s blog – http://www.sethgodin.com
Seth has new tidbits of wisdom almsot every day.

Here is what he wrote a few days ago

What to do next
This is the most important decision in your career (or even your day).

It didn’t used to be. What next used to be a question answered by your boss or your clients.

With so many opportunities and so many constraints, successfully picking what to do next is your moment of highest leverage. It deserves more time and attention than most people give it.

If you’re not willing to face the abyss of choice, you will almost certainly not spend enough time dancing with opportunity.

When I read this post I thought about the graphic shown above.  The graphic shows the proportion of creativity/intuition vs deterministic activity for one model of the product development life-cycle. 

On the left hand side, the activity is to imagine a new thing that does not currently exist.  For some people, ideas naturally occur to them.  In fact, for some people (read) they can’t stop new ideas from entering their heads. 

On the right side is production.  Production is rote repetition – no creativity is needed, nor is any creativity desired.  In fact, in formalized processes deviating from the process, established by others, is punished.  To the farther right, not on the diagram, is product service and support.  Product support and service is generally scripted and highly deterministic.

So there are millions of people out of work.  What is amazing is the number of people who are in a sort of “wait state”.  They are waiting for someone to give them a job.  Why?  What are the other choices not considered?

To Seth’s point above, it’s about opportunity and choice.  Some folks constrain their choice.  They think they are dependent on someone else to give them a job.  Why?  What about the entrepreneurial adventure?  With the spate of reality TV shows such as Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Storage Wars, and all the rest don’t people get the idea that one can make their own opportunity without waiting for the intervention of someone else to give them a job?

My guess is that those people who are on the right side of the graphic above are those who will be out of work the longest.  To Seth’s point, for the people on the right of the graphic,  ”What to do next”, is something that may have always been answered by someone else.  That is, those who have had a job with a high level of determinism have been preconditioned to wait for someone else to tell them what to do.  “What to do next” is defined by the process or the manual.  But, when these folks are out of a job, there is no formal process that will lead to a deterministic success.  There is no boss to tell them what to do next.  So, they wait.

I was fortunate to be part of the .com frenzy working for an ebusiness incubator company.  The company was filled with all left-side graphic people.  They were fearless.  Despite the fact that the .com era went bust the majority of people who were in the vanguard of this era in business always had a plan on what to do next.  They were conditioned to think in this way in their career because of the nature of their work.

Where you come from – your job – has a big effect on “What to do next” when you are out of a job.  If you are a right-side graphic person you probably wait for someone else to bail you out. But think again.  Take Seth’s advice.  “Face the abyss of choice” but with the full choice of opportunity.  If you came from a job that was near the right side of the graphic above then move to the left.  Imagine something that does not yet exist – there is your opportunity.  Face the abyss of choice that you may have never before faced.

As an aside…

How many companies or organizations do you know that are waiting for the customer or the market to tell them what to do next?  What is the level of creative people in these organizations?  What are the limits of what they can imagine? 

Those companies and organizations that can not imagine a future often fall into a cycle of repetition.  Lacking a compelling vision of the future they simply repeat the past ad infinitum until they go out of business or become irrelevant.  Are you a leader, or a follower, or do you just stand in one place?  Block Buster?  Borders Books?  Travel Agencies?  Record stores?  Did you know you needed an Apple iPad before you saw it? 

Are good ideas enough?  No.  Some good ideas fail in execution.  The Apple iPod was not the first mp3 player.  The level of success of an organization is determined by the right balance of creative people plus those who can execute against the dynamics of a particular industry.

Companies and organizations are simply made up of people and their ability to answer the question, “What  to do next”.  As Seth says, “This is the most important decision in your career”.  This applies to individuals and organizations equally.

A Library without books

A while ago I saw a news item on “television” (what’s that?) about the new Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago.  The library is a large impressive looking dome structure of glass and light.  The first question I had was, “Where are the books?”.  My first inclination was to think that the books are digitized along with the great advantage to search full text the entire collection and read any book at my fingertips using some sort of personal computer, tablet, book reader, or other wireless mobile device.

The 3.5 million volume collection in the Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago is out of  sight of the prying eyes of students, researchers, faculty, and alumni.  It is underground.  The collection is protected from ad hoc browsing, perusing, and sauntering-by.

Once you know exactly what book you want, and make a request to a computer, then, and only then, will the book will be mined from the subterranian cavern of 3.5 million volumes by diligent robots and delivered to your waiting hands.

Is automation progress?  And if so, at what loss?

Education and learning is as much about discovery as it is about pursuit of intentional learning goals.  Call it “serendipitous discovery”.  It happens when you browse the collection just to see what is there or when you go to the stacks and find a book close to the book that you were looking for and find something more interesting.  How dismal it would be if you only found what you were looking for.

Without serendipitous discovery you get into a “you loop” – it’s a world of one – yourself.  In the Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago you will find only what you are looking for.  What is the value of finding something you are not looking for?

What is happening in this library is similar to aggressive personalization of search engines like Google.  They only show you what they think you want to see.  So, the universe is muted.  They think that’s a good idea.  But is it?  From the former CEO of Google

The technology will be so good it will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them – Eric Schmidt, Google CEO

Many people see the danger in this (read this post)

When I looked at the YouTube video comments I saw this -

I’m impressed and dismayed. Efficient storage, but a loss in serendipitous browsing.

That’s the first thing that came to my mind.  And I suspect that the same idea occurred to many students, researchers, and faculty at the U of Chicago when they first heard of the concept of a library without books.

Read more -

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/u-chicago-automated-library/

http://frrl.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/a-web-for-one-the-danger-of-agressive-personalization/

Does America Have Talent?

Earlier this week I watched Landau Murphy on America’s Got Talent win $1 million dollars and the chance to headline a Las Vegas show. Who is Landau Murphy?  Well, up until a few months ago he worked at a car wash – a nobody. Now, he’s a star and everyone knows his name. What was the process of transformation? Well, nothing really. Landau Murphy is the same person today as he was when he was working at the car wash. How did he get from “nobody” to “everyone knows your name”? Simple, opportunity and visibility.

Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr., won’t be washing cars again — unless they’re his own.  The soulful vocalist who once supported himself by washing cars at an auto dealership sang his way to victory on Wednesday on “America’s Got Talent.”  “Thank you so much for just believing in me,” he said upon hearing his name announced at the end of the NBC talent competition.  “It’s been a long, hard journey,” he went on, barely holding back his tears as the audience roared, “ever since I was a kid. And it’s finally paying off”.  Murphy, a native of Logan, W.Va., wins $1 million and a Las Vegas headlining contract.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/09/15/landau-eugene-murphy-jr-wins-americas-got-talent/

Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. has talent. What the TV show did for Landau was to provide a venue to display his talent – nothing more. How do we know he has talent?  Because he demonstrated it. To whom? To the millions of viewers of America’s Got Talent who were convinced to the point that they made an overt act to vote for him. And, to take a small leap, those people who voted are potentially those people who would pay to come and see his show in Las Vegas. 

Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr.  has talent because he demonstrated it in public and it was judged to be the (best) talent (of all the contestants) by those who were consumers of entertainment who are likely to pay to see a Las Vegas show where he would be the headliner.  Do we need any more proof than this that he has talent.  There’s nothing like a public demonstration to make your case.

America’s Got Talent – Corporate Edition

Any company that is anybody has these things called “Ideation Events”.  It may not be called exactly this where you work but whatever it’s called, these events signal a few changes that differentiate the current age from the traditional hierarchical “command and control” workplace environment of only a few decades ago.

1. Executive’s realize that they are in a highly competitive global marketplace
2. Corporations do not fail for lack of “things” – they fail for lack of ideas, judgement on those ideas,  and the ability to execute on chosen ideas.  In short, comapnies in a highly competitive global environments fail, or fail to keep a leadership position based on the speed of innovation.  (Who will catch Apple in the tablet or smart phone market?  And how will they do it?)
3. Executive’s realize they need to mine the talent in organizations at a deep level
4. Organizations are flatter – everyone talks to everyone
5. Corporate internal collaboration spaces made possibly by Technology is an enabler of idea generation

This is what a launch of a corporate innovation event looks like (company details removed)

Henry Ford: On Mens Desire for Corporate Advancement

Heny Ford was one of the great industrialists of the turn of the 20th century.  He was born July 30, 1863 in Wayne county, Michigan and died April 7, 1947, Dearborn, Michigan.  Henry Ford revolutionized transportation and American industry through the mass production and the assembly line. (read more).

If you didn’t know – and now you do know, Henry Ford wrote a book, “My Life and Work”.  In this book you will find Ford’s thoughts on all sorts of subjects.  For example, here are a few chapter headings: What is an Idea?  What I learned about business.  The terror of the machine.  Wages.  Why be poor?  Why Charity?  Democracy and Industry.  And, What we may expect.

Published in 1922, My Life and Work  is now in the public domain and available for Kindle for free -
http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-and-Work-ebook/dp/B002RKR216/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315949697&sr=1-1
(The Kindle reader is free as well for many devices)

If you are interested in the history of the industrial age in general or the history of the auto industry in particular or even the Zeitgeist of the time as told by one of the greatest people of the industrial age then this is a must read.

There are tons of interesting observations by Ford on the nature of work and man’s relation to work and business.

It’s now nearly 100 years after Ford wrote this book and Ford’s observation about Men and advancement in the corporate world has not changed much over 10 decades.  When I read the paragraphs below I remembered my experience of an employee who asked an executive in an “all hands” meeting with about 1,000 people listening… “What do the goals of this company have to do with me?”

To many other employees this was a legitimate question.
To the executives, this question was a shocker.

The education of any corporate executive, if they do not know simple facts already, should include the reading of this passage from Ford’s My Life and Work prior to being handed the key to the executive washroom.  It will save the executive years, if  not decades, of frustration over failed plans for employee innovation, expensive learning and  talent development programs, and any other device or machination intended to advance employees to the head of the class.

From My Life and Work by Henry Ford Chapter 6 – Men and Machines

There is no difficulty in picking out men. They pick themselves out because—although one hears a great deal about the lack of opportunity for advancement—the average workman is more interested in a steady job than he is in advancement.

Scarcely more than five per cent, of those who work for wages, while they have the desire to receive more money, have also the willingness to accept the additional responsibility and the additional work which goes with the higher places.

Only about twenty-five per cent are even willing to be straw bosses, and most of them take that position because it carries with it more pay than working on a machine. Men of a more mechanical turn of mind, but with no desire for responsibility, go into the tool-making departments where they receive considerably more pay than in production proper.

But the vast majority of men want to stay put. They want to be led. They want to have everything done for them and to have no responsibility. Therefore, in spite of the great mass of men, the difficulty is not to discover men to advance, but men who are willing to be advanced.

The accepted theory is that all people are anxious for advancement, and a great many pretty plans have been built up from that.

I can only say that we do not find that to be the case. The Americans in our employ do want to go ahead, but they by no means do always want to go clear through to the top. The foreigners, generally speaking, are content to stay as straw bosses.

Why all of this is, I do not know. I am giving the facts.

Has much changed in 100 years? Read a related article and a thesis on why engineers turn down offers of advancement
http://frrl.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/the-quandary-of-career-advancement-of-technical-engineers/

Resources

Kindle Reader for your PC
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000426311

Henry Ford, My Life and Work (free Kindle edition)
http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-and-Work-ebook/dp/B002RKR216/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1315949697&sr=1-1

Resources for learning about electronics

Folks learning about electronics on their own might want to check out this great site.

You’ll find theory, practice, experiments, video’s, and a very active discussion forum

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Folks interested in Radio might want to check this specific link inside the site above (Radio and Communications)

http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=22011