The World is Flat

I'm about halfway through an intersting book by Thomas Friedman The World is Flat (http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat). I won't go into a synopsis, here, but the points I found intersting are:

1. We are not teaching our children what they need in order to compete in a truly flat world. In order to be competitive, we need to teach them how to LEARN and instill in them a live-long love of learning.
2. Our world-leading ability to innovate is decreasing and others, including writers in the NY Times seem to agree (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/does-silicon-valley-face-an-innovation-crisis/)
3. We need a national vision and goal such as the one issued by JFK after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik. Friedman's idea, and one which I tend to agree with, is that an excellent candidate for this goal is renewable energy and getting the US not ony off our dependence on mid-east oil, but on oil in general.

I sure hope that in the next couple of months, US politicians can focus on something truly important, such as global warming, or improving the US' ability to compete in a flat world instead of just feeding us the kind of tripe that they have in the past in order to get elected.

Change

"The only constant in life in change".... This saying has been around
of as long as I can remember, yet even though change is a constant in
our life, we fear it. When we wake up, our body is different than it
was when we went to sleep. Our world in the morning is very different
than our world the night before and even though we notice it, it
rarely seems to bother us. If change is all around us every day, why
is it that we fear it? It seems to me that we should be use to it and
if not embrace it, at least not fear it. Why do we fear change?

Several years ago, I changed jobs and moved from one side of the
country to the other. Even though this was somewhat of a homecoming
(I was moving back to my home city), this change engendered such fear
in me that for a period of months, I developed phobias such as health
fears and claustrophobia. After a couple of months, these issues
passed, but why did they occur in the first place?

As I get ready to leave my job and move to a new company, I'm
experiencing some of my old fears. What if I made a mistake? What if
I don't fit in the new company? What if I can't deliver on the
expectations of my new management? Even though the work I'm going to
be doing in the new company is very similar to the work I did, and was
successful at, in my current company, I still am experiencing fears of
failure.

Maybe some of these fears are good because they encourage us to excel,
but I suspect that most of them are unrealistic and potentially even
destructive. Facing our fears are suppose to make us stronger, but
what if this makes us only more afraid? Cliches abound such as "the
only thing to fear is fear itself" and maybe the prevalence of these
sayings indicates that most people are afraid of something....

the Office is NOT a Day Care!

An article in today's USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2008-03-30-babies-at-work_N.htm) talks about a disturbing new trend: employers allowing employees to bring their young children to the office. Although some people may laud this move as being "pro family" and "good for morale", I have to disagree. This is another example of the minority being able to push their will on everyone else and, in my opinion, would lead to decreased overall morale as well as productivity. After spending some time at my local mall the weekend during lunch and listenting to screaming children all around me, I have to think that an environment such as that would not be conducive to high productivity or teamwork.

One paragraph of the article even talks about a mother who takes her baby into meetings with her! While this may be wonderful for the parent, I don't think that it is necessarily wonderful for everyone around them, and I shudder at having tow work in that type of environment. If parents want to spend time with their children as well as work, then they should look for a position that allows them to work from home where they won't bother others.

While the article tried to point out how wonderful this arrangement was, there were more negatives portrayed than postives, for example:

"when there are meetings the parent must attend, other employees would watch the child"
"other employees loved to stop by and play with my baby"

I'm not sure that these are really benefits to the employer or to other employees and IMHO, could lead to purposeful, or accidental abuses. Suppose your manager brough his or her baby to the office and then asked you to watch it while they were in a meeting? Would you feel comfortable saying "no"? And if you didn't say no, should you be paid for the time? If it's an assignment given to you by your manager, the answer should be "yes", however is this really an activity that the organizaiton, or it's stockholders" should be paying for? I don't think so...

The office is NOT a day care and should not be allowed to become one...

Eliott Spitzer and pink dogs

I guess I must be in the minority when I say that I don't care where Eliott Spitzer puts it, or whether or not he pays for sex. As long as he didn't do it with government money or on government-paid time, WHO CARES? I just have to wonder how many FBI hours and dollars went into this case and whether or not that money could have been used to help reduce non-victimless crime instead of pursuing this high-visibility, low-value case. I remember being in Japan during "Monica gate" and having several of my customers over their ask me why we Americans are so fixated with the sex lives of our leaders. I also remember having no answer for them because I couldn't figure it out either.

Elliott, I may not like your politics, or your elitist attitude, however I have to say that I am in your corner on this one (for what it's worth). I sure hope the prosecutors figure out they have better things to do with their time then pursue this stupid case, like perhaps go convict some murders? Just a thought....


Now for pink dogs....

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/mar/10/boulders-pink-poodle-owner-ticketed/

The city of Boulder is at it again. They can't catch the killer of a child, but by gosh they sure can catch dog-dyers! I hope the people of Boulder are very proud of the work their law-enforcement organization is doing. I saw this story on Fox News on Wednesday and was just amazed, although after being born and raised in the city of Boulder, nothing really should amaze me any more....

By the way, Fox News, according to Boulder City ordinance, there are no pet OWNERS in Boulder, we are all pet GUARDIANS. Get it right! :)

The "subprime mortgage mess"

For selfish reasons, I have been following this issue in the newspaper
very closely. I can understand the point of view from people who say
"why should we be penalized" by having to "bail out" people who got
into this mess through greed, but I have to wonder how many of the
foreclosures are caused by people over-extending through greed, versus
being sucked down this rathole unintentionally, or inadvertently.
Also, should reality shows such as "flip this house" bear some of the
burden of fault as well?

In the very late 1990's, I moved from a relatively low-cost area of
the country (Ohio) to a relatively high-cost part of the country
(Colorado). I did not move because of a great new job, or to make a
huge amount of money, I moved because I wanted to be near my family.
Talk about sticker shock! My old house in Ohio sold for 95K, in order
to move to something compareable in Colorado, I had to spend almost 3
times that amount! Obviously, my new job didn't pay 3 times as much,
so I had to stretch to fit into a new mortgage. I remember that when
I was driving to the closing, I was almost panicking thinking about my
new mortgage payment and the only thing that kept me from running away
was thinking "if I couldn't afford it, they never would have approve
it". That was almost 9 years ago and I have never missed, nor been
late on a payment, however since then I have had to re-finance NOT to
take a "dream vacation", or "buy a new car", but because of a divorce
I had to buy my ex-wife out, and the mortgage officer came up with a
"dream loan" that was interest-only with a second so that I didn't
have to pay PMI. Her reasoning: "don't worry, values are going to do
nothing but go up and you can get into a 30 year fixed when your
financial situation improves". Little did I know...

So my loan is still current. I still stretch to make the payments,
but my home lender is always the first person I pay every month.
Other debt may go up, but my mortgage is always current. Do I think
the government should bail me out? NO! Do I think the lender should
help? NO! Do I think the original loan officer should be held
accountable? Perhaps, however I am a big boy and I went into this
with my eyes open. I do resent being painted with the same brush that
is used to paint people who bought multiple houses just in order to
flip them, or people that took huge amounts of cash out to do
something frivolous. I am fighting to keep my head above water, I am
doing every thing I can to honor my obligations, and I am not looking
for a bail-out, so stop treating me, and people like me, as if we are
greedy SOB's.

Now I live in terror of they day in May when the rate on my loan
readjusts. It may go up, it may go down, it may stay the same. Last
year, my lender gave me the wonderful option to do a temporary
modification of my loan from an adjustable to a fixed rate for a mere
$400.00, which I took. I sure hope they do it again this year, but
who knows. Will I get credit for being current, or will I get
screwed? Who knows.

The only thing I know for sure is that I will not be one of those
people who mail the keys back to my lender and walk away. I may be
upside down, but this is my home and I will fight for it.

Group norms

Earlier this week our Scrum team was discussing and establishing group norms. I've been through this exercise serveral times in different organizations and while the concept is great, they temd to get forgotten fairly quickly. This morning while I was walking my dog, I passed several people who had their dogs off leash although the rules of the HOA as well as the city ordinances forbid this.

so I started to think about group norms, HOA rules and laws and wondering why some stick and work and some don't. Is it that people inately chaf against "rules", is that they thing the "rules" don't apply to them, or do they just not care? When we were setting group norms, everyone participated and everyone agreed to them, so you would think that everyone bought in, but is that really true? In regards to laws, regulations and HOA rules, not everyone participates, but you could say that they "buy in" by purchasing a residence in an area governed by those laws, but do they really?

Is it enforcement of the rules/norms that make them work? Is it peer pressure, or is it something else? Personally, I believe that it is an understanding by all participants that whereas the rules may take away some freedoms, they grant others and those others are at least as valuable as the ones they take away. Maybe instead of enforcement, we should try education and if that doesn't work, then fall back on enforcement.

Unfortunately, enforcement is usually easier and sometimes cheaper than education!

Leaving on a Jet plane

it's going to be a loong day. Up at 3am this morning to catch a flight to LA, then back on the last flight tonight. At least I don't have to spend the night in a hotel!



I've been traveling almost every week for most of my working career and although I complain a lot about the frustrations of travel, I do love it (at least most of it). I've seen sunrises in every state of the US, most of Asia, several South American countries and some of Europe and that's more than most people can say. I probably have learned more from the people I've met on my travels than from any text book. I hope I never get a job that requires me to sit in the same place day after day!



They say the world is a small place. I say that travel makes it small. To anyone who has never left their home state, or home country, the world must truly be an immense place. I think this is a lesson that I learned sitting in a Japanese bath in a suburb of Tokyo. The gentleman who sat down next to me struck up a conversation I'm English (to my great sadness, I have a terrible time learning other languages) and dyring our conversation, I learned that he had gone to the University in my home town and had rented a house 2 blocks from my parents house.....7,000 miles away from where we were then sitting! That's when it struck me how small the world truly is!





Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile