Category: Sociological, psychological notes

Black / White

Just in case you thought that men (the typical kind; you like generalisations, apparently) know only black and white, or if pushed, also red, blue, yellow, green and brown, and women (see how overgeneralized this argument is?) know so many more as in this – then there’s also this…
Wouldn’t it be stupid to ask for some easier (to remember!) classification / labeling?

And the pic; what colour this house …?
004_22 (2)[Old analog->digital… Utrecht]

Detachment

First, this:
DSCN9250
[Fantasy, sorcery, in the end Harry wins. Porto]

Just to start your day with a bit of freshness.

Then this: Hardly any surprise that Big Corp advertises like a headless monster
7e55ec92-20ab-11e4-8ead-22000ab926d3-large
Where the ‘joke’ is that this is from a company (note: it’s just an example, others are similar (..?)) where staff is pushed to the edge to deliver on hardly-quality-related shortest-term-possible KPIs, have had to hand in holiday days to keep up the profit shares of the partners (‘voluntarily’ as otherwise it might be illegal), etc. etc. Stepping one millimeter out of line is punished with all but physical beheading. So, the ad is just false advertising of the worst, culpable, kind, or displays the utter ignorance of those involved.

Or both. Which again are signs of dinosaur behavior. Detachment of where actual work is done. Same as outsourcing production abroad and claiming ignorance about work conditions – ignorance on purpose is still very, very culpable; do we need a SOx for what should be normal, human, humane treatment of employees ..? Hopefully not, as this would open the floodgates of totalitarian bureaucrat advisors and consultants once again (…), yes those that Holier Than Thou folks (see above) who display to don’t know a thing about practical management. As proven (!) by Mintzberg.
Detachment. Isolation, islands of bounty at the ‘top’. That will be swept into oblivion by a mere floodwave. Where a tsunami’s approaching.

Oh, for the unattentive reader: There’s a great many posts on this site (just do a search) that I am not against leadership, by actual leaders… This just being a rant against the falsehood of advertising and against bad ‘leadership’ …

Managing Fortuna’s Risks

On how Risk Management is self-defeating… or just something one has to do while Life has other plans with you(r organization).

First, the übliche picture:
20140813_154840
[Shadow (play) of Dudok, Hilversum again of course]

First, the Defeating part. This, we hardly discuss at length, full enough, but when we do, it’s so obvious you understand why: Because RM is about cost avoidance, even if opportunity cost avoidance. Which makes you the Cassandra, the Boy Cried Wolf of the courtiers (sic). It’s just not interesting, not entrepreneurial enough. [Even if that would be pearls before swines…]

Second, this is why it’s so hard to sell (no quotes, just outright sell for consultancy or budget bucks) the idea of RM to executives – they only see the cost you are. They don’t see themselves as delivering something if, if, if only, they had integrated RM into their daily ‘governance’ (liar! that’s just management!) / management. They don’t want to do anything. They just don’t understand to do something that doesn’t show to be effective even if others for once see no harm (though the others will not even care to flag the kindergarten-level window dressing that’s going on with the RM subject; too silly that, to call out).

Third, this happens not only with ‘boardroom’ RM (~consultancy/advisory), it has been well-established at lower ranks; all the way from the mundane IT security, Information Security, Information Risk Management, Operational Risk Management (where the vast majority of organisations don’t make anything tangible anymore), including the wing positions of, e.g., Credit and Market Risk (which are in fact, with the visors to mention, the same as the previous!), to Enterprise Risk Management altogether.

Fourth, we tie in Queuillism. The Do nothing part almost as in Keynesianism where in the latter, future-mishap prevention should be arranged during the years where government intervention wasn’t required as such. As in Joseph’s seven fat years contra the seven years of famine (Genesis 41). How does this reflect on RM? Would it not be just BCM in its widest, enterprise-wide sense? Isn’t that what ‘management’ is about, again..? Just sanding off the rough edges and for the rest, give room to the actual stars, the employees at all levels, to let them bring out their best – so exponentially much more than you can achieve by mere, petty, command & control. You raise KPIs, I rest my case of your incompetence. And this goes for governments even more. Just enormously expensive busywork.

Fifth, finally, the fourth trope points into the direction of Machiavelli’s Fortuna. Which was also covered by Montaigne, of course. It doesn’t matter what you do, in the end, Life has other plans with you. Sobering, eh? Oh but again, you can shave off the rough edges for yourself, too. Just don’t think in the end, that will matter much beyond some comfort to you. Katharsis, and move on.

OK, since you held out so long:
20140813_154800
[The same, from another angle]

Stop bLeading, start PLeading

There seems to be a wave of ‘management’/ ‘executive’ (quoting for the laughability of those words, as in this) advice on how to Lead. Mostly, on how to push underlings into following better i.e., more, towards your goals.
Which is wrong in many ways:

  • Your goals are ulterior, or very inferior. If you lead in such a pushing way, your team members don’t give a r.ts a.. about your goals, objectives, strategy, or whatever, and even less, much less, about you. They’ll be in it not to get punished by being fired too early ’cause they know to be fired anyway. And by matter of speech (if you’d take it as a pointer, you’d miss my point) they’ll phone the WBC on the details of your funeral.
  • If you whip, you will get whipped. More, harder, longer than an eye for an eye [Interesting side note: That iconic reference was originally only about business transactions, nothing physical, to get even but no more than even].
  • You don’t push, at most pull a bit into the right direction. At best, plead for the ulterior motives, the lofty goals out there. That have nothing to do with you. You are redundant, replaceable, and guess what – you will be replaced more often than not on the verge of achieving your own slave’s targets because someone else will reap your benefits. But then again, if your goal is really ulterior and you honestly mean it, you don’t care! Don’t care about all the effort, and the gains being spread so wide around you. You do care about that ulterior goal being reached, not any other reward let alone with the mammon from hell.
  • If you push, the grader (like in this) will only dig itself in.
  • If you push, all words will be called out for their emptiness before they’re out of your mouth. ‘Supporting creativity / out-of-the-box thinking’..? People will know on what side their bread is buttered.
  • And more.

Which all will make you a deliriously stressed-out fool.
One that will have done irreparable damage to many around you. That you should pay everyday for the rest of your life. You make them bleed, you will bleed.

Why not go out in the effective direction, by Leading …? Leading towards ulterioir goals because they’re worth it. Not by whipping, bleeding, but by pleading (mostly with empty hands..!) others into rightly-oriented action.

[Edited to add: OK, right today, as this pre-scheduled post appears, this, to the same effect…]

OK, I’ll leave you now with an upbeat picture:
??????????
[Clearly, a bridge. Cala near Hoofddorp]

Old mass education

Everyone under 18, and anyone 18 and older, needs a massive re-schooling in all things new.
Yes that includes the savants that can hack (99,9% of which is just script kiddies, more on that below), and it includes those that may be slow learners due to age.

But first, a picture:
DSCN9832[Pfanner, Lucca]

The subjects to mass re-school for:

  • Programming of all sorts. Not just CSS/HTML. Also, perl/PHP, SQL, C, Prolog, etc. Etc. Etc. From fundamentals (yes indeed) all the way to slick quasi-savvy app programming. To know what’s under the hood, to be able to work in the field, at all ages to one’s level.
    Oh, and let’s not forget all would need to know how to configure a network, and how to secure it.
  • Design, that is such an important part of Making things these days.
  • IoT and 3D printing (see the previous ones coming together?), for the future; to be able to navigate and play an active role. Otherwise, masses get isolated and out of anything resembling jobs. If you can’t operate in tomorrow’s society, if you can’t do anything worth a living wage, you’ll be cast out.
  • Ethics and sociology, in particular re privacy, the coming Singularity, and World problems like global warming, waste and environmental destruction, and resource depletion. Whether by Augmented Humanity or full humanity oblivion, the future comes to us too fast to first see and then adjust. All now present may NOT defer this to others. You ARE all the others like never before.
  • And all that we know already. All science, humanities, etc. Because schooling has lowered its standards so much. Having more and more (%) in ever ‘higher’ education but teaching less and less. Overall, isn’t coping with society and its complexity the sum total aggregated goal of education ..? Where society has become so much more complex than it was; exponential growth in this one, too has not been dealt with in Ed, on the contrary. Re-creating a plebs. Of all shapes and sizes, including moneyed plebs. The latter seem to rule… I’ll come back to this issue, later. Book by Quote’s pending…

Hey, it’s just a matter of survival beyond mere bare physical needs, for the very near future of all.

And, how to educate all ..?

  • Through gaming, of course
  • Through non-gaming rote learning all the essentials as well. Otherwise, you’ll fail miserably in practice when reality somehow doesn’t quite conform the game show. Which it won’t for decades to come. And no, shallow learning will not work; if only because it’s not learning at all.
  • Through gaining reality experience, of course in the course(s). As application is everything also re turning ratio learning into experience and control.
  • Through in-depth specialisations, to all sorts of levels and breaths. As almost all (except the very, very few script/kit builders) of today’s hackers are script kiddies and the ‘markets’ in that area continue to develop, some knowledge and experience may actually get lost! No, the ‘net does not ‘save’ everything; information production is just too large every day for the storage available globally…
  • All this delivered in traditional classrooms, mixed with MOOCs, mixed with interactive self-learning in class or at home or elsewhere. Which means teachers will have to be re-schooled too, if only because a too large share of them already are backward, too lowly educated (in content) laggerds. As in: VTuIPMt

What a task for society. But if ignored, the amount of ignorance will just be too big for the world to handle. Your comments, please.

Wired / Tired / Expired, September 2014 edition

Photo7c
[Not as much from another planet as from half a century ago]

Yes we’re back with this; here’s the September edition of my Wired / Tired / Expired jargon watch overviews, a mixed bag; see what you missed this Summer:

WIRED TIRED EXPIRED
Humanity Analytics Cloud
The latest wave is about humanity again, fortunately, as the first signals of a massive increase of human vs. machine intelligence and capabilities, precursors of a societal debate on the singularity or the parts of its checkered implementation (timeline) hopefully, come out into the open. Via the predicted AI integration bubbling up everywhere. All aboard the night train. It keeps on running, and so are some. But not necessarily you. It’s just that the whole thing has become too diffuse to still get a grip on. So media attention has been lost. Not totalitarian’s attention – civil rights movementers (movers?) watch out. If you think this is still hot, or even hype, you belong in the Museum of Ancient History
Note-taking in paper notebooks Note-taking on tablets Note-taking on laptops
Yes, moving beyond the sect of St. Steve …! As per the above, the Slow Living idea, as elaborated into the co-operation/-everything environments of organizational life, is spreading. For the good of mankind. Also, this, and #4 of this. A fool with a tool is still a tool. You Late Majority! And, it’s going this way. Hopefully. Hm, valid, for professional note-takers. Not for the casual meeting browsers, though.
Instant hyper-amateur ‘shops Memes GIFs (-as-Jifs),
tied with
Viral videos
0,15 seconds of fame. Expressing the idea, permanence not as much. Which is efficient and (hence?) laudable in its own way. I don’t often need to explain, but if I do … Memes may have been a full product (sic) cycle that many may have missed completely. Who has time for those? To make, to take.
Don’t care Dissing ‘mainstream’ Digging Hip
(incl Beards…)
Just be yourself. Ensure that’s enough. For you. Having become mainstream, it’s a Tu Quoque (jokes on yourself) now. Ehhh, you were backpacking for half a year in an area without WiFi or something..!?!? How could you do that, and not recover in half a day?
Deca. Or reading classical, well-bound hardcover books. PDF reading Kindle et al.
As in this.
And, the ultimate long-form, reading classics of all ages as treasured elements of Culture. The humanity and its wisdom that transpires through the centuries.		 For the operational content. Nothing else. Nice try, but on its way to the great heap of just-didn’t-make-it-to-be-great-inventions.
Deal with it Dogue What Happen
In the Why Should I Care What Your Problems Are They Won’t Go Away If Not When I Would Much annoy. Moved into this sector.
Modern tech moving into business 3D printing for gadgetry IoT promises
As in: Apple joining forces with IBM, Microsoft re-invigorating its business offerings, et al. As in this fad(s); sad. Spoils the idea instead of pushing widespread household use Sort of the same hypepromises not being delivered by far while we would still wanted to have it all happen(ed).
NASA’s UFO Amazon drone delivery Attack of the Drones
Woot! We humans are finally making it happen ourselves …!? Maybe it will happen. Maybe not. What increase in service ..? Now that it’s a fact; have we learned how to deal with it …? (I mean, in a way that would let us stay comfortable even if brought home ubiquitously?)

OK, any suggestions for next month’s edition ..?

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord