Innovation advisory and IRM/InfoSec/I-Audit services. Positive contrarian, inspirator, loosen-upper.
Just a short reference (why would one want to use the antiquated word ‘link’, right?), in this case about (overdoing to the ecco huomo level of) the .ipster (censured) lifestyle.
I’ll leave you with your daily dose of medicine:
[Girona, just one of its many facets]
The answer to the final question (“… why the governments didn’t invent this sooner,” he says. “I came up with this over a weekend in my spare time, why didn’t they? …”) in this here very interesting piece, is easy: Enrollment Problem Plus Risk Management.
But still, the idea of using Bitcoin crypto style solutions to the ‘international’ passport problem is useful, and might work. In some way. Not this self-certification one. If you’re aware of how long PGP has been around, you should be aware of all the failures of any form of tribal-cred-branching-out IDs.
And, a great many governments may just not have a sufficiently pressing need for a new passport scheme. The risks of the current model, are known and (again: apparently) manageable.
So I’ll leave you with:
[Apologising calmly. And frequently.]
I posted before on the atrocities of current-day meeting practices. And on the changing role of the Document, here.
The latter, provided some thought towards predicting the demise of the former: When we’re connected (at the information level, not mere technically) constantly and continuously, wouldn’t all the errors of meetings be resolved (resolvable) by not having them anymore, or at least, re-styling them in a wholesale manner?
First, a picture:
[Reflections of – the way life used to be (lyrics)]
I mean, all the meeting errors have been allowed to play out because the in-charge’s liked them, for the display of faux leadership caricature they provided. But with the change towards always-on mesh communications, which is do-or-die, the very reasons to have meetings diminishes. Social advantages of meeting F2F, that were collateral ‘damage’, may still be around but in the form of having drinks. Who’d need more? and now recognize the benefits outright, without the formal hassle and hilarious chair and topper pomp.
Though I treasure the value of the Document, if, very big if, it is in itself an attempt to Masterpiece. Which it sometimes is, in organisations, but then, so desperately few would survive public muster. Yes, there’s a trend towards deployment of Narratives everywhere. But that’s not what I mean here. I mean stuff like Books, nuggets of Culture carried through the ages. Where mere documents, even, let alone casual socmed conversations, will leave no (! storage re-use needs, TLA?) trace of your existence. As the Greek Hell beyond the underworld: In the underworld, even the villains were still known by name. But beyond that, in Hell, wailed the spirits of the Forgotten, the nameless. That truly was as bad as hell could get. And, of course, true heroes would attach to the pantheon, become stars and constellations. Do you strive for that, when filling out the TPS report at Initech? If you had to look that up, you’re on the naïve side of young…
Well then, to summarise: Meeting mania is curable, and Documents sharpen our skills. What a blunt conclusion. But don’t blame me when your greatness takes off.
A reblog again, delving into the breath of being the peers that pressure towards conformity or be the Maverisk that wants to prevent stale and mould. Read past the starting stuff, and find the value of nonconformity explained. If you don’t see that… You may be the one most in need …
And,
[Accelerating, not so bad]
The Internet has finally spoilt me: In this…
So, after privacy-enhancing regulations finally got some traction here and there – mentally, hardly in implementation yet – we’re getting the full bucketloads of bovine-produced fertilizer regarding adapted protection through ‘Data Use Regulation’.
Which already throws back actual regulation in intent and in the letter of it. But has many more nefarious consequences… As is in this article; couldn’t word it better.
We should be vigilant …
For now, I’ll leave you with this:
[A spectacle, Jerez]
First, this:
[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
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’ …
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:
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]
Yet another ‘Book By Quote’ then. A full of … one again.
An attempt to subjectively summarise a book by the quotes I found worthwhile to mark, to remember. Be aware that the quotes as such, aren’t a real unbiased ‘objective’ summary; most often I heartily advise to read the book yourself. This one too, yes, but with the caveat that some of below’s quotes have been included to demonstrate the deconstructionalist mumbo jumbo you may have to wade through…
Oh and for the record; I like the book, and major parts of its analysis, but certainly not all of it…
Here we go then, with Negri & Hardt’s Empire, Harvard UP 2000, ISBN 067425121-0:
Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. (Ani DiFranco) (p.0)
Putting this society to work and ensuring obedience to its rule and its mechanisms of inclusion and/or exclusion are accomplished through disciplinary institutions (the prison, the factory, the asylum, the hospital, the univeristy, the school, and so forth) that structure the social terrain and present logics adequate to the “reason” of discipline. (p.23)
Power is now exercised through machines that directly organize the brains (in communication systems, information networks, etc.) and bodies (in welfare systems, monitored activities, etc.) toward a state of autonomous alienation from the sense of life and the desire for creativity. (p.23)
By contrast, Deleuze and Guattari present us with a properly poststructuralist understanding of biopower that renews materialist thought and grounds itself solidly in the question of the production of social being. Their work demystifies structuralism and all the philosophical, sociological, and political conceptions that make the fixity of the epistomological frame an ineluctable point of reference. (p.28)
The absoluteness of imperial power is the complementary term to its complete immanence to the ontological machine of production and reproduction, and thus to the biopolitical context. (p.61)
Kant throws us back into the crisis of modernity with full awareness when he poses the discovery of the subject itself as crisis, but this crisis is made into an apology of the transcendental as the unique and exclusive horizon of knowledge and action. (p.81)
Whereas Foucault’s analysis is vast in its diachronic breath, Weber’s is powerful in its synchronic depth. (p.89)
Disobedience to authority is one of the most natural and healthy acts. (p.210)
The capitalization of realized surplus value requires that for the subsequent cycle of production the capitalist will have to secure for purchase additional supplies of constant capital (raw materials, machinery, and so forth) and additional variable capital (that is, labor power) – and eventually in turn this will require an even greater extension of the market for further realization. (p.225)
The centrifugal movement of production is balanced by the centripetal trend of command. (p.297)
And a picture to lighten up:
[Reich]
For most of us, this is the metaphor of life. About how you aim for the best future, but are held back by accident and others are just more … lucky?
It seems. Because the article isn’t about how others may be in even slower queues, or the purpose of life. To make it to the (your) end. Not even the fastest. Or the zero impact of talent (which is a form of luck) or a bias for effort (same). But to not care.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with
[Queueing up, in a sense]
