chatting to my generationAnja Merret (676)    Anja Merret   Anja Merret Pity There Are So Few Heroes AroundPosted Saturday, March 01, 2008 (145 days 6 hours ago.) Viewed 136 times. This time around, I visited TED for all of the above reasons. And it didn’t let me down. I found the presentation by Majora Carter and in the 18 or so minutes of her talk I had tears streaming down my face on several occasions. Her message was about building a Sustainable South Bronx. The organisation’s, aptly called SSBX, mission statements strives for ‘Environmental Justice through innovative, economically sustainable projects that are informed by community needs’. Listening to her presentation and visiting the website of her organisation are definitely worth doing. I want to focus on the person this time rather than her message. At the same time I am certainly not wishing to take anything away from the importance of her message. It was just interesting to also observe her as a person rather than only spend time on the quest that she is on. What really made me pause was the thought that came to me that I would classify her as a hero. And it doesn’t matter in this instance what she is fighting for. What was it about her presentation which made me, after 18 minutes, decide she was a hero? What are the characteristics of a hero or a Superman so to speak, or Superwoman! It certainly is not the importance of the quest that determines a hero. There are some heroes that have small quests that might just involve helping one or two people. For instance a person who pulls another human out of a burning car or house. This person is definitely a hero. The size of the quest is not the determining factor. In Dr Majora Carter’s case, she is a hero to me because she feels, breathes, sobs, explains her quest with such heart felt emotions that the listener cannot avoid getting involved in the moment. She could be trying to inspire her audience to support the spotted penguins in outer Mongolia, it wouldn’t matter. She would have had the same standing ovation from her audience. I would have shed the same amount of tears. What then makes a hero, and could these attributes be present in the top leaders whether those in public office or in commerce? This is a subject that has been written about ad nauseam and is a big issue in MBA’s. It is always felt that leadership determines the success or otherwise of an organisation. It could be that heroes, and leaders, are those that are so passionate about their vision, or their quest, that they inspire others to follow them in their life’s task. They don’t necessarily need to be intelligent, or have a hugely worthy cause or even have a great strategy worked out. What it boils down to then is that it’s their energy and personal vibration that inspires us. We feel alive when we are in their presence, or even watching a video of them speaking which was taken a while back. We feel that here is something worthwhile for us to live for after all. So I ask myself how come so few people have this passion. What if we could teach people how to acquire that passion rather than feed off other people who have it? After all, the people that vicariously live off other people’s passion tend to face a real problem when that person is no longer around. Is this not the reason why the self-help industry is unsuccessful in the long run. The motivational speakers and writers of self-development books are able to inspire people during the contact period whether that is during all week-end workshops, during the listening time of CDs or the reading of books. But once that is over, the passion soon dies away. Now if somebody could come up with a way to light a permanent fire in people that doesn’t require somebody to constantly fan it, that would be something! The world could do with more heroes. 
Permalink Comments (0) Prime Example of Exemplary GreedPosted Thursday, February 21, 2008 (154 days 7 hours ago.) Viewed 115 times. For many months I skimmed over articles in my daily newsletter from Spiegel that dealt with the closure of a Nokia factory in Bochum, Germany. At stake were a few thousand jobs and at the time I didn’t really think about it. Germany is experiencing an excellent economic growth rate and I felt something would probably fill that void in Bochum and replace the lost jobs. These kinds of closures of factories seem to be endemic and it was no surprise to see that the factory had been relocated to Romania. The German trade unions voiced their outrage, even the German government got involved and tried to persuade Nokia to stay in Bochum. Romania on the other hand welcomed the company with open arms. Nobody in Romania was particularly sad that jobs had been lost in a city in Germany. What did get me more interested in this story were some of the financial results posted by Nokia. It seems, according to the company’s CEO that “Nokia’s excellent fourth quarter results, October to December 2007, contributed to a year of high growth and increased profitability for the company". For this period, fourth quarter of 2007, Nokia saw an increase of 44% in net profit, totaling $2.6 billion. At the same time Nokia announced its intention to cut 9 000 jobs, or 15% of its workforce by the end of 2010. Of this number 2 290 were based in Bochum, Germany. By now I had started to think in terms of indecent profits, inhumane business practices, rampant capitalism etc etc. But then a further article in Spiegel today put the final touches to an incredible story. The report states that Nokia appears to be negotiating with Romania’s government over a change in labour legislation. It seems that Nokia is hoping to be able to expect its workers to labour between 60 to 70 hours per week rather than the 48hrs set down by Romanian law at the moment. Just to sumarise this shocking, to me anyway, business ethic that Nokia is exhibiting here: Nokia closes factory, retrenches workers, moves the factory to a poorer country so that the company can pay less in wages and improve the profits, announces that company has made indecent amounts of profit, applies to government of new country to extend work hours to between 60 to 70 hrs so that labour is truly exploited. I think I got it about right. It’s not that difficult to understand. The principle is straight forward. Lets exploit the ordinary person so that a few individuals and institutional investors in Nokia can make huge amounts of money. Am I happy I’m not using a Nokia anymore. And here we thought the Scandinavians were such great humanitarians.
Permalink Comments (1) Bullies-R-UsPosted Saturday, February 09, 2008 (166 days 17 hours ago.) Viewed 64 times. The Armed Forces always believed that subordination of the troops to the command was essential. If there were strictly enforced rules of behaviour it was maintained, then the soldier next to you would be able to rely on you performing according to drill during the times when the battle made everything else unpredictable. At what stage does a strong command based culture change into a bully culture? Or does it change. Is the ‘ you will follow orders no matter what’ not inherently the characteristic of a bully culture. This question came up in an interesting article in the UK Independent. Facebook and MySpace are again in the line of attack. This time the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) have their sights on the social networking sites. The problem for the MoD is the fact that members of these online communities have shared their experiences in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Those that have been sharing, have been military personnel. What is concerning the MoD is the bad publicity the Department is getting through a series of negative stories which paint an unflattering picture of troops having to cope with faulty equipment, bad accommodation and lousy pay. It was interesting to see how the MoD has decided to react. The MoD, according to the article, has warned that more discipline and greater enforcement of the military code of conduct will be required in order to tackle this insubordination of the troops. One need not be that surprised at this. What the MoD is proposing is to court martial armed forces personnel who use the internet to publish unauthorised videos and photographs or to complain about the conditions they are experiencing. It could also mean dismissal from the army. Once the strong arm tactics have put paid to the bad publicity, then the MoD thinks it should use the same internet facility to put a good spin on the activities it is involved in. With other words watch out for the MoD’s page on Facebook promoting their campaigns, right next to the ones where members are agitating against the wars. Of course there is no reason why the MoD shouldn’t be able to promote their side of the story on these sites. But it seems that the Department thinks it can control the content that users post on the internet. This is absurd. The more the MoD will want to control the information published on the internet, the more the users will rally behind the private publishers of information. I suppose an organisation whose reasons for existence is to beat the daylights out of its enemies will think that controlling a few naughty citizens will be a stroll in the park. Is there any doubt in the minds of people who know their way around the internet, what the outcome of this will be? Me neither.
Permalink Comments (0) In Steve we trust - maybePosted Wednesday, January 16, 2008 (190 days 11 hours ago.) Viewed 724 times. During my search through cyberspace to find the best live reports on Steve Job’s Keynote speech at Macworld yesterday, I came across an ad that had the caption ‘In Steve we Trust’. Very funny. See it on Popular Mechanics’ website. It’s entertaining writing about Apple and possibly even, dare one, mentioning something negative about the company. The many folk who explicitly trust in Steve tend to get quite irate and often leave a heavy footprint in the sand of the blogosphere. But back to yesterday’s Macworld happening. From a marketing perspective it is incredible how Apple does it. Who else can boast this kind of media attention at a product launch? The baying crowd which includes dealers, developers, customers, techie journalists and anybody else who manages to get a ticket is waiting with baited breath for a sales presentation. Huh? So what was the main focus? Steve’s new baby? And it really looked as if he was presenting a new offspring the way he held the new thin laptop up for everybody to admire, sporting a very proud paternal smile. It’s supposed to be the thinnest laptop in the world now. It probably is. But would one want to rush out and buy one of these at a nifty little price tag of £1 199.00 plus the cost of an external optical drive which you’ll need as the Air doesn’t come with one installed. With additional extras, the price can move up to twice as much. Besides its ridiculously and sexy thin look, it is also fairly light without losing anything to power and usability. I especially love the larger trackpad and could imagine that eventually becoming a much larger surface. Along the lines of a keyboard morphing with a Wacom tablet, what an idea. What does amuse me is how Apple, and in this case Steve Jobs, is able to present a product as the ultimate gadget and at the same time gloss over some fairly big issues. For me the lack of an optical drive is quite a big issue. But Jobs says that because one can take stuff off other computers so easily, or download off the internet, this isn’t an issue at all. Well, one would have to have other computers around first or a decent broadband connection. That or an external drive. But then Apple also took away the floppy disk drive and gave the customer USB slots in the keyboard, way before the consumer was ready to part company with those disks! Can’t remember which machine that was, but seem to remember it was the first iMac. It also seems that the new Air doesn’t allow one to replace the battery. Most serious Mac users tend to carry a spare battery around with them for eventualities such as long flights, delays at airports, working on trains etc. That could be a major problem. Of course the other stuff such as cheap movie rental was also welcome news. It will of course depend on how quickly the movie downloads. For countries without decent broadband, the video store down the road will still be an important shop for home entertainment. It must have been difficult to launch a new range of gadgets as well as additional features to old gadgets that could compete with the launch of the iPhone from the previous year. Not sure whether Steve Jobs managed to pull that one off with the new MacBook Air. But then it doesn’t really matter. The annual Macworld Keynote is always a welcome diversion. And to quote the journalist Glenn Derene writing for Popular Mechanics during the presentation: ‘My friend next to me says that this is the closest thing tech journalists have to a fashion show.’ Exactly.
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