Virtual co-authors. Absence makes the mind work better?

Grauniad

In this respect, online collaborations can be supremely efficient. The qualities I identified in my co-author, Peter S Fosl, which made him a good collaborator, were all manifest in our email communications and in his work. He was knowledgeable, clear, flexible, enthusiastic about communicating ideas and responsive to suggestions and advice. What more did I need to know? Whether he liked his lattes skinny?

...This kind of online collaboration has the potential to become a more common and effective way of working. It is not just that it allows individuals to interact only on the basis of the qualities that matter for the job, it is also that the job itself can be focused on more precisely than face-to-face working sometimes allows.

For example, whenever I get together with my co-editor we always end up discussing rambling digressions and getting off the point. When we're co-operating online, however, the task in hand stays in focus.

That was one reason why writing The Philosophers' Toolkit was so straightforward. We both knew our roles and we executed them without distraction...

There was genuine interaction and collaboration. In a paradoxical-sounding way, the limitations of internet communication actually liberated us to work more efficiently together.

Focus? I'm focused, I'm focused! Hey! Look! A bee!

Okay, I'm not focused, I'm split. Alternating beteween seeking out the energy of others, enjoying the to-and-fro, then going off and doing something with it solitarily, or between my self-and another or duo of collaborators. I'm sure I'm no different from many. People have rhythmns; rhythmns ain't so without modulation. On-off, and transition in-between. Certainly would explain the huge expansion of "third-places" like coffee-shops and bookstores, many populated by corporate truants looking for a more relaxed zone, or by S.O.H.O. denizens looking for a people-fix as much as a caffeine one.

"Write in haste, edit at leisure," Mom used to say, in order to get us to attack a blank page. Write in haste, edit at leisure. Don't think, just do. Get it out, then make sense of it. I can see how that spewing, that seeming-senselessness can be awfully discomfiting when someone has to witness it happening outside their own head. (We're comfortable with our own dissonances, eh?) Then you clean yourself and your prose, your ideas up, straighten your hair, and go face the world and your collaborators. Who've probably just done the same thing. Guess this is the reason many don't blog or hate to write: Half the time we think we look presentable but the collar's still at odd angles, hair is standing sideways. Ideas still askew. Who cares? The rush is fun.

Rythmn out of the Blue

Dr. David Suzuki

...The human brain was the key to our survival. It endowed us with curiosity, inventiveness and a massive memory. The French Nobel laureate, Francois Jacob, says the human brain has an inbuilt need for order. We find chaos frightening and there is an innate tendency to try to organize our observations and speculations so it all makes sense. We recognized patterns, cycles and rhythms in nature - day and night, seasons, tides, lunar cycles, movement of stars, animal migration, plant succession - and that knowledge gave us some predictive capacity that was useful.

The human brain invented an amazing concept - a future. Because we had a notion of future, we (I believe uniquely among all animals) recognized that we could deliberately choose a path into the future. We understood causal relations ("If I do this, this will happen, if I don't do that, something else might occur.") and deliberately chose, from a number of options, the kind of future we were heading for. And it worked. It got us to where we are....

Very cool series, pointed out by Creative Generalist. Partstwo and three.

Spooky Action: Seldom updated, often re-read

Mike DeWitt is a guy who needs a kick in the ass. He writes such good stuff, then gets taken prisoner by work for 6 months at a stretch. (Disclaimer: We chat from time to time, but I'm serious, this is not blogrolling.) This here post alone will sort the boyz from the men, girlz from the women on an executive mangement team. And - gasp - it's fun to read.

Spooky Action Predicts: Nick Carr has your number! (.8 probability)

If you’re in IT management or consulting, your blood pressure is now 40 points higher than before you got here. If you’re a CEO/CFO/CXO whose span of control includes IT, you may have one of those wry, one-corner-of-your-mouth-turned-up smiles on your face. If you’re none of the above, a) Hi Mom kids!, or b) thanks for stopping by randomly; I hope I make it worth your while....

Funniest email of the year

From one of my partners today:

... this WOULD NOT, DOES NOT APPEAL TO ME. Not in a boat, not with a goat (but more interesting), not here or there, not on a log, not on a blog...

Small business: too busy for business. But not for Fool's Gold.

Funny thing about the early, way-early prospectors in the American West. They wrote home exclaiming "Gold! It's just laying there on the ground! A man could wake up poor, take a stroll, and be a millionaire by suppertime if his pockets were big enough!"

That was then; 1848 then. Two years later, you had to know how to dig. And you had to know where to dig. And then deeper. And for what. Via Aside InnovationBlog comes: MIT Tech-Edu

MIT Professors Study InnovationInnovation has become an all-purpose tonic, the default prescription for every pain associated with the retrenching American economy. Whatever the problem -- slower growth, global competition, fewer well-paying jobs -- innovating, we are told, is the solution.

Now a pair of MIT professors has dissected the practice of innovating and found it to be generally misunderstood. In "Innovation: The Missing Dimension", published by Harvard University Press in October, Richard K. Lester and Michael J. Piore argue that much of the innovation effort in American business goes into solving problems but relatively little into identifying possibilities and opportunities in the marketplace.

"We are in danger of learning the wrong lessons about innovation," Lester and Piore warn in the book. "As a result, we risk neglecting those capabilities that are the real wellsprings of creativity in the US economy -- the capacity to integrate across organizational, intellectual, and cultural boundaries, the capacity to experiment, and the habits of thought that allow us to make sense of radically ambiguous situations and move forward in the face of uncertainty."

Haven't seen the book yet, but I like the sound of it.

Seems like it really is James Burke week here-- thinking about the future through the prism of the past and all that. Since we work (and proudly, fiercely so) with many companies that don't have the cash to bring in the big shovels like McKinsey, Accenture, IDEO et al, we help 'em learn how to dig for themselves. Hey, why should the big dogs have all the fun?

Having been both client and consultant on the innovation end, it's not a stretch to say that "thinking big" is a huge leap for many 'smaller' outfits. That's a tragedy. A big one. Too often, small companies do not give themselves credit enough to think they can be really great. Or, they think "innovation" has to come in a giant gilt box, accompanied by fireworks. And, that it requires a Brinks truck.

Ptosh. Money's over-rated. It makes you boring and lazy. It gives you excuses usually, and plausible deniability often. And maybe, a buffer downstream. Maybe. Just maybe. But what if you don't have cash? Yet, you have plenty of ambition? Mountains of it? Well, chances are, you've learned that if you don't have money, you'd better be brilliant in your poverty as we say around here. In this way, "small" is freeing and mid-cap is beautiful. Because you can think with your own brain, not the one your industry says you have to use. You can be yourself, not the persona that typical "industry-leader" or "premier-provider" -speak drives you to.

But.

But, absent money, you have to think. Hard. And wide. And deep. But you gotta see the value in it. You gotta wanna. And sometimes, the only time we wanna is when we've gotta. When there's no other choice.

A graphic (right click "view image" for bigger)....



As the graphic says, sometimes we just get out of phase. We look to get all expansive and optimistic, simply because we're flush with cash, like those early miners, but not--key point--but not because we have a damn profound business model we love, and others--consumers and employees--also love, and therefore deserves to have millions and billions sunk into it.

'Lipstick on a pig' is the term, I believe.

Strange but true fact: In business, money is wallpaper and excuse. We argue over cost-per-copy on those 50 new laser printers costing the organization, say, $75,000 in acquisition, plus $75,000 in consumables per annum. But we wizards in the boardroom choose to move the HQ across town because we saw somebody else's building that fronted a lake--with ducks! Why are we moving? Because our peple can't stop fighting with each other. Isn't it obvious? We need a new building.

Don't laugh. That's a real example. Hey, it happens. We forget why we do what we do, and what's important and neat about who we are. As one of those famous McKinsey guys, Kenichi Ohmae, has said:

Most people in big companies have forgotten how to invent. they know how to buy and sell businesses and produce me-too products... They're too worried about competition and market share and profitability figures.

Guys like Kaiser Permanente need to have IDEO come in and remind them that -- gee whiz -- they're in the compassion business, not "healthcare delivery." Krispy Kreme has a true "software" IPO, and forgets that it is sinfully delicious, fresh, warm glazed doughnuts that are what they do. Instead, they start reading the financial pages. Next thing you know the boss is front page news for sugar-coating quarterly numbers. There are all kinds of implications from the above kind of a-phasic, arythmic dilemma. Enthusiasm is the first victim. Then we begin shopping for an "appropriate" identity. (This is where I usually meet business-people.) Roles take the place of resourcefulness and willingness. Opportunity--"what if"--gets defined as a "distraction." Mistakes get amplified way out proportion. Competitors seem more capable than they really are. We feel more surrounded, clueless and inept than we really should. The chips just aren't falling, the "sky" is, and people are eyeballing the exits. And you can smell the anxiety in the air. ..

One of the cruelest things about organizations today is that they hold executives to standards of rationality, clarity, and foresight that are unobtainable. Most leaders can't meet such standards because they're only human, facing a huge amount of unpredictability and all the fallible analyses that we have in this world. Unfortunately, the result is that many executives feel they just can't measure up. That triggers a vicious psychological circle: Managers have rotten experiences because they keep coming up short, which reinforces low self-esteem. In the end, they get completely demoralized and don't contribute what they actually could - and otherwise would.

Karl E. Weick,
University of Michigan Business School at Ann Arbor
Managing the Unexpected (2001)

Ouch.

Okay, there's not much you do about "standards of rationality." There are some clearheaded people in this world, and then there are some who call the fire department if you turn the lights out.

But "clarity, and foresight that are unobtainable"? No. Wrong. At least, as presented.

If I can be so presumptuous, and I'm way out of my league, here--but Karl, you are wrong on this small part --- even a 10% improvement in the context of our work, our central purpose, yields large benefit. Clarity is not simplicity or perfection, just a better understanding of the cycles of our businesses.

And it's not about ducks. More on this later.

James Burke Week? A reprise:

In comments, Mike Dewitt wonders how many bloggers are fans of the old "Connections" series. He reckons "a lot." Count me in. One from the wayback machine...

Old technology never dies, it just fades away. Into cool rubble.

I photograph modern ruins because I find it disturbing to find familiar objects and technology to be abandoned. I'm reminded that nothing is permanent, that everything is always in a state of transition. And we see ourselves in our own transitions, sometimes too focused on where we're going to notice and appreciate where we are.

--Phillip Buehler

Or, where we've been

Modern Ruins is the site of photographer Phillip Buehler. I share his fascination with old tech left to rot, with the elephant's graveyards of progress. If you went to the 1964 New York World's Fair (as Buehler had as a kid), you'll find its old and current state portrayed here. Ditto, Ellis Island, Coney Island, old NASA launch sites, factories, aircraft graveyards etc.

Any fans of James Burke's Connections series (The original 10-parter is the ONLY one to watch) will remember the episode Countdown. As a prologue to the next and final episode, it ends with a poignant tour of the old Apollo launch site. Besides the then uncommon use of Carmina Burina as a sound bed (it was made in 1978), the writer walks through all the blow-torched and scrapped gantrys and left overs from that prodigious, exciting time as he asks an interesting question.

To paraphrase, Once the excitement of new ventures like the space program--or any venture, for that matter--winds down, what happens to the knowledge and lessons of what we've passed through and achieved?

I loved that question when I heard it as a 16-year old and it's been a driver for me ever since. Does a culture and a system where obsolescence is accelerated by a stuctural, economic neccessity for "new and improved" leave us with a gap in our cultural memory? Does this willful gap cause us to miss ideas and opportunities that are latent or right under our nose? Do we get unnecessarily spooked into reactive and possibly destrucutive gestures when the "old" is presented as new and threatening? Perhaps the cult of the new ignores the contributions of the past, to all our detriment.

Imagine the foreshortened way we regard events today. The Walmart question, discussed elsewhere on this site, seems for many a New problem. Yet, anyone with a historical memory recalls a collossus like once-great Sears dwarfing it's next 5 competitiors combined. Or an A&P, similarly huge and scary, now an also ran. Or, take the challenges of war or political candidacies: each event or individual tracks remarkably with situations or people of the past, yet we're shocked, shocked when we "find there's gambling going on here."

Things like media coverage of Iraq or Michael Jackson or Laci Peterson or Elizabeth Smart cause seemingly well-informed people to shake their heads and lament the decline of culure or modern media. The only problem is, this conclusion ignores the fact of say, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, or The Lindbergh Trial, or the Donner Party or whatever. The latter, about national security, kidnapping and death of an infant, and mass cannibalism and family tragedy were media supernova of their time. Papers couldn't print updates fast enough and people could speak of nothing else. Speculation and presumptions of guilt or innocence ran rampant. People spoke out of the top of their hats just to be saying something. Jibber-jabber. Just like, oh, I dunno NYT, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Rush/Talk-Radio et al do today.

Non-warranteed certitude is not a new product. That's just the way people are. Stories, archetypal stories, engage the mind like no other. Their mythical character and plot make them appeal to huge segments of people, but their conclusions and lessons can vary wildly in some cases because each is treated as a new lesson, not a repeat and an enhancement. And in this kind of a-historical context, we struggle wildy for meaning and understanding.

The result?

"I abolutely, positively have an opinion on this, that or the other. Just don't ask me 'why'"?

As Phillip sagely notes above, we're sometimes too focused on where we're going to notice and appreciate where we are. Indeed. Or, how we got here.

[reposted from 11.24.03]

Well lookee here: Heat, but no light.

Forbes.com: Nokia CEO voices concern about U.S. mores

HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - The head of Nokia - the world's largest mobile phone maker - expressed concern Sunday about disintegrating values in society and an apparent resurgence in conservative attitudes in the United States.

Nokia's chief executive, Jorma Ollila, said in a rare television interview that the world is living in "an era of selfishness" very different from his childhood days in a small town in central Finland, when family values were of prime importance.

"Put in a nicer way, it is an era of individualism. This is a very self-centered period, which also has plenty of good features too because, when understood correctly, it can help you live independently and stand on one's own two feet," Ollila, 54, said in a candid interview broadcast on state-run YLE television.

Speaking with Finnish philosopher Esa Saarinen, a personal friend, Ollila said he thinks people are more concerned about individual rights than taking responsibility for their actions and trying to have a positive influence on society.

"What I'm worried about is that if this disintegration of values continues and develops further, we'll get a conservative counter-reaction precisely like what has actually happened in the USA," he said.

Let's hope Saarinen took him aside after tthe interview and explained things like Segmentation, niche and micromarketing. Maybe while he was at it, perhaps things like the spin-off of "underperforming" divisions to offshore markets. Finally, maybe he asked Ollila what he thought about the fact that guys like he and Branson, Welch and Trump are superstars, yet we see very few scout leaders or teachers on the cover of Forbes or Fortue when it comes time to talk about "Success" or Leadership.

That is the thing that stings. Business leaders insist on claiming fealty to the idea of values, family values and the social fabric. Then decouple their actions from execution on the central principles of these beliefs. Corporate Mission is a mantra. But if you menton Corporate Conscience or consequence to them, they'll tilt their head sideways as though someone just suggested washing a car with a fish.

Jorma Ollila makes cell phones and digital devices. Those devices allow––make easy, promote––the ability of families and communities to be farther and farher apart from each other. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but distance creates, well, it creates distance. I can't sense you or feel you. We are together, yet apart. That has consequences. Technology always does. An example:

Ever thought much about the fireplace and chimney? Nice and cozy aren't they. Hearth and Home and what-not. Guess what. You can credit the fireplace for many things besides heat and cooking.

A Design: The Fireplace + Chimney

A medieval development based on utility: How do we stop burning down structures when we heat and cook in dwellings?

[R]evolutionary result: Before, servant and master gathered, ate and slept around a communal fire in a Great Room, vented through a big hole in the ceiling. Brrrr. Grrrr.

Now, spaces could be subdivided, with their own heat sources. Second floors could be added, bringing stairs into the home. Heat rises. So did the owner. He moved upstairs and "physical" class division begins. The new privacy and comfort afforded the privileged allows for more frequent bathing and personal care--quiet time--which in turn heralds the idea and practice of "romantic" love.

Oversimplified, yes, but that's the nub of it.

Imagine other consequences of heat on demand. You can add in the fact that inkpots didn't freeze in the winters anymore, nor did water clocks. So business and order could be maintained year round, round the clock. Yippee!

Now update the model: What are the converse effects of a thing like a fax or a cell phone or email? Who knows, maybe one symptom of the disconnect are blogs. Perhaps they're the new digital hearth? Your call.

Either way, let's hope that Saarinen grabbed Jorma Ollila by the ear and dragged him into the next room––then told him how silly, how decoupled from reality he is; how his business may, just may, in some ways enable and exalt that which he laments. Shared values need practice and proximity, and consistent application across all strata. Otherwise, they're just brochure copy and only serve to highlight the disconnect between people and practice.

How needs why, as mentioned in the previous post. Jorma seems to have forgotten it's not a principle unless it costs you somethng, even it's just the pain of self-awareness. Jorma seems not to know his "Why?".

---

{A nod to growing up with National Geographic and James Burke on the BBC for some of the above.]

The Neocon: Why Patriot Batteries make for better Inaugurations

LA Times

Bush Pulls 'Neocons' Out of the Shadows
WASHINGTON — In the unending struggle over American foreign policy that consumes much of official Washington, one side claimed a victory this week: the neoconservatives, that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites) and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East.

For more than a year, since the occupation of Iraq turned into the Bush administration's biggest headache, many of the "neocons" have lowered their profiles and muted their rhetoric. During President Bush (news - web sites)'s reelection campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading voices for invading Iraq, virtually disappeared from public view.

But on Thursday, Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" — a key neoconservative goal. Suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again.

"This is real neoconservatism," said Robert Kagan, a foreign policy scholar who has been a leading exponent of neocon thinking — and who sometimes has criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong."

On the other side of the Republican foreign policy divide, a leading "realist" — an exponent of the view that promoting democracy is nice, but not the central goal of U.S. foreign policy — agreed.

"If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," said Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that reveres the less idealistic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it … [and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy."

Hope and pray, Dimitri? Faith-based hunches, wild-assed guesses, cosmic assertions and unicorns are already the M.O. of neocons. And they have one half of your party, Dimitri. The half that writes the checks and pulls the trigger. You may insist on wishing upon a star but the rest of us, seemingly including those who've recently bailed from the administration, well, we're done rolling our eyes or lifting them to Heaven. It's time to get a net.

---

Up until Thrursday, I'd honestly figured that guys like Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz and Kagan merely knew which hot buttons to push when it came to our recovering Sophomore-in-Chief. And in turn, Bush needed them and their "seriousness" to cover his un-. As for being a Neocon, George W. Bush is an accidental one, the way you get on a bus to Cleveland instead of Cincinatti thinking only "C" and Ohio. Dubya wouldn't know Leo Strauss, the Neocon Moses, from the guy who invented rivet-pocket dungarees. And he's not alone. But Dubya has shifted, not surprisingly as all second-termers do, into full-blown "Legacy-mode," and his prompters, those wonderful folks who talk big but now have events like 9-11, Phantom WMDs and outed CIA agents and pyramids of nekkid Iraqis on their resumes, well, they're feeling pretty good about themselves as the soaring New American Patriots, despite the facts on the ground.

How'd we get here? Bush 43 was once merely enamored of the high flying "American idealism" of the folk at the Project for a New American Century and/or the American Enterprise Institute. Well, now he's married to them, in an Iraqi shotgun wedding. You dance with who brung ya, they say. And you don't criticize her dress. Or the offspring. With Thursday's speech, and with covert ops wandering the western countryside in Iran, he's allowed that spotty, brittle PNAC and AEI idealism to mutate into an American Ideal for the world: One size, one metric fits all--Ours. Sure, administration flacks are back-pedalling furiously, but foreign leaders, even the friendly ones, now smell "Rome." Or a straight-laced Caligula. Too late. You had your chance, you ate your cheese or said "Righto!" Doesn't matter where you lined up now. The Nico-Manicheans are here. They have Biblical hormones, righteous zeal and a 3% "mandate." And JDAMS and K-Street. And a woody for straightening out, "enlightening," their lessers. They're a group, and an ideology, in a hurry. Partly because they think this is their moment. And mostly because, they too, want to prove they "matter" in the Grand Continuum. That they are movers and shakers.

Sound pretty certain, don't I? Certainly am. After umpty-ump years of studying, helping, working with and for Architects, CEOs, Developers, Small Business owners, some politicians and other leaders and builders of things, a mental image came to mind. So I made it real a few years ago, and it sits up in the right hand corner of this blog. It's there to remind *me* to look for the deeper consequences of the requests and actions of the leaders I often find myself working for. And, to remind me to follow not just the money but, the ambition too. Where does it come from? And why? What are you really trying to achieve, and why? And most importantly, for Who? Honestly: for Who? It's an important question that needs answering because many of us are good at answering "How we do X." Many of us have no clue why. And when it comes to generating compelling, broad and serviceable rationales and plans "How? needs "Why?" Otherwise we fall in love with our ideas and missions, and others forget or ignore them, and Us. And we die a bridesmaid. But "Why?" without "How?" also leaves us feeling cheated, jilted--all fired up, raring to go, but with no map, no markers, no practical tools to get there effectively.

Go. Effectively. Those are the core of a wise mission and a sustainable competitive advantage. They're also, in metaphorical terms, the implicit purpose in Jim Collins' fine analogy about "being on the bus." With a company, I can stay or leave. I can find other leaders and opportunities that match my ambition at any time, even if it means a pay cut. With my country, I cannot. Sometimes it's an express coach, sometimes a welcome wagon. This time, its a steamroller. For four more years, a lifetime in "9-11 time" I am chained to an ambition I understand, but do not respect professionally or personally. This disrespect comes not from politics, but from people experience. (And, in my view, we are far more alike than we allow ourselves to believe. Thoughts, fears, hopes and questions. Different words maybe, different affectations, but the same once the Kabuki of class and race and role falls away.)

This ambition, his ambition, their ambition, is a destructive, self-interested and myopic one. It is theirs, not mine. And, I suspect if many gave it deeper thought, they'd reach the same conclusion. But paying attention or not, its vortex will make large casualties of innocent bystanders--already has, in lives and national reputation and opportunity. Fear of irrelevance, fear of failure, mirrored in Prideful certitude does that to some, high and low, Turbaned, or not. It separates how from why, depending on whatever needs justifying at the moment. Meaning becomes unmoored from act. Self-image trumps true self-interest. Fear of uncertainty, suspicion of of patience and calm confidence makes fools of many smart people, and fills SEC dockets, newspaper headlines. Or cemetaries.

So here's where Bush's legacy-factor is the slingshot to Neocon willfulness: More, faster, now! Raging and reactive narcissism. That's it. That's all. Foreign policy is the excuse and the device. Social Security Crisis? Fuhgeddaboudit. Hearts and minds are beside the point. You are the tools, or the obstacle. Fine. That's my read, my opinion. But I'm not the only certain one. We've been on these wild-eyed, legacy-fired missions before. Rather, the world has. And, having been through them far more often, on the dealing and receiving end, they know these things do not end well, historically speaking. The record of "enlightenment" by force and bluster, piety and destiny-speak, rather than by simple spadework and plodding, practical example speaks for itself. Stamina wins. Speed kills. SPQR.

---

One of the most popular Googled, and email-referral-ed posts around these parts is one scribbled last January. It tries to tackle and explain with some depth and, hopefully, some humor, what the hell a neocon is exactly. Who are they, why are they, where did they come from and what do they want? And, how is it they manage to do and say all kinds of incredibly stupid shit and still can hold an air of "competence" in the media and power firmament?

In fact, Thursday's Inaugural Address made me recall a certain snippet:

...In Bush's neo-vetted and -scripted platitudes about America's role of freedom and democracy bringer to the world, he sounds like a giddy sophomore who believes with all his soul that if people would just listen people would all hear wisdom and reform their silly selves.

And it was quaint when we heard Rodney King say it. We expect fuzzy thinking from habitual offenders and college students. Difficult to take from the "Fuzzy Math" President.

Seems it's kept it's relevance these last 12 months, and if headlines are guide, the world agrees. If you're so inclined, pack a lunch and your tinfoil hat, it's a fouro special

Neuro-Battle of the Sexes: Men are from Cray, Women are from ArpaNet

While there are essentially no disparities in general intelligence between the sexes, a UC Irvine study has found significant differences in brain areas where males and females manifest their intelligence.

The study shows women having more white matter and men more gray matter related to intellectual skill, revealing that no single neuroanatomical structure determines general intelligence and that different types of brain designs are capable of producing equivalent intellectual performance.

“These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior,” said Richard Haier, professor of psychology in the Department of Pediatrics and longtime human intelligence researcher, who led the study with colleagues at UCI and the University of New Mexico. “In addition, by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain.”

In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of – or connections between – these processing centers. 

This, according to Rex Jung, a UNM neuropsychologist and co-author of the study, may help to explain why men tend to excel in tasks requiring more local processing (like mathematics), while women tend to excel at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions in the brain, such as required for language facility. These two very different neurological pathways and activity centers, however, result in equivalent overall performance on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as those found on intelligence tests.... [More - UC-Irvine]

Rex Jung? The mind reels with possibilities. But my brain is from Radio Shack.

housekeeping

Tom Gauriello tells me that my XML RSS doohickey is flibberdigibbet. I'll try and get it sorted today, but may just ditch the existing link and start fresh. Geez, I don't even know if that makes sense or is possible. Or will work.

"220, 221, whatever it takes..."

It's phonics, I tell ya. Get the kids hooked and who knows what mayhem ensues

Now, we know.Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Elementary students try to hijack school bus

Friday: Three 11-year-old boys and a 10-year-old girl tried to hijack their school bus near Punxsutawney this morning.

State police said the four hatched the plot yesterday. Just after 8 a.m. today, one of the boys pulled a knife from a book bag and held it near another student. He demanded driver Janet McQuown, 52, stop and get off the bus.

A police new release says she pulled over along Pine Tree Church Road in Oliver Township and "the knife was removed from the juvenile's possession." It doesn't say how.

The bus, with the hijackers and about 40 other children, arrived safely at Mapleview Elementary, where the unnamed offenders were taken into custody.

Two were turned over to juvenile authorities and two went home with their parents.

The news release did not immediately say what the hijackers intended to do with the bus.

Phonics? Or Mystery Meat Thursdays? Or maybe they were just tired of that damned groundhog getting all the media juice in town. Yeah, that one. The big rodent with a PR department.

Pssst: BzzAgent! *Directed* communication is not "a conversation."

And word-of-mouth by talking points, strategy backgrounders and framing tips is not, well, analog Buzz. It's not. In much the same way reading a pretty girl's diary and then dropping hints that yes, you too, really find quiet pleasure in arranging your books by color and, by the way, don't you think the work of Hello Kitty is very much underrated thank you very much?

Yes. It's called cheating.

But geez, is BzzAgent really the Hive from Hell, folks?

Okay, I'm late to the station on this one. But I'm not gonna climb into the crowded dining car of Dudgeon on this BzzTrain. I prefer the caboose.

Or is it the locomotive?

Dunno. Let's see what the NYT sez:

...But it doesn't address another mystery: Why would the volunteers work so hard to get other people excited about these products? Another line of research suggests a possible answer. This school of thought would characterize word-of-mouth volunteers as operating not in a traditional money-in-exchange-for-effort ''monetary market,'' but rather in a ''social market.''

A *possible* answer? Gee. Once more form the NYT article...

''The key is,'' Balter [BzzAgent founder] said, ''people already talk about this stuff. They already talk about things they love.'' Manufactured word of mouth is indeed a bad and scary thing, he maintains, but that's not what his company is doing. ''For whatever reason, we have this natural instinct to tell a friend about a product -- and to get them to believe what you believe. We're not trying to change that. All we're trying to do is put some form around it, so it can be measured and understood. That's not changing the social fabric.''

Ahh, the social fabric. The dynamic interplay of myriad mores and traditions. Travelers finding their way among a vast pool of mates, friends, neighbors, associates and competitors. All trying, with buckets of transference as Jon Strande brilliantly pointed out--all trying to straddle the ontological conundrum of man: I want to stand out--within a group.

Well, what's the group in question here? Americans. What's the American imperative? New, more, better. And then, bigger, splashier. Tied for most important? Me. And First.

Hmmm.

People wanting to be seen, heard and noted. Valued for what the culture correlates as value: New. Bold. Insider. Commerce.

But beware the Iconoclastic Maverick. (Too risky, too steep a learning curve--nobody Bzz-ing this or this.) Better to be a Fast Pony. Seabiscuit maybe. The out-of nowhere favorite. The darling. The bringer of hope and dreams.

Or, if Hope is so 60s, why not 00s "Hope"-- INFO!

Come on, isn't it called the Information Economy? Whats the currency of that kind of system? I don't think it's lutefisk.

Sure. Generic info surplus leads to "Quality" info scarcity. Add in cultural flux and you get Social Capital for the holder of the newest vibe, the next ticket to possible completeness and calm, whether metaphysical or "the Next Kate Spade!"

Yeah. Yups and slackers, grannies and tweeners, economically 'safe' yet all volunteering, unpaid, not to sling soup at a homeless shelter but to - pitch products? What's their payoff?

Welcome to the snow line of Maslow's mountain of esteem. We have food, jobs, shelter, good teeth, edumacation and 401ks. (And we may just get to keep them since Dubya--Regular Guy BrandBzz!™--is term-limited to only 8-years of his majestic mountains of def-cit.)

With all those satisficers, um, satisficed, what's left? Well, if using my wacky self-image model you buy (heh!) that ...

•  in these literally and figuratively, physically and electronically blowing apart times that brands and groups, and affiliation with whatever your particular "brand" of meaning is are only getting more powerful, and that

• All we ever really do is trade sweat for economic wherewithal for social capital and "meaning," then...

What are we building with it?

"My ID," "My Brand." My statue as a valiant vanguard of New, more, better, bigger, splashier. And Me. And First.

And as We. A flock.

It's Jon's aformentioned Ontological paradox. Me-ness, within we-ness. First, among equals. They're the reflected light of their buyers' and their readers' Suns.

They? Readers?

Whoops. Now here's my rude statement: BzzAgent comes from the same neighborhood as the rise of the Blog that bemoans it. Perhaps the only difference is that the better blogs are their own manufacturers, too. Of ideas and intent. And then there's Glenn Reynolds.

Double-whoops. Maybe I should cut to the chase (rare, I know) and then bolt: BzzAgent could be run out of town on a rail tomorrow, and 3 more would pop up in their stead. Then 9 more. Then, well, it's the The Joneses, gone supercritical. In a celebrity age populated by anonymous masses told that their fifteen minutes of forum = I matter.

And maybe, just maybe, it really does, when that is the only official legal tender; the only quoin of the realm.

Markets full of consumers looking to be their neighborhood's Moses in a Promised Land built on product will do this kind of thing--pump up their standing and self-image among their peers. Old friend, and possible pigeon. For one and all, for the chance to say, to shout, in this media-flush age full of dreck and din: I! We! Are here! And we've got the answer. First!

Trust me. (Us. ;-)

More from the Cartesian Well. Mmmm, delicious.

Also via Merlin Mann dirtsimple.org

The Courage to do things Simply

In my second professional programming job, I had a really interesting boss. When we had a design meeting, we would all sit around a whiteboard, and as Roger (my boss) threw out things we needed to accomplish, the other programmers and I would propose solutions, and Roger would say, "Really? What if you just did X?", where X was some absurdly, ridiculously, jaw-droppingly simple thing.

Of course, X wouldn't always work; oftentimes one of us would find a hole in his idea. We'd all then try to fix the hole, but at some point the idea started to become too complicated for Roger's taste. "How about Y?" Still ridiculously simple, and tantalizingly close to working.

Oftentimes, he "cheated", by redefining the problem itself to make it a simpler problem to solve, or forcing the problem to fit some existing available solution. We would continue in this vein until the solution was so simple it hardly seemed like any work to actually implement, or it became absolutely clear that the problem would not yield to simplicity. In which case we simply packed it in for the day on trying to solve that problem, and we'd hit it again on another day.

[snip - some very, very beautiful stuff (tracing back to TRS-80 programming for one,) on looking through complexity for the always present threads of simplicity. Sometimes, for a thing to be easy, first it must be hard. Or...]

Sometimes, a minor tweak to a system produces great benefits; the difference of an inch can be the difference, as Twain put it, between "lightning" and "lightning bug". If you compare the complexity of the mainframe financial software that VisiCalc replaced, with the simple spreadsheet that replaced it, well, that's where you'll find that simplicity on the far side of complexity, and it makes all the difference in the world.

Roger, by the way, was not a programmer by trade. He was a teacher, mostly of learning disabled children. Patience, simplicity -- and doing whatever it takes, no matter how absurd -- were his watchwords. I owe him a lot for the things he taught me, but today I especially give thanks for the gift of simplicity, and for the courage to ask "What if we just did X? Would that work? Would it be simpler? What else might we gain?".

Couldn't resist posting that much, but left some of the best bits for you to find.

Quite a flurry of posts today, huh? I'm snowed in with the kids. And deep into an immediate-, and a longer-term project for a client that takes me to some of these sensibilities--stop me if this is too much information--to develop what some derisively call "low-wage workers'; yet, not ironically, ones who are charged with high degrees of responsibility. A valuation-compensation conundrum and a squished-ambition/learned-helplessness loop. Nice, yeah? I think so. Digital Don Quixotes? Nah, windmills are lame. (With the odd "green-power" exception, and "blogging," of course.)

AKMA's New Law of [non-] simplification

AKMA's Random Thoughts

"When trying to simplify a complex [bureaucratic] system, any change that does not result in an obvious quantum of simplification amounts to further complication––or, more concisely, "any attempted simplification short of a quantum change is always a complication."

Hah!.

In praise of the tactile

Via Merlin Mann comes Journalismo: Back to analog

Manifesto

...an attempt to invite a return to analog. Many of us live very digital lives. We push pixels around screens. Our lives are stored as bits on shiny hard drives. Our words and images can be published online, available moments later, all around the world. But this digital life can often seem very shallow.

While we recognize the power of our digital existence, we long for the tactile feel of ink on paper. We celebrate the freedom from power supplies,  batteries, wireless networks and fragile electronics. We seek to elevate the written word and the freehand sketch on fine paper. We celebrate the  journal as the optimal analog device for expression and enjoyment.
...

Journalisimo is a collaborative effort between graphic designer Mike Rohde and Armand Frasco of Moleskinerie.com.

Cool site. Nice sensibility. (Evelyn Rodriguez seems to like it too. Hi, Evelyn!)

Me too, pal. Me too.

Via Road to Surfdom and points down under comes: retiring Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage:

"I'm disappointed that Iraq hasn't turned out better. And that we weren't able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process."

Then, after a minute's pause, he adds a third regret: "The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot."

Translation: "Mom, Daddy lies."

Is it any wonder bloggers are wandering about wailing for authenticity, honesty and "real conversations"? Maybe we can have a picture of Diogenes in the 50-years hence wiki on "The blogging phenomenon."

Nighty-night.

"Why do you participate in the blogosphere?"


[Update below] The above question comes from Mike DeWitt of (temporarily hiatused) Spooky Action fame, in comments to the earlier post of various zen, tao, buddhist and hindu wisery. Once I realized Mike was looking for a serious answer, not taking the mickey, I figured I'd give him a *gasp* honest answer.

"why do you participate in the blogosphere?"

Okay, where's that question coming from?

Guess I write for narcissistic reasons first: I think I have something to say.

Second, for therapeutic reasons: I have something to say, and if I don't get it out, I'll pop.

Third: When I've been allowed to put what I think and say into action, people have benefited economically and/or in self-worth terms. (A creative director's first-principle)

Fourth: I have an innate urge to feel useful, competent and worthy. I'm human.

Fifth: As writer of this blog, and perhaps tellingly, as a refugee from "corporate advertising" and "traditional agencies" and so, as co-founder of a company, I get to write and practice what I think for people who are curious and looking for better, not jaded compromise.

Sixth: I think I matter. I think everybody matters. If they let themselves. If they look for their worth.

I think therefore I am. I wrote it, therefore I matter, "officially," and "Archived for posterity." Somebody else thinks different or benefits from it, and says so, therefore I mattered, even if I get hit by a bus tomorrow. A soapbox, a megaphone, a plea, a promise, a handshake, a hug. A future.

Legacy: today. Isn't it funny that we call those newspaper and magazine ads for an Initial Public Offering offering "Tombstones"? Legacy, it's not just for funerals anymore. Never was, really.

Howzat?

There ya go. That;s what I said. Stay tuned, there is a point.

Update: But hey, enough about me--what are your reasons? What do you think are those of others?

Why do we Brand things Blog stuff? What is a Brand Blog?

You know, with all the current revaluation of the meaning of Blogs, their power, and perhaps, most tentatively, the urges behind their authorship it struck that like most things we've tilled this ground before. It's been covered when Radio was viewed as an abomination or a fad. When the motorcar was "an infernal machine." Probably when the first guy made a tune beating on a hollow log. Am I wrong? I went back through some archives and found the below, from last spring. Substitute Blog for Brand in many cases and, to me anyway, it's the same thing. Especially the Shackleton example at the end.

---

4-5-04...

Doing or Being? Branding or Becoming? The debate begins...

Seems there's a budding meta-debate on "what makes a brand?" on some of the blogs I enjoy reading. Kewl.

I've seen John Moore post that "Branding is about being remarkable". Can't disagree with that. But it seems rather passive, rather static. "Branding" is used as a verb in his example, yet it describes a state of being rather than becoming. That may seem like splitting hairs to some, but to me, the most elemental and engaging brands have a "what's next?" aura about them.

Think about the country and the era which birthed the term. Branding evolves from the need to identify a roaming piece of property amongst countless others in the middle of a boundless frontier. It was a way to make sense of things in an obviously dynamic and uncontrollable landscape.

Sound like your life? It does mine.

If that unknown opportunity was a point of pride and a magnetic attraction for people, branding was a way to symbolize and keep order of what you had without resorting to something that was all but impossible and somewhat antithetical to the time and the ambition: a fence.

In this way, I'd view a brand as girding your way for a journey into open range, new horizons, a future. It's a becoming, which begins, of course, from "being". It doesn't mean packing everything including the kitchen sink and grandma's sewing machine, either. Adventures usually demand that we travel light, and bring only the necessities. In this case, for a brand, those necessities would include a sense of what you can do, what you want to do, and where you're going with it all. And who's welcome to come.

That's how Shackleton mythically approached and wrote what is possibly the most powerful ad--one representation of a brand--of all time:

---

Hmm. Charging off into the unknown like nutcases, in hopes of planting a flag for some far off ambition or goal. More to come, written today and tomorrow, about what's to come and what it means, at least, to me.

Some stuff I needed to hear today,

The Great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
When government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;

When the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn ~
All this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (as interpreted by Stephen Mitchell)

-----

The soul that with strong and constant calm
takes sorrow and takes joy indifferently,
lives in the life undying!

That which is
can never cease to be;
That which is not
will not exist.
To see this truth of both
is theirs who part essence from accident,
substance from shadow.

Indistructible, learn thou! the life is,
spreading life through all;
It cannot anywhere, by any means,
be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed.

Never the spirit was born;
the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not;
End and Beginning are dreams!

Birthless and deathless and changeless
remaineth the spirit forever;
Death hath not touched it at all,
dead though the house of it seems!

~  Bhagavad Gita (Sir Edwin Arnold, in Wisdom of the Orient, p.127)

-----

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, 
Live the life you have imagined. 

~ Henry David Thoreau

-----

Awakening is dynamic, 
Constantly evolving in accordance with life’s realities ~ 
Unfolding from ego-self to compassionate self, 
From enclosed self to open self, 
From foolish self to enlightened self. 

~ Taitetsu Unno

-----

Nowadays the world is becoming increasingly materialistic, 
and mankind is reaching toward the very zenith of external progress, 
driven by an insatiable desire for power and vast possessions. 
Yet by this vain striving for perfection in a world where everything is relative, 
they wander even further away from inward peace and happiness of the mind. 
This we can all bear witness to, living as we do plagued by unremitting anxiety … 
It becomes more and more imperative that the life of the spirit be avowed 
as the only firm basis upon which to establish happiness and peace. 

~ Dalai Lama

LINK

Conversation?

I'm getting an embolism from all this semantical gyration about what makes a "conversation".

Customer-people are analog. Companies are digital. The analog employee-people within companies trying to respond to analog customer-people, and vice versa, would really appreciate it if the damn digital blackbox would park itself in the corner and just count the receipts while people get on about the business of reaching out to one other and bonding the way they were built to do before Adam Smith came along and got everyone twisted in their own knickers.

They can sing each other songs, argue, blow kisses, arm wrestle, or just bathe in each other''s glow. Beautiful, self-organizing markets of free choice. The medium is the message. The message is: *directed* communication is NOT conversation.

There. I'm done. I'll go stand in my corner now.

"You wrote that?"

Blogs are the new Business Cards

Yee-ow! Friday! It's been a whirlwind week. I've been enmeshed in business conversations on the effects of global change and tumult on the lives of the anonymous "Us" and also deeply into in the dynamics of how Security Guards say "Please," "Thank you," and "Naturally, we..."

But packed within this week of infinite meetings talking about matters of import to many, many concerned people, were moments of "A-ha!".

7 or so were the result of the natural course of events of invested people talking through their challenges. But two others, were due to this blog.

Of course, this is "Accidental."

For instance. I was introduced to the ex-COO of a somewhat note-able institution here in the States. We got to jabbering about sports and kids, the challenges of encouraging our kids' ambition and independence while at the same time keeping them out of the principal's office or jail. (Interesting segue, huh?) After the inevitable "What do you do?", we talked some about work. Natch, the talk went to what we hoped work could be versus what it usually turns into.

Then, a particularly spiky and unresolved thought reared its head: this guy had some undone business: "I always wondered why I couldn't get my people to see what I saw as opportunity?" Of course, I was eloquent in my response: "I know what you mean."

Perhaps it was because of what we'd shared earlier about our interpretation and understanding of our kids' challenges or, maybe, just thanks to his patience, he asked "Why is that?"

I mumbled something about the dilemma of hierarchies hobbling the ambition they were supposed to enable. Then I stopped. And said, "You know what? Sometimes they can't see you. Or understand what you're about. I read a story in National Geographic years ago, about how the base of Mt. Everest was a holy mess with empty oxygen tanks, trash and all kinds of shit left over from the explorers. A huge pile of barf left at the edge of beauty and possibility. But someone else had to clean up. Sometimes, we don't explain why the shit is there. Or we don't get our vital role as tidiers after the explorers"

He tilted his head. Was he gonna punch me? Run? Make a polite exit? I felt like an idiot for having spun off into the unlicensed, goofy territory of "speech-i-fyer."

"I remember that," he said.

"Yeah, it was a great article. I .grew up with the the National Geographic," said me.

"No. I remember that example about bosses."

We talked more about some of the challenges of being a boss and of communicating, and I turfed out an example of the frustration: Norah Jones with a mouthful of rocks

"Yeah!" he said, "That's what I mean!"

"There you go," says eloquent me.

"No, i read that--That's so right. Somebody gave it to me! Somebody sent me that. That was you?"

It's a small world. I have a new client. Because I made a new friend. Not an acquaintance. Thanks to this blog.

What Would Toshiro Mifune Do?

Via Dewayne Mikkelson and Shadow his Webdog comes this jewel from Brokentype. What a great read on sensibility, identity, honor and so forth as viewed through the personalities of one of Japan's iconic film stars and the director who most complemented his persona. Four concepts: Pride, Suck-it-up, Don't look back, and "Change." A snippet:

1) Pride

I have a theory that the only thing a man needs to do to live an honest life is to imitate Toshiro Mifune. He's often described as Japan's Clint Eastwood, (which is annoying since Clint Eastword stole his man-with-no-name persona wholesale from Mifune's performance in Yojimbo, right down to the charro root) but Clint Eastwood is a terrible model for masculinity. He trades dignity for cool, duty for revenge. While Eastwood has some kind of restrained rage smoldering inside him, Mifune has pride. A pride that is so otherworldly it shimmers on the screen like some new, previously untapped emotion.

The pride Akira Kurosawa evoked in collaboration with Toshiro Mifue has nothing to do with the Hubris of Greek Tragedy. Akira Kurosawa's great gift was to take the stories of the West (the cowboy western, Shakespeare, the detective novel) , dip them in Japanese culture, and bring back a story that was different from anything we could have hoped for, and twice as true for it. In Kurosawa's films, pride is not fatal - it is the only way to survive. In Stray Dog (one of the first films starring Mifune) a rookie police officer has his gun stolen on a train, and scours the city for it. He doesn't sleep, he doesn't eat, he certainly doesn't change out of his white linen suit; he is single minded in his determination to salvage his dignity (It's no accident that this all takes place before a backdrop of Japan's humiliation following the war) and when he finally confronts the man who has the gun he looks upon him without an ounce of sympany. Pride is the motivation for living, and when you've lost it, you cease to be human.

Way cool and thoughtful. I'm breaking out my dusty old VHS of "Rashomon" or "Yojimbo" once we get the kids to bed tonite.

UPDATE: Okay, watched Seven Samurai instead. Went back and reread the Mifune piece because one segment of it bothered me: Number 3, Suck-it-up...

With pride, there's a profound revulsion to the pathetic.... In The Seven Samurai he curses at an old woman who recounts the miseries she has endured. But Kurosawa isn't saying that grief and misery are to be taken lightly - they are everywhere in his films - the crime is to let them loose, to acknowledge them publicly, to let them master you through expression. It is the opposite of what every psychiatrist will recommend, and it is the best thing to do. Keep it inside and create yourself from it. It's the only thing you can be sure of, the only self-perpetuating resource your will ever get. You can't rely on love or loyalty or happiness, but if you learn to build a wall out of sadness you can keep the legions out.

Ouch. Real self-abasement is the ugliest of indignities. (As opposed to the feeble attempts at apology for typos, randomness, etc as I spin and spew War and Peace-length posts chock full of certitude and bluster at this blog's four readers--see, there I go again.) And there is no honor in lamenting the past, only in resisting its failures power over you. But I think it's wrong to suggest "Keep it inside and create yourself from it. It's the only thing you can be sure of, the only self-perpetuating resource your will ever get... if you learn to build a wall out of sadness you can keep the legions out."

To me, that's the opposite of Kurosawa's messages: Strength, not hardness, from hardship. Inner will, not willfulness or outer complaint. Pride makes you stronger, but rage and denial makes you brittle and unable to parry the inevitable feints and failures of life. His message is that life is ugly, and that the life of samurai is often ugly and fruitless. That people are failures of the ideal. Failure of will. But Kurosawa's cinematic framing and pauses seem to say that he'll take the sublime hope of a peasant's life, quietly lived, rather than the noisy, unforgiving code of his rootless Ronin or Samurai.

And maybe that Pride is a stopgap when your service is to others, till you find service to yourself a worthy cause. Or something like that.

Okay, it's 3:45. Time for a bit o sleep.

The challenges of modernity:
• Believing our own PR
• Numbers over sensing
• Valuing SigInt over HumInt

Gordon Housworth over at always worthy ICG Blog, highlights a piece in Jan/Feb "Foreign Affairs" by foreign policy emeritus Edward Luttwak

One reason why the CIA favours rendition [summary deportation of suspected Muslim extremists to Arab states for interrogation] is its lack of interrogators who know foreign languages -- and I mean not just difficult languages such as Korean, but also easy ones such as colloquial variants of Arabic, or indeed modern standard Arabic, in which fluency requires only a few months of moderate effort. Companies instruct their salesmen to pick up Arabic when assigned to Middle East spots, but the CIA is apparently a less demanding employer. The CIA's degeneration, however, is of far broader scope. The Mormons and cow-college graduates who have come to fill the ranks of the Directorate of Operations since the Ivy League's post-Vietnam desertion are simply too provincial for the basic craft of the espionage trade, the recruitment and handling of foreigners as agents. So long as the Cold War lasted, the solid products of satellite photography and all manner of electronic intelligence masked the erosion of espionage skills without which there is no going after terrorists. While competent case officers with languages and tact are few, deep-cover operatives are absent -- the US has been engaged with Iraq since 1990, but the CIA did not have one agent in its government when war started anew in 2003, nor any operative on the ground. Now, ordinary Army and Marine officers are doing a better job of recruiting Iraqi informants than the CIA.

To my eyes and ears, Luttwak describes precisely the challenge of corporate America here also--a cultural weakness, a looming competitive disadvantage: Our belief in the shiny, sexy--the touchable--the evermore ubiquitous, technology.

The last few posts her have mentioned a falling out occuriing, a disillusionment with the tools generated by our other tools: Companies. Nick Carr blasts IT as becoming inconsequential. CFO magazine tracks best practices to a price-of-entry parity basement, quickly and easily replicable competitive advantage therefore, becoming no advantage at all. We doodle our dreams of process and network on whiteboards ignoring the impact of the decimation of proximity in these developments. Throughput gets privilege, making proximal sweat and effort, a lost reseourcefulness and bucket-brigade esprit d'corps an anachronism. The losses are tremendous up and down the heirarchy, equal to the distances created.

Two thoughts come to mind, both from the same book: Arts with the brain in mind.

Author, Eric Jensen: America is a feeling-phobic society. [A good interview with longtime neuro-writer Jensen, here.]

And Rolf Jensen (unrelated), Director of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies.

We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society will place a new value on the one human ability that can't be automated: Emotion.

The CIA would do well to learn this. As would the Business Roundtable.

Chicken, or Egg? Goal, or Ambition? System, or soft squishy things called people?

My new Skype pal and longer-term much-admired blogger, Johnnie Moore, has been pondering some good stuff. He began by wondering after Southwest Airlines' success, then the meaning, matter and mirage of "goals"...

I think what happens is that brands emerge out of the soup. After the event, a large number of Alpha Males lay competing claims to having invented them (success has many parents, failure is an orphan). As the history is written, many happy accidents are reinvented as the results of smart goal setting and thorough planning.

(I used to be a planner in ad agencies; every planner I ever met acknowledged that our real speciality was post-hoc rationalisation of creativity).

Couldn't agree more. Stan Richards of the Richards Group (Southwest Airline's longtime ad agency) once said, and I paraphrase: Creatives may come up with a deeper truth that's far more relevant and powerful, but "off strategy." In those cases, we rewrite the strategy. A very wise man. Johnnie continues...

All this creates the Myth of the Goal. A story is told that suggests the only way forward for any grown-up organisation is to idealise a future state, compare it with a present state, and do the gap analysis. As Ben so shrewdly observes, that analysis of the present state will very likely fail to capture the multiple, apparently small, details that make any organisation what it is.

Johnnie then relates his frustration with "idealized futures," which I can't fully agree with. Idealism has been dumbed down and denigrated in popular culture to the point where someone saying "there are no good movies anymore" or "we want to lead our industry" counts as Idealism. Nah. As I read recently on a friends blog, that reduction and cop-out is akin to saying a Porsche makes a good paperweight. Johnnie then bridges things nicely with a follow on post about Fundamental Attribution Error -- judging our insides by other peoples outsides or their actions; allowing our feelings to align and react to what may be an innocent but not obvious chain of events that we don't understand but get to feeling victimized by and about. FAE: the inability or unwillingness to understand context and subtext in others, instead, we prioritzing our own bag of junk, our pathology and agenda--it's the kiss of death for marketers and managers, as just scribbled in Johnnie's comments:

Isn't FAE the result of us wanting to deny the obvious: Shit happens for reasons we often didn't see coming, usually because our heads were down working on some "officially important" trifle Two choices, embodied in a phrase some wise person once sent me: When you come to the edge of all things that you know, you must believe one of two things: There will be earth on which to stand, or you wil be given wings to fly.

*Knowing* in this instance is less about encyclopaedic knowledge of facts but more understanding what people inherently want. Business policies and systems don't take this fundamental man-hole into account, or rather, they create an even more dangerous one by implying that more "linear" rules are the answer. Customer and employee understanding begin at the beginnning, with people understanding. Which as we know, managers don't learn in B-school. There's your invisible 90% of the iceberg, Johnnie. But not unknowable.

To follow on the earlier theme of LUV's success, I give you JetBlue's David Neeleman from October's Chief Executive magazine: "When I get treated poorly, it really pisses me off. Then it pisses me off that it pisses me off."

See, Neeleman knows that if he can get his people to agree on the fundamental injustice of bad service, of "pissing people off," then they can use that simple, yet firmly held idea, and act nimble in ways that make obvious sense to JetBlue's mission, the same way Kelleher said, "If we're not enjoying ourselves, what's the point?"

For similar examples, scroll down a post to the Metaphysics of Work. In simple terms it means that marketers and the executives who hire them are makers and finders of meaning, makers of means to ends, not of "media buys" or "passenger miles." Our consumers are employee and ticketholder.

Bob Lutz, Blogger

New GM Vice-chairman, ex-of Chrysler fame has a blog. With comments, no less.

They be talkin' cars big time and he seems generally interested.

Cool.

The Metaphysics of Work

I didn't know until someone pointed it out, but it seems Hugh over at Gaping Void and yours truly are channeling each other. Here's Hugh...

I said in The Hughtrain that people are becoming more spiritually more demanding. And they want products that better reflect this.

Which means your brand will have to do a much more clever job of articulating all the "good stuff": Values. Purpose. Belief. Integrity. Compassion etc.

Sadly for the typical Madison Avenue ad agency, this stuff is not the preferred currency. They prefer to go with what they know best: Vanity. Greed. Fear. Lust. Paranoia etc.

We'll see how much longer they can get away with it.

Nice choice of lexicon. And no, not too much longer, Hugh. The screech and flourish about morality and values of the 2004 election was an odd, refractive example of the coming train wreck.

It's not that values don't or won't matter. They will, exponentially so, as our lives grow more electronically connected, yet simultaneously sidestepping and highlighting, not eliminating, the need for that vital social-animal leftover: physical proximity. No. Values have weight, it's simply that the conversation nationally is about as satisfying as the ones that we engage in commercially, professionaly, 9 to 5: They have all the traction of snail snot. As I posted in his comments:

Hope or Fear?
Joy or Jealousy?

Making the former requires humans, philosophers. The latter, robots and technicians. Robots are easier to calibrate, hence their appeal but also easier to copy, hence their weakness. Yes, a clash of Ideals and of measurement systems indeed. Buckle up.

Geez, have I been clearing brush for the Hughtrain all this time? Clang, clang, clang went the trolley...

Then I tagged this link just to tweak Hugh's revelation a bit:



If you're a regular reader you may have seen reference to the above table from time to time. It's part of a handy alphabet we built at our little idea manufactory to aid in the search for strategy and solutions for businesses that people won't easily forget, or shun. Nor want to.

It was born out of hairpulling frustration.

As a Creative Director, often on the hook for reviving challenged brands or ones fast-turning irrelevant, I'd come to see that all the marketing buzzwords slung at me by brand managers, bosses and what-not were meaningless. They may have mattered for 15 minues in 1985 but, now, nobody cared. Branders were really spraypainters and spacklers. Uniquely self-organizing things like markets were victims of modernity and of the measurers that modernity births. Truly weird, because the most righteous capitalists and free marketeers will rail for the unimpeded flow of capital and ideas, for "truly free markets," and then... they'll proudly show you an org chart of their outfit that would give a socialist morning wood. The suggestion of market forces at play, of an "invisible hand" allowed to work, within their little kingdom would elicit cries of " We can't do that! It would be anarchy!"

It's funny and tragic at the same time. Funny because St Augustine is said to have mumbled a similar strain once upon a time: "Give me chastity and sobriety, just not yet."

And there you have it. Two mindsets, each looking for connection and consistency, but tangled up in their words and frames of reference.

The failures and the numbers proved it. The cries for "Different!" were met with, "Ohh, not that different." Real difference (ironically, as in, closer to true and meaningful) made folk uncomfortable. Not personally, mind you. We all had those kinds of deeper conversations with our friends and co-workers over coffee all the time. Hey, we're not the robots mentioned above. No. It was in mixed company--bosses and employees, or between marketers and consumers--that we got scared of our selves and our feelings. And of our anxiety over, pardon the term Hugh, the Gaping Void. So, we faked it. And we kept doing, saying and hearing the same things over and over again.

There had to be a better way, sed I. No, actually what I said, or really, what me and a couple of partners said was, "WTF?"

Hey, it was the turn of a century--what better symbolism for exploration and expletives? So off I went, digging through old books and buying new ones. Talking to marketers, ministers, medics and moms. I culled a good 15 years worth of tattered notes from client projects both failed and successful, and added scads more.

And a pattern evolved. Whether I was talking to HR folks or wrench turners, CEOs or CSRs, happy