Why are we doing this anyway?

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Rayan

If only we ask this question every time we start a new project, how much would it save everyone associated with it? It is so fundamental that we assume that it was asked by someone already and we run with it. You will be surprised to note that it took a disaster like Challenger explosion (28th Jan 1986) to ask the purpose of the space shuttle program. Instead of running with a task handed down, a simple question like, “Why are we doing this or to what end?” would benefit us immensely.

We may defend, “Well that was in 1986, ever since that we come have a long way.” Not really. Time and again we see this folly of not asking this question in our everyday life. Recently Microsoft discontinued its Live Book Search project after nearly 2 years of scanning 750,000 books and 80 million journal articles and spending close to $ 10 million. I wonder if anyone part of the project group raised this question, “Why are we doing this anyway?”

Assuming I am a consultant and my client states a problem with a fat pay check for solving his problem, it would be unwise to accept the stated problem and start collecting data to solve the problem. At the least, asking this question, would expand the perspective of the client, expand the possibilities and change how the solutions are presented. It may even prevent me from tackling his wrong problem!

According to the Purposes Principle, in the book titled ‘Breakthrough Thinking’, the authors implore us to seek the purpose of everything. To quote verbatim from the book, “If the purpose of a shoelace is to tie a shoe, ask what the purpose of tying a shoe is – and then watch the possibilities for alternative, innovative solutions unfold before your eyes.”

Having stated an immediate purpose of solving a problem, we should expand the purposes, to still greater purposes until we have an array of purposes to tackle. Then out of the many we choose the one that would have a greatest impact using our limited resources.

Let me explain with a simple personal example:

Suppose I ask myself the purpose of writing this blog I will come up with the answer: to educate, inform and entertain the visitors to my site. And if I were to ask again what in turn the purpose of that is; my answer would be to encourage more visitors to visit this site and so on.

Eventually my purpose array would look like the following:

To create content for my website to educate, inform and entertain the visitors to my site.
To encourage more visitors to visit my site.
To expose visitors to relevant advertisements displayed alongside.
To click on the advertisements that are of interest or use to them.
To collect payment from my Associates for qualified clicks.
To create an additional income stream through the Internet.
To have more disposable income on hand.
To invest in assets that enhances quality of life.
To enhance quality of life.

Now in my purpose array I may choose to focus on the initial purpose (level 1) of just creating the content or I may choose to focus on level 2 i.e. to encourage more visitors to visit my site or level 6 i.e. to create an additional income stream from the Internet.

At each level my course of actions will be different. For instance if I focus on level 1, I need to focus on what would be topical and interesting to my visitors and what additional research is required before I complete this post, what improvement in presentation or style of writing is required etc.

If instead if my focus is on level 2, my focus would be to explore other options to attract visitors to my site (like buying quality content from other sources, or other incentives like creating contests with free gifts for winners on my site) other than myself spending time creating the content.

If I have the money I may choose to focus on level 6, I may open an online store promoting my own products or if I am resource poor I may opt to promote others products by becoming an affiliate. Or at level 7, I may choose to ignore the Internet altogether and see more conventional ways of creating additional source of income.

The point is, asking the purpose of doing anything, expands my options. I hope you agree with me.

Is this an expression of gratitude or a sign of weakness?

Posted on July 20, 2008 by Rayan

Recently I received a package from a company with whom I had placed an order for shipment. There was a label on it which read, “Thanks for your order. We appreciate your business. Because of you we are working.” It would be inappropriate to name the company, so I would rather not. One may wonder as to what was wrong with it. Well, for one thing, “Thanks for your order. We appreciate your business” is an expression of gratitude and is always welcome. But going beyond that and saying, “Because of you we are working” is a sign of weakness. By extension it implies, “Please don’t stop ordering, else we will lose our jobs. We have a mortgage on our house, car payments to be made and mouths to feed and so on” and so looks childish.

I understand in today’s economy, there is large scale retrenchment and even skilled, highly qualified employees are let go by all kinds of businesses. There is a shiver in our heart, any time our status quo is threatened. I am not an exception either. As much as my heart goes out to those GM employees in Oshawa or Windsor whose future is threatened because of plant closures, I believe we have to give in to reality that the demand for certain products has disappeared and accept the inevitable. Staging protests in front of the plant may draw sympathy from the general public or some statements from the local politicians and would do nothing much.

A product or service should stand on its own merit and should not appeal to (or depend on) the sympathies of the customer. Not that the customer doesn’t care, but he has more compelling reasons to do as he pleases. So appealing to the emotions of the customer may even make him suspect the product or service.

Lee Iacocca (Autobiography – the Chrysler story) took a much debated government bailout while bringing Chrysler back from bankruptcy. But he delivered on his promise. He believed in his team and products and so pulled off a coup. Last week without so much of a debate Fanny May and Freddie Mac have been bailed out just so people can have jobs. It is a disgrace, a temporary prop and who knows what this additional public debt would do to U.S.A., the paragon of capitalism. I doubt if any single individual is taking responsibility for this.

Peter Drucker the management guru once said that there is no reason for a business to go on and on and should be shut down if it makes economic sense. That in all likelihood will lead to new businesses to sprout. It reflects the Tao or Zen teaching: “When I am completely destroyed, I am about to grow”

There is something magical about boxing

Posted on July 16, 2008 by Rayan

To me there is something magical about boxing; but only if it involves no violence. I mean, I detest any violence dished out (either by the participants or the spectators) in the name of entertainment. I have been a fan of professional boxing (and continue to be to this day) and see worthy contests as when time permits. But it is the no holds barred contests (like some Ultimate Fighting Championships) where the participants take all kinds of risks just so we, the spectators are entertained; that I hate.

The sponsors, the promoters, the event organizers all collect fat checks and the advertisers, the media benefit immensely, while the participants end up as casualties for life. Even if the injured sportsmen take home big money, what good money is to them if they are paralyzed waist down (say due to some injury to their spinal cord or suffer irreparable head injury) and had to move about in a wheel chair or sip food through a tube?

I am not exaggerating. I saw one kick boxing contest where one of the kick boxer’s shin bone broke into two (due to either the shock of the kick he gave or received) and hung like a broken twig from the rest of his leg. I couldn’t bear to see it and stopped watching kick boxing ever since. One may argue that, after all the participants participate voluntarily and are fully aware of the risks involved and so what harm is caused in organizing the show? Nelson Mandela has an active interest in professional boxing but at the same time strongly believes in non-violence. When he was asked if there is any conflict between the two, his answer was the same.

belcher v gamble with commentary.jpg However, if one of the unequal participants induced by big prize money fights and ends up being carried away in a stretcher, is it voluntary? But at least most of the times in boxing, there is this referee who steps in to save the severely injured boxer from himself. And the stupid boxer returns the favor by trying to knock down the referee himself for stopping the fight.

I don’t want to sound like Lisa in ‘The Simpsons’, advocating vegetarianism, while rest of the party enjoys a hearty meal of the wild boar. But if we, the spectators are in it to vent our male aggression (remember the movie Fight Club) or driven by greed by betting heavily against one or the other player, then we need to check our motives.

I mean how far are we removed from the Romans watching the blood sports in the arena with glee. Russell Crowe in Gladiator comes to my mind. After annihilating his enemy he turns to the spectators with equal rage and asks, “Are you entertained now?”. To me, at the end of the match, if we leave the stadium even with a little guilt, than it is not a sport.

If you ask me to be more specific and lay it out in clear terms (what is magical about boxing other than the boxers blowing their brains out?) hear is my answer:

To me more than the fight itself, the prelude that leads up to the fight that is magical. The stadium, the lighting, the assemblage of the VIPs accompanied by their beautiful female counterparts, the spectators with flags to show their solidarity, the statistics of the contestants (impressive both by themselves and taken together),the rigor they had gone through prior to the fight shown as flashback, the locker room briefings, the announcer’s (the undisputed champion Michael Buffer’s) commanding voice about the ensuing fight, the arrival of the boxers in glittering costume, followed by their respective entourage carrying their medals, their chosen music played out as they arrive, all go to create an expectation of an outcome that is magical. We tend to believe that this really is going to be the fight of the century and we got our value for money even though we may watch it for free over the TV.
As the fight progresses there is a momentary disappointment in us that the fight is not going as we have predicted. We see our limitations as amateurs exposed, with the minute to minute ring side view provided by the commentators (who can substitute an ace like Jim Lampley), the expert commentary provided by an ex boxer or a seasoned coach (like Emmanuel Stewart) and the insightful, often witty remarks of a sage like Larry Merchant (now that he has retired, we miss him). All these go together, to make the event magical.
Finally at the end of a good, clean fight (by clean I mean neither contestant is greatly harmed and the referee has done a great job) the boxers give their reasons as to why they have lost or won, the strategy they adopted and if they are ready to take a rematch etc all these go to make it magical.

We realize almost the entire event is carried out spur of the moment and none of it can be rehearsed in advance and that is what is makes it magical.

Finally as we leave, we prepare ourselves for the next fight of the millennium and isn’t that expectation magical?

Isn’t it time for open source journalism?

Posted on July 13, 2008 by Rayan

In one of my earlier blogs I rejoiced over the success of open source movement in the field of information technology and the help it brought to this site. Now I have more reasons to be happy. Recently I read an article titled ‘Nightly News, Not-For-Profit’ in the Time magazine. While it is not open source, I believe the initiative is praiseworthy and may encourage open source journalism. The moment we hear not-for-profit news, we expect some unbiased, credible news.

Despite the initiatives such as Wikinews, Indymedia etc. the open source journalism has not yet gone mainstream. Probably because it has to contend with ourselves, the readers. First of all we have stopped reading. Secondly, while we don’t suspect open source’s profit motives, we are concerned how good the presentation would be vis a vis that from professional journalism. If you read John Dvorak’s column (www.pcmag.com) titled Losing Perspective you will understand what I mean.

(We had similar doubts about Wikipedia’s success and authenticity. In the early days some of the articles that I read in Wikipedia were so poor in content and presentation and made me wonder if I am wasting time reading them. But in due course, we see how the iterative correction to the contents from contributors all over the world does wonders. Oxford University even conducted a thorough study of the accuracy of Wikipedia’s contents and compared it against those from Encyclopedia Britannica and came out with the conclusion both had equal number(though not many) of errors!

But it is my firm conviction that my readers know more than I do and is echoed in this page. It is just that all along we lacked the medium to put and link together all that we know. The Internet perfectly closes this gap. And it has another advantage. A democratic setup like the Internet will vote out those bloggers who remain second grade or have vested interests and the cream always come to the top.)

Thirdly, as the article says, “investigative reportingâ€ an expensive enterprise that can consume months of a writer’s time and often yield few results” is as applicable for open source journalism as it is for professional. While open source journalists may be passionate, they may lack the resources of a for-profit, seasoned organization. As you can see from the Time’s article, a seed capital of $ 10 million was required to bring this project into fruition.

And it is not always the money. Ramnath Goenka the newspaper magnate who owned Indian Express was dependant on the Indian government to grant him licenses to import newsprint. His prolific editor in chief Arun Shourie’s extensive coverage and columns were thorny and unwelcome by Mrs. Gandhi’s government. So he had to let go its editor, just so the newspaper can continue to present ‘unbiased’ news.

And to give an example from recent times, the clout enjoyed by CNN in the coverage of Gulf war II was enviable. But it left some doubts in the minds of the viewer of its authenticity. Was CNN compromised due to pressure from Pentagon?

Luckily in the Internet age we don’t need the newsprint or even the television to get our news, but still the government can thwart what we can see and hear by selectively blocking out some sites that don’t serve its interest. We will to have to wait and see how neutral Beijing
will to have to wait and see how neutral Beijing Olympics coverage is going to be. In the mean time we should do all that we can to promote open source journalism.

Having fun is the most productive thing you can do

Posted on July 6, 2008 by Rayan

“Having fun is the most productive thing you can do”, says the kid (Logan Lerman) mentoring his mentor (Aaron Eckhart) in the movie Meet Bill. But do you agree with this statement? Before you answer, may I bias you by quoting one more movie Accepted; reinforcing the concept. Often I am tempted to agree but lately I have my suspicions. Today the U.S. is losing out against other more competitive nations, its dollar value dropping against other major currencies, and there are job losses everywhere. Haven’t we in North America taken this concept (having fun) a little too seriously and gone into excess in all aspects of our lives?
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If I had a million dollars …

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Rayan

What would you think if someone says to you,”If I had a million dollars, I will buy you a casket”? You will be shocked, wouldn’t you? For it runs counter to ‘norm’. We may hear like, I will buy you an exotic pet, or some art like a Picasso or a Garfunkel or I would hire a limousine to drop you at your bus stop. (OK, I admit I am inspired by Barenaked Ladies song by the same title.)

Well that’s exactly what my friend said to one of our other colleagues (he is not well liked by anyone in our group) during our lunch break. My friend is a regular at buying lottery tickets and I have never played lottery to this day and I was being initiated into buying one these days. Our discussion about lotteries eventually led us to finding out what would we buy each other if either of us won it big. That’s when our colleague chipped in and got bitten. Though personally I have some misgivings about this colleague, I felt my friend’s reply to be in bad taste. But seriously, why would it upset us if someone near to us discusses our imminent death.

I mean it is OK to hear one’s insurance agent (or they see an ad that asks, “If you died today, who will take care of your family?” showing some distraught kid near a grave) discuss his (her) death and the need to provide for their near and dear ones, once they are gone. Not only are they not upset, but they shake hands and buy as much insurance as they can afford. They even go to the extent of buying their own funeral arrangements making a down payment and following up with monthly payments thereafter. They feel relieved or should I say joy in their hearts?

It is probably because under those circumstances we conjure up images of our death in the distant future. Or we should give credit to the insurance companies and the ad agencies that have made it palatable to discuss death. But the moment someone shows a casket, and says it is our own to take it home for free, we are terrified. For example we don’t particularly like our children say, Dad (or mom) I bought you a coffin for this father’s (mothers) day

Why is it so? The answer my friend, as my philosopher and guide Eckhart Tolle puts it beautifully, We are intensely attached to our identity as to who we are. He says, “Suppose you see a fish being born in an aquarium and you name it John and adopt it as your pet. A little while later when you see it eaten by a bigger fish, will you grieve over it”? Of course not, we will dismiss it as natural part of life to be born and gone. But when it comes to our own identity, we will defend it to death! (No pun intended). He says it is our attachment to our identity that keeps our cosmetic, fashion industries alive and the moment we relinquish our identity, these industries will collapse. To that list, may I add the insurance industry too, if he had not already done?

By the way, later I asked my friend as to why he was so rude to our colleague. I got this for an answer, “Do you know Rayan, how much it costs to buy a good casket these days”? and he was serious! That only made me laugh and honestly I don’t have a clue. For in my afterlife, I have no intention to be constrained underground but fly upwards in smoke freely. And the rest of me may travel along the river to meet the ocean. You know, I intend to enjoy my life now and later with zest.

Our little windows

Posted on June 29, 2008 by Rayan

If there is one thing I would love to have in life, it is to have as wide and as deep a perception that we can gain on any of our life situations. At least those that are troubling us currently or those that have long term consequences. Too often, we either due to lack of training, or lack of time or even our lack of wisdom we tend to have too narrow view of our situation and make snap judgments. Based on those, we arrive at quick decisions and take fast actions only to regret later in life.

The best we do, is do a little thinking (if at all we do) or ask around. We take it for granted our friends and relatives (with due respects to them) are better equipped than we are. If they had been to the same schools that we had been to or live in the same neighborhood, chances are their perception of our problems would be no better than our own. More likely they would tell us what we want to hear.

To put this discussion into perspective may I suggest you see this movie (a good one in my opinion) Gone Baby Gone. Torn between professional ethics and common sense or personal obligations, Casey Affleck (Patrick Kenzie in the movie) has to choose and make the right decision. For that he has to have the right perspective and not see life through his ‘little window’ as Morgan Freeman (his adversary in the movie) suggests. Quite true.

Incidentally do we ever realize why rich get richer and have enviable life styles? It is because they seek professional help. They are able to hire professional consultants in many walks of their life. They hire (the best their money can buy, to do better in life) a personal trainer, a lawyer, a physician, an investment adviser or even a life coach!

So how do we gain a wider perception (a.k.a wisdom)? I am not an expert, but I think for a start we can do the following:

Reading. Reading quality books that make us think. Even if we read only gossip columns, or sensational stories let us pause for a moment and think. Suppose we read: ‘George Clooney broke up with Sarah Larson’, a moment of reflection as to why the relationship went sour may not get us to the truth, but that habit will help us in our life.

Thinking. In our moment of quietness (granted, aloneness is often difficult to procure these days) let us do some organized thinking. In this respect Edward De Bono’s books on ‘how to think’ are great help.

Watching Biography Channel on TV would help us to get in to the minds of people.

Watching quality movies. Movies in my opinion are great help. Because in just 2 hours, the story writer, the director, the actors and all the others who do their best to make the movie a success, give us intense focus and help us to bear upon a life situation

Hiring professional help whenever we need to and can afford. Professionals have specialized education and are trained in their fields. They make their living out of it and so they are good to get our fees.

The trophy that we didn’t win

Posted on June 26, 2008 by Rayan

There comes a point in our life, when we take stock of our life situation. We realize we didn’t get what we set out to achieve or recognized for what we are worth. The struggles we go through in our day-to-day existence pales into insignificance compared to the inner turmoil or disappointment we feel inside. I hear someone say, “We all have ambitions, but very few have talents.” But I am talking about the few who have talents, but who either didn’t get an opportunity to show their merits or they have shown their merits but are not rewarded adequately enough or some quirk of fate intervened.

Those of you who have seen the movie Deal and the part played by Burt Reynolds will understand what I mean. Though he was a gifted player at the Poker table he was not destined to achieve greatness in his time. He happened to lose everything, and to preserve whatever is left, (including his relationship with his wife) he maintains his promise to his wife that he will never play cards for the rest of his life. And for the next 20 years he chose to remain as a spectator. But every time he sees someone achieving championship at the game of Poker shown on TV, we could see the pain in his face. It appeared to me, that he was saying to himself, “It could easily have been me on the TV lifting that championship trophy.”

In order not to break his promise and thereby hurt his wife’s feelings, he sets out to train his protégé. Though in the movie, it is shown that he is motivated by the money; my feeling is he was living his life through his protégé. Seeing the amazing success his protégé has (with a few simple tricks he learnt from his mentor) at the table, the player in Burt Reynolds decides to go for it again. But this time alone and all by himself. That meant risking his marriage even. We are told that he was going after the cup that he didn’t win. And that he was reclaiming his lost dignity.

I am sure it will strike a chord in all of us, who are still in the race, hoping to make it big one day. Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett have claimed their cups but we haven’t. You have not heard of me other than through this blog which is nothing and I don’t know you, the gentleman or the lady who happens to read this blog. Of course I am thankful for your time, but wouldn’t it be great if you are famous and in some way extremely talented in your chosen field and have a few words to share with the rest of us?

Incidentally those of you on the verge of giving up, or have already given up; I recommend this article from Fortune to read. I guarantee you it will be worth your while. Either you will be back in the race or running ahead of us. Good Luck.
read. I guarantee you it will be worth your while. Either you will be back in the race or running ahead of us. Good Luck.

Honey, what was it again?

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Rayan

If you are like me, you are more likely to ask your ‘significant other’ this question. I am talking about passwords here. Being a proponent for using the Internet for enhancing one’s productivity, I visit my financial institutions’ websites more often than I visit their brick and mortar counterparts. To transact my business in total security, I ended up giving different passwords to each one of them. In addition to remembering all of them putting in the right password in the appropriate place I must also remember the correct answers to the security questions that I pose myself and answer to get past their security. Changing the passwords as frequently as possible adds another level of complexity. Sometimes I am too lazy to change some system generated passwords given by the sites, there is no way in the world could I retrieve them from my memory should I happen to lose them.

It so happened once that I put in the right username and wrong password to one institution the first time and failed, then asked my life partner to let me know the right one and typed it in carefully but fail to check the (alphabets’) case and so could not get through, and in the third time before I could type in the last letter I pressed ‘Enter’ in a hurry. Having failed thrice in a row, the site suspected my entry and dutifully locked me out for my own protection! I had to wait for at least a day before I could attempt to get in again.
access vault.jpg
I tried several methods to store those user names and passwords, just so I could retrieve them in time but failed in all of them. I tried writing them down in my pocketbook, saving them in an excel document, allowing the browser to save for automatic retrieval the next time I visit the site and so on. All to no avail. Every too often, someone in my home reinstalls the OS in their constant quest for keeping the system in fighting fitness, or the hard drive fails or a power failure brings the entire system down, with me starting all over again.

My friend was suggesting as to why I should not use a simple password for all the sites I visit. And he said he is recommending this from personal experience. Earlier he used to keep his passwords so difficult to crack, that even he could not remember. So he switched to something easy to remember. The pity is it is so easy that, his neighbors could sneak into his wireless network without his knowledge or consent. But he doesn’t mind it. The upside he says, “I can always go to my neighbors to get my password should I forget mine.” How’s that for passwords!!

As for me I gave up all pretences, left it to my ‘better half’ who has a better way of managing my passwords. Hackers, if you are looking to find just one file that has all the user names and passwords don’t look for it in my system. Asking my spouse for help, may get you somewhere.

And the rest of you who are dating, in engagement, or who prefers to remain single and who for some reason could not share your little or big secrets with your soul mate as yet, may I suggest you to see this page as to how to remember/manage passwords.

Accidents can happen…

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Rayan

‘Accidents can happen if I keep thinking of you’, so goes the tag line of a romantic novel. May be true. But it is only one of the many causes as to why an accident can happen. According to the Swiss Cheese Model of accident causation most accidents can be traced to one or more of following four levels of failure:

Organizational influences
Unsafe supervision
Preconditions for unsafe acts
Unsafe acts themselves

To illustrate, let us imagine a guy dropping off his girlfriend at the airport. Let us go one step further and say they had a very satisfying sex prior to leaving his condo. This guy while driving, is lost in his thoughts as to how much he will be missing her in the days to come. While his girl friend beside him is glowing and could not resist herself looking at him while he is driving. Suddenly she moves to his side and plants a passionate kiss on him and momentarily (which to them must have lasted a lifetime) they both close their eyes. Too bad for them, just then a car cuts into their lane and our guy wakes up and slams on his brakes. But not before his car bumps into the one in the front. Luckily for them it was just a minor fender bender.

Now let us analyze this situation:

Unsafe act:

Closing one’s eyes while driving is definitely an unsafe act. Can I say that?
Kissing one’s girl friend while driving is an unsafe act – if you had watched Crash you may agree with me. Remember the cop pulling over the successful Hollywood director and his wife while driving.
How about having a girl (like the one in the picture) beside you while driving – will that itself qualify as an unsafe act?
She is not in her seat belt – one must be gay to have noticed that.

Preconditions of unsafe acts:

How would the poor guy know that, having satisfying sex prior to driving would be a precondition to an unsafe act?
That they are lost in their world and not in ours – would it be a precondition too?

Unsafe supervision:

She (women are generally cautious and are the first to survive a disaster) should have supervised him and cautioned him to drive safe – but not this one, you may say.
Or he should have supervised her to stay in place and allow him to drive – but that would be too much to ask.

Organizational influence:
Could not think of any. Remember, the Swiss cheese model says one or more of the four levels of failure and not all of them need be present to cause an accident. But still if you can think of any let me know.

Now to avert this accident we again refer to this model, which says we need to raise many barriers in the Swiss cheese.
Some of the barriers I can think of:

Calling a taxi to take his girlfriend to the airport, while he stays home safe and sips his favorite drink and watching his game on the TV.
Allowing her to drive, while he is content sitting in the passenger seat is another way to avoid an accident.
Asking his girlfriend to sit in the back seat, while he stays focused on driving.
Taking his grandma beside him (she has an appointment with the dentist on their way home) while his sweetheart safely sits in the back seat.
Finally the mother of all barriers, staying single.

Guess what the traffic police would have ticketed our guy for this accident: ‘Following too close’
That is too simple a diagnosis, isn’t it? But we know the reasons why.