Archive for September, 2008

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The Sahara Forest project

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

I was listening to a radio program the other day where they were discussing the innovative use of new technologies, which could use the evaporation of sea water to purify it and produce not only usable fresh water but cooling, this is combined with concentrated solar power.  These two technologies have the power to grow trees in the Sahara and green this most arid of places.  For those who are interested in the science of it read more here.

What interested me was the sort of mind that could look at something like the Sahara desert and envision a forest.  The name of this project is evocative and powerful.  This level of vision and bravery is so often missing in business.  So much time and effort is spent in marginal and incremental changes.  This kind of bold transformation is very compelling and powerful, for those brave enough to commit to it.

Vision and imagination seem to be rare qualities in today and I’d love to hear some examples you have of them please.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create”  Albert Einstein

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.”  Carl Sagan

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Open Space

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

I was at Henley Business School the other day with other visiting faculty members discussing the impact of their merger with Reading University’s business school.  We were using a technique called Open Space, which is a way of working with big groups to discuss issues and develop them.  Imagine a shoal of fish which keeps forming and reforming around various topics and issues.  People can move from topic to topic as they wish.  Open Space has a few underpinning concepts such as:-

  • Whoever comes is the right people
  • Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
  • When it’s over, it’s over, and one there is one rule,
  • The rule of two feet, which simply says you are free to walk away when that feels like the right thing to do.

Today, I was out on the Sussex Downs and we had planned to go for an 8 mile hike.  At one point, after about 5 miles,  we found that we weren’t quite where we expected to be, and there was an option to cut out the last 2 miles and go straight back to the car.  So in our big open space, we exercised our rights under the rule of two feet, and accepted that when it was over, it was over.  We had  had a perfect walk, a wonderful lunch of local cheeses and needed to be back.  The Universe had offered us this perfect end to a perfect day.

Sometimes you have to flex your plans to acknowledge that things have moved on and your needs have changed or even been met.   Staying open and flexible is a key to Change, Life and Open Space…

“There are two types of minds – the mathematical, and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive”  Blaise Pascal

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Today Manchester… Tomorrow the World!

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

I was listening to a radio discussion about the purchase of Manchester City by group of wealthy men from Abu Dhabi, and questioning if this was good for Manchester or English football or even world football.  Clearly it would mean that City suddenly could buy world-class players and follow Chelsea’s example and effectively buy their way to the top. 

It is fascinating to think how tribal football is in its origins.  Formed in 1880 and linked to a local church, it grew till it became the ‘property’ of a city, or part there of.  Now it is set to become a world brand like it’s famous big brother Manchester United, and maybe we will see little boys in the Congo and the Amazon wearing their strip in a few years time.

So what creates this sense of identification and the emotional bond?  Well obviously exposure to the team is key.  You can’t become attached if you don’t have any experience of them.  Seeing them as winners is another, as potential role models.

The interesting thing is that the locals who initially would hate the idea of their team belonging to a bunch of foreigners start to feel somewhat differently when those same foreigners provide the where withal for them to start challenging for the trophies they crave.  So rejection turns to acceptance when it brings you the things you want.  There is a lesson here for bosses who want to bring along their staff, you have to find out what they value and make sure the plans take this into account.

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Blackberry Bold 3… living with it

Monday, September 15th, 2008

I’ve been using this Bold since Wednesday, and after the trouble I had getting it set-up I was starting with an emotional deficit, despite its drop-dead good looks.  However, having got beyond those teething problems thanks to a helpful lady at Vodafone, I’m able to just use it now.

The email pops effortlessly into my mailbox despite the fact I haven’t signed up for a separate Blackberry package, and that was a pleasant surprise.  I have been amazed how much of the functionality of it I have been using.  Wandering around Exeter cathedral this weekend, we could wiki its history, ditto for Lyme Regis and the Cobb.  The internet  response is not lightning fast but is genuinely useful and usable.  Having worked out how to use the voice dialling system (you have to use the full name of the person as typed and add the type of connection you wish to use, such as ‘mobile’) it works very well.

This weekend away I used the camera for some pretty good photos, the mobile net, email on the move, posted a blog from it, and wrote a word document (you have to save a blank document to the phone from your computer to be able to edit it as it won’t allow you to create new documents unless you buy the full version of the free software).

It sits nicely in my hand, is easy to hear both on the call and when it rings, has a really great speaker phone and the media player for both sound and vision is very good.

I’m half way through my trial period and really loving it.

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Watersmeet

Monday, September 15th, 2008

This weekend I was lucky enough to revisit one of my all time favourite places, Watermeet, in Devon.  It is beautiful wooded gorge that has the river Lyn, flowing through it, tumbling over rocks towards the sea at Lynmouth.  It makes so much noise you can hear it at the level of the road about 100 feet above it.  There is a National Trust house down there, but for me it is all about the river, the rocks and the trees.   This is place it a total treat, a little bit of genuine wildness within easy walk of the road, and accessible to almost anyone with 2-3 hours to spare.

PS> pictures courtesy of the Blackberry Bold

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The Smallest Particles part 2

Monday, September 15th, 2008

I posted the other day on the CERN experiment to explore the tiniest parts of our universe and try to learn something of our nature. I was thinking about this further and don’t feel that I made the point as clearly as I could.

Imagine you had never seen an E-type jaguar, or perhaps even that you had little idea of what an automobile was, and in order to explain it to you I shipped you out every single nut and widget that went to make the car in one great big box. You tip them all out and there you are, staring at all these bits and trying to envisage how they fit together.

Now if you are clever enough and patient enough, you might end up working out how they fitted together and you would indeed have learnt some about an E-type. However you couldn’t possibly learn about all the non-physical things that surround this object. What the Jaguar brand stands for, its history, the teenage dreams it might represent.

Objects and systems are so much more than just their physical components and perhaps one of the sad thing about our times is that we spend so much time in studying the bits and never get around to understanding the systems that they are part of. One only has to look at the state of modern medicine to see this. On one hand we are bringing about miracles and literally helping blind people to see, on the other, we are ruining thousands of lives with poisonous drugs.

By all means look at the component parts and their interaction to try to increase your understanding but never make the mistake of thinking that these bits add up to the whole.

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The smallest particles

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

The press is full of the stories about the CERN particle collision experiments that began yesterday; some folks were suggesting this could create a black hole and potentially bring about the end of the world!  The best reaction I heard was one enterprising young lady who thought this meant that homework was now not required.They are trying to see if they can learn more about the nature of creation by literally smashing atoms to their constituent parts.

The thing about complex systems such as companies, is that there is always a bit more to them than just the sum total of their parts.  The true art of management and leadership is to create this kind of magic whereby 1+1+1 equals more than 3.  During takeovers and acquisitions or cost cutting regimes, people try to slice out bits but sometimes the heart is removed as well.

Trying to understand a living system by just examining its ‘bits’ doesn’t necessarily work as it misses the impact of the ‘ghost in the machine’.

“Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art”  Leonardo da Vinci

“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.”  Napoleon Bonaparte

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Blackberry Bold – 2nd impressions (the things Vodafone didn’t tell you!)

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

 

So I’m on my second one.  You need to know there are two versions of this phone; the enterprise version for use with a big company mail server (BES) and what they call the prosumer version (BIS); this is the one individuals need.  Before you do a thing… go to http://www.mobileemail.vodafone.net/ and create a log on and set up your email account.  It is as easy as enter your email and password and the PIN of your Blackberry (from the side of the box) .  Then turn on the phone.  You don’t seem to need to do any configuration on the Bold at all.  I bought a £5 pm data package which sends me my mail every 15 minutes (I hadn’t expected this, and I can’t see why you need to pay the extra for the full blackberry package.  I’m getting a very good bundle of minutes and texts plus data for less than £30pm.

They give you free access to Vodafone SatNav, but don’t bother to load it!  you need to go to go to the telmap site to download it.  (I got called by Telmap after posting this blog and told that this only applies to a small number of early machines and the later ones should come properly loaded)

With the desktop management software, do not enable the Bluetooth option, it seems to mess up its ability to find the USB connection; I have had to uninstall and reinstall 4 times now!

You probably should download Opera mini too which is meant to be a faster browser.  You can configure one browser to default to your wifi connection and the other to connect via GPRS

The voice dialling is a computer generated system, and the way to get it to work is to say the full name so “Call Charlie Brown mobile“

It is looking rather a nice device, sits nicely in the hand, nice and clear, both visually and acoustically.  I’ll let you know more anon.

PS>> http://vfuk.navigator.telmap.com/vfuk/download/Rim/9000/vfsatnav_uk_bis_full.jad

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Blackberry Bold – first impressions

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

I am not a BlackBerry user but had read nothing but good things about their latest phone, called the Bold.  It is being talked about as the RIM answer to the I-phone.  It is certainly a much nicer looking device than any of their previous offerings.  It sits nicely in the hand and the keyboard works well, the display is very clear.  I couldn’t believe the quality of the little sample video clips that cam with the phone.

If, like me, you haven’t used one before, it is a big change in the way the phone is set up and doubtless that will take some getting used to.  Importantly, the call quality seems good and the RF signal is better than the Nokia e71 I tried last week.

I don’t need ‘push’ email (which gave rise to the Crackberry name), but I do need to be able to ‘pull’ my mail when I need to.  For those of you who don’t need every email on your phone the second it arrives, this is a great option.  You stay in control and you don’t need to subscribe to the extra cost of push email. 

The device they sent me was not right so it is being replaced tomorrow, so these are just very early impressions; I’ll let you know more once I have given it a more serious road-test.  One thing I’m not sure about is the voice dialling is a computerised system rather than relying on you to record the tags, which means that whilst one one hand it is effortless to set up, it obviously less accurate for the 15 or so numbers I use all the time in the car.

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Stillness

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

There are no end of people out there exhorting us to change, I could even be consider one such voice.  There is also a time for stillness, for not moving.  Nature uses periods of stillness to build energy and effect it’s greatest changes.  Think of  of pupating caterpillars, think about seeds awaiting germination.

Today is such a day for me… and maybe today the voice of stillness is calling to you too.

“One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on.”    D.H. Lawrence

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