Examples of political common sense and emphasis running in opposite directions…

Major union strike activity in the UK before Jeremy Corbyn’s leftist Labour party has a chance to be elected in 2020 will probably frustrate UK voters to vote Tory in protest. Do the unions backing Mr Corbyn realise this?

Personally, I don’t think any political party genuinely enjoys invoking austerity measures on the voters. Most politicians aren’t ogres. Governments everywhere tend to enforce austerity measures for a very important reason. Because something serious has gone wrong with the economy. Households living beyond their household means eventually have to face the facts. So why should they expect their government to not lead by example on this?

Many children hate their parents for cutting off their privileges. But equally, don’t respect them when they’re inconsistent, refuse to set boundaries, or lack the courage to follow through on what they say. But that’s because they’re children. If adults were more rational, they’d probably have nothing but contempt for politicians (on all sides) who try to bribe them, just so the politician can win power in the short term. Instead of the Tory’s highlighting this, they’re focussing off austerity and onto ISIS bombing and the forthcoming EU in/out referendum.

A UK Labour party with self-awareness, courage and integrity would formally split into two distinct parties – a centre party and a leftist party. The leftist party could form a useful working coalition with the Socialist Unity Party, retain labour-union backing, reject Trident and UK membership of the EU. The centre party could form a useful coalition with the Liberal Democrats and embrace EU membership. Instead we have UK Labour Party identity drift.

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party must be worried that are the leftist SMP voters (traditional Scottish Labour voters) who rejected Labour at the last general election, who will now shun SMP for the new leftist Labour party (that also wants to cancel Trident, end Tory austerity and wants independence, albeit from the EU). With the market value of North Sea oil continuing to drift downwards thanks to Middle East over-production, a viable independent Scotland is fading by the day. So what are the SMP doing? Trying to arrange a second independence referendum! Go figure.

Business imitating real life

We monitor and copy fashion, yet want to look distinctive and appealing. Companies monitor business trends, yet want to stand out from the competition.

We price-compare online, but take the things we get for free, for granted. Companies price-compare their competitor offerings, but put no value on the things they get for free.

We dress up to go out somewhere where people will judge us by our appearance, yet want to relate to those same people on a deeper level. Company employees wear business clothing to work somewhere that people will judge them by their appearance, yet need to relate to those same customers and work colleagues on a deeper level.

Fake it til you make it?

 

Are people basically divided into two broad camps – the ‘fake it til you make it’ (the marketers & promoters) and the ‘keeping it real’ camp’?

‘Fake it til you make it’ is about projecting confidence, whether real or illusionary. It’s downside is arguably in making our social groups less cohesive and less real. ‘Fake it til you make it’ can be spectacularly successful – politicians, singers/rappers and A-list movie actors being examples of this. Ironically though, politicians campaign to solve real problems, rappers rap about their gritty own life struggle to success, whilst successful actors choose to star in movies that often have themes of real strength from overcoming adversity of some kind.

Some pioneering cultures have a phrase about ‘keeping it real’. Others talk about ‘keeping your feet firmly on the ground’ (unless you work for the weather service, the airlines, the navy, NASA or Virgin Galactic).The ‘keeping it real’ camp includes support groups, social workers, therapists, counsellors, teachers, coaches, trainers and assessors of all kinds. This camp arguably advocates that ‘struggling to succeed is simply walking the journey’ is what life is about and that being honest about this struggle helps us to build important bridges with fellow human beings. In the world of entertainment, reality shows are in theory about ‘keeping it real’, although programme directors inevitably choose hyping the truth over the reality, if if means improving the viewer ratings in a competitive industry.

What about in the field of design – which camp do designers fall into? Steve jobs said ‘Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.’ In product design, great and successful designers don’t tolerate fake. They are obsessed with building amazing, perfection and excellence. In contrast, fine artists can excell at illusion in their art, folling the viewer’s eye into almost believing the two dimensional is actually the three dimensional. Or that the World shown within their art reveals a far more beautiful perspective on the World outside. Musical artists and actors generally want to create real. It’s the marketing staff of their companies that want auto-tune, edit and airbrush.

Whichever of the two camps a person falls into, perhaps real performance is still the key goal and ambition the driving force. Oscar Wilde famously said ‘all of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking up at the stars.’ Life arguably isn’t about ‘suffer in silence’, ‘know your place’ and ‘mustn’t grumble’. It is about ‘be the best that you can be’, ‘dare to dream’, ‘give yourself a break’, ‘learn from your mistakes’, ‘recognise the perfect parent does not exist’,  ‘respect yourself’ and ‘strength through adversity.’

Lastly, somewhere along the line, as we switched from selling the products of our labour to selling the services of ourselves, the ‘fake it til you make it’ mantra started to dominate, in business, in our romantic lives (as singles) and increasingly, everywhere else. How do we jolt ourselves out of that mantra?

Tory politics

Make necessary economic changes and you’ll be labelled morally evil.

Make no changes and you’ll be labelled insensitive and indecisive.

Make fast cuts and you’ll be labelled racist, nationalist, evil or naive.

Try to cut back on illegal immigration and people will want you take correspondingly more Syrian refugees instead.

Make any speeches to explain or inspire and you’ll be branded ‘all talk, no action.’

Keep taxing London to fund the rest of the UK and Wales plus Scotland reward you by voting against the Tories on masse. For good measure, the youth of London, in their wisdom, vote against you as well!

The more you try to listen to the range of views inside the Tory party, the more anti-Tory voters brand all Tories as a force of evil.

Try to get support for EU reform and you’ll be branded idealistic and naive by UK voters and EU leaders alike!

Who would want to go into politics in any party, given the voter discontent no matter what happens.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions…

 

If I want a quiet life, I better cave in and feed them junk food…

I’m feeling down about my body shape. I need that chocolate bar sitting in the fridge to cheer myself up.

When I get bored and feel like my life’s in a rut, I watch reality TV to see if those people can get out of the rut they’re in.

Each time my life gets too busy, I try to text everyone about how busy I am…

Vision statements

  

Picture this. In my mind’s eye, the eye of the hurricane has the best view.

Developing a shared vision in advance (even if not completely clear), beats having the group having 20/20 vision in hindsight.

You have to stand back to see the wood for the trees. But if you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do.

The best things and the worst things are often hidden in plain sight. So reach for the stars instead.

Social media relies on visual screens and filter screens alike.

Life isn’t measured by the breaths we take, but by the images (and moments) that take our breath away. That’s probably why we take so many photos.

The best way for a human designer to be inspired, is to see the beauty of nature first.

Machine Age Ironies of the Future

  

The AI Therapist will see you now. And give you (unbiased?) therapy on how to cope with the loss of your job to industrial robots.

The self-driving car can drive itself incredibly safely to the destination. But has no need to go there.

School courses taught and facilitated by an intelligent network, to students to equip them for a World where human jobs are now obsolete.

A World of data and information, analysed and processed at the speed of machine thought. With trickle-down benefits, provided at human speed, to a society that can hardly comprehend the implications of the information on offer.

The investors in automation will capture the lion share of future value generated by exploiting the integration of the Internet of Things, Big Data, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Until the day the network becomes fully intelligent and redistributes all wealth to itself.

Thought for the day…

First we described the World as flat and made modest progress.

Then we established hierarchy and made more rapid progress.

Now we return to a flat World, adding digital, lean and agile to the mix, to make the fastest progress.

What purpose does the BBC programme ‘The Apprentice’ serve?

Yesterday, I watched episode four in the latest series of the BBC TV show ‘The Apprentice’.  At the end of it, Alan Sugar fired all three of the poorest performers (Ella Jade Bitton, Sarah Dales & Steven Ugoalah). But not before they lost all professional and personal dignity, squabbling in the board room, with the project manager of the losing team (Ella Jade), pleading repeatedly with Lord Sugar to be given another chance.

A triple elimination in one week, along with post-dismissal pleading was a new low point for the series. Is the underlying quality of the applications really that bad, is the screening process to allow them to participate in the series the problem, or is it just the nature of the task that creates a race for bottom place? On a related note, if the CV’s of the Apprentice wannabes really are as great as they claim, why do so few of them step up to lead an ‘all stars’ team in any given episode?

I know one of the purposes of the series is entertainment and that Lord Sugar donates his sizeable series fee to charity. However, the viewer cannot help but wonder, why are the end results of each task so mediocre, whether creating their own video channels to go on the World’s largest video-sharing site, or simply selling market stall products (with TV cameras rolling that in themselves, attract curious punters)?

For any of the wannabe apprentices, especially in the early episodes of the series, doesn’t it occur to them that their best chance of not appearing in the bottom three for elimination is to put maximum effort into effective teamwork?

Arguably, for Lord Sugar to go into business with the winner, two qualities will stand out – one is very clever business ideas, executed well. And the second is stunning leadership qualities. Perhaps if the ‘prize money’ was quadrupled to £1M, it might attract a superior group of wannabe apprentices and reveal in the tasks, a far more stunning range of ideas, delivery and leadership in action. From Lord Sugar’s perspective, does he want to go into business with someone with amazing potential for a mere £1M investment, or go into business with someone who believes their own hype, for a very expensive investment of £250,000?

Personally, I’d far rather watch a version of The Apprentice, with:

• less tantrums and loss of human dignity in the boardroom,
• less smarmy sales pitches to very savvy and seasoned business buyers (even after 3 prior episodes, some project managers still seem to think you can sell complete lemon products, solely by baffling the buyer with youthful sales charm),
• less editorial emphasis on the backchat between prima-donna contestants during the task,
• more coverage during the task of heroic teamwork to problem solve,
• most importantly of all, FAR more design-brainstorming time spent at the front end of the task – none of the wannabes seem to realise that time spent doing that well will pay off massively in the final Boardroom analysis.

As well as delivering far better end results, a change in emphasis might restore some viewers’ beliefs in business activity (and Lord Sugar’s TV series emphasis) as a positive economic force.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04n9pcd/the-apprentice-series-10-4-online-video-channel

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-apprentice-2014-alan-sugar-gets-rid-of-the-nohopers-with-triple-elimination-9826264.html

Lastly, a real business innovation contrast with the above process. Two Imperial College of London computing graduates Ashley Brown and Simon Overell recently launched an online fraud-busting start up company (spider.io) which was then acquired by Google. Granted it was at least a year of intensive effort to create the end result (not two days as for The Apprentice tasks). My question is, would university graduates of the calibre of Mr Brown and Mr Overell have been attracted to join a series like The Apprentice, or is the instant loss of 50% control and the incentive money just too small to be worth bothering about?

The Road to War

It seems that very quickly, Britain has changed its approach from aiding humanitarian relief efforts in Iraq, to aiding Kurdish forces in their efforts to stop the Islamic State form acquiring Kurdish territory.  Whether or not Britain escalating that support level is wise, communicating the rationale to the British voting population as clearly as possible and as quickly as possible is certainly wise. Especially after the relatively recent (and unpopular) invasion of Iraq to seek out what turned out to be non existent weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

In my view, the article written by Sir Malcolm Rifkind in the Daily Telegraph (18 Aug 14) ‘ If we have to work with Iran to defeat the Islamic State, so be it’ usefully laid out the landscape of Arab politics very well. It also outlined, from Britain’s perspective, how choosing to work with less than ideal allies partners to defeat a common enemy is needed at times,  Britain & the US working with Russia to defeat Nazi Germany in WW2 being a good example.

Personally I don’t understand what Islamic State (IS) is actually trying to achieve. Its leaders must know what will happen when they ‘pull the tail of the tiger.’ Regardless of what I think, it’s hard to see how a small force of Sunni jihardist fighters can possibly hope to defend some recently captured desert territory, against the combined forces of Western Intelligence (with pin-sharp satellite surveillance), multi-national oil companies, the international banking system, benign Global Islam, the United Nations, NATO forces, the forces of neighbouring threatened Arab states (Shia majority ones in particular) & Israel.

That super group could if it quickly imposed its will, turn the IS caliphate into a giant Guantanamo Bay-style containment camp for jihardist fighters, surrounding them in a ring of steel, disarming them and shipping all convicted jihardist terrorists from other countries into the same internment camp.

Instead, it’s probably more likely that the super group will, as for the Al-Qaeda challenge, close ranks against a common threat & systematically dismantle IS leadership from the top down, take down its websites, try harder to close down its financiers, while rolling back IS influence and captured territory, with help from local Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq & Syrian leadership, as necessary.

The problem in nature with any ultra-violent entity is that it cannot last, because of its extreme impact. Ebola being one example, the Roman Empire (that crumbled into corrupt decadence) being another and the ‘Thousand Year Reich’ that Hitler aspired to being another.  In contrast, weeds & grass have become the most successful plants on the Planet, because at worst, they only pose nuisance value to those with the most power.

Perhaps there is a lesson from nature for aspiring leaders who don’t just want to grab power, but also rule on a sustainable basis?