Round Table Project Management

Kony

2012-03-20T13:01:00.000-04:00

After seeing mentions of this video in the news, I was somewhat curious. But then my eleven year-old son was looking over my shoulder as I posted on Sunday and asked where I got my ideas for posts. I told him I read things in the paper, saw them on TV or the Internet. He then asked why I hadn't posted about Kony yet. So I watched the video and decided I also should take action.

Watch the video and try to keep a dry eye.

Sub-Saharan Africa is such a big mess with warlords and religious wars, failed states and piracy, rebels and armies committing atrocities, that it makes me just want to throw up my arms and wash my hands of the entire continent. After all, "What can I do?"

Well, this video answers that question quite succinctly. Force the US government to assist in the arrest of the number one war criminal at large. By the end of 2012. And he outlines the specific steps to achieve this end. They are steps that my children are willing to make. Why shouldn't I make them also?

Now there has been some negative publicity about this movement so let's spend a little time addressing it.
Sure, one of the founders was caught running around naked in San Diego but that was attributed to exhaustion and stress from the criticism. (And it did look like a nice, sunny day...)
There have been complaints that his approach is too simplistic for this complicated region and that the government Kony is fighting uses similar tactics. That's OK by me. Start at the top, capture criminal # 1 and then work our way down the list. DO NOT get involved in African politics.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what the world looks like on the morning of April 21, 2012. Who's with me?

Thirty-first excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2012-03-18T10:35:00.000-04:00

The tower seemed as though it would be finished quite a bit early, because of this excellent team that had been forged through careful planning and serendipitous events. But the various problems that always plague a project reared their ugly heads. One was that a boat owner insisted on removing his boat from the stream to the river after the arch supports were in his way. Gwilym argued with the captain but to no avail. The captain insisted that he must deliver his cargo that week and could not wait until the arch supports were removed. He was not one of the boat-owners originally told about the bridge plans so he escalated his argument to the mayor of the town who forced Gwilym to help the man. Gwilym was forced to divert his men for two days to haul the boat out of the stream and over the arch, lowering it back down to the river on the other side.

As a result of these problems, Gwilym was struggling to place the capstone the day before Beltane. The runes on this stone seemed to match those on the previous two, even though this stone was original to the tower. He didn’t have the river jade to place under it and was about to use some granite when Merlin entered the jobsite with Grainne in tow. He bowed to them both, shook Merlin’s hand and kissed Grainne’s.

Merlin addressed him. “Another wonderful job, Gwilym and finished right on time. Almost as though the Goddess decreed that you place the final stones on Beltane.”

“Yes,” agreed Gwilym. “It’s quite the coincidence. Do you have any more of that river jade, Merlin? It worked well on the last two towers and I was hoping for some more on this one.”

Merlin nodded to a box behind him in the cart.

“Where did you get them, Merlin? They are quite fine and smooth and so strong. They can’t have been cheap.”

“Have you ever seen me use money, Gwilym?” was Merlin’s reply and this stopped Gwilym while he recollected all his memories of Merlin. No. He’d never seen the man even appear to hold money. ‘Strange indeed,’ he thought.

“I’d like to arrange a private audience with the lady Grainne when you can spare her, sir.”

Merlin replied, “When she is through with her duties, I’m sure she’ll find you.”

“No, sir,” Gwilym said. I’d like to speak with her sometime today, not tonight. And I’d like to talk with her over a meal, rather than on the job-site if possible.” He blushed, remembering his previous two encounters and wondering how much about them was known to Merlin.

“The lady speaks for herself, Gwilym” said Merlin.

Gwilym turned to meet Grainne’s frank look and asked her, “Could we have dinner in the tavern together? I have some questions for you.”

Grainne paused for a moment, considering, then said, “Yes. I’ll meet you there at Midday.”

Gwilym took the river jade and set about placing them under his capstone. The men were cleaning up the job-site for tomorrow’s ceremony with Sir Kay and were almost finished. He would send them home after dinner he decided. Let them celebrate as a team for a while.

Gwilym washed up and entered the tavern, finding Grainne already seated at a table. All the men in the tavern were staring at her hungrily. He sat down and ordered food to be brought. Bread, cheese and mushrooms plus some carrots and milk. They both ate heartily.

“Should I expect you at the top of the tower again tonight?” he asked.

“Of course you should, Gwilym. I want you as my Beltane lover again,” she replied.

“This is getting to be quite a pattern. Would you tell me what it’s all about. These capstones have some power and meaning and we seem to be consecrating them each Beltane. Add to that the river-jade that must separate them from the rest of the tower. There is certainly some old magic being done here.”

“All will be explained in good time, Gwilym. Are you not enjoying yourself?”

“I’ll not deny that I am enjoying myself. You felt my enjoyment as well as I. But there are consequences of these acts. Was it my child you were suckling last year?”

Grainne looked down and replied, “The Goddess gives children

to women as is her will.”

“And yet the Goddess needs a man to help the woman get with child. So I repeat: Am I the father of this child you suckle?”

She looked up at this and responded, “Yes. He is being raised in Avalon, as a boy of the royal blood should be. When he is old enough he will be fostered out.”

“Foster him with his father,” Gwilym said.

“Do you still attend daily Mass?” she asked, meeting his eye.

“I do, as does my oldest son and my others will as they reach age.”

“Why Gwilym? You are an educated man; you know some of the mysteries we teach at Avalon, yet you follow these prattling priests and their ‘One God.’ Why?”

“I do my own research and I learn a lot by attending the services. And I teach my sons the way my father taught me.”

“Then you are not a true believer? You don’t worship this Christ as the only God?”

“I hold neither the Christian’s prejudice against your religion nor the Druid’s prejudice against Christianity. There is an older truth that I am trying to discover and there is a link between the two. I struggle to find this link. I also listen to the Druids when I can and attend ceremonies in the sacred groves. At least the Christians write down their beliefs and stories where they can be examined. Why don’t the Druids?”

“The beliefs of the Druids cannot be trusted to ink on paper. It must be learned from a master and accompanied by years of training. It is not something that can be picked up and misused by any fool who knows his letters.”

“Long ago the Druids welcomed the first priests into Avalon and helped them build the church at Glastonbury. I’d like to see those years return.”

Grainne’s eyes flashed. “Avalon used to sway with our Druids, performing a chant that had been sung continuously for over 400 years. And then the priests drowned it out with the clanging of their bells. You want those years returned?”

“I want the first years returned, when the Christian priests chanted along with your Druids. Do you even know what that chant was about? It sang of a time of peace and unity and a warning against an enemy to come.”

“And the enemy was within their walls.” Grainne was angry now. “The enemy was the treacherous priests who drowned out their chants.”

“No Grainne,” insisted Gwilym, “That enemy is yet to come. I have been to the Holy Land. It will come from there. The prophecies are clear about that. It will come from the east and will lay claim to Jerusalem and then spread out from there. It will come one day, even to here. And it will destroy us all, Druid and Christian. It will be a jealous religion and tolerate nothing.”

“You’re talking of what has already happened. Christianity spread from Jerusalem and is now spreading intolerance. These Christians cut down the sacred groves. They ban the Beltane fires. Already some of the kings are converted and deny the people their worship. Arthur is sworn to Avalon but he may be the last. The tide is drowning us all.” Grainne was wiping away angry tears that sprang unwanted from the corners of her eyes.

“I believe you’re wrong. That’s why I’m helping you. I know you’re using me as part of a spell. I’m happy to help. You don’t need to use your priestess powers on the tower. I’d much rather come together as Beltane man and maiden. And I’d like to talk afterwards. Let yourself go with me, Grainne. You might even enjoy it.”

Grainne blushed at this, knowing that she had enjoyed the previous love-making sessions but had withheld her whole self from him intentionally, using her powers to keep him under her control and to force him to sleep while she slipped off. She remembered fondling him lovingly while he slept, cursing the requirements placed on her by the Lady of the Lake who ordered her to perform this duty.

“Tell me about my son, Grainne.”

Grainne’s face lit up for the first time since he’d met her. “He’s a grand boy, big and red-headed, with a face as full of freckles as the night is with stars. I’ve named him Madoc, and he’s living up to his name. He takes after you, running all around the island and getting into scrapes, and he’s really smart. He always shares his toys and looks after younger children.”

“Foster him with me when you are finished with his training.”

Grainne looked closely at Gwilym and seemed to momentarily drift off into a trance. Her lips pursed as she struggled for words. Then she focused her eyes and looked sharply at him. “Of course. Yes, I’ll give him to his father for fostering.”

Gwilym got up to go. “I’ll see you tonight then? Shall I bring some cloaks to make it more comfortable?”

“No Gwilym! There must be nothing between us and the stone. That’s very important.”

“It’s uncomfortable. But if that is the way the spell works, who am I to argue?” He leaned over to her as he stood. “But how about if we try it once in a bed some other time. It can be quite nice.”

Grainne smiled broadly, winked at him and said, “Until tonight then, Gwilym.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a harp. As Gwilym walked out the tavern door, she started up a song. Her voice was clear and sharp. She hit every note perfectly. Gwilym paused for a few minutes before returning to his job and heard a few verses of the song. Some of the men joined in and the rest cackled at the bawdier lines.

His hands were long, his face was fair

The girls would vie to stroke his hair

But he would smile and walk from there

The Student of the Master

He caught our lovely lady's eye

And caused her on Beltane to try

To lead him o’er the cattle sty

The Student of the Master

She showed him mother, maid and crone

To try and win him for her own

He left her by the lake alone

The Student of the Master

While he unmeaning broke our hearts

He studied all our healing arts

And fixed the people's broken parts

The Student of the Master

He cut the petals, peeled the bark

And plucked the flowers of the dark

He dug the roots from under park

The Student of the Master

He mixed the potions, brewed the tea

And crushed the powders carefully

Prepared the poultice for the knee

The Student of the Master

The Merlin taught him all he knew

And showed where Mistletoe grew

In oaken groves near birds of blue

The Student of the Master

Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs

2012-03-15T20:47:00.001-04:00

As soon as I saw this Op-Ed I cheered. Finally someone else like me who quits publically but with a much bigger bang than my resignation from Datascope. This guy had the balls to do it in the New York Times and is taking down the most powerful investment bank with him. Now that's leadership! Here is his resignation letter in full:

TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here?

The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.

I hope these 'muppet' clients turn into cookie monster and tear this investment bank to shreds. What do you think?

Dignity for the dead

2012-03-14T22:23:00.000-04:00

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Atsushi Chiba used Buddhist rituals in caring for nearly 1,000 bodies in Kamaishi. “It's a way to comfort the living,” he said.

Here's another example of the quiet leadership that took place during and after the Japanese tsunami.
One undertaker, Atsushi Chiba cared for almost 1,000 bodies in Kamaishi. Mr. Chiba, in his early 70s, raced to the temporary morgue on the day after the tsunami to look for friends and family, but was struck by the state of the mounting number of bodies there. Most were still clad in muddy clothes and wrapped in plastic, their rigid limbs jutting out and faces bruised by debris and contorted in agony.

“I thought that if the bodies were left this way, the families who came to claim them wouldn’t be able to bear it,” Mr. Chiba said Thursday in an interview. “Yes, they are dead. But in Japan, we treat the dead with respect, as if they are still alive. It’s a way to comfort the living.”

Mr. Chiba set to work. He became a fixture at the morgue, speaking to the bodies as he prepared them for viewing and then cremation. “You must be so cold and lonely, but your family is going to come for you soon so you’d better think of what you’re going to say to them when they arrive,” he recalled saying.

He also taught city workers at the morgue how to soothe limbs tense with rigor mortis, getting down on his knees and gently massaging them so the bodies looked less contorted. When the relatives of a middle-aged victim sobbed that her corpse looked gaunt, Mr. Chiba asked for some makeup and applied rouge and blush.

Mr. Chiba’s attempts to honor the dead quickly caught on. City workers put together old school desks to make a Buddhist altar. They lay the bodies of couples and of family members together. Each time a body was carried out, workers lined up with heads bowed to pay their last respects.

And at Mr. Chiba’s urging, Kamaishi became one of the only hard-hit communities to cremate all of its dead as called for by Japanese custom, enlisting the help of crematoriums as far as Akita, over 100 miles away.

In all, 888 of Kamaishi’s approximately 40,000 residents are known to have died; 158 more are listed as missing and presumed dead.

The priest, Enou Shibasaki, from the Senjuin Temple in the hills overlooking Kamaishi, remembers the change that came over the makeshift morgue as Mr. Chiba and other city workers tended to the bodies.

“Whether you are religious or not, mourning for the dead is a fundamental need,” Mr. Shibasaki said. “Mourning starts by taking care of the body. It’s the last you see of your loved one, and you want to remember them as beautiful as they were in life.”

Read the details of this story in a recent NY Times article

Here's a great slideshow with the faces of the tsunami:

If you were impressed with the graphics put together showing the before and after photos of the destruction caused by the tsunami,

this next graphic shows the progress that has been made repairing the damage. Click on this link to see.

Polls define leadership style nowadays

2012-03-11T20:09:00.000-04:00

Obama aides in Chicago
Daniel Borris NY Times

According to a recent article Obama has a 'Chief Scientist' who specializes in consumer behavior, and an “Analytics Department” monitoring voter trends. All in an attempt to get a few extra percentage points in the upcoming election. They sift through Facebook, test various messages sent to different profiles of Internet users to see which get the best responses in terms of commitments of money or time. Seems like they do everything but what used to matter in an election.

Remember when leaders used to stand up for what they believed and gather a following based on them and move into elections based on those beliefs? Then the people would vote and we'd get a referendum on what really matters in America. Freeing slaves, Prohibition, Civil Rights, Supply-side economics. Whatever happened to those days?

The Republicans are not much better, with Romney switching his views on abortion to match the voter's wishes. I'm sure he'll exit the Republican primaries becoming more moderate again.

Who out there has the courage to stand by his/her convictions and put them to the test in front of the electorate? If there are any, they seem to be encouraged by their aides to take the weasely way out. Too bad. Elections are getting to be a lot less fun nowadays.

Two different leaders on this season of 'Survivor'

2012-03-09T13:43:00.000-05:00

Two very different leaders have emerged on this season of Survivor. On the men's team, the biggest misfit of them all, Colton, self-described gay, country-club Republican, has banded together the rest of the 'misfits' (his description of those who were not muscle-bound) into a strong alliance of five.

Look at the way Colton introduces himself:

At first, it seemed that Colton would be the first voted out. When the teams found out it would be men vs. women, he was devastated and kept on wandering over to the women's camp to chat and whine about needing the immunity idol. Shortly after Sabrina gave him one, he became so annoying the ladies had to ask him to leave. But Colton used the power of this idol to forge his alliance and proceeded to lord it over the rest of the men's tribe.

He would sit on his throne and summon his boys, casting judgement on them and wielding his power with impunity. Click on the link to this video to see the way he acts in camp and at tribal council. It makes me sick.

Meanwhile, Sabrina, a 33 year-old teacher, was elevated by the rest of her women's team to the leadership position. Look at her intro:

Her leadership style is much calmer. When two of her tribe argue, she intervenes, calms them down and gets them to move on and focus on their common enemy. Rather than voting to get rid of whoever she doesn't like, she moves to get rid of the one who is causing the most havoc in camp.

The big surprise is the way Colton's tribe follows this jerk. Even to the point of giving up tribal immunity so that he can vote off someone he doesn't like. It helps that you have nuts like Tarzan on there who wants to vote off Lief because he told Bill he was off next (even though this was perfectly obvious). And Lief decides to go meekly to a tribal council where he could be voted off rather than standing up for himself. Why?

The only possible reason is that a winning Survivor strategy is to align yourself with someone totally evil who gets rid of everyone else for you, then allows you to defeat them in the final vote. We can call that the Russell Hantz strategy. Unfortunately there is no correlation to this in real life. Aligning yourself with a dictator until democracy comes around only results in you going down with the dictator at the end.

I'll leave you with this scene from the first episode:

Plowing Snow by hand

2012-03-07T20:39:00.000-05:00

I've often had to shovel snow off my driveway and tried to do it the way snowplows work but with no success. The snow falls off the back or piles up on the sides and generally I revert to bending, scooping and throwing the snow until I hurt my back. Then I send my sons out to do it.

This man has invented a way to do it properly. Check out the Shove it shovel.

With two hands you get the ability to push and angle the snow away from you, just the way a snow-plow would do it.

Here's the man's website.

He invented it while watching his son move big piles of snow using a conventional snowplow blade on the front of a truck. Meanwhile, Burke was clearing a walkway with the classic, straight-edge snow shovel — scooping, lifting, turning and throwing.

"Just looking at that snowplow, I thought, 'Why not make one of these that looks like a snowplow?' " Burke recalled. "Just to avoid coming home crooked at night from all the twisting."

So he began tinkering.
What he came up with puts the shovel blade on a pivot and gives the user two handles — one to push, one to steer. With one of the handles and the pivot, the user can turn the blade to the side at any angle desired, just like a snowplow, then use the other handle to push snow down the walk and to the side, keeping the blade on the ground.
Check out the video:

"I was actually kind of surprised that no one had come up with it before," Burke said.

The second part of this story is the struggle he went through to get a patent on his idea. Read an excerpt from the Denver Post article describing his travails:

Burke figured he ought to at least seek prot
ection for his idea, just in case there was a way to make some money from it.

He contacted a patent attorney who estimated it would take 18 months to get a decision. His application had barely been looked at as that time frame passed. When he finally heard from the patent office, it wanted more information.

The process won't change under the newly enacted legislation — but it all should happen faster. In a thoroughly novel concept for the federal government, the patent office will get to keep the fees it charges, so it can hire more people and process more applications more quickly. It also is designed to reduce the litigation inherent in the invention business by changing the U.S. from a hard-to-quantify "first to invent" system to "first to file."

Already, the number of backlogged applications has been dropping steadily, from 721,831 in December 2010 to 662,457 at the end of last year, when Burke finally received a patent for the "Shove It Shovel."

So far, Burke has sold about 100 of them at between $35 and $45 apiece. He has a handful of stores in Colorado Springs and Englewood carrying his product, along with an Internet sales service.

He is now feeling optimistic about recouping his $5,000 patent investment and is even a little worried about whether publicity after a big snowfall will spark a run on the Shove It, making it hard for him to keep up with demand.

He may want to look into Kickstarter to get a leg up on sales for mass-producing the items.

Thirtieth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2012-03-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

Now that the men were no longer grumbling about their gambling losses, Gwilym expected lifted spirits. While this was true the first few days, pretty soon fights between the team-members seemed to get even worse, and many had to be broken up by Gwilym. They were arguing about the different tasks they were supposed to be doing. Gwilym surmised that removing Tarrant as a common enemy had surfaced these inter-team rivalries. He called a team meeting.

“Gentlemen! We are all working together to build a grand structure. We know what we have to do and how we are to do it. What are we arguing about?”

“’E’s supposed to ’ook the stones to the foundation afore Oi can build on ’em but ’e won’t do it!” accused one of the men, pointing at another.

“Oo said that were moi job?” retorted the one accused.

“You’re the lead mason, of course it’s your job!” replied the first.

More men started pointing fingers at others and a general uproar ensued. Gwilym listened carefully until the shouting drowned out the words and then he stood. He said nothing, but those looking at him quieted down and those not, noticing that others had quieted, looked around and shut up at seeing Gwilym. Finally only one pair of men was left arguing.

“You keep throwin’ your stone scraps off to the side instead of bringin’ them to me for moi road!”

“Well oi’m not yer bloody servant! Get the scraps yerself!” At that the two men noticed Gwilym looking at them and felt the eyes of the rest of the men. They both blushed and quieted down.

Gwilym thought for a moment and then spoke. “Do we agree that this book shows the way the tower should be built?” Reluctant nods of heads affirmed this.

“It tells us WHY, WHERE, HOW we are building it and WHAT we are building, right?” More heads nodded.

“But what it doesn’t tell us is WHO does what, right?”

This question was greeted with enthusiastic agreement; all the men shouting over each other how this question of WHO did WHAT was affecting their work.

“Alright then, nobody does any more work today until we figure it out.”

Gwilym placed the project book in the center of the table and opened it to the defined tasks and pointed to the first one. “This task is done. See how I’ve placed a check mark next to it?” The men nodded.

“So are all these tasks.” He showed a series of tasks, all accompanied by check marks. “Here is the next task that must be done. One of you must do it. It says, ‘Level foundation.’ Who, in this room, will take responsibility for that task?”

No one said a word. The men had been used to not volunteering for work since that only meant more work for them at the same pay.

“I need two things for every task: some materials and somebody to do something with those materials. Both are resources. What I’m trying to do now is estimate resources needed to complete each task. And for that I need you to step up and take responsibility that you will be that resource.”

Gwilym looked hard at Joseph. “Isn’t that your job, Joseph?”

“Aye, it be moi job a’roit. But ain’t it your ’sponsibility?”

“The entire project is my responsibility. But I cannot be responsible for all of these tasks. I’m not a master foundation builder like you, Joseph. Only you know when it is level and strong. You’re the one who told us we had to add piles into the river and add more rock to make it strong. So I ask again, who is responsible for leveling the foundation?”

“That be me,” Joseph admitted.

“Then I will write your name next to that task. Is that alright?”

“Aye”

“Good. The next task says: ‘Create notch templates.’ That’s my responsibility so I’ll place my name next to that task.” Gwilym signed his name.

“Now then, the next task says: ‘Cut first logs to length.’ Who is

responsible for that?” Gwilym looked around and noticed something interesting. The men who had appeared scared at volunteering for work when he asked of the first task were looking around at each other, focusing on Peter, the lead carpenter, placing peer pressure on him to volunteer.

Peter felt their looks and raised his hand. “That’s moi task.”

“How about, ‘Cut notches in first layer of logs’?”

“Oi’ll give that task to moi apprentice, Fergus,” replied Peter.

Gwilym was about to write Fergus’ name on the plan when he had an idea. He liked the fact that men were volunteering for tasks. He felt that this would give him pressure when it came time to do the task. They had made a commitment in front of their peers to do something. If they were just told in front of others that they were responsible, they could always say that they hadn’t wanted the responsibility. But now, by volunteering, they were telling everyone that they would do it.

Gwilym turned to Fergus, “Do you agree to take on this task?”

Fergus looked to Peter, then back at Gwilym. “Oi’ll take responsibility, sirrah.”

The men laughed but shut up when they saw that Gwilym was taking this seriously. He wrote Fergus next to this task and moved to the one after it. The team went through each task, one at a time until each one had a person’s name next to it.

There were a few hitches. Some tasks had to be better defined. Gwilym readily did this, realizing that they would have had problems with these tasks when they got to that point anyway; better to plan it properly today. Some tasks were still duplicated and they were removed.

There was a task where two men wanted responsibility. ‘Place cornerstone of tower on arch.’ Joseph, the master arch builder wanted to be certain this was placed in the correct location but so did William, the tower man. In this case, Gwilym broke the task into two tasks and each man took responsibility for one of them. One task read, ‘Decide location of center of tower’ and Joseph took this task gladly. The other task read, ‘Place cornerstone based on arch center’ and William happily took this task.

There was a task nobody wanted that anyone could do. ‘Book room for celebration’ Gwilym watched all the men looking around at each other, no-one willing to take on this small, extra task. He looked at the plan and noticed that one of the laborers had not taken responsibility for any tasks; the rest had taken at least one. “Hal, could you take this one on?” he asked. Hal looked embarrassed and agreed readily.

The last hiccough in this operation was one task that nobody wanted. All refused to meet Gwilym’s eye as he read the task and looked at his men. He repeated the task and asked his men what the problem was.

“‘Place arch supports’ is a task that is always a problem,” he was told. “Men who do that never try it again. There are too many problems with it. You always get the arch builders complaining that the supports are too high or too low or not strong enough. The last three men I know who did that, two I never heard from them again and the third is Barry here, he talks to himself and is only good for simple laboring jobs.”

This last statement elicited a roar of laughter at which the confused Barry smiled. The men then calmed down and looked to Gwilym for guidance. “This reminds me of people not wanting to take charge of a tough project. So let’s treat it like a small project. What is the first part of this task?”

Gwilym took a blank sheet of parchment and wrote on the top, ‘Build arch support’. The men offered suggestions on tasks below this: ‘Measure depth of water’, ‘Hammer pilings into river’, ‘Create support foundation’, ‘Draw out support structure’, ‘Get agreement on support structure’, Measure wood’, ‘Place supports’, ‘Attach cross braces’, and so on. When they had offered up all the sub-tasks, Gwilym asked for a responsible person for each sub-task. The men stalled again on ‘Get agreement on support structure’ so Gwilym offered to break this sub-task down even further. But finally Joseph agreed to take on this sub-task and the team continued on planning the project.

It took the rest of the day but Gwilym, looking around at the expressions of his men, was convinced that this exercise was worth it. The tasks were better defined; the men had a clear idea of what their responsibility was on this project. They also understood what the other men were tasked with and developed a respect for each other’s workload.

Gwilym spent the next day rewriting the project plan neatly to include these new tasks and the person responsible for each. He used his finest calligraphy to place the names of the responsible men next to the tasks with illuminated capital letters. Then he showed these to the men who were proud to see their names so honored. Because of the different colored inks and the clear, illuminated capital letters, each man could clearly see the tasks for which they had taken responsibility.

This was the document Gwilym walked around with for the rest of the project, happily checking off each task as it was completed. He then went to the next man and reminded him of the task he had volunteered for and asked him to start working on it.

Earned Value Case Study

2012-03-02T09:03:00.000-05:00

Using the Earned Value method of monitoring and controlling budget as described in the previous post, I have had almost entirely positive experiences with my clients. One experience didn't start out so positive.

Our project was to validate a computer system. We proposed the project carefully, using past information but making some assumptions based on information given us by our client. One of these assumptions was that the requirements document was in good enough shape for us to write a functional specification. As always, we made these assumptions visible as part of the proposal. (I'll have to write a separate post about the importance of doing this but you'll see how it helped in this case study.)

When we started the project, we found that the specification couldn't be started because the requirements document was in no shape to use as a starting point. We would have to rewrite this and then move to the specification. This meant more time spent on the project and more money.

So, when I showed up at the first status meeting with the earned value numbers, I shocked the client by predicting that the project would end two weeks late and cost an extra $10,000. They were livid!
"You're one week into the project and already you're two weeks behind schedule and $10,000 over budget!" was their response.

They were used to vendors keeping quiet about the overages and schedule delays until the project was almost over and then asking for the extra time and money. My boss was angry at me also because, frankly, that was the way he was used to doing business and he had warned me that being open with the customers was a bad idea. He was afraid we'd be fired from the project.

I met with the customer and explained the situation. I told them it was a good thing to find this problem early because they had the power to do something about it now. By explaining the cause of the overage and delay, I gave them three choices on how to proceed:

Continue as we were going. We would rewrite the requirements, then the specification and continue the project. The project would cost an extra $10,000 and take an extra two weeks.
They could rewrite the requirements document while we stepped away from the project, then return to restart. This would take at least 2 weeks (the client was super busy) but would cost no extra money.
We would rewrite the requirements but the client would take over some of the later tasks (when their workload had diminished) to recoup the $10,000. This would cost them no money or schedule but would take some of their people's time later.

My client was amazed. They were given options on what mattered most to them: time, money or internal resources. They chose option 3 and the project finished on time and on budget. They confided with me later that they were so appreciative of the transparency of our methodology and their ability to influence the course of the project; something they had never experienced with any other vendor. The customer is loyal to us to this day.

Practical Method for Determining Project % Complete

2012-02-28T09:44:00.001-05:00

How many times do you ask this question of one of your vendors and receive an answer that you don’t believe? What percentage of the project is complete? This is a simple question that allows you to compare this figure against the percent budget spent to see how likely it is that this project will finish on budget. Your vendors will make up all sorts of reasons for you to believe their statistics that show how complete the project is. Wouldn’t you like an objective calculation that gives you this number exactly?

I have been using a simple technique that allows me to plan projects, forecast their costs and communicate their weekly status with complete accuracy. My clients are always happy with the information they receive. This is not to say my projects always come in under budget. My projects are plagued with the same uncertainties any other projects face, some causing budget overruns. The difference is that I communicate these overruns weekly, honestly, can pinpoint the causes and allow my clients to make business decisions based on them. I don’t wait until the project is 75% complete and all the money is spent to ask for more money.

There is no magic behind the technique. The federal government mandates that projects run for them use a technique known as Earned Value Project Management to report time against task. But not many laymen understand it without some intensive training in the technique. Everyone understands what it means when a project is 2 weeks behind schedule, but most would be confused if told it is $10,000 behind schedule.

It is possible, however, to salvage some of the official earned value calculations to generate two numbers that are meaningful to customers: Percentage of the project that is complete and percentage of the budget that has been spent.

Below is an excerpt from a status report that shows these two numbers in the budget portion:

So how do I generate and then justify these numbers?

The Planning Phase

I plan each project in front of the clients,

with their active participation. This makes it possible to obtain their buy-in for the tasks for which they take responsibility. From this planning activity, I can generate a Gantt chart in MS Project detailing Duration, Start and Finish, Percentage Complete, Responsibility and Percentage Time spent on each task. By filling out the hourly rates for the assigned personnel on the Resource sheet I obtain a Project Budget (in the Cost column).

Once agreement is reached between the PM and the clients on the cost for each task and the overall project cost and schedule, a few columns can be added to the project plan. Baseline Start and Finish and Actual Start and Finish.

The same is done with the cost columns adding Baseline and Actual costs and renaming Cost to Current Working View (CWV) cost. The Gantt chart now looks like this:

The Implementation Phase

At each status meeting with the project team, I ask for percentage complete on each task and the number of hours spent on each task. The percentage complete is entered on the Gantt Chart, then the hours spent are multiplied by the hourly rate and this is entered into the Actual Cost column. The Actual Start and Finish dates are entered in their respective columns.

At this point, the Gantt chart is yielding some very important data for the client. Baseline End Date and CWV End Date show any schedule delay. Baseline Cost and CWV Cost show over or under budget predictions. It also shows some very poor data: percentage project complete. Experimentation with MS Project has shown that this is not correct, especially if some resources are shown as costing dollars and others are not (e.g., when a consultant shows their tasks on the same Project Schedule as the client tasks).

For each task, the Baseline Cost is the Value earned when it is complete. The Percentage Complete times the Baseline Cost is the Earned Value that is earned for a partially completed task.

Simply adding up all these partial earned values, and dividing them by the Baseline Project Cost can generate the Percentage Complete for the project. And by dividing the Actual Project Cost (summed by MS Project) by the Baseline Project Cost, I can determine the Percentage Budget Spent. These numbers make sense and are meaningful to a client. I use a simple Excel spreadsheet to make this calculation easier.

The two key values can be copied onto a status report: Percentage Complete and Percentage Budget Spent. The client can examine any discrepancies in these figures for the reasons behind the cost changes. The Gantt chart shows which task is coming in way above or below budget and the project manager can usually explain why this occurred.

The importance of Earned Value is that when a project using it is 15% complete, one can predict within 90% accuracy how much above or under budget it will be at completion. Any discrepancy found at 15% project completion holds through until the end of the project within 90% accuracy. This calculation has been proven by auditing thousands of government projects, small to large, using earned value calculations for decades.

It is possible to finesse these numbers to make the project look more complete than it really is. Only on partially completed tasks though. If a task is really only 10% complete and one claims it as 90% complete, an unscrupulous vendor can exaggerate project % Complete. But this will only work a couple of times and the vendor will be found out long before the project is complete. This is not a good way to run a business and these vendors will be weeded out quickly.

I encourage you to ask your vendors to use these calculations to give you meaningful weekly project status. You need to know early on how much over budget your projects are likely to be so you can budget accordingly or get rid of the inefficient vendors.

Anybody else have ideas that work well in this realm?

Lighting up Africa off the grid

2012-02-26T14:19:00.000-05:00

Just as Africa skipped the wired phone technology and moved to wireless, there are opportunities to move directly to off-the-grid electricity. One of the biggest problems in the poor regions of Africa is that, once the sun sets for about twelve hours, there is no light to study by. This hampers education.

Kerosene is expensive, difficult to transport and causes breathing problems. But some inventors are coming up with ways to resolve these problems.

The SociaLite lamp, designed by students at Cooper Union in New York and Wa Palytechnic University in Ghana.

According to a recent NY Times article, the socialite is a central solar charging panel that would be owned by one person or a group. They could gather sunlight and use it to charge these large batteries which then give off light at night. They could pay for the light charging by asking people to pay to have their cell-phones charged.

Another neat idea invented by four Harvard women is the sOckett. A soccer ball that stores energy imparted by being kicked and then allows a lamp to be plugged into it at night. Check out the cool video:

But light at night is not the only problem. People living squeezed together in shanty-towns around the world lack light in the day. To the rescue comes the coolest idea yet.

Take an empty 1 liter soda bottle, fill it with water and a little chlorine and stick it through the roof of your home. This gathers light from outside and distributes it into the building. Watch this amazing video for how to build one for next to nothing. It only costs one free empty soda bottle, a small piece of roofing, some rubber cement and a few drops of chlorine. In this case, the charity is teaching the people to fish, rather than giving them fish.

Biggest losers forget the goal

2012-02-22T22:22:00.000-05:00

Last season's Biggest Loser was a watershed. They all got the point that the goal was to lose weight and change lives. When it came to voting people out, the leaders stepped aside to allow those who needed to be on the ranch stay.

What a difference a season makes. The producers decided to ratchet up the drama. They succeeded by bringing on board a real piece of work by the name of Conda

She doesn't know how to shut her mouth and somehow has her tribe following her when she bullies the few who don't bend to her will. She destroyed several other contestants including loudmouth Adrian. His sister, Daphne vowed revenge. Here is where things became interesting.

They forgot the goal of the show in their temporary quest for revenge.

During the temptation challenge, Daphne ate 1800 calories in order to have to the power to switch up the teams
She chose to switch Conda onto her team (so that she could vote her out? It wasn't clear what her strategy was)
She lied to everyone else that she was responsible for the 'anonymous' switcheroo, even when the rest of the players figured it out and caller her on it.
Her team decided to throw the weigh-in by all stuffing their faces except for one person they bellieved would beat Daphne so she couldn't gain immunity

I was hoping that at the end Daphne could lose more weight than Chris, the designated loser of their team, so she could vote out Conda but she actually gained 2 pounds for the week! Stress? Extra calories? Distractions?
Check out the full episode here.

What's the lesson here for project managers? Don't forget the goal of the project when you get buried by day-to-day problems and politics. Stay focused on the goal and get the project done.

Invention for waterproof electronics

2012-02-22T21:55:00.003-05:00

Since so many people are attached to their i-phones, i-pads, etc, they end up in weird places. My son's ended up in the pool when he fell in and I hear a surprising amount of men talking in the bathroom on them. So it's about time someone invented not only a waterproof cover for them but one that has an antimicrobial coating.

The market for surgeons who need the coating is big and growing.

But the market for those who obsess about germs on keyboards, phones, remotes, etc is even bigger. This company even makes dishwasher-safe keyboards.

I can just picture my wife washing our keyboards when these become more common. She hates it when our boys bring their laptops into the bathroom:

Is a Muslim democracy growing in Tunisia?

2012-02-21T07:19:00.000-05:00

Said Ferjani of Enhanahda. (Gianni Cipriano)

This weekend I read an article that gives me hope for seeing democracy flourish in the new middle East. It was all about one of the leaders of Ennahda, the Islamist party that now governs Tunisia. His name is Said Ferjani and he has some theories about democracy that he wants to put into practice.

At first, the story sounded eerily familiar: Islamic agitator is captured and tortured by brutal regime, escapes to spend his exile in London, then returns after a revolution to join a Muslim uprising. Yikes! But this man actually broadened his horizons while living in England, unlike our favorite Ayatolla who seemed to pull further into himself during his own exile and returned more stringent than ever.

Mr. Ferjani is saying things that make me hopeful:
“I can tell you one thing, we now have a golden opportunity. And in this golden opportunity, I’m not interested in control. I’m interested in delivering the best charismatic system, a charismatic, democratic system. This is my dream.”
“Read, read, read, read. Even when I walked, I read.” (I can relate to that)

“Everybody has to be careful not to be dragged into a dictatorial instinct, no matter what happens. We can’t lose the soul of our revolution.”

He is a student of Rashid al-Gannouchi who is bent on increasing the democracy in Tunisia's Muslim government: Mr. Ghannouchi, his own thoughts evolving in exile, became an early proponent of a more inclusive and tolerant Islamism, arguing a generation ago that notions of elections and majority rule were universal and did not contradict Islam. Early on, he supported affirmative action to increase women’s participation in Parliament.

He gives his mentor credit: “Frankly, the guy who brought democracy into the Islamic movement is Ghannouchi.”

It all sounds great to me but what power does this man have in Tunisia's new government? And how long will he continue to espouse democratic principles once he tastes the power?

“We don’t fear freedom of expression, but we cannot allow disorder,” he said. “People have to be responsible. They have to know there is law and order.”

He suggested that protesters should obtain permission from the police. He worried that the news media was too reckless.

Twenty-ninth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2012-02-16T21:30:00.004-05:00

Gwilym collected Fred and they went into the tavern and settled in the dark corner. They drank but little and Gwilym laid out his plan. “Whoever comes to get you, go with them around to the back door and don’t let Tarrant out. I’ll keep him from leaving the front way. I’m sure that Sir Kay will be happy to talk with Tarrant again. But first, I want to ask him about Tirion’s daughter, Lowri. I’m pretty sure he had something to do with her disappearance. I gave that brooch we found in Brycgstow to Tirion and she recognized it as Lowri’s. Tarrant matches the description of the man who sold it to the trader. And he was just before us on the way to Caerleon. He said that I’d regret him being fired and if he was the one who stopped Lowri from getting to Avalon, he killed my Kaitlyn. And I’m afraid he killed Lowri also.”

The two men drank slowly to keep their wits about them. In addition to the ale, Gwilym had asked for a pitcher of water that he was not drinking. Fred asked about it but Gwilym just told him to be patient, all would become clear.

Finally George came out of the back room and whispered to them that they were all placing their bets for one big throw to win back all their money. Fred took George out the back and Gwilym slipped into the room. All the men were standing around one side of the room, looking down at the floor to where all the wagers were laid and the dice were to be thrown. Tarrant didn’t look up because he was focused on shaking the dice, but a couple of other men that Gwilym didn’t recognize watched him enter. They didn’t seem to have a bet on this roll.

Gwilym forced his way through his men and reached the edge of the throwing pit just as the dice were rolled. They bounced off the wall and spun a little, then turned up as a 6 and a 5. All the men groaned and Tarrant cheered to himself, “Lucky in dice, unlucky in love!” and moved to pick up the dice. As he reached down, Gwilym stepped on his hand.

“Let’s have a look at these lucky dice shall we?”

Tarrant’s face grew pale as he looked at Gwilym. He was bent over, his hand pinned to the ground, totally at the man’s mercy. “Let me go! It was a fair roll!”

“Indeed? So why not pick up your winnings first? Or are the dice more valuable than the money?”

Suddenly Gwilym felt himself being pulled over backwards. He didn’t want to let go of Tarrant so he didn’t shift his weight and, as a result, he fell over towards the dice. Tarrant made a grab for them but Gwilym snatched them up first. Tarrant pulled his hand out from under Gwilym’s foot and ran for the back door. “Stop him!” shouted Gwilym.

There was a large tumult as men were being pushed around. The back door slammed open; there was an unearthly shriek and then the sounds of running feet. Gwilym got up and ran outside. He saw Fred kneeling over George who was holding the hilt of a dagger that was sunk deep into his chest. “Hold those two!” yelled Gwilym at his men, pointing to the two strangers who had knocked him over helping Tarrant escape and were now trying to flee through the front door of the room.

“George! Stay calm man, we’ll get you help.” Gwilym lifted the man into the light of the room, seeing then that it was hopeless. Blood poured out of the wound and George’s face was turning grey from the lack of it. “How…how…was he cheating?” were his final words. Gwilym pulled out the dagger, a nasty looking one with a three pointed blade, designed to open a wound and keep it open.

Meanwhile, the tavern-keeper was arguing with Gwilym’s men. “It’s not your money. Ranta won it in my sight. You can’t come in here with your goons and scare him away and keep the money. I saw the dice throw and Ranta wins.”

“Hold those two until later, boys,” Gwilym said to his men who were holding the two strangers. Then he approached the tavern-keeper and introduced himself. “Well Nick, I see you run a fair gambling establishment that can’t be taken over by force. That’s commendable. Do you allow cheating?”

“Never!” protested Nick.

“Then let’s have a look at these dice that Tarrant, I mean Ranta, was so lucky with. Would you give them a few rolls please?”

Nick obliged him and the murmurs grew to roars of disbelief as Nick rolled a series made up entirely of 11s and 12s. He turned the dice over in his hands to ascertain that there were other numbers on the faces and looked at Gwilym in astonishment. “How did he do it?”

Gwilym brought the dice over to the pitcher of water he had taken from the other room. “Watch carefully as I
first drop a normal die in here.” Nick gave him one and they took turns seeing how, when dropped into the water, the die spun and landed at the bottom on one face or another, seemingly at random. Then Gwilym dropped in one of Tarrant’s dice and the watchers grew immediately agitated. The die did not spin as it fell, it fell facing up at the six or the five. As more and more of the men saw what was happening the outcry grew louder. “It’s weighted to fall that way!” shouted the men at Nick.

“Would it be fair to assume that Tarrant had been cheating these men for while?”

“If he was using these dice, yes,” admitted the tavern-keeper.

“Did Tarrant always throw the dice that won that final time?”

“Yes!” insisted the men. “’E said they were ’is lucky doice.”

“Then I suggest that these men won today’s roll and that Tarrant lost, wouldn’t you agree, Nick?”

“Fair enough, men. Have your winnings!” The men cheered and collected their money. “And how about a couple of rounds on the house to forget all this?” Another cheer.

“We’re not done here,” insisted Gwilym. He turned to the two strangers who were being held fast by four of Gwilym’s men. “Who are you and why did you help that man escape?”

The men were scared. “We never met ’im until yesterday. ’E paid us to be ’is bodyguard for tonoight. ’E said that ’e was afraid someone would try to cheat ’im tonoight. ’E never even told us ’is name.”

Gwilym looked closely at the men and declared, “A man is dead tonight who would be alive if you had not taken this job.”

“If we ’adn’t, someone else would ’ave,” they pleaded.

“True enough. And it would have been them going to the gallows instead of you. Take them to the bailiff,” he ordered his men. “I’ll talk to George’s wife. Where are his winnings?” Charlie gave them to him.

Tarrant disappeared that night and hadn’t been seen in Londinium again, even with the bailiff and his men looking for him. Gwilym had even posted a generous reward, but to no avail. The two accomplices were hung by the bailiff.

The men were all somber at George’s funeral. After the funeral the men got together and talked privately, then Charlie came forward and told Gwilym, “We’ve decided to split George’s work between us so you don’t have to hire another man. Give his wages to wife as usual.”

Gwilym nodded and was at a loss for words. Mixed emotions flooded through him. Sorrow at seeing the devastated wife and children, anger at losing Tarrant, awe at his men’s generosity, and pride at their jelling as a team.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Single-minded leadership of Romania's emergency-response system

2012-02-16T20:13:00.000-05:00

Dr. Raed Arafat, in checkered shirt, at a fire scene in Bucharest

Here's a government leader I'd like to see more people emulate. Read the article about Dr. Raed Arafat, and prepare to be impressed. He memorized the book 'First Aid Without Panic' as a boy, rode with the West Bank fire department at 14, was giving shots and stitches at 15, then emigrated to Romania at 17 to receive his formal medical education.

When the communist dictatorship ended in 1990, he drove to Germany, bought a used emergency vehicle and set up the country's first emergency service. With single-minded determination, "I'm married to emergency medicine," he built a system that now boasts 170 first responder teams, 12 training centers and four helicopters.

But what makes him truly remarkable is the reaction of the ordinary people to him. Patients will recognize him in the helicopter and remark, "It's Dr. Arafat." And when he was berated on air by the country's president and forced to resign, the people took to the streets in a week of violent protests to demand his return. The government had no choice but to comply.

How many of our bureaucrats are accorded that kind of respect and loyalty?

Disasters spawn inventions

2012-02-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

The Japanese Tsunami resulted in thousands of deaths, focusing some inventive minds on the question, "How could I survive a seventy foot high wave bearing down on my town when I have only a few minutes to react?

Shoji Tanaka standing in front of Noah, his invention to survive tsunamis

Shoji Tanaka invented a pod that could withstand the forces of a tsunami and provide enough air, food and drink for a person to survive for three days. Other inventions, like robot armor to clean up nuclear disasters and 3D mid-air messages for informing the public of disaster, were unveiled and were reported on in a recent NY Times article.

Some of these ideas seem crazy but, if history repeats, one or two will become reality. Let's see what happened to disaster inventions from ten years ago.

Soon after watching people jump from the stricken twin towers, inventors came up with seemingly outlandish ways of saving them. Here's an article from December 2002, discussing the various parachutes and rappeling devices being envisioned at the time.

One of these inventions bore fruit. Dr. Kevin Stone invested a million dollars to create a product that would allow people to rappel from burning skyscrapers. He showed off his invention by March 2011 and it is available for purchase now, ten years after the event at http://www.rescuereel.com/

Here's his TED video showing his inspiration and the invention in action:

So which of the tsunami inventions is the most likely to be a product in ten years?

We are drowning in debt

2012-02-12T09:54:00.001-05:00

Great graphic from NY Times January 22

I'll let this graphic from an excellent NY Times article do the talking for me while I ask this question:
Have the last two presidents led our country forward or backward?

Santorum definition

2012-02-10T13:09:00.001-05:00

Black leaders on the extremes of the movement

Every movement has a continuum of rebels, from the most militant to the most complacent. For every Frederick Douglass there was an Uncle Tom. The founding of Israel, the Iranian and American revolutions, the ending of apartheid, all had leaders on both extremes. The civil rights movement had Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Junior. While both wanted equality of the race, they went about it using different methods and the followers chose one path, the other, or somewhere in between.

Unfortunately, each of these movements had a lunatic fringe whose efforts, while ostensibly driving toward the same goal, actually worked against it by hardening the majority’s hearts against it. Protesters raping female journalists in Tahrir square, Black Panthers murdering police officers, Zulus shouting ‘Kill the Boer’ and American revolutionaries looting Tory properties are examples of this lunatic fringe.

There is currently a movement in the US to afford marriage rights to the gay population. This movement, like those mentioned above, has its continuum of rebels who use techniques ranging from introducing gay families in prime time TV shows to fighting off the Californian referendum in the higher courts.
While this battle is being fought in the legislative bodies of the states and attempts are being made to force a Federal decision on it, many elected officials have been asked what their stance is on this issue. Senator Rick Santorum has staked out his claim to stand directly against this movement. That is his right and the place to oppose him is in the ballot box.

This movement has its lunatic fringe as well, hurting the efforts of the mainstream. Unfortunately, this fringe has take the unique step of defining Santorum in the Urban Dictionary as a disgusting by-product of anal sex. They then used social media to force this definition to become one of the top results to a Google search on the senator’s name.

I notice that the right is fighting back and the definition is now no longer the number 1 result.
At first, this seems like a funny practical joke.

But is that the picture gay rights activists want to evoke in the minds of those who are deciding if it is a good idea to afford full marriage rights to this population? Wouldn’t you rather have the majority thinking of a gentle, committed couple who are happily raising children than the picture the above definition puts in our minds, or sex in airport bathrooms or rest areas or any of the other unsavory images of homosexuality?

Mitchell and Cameron with their baby in 'Modern Family'

I think it is time that the leaders of the gay rights movement policed its lunatic fringe, took down the offensive references and engaged their political foes in honest discourse. That is leadership.

Project Managers must never waste Team Members' time

2012-02-09T10:26:00.000-05:00

For me, the most egregious sin a Project Manager can commit is wasting the time of his/her Team Members.
The reasons for this are manifold but the two biggest ones are:

You get a bad reputation as a Project Manager
That time spent in meetings could have been better spent by them working on their tasks

So how can you avoid wasting their time? Here are some of the rules I follow.

Only invite those Team Members who will be working on the project's tasks to the planning session.
If, during the planning session, one foresees that a particular group will be dominating the planning for the next hour or two, excuse the remaining team members for that time. Simply inform them that their input won't be needed for the next hour, and ask if you can call them back when that time is up.
Schedule status meetings during the end of the planning session. Ask everyone to look up their calendars and block out 30 minutes a week at a time convenient to all.
Hold these session at a time that works for the entire team. If you run a global project, this means early morning US to allow the Europeans to attend during business hours. But watch out for what this means to those stationed in Asia.
Look at the flow of the project and make recommendations for when certain Team Members will start and stop attending status meetings. Some will need to be there the whole time, others can come in and out as their contributions wax and wane.
Status meetings take less than half an hour. Separate out the gathering of status from the problem-solving sessions that usually are generated from status gathering. Problem-solving sessions rarely require the entire team so call a separate meeting with that subset for those sessions.
Review the topics likely to be discussed at the status meetings and determine if a particular team member need not attend. Offer to excuse them for that.
Look around often during meetings and see if there is anyone who need not participate. (They're usually the people looking at their phone) Offer them the option of stepping out of the meeting.
Organize the agenda of a meeting so that topics that interest the entire team are covered first, then some of the team can leave and the subset remains to deal with the other issues.
Excusing a person from a meeting should be done with respect. The wording I use goes along these lines: "I know you are busy with a few other projects and are not too busy on mine right now. I'd rather you free up earlier from your other work sooner. Would you like to skip the next three meetings? I'll call you if anything comes up that is likely to concern you."
Sometimes just make rounds of people working rather than call them all into a meeting. You need to decide if this will be more or less convenient to the Team Members. It will probably be less efficient for you as the Project Manager but that doesn't matter. Your job is to make the team efficient, not for them to serve you.

Do you have any other ideas for not wasting your Team Member's time that I haven't listed? Add a comment.

How to get back your stolen i-phone

2012-02-06T10:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a neat invention. With a simple free app you can track down any of your Apple products in case they get stolen or lost.

Shown in a recent NY Times article a policeman, who had this app on his own iPhone, was able to punch a mugging victim's code into his own iPhone and track down the thief.

Punching in the victim’s Apple ID, which is the log-on people use to buy, say, songs from iTunes, he quickly determined by the location of a small gray phone icon on a digital map that the robber was near Eighth Avenue and 51st Street.

As Officer Garland and his partner drove there, the signal source shifted, closer to Eighth Avenue and 49th Street. There, a man later identified by the police as George Bradshaw, 40, of New Lots, Brooklyn, stepped outside a Food Emporium.

Officer Garland pushed the “Play Sound” button on his phone. Instantly, a pinging beep — not unlike the sound of a submarine’s sonar — began emitting from Mr. Bradshaw, 20 feet away.

As the officers closed in, joined by another pair, the pinging stopped.

Officer Garland said, the suspect left the phone unchanged, and the officer hit “play” again, prompting another round of pings. Mr. Bradshaw was caught red-handed, or more specifically, with the stolen iPhone in his right sock, Officer Garland said. The victim later identified him as the robber, and the phone was recovered.

A great way to keep track of your own items but a little scary that anyone who has your code can track your movements. What are your thoughts?

Twenty-eighth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2012-02-04T17:45:00.000-05:00

Fred and Gwilym were working with the men to remove the stones of the tower in numerical order and had set up a chain gang to transport them to their places. As Fred removed one particular stone, a small rockslide emerged from the space behind and a highly decorated urn rolled out. Before Fred or Gwilym could catch it, it fell onto the arch. It didn’t break, and the men all breathed a sigh of relief as the beautiful picture of a swift deer was revealed. But then it fell onto its side and started rolling toward the edge of the arch to fall into the river. George made a dive at it but couldn’t reach it in time. Fred ran down the tower but even he knew he wouldn’t make it in time. The men were all cringing at this loss, most knew that this urn contained the ashes of Belinus. Just before it fell off the side, a rock hit it and stopped its motion. The rock cracked the picture of the deer. Fred finally grabbed the urn before it rolled off the other way. The men looked back to where the rock came from and saw Gwilym lowering his arm from the throw.

Looking inside this urn they found ashes of a long-ago cremated body. “The ashes of your forefather, Belinus,” said Gwilym.

One afternoon, Fred asked Gwilym to come up to the top of the arch to see something interesting. The man had removed all but the last layer of tower stones that, in turn, sat on the top of the arch. They were able to see now that the cornerstone of the tower was hollow and contained an earthenware jar. Gwilym looked inquiringly at the men and asked, “What is it?”

Fred replied for the men, “In owlden days, it were t’custom to put important documents about t’buildin’ in t’cornerstone. They mun be inside t’jar.”

“Just like it says in ‘Gilgamesh’!” remarked Gwilym and removed the jar from the stone.

While the men continued with their stone-by-stone demolition, Gwilym carefully carried the earthenware jar into his lodgings and examined it. The stopper was also made of earthenware and it looked as though it had been fired at the same time as the jar. Gwilym wondered if it would be possible to open the jar without breaking it. But the jar couldn’t all have been made at the same time or it would have to be empty.

Gwilym tapped the sides of the lid and tried to gently lift it off. It moved slightly, then stopped. He worked the other side a little up, then proceeded around the lid, moving it a millimeter at a time. After 15 minutes of careful work, he was able to prise the lid off the jar, revealing a layer of wax that had sealed it. He removed this and revealed an ancient scroll.

Gwilym washed and dried his hands before he reached in and withdrew the scroll. He opened it and eagerly scanned the document. It was written in a much older form of British. The words were separated from each other by tiny dots, which meant that the scroll must have been written many hundreds of years ago.

He started at the beginning and worked his way painstakingly through the scroll. While he could not work out every word, he understood that this scroll discussed
the life and death of Brute, the founder and namesake of Britain, grandson of Aeneas who had fled Troy. According to the scroll, Brute had founded this city and called it New Troy and was the first British king.

Gwilym spent most of his evenings over the next four weeks carefully transcribing the scroll into a blank book. He smiled to himself at the story, wondering how much was true and how much was the simple British longing for a link to the greatness of Troy. Either way, the story was good and he would enjoy sharing it with his sons.

Every Monday this winter, Gwilym had noticed that his men were surlier than usual. They came to work with downcast faces, argued more, and occasionally fought. They brought their own food rather than eating in the tavern and their clothing was shabbier than before. At first Gwilym attributed this to Monday and winter blues and he organized a Mid-Winter feast to get them through this. The men were happy at this event, but came back on the following Monday madder than ever.

Later that same day he heard an almighty uproar and climbed to the top of the arch to see what was happening. The men were all gathered on the bridge, yelling abuse at a boat that was passing by. Gwilym was dumbfounded. ‘Had the boat done something to the bridge?’ It was almost in the middle of the river and the wake pattern showed that it had been sailing along the middle the whole time. ‘Was there someone on the boat who offended his men? Yes, they appeared to be yelling abuse at one man in the middle, someone they called Ranta.’ The man turned to Gwilym’s crew and made a gesture that said, ‘What can I do?’ and turned his face from the men back toward the boat’s direction. As he did so he met Gwilym’s eye and the recognition was immediate and mutual. Tarrant!

“Time to take a break and join me in the tavern, men,” Gwilym said.

When everyone had assembled Gwilym asked, “What was that all about?”

When no-one replied he said, “Look fellows, whatever is going on is affecting your work. You’re getting lazy, making mistakes, getting mad at each other. George, you hit Charlie so hard he missed work for a week. Tell me what’s going on. I can probably help.”

Finally, George spoke up, looking ashamed. “We take our wages every Saturday to the Grey Goose tavern and enjoy a little drinkin’ and some doice. Sometimes oy would win a little, sometimes others but it were pretty even. A few months ago, this Ranta shows up and ’e’s got a lot of money and ’e loses some so we koinda like ’im. Then ’e gambles some more and loses even more. Then ’e risks a lot on one throw of the doice and ’e wins it. Well, fair enough we say, but then ’e does it again the next week, and the next until ’e’s taking all our wages every week. Every toime we think we’re going to get it back, ’e gets a lucky throw roight when ’e needs one.”

“Will he be there on Saturday?” Gwilym asked.

“Yeah. ’E don’t moind the abuse. ’E keeps sayin’ that lady luck will get back at ’im one day.”

“Would you like to get all your money back on Saturday?”

“Yeah!” was the general assent of the team.

“Then borrow some from your friends and bring everything you have. You gamble in the back room, right?”

“Yeah!”

“Fred and I will be in the corner of the tavern staying in the shadows. When you are about to place the big bet that Ranta always wins, come out and get me and we’ll settle this.”

The men went back to work cheerfully and happily collected their wages on Saturday with a wink and a ‘See you at the Grey Goose.’

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Solution for captured pirates

2012-02-02T09:05:00.000-05:00

With better patrolling of the seas around the failed state of Somalia, civilized countries are starting to capture some of these pirates and free the hostages. Sounds good, right? Only the question becomes, what to do with the prisoners once they are in our custody? We brought the one survivor from the Navy Seal rescue back to the US for trial. Remember that great rescue with three pirates killed at night with three bullets, freeing the captain?

Crew members of the Maersk Alabama celebrated after hearing that their captain, who had been held hostage by Somali pirates, had been rescued. By ROBERT D. McFADDEN and SCOTT SHANE

Well, the one surviving pirate Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse received a sentence of 34 years in jail. But what about all the others that have been captured in less dramatic circumstances? Believe it or not, some have been released back on Somali shores, alive. A NY Times article details the complications. The pirates are Somali. They attacked the motor vessel Sunshine, which is Greek-owned but operates under a Bahaman flag. They were detained in international waters, but in the so-called exclusive economic zone of Oman. And they had commandeered an Iranian fishing vessel.
So how do you prosecute these guys? And where?

I have a possible solution in this case that could have international implications. How about delivering them gift-wrapped to Tehran and letting the Iranians deal with them? I'm sure there's still some begrudging respect held by many Iranians at our rescue of their sailors. Why not go all the way and turn over the pirates who had held them hostage for a month and allow the Iranians to deal their own justice? The publicity with Iran can only help thaw relations between our two countries a little. What do you think?

Success Strategies for running a Global Project

2012-01-31T21:17:00.001-05:00

After running a few successful global projects I have found some strategies that have helped and I figured I should list them for others to use.

1. Have the entire team present for the planning session.
This is a tough sell to management because it costs money. But on a large project it may only add up to 1 - 2% of the total project cost. Put it to management in those terms. They will agree that the cost savings you will generate by the team building and commitments expressd in front of the entire team will easily outweigh the initial cost.

2. Set up convenient status meeting times.
If your global project is US and Europe, you can usually find a time that works for both. Morning meetings in the US will become afternoon meetings in Europe but the further West you are in the US, the earlier you need to hold the meetings. But once you add Japan into the equation, your options start to fade. I have found that the Japanese tend to work late and I have been able to schedule status meetings that end after 9PM their time. Here's a link to a convenient World Time Zone map.

3. Learn about local holidays.
Every country has their own holidays. This link has a good listing of holidays and their implication on working days but it must be searched country by country. I'm still on the lookout for a calendar that lists holidays around the world on a month by month basis that doesn't include things like 'World Snake Day.' Plan these holidays into your status meeting schedules and your project plan.

4. Don't forget about vacation time.
Don't expect much work to be done in Europe during August when it seems like the entire continent goes on vacation. But don't generalize this rule to the entire continent. Some countries prefer July so ask your team.

5. Greet Team Members with their correct title, time and greeting.
Making a small investment in learning a few words can pay off hugely in Team Member loyalty. Saying 'Konnichi-wa Sanwa-san' and 'Guten tag Herr Mueller' helps a lot. Acknowledge that the Japanese are heading off for the day while the Europeans are in their afternoon is also a nice sign of respect.

6. Learn about local culture.
Hofstede and Trompenaars have written excellent books that discuss the cultures of different countries and are a worthwhile read for any Project Manager. Learning that one does not approach a senior manager in South Korea the way one would in New Zealand is a lesson that should not be learned through trial and error.

7. Allow time for translations.
Team Members who don't have English as a second language are going to be struggling with rapid English conversations. Talk slowly, even to other English speakers. If some team members are translating, speak in short bursts with pauses for translations. As a Project Manager, take the lead in distilling long questions down to simple queries that can be directed to those of another language.
8. Before you end any call, check with the regions.
A great piece of advice I received and took to heart was to not end my calls until I went to each region on teh phone and asked the question, 'Anything else from Japan, etc.' Because we are so used to assertive Americans, we expect people to speak up when they have issues. In Japan, not so much. They must be asked to bring up issues in an environment where they know all regions will be asked.

Has anyone else found any more advise they'd like to add to this list? Comment below, please.

Egypt's Military still in control

2012-01-29T19:13:00.000-05:00

Even though the recent Egyptian elections were, in the words of the Carter Center, 'Free and Fair,' it appears unlikely that the military is ready to give up its power. They have held special privileges since Nasser's 1952 coup and are not willing to relinquish them. They hold tax exemptions and financial advantages for their huge commercial empire, which runs from car making and consumer products to hotels and resorts.

According to a recent NY Times article the military is also concerned about repercussions from their brutal rule in the Nasser and Mubarak dictatorships and are not ready to have a civilian government hold them accountable .

How well are they going to get along with the Muslim Brotherhood after all their years suppressing them?

Saudi women can finally sell lingerie

2012-01-25T17:02:00.001-05:00

What's wrong with this picture?

With women banned from retail sales in repressive Saudi Arabia, they were forced to buy from South Asian men. While the restrictive laws were designed to prevent men and women from interacting, the reverse became true as Burqa-wearing women were forced to discuss intimate details with non-related men.

The law also resulted in funny sights such as this.

In 2006 the law was repealed and women were supposed to be able to sell lingerie but, with the restrictions on driving and the lack of trained women, nothing really changed.

But Social Media came to the rescue again. With a Facebook boycott garnering 1300 signatures, King Abdullah put his power behind the rule and gave the shops until June to comply.

While it's a small victory over petty rules that dominate women's rights in Saudi Arabia, there are two very interesting aspects to it that excite me:

Facebook, the oil lubricating the entire Arab Spring protests, was involved again and the Saudi royals recognized its power and bowed immediately to the pressure before things became worse for them.
Now that the women have a foothold in retail, they will gain experience and start taking over in other areas. They will have to be able to commute to jobs either by a newly developed public transportation system or a relaxing of driving laws.

Could this small change could be to Saudi Arabia what Rosie the Riveter was to the US women's rights?

Twenty-seventh excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2012-01-22T07:14:00.000-05:00

Gwilym and his family settled into a comfortable routine in town. He and Bleddyn woke to the church bells and, leaving the younger boys sleeping, washed their faces and hands and walked a short distance to attend morning Mass. On the way there and back, father and son discussed the morning’s readings and Gwilym put them in context within the whole Bible. Bleddyn’s Latin was still growing and he often had to rely on his father’s translation to understand some of the prayers. Gwilym, as ever, used this as another way to improve his son’s learning. Bleddyn knew by heart all the words intoned by the priest and his expected responses, as he had done since the age of five.

On returning, Gwilym prepared their simple breakfast while Bleddyn woke his brothers and took them to empty their bladders. Breakfast was always the same except for Sundays. Gwilym and Bleddyn ate a boiled egg, some carrots, a bowl with yoghurt and a cup of water. The twins had the same except Gwilym had crushed the carrots in a mortar and pestle and cut up the egg. The boys also drank milk instead of water. On Sundays their breakfast was hotcakes with honey.

After breakfast, Bleddyn would set to work on the reading his father had assigned him. Their library of books and scrolls was growing rapidly in Londinium. Bleddyn had found some people who were only too happy to swap scrolls with Gwilym and they could each copy the others’ onto a new scroll. Gwilym’s scrolls were mostly from his travels to the Holy Land and were rare in these parts. In exchange, Gwilym received scrolls of epic battles, love tales, some bad poetry and some interesting stories. Bleddyn’s work was to read these scrolls and transcribe them onto the new books that his father provided.

A woman who lived nearby with her small brood of children looked after Jac and Llawen during the day. Gwilym would usually gather his children up for dinner and ask them what they had learned so far. Then he would ask them in turn his usual question: “Did you ask any great questions today?” Dinner was bread and cheese and more carrots. The afternoon went on like the morning for the younger ones but Bleddyn would spend it with his father, learning the business and doing some physical labor. “Healthy body, healthy mind, son,” was Gwilym’s mantra if Bleddyn complained about being tired.

After work, Gwilym would gather his boys and troop outside the city walls to wash in the river. Depending on the tides they would go to the east or west side of town to avoid washing in the filth of the city. They received a lot of jeering for this fastidiousness and Bleddyn, starting to feel self-conscious amongst boys of his age, asked to be freed from this chore. “We’re not in the Holy Land, Da. Why do we need to wash every day?”

“Have you smelled these townsfolk who wash only once a year, lad? Have you seen the lice in their hair and the dirt and shit caked on their skin? It’s not healthy and I won’t have you be one of them.”

The younger boys were washed in the shallows and seemed to enjoy the warm water. But as the days grew colder they complained more until Gwilym started washing them in the yard of their lodgings with some warm water.

They would end their evening over a meal of some kind of stew with bread provided by their landlord. Gwilym always asked his boys the same two questions. “What was the worst part of your day? What was the best part of your day?” The answers to these questions always elicited great conversation and the family talked until late in the evening. Then Gwilym would read a story to the boys from one of his many books and scrolls until they fell asleep. He would stay awake another few hours, catching up on his project records and planning what tasks needed to be worked on tomorrow. Finally he would read for an hour for his own pleasure before falling asleep.

Often Fred would come over to visit and Bleddyn would sit with
him working on his writing after dinner. Gwilym would look up from his own scrolls with amusement as Bleddyn taught his diligent foreman. Fred had learned the writing of the letters while painting the stones of the tower and arch and was showing curiosity in how these were used. At first he cared only which letter started each word. He marveled that all the words he had been using his whole life were started by one of these 26 letters. “But why does the C sometimes make a sound like a K and sometimes like an S?” was one of his complaints. Being a man of numbers, it was difficult for Fred to deal with the inconsistencies of the British tongue. But Fred showed a remarkable memory and was soon reciting correctly which letter started each word.

One day, on the way to church, Bleddyn asked his father, “When can Jac and Llawen come with us, Da?

“When they’re three and can sit still for an hour.”

“So they don’t embarrass you?”

Gwilym looked deeply into his son’s eyes. “Is that why you thought I didn’t let you come until you were three?”

“Yes.”

“It’s because I want you to understand what is going on and not be bored. There are a lot of interesting stories told there and the most important stories are about Christ. What He did, where He was born, where He went, what He said, what happened to Him and why He died. When you’re a little older we can start talking about some of the inconsistencies in the stories. It’s really interesting. That’s what my father and I used to talk about. That’s why we went to the Holy Land.” He stopped suddenly and turned his head away.

Bleddyn looked up inquiringly at his father. “I never knew you went to the Holy Land with your father. I thought you went alone. Those stories you told through the years. They only had you in them.”

“I went there with my father. But he died there. And I came back alone.”

“What happened to him, Da?”

“When you’re older I’ll tell you. It’s complicated and you need to know more about the Bible first. Study for another three years and I’ll tell you the story.”

The tower was progressing well and the men were getting along. They all knew more about each other’s jobs because they had seen what was required while constructing the Work Breakdown Structure. They tried to keep out of each other’s way as much as possible. As usual, things arose that were unexpected and needed to be taken care of. One of the ships had to get past the arch supports to the river and Gwilym had his crew lift it and carry it around and over the bridge to accomplish this. More stones than expected needed to be replaced, which cost more money, though it made the road that they were building with the scraps a little better.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Women's rights amongst the Haredim

2012-01-18T20:19:00.001-05:00

Naama Margolese, 8, the daughter of American immigrants who are observant modern Orthodox Jews.

Oded Balilty/Associated Press

As if the horrid and worsening state of Women's Rights in the Middle East wasn't bad enough already with Shariah law likely to become more common; in Israel, the Haredim are increasingly exerting their ultra-conservative demands on their neighbors.
Little Naama, pictured above, has been spit upon and called a prostitute by hordes of black-clad men for dressing 'immodestly'. Her American parents dress her in a way that most of the world would consider quite conservative but the Haredim seem to wish to make a point. More from this article.
Israel, a beacon of light for Women's Rights in this otherwise blighted region, is feeling the strain from this sector of their democratic society. When the country was founded, David Ben-Gurion offered subsidies and army exemptions to the few survivors of this group, expecting them to be absorbed in the greater experiment. Instead, they multiplied and now number a million amongst the 7.8 million Israelis. Their votes are valuable and so they have been placated by generations of politicians, encouraging their excesses.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Beit Shemesh, Israel, rallied around a sign that reads in Hebrew: “Women are asked not to linger in this area.” By ISABEL KERSHNER

Organizers of a conference on Women's Health and Jewish law barred women from speaking at the podium.
The chief Rabbi of the Air Force resigned his post because the army refused to excuse ultra-conservative soldiers from attending events where female singers performed
Protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods
Vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards. More from this article

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators in Jerusalem were denounced by Israeli leaders on Sunday after wearing yellow stars and alluding to other images from the Nazi era. By ISABEL KERSHNER

Israeli leaders on Sunday denounced ultra-Orthodox protesters who took to the streets of Jerusalem on Saturday night and put young boys on display wearing yellow stars and striped prison camp uniforms reminiscent of the Holocaust. One little boy was instructed to pose for cameras with his hands raised in surrender, mimicking a famous photograph of a small, frightened Jewish boy surrendering to the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
Tensions were further fueled by the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox man here last week on a charge of sexual harassment after he verbally abused a female Israeli soldier who had refused to move to the back of a public bus. More from this article.

Until now, Israel has been the Democratic, Modern, Western, beacon of hope for the region. We Americans could point there and show the way to the Arab countries that seem to revel in their brutal dictatorships, dismal Human and Women's Rights records and religious intolerance. Now those who are screaming for Shariah law in Egypt and Yemen can point to Israel and say, "Same thing here."

The Great Escape Project

2012-01-14T20:47:00.000-05:00

As a boy growing up in Australia I loved reading my father's old World War Two books. One of my favorites was "The Great Escape,' a story of a mass escape by Allied POWs, causing a huge recapture effort that diverted German troops from the war effort. Since this was the objective of the project, (the prospect of many of the prisoners actually making it to safety was slim) the project was considered a success. Unfortunately, the German chose to punish the escapees by executing 50 of the 76 who escaped.

But what a project this was! The preparation and planning and duplication of effort to mitigate risks. The incredible details that went into forging all the documents, tailoring the fake uniforms and civilian clothes, the rails for the tunnels, the air circulation system, the radios, the list goes on and on. All of it was amazingly planned. Too bad the execution failed by them ending the tunnel about twenty feet shy of the forest. The whole story was well depicted in the classic movie. Here's the original trailer:

But an article in this week's paper showed just how incredible the tunneling itself really was. A group of British-based engineers, battlefield archaeologists, historians and modern-day Royal Air Force pilots, tried to replicate the work of the prisoners using their techniques and were unsuccessful. They couldn't safely make the tunnels in that sandy soil and had to quit.

Did the prisoners simply have more time and more incentive than the recreators to complete their project? One of these days I'm going to have to study this project in detail from a Project Management perspective and write it up properly.

Anyway, if you have time, check out the four videos below that detail the making of the movie.

Rube Goldberg

2012-01-11T21:12:00.001-05:00

The closest I ever came to programming was writing macros for Lotus 1-2-3 to manipulate data. They would work but when my boss watched them operate, (programs executed slowly enough to watch in the eighties) he would shake his head and call me Rube Goldberg. Then he'd show me an elegant solution to the problem I was trying to solve.

That's when I realized my future lay in Project Management where I could leave the programming to the professionals. But I still have an affinity for Rube Goldberg inventions. So when I saw this article in the paper and realized that the spirit of the master is still alive and well, I had to post it. Check out the newspaper turning machine:

This last music video is more complex but it moves too fast to see all the interactions. Still, more than three minutes of Rube Goldberg motion is still pretty impressive:

Twenty-sixth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2012-01-06T21:20:00.001-05:00

That evening Fred was in high spirits. He ate with Gwilym and his boys, excitedly going over the day’s events. “It’s as though we could see t’whole bridge and tower bein’ built right in front of us! And we could see where we’d be gettin’ in each other’s way and what had to happen before what else. And that Charlie, rememberin’ the road. We’d ha’ been sloggin’ through the mud before we’d a remembered it. I love this tool. I’m comin’ up wi’ a couple of verses for it in me Project Management Guide song.”

Gwilym smiled at his excited foreman. He too, was excited at how well it had worked but he was a little troubled by this morning’s events. “I think I may have been premature when I said we knew HOW to build the tower. We know the structure of the project but we need more definition in these activities.”

“Wha’ do tha mean, Gwilym?”

“Well, look at some of these tasks. Wood for arch supports, for instance. That doesn’t tell how to get there. The men need to do a lot of things to get that wood. Like: Measure arch; measure depth of water, make a drawing of the supports; add up the measurements; add some extra for scrap; order the wood; deliver the wood. Now, the men are doing that, but who’s to say that some of these more defined tasks won’t be repeated or skipped or unnecessary, just like activities in the Work Breakdown Structure. I think we need to define these activities better right now before we run into trouble.”

“Aye. I get what tha means, Gwilym. But does tha worry that t’men will think it stupid to have tha write down ever little step? Will they think tha are watchin’ over them like an owld mother hen?”

“Not if they are the ones giving me the steps. And not if I don’t go to ridiculous detail: ‘walk to bridge, look up, take out measuring stick, place one end at bottom of tower.’ I think they trust me now. I can go to the master of each activity and ask them to define their activities and then pull it all together myself for them to look at as a whole. And I can find the problems myself before I show it to the men so that they will see the value.”

“Sounds like a lot of work”

“Aye. I reckon it will be. Maybe you can continue doing my job while I work on this.”

“But Gwilym, tha knows I cannae write.”

“Yet you can draw like a champion, Fred. And you know your numbers. Look.” Gwilym pulled out a scroll that had all the letters carefully inscribed in beautiful calligraphy in alphabetical order. “Today I used the first four letters, A, B, C, & D. There were about 20 stones per layer. What I did was start with the stone on each layer that faced directly west along the wall. On the first layer, I called this A1 and painted that on the outer face of that stone. Then I moved around the tower towards the river and called the next one A2, then the next A3, and so on. Make sense?”

“Aye,” said Fred dubiously

“Then I did the same with the next letter: B. B1 for the stone facing the wall, then B2 and so on. The next was the C layer, then the D layer.”

Fred started getting excited. “I remember t’symbols. So they are in order, t’same way t’numbers are in order, 1, 2, 3?”

Gwilym smiled. “Aye Fred. A, B, C, is the order of the letters, just like 1, 2, and 3.”

Fred looked carefully at the list of letters, then looked questioningly up at Gwilym. “But there are 26 of them, not 10. How do I count above 26 with letters?”

“The nice thing about letters, Fred, is that you can combine them to make whole words. Then words make sentences and you can write down whole conversations. We’ll get into that later. But for now, you need to learn the letters. So you are starting with this letter. It is called E. It’s pretty easy to write. Just a straight line up and down, with three straight lines coming off the right side: one at the top, one at the middle and one at the bottom. Make the middle line a little shorter. And when you are done with that layer, call me to inspect your work and I’ll teach you the next letter.”

“I’ll do t’work, Gwilym and I’ll be right careful. But I know there are more than 26 layers of stone in that tower. What do I do when I get done with t’last one here, the one that looks kind of like a straightened number 2?”

“We can treat the letters like numbers then. What do you do with numbers after you use 9?”

“Tha takes 1 and starts again after that wi’ zero, then 1, then 2, making 10, 11 and 12. But what be t’letter for zero?”

“We don’t have a letter like that so we’ll name the 27^th row: AA, then the 28^th row: AB and so on. Can you do that Fred?”

“Which one is A and which one B again?” Fred inquired.

“These first two are.” And Gwilym went through the letters a few times with Fred.

The next morning, before the team had assembled, Gwilym showed Fred how to start numbering the stones and Fred quickly understood. He was busily painting on the stones when the rest of the team arrived. They looked at Fred with a new respect, then drifted off to do their work. Gwilym moved around them throughout the day, getting definition on all the activities and inscribing them all in his scrolls. He checked in on Fred after every level and praised his careful work. He noticed that as Fred painted, he repeated the name of the letter like a mantra, “F, F, F,” Gwilym smiled to himself and continued gathering information from his men.

They ate dinner together and Gwilym explained what he was doing with the scrolls. “I’m getting detail on all of the activities we worked out yesterday so that I can make sure we’re not running into each other, or having to do anything twice. When I’m done, we’ll go over it and look for the problems.”

Gwilym was as good as his word. He had spent the day inscribing all the defined activities into his scroll and, after the boys were asleep, compared each set of activities to work out the problems. The next morning, when the men assembled, he brought them back into the tavern for an hour and went over each set with them. He read the activities out loud, showed where he had made the corrections, and got their input into the changes. The men were at first shocked when Gwilym crossed out and rewrote over the existing scroll. They were accustomed to scrolls being sacred texts, carefully handled by priests. But they soon got used to it and felt respected for their opinions. By dinner they were all satisfied that the work was well defined and they ate and went off to do their jobs. One carpenter said to a mason, “Finally you won’t be asking me to do my work again after I’ve finished.” They both laughed and went to their places.

Fred continued with his painting while Gwilym rewrote the scratched up scrolls into a large book that he had purchased for this job. On the first page he wrote the name of the project in fancy calligraphy. The second page was a transcription of the charter. The third page was a list of the project stakeholders. The next page showed the Work Breakdown Structure while the following pages broke each major deliverable down into the defined activities that the men had just figured out. He finished up just as the men were getting ready to leave for the day.

Gwilym assembled the men and showed them the book. They were suitably awed. “It’s loik our own Boible for this tower,” one said.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Ernest Shackleton's Polar Expedition

2012-01-04T17:38:00.000-05:00

Endurance, cutting through the ice on sail and steam engine

A lot has been said about Ernest Shackleton's polar expedition, especially within Project Management circles. Most of the dialogue centers around his decision to change the goal from crossing Antarctica to saving the lives of his entire crew. Since he's back in the news again as his 100 year anniversary nears, I thought I'd add my take on the story.

For those who don't know the story, back in 1914, there were still some difficult places to reach on earth and explorers willing to expend large amounts of money, time and lives on being the first person to reach these places. Ernest Shackleton was part of Scott's 1901, failed expedition to the south pole, not the 1911 one that cost Scott his life and the life of his crew.

Ice mountains formed by moving pack ice

After Amundson reached the pole, Shackleton decided to explore Antarctica by crossing the continent on dog-sleds from one side to another. (Was this the inspiration for 'Ripping Yarns' Crossing the Andes on frog?)

He gathered a crew and set off, leaving civilization, as it were, on South Georgia island where the locals warned him that ice pack made his expedition impossible. They warned him to wait until the pack melted in a few months. He ignored the local knowledge and pushed on, his ship becoming trapped in the ice one day from his destination.

Realizing he was not going to achieve his initial goal of crossing Antarctica on dog-sled, he changed the project's goal to ensuring that every member of his expedition survived the ordeal. (A pretty lofty goal in those days when losing half your expedition crew was commonplace. This is still true on many Everest expeditions)

He proved himself an excellent leader for this second goal. He worked on his men's warmth, shelter, comfort and mental health. He organized a sail on lifeboats to the nearest land mass, Elephant Island, before the ice all melted. He organized a rescue mission, sailing over open Antarctic water to South Georgia island, (a ship voyage considered by many to be the most impressive in the entire history of sailing).

He climbed for 36 hours across to the inhabited side of this island, then sent a vessel to rescue his remaining crew on Elephant island. All but the animals survived.

Read the details here:

But let's look at the entire project from a good project management perspective:
Idea Phase: Good job, gett
ing backing and getting people excited to join. He even acquired a stowaway with his enthusiasm. Grade A
Planning Phase: Filled the ship with valuable supplies that ended up saving their lives. Probably missed some key information that could have been supplied by Norwegian whalers. Things like: When does the pack-ice form? How thick is it? How much pressure does it exert? Grade D
Early Execution Phase: Completely ignored valuable information from people with knowledge who warned him not to attempt what he was doing at the time. Didn't keep pressing forward with his steam engine and allowed the ship to become completely trapped. Grade F
Rethinking Phase: Changed the Project Objective on his own. Normally a huge no-no but given that he had no way of communicating with the stakeholders who have this authority, he took it on himself to change the objective to what he thought was right at the time. (It's what the team thought was right as well and he was vindicated on return for making the right decision) Grade A
Replanning Phase: Knew that the ice would destroy his ship so he set up camp on the ice in such a way to survive the winter. Grade A
Early Execution Phase: Ensured that morale stayed high by giving the best supplies to the lowest ranked members of the expedition. Encouraged work, hunting parties, diversions to make it through the three months of darkness. Got the men safely to dry land before the ice melted. Grade A
Middle Execution Phase: Organized the rescue mission. Put the best sailors on the rescue ship and led it himself. Placed a competent leader in charge of those left behind. Endured personal hardship in the hike across South Georgia Island. Grade A
Late Execution Phase: Focused on the goal of rescuing the remainder of his expedition until it succeeded.
Closing Phase: Gave out rewards to some of his men but not to others, sometimes for minor infractions during the almost two-year ordeal. Grade C
Overall Grade B
Better planning would have brought him up to an A and remember, 90% of Project Management is communication and most of that is listening.

Automata

2012-01-02T18:36:00.000-05:00

The Maillardet automaton, on display at Philadelphia's Franklin Insistute

Before the invention of the phonograph and electricity, recorded music, playable by amateurs, was still available through the invention of intricate music boxes. These marvels of engineering, using clockwork and pneumatics are still fascinating to young and old. I just took my boys to see one of the greatest collections at the Morris Museum. Check out some of the amazing music boxes and automata on display here:

Another famous automaton has inspired the recent movie Hugo. The 200 year old doll pictured at the top of this post is on display at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. It can write three poems and sketch pictures. Imagine the intricate workings behind such a feat.

Here's a trailer for the movie, Hugo:

More details in the New York Times article

Hide the freeway, create a park

2011-12-31T08:30:00.000-05:00

Madrid's newly revealed Manzanares River and one of the new bridges

Right after World War II, political leaders wanted to create a freeway system in America that linked the nation's cities as efficiently as possible. These behemoths crossed the land making it easy to travel by car or truck from city center to city center. But the rules the governments used to raze neighborhoods to make room for these roads did not take aestheics into account. Cities were separated from their waterfronts, their rivers and lakes, neighborhoods were cut in two and scenery was destroyed.

Seattle was one of the first to try and remedy this by building Freeway Park over Interstate five to link Capitol Hill with Downtown Seattle using a park loaded with waterfalls to hide the traffic noise. But this only hid a few blocks worth of this freeway.

Freeway Park in Seattle

Boston built the Big Dig to bury their freeway and retain access to their waterfront. Although it ended up being a huge boondoggle, it did successfully link the city back to its waterfront, opening up parks and an aquarium plus many great restaurants and hotels. Now you can walk from Faneuil Hall to the Aquarium without noticing that Interstate 93 is under your feet .

Boston waterfront

Other municipailities have taken note and are burying their own freeways to reclaim land for use as parks and investment zones. Europe has taken some big steps.

Hamburg's buried freeway

South Korea buried a freeway and revealed a river. There's a great web-site devoted to this and similar projects. Look at these before and after pictures of Seoul's renewal project:

Before

After

The latest success story is happening in Madrid where the buried freeway has revealed a hidden river and miles of new park-land.

Click on this Slide show to see some stunning pictures of this new park.

Some of the advantages of this project were that people who used to stay indoors to avoid the traffic noise now walk around outside in the new parks that have been opening at a rate of one per month.

The city has been opening architecturally beautiful bridges crossing the newly revealed river.

Some of the bridges look like upturned canoes

Some of the interesting facts I learned about this project in this article were that European government projects like this are much cheaper than similar American projects and that a broke government like Spain can still do projects on this scale. There may yet be hope for some of the uglified American cities.

Banner-making machine

2011-12-27T20:15:00.000-05:00

Ever been waiting for someone special at the airport and seen others there with those big welcome banners and wished you'd been just that little bit more organized? Help is on the way for all us procrastinators.

A vending machine that allows you to create your own banners sits at Schipol airport in Amsterdam just waiting for you to type in a greeting. You choose the size and design and the machine will print it out for you in less than three minutes.

It will create a banner in whatever language you want. The banners cost between $5 and $20 depending on size.

Congratulations to Oliver Janssen and Thibaud Bruna who invented this machine. I wish them much success. Hopefully one will be at the next airport I find myself waiting for a loved one.

Read more about this project in this NY Times article.

Laughable Headline

2011-12-25T11:47:00.000-05:00

A recent headline from the New York Times shows just how laughable this regime is. Yeah! We're to blame for the corruption that has crippled this country for thousands of years. It's just another reason we should be packing up soon and allowing this made-up country fall into the failed state of its destiny.

Twenty-fifth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2011-12-23T09:57:00.005-05:00

Reaching Londinium in eight days, they passed through Aldersgate and pushed through the throngs in the narrow streets to the river. The air was a little better there and they followed the river downstream to the Walbrook. They followed this upstream, around the old Governor’s palace to the bridge that led past the old Temple of Mithras, now a Christian church. The houses pressed in close on them again as they passed the road leading from the forum to the bridge. Finally they reached the outskirts of town and followed the Philpot creek back to the banks of the river Thames. There they found their tower.

The tower was erected on top of an arch that spanned the creek allowing boats to access the wharves inside the walls of the city. The arch was connected to the walls but was clearly built before them. The stones were older, more crooked and the tower in the center of the arch was leaning to the east. The arch itself was impressive and looked solid. It spanned fully forty feet across and rose to a height of thirty feet above the water. Judging by the marks on the walls, Gwilym figured that there was still five feet of tides left to go.

He knew that he couldn’t take his boys up into that dangerous structure so he found himself a nearby inn that would accommodate his family and Fred for the next year. There was a young girl who could look after the twins during the days so he set up a schedule with her. After dinner, he put the boys in her care and Fred and Gwilym went to the building site to meet the team. As they approached the tower they were stopped by a watchman who told them to go upstream to cross the creek, it was too dangerous here.

“My name is Gwilym and this is Fred. We’ve been sent by Sir Kay to rebuild this tower. Can you tell me where to find my team?”

“Roight, sirrah. They’re all assembled and waitin’ fer ye. They’ll be drinkin’ at the Eastcheap tavern. Roight there, sirrah.” He pointed back the way they’d come.

Gwilym and Fred made their way back past their inn to a dingy old tavern. The fireplace was leaking smoke into the place and a dozen men stood around the bar or sat on the few benches. They all looked with curiosity at the newcomers as they entered. “A round of drinks for all the workers on the Byllynsgate tower! Courtesy of King Arthur and Sir Kay! Paid for by your new Project Manager and foreman, Gwilym and Fred!”

A loud cheer greeted this announcement and the men came around to meet the two. The barman poured the drinks and Gwilym raised his in a toast. “Here’s to the safe and successful completion of this tower!” Another cheer erupted and the men drank deeply.

Lots of questions were asked of the two men, most of which they were able to answer from the charter they’d memorized. Some questions did not have ready answers but Gwilym promised that they would find all the answers tomorrow.

As the evening drew on and some men were making motions to retire for the evening Gwilym called for attention again. “Tomorrow morning we meet here two hours after dawn.” Another cheer. “We will do a little drinking and a lot of planning. We are going to understand this project before we even move one stone. And we’re going to waste no time, moving stones all over the place.” Yet another cheer from the men, which seemed to confirm to Gwilym that they were experienced in the kind of messed up projects that he was trying to avoid. “See you all then.”

At dawn the next morning, Gwilym and Fred inspected the tower and surrounding land to make broad plans, such as what they needed to move first, where they would store the materials and where they would place the arch supports. Then they went to the tavern, paid the man in advance for the food and drink that he would provide, and set up some wood planks on the benches to make a broad table. Then Gwilym placed a bag full of smooth wood shingles, each about 3-inches square, in the center of this table. Next to this, he placed a quill in a bottle of ink.

The men started drifting in and Gwilym invited them to break their fast. He asked that they drink more water than ale, because he wanted their minds sharp for this planning session. He asked each man to introduce himself and name his skill. Gwilym wrote this information on a scroll, checking off skills present with the skills he needed based on his previous estimates. When the team was all assembled he asked if there were any more sawyers. One carpenter said he could bring a friend the next day to add to the team. Gwilym smiled and asked him to please do so.

“Gentlemen,” began Gwilym, eliciting a laugh from these rough working men. “Allow me to read to you the royal charter for this project, written by Sir Kay and signed by the High King himself, King Arthur.” This quieted the men and brought some murmurs of approval from the men as he unrolled the impressive scroll. Gwilym read the charter out loud to the men repeating certain areas twice to emphasize points.

“So now that we know what we’re doing and where and why and who will do it, we are going to determine how we are going to do it.”

Gwilym reached for the bag of small shingles, drew a rough sketch of a finished tower on the first using the ink, and placed this in the middle of the top of the bench. “This is the goal of the project. A finished tower.” He looked at the men for evidence of their understanding and received nodding heads in response.

“Now to get to a finished tower, we need to do six things. First we need to support the old bridge.” He drew a supported arch and placed this on the left of the table, slightly below the level of the previous shingle. “Then we must remove the old tower.” He drew a bridge missing a tower and placed this about a foot to the right of the previous shingle. “Then we need to remove the bridge.” He drew an empty creek channel still containing arch supports and placed this shingle a foot to the right of the last one.

“Next we build a new supported arch, a completed tower and finally remove these supports.” He drew pictures on three more shingles and distributed these to the right of the previous three, revealing the structure shown below.

“So this is the structure of how we are going to rebuild this tower.” The men surrounding Gwilym nodded in agreement and looked at each other with impressed looks on their faces. A few of the older men rolled their eyes as if to say, ‘Wow, he’s really spelling it out for us like we’re idiots.’

“If we are in agreement with the basic structure, let’s get into more detail.” Gwilym started making quick drawings or using simple, easily understood pictures to lay out the steps below the drawing of the arch missing the tower.

“While some of us clear out some space east of the tower, I will be numbering each of the stones on the existing tower so that we can put them back the way they were. Then we take the tower down in layers and place these layers next to each other in the order they came off, with the stones in the same position they held in the tower. We throw away any wood inside, it’s all rotten now.” He had laid out five shingles, all clearly understood, below the second shingle. “This is called Decomposition,” he said to his team.

“Meanwhile, one of us can be
buying wood for the arch supports,” he drew a pile of lumber and placed this under the second shingle, “and they may as well be buying wood for the new arch at the same time.” He placed an identical shingle under the fourth shingle. This act shocked many of the men while the wisecracking veterans stopped clowning and watched carefully.

“Also, we’ll need to let the boat captains who use this stream know that they either need to find other docks or stay in the wharf all winter while we support the arch.” He placed a picture of a man approaching a boat under the first shingle. The men all laughed at this, picturing irate boat owners trying to reach the river. Gwilym looked around, saw the approving looks, and realized that he had the men now. He continued describing and laying out shingles in their appropriate places.

The table soon looked like this:

“Now, if I were a tyrant, I’d tell you to do exactly what this says and we’d get to work. But I’m no tyrant. I value your experience. What have I forgotten? What did I get wrong? What is done in the wrong order? What could be done better? I want all your input now so that we don’t have to redo our work later.”

The men were hesitant to begin with but, following the veterans, they all gave their input within their own specialties. The sawyer told Gwilym that they needed different wood for arch supports because they would be half submerged. The lead mason told Gwilym that they may be able to reuse the old foundations; saving lots of time and that he could assess that as they were reaching the end of the demolition. Others questioned placing the stones in layers as there was probably not enough room so they agreed to place two layers on top of each other.

In this fashion the men worked together, moving shingles, replacing them, adding others until they all seemed satisfied. Then Gwilym asked them this question: “See that tower on the top of this Work Breakdown Structure? If we do all the work below, will we end up with that tower, the way the charter wants it?”

The men thought for a while and one of the younger men said, hesitantly, “No. The charter says we need roads leading to both sides of it. I don’t see any roads in this…structure.”

Gwilym clapped the man on the shoulder and shouted, “Good work, Charlie! Where should we place the road shingles in this structure?”

Charlie was pleased by the confidence of the older man. He swelled up with pride, thought for a while and said, “We need to build the road foundations early on since we’ll need them to move the tower stones to the empty land. But they’ll get destroyed over the winter with all the moving around we’ll be doing. So we’ll need to add more rock as the winter progresses and we’ll have to finish it off last thing. He drew some crude road drawings on three shingles and placed them under the first, second and last shingle.

Once everyone seemed satisfied, Gwilym again looked at the men and asked the same question: “If we do all the work below, will we end up with that tower, the way the charter wants it?” The men thought carefully and then, one by one, looked at Gwilym and nodded.

“A round of ale, barkeep!” shouted Gwilym. “We have cause to celebrate. Now we know WHAT we’re doing, WHY and WHERE and finally HOW we will build this tower! We’ll eat our dinner and start work.”

After the men ate, Gwilym set the men to work. “You carpenters figure out how much wood we need for the arch supports and the tower and go order it. You masons inspect the existing stone and order enough to replace the broken ones. You three clear some space for placing the old tower and the rest of you, start clearing a road.”
Gwilym and Fred transcribed the Work Breakdown Structure onto a scroll. Then they went out, Fred supervising the men while Gwilym painted numbers and letters on the existing tower stones in preparation for the orderly demolition.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Women being abused in the Middle East

2011-12-21T20:01:00.001-05:00

There go women's rights in the Middle East. For as bad was living under a dictator like Mubarak, woman are worse off now and likely to be further abused if the Muslim majority takes over. As I predicted, the gloves are off and the misogynists are going after the women.

This is just the army abusing women now. Just wait until the Muslim Brotherhood and their rabid cousins take over the country entirely and impose Shariah law on the women.

Watch the video below to see one of these women-haters beating and kicking a helpless woman who was hoping to be rescued by some of the protesters. Be careful, though. the images are quite extreme.

I'm hoping these videos will shame the government to show fairness to half their population but I am pessimistic about the process. It hasn't worked in Iran, Saudi Arabia or Yemen, why should it work in the most populous nation in the Middle East?

A new personality cult on the latest Survivor

2011-12-17T00:05:00.000-05:00

The cast for this season, before the ringers joined

This season of Survivor is looking suspiciously like last season. It started out with a group of sixteen castaways who were quickly saddled with some veterans: Coach and Ozzie. But instead of getting rid of the obvious villain (Coach) and the likely winner (Ozzie), the civilians kept them around to lead the tribes. Did they learn nothing from Rob's steamroller?

The veterans join the tribes on day one.

Coach quickly put his evil plans in place and soon had a strong alliance of five that dominated the game. Before long, all of the five saw themselves sitting with coach at the end. Nobody has talked about the big blindside, getting rid of their leader. They all seem to be playing for second place.

Here Albert and Rick scheme to get rid of Sophie and then Brandon.

Meanwhile, Brandon thinks it's him and Albert with coach at the end and Sophie believes that it's her and Rick with coach.

Coach doesn't have to say anything. He's the cult leader and all the minions are fighting amongst themselves for his leavings.

Who is the only one remaining who can throw a monkey-wrench in the works? Sophie has him pegged. Ozzie is still at Redemption Island, picking off all the people voted off by the remaining tribe members. He is eating and sleeping well and getting healthier every day. He gets to feed and shelter and bond with each person before they leave him for the jury and is the last to hug them goodbye. He doesn't vote them off, he beats them fair and square in challenges that any of them could win. If he can make it to the final three, he has a lot of fans on the jury.

The part that really disgusts me in this game is the misuse of religion. All the prayers and talk of honesty and integrity is a mask for the worst set of back-stabbing I've seen in years. I get offended watching coach posturing and Brandon claiming that God speaks to him when it is all about coach winning a million dollars.

That poor kid, Brandon, is going to be really messed up by the time this game is over. Watch what happens to him in this tribal council.

PMP Exam aid

2011-12-12T17:30:00.000-05:00

A lot of my friends have asked advice about passing the PMP exam. One of the best pieces of advice I have is to memorize all the Project Management Processes, all the inputs, tool and techniques and outputs for these processes. This will get you 20% of the answers on this test.

To make it easier, I developed a cheatsheet that has all these handy. I ask people to transcribe this many times until they can do it from memory. Then they can transcribe it as soon as they get into the exam room onto the sheets of scratch paper the exam provides. After that, whenever you get some crazy question along the lines of : Is Risk Identification an input to Risk Monitoring, a tool and technique in Risk Identification, an output in Risk Qualification of all of the above, one can look at the sheet you transcribed and find the answer.

Help yourself to a copy of the full sheet here

Project to create languages

2011-12-11T20:01:00.002-05:00

I recently finished reading the five excellent books by George Martin showing life in the seven kingdoms of his made-up world .HBO has made these into a series that has faithfully captured the books word for word. But when the series wants to capture the characters in some of the far-flung kingdoms who don't speak the common tongue, they searched for authenticity in language. While Martin was able to write what his characters were saying in English, with the occasional Dothraki word thrown in, the TV show needed to show the characters speaking the Dothraki language with subtitles. So they needed someone to create this language.

Check out this video to see what they came up with.

Languages have been invented before: Esperanto is one that has entered common use. Tolkein invented languages for his people of Middle Earth. Linguist Marc Okrand created a Klingon language for “Star Trek III.

Read this NY Times article about the creation of the Dothraki language for Game of Thrones.
In 2007, Mr. Peterson helped found the Language Creation Society, the first professional organization for people who create languages. He won an open call to create a language for “Game of Thrones.” He submitted a 180-page proposal complete with a dictionary and audio files of spoken Dothraki judged by a double-blind committee of other language creators and finally, by the executive producers.

Twenty-fourth excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2011-12-04T12:55:00.002-05:00

Chapter Three – Londinium

“Two of the six stones have been placed, is the third to be placed at Canterbury?”
Merlin gave Viviane a keen look. “That is one option but we have decided to add the power of Belinus into our spell. The next stone will be placed in Londinium.”

“But that is not on a line.”

“It is close. The power of Belinus will make up for the location being slightly off.”

“We cannot afford to make any mistakes Merlin. We have one chance to do this properly. Arthur is looking for a wife and the Christians are pushing hard for one of their own.”

“That is not a bad thing, as long as she is tolerant.”

“Too few of them are these days.”

“And Grainne? Is she still your loyal priestess?”

“She loves her son.”

“Is Gwilym the father?”

“Yes.”

“The son has the royal blood from both sides, we must watch this one.”

“He must be fostered out.” Viviane was adamant.

“Not yet, allow him some education first. Don’t force your own experience on the girl, Viviane.”

“I had hoped for a daughter that we could raise here to follow me. What does Grainne know of Gwilym?”

“Just that he is an educated laborer.”

“Educated indeed. He is starting to ask questions.”

“Is that such a bad thing, Viviane?”

On their travels to Londinium, Fred, Gwilym and his family spent the first night at a hermitage where they shared their food in exchange for lodging. They arrived a couple of hours before dark but the boys were tired and getting cranky so Gwilym thought to give them some early rest this first day. As they sat eating with the hermit, another horse pulled up outside. Their host went out to welcome his guest. Gwilym was pleasantly surprised to see Merlin walking in. Merlin smiled at Gwilym, patted his little boys on their heads and looked seriously at Bleddyn saying, “What have you been reading this year, son?”

Bleddyn entered into a long discourse about the exciting sagas he had been hearing and proudly showed Merlin his scrolls with his careful writing on them. Merlin praised the boy for his neat script. After eating, Fred put the dozing twins to bed and set up blankets for Gwilym, Bleddyn and himself next to them. Merlin was still questioning Bleddyn who was biting through his yawns to answer him. Finally, Fred led Bleddyn to bed where they both quickly dropped off to sleep. Gwilym talked with Merlin.

“I’ve come to inspect your tower, Gwilym. How did it turn out?”

“I completed it on budget. It seems the scope changes I made weren't initially to Sir Kay’s liking but he found them useful for other purposes.”

“And what did you learn about projects this time around?”

Gwilym thought for a bit. “Having the requirements on the scope written down and

agreed to by everyone was useful but people still do whatever they want to get to those ends. We need to agree how to get there before we start. Have you any ideas to improve this?”

“What is the problem with everyone going their own way?” asked Merlin.

“They sometimes do things twice or three times. Or redo a job someone else already did because it didn’t suit their purpose.”

“How do you ensure that everyone sees what everyone else plans to do?”

Gwilym spent some more time deep in thought. “It’s all about deciding HOW to do things. The charter taught us WHAT had to be done and WHERE it was being built and WHY we had to do it. The requirements and scope tell us more about WHAT to do. We need something that tells HOW to do it.”

“What tells you how to build a tower?”

“There are lots of elements to a tower. The foundations, the wooden supports, the stonework, the stairs, roof, walkways, etc. There are lots of different ways to build any of these. We need to agree in advance which way to build them. If I wrote down foundations, then broke that down to its elements, like stone, rock, gravel, quicklime, I could get agreement how to do it. Same with any of the other parts of the tower. But these people can mostly not read. I need to make it simple for them. They can recognize words like ‘stone’ but not in a paragraph.”

“Could you draw them a picture?” asked Merlin.

“Not a picture of the tower. That won’t show what has to lead up to what. But if I wrote 'Foundation', then showed arrows leading from that to the elements of foundation, like rock, quicklime, etc. then they could agree on that. I could do the same for the wooden supports, the barracks, everything. It’s as though I took all the work required and broke it down into the subcomponents. What do you call that, Merlin?”

“It sounds like you already named it, Gwilym.”

“What? Work subcomponents? Work Breakdown? It’s a picture or a chart that shows the structure of the project. Work subcomponents picture, Work Breakdown chart, Work Breakdown Structure? That one sounds good: Work Breakdown Structure. What do you think, Merlin?”

“Do you think the name suits? And will it do the job you need?”

“I do like the name. Work Breakdown Structure. As far as doing what I need, I’m not sure. We can try this next time but I think we might need more. After all, even with the wood, there are many ways to put it together to make the structure. We need to define the activities that lead us to the elements. We need to spell out HOW we are going to do every step. Something like, ‘Make metal template.’ ‘Cut ends of logs to fit template.’ ‘Place second log on top of first matching cuts.’ Not too much detail but enough so that we can see where duplicate work appears and which activities need to be done first.”

“Sounds sensible. Does it answer the question, HOW?”

“The two tools do. Work Breakdown Structure and Define Activities. I like it! Thanks again Merlin. I can’t wait to tell Fred of these new tools.”

“Will he add them to his song?”

“Did you hear his song, Merlin?”

“Fred’s words have reached my ears. Good night Gwilym.”

Gwilym went off to join his sons in the bed, thinking about the new tools and seeing how well he could use them in his next project.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Awesome graphic from the Times

2011-12-01T07:34:00.002-05:00

I love it when the Times posts a great graphic. This one shows the effects of various wars, dictators, failed states and institutional oppression on world population. The graphic uses Tufte's principals of letting the data do the talking so I'll do the same. I'll present the graphic and let you see in it whatever you wish. To see it better, click on the hyperlink above. (Times)

What did I see? Whenever a population gets too big, there are wars, despots and famines that take care of this. Most of the big cuts in population took place in China. Oh, and things are definitely getting worse, the bigger the world population gets.

Home-based batteries for wind power

2011-11-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

A wind farm near Ellensburg, Wash. Utilities have asked homeowners to help store excess energy to protect the grid.

As the trend continues to generate electricity closer to the point of use and people are setting up wind and solar electricity generators in their homes and businesses, the need to have storage of excess energy increases. Oversupply of electricity can cause blackouts to the grid so utilities need to find some kind of battery system. But how to do this?

In the Pacific Northwest, the Bonneville Power Administration has set up a program to store this excess electricity in people's appliances. This is an interesting take on the way they control limited power here on the East Coast.

Last summer, for instance, I was wondering why my house was getting so hot on a particular summer day. I checked the thermostat, then went outside to look at the unit. While I watched, I saw it turn on. Then, after a few minutes, it turned off again, even though the house was still not down to the temperature I had set. What was going on? I called the utility and they laughed at me. They reminded me that I had signed up for a program that reduced my power bills by 10% and gave the utility the power to turn off my AC "for a few minutes at a time" to save energy. Well, the utility got through the day without needing any rolling blackouts but I and many thousands of other suckers had a hot, uncomfortable day in their homes.

So what does this have to do with storing electricity? The BPA is setting up some customers with ceramic bricks in electric space heaters that can be warmed up several hundreds of degrees by remote control. Water heaters can be heated up by up to 60 degrees. Then this energy can be returned later when the excess is gone. Apparently the utility can still control the tap-water temperature in the homes so that customers don't get scalded.

It's an interesting concept and I suppose the utilities need that amount of control to ensure the grid stays stable but it is a scary feeling to be under that much control by an outside agency. I certainly didn't like the hot summer day I spent under their control. What happens when the customers get extra heat pumped into their homes on a hot day? Should be fun to watch.

Read this article for more details.

Another great project to make a park out of unused public space

2011-11-23T10:08:00.001-05:00

After the phenomenal success of New York's Highline park, pictured below, other cities have been looking to copy the success.

The formula is pretty simple: Find some land that used to be used by the city but is falling into disrepair, repurpose it as a park, get some public funding, some donations, get some corporate sponsors and some restaurants to open nearby and voila: a public park in an unexpected space.

The Highline park, for those who don't know, took an old elevated rail line that used to run along the west side of Manhattan that was used in the meat-packing industry, and added stairs, soil, plants and walkways, built in a few benches and turned it into a quiet oasis above the streets.

There's a new project being proposed that is even more interesting. According to yesterday's Times article, there is a three block area close to the Williamsburg bridge with 20 foot ceilings that is lying disused right now.

It used to be a trolley terminal but with light gathering techniques, it can be turned into an underground park with grass and trees.

The two men with the idea have experience with these light gathering techniques, taken from their colleges, (Yale and Cornell) and jobs, (NASA and Google) and are serious about it.
Check out the project's website for some cool pictures of their concept.

Twenty-third Excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2011-11-20T19:06:00.001-05:00

Early the following day, Sir Kay rode in with his three inspectors, and all were pleased again. The one who last time was drawing sketches of the wooden works was this time drawing the silo and the clay channel to the water. The accountant was frowning over the numbers while the third was admiring the capstone.

“Do you need me to finish off the other towers in this district, Sir Kay?”

Sir Kay looked keenly at the third inspector, who shook his head slightly. “No Gwilym,” replied Kay. “We have a more important job for you down in Londinium. The river gate known as Billynsgate has fallen into disrepair and is in danger of falling into the water. It needs to be rebuilt using the same stones but with a better foundation. You are the man for the job. This time you must remember that money is far less important than scope. The tower must look the same. And Gwilym, the urn containing the ashes of Belinus must be kept safe and returned to the center of the tower. The tower must be finished exactly a year from yesterday. So worry less about money than scope and schedule. And build it to your usual level of quality.”

“Sounds like very skillful work, keeping track of the old stones and putting them all back in the same places. Working next to a river and over a stream. Living in an expensive city.”

Sir Kay smiled and added, “Since money is less important on this job and the work is difficult, we have agreed to double your usual pay.”

Gwilym nodded and accepted his commission. Sir Kay handed him a royal charter and Gwilym read it over with care. Added to the usual wording was a detailed drawing of the tower: an arch crossing the stream from two strong towers on each bank and a slender but tall tower in the center. The center tower was leaning dangerously towards one of the banks.

(Next time, look for an excerpt from Chapter 3: Londinium)

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Gabby Giffords is recovering

2011-11-16T16:52:00.002-05:00

Almost a year after being shot in the head at point blank range, Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is well on the road to recovery and ready to resume her seat. Here she is voting on a bill and talking with Diane Sawyer:

And for all those who want to protest her return, I challenge them to kick out all the other members of congress operating with less than a fully functional brain.

Re-election bids trump doing their job

2011-11-13T16:02:00.001-05:00

Protesters against the oil pipeline

Obama is in a pickle. He has environmental protesters on one side arguing against the new pipeline from Alberta to Texas and business lobbies and job seekers on the other. But this is the job for which he campaigned so hard. Isn't it time he did that job and made those tough decisions? Instead he is delaying the decision for another year so that it cannot be used as election fodder against him next November.

Read this Times article for more details of this argument and links to details of the fight.

I'm tired of politicians believing that the main job of their first term is to get re-elected to their second term. If they would just put their heads down and do their jobs for a change we might get some real change happening in government. Instead we have a bunch of weathercocks out there bending to the whims of their interest groups and surveys.

Perhaps the term limits statutes need to be strengthened. Have every politician only serve for one term so that they can get some work done while they are in the positions they sought. No more looking over their shoulders for the impact their decisions will have on their re-election chances. Just do what you promised in the first place and then get out of the way for the next person.

The downside of this could be renegade politicians who don't care about anything since they're not coming back anyway. But a strong voter recall law can take care of that.

The only real 'downside' of this idea would be that there will be no career politicians since they can't make a career of it. Kind of what our founding fathers wanted in the first place. Wouldn't that be a nice kind of a utopia?

Christo the graffiti artist

2011-11-09T17:27:00.000-05:00

I'm not a fan of graffiti but I recognize that there are different types. There are the colorful murals that cover blank walls under overpasses and obscures an otherwise ugly sight. There were the unsightly messes made of New York subway trains in the seventies that have thankfully been stopped. And there is the 'tagging' where some jerk or gang of jerks put their signs on public buildings or structures to show that they own this turf. Little more than dogs pissing on street lamps to mark their territory in my opinion.

Lower than all of these is the 'artist' Christo. Rather than placing his tags on ugly tenements, billboards or bridges, he chooses some of the most beautiful places on earth to piss on. He takes some beautiful islands in Biscayne Bay and wraps them in fabric.

Then he wraps architectural masterpieces like the Bundestag or the Pont Neuf with his ugly fabric.

Then he puts 'gates' throughout our gorgeous Central Park.

He has placed miles of umbrellas and fences in deserts and his next 'project' is to cover 50 miles of pristine river gorges with his fabric. Tagging of the worst kind. What are birds and fish going to do during his week-long 'installation'?

He claims to do it all for art but he has a nasty business strategy that has made him a millionaire many times over. After he installs his fabric, he takes photos of what remains and only he has the right to sell these images. What a crock!

As for the garish colors, I can only guess he gets his inspiration from his wife.

Twenty-second excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2011-11-06T18:43:00.002-05:00

When the last of the building materials that had lain here all winter long were removed, the capstone, on which they had laid, was revealed. It was pressed below the surface of the ground and had to be prised up carefully. It was smooth on the side that had been facing up, but when the bottom was exposed and cleaned off, it revealed the signs of an ancient rune on that surface. It looked similar to the design on the Huish tower but it was not identical. This one took the form of a many-headed dragon. The men used pulleys to bring the stone up and Athelstan and Gwilym carefully placed it into position. The tower was complete fully a week before Beltane, allowing the men to clean it up to present it to Sir Kay at the dedication. The workers were still busy with the clay channel to the water, a task that Gwilym had forbidden them to work on until the tower was complete.

Merlin appeared at the job site the day before Beltane and handed Gwilym twelve more pieces of river jade to place between the tower and the capstone. And so, once again, Gwilym spent the evening of Beltane carefully hammering in the stones on the edges of his new tower. He remembered last year with Grainne and wondered what she was doing. He hadn’t seen Merlin enter the city. Was she with him?

Gwilym had remained celibate throughout the past year. Partly this was out of memory of Kaitlyn, partly out of fear of being tied down to a town that he knew he would be leaving soon. Partly it was out of loyalty to his sons’ mother and their questions about a new figure in their lives. And partly it was due to him being so busy with this project.

He placed the river jade, watching the Beltane celebrations below him. As he remembered last year’s love-making and his year of celibacy, he became aroused again, and kept glancing behind him to see if Grainne would come again. He inserted the last piece of jade, stood up and surveyed his work, disappointed but also a little happy to be here alone on top of his completed tower. He turned to give the district one last view before descending.

“Another wonderful erection, Gwilym.” Chills ran down his spine and all the hair on his head stood on end as he saw Grainne standing in the middle of the rune. How did she get there during his quick circuit of the top?

“How…?” he began, but was silenced with a slight wave of her hand and a glance at her regal bearing. She was looking with obvious pleasure at the hydra rune on the tower, but her double meaning was clear as she raised her eyes to admire him.

“Come,” she demanded and he felt himself being pulled into her presence. “Undress,” was her next command and he complied obediently. She reached up and caressed him carefully, running her hands down the side of his face while her thumbs traced his strong brow, his prominent cheekbones. Down his neck and across his broad shoulders. Around his bulging biceps and

sinewy wrists while she placed his large hands on her hips. Back up to his hairless chest and defined abdomen. Around to stroke his ass, down his tree-trunk thighs and marble calves. Then back up to the second meaning of her first sentence. A groan escaped him as she stroked his manhood to rock hardness.

She reached behind her back and loosened her shift, allowing it to drop silently to the stone, revealing herself for him. Her breasts were fuller and her belly a little rounder than last year. Her flaming hair was full and curly and her waist was narrow before flaring into smooth, rounded hips.

Grainne reached around his chest to the backs of his shoulders, clamped on and hopped up, entwining her legs around him, straddling his lower belly. They kissed deeply, reveling in each others’ tongues. She lowered herself accurately onto his phallus and he felt himself entering her wetness, feeling the acceptance of his rough manhood into the soft confines of this woman, this priestess, this goddess.

She rode him in this fashion for a while, keeping him on the brink of ecstasy while working herself up in excitement. He helped her in her exertions by cupping her ass and moving with the rhythm she had set. At one stage she drew her upper body away from him, allowing him to reach out and squeeze her breasts. He watched in fascination as some milk dripped from one nipple, and he bent his head down and sucked gently on the sweet breast-milk. This sensation, added to the motions Grainne had already been using, brought her to a shuddering climax. Gwilym followed shortly after, then they both lay down in the center of the rune. A thin mist surrounded them; a repeat of last year…

This time he struggled hard against the more than usual weariness that followed his exertions and asked her, “What does this mean, Grainne? Why here, at Beltane, with me?”

“What better place than here? What better time? And who better to spend it with?”

“You’re avoiding the questions, Grainne. These are rune-stones. I’m placing them as capstones on these towers. I’m finishing them at Beltane, placing river-jade between them and the rest of the tower. Then you and I are consecrating them somehow. What does it mean?” His eyes were closed now and he struggled to keep his mind and ears open as the weariness spread from the top of his head down through his body.

“It’s important, Gwilym…” were the last words he heard as he slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

People-watching project

2011-11-04T07:36:00.001-04:00

In Normal Bob’s postcard game, players match the cartoon figures with their nicknames and genres.

I love this man's personal project. He elevated people-watching to a whole new level. Bob Hain grew up in the Midwest and ended up in New York City where he hung out a lot in Union Square. Watching the people there he started to see patterns in the various oddballs found there. So he categorized and tabulated them, then created a postcard that identifies all the groups and allows you to find and check them all off.

I learned about him a few years back in this Times article and laughed myself silly. You really should read it for the entertainment value. Then visit his website: http://normalbobsmith.com/ for his latest pictures, stories and videos.

Here are some excerpts from the article to whet your appetite:

In Union Square, Mr. Hain is equal parts referee and ringmaster, curator and chronicler.
There is Junky the Barbarian, Pretty Boy Jake and Green Graver Girl, for starters. Then there are the categories of park regulars, which include scenesters, peepers, fundies, gravers and Griswalds.
Mr. Hain calls all these people his Amazing Strangers, and celebrates hundreds of them on a section of his Web site with the same name. Last year, he created a hall of fame, selecting the most outlandish characters and creating cartoon versions of them. Of the 70 cartoon characters he created, he selected about half to form an all-star lineup, then put them on a postcard-size handout challenging people to match each character with the right nickname.
The handout’s reverse side is an aerial photograph of the park with diagrams indicating where the various cliques and subsets tend to gather. For example, it shows that the peepers gather at the south side of the park, so they can blend in with pedestrians while peering under the skirts of women sitting on the steps. The gravers — Goth-ravers who usually dress in wide, black Tripp pants — gather nearby, near the statue of George Washington. The drug addicts do their nodding in the rear of the park, on the benches toward the east side. The Griswalds, or naïve tourists, gawk at it all from the periphery.
The club kids known as scenesters remain aloof, gathering on the triangular minipark toward Park Avenue. Fundies — being the fundamentalist Christian preachers — tend to gather at the very southwest corner of the park.
There is a primer on distinctions between a Goth and a raver. Then there is the graver, whose name borrows from both of those, but who would not be caught dead being grouped with either.
By contrast, the hipster is a bird of another feather, “the natural enemy of the graver,” Mr. Hain says. And the scenesters are the result of melding hipsters and gravers, identifiable by their studded belts, tight clothing and maybe a black handkerchief in the back pocket.
Then there are the robo-trippers, who try to get high by “huffing,” or inhaling, products like Dust-Off, or by drinking Robitussin.
Things are slower these days, with part of the park annexed by the artisan kiosks of the Union Square Holiday Market. Behind the statue, a few obviously inebriated men milled about and at one point, a sloppy fight broke out.
“I don’t have names for those guys,” Mr. Hain said. “They’re not on the handout. One time, one of them asked me, ‘Why don’t you have us listed?’ I said, ‘What are you?’ He said, ‘We’re dirtbags, put us on there!’ ”
Recently, a crusty man with hobo whiskers and a few crooked teeth in his mouth walked around the park soliciting change by flashing first one cardboard sign — “What’s the best nation?” — then the other — “Donation.”
“His name is Signs,” Mr. Hain said.

I visited Union Square with my wife and brother on Friday and met some of the denizens. It was a little cold for the peepers by Wendell the Garbageman was there rooting through the garbage and posing for pictures. The Gravers and Skaters were there but I was disappointed in seeing no Fundies or Huggers.

But it was nice to go to a new place and have a guide to all the locals. I'd love to see more people introduce us to the residents.

The return of polygamy to the Arab ex-dictatorships?

2011-10-31T19:41:00.003-04:00

In another blow to women's rights in the old Arab dictatorships, there seems to be a push to return to Shariah law and the polygamy contained within. Just recently, the head of Libya's interim government called for an end to the Qaddafi-era law that placed restrictions on multiple marriages. If Mustafa Abdel-Jalil gets his way, first wives will no longer have to give permission to their husbands before they seek a second wife.
Read details of this newest step backward for women's rights in this article.

Meanwhile, in Tunisia, the formerly banned Muslim party, Ennahda won 40 percent of the vote, giving it the largest share in the recent election. The secular minority are predicting that an Islamist-dominated national assembly will reverse legislation prohibiting polygamy. Read about Tunisia's move to a theocracy in this article.

After reading 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' and 'The Kite Runner', I gained a new respect for the way women's rights are often destroyed after the demise of a secular dictator in this region. Women who were well-educated and held respectable jobs were marginalized with the rise of Shariah law.

I can see why they fought for the end to the dictatorships that crippled their countries and left their children in poverty or jail but are they going to see any improvement under the theocratic governments that are springing up in their place?

Four Wins for this project

2011-10-27T11:19:00.001-04:00

Imagine starting a company where you were paid to have your raw materials dropped off at your dock, where your workers were supplied free as part of a training program for the unemployed, where your rent was subsidized as part of a community redevelopment program yet you could sell your final product at high prices because of its ‘green’ value. Now that’s worthy of the term WIN WIN WIN WIN.

Check out the business model of Big City Forest, based in the Bronx, New York. I read about these people over ten years ago in an article in the Times and hope they are still going strong.

New York City sees thousands of full pallets entering every day and being discarded. Landfills won’t take them so trucking companies will charge for their removal. But these are usually turned into wood chips, a pity for the strong wood they are made from. Big City Forest charges people 75 cents for each pallet dropped off at their loading dock.

Unemployed people need experience and new skills. The governments, rather than simply pay for unemployment benefits, would prefer to see them learn these skills. So the workers are given to Big City Forest where they trade free labor for furniture-making experience and skills.

The South Bronx has a lot of abandoned buildings subject to drug use and other crimes. It is in the community’s best interest to have viable businesses operating in these buildings so the borough substantially subsidizes the rent on these buildings to Big City Forest.

Pallets turned into wood-chips, burned or thrown into landfills mean other trees need to be cut down to make furniture. And pallets are usually made of excellent wood like rosewood, cherry, oak, mahogany, maple. So here is the ‘Green’ hook for this company.

As chips, the wood is worth about $30 a ton. As flooring, the value rises to $1,200 a ton, and as furniture, the wood in pallets is worth $6,000 a ton.

This wood makes excellent furniture. Butcher-block tables and benches with the company's logo are sold to institutional clients like foster-care centers and Cornell University -- ''they're frat proof,'' Ms. Dimino said -- but are also showing up in chic shops like Terra Verde in SoHo.

Customers happily pay $750 for a five-foot table, said the shop's owner, Katherine Tiddens.

''They're like a rock,'' Ms. Tiddens said, ''like a lesson in wood.''

Twenty-first excerpt from 'Twelve Towers'

2011-10-23T18:25:00.004-04:00

Four weeks after the last of the snows had melted and the roads had been passable for two weeks, Gwilym spied a royal party crossing the river on the ferry. Bleddyn was reading nearby and Gwilym asked him, “What crest is on that banner, son?”

“Two golden keys on a blue field, Da!” shouted Bleddyn from below.

‘Kay,’ muttered Gwilym to himself. He was nervous about the deals he had made with the Saxons to get the tower built. He knew that he had overstepped his authority, and he hoped that Kay would acknowledge his brilliant plan, but he still had misgivings. He also knew that the tower was way behind schedule, partially due to his silo complications. Climbing down the tower to greet his sponsor, he wiped his hands and rehearsed his speech. He was still nervous when Sir Kay addressed him.

“When you didn’t come to Caerleon before the winter, Gwilym, I guessed you were just staying to finish up the last few parts of the tower. I was surprised when I took the ferry to see the tower still not even fully clad in stone. What’s the delay?”

Gwilym explained that he had been given only so much money to complete the tower and that a lot more should have been at the site to pay the workers. He had been forced to make a deal with the workers to get them to work for free. Unfortunately that cost some time as well.

Kay asked to see all the documents, and he spent the next two hours laboriously going over the materials accounts, the two contracts, and the charter and touring the job site. All the while, his face was impassive, and Gwilym was torn with suspense as to what Kay would say.

Finally Kay stood in front of Gwilym and surveyed him from head to toe. “You showed brilliance in the last tower you built for the kingdom, that’s why I gave you this job. And you repay me by turning into a little Duke. Making all the decisions in your dukedom with no regard to the king who sent you forth. Who do you think you are, Gwilym?”

Gwilym sputtered and tried to explain. “But all the money was stolen by Tarrant. How else could I have built the tower?”

“Look at the charter,” demanded Kay. “It tells you exactly what to build, when to finish it and for how much money. When you saw that the money was gone, you should have returned to Caerleon and asked for more money. You don’t have the authority to change the schedule of the project or the...the thing you are doing the…scope.”

“If I had returned to Caerleon the project would have been even more behind schedule.”

“That’s not true,” replied Kay. “You could have kept someone supervising the men with promises to pay and returned for the money. You made a decision that schedule and scope didn’t matter and that budget was all-important. That’s not your decision to make. I make that decision and I can tell you that schedule was most important, scope after that and cost least! Understand

the limits of your authority. I give you three things: Cost, Schedule and Scope. You operate within those constraints. If something goes out of those boundaries, your fault or not, you come to me to solve it.”

“I’ve been told, ‘Don’t come to me with problems, come to me with solutions.’ I was going to show you a fait accompli and expected you to be happy with it.”

“Well, it’s not accomplished, is it? And even if it were, I’ve got farmers traipsing in and out of my tower for the next 100 years because of what you did. But a bigger question is the money. What happened?”

Gwilym went over the figures again with Kay. “Tarrant purchased his materials at higher than normal prices and then claimed that they were even higher. I’ve visited each of the suppliers and got them to return the extra they took to allow Tarrant to claim the exorbitant prices and I show those next to the price he claimed. Tarrant skimmed thousands of silver off the top of this tower and disappeared. Is there any word of him?”

“No. And it gets worse. He was in charge of ten towers in this district. I’ve passed two and they are just piles of building materials right now, mostly looted. I can only imagine that the rest are the same. Yours is the only one that even resembles a tower.”

Gwilym brightened at this but Kay scowled. “Before you think too highly of yourself, remember that if you’d told me the problem last autumn, I could have sent men to complete all the towers, or at least protect the materials.”

“This tower will be finished before the summer. The rains and snow delayed us longer than usual this year but we are making great progress now.”

“Find a place where I can spend the night. Then assemble the town for a speech.”

Gwilym set Kay up in the best tavern, then asked the men to assemble the various quarters of the town for a speech from the High King’s Seneschal. The news passed swiftly, and men, women and children quickly began to arrive from both sides of the river, assembling at the foot of the tower. When they had all arrived, Sir Kay passed through them all, wearing clean clothes and a washed face, and climbed to the tower’s highest point. A page held his banner aloft as he began to speak.

“Not long ago, this district was at war with the rest of

Britain

. Armies and fires swept the land. Fields were destroyed and livestock stolen. Those who didn’t die in battle starved from lack of food or froze from want of shelter.” There was nodding in the audience as people remembered the last few years. Some murmuring continued after Kay’s words ended as those who understood translated for those who didn’t.

“But you have sought peace from the High King. Arthur, my king, acknowledges you as his subjects and accepts your treaty gifts. And he seeks to seal this treaty with bonds that tie us together closer. Bonds that make you British, concerned with the welfare of all British. Bonds that tie us to you and make all of

Britain

concerned with your welfare. I come to help tie those bonds.”

More murmuring, some appreciative looks, some concern.

“What better symbol of these bonds, that move us from war to peace, from swords to plowshares, than this tower? This tower that watches for our common enemies while it keeps safe the grain of this district. When you look up at this tower you will see protection from our enemies and food for your stomachs!”

Smiles, pride and hope in the eyes of the crowd.

“My good project manager, Gwilym, has used his authority well and has made a contract between the army and this town to share the tower. But he mistakenly gave out a lease for 100 years. I want to add my signature to this contract but I cannot agree to one hundred years of friendship with this district.”

A collective breath held in nervous anticipation.

“For one hundred years is not enough time to stay friends and allies with this region. Gwilym should have given the lease for one thousand, one hundred years. And so I modify this contract.” Sir Kay held up the contract and added the letter ‘M’ in front of DCIII and then signed his name with a flourish at the bottom of the contract.

The crowd erupted in cheers and there were hugs all round. Gwilym smiled to himself and shook his head in amazement at what a skilled politician could do with ‘bad’ news.

As Sir Kay left town the next day to continue his inspection tour he told Gwilym, “Have the tower ready for a special dedication at Beltane.”

To read the entire first draft in one shot, click here:

Steve Jobs' four rules of success

2011-10-19T21:36:00.000-04:00

Steve Jobs had a lot of success connecting with his customers. In an article in the Times Steve Lohr discusses four of his rules that led to his big successes: the i-Pod, i-Tunes, the i-Phone and the i-Pad. Let's look at these four rules:

DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO DELIGHT CUSTOMERS Six weeks before the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, Mr. Jobs ordered a crucial design change. Until then, the planning for supplies, manufacturing and engineering had been based on the assumption that the smartphone’s face would be plastic. Plastic is less fragile than glass, and easier to make.

But the plastic touch screen had a drawback. It was prone to developing scratches. Those scratches, Mr. Jobs insisted, would irritate users and be seen as a design flaw. “All the logical facts told us to go with plastic, and Steve’s instinct went the other way,” Mr. Fadell says. “It was Steve’s call — his gut.”

The glass choice was a challenge that seemed “nearly impossible” at the time, he says — a last-minute scramble to get supplies of specialized glass and tweak the design of the phone’s casing to reduce the chances the glass would crack when an iPhone was dropped. But with extra investment and a frenetic work regimen, the switch proved doable, despite the tight deadline.

GOOD IDEAS TAKE TIME After he was ousted from Apple, Mr. Jobs founded NeXT in 1985. NeXT computers, in Mr. Jobs’s vision, would marry technology and the liberal arts by including digital books, music and art. Mr. Jobs began pursuing the rights to works that could be converted to digital form. He persuaded a few publishers that because they would save the expense of paper, printing and distribution, NeXT should pay a royalty that was a fraction of the cost of a printed book. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Hawley recalled, struck a deal with the Oxford University Press for the complete works of Shakespeare for a royalty of $1 a digital copy.
NeXT’s foray into education fizzled; its machines were too expensive for that market. But Mr. Jobs’s concept and business model for digital media were “the instinct that was translated to Apple with the iTunes store, 99-cents-a-song pricing and all the media offerings that have followed,” Mr. Hawley says.

DON’T DWELL ON MISTAKES Mr. Jobs was also decisive in recognizing mistakes, even when they were his own. For example, he favored one model of a disk drive — for reading computer programs stored on small, removable so-called floppy disks — while other members of the team championed another design. They kept their disk project going surreptitiously. When they showed him the result, he embraced it. “He turned on a dime,” Mr. Capps says. “Don’t dwell on your mistakes. It’s a great lesson.”

PASSION COUNTS FOR A LOT The relentless intensity and total commitment that Mr. Jobs brought to his work, former colleagues and friends agree, had a simple explanation: he genuinely enjoyed what he did and found it worthwhile.

Andy Hertzfeld, a member of original Macintosh team who is now an engineer at Google, says: “The most important thing that I learned from Steve is to always follow your heart. He believed that the only way to do truly great work is to adore what you are doing.”

Mr. Jobs made a lot of money over the years, for himself and for Apple shareholders. But money never seemed to be his principal motivation. One day in the late 1990s, Mr. Jobs and I were walking near his home in Palo Alto. Internet stocks were getting bubbly at the time, and Mr. Jobs spoke of the proliferation of start-ups, with so many young entrepreneurs focused on an “exit strategy,” selling their companies for a quick and hefty profit. “It’s such a small ambition and sad really,” Mr. Jobs said. “They should want to build something, something that lasts.”

I don't intend to lionize the man in this post. He had plenty of faults, espcially with the way he handled his people, But there is a lot to learn from him and following the above four rules will help any Project Manager or Leader.

Christians being killed by Egyptian military

2011-10-17T09:34:00.001-04:00

Egyptian security forces, in the background, clashed with Christians and other demonstrators in Cairo on Sunday night.

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: October 9, 2011

Now that the military is firmly in control in Egypt, the Coptic Christians are more vulnerable than ever. When one of their churches was attacked and the Christians went out into the streets to protest, the military crushed them, killing dozens and wounding hundreds.

State television urged "Honest Egyptians to turn out to protect the soldiers from Christian protesters."
Other Muslims ran out into the streets to protect the Christian protesters

According to a recent NY Times article: Thousands filled the streets of downtown, many armed with rocks, clubs or machetes. Witnesses said several protesters were crushed under military vehicles.
The protest took place against a backdrop of escalating tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population. Christians had joined the pro-democracy protests in large numbers, hoping for the protections of a pluralistic, democratic state, but a surge in power of Islamists has raised fears of how much tolerance majority rule will allow.

The military and riot police, on the other hand, appeared at some points to be working in tandem with Muslims who were lashing out at the Coptic Christians. As security forces cleared the streets around 10 p.m., police officers in riot gear marched back and forth through the streets of downtown alongside a swarm of hundreds of men armed with clubs and stones chanting, “The people want to bring down the Christians,” and, later, “Islamic, Islamic.”

“Until when are we going to live in this terror?” asked a Christian demonstrator who gave his name only as John. “This is not the issue of Muslim and Christian, this is the issue of the freedom that we demanded and can’t find.”

This is exactly what I was concerned about when the democracy movement started in Egypt. The Copts came out in force to protest the burning of their churches and helped spur the anti-Mubarak protests that became the 'Arab Spring.' Now they stand in a precarious position without the dictatorship protecting their rights. Will they be better or worse off in the new Egypt? And what will follow in Syria when Assad falls?

Metropolitan Etiquette Authority

2011-10-14T19:13:00.002-04:00

Jason Shelowitz unveiled all the signs in his latest etiquette project and started placing them around Manhattan

Here's a one-man project we can all get behind. Mr. Shelowitz, a graphic designer and artist, has posted street signs across the city claiming authority of the “Metropolitan Etiquette Authority,” a one-man collective whose logo is printed on the bottom of each sign. The signs look like those that might come from a real organization like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

This follows on the heels of his earlier project putting up Subway Posters like those shown below:

Here's a video of him putting up his street signs:

Nobel committee highlights women's rights in Middle East

2011-10-12T19:07:00.003-04:00

Yemen's Tawakul Karman, the chairwoman of 'Women Journalists Without Chains', shouts slogans during an anti-government protest in Sa'ana. Feb 10, 2011. Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

In addition to the winners from Liberia, the Nobel Prize committee chose to highlight women's rights in the governments emerging from the Arab Spring by granting an award to Tawakul Karman. They are saying quite clearly to the world that women's rights in these emerging governments are much on the minds of the West. This move will make great strides in ensuring that these emerging governments, in whatever form they take, must be careful in imposing Shariah law or other oppressive regimes on their women.

Look how the granting of a prize to Aung San Suu Kyi has granted her protection and shone a light on the oppressive regime in Burma. I expect a similar light to shine on the women who helped make the Arab Spring revolutions a reality and who don't wish to be shunted off to the sidelines as they were in Iran.

I loved the Tweet from Wael Ghonim about her award:

Hearty Congrats to Tawakul Karman as she made us all proud :) Our ultimate prize is a democratic Arab World that respects human rights.Fri Oct 07 09:31:39 via webWael Ghonim
Ghonim

Below is Tawakul Karman talking to the press after receiving her award.

For more details, click on the link to read the N.Y. Times article.