Thanks and Gratitude

My family and I wish to extend our thanks and gratitude to our families and our community; the residents of our town.

At the end of October, the well-funded start up with which I was situated shed over 1/3 of its staff. Normally this type of event would be challenging in and of itself, however given that I funded the start up of my own company in 2005, the current poor economic conditions and the recent, rapid increase in living costs, this loss of income for our one-income family was particularly unnerving. My wife and I started planning for situations and circumstances that I would never have predicted only a few years ago and we prepared ourselves for a very modest and rather disappointing winter holiday season.

However, as we began the process of reining in expenses, a largess that we had not ever expected has been given to us that has made our holidays the most profound we have experienced. A multiplicity of support and generosity has been given to us in the form of gifts from our family (my nieces and nephews asked that their holiday gifts be given to our family), school lunches and assistance with our energy expenses, gifts provided to four of our five children from the elementary and middle school, and even an anonymous donation (yes! a check from an anonymous donor was delivered to us) that has enabled us to provide our children with a warm and intimate holiday celebration. We feel that this holiday season has been the most meaningful we have experienced and we owe a tremendous amount to our friends, neighbors and community.

Therefore, we wish to say "Thank you." Thank you to our families and friends; thank you to our neighbors; thank you to our community for all that you have done to help my family.

The generosity we received has also had another effect. Inspired by the spirit of giving, my eleven year old daughter decided to donate her hair to the Locks of Love program. So, she cut off a braid about 12" long and packaged it up. As pretty as she was with long hair, I think she's even prettier with short. Of course, I may be biased.

The Dumbification of the American People

One of my favorite made-up German phrases is "Der Verdummheit der Amerikanishebevoelkerung", which I translate as given in the title.  Seeing as my wife, a native German speaker, hasn't corrected me, I may have actually gotten this right.  However, this may not apply only to Americans and you can decide for yourself if this shoe fits.

In my neighborhood today we had an accident.  A house on Winthrop Street that had caught fire and burned on July 4th (we saw it as we came back from watching fireworks) was being demolished.  An excavator was ripping the house apart systematically.  My beloved wife saw the work in progress as she walked the dog and commented to me that the operator was driving the machine all over the rubble pile and the machine looked very unsteady as it teetered and tottered atop the pile.

Sure enough, the machine tipped backwards.  But that's not why Americans are dumb.  No, what has me all riled up is the way the accident was portrayed in the media.  I had the opportunity to walk by the accident before the excavator was righted.  It had landed on the roofs of the house next door and its garage.  I remarked to another neighbor that this certainly demonstrated the strength of our houses for the damage was minimal.  The roof upon which the bucket rested was not caved in, it didn't even look as though the roof was penetrated, just a little crushed.  The garage roof fared worse, but didn't look like it would take a roofer more than half a day to repair.

So, with a large exavator boom and bucket resting on the house, relatively minor damage was done, in my opinion. 

Oh, but the media.  "Demolition vehicle crushes occupied house" decries the Stoneham Sun. "Crushes"?  Oh, please.  The neighbor "barely managed to escape" claimed the broadcast on New England News.  Oh, seriously; she watched the darn thing slowly topple over and refused to leave her home for hours because she was fine.  (In all fairness, WBZTV was more balanced in its coverage, identifing simply that the excavator crashed into the house.)  

However, most of the images provided by the news organizations were from behind the exavactor.  These images mask the fact that the garage is a stand alone structure and the excavator landed on the roof of the den, which is a one story extension.  The images used make it look like fully half of the two story house was utterly crushed.  It was such an obvious manipulation that one of my children said, "They're [the news channel] is making it look like a total disaster!  It was nothing like that!"  

My point is that the hyping of the accident (which was pretty stupid from my outside perspective; but then again, I've never driven an excavator) creates a false impression.  One could easily conclude that the driver was grossly negligent, that the elderly resident was in serious danger, that Stoneham has huge oversight issues, that the damaged home is unusable.

And here is why I find that so reprehensible and alarming.  If our media organizations can turn such a small non-event into something that attempts to approach epic proportions, when where do they go with the important news?  By filling the American people up with exaggerated fluff, there is no room for serious news, serious matters and serious discussions.

In Jason Calacanis' essay, "The 120% Solution", Jason claims, 

... On average, we’ve:

1. Spent well over 20% more than we should have on the price of homes.
   
2. Built homes that are well over 20% larger than they need to be.
   
3. Purchased 20% more consumer electronics than we needed. (In my case, 300%).
   
4. Extended home ownership rates 20% beyond where they should be (to the mid-to-high risk credit folks).
   
5. Gotten 20% fatter than we should be.
   

I would like to add that I think we have paid attention to only 20% of what we should have.  And being fed a diet of sensationalism is the root cause.

There Is No Box

Here is a concept that came to me a while back when I started my own product development company, Innovatium: "There Is No Box"

The reference, of course, is to "out of the box thinking." That was practically a mantra at a previous company. At the time it was a good mantra. Engineers had a tendency to look at a problem from their perspective and apply to it their known solutions. The Out Of The Box mantra helped to express that, as engineers, we needed to push ourselves out of our comfort zone for more creative solutions that would benefit our customers.

For example, did we really need a $24,000 multi-card computer when two $4,000 PC's networked together would do the trick? We came up with all sorts of new things following that mantra.

However, it's not enough.

The typical problem we encountered (and I lived it at multiple companies and through multiple projects) was that we were thinking outside of the engineering box, but within another box. We often failed to understand our customer, their business, their priorities, their fears, and other critical factors.

What I learned from running my own company is that there is no box, so don't go climbing into one. You are not beholden to following the "way things are done". There are problems to solve and there is creative thinking to solve those problems. Ignore good experience at your peril, but don't limit yourself to doing things the way they worked last time just because it worked last time.

Remember, remarkable things are not often accomplished by mediocre people. If you want to accomplish something remarkable, you need to be willing to risk yourself in the pursuit of that thing. Just stay focused on the goal -- creating something remarkable for your customer -- and don't get fettered by someone else's ideas about How It Must Be Done.

Ooooh, this makes me angry!

A substitute teacher in Connecticut has been found guilty of child endangerment because the PC in the classroom where she was substituting was unprotected, had been infected with viruses and adware, was displaying porn pop-up ads, and she was too much a computer neophyte (and computer-phobe to boot!) to know how to deal with the situation.

Here is where I learned about it: http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070222/#story0

Here is the NY Times story (tinyURL): http://tinyurl.com/255wq2

Finally, here is the blog her husband has made: http://julieamer.blogspot.com/

This is wrong on so many levels.

Email Security Breach

The company where I am contracting experienced a security breach today. This morning when I got into work, there was a posting on the company news dashboard about a Virus Alert. When I opened my email, there were a handful of files with .zip attachments and the icky feel of spam. For example, "cyber thomas" sent me a picture, and "serv" informed me of "Security risk found in message 'Mail server report.'" with the following text:

Mail server report.

Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.

Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).


Using the new bug in the Windows, these viruses infect the computer unnoticeably.
After the penetrating into the computer the virus harvests all the e-mail addresses and sends the copies of itself to these e-mail
addresses

Please install updates for worm elimination and your computer restoring.

Best regards,
Customers support service

Not very likely that I was going to install the updates for my computer restoring.

But I was curious as to how the breach occured and asked around a bit to try and understand how this happened. The company uses Lotus Notes and requires remote users to connect to the network via VPN to access the Domino server. Idle thoughts include someone on the sales force on a public wireless network somehow had their address book copied. Another possibility is a disgruntled employee or contractor. Of course, a classic worm could be the culprit. Something that was opened internally and walked through the address book.

So, I googled around to see what I can find. One of the more shocking discoveries was at www.privacyrights.org, which has a list of data breaches from the last 20 months that have been disclosed by various companies and news organizations.

What is shocking about this is the number of records that have been breached, recalling this cannot be a full list since there are doubtlessly companies that do not report some breaches. The number -- are you ready? -- is nearly 94 million records containing sensitive personal information. Holy Servers, Batman!

It's no surprise then that millions of folks have their identity ursuped each year, now is it?

Rising Gas Prices and The American Corporation

From another forum, the question was:

"As someone who tags the virtual company/self-employment trend, I've been wondering whether the ongoing and long-term energy crisis will end up promoting self-employment.

For example, will the corporate world start promoting telecommuting to save money on office heating/cooling? "

My thoughts on the matter:

OK, ... I'll bite and offer my opinion. However, this is not a small question.

In a nutshell, no, I do not believe that the current "energy crisis" will have a significant effect on self-employment or will increase the volume of telecommuting. Here are my thoughts on why:

Energy Crisis
Perception
First, let's consider the nature of the energy crisis. I believe there is none. The crisis is that our gasoline prices are increasing. However, they are still way below parity with the rest of the world. I was recently in Germany where gas had reached 1.50 EUR per LITER. That is $6.87 per gallon. In mid-August, I heard someone complain that it cost nearly $100 to fill his Hummer. I practically peed myself laughing.

Reality
The world is producing 60% more gasoline than it was in the 1970's when we last thought that we were running out of crude. Part of the reason why is that technology advances and finds new ways to drill deeper, recover more, filter more effectively, refine more efficiently, etc.

In no small part, the desire of the energy firms to reduce production capacity as an effort to control supply (by diminishing it) is one factor to the higher gas prices. While our domestic need for fuel has grown, our refining capacity has not.

Let's not forget about other countries. China has increased its need for crude by many fold in the past few decades. We should expect this trend to continue.

However, the world is keeping up with the production needs, carefully controlled to maximize the profits of the energy companies.

Why doesn't expensive fuel drive change?
The clue to this nut is in the last sentance above. Profits. We live in a capitalistic society, and the world seems to be moving more and more towards that structure all over.

However, we often forget what it means to live in a capitalistic society -- that is, if we even took the time to consider it in the first place.

Our society is fueled by profit. Most companies make their strategic and tactical decisions based upon cost. If it is more cost effective to pollute and pay the penalty than to install anti-pollution devices, then so be it. If it is more cost effective to build in obsolence and alienate consumers, then so be it. And so on. The list is endless.

It takes tremendous societal will to make other choices. Our society is not exhibiting that will. Our current administration has, in the past few years, disassembled and disabled more than fifty years of socially motivated legislation and yet remains tremendously popular.

In short, follow the money. What has really changed that companies will agree to extra costs and reduced efficiencies in permitting geographically distributed teams in order to spare their employees the pain of commuting with modestly increased gas prices? Nothing really. Companies with employees at will (which is the vast majority of them) often look at employees as interchangeable, replacable cogs. Most of them are in the highly structured, hierarchical world of corporations.

Therefore, when we follow the money, we see that companies will replace those who whine and drop in productivity because they wish to work from home, because it is more cost effective to do so. Having managed distributed teams for many years, I firmly belive that they are inherintly less efficient that co-located teams. Heck, I have documented metrics to prove it. Companies want to be profitable, therefore they require their employees come to the office in order to produce at an acceptable level. The issue is a non-starter for manufacturing companies. Their employees must come to the plant.

One can see how this might engender the creation of many self-proprietorships and small firms as individuals seek alternatives. However:

• They will not be a majority of corporate employees
  
• Most of them will fail in the first five years.
  

This is not to diminish the importance of small firms to the US. They still fuel our society by creating new products and ideas. Those that succeed must grow and will eventually face the same challenges as all other non-trivial corporations. Grow and be profitable, or die.

The societal focus remains profit driven.

American Society
Since our society places relatively little value in personal growth and maturity in comparison to instant gratification, companies are not pressured to value individuals. Oh, many say they do, but I have worked in over sixty different companies over twenty years of varied experiences and have seen otherwise. Most people are average. Most of us are normal. However, the majority of people believe they are exceptional. Do you see the trend? Individuals are focused on individual gain. Corporations are focused on corporate gain.

There is no focus on societal gain. No, we are run and motivated by profit. We are the Ferengi.

This doesn't mean that we are doomed. There are small pockets of enlightenment. There are positive signs that the American culture -- which is the largest mix of ethnicities and cultures the world has ever known -- may be moving towards true enlightenment. However, the promise of personal wealth, individual mobility and political freedom, which is still quite unique in the world, lures floods of eager people to the US every year. And so our culture churns, and so our focus remains on ourselves, and so the good of our society suffers as the individuals prosper.

And so the priorities never focus on more efficient energy usage, reuse, conservation, environmental balance. Therefore, the current trends will not change.

I have more to say on the subject. Much, much more, but it will have to wait until I can write a book.

However, there should be sufficient fodder such that a number of readers should be moved to comment. Please do.