Reflections for 2007 AD

The year 2007 had been a excellent year for me. Busy but fruitful as my first kid has passed his first year and the second one on the way, due next year.

I also had a chance to do my post-graduate studies, a dream that had taken me 5 years later than when I had planned to start. But nonetheless, it is choice and tradeoff that I have no regrets as my model of personal priorities are clearly laid out in my mind. Something like a personal balanced scorecard that was first envisioned by Norton and Kaplan.

1) Family
2) Professional Life
3) Personal Investment/Finances
4) Personal Life
a. Spiritual
b. Physical Well-Being/Health
c.Learning and Development

The first 2 quadrants seems to be related to our community, one at home and the other at work. The second set of quadrants relates to the individual person, with finances in the current modern age a real important factor. Of course the 4th quadrant, is what I would need to focus on for coming years as well as I grow older. Especially, the part of 4b) which I have been lacking in fitness for far too many years. Being overweight is probably one of the failures in my scorecard, which I am determined to reach goals in 2008.

Currently, reading on Norton and Kaplans' The Strategy-Focused Organization which shows how a strategy map can tied to a balanced scorecard.

Sometimes what we learn in business, leadership, history, books and films can be applied into our personal lives if we just take out a little time to critically think about them. Of course, some tweaking and adaptation can be made to the original models.

I hope this blog that I first started in April 2007, is a form of explicit knowledge of what I have learnt throughout the year. I may have missed out some of the learning due to a busy schedule which prohibits me of writing but then again, even capturing a certain percentage of the tacit knowledge that resides in my brain is still good enough. In time to come, when my hair has gone gray, I would definitely refer back to here to see what I was doing and thinking in the year 2007 AD.

Financial valuation of beauty

I received this email regarding financial valuations of assets....

Title: Young and pretty lady wishes to marry a rich guy.
Fantastic reply from a financial person.

A young and pretty lady posted this on a popular forum -

Title: What should I do to marry a rich guy?

I'm going to be honest of what I'm going to say here. I'm 25 this year. I'm very pretty, have style and good taste. I wish to marry a guy with $500k annual salary or above. You might say that I'm greedy, but an annual salary of $1M is considered only as middle class in New York. My requirement is not high. Is there anyone in this forum who has an income of $500k annual salary? Are you all married? I wanted to ask: what should I do to marry rich persons like you? Among those I've dated, the richest is $250k annual income, and it seems that this is my upper limit. If someone is going to move into high cost residential area on the west of New York City Garden ( ? ) , $250k annual income is not enough. I'm here humbly to ask a few questions:

1) Where do most rich bachelors hang out? (Please list down the names and addresses of bars, restaurant, gym)
2) Which age group should I target?
3) Why most wives of the riches is only average-looking? I've met a few girls who doesn't have looks and are not interesting, but they are able to marry rich guys
4) How do you decide who can be your wife, and who can only be your girlfriend? (my target now is to get married)

Ms. Pretty
---------------------------------------------------

Here's a reply from a Wall Street Financial guy:

Dear Ms. Pretty,

I have read your post with great interest. Guess there are lots of girls out there who have similar questions like yours. Please allow me to analyze your situation as a professional investor. My annual income is more than $500k, which meets your requirement, so I hope everyone believes that I'm not wasting time here. From the standpoint of a business person, it is a bad decision to marry you. The answer is very simple, so let me explain. Put the details aside, what you're trying to do is an exchange of 'beauty' and 'money': Person A provides beauty, and Person B pays for it, fair and square. However, there's a deadly problem here, your beauty will fade, but my money will not be gone without any good reason.

The fact is, my income might increase from year to year, but you can't be prettier year after year. Hence from the viewpoint of economics, I am an appreciation asset, and you are a depreciation asset. It's not just normal depreciation, but exponential depreciation. If that is your only asset, your value will be much worried 10 years later. By the terms we use in Wall Street, every trading has a position, dating with you is also a 'trading position'. If the trade value dropped we will sell it and it is not a good idea to keep it for long term - same goes with the marriage that you wanted. It might be cruel to say this, but in order to make a wiser decision any assets with great depreciation value will be sold or 'leased'.

Anyone with over $500k annual income is not a fool; we would only date you, but will not marry you. I would advice that you forget looking for any clues to marry a rich guy. And by the way, you could make yourself to become a rich person with $500k annual income. This has better chance than finding a rich fool. Hope this reply helps. If you are interested in 'leasing' services, do contact me .

Signed, J.P. Morgan

Well.... this really open my mind on how to value of beauty.... at least in the monetary sense...

Einstein's Intelligence Quiz

I stumbled upon this quiz here supposedly set by Einstein and that he had mentioned that 98% of the people in world would probably not be able to solve it. I tried it the first round, by trying to draw diagrams around it, but it felt not right, so I tried another method which first took me an hour first time, but eventually I still managed to solved it.

Subsequent tries by me using the same method without referring to my previous work, I could solve it within 10-15 minutes.

EINSTEIN's QUIZ

There are 5 houses in 5 different colors
In each house lives a person with a different nationality
These 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet
No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same drink.
Here's the question: Who owns the fish?

1. The Brit lives in a red house
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets
3. The Dane drinks tea
4. The green house is on the left of the white house
5. The green house owner drinks coffee
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
8. The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house
10. The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill
12. The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer
13. The German smokes Prince
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
15. The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water

With these 15 clues the problem is solvable.
Here's the question: Who owns the fish?

The solution is posted in here... but try to do it yourself before going there. I was surprised that I had used the same matrix that Mr Tan used, but I had done it on paper rather than in Excel as recommended by him.

I am Legend

Will Smith has always been an actor I like since the time he was not so famous as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In I am Legend, in my opinion he has delivered his best performance to-date, at least his films that I have watched.

This film practically blew me away with its multiple scenes of New York being totally deserted, I remembered watching a similar film, 28 Days Later which had had London being emptied of its people too.

However, between these two films, I am Legend wins hands down with the strong portrayal of Will Smith in his role as Robert Neville. I was particularly hit by the scene of him training together with his dog and the sheer intensity of his seriousness in keeping fit while doing his chin-ups. His muscular frame and multiple abs must have taken him alot of work and time to attain. I was sort of inspired to be like him.. hahaaa... unlikely but I hope to attain perhaps 10% of what he has.

The sheer loneliness of being the last man of earth... or rather New York filled with strange creatures who roams at night, was in essence the reason why Robert Neville fills his time doing his fitness training seriously. He even goes back to humanity's roots of hunting, cultivating or gathering of food. For entertainment, he goes to the DVD store to so-called 'rent' the movies there. He even returns the DVDs that he as finished.

What is striking about the film is that it shows that man after all is a social animal. With absence of other humans, Robert resorts to talking to his dog and even mannequins in the DVD store. I guess that is the only way he could maintain his sanity. I remembered the other film, Castaway where another lone man protrayed by Tom Hanks talking to a basketball (with straws sticking out as hair and a some stuff being put on it to as eyes, nose and mouth).

What was more touching was the scene on how he had to kill his beloved dog after it got infected with the virus. Such is the fraility of the human mind as after the loss of his dog, he felt no reason to live anymore... but luckily other survivors appeared to save him.

Well, in the end, Robert made the ultimate sacrifice... and it ends with him being the legend.

Rating: ***** (5/5)

The Power of Persuasion

The Power of Persuasion by Robert Levine rehashes some concepts of persuasion that marketers, salesmen (especially car salesmen) on unwitting consumers like you and me. Totally enjoyed some of jokes he inserts in between the lines, but more so his easy writing style giving cases of how we are manipulated by gullibility. I did not particularly like the chapter on the cults, but it does showcases how cults uses the brainwashing which I think is not really an art of persuasion. To me, its like a form enforced persuasion.

However, what stood out was the part of a MLM company selling knives and the woman who sold aromatic candles to friends/families. It does show how people are subtly manipulated to make people buy stuff that they do not need but they were made to feel that its a must-have.

Utimately, i think self-control and mental toughness plus awareness of such techniques that are employed by marketers and salesmen alike will definitely prevent us from overconsumption.

I referenced a link here to cuppakopi.com in which Roddy speaks of his techniques to fight off hard-sell tactics of a beauty salon.

"NOTHING IS MORE COSTLY THAN SOMETHING GIVEN FREE OF CHARGE"
A Japanese saying.... (quoted in the book)

I am starting a star rating: **** 4/5

Kiva - Internet Grameen Bank?

Kiva.org brings micro-lending as envision by Grameen to cyberspace. I found this site quite accidentally and has been surfing around for sometime reading about stories of the lenders. It is basically an interest-free loan to the people, and once repayed can be recycled back to your pool for lending again. Best of all, Kiva is using Paypal... safe and easy to transfer the funds.

I remember from my previous post of on Yunus's ingenius social innovation of Grameen bank a that the recovery rate is extremely high at 98.61%. I sure hope that Kiva can helped further this cause of fighting poverty.

Interestingly, I noticed from reading some of the defaulted payments from Kiva were actually from male lenders. Immediately, I compared the lending by Grameen were primarily to women. I also see the 16 decisions key to what Grameen is doing. But mainly because historically or evolutionary wise, but best guess is that women tend to be the focal point of the family and community which makes microcredit far more successful with them.

In any case, I like to see how this goes and maybe join. This is a form self-help rather than direct contributions to the people.

Next Phase of KM - Web 3.0

Semantic Web or Web 3.0 looks like set to take over the current Web 2.0 applications. Found that a company called Radar Networks has rolled out a Twine on beta release.

Apparently different Facebook which is purely a social networking application. This entirely new approach is called "Knowledge Networking" by the company. Sort of like an e-personal assistant which can help to manage your emails, bookmarks, wikis and etc and share or collaborate with people you trust. All great ingredients for a community of practice here as envisioned by Etienne Wenger.

Will this is be the killer application that brings forth the knowledge management to the individuals and their social communities? It may even spark the new phase of Knowledge Management as what Dave Snowden had posted in Whence goeth KM.

Dave said "Finally KM was important in releasing technology from the corporate strait jacket. Most people forget that when KM started computing was still fairly new. The internet was in its early stages, email was not yet universal and the sheet volume of information that is now available was hardly envisaged by other than an enlightened few. The first collaboration software in Lotus Notes was a part of the creation of KM as a discipline and many of the early applications were written in it. It was also user friendly enough that people could start to build their own workflow and collaboration systems. Web sites, HTML etc etc all blossomed around this time and they co-evolved with the emerging ideas of KM to create the distributed, collaborative and information rich environment in which we now live. The last decade had seen technology move from centralised and privileged control to distributed free access and use. KM was and is a part of that."

Well, if Twine or similar products starts to evolve and gains wide acceptance and adoption, we shall then see than KM will definitely bloom in the next couple of years.

See below for some snapshots of Twine:

This Blog's Readibility Rating...

Found this fun website that rates blogs readiblity. Key in your blog's url and it will return the level of education required to read your blog.

http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx

This blog got rated as College: Post-Grad.

Good fun!

Evolutionary Psychology

The theory of evolution has been applied to the area of psychology. Read this book called "Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire-- Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do". Really long title, but had an interesting point to make.

What was my key-takeaway from this book? Whatever we do in terms of our lives has been due to our tendency to have sex, procreate and ensure our lineage is being continued.

Evolutionary psychology is really new branch of science as compared to the mainstream social psychology... This therefore really goes back to the nature versus nurture that had been going on for many years amongst the scientific community.

Iwo Jima and Yamato

My last day of exams and I reached home wondering what I should do for the evening.

So, I settled down to watch Letters from Iwo Jima directed by Clint Eastwood. I found the film to be touching as it really shows how wars can affect human lives. It cuts through the usual protrayal of the enemy as the cruel and unjust people they are.

I was glad that the unseen angle of humanity in war films was so well-protrayed here. Truly seen in the eyes of the human and not the enemy. We could learn to "try to do the right thing because it is right". This was written in a letters by one of the mothers of American marine caught by the Japanese soldiers.

After the film I did some research in Wikipedia on The battle of Iwo Jima, and found that more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers died in Iwo Jima, with the remaining last 2 surrendering only about 4-5 years after battle ended in 1945. It is really amazing that these guys could actually continue to hide in the caves.

Of course, there is the earlier film similarly directed by Clint Eastwood; The Flag of our Fathers... which I did watch too. Similar tale of soldiers, but this time on the American side and how they suffered following their return to the United States.

Another Japanese made movie Yamato also showed the real humanity and I could feel emotional intensity when the sailors had to leave their families to go on their final mission.....

Wars are destructive and brings loss to families of the victims, soldiers, sailors and civilians alike...

Exams... Exams... Exams

The dreaded word of all students has finally dawned upon me.... Exams! The whole month of November will see my mugging hard for my examinable subjects. Hmmnn... surely I should be able clear it ah..!

This is the part of any course that I have taken in the past years that really makes me feel compelled to do.... Otherwise it has always self-motivation that had enabled me to read and study subjects of my interest.

Sometimes, I really wonder whether there will a structured formal course from an academic institution would sprout out to accomodate a non-examinable format. Well, it did come about when I read about problem based learning that Republic Polytechnic offers.

I attended one of its seminar which introduced the Academic Associate position. Apparently, the polytechnic hires part-timers to conduct and facilitate its courses with students. Pays SGD300 a day for a someone to do this... Talked to some of my classmates who are doing this full-time and they tells me its not easy work...

If one day, all academic courses from Primary School all the way to the University do it in a non-examinable way... it will be the most joyous day for all students! For me, it would be too late... I don't think I shall live to see that day ah...

FORA TV - Another great video site

Recently, just discovered another fantastic video site just like TED. FORA TV however is very different from TED in terms of its theme and content. There are more on geopolitics, military, economics... more serious stuff than TED.

Its sessions are also definitely longer as it includes speeches which may last more than an hour....

The URL :

http://www.fora.tv/

We Feel....Saddest City in the World

I just happened to view a clip by Jonathan Harris in TED, who goes around the internet to the find the keywords "I Feel" in blogs, websites and so forth.

It collects basically the feelings of what is described in the internet.The results from http://www.wefeelfine.org is very interesting.

Guess which city is the most saddest amongst all cities in the world? Goto to this URL: http://www.wefeelfine.org/findings.html#saddestcities, and you all shall find out..

Burning Man

Recently read The Google Story by David Vise and Mark Malseed. Also had read The Search by John Battelle before it. I think everyone knows about Google and its incredible story. It is also the the best company to work for in the world in 2007 according to Forbes magazine.

Anyway, the story of the how the Googlers going off to the festival called Burning Man was interesting. So, I checked out in the internet or rather googled the term "burning man" and found the website.

Apparently, every year, a community of people will converge on a area called the playa in somewhere called the Black Rock Desert. I read it, but can imagine the kind of electric atmosphere it generates for its participants. This being an self-organizing event that is being held over a period of a month and reach a climax of burning the man.

Saw the photos from the website and a video from youtube and I am really amazed all these were put up in a middle of a desert by people. Would love to see it myself sometime. IT takes place every year with a different theme.....

Singapore's Third Place

In Ray Oldenburg's book The Great Good Place, he talking about First (home), Second (work) and our Third places. So, what really is a Third Place in that sense?

I think what Oldenburg was trying to address was the disconnect between ourselves and the community that modern life has brought to us. In the age of fast-food and suburban sprawl, where we close our doors, the moment we reach our homes, there is no common place, where people can congregate and converse. This problem is far more prevalent in the US, then Europe or Singapore for that matter.

Anyway, he defined third places with the following:

• It is on neutral ground - It resides on a place where people can come and go anytime.
• It is a leveler - Membership is available to all with no distinction.
• Conversation is the main activity- Colourful talk and storyteller amongst the people
• It is accessible and accommodative.
• Regulars characterized third place - The same people who frequents the place.
• Third place has a low profile - Undistinctive decor and plain.
• It has a playful mood
• It is a home away from home

He goes on to cite several examples of cafes, beer gardens and taverns in US.

So, I was doing some thinking and I thought, our very own Kopi-Tiam was a good example of the Third Place as well. In terms of being a place where we always congregate to eat, talking and conversation is also high on the agenda. We have uncles sitting down there in the evening with bottles of beer, and maybe perhaps watching the English Premier League game there.

Certainly, the idea of the Kopi-Tiam was good one. I see in Toa Payoh, the Kopi-Tiams were just right below at the block of the HDB flats. Its a perfect Third Place for the residents to be there in talk, share local news and maybe even gossip. Remember the old SBC Chinese series, 'Kopi-O'. It was hit in the 80's... why so? Its because people can identify themselves as part of this culture. So much so, that the new MediaCorp shot its sequel 'Kopi-O II' in 2002.

But, I have noticed that the newer estates tend not to have Kopi-Tiams like Toa Payoh. SengKang for example, I heard from some friends only have 2-3 of them in the entire estate. This pales in comparision to the older estates.

In a way, the sense of community would be difficult to build and maintain if the newer estates do not have a Third Place as envisioned by Oldenburg.

Shackleton and Apollo 13

A friend recommended a book to me recently and I could remember it vividly, because I had read it while I was away on a overseas business trip sometime in 2003. The nights were boring, so I took the time to read it.

Ernest Shackleton was perhaps the most amazing character in terms of leadership and charisma in my opinion. Read the book Shackleton's Way by Margot Morrell and Stpehanie Capparell.

How he could sustained his crew of 27 what got trapped in the Antarctica for two long years is really quite an achievement. This man showed all manners of leadership in harnessing the inante power of his people. He not only was able to reshift his priorities quickly after his ship Endurance was crushed by the ice, but he showed that he led by example. I remembered he threw away all his valuables in the snow, to demonstrate his resolve to his crew that anything else other what is a necessity should be not be brought along.

In a sense, what the authors said about Shackleton was true. He led the most successful unsuccessful mission in the history of our time. Perhaps, only the incident of Apollo 13 can rival that. But Shackleton's true greatness I think, lies in his ability to really foster camaraderie of his people without the usual disintegration that occurs when turmoil is the order of the day. What is even greater was that none of his crew perished in the whole entire ordeal which took two long years.

Apollo 13 in contrast had a shorter duration of a couple of days, but itself is not an easy feat, considering the engineers in NASA were racing against time.

Got another book relating to his story in Alfred Lansing's Endurance, but have not had the opportunity to do so.

Learning by Babies - Influences

Just an observation on babies. Their ability to learn and adapt is really amazing. One week, they may just be sitting down, looking you in the eyes and may look like he does know what to do. The next week, they surprise you by doing something out of the ordinary; which you really do not expect to happen.

They are like sponges, absorbing every visual and auditory details that the world have bombarded them with. I think in certain ways, they have been trying to sense-make what the world is all the about, and along the way managed to figure it all out one thing at a time.

It makes me wonder whether we should return to a state of being babies. We were definitely curious and inquisitive then, and open to new ideas. Now, as adults, we tend to be more closed minded and have certain bianess in our perceptions. Perhaps, we have already molded and shaped by our influences in life.

As a fellow student said to me, we are constantly being influenced by various sources which can ultimately shape our beliefs and eventually become the person we are. Sounds like we do not have independent thinking at all yeah... So therefore, we should always try to develop critical thinking skills or logic reasoning with an eye on human emotions (paradox ah?).

What I meant is that cool reasoning of a given situation should be guided by keen observation of the human emotions relayed by the actors of the situation. This should lead us to a more effective and successful resolution of any problem or issue.

Technology Entertainment and Design

Totally enjoyed this website http://www.ted.com. This yearly conference brings about the best speakers from around the world.

So far, I have watched Malcom Gladwell with his different viewpoints on happiness, Al Gore who happens to extremely funny where he made several jokes and Steven Pinker on Violence.

I thought the quality of the speakers with breadth of topics is invaluable. Anyone with any interest in anything can go down there and find something related. Best thing is that it is short and to the point (less than 20minutes for most videos).

Kudos! to TED for making available for everyone

Storytelling and Brands

What does storytelling has to do with Brands? Well, it seems alot has to do with it.


I remembered reading a book "We, Me, Them and It" by John Simmons last year. Really a fantastic book that really relates how a brand can be made into story where the consumer can feel the connection to it.

Sounds manipulative yeah? But the truth is we are bombarded everyday with so many messages that if some thing does not stick out in the crowd, our brains just do not register it.

John Simmons writing flair shows throughout the book where he shows how he manages the campaigns in the various organizations in the United Kingdom. I find his attention to words rather than images to invoke the emotions and feel of the brand story he works on to be very compelling.

I think the maxim "A picture is worth a thousand words" does not apply in Simmons case. His short stories of a brand (some fictional and crafted) were great. In bursts of a few lines, he was able to communicate to me as a reader the tinge of history and personality of the organization. Basically, the core values that the organization embodies.

I am unable to share the details of the stories he told, but it was an accidental find in the library, and it has been sometime ago. But do read it, its beauty lies in his way of crafting of words. He had somewhat convinced me too that the business style of writing that we uses on the daily basis were too impersonal.

Words can be used more simply without bombastic language. Ultimately, the brand needs to be understood by the receiver, and if you the sender can convey in a manner that can invoke the sense of connectedness and emotion; the brand will stick everytime.

Intellecutual Stimulation

Its been an enjoyable intellectual stimulation for me during past 3 weeks. Why, because there has been a resurgence of energy for me in the KM course. Its tough, considering I have to schedule my time properly for family, work and studies, but I feel it is worth the effort.

I also have met many new people from different cultures. The class has people from China, Myanmar, France, England, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Vietnam and of course Singapore. Great diversity and mixture of people with different viewpoints and opinions on everything.

Lots of readings and discussions but really it is does bring more sparks in my mind but also fire up my enthusiasm!!!

Second Opinions

I have always wondered how doctors make analysis of problems they face during the treatment of patients. More so, because the human body is probably one of the most complex systems there is and scientists have not even decoded all its secrets.

So, western trained doctors with drug compounds, surgical techniques and other forms of tools are face with dilemmas when trying to diagnose, treat and hopefully cure their patients. In this book, Second Opinions by Jerome Groopman provided me an insight on how doctors think, analyze and decide the course of treatment.

In it, Groopman discusses about his own predicament of an back injury he suffered years ago in which he has since recovered. He also talks in personal terms of the anxieties he and his wife (also a doctor) felt when their first child had a potentially life-threatening episode. All in all, eight stories were shared by him with all the difficult medical terms but still told in a narrative manner that the lay-person like myself could understand.

With the limits of the tools and techniques available to western-trained doctors, it seems that once the onset of any disease has begun, it would be prove difficult for them to help repair the human body. There were failures but also successes in the eight stories which seemingly showed how frail our human bodies. It also showed the human element of emotion in play between the patients, the doctors and also the family members.

Making sense of the known or unknown disease is difficult for the patients as they face their own mortality. Therefore in light of such unknowns, even doctors with decades of experience do face tough decision making choices on what to do.

Not the best of books to read to reassure you that our doctors can help us in our time of need. But it does tells us that we should take our health for granted. Doctors like all other humans, do make mistakes and second opinions with other doctors do help the patients and their families in the overall process of clarifying, understanding and eventually accepting the health issues they face.

The book does actually talks about intuitiveness in decision making in this arena. Sometimes, the data that is being generated by the machines does not tell us the full picture and diagnosis do go wrong. It seems in the modern age, our healers has been too dependent on the high technology machines like CAT imaging, X-rays and many others.

The healers of ancient times did not have such luxury, but what they have do have was a body of knowledge kept through the ages of the medicinal properties of herbs, plants and animals that have curative effects for the various diseases. This is what we call "Traditional Chinese Medicine" or TCM.

I have watched some Chinese documentaries previously which showed how doctors in China are using a combination of TCM and western drugs and techniques in combating the major diseases of our age. I cannot remember the name of documentary now. However, the thought of marrying both western medicine and TCM is not widely accepted in other countries other than China.

Hopefully, with more documented evidence of more successes by the Chinese in the treatment of the various diseases, this knowledge can actually be used by western practictioners for the overall benefit of mankind.

Grameen Bank - Social innovation to fight poverty

I remembered I had read the story of Mr Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2006.

This man brought about a total change in Bangladesh's banking industry but setting up Grameen Bank, a bank that provide small amount of money (microcredit) to poor villagers to help them startup small businesses. No longer was there a need for collateral and security when the villagers borrow money to help them sustain a living. The banking model that Grameen Bank had setup was based on trust, community and accountability.

In effect, it revolutionized the way banks were being seen as just a pure profit making entity. Yunus "changed the rules of the game" by making a great social impact in the lives of these villages by this innovative approach of lending. It has proven to be good weapon against the vicious cycle of poverty that had perpetuated the poorest villagers in Bangladesh.

In the year 2007, Grameen provided loans to 7.21 million people of which 97% are women. What is interesting is that Grameen has been profitable other than some years; maintaining an excellent loan recovery rate of 98.61% while at the same time achieving its social aims of helping the poor.

Clearly a success story by Yunus to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh and perhaps in the future to the rest of the developing world. For more information on how they lend the credit and their 16 decisions model.

BTW, Yunus recently was also named the top 30 entrepreneurs of all time too by Business Week alongside Bill Gates, Henry Ford and other well-known people.

Knowledge Innovation - Google (Innovative web-centric business model)

I originally posted this in my master's course discussion forum about how knowledge innovation can really "change the rules of the game" in a given industry. In my forum posting, I described the rise of Google in comparison with Microsoft which were reliant on their PC-centric model of software.

From the early 1980s to the late 1990s, Microsoft was the dominant leader in the software industry, totally eliminating all competition through its sheer financial might. It had a virtual monopoly of the PC market, where all new computers shipped to consumers were Microsoft Windows. Netscape, Novell and other companies were all defeated or eliminated out of the respective market shares. Microsoft made the PC the central component in their strategy to continue their dominance. It was the PC-Centric model that Microsoft had the consumers hooked on.

However, in 1996, here comes along two Stanford University Ph.D. candidates namely, Larry Page and Sergey Brin who both co-founded Google. Bill Gates did not see this coming where the PC-era has somewhat shifted towards the network age of the dot.com era. Google revolutionized the entire industry by introducing a very effective and efficient search engine which can allows users to access the most viewed or ranked web pages. Microsoft at that time, did not even have a search engine like what we see today in MSN. Yahoo was No. 1 search engine then, but Google slowly caught up in the upcoming years. Google currently has 49.2% share of searches as compared to Yahoo's 23.8% according to Nielsen NetRating for July 2006. MSN is in a distant third at 9.6%.

What is more significant for Google was the way they innovated using their new knowledge. They managed to somehow bring about a new business model of advertising in the web. This product service was called AdSense which allows web advertisers to put content to Google's search results. This had a cost-per-click and cost-per-view scheme. This advertising revenue brought about nearly USD 10.5 billion dollars in the fiscal year of 2006. With their high stock prices and large cash pile, Google had been able to attract the best software talent in the job market, and also make several key acquisitions like YouTube, Blogspot and Doubleclicks in the past 1-2 years.


Furthermore, there has been an introduction of use of on-line productivity software called Google Enteprise Premium Applications which is a direct challenge to Microsoft Office. Obviously, Google is trying to increase their licensing revenues which stood at only USD 112 million dollars as compared to their Adsense revenue which is significantly higher.

The market has shown tremendous confidence in Google's ability to innovate and to continue to earn better profits than Microsoft. On the last market closing day on 8 Aug 2007, the following are the stock prices for both companies:

Google: USD 525.78
Microsoft: USD 30.00

Thats a difference of nearly USD 495.78 dollars! Certainly Google is way ahead of Microsoft if stock prices are used as a measure of success.

However, It seems that Bill Gate is not resting on his laurels. He has been quoted in leaked memos in October 2005 to have said:


"More than any other company, we have the vision, assets, experience, and aspirations to deliver experiences and solutions across the entire range of digital workstyle & digital lifestyle scenarios, and to do so at scale, reaching users, developers and businesses across all markets."

So, the battle between the giants continues even though the old PC-centric world is long gone and we are now in the web-centric age.

Overhauling Studies Engine

After taking a break of nearly ten years since my bachelor's degree, today is going to be first class in Nanyang Technological University's Msc in Knowledge Management.

Well, imagine putting your car engine in the garage for the past decade and then suddenly bringing it out for use! I guess I would have start lubricating and overhauling the inner pistons of this engine so that I can be able to speed up like a Ferrari.

However, it is with anticipation and sheer delight by the thought that I will be having discussions and conversations with fellow like-minded classmates on a subject like Knowledge Management which really spans across many disciplines like psychology, anthropology, technology and other "gies" you can imagine.

I do hope this studies engine of mine can really accelerate and speed up in the highway..... of course within the legal speed limit.

A Game As Old As Empire

I read this companion book to John Perkin's Confessions of a Economic Hitmen, A Game As Old as Empire in just two days. Again, it has given me an good insight on the world of shadowy economic activities that mainstream publications do not frequently publish.

The edition comprised of several authors writing of their experiences with the global corporatacy that launders dirty money, pays low wages to third world workers whilst asking them to work in appalling conditions. Worse still, the chapter on the Congo, which has the 80% of Coltan, an important mineral resource for electronic components in computer notebooks and mobile phones really shocked me.

Congo has seen two civil wars, primarily instigated by foreign armies from Uganda and Rwanda, and also blatantly invaded by them. Resources like Coltan are being looted from Congo's warehouses, illegally mined and then exported by these two countries to Western corporations. The cost of this: 4 million lives as documented in the book with numerous footnotes to other sources.

I guess while the workers of the Third World suffer, highly paid financiers in tax-free zones like Jersey launders money in dubious transactions for the dictators and corrupt officials of the same countries. One chapter on Nigeria, also talked about Shell's involvement with government forces in counter-insurgency operations against groups that are opposed to western oil companies drilling for oil in that country.

The multinational corporations therefore has now become the new Empire of the 20th and 21st Century. It works seamlessly through all countries, with total disregard for human suffering and only interested in promoting their own profits and gains; accordingly to this book.

What we as individual citizens do to stop this? The book suggests in its last chapter the following:

1. Know Thyself - Get to know yourself and the role you play in society. Maybe, as a consumer, you can refuse to buy products that harm the environment.
2. Be informed and Challenge Your Preconceptions
3. Be inspired and Trust the Movement
4. Believe in Activism: A Little Does go a long Way
5. Push your Comfort Zone and Expand Your Skills
6. Provide a Service to Those in Long-Term Struggle
7. Look Forward with Hope

I have always wondered why there is always anti-globalisation protesters that seem to be conducting demonstrations in IMF, WTO, World Bank and other big organization meetings. In the news reports, people seem so passionate and determined in their cause. I did not know that the purpose was actually to show their commitment of solidarity with the people that had been exploited by the very effects of globalisation; but who knows what are their motivations are anyway. This is after all a shadowy world of men who would do anything within their power to ensure their continued existence in this profitable scheme.

Interesting read, but would only recommend it if you are into the talk of economic hitmen, the name for the people that John Perkins had termed.

Saper vedere and Everyday Greatness

Stumbled upon this Latin quote "Saper Vedere" from Leonardo Da Vinci in a Everyday Greatness, a book containing the best stories from Reader's Digest. Immediately, did a search on it and found that it meant "Knowing How to See.

Found an Internet link in A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N D and it clearly explains as below:

"An artist by disposition and endowment, he found that his eyes were his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was man's highest sense organ because sight alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge. Saper vedere ("knowing how to see") became the great theme of his studies of man's works and nature's creations. His creativity reached out into every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. But he went even beyond that. His superb intellect, his unusual powers of observation, and his mastery of the art of drawing led him to the study of nature itself, which he pursued with method and penetrating logic, and in which his art and his science were equally revealed."

So, in effect Leonardo did not depend on knowledge from books themselves, but through his powers of observation and experimentation of different fields of knowledge was he able to innovate and create more knowledge. He is definitely the greatest knowledge producer of all time!

Anyway, Everyday Greatness is also fantastic book; culling out short stories which I feel had some heart-warming endings for some and also inspiring in its message. The story of John Brady and Hazel truly touched me. I hope to finish it soon.... Life is also about fulfilling our inner soul, by reading stories like these, and hopefully being able to emulate the people in their noble behaviour and actions.

I guess Reader's Digest is the very original magazine that really is a good read. I remember my mum used to subscribe them when I was young and I used to pick them up to read in little chunks. Never did realise that it has such profound stories that can uplift people. Looks like its only other match would be Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen; had managed to see a VCD title, but not their books.

Man's Search for Meaning

This book, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl is perhaps one of the most influential works in my life. I stumbled upon it in the polytechnic's library during my final semester (there is a reason for this...)

In it, Viktor discusses his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, and his later development of logotherapy. In a very humanist perspective, Viktor espouses that every person has the freedom of choice even in the most stressful and depressing situations.

In my mind after so many years after reading this book was that Viktor made an observation that the death rate between Christmas 1944 and New Year 1945 was highest in the concentration camp. The reason he concluded was that the prisoners would lose all the naive hope of ever been liberated from the concentration camp and return home. As the time came closer, they would then be so disappointed and and also lose their courage to continue living. He says "The prisoner who has lost faith in the future - his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay".

He also cited Nietzsche's words " He who has the why to live for can bear to live with almost any how".

Perhaps, I felt the paragraph in page 98 below reflected some philosophical thoughts by him on the meaning of life:

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

There you are...

Fictional Past

After The Alchemist, I began to think that maybe I should rekindle my appreciation of fiction books. I remember distinctly that I read plenty of fiction during my school time at least until my tertiary education when I started to divert to more non-fiction books.

It seems it was only yesterday that I used to read the popular writers like Sidney Sheldon (just found out he just passed away in 2007), Issac Asimov (Foundation series, one of my all time favourites) and others that I now vaguely remember.

However, another writer that I can recall was Czech writer Milan Kundera whose books tend to be short stories with I can remember to sometimes funny and ironic in the storyline. I remembered reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and Immortality. Can't exactly remember their storylines since it has been so long ago. Maybe I should consider revisiting them sometime again.

The popular fiction that I read by Sidney Sheldon were books like Sands of Time which I can immediately remember because I bought it with meagre pocket money I had saved during school time. Also, bought a range of Foundation Series which has the mathematician Hari Seldon trying to help galactic mankind and steer them away from the brink of destruction. Ah... the stories of a galactic empire and a group of scientists that invented a branch of science called psychohistory, the ability of mathematics to predict the course of human history really expanded my young mind (although these are science fiction stuff, I thought it was going to possible that sometime in the future this would really be invented)

Going even further back in my younger days, especially in secondary school days, I was trying very hard to remember the Fantasy author that I read, then finally remembered it was Piers Anthony. Went to his website to see his bibliography to refresh my memory and I finally found the books that I had read was actually the Xanth Series. There are a total of 32 titles and counting, so I would think I had read the first top few.

I guess what we read in the past, especially during our youth will definitely shape and form our interests in the future although it seemed that I had missed a good deal of such book genres since I switched to non-fiction.

Well, its been nearly fifteen years since the time of that switch. Maybe I should try to balance my reading between the different book genres. It could perhaps give me a broader perspective of life, knowledge and wisdom.

Career Breakpoints

I just finished another book, The Career Break Book by Lonely Planet. This is largely a travel reference book, with lots of tips of where to go during a time of career breaks. Great advice given with several off-beaten tracks that is not usually taken by travellers.

There were several examples of people taking their career breaks, and generally they changed their perspectives on work and do not go back to their original job/career.

Not much to say, except, if anyone is thinking of stopping their normal worklife routine, and thinking of going for a career break, this is a book to look for. BTW, mostly it seems that people from the US, Europe or Australia do this.

Again, the story of lifestyle choices echo in my mind, and also whether there would be people like Santiagos in The Alchemist in some of us, willing to give up being a shepherd and travel to the pyramids in search of treasure. Difficult, but definitely achievable, if sacrifices are made and proper arrangements made to take care of existing financial obligations. There are several practical tips in the book about these valid concerns and alternative measures to consider.

Benefits of course is subjected one circumstances, as in Santiago's case, a treasure, a potential spouse but most importantly, learning so much about life's journey in the process of his travels. Let's hope we can all learn like Santiago if we ever take a career break in any point of our life.

Found a website for those who want to know more as well; great resource

http://www.thecareerbreaksite.com/index.php

Santiago's journey

I do not usually read fiction, but this time I decided I would give Paul Coelho a try as I happen to keep chancing upon his books again and again. I had a glimpse of his name in one of the book reviews in The Straits Times, saw a girl reading it while waiting to register for my masters course and lastly, in a bookshop that stock piles and piles of his titles.

So, I chose The Alchemist, in which the main character Santiago, a Spanish shepherd boy whom left his comfort zone of tending his sheep to go to the Pyramids of Eqypt in search of a treasure that he had dreamt during one of his one night stays in a broken down church.

From then on, he makes the journey to the pyramids and thus starting the spiritual adventure of his lifetime. If you in for a spoiler, click on the link to Wikipedia and the full story will be there.

Its was splendid light reading for me as I could feel being Santiago being caught in a dilemma on whether to pursue his Personal Legend or stay in his comfort zone as a shephard, and also after falling in love with the girl in the oasis.

Maybe, we all hope we are Santiagos as we live in our everyday routine, with dreams of our own which we want to fulfill. But yet we have fears and contradictory thoughts of pursuing the very dreams we so really wish we can. Or maybe most of us just want to be the like crystal glass merchent who is so afraid to fufill his dream of going to Mecca as it would mean he would then have nothing to live for.

In it, Santiago struggles after leaving, and it says clearly with his conversation with the alchemist:

"Why do we have to listen to our hearts" the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.

"Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure."

"But my heart is agitated." the boy said, "It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and its become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I'm thinking about her."

"Well, thats good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say."

The story at the end was a pleasant surprise for me, and I smiled to myself how this simple tale could actually lift my spirits up. I must say I did not regret reading this fiction book on a late Sunday afternoon rather than the two other books I normally juggle with. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and Critical Mass: How one thing leads to another by Philip Ball was just too heavy for me after a long tiring week of work in the office.

I guess, in terms of pursuing our dreams, we may have our doubts over whether to give up our existing safe and contented state of life to uncertainty, but as always there is a price to pay in such situations.

But what is important that as what the alchemist had said. Listen to your heart it is alive. It may prove to be a satisfying end result as what Santiago had experienced. I will be looking to continue some of other Coelho books. Good light reading that lifts your soul on a lazy weekend yeah.

Superheros - Why Red and Blue?

Ever wonder why the superheros of the comic world are always so heroic, just and self-sacrificing? And have you wondered why in the world are their costumes are always Red and Blue in colour?

Well, just try to recall where did all these superheros originate and you will know the reason. Apparently, the comic/cartoon artists tend to think that their country also exhibit the same attributes as the same superheros I mentioned. (This is of course abit biased and subjective, many people may dispute that!)

I only made this observation a couple days ago while watching Transformers. Also one of my favorite cartoons shows of all time, now made into life-action movie with the best CGI graphics I have seen.

There I was looking at the charismatic Optimus Prime standing on the gigantic telescope with the rest of the Autobots when I suddenly realised his colours were similar to Superman, Spiderman .... erh... Captain America (obviously but also with additional white colour). By the way, I think new Optimus in the movie is the coolest amongst them, although Spidey is also another favourite. Good thing, Optimus was still voiced by Peter Cullen from the cartoon show as I could remember it very well.

Any idea which superheros has the same fashion tastes as our four saviours of world?

True Wisdom - Researched Characteristics

Referenced an article by Stephen S.Hall entitled "Wisdom comes with age? Not True" published in The Straits Times on 8 May 2007.

True wisdom it seems is associated by academic literature with the following attributes:

• A clear-eyed view of human nature
• Emotional resilience
• Ability to cope in the face of adversity
• Forgiveness
• Humility
• Knack of learning from lifetime of experiences

Formal studies on wisdom can be traced back to a young girl named Vivian Clayton. Apparently, She had observed that her father and maternal grandmother were different from other people she know. Despite their limited education, they had possessed an uncanny ability to remain in the midst of crisis and make good decision . She proceeded to tell the story of his father and his dying grandmother during World War Two, after the bombs had completely been dropped, she would just just say "Now we can have a cup of tea" nonchalantly.

Clayton, went to do her dissertation during the 1970s and 1980s, publishing groundbreaking papers on wisdom. She identified three general aspects of human activity that were central to wisdom

• Acquisition of Knowledge (Cognitive)
• Analysis of that Information (Reflective)
• Filtered through the emotions (affective)

I tried searching for her papers in Google Scholar but found only abstracts of them.

Anyway, moving along, there was another Berlin Wisdom Project that started research on wisdom. The "Berlin Paradigm" defined wisdom as an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life". In essence, it is the following:

• Expert knowledge of both "facts" of human nature
• "How" to deal with decisions and dilemmas
• An appreciation of one's historical, cultural and biological circumstances during an arc of lifespan
• An understanding of the "relativism" of values and priorities; and acknowledgement, at the level of both thought and action, of uncertainty.

The study by the Berlin group was on expertise and performance and not on inherent personality traits.

Now, another scientist, Laura Carstensen also identified the following:

• Ability to focus on emotional control is tightly linked to a persons sense of time
• Older people in general seem to have a better feel for keeping their emotions in balance.

My post does not do justice to Hall's article, but what I have done is to actually highlight the key points in bullets by the various researchers mentioned.

So, in summary, Hall ended by saying the following:

"Where does wisdom come from, and how does one acquire it? Surprisingly, a good deal of evidence suggests that the seeds of wisdom are planted earlier than old age, often earlier than middle age and possibly even earlier than young adulthood. And there are strong hints that wisdom is associated with an earlier exposure to adversity or failure. That certainly seems to be the case with emotional regulation and is consistent with Carstensen's ideas about shifting time horizons."

Interestingly, this means that we would need to have setbacks early in life to be able to become a wise man in the future. Of course, the person must be resilient enough to overcome these obstacles in their lives in order to move on.

Great article, deep in meaning and should be used by all as guidelines to true wisdom.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson English poet (1809 - 1892)

"How" to ponder the improbable for Average Joes.

A follow-up on some of the ideas that I had proposed on the possibilities of the open source communities and prediction markets to enable common people with the ability to "how to" ponder the improbable.

I had been thinking of an overall framework which mashup the models/concepts explained in Wikinomics and Wisdom of the Crowds.

1) Open source communities like Sourceforge can startup a new project; perhaps entitled "WikiPredict". This software (preferably an online tool) will be along the lines of DIANE. I would probably specify that it should include the following features:

• Search engines; in sourceforge I can see there already TrackerDog, SearchSaver, Carrot2 and many others. ( I did not evaluate the suitability of use, but just citing some examples.)


• Wikis or Content Management software; again in sourceforge there current projects like ProWiki, NI Wiki and so forth.


• Data mining and Analytical software along the lines of Google Analytics with nice reporting charts there can be used to break down data ; in sourceforge, Decision Studio Professional looks promising through its description.

Basically, this WikiPredict system would require the 3 components to be fully integrated, tightly coupled with each other and to allow participants to have an effective and efficient manner of searching, collating, analyzing and sharing the information across the community.

Now, with the technology/tools settled, and we can now move on to the framework on how to run this WikiPredict system.

2) A WikiCommunity of people sharing the same interests in areas of politics, economics, cultural, medical or social aspects can form together to use the WikiPredict system. Of course, the particular WikiCommunity must define its purpose and mission. I would term this group of participants as "peer research analysts" producing high quality peer-analysis of world events.

3) Once an event has been so called "predicted", the active participants would then create a prediction market in the same website for the rest of the community (the 80-90% of people). Of course, it should be open to wider network if possible inviting participants from other area of interests as well. This is to encourage diversity too.

From then on, the success of these WikiPredict, WikiCommunity and Crash Prediction Market would be dependent on the quality of the participants. Knowledge can be shared, tools are open-sourced. Perhaps the community can even use Cognitive Edge Methods or other suitable frameworks that are open-sourced thus making it a more robust and accurate system.

Hopefully, if such a mass collobarative effort does materialise, Mr. Average Joes may just be able see through the invisible, connect the dots and therefore would be able to act upon the information given thus avoiding the stock market bubbles, property crashes, resource shocks and other disastrous events.

It may be argued that even with the best intelligence or information at hand, most people may not even have the capacity or courage to act upon it. However, the main purpose of this post is not to debate on that, but rather it is about how to allow the average person to have the ability to ponder the improbable.

Unknown Unknowns Part 2 - Impact on Average Joe

I remembered an article was published in the Straits Times regarding "unknown unknowns" and I went to find the newspaper clippings that I normally keep if I find them interesting.

On May 24 2007, Barry Desker, the Dean of S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University actually published a great book review of Seeing the Invisible: National Security Intelligence In an Uncertain Age.

Basically I intend to look for this book and read it myself. The basic take-away is that that asymmetric threats like terrorism (9/11) , disease pandemics (SARS) and natural resource shocks (Opec Crisis 1973) is a disruptive events that can bring about severe impact to not only the countries affected but in fact can become a transnational problem with severe consequences.

Anyway, my thoughts on this is in that such uncertain times, it seems that governments, corporations and big institutions are the only entities that have the resources and financial muscle to build systems or programs like RAHS, Scenario Planning or prediction markets. Prediction markets was mentioned in the book Wisdom of the Crowds by James Surowiecki. HP, Google and Microsoft are some of the companies that are using prediction markets to help them. However mostly, the applications has been on areas of national security or business planning purposes.

But, how about the common people? The man on the street who invests his life savings on stocks, bonds, property, unit trusts and other financial instruments. Also, not to mention the small business entrepreneur whose company who would probably not survive such severe shocks.

What can the common people do to help ensure that they can actually see the invisible threats to their lifetime of work or savings? Right now, I would say the there is nothing that they can possibly do. In the article by Barry Desker, he titled it "Why we must ponder the improbable". In my mind, I think for the average person, it should be titled "How can we (the common people) ponder the improbable?".

During the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, there were numerous newspaper reports of rich multi-millionaires falling victim to the meltdown of the markets. I cannot remember reading about housewives, working professionals or retirees that got severely burnt or possibly bankrupt through their own follies. But definitely, I would think the numbers are substantial throughout Asia and the rest of the world. Subsequently, I would think the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2000 produced many more of such personal disasters.

Alan Greenspan would called this phenomena irrational exuberance in 1996 for the dot.com bubbles and the stock market slumps. But what gave him the insight or ability to see this would be probably he had all the resources that Federal Reserve Bank can provide and not to mention his own unique abilities.

But what can average Mr. Joe do?

Of course, to be able to appreciate such improbable scenarios, Joe would need to be fairly well-educated to understand the complexities and challenges. He would certainly also need to be reasonably well-read, able to collate, analyze, interpret various sources of information and make a conscious decision on what to do.

The problem lies on the fact that the Joe lack the necessary tools and knowledge (software, formal methods or techniques) to overcome the "how to ponder the improbable" question.

I think the way to go is through the use of open source software for prediction markets or the mass collaboration between like-minded individuals interested in such matters forming themselves into forums, online communities, wikis, and practically sharing of good knowledge. In another words, applying the concepts that are being proposed by the book Wikinomics.

Also, I think the Cognitive Edge methods which the company had released under Creative Commons license is open for all is a great resource although I must admit I had not given enough time or effort to understand the material there. Dave Snowden also gently reminded me in my previous post that Cognitive Edge now offers the use of the Sensemaker suite of software tools for employment of their methods.

I had glimpse of what DIANE by the Arlington Institute looks like and I would definitely love to evaluate a demo copy of the Sensemaker software, but I am not sure whether Dave or Cognitive Edge will release them under such terms.

So, I checked from its website that cites "while methods are open sourced, revenue generated to support the network through the development of software and the sale of software licenses and services". Maybe, I would need to be an accredited practitioner. Or maybe it will great to just let everyone see some screenshots of its capabilities.

Back to the solution to the question I posed earlier. In all true sense, it will take some ingenuity and commitment on the part of the community to able to muster enough resources and capability to be able to ponder the improbable unknown unknowns.

We will probably will never know how successful systems like RAHS or prediction markets run by corporations as they remain classified and confidential; which is why I made the statement of "That is still an unknown unknown and only when we know what can be known, therefore we cannot possibly know" in my previous post.

I do not think any government of the day or any corporation would release such information as it may impact them in certain ways. Let's say terrorists or competitors got wind of how their systems or programs are working; they would probably be able to circumvent the loopholes and probably succeed in their actions.

Maybe someday it will become a reality that Joe would be able to connect the dots possibly using the above mentioned solutions and be less impacted by the 9/11s, Oil Shocks, SARS, Financial Crisises and Stock Market Crashes that have plagued him and his family for far too long. Let's see.

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants

I saw Google Scholar's motto "Standing on the Shoulder of Giants" and wondered what does it mean. Apparently, it was famously used by Issac Newton in his letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675 attributing his dependency on Galileo’s and Kepler’s work in physics and astronomy.

He said "If I have seen further [than certain other men] it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."

Nevertheless, it also means to say Newton was able to produce and contribute immensely to human stock of knowledge because of prior knowledge that was already discovered by earlier men(women).

Well, it seems that every generation would somehow benefit from the work of the previous. Which is why we are enjoying the longer lifespans, being healthier, more leisure options and other positive benefits that are incalculable in every conceivable field of human endeavour.

Unknown Unknowns

Today, in Singapore's Straits Times, its Second Minister for Finance, Tharman Shanmugaratnam was quoted the term "unknown unknowns". He is quoted to be have said "the unknown unknowns that come along every few years, and it could be a pretty vicious unknown unknown with an unwinding that's unpredictable in global financial markets."

Ah... this term is not new actually, another notable person first came out with this concept some five years ago but based on a national security context. I remembered it distinctly as I think it has many relevances in the current environment of our globalized world.

I quote from Donald Rumsfeld, ex-Secretary of Defense of United States:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

For more of his poetry, you can get from here where the above was extracted too.

So, what is the solution to this unknown unknown problem. Scenario planning is one traditional tool that many governments and organizations has been using but with so many potential variables in different contexts, I think it can be useful to only a certain extent. Shell is one global business that uses it.

However recently, Cognitive-Edge and the Arlington Institute has assisted as two principle consultants to RAHS (Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning System) in Singapore.

"Some of the latest technology employed in the RAHS system allow for model-building, monitoring, weak signal detection and pattern analysis. Integrating traditional scenario planning frameworks with innovative thought models like the Cynefin concepts pioneered by Cognitive Edge ensures that the system is robust and able to handle a diverse spectrum of threats"

NEWS RELEASE 1 February 2007 Singapore to showcase innovative Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) system

So, in integrating with new thought models offered by Cognitive Edge and tools developed by The Arlington Institute, Singapore is pioneering ahead in this field of solving the "unknown unknowns" problem. I am not sure whether it is being used as part of the economic and financial defence of Singapore, although it seems the the main application of the system is against terroism and health-related threats like SARS.

Nevertheless, it should provide a shield of some sorts and hopefully it does what it promises to do. That is still an unknown unknown and only when we know what can be known, therefore we cannot possibly know.

More Alternative Media

While continuing my reading of Wikinomics, I found some material in it that has the latest theme that I have been researching: Alternative Media.

In the chapter, The Prosumers, the authors cited Youtube, Slashdot, Digg and the Rabble. All part of the new age of Web2.0 or according to them its the "Democratizing of the Media". Digg's news items are voted by the readers and would be published accordingly by their popularity. Sounds great, as it is allowing participation by people.

I just wonder all these alternative sources of media would be the way to go where all content are actually produced by the consumers themselves whilst there is an erosion of the traditional media. Singapore's Straits Times actually is making use of this class of citizen reporters with their website Stomp with certain degree of success.

Then I found another good alternative website called Tom Paine. There is good article which is dated 20 June Bloggers And Heathers Go 15 Rounds that talks about mainstream media and blogosphere (alternative media).