The John Galt Line

Differentiate or Die

2010-04-21T04:44:00.039-04:00

I know you probably think that I am a little too honest. I am pretty candid. I am a firm believer in fundamental fairness. I am a big believer in DIFFERENTIATION - resources allocation. Some say that differentiating between people is cruel and Darwinian. I believe it's fair and most effective.

Sidebar, Darwin never coined the saying, "Survival of the fittest." In the 1850s, Darwin's agnostic cousin philosopher Herbert Spencer published Social Statics, in which Spencer birthed the saying, "Survival of the fittest." I know this because I've read Social Statics and The Origin of Species.

In his great book The Origin of Species, Darwin actually said and I paraphrase here:

In the long history of humankind, those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.

I assimilate and apply these concepts in my 20/70/10 principle. I don't know how or why this works but it does: 20% of people and 20% of clients do 80% of the work and generate 80% of a business' revenues. The middle 70% percent needs to work/try harder or send more referrals. The bottom 10% needs to be let go.

Too often societal dregs and functional incompetents are placed in position way over their heads because of cronyism, nepotism, and accelerative actions. Some call this the Peter Principle, in which employees rise to their level of incompetence. The Peter Principle protects and rewards the weak and the underperformers. Moreover, it's unfair because it undermines trust and candor. It ensures that underperformers don't carry their own weight. It guarantees that the pie gets smaller. It's unsustainable. And most important, it creates and permeates deep seeded resentment throughout a society.

I believe that not acknowledging that some people are better or more gifted than others is killing our great country. Some are smarter, more talented, more experienced, or more creative. I believe that everyone is born with a gift and that they (we) must detect it. As proof of the fairness of differentiation and a transparent performance system look no further than the NBA, NFL, NHL, or MLB, where individual stars are rewarded and underperformers are told to work harder or shown the door.

Remember the playground when you picked basketball or kickball teams - The best players were always picked first and the other players knew where they stood. The people standing on the sideline were forced to get better or pursue another interest (game) that aligned with their talents. Differentiation is the fairest and most transparent performance system.

We can succeed only by concert. It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. ~Lincoln

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.

To Be True or To Be Phony

2010-03-26T05:17:00.029-04:00

To what degree does social media handicap natural, social skills?

By Arthur Leggett

As many of you know, I am intentionally guarded about exposing my private life in the clouds. Since I am a privacy-centric person, I have never posted my picture online. This morning, I decided to take a leap of faith and dive head first into this digital space.

I originally joined the digital world two years ago because I felt that the Adage editors filtered, racialized, and tokenized my submitted article to a push an entitlement agenda. What was published did not resemble my original submission nor did it accurately represent my philosophies, thoughts, and perspectives. In response, I entered the digital theatre with the John Galt Line blog, where I share my unsterilized thoughts, liberating commentaries, illuminating missives, morning musings, and occassional rants.

As we continue to be overloaded with social media, I keep wondering about the Kierkegaard's theory that "the use of technology often results in human beings having 'destitute' relationships with one another?"

Without getting too deep here, Kierkegaard asserts that what ultimately drives people toward certain technological practices is fear, "the fear of humanity." I have struggled with the question - Is all this social networking technology mitigating real communication by "providing people with the means to escape, or at least hide from those aspects of interpersonal relationships that they most fear?"

I must admit that there's a certain efficiency and convenience in sending a twit, sharing a Facebook announcement, writing an email, or texting rather than calling or squaring up face-to-face with people, which all require that I am more in the moment. Perhaps, I am a little ambivalent because I like moments of real time interaction and understanding, from being attentive to what's going on.

Not surprisingly, Joseph Weizenbaum, a founder of artificial intelligence discovered that people "become emotionally involved with the computer and...anthropomorphize it."

The one lesson that I recently learned is whether you are online or offline - "This above all: to thine own self be true," Shakespeare's wise and honorable dictum.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.

Second Acts

2010-02-01T05:03:00.020-05:00

Examining Our Politics
By Arthur Leggett

As the ballots rolled-in in Massachusetts on Tuesday, January 19, I felt a strange elation of joy as I witnessed the Bay Staters reclaim their independence. The next morning, I woke up with a smile at 4 am as I stared at the dim ceiling. I thought about where does our country go from here? The future of our country will be decided by what we individually do to become great again. Let's face it, we have lost some of our luster. We must pick ourselves up and dust off the idleness and complacency. We must combat our real enemies: Hubris, Sloth, and Ignorance.

When the author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "There are no second acts in American lives," he was wrong. Second acts are not only possible in America, but some of our biggest triumphs are owed to reinventions.

America is beyond the point of needing a second act. For far too long, we have collectively lived off the remnants, dividends, and derivatives of our forefathers and grandfathers. We must gather strength and courage from their examples of innovation, initiative and adaptation.

The inability to recalibrate partially explains Coakley’s predictable loss and Obama's political hemorrhaging. Both politicians fail to accept and adapt to the fact that we live in a Republic, not a democracy.

In a democracy, the government, with the consent of the majority, can forcibly loot from the most productive citizens and redistribute floor scraps to the neediest members, under the pretense of being progressive.

In a Republic, a small upswelling of citizens can awake the collective consciousness of the uninformed masses. In Massachusetts, with the resurgence of independents, and around America, with the rise of the Tea Party, we are witnessing the difference between living in a Republic and a democracy. If you ever want to learn more about our country's founding or the responsibilities that come with the freedom of living in a Republic, I highly recommend a book called: The 5,000 Year Leap.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with like-minded individuals. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.

Who is John Galt?

2010-01-09T05:44:00.026-05:00

A Question Many Will Ask Soon
By Arthur Leggett

As an all-out apostle of many of Aristotle's and Ayn Rand's philosophies, I was recently shaken to learn that Hollywood is making a movie of Atlas Shrugged. Let's face it, no movie has every done justice or fairly depicted a great novel. Ayn Rand must be turning in her grave. So before Hollywood twists and warps Galt, I figured that I would share my thoughts. After all, my blog is called the John Galt Line, and most of the images and thoughts are dedicated to Rand.

Who is John Galt?

John Galt is the ideal man, a man who lives his life in an agreement with the philosophy that A is A. The philosophy, A is A, known as “Objectivism” was created on the basis on Aristotle’s logic. It is laid out in John’s Galt’s speech, in my favorite book, Atlas Shrugged. Galt deduced that man is unique in his ability to reason.

Galt’s basic premise is that we are dropped unarmed into existence by no choice of our own, into a situation not of our choosing. Everything else, from property rights to how tribes band together, the role of government in our civilizations, to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, flows from these underlying pillars.

Obviously, John Galt is a metaphor. Galt is the personification of the reason and logic that separates us from the other animals. Galt is a political man acting in his own self interest to the best of his ability.

Thus, he’s a part of everyone, to lesser or greater degree. John Galt’s clarity of thought and expression is needed in this period. I think the question, “Who is John Galt?” should be rephrased, for today, to be “Where is John Galt?”

I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Atlas Shrugged this year. If you can't afford a copy, email me your address and I will mail you one. Yes, I am that much of an outed proselytizer of Rand. The philosophies of Ayn Rand change my perspective at age 14, and I am confident that she will offer any reader a new outlook.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.

It’s About Time for Einstein

2009-11-30T02:58:00.008-05:00

With Each Passing Moment, Time Slips Away
By Arthur Leggett

My last writing ignited my curiosity on exploring the fourth dimension of the universe: Time. Almost everyone knows that Einstein proved that “time is relative,“ only some non-scientists know that Einstein concluded, later in his life, that “for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one.”

When I first learned this watershed notion in Modernity class at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA, I got a migraine headache just thinking about the time paradox. I left class that day thinking – I don’t get this. I don’t want to get too deep here, so let’s leave the debate about the fabric of time to physicists.

I believe that time is hard to define. Although we clearly see the effects of time as our bodies age gracefully and as children grow yearly, we cannot see, touch, feel, smell or hear time. Too often time is equated with money, but time is much more than money. Time is the most precious and irreplaceable commodity in the world.

To borrow from a memorable description of lost time by Denis Waitley, “with each passing day, we lose—one twenty-four hour, twenty-four carat, golden day, each hour studded with sixty diamond minutes, each minute studded with sixty ruby seconds. But don’t bother to look for it, it’s gone forever—that wonderful, golden day, I lost today”

Often when we deal with a lengthy illness or suffer the loss of a loved one, we lament the passing of time. Faced with the mortality of humanness, we cry not for more degrees, titles, money, cars or homes--the edifice complex--but we desperately pray for just a little more time. Yet many who will plead the loudest, thought nothing of squandering time in absolute idleness yesterday or today.

In general, we make time for what we choose to in life. It is the way in which we use precious moments that tell what we really value. How much of your time is spent plugged into a television screen?

Did you know that the average American watches over 28 hours of television per week? That’s around 2 months of mindless television per year. What if you live to be 65 years old? That’s 9 years of your life wasted on addictive nonsense. What’s the benefit?

The truth is that we all have the same amount of time available to us each week, whether you are rich or poor. We are all gifted with 168 hours, 10,080 minutes or 604,800 seconds per week.

How much of this time do you enjoy with your inner circle or exploring the beauty of Nature, museums, architecture or music? How many kids do you mentor? How many forgotten mentors have you called to say, Thank You? And, very importantly, how many sunrises and sunsets have you seen? In the pursuit of a life of material excess, too many forget to measure time by the lives they touch in this world.

Live every moment as if it is your last, for you never know when God will reach down in his “garden of life” and prune an undesired weed or pick a promising rosebud.

If anyone wants to grapple with Einstein’s time concepts, I highly recommend reading Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.

A Nation of Beggars, Borrowers, and Thieves

2009-03-01T02:26:00.025-05:00

“Health care is a right.” “Wall Street greed.”. “Everyone must sacrifice.” "Business bailouts." “Brother can you spare a dime?”

By Arthur Leggett

The most common reaction to the global economic crisis is to blame corporate greed and insufficient government regulations. Some political neophytes find comfort in attacking the spirit of free market capitalism. These political “virgins” fail to see that government intervention and regulations are the problems, not sustainable remedies.

As the government continues to wreck economic havoc with bailout after bailout and earmark after earmark, things will continue to get worse and worse. Perhaps President Obama and Members of Congress should read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Atlas Shrugged has been on my mind a great deal lately. I know that many are unfamiliar with Atlas Shrugged. For the uninitiated, those who have not read any of Rand’s masterpieces, the basic theme of my favorite novel is that John Galt and his allies stop the motor of the world by withdrawing their talents and leading a strike. The “strikers” refuse the call by the big government for more sacrifice, as the government, I meant “looters” continue to funnel tax dollars to pork-laden initiatives, Congressional earmarks, and shovel ready projects.

Perhaps the partisan politics we are witnessing from Washington are just a harbinger of the inevitable battle between those who believe in productivity, ability, personal responsibility, and minimum government intrusion, and those who believe in the inane, or better stated, insane policies of taking from the successful to reward the incompetent- those who need to train harder-, using the government as an attack dog, and disturbing health care, home ownership, and economic security with American citizenship.

If success and productivity continue to be punished, why bother? Perhaps it is time for the "motors" of America to Go Galt!

How much longer can the American government rely on printing more money or the shell game of pushing the tab into posterity?

It's time for the government to stop all special entitlements and graft?

In my view, men should deal with one another through mutual benefit via voluntary trade. The American political system was founded to protect individual rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness against force, fraud, and unconscionable rewards for failure.

My question to readers is, How sustainable is it for “Everyone to have the same health care?”, for “Everyone to own a home?”, or for “Everyone to go to college?” At what point do these idealistic aspirations stop? At some point, Atlas must shrug.

To Engage or Not to Engage

2009-02-17T06:48:00.014-05:00

Naked communications: Face the people and expose your ideas

By Arthur Leggett

Risk is inherent in any decision. There are simply too many complex unknowns in the world. Knowledge is not absolute. And, the future is not perfectly predictable. The unpredictability of exploring possibilities causes some individuals to mistakenly hunker down in fear, to protect their fiefdoms, or to remain in an insular state of command and control.

Too often fear hinders gloomsayers from exploring new ideas and new opportunities. It's too risky for them. I think that the joy of exploring new frontiers is in the possibility of connecting with intelligent entities. I believe that intelligence is one of the most valuable assets in the universe, mental capital.

Clearly in this digital age, at this great time in history, the opportunity to engage is just a click away. It’s very easy to start a two-way, interactive, and personalized connection with anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. The challenge is, as busy people with scarce time, with whom do we decide to filter in or barricade out?

In his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki describes how collaborative engagement can help us discover better answers to challenging questions than we could likely find on our own. In order to maximize the returns on mental capital, Surowiecki suggests that three cornerstones of engagement should be followed: diversity, independence, and decentralization.

Surowiecki articulates the circumstance in which relationships can lead us down the wrong path. For example, often in groups where people have been together too long, people are more prone to lemming behavior. When people follow the crowd (i.e., the behavior that led to the tech bubble burst in the late 1990s), independent thinking is missing.

Great independent thinkers develop what appears to be a natural strength, intuition, through diverse experiences and lifelong learning, at taking decisive actions. Leonard Fuld, in his book, The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence, says, “Intuition is about making critical decisions while balancing imperfect, but reasonable, knowledge with a degree of risk.” He goes on to explain how we need to continually build up our intuition by constantly learning, testing our assumptions, adjusting our outlook, and moving onward.

In this digital age, it is our ability to engage with new ideas and quickly act on intelligence that will separate the winners from the laggards. It is up to each individual to seek out fresh thoughts. Being open-minded, transparent, and interactive will help build relationships with intelligent entities. No matter how smart we think we are, today's relevant-knowledge is accelerating so rapidly that what we learned in school is mostly obsolete by the time we received our degrees. This is called the obsoledge trap, which stands for "obsolete knowledge."

Most chunks of knowledge have a limited shelf life. True learners, think of learning as a continuous-flow process and surround themselves with great minds. They are comfortable being the dumbest person in the room. Partly because, they don't know everything. Thus, they ask a lot of smart questions. This notion helps explain why on many topics most of us are plainly stupid. The key to overcoming stupidity is to not waste time and energy defending what we are certain or think we know and always remain open and curious to cross-pollinating bigger and better ideas.

In their book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams share four principles that will drive the intelligence ecosystem: Openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally.

From Madison Avenue to Main Street, one key to engaging individuals is big IDEAS-–ideas that flip the box inside out and offer unique or unconventional thinking. As ideas abound in this digital age, filtering through computerized bombardments for the great ideas is critical.

How should we filter through all the ideas knocking and asking for a share of our attention? One simple process is to ask simple questions: What do I think? What do I know? What does my intuition tell me? Using these three questions, will help evaluate if the reward is worth the risk.

I imagine that you too have sought to engage with someone, but you didn't have the touchpoint to get through. Don’t be that person.

I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

The Mobile Future

2008-10-26T05:37:00.013-04:00

Part Deux: Seven Questions and Seven Answers

By Arthur Leggett

In light of the overwhelming response to the Mobile Future post, I am going to respond to seven frequently asked questions about my views on the mobile future. To the curious minds who emailed me from Israel, India, Ghana, Singapore, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, China, South Africa, England, Côte d'Ivoire, U.S. and a few other countries, your generosity of time and mind is greatly appreciated.

A wise teacher once shared that I should absorb knowledge and comments, not react to them ~ Thank you Mrs. Barrett.

Seven Intelligent Questions:

What about privacy?

The greatest trick ever masqueraded in America is the llusion of privacy. If you have an email address, myspace page, facebook page, linkedin page, grocery discount card, plane ticket, library card, hotel reservation, bank account, or google history, you have voluntarily traded the commodity of your privacy in a “quid pro quo” manner with marketers, grocers, airlines, libraries, hotels, banks, Google and the government to acquire their goods and services.

The majority of us don’t read the fine print, I meant find the small print:) We fill out every registration card, accept every cookie on our hard drive, and sign up for every store discount card without ever thinking about the privacy implications and ramifications.

Remember the salmonella scare earlier this summer, how do you think they tracked down who bought what tomatoes?

How will mobile transactions be secured from fraud?

Consumer fraud occurs when a thief uses another’s identity to purchase goods and services. Given that mobile devices cameras will allow for the use of biometrics to confirm identity before a consumer uses m-commerce, I believe that fraud will dramatically decrease in the mobile future.

There are clearly privacy--the flipside of security in America-- issues involved in using voice, face, retina, fingerprint, and electronic signature in security applications. Some of you are already asking the intelligent question: How will companies acquire biometrics databases? The simple answer is myspace, facebook, linkedin, atms, airport retina scans, driver’s licenses, etc. Everyday, we trade biometric privacy for myspace celebrity, homeland security, a quarter off a bag of chips and so on, without batting an eye.

How many mobileers are there in the United States?

I forgot to include these statistics in the original post last Friday. As of June ’08, there were around 263 million US mobile subscribers. The US mobile market penetration rate was around 84%. Also, 15% of US households is mobile only. Remember, each mobile device has tremendous marketing potential.

Why is Africa the region to watch?

I believe that Africa is the region to watch because China’s and America’s GDP growth depends on Africa.

Africa is one of the only places in the world where so many resources are still up for grabs. It holds 90% of the world's cobalt, 90% of its platinum, 50% of its gold, 98% of its chromium, 64% of its manganese, and one-third of its uranium. Its forests are still considered the most pristine in the world. It is rich in diamonds, has more oil reserves than North America, and is estimated to have 40% of the world's potential hydroelectric power. It already supplies a third of the oil fueling China's economic boom.

Let’s face it, China is going through an industrial boom. Industrial revolutions require raw materials to fuel the factory orders. With 1.3 billion people going through an industrial revolution and more mobileers (400 million) than any other country in the world, China has turned to Africa for natural resources and for work for its surplus workers.

So the next time you see the Made in China tag on a wood dining table set in Walmart, remember that the wood is probably timber from Mozambique ($5); that the table and chairs were manufactured in a Chinese factory ($100); and, that Walmart imported it to their showroom and charged you $429.55.

How does this all relate to the mobile future? Research shows that mobile devices are critical to the economic development of Africa. For example, an extra ten mobile devices per one hundred people can increase the country’s GDP growth by close to 1%.

Last night, I received an email from Patty. She works for a Chinese wireless company in Togo. I’ll let her words speak:

Mobile phones have turned the African markets around giving birth to innovative market ideas such as the mobile payment firms in the African market currently. Africans are now paving new ways of making financial transactions, billing and purchases easier on consumers.

I have heard that in parts of Africa they use their mobile numbers as home addresses. Now that’s a mobile home :)

What are some the barriers preventing marketers from spamming mobile devices with advertising?

I believe that the three surmountable barriers preventing consumers from being besieged with mobile advertising: size of the mobile screen, technical mechanics, and low user adoption rates will not hold out much longer. Currently only 15% of text messages is advertisements.

The Apple iPhone has reversed the trend of mobile device screens getting smaller and smaller. Now, we are seeing the introduction of more mobile devices with larger touch screens.

Third party companies are working with advertisers and wireless providers to streamline the mechanics involved in mobile advertising.

Marketers are sweetening the offer to consumers. For example, in London teenagers are offered free mobile service if they agree to receive ads in exchange. You don’t need a crystal ball to predict that mobile advertising will become more prevalent, like spam.

When will we instill a mobile etiquette?

I received a thoughtful note from Sarah this week. She noticed the annoyance of ringing mobile devices in traditionally quiet places like classrooms, courtrooms, places of worship and, so on. Sarah, perhaps we need to install disrupting devices in walls to defeat mobile devices’ transmission in these quiet areas.

Personally, I’d like to see a mobile device etiquette and manners movement. Given the private/public nature of mobile calls, Sarah or someone else should write a piece on the Top Ten Mobile Do’s and Don’ts. Do #1: Always respect no mobile quiet zones.

Why do I write this blog?

I am often asked this question, which is more than a “soup question.” I write this blog not only because I am stirred up in the middle of the night by these thoughts, but also because I believe that knowledge is only good if it is shared. Altruistism is not my motivation. I am driven by the sustainability of our country. Our great country, on the greatest planet in the universe is a rotting shell of itself. It is slowly perishing from two main corrupters: excess and ignorance.

As you continue to absorb knowledge and share your emails, I hope that you detect the essence of your own voice. I hope that you feel the foremost obligation to take decisive action to ignite a social change movement to save our future.

Thank you for sharing my thoughts. And, a special acknowledgment to Sherry. Sherry feeds me the best books and sources, and she also serves as an extra set of eyes.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

The Mobile Future

2008-10-24T04:39:00.011-04:00

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, and Profitable

By Arthur Leggett

Let’s take an imaginary trip to the mobile-centric future. This journey begins on Woodward Avenue, in Detroit City, Michigan. As we casually stroll by neighborhood stores, restaurants, and dry cleaners in “The Creative Corridor,” your mobile phone receives text alerts on grocery sales, a special on Gai Med Ma Muang, and that your laundry is ready for pick up. We go into three family-owned businesses and you pay for the groceries, the take-out, and the freshly pressed suits & shirts by pointing your mobile phone at a pay terminal.

Welcome to the Mobile Age: Communications, Anytime, Connections, Anywhere, and Commerce, Mobiled.

The mobile phone, more properly called the mobile device, has become the most ubiquitous communications tool in the world. As of January 2008, around 3 billion mobile subscribers, now known as mobileers, can do some chin-wagging around the world. For perspective sake, that’s twice the number of mobile phone users as landline phone users, more than double the number of internet browsers, and nearly twice the number of television sets.

During a typical month, mobile phone users exchange over 350 billion text messages, in which 95% is opened. In comparison, over 3 trillion emails are exchanged in an average month, but only 15% is opened. The remaining 85% of emails is perceived as intrusive spam and remain unopened.

Today’s mobile device, which operates more akin to a mini-computer than a first generation, analog, mobile phone, is multi-functional. For instance, common functions and features on a mobile device includes: Operating system; Cameras; Voice calls; Voice mails; Caller ID; Emails; Instant Messaging (IM); Presence Features; Short message service (SMS), often called text messaging; Multimedia messaging service (MMS), which includes texting, images, audio, video; Navigation; Internet search; Contacts storage; Music Storage; Bluetooth; Games; Ring-tones; Global positioning standard (GPS); and, Interactive voice response systems (IVR). In the past ten to fifteen years, the mobile device has morphed into the most integrated consumer device in history. Surprisingly, most mobile device owners have no clue how to use many of their mobile devices' features and functions.

By 2010, 90% of the world will have mobile coverage. Today, mobile coverage extends to around 80% of the world’s population. Mobile market penetration rates vary from nation to nation. For example, Luxembourg has the highest mobile penetration rate in the world at 164%. That’s around 1.6 mobile devices per citizen.

In the UK, there are also more mobile devices than people. In America, over 50% of kids are mobileers. In China, there are about 500 million mobile users. In India, there are about 200 million mobile subscribers. However, the region to watch is Africa. Africa is experiencing the fastest growth of mobile penetration, twice the rate of Asia.

Without getting too deep into the technical complexities that are driving mobile telephony, the key driver is 3G. As bandwidth increased to 3G, the speed of rich data transmission dramatically increased. Thus, it became easier for mobile subscribers to use data-heavy features such as pictures, videos, music downloads, games, GPS, and so on.

As mobile data transfer speeds continue to explode, some in the press suggest that 3.5G and 4G will take data transmission to WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access.) Put simply, this evolution will allow mobileers to view higher quality streaming video, on demand movies, and television anytime, anywhere, and anyplace on thier devices. This concept is called Mobile TV. In the near future, Mobile TV will become a standard feature on mobile devices.

I believe that the mobile device will become the center point of consumer connections because the device is more personal and prevalent than any other electronic device in history. Given the facts that:

• Most mobileers answer their own phones.
• Every mobile device is uniquely addressable.
• Mobile subscribers never leave home without devices.
• Mobileers are never far away from their mobile devices.
• Marketers can now send vicinity marketing messages.

Consumers will become more susceptible to impulse buying as highly personal and targeted mobile marketing messages, based on aggregated consumer data and specific GPS location technology, will be specifically tailored to a mobileer’s behavior, needs, wants, interests, proclivities, and aspirations.

In what is called the mobile-commerce future or the m-commerce future, the mobile device will act as a mobile wallet. M-commerce is already happening in Japan, China, and South Korea, where the mobile wallet handles basic payment transactions. A payment chip is embedded in the mobileer’s device. This payment chip connects through personal area networks (PANs) for m-commerce transactions, which are directly linked to the mobileer’s financial account, credit card, or prepaid credit card.

As more Americans embrace the convenience and reduced need to carry cash in the mobile future, the numbers of Americans pointing their mobile devices at pay terminal machines in grocery stores, Thai restaurants, and dry cleaners will mushroom.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

If you want to learn more about the mobile revolution, I found the highlighted articles useful. Also, Jan Chipchase's presentation On Our Mobile Phones is very insightful. Thank you very much for sharing my writings.

Four important questions about any human being

2008-10-10T08:24:00.008-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

1. How does she fill up her time?

2. How does he feel about how he fills up his time?

3. What does she love?

4. How does he react to those he perceives as less or more talented than he?

If you make people feel inferior, even unintentionally, they will be uncomfortable around you. In most situations, these people will attack you. Some will ridicule or ignore you to 'cut you down to size.' But some will admire and learn from you.

If you make people feel admired, some will react by dismissing you. Some by wielding power--just because they can--in greater or lesser ways. But some will be moved to protect and help you.

I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

The Decision to be Remarkable

2008-10-03T05:51:00.006-04:00

re•mark•able [adjective]: worthy of being noticed, especially as being uncommon or extraordinary

By Chris Guillebeau

If you want to break out of the mold of average, the first thing you need to do is to make a decision to be radically different. Most remarkable people are people of action, and for a good reason: if you don’t take decisive action, nothing will ever change. But this first step is entirely mental. It calls for a clear decision to rise above the culture of mediocrity.

And then, of course, it does call for action.

How do you decide to be remarkable?
1. Stop making excuses. Just stop. No one wants to hear why you couldn’t do something, so make a conscious decision to stop talking about it.
2. Take responsibility. This is the opposite of giving excuses. Take responsibility for your own success, and take responsibility for the success of projects you work on. When something goes wrong (it usually does), take responsibility for that too.
3. Start questioning rules and expectations. Always ask questions and pay close attention to the answers you hear back. Some good starting questions are: Why is this rule in place? Who benefits from this rule being followed? What are the consequences if I don’t follow this rule or meet this expectation? What is the worst thing that could happen if I don’t follow this rule?
4. Find work that you love and do it well. Depending on who you are, this requires up to two big changes in your life: first, you have to find work that you love, and second, you have to do it well. Do it better than expected and people will be amazed.
5. Begin living your own life. This is what it’s all about—the life you were meant to live. If you don’t know what that is yet, start looking for it. Why would you want to live someone else’s life?
6. Take it up a level. Take what’s already working well and exponentially add to it. Grow your business 300%. Apply for the position of CFO when you’re the Accounts Payable Clerk. Visit five countries instead of one on your next trip (or if you want to explore one place well, stay three weeks instead of one).

Beware of Excellence
But watch out: being remarkable is addicting. It’s like regular exercise or healthy eating. When you first start a new exercise routine or diet, the adjustment is hard for a while. But after about 3-6 months of following it consistently, you build up a natural addiction to it.

Once you get used to regular exercise, you’ll feel bad when you’re not doing it. The same is true with being remarkable: do it once, and it’s scary. Do it a few times, and you love it. Stop doing it, and you’ll get depressed.

Many remarkable people deal with depression and anxiety all the time because they see the world differently than average people do. Their own failures and perceived failures are magnified. When others say, “Don’t worry about it,” they can’t understand why someone would think something like that. For this reason, a lot of geniuses throughout history have been chronically depressed.

Those are the hard things—and you also have to think about the critics, the skeptics, and the competition. We’ll come to those later. On the other hand, there are some great benefits to being remarkable.

HELP FROM A COMMUNITY
As you proceed with your plans for world domination, or whatever you want to do, you’ll be naturally drawn to others who have made the same decisions to be different. Even better, they’ll be drawn to you. You’ll learn from them and vice versa.

Whether you live in the Dilbert Cube, the Ivory Tower, the public sector, or are out there on your own somewhere, there are lots of ways to be remarkable. The specific application is up to you, and when you choose to make your own way, other people who “get it” will seek you out.

Remarkable people are all minorities in a world of average living.

HELP FROM THE UNIVERSE
You’ll find help in all kinds of unexpected places and from people you never knew before. No one really knows how this works, practically speaking. It’s okay; just accept the gifts that are given to you. They are given for a reason.

The Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho put this best:
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

All you need to do is 1) start something, and 2) stick with it long enough to see results.

WHAT GOES UP STAYS UP
Instead of shrinking over time, your vision will actually get bigger. The funny thing about big goals is that they often take less time to achieve than you expect, and once you achieve them, you’ve already mentally moved on to bigger and better goals. As you proceed with questioning authority, building your army, achieving your goals, and helping others, the vision keeps expanding.

This is why it is not much more difficult to grow a business from $1,000 a month in sales to $10,000. The challenge is in getting that first $1,000 together.

This is why artists scrape together a meager living for an average of seven years before being noticed. Most of them drop out along the way, but for those who stick with it, all of sudden they’re selling paintings for $8 a square inch. (And by the way, art that sells for $10,000 isn’t always better than $100 art hanging in the coffee shop.)

This is your personal tipping point—not when everyone else starts adopting a new trend and makes it mainstream, but when everything comes together for your own vision. But you have to get in the game first, and you can do that by being remarkable.

Of all the steps required to change the world in the way you see fit, the decision to be remarkable is the most important. With this decision in place, other variables can be changed. Don’t rush this—it’s a big commitment.

Once you make the commitment, you need a vision to change the world. What will it be? Whatever you choose, make sure it’s remarkable enough to suit every gift you have ever been given. Once you decide to defy the expect ations of being average, there will be a lot riding on your ultimate success.

Oh, and one final thing: don’t expect everyone to understand your decision, because most people won’t get it at all. Don’t worry about them. Just be remarkable.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with like-minded individuals. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

What is beauty?

2008-09-12T05:41:00.006-04:00

Why is something beautiful?

David Hume argued that beauty exists not in things but "in the mind that contemplates them." And everyone has at some point heard the old saw that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But Plato had a fanciful answer made to argue for a universal truth: In his world of forms, he claimed there existed a perfect Form of Beauty, which was imperfectly manifested in what we call beautiful. Despite the allure of Plato's metaphorical claim, students of aesthetics have struggled to substantiate it. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that there exist quantifiable, describable, universal aspects to the human capacity for appreciating beautiful forms, perhaps originating in our ancestors' experience on African savannas or in the need to find suitable mates. They have not solved the problem. However, recent work by several researchers at University College London — including the establishment of the first major grant-driven research program for the neurobiological investigation of aesthetics, or neuroaesthetics — has made the first steps toward a unified biocultural theory of art. An object's beauty may not be universal, but the neural basis for appreciating beauty probably is. The researchers' initial discoveries and the increasing formalization of the field promise to open the way for the first time to an understanding of beauty based on something other than speculation.

The first studies of aesthetics and the brain began with the sort of self-experimentation that science doesn't encourage anymore. In the 1920s neurologist Heinrich Klüver documented the hallucinations he experienced while under the influence of mescaline, using four categories: grids, zigzags, spirals, and curves. Noting their similarity to the hallucinations experienced in various conditions, such as migraine, sensory deprivation, and the hypnagogic state that occurs in the transition from wakefulness to sleep, he named them "form constants." These motifs do indeed seem to be constant — they recur throughout history and across cultures, and can be seen, for example, in prehistoric cave paintings, in the girih patterns of the tile mosaics decorating medieval mosques, and in the repeating tessellations of M.C. Escher's impossible figures or the rectangular forms of Mondrian's Compositions. Underlying those patterns, at least in part, are the intrinsic properties of the visual nervous system. Most neurons in the primary visual cortex occur in repeating structures called ocular dominance columns; these in turn are organized into hypercolumns, whose long-range interconnections are arranged geometrically. The spontaneous activity of these neural networks gives rise to the patterns Klüver studied.

Such investigations of the biology of aesthetics, however, had heretofore not been anyone's primary research focus; rather, the investigations have been subordinated to some other work, such as modelling the visual system. Semir Zeki of University College London is pioneering modern neuroaesthetics, and, thanks in part to a £1 million grant from the Wellcome Trust in the UK last autumn, is forging ahead with a research program that tries to establish the neurobiological underpinnings for creativity, beauty, and even love.

Zeki's work has been ongoing for several years. In 2004 he led a neuroimaging study designed to investigate the neural correlates of beauty. Ten participants were shown 300 paintings and asked to classify each of them as beautiful, ugly, or neutral. Paintings rated as beautiful by some of the participants were rated as ugly by others, and vice versa. The participants were then shown the paintings again while lying in a scanner. "Beautiful" paintings elicited increased activity in the orbito-frontal cortex, which is involved in emotion and reward. Interestingly, the "uglier" a painting, the greater the motor cortex activity, as if the brain was preparing to escape. More recently, Zeki has started to collaborate with scholars from the arts and humanities under the guidance of a multidisciplinary advisory board that includes author A.S. Byatt and Jonathan Miller, a physician and opera producer.

Richard Morris, head of neuroscience and mental health at the Wellcome Trust, says Zeki's work "gives insight into what it is to be human." And according to Wellcome senior scientist John Williams, could reveal some of the underpinnings of conditions, such as depression, that are marked by a reduced aesthetic sense.

Elsewhere at UCL, neuroscientist Hugo Spiers is investigating how the brain encodes direction, location, and the dimensions of space — the implications for architecture could be profound. Spiers recently collaborated with artist Antoni Malinowski and architect Bettina Vismann on a project that aimed to explore the relationship between art, architecture, and the brain. Funded by the Wellcome Trust, the project resulted in an installation called Neurotopographics, which tracked the relationship between movement though space and the activity of the brain. "When someone traverses a space, their brain produces an oscillating, rhythmic pattern," Spiers explains. "We tried to realize this abstract understanding into an everyday reality."

As for architecture, altering space can have a large impact on brain function. Changing the dimensions of an animal's enclosure causes grid cells to alter their scales accordingly, such that the periodicity of their firing, which is observed as the animal moves across a space, increases or decreases. Surprisingly, negotiating a corridor in opposite directions elicits completely different patterns of place-cell activity, so the same space is apparently encoded as two different places. A less surprising but still important finding is that the lack of easily recognizable landmarks causes disorientation. Spiers and his colleagues are now investigating how the brain encodes three-dimensional space. While recording neuronal activity as rats negotiated a spiral staircase, they found that place cells, but not grid cells, respond to changes in height. Thus, the brain seems to encode the vertical and horizontal dimensions in different ways.

Such knowledge of spatial cognition provides an understanding of the brain's response to the built environment and can inform architects as they consider the aesthetic elements and function of a space. "From an architectural point of view," says Vismann, "I find the correspondence between what occurs in the brain and the physical nature of space and spatial navigation fascinating." She expects that understanding the neural bases of spatial perception will inspire projects, inform the design process, and help formulate ways of organizing space.

Future work may elucidate the long-term effects of one's surroundings on brain function and the relationship between aesthetically pleasing spaces and their functionality. What one considers beautiful is, of course, influenced by culture, learning, and experience, and not everything we find beautiful will ultimately be traceable to the structure and function of our brain. The larger question "What is beauty?" still poses a major challenge, but answering it no longer seems so impossible.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Musing About Museums

2008-09-05T04:08:00.044-04:00

A Vision of a Glorious Masterpiece

By Arthur Leggett

If you really want to experience “the spirit” of any city, take a walking tour to explore the city’s people and scenic landscape, also spend as much time as you can in local museums. Recently, while walking around Harmonie Park in downtown Detroit, Michigan I was arrested by the store sign: “Everything is Art.”

This sign got me to thinking about two merely philosophical questions: “Is Everything Art?” and “Is Art Everything?” The assertion that everything can be defined as “art” cheapens the great genius of authentic art. Who would consider garbage, art? Are colors thrown here and there on cotton canvas, art? Art is not everything, and everything is not art.

Art is more than mere expert brush techniques and beautiful illustrations of visions from an artist's mind. Real art brings great meaning to our lives. Let’s not allow charlatans to obfuscate the objective meaning of art, so that they can cash in with faux art.

Although I am not an expert on art--I only took a few art history classes in college--I appreciate great art. Since my college days, my taste in aesthetics has been refined from being a frequent visitor to many of America’s obscure museums.

From getting out and visiting the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico to the Seattle Art Museum in Seattle, WA to the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, OH to the American Museum of Natural History, The Cloisters and The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City and the many fabulous museums in between Mission Street and Madison Avenue, I sharpened my eye for great works of art.

Greatness is rare. That's why I value and appreciate greatness so much. My personal, favorite great piece of art, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat, resides in gallery 201 at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Over the past ten years, I’ve been known to take pilgrimages to Chicago, no matter where I’ve lived in the United States, to marvel and marvel at Seurat’s great masterpiece. Seurat, a neo-impressionist, layered explosive, colored dots on top of one another while allowing the colors from the underneath the layers to show through each layer of dots. This concept is called pointillism. Put simply, Seurat intelligently turned colored dots into a work of art.

The greatness of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is in Seurat’s double vision. Seurat’s beautiful painting combines laser focus on painstaking details with a parallel vision of the big picture. What a rare feat! Often in life, we hear the bromide that “the devil is in the details.” I believe that nothing could be further from the truth. God resides in the details.

Surely, Seurat was brilliant, talented and great, but the greatest and most masterful painter created YOU. YOU were created lovingly and tenderly. To truly understand the magnificence of YOU, I dare YOU to look in a mirror. As YOU marvel at your beautiful reflection, consider the details involved in creating YOU. YOU are unique, an original.

If you are a lover of details, think about the connected nature of the parts and whole of your body. Your body begins at a chemical level, where there are more than 100 different chemical building blocks. Then, there are the tiny, invisible spheres of matter called atoms. Without getting into the scientific details of Anatomy and Physiology, your uniqueness is a result of an organization of atoms, molecules, macromolecules, 100 billion neurons and 55 trillion synapses.

More simply put, honor the most masterful creator by accepting that YOU are a stunning, detailed piece of art, a priceless masterpiece.

If you are ever in Detroit, I highly recommend that you visit the Motown Museum, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Science Center, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Historical Museum, the Detroit Children’s Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

After visiting Detroit museums, you might leave Detroit with a dose of life changing inspiration, and you might discover that Pablo Picasso was right. "Every child is born an artist." ~ Picasso

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for sharing my writings.

Beethoven Cures Paradigm Paralysis: Part 1

2008-08-29T05:33:00.008-04:00

By Shifting the Paradigm with a Score of Paradigm Pliancy
By Arthur Leggett

Three separate chance incidents this week at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, at the Detroit Opera House and at the office of the Arts League of Michigan (ALM) got me thinking about the power of paradigms and the dangers of paradigm paralysis. On my visits to catch up with two old friends at my old high school and at the Opera House, I was alarmed by the 1984ish security measures installed at both places since my last visits.

I politely mentioned to my friends that the eyes-in-the-skies, armed storm troopers and bulletproof welcoming centers send the absolute wrong message: paranoia and distrust. Both men seemed a little befuddled by my comments and responded in the most obtuse way. In both cases, I quieted down and listened to a litany of excuses for the extreme security measures.

I attempted to end the conversations by suggesting that, "You might be right, but perhaps there's another way to address security?" Both gentlemen huffily retorted by sharing all the terrible things that happened in the past year and that could possibly happen in the near future without tough security policies, as though they were the Athenians preparing for the inevitable Spartan invasion.

As I reflected on these incidents, I realized that we were all concerned with the same issue: security, but we had very different paradigms.

What is a paradigm (pronounced pair-a-dime)?
A paradigm is 'a shared set of assumptions' that influences the way we perceive this rich world and predict human behavior. Paradigms can cause two different people to look at the same data but use a different set of filters to process the information, consequently, their outlooks differ.

Beethoven Cures Paradigm Paralysis: Part 2

2008-08-29T05:31:00.009-04:00

By Shifting the Paradigm with a Score of Paradigm Pliancy
By Arthur Leggett

Willis Harmon, in An Incomplete Guide to the Future, wrote that a paradigm is "the basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing, and doing associated with a particular vision of reality."

As you can infer, it is axiomatic that paradigms abound all around us in the world. They are very powerful influencers. I believe that we can not live or survive without paradigms because they set the rules, boundaries, patterns and models for the complex 'game of life' and they minimize confusion and chaos. Put simply, paradigms help us navigate effectively and efficiently through life.

When the rules of the ‘game’ change, the whole world shifts. These seismic movements are called paradigm shifts. Paradigm shifts beg the question,” How do paradigm shifts affect those who go through them?"

Remember, paradigms act as psychological filters - "we see the world literally through our paradigms." Thomas Kuhn, in his book on The Structure of Scientific Revolutions states that "powerful paradigms can trap us into seeing the world in only one way." This concept is called paradigm paralysis.

What is the nature of paradigm paralysis?
Paradigm paralysis is an epidemic disease of certainty, a special kind of strategic blindness. It is very easy to catch, and it is often terminal. Too often it stems from a position of power or status. Kuhn suggests that "when in power, we tend to take our paradigm and make it the only paradigm."

The certainists of the world, like Hitler, demonstrate the most extreme and dangerous form of paradigm paralysis. Don’t be fooled, the condition of despotic certainty is found to some degree in all of us, whether we are a dictator or not. How many times have you told someone that something is impossible or asked someone who do you think you are?

As we continued to enter this hare fast creative age, the age of truth, embracing ideas, tolerance, faith and openness is our best vaccines against fatal paralysis. To some this will all sound like radical spoutings and crazy ideas. But remember, at one time in history the notion of a round planet was crazy and the idea of flying like a bird in the sky was considered radical.

As we search for great new ideas, we must keep our thinking flexible and fluid. I call this concept liquid thinking. Scientists call this concept paradigm pliancy.

What is paradigm pliancy?
Paradigm pliancy is the opposite of paradigm paralysis. I believe that paradigm pliancy is the best strategy during changing times. When you decide to actively challenge your assumptions, you start by asking one simple question: “What do I believe that is impossible to do in my field or life, but, if it could be done, would fundamentally change my business or my life?”

Jacob Bronowski, in the Ascent of Man speaks on paradigm pliancy in the chapter, “Knowledge or Certainty.” In his view on the principle of uncertainty, he states that ”…fixed once and for all the realization that all knowledge is limited. It is the irony of history that at the very time when this was being worked out by physicists there should rise, under Hitler in Germany and other tyrants elsewhere, a counter conception: a principle of monstrous certainty.”

Beethoven Cures Paradigm Paralysis: Part 3

2008-08-29T05:29:00.015-04:00

By Shifting the Paradigm with a Score of Paradigm Pliancy
By Arthur Leggett

Since I’ve embraced the paradigm principles, I see the world with a new light and new vision. I notice fewer crazy people in the world. I know that people just have different paradigms.

Let me share an anecdotal story on Beethoven's 9th Symphony to bring home all the paradigm concepts.

In the early 1970s, Sony, a Japanese company developed the compact disc (CD) format. The prevailing music model at the time was the LP, which is generally 12 inches in diameter. Logically, Sony created a 12 inch CD prototype. The executives at Sony later concluded that a 12 inch CD contained too much music, so they shelved the prototype.

In the late 1970s, Philips, a Netherlands company heard that Sony had worked on CD technology in the early 70s. Philips asked Sony if they were open to collaborating on the development of the CD. Of course, Sony agreed to work together to bring the CD to market. As the story goes, Sony, being Sony, asked Philips to present what they had been working on first. Philips obliged and pulled out a CD that was 9 inches in diameter.

Now, I was not at this meeting, but I imagine that the Sony engineers gulped, “Oh ^$%*#," when Philips pulled out a 9 inches CD. See, Sony had never thought to ask. “What should be the proper length of a CD?”

Later that week, an engineer from Philips was dining with the renowned Berlin Philharmonic conductor, Herbert von Karajan. After the engineer shared this amusing story with Karajan, he quipped that “If it can’t hold Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony," which is 74 minutes, "it’s not worth a damn.”

The moral of the story: Beethoven, over 150 years after his death, cures a case of paradigm paralysis and determines the initial 74-minute maximum length of a CD :)

And, to the 'bedazzled' “man who could have been” that I met at the ALM office this week, my end game is to inspire more paradigm shifters like Ms. Olivache, Mrs. Barrett, Professor Scribner, Professor Palmer, Ayn Rand and, most beloved, my mother, Sharon Elaine Bernard, Esq, who inculcated many of life's dictums in me as I sat at the foot of her bed. Thank you so very much for shifting my mindset. As a result, I've detected that there's an inner artist, scientist and humanitarian in all of us, and I will always adorn them on my Valhallic Wall of Thanks.

So there, I do this because I can.

If anyone wants to learn more about paradigms, I highly recommend that you start with Stephen R. Covey's, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Thank you for reading my thoughts.

The Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0

2008-08-15T03:31:00.018-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

The Internet, World Wide Web, as we know it is around 5,000 days old. Yet, the Internet has been adopted faster than any other information medium in history. The Internet took only 7 years to reach a 25% market penetration rate of the US population. In comparison, it took the telephone - 35 years; television - 26 years; radio - 22 years; and, the mobile phone - 13 years.

At the beginning of 2008, over 1.2 billion people were online globally. One-third of these online users are in Asia. With only 20% of the world's population online, online penetration rates for continents vary from a high of 70% of North America to 40% of Europe to 10% of Asia and a low of 4% of Africa. When you consider the power of population, Asia is the region to watch as Web 2.0 morphs into Web 3.0.

Over the past 5,000 days, the Web evolved from a source of information and sales to a dynamic digital media. Let's look briefly at how we got here and then let's visualize imaginatively where we are headed.

Web 1.0 was primarily a data repository, with a little e-commerce. Websites posted information on goods and services for sale, similarly to a Sears catalog. Consumers were limited to clicking on links and entering credit card numbers to receive goods. Except for maybe a bulletin board, very little interaction happened between seller-to-user or user-to-user.

Web 2.0 evolved from centrally controlled Web 1.0 to democratic user influenced websites. Web 2.0 allows users to not only buy goods, but it also frees consumers to create content and network. As a result, Web 2.0 is awash in content. Consumers can now produce content and place it on blogs, vlogs, podcasts and YouTube. As content becomes more liquid, which means it can be transferred to any media device, users gain more control over what appears on their screens.

Another strong part of Web 2.0 is social networks, which are built around instantly connecting with like-minded people. Instead of clustering in malls, on quads or at after-work watering holes, teenagers, college students and professions gather in artificial digital villages such as Myspace, Facebook and Linkedin.

As the Web evolves to 3.0, the 'semantic web,' it will move into the fourth dimension: Time. Web users will be liberated from the tyranny of time. Smart agents, also known as bots, that understand consumers' preferences, perhaps better than some consumers, will scour through massive Web data mines to meet users' needs and match preferred users' interests. Thus, consumers will not have to waste time searching for information. Computer-generated recommendations guided by Internet bots will anticpiate the right restaurants and vacations for users.

Web 3.0 will add personalization, with an understanding of particular user interests, so thorough that the web experience will revolve around the particular users' personal needs. A common example used to illustrate 'the intelligent Web' involves the universal use of intelligent appliances. In the not so far future, where all appliances are intelligent and networked, a refrigerator and microwave will be able to refuse to release and cook food in excess based on aggregated data on a specific user's dietary needs.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

If you are curious about any of the ideas discussed here, I highly recommend an article in Scientific American (2001) by Tim Berners-Lee and that you watch Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days.

When to Quit

2008-08-08T08:57:00.015-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

My imagination is on fire, today. I was sitting here thinking, and I thought of the perfect book that everyone should read before they enter any profession or relationship -- The Dip. The Dip is a book about quitting. I know you are probably thinking that quitting has nothing to do with work or love, but it has everything to do with it.

Life is about passion, obsession and finding a career and someone that you can't live without. When you are lucky enough to detect that career or person, you feel swept away. You feel like you can levitate. You feel a deep burning. You feel called.

To succeed in your career life or love life, you have to obsessively focus most of your attention on that one career or object of your devotion. You have to forsake chasing anything else.

I might not be conveying my thoughts with the right words, but if you get a moment, watch this clip. It's very short.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

The Attitude Lie

2008-08-01T07:23:00.017-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

Yesterday, I was walking through Barnes & Nobles in New York City, and I picked up a business book. It was one of the many books out there on the power of positive thinking. My first thought was to toss this garbage in the wastebasket, where it belonged.

Too often in life we, all, hear this well-rehearsed rhetoric about the importance of positive thinking. I remember playing lacrosse in college and when we, my small 1,200 students liberal arts school in Walla Walla, WA, would take on another Big U school, our fiery coach would often bellow, "You got to believe you can win this game!"

During his motivating speeches, I often found myself thinking that beyond just belief we needed talent to compete and win.

No matter how hard I believe that I can dunk a basketball like Michael Jordan, make a pressured 25 foot putt like Tiger Woods or play the piano as magically as Beethoveen, I just can't do it. Why? Because I don't have their gifts.

In today's highly competitive and global search for human talent, attitude, along with education are just the price of entry into any arena. You must also have outstanding talent to succeed and win. And, from Beethoveen to Michael Jordan outstanding talent is rare and hard to detect.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

If you want to learn more about the war for global talent, I highly recommend a book by Edward Lawler that I bought from Barnes & Nobles and finished last night, Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage.

The Perfect Lie

2008-08-01T06:38:00.013-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

Too often in life we think that we have to be perfect, and perfect all the time to win. We are programed to think that we need perfect teeth, perfect skin, perfect hair and a perfect body. Often this programing starts at a very young age when teachers encourage us to have perfect spelling, to have perfect penmanship, to write perfect papers and to get perfect scores. As we grow older, we are told that the perfect life consists of the perfect spouse, the perfect house and the perfect kids.

With all these perfect ideals strangling us, it's a wonderment that we get out of bed each morning, at the risk of exposing our innate imperfections.

The tyranny of perfection strangles too many from trying. Many quit trying in life because they are too afraid to make mistakes. They fail to break away from the stranglehold of perfection.

Liberation comes from realizing that you have to make mistakes to live and learn. We learn and grow from our mistakes. Always stretch yourself to be the best, not perfect. Listen to your own inner voice. Your personal best lies within you. Push yourself a little harder today to make tomorrow better than yesterday.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

Are You Ready for the Fourth Wave?

2008-07-25T06:49:00.014-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

Few things in life are as powerful as IDEAS. Good ideas spread like a pandemic virus. As we move into this fourth wave, we must let go of second wave thinking, like quotas, entitlements and excuses.

If you are unaware of the societal waves concept, here's a quick summary:

First Wave society is an agrarian society, hunters, gatherers and farmers.

Second Wave society is a factory-type education system and corporation, based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media and weapons of mass destruction.

Third Wave society is the post-industrial age, based on information, services and technology.

I believe that the Fourth Wave, we have already entered it, is the creative age, which will be driven by "flip the box inside out" thinkers, creative doers, super achievers and philanthropic entrepreneurs.

Sorry, this concept was not placed in a comic book, made into a rap video or released as a Will Smith's blockbuster :)

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.

If you want to learn more about the wave theory, start with Alvin Toffler's Third Wave.

If you want to start imagining where we are headed, listen to Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools today kill creativity?

Judge Each Person on Their Merits

2008-07-18T06:11:00.018-04:00

By Arthur Leggett

Racial quotas are as harmful to business as the good old boy networks. Both systems often result in articulate incompetents holding positions that are over their heads. Hiring anyone because of the color of their skin or the legacy of their last name is flat out wrong. Remember, the tragic results when the New York Times and FEMA used these token approaches to hire Jason Blair and Mike Brown.

I profoundly believe that every person, regardless of race or legacy, should have an equal opportunity to participate in the power, decision-making, leadership, and production process on Madison Avenue. Equal participation is a fundamental right of every American. Equal participation will ensure that companies are more representative of the fabric of America.

Equal participation makes good monetary sense for companies. Equal participation makes companies more accountable and transparent in their hiring processes and ROIs. Furthermore, equal participation ensures that minority interests are taken into consideration in corporate policy making.

How do we achieve equal participation in any industry? Equal participation is achieved by hiring the “best.” Every company should hire the best in regard to passion, talent, imagination and intelligence, along with excellence, principles and charcter. No race of people owns these categories. The current advertising hiring system is seriously flawed. If left unchecked it will continue to weed out the “best” minds. Consequently, the industry will not optimize effectively reaching the right customers, with the right approach and at the right moment.

HR departments and industry leaders need to rethink their approach to finding, recruiting and retaining talent. Often talent is found in the most unexpected and offbeat places. No one knows who will play a key role in their future; we must keep the playing field equal.

Last, I'm always open to connecting with kindred spirits and to imbibing disparate ideas. If you are close by, let's meet up for coffee or tea, swap stories, and share common interests. If you're around the world, we can be pen pals. Feel free to drop me an email. I respond to all emails within 36 hours.

Or maybe you found something "wrong" or "misspelled" on my blog? Or perhaps you have a suggestion or question? Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right.