Category Archives: Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

A litiguous Society

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In North America (particularly in the US) there is a belief that if someone wrongs you they should be sued for damages.  For example, three big tabaco companies have  just launched their appeal of a $15 billion class action they lost in June 2015.

For gain or for Redress

The right to sue is basically an opportunity to use legal proceedings to address a wrong for which there appears no other course.  The intent of this process was never to create material gain.

Rather, the idea is to ensure our society has a fair and equitable way to right a wrong.  This entails first determining if a “wrong” has occurred.

If the courts determine this to be the case the corrective action is to first ensure fair and equitable compensation for losses incurred.   Secondly, and this does not always apply, a punishment or penalty can be assessed.  This remedy is intended for grevious and harmful abuses.

The System Subverted

Unfortunately this logical and reasonal approach to correcting both harmful and wrongful behaviors has been subverted by greed.  This is evidenced by two practices associated with this type of litigation.

  1. Lawyers leverage the opportunity for huge fees by engaging in class action law suits (often on a contingency basis with higher risk and reward) not to help the litigant but to earn money for themselves, often at their clients expense.
  2. The public at large will often leverage any perceived opportunity for financial gain when the chance arises, not because they feel wronged but rather for the financial windfall.

I believe the call of riches has morphed a process for fairness into one of potential enrichment.  Unfortunately, the goal now is often to “win the lotteryr” as opposed to correcting a misdeed.

The $15 billion dollar settlement won by smokers who died of cancer or suffered other ill effects of cigarettes is prime example of this.

The smokers whom freely bought and used the cigarettes, could not avoid knowing the health risks (it’s stated clearly on the package for more than 25 years) . Yet somehow the tabbaco companies are responsible for their misfortunes.

Seriously!

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Beware the Smart Meter

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Edmonton Power Corp (Epcor) is switching all the meters for customers serviced in Edmonton with smart meters.  One of the new meters  features is remote power disconnection.

A convenient feature

The ability to “open”or “close”the circut to your house remotely from a central office is probably nice for Epcor.  Maybe not so much for the delinquents that can now be cut off without a site visit.

Hopefully there is some notice involved.

As well these meters let Epcor monitor your power consumption hourly and so are building a very useful data store. This monitoring apparently enables Epcor to identify power outages sooner.

Of course sharing this data with the actual user so they can make intelligent decisions about their usage is not on tap.

Heavens, personal usage data might result in us changing how much power we use, perhaps even use less.  Good for the environment but not so much for Epcors bottom line.

When technology goes wrong!

You might be wondering what triggered this post about smart meters.  If you had the thought there was a personal story in here somewhere you would be correct.

We came home from a vacation late Monday and I had booked an extra day off (Tuesday)  to unwind ( We had attended our only son’s wedding after all -nuff said about needing an unwind day)

On Tuesday at a little after 3:00 pm our power went out. For some reason, instead of just waiting for it to come back I decided to check Epcors web site, to my surprise there were no outages reported.

So I called Epcor, making a long story short, they sent out a crew who advised our smart meter had a fault (apparently there have been a few of them).

I guess the meter decided on it’s own, even though Epcor had not requested it, we were a bad risk and shut down our power – that is it went into “open” mode while still reporting to Epcor that it was “closed”.

So much for the smart meter informing Epcor, in fact this was just the opposite.  I sure hope we did not get one meter replaced with another faulty one.

Oh the pain

So a power outage yesterday fixed by a temporary bypass followed by a power outage today for a permanent fix.  My multi router, server, switch and smart technology infrastructure all require power and did not appreciate the interruptions,  to say the least.

To Epcor I say upgrading to the latest technology is great but power is critical in a cold dark place like Edmonton, so please, make sure the equipment works before installing it.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Technology, Weddings and Traveling with Toddlers and Babys

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With great apologies to my loyal audience, my blog has been inaccessible via the internet for week and a bit.  Relative to technology, I have learned over the years, never change anything.

My home computing infrastructure is extremely complex and fully undocumented.  This is something I probably would not recommend for organizations with some desire for stability, but hey, for me on my own, I will figure it out.

And so it begins

Last week on remembrance day I improved the speed and capability of a networked multi-media receiver and in doing so disabled my entire local area network.  Change is good – hmmm!

Trouble shooting through the long weekend including hardware purchases (improvements all) I actually improved things even further and fixed it all.

NOT!

Off to the Wedding

Thinking all was repaired I flew off (literally) to my favorite son’s wedding (also our only son) and booked into a suite with my daughter, son-in law, wife and two grandchildren.

While being in a hotel suite with a baby and a toddler can create interesting moments for shy retiring grand parents, like my wife and I, a lot of fun interactions with the children ensued.

We even shared child care duties with our son (he’s preparing for post marriage child care duties) while the parents went out and partied.

While away, I discovered although I could access my web server without difficulty from my own LAN, not so when on another network.  So musings was offline for a week.

Of course being away I could not trouble shoot the problem.  I fixed it this morning when again physically present and able to coax the infrastructure with sweet talk (and contrary to popular believe I do actually know what I am doing).

Coming back

Our daughter booked the same return flight as us so we could enjoy more time with the grandchildren.  Oh joy.

Actually, it was a joy and the real pleasure came with the fact the baby sitting behind us (belonging to someone else) made more noise the whole flight than both our angelic grand children put together.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Law of Diminishing Returns

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A colleague shared his thoughts with me  today on the law of diminishing returns.  That is the point at which profits or benefit gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested.

In this model,  profit or benefit rises at an exponential rate to the inflexion  point and then the yield curve flatens.  Thus the effort and time to achieve the same benefit experienced in the exponential growth phase is much more.

Applying the Law to Happiness

In a given context my own experience completely supports the law of diminishing returns (it’s called a law rather than a theory because it has been proven mathematically)

Mathematical proof, though,does not apply to emotional measures such as happiness and this is where my collegue and I differed.  He attempted to apply the model to diminishing happiness with financial returns.

That is, financial gain or benefit drives a larger increase in your personal happiness before the inflexion point is reached.  After that a much greater ruturn is needed to raise your happiness.

Happiness is a chice, not a creation

While I understand the law of diminishing returns as applied to operational or manufacturing processes, I am not convinced it can apply to levels of emotional well being.

For example, I have definitely observed personally that 100 auto workers output is not 10 times that of 10 workers.  It is not a linear relationship and that fact can be mathematicaly proven.

Happiness however is not manufactured or created.  You choose wether you are happy or not together with the associated level of magnitude.

While your  knowledge, material wealth and personal stature  may well influence the level of happiness you choose to feel, it is still ultimately entirely your choice.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Fear and Hope

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The reaction to the results of the recent U.S. fascinate me.  I include mu own emotions in this analysis.  As Spock, the unemotional Vulcan from the fictional TV series Star Trek, would say -Fascinating.

Start withFear

In the run up to the election I was fearful that Trump would win.  Of course I was not alone in this with many news stories supported this.  And of course talk about flight to Canada as a safe haven.

Followed by Hope

The day after the election I found myself strongly feeling hopeful.  President elect Trumps post victory actions seemed positive.  My self talk focused on the thought “It’s going to be alright”

In fact it might even be better than that other candidate, what was her name again (Hilary something)?  These trade agreement changes and tax cuts could be a good idea.

These blatent optimism is not mine alone with many of my collegues espousing this approach.  This is all about living in the moment.

The electoral contest was up in the aircreating an unknown void filled by worry and fear.  (Actually a very common circumstances)

Remove the unknown and voila, hope and optimism abound.  The underlying facts become less important in the face of certainty.  Worry no more, the die is cast.

One Caution

“Don’t worry it’ll be fine” is a great sentiment.  Optimism and hope certainly are more likely to lead to good outcomes that fear and worry.

That being said, there is a risk of too much optimism allowing the bad to get worse.  Remember, optimistic or not, be on guard.

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Perspective

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An individuals perspective is simply your point of view, that is, your attitude toward or way of regarding something or some situation.

Pespective can be objective or subjective depending on the underlying facts, or even a combination of objective and subjective inputs, in the case of a complex assessment.

Right or Wrong?

Perspective can drive conclusions and in extreme cases this can result in diametrically opposite analysis with both parties thoroughly convinced they are correct.

For example, during the US civil war that began in 1861, a persons perspective on slavery was largely driven by geography (North or South).

Southerners viewed slavery as an economic necessity that was morally and ethically acceptable.  The residents of the Northern states did not hold this view and a serious and violent conflict resulted.

In this case, the perspective was based on the situation.  The type of farming industry in the south  (cotton plantations and such) thrived due to the climate.  These type of crops were less viable in the climates of the Northern states so did not grow there.

Also the sales of these crops were low margin and relied heavily on manual labour.  Without the relatively inexpensive labour achieved through the practice of slavery the industries profitability would be severly impacted.

This issue was not prevelant in the Northern states (industry leaning more toward manufacturing), and so their perspective of the moral question around one human enslaving another was totally different.

Conflict Resolution

Understanding the complexities of perspective, giving consideration to  their role in creating a conflict and using this knowlege to achieve a peaceful resolution for all parties can be an effective tool in your facilitation tool kit.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Election Day Quote

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Today is the US presidential election.  It comes around every four years.  This years contest has drawn a lot of attention from around the world because of one candidate – Donald Trump.

Election Day Quote

I came across the following quote this morning that puts a bit of perspective on the days proceedings.

” What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for.  Who leads us is less important than what leads us —  what convictions, what courage, what faith —– win or lose.”  – Adlai Stevenson, US Statesman and former presidential candidate – 1952

Much of the discussion in this campaign has been around the candidates themselves.  The debates have focused on personal attacks against each other as has most of the advertising.

Sadly, as Stevenson notes, this is the least important factor.  Considering what we are for rather than against,  is a more powerful perspective with a higher probability of a successful result.

It’s a boy or it’s Girl

Unfortunately this most acrimonious of contests has been all about the negative.  That is the complete focus has been on attacking the other candidate.

For Donald Trump, of course, this is a standard tactic, he is a bully by nature afterall.  For Hilary, she decided not to take the high road and fight back.

The losers in all of this will be the American people, for many they have chosen to provide their support based on what they are against.  Ultimately it is highly likely the voters will regret this, whoever wins.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The Leadership has Spoken

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I had a interesting discussion about ethics at lunch today.  I was not alone, so this post is not about me talking to myself but actually dialoguing with others.

Follow the Leader

Often in our societies its the government that provides (dictates?) our morality and thus the associated ethical behaviour.   The crusades goal of recapturing Jerusalem was obviously moral and ethical (obvious to the leaders and their pions).

Conclusion, murdering others is a moral and ethical behaviour if the cause is just.  Justice as defined subjectively by the leader and accepted by their followers (pawns?)

Really!!!!

My wife does not agree with this assessment.  Perhaps the winners of a conflict will position themselves as moral practioners of ethical behaviour but this is in fact just self justification. War is wrong!

Checking in with the Greeks

Plato postulated, at it’s core,  human nature was based on three main objectives:

  • seeking knowledge
  • seeking power (victory/reputation)
  • seeking wealth (money, material gain)

By there very nature the practice of these behaviours clouds humans abilities to define morals in a consistent and sustainable way.

We each have a different mix  of beliefs underpinned by our very natures.  That is our individual  drive for knowledge, power, and material gain.

There are of course infinitesimal ways these attributes can be weighted.

The Result

Murder is morally wrong, my ex colleague opined at lunch today.  At least we can agree on that.  My counter is “except in self defense or pursuit of a just cause”

And so the slippery slope of morality and ethical behaviour begins.  Is it within the realm of human beings to solve this difficult question definatively.

I like Plato’s answer,  in essence he said, we can seek to define and achieve morality but we will never attain that goal.  The three fundemental aspects of human behaviour make it impossible.

Disclaimer

The aforementioned  philosophical discussion about plato and comments from my lunch companions and wife are my interpretations and may not accurately reflect their feedback.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Torturing the Data

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A colleague of mine made an interesting observation today relative to a discussion about using data to draw conclusions.   “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything”

There must be a reality

This is an interesting twist of words.  There certainly is some truth to the implication that a given set of data can support a variety of truths.

The reality, however, is that data does not speak, only the human interpreters do that. The point is really about salesmanship.  Interpretation of data has a subjective component.

My own personal experience with this comes from years of developing business cases.

I used to brag (cynical me) that if I was advised the organizational threshold for rate of return (aka the hurdle rate) I could document a business case that would result in approval to move ahead, every time.

The sad part of this boast is that I have been crafting business cases since 1980 ( for various organizations) and in over 35 years I have never had one business case proposal rejected. (I did not count them but we are talking about lots including one for several hundred million)

Back to the Point

Based on my own experience of torturing data, truth is, getting the data to say anything was not about the data but all about my ability to interpret, organize even shape the story the data told.

The data, well it was silent putty in my hands.

I do strongly recommend questioning and validating proposals, however my advice would be to focus on the story as oppossed to the data itself.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Doing documentation

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I have posted before how all work generally falls into one of four categories.

  1. Urgent, Important
  2. Urgent, not Important
  3. Not Important, Not Urgent
  4. Important, not urgent

Today’s post I will use these categories to explain why it’s harder to start some work than others.

Lets develop and document policies and processes

Seems like a simple task but usually this number one on the procrastination list.  Boring!  Hard to argue, developing processes and practices probably is not the most scintillating task.

Worse they need to be documented, reviewed, aprroved and then communicated and implemented.  Who needs documented guidelines, we can figure it out – every time.

Of course the way we do it might be different every time and the outcomes – same story.  So inconsistent results, ultimately not sustainable.

Sounds Important, so why is it not a high priority?

Intuitively it is natural to prioritize tasks in categories 1 & 2, they are urgent afterall.  Puzzling though how category 2 gets a priority although it is not important.  Urgency though is in your face so reasoned prioritization does not always apply.

Category 3 are easy to do.  No pressure and they are not important so no one really cares.  Keeps you busy though and low stress so surprisingly they often get a higher priority than caregory 1.  (Notwithstanding the fact they are generally a waste of time).

I’ll get to it when I have a chance

And there you have it, we rarely get around to the important not urgent tasks.  They are not urgent so we can survive without them.  No one is bugging us to get it done and although the benefit of completing important tasks is usually high it’s not visible.

You have to think about the benefits, they are usually not obvious.  Lack of documentation leads to rework, inefficiencies and often poor quality and high cost yet usually is the last item to get addresses , if at all.