1 John 4:9 (NIV)

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

.

 

.

 

 

.

 

.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Psalm 33:4-5

“For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.”

Apple’s greatness, and its shame — from Harvard Business Review by Andrew Winston

Excerpts:

Is there such a thing as too much profit? A disciple of Milton Friedman would say “never.” The idea that companies should only maximize shareholder value has had a stranglehold on the business world for decades. It’s time to rethink this assumption.

Our system of competition yields amazing results — incredible technological innovation provided in massive quantities very quickly. But these marvels often rely on very real human costs. The whole system has some deep flaws that we must fix.

Apple prides itself on changing the game. So just imagine a world where the company applied its staggering innovation and design skills to create the iSupplyChain or iWorkingConditions. Everyone, including this fan of Apple products, would be a lot iHappier.

 

From DSC:
Readers of this blog already know that I’m a big fan of Apple’s products and Apple’s ability to reinvent itself, think big, and change the world.

But when Steve Jobs quickly answered Barack Obama (when the President asked what would it take for Americans to produce the iPhones, etc.) that “those jobs aren’t coming back“, his answer caused me to reflect on several questions:

  • What is the ultimate purpose of a business?
  • Does it exist solely to serve Wall Street and investors or does it exist to serve Main Street?
  • Can there be a bit of both?
  • How do local economies thrive when globalization continues to roll out?

 

Tagged with:  

10 findings that will shape students today for the workforce tomorrow — from GettingSmart.com by Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti

Excerpt:

“Tomorrow’s Evolving Workplace” is from the upcoming book Society 3.0: How Technology Is Reshaping Education, Work, and Society, by Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti (Lang, January 2012). 

In the worst economy since the Great Depression, Californians are struggling to earn a living, get an education, and raise a family.  How will we adapt to learn, work, and connect in the future? A new book with findings from Apollo Research Institute describes how businesses and workers will compete for jobs and opportunities in a global, technology-driven marketplace.

Below are just some of the findings…

 

LinkedIn inDay Speaker Series with Thomas Friedman - October 20, 2011.

.

That Used To Be Us

 

From DSC:
I originally saw this at Gerd Leonhard’s MediaFuturist.com where he entitles a blog posting:

 

Some of my notes on this video — Friedman’s main talk finishes around 35:45 w/ a Q&A beginning at 36:00
(From DSC: I’ve added my own thoughts in red)

  • Non-routine work — is the kind of work that you want to be able to do (there’s also the non-routine, local work — butcher, grocier — but that wasn’t the focus here)
  • Routine work — has been crushed via algorithms, outsourcing, (robotics), etc.

The bar has risen in non-routine work as we’ve moved from connected to hyper-connected world.

We are in the middle of an IT revolution/transformation — cloud, mobile, social, other — where Information Technology changes and globalization are creating global supply changes.  Tom’s key point is that the United States needs to be involved in these changes or we’ll get left in the dust.

In their Help Wanted chapter, the following skills are wanted:

  • Critical reasonsing
  • Problem solving
  • Non-routine work oriented
  • But most of all, you must be able to invent and reinvent your job WHILE you are doing the job
  • Creative
  • Innovative
  • (Pulse-checker and responder; which is why universities and colleges must begin offering classes on futurism/developing scenarios)
  • Unique value creation
  • Be able to bring your EXTRA

Average is over.  Now that we are hyper-connected, “average” is over.  If average is over — you must bring your “extra”.

From DSC:
If “average” is over, are we developing and raising up a generation of students who are learning how to bring their “extra”?  Does standardized testing help us or hurt us in this regard?

3 key attitudes you need if you want to “lean into this world”:

  1. Think like a new immigrant
    No legacy place waiting for me; I better figure out what world I’m living in, and then I better work hard to uncover and pursue the opportunities that current world presents; nothing is owed to me
  2. Think like an artisan
    Unique, hand-made; one-off’s, work in ways that you would be proud to carve your initials into your work
  3. Think like the waitress at Perkins Pancake House in MN
    Where she gave Thomas’ friend extra fruit and she mentioned that to them both; she brought her extra in areas where she had the control to do so

United States may be in relative decline — as we experience the “rise of the rest”; but what the US has to worry about it absolute decline

American exceptionalism — hogwash; no one owes us anything; have to earn our way; formula for success was a great private public partnership going back to Alexander Hamilton and built upon by Lincoln, Eisenhower, other (person asking question used the word ecosystem).  5 main pillars of this formulate for success/ecosystem:

  1. Education
  2. Infrastructure
  3. Open immigration policy
  4. Best rules for capital formation and risk taking
  5. Solid gov’t funded research

We’ve moved away from these 5 puillars of success and we’ve treated our nation like it’s a football that can be dropped w/ no resulting issues; the reality is we’re more like an egg; in another analogy, we can cut and hit arteries quickly…doing actual damage.

We misread environment — at end of cold war we put our feet up, thinking victory was won; the U.S. chased Al Queda instead of China, Brazil, other

Q&A

  • Q: Influence — how changed and how stay the same
    A: To have influence, must get substance  right — content is key; diamond-hard realities are key; not the spins; still need to do grunt, basic work; can never be a Thor throwing down lightning bolts from on high
  • Q: Labor arbitrage
    A: Rebalancing happening, but may take time; what was outsourced may not stay where originally went to
  • Q & A about Occupy Wall Street — was/is about injustice; taking $ and treating it like they were in a casino; people doing that got away with it; what will leadership look like in a hyperconnected world?

Final thoughts:

  • Idea of OODA loop from the world of Air Force pilots — observe, ___ decide, act  — speed of OODA loops are key; our political leaders are talking about A when X,Y, and Z are really happening (and the two circles rarely intersect)
  • How long can we be a great country when our political systems cannot deliver optimal results?
  • Our political system needs shock therapy — Friedman argues that we need a 3rd party — see AmericansElect.org

From DSC:
Each of us must be able to continually do pulse checks on a variety of forces that may be affecting our domains/places of work. We must be able to develop future scenarios and our responses to those scenarios. The ability to do that will become even more important as we move forward at ever-increasing speeds. 

We can’t be looking 5-10 feet ahead when we’re driving at 180 miles per hour in this new, hyper-connected world!

The pace has changed significantly and quickly

 

 

A reflection on “Making Holes in Our Heart” from The Technium:

Excerpt — that is also quoted in that piece:

There is a hole in my heart dug deep by advertising and envy and a desire to see a thing that is new and different and beautiful. A place within me that is empty, and that I want to fill it up. The hole makes me think electronics can help. And of course, they can.

They make the world easier and more enjoyable. They boost productivity and provide entertainment and information and sometimes even status. At least for a while. At least until they are obsolete. At least until they are garbage.

Electronics are our talismans that ward off the spiritual vacuum of modernity; gilt in Gorilla Glass and cadmium. And in them we find entertainment in lieu of happiness, and exchanges in lieu of actual connections.

From DSC:
Readers of this blog know that I lean towards a pro-technology stance!  🙂   However, I also realize there are limits to what technology brings to the table.  Though the author goes onto comment about his being ok w/ holes in our heart, I think he misses the greatest void in the human heart that only the LORD can fill — not technology and/or other things that humankind may create.  I’m not saying that I’ve always known what that feels like to have the LORD fill that hole in my heart, but I continue my journey in my relationship with Him, pressing on…sometimes feeling His presence…hearing Him speak to me at different times and in different ways…all the while hoping that I will know that feeling intimately and consistently.  But ultimately, all of this technology — when compared to knowing Christ – IS garbage.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Philippians 3:8 (NIV):

8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ

 

 

.

The Evolving Digital Ecosystem - from Moxie's Trends for 2012

  • The Always On Web
  • Web of Things
  • Big Data
  • Next Gen Search
  • Mobile Sharing
  • Mobile Social Activism
  • Impulse Commerce
  • Brands As Partners
  • The New Living Room  <– From DSC: This is one of those key areas that I’m trying to keep a pulse check on for re: our learning ecosystems of the future 
  • Personal Data Security

 

Also see:

 

Recording everything: Digital storage as an enabler of authoritarian governments — by John Villasenor, a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies and in the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. He is also professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Within the next few years an important threshold will be crossed: For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders – every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner. Governments with a history of using all of the tools at their disposal to track and monitor their citizens will undoubtedly make full use of this capability once it becomes available.

The Arab Spring of 2011, which saw regimes toppled by protesters organized via Twitter and Facebook, was heralded in much of the world as signifying a new era in which information technology alters the balance of power in favor of the repressed. However, within the world’s many remaining authoritarian regimes it was undoubtedly viewed very differently. For those governments, the Arab Spring likely underscored the perils of failing to exercise sufficient control of digital communications and highlighted the need to redouble their efforts to increase the monitoring of their citizenry.

Declining storage costs will soon make it practical for authoritarian governments to create permanent digital archives of the data gathered from pervasive surveillance systems. In countries where there is no meaningful public debate on privacy, there is no reason to expect governments not to fully exploit the ability to build databases containing every phone conversation, location data for almost every person and vehicle, and video from every public space in an entire country.

This will greatly expand the ability of repressive regimes to perform surveillance of opponents and to anticipate and react to unrest. In addition, the awareness among the populace of pervasive surveillance will reduce the willingness of people to engage in dissent.

Matthew 2:4-6

Matthew 2:4-6 — from Bible Gateway’s Verse of the Day

“When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’””
Tagged with:  

John 1:1-2, 14

 “[The Word Became Flesh] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Tagged with:  
© 2024 | Daniel Christian