Reinke Faces Life

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk
/health/article1647517.ece

From The Times
April 13, 2007
‘Fat’ gene found by scientists

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A gene that contributes to obesity has been identified for the first time, promising to explain why some people easily put on weight while others with similar lifestyles stay slim.

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Ahh to misquote Shakespeare, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in ourselves, but in the genes”. Another double malted please!

Today is the day the Titanic sunk in 1912.

There has to be a leadership lesson in that.

Never proclaim anything as “unsinkable”?

Did anyone hear the commercial this morning razzing Rosie for her 911 rant?

http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/
WhyArentManagersPaidMore.html

http://tinyurl.com/2qhpa4

Agile Management
BlogEntry
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Why Aren’t Managers Paid More?
David J. Anderson

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I feel that if we are to deliver on Davenport’s vision that good management will come from offering a premium for knowledge workers to make the leap to a new skill set then we must first start to value management skills more highly. In order to value management skills more highly, I believe that we must embrace Barry Boehm’s observation from 25 years ago – poor management can increase software costs more than any other factor. So far, we’re an industry in denial of this basic truth. Until we face our own brutal reality – that good management works and bad management hurts – then there is little hope for fixing the situation.

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Arghhh! (in the most professional blogger 2 blogger fashion)

I would assert that the paradigm is wrong.

[The comic book version for those who haven’t been Kinsey-like or -lite “management” consultants. (And, I don’t mean that disparagingly. Sometimes, I think. Think that the only way to communicate with “senior management” that really should be “senior leadership” is by comic books, or their consulting equivalent content-free power point slides.) Any way the comic book version is that if you’re in LA with a map of NYC, your paradigm is wrong. Paradigm is the five dollar word for your thinking about something. Anything. Is the glass half-full or half-empty? Look at the optical illusions. Once someone shows you how what you think could be something else, your thinking and perceptions change dramatically. So do you have the wrong map or the wrong city. Either way your wetware is the problem. Sorry, no cartoons.]

The whole “management” paradigm is wrong.

You can manage “disk space”, register receipts, fuel tanks, or any abstract or concrete thing. The minute you put people in the equation, the concept of “management” should go out the window. People need leadership first, last, and always.

Why is that consultants always replace “you should do x” with “we propose we do x”. They always seek to engage the Client or Customer with a shared struggle. It’s not a “me and you. It’s “us against the world”.

I have had “mangers” and I have had “leaders”. The difference was that if I was lead then I was self-motivated to do something. When I was managed, good-luck getting me to do great work. Compare “Yes, boss, I did my status report” with “Hey, Joe, take a look at this. I think we can reduce disk drive failures to near zero by lowering the temperature in the data center 5 degrees.”

No, I’d assert that “manager of knowledge workers” should be a position slated for nuking. Leaders command value commensurate with what their team creates. Always have. Always will.

How’s that saying go? “Without vision, the people perish.”

All too often, we have no leadership.

A correspondent asked me if something “helped”

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>Helps?

Hmm, that metaphysical. I’ll have ponder, pout, portend, practice, and prattle on that one for a while.

Maybe I can CRUISE (C=Contemplate, R=Reeducate, U=Unincorporate, I=Inculcate, S=Subjugate, and E=Eddycate) using it.

I once had a boss who would go nuts with jargon, acronyms, and mnemonics. Using one was good for a 30 minute diatribe about how “formulaic thinking precluded original discoveries”.

Every time I read such I think of him.

I think, like most things, there’s truth and consequences in what he said.

Like that movie the “golden child”, “stay on the path” is countermanded by “knowing when to break the rules”.

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Comments?

http://www.yourblogtobook.com/

Ann McIndoo
Author of So, You Want to Write!
Creator of the Writer’s Power Tools™, Manuscript Grid™ and Author’s Boot Camp.

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I already did it once as a “trial run”.

My Lulu Store
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=638039

I’ll give you some “free advice”.

It’s easy to turn out a “vanity book”. Making money is a whole different story. Blogging ain’t writing! And, while it is easy to turn your blog into a printed book. (Hey, I did it. You can too. Cheaply and easily.) But it doesn’t “translate” well.

I am astonished that three people bought my “book”. Coulda knocked me over with a feather. If they’d have asked me, I’d have given them one for free. Inscribed it as well. Just goes to show, as ebay demonstrates for Jay Leno, that some people will buy anything.

I did it as a joke on myself. My Mom liked it. But she so old and weak, that she can’t even open it. But, she was tickled with it. (My Number #1 fan).

Yell, or comment, if you have questions. I’ll do my best to give you what I saw doing it.

FROM IMPACT LAB

http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11183

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The Hill of Crosses in Šiauliai, Lithuania, is at the same time mysterious, sacred, and crazy all wrapped up into one. Here are some amazing photos of this unusual tourist spot.

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It’s erie. And, I truly don’t understand.

With the turkey and blogging pictures, I think I’ve identified a mene. I call it “Successories” meme.

You know that “motivational” poster called Successories that attempts to be a cheerleader. http://www.successories.com/

There’s even an opposite, or “negative” energy, “despair” site http://www.despair.com/ which is sadly true and very funny. They even allow you to create your own. That’s where I made my turkey poster.

Recently, I found the one on “blogging”.

Hence, the meme is a phrase with an appropriate picture.

http://daveolson.ca/

today is do something for someone else day!

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Contagious generosity is one sure way of enlarging your spirit. So I want to try a group experiment. I mentioned before that Kiva.org is one of my favourite organizations for helping people.

So here’s what I’m thinking.

I thought we could talk about how we grow generosity. I don’t mean the dollar amounts.. I just mean where and how.

* What charities do you support?
* Do you give regularly or just when there is a special plea?
* How do you come up with the money?
* What are your giving goals?

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Aside from my local church, bishop’s relief fund, my college alumin fund, and united way (who I really don’t like due to high overhead but I get my arm twisted at work), I support Homefront http://www.homefrontnj.org/ with a monthly check for a long long time.

Born out of a bunch of rich white women bringing water (in America! in New Jersey! near Princeton!) to poor women trapped by the gooferment welfare system, these women were horrified at what they saw. For anyone unlearned in the ways of gooferment, the poor women were enslaved by a system that would “give” them a handout that enabled them to “live” such as it was, but gave them no hope ever of escaping. The Princeton gals were not stupid. It didn’t take very many water runs (i.e., the welfare motel had been condemned for a toxic water supply, but the state welfare bureaucrats had no where else to put these 100 or so wretched souls. So, the Princeton women would bring drinking water to the motels from their homes.) before they were enraged.

I got involved when I introduced the chief firebrand to a package of dynamite at merrill lynch. Like throwing gasoline on a match, these two hellions started raising money and “arms” (volunteers) at Merrill and among Merrill’s local wealthy.

Homefront has become a gateway out of the cycle of poverty. They have several levels of involvement with the poor and help those people pull themselves out of the clutches of the NJ welfare bureacracy. It my pleasure to help them help people. (A few years ago, I pandered dentists to donate dental care to these indigents very successfully. It’s hard to get a job when an abusive spouse has knocked out all your teeth. And the gooferment thinks that’s cosmetic?)

The fact that the NJ Welfare Establishment is irritated, annoyed, and down-right hostile is merely a cherry on my cake. I used it as an example of what happens when the gooferment is allowed to take over the “charity industry”. People get hurt. Perhaps even die of the neglect. Charity is personal. And, these Princeton women are a force to be reckoned with.

I’m not good at writing checks or paying bills. So, I put everything on auto pilot as much as possible. My source is my paycheck. Unlike the Federal Reserve Bank (which is NOT “federal”, a “reserve” of anything, nor a “bank”), I can’t print money. I have to just earn it the old fashioned way. My giving goals are that when I die at Final Judgment, the fellow at the check in desk says “well I see all the bad things you’ve done. but they pale in comparison to the good. anyway, the boss says you get a pass to paradise”.

Seriously, I have no goals other than to help people. Very unstructured! Very hippie like. See a need and fill it. I have a “charity checkbook”, where — surprisingly — I make an automatic deposit from my real checkbook. When I hear of a sad tale, where someone has met misfortune, thru no fault of their own, I write a check. No fan fare. No tax deduction. No records. The checks don’t even have my name on them. No need for people to thank me; so there’s no way for them to find me to thank me. (Guess they could go to the bank!) — And no pain because the money was already “spent” when it left my real checking account. I use the checking account system so that I actually do give away that amount of money and it’s less painful for me to actually spend it. I used to use money orders. I’d have a few already in my desk at work in various odd amounts from 5$ to 100$, an envelope, and a stamp — instant charity.

Yeah, I know I’m weird.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?
xml=/news/2007/04/05/ntv05.xml

It’s bye bye Benny, hello Hollyoaks for the BBC
By Richard Alleyne and John Hiscock in Los Angeles
Last Updated: 8:36am BST 05/04/2007

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His saucy slapstick may have lost favour in Britain more than two decades ago but Benny Hill remains that rare thing: a long running hit in America.

BBC to axe Benny Hill in America
Benny Hill doesn’t reflect Britain, says the BBC

However, not for much longer, if the BBC has its way. The corporation’s US commercial arm, which currently airs the show twice a day to millions of Americans, has decided to axe the comedy because it no longer reflects Britain.

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Too bad. I think Benny Hill is a stich! Do I think that Brits look or think that way. No more than I am represented by Beverly Hills 90210!

Change is never good.

Sigh, once one finds something, never let it go.

And, the story behind Benny Hill was even more interesting.