Rob Mackay :: Notes from the edge

You, me and everyone else.

Take my thoughts on spirituality, for instance. I side with Dawkins am a self-proclaimed pan-theist yet I hold a subscription to Geez Magazine. (I read it for the articles In other words, I don’t believe in the Christian God but I do believe in something bigger than you me and everyone else. Geez is all about the Christian God but it’s presented in a digestible, albeit often challenging, way.

For a taste of the magazine, check out this punchy article on church lawn signs. This is why I lobby my partner to renew the subscription every birthday…

When M and I choose a movie together, I almost always tell her, “…and no Hugh Grant!” It’s a joke but she’s not into watching edgy documentaries. So when she is out at bookclub or yoga, I’ll quickly hit Yo Video - the best little video store in Victoria - and pick up the latest. It’s always a gamble and my choice isn’t predicated on any theme. I just grab and go.
Last night I chose Manda Bala, an unforgettable movie about the crime/kidnappings in Brazil (Sao Paulo). I’ve read enough on SP to know what the city is like (20 million, huge gaps in wealth, crime ridden) but to see it on screen and so well filmed was inspiring and at the same time soul crushing.

Two scenes in particular had me wincing - you’ll have to rent it yourself.

FYI: Sao Paulo has the largest fleet of helicopters in the world, keeping the rich off the streets and safe from crime.

Just finished listening to a podcast on James Lovelock who wrote the book The Revenge of Gaia. The interview starts with him saying, “I can’t see how more than 20% of us will survive to the end of this century…” Dire prediction.

He argues that the current environmental movement is quaint but too little, too late. We should be focused on how to manage the environmental changes that are almost certain to occur.  (Polar ice cap melting for one and the absorption of the sun’s rays and subsequent heating of the planet…)

Distilled down, my motivation for taking environmental action (eg. recycling, turning off lights, composting, etc) is almost solely because “it’s the right thing to do”. I don’t hold hope that the 5% of the earths population who take action (including lobbying politicians) will effect change.

It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?    - Thoreau

I see it everyday at the workplace. People running around saying, “I’m so busy…busy…busy”. Levels of work seem to ebb and flow but when I see someone in this state, I’m not convinced that ‘busyness’ = productivity.

Take running, for instance. When elite runners train they don’t typically do ‘junk miles’ (i.e. running for the sake of running). Training sessions have a purpose, are focused, concentrated and not endless. In other words, you don’t need to run 8 hours a day to be an elite runner. You need to have the physical makeup and train in a calculated, focused and purposeful way.

Let’s get back to the workplace - here are my observations:

1. Socially, it’s better to look busy, than not:Maybe it’s a holdover from the ’slacker’ days but when people are asked, “How’re things?”, they don’t respond, “Oh…I’m not very busy…”

2. ‘Busy’ people are those without clear work priorities: Lacking a clear set of priorities, everything becomes a priority or we operate in a ‘priority of the moment’ state.

3. ‘Busyness’ is a great confusion technique when there is a threat of accountability: This is the Baffle them with bullshit technique. If we are madly running around, it’s harder to pin accountability on us.

4. ‘Busyness’ is a result of a lack of, or refusal to acknowledge the limitations of human or financial resources: Sometimes heavy workloads are a reality. That said, I can’t keep track of the times I have seen people snowed under because they are doing too many projects (poorly) or they are barely keeping the ‘balls in the air’ because management doesn’t want to recognize the limitations of their skills or budgets.

*In keeping with the times of Thoreau, I’ve used his spelling of ‘Busyness’

I sat back this weekend to re-read some of my previous posts. I am miles away from writing well and sometimes lacking clarity in communicating ideas and thoughts.

Blogging is hard work.

One could argue that it is a ’safe’ environment for expressing ideas. (i.e. You don’t have to worry about someone in your face screaming if they don’t agree with you) I suppose that makes sense. I’ve had people mention that they have a better understanding of me through the blog. Certainly I’ve tried to be open with my posts and, yes, I do find it easier to write than speak.

That said, the ‘weblog’ is really built for the current times. Soundbites of writing.

Maybe I need to write a book.

On Saturday, we were downtown walking past the Victoria Conference Centre as people left his speech, tiny tree in one hand, cell phone in the other. Off to Starbucks for a non-fat latte.

Today the headlines screamed Al Gore and the impending environmental doom. Off to Starbucks for a non-fat latte.

If I sound cynical it’s because I am.

Ideas sometimes just flash across the ticker tape in my mind. Like yesterday it was, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could be learning about something on your commutes rather than just zoning out listening to music…” I remembered that MIT provides Open Courseware (free access to a limited selection of MIT classes) I checked for lecture podcasts, no luck. As a side note look at their site - looks like it was developed by Google.

Then I went to CBC radio (online) to see if I could find some past shows and found that they include archived shows from ‘Ideas’

Loaded up my mp3 and I am good to go for about 2 hours of great content.

The great debate around our house last night centered around Facebook. Who is on Facebook and why?

We came to the conclusions…

1) Millenniums? Yes.

2) Gen-X’ers with kids? No.

3) Gen-X’ers without kids? Yes (but we had someone who was adamant that Facebook was only a Gen-Y tool.

So I had to look it up this morning and found this article in Business Week. From the article;

‘The 35-and-up crowd now accounts for more than 41% of all Facebook visitors. Among the fogeys with profiles: Internet pioneer and Google executive Vinton Cerf, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and Salesforce.com’

Crap. We’re ‘Fogeys’ now?

Why are people signing up?

1) Few free social networking tools online are that fully featured.

2) The Fogeys are looking at it as a better business networking tool vis a vis Linked In and others.
but more importantly…

3) The coolness factor of being associated with the brand. (eg. “Are you on Facebook?”)

and yes, I am on Facebook.