Saturday, February 27, 2010

Choices, Choices, Choices...

.....hmmmm.....what to do...on a rainy day in San Diego...can't go to the beach...so I guess I should do some writing...but about what?...the Dems and GOP lovefest in front of the cameras?...Nancy Pelosi's comment of the Health Care Bill creating 4 million new jobs?...some sobering trends for the global economy?...Carly Simon finally revealing who is "so vain" in her 1973 megahit?.... the Chargers sending LT packing....the athleticism of Olympic curling?....
...well this is a slippery slope but I am going to attempt to offer some advice for my friends at UC San Diego in the midst of all of the tension due to some racial incidents...and in case you haven't heard of these events go to http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/26/noose-protest-ucsd/ or any one of hundreds of other sites to read more...



...now I guess as an educator what disturbs me the most is that there could be future leaders of society at such a fine research University where some frat boys could sit around a room...or perhaps use Twitter or texting...and not one of them could have the critical thinking skills to say...hmmmmm....maybe we shouldn't have a "Compton Cookout" dressed in blackface...maybe this could cause some trouble for us?...but no luck...and the results were very predictable...


...so now we have a full blown crisis...made worse by a young woman admitting to placing a rope noose in the library on Friday...sheesh?...can it get worse?...wonder what field of study she was engaged in...and now she has been expelled from UCSD...screwing her life up...the Vice-Chancellor of UCSD said that the young woman and two others "didn't think leaving a noose was a big deal"...front page of Saturday's SD U-T...what?...&$?!X**^!!...arghh!....not a big deal?...so much for hope in the future....


...so here we are in the midst of more crises than we can count...real crises like Haiti...an 8.8 earthquake in Chile overnight...California is melting down from its budget woes...the resignation of Obama's social secretary...global warming...and the sale of Carl's Jr...I mean...the insanity of it all...and we are spending enormous time and energy and effort on the stupidy of these students?...I just don't think that it is quite the 'dastardly crime" that UCSD Chancellor Fox referred to it as...stupid, insensitive, demeaning and more...absolutely...but a "dastardly crime?"...for a misdeameanor?...c'mon...we have bigger issues (and "crimes") to focus on...


...so what should UCSD do before this thing really spirals out of control?...well...I guess it already has done that...but you know what I mean...




...I think that we need to start with the assumption that we can find idiots in pretty much any group...including students...adults...professors....7-11 clerks...Congress...I mean look at the late Captain Phil of Deadliest Catch!...the dummy couldn't give up the smokes and Red Bull and we all knew what was going to happen...when we see him pass a blood clot the size of a quarter through his heart and he keeps on inhaling!....

...so we must start with the proposition that there are foolish people everywhere...and even smart people can be foolish...it is in our DNA...and lapses of judgment in a few shouldn't lead us to assume that the entire organization, group, firm, society or association is at fault or unresponsive...including UCSD or any other school...but let's get on with it!...and not take over offices like it is the Vietnam War or something similar...deal with the young fools...root it out...

...but move on with the processes and formidable task of education...because we have crises everywhere to tend to...like making higher education accessible and affordable to more people...and at the end of the day we need all of these incredible young people to take their leadership place in the workplace and society as a whole...and not just on this one issue...

...and while Dr. King and others did indeed protest...they also wrote, preached and spoke forcefully and passionately...and persuaded other individuals and institutions to change...so I would propose that instead of taking over offices and ordering pizzas and sandwiches... why cannot this energy be focused into reasoned discourse?...or a student led proposal for change and not just criticizing the administration...perhaps you could start with a code of conduct for fraternities?...or shutting them down if they cannot abide by an existing code of conduct?...

...so rather than shutting down the campus which already has enough problems...let's figure out some solutions rather than screaming at each other...I would love to see students show to the faculty and administration their capacity to point the way out of this...


..There are lots and lots of questions being raised right now through this sordid mess...too many...and raising the questions or concerns or criticisms is the easy part...finding solutions is the art of wisdom...

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want." -Ben Stein

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Just another day...

...So wow! It has been really cold across the nation...even snowing in Florida and Alabama and 49 of the 50 states...amazing...we were thinking that maybe it was even going to snow here in San Diego...
...so I woke up on Monday and pulled on my parka and was going to fire up the snow blower...I mean after all, it was snowing just about everywhere according to the news...but there was no snow to be found!....Darn!...so I had to find something else to do...

......what? Al Gore is wrong? Nahhhhhh...that can't be!...What? Forget about global warming?...heart be still...oh how cool...get your theory wrong and then claim that it really isn't global warming...it is climate change...I like this kind of reasoning!...be wrong...really wrong...and then figure out a way to make that validate your argument in the first place...cool!...


...but anyway what to do on a holiday since I can't clean up the snow in the front yard...and it would annoy the South American parrots that just returned...so...

...let's take the boat out and look for some wildlife!...no, not that kind of wildlife!...but you know...seals...dolphins...and whales, oh my!...so we saddled up the Iron Horse with the girls and some other friends and headed out on a spectacular Monday morning...and went out about 5 miles off of Point Loma...and ran smack dab into the middle of a gray whale superhighway!...how fun!


...the first thing you see is the "blow" with the gray whales...and then they breach the surface and take a couple of breaths...but the really fun part is seeing their tails...and we saw quite a few of them...along with several other boats...and the picture below with the water running off the tail...was just really beautiful...

...so as this short week begins I have fond memories of a wonderful day with family and friends and God's incredible creation...so toss another log on the fire...if you aren't in Southern California...and have a great week!





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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Captain America or Maury the Nerd?






...So I was privileged to attend a luncheon at the San Diego Convention Center featuring the best and the brightest in military communication, command and control....with Vice Admiral Jack Dorsett, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations...and I heard the vision of the US Navy for the coming years....and the Admiral outlined something that they are calling "Information Dominance"...and let me tell you I was pretty impressed...

...it is real clear to me that the military is way ahead of the rest of us by decades...and ahead of Universities by probably a couple of centuries...but that is another story...and what they are going to do is merge the best and brightest skills, tools and techniques from the Geeks into the command and control mechanisms of the Navy...and it is going to rock the world...
...what are they up to and why should we care? ...because historically out of the military and space programs have we as regular 'Schmoes' later been the recipients of what they create...and for us in business let me just prophesy that what we are seeing is the end of the strategic plan as we know it...
...they are engaged in a new way of thinking and planning that the rest of us need to catch up to...and quick...and the demand for accurate and widely dispersed information is what is driving this...they see that the path ahead is dangerous and unknown and how they will navigate cannot be achieved by vast centralized top down strategic planning....
...what the Navy wants is that all platforms in the organization are "sensors" and each sensor has its own "roadmap" which are flexible and nimble and dynamic...these maps are then linked to all other stakeholders...and each sensor continually manages and maintains the information link throughout the organization...and that the sensors are allowed to be different from other sensors depending on context and opportunity and need...

...I have seen elements of this in the past in the business world known as "Strategy Maps" and "Balanced Scorecards" but this really is the best working model I have seen of a forward thinking planning structure that gets rids of much of what we have known as strategic planning for the past 25 years...

...I will be writing about this more in the future but let me just say that I was very impressed with the sense of purpose, clarity of thought and forward thinking that I see in the Navy...and we need to study and learn from them...



...this isn't your grandparent's Navy!