Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Singularity by Vernor Vinge, sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute

Vernor Vinge
Department of Mathematical Sciences
San Diego State University

(c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge
(This article may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.)

The original version of this article was presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30-31, 1993. A slightly changed version appeared in the Winter 1993 issue of Whole Earth Review.

Abstract

Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented.

What is The Singularity?

The acceleration of technological progress has been the central feature of this century. I argue in this paper that we are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on Earth. The precise cause of this change is the imminent creation by technology of entities with greater than human intelligence. There are several means by which science may achieve this breakthrough (and this is another reason for having confidence that the event will occur):

  • There may be developed computers that are "awake" and superhumanly intelligent. (To date, there has been much controversy as to whether we can create human equivalence in a machine. But if the answer is "yes, we can", then there is little doubt that beings more intelligent can be constructed shortly thereafter.)
  • Large computer networks (and their associated users) may "wake up" as a superhumanly intelligent entity.
  • Computer/human interfaces may become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent.
  • Biological science may provide means to improve natural human intellect.

The first three possibilities depend in large part on improvements in computer hardware. Progress in computer hardware has followed an amazingly steady curve in the last few decades [17]. Based largely on this trend, I believe that the creation of greater than human intelligence will occur during the next thirty years. (Charles Platt [20] has pointed out that AI enthusiasts have been making claims like this for the last thirty years. Just so I'm not guilty of a relative-time ambiguity, let me more specific: I'll be surprised if this event occurs before 2005 or after 2030.)

What are the consequences of this event? When greater-than-human intelligence drives progress, that progress will be much more rapid. In fact, there seems no reason why progress itself would not involve the creation of still more intelligent entities -- on a still-shorter time scale. The best analogy that I see is with the evolutionary past: Animals can adapt to problems and make inventions, but often no faster than natural selection can do its work -- the world acts as its own simulator in the case of natural selection. We humans have the ability to internalize the world and conduct "what if's" in our heads; we can solve many problems thousands of times faster than natural selection. Now, by creating the means to execute those simulations at much higher speeds, we are entering a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals.

From the human point of view this change will be a throwing away of all the previous rules, perhaps in the blink of an eye, an exponential runaway beyond any hope of control. Developments that before were thought might only happen in "a million years" (if ever) will likely happen in the next century. (In [5], Greg Bear paints a picture of the major changes happening in a matter of hours.)

I think it's fair to call this event a singularity ("the Singularity" for the purposes of this paper). It is a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer to this point, it will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a commonplace. Yet when it finally happens it may still be a great surprise and a greater unknown. In the 1950s there were very few who saw it: Stan Ulam [28] paraphrased John von Neumann as saying:

One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

Von Neumann even uses the term singularity, though it appears he is thinking of normal progress, not the creation of superhuman intellect. (For me, the superhumanity is the essence of the Singularity. Without that we would get a glut of technical riches, never properly absorbed (see [25]).)

In the 1960s there was recognition of some of the implications of superhuman intelligence. I. J. Good wrote [11]:

Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an "intelligence explosion," and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the _last_ invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control. ... It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make.

Good has captured the essence of the runaway, but does not pursue its most disturbing consequences. Any intelligent machine of the sort he describes would not be humankind's "tool" -- any more than humans are the tools of rabbits or robins or chimpanzees.

Through the '60s and '70s and '80s, recognition of the cataclysm spread [29] [1] [31] [5]. Perhaps it was the science-fiction writers who felt the first concrete impact. After all, the "hard" science-fiction writers are the ones who try to write specific stories about all that technology may do for us. More and more, these writers felt an opaque wall across the future. Once, they could put such fantasies millions of years in the future [24]. Now they saw that their most diligent extrapolations resulted in the unknowable ... soon. Once, galactic empires might have seemed a Post-Human domain. Now, sadly, even interplanetary ones are.

What about the '90s and the '00s and the '10s, as we slide toward the edge? How will the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view? For a while yet, the general critics of machine sapience will have good press. After all, till we have hardware as powerful as a human brain it is probably foolish to think we'll be able to create human equivalent (or greater) intelligence. (There is the far-fetched possibility that we could make a human equivalent out of less powerful hardware, if we were willing to give up speed, if we were willing to settle for an artificial being who was literally slow [30]. But it's much more likely that devising the software will be a tricky process, involving lots of false starts and experimentation. If so, then the arrival of self-aware machines will not happen till after the development of hardware that is substantially more powerful than humans' natural equipment.)

But as time passes, we should see more symptoms. The dilemma felt by science fiction writers will be perceived in other creative endeavors. (I have heard thoughtful comic book writers worry about how to have spectacular effects when everything visible can be produced by the technologically commonplace.) We will see automation replacing higher and higher level jobs. We have tools right now (symbolic math programs, cad/cam) that release us from most low-level drudgery. Or put another way: The work that is truly productive is the domain of a steadily smaller and more elite fraction of humanity. In the coming of the Singularity, we are seeing the predictions of _true_ technological unemployment finally come true.

Another symptom of progress toward the Singularity: ideas themselves should spread ever faster, and even the most radical will quickly become commonplace. When I began writing science fiction in the middle '60s, it seemed very easy to find ideas that took decades to percolate into the cultural consciousness; now the lead time seems more like eighteen months. (Of course, this could just be me losing my imagination as I get old, but I see the effect in others too.) Like the shock in a compressible flow, the Singularity moves closer as we accelerate through the critical speed.

And what of the arrival of the Singularity itself? What can be said of its actual appearance? Since it involves an intellectual runaway, it will probably occur faster than any technical revolution seen so far. The precipitating event will likely be unexpected -- perhaps even to the researchers involved. ("But all our previous models were catatonic! We were just tweaking some parameters....") If networking is widespread enough (into ubiquitous embedded systems), it may seem as if our artifacts as a whole had suddenly wakened.

And what happens a month or two (or a day or two) after that? I have only analogies to point to: The rise of humankind. We will be in the Post-Human era. And for all my rampant technological optimism, sometimes I think I'd be more comfortable if I were regarding these transcendental events from one thousand years remove ... instead of twenty.

Can the Singularity be Avoided?

Well, maybe it won't happen at all: Sometimes I try to imagine the symptoms that we should expect to see if the Singularity is not to develop. There are the widely respected arguments of Penrose [19] and Searle [22] against the practicality of machine sapience. In August of 1992, Thinking Machines Corporation held a workshop to investigate the question "How We Will Build a Machine that Thinks" [27]. As you might guess from the workshop's title, the participants were not especially supportive of the arguments against machine intelligence. In fact, there was general agreement that minds can exist on nonbiological substrates and that algorithms are of central importance to the existence of minds. However, there was much debate about the raw hardware power that is present in organic brains. A minority felt that the largest 1992 computers were within three orders of magnitude of the power of the human brain. The majority of the participants agreed with Moravec's estimate [17] that we are ten to forty years away from hardware parity. And yet there was another minority who pointed to [7] [21], and conjectured that the computational competence of single neurons may be far higher than generally believed. If so, our present computer hardware might be as much as _ten_ orders of magnitude short of the equipment we carry around in our heads. If this is true (or for that matter, if the Penrose or Searle critique is valid), we might never see a Singularity. Instead, in the early '00s we would find our hardware performance curves beginning to level off -- this because of our inability to automate the design work needed to support further hardware improvements. We'd end up with some _very_ powerful hardware, but without the ability to push it further. Commercial digital signal processing might be awesome, giving an analog appearance even to digital operations, but nothing would ever "wake up" and there would never be the intellectual runaway which is the essence of the Singularity. It would likely be seen as a golden age ... and it would also be an end of progress. This is very like the future predicted by Gunther Stent. In fact, on page 137 of [25], Stent explicitly cites the development of transhuman intelligence as a sufficient condition to break his projections.

But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will. Even if all the governments of the world were to understand the "threat" and be in deadly fear of it, progress toward the goal would continue. In fiction, there have been stories of laws passed forbidding the construction of "a machine in the likeness of the human mind" [13]. In fact, the competitive advantage -- economic, military, even artistic -- of every advance in automation is so compelling that passing laws, or having customs, that forbid such things merely assures that someone else will get them first.

Eric Drexler [8] has provided spectacular insights about how far technical improvement may go. He agrees that superhuman intelligences will be available in the near future -- and that such entities pose a threat to the human status quo. But Drexler argues that we can confine such transhuman devices so that their results can be examined and used safely. This is I. J. Good's ultraintelligent machine, with a dose of caution. I argue that confinement is intrinsically impractical. For the case of physical confinement: Imagine yourself locked in your home with only limited data access to the outside, to your masters. If those masters thought at a rate -- say -- one million times slower than you, there is little doubt that over a period of years (your time) you could come up with "helpful advice" that would incidentally set you free. (I call this "fast thinking" form of superintelligence "weak superhumanity". Such a "weakly superhuman" entity would probably burn out in a few weeks of outside time. "Strong superhumanity" would be more than cranking up the clock speed on a human-equivalent mind. It's hard to say precisely what "strong superhumanity" would be like, but the difference appears to be profound. Imagine running a dog mind at very high speed. Would a thousand years of doggy living add up to any human insight? (Now if the dog mind were cleverly rewired and _then_ run at high speed, we might see something different....) Many speculations about superintelligence seem to be based on the weakly superhuman model. I believe that our best guesses about the post-Singularity world can be obtained by thinking on the nature of strong superhumanity. I will return to this point later in the paper.)

Another approach to confinement is to build _rules_ into the mind of the created superhuman entity (for example, Asimov's Laws [3]). I think that any rules strict enough to be effective would also produce a device whose ability was clearly inferior to the unfettered versions (and so human competition would favor the development of the those more dangerous models). Still, the Asimov dream is a wonderful one: Imagine a willing slave, who has 1000 times your capabilities in every way. Imagine a creature who could satisfy your every safe wish (whatever that means) and still have 99.9% of its time free for other activities. There would be a new universe we never really understood, but filled with benevolent gods (though one of _my_ wishes might be to become one of them).

If the Singularity can not be prevented or confined, just how bad could the Post-Human era be? Well ... pretty bad. The physical extinction of the human race is one possibility. (Or as Eric Drexler put it of nanotechnology: Given all that such technology can do, perhaps governments would simply decide that they no longer need citizens!). Yet physical extinction may not be the scariest possibility. Again, analogies: Think of the different ways we relate to animals. Some of the crude physical abuses are implausible, yet.... In a Post-Human world there would still be plenty of niches where human equivalent automation would be desirable: embedded systems in autonomous devices, self-aware daemons in the lower functioning of larger sentients. (A strongly superhuman intelligence would likely be a Society of Mind [16] with some very competent components.) Some of these human equivalents might be used for nothing more than digital signal processing. They would be more like whales than humans. Others might be very human-like, yet with a one-sidedness, a _dedication_ that would put them in a mental hospital in our era. Though none of these creatures might be flesh-and-blood humans, they might be the closest things in the new enviroment to what we call human now. (I. J. Good had something to say about this, though at this late date the advice may be moot: Good [12] proposed a "Meta-Golden Rule", which might be paraphrased as "Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors." It's a wonderful, paradoxical idea (and most of my friends don't believe it) since the game-theoretic payoff is so hard to articulate. Yet if we were able to follow it, in some sense that might say something about the plausibility of such kindness in this universe.)

I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans' natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology. And yet ... we are the initiators. Even the largest avalanche is triggered by small things. We have the freedom to establish initial conditions, make things happen in ways that are less inimical than others. Of course (as with starting avalanches), it may not be clear what the right guiding nudge really is:

Other Paths to the Singularity: Intelligence Amplification_

When people speak of creating superhumanly intelligent beings, they are usually imagining an AI project. But as I noted at the beginning of this paper, there are other paths to superhumanity. Computer networks and human-computer interfaces seem more mundane than AI, and yet they could lead to the Singularity. I call this contrasting approach Intelligence Amplification (IA). IA is something that is proceeding very naturally, in most cases not even recognized by its developers for what it is. But every time our ability to access information and to communicate it to others is improved, in some sense we have achieved an increase over natural intelligence. Even now, the team of a PhD human and good computer workstation (even an off-net workstation!) could probably max any written intelligence test in existence.

And it's very likely that IA is a much easier road to the achievement of superhumanity than pure AI. In humans, the hardest development problems have already been solved. Building up from within ourselves ought to be easier than figuring out first what we really are and then building machines that are all of that. And there is at least conjectural precedent for this approach. Cairns-Smith [6] has speculated that biological life may have begun as an adjunct to still more primitive life based on crystalline growth. Lynn Margulis (in [15] and elsewhere) has made strong arguments that mutualism is a great driving force in evolution.

Note that I am not proposing that AI research be ignored or less funded. What goes on with AI will often have applications in IA, and vice versa. I am suggesting that we recognize that in network and interface research there is something as profound (and potential wild) as Artificial Intelligence. With that insight, we may see projects that are not as directly applicable as conventional interface and network design work, but which serve to advance us toward the Singularity along the IA path.

Here are some possible projects that take on special significance, given the IA point of view:

  • Human/computer team automation: Take problems that are normally considered for purely machine solution (like hill-climbing problems), and design programs and interfaces that take a advantage of humans' intuition and available computer hardware. Considering all the bizarreness of higher dimensional hill-climbing problems (and the neat algorithms that have been devised for their solution), there could be some very interesting displays and control tools provided to the human team member.
  • Develop human/computer symbiosis in art: Combine the graphic generation capability of modern machines and the esthetic sensibility of humans. Of course, there has been an enormous amount of research in designing computer aids for artists, as labor saving tools. I'm suggesting that we explicitly aim for a greater merging of competence, that we explicitly recognize the cooperative approach that is possible. Karl Sims [23] has done wonderful work in this direction.
  • Allow human/computer teams at chess tournaments. We already have programs that can play better than almost all humans. But how much work has been done on how this power could be used by a human, to get something even better? If such teams were allowed in at least some chess tournaments, it could have the positive effect on IA research that allowing computers in tournaments had for the corresponding niche in AI.
  • Develop interfaces that allow computer and network access without requiring the human to be tied to one spot, sitting in front of a computer. (This is an aspect of IA that fits so well with known economic advantages that lots of effort is already being spent on it.)
  • Develop more symmetrical decision support systems. A popular research/product area in recent years has been decision support systems. This is a form of IA, but may be too focussed on systems that are oracular. As much as the program giving the user information, there must be the idea of the user giving the program guidance.
  • Use local area nets to make human teams that really work (ie, are more effective than their component members). This is generally the area of "groupware", already a very popular commercial pursuit. The change in viewpoint here would be to regard the group activity as a combination organism. In one sense, this suggestion might be regarded as the goal of inventing a "Rules of Order" for such combination operations. For instance, group focus might be more easily maintained than in classical meetings. Expertise of individual human members could be isolated from ego issues such that the contribution of different members is focussed on the team project. And of course shared data bases could be used much more conveniently than in conventional committee operations. (Note that this suggestion is aimed at team operations rather than political meetings. In a political setting, the automation described above would simply enforce the power of the persons making the rules!)
  • Exploit the worldwide Internet as a combination human/machine tool. Of all the items on the list, progress in this is proceeding the fastest and may run us into the Singularity before anything else. The power and influence of even the present-day Internet is vastly underestimated. For instance, I think our contemporary computer systems would break under the weight of their own complexity if it weren't for the edge that the USENET "group mind" gives the system administration and support people! The very anarchy of the worldwide net development is evidence of its potential. As connectivity and bandwidth and archive size and computer speed all increase, we are seeing something like Lynn Margulis' [15] vision of the biosphere as data processor recapitulated, but at a million times greater speed and with millions of humanly intelligent agents (ourselves).

The above examples illustrate research that can be done within the context of contemporary computer science departments. There are other paradigms. For example, much of the work in Artificial Intelligence and neural nets would benefit from a closer connection with biological life. Instead of simply trying to model and understand biological life with computers, research could be directed toward the creation of composite systems that rely on biological life for guidance or for the providing features we don't understand well enough yet to implement in hardware. A long-time dream of science-fiction has been direct brain to computer interfaces [2] [29]. In fact, there is concrete work that can be done (and is being done) in this area:

  • Limb prosthetics is a topic of direct commercial applicability. Nerve to silicon transducers can be made [14]. This is an exciting, near-term step toward direct communication.
  • Direct links into brains seem feasible, if the bit rate is low: given human learning flexibility, the actual brain neuron targets might not have to be precisely selected. Even 100 bits per second would be of great use to stroke victims who would otherwise be confined to menu-driven interfaces.
  • Plugging in to the optic trunk has the potential for bandwidths of 1 Mbit/second or so. But for this, we need to know the fine-scale architecture of vision, and we need to place an enormous web of electrodes with exquisite precision. If we want our high bandwidth connection to be _in addition_ to what paths are already present in the brain, the problem becomes vastly more intractable. Just sticking a grid of high-bandwidth receivers into a brain certainly won't do it. But suppose that the high-bandwidth grid were present while the brain structure was actually setting up, as the embryo develops. That suggests:
  • Animal embryo experiments. I wouldn't expect any IA success in the first years of such research, but giving developing brains access to complex simulated neural structures might be very interesting to the people who study how the embryonic brain develops. In the long run, such experiments might produce animals with additional sense paths and interesting intellectual abilities.

Originally, I had hoped that this discussion of IA would yield some clearly safer approaches to the Singularity. (After all, IA allows our participation in a kind of transcendance.) Alas, looking back over these IA proposals, about all I am sure of is that they should be considered, that they may give us more options. But as for safety ... well, some of the suggestions are a little scarey on their face. One of my informal reviewers pointed out that IA for individual humans creates a rather sinister elite. We humans have millions of years of evolutionary baggage that makes us regard competition in a deadly light. Much of that deadliness may not be necessary in today's world, one where losers take on the winners' tricks and are coopted into the winners' enterprises. A creature that was built _de novo_ might possibly be a much more benign entity than one with a kernel based on fang and talon. And even the egalitarian view of an Internet that wakes up along with all mankind can be viewed as a nightmare [26].

The problem is not simply that the Singularity represents the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being. I think a closer look at the notion of strong superhumanity can show why that is.

Strong Superhumanity and the Best We Can Ask for

Suppose we could tailor the Singularity. Suppose we could attain our most extravagant hopes. What then would we ask for: That humans themselves would become their own successors, that whatever injustice occurs would be tempered by our knowledge of our roots. For those who remained unaltered, the goal would be benign treatment (perhaps even giving the stay-behinds the appearance of being masters of godlike slaves). It could be a golden age that also involved progress (overleaping Stent's barrier). Immortality (or at least a lifetime as long as we can make the universe survive [10] [4]) would be achievable.

But in this brightest and kindest world, the philosophical problems themselves become intimidating. A mind that stays at the same capacity cannot live forever; after a few thousand years it would look more like a repeating tape loop than a person. (The most chilling picture I have seen of this is in [18].) To live indefinitely long, the mind itself must grow ... and when it becomes great enough, and looks back ... what fellow-feeling can it have with the soul that it was originally? Certainly the later being would be everything the original was, but so much vastly more. And so even for the individual, the Cairns-Smith or Lynn Margulis notion of new life growing incrementally out of the old must still be valid.

This "problem" about immortality comes up in much more direct ways. The notion of ego and self-awareness has been the bedrock of the hardheaded rationalism of the last few centuries. Yet now the notion of self-awareness is under attack from the Artificial Intelligence people ("self-awareness and other delusions"). Intelligence Amplification undercuts our concept of ego from another direction. The post-Singularity world will involve extremely high-bandwidth networking. A central feature of strongly superhuman entities will likely be their ability to communicate at variable bandwidths, including ones far higher than speech or written messages. What happens when pieces of ego can be copied and merged, when the size of a selfawareness can grow or shrink to fit the nature of the problems under consideration? These are essential features of strong superhumanity and the Singularity. Thinking about them, one begins to feel how essentially strange and different the Post-Human era will be -- _no matter how cleverly and benignly it is brought to be_.

From one angle, the vision fits many of our happiest dreams: a time unending, where we can truly know one another and understand the deepest mysteries. From another angle, it's a lot like the worst- case scenario I imagined earlier in this paper.

Which is the valid viewpoint? In fact, I think the new era is simply too different to fit into the classical frame of good and evil. That frame is based on the idea of isolated, immutable minds connected by tenuous, low-bandwith links. But the post-Singularity world _does_ fit with the larger tradition of change and cooperation that started long ago (perhaps even before the rise of biological life). I think there _are_ notions of ethics that would apply in such an era. Research into IA and high-bandwidth communications should improve this understanding. I see just the glimmerings of this now [32]. There is Good's Meta-Golden Rule; perhaps there are rules for distinguishing self from others on the basis of bandwidth of connection. And while mind and self will be vastly more labile than in the past, much of what we value (knowledge, memory, thought) need never be lost. I think Freeman Dyson has it right when he says [9]: "God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension."

[I wish to thank John Carroll of San Diego State University and Howard Davidson of Sun Microsystems for discussing the draft version of this paper with me.]

Annotated Sources [and an occasional plea for bibliographical help]

[1] Alfve'n, Hannes, writing as Olof Johanneson, _The End of Man?_, Award Books, 1969 earlier published as "The Tale of the Big Computer", Coward-McCann, translated from a book copyright 1966 Albert Bonniers Forlag AB with English translation copyright 1966 by Victor Gollanz, Ltd.

[2] Anderson, Poul, "Kings Who Die", _If_, March 1962, p8-36. Reprinted in _Seven Conquests_, Poul Anderson, MacMillan Co., 1969.

[3] Asimov, Isaac, "Runaround", _Astounding Science Fiction_, March 1942, p94. Reprinted in _Robot Visions_, Isaac Asimov, ROC, 1990. Asimov describes the development of his robotics stories in this book.

[4] Barrow, John D. and Frank J. Tipler, _The Anthropic Cosmological Principle_, Oxford University Press, 1986.

[5] Bear, Greg, "Blood Music", _Analog Science Fiction-Science Fact_, June, 1983. Expanded into the novel _Blood Music_, Morrow, 1985.

[6] Cairns-Smith, A. G., _Seven Clues to the Origin of Life_, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

[7] Conrad, Michael _et al._, "Towards an Artificial Brain", _BioSystems_, vol 23, pp175-218, 1989.

[8] Drexler, K. Eric, _Engines of Creation_, Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1986.

[9] Dyson, Freeman, _Infinite in All Directions_, Harper && Row, 1988.

[10] Dyson, Freeman, "Physics and Biology in an Open Universe", _Review of Modern Physics_, vol 51, pp447-460, 1979.

[11] Good, I. J., "Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine", in _Advances in Computers_, vol 6, Franz L. Alt and Morris Rubinoff, eds, pp31-88, 1965, Academic Press.

[12] Good, I. J., [Help! I can't find the source of Good's Meta-Golden Rule, though I have the clear recollection of hearing about it sometime in the 1960s. Through the help of the net, I have found pointers to a number of related items. G. Harry Stine and Andrew Haley have written about metalaw as it might relate to extraterrestrials: G. Harry Stine, "How to Get along with Extraterrestrials ... or Your Neighbor", _Analog Science Fact- Science Fiction_, February, 1980, p39-47.] [13] Herbert, Frank, _Dune_, Berkley Books, 1985. However, this novel was serialized in _Analog Science Fiction-Science Fact_ in the 1960s.

[14] Kovacs, G. T. A. _et al._, "Regeneration Microelectrode Array for Peripheral Nerve Recording and Stimulation", _IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering_, v 39, n 9, pp 893-902.

[15] Margulis, Lynn and Dorion Sagan, _Microcosmos, Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors_, Summit Books, 1986.

[16] Minsky, Marvin, _Society of Mind_, Simon and Schuster, 1985.

[17] Moravec, Hans, _Mind Children_, Harvard University Press, 1988.

[18] Niven, Larry, "The Ethics of Madness", _If_, April 1967, pp82-108. Reprinted in _Neutron Star_, Larry Niven, Ballantine Books, 1968.

[19] Penrose, Roger, _The Emperor's New Mind_, Oxford University Press, 1989.

[20] Platt, Charles, Private Communication.

[21] Rasmussen, S. _et al._, "Computational Connectionism within Neurons: a Model of Cytoskeletal Automata Subserving Neural Networks", in _Emergent Computation_, Stephanie Forrest, ed., pp428-449, MIT Press, 1991.

[22] Searle, John R., "Minds, Brains, and Programs", in _The Behavioral and Brain Sciences_, vol 3, Cambridge University Press, 1980. The essay is reprinted in _The Mind's I_, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, Basic Books, 1981 (my source for this reference). This reprinting contains an excellent critique of the Searle essay.

[23] Sims, Karl, "Interactive Evolution of Dynamical Systems", Thinking Machines Corporation, Technical Report Series (published in _Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the First European Conference on Artificial Life_, Paris, MIT Press, December 1991.

[24] Stapledon, Olaf, _The Starmaker_, Berkley Books, 1961 (but from the date on forward, probably written before 1937).

[25] Stent, Gunther S., _The Coming of the Golden Age: A View of the End of Progress_, The Natural History Press, 1969.

[26] Swanwick Michael, _Vacuum Flowers_, serialized in _Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine_, December(?) 1986 - February 1987. Republished by Ace Books, 1988.

[27] Thearling, Kurt, "How We Will Build a Machine that Thinks", a workshop at Thinking Machines Corporation, August 24-26, 1992. Personal Communication.

[28] Ulam, S., Tribute to John von Neumann, _Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society_, vol 64, nr 3, part 2, May 1958, pp1-49.

[29] Vinge, Vernor, "Bookworm, Run!", _Analog_, March 1966, pp8-40. Reprinted in _True Names and Other Dangers_, Vernor Vinge, Baen Books, 1987.

[30] Vinge, Vernor, "True Names", _Binary Star Number 5_, Dell, 1981. Reprinted in _True Names and Other Dangers_, Vernor Vinge, Baen Books, 1987.

[31] Vinge, Vernor, First Word, _Omni_, January 1983, p10.

[32] Vinge, Vernor, To Appear [ :-) ].


Local Vinge page. My argument against the incomprehensibility of the Singularity.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Andres Agostini's Official Websites (Arlington, Virginia, USA)






Andy at Blogging...




ON THE FUTURE OF QUALITY !!!
"Excellence is important. To everyone excellence means something a bit different. Do we need a metric for excellence? But, Why do I believe that the qualitative side of it is more important than its numericalization. By the way, increasing tsunamis of vanguard sciences and corresponding technologies to be applied bring about the upping of the technical parlance.
These times as Peter Schwartz would firmly recommend require to “pay” the highest premium for leading knowledge.
“Chindia” (China and India) will not wait for the West. People like Ballmer (Microsoft) and Ray Kurzweil insist that current levels of complexity –that one can manage appropriately and timely- might get one a nice business success.
Yes, simple is beautiful, but horrendous when this COSMOS is overwhelmed with paradoxes, contradictions, and predicaments. And you must act to capture success and, overall, to make sustainable.
Quality is crucial. Benchmarks are important but refer to something else, though similar. But Quality standards, as per my view, would require a discipline to be named “Systems Quality Assurance.” None wishes defects/waste.
But having on my hat and vest of strategy and risk management, the ultimate best practices of quality –in many settings- will not suffice. Got it add, (a) Systems Security, (b) Systems Safety, (c) Systems Reliability, (d) Systems Strategic Planning/Management and a long “so forth.”
When this age of changed CHANGE is so complex like never ever –and getting increasingly more so- just being truly excellent require, without a fail, many more approaches and stamina."
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 22, 2008 9:18 PM

COMMENTING ON THE FUTURE OF QUALITY….
Excellence is important. To everyone excellence means something a bit different. Do we need a metric for excellence? But, Why do I believe that the qualitative side of it is more important than its numericalization. By the way, increasing tsunamis of vanguard sciences and corresponding technologies to be applied bring about the upping of the technical parlance.
These times as Peter Schwartz would firmly recommend require to “pay” the highest premium for leading knowledge.
“Chindia” (China and India) will not wait for the West. People like Ballmer (Microsoft) and Ray Kurzweil insist that current levels of complexity –that one can manage appropriately and timely- might get one a nice business success.
Yes, simple is beautiful, but horrendous when this COSMOS is overwhelmed with paradoxes, contradictions, and predicaments. And you must act to capture success and, overall, to make it sustainable and fiscally sound.
Quality is crucial. Benchmarks are important but refer to something else, though similar. But Quality standards, as per my view, would require a discipline to be named “Systems Quality Assurance.” None wishes defects/waste.
But having on my hat and vest of strategy and risk management, the ultimate best practices of quality –in many settings- will not suffice. Got it add, (a) Systems Security, (b) Systems Safety, (c) Systems Reliability, (d) Systems Strategic Planning/Management and a long “so forth.”
When this age of changed CHANGE is so complex like never ever –and getting increasingly more so- just being truly excellent require, without a fail, many more approaches and stamina.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 22, 2008 9:18 PM

COMMENTS: HARD WORK MATTERS
"Clearly, hard work is extremely important. There is a grave lack of practices of this work philosophy in the battlefield. Practicing, practicing and practicing is immeasurably relevant.
Experience accumulated throughout the years is also crucial, particularly when one is always seeking mind-expansion activities.
With it practical knowledge comes along. When consulting and training, yes, you’re offering ideas to PRESENT clients with CHOICES/OPTIONS to SOLUTIONS.
How to communicate with the client is extremely difficult. Nowadays, some technical solutions that the consultant or advisor must implement has a depth that will shock the client unless there is a careful and prudent preparation/orientation of the targeted audience.
Getting to know the company culture is another sine qua non. The personal cosmology of each executive or staff involved on behalf of the client is even more important. Likewise, the professional service expert must do likewise with the CEO, and Chairman.
In fact, in your notes, a serious consultant must have an unofficial, psychological profile of the client representatives. One has to communicate unambiguously, but sometimes helps to adapt your lexicon to that of the designated client.
From interview one –paying strong attention and listening up to the customer– the advisor must give choices while at always being EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIVE, and, somehow, FORMATIVE/INDUCTIVE. That’s the problem.
These times are not those. When the third party possesses the knowledge, skill, know-how, technology, he/she now must work much more in ascertaining you lock in your customer’s mind and heart with yours.
Before starting the CONSULTING EFFORT, I personally like to have a couple of informal meetings just to listen up and listen up.
Then, I forewarn them that I will be making a great number of questions. Afterwards, I take extensive notes and start crafting the strategy to build up rapport with this customer.
Taking all the information given informally in advance by the client, I make an oral presentation to assure I understood what the problem is. I also take this opportunity to capture further information and to relax everyone, while trying to win them over legitimately and transparently.
Then, if I see, for instance, that they do not know how to call/express lucidly/with accurateness their problem, I ask questions. But I also offer real-life examples of these probable problems with others clients.
The opportunity is absolutely vital to gauge the level of competency of the customer and knowledge or lack of knowledge about the issue. Passing all of that over, I start, informally, speaking of options to get the customer involved in peaking out the CHOICE (the solution) to watch for initial client’s reactions.
In my case and in many times, I must not only transfer the approaches/skills/technologies, but also institute and sustain it to the 150% satisfaction of my clients.
Those of us, involved with Systems Risk Management(*) (“Transformative Risk Management”) and Corporate Strategy are obliged to scan around for problems, defects, process waste, failure, etc. WITH FORESIGHT.
Once that is done and still “on guard,” I can highlight the opportunity (upside risk) to the client.
Notwithstanding, once you already know your threats, vulnerabilities, hazards, and risks (and you have a master risk plan, equally contemplated in your business plan), YOU MUST BE CREATIVE SO THAT “HARD WORK” MAKES A UNIQUE DIFFERENCE IN YOUR INDUSTRY.
While at practicing, do so a zillion low-cost experiments. Do a universe of Trial and Errors. Commit to serendipity and/or pseudo-serendipity. In the mean time, and as former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says: “EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION.”
(*) It does not refer at all to insurance, co-insurance, reinsurance. It is more about the multidimensional, cross-functional management of business processes to be goals and objectives compliant."
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 23, 2008 4:56 PM

COMMENTS: SNIDE ADVERTISING
Advertising and campaigning must enforce a strong strategic alliance with the client. The objective is to COMMUNICATE the firm’s products, services, values, ethos in a transparent and accountable way. Zero distortion tolerance as to the messages disseminated.
Ad agencies cannot make up for the shortcomings of the business enterprise. Those shortcomings consequential of a core business sup-optimally managed. Get the business optimum first. Then, communicate it clearly, being sensible to the community at large.
A funny piece is one thing. To make fun of others is another (terrible). To be creative in the message is highly desirable. If the incumbent’s corporation has unique attributes and does great business, just say it comprehensibly without manipulating or over-promising.
Some day soon the subject matter on VALUES is going to be more than indispensable to keep global society alive. The rampant violations of the aforementioned values should be death-to-life matter of study by ad agencies without a fail.
The global climate change, the flu pandemia (to be), the geology (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis), large meteorites, nuke wars are all among the existential risks. To get matters worse, value violations by the ad agencies, mass media, and the rest of the economy would easily qualify as an existential risk.
Humankind requires transparency and accountability the soonest.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 27, 2008 8:34 PM

COMMENTS: WHERE'S THE WOW?
Talent is absolutely a sine qua non. Nowadays – while at the over-revolution of knowledge– is even more important, in fact without precedent.
When I went to college to sign up for diverse courses, my counselor forewarned me that my education (about to commence) would have a validity (not be outdated) for the first five years of completion. I got the message clearly and have never stop to attempt to better myself.
I mentioned the above because I know many people with doctoral degrees from Harvard, Oxford, MIT that, once completed their studies, don’t read anything more that ambiguous news headlines. They think that the economy is a snapshot (static) and, therefore, not making quantum progresses. Today sci-fi has been superseded by the world-class news media alone.
Likewise, many company and countries captains worship mediocrity. It’s unbelievable how universal this is, beginning with the most advanced nations. Friedman tells his siblings that they had better study not to give away their jobs to people from China and India and Russia.
In the mean time, knowledge repository is growing to ruthless proportions. The direct consequence is for economy to get more and more automated with more and more Artificial Intelligence. I wonder if the people from China and India and Russia will give away their jobs to Asimo and other robots (now in the womb).
Should we expect “WOW” from the forthcoming robots since the subjects of mediocrity-dom are accelerating the automation described?
In 1970 a fellow by the name of Alvin Toffler in a book titled “Shock of the Future” told us many things to get prepared for in advance. How many have pay attention? Those who are not interested in the granularity (atomic/sub-atomic scale) of details and have paid no heed cannot complaint. Get ready!
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 27, 2008 9:01 PM
COMMENTS: FUTURE SHAPE OF QUALITY

Thank you all for your great contributions and insightfulness. Take a Quality Assurance Program, (e.g.), to be instituted in a company these days, century 2008. One will have to go through tremendous amounts of reading, writing, drawing, spread-sheeting, etc. Since the global village is the Society of Knowledge, these days, to abate exponential complexity, you must not only have to embrace it fully, you have to be thorough at all times to meet the challenge. One must also pay the price of an advanced global economy that is in increasingly perpetual innovation. Da Vinci, in a list of the 10 greatest minds, was # 1. Einstein was # 10. Subsequently, it’s highly recommendable, if one might wish, to pay attention to “Everything should be made as simple [from the scientific stance] as possible, but not simpler.” ¬Albert Einstein. Mr. Peters, on the other hand, has always stressed the significance to continuously disseminate new ideas. He is really making an unprecedented effort in that direction. Another premium to pay, it seems to be extremely “thorough” (Trump).
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 28, 2008 3:11 PM
COMMENTS: COOL FRIEND: C. MICHAEL HIAM
We need, globally, to get into the “strongest” peaceful mind-set the soonest. Not getting to peace status via waging wars. Sometimes, experts and statesmen may require “chirurgical interventions,” especially under the monitoring of the U.N. diplomacy are called to be reinvented and taken to the highest possible state of refinement. More and more diplomacy and more and more refinement. Then, universal and aggressive enhance diplomacy instituted.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:02 PM
COMMENTS: SUCCESS TIPS AT CHANGETHIS
I appreciate current contributions. I’d like to think that the nearly impossible is in you way (while you’re emphatically self-driven for accomplishments) with determined aggressive towards the ends (objectives, goals) to be met. Churchill offers a great deal of examples of how an extraordinary leader works out.
Many lessons to be drawn out from him, without a doubt. Churchill reminds, as many others, that (scientific) knowledge is power. Napoleon, incidentally, says that a high-school (lyceum) graduate, must study science and English (lingua franca).
So, the “soft knowledge” (values) plus the “hard knowledge” (science, technology) must converge into the leader (true statesman). Being updated in values and science and technology in century 21 –to be en route to being 99% success compliant- requires, as well, of an open mind (extremely self-critical) that is well prepared (Pasteur).
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:19 PM
COMMENTS:
WIKI CONTRIBUTIONS
My experience tells me that every client must be worked out to be your true ally. When you’re selling high-tech/novel technologies/products/services, one must do a lot of talking to induce the customer into a menu of probable solutions. The more the complications, the more the nice talk with unambiguous language.
If that phase succeeds, it’s necessary to make oral/document presentations to the targeted client. Giving him – while at it- a number of unimpeachable examples of the real life (industry by industry) will get the customer more to envision you as an ally than just a provider.
These continuous presentations are, of course, training/indoctrination to the customer, so that he understands better his problem and the breadth and scope of the likely solutions. If progress is made in this phase, one can start working out, very informally and distensibly, the clauses of the contract, particularly those that are daring. One by one.
When each one is finally approved by both. Assemble and get approved and implemented the corresponding contract. Then, keep a close (in-person) contact with your customer.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:32 PM
COMMENTS: IT'S GOOD TO TALK!
I like to meet personally and working together with my peers. So, I can also work through the Web as I am on my own with added benefits of some privacy and other conveniences. A mix of both –as I think- is optimal.
How can one slow down the global economy trends? The more technological elapsed time get us, the more connected and wiki will we all be. Most of the interactions I see/experience on the virtual world with extreme consequences in the real world.
I think it’s nice and productive to exchange ideas over a cappuccino. The personal contact is nice. Though, it gets better where is less frequent. So, when it happens, the person met becomes a splendid occasion.
As things get more automated, so will get we. I, as none of you, invented the world. Automations will get to work more than machines. Sometimes, it of a huge help to get an emotional issue ventilated through calm, discerned e-mails.
Regardless of keeping on embracing connectedness (which I highly like), I would say one must make in-person meetings a must-do. Let's recall that we are en route to Vernor Vinge's "Singularity."
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:46 PM
COMMENTS: A FOCUS ON TALENT
The prescription to make a true talent as per the present standards is diverse. Within the ten most important geniuses, there is Churchill again. He is the (political) statesman # 1, from da Vinci’s times to the current moment. In one book (Last Lion), it is attributed to Churchill saying that a New Yorker –back then–transferred him some methodology to capture geniality.
A great deal of schooling is crucial. A great deal of self-schooling is even more vital. Being experienced in different tenures and with different industries and with different clients helps beyond belief.
Study/researching cross-reference (across the perspective of omniscience) helps even more. Seeking mentors and tutors helps. Get trained/indoctrinated in various fields does so too. Hiring consultants for your personal, individual induction/orientation add much.
Got it have an open mind with a gusto for multidimensionality and cross-functionality, harnessing and remembering useful knowledge all over, regardless of the context. I have worked on these and published some “success metaphors” in the Web, both text and video. Want it? Google it!
Learning different (even opposed) methodologies renders the combined advantages of all of the latter into a own, unique multi-approach of yours.
Most of these ideas can be marshaled concurrently.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 5:11 PM
COMMENTS: NEW COOL FRIEND: DAN ROAM
Pictures and exhibits and graphics are extremely VITAL, in my case, to reinforce and facilitate what I am trying to communicate. I believe that Arquimedes stressed the relevance of adding illustrations to his workings. Leonardo did so extensively. He’s a prime example of this.
The book REIMAGINE by Tom Peters does this splendidly. You seem to be holding a text book of the future with a plethora of pleasant colors, shapes, forms, symbols, and, above all, messages.
Leading The Revolution by Gary Hamel (Strategos Chairman and Professor at The London Business School) is similar to that of Tom’s. Tom has reminded his audiences to “think in slides.” This aids the thinking process immeasurably.
MindMaps by Dr. Tony Buzan is extremely fun and so pervasive. I find it so tedious to read a great book made up of only words, without frequent illustration.
Posted by Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 1:59 PM
COMMENTS: SNIDE ADVERTISING
An ad campaign must be a project abiding by standards and ethics and values. Rule #1 is to be honest, not push/pressure your product/service at any cost (not just economically), not to incur into negative advertising. I agree that this is a mind-set and also an ingrained talent (born with).
While managing the different pieces (components, elements, phases, contexts that stem from the system, namely the “ad campaign”), everything must be unimpeachably true, verifiable, and deliverable. Otherwise, What would the incumbent be doing to his branding strategy as the public at large become increasingly disturbed by this one company?
Creativity and innovation are invited to the utmost to make the ad so relevant. Soberness, at all times, is beyond crucial. Some basics are in due place. Former U.K. prime minister, Tony Blair officious words of his chief preference, “education, education, education.” To up quality, he/she must pay heed to this essential saying.
Whatever the ad message, What does the incumbent wish to accomplish? What EXPERIENCE does the exchange presented by the “live” ad take place? That answered, Where does he expect to be in his industry in the forthcoming 5 years? I wonder!
Posted by Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 2:29 PM
COMMENTS: COOL FRIEND: C. MICHAEL HIAM
Tom, then, as per your posting, it seems that you raised these story to offer some ideas of great leadership. Many people ask about leadership traits and how to execute it. So any further story like this allows one to place his/her mind on a greater perspective.
I believe his story is inspirational. Without the inspiring effect, there’s no leadership in due place. I, personally, scan around for all theses stories in different places. Century-21 Leaders must meet dynamic challenges that will require any and every piece of savvy insight.
Posted by Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 2:38 PM
COMMENT TO BBC WORLD (as per an E-Survey)
We are living in extreme times. As Global Risk Manager and Scenario Strategists I know we have the technology and science to solve many existential risks. The problem is that the world is over-populated by –as it seems- a majority of psycho-stable people. For the immeasurable challenges we need to face and act upon them, we will require a majority of extremely educated (exact sciences) people who are psycho-kinetic minded. People who have an unlimited drive to do things optimally, that are visionaries. That will go all the way to make peace universal and so the best maintenance of ecology. One life-to-death risk is a nuclear war. There are too many alleged statesmen willing to pull to switch to quench their mediocre egos. If we can manage systematically, systematically, and holistically the existential risks (including the ruthless progression of science and technology), the world (including some extra-Erath stations) a promissory place. The powers and the superpowers must all “pull” at the unison to mitigate/eliminate these extraordinarily grave risks.
Andres Agostini
www.AndyBelieves.blogspot.com/
Arlington, Virginia, USA
9:32 p.m. GMT/UCT
March 14, 2008

COMMENTS: SO, WORK REALLY DOES MATTER ...
There was a time that I had that problem. Now, it’s long gone. The more I focus, the more I wish to do what I like to do. You can both have fun of what you do and execute the branding appropriately. The branding is though more affected by the enormous competition and openness that Internet+ offers everyone. So now competition is more democratic and more rampant too.
The more I do what I like, the more I refine my thinking/acting process in real-time. As I refine my gusto brought at work, regardless of approaches, methodologies, techniques, as long as I feel that I’m playing in the Toy-Field (although in actuality it’s a rogue battlefield), I’m okay.
My increasing liking does not equate with not having to surmount—in some cases—the insurmountable. The world economy, therefore the fabrics of firms and organizations globally, is getting more sophisticated, but also more daring. Got to make your enjoyment more cultivated, so that you encounter challenge charming and carry on without a fail.
Never underestimate the challenges once you get to like your “craft.” For one thing, not forgetting that now is more obvious that “…everything is related to everything else…,” managers, entrepreneurs, leaders must used connectedness, group-thinking online plus much more than just one discipline.
This TIME is not about just MBAs and Ph.D.s, in the current epoch it will require paying the highest for education/formation daily for the optimum knowledge. Teach to learn, teach to yourself.
Posted by Andres Agostini at April 10, 2008 4:22 PM
BODY LANGUAGE RELEVANCE!
From my experience and research, most definitely body language is crucial. Although in paying attention to someone, I also want to listen up to the quality of his words, pitch of voice, if he/she uses para-language and/or meta-messages and/or overt/covert agendas, so forth. Put simply, I go envision the person gestaltically (holistically, systemically, and systematically).
Posted by Andres Agostini at April 10, 2008 4:28 PM

COMMENTS: SIMPLY THE BEST!
Yes, always the best, and much more so if dealing with health-care. I have done extensive consulting for this industry. It’s not only that reforms might be required. It might have also to do with some top people—from any walk of life and in any business and tenure—that seems either (a) demoralized (maybe “without a true purpose”) or (b) not willing to WALK THE EXTRA LEAGUE (3 miles).
A close friend of mine has his mother ill with 70 years. She was undergoing a difficult depression. I kept close to my friend. He spent zillions in the finest pharmaceuticals, food supplements, and medical expenses. “She died stupidly because of medical incompetence...”, he said.
My friend tells me that every doctor he took his mother to—and as per view—was, TO HIS SHOCK, clinically depressed. The inquiring eye was no there. The additional studies were not there. The psychiatrist, one of the best in the country, was mind-absent and slow. Was he also depressed taking care of a senior patient—with a life-to-death framework—undergoing a severe depression?
I am not a moralist. But I try to do my best, indeed, and get better and better daily. The “ethics” used by most doctors (NOT ALL) is grotesque. They don’t care and try the sacrosanct patient as a “piece of cheap merchandize.” Exactly as if he were a bad and inexperienced automobile mechanics.
Many doctors, as many mechanics (NOT ALL OF THEM), wish people to go “out of service frequently.” This way they can guarantee a steady flow of income. Forget about the Hippocratic Oath. Again, it does not happen with all the doctors and mechanics, but it does happen frequently to my own gravest concern.
It is not only a matter of verifying the doctor’s credentials from a to z. It’s about his awareness, his consciousness, his ethics, his up-bringing, yes, his ethos and own mental health. In sum, Does he/she have an optimum personal cosmology or not?
Many graduates from the finest universities from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Japan, that are holding top-management tenures, are in dire straits. They (a great number) do not wish any task that is demanding, complex and/or that requires strictest minuteness. Are they depressed too? Is global society depressed? I wonder. I see this happening in exponential numbers in many place of the world.
How can you do the best to save your client 10 million dollars per year if he is not interested in implementing the obvious solution to his company’s ailment? In some cases, clients requires from professional service providers (consultants, analysts, researchers, coaches, other managers) not to be emotional/political intelligent, but, instead, to be a “carry-on,” efficacious psychiatrist, deployable in any time.
I have a theory. People don’t like to see their status quo being demolished. Some of those don’t know what it (CHANGED CHANGE) is that is making them feel unfit or as if he/she were undergoing an ailment. As Gary Hamel says, if one dos not pay attention to the CHANGES, he/she cannot, afterwards, complaint at all.
And as Eamonn Kelly mentions in “Powerful Times….,” these times will demand the boldest adaptation from each and everyone. Subsequently, one has got to understand the nature of the CHANGE in beta mode perpetually.
PS: I profoundly respect all job, works, tenures, and professions.

FUTURE SHAPE OF QUALITY (ANDY’S BLOGGING)
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” (Jefferson). In a world –once called the “society of knowledge”- that is getting (society, economics, [geo] politics, technology, environment, so forth) more and more sophisticated in over-exponential rates. Ray Kurzweil in “The Singularity is Near” assures that, mathematically speaking, the base and the exponent of the power are increasingly chaotically jumping, almost as if this forthcoming “Cambrian explosion,” bathed with the state of the art applied will change everything.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the German philosopher, reminds one, “It is our future that lays down the law of our work.” While Churchill tells us, “the empires of the future belong to the [prepared] mind.”
Last night I was reading the text book “Wikinomics.” Authors say that in the next 50 years applied science will be much more evolved than that of the past 400 years. To me, and because of my other reaserch, they are quite conservative. Vernor Vinge, the professor of mathematics, recalls us about the “Singularity,” primarily technological and secondarily social (with humans that are BIO and non BIO and derivatives of the two latter, i.e. in vivo + in silico + in quantum + in non spiritus). Prof. Vinge was invited by NASA on that occasion. If one like to check it out, Google it.
Clearly, Quality Assurance progress has been made by Deming, Juran, Six Sigma, Kaisen (Toyota) and others. I would pay strong attention to their respective prescriptions with an OPEN MIND. Why? Because SYSTEMS are extremely dynamically these days, starting up with the Universe (or “Multiverse”). As I operate with risks and strategies –beyond the view of (a) strategic planner, and (b) practitioner of management best practices à la non ad hoc “project management,” I have to take advantage of many other methodologies.
The compilation of approaches is fun though must be extremely cohesive, congruent, and efficacious.
And if the economy grows more complex, many more methodologies I will grab. I have one of my own that I called “Transformative Risk Management,” highly based on the breakthrough by Military-Industrial (-Technological) Complex. Chiefly, with the people concerned with nascent NASA (Mercury, Saturn, Apollo) via Dr. Wernher von Braun, then engineer in chief. Fortunately, my mentor, a “doctor in science” for thirteen years was von Braun’s risk manager. He’s now my supervisor.
The Military-Industrial (-Technological) Complex had a great deal of challenges back in 1950. As a result, many breakthroughs were brought about. Today, not everyone seems to know and/or institute these findings. Some do as ExxonMobil. The text book “Powerful Times” attributes to U.S. defense budget a nearly 50% of the totality of the worldwide defense budgets. What do they do with this kind of money? They instill it –to a great extent- to R&D labs of prime quality. Afterwards, they shared “initiatives” with R&D labs from Universities, Global Corporations, and “Wiki” Communities. Imagine?
In addition, the grandfather of in-depth risk analyses is one that goes under many names beside Hazard Mode and Effect Analysis (HMEA). It has also been called Reliability Analysis for Preliminary Design (RAPD), Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), and Fault Hazard Analysis (FHA). All of these – just to give an example – has to be included in your methodical toolkit alongside with Deming’, Juran’, Six Sigma, Kaisen’s.
These fellow manage with what they called “the omniscience perspective,” that is, the totality of knowledge. Believe me, they do mean it.
Yes, hard-working, but knowing what you’re doing and thinking always in the unthinkable, being a foresight-er, and assimilating documented “lesson learned” from previous flaws. In the mean time, Sir Francis Bacon wrote, “He that will not apply remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”
(*) A "killer" to preposterous "common sense" activist. A blessing to rampantly unconventional- wisdom practitioner.
For the “crying” one, everything has changed. It has changed (i) CHANGE, (ii) Time, (iii) Politics/Geopolitics, (iv) Science and technology (applied), (v) Economy, (vi) Environment (amplest meaning), (vii) Zeitgeist (spirit of times), (viii) Weltstanchaung (conception of the world), (ix) Zeitgeist-Weltstanchaung’s Prolific Interaction, etc. So there is no need to worry, since NOW, —and everyday forever (kind of...)—there will be a different world, clearly if one looks into the sub-atomic granularity of (zillion) details. Unless you are a historian, there is no need to speak of PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE, JUST TALK ABOUT THE ENDLESSLY PERENNIAL PROGRESSION. Let’s learn a difficult lesson easily NOW.
“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Picture mentally… Draw experientially. Succeed through endless experimentation… It’s recommendable to recall that common sense is much more than an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas—of multitudes of life-learned rules and tendencies, balances and checks. Common sense is not just one (1), neither is, in any way, simple.” (Andres Agostini)
Dwight D. Eisenhower, speaking of leadership, said: “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
“…to a level of process excellence that will produce (as per GE’s product standards) fewer than four defects per million operations…” — Jack Welch (1998).
In addition to WORKING HARD and taking your “hard working” as you beloved HOBBY and never as a burden, one may wish to institute, as well, the following:
1.- Servitize.
2.- Productize.
3.- Webify.
4.- Outsource (strategically “cross” sourcing).
5.- Relate your core business to “molutech” (molecular technology).
Search four primary goals (in case a reader is interested):
A.- To build trust.
B.- To empower employees.
C.- To eliminate unnecessary work.
D.- To create a new paradigm for your business enterprise, a [beyond] “boundaryless” organization.
E.- Surf dogmas; evade sectarian doctrines.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 27, 2008 7:54 PM

ON THE FUTURE OF QUALITY !!!
"Excellence is important. To everyone excellence means something a bit different. Do we need a metric for excellence? But, Why do I believe that the qualitative side of it is more important than its numericalization. By the way, increasing tsunamis of vanguard sciences and corresponding technologies to be applied bring about the upping of the technical parlance.
These times as Peter Schwartz would firmly recommend require to “pay” the highest premium for leading knowledge.
“Chindia” (China and India) will not wait for the West. People like Ballmer (Microsoft) and Ray Kurzweil insist that current levels of complexity –that one can manage appropriately and timely- might get one a nice business success.
Yes, simple is beautiful, but horrendous when this COSMOS is overwhelmed with paradoxes, contradictions, and predicaments. And you must act to capture success and, overall, to make sustainable.
Quality is crucial. Benchmarks are important but refer to something else, though similar. But Quality standards, as per my view, would require a discipline to be named “Systems Quality Assurance.” None wishes defects/waste.
But having on my hat and vest of strategy and risk management, the ultimate best practices of quality –in many settings- will not suffice. Got it add, (a) Systems Security, (b) Systems Safety, (c) Systems Reliability, (d) Systems Strategic Planning/Management and a long “so forth.”
When this age of CHANGED CHANGE is so complex like never ever –and getting increasingly more so- just being truly excellent require, without a fail, many more approaches and stamina."
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 22, 2008 9:18 PM
COMMENTING ON THE FUTURE OF QUALITY….
Excellence is important. To everyone excellence means something a bit different. Do we need a metric for excellence? But, Why do I believe that the qualitative side of it is more important than its numericalization. By the way, increasing tsunamis of vanguard sciences and corresponding technologies to be applied bring about the upping of the technical parlance.
These times as Peter Schwartz would firmly recommend require to “pay” the highest premium for leading knowledge.
“Chindia” (China and India) will not wait for the West. People like Ballmer (Microsoft) and Ray Kurzweil insist that current levels of complexity –that one can manage appropriately and timely- might get one a nice business success.
Yes, simple is beautiful, but horrendous when this COSMOS is overwhelmed with paradoxes, contradictions, and predicaments. And you must act to capture success and, overall, to make it sustainable and fiscally sound.
Quality is crucial. Benchmarks are important but refer to something else, though similar. But Quality standards, as per my view, would require a discipline to be named “Systems Quality Assurance.” None wishes defects/waste.
But having on my hat and vest of strategy and risk management, the ultimate best practices of quality –in many settings- will not suffice. Got it add, (a) Systems Security, (b) Systems Safety, (c) Systems Reliability, (d) Systems Strategic Planning/Management and a long “so forth.”
When this age of changed CHANGE is so complex like never ever –and getting increasingly more so- just being truly excellent require, without a fail, many more approaches and stamina.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 22, 2008 9:18 PM

COMMENTS: HARD WORK MATTERS
"Clearly, hard work is extremely important. There is a grave lack of practices of this work philosophy in the battlefield. Practicing, practicing and practicing is immeasurably relevant.
Experience accumulated throughout the years is also crucial, particularly when one is always seeking mind-expansion activities.
With it practical knowledge comes along. When consulting and training, yes, you’re offering ideas to PRESENT clients with CHOICES/OPTIONS to SOLUTIONS.
How to communicate with the client is extremely difficult. Nowadays, some technical solutions that the consultant or advisor must implement has a depth that will shock the client unless there is a careful and prudent preparation/orientation of the targeted audience.
Getting to know the company culture is another sine qua non. The personal cosmology of each executive or staff involved on behalf of the client is even more important. Likewise, the professional service expert must do likewise with the CEO, and Chairman.
In fact, in your notes, a serious consultant must have an unofficial, psychological profile of the client representatives. One has to communicate unambiguously, but sometimes helps to adapt your lexicon to that of the designated client.
From interview one –paying strong attention and listening up to the customer– the advisor must give choices while at always being EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIVE, and, somehow, FORMATIVE/INDUCTIVE. That’s the problem.
These times are not those. When the third party possesses the knowledge, skill, know-how, technology, he/she now must work much more in ascertaining you lock in your customer’s mind and heart with yours.
Before starting the CONSULTING EFFORT, I personally like to have a couple of informal meetings just to listen up and listen up.
Then, I forewarn them that I will be making a great number of questions. Afterwards, I take extensive notes and start crafting the strategy to build up rapport with this customer.
Taking all the information given informally in advance by the client, I make an oral presentation to assure I understood what the problem is. I also take this opportunity to capture further information and to relax everyone, while trying to win them over legitimately and transparently.
Then, if I see, for instance, that they do not know how to call/express lucidly/with accurateness their problem, I ask questions. But I also offer real-life examples of these probable problems with others clients.
The opportunity is absolutely vital to gauge the level of competency of the customer and knowledge or lack of knowledge about the issue. Passing all of that over, I start, informally, speaking of options to get the customer involved in peaking out the CHOICE (the solution) to watch for initial client’s reactions.
In my case and in many times, I must not only transfer the approaches/skills/technologies, but also institute and sustain it to the 150% satisfaction of my clients.
Those of us, involved with Systems Risk Management(*) (“Transformative Risk Management”) and Corporate Strategy are obliged to scan around for problems, defects, process waste, failure, etc. WITH FORESIGHT.
Once that is done and still “on guard,” I can highlight the opportunity (upside risk) to the client.
Notwithstanding, once you already know your threats, vulnerabilities, hazards, and risks (and you have a master risk plan, equally contemplated in your business plan), YOU MUST BE CREATIVE SO THAT “HARD WORK” MAKES A UNIQUE DIFFERENCE IN YOUR INDUSTRY.
While at practicing, do so a zillion low-cost experiments. Do a universe of Trial and Errors. Commit to serendipity and/or pseudo-serendipity. In the mean time, and as former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says: “EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION.”
(*) It does not refer at all to insurance, co-insurance, reinsurance. It is more about the multidimensional, cross-functional management of business processes to be goals and objectives compliant."
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 23, 2008 4:56 PM
Posted by Andres Agostini on This I Believe! (AATIB) at 1:58 PM 0 comments
Labels: www.AndyBelieves.blogspot.com/

FUTURE SHAPE OF QUALITY
“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” (Jefferson). In a world –once called the “society of knowledge”- that is getting (society, economics, [geo] politics, technology, environment, so forth) more and more sophisticated in over-exponential rates. Ray Kurzweil in “The Singularity is Near” assures that, mathematically speaking, the base and the exponent of the power are increasingly chaotically jumping, almost as if this forthcoming “Cambrian explosion,” bathed with the state of the art applied will change everything.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the German philosopher, reminds one, “It is our future that lays down the law of our work.” While Churchill tells us, “the empires of the future belong to the [prepared] mind.”
Last night I was reading the text book “Wikinomics.” Authors say that in the next 50 years applied science will be much more evolved than that of the past 400 years. To me, and because of my other reaserch, they are quite conservative. Vernor Vinge, the professor of mathematics, recalls us about the “Singularity,” primarily technological and secondarily social (with humans that are BIO and non BIO and derivatives of the two latter, i.e. in vivo + in silico + in quantum + in non spiritus). Prof. Vinge was invited by NASA on that occasion. If one like to check it out, Google it.
Clearly, Quality Assurance progress has been made by Deming, Juran, Six Sigma, Kaisen (Toyota) and others. I would pay strong attention to their respective prescriptions with an OPEN MIND. Why? Because SYSTEMS are extremely dynamically these days, starting up with the Universe (or “Multiverse”). As I operate with risks and strategies –beyond the view of (a) strategic planner, and (b) practitioner of management best practices à la non ad hoc “project management,” I have to take advantage of many other methodologies.
The compilation of approaches is fun though must be extremely cohesive, congruent, and efficacious.
And if the economy grows more complex, many more methodologies I will grab. I have one of my own that I called “Transformative Risk Management,” highly based on the breakthrough by Military-Industrial (-Technological) Complex. Chiefly, with the people concerned with nascent NASA (Mercury, Saturn, Apollo) via Dr. Wernher von Braun, then engineer in chief. Fortunately, my mentor, a “doctor in science” for thirteen years was von Braun’s risk manager. He’s now my supervisor.
The Military-Industrial (-Technological) Complex had a great deal of challenges back in 1950. As a result, many breakthroughs were brought about. Today, not everyone seems to know and/or institute these findings. Some do as ExxonMobil. The text book “Powerful Times” attributes to U.S. defense budget a nearly 50% of the totality of the worldwide defense budgets. What do they do with this kind of money? They instill it –to a great extent- to R&D labs of prime quality. Afterwards, they shared “initiatives” with R&D labs from Universities, Global Corporations, and “Wiki” Communities. Imagine?
In addition, the grandfather of in-depth risk analyses is one that goes under many names beside Hazard Mode and Effect Analysis (HMEA). It has also been called Reliability Analysis for Preliminary Design (RAPD), Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), Failure Mode, Effect, and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), and Fault Hazard Analysis (FHA). All of these – just to give an example – has to be included in your methodical toolkit alongside with Deming’, Juran’, Six Sigma, Kaisen’s.
These fellow manage with what they called “the omniscience perspective,” that is, the totality of knowledge. Believe me, they do mean it.
Yes, hard-working, but knowing what you’re doing and thinking always in the unthinkable, being a foresight-er, and assimilating documented “lesson learned” from previous flaws. In the mean time, Sir Francis Bacon wrote, “He that will not apply remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.”

(*) A "killer" to preposterous "common sense" activists. A blessing to rampantly unconventional- wisdom practitioners.
For the “crying” one, everything has changed. It has changed (i) CHANGE, (ii) Time, (iii) Politics/Geopolitics, (iv) Science and technology (applied), (v) Economy, (vi) Environment (amplest meaning), (vii) Zeitgeist (spirit of times), (viii) Weltstanchaung (conception of the world), (ix) Zeitgeist-Weltstanchaung’s Prolific Interaction, etc. So there is no need to worry, since NOW, —and everyday forever (kind of...)—there will be a different world, clearly if one looks into the sub-atomic granularity of (zillion) details. Unless you are a historian, there is no need to speak of PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE, JUST TALK ABOUT THE ENDLESSLY PERENNIAL PROGRESSION. Let’s learn a difficult lesson easily NOW.
“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Picture mentally… Draw experientially. Succeed through endless experimentation… It’s recommendable to recall that common sense is much more than an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas—of multitudes of life-learned rules and tendencies, balances and checks. Common sense is not just one (1), neither is, in any way, simple.” (Andres Agostini)
Dwight D. Eisenhower, speaking of leadership, said: “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”
“…to a level of process excellence that will produce (as per GE’s product standards) fewer than four defects per million operations…” — Jack Welch (1998).
In addition to WORKING HARD and taking your “hard working” as you beloved HOBBY and never as a burden, one may wish to institute, as well, the following:
1.- Servitize.
2.- Productize.
3.- Webify.
4.- Outsource (strategically “cross” sourcing).
5.- Relate your core business to “molutech” (molecular technology).
Search four primary goals (in case a reader is interested):
A.- To build trust.
B.- To empower employees.
C.- To eliminate unnecessary work.
D.- To create a new paradigm for your business enterprise, a [beyond] “boundaryless” organization.
E.- Surf dogmas; evade sectarian doctrines.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 27, 2008 7:54 PM

COMMENTS: SNIDE ADVERTISING
Advertising and campaigning must enforce a strong strategic alliance with the client. The objective is to COMMUNICATE the firm’s products, services, values, ethos in a transparent and accountable way. Zero distortion tolerance as to the messages disseminated.
Ad agencies cannot make up for the shortcomings of the business enterprise. Those shortcomings consequential of a core business sup-optimally managed. Get the business optimum first. Then, communicate it clearly, being sensible to the community at large.
A funny piece is one thing. To make fun of others is another (terrible). To be creative in the message is highly desirable. If the incumbent’s corporation has unique attributes and does great business, just say it comprehensibly without manipulating or over-promising.
Some day soon the subject matter on VALUES is going to be more than indispensable to keep global society alive. The rampant violations of the aforementioned values should be death-to-life matter of study by ad agencies without a fail.
The global climate change, the flu pandemia (to be), the geology (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis), large meteorites, nuke wars are all among the existential risks. To get matters worse, value violations by the ad agencies, mass media, and the rest of the economy would easily qualify as an existential risk.
Humankind requires transparency and accountability the soonest.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 27, 2008 8:34 PM

COMMENTS: WHERE'S THE WOW?
Talent is absolutely a sine qua non. Nowadays – while at the over-revolution of knowledge– is even more important, in fact without precedent.
When I went to college to sign up for diverse courses, my counselor forewarned me that my education (about to commence) would have a validity (not be outdated) for the first five years of completion. I got the message clearly and have never stop to attempt to better myself.
I mentioned the above because I know many people with doctoral degrees from Harvard, Oxford, MIT that, once completed their studies, don’t read anything more that ambiguous news headlines. They think that the economy is a snapshot (static) and, therefore, not making quantum progresses. Today sci-fi has been superseded by the world-class news media alone.
Likewise, many company and countries captains worship mediocrity. It’s unbelievable how universal this is, beginning with the most advanced nations. Friedman tells his siblings that they had better study not to give away their jobs to people from China and India and Russia.
In the mean time, knowledge repository is growing to ruthless proportions. The direct consequence is for economy to get more and more automated with more and more Artificial Intelligence. I wonder if the people from China and India and Russia will give away their jobs to Asimo and other robots (now in the womb).
Should we expect “WOW” from the forthcoming robots since the subjects of mediocrity-dom are accelerating the automation described?
In 1970 a fellow by the name of Alvin Toffler in a book titled “Shock of the Future” told us many things to get prepared for in advance. How many have pay attention? Those who are not interested in the granularity (atomic/sub-atomic scale) of details and have paid no heed cannot complaint. Get ready!
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 27, 2008 9:01 PM

COMMENTS: FUTURE SHAPE OF QUALITY…

Thank you all for your great contributions and insightfulness. Take a Quality Assurance Program, (e.g.), to be instituted in a company these days, century 2008. One will have to go through tremendous amounts of reading, writing, drawing, spread-sheeting, etc. Since the global village is the Society of Knowledge, these days, to abate exponential complexity, you must not only have to embrace it fully, you have to be thorough at all times to meet the challenge. One must also pay the price of an advanced global economy that is in increasingly perpetual innovation. Da Vinci, in a list of the 10 greatest minds, was # 1. Einstein was # 10. Subsequently, it’s highly recommendable, if one might wish, to pay attention to “Everything should be made as simple [from the scientific stance] as possible, but not simpler.” ¬Albert Einstein. Mr. Peters, on the other hand, has always stressed the significance to continuously disseminate new ideas. He is really making an unprecedented effort in that direction. Another premium to pay, it seems to be extremely “thorough” (Trump).
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 28, 2008 3:11 PM

COMMENTS: COOL FRIEND: C. MICHAEL HIAM
We need, globally, to get into the “strongest” peaceful mind-set the soonest. Not getting to peace status via waging wars. Sometimes, experts and statesmen may require “chirurgical interventions,” especially under the monitoring of the U.N. diplomacy are called to be reinvented and taken to the highest possible state of refinement. More and more diplomacy and more and more refinement. Then, universal and aggressive enhance diplomacy instituted.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:02 PM

COMMENTS: SUCCESS TIPS AT CHANGETHIS
I appreciate current contributions. I’d like to think that the nearly impossible is in you way (while you’re emphatically self-driven for accomplishments) with determined aggressive towards the ends (objectives, goals) to be met. Churchill offers a great deal of examples of how an extraordinary leader works out.
Many lessons to be drawn out from him, without a doubt. Churchill reminds, as many others, that (scientific) knowledge is power. Napoleon, incidentally, says that a high-school (lyceum) graduate, must study science and English (lingua franca).
So, the “soft knowledge” (values) plus the “hard knowledge” (science, technology) must converge into the leader (true statesman). Being updated in values and science and technology in century 21 –to be en route to being 99% success compliant- requires, as well, of an open mind (extremely self-critical) that is well prepared (Pasteur).
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:19 PM

COMMENTS:
WIKI CONTRIBUTIONS
My experience tells me that every client must be worked out to be your true ally. When you’re selling high-tech/novel technologies/products/services, one must do a lot of talking to induce the customer into a menu of probable solutions. The more the complications, the more the nice talk with unambiguous language.

If that phase succeeds, it’s necessary to make oral/document presentations to the targeted client. Giving him – while at it- a number of unimpeachable examples of the real life (industry by industry) will get the customer more to envision you as an ally than just a provider.
These continuous presentations are, of course, training/indoctrination to the customer, so that he understands better his problem and the breadth and scope of the likely solutions. If progress is made in this phase, one can start working out, very informally and distensibly, the clauses of the contract, particularly those that are daring. One by one.
When each one is finally approved by both. Assemble and get approved and implemented the corresponding contract. Then, keep a close (in-person) contact with your customer.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:32 PM

COMMENTS: IT'S GOOD TO TALK!
I like to meet personally and working together with my peers. So, I can also work through the Web as I am on my own with added benefits of some privacy and other conveniences. A mix of both –as I think- is optimal.
How can one slow down the global economy trends? The more technological elapsed time get us, the more connected and wiki will we all be. Most of the interactions I see/experience on the virtual world with extreme consequences in the real world.
I think it’s nice and productive to exchange ideas over a cappuccino. The personal contact is nice. Though, it gets better where is less frequent. So, when it happens, the person met becomes a splendid occasion.
As things get more automated, so will get we. I, as none of you, invented the world. Automations will get to work more than machines. Sometimes, it of a huge help to get an emotional issue ventilated through calm, discerned e-mails.
Regardless of keeping on embracing connectedness (which I highly like), I would say one must make in-person meetings a must-do. Let's recall that we are en route to Vernor Vinge's "Singularity."
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 4:46 PM
COMMENTS: A FOCUS ON TALENT
The prescription to make a true talent as per the present standards is diverse. Within the ten most important geniuses, there is Churchill again. He is the (political) statesman # 1, from da Vinci’s times to the current moment. In one book (Last Lion), it is attributed to Churchill saying that a New Yorker –back then–transferred him some methodology to capture geniality.
A great deal of schooling is crucial. A great deal of self-schooling is even more vital. Being experienced in different tenures and with different industries and with different clients helps beyond belief.
Study/researching cross-reference (across the perspective of omniscience) helps even more. Seeking mentors and tutors helps. Get trained/indoctrinated in various fields does so too. Hiring consultants for your personal, individual induction/orientation add much.
Got it have an open mind with a gusto for multidimensionality and cross-functionality, harnessing and remembering useful knowledge all over, regardless of the context. I have worked on these and published some “success metaphors” in the Web, both text and video. Want it? Google it!
Learning different (even opposed) methodologies renders the combined advantages of all of the latter into a own, unique multi-approach of yours.
Most of these ideas can be marshaled concurrently.
Posted by Andres Agostini at February 29, 2008 5:11 PM

COMMENTS: NEW COOL FRIEND: DAN ROAM
Pictures and exhibits and graphics are extremely VITAL, in my case, to reinforce and facilitate what I am trying to communicate. I believe that Arquimedes stressed the relevance of adding illustrations to his workings. Leonardo did so extensively. He’s a prime example of this.
The book REIMAGINE by Tom Peters does this splendidly. You seem to be holding a text book of the future with a plethora of pleasant colors, shapes, forms, symbols, and, above all, messages.
Leading The Revolution by Gary Hamel (Strategos Chairman and Professor at The London Business School) is similar to that of Tom’s. Tom has reminded his audiences to “think in slides.” This aids the thinking process immeasurably.
MindMaps by Dr. Tony Buzan is extremely fun and so pervasive. I find it so tedious to read a great book made up of only words, without frequent illustration.
Posted by Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 1:59 PM

COMMENTS: SNIDE ADVERTISING
An ad campaign must be a project abiding by standards and ethics and values. Rule #1 is to be honest, not push/pressure your product/service at any cost (not just economically), not to incur into negative advertising. I agree that this is a mind-set and also an ingrained talent (born with).
While managing the different pieces (components, elements, phases, contexts that stem from the system, namely the “ad campaign”), everything must be unimpeachably true, verifiable, and deliverable. Otherwise, What would the incumbent be doing to his branding strategy as the public at large become increasingly disturbed by this one company?
Creativity and innovation are invited to the utmost to make the ad so relevant. Soberness, at all times, is beyond crucial. Some basics are in due place. Former U.K. prime minister, Tony Blair officious words of his chief preference, “education, education, education.” To up quality, he/she must pay heed to this essential saying.
Whatever the ad message, What does the incumbent wish to accomplish? What EXPERIENCE does the exchange presented by the “live” ad take place? That answered, Where does he expect to be in his industry in the forthcoming 5 years? I wonder!
Posted by Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 2:29 PM
COMMENTS: COOL FRIEND: C. MICHAEL HIAM
Tom, then, as per your posting, it seems that you raised these story to offer some ideas of great leadership. Many people ask about leadership traits and how to execute it. So any further story like this allows one to place his/her mind on a greater perspective.
I believe his story is inspirational. Without the inspiring effect, there’s no leadership in due place. I, personally, scan around for all theses stories in different places. Century-21 Leaders must meet dynamic challenges that will require any and every piece of savvy insight.
Posted by Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 2:38 PM
COMMENT TO BBC WORLD (as per an E-Survey)

We are living in extreme times. As Global Risk Manager and Scenario Strategists I know we have the technology and science to solve many existential risks. The problem is that the world is over-populated by –as it seems- a majority of psycho-stable people. For the immeasurable challenges we need to face and act upon them, we will require a majority of extremely educated (exact sciences) people who are psycho-kinetic minded. People who have an unlimited drive to do things optimally, that are visionaries. That will go all the way to make peace universal and so the best maintenance of ecology. One life-to-death risk is a nuclear war. There are too many alleged statesmen willing to pull to switch to quench their mediocre egos. If we can manage systematically, systematically, and holistically the existential risks (including the ruthless progression of science and technology), the world (including some extra-Erath stations) a promissory place. The powers and the superpowers must all “pull” at the unison to mitigate/eliminate these extraordinarily grave risks.
Andres Agostini
www.AndyBelieves.blogspot.com/
Arlington, Virginia, USA
9:32 p.m. GMT/UCT
March 14, 2008

COMMENTS: SO, WORK REALLY DOES MATTER...
There was a time that I had that problem. Now, it’s long gone. The more I focus, the more I wish to do what I like to do. You can both have fun of what you do and execute the branding appropriately. The branding is though more affected by the enormous competition and openness that Internet+ offers everyone. So now competition is more democratic and more rampant too.
The more I do what I like, the more I refine my thinking/acting process in real-time. As I refine my gusto brought at work, regardless of approaches, methodologies, techniques, as long as I feel that I’m playing in the Toy-Field (although in actuality it’s a rogue battlefield), I’m okay.
My increasing liking does not equate with not having to surmount—in some cases—the insurmountable. The world economy, therefore the fabrics of firms and organizations globally, is getting more sophisticated, but also more daring. Got to make your enjoyment more cultivated, so that you encounter challenge charming and carry on without a fail.
Never underestimate the challenges once you get to like your “craft.” For one thing, not forgetting that now is more obvious that “…everything is related to everything else…,” managers, entrepreneurs, leaders must used connectedness, group-thinking online plus much more than just one discipline.
This TIME is not about just MBAs and Ph.D.s, in the current epoch it will require paying the highest for education/formation daily for the optimum knowledge. Teach to learn, teach to yourself.
Posted by Andres Agostini at April 10, 2008 4:22 PM

BODY LANGUAGE RELEVANCE!
From my experience and research, most definitely body language is crucial. Although in paying attention to someone, I also want to listen up to the quality of his words, pitch of voice, if he/she uses para-language and/or meta-messages and/or overt/covert agendas, so forth. Put simply, I go envision the person gestaltically (holistically, systemically, and systematically).
Posted by Andres Agostini at April 10, 2008 4:28 PM

COMMENTS: SIMPLY THE BEST!
Yes, always the best, and much more so if dealing with health-care. I have done extensive consulting for this industry. It’s not only that reforms might be required. It might have also to do with some top people—from any walk of life and in any business and tenure—that seems either (a) demoralized (maybe “without a true purpose”) or (b) not willing to WALK THE EXTRA LEAGUE (3 miles).
A close friend of mine has his mother ill with 70 years. She was undergoing a difficult depression. I kept close to my friend. He spent zillions in the finest pharmaceuticals, food supplements, and medical expenses. “She died stupidly because of medical incompetence...”, he said.
My friend tells me that every doctor he took his mother to—and as per view—was, TO HIS SHOCK, clinically depressed. The inquiring eye was no there. The additional studies were not there. The psychiatrist, one of the best in the country, was mind-absent and slow. Was he also depressed taking care of a senior patient—with a life-to-death framework—undergoing a severe depression?
I am not a moralist. But I try to do my best and get better and better daily. The “ethics” used by most doctors (NOT ALL) is grotesque. They don’t care and try the sacrosanct patient as a “piece of cheap merchandize.” Exactly as if he were a bad and inexperienced automobile mechanics.
Many doctors, as many mechanics (NOT ALL OF THEM), wish people to go “out of service frequently.” This way they can guarantee a steady flow of income. Forget about the Hippocratic Oath. Again, it does not happen with all the doctors and mechanics, but it does happen frequently to my own gravest concern.
It is not only a matter of verifying the doctor’s credentials from a to z. It’s about his awareness, his consciousness, his ethics, his up-bringing, yes, his ethos and own mental health. In sum, Does he/she have an optimum personal cosmology or not?
Many graduates from the finest universities from the U.S., Canada, U.K., Japan, that are holding top-management tenures, are in dire straits. They (a great number) do not wish any task that is demanding, complex and/or that requires strictest minuteness. Are they depressed too? Is global society depressed? I wonder. I see this happening in exponential numbers in many place of the world.
How can you do the best to save your client 10 million dollars per year if he is not interested in implementing the obvious solution to his company’s ailment? In some cases, clients requires from professional service providers (consultants, analysts, researchers, coaches, other managers) not to be emotional/political intelligent, but, instead, to be a “carry-on,” efficacious psychiatrist, deployable in any time.
I have a theory. People don’t like to see their status quo being demolished. Some of those don’t know what it (CHANGED CHANGE) is that is making them feel unfit or as if he/she were undergoing an ailment. As Gary Hamel says, if one dos not pay attention to the CHANGES, he/she cannot, afterwards, complaint at all.
And as Eamonn Kelly mentions in “Powerful Times….,” these times will demand the boldest adaptation from each and everyone. Subsequently, one has got to understand the nature of the CHANGE in beta mode perpetually.
PS: I profoundly respect all job, works, tenures, and professions.

Comments: New Cool Friend: Dan Roam
Pictures and exhibits and graphics are extremely VITAL, in my case, to reinforce and facilitate what I am trying to communicate. I believe that Arquimedes stressed the relevance of adding illustrations to his workings. Leonardo did so extensively. He’s a prime example of this.
The book REIMAGINE by Tom Peters does this splendidly. You seem to be holding a text book of the future with a plethora of pleasant colors, shapes, forms, symbols, and, above all, messages.
Leading The Revolution by Gary Hamel (Strategos Chairman and Professor at The London Business School) is similar to that of Tom’s. Tom has reminded his audiences to “think in slides.” This aids the thinking process immeasurably.
MindMaps by Dr. Tony Buzan is extremely fun and so pervasive. I find it so tedious to read a great book made up of only words, without frequent illustration.
Posted by
Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 1:59 PM
Comments: Snide Advertising
An ad campaign must be a project abiding by standards and ethics and values. Rule #1 is to be honest, not push/pressure your product/service at any cost (not just economically), not to incur into negative advertising. I agree that this is a mind-set and also an ingrained talent (born with).
While managing the different pieces (components, elements, phases, contexts that stem from the system, namely the “ad campaign”), everything must be unimpeachably true, verifiable, and deliverable. Otherwise, What would the incumbent be doing to his branding strategy as the public at large become increasingly disturbed by this one company?
Creativity and innovation are invited to the utmost to make the ad so relevant. Soberness, at all times, is beyond crucial. Some basics are in due place. Former U.K. prime minister, Tony Blair officious words of his chief preference, “education, education, education.” To up quality, he/she must pay heed to this essential saying.
Whatever the ad message, What does the incumbent wish to accomplish? What EXPERIENCE does the exchange presented by the “live” ad take place? That answered, Where does he expect to be in his industry in the forthcoming 5 years? I wonder!
Posted by
Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 2:29 PM

Comments: Cool Friend: C. Michael Hiam
Tom, then, as per your posting, it seems that you raised these story to offer some ideas of great leadership. Many people ask about leadership traits and how to execute it. So any further story like this allows one to place his/her mind on a greater perspective.
I believe his story is inspirational. Without the inspiring effect, there’s no leadership in due place. I, personally, scan around for all theses stories in different places. Century-21 Leaders must meet dynamic challenges that will require any and every piece of savvy insight.
Posted by
Andres Agostini at March 14, 2008 2:38 PM

COMMENT TO BBC WORLD (as per an E-Survey)

We are living in extreme times. As Global Risk Manager and Scenario Strategists I know we have the technology and science to solve many existential risks. The problem is that the world is over-populated by –as it seems- a majority of psycho-stable people. For the immeasurable challenges we need to face and act upon them, we will require a majority of extremely educated (exact sciences) people who are psycho-kinetic minded. People who have an unlimited drive to do things optimally, that are visionaries. That will go all the way to make peace universal and so the best maintenance of ecology. One life-to-death risk is a nuclear war. There are too many alleged statesmen willing to pull to switch to quench their mediocre egos. If we can manage systematically, systematically, and holistically the existential risks (including the ruthless progression of science and technology), the world (including some extra-Erath stations) a promissory place. The powers and the superpowers must all “pull” at the unison to mitigate/eliminate these extraordinarily grave risks.

Andres Agostini
www.AndyBelieves.blogspot.com/

Arlington, Virginia, USA

9:32 p.m. GMT/UCT

March 14, 2008

Comments: 100 Ways to Succeed #112:
I am and have been professionally engaged with SYSTEMS for some 16 years. Truly tough systems. In fact, I used to disliking them. Now, I like them. They’re so treacherous, so superposed, so intersected. In sum,they appeal to me in a great deal.
Researching on Systems Methodology, I bumped into a book on Napoleon. From A to Z, he was a grandmaster on applied systems methodology. It is as if he were living in century 21. He stresses a great deal of topics that are ignored by many managers, entrepreneurs, and consultants. He faced every CHALLENGE knowing that a cascade of chaos was ahead, but he thought it over long in advance. He never underestimated his work of reference. Take a look at what he believed pertaining to education/formation.
(Literally. Brackets are placed by Andres Agostini.
Content researched by Andres Agostini)
“….Education, strictly speaking, has several objectives: one needs to learn how to speak and write correctly, which is generally called grammar and belles lettres [fines literature of that time]. Each lyceum [high school] has provided for this ob­ject, and there is no well-educated man who has not learned his rhetoric.
After the need to speak and write correctly [accurately and unambiguously] comes the ability to count and measure [skillful at mathematics, physics, quantum mechanics, etc.]. The lyceums have provided this with classes in mathematics embracing arithmetical and mechanical knowledge [classic physics plus quantum mechanics] in their different branches.
The elements of several other fields come next: chronology [timing, tempo, in-flux epochs], ge­ography [geopolitics plus geology plus atmospheric weather], and the rudiments of history are also a part of the educa­tion [sine qua non catalyzer to surf the Intensively-driven Knowledge Economy] of the lyceum. . . .
A young man [a starting, independent entrepreneur, ] who leaves the lyceum at sixteen years of age therefore knows not only the mechanics of his language and the classical authors [captain of the classic, great wars plus those into philosophy and theology], the divisions of discourse [the structure of documented oral presentations], the different figures of eloquence, the means of employing them either to calm or to arouse passions, in short, everything that one learns in a course on belles lettres.
He also would know the principal epochs of history, the basic geographical divisions, and how to compute and measure [dexterity with information technology, informatics, and telematics]. He has some general idea of the most striking natural phenomena [ambiguity, ambivalence, paradoxes, contradictions, paradigm shits, predicaments, perpetual innovation, so forth] and the principles of equilibrium and movement both [corporate strategy and risk-managing of kinetic energy transformation pertaining to the physical world] with regard to solids and fluids.
Whether he desires to follow the career of the barrister, that of the sword [actual, scientific war waging in the frame of reference of work competition], OR ENGLISH [CENTURY-21 LINGUA FRANCA, MORE-THAN-VITAL TOOL TO ACCESS BASIC THROUGH COMPLEX SCIENCE], or letters; if he is destined to enter into the body of scholars [truest womb-to-tomb managers, pundits, experts, specialists, generalists], to be a geographer, engineer, or land surveyor—in all these cases he has received a general education [strongly dexterous of two to three established disciplines plus a background of a multitude of diverse disciplines from the exact sciences, social sciences, etc.] necessary to become equipped [talented] to receive the remainder of instruction [duly, on-going-ly indoctrinated to meet the thinkable and unthinkable challenges/responsibilities beyond his boldest imagination, indeed] that his [forever-changing, increasingly so] circumstances require, and it is at this moment [of extreme criticality for humankind survival], when he must make his choice of a profession, that the special studies [omni-mode, applied with the real-time perspective of the totality of knowledge] science present themselves.
If he wishes to devote himself to the military art, engineering, or artillery, he enters a special school of mathematics [quantum information sciences], the polytechnique. What he learns there is only the corollary of what he has learned in elementary mathematics, but the knowledge acquired in these studies must be developed and applied before he enters the dif­ferent branches of abstract mathematics. No longer is it a question simply of education [and mind’s duly formation/shaping], as in the lyceum: NOW IT BECOMES A MATTER OF ACQUIRING A SCIENCE....”
END OF TRANSCRIPTION.
Posted by
Andres Agostini at April 17, 2008 1:04 AM

High Volt-age Project from GM
Getting to know a manufacturing plant of Toyota will tell you a great deal. They don’t call it “assembly plant,” they get furious. They say they build vehicles fully there. Toyota of Japan’s ownership in said plant was 90%.
Seeing the car crafting and understanding the Kaisen method (total quality assurance proprietary to –and as per–Toyota) is even more telling.
They pay enormous attention to (a) minuteness (towards perfection), (b) all the flexibility required as long as standards, benchmarks, and protocols are not 1% damaged, (c) their cultural ethos is 150% integrated, welcoming all kinds of diversity and plurality, (d) there is permanent call to subvert the “innovation status quo,” respectfully. Subvert the order is okay if you do it amicably and THROUGH TRANSPARENT COOPERATION (a là wiki).
To Toyota, the card and hence the brand is about Samurai honor, from ageless times. When something goes wrong for a client, and the client becomes aware of it, they are so embarrassed that they do not know how to wash their face. They, nonetheless, fix it radically.
Each bad process, each ill part, each poor design carries the name of the worker and that of the family. It’s about selling globally-sophisticated cars HONORABLY. The lowest-level worker at Toyota, even the ones into building maintenance, feel that if the company goes wrong their legacy and that of their forefathers will be dishonored eternally. There is similar case with the Apollo Program.
Kennedy was invited by Werner von Braun to visit the nascent NASA and to presence a test for rocket’s engine. Kennedy bumped into a worker who was relentlessly polishing the floor and asked him, “What are you doing here?” The employee immediately replied, “Mister President, making sure we place a man on the Moon.” This Toyota, as well, learned from NASA (diffuse knowledge) as they learned a lot, too, from Henry Ford (concentrated knowledge).
Back in WWII, the Japanese call upon Deming, Juran, and others to learn well the quality staff. The capture, without shame, the American way of quality assurance. They start paying up attention to the granularity of details. In parallel with the aforementioned, they were making copies or bad copies of American automobiles. What did they do the very latter for? To capture a myriad of ‘lesson learned’ to be documented and revised and improve and enhance with million iterations of serendipitous and pseudo-serendipitous “errors and trials” experimentations.
Toyota sells one Honor, Excitement, and Experience, turning the customer into a “prosumer,” with a built-in interest to get Toyota further away into rogue optimization.
GM, and the talented people of it, could start by reverse-engineering the as-of-now Toyota and the respective talented employee. This I so to begin with.
Many less models of automobiles while fixing the mind-setting in (i) perfection, and (ii) environmental. It’s time for GM to cross-sourced from NASA, DARPA, MIT, The San Diego Innovation Hubs, and, clearly, Silicon Valley, so forth.
Posted by
Andres Agostini at April 17, 2008 1:03 PM


COMMENTS: WISH I COULD BRING MYSELF TO GIGGLE (OR AT LEAST SMILE) IN PUBLIC

Some regulations will be required. In public, private, and NGO sectors, the Monarchs are mostly the mediocre. The Global Financial Systems, beginning with China, must be reviewed and harmonized. Clearly, no one but the USA can make a difference.

Besides regulations, new harbingers, extremely over-watching of the American financial system, I wonder if the White House has enough science-based experts on economics, finance, and innovation to start offsetting these horrendous trends.

I wonder why so many scientists cannot enter the USA and get the green card and a fellowship and some strong R&D&I(nnovation) for America. Will America send them STRAIGHT to China, India, U.K., E.U., Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, or Russia? Hay, it is your prerogative indeed! Yes, get the RULE OF LAW to RULE the BORDERS. But get the rule of law to capture any relevant “knowledge bearer” for the Innovation War III+.

The US Americanized the world. Let America Americanized the granting of visa and citizenship of “adding-value people.”

I know many international entrepreneurs and professionals with a global sophistication that will SHOCK the highest representatives of the Pentagon, the Silicon Valley, the Los Alamos National Laboratories, with a VAST AND ROBUTS (1) knowledge base, and (2) relational-capital repository.

What can the professional of the previous paragraphs do for the USA? With the backing and institutions and resources and infrastructures (beginning with communications) of United States, said professional can bring into America lucrative business, say, from Japan, Germany, Britain, Singapore, that, otherwise, will never get to American shores in the form of NEW, LUCRATIVE EARNINGS AND INVESTMENTS.

Yes, undocumented citizens must be obligated to OBEY THE RULE OF LAW. Get mean and lean and humane with the borders. But demolish bureaucracy pertaining to capturing forever these professionals, entrepreneurs, creativitists, and scientist. IF THE USA OPTS NOT TO MAKE IT THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FOR THE AGENDA OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE, THE USA WILL NOT BE THE SUPER POWER #1.

Ask Bill Gates III. He explained to the U.S. Congress. Every talented BRAIN of the world must be welcome and given all the documents and even the naturalization easily. If they operate on sensible areas of the field of knowledge, subject them to Draconian contracts, but capture them expedite-ly.

John Kao is on a crusade on the American urgent need to bring in, and assimilate TALENTED PEOPLE the fastest. America must remember that there are too many strong and rich players that will pay these professionals handsomely. What does America envision to be—geopolitically and towards the totality of the world—in the next 7 years?

If a foreigner is a talented person and is trained in US/UK/Canada colleges/universities and speak and write fluent English+ and has a client in Tokyo and two in western Europe—that with the backing of a US reputable firm—can land a millionaire/billionaire contract in continental USA, What will Congress/ICE (Immigration/Customs) tell the many unemployed that could be working otherwise if the visa policy were formally facilitate?

Do we wish consumer spending to spend infinitely more and be able to pay up their loans and other financial obligations? Will you keep the overseas professional from outside the American Heartland so that unemployed, as many businesses have been transferred to ‘Chindia’ or Singapore, to live with dignity, integrity and in pursuit of a True American Dream, achievable?

If one knows a foreigner that goes to a U.S. embassy, ask him/her what is like. They tell them that they feel pressured, prosecuted a priori, having done nothing illegal anywhere in the world. Many go immediately to U.K., Australia, and Canada, and Germany.

‘American Innovation Thrust’ cannot wait for kids of 14 to reassured and armor America’s leading role as a Super Power. Yes, they will have a relevant future, but in due time and DEPENDING ON LEGISTATION-DRIVEN BY MODERNITY AND DIVERSITY.

We need in-reversal outsourcings, not to re-capture American expatriates only, but also foreigners that admire American values, which were trained and indoctrinated in the U.S. and the U.K.

On the other side, this crisis offers an opportunity to make America even more innovative and with leading innovation more universal inside its borders and more universal within its legitimate interests worldwide. American spheres of influences can be taken to the greatest level without shooting a weapon, just by doing innovation-based businesses.

Get Silicon Valley to work with Los Alamos National Laboratories with MIT with CALTECH with Microsoft with HARVARD with San Diego Innovation Hubs with the Pentagon with DARPA with GOOGLE with every College/University with any relevant ‘wiki’.

Yes, everything is connected with everything else. But, at a more visible and tangible scale, IMMEDIATELY CONNECT EVERYTING WITH EVERYTHING TO BRING ABOUT THE UTMOST OUT OF LUCRATIVE TECHNOLOGY. Skunk Works is urgently needed. The ethos of the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Program can be a pervasive starting point. Get every significant talent on the boat.

Otherwise, What position would American like to hold?

COMMENTS: WISH I COULD BRING MYSELF TO GIGGLE (OR AT LEAST SMILE) IN PUBLIC
Judith, you’re welcome and thank you for your ensuing, valid reflection and other appreciated contributions. I guess we are going either to understand that these are POWERFUL TIME or go bohemian in a virtual reality. I respect all professions, occupations, interests, including people from fine arts, performing arts, and musical arts, so forth.
I have found to my satisfaction that many authors, including Tom, are so uncomfortable with many things happenings. The alarming topic of declining robustly talented, pro-American people from overseas is increasingly becoming more and more the designated subject matter of thinkers and writers that are true Americans.
Incidentally, thinking over and over, I am not suggesting making the most of the basic science, creativity, innovation, researching, consulting and other INNOVATION-VALUE ADDED to foreigners first (just in case). No, I will start IMMEDIATELY with a huge effort to get Americans themselves to run America optimally and up and up the optimum beyond the skies. However, America has a population of 300 million.
Chindia has a population of 2,600 million and growing. Russia and Brazil are growing and wish to be super rogue Economics powers, among other things. In many recondite locations of the world, people just got TIRED of being poor. They will do anything to compete with America. A top official from Asia, not from Japan or Singapore, said that his country is like a wild cat “that will catch every mouse legally or not so legally as long as it is lucrative for his nation.” To this particular nation, Is anything, anything at all, really valid? It seems so, unfortunately.
Maybe America needs, NOW, a new “New Deal,” emphasized and optimized and enhanced and long-term sustained. Get all the American kids and middle-age adults first. Then, recalling the population of Chindia, get the Americanized foreigners immediately on the boat. There are too many who ADMIRE THE BEST VALUES, LIKE THE AS-IT-IS AMERICAN CULTURE, AND ARE PROLIFIC speaking the Lingua Franca (American English). Clearly, they do understand that America is changing as so is the world.
Some of these splendid international talents can bring about decent employment to native or not native Americans in almost no time. Got to see more “Proudly Made in the USA.”
If I could speak to the President and the Congress, I would tell them that, in many cases and besides corruption, the American Financial System’s difficulties are also happening, BECAUSE OF LINEAR THINKING AND A HORRENDOUS LACK OF INNOVATION. Just a POV.
I would tell these honorable people verbatim:
- Get a new “New Deal” NOW,- Get Tom Peters and Michael Porter and Gary Hamel and Ray Kurzweil to conform a Blue Ribbon, Presidential/Congressional Commission (zero partisanship), with omni-mode powers.- Get the R&D of the PENTAGON/DARPA/NASA work CLOSELY with Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Duke University, the Foundation of Science, Los Alamos, SILICON VALLEY, the San Diego Innovation Hub, the Massachusetts Basin of Universities, PERDUE, PRINCETON, MIAMI, CAMBRIDGE, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, PriceWaterHouseCooper, E&Y, AMD, DELL, and a long etc.- Make teachers and professors the NATIONAL FATHERS that will FOUND Century 21 in order to open up opportunities. Paying them extremely well, with perks, with national unimpeachable recognition.- Compress the numbers of years between high school and university, instilling much more dense practical and universal education and formation. Get 21 faster to MBAs and to Ph.D.s.- Reengineer, based on the Internet, CONTINOUS EDUCATION for students or workers of any age. You may wish to create the United States Continuous Education Intranet.- Motivate, restore, and give a sense of purpose to the SENIORS. Why is it that in the Western Hemisphere Seniors are increasingly dislike and abandon?- Get extreme in (1) Biotechnology, (2) Nanotechnology, (3) Materiel Sciences, (4) Neurosciences, and all exact and social sciences.- Set incredible awards to raises more than exponentially the number of physics, biologists, chemists, and mathematicians, among others.
The US needs to lead the way because the US brings about a least worse world. There is an author from Scotland (Europe), who says that he dislikes the US, but he acknowledges that all of the wars in Centuries 20 and 21 are the result of grave European conflicts in centuries 18 and 19, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Behind those “human factors” that dislike Westerners and others people, as per this author that I prefer not to mention now, there is a group of nations supplying all sort of unthinkable resources to make enemies against to the US worldwide.
Through robust education and advancement in the U.S., not only the economy will be infinitely better, but the DIPLOMATIC EFFORT, holding the stick handy, CAN BE LIGHT YEARS MORE EFFECTIVE.
I don’t know about NATO. I believe that North America, Britain, Australia, Japan, and the EU must institute the most formidable block ever, led by the U.S.
Posted by
Andres Agostini (Andy) at April 18, 2008 4:04 PM

COMMENTS: 100 WAYS TO SUCCEED #114:

That is so right on communication.Too many people hide behind emails when it comes to business communication; picking up the ‘phone to a client to flag up a problem, to check they are happy or just get some feedback is critical. As Tom says in his ‘Breaking My Promise’ post, there is
Thank you all for your noted communications. Communication is a grave topic. It’s more than indispensable. Clearly, we are speaking, mostly, about business/organization-based communications.
I once read on the Harvard Business Review that American managers are confrontational, especially if the enterprise is sophisticated. I had never had this item as a problem. I found it superb. Since I speak out of responsibility fro my words and deeds—and this is effective communications golden rule--, I encounter these discussions extremely amicably and productive. Inclusive, the more vehement and passionate I become, my counterparts love it even more.
Being passionate and vehement, while dared everywhere for innovation and that one that bring about mini miracles, they (spokespersons engaged in discussions with you) firstly wish to know if you believe in your ideas and if you can take a great deep, disrupt the Guinness Award, and come back afloat effortlessly.
Put simply and considering the spirits of time, Cosmo/Micro visions of the world, and value of systems and believes, LET ME SUGGEST THAT, TODAY, COMMUNICATION IS A FUNCTION OF TELECOMMUNICATION. It’s also a function of presencial communication.
In addressing or revisiting or reflecting on COMMUNICATION, one must remember the TIME CHANGED, EPOCHS CHANGED, AGES CHANGED, CHANGE CHANGED, CHAOS CHANGED, AND OPPORTUNITIES ALSO CHANGED. Politics, geopolitics, economy, environment, weather, demographics, science, technologies, the universe, and, above all, society as well CHANGED, disrupting the connecting nodes that linked us with Century-20 History and from there backwards.
A historical point of inflection, greater than the Fall of The Roman Empire, was September 11, 2001. This period and all of the consequences were cowardly committed by brain-washed antisocial. This might be lesson #1 of Century-21.
As we know speak and write, we are still suffering the Cambrian waves inflicted on decent humankind for the events of 9/11. When will these effects wane down? They will be there and can be increase for the long haul, silently. This does not mean that one cannot make a life, a family, a business, a book, a legacy.
Yes, she can. But she must first understood what happened and all of its implications. Then, she and he must venture well into the future to encoeunter weirdeness via endless scenario planning. Out of there, there will be many new lessons to learn. Fisrt, one needs to up himself/herself beyond the boldest film (“Minority Report”). Then, ADAPT, ADAPT, and ADAPT. Remember that now adaptation has changed also.
Before 9/11, Japan had a Financial Crisis that was annoying the world. Before that, the Internet was born to the public and commerce at large.
With the advent of the Internet, the New Economy #1 took place. Some years afters the 9/11, the New Economy #2 was born. Between them and just before the mortgage crisis, Economy #3 was gestating. After some leveling off of the petroleum prices and the global problems with the economy (of Earth), there will probably be Economy #4 instituted. Each new economy brings along new rules, new players, new historical disruptions. To me, 9/11 is more of an inflecting point that the Industrial Revolution. Public confidence was shaken, most everyone is afraid of someone deceptive, and this in no good at all for the EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION PROCESS.
Every item, every conquer, every disaster, every breakthrough, every act of violence, every act of peace, including the global awareness for the Climate does one thing. It maximizes the sciences and technology, as a response to the collective challenges, in a way that is difficult to explain in some paragraphs.
If in century 20, there were 100 million people killed in wars and pandemics, it did not dent a 0.1% the accelerated progression of science and technology. Some authors of relevance, whose name I just don’t now remember, said that the TOTALITY OF THE SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE ON EARTH GOT DUPLICATED ON 2005.
And that from there on, every five years would get duplicated again. Until, if we don’t encounter an existential risk in reality, we will have OMNISCIENCE DUPLICATION perhaps every year, shortening the cycle ante the Venor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity emerge.
I personally don’t agree on that effective communication is achieved as always. This is wrong to me.
The scientific and technological responses, fueled with staggering defense budgets, are changing and will change things, may be leaving Minority Report short in creativity. Even though this Spielberg film was in actuality heavily consulted by a team of noted scientists.
In the “Speed of Thought” book, Bill Gates speaks of Microsoft planning process. Clearly, they cannot predict the future, just imagine it. Then, put in action in PRESENT TIMES. He observed that Microsoft’s 2-year predictions were always a bit too much. He also observed that Microsoft’s 10-year predictions were quite short. Meaning that it takes a decade for a technological explosion as per Microsoft standard. But, hold it a bit. That book is somewhat now irrelevant because it was published on 1998. Remember the NATURE and the SCIENTIFIC PROPERTIES of CHANGE have CHANGED much more than what people see, work, and play on the Internet.
Don’t get me wrong. The internet is a canonical landmark. There is no more powerful catalyzer to take ALL FIELDS OF SCIENCE from super-specialization to preternatural converge on emerge, nanosecond by nanosecond.
I am a freak of dictionary. I have several from my beloved Oxford to many from the U.S. and Canada. Let’s take the most recent edition of the American Heritage, put together by some 200-plus Ph.D.s from the U.S. and Canada. If you read carefully the prologue/preface, and speaking of COMMUNICATION, you hear a huge cry. The dictionary director says that his organization has never been pressed, especially by scientific and technological people, to incorporate new terms indispensable, say, to genomics, avionics, biotechnology, nanotechnology, food, and even sports, among others.
It was William Shakespeare who endowed the dearest English language with 10,000 new terms. NASA, on its own, endowed English with 20,000 new words and compound ones. Fortunately, the English language is extremely diligent in documenting new voices. It reminds me of Leonard da Vinci’s personal practice. Are you sure da Vinci was not Anglo-Phone? The languages of the ROMANIC WORLD (French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) dislike strongly to incorporate and get to use new lexicons.
Believes it or not, this retards heavily the advancement of discipline of overall knowledge. Imagine current Spain. They do not have a single word for “serendipity” or “outsourcing.” While in English to instill diverse, regardless of their origins, new voices. These other countries believe that doing hat English does is to dishonor the language, the countries, and the forefathers. What a major ethos problems those countries have!
With all these antecedents, I wish to express, extremely respectful of each one’s point of view, that the scientific/technological response has made the state of art extremely more sophisticated. Here, mathematic parlance, the exponent ant the base of the power is stirring beyond the most frenzy (on-going-y) chaos.
So if your are in business and you wish to succeed evidently, in many cases and even if you’re not officially a scientists, to use, in frequent occasions, to speak like a scientists.
I used to dislike complexity. I then embraced the easy ride until a succession of careful planned events went wrong without knowing the reason why (say 17 years ago). Ballmer is now Microsoft either Chairman or Chairman/CEO. He was asked if it was possible to institute a new business enterprise with management/business processes that were easy. He said, from his stance, that he didn’t know of one. In fact, he insisted that complexity has to be embrace progressively without letting you mentally stressed.
Examples like that are seen on da Vinci, Einstein (his “gendaken”), Phillip Feynman, Churchill. When in 10 Downing Street, Tony Blair said that the three most important things are EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION.
Does anyone think that EDUCATION in this epoch is for it to be simpler than that of your parents and grandparents? Regardless of how much EDUCATION you study, it comes to a point that you may have an interview with a GE recruiter. The recruiter is a scientists as most of the people there are. What kind of vocabulary will you use for that occasion? How would you like to projects into this person’s perceptions your own self?
I am surrounded by top-notch scientists. They tell you that no president or statesman of any advanced nation can hold the public office without being a consummated scientists. See what global corporations are doing to management. It is not enough to have two or three MBAs or being a perfectionist or being extremely accurate or an optimum technical person. The problems or challenges before TRANSFORMED the exercise of MANAGEMENT in one tenure once forbid to scientists.
Now, management is scientific in most firms, particularly global corporations. What is going on inside their companies is too KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE with many dynamics superposing and intersecting each other. So, SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT engenders SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION.You can talk to a citizen of every walk of live. But you can talk to the NASA Administrator, the President and the Queen with unambiguous message.
Peter Schwartz from Global Business Network and Santa Fe Institute, a professional futurologists and author with governments and large corporations as customers, has a message. And this message resonates more and more and more with the most pervasive thinkers and author. The message: “place the biggest premium possible on education.”
On “education”, Schwartz is telling you that a MBA and a Ph.D. help. But you are your best theorical and practical teacher. From the day that one is born to the day one expires, ONE MUST STUDY, STUDY, STUDY their own picked books. Run serendipitous/pseudo-serendipitous experiments. Documents the outcomes. LEARN THE LESSONS WITHOUT A FAIL. Run survey and keep buying relevant, non-fiction books and TEACH YOURSELF SO THAT YOU LEARN, AND THEN LEARN TO TEACH TO YOUR COLEAGUES.
Tom, as I hear, is semi-retired. Tom will never retire because his mind is knowledge hungry, always refining his thinking process. Has anyone seen Tom’s CV? It’s amazing. But have you seen Tom reading an array of different books at late hours of the night. And he will never stop, for God sake. I am glad he takes some nice vacations.
Through my life, I have the hardest bosses. The first one was Dutch and he insisted on me to buy “In Search Of Excellence.” I couldn’t believe that book that I preserve as a great treasure. Then this gentleman introduce me to Alvin Toffler via “THE SHOCK OF THE FUTURE.” By the way, Toffler forewarned us all that there would be a lot of shocks in just these current times.
My current mentor and supervisor is a physicist and scientist. The National Foundation of Science granted him a “doctoral in science” degree. He has an office looking towards the Pentagon. We get alone extremely well. This gentleman was the very one person to MANAGE THE RISK produced by Werner von Braun, while the latter was NASA’s Engineer in Chief to the Apollo Program. Was the man placed on the Moon and taken back to Earth safely?
Posted by
Andres Agostini (Andy) at April 18, 2008 7:25 PM
Comments: Daily Quote Launches

Thank you to you Cathy Mosca for being so thoughtful in compiling and making available Tom’s illuminating words of wisdom. Thanks, too, for your overall support to www.TomPeters.com+. My gratitude to Ellis for her energy and activism and illuminating contributions.
Tom put together this UNIQUE CATHEDRAL and we are having fun, thanks to his gracious and Nobel spirit and cleverness. He gave us a great opportunity. We need to acknowledge everyone’s contribution to the betterment of life at work and at home at large.
Thanks Tom. What a gift tendered! We will always remember! Here, one must compete with his/her self. Through the process, MASS COLLABORATION (a la wiki), to disseminate further the ideas of the totality of people related to this noted blog.Quotes are extremely important to me.
There was once a European King who said, “…the size of your Universe equates to the size of your vocabulary….” I have been following up Mr. Peters’ quotations since I first bought In Search of Excellence. I capture his quotations in every book like “The Passion of Excellence.” These two books have so much present validity, its content seems ageless.
I also got the revolution of the “Re-Imagine” book. I felt in advantage to see such a beautiful book, a splendid piece of fine arts, overwhelmed with lucid content, unique differedness, useful and unconventional wisdom to get through profession and life well.
I did subscribe to the service and keep it very sacrosantly.
It’s not a mystery that I love words. I am, too, into idea dissemination. Phrases and what I call “situational phrases,” I like even more. There is a great deal of wisdom that encapsulates a tribute to words, actions, and reflections as well as to the world redefinition/re-conceptualization.Sir Winston Churchill, statesman #1 of my preference, wrote as if everything were quotable.
So did Oscar Wilde. When, as a child, so the motion picture “The Dorian Gray Portrait,” I couldn’t avoided taking notes and notes and notes.The first time Wilde went to the USA, he was asked by Immigration/Customs, “Do you have anything to declare,” Wilde immediately responded, “nothing but my intelligence.” Quite a superb one incidentally. He was extremely bright beyond any dispute.
Churchill, through his writings, that compete in quality and volume with those of Dickens, always recommended one read and harness many quotations. Learning them, by the way and as per Churchill, “can make you wiser.” Then, getting comfortable in The Last Lion, he said that an American of New York taught him the trick of harnessing the quotations.
Because Churchill was a genius, in Century 20, as a true statesman. He was a genius in many fields, including his super-communication, which could turn the “impossibles” into actual “viables”. He was indeed heavy into mind expansion. It does remind me of my father and my current supervisor.
Through oral communication he captured milestones. Through written communication he went even beyond.You see, to Churchill and to many luminaries like Sir Francis Bacon, who where “Type A Primma Donnas,” words and phrases were ‘actions to be’ and mostly ‘actions to win’ and that aided the wining of the WWII. Bacon is a genius that I admire limitlessly.
I have a little hobby that it’s a bit costly. I buy a lot of quotation dictionaries. Although, not as many as I would like. Fortunately, the Internet today offers you a great deal of materiel. I give away some through my writings and blogs, since those are an asset that belongs to humankind ALL.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, read in English (my case) has numerous unbelievable quotations to open up one’s mind into RADIANT LIGHT, process through lateral, radiant thinking plus.
Some people think quotation is inexpensive and useless theory. See this one by Einstein, “…I do not know of anything more practical than theory….”Churchill was a Genius. He was not telling about it anyone. He was self-driven and he kind of attaches a DYNAMO to the “driving forces” that DROVE his great self. A true luminary to “fire” an opaque discussion even from his passing-away point.
But Churchill wanted to know more and more words, phrases, quotations, regardless of the place were they came from/got originated. He bestowed “sense/purpose of living to his life” through re-educating and re-shaping his mind again and again in real time until the last exhalation.
The West owes him a great deal. So does the East, when you place this statement on the macro perspective. Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, being just a candidate to occupy the 10 of Downing Street, was asked a question by the journalists before the elections reassured officially his definitive winning.
Journalists asked, “Mr. Disraeli, in case you finally win, What will be your fist government action?” The statesman replied, “…sent my best friend to Sydney…”
In SHOCK, the journalist re-questioned, “…to Sydney, What for?...Disraeli, “…so that they tell me what I and my government look like from the antipodes [Australasia]…”
The Italian descent Corsican by the name Napoleon Bonaparte, although very damaging to most of Europe, obliges you to get out his thinking some pieces of ruthless wisdom for one’s personal, professional, and entrepreneurial success.
Do you remember when Bobby Kennedy ask President John Kennedy to reply the incendiary telegram from Krusheff not making acknowledgment on any negative statements, and just concentrating on the items that could be turned into a potential solution to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and the world over the Cuban Missile Crisis?
I believed that Napoleon was such a giant, although with all its grave transgression to human rights, that his military doctrines are the genesis—to a great extent—of the U.S. Army’s doctrines today. He spoke French poorly since his mother tongue was Italian. He did speak Latin. Napoleon told the French people that if they don’t get SCIENCE and ENGLISH in the knowledge-based portfolio, they are not to be productive to their own selves AT ALL.
To get in touch with Napoleon writings and quotations is a luxury, since he considered anti-Machiavelli to use his fist to write out his heart and mind. Authors into Napoleon have had to go to great lengths to get little pieces of paragraphs to put them together accurately and orderly.
The most conspicuous Napoleon researchers are among the noted military establishment of the U.S. It’s a luxury to get to know the “good [thinking] deeds” of this guy and leave to historians the judgment of the evil deeds.
Napoleon, as Churchill, granted ‘a sine qua non’ condition to the supremacy of knowledge and specially that KNOWLEDGE DISTILLING MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE.
Most everyone would like to increase the quality and quantity of their “deep smarts.” QUOTATIONS/QUOTES are an instrumental key, especially now when one must feel comfortable with anarchy, chaos (and the order from it stemming), and other phenomena. It is absolutely instrumental.
Prime historians and philosophers make certain to tell you that in the world there are times that in-the-making history grants calm times. But it also offers you agitated times. There was the wise Chinese philosopher, gathered with his disciples. And told them, “…try not to live in interesting times…” Esteemed colleagues were living INTERESTING TIMES plagued with UP-SIDE RISKS and DOWN-SIDE RISKS.
For a researcher and historian, among others, these are daring times but also extremely interesting for those WATCHING with a prepared mind (Pasteur).
Clearly, if you capture QUOTES from an extremely experienced Management/Business person as Tom and others such as Science Nobel Prize recipients and Leonardo and Newton and Brunelescchi and Shakespeare and Dickens and Bacon and Disraeli and Churchill and Einstein and Feynman, the better.
Out of the optimum, the most difficult quotes by a luminary are the top best even if, at the first reading, one doesn’t get the message. Get the message out of it. Get the message hidden between lines. Try to understand the setting and context whether those quotes were formulated.
Try to guess the color, the gray colors (various degrees), the personality, the gender, out of whom it originated to whom where designated, in what historic epoch, in what year season. That is, if one would like to get serious about LEARNING HOW TO BE A GENIUS OUT OF CREATIVE, WISE QUOTES.In line with the previous paragraph, I might say the following.
There are quotes that enlighten you with their wisdom. There are also quote who expand you mind in times that the DRIVING FORCES, ARE OF BRUTE FORCE AND ROGUE-LY SUBTLE, under the watch of a true Monarch, namely RUTHLESS KNOWLEDGE.
We need and we will need even more MIND EXPANSION to utmost, a word that gets more complex and armored from yoctosecond to yoctosecond (one septillionth (10-24) of a second). Time to get ROCK & ROLL teleported at light speed.
Posted by
Andres Agostini (Andy) at April 19, 2008 5:18 PM