Figmentations

I enjoyed Stephen Colbert’s interview with Ambassador Andrew Young, who interestingly had actually negotiated the resolution of a strike in the past with Colbert’s father. Andrew Young suggests, in “Colbert style”, that Colbert should do what his father did and settle the Writer’s strike in the same way as they did in the past.

The two simple guidelines for negotiations were described as follows: (1) allow each party to have a face-saving way out; and (2) that by being reasonable and humble, you work out the problem so that everyone thinks they won, but nobody takes credit for it (a.k.a, being solution-focused rather than problem-focused.)

Also pointed out is that “strikes are never about money, they are always about respect.”

Humility and respect are free and are definitely two things that the world could use a lot more of.

Who would expect that the Comeday Channel could be both funny and educational?

I don’t know about you, but I like Google and truly enjoy my customized iGoogle homepage (including the themed header that is tied to my location and has graphics that update based on the time of the day). I only mention this because one of my favorite “add stuff” gadgets on iGoogle are the Quotes of the Day, three of which that I have on my Home page are “Quotes of the Day“, “Leadership Quote of the Day” and “Inspirational Quotes and Pictures“.

Today’s Leadership Quote stands out to me as representing how I like to operate:

“In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Thomas Jefferson

This is similar in some ways to the quote of:

“Walk/Speak softly and carry a bit stick.” Theodore Roosevelt

Note: Hope I’m not violating too many copyright or intellectual property laws here by posting some graphics that I came across online. My disclaimer here is that hopefully by duly referencing my understanding of the appropriate sources of these images, and so as not to let the sentiments captured in these images forever disappear in the bandwidth of lost or broken links, I reprint these images here with all due respect to the original owners of these graphics.

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I’ve chosen the following two images which I came across separately, yet strangely find the one to be so very complementary to the other.

First is this Peter Brookes cartoon from Times Online. Next is this image from the Facebook Social Advertising group:Clearly money alone won’t solve the world’s problems. Poorly spent money is no doubt a tragedy to fundraisers, policy makers, social workers, and citizens alike. Everyone has different talents to offer. Let’s appreciate the philanthropists and endowment providers, but let’s also put the right combination of policies and policy implementers in place so that real change, progress, and evolution can truly take place.

A CNN report from this week’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas showcases a few new gadgets that run on “alternative power”. One of these alternate power sources includes water, but not the hydropower type. In particular, the water-powered gadget that caught my attention was a water-powered fuel cell for a cell phone, which is no doubt an intriguing concept.

However, even though these gadgets are expensive now as long as the technology is new, if they ever did become affordable to the general public, I’m not sure that people would or should consider water to be the ubiquitous energy source that it may appear to be. Clearly some countries, such as China, Darfur, and Iraq, are experiencing tragic shortages in drinking water even today.

Granted that even though water-based energy probably doesn’t need to be of a drinking water quality, its availability and portability does pose serious challenges. Also, we can’t assume that bottled water would be what feeds this water-powered fuel cell, but it isn’t that far-fetched a likelihood either. Let’s consider the impact of that possibility for a moment.

Consider the potential environmental impact of portable bottled water being used as a fuel source with these key facts from the January-February 2008 issue of AMC Outdoors magazine entitled: “Turn on the Tap: Though popular, bottled water has its dissenters”.

Scary Facts:

• Fact #1: “Americans spent about $11 billion on bottled water in 2006, an 8.5 percent increase over the previous year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp.”
• Fact #2: “According to the Pacific Institute, 17 million barrels of oil were used in the production of plastic bottles last year and less than one in five containers made its way to a recycling facility”. Note: Not all plastic bottles are of the water-filled type, but even a percentage of this figure would still be staggering.

Action-Based Facts:

• Fact #1: The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA)…says companies are working to reduce their environmental impact by using lighter weight plastic…and more fuel efficient transportation.”
• Fact #2: Also, as referenced in this article, check out the”Think Outside the Bottle” Campaign by Corporate Accountability International which is working to hold the bottled water industry accountable.

The logistics of a portable water-powered fuel cell concept will definitely need to be addressed should the product work well and gain in affordability and popularity.

At first, I thought that my last excuse not to go on a diet had finally arrived. I’ve always used the excuse that, well, yes, you can be oversized and still be beautiful and successful, too, so why lose weight just for the vanity of it? I, like many people, have been in denial about the potential health consequences of the excess weight, which admittedly is easily ignored until it rears its ugly head.

Anyway, the self-proclaimed “voluptuous” plus-size role model, Queen Latifah, is joining the Jenny Craig weight-loss movement, along with Kirstie Alley and Valerie Bertinelli.

She will be supporting the company’s “mission of improving health by taking her first step toward achieving a more healthful lifestyle.” She will work with the company “to communicate the importance of how small lifestyle changes, in the areas of diet and exercise, can have positive effects on overall health.”

While I love her personality, her work, and her self-confidence, a commitment to health is not something I’ve noticed from her. Interesting that she has chosen to endorse a company whose product/service she hasn’t used yet, though their message is undisputably important. This is also a rather abrupt contrast to her recent voiceover for Pizza Hut commercials. Add to that her reportedly since-college-year dream of opening her own Fat Burger franchise.

While most so-called “commitment devices” (as Freakonomics refers to as weight loss solutions that people invest in) don’t seem to work, from a business point of view it can’t hurt to enlist well-known role models to champion the cause, especially if actual weight loss isn’t the even the main goal any more. Ca-ching. Ca-ching.

The Queen herself has nothing to lose, since I’m sure she is getting paid nicely to be a sponsor along with the free publicity to boot. (Just to point out the facts, Jenny Craig already sponsored the Queen’s ‘Travelin’ Light’ new album tour.)

Too bad the Jenny Craig program is not even really affordable (even in the short-term) for many of the people that The Queen’s popularity would appeal to. Looking forward to seeing how this campaign evolves.

Check out the new SRI videos that are now being posted on YouTube.
I’m even in this one for a few seconds!!!

Interestingly, about two years ago I wrote a post about how the phrase “it is what it is” could be interpreted in a positive and empowering way. I wrote this post because I needed to find a way to stop letting this phrase aggravate me so much when people used it to refer to frustrating situations, in my case at work.

Now….finally….I knew I should have gone with my gut feeling! I wasn’t the only one that felt that this phrase was useless. See now that it is on the LSSU 2008 list of banished words. For example take this one quote from their listing:

It is what it is. “It means absolutely nothing and is mostly a cop out or a way to avoid answering a question in a way that might require genuine thought or insight. Listen to an interview with some coach or athlete in big-time sports and you’ll inevitably hear it.” – Doug Compo, Brimley, Michigan.

[On a separate but related note, I see no need to get into the semantics of whether we want to call this a list of words or phrases; in the end isn't it all the same, since you need words to get phrases, right? But, I digress, let's get back to the main point here....]

Other “banished” words include: perfect storm; wordsmithing; back in the day (as when referring to technology); random (popular with teens); sweet (when used like “awesome” is used); decimate (which surprisingly actually means “reduce by one-tenth” rather than how it’s meant to mean “annihilate”); and, one that I hear a lot around work, to throw someone “under the bus”.

Keep in mind that this ‘banished’ word list is different, but no less interesting, than the recent release of the American Dialect Society’s 2007 Word(s) of the Year which include (but is not limited to) the following words: plutoed; flog; thruthiness; subprime; connectile dysfunction; wrap rage; texter; and earmarxist.

Would you believe that the word “waterboarding” made it on both lists?

I hope that my posting these few workplace-related links doesn’t backfire on me. But, it’s all just in good fun, so, here goes…

While browsing through a new forum that I recently came across, I stumbled upon this funny article that parodies how so-called scientific studies sometimes don’t prove anything meaningful. Check out this article from The Onion entitled: “Study Finds Working At Work Improves Productivity“.

To complement that is another, though less recent, article I came across (via Cnn/Careerbuilder) that explains: “Why bad employees don’t get fired“, which basically concludes with the “mind your own business” philosophy among a few other interesting concepts to ponder.

But, not too worry, the courts have now made it quite clear where the line should be drawn between being stupid versus intentionally misbehaving regarding the posting of politically-incorrect cartoons at work (as evidenced by the recent Dilbert cartoon-posting firing judgement).

People will always have some commentary to make about their work environments; these few links just show that some perceptions might be more universal (or stereotypical? or exaggerated?) than some people might otherwise realize.