At The Border: Immigration Or War

So it’s interesting how this whole immigration crisis is playing out in real life and simultaneously on TV. 

In real life, we have a caravan of thousands of people marching from Central America (Honduras and Guatemala) to the U.S. border seeking asylum, mostly for economic reasons. 

On TV, we have the Last Ship Season 5, where South and Central America are at war with the U.S., “no longer willing to sit at the children’s table of international politics,” and they are coming to the U.S. to fight.

In the U.S. today, there are over 40 million people that were born in another country.  Of these, there are over 12 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. (55% from Mexico), and we know that we need immigration reform.  

In the truest sense, we are almost all of us immigrants to this country, with ourselves or our families coming over at one time or another, and we are grateful for the generosity and open doors that allowed us to come here and make a good life.

Of course, we want to pay it forward and give others the same asylum and opportunity that we had and which they as human beings deserve. 

Yet, the country continues to debate the mix of compassion and giving to the oppressed and needy versus the merit principles for bringing in needed skills, talents, and investment, and how many is the “right” number to allow in at any one time.

In real life, we are beefing up border agents, building a wall, and calling in the military to halt the illegal flow of immigrants, so that we can channel immigrates through a process and vetting that leads to legal and safe immigration to this country

On TV, we are fighting in the air, on land, and at sea an alliance of countries from the south and central that want to take over the U.S., and we are also holding our own and holding them back.

In both cases, we need to have and maintain borders to be a sovereign country, to protect our country, and to ensure that caravans of illegal immigrants or foreign troops are not crossing the border and doing harm. 

It’s high time for true immigration reform that is compassionate yet principled, but overrunning the border isn’t an option that is practical or fair.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Wrong Way To Test

As educators are pushed to improve students’ test scores, sometimes they run afoul.

In Atlanta, 8 former public school educators were sentenced to prison–three were sentenced to as long as seven years–for a conspiracy inflating student scores by “changing answers” to the tests. 

Interestingly, in another article today, we see that not only are students put to the test, but so are job applicants. 

In fact, “Eight of the top 10 U.S. private employers now administrator pre-hire tests in their job applications.”

While testing can certainly show some things, they can also miss the point completely. 

I know some people that test wonderfully–straight A students, 100+ on all exams, 4.0 GPAs–and for the most part, they are wonderful at memorizing and prepping for the test…but sometimes, not much else. 

Some of them have no practical knowledge, little critical thinking or creativity, and are even sort of jerky. 

And others who test poorly may be well thought, articulate, hands-on, and good with people–I’d take a million of them. 

“Failing the test” is not necessarily getting it wrong…it may just be errant to the current prevailing educational and professional testing system that values memorization and spitting back over insight, innovation, and practical skills. 

The challenge is how do we compare and contrast students and professionals competing for schools and career advancement, if we don’t easily have something standardized like a test to rally around. 

Maybe there is no getting away from more holistic assessments–where we look at bona fide life and career experience, a wide range of recommendations from teachers, coaches, and supervisors, hard and soft skills (including communications and interpersonal), professional and personal ethics, genuine interest in the pursuit, and the motivation to work hard and contribute.  

Tests–students cheat, educators game the system, memorization and robotic answers are the name of the game to get the A, and boring homogeneity–but it’s often the easy way out to evaluating candidates for a phony success. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Winning Respect Of The People

Please see my new article here in Public CIO Magazine on how we can learn from the technology industry to improve our nation’s government.

“We can solve technological problems beyond our forefathers’ wildest dreams, but we’re challenged to break political gridlock. compromise, make difficult decisions, and forge a balanced, reasoned path forward.”

Hope you enjoy!

Andy

(Source Photo: the talented Michelle Blumenthal)

Learning IT Security By Consequences

This is a brilliant little video on IT Security.

What I like about it is that it doesn’t just tell you what not to do to stay safe, but rather it shows you the consequences of not doing the right things.

Whether you are letting someone into your office, allowing them borrow your badge, leaving your computer unsecured, posting your passwords, and more–this short animated video shows you how these vulnerabilities will be exploited.

It is also effective how they show “Larry” doing these security no-no’s with signs everywhere saying don’t do this.

Finally, the video does a nice job summing up key points at the end to reinforce what you learned.

I think that while this is simpler than many longer and more detailed security videos that I have seen, in a way it is more successful in delivering the message in a practical, down-to-earth approach that anyone can quickly learn core basic practices from.

Moreover, this video could be expanded to teach additional useful IT security tips, such as password strengthening, social engineering, and much more.

I believe that even Larry, the unsuspecting office guy, can learn his lesson here. 😉

(Note: This is not an endorsement of any product or service.)

If I Could Do School All Over Again

This program at Draper University of Heroes was written up in Bloomberg BusinessWeek (25 Feb. 2013) as The Silicon Valley Survival School.

But really this is the remaking of education by venture capitalist, Tim Draper.

There is an awesome focus on building thinkers, dreamers, inventors, and entrepreneurs–not just some more liberal arts majors without an real idea of how to apply what they learned or “what they want to be when they grow up.”

The skills taught get you out of your comfort zone, break your fears, teach you life survival skills, and give you a core business foundation to hopefully, create the next great thing.

Draper uses the terms superheroes, creativity, and imagination–skills so often overlooked in the traditional classroom where dated topics are not applied to real life, stale modes of teaching keep people in their seats and snoozing, and memorization is valued more than real critical analysis and innovative thinking.

I am excited here by a curriculum that focuses on the big picture areas of vision, truth & justice, and creativity, and has lectures with CEOs of successful companies along side practical training in martial arts, survival, SWAT, first aid, lie detection, yoga, art and design, speed reading, cooking and more.

This 8-week crash course teaches you how to come up with great ideas, start and finance a business, network, brand and sell, and classes are limited to 180 students, and the cost is $7,500 or 2% of your income for the next 10 years.

The capstone is a 2-minute pitch to a panel of real investors, and the chance for Draper Fisher Jurvetson to make an actual investment in it.

Investing in good ideas is one thing…investing in great people with the skills to succeed is even better.

I’d like to see this program expand to true University and even high-school level proportions–so we can really teach kids rather than just imprison them in mind and body. 😉

Brilliant Knife Set Design

I came across this brilliant knife set by French company, Deglon, called Meeting–I would assume it’s called that because of how the knives meet up and fit together into a single stainless steel block.

I love the the simplicity and eloquence, and these won the European Cutlery Design Award.

There are four knives in this set for paring, utility, chef, and fillet. 

Deglon also has a steak knife set–similar concept in that the knives fit together, but they stack rather than fit inside each other, so it is cute, but has less of a wow-factor. 

My other concern with these knifes is their handle which doesn’t have a cushioned or rubberized grib–so for lots of cooking and cutting, I am not sure how comfortable or slip-resistant these are to use.

Similarly, some of the knives may not be so quick and easy to pull them out and use, especially the ones that are tucked inside the others. 

Perhaps, these are an example of form versus function–where this contemporary knife set look very beautiful, but how practical are they for everyday use?

At $750, I am pretty sure these are better than anything I use regularly, but I am definitely no chef! 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal screenshot at Deglon.com)

Dress for Success?

This picture is from the train home from work this week.

This lady took the opportunity to literally sprawl herself out on the train.

She had a rolling briefcase with the arm fully extended.

To which she casually hung her jacket with the collar sloppily up.

She slumped up in the seat, and then took off her shoe and put her foot up on the briefcase.

Then she began curling her toes–back and forth–while she listened to her iPod or iPhone (not sure which it was).

Later she threw her handbag under her seat behind her shoe.

Must’ve been a tough day for her or is this just her way?

I remember learning from my early days in MBA school that you should always dress at least one level up (or more)–i.e. make yourself look the the part of the job you really want.

If you see yourself in that position and can make others see you in that role too then eventually you’ll be the guy or gal!

I’ve seen people dress up and down in the office–of course, the ones that spend the money and take the time and effort to dress for success, look pretty impressive.

At the same time, the clothing and accessories, while they may help the person look put together–sometimes are nothing more than “lipstick on a pig”–the clothes disguise the true person–and they are not very impressive on the inside.

I’ve heard some successful people in town preach that how you dress is absolutely critical and they chide others for not straightening their belt and shining their shoes.

This past week, I heard the opposite from someone who said he looks at people in the hot summer weather, and if they are dressed in a “coat and tie,” then he writes them off, since they don’t have even the basic common sense to dress for the season.  This guy, while himself a boss, was literally in a t-shirt in the office!

I personally always sort of liked the Silicon Valley–high-tech dress code–like Steve Jobs–a black tee (or turtle–too hot for me) with jeans and maybe a relaxed sports coat–comfortable and freeing yet sort of casually-classy.

While some people say that the dress makes the person, I think that what is inside is what really counts–although talking off your shoes on train is not going to win you any promotions or brownie points, for sure. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)