OPTIMISM vs pessimism

So I thought this really matched my philosophy to a T on optimism and pessimism. 

As Joel Rosenberg put it in his book The Ezekiel Option, “In the long run everything would turn out fine…but tomorrow could be a disaster.”

In short, this equates to:

I’m a strategic optimist, but a tactical pessimist. 

My mom used to say, “If I am pessimistic, I’ll never be disappointed.” LOL

I think though when we have faith then we know that truly, in the end everything is for the best and will be okay.

In the short term though, there are challenges to face and these can be tough indeed. 

– Strategically an optimist. 

– Tactically a pessimist. 

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. 😉

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

UNDERpromise + OVERdeliver

Every manager is rightly taught to underpromise and overdeliver. 

It’s sound planning and good risk management to plan for contingencies–and certainly these do happen. 

Build in some buffer time and resources into your estimates, because reality bites and you need to have the ammunition to respond. 

My father used to tell me:

“A word is a word!”

When you say something, promise something, commit to something then that is it!”

To do otherwise is to have no honor, no character, and no fear of G-d. 

Similarly, when you overpromise and underdeliver, you fail yourself and your customers.

People commit time, resources, and faith in you, so you owe it to them to set realistic goals and plans to accomplish them.

To do otherwise, you risk damage to the longterm relationship, you hurt your credibility, and maybe most importantly, you hurt the chances of genuine progress. 

The philosophy that I believe works best is:  Be thoughtful. Be strategic. Be direct. Be honest.  

That’s what I would want from others and that’s also what I strive to be. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Are We Ready For Anything?

So contingency planning is a critical part of risk management.

You never know what can happen in life…

So you must have a solid business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plan (DRP). 

That way in case of natural disaster or terror attack–we are prepared!

So what was really sad-funny this week was when I became aware of an annual contingency planning exercise that was being conducted as a table-top exercise–that’s legit. 

It was well-planned, scripted to really challenge the participants, and I heard it went very well.

But then just that evening as it turned out there was a real contingency.

What happened?

Everyone was working well to address what happened and how to fix it and kudos to some super great people. 

The only problem was no one seemed to really know or was following what to do from a contingency plan perspective.

In the end everything turned out fine, but it was incredible how planning and training can deviate so far from real life. 

It’s like in school, when administrators conduct fire drills for the teachers and students and everyone gets up like good boys and girls and goes out in an orderly fashion, maybe even in a nice buddy system, but then when G-d forbid there is a real fire, everyone starts screaming and running crazed for the exits. 

Perhaps table top exercises should be thrown out the window and testing should be conducted with realistic scenarios and under mandated lifelike circumstances. 

Instead of smoke and mirror planning, we need serious preparation for the day when it isn’t child’s play or cool drawings on the whiteboard only. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Sharyn Morrow)

Going For Gravity

A good friend told me to go see the movie Gravity.

He said, “You’ll definitely like it, and make sure you see it in IMAX!”

G-d, I don’t recall the last time that I went to an IMAX showing.

So keeping in the mind the saying, “try it and you’ll like it,” we went for the $19.00 IMAX 3D experience.

(OMG, I still remember when movies in NYC were $1!)

I was hesitant about this movie having heard that there were only 2 characters, and that 1 was Sandra Bullock!

Also, that she was the only one left for the second half of the movie–and I thought how interesting is this going to be?

Okay, I told myself, I’ll get excited by the action and destruction in the first half with Clooney and sleep through the second half with Bullock.

But it was so much better than I anticipated–one of the best movie experiences for me ever!

The IMAX 3D was absolutely amazing…only thing better would’ve been a massive in-your-face hologram of the whole movie–and I bet this comes one day soon.

The space walks, hurling space debris, exploding space stations and daring escapes was right there and up close in this movie.

I found myself at times reaching my hands out to practically touch the characters–since they seemed that close.

And Bullocks tears floating in space–were very moving and cool at the same time.

Bullock is going to win a ton of awards for her performance in Gravity.

Oh, and one more funny experience was when a lady told this guy in the theatre to hush, and when he didn’t listen, she kicked his chair.

But that wasn’t the end of it…

After she kicked it a few times, he turned around grabbed her shoe right off of her foot and then threw it at her.

She ran out of the theatre to get security.

Security told them both to cut it out, and then I heard the guards outside laughing about these two quarreling theatre-goers.

Anyway, I didn’t sleep a wink in this movie, and enjoyed the whole experience. 😉

(Source Photo: Rebecca Blumenthal)

TED For Everyone

The New Yorker (9 July 2012) has an article on TED Talks.

TED stands for Technology/Entertainment/Design and is a conference venue for some of the most magnificent speakers.

Just looking at some of TED’s “most popular this month”–turn to TED if you want to hear about:

– Information being collected about you on the web
– How through vulnerability, we can empathize, belong, and love
– Whether through evolution our kids will be different than us
– Ways to prepare for Alzheimer disease
– New ideas for cleaning up oil spills
– How schools kill creativity
– The talents and abilities of introverts
– How to inspire and be a great leader

TED is literally a world of information and it is presented in a high quality way.

Almost anyone would be floored by the honor to present at TED.

Talking at TED means not only that you have something important to say, but that you can pull-off saying it the right way.

What makes TED lectures great though (and viewed 800 million times so far) maybe also makes them more than a little sterile.

Firstly, the 4-day TED conference itself is only for special people–admission starts at $7,500 and no that does not include lodging and travel, and you have to have an “invitation”–posh posh–to attend.

Then, the actual presentations are “closely governed”–speakers are carefully sought out and vetted, material that is counterintuitive is of interest, and “TED’s eye for theatre…[with] vigilance about immersion and control” are a strong part of the showmanship.

However, while on one hand, these things perhaps are a hugh part of the TED success–wash, rinse, repeat–on the other hand, it also makes for a feel that is very scripted, uniform, almost molded.

The New Yorker article even describes how the speakers practice again and again–repeating their monologues hundreds of times and to whoever will listen. There is essentially nothing impromptu, ad-libbed, or in a sense real about the entertainment-aspect of what you are watching and listening to.

While the information seems to always be great–the presentation with the speaker, sound, lights, slide show, audience shots, etc.–comes across like a row of identically-built houses in a development.

Each “house” (or presentation in this case) may be filled with interesting people, things, and love, but on the outside, as one of my friends says–they are identical, so that coming home after a long day at work, you almost don’t know at times which row house is yours anymore.

If TED ever did a lecture on how they could improve TED. these would be some of my suggestions (and there is no gloss here):

– Open it to everyone–Restricting TED to invitation-only is elitist and maybe worse. Opening TED to more people to attend, learn, and enjoy–let’s everyone have an opportunity to benefit–regardless of who you are or where you come from.

– Diversify the speakers–It is nice to have scientists and entrepreneurs and stars present at TED, but it would be even nicer to have regular, common people too. Everyone has a story to tell–whether or not you have a Ph.D. or run your own company. While it is great to learn from the “experts,” it would be fascinating to hear from everyday people on their challenges and how they deal with them and overcome them or not. Just as an example, regularly, I see an incredible homeless lady on the street in DC–yes, well-dressed, talkative, polite–and I would want to hear how she ended up where she is and how she copes and survives her experiences on the street everyday. The point it that every person is a world onto themselves and worth hearing about–the key is how to get the experiences, the feelings, and the lessons learned.

– Genuine, less scripted speeches–Part of good entertainment is making it real, but when it is just another (over-)rehearsed performance, the speakers seem almost robotic. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear human beings talk in a more relaxed and yes, genuine-way about very important human topics of significance to us all? Right now, people crave information –heck, it’s the information age and nice informative lectures are racking up the views, but at some point soon, people are going to want and expect more.

– Shake it up with the venue–TED is conservative extraordinaire. The one (or occasionally two or three) speakers on the stage, the dark background and spotlighted speaker, the PowerPoint or Prezi presentation, the dangling microphone, the opening applause, the slow and methodical speech–yes TED is “ideas that inspire,” but it is also a venue that bores. Perhaps, if you are an avid conference attendee and like the routine, copy-cat set-ups, you feel at home in TED.  But why not let people talk here, there, and everywhere–let someone speak on the street, in a park, on a ship, or even parachuting off a plane.  How about someone on the International Space Station?  Or on the front lines in a major military engagement. People have a lot to say and where they say it–says a lot about them and adds to their message. A stage is a stage. Even a snake-oil salesman has a soapbox.

Not to be confused with TED, there are TEDx events–“TED-like” that are organized by volunteers on a community-level, a “do-it-yourself TED” that is occurring at a “global rate of about five per day”–and these come closer to the open ideal, but still more can be done to make TED itself an organization where truly ideas come from all people, for all people.

While TED’s brand is exclusive and valuable–perhaps more important is education that is valuable for the masses.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Juhan Sonin)

>Realistic Optimism and Enterprise Architecture

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Optimism can be a key to success in your personal and professional life!

The Wall Street Journal reported in Nov. 2007 that optimism leads to action and that “if even half the time our actions work out well, our life is going to turn out for the better…if you are a pessimist, you are unlikely to even try,” says Dr. Phelps an NYU neuroscientist. Similarly, Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania observes that “optimists tend to do better in life than their talents alone may suggest.”

So while optimism is often “derided as a naïve, soft-soap disposition that distorts the realities of life,” Duke University researchers found that optimists actually lead more productive and by some measures, successful lives. For example, they found that optimists “worked longer hours every week, expected to retire later in life, were less likely to smoke and, when they divorced, were more likely to remarry. They also saved more, had more of their wealth in liquid assets, invested more in individual stocks, and paid credit-card debt bills more frequently.”

At the same time, overly optimistic people behaved in a counter-productive or destructive fashion. “They overestimated their own likely lifespan by 20 years or more…they squandered, they postponed bill paying. Instead of taking the long view, they barely looked past tomorrow.”

Overall though, “the influence of optimism on human behavior is so pervasive that it must have survival value, researchers speculate, and may give us the ability to act in the face of uncertain odds.”

Optimism coupled with a healthy dose of realism is the best way to develop and maintain the organization’s enterprise architecture plans and governance. Optimism leads the organization to “march on” and take prudent action. At the same time, realism keeps the enterprise from making stupid mistakes. An EA that is grounded in “realistic optimism” provides for better, sounder IT investments. Those investments proactively meet business requirements, but are not reliant on bleeding-edge technologies that are overly risky, potentially harmful to mission execution, and wasteful of valuable corporate resources.