Entries from September 2006 ↓

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We set goals for ourselves. We build in milestones to guide and show us where we are in relation to the ultimate goal. And so as we reach each milestone we remind ourselves that we need to keep working hard to achieve the goal(s). Yesterday this site passed or silkily glided past one of the milestones and created a record in terms of hits on the site. The second milestone could be achieved today and so I am now waiting with bated breath to see who posts the 500th comment. Will it be you? Will it happen today?

So far we all have posted 498 comments. In terms of the lifespan of this blog, it is a great achievement and I thank each and everyone of you for contibuting to the success of the site.

Your comments are read by people in Cape Town, Jo’burg, PE, and De Aar. Also on a remote island in the Pacific, in Moscow, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, South America, Australia and many other places around the world. And to all you lurkers from these far off places, thank you too. I look forward to welcoming you with a linkbadge when you do make a comment on this blog.

Now, you know that my linkbadges are unigue in blogosphere. If you want one, you must participate by commenting. You will be able to pass on the linkbadge to your grandchildren. Oh yeah, my linkbadges have hereditary value and what a way to ooze the next of kin from the grave! So come on down and post your thoughts and get a lifetime award - an iScatterlings Linkbadge.

A friend of mine, Mike and his lovely wife got got onto the tube (or subway) the other day and noticed a guy covered in blood slouching or rather sitting alone on one side of the carriage while half a dozen or more travellers sat opposite him. Mike’s first reaction was to join the other people to avoid the bloodied man but in an instant his wife took matters into her own hands.

She crossed over to the man to ask him if he was OK or needed help. While she was speaking to him, a strange thing happened - the other people began to gather around too and engaged the sitation with the hurt man. At the next station the emergency stop button was pushed and London Underground staff removed the man to a get medical attention. What Mike witnessed in the carriage baffled him. Why did everyone on the underground train at first avoid the bleeding man until Mike’s wife approached him and then act very concerned arounf him?

The answer lies with a sociologist called Robert Cialdini who wrote a book called Influence: Science and Practice and described in it an experiment he carried out in Chicago.

Cialdini left a brand new car (off the showroom floor) on the street in one of Chicago’s ‘bad’ neighbourhoods. They returned to collect the car the next morning to find that it was still there and had not been touched. Not a scratch was to be found.

So, some time later, they left a similar car near the same spot as the first but this time they left it with a broken rear window. The next morning, Cialdini went to retrieve the car and found that it had been totally demolished and stripped of its tyres.

What had happened? What took place overnight to cause such devastation? Why was the new car not touched but the second car with a broken window demolished?

The answer lies in the principle of influence that Cialdini calls ’social proof’- when people do not know what action to take or how to behave, they look for someone within their peer group to ‘teach’ them what do or behave. In other words, when a person establishes (goes first) a pattern of behaviour (actions), the rest of the group follows or may even begin to emulate the leader.

Most of us will have experienced this first hand many times in our lives. For instance, at school how many of you hung back to see which group was the ‘in-crowd’ and you then made you way into the group?

I like the dinner party story. How many of you have been invited to a ‘larnie’ (high society) dinner bash and once seated have agonised over which spoon or knife and fork is used for which course?! I have and so decided to hang back a bit and playact at more social interaction until someone with a similar entre’ picks up the correct utensil! And so it went through to cheese and biscuits, me waiting for a ‘leader’ to show me the way to prevent me from being ostrasized by the group for being inept at dinner etiquette.

Cialdin provides us with a great insight into how to become a leader and to be the first to take a course of action or behave in a certain way. The best bit is that by being first you establish the rules. You have previously probably held back before due to not knowing what the rules are. Well by being first, and recognising that no rules exist as a guide, you can be first and thereby establish and set the rules for the rest of the workplace, community, friends or strangers on a train to folow. In lots of instances you do not need to even think about your actions. Like my friend Mike’s wife, instinct drove her to react to the bleeding man. She did not hold back and debate the existence or absence of guidelines. She just did it.

As Mike says, “Understanding the power of social proof gives us a valuable insight into our ability to assume a leadership role in nearly any work, family, or social situation. A large part of the impact we have on our environments, our teams, our community, or our children is down to our ability to do one thing – to ‘go first’ with the kind of behavior we want to encourage in others.”

So if you want to see or experience how you can impact your immediate environment, go first. When you want improvements from your dpartment, go first with the experiment(s) to bring about the improvement. Even if you make mistakes, you make it OK for the team to experiment. Ultimately, improvement will occur because you showed them how. Mistakes n all.

Mike says you should try this experiment:

1. The next time you are in a public place where someone is asking people for money, notice the many different ways people have of not giving it to them. Some will pretend not to see the person, others will look at them with disgust, and some will shrug their shoulders apologetically as they hurry past.

2. ‘Go first’ by reaching into your pocket and giving them some money.

3. Step back and observe (subtly!) how many other people step forward to help out.

I have done this experiment and others. Like the pedestrian crossing example. Hold back and see how many wait with you even though they are allowed by law to cross anyway.

Bottom line, if you want to be a leader - you have to go first.

UPDATE: I should explain the car experiment. Well when the first car was left alone in the street, nobody in any of the streetgangs or individuals took the lead to go smash a pristine vehicle. There was possibly no existing behaviour pattern among them to kickstart any demolition.

In the second experiment, the broken window possibly led someone in the gangs or an individual to mistakenly believe that a ‘bro’ had already taken the initiative to begin the demolition so as a behaviour had been established it was now OK for the rest to follow suit.

I have seen this alongside our roads with abandonded vehicles. They remain intact for a week or maybe two then suddenly one day, the back window gets bashed in. This leads to a gradual increase in demolition probably by other people not related in anyway to the initial person who broke the rear window. Interesting huh?!

The Principle of Being First or Cialdini’s Proof

Planetarium

I read an interesting post at Kyknoord’s site in which Kyk notes the disdain or ambivilance shown by the children in the auditorium toward the night sky or space. I suppose you could blame the PC games and modern science (landing on the moon and the Mars Rover programme) but you can only apportion part of the blame to advances in computer game realism technology and space programmes.

Kyk’s experience at the Cape Town Planetarium differs greatly to my visit to the London auditorium last year. The kids in the audience were audibly awestruck and spellbound by the show. This is pleasing. There is hope that a future Patrick Moore was among the crowd.

I wonder what causes the difference between the kids in S Africa and here in UK?

It’s All About Listening and Translation and Conversation

Ever had a conversation with someone and when its over you find you need to spend a few minutes trying to work out what it was all about? This is happening to me too often and I am seriously worried that the cause of the problem is me! Yikes.

But is it? Well after running through the last difficult conversation a couple of times it strikes me that the person I was trying to engage, was not listening to me. He probably heard me but he failed to register the content of what I was saying. And I make a point of using simple and understandable English, so it wasn’t that surely. I was listening intently to what he was saying. Yes, it was difficult to maintain focus but I did and found myself listening intently to what he was saying. Maybe that was the problem. I was too focused so lost the plot?

Management Sounding Board

Ever thought you were hired to simply be a sounding board for your line manager? How many times have I booked the time to see a boss to explain some issues only to find that I end up being preached at about some different issue. Says a lot for the boss doesn’t it?

42 Carat Plonker

I feel like a total bum and selfish git. A 42 carat plonker! Also I’m groveling in mortification and embarrassment. Why? I never for a second thought that th person I was poking fun at was in the middle of the worst kinds of trouble and difficulties. How to offer a convincing ‘I am sorry?!

How can I convey adequately that I am sorry for acting like a Neanderthal. A git! Me,me,me,me,me always about selfish me. Wow I feel like a real prat.

So beware. If you are having a joke at someone’s expense, I hope the other person is not in the middle of a crisis. They may mature enough not to let on that what you are doing is in fact causing a lot of unwarranted distress.

I thought I knew what success meant. But did you know that in a linguistic sense, the word describes something entirely different to what we have always perceived it to be. The word belongs to a category of words called ‘nominalisations’ which describe an activity or a set of activities.

So according to the above, ’success’ does not exist at all. What does exist is a set of actions or activities leading up to a conclusion. And it is the conclusion that we determine to be ’successful’ or a ‘failure’. But because ’success’ does not exist, we are therefore all consigned to be ‘failures’ but because I do not recognise the word ‘failure’ we therefore shall remain captive to a set of activities aimed at a positive outcome!

Definitions of success on the Web:

1. an event that accomplishes its intended purpose; “let’s call heads a success and tails a failure”; “the election was a remarkable success for Republicans”
2. an attainment that is successful; “his success in the marathon was unexpected”; “his new play was a great success”
3. a state of prosperity or fame; “he is enjoying great success”; “he does not consider wealth synonymous with success”
4. achiever: a person with a record of successes; “his son would never be the achiever that his father was”; “only winners need apply”; “if you want to be a success you have to dress like a success”
Princeton

Continue 101 = Success : Switching Protocols 200 = Success : OK 201 = Success : Created 202 = Success : Accepted 203 = Success : Non-Authoritative Information 204 = Success : No Content 205 = Success : Reset Content 206 = Success : Partial Content 300 = Success : Multiple Choices 301 = Success : Moved Permanently 302 = Success : Found 303 = Success : See Other 304 = Success : Not Modified 305 = Success : Use Proxy 307 = Success :

Just When You Think You Know What SUCCESS Means

In an attempt to have her son stop eating sugar, a mother took her son hundreds of miles away to seek the help and guidance of her son’s hero, Mahatma Ghandi. On arrival and being presented to Ghandi, the mother asked for Ghandi’s help. He responded by telling her to come back in two weeks.

Two weeks later, full of high expectation at what ceremony or counselling might occur, she and her son returned to see Ghandi. When they arrived at Ghandi’s compound, he walked over to them, stopped in front of the boy and said to him, “Boy, stop eating sugar”.

The mother was not impressed. Her expectations of a more meaningful and deeper dialogue had not been met. Taking Ghandi aside she let told him,” If all you were going to say was,”Stop eating sugar”, why didn’t you save me and my son days and hundreds of miles of travel by saying it two weeks ago while we were both here then?”

Looking surprised, Ghandi responded, “But madam, two weeks ago I was still eating sugar”.

Michael Neill
Lifecoach

One of the few perks of going through a period of loss, crisis and/or suffering is that when you come out the other side (and nearly everyone does, sooner or later), you realize that you are a lot stronger than you probably thought you were, and that strength doesn’t leave you even after the crisis has passed

Considering the number of passwords we need in our PC dependant lives, it is no wonder we get stuck for new passwords. However, all is not lost.

Over at Bad Language, Matthew provides us with his wife’s brilliant idea for new password generation.

OK, here goes! Letr’s see what each and everyone of you last blogged about.

1. Acidic Ice - More mother money issues.

2. Guy Kawasaki - Guys blogs about distribution. Go read it if you are a startup. Very good.

3. Cheap Tart -Cheap Tart wonders where we are going. Great photo. Beautifull site. Wonderful pics.

4. Cook Sister - Jeanne blogs the Salt Yard diner! It makes me hungry. Go read it yourselves and drool.

5. Doc Searls - The Web in the life of a Day?

6. CaZ - CaZ is on leave from tomorrow. Nice for some!

7. Insanely Single - She sure Loves Cape Town. Nice photos.

8. KattBox - A welcome newcomer to my blogroll. Katt is travelling. Her friend ShutterJane has acess to her site and is updating us on her progress.

9. Kyk Noord - Anticipating dread now that Batwoman has returned?!

10. John Dodds - It never rains in the advertising industry? But he’s going to The Dogs too! Read it.

11. Misty - Can’t say it out loud n proud while telling us to to see it too!?! Also tells us to go get a shovel while she waits. Great articles. Go read them.

12. Robert Scoble - Still on his Saturday Breakfast. Go figure it?

13. Michelle - Michelle now has something to blog about. It is a serious matter. A bomb scare at the shopping mall!

14. Seth Godin - His site still crashes my browser each time I try to navigate there. He still needs to get his coding looked at.

15. David Tebbutt - It’s all about Keith Collins’s big company insight. Read it.

16. Urban Trash - South African cartoonist Jeremy Nell keeps up his daily humorous cartoon about life on the street in South Africa. The strip as always is a masterpiece. Only this time his article is about Zuma for President! Aaaaaaaargh!

17. Willie Baronet - How many times is Willie in that picture? How many times do you wanna be in it Willie?

18. Aquila Online - Thankfully Aquila relieves the suspense about those thumbnails! I couldn’t wait. Go read this. Aquila I will call on you to help me out with this site.

19. Bad Language - good article for geeks about how to write for non-tekkie people like me. Good one! Technobilge will be outed for the sham it is!!

20. BigRic - BigRic went to Sun City for the national paediatric congress two weeks ago and his wife and baby joined him there for the weekend. Lovely pics of baby Taylor. Go read.

21. Boer Seun - Draadloos oorfoon of nie te draadloos nie? Nou wonder ek ook!

22. Escape Cubicle Nation - You can go help Pam and her book by answering a couple of questions.

23. Gaping Void - Hugh feels a substitute for our pain and needs a plan. Preferably yours!

24. Geeks Girl - Buys a memory activity present for her 40 yr old hubby! Reminds me of Chris Tarrent and that memory gadget thing he advertises. But he forgot he had a wife and purchased a £1,5m lovenest for him and his mistress. Pas op Geek’s Girl!

25. La Dolce Vita - Is somewhere on a word de jour grand prix?!?

26. The Real MaArbro - Decision time between Nickleback & Live. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

27. OneAfrikan - Newzbubble - I read OneAfrikan and wanted Newzbubble. Go see my sidebar at the bottom. Click a bubble, read the news! Go read Gareth’s article.

28. Rox In The City - Rox is still wondering what Wonder Woman would have done. I think WW would have maybe slunk off and marr…………..!

29. ShutterJane - ShutterJane is trying to find some direction after resigning her job and getting her fisrt assignment from her new boss. By the way - the photos are sensational. Go see for yourself. The quality is brilliant.

30. White African - Still concerned about Being a Blogging White African and a Techie. A must read

31. Woza Friday - Go find out about CoolIris. Aquila has it too. I tried but failed. Someone must help me see what it is about!

Better late than never. Apologies for being late. Got really tied down with work stuff. Hope you have fun.

Weekend Blogroll Round-Up

Don’t Use the word Podcast because you’ll have Apple’s lawyers issue you with a writ! So says Robert Scoble at his site Scobleizer. Read his article about it here

If we need to invent a new name why not ‘vidcast’?

I want to see how far I walk each day so, being Friday I decided as you do, to wear a pedometer. Thus far I have walked a round trip of 475 yards to get my early morning mug of fresh brewed coffee from our deli.

This is going to be an interesting experiment. As I walk I hear the click-clack of the mechanism in the unit attached to my belt. The click-clack is annoying but oh so much better than the jingling noice of loose change in a trouser pocket!

I am heading toward the 10,000+ steps per day. I need to rid myself of the cute little beer boep that took so many pleasant times in pubs and clubs and braais (BBQs) over the years to cultivate. Since I stopped drinking any alcohol back in February, my pride n joy has no purpose anymore. It was used in the ceremonial beer boep display us males do at the ‘males only allowed around the fire’ gathering at braais (BBQs), while the females gather in the kitchen to put finishing touches to the inevitable potato salad!

Aaaaah nothing beats male chauvinism at its best - when the hunters gather around the fire at the entrance to the cave getting ready to roast the cutlets of freshly slain T-Rex! TV remotes out of site, we can catch up on the rugby try of the match, which soccer player has transferred for how many gazzilon pounds and which footballers’ wife is canoodling with which player while hubby is doing his 90 minutes each Saturday afternoon of fake injury dives on the football pitch.

Rugby players don’t go to drama classes to learn how to fake a ‘push’ or a two-legged tackle. No sir, we get fed the real thing like crash tackles and elbow-leading chargedowns into the chest and also loads of fisticuffs and hard punches to the face, broken noses, cuts, bruises, grass burns (the real thing!) broken arms, wrists, ankles and legs.

No wonder I prefer rowing!

UPDATE: 11:15am - Pedometer reading = 1,979

UPDATE: 15:22pm - Pedometer reading = 4,272

UPDATE: 18:13pm - Pedometer reading = 5,515

OK. This tells me that I need to do a load more walking.

[Inspired by the post below and at Robert's blog Scobelizer}

Over at Scobleizer, Robert is up against an ever increasing mountain of email and is seeking suggestions on how to manage his normal workload and keep up to date with all his emails.

So, if you know how to help him, please go and offer your advice at his blog here

Is Scoble Blogosphere’s First “A Lister” Email Bankrupt?

TO ALL OOZETOON FANS

Yea tho I worketh my fingers to the bone, I forgeteth ye not.
For a Oozetoon shall soon smite thee twixt chin and nose in thine gob
and repel thee such as to again smite thine gob and thus be gobsmacked thrice

And it shall come to pass that mine arse shall have sat for far too long afore this screen
whilst vapid rancours from deep within mine publishing realm must utter forth,

“Get on with it you stupid twit! And stop ogling the girlies tits!”

And thus it shall be that I shall for ever be
working mine digits to the marrow for it cannot be long afore the secret of which I must not speak shall run of mine blunted fingertips on the page and all shall be losted.

Here endeth this babble!

I took the new boots for a trial hike last evening. It was a brisk 5 mile shakedown made easy by a frisky outbound tailwind. The inbound stretch is downhill for the main part so all in all it was a nice bit of exercise to see if the new boots are up to expectation.

I have always enjoyed Hi tec boots and a previus pair saved my foot from severe damage when a huge rock rolled onto it. The boot cushioned the impact and saved the foot from being extensively crushed. I got off with a few breaks. So I have an affinity with the brand!

Being a barefoot Namibian, I have wide feet from not wearing shoes for many of my years before High School. Well fitting shoes have alwayds been a problem for me since then. Here in Europe, most shoes seem to be modelled on an emaiciated male with the narrowest of feet! No good for me as I have had to struggle with breaking shoes in.

The pair of Barkers I am wearing have taken well over 4 years to soften up sufficiently to allow me to feel any degree of comfort. Yes I have had my favourite shoe man in Wallingford attend to the stretching etc etc but I still suffer from burning soles at the end of the day and it becomes a rush to get home to get clear of the shoe claustrophobia and burning discomfort and get into a pair of old takkies or the ultimate - kaalvoet! Aaaaahhhh!

Anyway, the new boots were outrageously confortable on the feet proper with only some discomforts across the left arch due to the tongue leather not being supple enough to give with each stride. The tongue will soften up quickly and provide me with the ankle support, comfort and foot security I will need for the forthcoming winter trailing on The Ridgeway.

I advocate that you too should buy Hi Tec boots.

The IBC2006 conference just ended in Amsterdam highlighted the need for converging industries to all speak the same Technobilge. In my previous rants about Technobilge (read here), I highlight the need for industrys’ sales & marketing and tekkie arms, to speak English to punters instead of in ‘tongues’ with acronyms liberally interspersed in technobilge non-speak.

It all sounds so ‘clever’ when a sales twerp rattles off a splurb to me in some form of verbal communication that might as well be Martian. It leaves me not at all impressed with the person in front of me for being so insecure in their ability to converse in simple English, nor interested in the product if I cannot understand what the hell it is supposed to do. And if you think I am being cynical, you ain’t seen nothing yet ‘dude’.

I am truly sick to death of some unknown tekkie buried deep within the bowels of a global corporation or some patronising, condescending, relationship challenged customer service/marketing or sales twerp at Microsoft ‘assuming’ I want 100+ programmes to preload everytime I fire up my PC.

All I want is to not have to twiddle my thumbs or make an umpteenth cup of tea while my PC loads and also to be able to understand what people say and mean. Is this too much to ask? And yes, I am a grumpy boy this morning! Frigging MS updates keep interfering with my bandwidth!

Mobile industry becomes fluent in digital media speak at IBC2006.
Convergence is not only confusing for the customer, the stalwarts of the telecoms and media industry are also having to go back to school – or each others trade-shows - to learn the lingo and fast.

Friday Review: talking the same lingo
By Lorraine Turner, Total Telecom
15 September 2006