New Jersey SPCA needs a better cause to fight

So I am catching up on Halley's Comment this morning and find myself reading an article about road kill candy that will stop production because of the New Jersey society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. It seems these folks believe that roadkill shaped candy will encourage children to be cruel to animals. Oh PAAALEEEEAASEE! Does having stuffed animals cause children to want to gut little animals and stuff them with foam? Does biting the heads off of gummi worms make kids run into the back yard looking for fresh victims? And just why are children in New Jersey driving Mac trucks around looking for wildlife to run over.

Children are cruel because they are raised to be cruel by uncaring parents that fail to teach right from wrong. By parents that don't even know who their kids play with let alone perhaps check up on them to see what they are doing. And what about parents that even after the kid is caught act as if their little angel could not be that bad. Even Jeffrey Dahmer's mom said after his conviction that he was a good boy. Despite the fact that he was cruel to animals through most of his childhood. And no, Jeffrey did not have road kill gummi's as a child.

Do laptops belong in schools? Cobb County thinks so

A county in Georgia is struggling with the concept of providing laptops to every student and teacher in middle school and high school. Teachers and students are for the concept while parents and residents have concerns. First is the fact that residents were asked to approve a special options sales tax based on a set of spending criteria that DID NOT include laptops for all. Laptops for teachers was one of the spending items in the tax but not the 63,000 iBook lease that is now proposed to by the laptop for all concept.

For myself I think the school district is making two mistakes. The first is doing this for all 63,000 at once. Big mistake, no matter what the experience elsewhere or what experience Apple has in this there could be very harsh and expensive lessons for Cobb County to learn. Starting out at one school for a year or starting with 6 graders only and learning from that experience would seem to me to be a better approach. Always do your own pilot of something this significant, never assume the other organizations pilot project covered everything you need to know and experience.

The second big mistake is the use of Apple equipment. Now before you start flaming me I am not an anti-Apple person. I love Apple, love their products and respect them as a supplier of technology. The reason I see this as a mistake is because a very significant percentage of the population has experience with wintel products and they could use this experience to help the children. A parent that has a PC and been using it with their kid for a few years can help when the kid runs into trouble. With an Apple all the parent can do is throw up their arms and call tech support. The other reason is that except for a few niche industries it is extremely likely that these kids will be using Wintel technology in the jobs they get. Of course the idea that Apple is starting a grass roots affinity for their products in this initiative is quite obvious to me as well.

I certainly believe that our educational systems need to make this move to technology. My own experience at learning online with the University of Phoenix has certainly convinced me this is the right move for our county to make. Unfortunately I think the one big bang approach is going to be a very costly lesson. On the upside this may help me to justify a cool PowerBook for myself so I can help my son :)

Is the plight of Mojtaba and Arash really that important?

I am not sure who decided that the blogging community should take up the cause of Mojtaba and Arash, but I do know no one asked me. See the BBC article if you want the full story. It somewhat surprises me that we should care about two repressed individuals while America is berated globally for caring about hundreds of thousands of repressed people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Caring about repressed people is important to me. The difference is I understand that if we wait for diplomacy to work on every case for too long that we all to often end up creating another Hitler for the world to deal with. I do not advocate shooting first and talking later but neither do I advocate starting to talk if I am not prepared to go all the way in resolving the issue. How far are the individuals who started this willing to go in the cause of these two people.

Iran exports around 2.6 million bbl/d, with major customers including Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Europe. Here are the countries that are supporting the oppression of these two individuals in Iran. Ironically China is another repressive country mentioned in the BBC article. Will bloggers in these countries stop purchasing oil products from Iran? As much as people might think that words have power the reality is the power of words pales in comparison to the power of money. Will the French companies that make profits from selling food to Iran do anything about this? That is the power of money, the power to eliminate oppression or the power to keep oppressors in place.

If bloggers really want to make a difference then find out what companies in your country do business with Iran and stop doing business with those companies. Write them and let them know you will no longer purchase their products and that you will be using your blog to get others to do the same.

GE felt this sort of heat and is taking the right steps

Honestly I want people everywhere to have the freedom to speak out and peacefully work toward change and I certainly would like to see truly oppressed individuals freed. Having a nice banner and a few words on my blog is a nice start but I doubt it is really enough.

Conversing with Pam Brill

Pam Brill left a very insightful comment for me about the underlying cause of both dysfunctional corporations and verbal abuse issues in school. We exchanged emails about the comment and it turns out that Pam is the author of "The Winners Way" and she was kind enough to send me a short PDF brochure with more details. Having read the brochure I found one very critical take away that I really believe is at the heart of both problems I have blogged about. To quote the brochure "put it all together to engage hearts and minds-your own and others". In my experience people spend to much time either ignoring the heart component completely or let the heart component completely rule their lives. From Pams' perspective the 3 A's, Attitude, Activation, and Attention must be balanced appropriately to the situation in order to better manage behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and ultimately the actions we take. For more details about this please visit Pam's web site "In The Zone". Very interesting reading.

This regular guy believes that most of what plagues us as individuals and even organizations boils down to beliefs which influence our attitudes and this cascades through behaviors, feelings, and our internal thinking. If we believe a change is bad then we find ways to make it so and act to further this belief. The same is true if we believe a change is good, we embrace it and act in ways that cause the change to succeed. Beliefs do not only come from the heart or the mind but are rooted in both domains. Balancing these two is not easy but it can be done as long as we choose to try. Or as my friend Steven would tell me, "Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try". There are many ways to look at this concept, LifeTraks is another organization that has a spin on this concept, but all of them seem rooted in our beliefs. Beliefs about us, about our situation, or about life at any given moment. Seeing is not believing, believing is seeing.

You know your company is dysfunctional when...

Halley on her blog points to an article on dysfunctional companies that, while not all encompassing, is potentially a real eye opener for some executive level folks at many companies. The article only goes over 3 signs of a dysfunctional company, none of which speak to the morale of employees in general.

What does it say about corporate America when even the signs of being dysfunctional only concern themselves with CEO's and high ranking executives. It should not be news to anyone that people make up most companies and you can tell a great deal about the health of company by understanding how the employees feel and act in regards to their job and company. My thought is by the time the top level executives realize they are dysfunctional, the rest of the company is a walking zombie at best.

The number of dysfunctional companies seems to have grown in recent years with many famous debacles behind us like Enron, WorldCom, and even good old Fannie Mae. When companies ejected the concept of employee-employer loyalty in the 80's I think they removed a foundational relationship component that helped companies to remain functional. There were certainly problems even with this relationship but I believe more people were looking out for the good of the company as much as for their own good. Today people only look out for themselves because many companies have made it clear they are not looking out for the employees.

Why is verbal abuse so common in school today?

Verbal abuse seems to be very prevalent in our school systems today. Overweight children are mercilessly teased until they snap and kill their abusers. Verbal abuse occurs in many situations where the children are different from each other in any one of a hundred ways. How have we managed to allow or cause our children to revert to such behavior. Is it a parents lack of attention, is it the media our children are exposed to today, or is it just the nature of humans during development to act in beastly ways like wolves vying for dominance and position in the pack.

What ever the source of the behavior one thing is very, very clear. Too many children do not understand how wrong and destructive this behavior is to others and eventually themselves. This behavioral ignorance continues to perpetuate itself and creates more abusers every day. And it seems to me that the level of abuse continues to get more evil and destructive every year.

Is there any such thing as full-time work anymore?

I really enjoy my blog, but as you can see I have not had enough time to post lately. Besides having a family I also attend the Univerity of Phoenix Online as a full-time student as well as work. Between the three, time is very tight to say the least.

Speaking of work, my job has been a full-time AND a half job for what seems like years. Gone are the days of clocking in at 8 AM and going home at 5 PM with no worries. Now, I think a great deal about work while driving to the office instead of enjoying the drive (yes it is possible to enjoy a drive to work), eat lunch at my desk while taking another meeting, dial-in to conference calls from my cell phone on the drive home (almost never on time), and after getting home review some print outs and work on all of the stuff I couldn't do because I was scheduled in meetings all day. While my annual compensation is certainly good by the standards of the average household in America, on a per hour basis I could make almost as much working as a barista at Starbucks. All of which would not be so bad if I enjoyed my work more, to be more accurate if I worked in a better environment. Currently my company is trying to cut its way to profitability and trying to get them to invest where we need to for our customers is like pulling teeth from a Sarlaac. NOTE: The company is investing in some things but only those things that show an ROI within a very short time frame.

Well enough whining from me about work. On the school front things are going very well. After 16 classes I currenly have a 3.98GPA and my current class on marketing ends next Wednesday, hoorah. For those who do not know marketing actually does run the world. Ever hear about the conspiracy folks who think the world is secretly run by 5 wealthy familes, WRONG! it is run by marketing folks that have power over everything everywhere. I can only hope I have not angered the all powerful marketing folks by revealing this little known fact. My professor has told me "You have a very good marketing mind" so perhaps someday I will be taken into the marketing fold and turned to the dark side (haha). (insert breathing effect.......I am your father Steven.....insert breathing effect). LOL!