THE NABOU CHRONICLES

TU Dresden Regional Ambassador

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:14:00 +0000

It's official: I am now a Regional Ambassador of the Technical University Dresden (TUD). Many years ago, I earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in information technology from TUD. Throughout my career I found the education provided to me at TUD to be very valid and valuable in a variety of settings and thought that could be of interest to many North Americans unaware of the excellence in education provided by this university. So when the opportunity presented itself to become a regional ambassador of my university, I applied.

The city itself, Dresden, is a well kept secret. It is a vibrant city with several universities and colleges attracting a large population of young people. It has a long cultural heritage with some of the world best museums and galleries as well as a long track record in arts and culture. It's location on the Elbe river and proximity of the beautiful nature of Saxon Switzerland provides many opportunities for outdoors activities, nature exploration and entertainment.

Study in Dresden is a multilingual web site with rich information about the opportunities offered to Canadians by TUD. It can answer most of your questions. For additional information you can always contact me or the TUD directly.

Rogers Choco Promo

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 05:38:00 +0000

I recently went in the morning to a major Rogers location for updating the hardware of my daughter's cell phones. The first contact with staff was on the cool side. The person assisting us was sitting behind a long counter and did not stand up and join us as I am used to in that location (must be some new "stay-put" policy!).

Once we explained what we needed the rep started typing on his computer. His body language and terse responses communicated annoyance. I thought for a while it was because we disturbed their peaceful morning rumination, but it turned out that he was stuck trying to retrieve the account information.

Long story short, we selected the new phone (BB of course) and started the process of settling, which involves committing to a 3-years contract with exit penalties in order to get the subsidized cost of the phone. As soon as we signed on the dotted line a magic transformation in the attitude happened. Two bottles of water were offered. The contract was briefly explained, particularly the checklist of what a customer satisfaction survey to be expected in few days will be asking us.

Then, with the phone and papers we got handed two CD jewel cases. I was expecting the usual promotional materials, perhaps a manual in electronic format, or even a music selection like Nissan does sometimes.

To my surprise each case contained a thick CD made completely out of chocolate!

Now I don't know about you, but I am quite a chocolate fan. So I was initially pleasantly surprised. On second thought, however, and having eaten the chocolate, I have the following to say to my friends at Rogers:

Thanks for the promotional chocolate; its quality was medium, but hey, it's free.

While I am a chocolate fan, I would have much preferred a friendlier service before sale.

I was not happy that despite being a VIP customer with significant spending with Rogers for many years, a hardware upgrade had to reset the account lock for another 3 years.

I realize I am hostage to the only GSM carrier in Canada for the time being. All the chocolate of the world will not stop a hostage from seeking freedom. So I'll be seriously looking for alternatives as soon as other GSM carriers become available. Customer service is not post-sale token rewards. It starts with genuine and fair value of the products and services you offer your customers.

Oh and by the way: After 4 months I am still trying to remove a Rogers monthly charge for web hosting that I canceled over six months ago for a web site that never ran on Rogers servers. I assure you, you can remove our web domain from your servers while keeping our (hosted exchange) email domain.

Building Bridges for Peace

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:06:00 +0000

I had a few queries over twitter about the "Building Bridges for Peace" that I am attending in September. As it would be difficult to explain in 140 characters and I would hate to flood the timeline with multiple tweets on the same subject, I decided to provide the information here on my blog.

This event is the 4th in a 6-parts series of events organized jointly by the Mosaic institute and the Canadian Centre for Diversity (which used to be called Canadian Council for Christians & Jews - CCCJ). The full official title of the series is "Building Bridges in Canada: New Perspectives on People and Peace" and its purpose is to create a venue for a better discourse about the Middle East peace for Canadians in general and the Canadian Arab and Jewish communities in particular. The short name is therefore "Building Bridges for Peace".

Statement of Values

The organizers of this series of events declared that they subscribe to the following values (quote):

Canada is a country committed to peace, and diaspora communities resident in Canada have a tremendous opportunity to contribute to Canadian peace building efforts around the world.
While governments are vital contributors to peace building, citizens who are informed, and particularly those from diaspora communities originating from regions of longstanding conflict, have an equally important role to play in building peace.
It is important for communities of concerned Canadians to enter into difficult discussions about topics as important as the achievement of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East. As Canadians, an discussions we have should be polite, respectful and involve listening with open hearts and minds.
Any effort that results in increased mutual awareness of the history, perceptions, hopes and struggles of the Canadian Arab and Jewish diasporas is a valuable one. If that effort results in a shard commitment to even one tangible peace building initiative in the Middle East, or in a joint recommendation for enhancing Canada's foreign policy towards that region, Canada's mosaic will show its true value.
Achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East will require unrelenting goodwill and creativity of good people who believe that it is never the wrong time to pursue peace.

(End of quote)

Session Themes

The six session themes are:

Diaspora Diaries - A Panel Discussion in Cultural Duality (March 4, 2009): The panel featured 4 prominent Canadians (2 from each community) and was moderated by journalist and commentator Noah Richter, author of This is My Country, What's Yours?: A Literary Atlas of Canada.
The Business of Peace in the Middle East (April 6, 2009): Keynote address by Sir Ronald Cohen, who among many things is the Chairman of the Social Investment Task Force. He was then interviewed by CBC host/correspondent Susan Ormiston.
Making Peace Personal (June 3, 2009): Featuring as speakers journalist and author Janet Wallach and founder of the Canada International Scientific Exchange program (CISEPO) Dr. Arnold Noyek as well as two special guests, Nousha Kabawat, the first Syrian-Canadian to ever participate in the Seeds for Peace program and Inbal Marcovitch, an intern with CISEPO and founding member of the Health as a Bridge to Peace student club at York University. the event was hosted by Evan Solomon of CBC "one of the top 100 people to watch" according to MacLean's magazine.
Where Are We Now (September 16, 2009): a scholarly assessment of the current status of peace building in the Middle East hosted by Margaret MacMillan, author of best seller Paris 1919.
Where Do We Go From Here (November 4, 2009): A diplomatic assessment of the current opportunities for peace in the Middle East, hosted by Ralph Benmergui.
Bridging the Cultural Divide (TBD): Special concert celebrating a shared experience, hosted by Sheilagh Rogers.

In a previous attempt to a dialog between the Arab and Jewish communities in Canada, which was sponsored at the time by Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, I had proposed to establish a list of Canadian values common between the two communities before starting the dialog, and to commit to resolving differences in views based on such values and principles. Although that first dialog attempt did not progress far enough, we did establish among other things common values that all agreed to, as well as ample historic precedence for harmonious coexistence and even creative collaboration between these two communities. Not many of these made it through to the values stated above unfortunately. The need for such common ground will be felt when it is time to resolve core differences.

Format

The format of the events held so far has been panels or speakers presenting followed by either interviews and/or question period managed by the host. The attendance is approximately 100 guests mostly from the Canadian Arab and Jewish communities. The events are sometime attended by the Israeli General Consul and the Syrian Honorary Consul in Toronto. After the event there is opportunity to linger a bit and engage in conversations (refreshments are served).

After the first session participants were asked to complete a survey designed by The Strategic Counsel. The survey measured audience perceptions of a variety of issues relating to the Middle East. Surveys will be administered again at various points in the series to track changes in the attitudes of attendees over the course of the series.

The sessions are held at University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.

My Take So Far

The initiative to bring the two communities in a well designed setting is to be applauded. The profile of the speakers and hosts has been generally high and the perspectives presented interesting. There is also an element of novelty as the content presented is not well known in main stream media.

There have been no dialogs between the attendees as the format consisted mainly of listening to speakers or panelists. While a limited Q&A has been allowed, the format was strictly limited to questions and commentary or multiple-exchange discussions were discouraged.

The attendees from the two communities do not mix enough in their seating order. Many seats are reserved by name and clustered by community, creating a perception of tiered audience and discouraging mixing with the opposite community. After the event a few good conversation across community lines have been possible, but were limited in time and scope due to the constraints of a brief post-event reception.

Having said that I do appreciate that the first 3 sessions have been building up towards the tougher questions. The next session will provide a realistic assessment of where the peace process stands. The 5th session will tackle where do we go from here. That's where any commonalities achieved in the previous sessions will come to bear.

I have suggested a few things to the organizers such as changing the seating design to encourage mixing and cross conversations, designing time and space for smaller deeper conversations about specific sub-topics, and setting tangible objectives for the outcomes of the series. Come to think of it, my peers at the Design with Dialog group could offer a lot to some of those activities. Greg and I had a brief conversation about setting up a similar dialog. But this is a more complex issue than organizational transformation, and we would need to have a few serious conversations about approach, methods and capabilities. That's material for a few months of DwD right there, but peace is so important that we must try everything possible all the time. I am in. Who wants to join, DwD Team?

I

The not-so-secret Overlap Unconference

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:25:00 +0000

Business Week published on August 3rd, 2009 a guest blog by Venessa Wong titled "Inside the Secret Overlap Conference". Being an Overlap 2007 participant, I felt the Overlap concept would be best served and explained through a post I wrote immediately following my participation. That post is published on the Ning Network's Overlap site, which is accessible only to members. Although membership is open, it may be an inconvenience to have to register in order to read my writing from June 17, 2007. I am therefore providing it here for convenience:

From Overlap 07 to Overlaps

Just got back, fully charged, from Geneva Park where Overlap 07 was held over the weekend. I must admit, it exceeded all my expectations. And no, it's not the post-conference or post-vacation euphoria that often befalls people who extract themselves from their busy lives to attend an event. My enchantment has its roots in the unique blend that characterizes the concept of Overlap: An invitation only event, where a limited number of participants with a broad range of backgrounds, specialization and experience, selected carefully to have vivid minds and an overlap in their interests, are brought together in a pleasant and relaxed environment to engage in a conversation about a chosen subject.

The limitation of the number of participants provides the intimacy required for meaningful conversations and deeper understanding of the various contributions. The broad range of backgrounds and experiences available ensures that those conversations are inherently interdisciplinary and at the frontiers of each specialty. The pleasant and relaxed environment optimizes the collaborative potential of the group. The declared (initial) theme of the gathering provides an easy starting point for the various conversations, which are allowed to evolve the theme further by mutual agreement. Last but not least, the very thoughtful selection of participants guaranteed high caliber conversations (literally) every minute of Overlap 07. I believe I speak for all participants when I congratulate the organizers of Overlap 07 for the exceptional job they did.

This year's theme started with the overlap of design, business, and innovation and expanded in the process to include communities and sustainability. So what was the outcome? Here is my personal take on it. I am sure that many of the friends I made at Overlap 07 will be writing soon their own conclusions.

For me Overlap 07 is a new form of intellectual exchange, firmly anchored in a peer-to-peer model. Contrary to traditional conferences and symposiums with static structures and deterministic outcomes, Overlap 07' agile and dynamic structure results in a broad range of outcomes. Peter Evans was the first to point out the agile nature of this gathering. Like the other participants I will take out those elements of knowledge and insights that fit best my own interests and needs. Some of the knowledge and insight obtained at Overlap 07 I will use immediately in current projects; some will be the subject of collaboration with one or more members of the gathering; others will only come to bear in time or in indirect way, cross pollinating my own thinking and my future projects.

Overlap 07 was a wonderful journey full of wonderful discoveries. As Manuel Toscano pointed out, we are nomads thirsty for knowledge and wisdom. We discovered this magic place we didn't know existed. Could there be others waiting to be discovered? Well, the mystery of the recipe for this magic place is starting to unravel. Perhaps many others will try their magic wands and build many other wondrous Overlaps. I can't wait until I meet some of my fellow nomads on the next journey.

What's Happened Since?

Now two years later, I am glad to observe that many overlaps have indeed emerged. The yearly Overlap event continued in New York in 2008 and California 2009, quite a feat considering there is no organizational structure or set leadership. More interestingly, an Overlap Toronto chapter emerged few weeks after the 2007 event and has evolved since into a persistent and dynamic community in Toronto, centered around the two organizers of Overlap 2007: Michael Dila and Robin Uchida of the Torch Partnership.

Not many people realize that many of the creative initiatives and activities in Toronto are emerging from that community: OCAD's sLab (Strategic Innovations Lab), the famous Torch Lectures series, the Innovation Parkour concept, Unfinished Business project, the Wicked Brown Bag Lunch events, and the situate.us initiative to name a few.

I am certain similar activities and results were generated by Overlap participants in other geographies and areas of activity. I would love to hear from other participants about the impact it had on them and their communities.

So the "Secret Overlap Conference" is inviting you all to organize your own Overlap Unconference and start your journey of discovery. Every true "Overlapper" will be willing to help you in your efforts because the rewards are in the learning created by new overlaps and the opportunities generated by intelligent conversations with other creative minds.

Overlap has been kept "secret" on Ning, Google Groups, Facebook, Twitter (#overlap09), on a web site and who knows how many personal blogs! Take a peep at the secret. Perhaps that will inspire you to some action of your own?

Social Media & Revolutionary Change - Reflections

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:04:00 +0000

Another popular uprising by people wanting their voice heard. This time in Iran and draped in green but also in black, mourning those like young Neda, who died pursuing her dream of freedom and human rights.

Once again social media are hailed as the tool for the revolutionary masses revolting, challenging the established powers of government and its police apparatus, helping people organize and communicate, and informing the world about their struggle. The stream of information coming from Iran through Youtube and Twitter is defining this particular struggle much more than the traditional media, who have been "subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran" as Reuters' editors disclose at the begin of each news item from Iran.

What's new this time around

This time around we have seen some new developments: The social networks carrying these social media have taken proactive action.

Twitter rescheduled maintenance down-time of its systems after the U.S. State Department intervened to keep the service up and running for the Iranians protesters using it (and the Americans and many others monitoring).

Facebook released an early version of its platform in Farsi (the official language of Iran) in direct response to the Iranian crisis. This allows Iranians to navigate Facebook in their national language instead of English. Google hastily introduced Farsi support for Google Translate quoting "ongoing events in Iran". You can read more details about these actions in several places including on Rahaf Harfoush's blog "The Foush".

As Rahaf wrote, these unprecedented actions raised many questions. Is the neutrality of the networks waning? Were these actions driven by ideological, philosophical, political factors or simply by opportunistic self interest of these corporations (for PR or rapid alpha testing of a product in development for example)? Were these actions triggered by internal corporate thinking or through pressures from powerful external parties? or all of the above?

These are reasonable and complex questions. I will leave it to others to come up with answers to them. The aspect I would like to explore further is the following:

Social Media as Revolutionary Weapon

The Iran uprising like the preceding ones (The Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, etc.) is an attempt to change the existing balance of power. Whenever such an attempt is made a struggle between the incumbent power and those trying to change it ensues. External parties join rapidly the fray (if they weren't already involved or behind the attempt). In the course of this struggle all sides will use the full range of tools/weapons at their disposal to achieve advantage and victory. Technology is but one, albeit an important one, of these tools/weapons. It is therefore interesting to observe how this battle unfolds on the social media front and draw further conclusions.

On the revolt side the main advantage of social media is its distributed nature both from a content creation and distribution points of view. Individuals with cellular phones or small video cams are able to generate multimedia content and broadcast it through social networks like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. These social networks are also used for communications and organizing based on the perception that they are outside the traditional telecommunications networks usually controlled by the incumbent powers.

The distributed nature of social media is very appealing to the external parties interested in the conflict but wishing to intervene only covertly. In the case of Iran it became obvious that the State Department is monitoring closely all Iran related social media transmissions when it intervened with Twitter to postpone the planned upgrade that could have brought the systems down during the "active" hours in Iran. There have been reports about Israeli involvement in an infowar operation in support of the Iranian protesters. This could well be part of Israel's already existing covert operations in Iran and other countries in the region (a number of spy cells were uncovered in Iran and more recently in Lebanon). Iran has accused the BBC Farsi service of interfering actively in internal affairs and expelled its correspondent Jon Leyne from Iran.

The Empire Strikes Back

Given all of the above, it would be naive to believe that social media tools or counter-measures won't be used by the incumbent power. Case in point: The Iranian government shut down cellular service, blocked social network sites, and used power outages to disable uploading through proxies. It also engaged in its own social media counter- offensive. This battle is still raging at the time of this writing with list of "infiltrator" accounts being posted and updated by supporters of the protesters, misinformation is being planted by multiple parties, and even a guideline for cyberwarfare in this crisis has been published.

Social media undoutebly democratizes content creation and distribution. But distribution can only happen where and when social networks are available. So the fundamental question becomes: who actually owns or enables the infrastructure required by social networks (SN) to function, i.e. the SN servers or "cloud", the storage, and the pipes connecting users to them. The answer is sobering: in almost all cases these are owned by governments or large corporations, who have the capabilities to monitor all content and to stop the service if deemed necessary for their interests.

So we have a wide spread ownership of content production means on one side but a tightly controlled ownership of or influence on distribution channels on the other. This means that social media can be severely impeded through disablement of its distribution networks if the changes demanded by people are too radical or undesirable for the entities controlling the infrastructure.
A good example for this is the global battle for open proxies in the Iranian context brilliantly shown in this visualization, and the people unfortunately don't seem to be winning it. Preparing safe proxies (as the renesys blog suggests) may help, but I don't think it is the answer.

What Is Missing

For social media then to fulfill it's promise of change reflecting people's needs and desires, it would seem that we need a distributed technology and ownership for SN. Conceptually, this is what the peer-to-peer technologies provide: a decentralized network of independent nodes connecting as and when needed in constantly changing topographies that no one can shut down easily.

Michael Lewkowitz (a.k.a @igniter) of the ChangeMedium initiative has been writing about Public Micro-messaging Medium (PMM) like Twitter "as the most participatory public medium in history." He is proposing coordinated research to accelerate the evolution of this tranformative medium. I tend to agree with him on the potential of this emerging "real-time internet", but am convinced that for such potential to be reached, we must have fully distributed technology which would enable distributed ownership of the SN, that are so crucial to social media in general. Substantial R&D has been done on so-called ad-hoc networks (initially for the military, first responders, conference organizers etc.). I am interested in learning about any technologies that could enable such decentralized messaging systems for the crowds.

Incumbent powers are resisting anything peer-to-peer or trying to "incorporate it" into their institutional structures. The next great battles are going to be around these issues. Stay tuned for interesting times.

YES WE DID Book Launched

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:24:00 +0000

On June 4, 2009 the Rotman School of Business hosted the launch of the book "YES WE DID - An Inside Look of How Social Media Built the Obama Brand" written by our very own Rahaf Harfoush and foreword by Don Tapscott.

The event was sold out with over 450 people filling the Fleck Auditorium and the balconies above it.

After introduction by Alex Manu and foreword by Don Tapscott (Adjunct Professors at Rotman co-sponsoring the event), Rahaf presented highlights from her book including the 7 lessons learned from her experience as a volunteer at the Obama campaign headquarters that could be applied to the corporate world. A Q&A session was followed by a book signing session and a reception for attendees.

The event was tweeted live by several people in the audience. If you'd like to read what people said about the presentation and the book just enter #yeswedid in the twitter search field on your browser or twitter application.

The book is now available at major book stores as well as online on Amazon.

Single Sheet Creativity

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:47:00 +0000

A contest in Washington DC had only one condition: you are allowed to use a single sheet of white paper as your material. So how much creativity can be displayed around one sheet of white paper? Take a look at these amazing 26 pictures and judge for yourself what can be achieved with vision, knowledge and imagination!

Of Permaculture and the Second Renaissance

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:20:00 +0000

Through a tweet by my friend Mat Milan (@mmilan) I got to read Robert Paterson's interesting post "Is this the time for a New Renaissance and Reformation", in which he discusses Permaculture vs. industrial food production and extrapolates to other areas of human civilization.

While I agree with Paterson's analysis on how we got ourselves into this mess and was thrilled to learn about Permaculture as an alternative, his post triggered a number of questions in my mind, mostly about why we developed industrial production methods and if the transition to a Permaculture society is reasonably possible.

Root Causes

Let's consider the first question. Yes, human ego is still at the center of the universe and we still largely subscribe to the notion that we are masters of nature and we can form it to our will with our technology. But the continuous drive of labor division and specialization had started long before medieval times and is still going strong. One of it's roots is the consumerist culture that has become the expression of this iteration of human civilization. Another is the unchecked growth of population, which demands ever higher productivity in goods and services, and particularly in food production. This in turn leads to industrial-type agricultural and animal production with high-yield single-crop/animal multiple harvests requiring high levels of energy input (fertilizers, machinery etc.). This need for continuous productivity improvements drives the necessity for specialization in knowledge and skills.

As the population and consumerism pressures continued unabated, further productivity gains could only be achieved by expanding the level of specialization from local to national, to regional, and ultimately to global scale; hence what we refer to as Globalization. The structures that developed for this labor division and specialization were mostly hierarchical in nature with the unavoidable centers of wealth and power that are integral to hierarchies. As Ronald Wright describes in his book "A short History of Progress" these civilization structures emerged in a particular location of Earth, grew rapidly until their natural resources were exhausted and then faltered or moved to a different location.

As long as these structures operated at the local level they had a possibility to move to a different location. As the structures became global in scope they had less and less options to relocate. hence the current global crisis. The central hierarchical system is reaching its limits because it cannot consolidate to less than one center!

The Emerging New Structures

As the old system reaches it limits a new system with a fundamentally different structure must emerge, which most probably will not be hierarchical. Recent events seem to confirm this trend: traditional global systems are failing while decentralized, peer-to-peer, and local systems seem to succeed overnight: Skype, Twitter, Craig's List, micro financing, eat local, open source concepts, creative commons, community initiatives etc.

The catalyst in this transformation seems to be the Internet. At the recent Toronto Planners Unite 2009 event Mark Earls author of "Herd" spoke about the crucial role of copying in human behavior. Copying requires seeing what's to be copied; and if nothing else, the Internet is making all sorts of new ideas and initiatives visible to a global audience. The flock behavior can only accelerate and the importance of communities will explode.

Values Convergence

Interestingly, the values embodied in these emerging new structures seem to be converging. In a recent Twitter conversation with Alexander Osterwalder, Peter Jones and others about how a sustainable business model can be defined, we converged that it is the sustainable value that an organization provides to its "stakeholders, the community at large, and the environment". I was pleasantly surprised while reading about Permaculture to find out that its core values are "Earthcare, Peoplecare, and Fairshare". Do you recognize a pattern?

We could be at the cusp of a major transformational step in our evolution, which we usually call a revolution. The changes coming are going to be radical and difficult, possibly violent. I hope they will lead to a New Renaissance and Reformation!

Of Business Models & Innovative Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:12:00 +0000

Hard to admit but empirical evidence shows that I haven't blogged in March at all! Don't ask me why. Let's just say that I am becoming more convinced that time is not linear and runs exponentially on occasion, like this past March?

In that exponentially elapsed period I have been mostly in a learning and thinking mode developing my knowledge and my ideas about innovative business models and what is needed to develop radically different ones. I will be writing more about some of the stops along my journey in the past few weeks. But for now I'd like to report on one project that I came across with an intriguing business model.

Project BRANDAID

The vision of this project is helping developing world artisans bridge the markets divide by providing world-class "micro marketing" enabling global e-commerce for the branded artisans. The business plan is based on a three-way partnership between a for-profit operation, the BRANDAID Project, a non-profit operation, the BRANDAID Foundation, and an international culture organization, UNESCO.

The combination of these three distinct elements is somewhat of a novelty in the public-private partnerships arena.

The Concept

In a recent event at the Spokes club in Toronto on April 9th, Tony Piggot, CEO of JWT Canada and co-founder of BRANDAID Project explained the concept of the venture. Leveraging UNESCO's Award of Excellence for Handicrafts (previously knows as Seal of Excellence) for identifying artisans of the highest quality, BRANDAID Project supplies a complete branding service including a micro-site and e-commerce platform, to such artisans. The project purchases selected artisan collections at asking price. It offers them with healthy mark-up in select North American markets appreciative of the artistic value and developmental objectives of the project. 35% of the profits flow back to the artisans community: 25% directly to the producing artisans and 10% to the BRANDAID Foundation, who invests back into the artisans communities

Where is it at now

The first brand "Croix des Bouquets" is from Haiti and the first collection has already been purchased. BRANDAID has already been launched in California with sponsorship from Dior and Vanity Fair magazine in an event attended by Director Paul Haggis (an early investor in the project), Hollywood stars Diane Lane and Josh Brolin (who are patrons of the project), and many film celebrities including Charlize Theron. Apparently, all displayed pieces were sold out in less than three hours.

BRANDAID Project is continuing to raise investments, in order to expand its activities to other countries in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. As of the Toronto event of April 9th there were only 4 investment units of US$ 25,000 each left. The project is looking into some gallery space in New York

My Take

I liked the premise of this project, so I have been advising BRANDAID on its web site development and hosting contracts as well as on the operational logistics (e-commerce platform, order management, and fulfillment). What I find promising is the potential for expanding the vision of the project to create a complete ecosystem around each of the branded artisans in the developing country by engaging and where necessary training graphics designers, web developers, hosting companies etc. If this can be scaled properly, it could not only become a sustainable venture, but also achieve some of the things that my friends in the Toronto betterment movement aspire to achieve.

.

Google Portrait - under the internet magnifying glass

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:35:00 +0000

On January 7th, 2009 the french magazine Le Tigre published what it termed the first Google portrait of Marc L. a pseudonym for a randomly selected 29 years old young man. Using information publicly available on the internet and common sense an amazingly accurate and detailed profile of that person was constructed. The magazine wanted to illustrate the dangers of collating personal information spread all over the web.

The french daily Le Monde picked up the story on January 17th, giving the subject the pseudonym Jule. The young man was told about the article by a friend. He initially did not take it seriously, but once he started reading, he was shocked. There were so many personal and even intimate details (his travels, his love affairs, his friends etc.) that he contacted Le Tigre and asked that the article be removed. Legal opinion told him that there wasn't much to achieve through courts, as all information was from public sources. Le Tigre sanitized the web-based article by anonymizing further details other than the name, but for the paper based article not much could be done. But even after the sanitizing the article makes for interesting reading (if you read French or like Google translation).

Some juicy extracts

Here is the English translation of a short section of the lengthy article, addressed in letter style to the subject:
"Let's get back to you. You are single and heterosexual (Facebook). In spring of 2008 you had an affair with Clauda R***, who works at the French-Austrian Culural Centre in Bordeaux (I did not find her immediately because the character ü has to be spelled ue for Google). In any case I can confirm, she is charming, small breasts, short hair, nice legs. You give us the address of her parents, V*** Boulevard in Bordeaux. (...) Please note that I have her work telephone number (opening for a pedagogic assistant position at the Cultural Center; she works in recruitment)."

What an innocent message reply can do

Another section is revealing of how easy personal information on Facebook is released. The reporter accumulating the profile created a fake ID on Facebook and asked to become friends with Marc or Jule. The young man was suspicious and did not accept. However, he replied with a message "Hi Who are you? Regards, Marc". The reporter was about to reply with some invented story, when Facebook alerted him that when he sends a message to someone on Facebook they gain access to his list of friends, his core, work and education information for a month. The reporter realized he did not even need to reply and gained access to Marc's information!

Morale of the story

As The Foush recently recommended, you should do self audits on the internet, not only for the sake of verifying correctness or reputation management, but more importantly from a security perspective. Look at all information (text, pictures, videos, tags by third parties) and ask yourself, what can a third party do with it. Clean up where possible, although with more and more sites including in their agreements (yes, those you don't read and just click "accept"), "perpetual and irrevocable" rights to anything you post on them it is becoming increasingly difficult to remove your information.

The 27 European CNIL (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés) are debating some safeguards including imposing guidelines enabling web users to erase their personal information when they so desire. My take: even if legislated, it's going to be a long up-hill battle, as information moves across systems and jurisdictions globally. That's not even taking into consideration the drooling marketeers, organized crime, and intelligence services all over the world.

Arguably, you always give up some privacy when you join a community, but the surrender of private information that we're witnessing is a "strange phenomenon of shared exhibitionism and mutual narcissim" as Alex Türk, president of the French CNIL puts it in Le Monde. So, where to draw the line when you are part of multiple global communities, when public spaces are increasingly privatized, and private spaces are shrinking continuously?

Crystal, Arrogance, and Beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:28:00 +0000

Last week I had the pleasure of reuniting with a dear friend after 3 years of absence. He is an architect, engineer, artist, and a brilliant mind. We had wonderful conversations. One of the things he wanted to do before leaving again was visiting the ROM and inspecting the new Crystal building designed by Daniel Libeskind.

Strangely enough, I hadn't had the opportunity to visit it myself. Just a week ago my friend MJ Braide wrote on Twitter: "Spent afternoon doing my best to like the ROM. I failed. Building is troubling and presentation totally old-school. How did this happen?". This made me curious and so after a good brunch on Sunday morning, off we went to the ROM.

We parked the car west of the ROM and walked towards it to take in the view of the new building. We inspected some of the external features then went in. To make a long story short, the four of us tried to appreciate the building's architecture...but we failed. The building is not only troubling as MJ wrote; it is depressing. Space without purpose or harmony, shapes striving to be weird, corners whose design looks like the failed project of a first year student, vicious encrochments on the older ROM building, bad finishing of many details, and already serious signs of deterioration on several parts of the building.

My ultimate feeling after the visit was anger. Anger at the amazing eliticist arrogance that this design expresses; anger amplified by the boundless disrespect it displays for the space and buildings surrounding it and the communities living in them. Also anger that something like this went through unchecked because someone sold the city on the need for a tourists trap, a "signature" curiosity to attract visitors, and the design decision was left in the hands of the same elite, self-absorbed with its own exclusivity and fame. What a waste!

We left, crossed Avenue Road, and looking for a place to recuperate we ended up in the restaurant of the Gardiner Museum just facing the ROM. It was redesigned in 2006 by Kuwabara, Payne, McKenna, Holmberg and the design has won the International Award of the Royal Institut of British Architects (RIBA) in 2008. The Kuwabara lines, familiar from other designs, like the Noor Centre on Wynford Drive or his Richmond Hill ex-residence, were clean, elegant, and sophisticated in an understated manner. It was like a breath of fresh air, soothing all the troubled feelings induced by the Libeskind design. The building as a whole respected its surroundings and engaged them in a harmonious conversation. What a contrast to the ROM Crystal!

On the way home I thought of the Crystal design as the mother of all failwhales and decided to blog about it. Cheers!

Shoes of Mass Destruction

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:07:00 +0000

If you think I am re-hashing here the story of the bold Iraqi reporter, who threw his shoes at ex-President Bush during a press conference with Iraqi prime minister present, you are mistaken. This story you're about to read did not take place in Iraq nor was Mr. Bush involved.

The story is from Turkey, where an Israeli basket ball team was playing against a Turkish team. I was unable to confirm exact date or place of the event as the story reached me after multiple forwarding of emails. I have written to the last sender trying to get more information, but the photos looked genuine enough.

Here is how the story goes. All seemed normal enough: spectators filed in slowly through the security checks at the gates and took their places in orderly fashion. Then the teams entered the field. As soon as the Israeli team was on the grounds, spectators started hurling shoes at them. The team had to be whisked out while security forces struggled to contain the angry spectators.

Here are the photos received about that encounter:

Looking at the pictures I can't help but have conflicting feelings. The first is feeling sorry for the players and for the game. Sports is supposed to foster sportsmanship and friendly competition. Chasing a team out of the court with a barrage of shoes does not fit in that category.

On the other hand I also felt a certain satisfaction that people with nothing but shoes expressed their dismay at Israel's overbearing power used so unjustly against the Palestinians under occupation for so long.

Next the cynical part in me took over and I thought about all the "funny" jokes that such accident could trigger: Turkey ( a Muslim country) would be accused of having shoes of mass destruction that threaten the national security of Israel and the U.S.; embargo will be put in place against it and UN inspectors sent to dismantle the Turkish shoe industry... etc.

Finally, a feeling of sadness was all that remained. Sadness because of the damage this conflict is causing to civil life and society; because people are so desperate under occupation that they challenge tanks with stones and powerful enemy leaders with shoes; because their anger is spreading to other people and other places feeding a never ending cycle of hate and violence; and because of the failure of our international community to put a stop to this tragedy and restore the rights of the Palestinians.

Obama, Changecamp and the World Economic Forum

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:19:00 +0000

This weekend Changecamp was held in Toronto. Inspired by the changes seen south of our borders, it is an event bringing together Canadians from all walks of life to answer the question:
"How do we re-imagine government and governance in the age of participation?"

Unfortunately I was not able to attend in person but many from my Overlap and Unfinished Business friends were there. Through their tweets (tag: #changecamp), their blogs and the event's wiki I was able to follow at least from a distance this remarkable event.

In the course of the discussions my good friend Charles Finley tweeted the following question: "new models of engagement, or technology-enabled versions of what already exists? Will this change structures of governance?". I find this to be a very good questions. Since the success of Obama's new media participatory campaign became known, there have been a tremendous demand to learn the "secrets of the trade" and "how they did it", and to apply learning to organizations of all sorts: corporations, agencies, political parties, and all levels of government.

In the rush to learn the recipe of that success, however, there is great danger to miss the magic that enabled the recipe in the first place. There are many, who can teach the tools and recipes better than me. But here is my take on the real magic behind it all:

The Vision

It started first and foremost with thought leadership, a renewed vision of a truly participatory way for governing. It wasn't fundamentally new; we have been dreaming of it and seeking to achieve it for centuries if not millenia, but our implementations, even in the Western democracies of the past 100 years have been wanting at most. Instead of true conversations, there were and still are many on-way "broadcasts" from the governing to the governed with only a brief opportunity for real feedback, mostly through an election every few years, and frequently in a context of lopsided communications due to interests-driven media.

There is no denying of the inspiration injected into that vision by the Internet's many tools for communications and collaboration. But inspiration alone is not enough to attain success. Even the leadership's vision, while a necessary ingredient, is not sufficient.

Values & Willingness to Adapt

The vision had to be bolstered by strong leader values: authenticity, transparency, mutual respect, fundamental rights, trust in the people, acceptance of interdependency and shared future etc.
The vision had also to embrace a true two-way conversations with people, which meant really listening to what people had to say. It had to be followed to its ultimate logical consequence: the demonstrated willingness to adapt plans and precepts in accordance with the conversations with stakeholders. This is a tall order as most organizations only engage in conversations after they have developed a plan and a strategy and people come up with many ideas and preferences, not all easily reconcilable.

Enablers

If the vision, values, and will are all there, the final prerequisite is for the enablers. Although a technological platform is a major one, it is not the only one. Other enablers include: organizational capacity not only to run the technology, but more importantly to aggregate, analyze, understand, and respond to the conversations engaging the organization. This requires a capacity for rapid decision making and a dynamically adaptive strategy responding rapidly to the evolving conversations. Not your standard business school curriculum!
Another enabler is the relevance of the subject and objectives of the conversations to the audiences engaged in these conversations.

Who's Change?

Engaging in a new media strategy involves hence technological, organizational capacity, and cultural changes. What is important to realize is that these closely entwined elements force the organization implementing them to change significantly. From vision to values, to willingness to adapt, to capacity building and cultural change, the organization is driven by the requirements of a successful new media strategy to become a better, more transparent and capable organization, and to be better connected to its stakeholders and constituents. This is quite a departure from the past, where most media strategies aimed at changing the target audience, not the originating body.

The Moral of the Story

To achieve success all of the prerequisites are needed, technology being only one of them. To my friend Dave Gray and my fellow changecampers I say: Definitely new models of engagement, with serious changes asked of the status quo.

And to the elites of the world as they gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) this week to discuss "shaping the post-crisis world" (twitter tag #davos), I say: You would be well advised to reflect on the need to change yourselves as much as changing the world, if not more. Therein lies the true promise of the new media for the WEF and for the world.

Shame on you, Nissan Canada

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:29:00 +0000

I like Nissan cars and have driven many of them over the years, so my name is in the database of Nissan Canada. Every year I get a number of promotional mailings about new cars and around Christmas I usually get also a card. This year we got two such cards, because my wife decided to drive a Nissan Versa.

It is nice to feel appreciated as a years-long customer. The cards used this year, were quite different. When you opened the card, you heard street noise and cars honking. The novelty of the card was interesting at first and everybody got startled opening the card and then laughed about it. But by the time I was gathering the Christmas cards for disposal, it hit me that those cards could not be just thrown in the garbage.

I performed some surgery on the cards to see what's really inside. To my dismay I discovered a small printed-circuit board (PCB), with a small speaker and 3 power cells model LR 1130, all embedded inside the card.

Just imagine the thousands of PCBs and batteries that will end up dumped in the environment because of Nissan Canada's ill-advised promotion choices. I have taken the electronics and batteries out for separate disposal, but what about all the others? I am starting to appreciate the German legislation making vendors responsible for the recycling of their packaging materials. I wish we had something like that in Canada.

Nissan Canada: Shouldn't you be more thoughtful about your promotion choices?

In conversation about Gaza

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 08:11:00 +0000

In response to my blog about what's behind Israel's attack on Gaza, I received comments from "Civax", an Israeli whose parents live in Ashkalon on the southern borders of Israel. What started as statements of "enemy" camps developed into a conversation. The lengthy exchanges were being relegated to the comments page of the archived blog. I decided in the interest of the dialog to publish my latest reply to Civax as a new posting, so it can be found and followed easier. Here goes:

Dear Civax

Yes I agree with you, that some Arab regimes want Israel to rid them of the Palestinian problem, the problem being a model of how people despite dire circumstances can self-organize and resist oppressor regimes. This tacit cooperation merely demonstrates that the conflict is not an Arab/Jewish conflict but rather a conflict between tolerance and fanaticism, opression and resistance, people who value all human beings regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or political beliefs and people who are homophobic and racist.

In many cities of the world Arab and Jewish people (both from Israel and outside) demonstrated side by side against the Gaza massacres, while both Arab and Israeli politicians played their diplomatic games while civilians were slaughtered. The Jewish women who occupied the Israeli consulate in Toronto in support of the Palestinians (not necessarily Hamas) are closer to me than Arab fanatics blowing themselves amongst Israeli civilians.

Regardless of the details of any peace agreement, the first step is to acknowledge the injustice done to the wronged party. Such acknowledgment opens the way to reconciliation and to resolving not just differences but the wounds of the past. This was the way in Germany and Japan after WW II. This was the way in South Africa, where the Truth & Reconciliation Committee hearings were arduous and painful, but way better than killing each other. This is also the way in Canada as we start addressing the injustice and suffering caused to First Nations by colonists and immigrants.

Until we acknowledge the injustice done explicitly, we can't start seeing each other as human beings and we will continue to deal with each other in the context of "enemies".

As for the need of a strong Palestinian leadership, I agree that such leadership would make negotiations and implementing agreements easier. I personally don't believe, however, that Israel is genuinely interested in fostering and supporting such strong leadership. Supporting those leader that are willing to accept unfair conditions against the will of their people, destroying every emerging infrastructure of an independent Palestinian state, driving a spike between elected Hamas and the PA, etc. are all acts that weaken the Palestinian leadership.

There is no need for alarm though. If the surrounding Arab states are any indication, then a Palestinian state (assuming it is allowed to be reasonably sovereign and independent) would just produce another "strong man" regime, which if friendly to western interest would be called "democratic" and otherwise would join the "axis of evil". Such states never were a real threat to Israel as documented by the historic results on the ground for the past 60 years not by the propaganda's rhetoric.

But back to the fndamentals: An Israeli baby was wounded by one of the rockets launched against Israel. This is traumatic for both the child and the parents. In the last few weeks over TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY THREE CHILDREN DIED in Gaza. Can you really justify such a crime with any political rhetoric? Can you really look the other way?

Well, I can't. It is past 3:00 A.M. and the pictures are haunting me and the emotions are robbing me of sleep. And I sincerely hope you can't too, because if we could, we would have lost a great deal if not all of our humanity.

Rogers Rocket Mobile Internet Stick - Customer Report

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Rogers is offering recently a wireless broadband modem in stick format with a USB interface, which it has branded as the "Rocket Mobile Internet Stick". The stick supports multiple wireless broadband technologies (GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and HSUPA). The device is being offered free with on one-year activation with an MSF (monthly service fee) of $25. I was looking into a mobile Internet solution for my team's MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, so I contacted Rogers.

The sales person I was dealing with offered me to evaluate one unit on a 30 days refund basis and promised delivery of the evaluation unit by overnight courier. I received the unit only several days after, as Rogers needed three trade references for my company, despite being their customers for business data products for over 7 years.

Package Contents

The unit arrived in a box and contained the Stick, a SIM card, a CDROM, a USB cable, a hook for attaching the stick to the top of a laptop's screen or LCD monitor, and documentation.

The Stick is an Ovation MC950D mobile broadband modem made by Novatel Wireless Inc. The documentation consisted of a Novatel Quick Start Guide and a Rogers Wireless Services User Guide. Also provided were a single sheet with information on the assigned cellular number (user name, cell number, ESN), a UPS courier bag and labels for return shipment if required.

The SIM is inserted directly into the side of the stick as shown here.

A slot in the stick shows how far the SIM has been inserted. Once in place, the SIM still protrudes a bit at the top and the slot length gives the impression that there is more room for the SIM to slide down. It turned out however, that this is as far as the SIM would go and is sufficient for proper operations.

The Novatel printed guide (glossy, 4-color, 5 languages) turned out to be only relevant for Windows installation. It did provide a table to decode the 6-color LED status display of the stick. The CD provided a Quick Start Guide for installing the modem under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger as well as 3G driver v2.0.

Mac Installation

The stick can be inserted directly into a USB port or in case of weak signal in that position it can be attached on top of the screen using the plastic hook and USB extension cable provided.

Although I followed the instructions provided, the Stick would not show up in the MacBook's network interfaces at all, and hence I could not configure it as required. From the colors displayed by the status LED, the modem seemed to connect properly to the cellular network. However, differentiating between the colors blue, cyan and violet could be challenging in normal operating conditions.

I contacted Rogers Technical Support. It took quite a while to get to the proper skill set. Once there the Rogers technician had me remove the drivers I had installed, download new drivers from Novatel's web site and re-install. Several variations of the same approach yielded no progress. The technician then consulted a superior and came back with the following stunning answer: "We only support Mac OS X Leopard". Both the included Novatel documentation as well as Rogers own web site stated clearly that Mac OS Tiger is supported. The only thing I got out of this wasted time is a case number!

Windows Installation

I continued my efforts by installing the Stick on a Windows XP (SP3) laptop following the Novatel instructions. Using address information that was not supplied with the package but obtained during my support session, I was able to install and configure the Rogers stick on this machine and access the internet. Speed tests with various sites ranged between 642 and 1046 Kbps download and 509 to 1067 Kbps upload with latency ranging between 103 to 167 ms. The maximum throughput recorded was 1243 Kbps. I tried again on the Mac with no success. I did notice that the serial number of the device showing up in the USB section of the Mac System Profiler was slightly different from the one on the modem and in the accompanying documentation.

Speaking about my frustration with the Mac installation to a Rogers reseller while on other business, he suggested trying Nerds Onsite Technology Partners, who were providing paid assistance to Rogers customers over a wide scope of issues: from assessing their communications needs to assisting in complex deployment or installations, to on-site technical support. I contacted the Nerds Onsite and a technician was made available on site on Christmas Eve afternoon. I was impressed with their commitment and hopeful of a solution. Unfortunately, the technician was unable to get the Stick working.

The Verdict

I had invested at that point 200% more time than I had initially planned for this evaluation. Thinking about deploying and supporting this device to multiple users with such lacking vendor support, I decided it was not ready for Mac users. The Stick will be on its way back to Rogers tomorrow. It is unfortunate that such a promising product would fail due to poor customer service. If only Rogers technical support for the Rocket Stick was as good as their billing department! They've already sent me an invoice dated December 17th for $65.77.

Gaza: What's Behind Israel's New Attack

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:48:00 +0000

Yesterday Israel launched a massive attack against Palestinians in Gaza resulting so far in over 300 dead and over 700 wounded. The major North American media presented the news along three points:

Hamas is launching rocket attacks onto Israel
"Tension is increasing" and the situation is becoming untenable for Israel
Israel launches a proportional attack in response

A simple straight forward story. Or is it? Let's consider some of the troubling questions not raised by the main stream media.

Why would Hamas continue launching rockets at Israel when they had signed six months ago a truce? Why now? Who benefits from such actions?

Gaza has been under a real siege since the "withdrawal" of Israeli forces from it in 2005. Israel still controls Gaza's air, land, and sea borders and has severely hampered movement of goods and people across these borders. The only other borders are with Egypt, who is witnessing a rise in opposition movements against President's Mubarak government, is distracted with the president's succession planning, and paranoid about organized Islamist opposition similar to Hamas spreading across the country and gaining broad mass support.

Many international and humanitarian organizations have decried this siege including the International Red Cross, UN organizations, NGOs and even Israeli civic groups. The truce was supposed to end the siege of Gaza in return for cessation of rockets firing against Israel's southern settlements bordering the Gaza strip.

For a while the truce seemed to be working. The long years under direct Israeli occupation (1967-2005), had produced numerous Palestinian factions and armed resistance groups in Gaza, some of which are more radical and less pragmatic than Fatah or Hamas. The Hamas government, which won a majority in internationally monitored fair elections, used its security forces to pressure the different factions into respecting the truce. The military operations decreased in intensity and number on both sides, but never subsided completely, a result hailed as a success setting the grounds for more steps towards a resolution of the issues.

The siege, however, was never lifted. Slightly more goods were allowed into Gaza, but not enough to make a difference in the daily lives of the over 1.5 Million people trapped in the few square kilometers of the strip. Even young Palestinians, who had received prestigious U.S. Fulbright fellowships were not allowed to leave Gaza to join their universities. Grumbling among the population grew and dissent among the other factions and groups started to manifest itself despite Hamas efforts. Israel claimed that the text of the truce agreement did not promise such siege lifting.

As the six-month truce neared it's end, a number of elements converged to spell its demise. In Gaza people's patience was running low with the daily deprivation of power, water, food, medicine and the continuing lack of security from Israeli raids. Hamas was running the risk of loosing its support to other groups and factions proclaiming simplistic solutions, mostly violent ones. It had to show that it is doing something to change this situation. It articulated non-ambiguous terms for a new truce that would guarantee lifting the siege and made them condition for renewing the truce.

In Israel, the general elections were nearing. The Kadima party still struggling with the legacy of the failed Lebanon war and allegations of corruptions against Olmert, and facing polls indicating that Likhud's and Natanyahu's combative campaign was getting some traction, was also under pressure to compete. Conditions seemed conducive for attempting a bold solution: The U.S. was in the paralyzing transition phase with the sympathetic Bush administration still in office; all major powers were busy with the global financial crisis; and the Arab regimes were as divided and impotent as they would ever be. If the current Israeli administration managed a successful military operation yielding one of those blitzkrieg victories that it delivered a couple of decades ago, a victory in the upcoming elections for Kadima would be secured.

So suddenly, statements are made by Israeli officials that they are committed to the removal of Hamas. A poll commissioned by the Ma'ariv newspaper on December 26th, 2008, has Kadima winning 33 seats against 29 by the Likhud. With such encouraging signs, the military operation was all go and the bombing started on December 27th.

Interestingly enough, the first attacks targeted Hamas security forces, the only regular forces capable of maintaining public order and constraining the militants of smaller factions. This guarantees that some of those factions will still be able to sporadically shoot something at Israel, justifying its "retaliatory" actions.

The "proportional" Israeli response included dropping 90 tons of bombs in the first day alone on densely populated areas. Women, children and innocent civilians were killed as "collateral damage" on the road to political gains. The lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, that there is no military solution to broad based insurgency, went unheeded in the arrogance of militarists. The hearts of thousands of Palestinians, who lost family members, homes, and more importantly hope, was refueled with hate against their oppressors, cultivating the next generation of revenge seeking "militants", "extremists", and suicide bombers, and adding another round to the vicious circle of violence.

It is time that this vicious circle is broken. This is not a conflict between Jews and Arabs, nor a war against terror. There are many Jewish voices, both from within and outside Israel that have risen against the undeniable injustice done to the Palestinians. It is basically a conflict between the fundamental rights of self determination and human dignity of the Palestinian people and the ethnic and religious monolithic ideology of Zionist nationalism. No real peace will ever be achieved as long as Palestinians are denied these fundamental rights.

There are enough international frameworks and tools to implement a solution, if the international community's will is there. But as long as the Palestinian question remains the subject of domestic or regional political tactics and election strategies, innocent people will continue to suffer and die. Taking the easy way out of blaming both side and sitting back will not absolve us from our human and moral responsibility for what is happening in Gaza.

Symantec NAV Saga: The Third & Final Episode

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 02:34:00 +0000

Last month I blogged about my second episode with Symantec's Norton Anti Virus (NAV) support. At the time I was to recontact their technical support in about a week's time. The season being what it is I did not get to schedule the 1-2 hours that this contact will require until about a month later. As I logged in to Symantec's chat, I was quite confident that with this extra time the brilliant people at NAV would have found a solution to the issue.

I completed once again the pre-session form, dutifully entered the case number given to me, and when I finally had "Analyst Mamta" joining my chat room, here is how that conversation went, literally:

Mamta> Could you please elaborate the issue for me?

Me> I guess your case file did not include info on what your 2 previous colleagues did with me over 2 sessions of couple of hours each?

Mamta> I'm trying to look for the information.

Me> In the last session I was told that Symantec did not have a solution for this and had escalated the issue. I was asked to re-contact you in a week's time. It has been a month since. Is there any new information from the party it was escalated to?

Mamta> Please confirm if you have worked on this issue with a case manager.

Me> I don't know if the previous 2 "analysts" that worked with me on this are "case managers" or not.

Mamta> It looks like you have contacted us multiple times about this and it’s still not resolved. I’d like to transfer you to a Case Manager who will study this case and investigate further possible solutions. Is that okay with you?

At that stage it became clear to me that there was no recording of information in the case file and hence no hope for progress on resolving my problem, so I asked for a refund. I was told that for a refund I needed to contact Symantec's customer service (CS), again chat only unless you pay for their time!

Long story short, I connected by chat again to "Radhika" of Customer Service (Returns). She asks me again what the issue is; have I re-installed the product; am I getting error messages etc. Thirty minutes into that conversation Radhika asks to connect remotely to my machine. I feel the need to reiterate that I am using a Mac and Firefox browser, to which she then states "I am not dealing with Mac operating system". If I needed any further proof that no case file of any significance exists, that was it!

Now I am transferred to "Analyst Lakshmikant" who of course starts by asking me all the same questions again! To shorten the process, I actually copied segments from my blog on the second episode describing what his colleagues already tried and sent them over chat line. Finally, he recommends that I completely remove and re-install the software (the fourth time in this process!). As I have to leave to my next appointment by then, he provides me with the instructions to do so and we agree that he'll call me by phone next day at 11:30 am EST to check that everything went as planned. Next day I spend an hour following his steps and waiting for his call. To add insult to injury, no one calls me at all.

So tonight I took the time to connect once again with this wonderful organization. It took half an hour and two representatives until I was promised an email spelling out terms that once I agree to, would start the process of refund that usually takes "5 to 7 working days".

Needless to say that as of the time of this posting no such email has arrived. I am nominating Symantec as one of two finalists for the 2008 worst customer service experience. If you're curious about who the other finalist is, read subsequent posting in this blog.

A New Celebration of Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:42:00 +0000

Around the same time two years ago, I found myself completely overwhelmed with demands of business, social obligations, and the holidays season. It was so bad that it started me thinking about what kind of life style I wanted and how much control I really had over mine. I observed at the same time that everyone in my family, and in fact in my circle of friends and colleagues, was whining about the stress of the holidays season.

Something in my brain reached a critical threshold and I suddenly had the strong desire to change my situation. Before my resolve could falter, I gathered my wife and three daughters and submitted to them an idea: what if we all agreed that we did not want nor need presents for Christmas; and what if instead we (individually or collectively) estimated the amount of money we usually spend on such presents and donated such amount to the charities of our choice?

I was expecting some resistance or a discussion. To my surprise everyone approved of the idea. And although we weren't sure how this would impact the whole holidays experience, we decided to go with it. We made one exception: Children under 12 years still get presents.

Christmas morning in our household is usually for opening presents. That year we just spent joyful time together. The girls decided to prepare rolled grapevine leaves, a middle eastern specialty. Everyone had to chip in. The hours spent together around the kitchen table made for the best Christmas memories we ever had. One by one I started hearing comments on how wonderful it was to escape the shopping frenzy and shed the season's stress. We all also felt that giving more to charities was much more in line with the spirit of Christmas.

This year is our third celebrating Christmas in this new way, and we're still loving it.

Season's greetings!

Barriers to New Media Success in Canadian Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:10:00 +0000

Since the breathtaking success of President-elect Obama's campaign, new media is being touted as the future of political campaigns and citizens engagement. Interest in applying the new media lessons learned in that campaign to the (marketing) campaigns of the corporate world is exploding. My daughter and colleague Rahaf, who put her life on hold for 3 months and worked for the new media group at the Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago, can witness to that. A recent invitation to speak about her experience in an intimate setting at Toronto University's Rotman School of Business attracted 300 people and forced the relocation of the event to a larger auditorium.

In her presentation Rahaf listed six lessons learned from the Obama new media campaign. She also pointed out to the vision driving the campaign as being a fundamental element of its success. Through further conversations with her I came to think that this may be indeed the most profound lesson learned. The recent political developments in Ottawa have raised public interest and brought increased engagement and activism in online venues like Twitter and Facebook. There are several calls for mobilizing online against the Harper government, so I am trying to apply Rahaf's six lessons plus my current understanding of new media success factors to the present Canadian context.

What amplified the success of Obama's new media campaign is a vision that was people not candidate centric; its core elements of hope, change, inclusiveness and mutual respect resonated with a broad spectrum of people. It was that vision that attracted like-minded top organizers and staffers, established a strategy of two-way communications with the people around a consistent message, engaged young and old people in a respectful way, and admitted the new media group as an equal at the planning and operational levels. It didn't hurt either that the candidate is charismatic and inspiring.

What Canadians politicians can learn

So how do we compare? Although many people converge towards core Canadian values of collaboration, tolerance, etc. no party has a well articulated vision that resonates with what people really want from their politicians:

Putting people's interests and the country first, ahead of narrow minded party tactics;
Engage in intelligent, civil, and constructive conversation in parliament across party lines;
Lead instead of being kicked in the but every step of the way;
Restore hope and pride in Canada's role as a global leader.

Instead, the various parties are aligned along the traditional combative lines of last century: "small government", "middle of the road for middle class" and "workers unite". Never mind the absence of a charismatic and inspiring leader!

Continuing along the traditional model, all significant discussions and decisions are made in backrooms by an exclusive club of elitists and their staffers, who excel at delivering quick short-term results through tricks and mean tactics, even at the cost of the country or at the detriment of their own party's members. Consequently, no party has a clear need or desire to engage the masses and really listen. As a result engagement is seen as a PR exercise and communications is a one-way delivery function receiving it's instructions from the closed club.

What can we do about it

So, here are my recommendations for any party wanting to use new media:

Start by articulating a vision rooted in the people's needs and wants
Commit publicly to the values of transparency, inclusiveness, and willingness to change in order to align with your constituents
Recruit your inner circle from people who have demonstrated their commitment to these values
Devise a comprehensive two-way communications strategy around a clear and consistent message
Attract young engaged leaders to implement the new media component of your strategy and treat them with the respect they deserve

Without a vision around which people can rally, without a core that is committed to transparency, inclusiveness and change, and without truly listening to people and engaging in meaningful conversations, no media (never mind new media) can deliver the strategic advantage everyone is looking for.

Where do we start

How we can jump-start this process is a question that should be opened to the people to contribute their mass creativity to. Here is my personal contribution: How about if a group of politicians from one or more parties establishes a list of the core principles of such vision and a code of conduct (sort of a manifesto if you prefer big words) and starts practicing it openly?

The Future of Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:50:00 +0000

I had lunch earlier today with my friends Dave Gray of Xplane and Bob Logan of sLAB (previously the Beal Institure for Strategic Creativity). The food at "Le Pain Quotidien" was great, the ambiance cozy and surroundings not too noisy. The conversation drifted to Twitter, its future and what its potential could be. Dave encouraged me to blog about this conversation (hopefully not out of concern that at my age I'd forget the content soon if I didn't! Lol). So here are some highlights of that conversation.

I am not sure why, but we did not talk about the traditional advertisement business model. Perhaps it was our aversion to ads interrupting our experience, whether on TV (if you're still watching any!) or online, and we just couldn't imagine our current Twitter experience poisoned by pop-up adds driven by parsing the last tweet we received. Perhaps it's an obvious model that many are practicing and we felt we were in a more "innovative" conversation.

The most obvious value of Twitter to us is in the communities it helps creating and enabling. One of the hypothesis about the business models of the web 2.0 world is that accumulating substantial numbers of "customers" or users of your service even at a loss could have value for others by reducing their cost of access to such group. That was the favorite hypothesis when eBay acquired Skype for $2.6 billion in order to gain access to Skype's 54 million users.

With the gradual realization that modern brand management hinges on the involvement and active engagement of brand related communities, the business value of such communities as well as of its venues and communications platforms continues to increase beyond the traditional value of a company's customers database.

Another aspect is Twitter's value to individuals as a convenience tool. It can act as a filter between the ever noisier outside world and the individual's interests and preferences. Dave refers to Twitter as his personal "info shield". By developing more sophisticated and slick applications to manage your "shield" Twitter's tools would become more desirable by its users... and consumer desires can always be monetized!

I recently blogged about how micro-blogging, the type pioneered by Twitter, is supporting a new type of learning, which I called micro-learning. After some more thought I prefer to call it now agile learning, a way to learn in small incremental steps driven by your own needs and preferences instead of a rigid curriculum formulated for a broad population. My Twitter friends are really a growing network of scouts hunting for information and knowledge and tweeting about their findings, out of which I can then select the gems most interesting and useful to my learning. By the same token the drive (or at least the peer pressure) to have followers encourages me to be a good scout for my followers. This makes Twitter a prime platform for the new agile micro-learning that is emerging.

The ultimate value of Twitter, however, is in the data it collects and aggregates from all the tweets of its users and in its ability to mine such data for useful practical purposes. Technology, even the coolest one, is just a tool. The data is the ultimate treasure. Google, arguably one of the most innovative technology companies around, demonstrated in November 2008 what you can do with such data through their Flu Trends tool. Flu Trends was not only able to deliver estimates of flu levels in each state that were consistent with CDC's results based on field data, it was also able to do so in near real time (i.e. faster than CDC!).

There are many visualization attempts and experiments of the Twitterverse. For example: 17 ways to visualize the Twitter Universe. Visualization is but one way to uncover inherent structures within the data that are otherwise not visible. The key for a successful business model, however, is to extract knowledge that is usable for a number of applications and industries. There are a number of companies starting to explore these avenues, but to my knowledge Twitter is not strategically pursuing any of them. One such company that I personally find exciting is Canadian. Unfortunately I am bound by an NDA and must defer more details to a future blog once I get the approvals to share their information.

If you know of companies doing something in this direction please let me know.

Wind beneath your wings...

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:18:00 +0000

City News reported today on the battle between the pro and against camps for the planned test wind turbine in Lake Ontario near the shores of Scarborough. This was not the first time I hear about such controversy. A few months back a friend of mine, who is a councilor in a municipality near Wasaga Beach, was telling me about similar lines of battle drawn in his community regarding a wind mill farm being considered in his area.

Watching footage from the Scarborough meeting I felt like being in a sinking boat with people in it arguing whether they should use sails or oars to change direction. A lot of the arguments were driven by emotion, fear of the unknown, and also ideology. Many local residents were concerned with the impact on their property values, hazard to birds, possible noise pollution etc. Proponents argued about the planet, CO2 emissions, footprint etc. Supporters were bussed from afar. What a mess!

If there is anything we should learn from the emerging World 2.0 it is that we cannot solve any issues of significance without collaboration. What would have been a much better approach for conducting such meetings would have been to do the following:

Listen carefully to the concerns of the local community. Allowing people to air their concerns easily makes them more willing to listen in return to other points of view.

Make sure the facts being used for the various arguments are correct and non-ambiguous. In the case of Scarborough reports were initially talking of wind towers of over 100 feet height. That was later explained to be the total tower height; the wind mills would be much lower over the water surface.

Prepare replies to the concerns that are based on facts (data) not opinions and ideology. The questions asked are legitimate and the concerns seem to be very similar in all communities where significant structures are planned to be constructed. Investing in well researched answers would provide an efficient, respectful, and constructive response to the concerns.

Consider the impact from alternative solutions when discussing wind mill or solar panel farms. Would residents prefer a gas power generation plant instead? A nuclear reactor? A modern coal fired plant? Without considering the alternatives we would be deciding between the environmental solution and doing nothing, which is not really an option.

Admit that massive renewable energy generation is still a new field, particularly in Canada. No one has all the answers. Remember the euphoria about nuclear and hydro energy few decades back, and the reckoning of their environmental long-term impact later. We all have to learn in this new process and we can't do it in confrontational battle lines. Only good constructive conversations can help us learn how best to proceed.

Openness and the Agile Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:45:00 +0000

I recently blogged about moving from "micro-blogging to micro-learning". Since then I have come to think about this process as Agile Learning. Through a tweet on Twitter today I found new contributions to the analysis of deep changes that are going to hit the education sector.

It is a slide deck by David Wiley of the Department for Instructional Psychology and Technology at the Brigham Young University. In his presentation titled "Openness and the Disaggregated Future of Education" Wiley presents a comparison between the current educational system characteristics and those of the open connected world of today.

Measuring against six core descriptors:

Digital
Mobile
Connected
Personal
Creating
Open

Wiley highlights the shortcomings of the current education system including those of e-learning!

It became clear to me that any method that allows agile learning will be quickly embraced by many people, particularly the millennial or Net generation whether they consciously understand the deficiencies of the current educational model or not. They just intuitively sense that it is a more efficient way for them to learn what they are most interested in learning.

Highly recommended reading if you wish to understand why the Agile Learning is emerging. Click here to see the full slide deck.

Growth vs. Sustainability

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:11:00 +0000

The G20 Summit was held over this weekend. In their declaration the leaders state: "We are determined to enhance our cooperation and work together to restore global growth and achieve needed reforms in the world's financial systems."

I have been thinking lately about this granted assumption that "growth" is the ultimate objective for wealth and prosperity. What is wrong with a year-after-year steady reasonable profit instead of this fixation on ever higher sales, higher profits, higher GDP, even higher growth rate?

It seems to me that the core equation is really very simple: we live on a finite globe with finite resources. If you take into consideration the increasing population, you have to accept dwindling average resources per capita. Defining progress as "growth" can only lead to faster depletion of the resources and more extreme unbalance in wealth distribution.

How we got into this messy economic system is history. The important thing now is how to start changing the fundamental assumptions of the current model without wrecking the boat. I am not talking about the current financial crisis and "bail out" measures. The fundamental issues were there long before the current crisis. I am talking about using people's mass intelligence to find new ways to reward sustainable economic behavior pattern.

The widely used concept of "wholesale" for example is just rewarding more consumption by reducing unit cost. From volume discounts on commodity pricing to "two for one" retail promotions, the same principle applies. What if we reversed that, say by charging an increasing unit price for higher volumes; considered the total volumes purchased over the last 12 months when determining the unit price, and applied higher tax rates with increased unit consumption?

The repercussions of applying such new fundamental principles to all aspects of economic activities would be huge and the resulting structural changes would be deep and painful for almost all layers of the current economic system particularly those that benefit most from the "economies of scale". I wish there was a better alternative; I can think only of much worse ones because history shows that the emergence of new structures is usually extremely violent and destructive of previous structures! Like a jet fighter in a spin fall we'll need to accept high-G exposure to get out of it.

The Symantec Support Saga (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Nabou) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:54:00 +0000

Just a quick update on Symantec's handling of support for Norton Antivirus for Mac:

My second session had to start again through the WinXP machine, but got me an "analyst" online a bit faster than the first time (about 20 minutes waiting). I typed in my case number and the analyst took time to read through it. To my surprise he started asking me if the previous analyst had done this or that. I had to tell him about the previous session's actions!

As no new action for resolving the issue was being taken, I asked the new analysts again if my selecting of a Mac OS case sensitive file system might have anything to do with the problem. To my horror, he suggested that I "change the file system and try running NAV again" !!! I had to explain to him using NTFS as example, what the consequences would be if I followed his advice.

I was told that this being an unknow issue, I should contact them again in 4-5 days. I am really curious to see what escalation procedures they have over there! Stay tuned for the next episode.