I just came across this important TED Talk by Glenn Greenwald (the journalist who famously was a key player in publishing the information Edward Snowden released about the US government’s extensive surveillance activities).

I am a believer in the importance of privacy.  Whatever you feel about what Edward Snowden did and about Glenn Greenwald’s choice to assist in that endeavour, I think Mr. Greenwald makes a compelling case for why privacy is so important – especially in this modern age when we have so little of it.

Click the following link to watch Glenn Greenwald’s TED Talk.

Happy Canada Day!

It’s been 6 months since my last blog entry due to a fairly serious accident I suffered shortly after my January 8 blog post.  Maybe I’ll tell you more about that some other time.

But today – today felt like a great day to restart.

Why?

Because Canada Day is one of my favourite days of the year.

This is a day when we as Canadians can pause and give thanks for this wonderful country that we have the privilege of calling “home”.  How fortunate we are. Really.

I have lived in several countries and have traveled to many more (some of them too many times to count).  I believe that there are many great places to live in the world. And, I believe that Canada is one the best among them. I am so grateful to have been born here and to be able to live here.

We have a “just” society, a country that is – for the most part – kind, gentle, and caring. We help each other out, we seek to honour each other’s traditions, cultures, and religious affiliations.  Generally speaking, we strive to respect and celebrate our differences rather than suppress and punish them. How fantastic is that?

We can speak freely without fear of being punished, threatened, beaten, imprisoned, or even killed by the authorities who rule over this country.  We can openly challenge our government without fear. We can generally walk along the streets of most parts of our cities – even the biggest ones – day or night and feel safe (and importantly, BE safe).

We have publicly funded medical care that is available to everyone. Yes, it has its flaws and it is a system under strain given our aging population of post-war baby boomers and the increasing cost and complexity of medical treatments, but wow – it’s amazing.  And then there are all the other programs designed to help those who need a hand.

We have natural beauty, wide open spaces, majestic mountains, fresh, beautiful lakes – SO much to enjoy and appreciate.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop here.

I know this paints a very rosy picture of our country. Maybe it paints a picture so rosy you think I’m deluding myself. But I don’t think I am. We have our flaws – for sure. We are far from perfect. Some of our policies – including some of our foreign policy – really leaves something to be desired. But that’s not the point of today’s post. Today is about celebration and gratitude.

I’m not sure how often I’ll blog now that I’ve returned to the space, but I’m not going to concern myself with that today.

Today, I will celebrate my country.  For all Canadians and all lovers of Canada, I wish you a Happy and gratitude-filled Canada Day.

Check it out!

As I’ve written before, I love “firsts” in general.

There’s something energizing and inspiring about them. They contain a real feeling of promise and possibility; of as-yet unknown adventures and experiences. It’s very enlivening.

That’s really all I want to say here on this New Year’s Day.

I wish you the very best for the coming year. None of us choose what happens to us; but all of us choose (consciously and unconsciously) how we  respond to what happens.

May we make excellent choices this year.

I also want to acknowledge the search engine “Bing” for making this gorgeous photo available for download on December 30th. It is an Ice Castle in Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. The photo was taken by Michael Interisano and is represented by Design Pics RM/Age Fotostock. To me it represents beautifully the bring and shiny promise of a New Year.

Warmest wishes to all of you.

Peter.

Remembrance Day.

Today’s weather here in Toronto is a mismatch for its mood. It is sunny and 15 degrees celsius.  But there is still a sombreness about the day for me.

I write simply to invite those of you coming across this blog post to take a moment to pause and reflect on the losses and costs of war, and of any kind of violent conflict.

Please also take a moment to consider what you can do on a day-to-day basis to reduce the frequency with which conflict erupts and turns violent.  Maybe it’s the way you raise your children, or teach your students, or lead your team, or handle your own disputes in life.

I am aware that this day is not necessarily a significant day for every country in the world. There are other days of remembrance that are equally important and equally painful.

Whatever your occasion, I ask you to pause, reflect, and renew your commitment to learning how to live in harmony with others.

I  think this is the first time in the almost 8 years of writing a blog that I have pitched something. Forgive me if you don’t like it

For those of you in the Toronto area, we are running a fantastic event on Oct 23rd in downtown Toronto (Metro Toronto Convention Centre).

It’s all about fostering a fantastic culture in the workplace.

We’ve got a really great keynote speaker coming in – his name is Bruce Poon Tip. He’s a Canadian entrepreneur – founder of the most successful adventure travel company in the world with offices in 20 countries and trips to over 100 countries.  They take small groups, stay in small locally-owned hotels (generally 40 rooms or less), and seek to make a positive difference in the communities they visit.

Bruce is a pioneer in many ways and his company has won more awards than you can count.

At one point he turned down a $100 million dollar offer to buy his company so he could continue to run the company as he envisioned it and fulfill his mission of running a values-based organization.

The talk is sure to be inspiring, and I have the honour of introducing Bruce and interviewing him onstage that afternoon.

Please join us if you can. Tickets are $95.  Click here to buy your ticket!

If you can’t join us for whatever reason, I do encourage you to read his book. I’m just about finished reading it and it’s quite inspiring (not to mention interesting to read his story).  It’s called “Looptail: How One Company Changed the World by Reinventing Business“.

And also consider taking one of many fascinating trips with his wonderful company, G Adventures.

It may just change your life.

Hi everyone. It’s been a while. I just came across a great article via LinkedIn called

Why Steve Jobs Obsessed About Office Design

(And, Yes, Bathroom Locations)

It’s written by Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs’ authorized biography.

Just two paragraphs into the article, I knew I had to share it.

It discusses how crucial collaboration is in order to truly achieve something great.

As you know, we’re all about collaboration.

It also highlights how most “new” ideas aren’t really new. Rather, they are evolutions of previous ideas as Isaac Newton said so poetically in a 1676 letter: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. This expression is further traced to at least the 12th century, attributed to Bernard of Chartres – a sign in and of itself of how one thing is often built upon another).

Click here to read the article.  Enjoy!

Sorry I’ve been quiet on the blogging front. Was focused on other things.

Just a very brief note this fine morning to give a shout out to my home and native land: CANADA!!!

I have traveled a fair bit in the world (over 50 countries, and many of those have been visited many times), plus have lived in 6 countries on 4 continents (even though some of the stays were not so very long).  This means I have a bit of a sense for what’s out there in the world.

I can honestly say there are a number of wonderful places to live in this world.

And, I can honestly, proudly, and gratefully say that Canada is one of them.

For all my Canadian family, friends, and colleagues, and for all lovers of Canada and/or what it stands for, HAPPY CANADA DAY.

Let us pause and give thanks.

Warmest wishes,

Peter.

It was yet another exposé about how the financial system takes advantage of investors.

The Hero of this story is a fellow Canadian:Brad Katsuyama – as pictured here a few days ago during an interview with CBC’s Amanda Lang on the Lang-O’Leary Exchange.

Essentially, Mr. Katsuyama discovered – beginning in early 2007 while working as a trader on the financial markets for Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in New York – he was not able to complete a transaction that was supposedly available based on the information on his screen. In essence, someone was able to find out he wanted to make a certain trade and “get ahead of him” to take advantage of that opportunity and make money in the process.

This was not only frustrating to him, but seemed patently unfair. To RBC’s credit, it allowed him to investigate this. Over the course of the next few years, he and his team discovered something called “High Frequency Trading”. These traders were (and are) essentially automated systems that can process a large number of trades in milliseconds – faster than most market participants. Furthermore, those systems were getting information about the market demand for stock x, y, or z ahead of the rest of the market, and using that information – plus their speed – to make money. In essence, it enabled them to skim small margins off the top, which – when added up – totaled to billions of dollars of profit.

If I’m understanding the situation right, Mr. Katsuyama mused about what to do about this. To him, it felt morally wrong. How could regulators stop this, he wondered? What else could be done?

As it happens, both things are happening. Regulators are looking into this now, and, Mr. Katsuyama seems to have come to the conclusion that if the market is being “unfair” to investors, perhaps the best and most durable way to combat it is to offer an alternative in the market that IS fair.

What did he do? He launched a new exchange – a fair exchange – called IEX Trading (www.iextrading.com), which opened its doors on October 25, 2013. It’s still a relatively small market player, but large players like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have already signed on as customers. Not bad!

Is the solution Brad Katsuyama and his team came up with the best solution? It’s hard to know. But you’ve got to give them points for their intentions and efforts. If I’m understanding it right, they’re trying to introduce a level playing field.

Having said all of what I just said, there is a counter argument that says that high frequency trading serves to improve liquidity in the market and make markets more efficient. Said differently, they are a net benefit to the markets (and therefore presumably investors as well). If I understand Mr. Katsuyama’s view correctly, it seems that he agrees that not all high frequency trading is bad. Rather, he only sees it as bad when there is an informational disadvantage in favour of one party. It seems that the new exchange he and his team founded is seeking to level that playing field so it’s as fair as possible.

All of this has become much bigger news recently due to the launch of a new book by bestselling author Michael Lewis called “Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt“.  Mr. Lewis also wrote bestsellers Liar’s Poker, The Blind Side, and Moneyball, among others.

To read more about this story and the differing views available on it, see the following links:

CBC News Story and Video – The Lang O’Leary Exchange – April 4th, 2014

The Globe and Mail – The preliminary impact of this on Mr. Katsuyama – April 4th, 2014

Debate on Bloomberg TV about the pros and cons of high-frequency trading – April 2nd, 2014

Peter Buffet made this point quite poignantly (and controversially) last year in a New York Times Op-Ed called The Charitable Industrial Complex, in which he lamented the negative effects of well-intentioned charitable acts (in fact he even questions the intentions of the givers in some cases). His article came under a fair amount of criticism (some of it quite legitimate, I feel – see below), but one of his central points stands nonetheless: that often, in search of doing good, we do harm.  If his iconic name hasn’t already given it away, Peter is billionaire Warren Buffet’s son and chairman of the NoVo Foundation, a philanthropic entity endowed with a good portion of Mr. Buffet Sr’s wealth).

I recently had a reminder of exactly this principle in my own life. (Sadly, one of many reminders. I’m still learning).

I’m not going to go into the specific details, but I decided it was worth a short blog post. The theme is a familiar one in human interaction:

GOOD INTENTIONS too often lead to BAD RESULTS

In the past week I created a painful mess with exactly this pattern. The “mess” affected the other party negatively, and it also affected me badly because I care about the person I harmed.

The fact that this dilemma occurs many times in one’s lifetime is simply a fact of life (in fact, it probably occurs at least several times a week, if not several times a day in small measures). What’s important is what we DO about it when it happens.

Unfortunately, all too often we create a bigger mess by (a) being blind to our impact and continuing to pave the road to hell with great efficiency, blissfully unaware of (or intentionally ignoring?) the impact of our actions, or (b) becoming defensive and dismissive when confronted with the negative impacts of our well-intentioned actions.

What do I recommend instead?

Get curious.

When someone draws a damaging impact of a well-intentioned action to your intention, it’s fine to express surprise, but the next thing you should do is (1) Apologize; (2) Inquire about what impact you have had; and (3) Ask how you can clean up the mess and hopefully align the impact with your intention. That’s what I’m in the process of doing right now.

Sigh. Being human is sometimes a frustrating thing. But then again, our trials and tribulations are a large part of what keeps life interesting, aren’t they?

Ironic, indeed.

Although this not the point of my blog post, if you’re interested in some of the comments and critiques of Peter Buffet’s articles, including some alternate views on how philanthropy – and charitable work at large – can be (more) useful in the world, see the links below:

• The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Peter Buffet is right to call for Philanthropic Change
• Forbes: What Peter Buffet gets wrong about Philanthropy
• The World Post (partnership with Huffington Post): The Unglamorous Truth About Ending Poverty