I think we have more important things to think about in the world today other than the Whistleblowing Act by the SEC of Commercial Entities?  …and to offer a Cash reward, “not very elegant” – for sure!  Who is coming up with this stuff?

By the way, did you ever appoint those Diversity Heads in each agency that were identified in the Dodd Frank Act that no one knows about?   Yes folks, by the way, the bill identifies that specific Financial components of the US appoint a Diversity head (i.e., that would be be part of the Senior Executive Service and reporting to the head of the organization).   Now that would be great to move that along!

Regarding this whistleblower act, I believe from my experience that you are going to create an environment of fear, confusion and a decrease in innovation.  This is not what we need right now!  We need innovation!  In addition, whistleblowing, the name is negative.   Should it be called the “Telling the Truth” Act “Take a Stand” act?

Lastly, what do individuals get for Whistleblowing on the Government?   How about taking a good look at yourselves first? Take it from someone who knows.  In addition, the correct name should not be “whistleblowing” that is an activist oriented and negative term, it is about Americans taking a stand for doing the right thing….Being Good!…As Archbishop Tutu discusses in his new book.

Lastly, regarding another topic, what is up with the Hitler Video’s that are being sold by Time Life on TV.   Why put that energy out there?   Shouldn’t the video’s be called….The most inhumane Human Rights Violations of all Time – driven by the media, a crazy man, and all the people who believed the lies.   Yes, that is it!   Who owns Time Life?  Why are their videos of this sort being sold on TV?

The Lights will overpower darkness! POW POW POW POW POW!

Dream big Dreams.  Randy

We import approximately 2/3 of our oil for foreign countries.   Do you understand what that means.

In this regard, our country will be placed in positions of weakness in regards to commerce, security, and trade.

We all must change our ways…..More to come.

Parkinson's Disease

Go Michael J. Fox – Greatness in Medicine

The Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) is a landmark five-year clinical study aiming to identify biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease progression, supported by The Michael J. Fox Foundation. People recently diagnosed with PD who are not currently taking medications are needed — and so are individuals who don’t have PD (or even a close relative with PD) to serve as controls.

Please visit the Fox Foundation site at www.michaeljfox.org/

for more information about this disease

1) Thank you for taking the time to present your thoughts to the American people.

2) We know it is a hard job!  Thank you.

3) Now let’s turn the tables because I think enough has been said about the reception of the address, we need to move towards Action and Impact, We are committed to these activities in www.theartofrestoringgreatness.com (TAORG)

4) This is an exciting time for the American People and our Democracy.  We have a window of opportunity to embrace change, articulate and implement our vision with optimism.

4) In addition, we at TAORG, admire all of our congressman/congresswomen, senators, legislators, and other stakeholders who are trying to make a difference.

5) Let’s remember Change is very hard work – in corporations, in government, in life, in relationships etc. – But, in our opinion, we must open up all lines of communications at all levels, in all directions, without ego, to address our common issues at hand in good faith.

God Bless America!

Here is a picture of Jason with Crystal, his wife taking off the dressing to clean the area which needs to be done daily.  It has been a week and he is doing great,  Thank you all for all your prayers and good wishes.

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Cooperative or non-cooperative

Main articles: Cooperative game and Non-cooperative game

A game is cooperative if the players are able to form binding commitments. For instance the legal system requires them to adhere to their promises. In noncooperative games this is not possible.

Often it is assumed that communication among players is allowed in cooperative games, but not in noncooperative ones. This classification on two binary criteria has been rejected (Harsanyi 1974).

Of the two types of games, noncooperative games are able to model situations to the finest details, producing accurate results. Cooperative games focus on the game at large. Considerable efforts have been made to link the two approaches. The so-called Nash-programme^[clarification needed^] has already established many of the cooperative solutions as noncooperative equilibria.

Hybrid games contain cooperative and non-cooperative elements. For instance, coalitions of players are formed in a cooperative game, but these play in a non-cooperative fashion.

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Symmetric and asymmetric

Main article: Symmetric game

A symmetric game is a game where the payoffs for playing a particular strategy depend only on the other strategies employed, not on who is playing them. If the identities of the players can be changed without changing the payoff to the strategies, then a game is symmetric. Many of the commonly studied 2×2 games are symmetric. The standard representations of chicken, theprisoner’s dilemma, and the stag hunt are all symmetric games. Some scholars would consider certain asymmetric games as examples of these games as well. However, the most common payoffs for each of these games are symmetric.

Most commonly studied asymmetric games are games where there are not identical strategy sets for both players. For instance, the ultimatum game and similarly the dictator game have different strategies for each player. It is possible, however, for a game to have identical strategies for both players, yet be asymmetric. For example, the game pictured to the right is asymmetric despite having identical strategy sets for both players.

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Zero-sum and non-zero-sum

Main article: Zero-sum (game theory)

Zero-sum games are a special case of constant-sum games, in which choices by players can neither increase nor decrease the available resources. In zero-sum games the total benefit to all players in the game, for every combination of strategies, always adds to zero (more informally, a player benefits only at the equal expense of others). Poker exemplifies a zero-sum game (ignoring the possibility of the house’s cut), because one wins exactly the amount one’s opponents lose. Other zero-sum games include matching pennies and most classical board games including Go and chess.

Many games studied by game theorists (including the famous prisoner’s dilemma) are non-zero-sum games, because some outcomes have net results greater or less than zero. Informally, in non-zero-sum games, a gain by one player does not necessarily correspond with a loss by another.

Constant-sum games correspond to activities like theft and gambling, but not to the fundamental economic situation in which there are potential gains from trade. It is possible to transform any game into a (possibly asymmetric) zero-sum game by adding an additional dummy player (often called “the board”), whose losses compensate the players’ net winnings.

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Simultaneous and sequential

Main article: Sequential game

Simultaneous games are games where both players move simultaneously, or if they do not move simultaneously, the later players are unaware of the earlier players’ actions (making them effectively simultaneous). Sequential game (or dynamic games) are games where later players have some knowledge about earlier actions. This need not be perfect information about every action of earlier players; it might be very little knowledge. For instance, a player may know that an earlier player did not perform one particular action, while he does not know which of the other available actions the first player actually performed.

The difference between simultaneous and sequential games is captured in the different representations discussed above. Often, normal form is used to represent simultaneous games, and extensive form is used to represent sequential ones; although this isn’t a strict rule in a technical sense.

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Perfect information and imperfect information

A game of imperfect information (the dotted line represents ignorance on the part of player 2)

Main article: Perfect information

An important subset of sequential games consists of games of perfect information. A game is one of perfect information if all players know the moves previously made by all other players. Thus, only sequential games can be games of perfect information, since in simultaneous games not every player knows the actions of the others. Most games studied in game theory are imperfect-information games, although there are some interesting examples of perfect-information games, including the ultimatum game and centipede game. Perfect-information games include also chess, go, mancala, and arimaa.

Perfect information is often confused with complete information, which is a similar concept. Complete information requires that every player know the strategies and payoffs of the other players but not necessarily the actions.

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Infinitely long games

Main article: Determinacy

Games, as studied by economists and real-world game players, are generally finished in finitely many moves. Pure mathematicians are not so constrained, and set theorists in particular study games that last for infinitely many moves, with the winner (or other payoff) not known until after all those moves are completed.

The focus of attention is usually not so much on what is the best way to play such a game, but simply on whether one or the other player has a winning strategy. (It can be proven, using the axiom of choice, that there are games—even with perfect information, and where the only outcomes are “win” or “lose”—for which neither player has a winning strategy.) The existence of such strategies, for cleverly designed games, has important consequences indescriptive set theory.

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Discrete and continuous games

Much of game theory is concerned with finite, discrete games, that have a finite number of players, moves, events, outcomes, etc. Many concepts can be extended, however. Continuous games allow players to choose a strategy from a continuous strategy set. For instance, Cournot competition is typically modeled with players’ strategies being any non-negative quantities, including fractional quantities.

Differential games such as the continuous pursuit and evasion game are continuous games.

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One-player and many-player games

Individual decision problems are sometimes considered “one-player games”. While these situations are not game theoretical, they are modeled using many of the same tools within the discipline of decision theory. It is only with two or more players that a problem becomes game theoretical. A randomly acting player who makes “chance moves”, also known as “moves by nature“, is often added (Osborne & Rubinstein 1994). This player is not typically considered a third player in what is otherwise a two-player game, but merely serves to provide a roll of the dice where required by the game. Games with an arbitrary, but finite number of players are often called n-person games (Luce & Raiffa 1957).

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Metagames

These are games the play of which is the development of the rules for another game, the target or subject game. Metagames seek to maximize the utility value of the rule set developed. The theory of metagames is related tomechanism design theory.

The term metagame analysis is also used to refer to a practical approach developed by Nigel Howard (Howard 1971) whereby a situation is framed as a strategic game in which stakeholders try to realise their objectives by means of the options available to them. Subsequent developments have led to the formulation of drama theory.

John will be our first guest on Live TV next Thursday at 7:30pm.

There is absolutely no coordinated effort around key objectives.   Many of these groups need to establish clear objectives, measures of success and targets for performance.

We need to move from Thinktank to ThinkDo.

Best,

Randy

Theartofrestoringgreatness.com

1) Don’t keep sacred cows

2) Use Worldwide Best Practices to Drive Change

3) Think out of the Box – goals of 40-50% improvement

4) Include the leading thinkers – Bring the top commercial talent together and set a goal of growing a fund from X to Y

5) Structural Changes – Spans and layers, Colocation, Duplicative Structures, etc.

6) Processes – Duplication, Outsourcing, Cycle time reduction, Shift to Revenue Generation, Retrain, Activity Value Analysis, Decision Analysis, High value/low value added work.

7) Bulk purchasing ( from all agencies)

Remove the projects that are the “bridge to nowhere”

9) Earmarks – too many too little

10) Improve the performance of Congress and Senate by providing them with Consulting Support and Technical Support

11) Lack of Alignment is costly – The Republican and Democrats have to get involved – Don’t get personalities in the way now.  I agree, things are not perfect, but take a stand for the American People for trying to work things out.

12) Use people who are used to dealing with the largest entities to help you – the government is about 120 Coca Cola’s in size.

13) Assess who really needs to be in prison and remove the minor offenders – I think a complete analysis of this number is critical

That’s is it for now.

Brain dump from Randy

Want to learn about Strategy Work?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZNwpZ83s9U[/youtube]