Question of the day

What are the implications of the lack of conscience?

Aristotle

Some words of wisdom from Aristotle:

• Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
  

• "Eudaimonia" -- Humans can attain eudaimonia by fulfilling their potential.
  

What makes "Organization" GREAT

Here is a story of how one medical doctor discovers answers to the question "what makes a hospital great (i.e., excellent patient care)?"

Here is the link to the full article in the New York Times.

• She used to think that hospitals have great results because their surgeon are so good at their operations.
• She discovered from her own experience and from reading the latest study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that, in fact, investing in new technology and acquiring superstar surgeons may not be the top reason to why hospitals reap great results.
  
• Instead, improving patient care require investing in and focusing on cultivating the culture of the organization.
• What kind of culture? "A culture in which there is a cohesive organizational vision that focused on communication and support of all the efforts to improve care."
• Dr. Bradley, one of the the investigators said "We have to focus on the relationship inside the hospital and be committed to making the organization work. It isn't expensive and it isn't rocket science, but it requires a real commitment from everyone."

I can't help but wonder if this is true for other kinds of organizations as well.

Modesty and Self

David Brooks wrote an interesting Op-Ed article in the NYTimes today. Here is the link to the article.

My takeaway from reading this article is that by emphasizing too much on "self" and "self accomplishment", we may lose an importance of collectives and the meaning of our lives and values towards making progress at the collective level.

Here are some quotes from the article:

• Brooks questioned whether there is a link between a magnification of self and a declining saliency of the virtues associated with citizenship. He argued: "Citizenship, after all, is built on an awareness that we are not all that special but are, instead, enmeshed in a common enterprise, Our lives are given meaning by the service we supply to the nation."
  

Nothingness

Nothingness .... Emptiness?

Nothingness ... Being free?

Nothingness ... Hopeless?

Nothingness ... Meaningless?

Nothingness ... Impermanence?

Nothingness ... Absolute truth?

Measure of human character

"The difference between how a person treats the powerless versus the powerful is as good a measure of human character as I know.", said Robert I. Sutton in his book "The No Asshole Rule"

Driving by wire

What do you want from a car? This question seems to have been in the mind of car companies lately. Maureen Dowd, a columnist at the New York Times, has a very interesting article on this topic. Her title is pretty provocative: Have you driven a smartphone lately?

It seems that car companies want us to have fully immersive technology-driven car driving experience. Here is a set of evidence from Dowd's article:

• Ford Sync lets you sync up to apps, reading Tweeter feeds to you
• MyFord Touch plays your iPod on demand and reads your texts to you including emoticons
• Ford is working on an avatar Eva with a face, yes a face, and voice of a woman on the dashboard who can us e-mail, update our schedule, recite articles from newspapers, guide us to the restaurant and recommend selection from iPod

Do we want all these technology driven experience while driving a car? Or do we just want to arrive safely at the destination, wherever that may be?

Climate of silence

• Climate of silence is detrimental to organizations' ability to change and develop in the context of pluralism.

• Climate of silence also has destructive outcomes on employees:

1. Employees' feelings of not being valued
2. Employees' perceived lack of control
3. Employees' cognitive dissonance
   

• If you experience fear every day, it drags you down and you become cowardly.
• After my suggestions were ignored, the quality of my work was still there, but I wasn't.
• See the Figure from Morrison and Milliken's (2000) article below on the negative effects of organizational silence on organizational decision making, organizational change, employees' feelings, cognition, etc.

From Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World,
Morrison and Milliken, Academy of Management Review, 25( 4), pp. 706-725

America broadband plan

It looks like President Obama is on tour to promote his vision of "investing for the future". According to the recent article in the NYTimes here, President said the followings:

• “This isn’t just about a faster Internet or being able to find a friend on Facebook. It’s about connecting every corner of America to the digital age,” the president said. “It’s about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers can monitor weather across the state and markets across the globe. It’s about an entrepreneur on Main Street with a great idea she hopes to sell to the big city. It’s about every young person who no longer has to leave his hometown to seek new opportunity — because opportunity is right there at his or her fingertips.”

Some of the goals are: securing high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans within five years.

Some of the immediate action items are:

• high-tech wireless public safety system (nationwide wireless broadband network) that would tie cities and towns together in the event of a national emergency like the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Hopefully, these dreams will come true ....

Does any of these pictures describe your relationship with your computing device?

All the pictures are from the articles "Who's the Boss, You or Your Gaget?", The New York Times

Vision of the American future

President Obama's 2011 state of the union address emphasized three key elements: innovation, education, and infrastructure investment.

Here is a part of his speech on digital infrastructure:

"Within the next five years, we'll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans. This isn't just about -- (applause) -- this isn't about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls. It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age. It's about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers and small business owners will be able to sell their products all over the world. It's about a firefighter who can download the design of a burning building onto a handheld device; a student who can take classes with a digital textbook; or a patient who can have face-to-face video chats with her doctor.

All these investments -- in innovation, education, and infrastructure -- will make America a better place to do business and create jobs. But to help our companies compete, we also have to knock down barriers that stand in the way of their success."

Smart meters and electromagnetic hypersensitivity

I am reading an article in the New York Times on smart meters and issues that people opposed their installations on the basis of health problems, privacy issues, and inaccurate readings.

One of the health issues has something to do with the health concern on electromagnetic hypersensitivity or EHS. People claim that "radiation from cellphones, WiFi systems or smart meters causes them to suffer dizziness, fatigue, headaches, sleeplessness or heart palpitations.", according to the article.

A few important concepts of control, and distrust were raised in the article as one of the issues that always arise with new technology. What is going on around smart meters mean that a lot more works need to be done to develop a better understanding of consequences of wireless devices.

Unintended usage of iPad

It is amazing to see an increasing number of ways that iPads are used among adults and children with disability.

Examples:

• Text-to-speech applications for patients with spinal cord injury to browse the Internet.
• Applications to teach autistic children basic skills such as brushing teeth

Pro: versatility, affordability
Con: Need human fingers to touch screen, touch screen technology can sometimes be too sensitive

Several questions remain to be studied:
- What is the effectiveness of iPad for people with disability?
- What is the efficacy of different design alternatives for different kinds of disabilities?


Here is a link to the full story on the New York Times.
Here is a link to another story on the Wall Street Journal.

Value of life

Two profound quotes from Melinda Gates

"One life on this planet is no more valuable than the next."

"A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult."

Value

The question of value depends on the frame of reference.

From the book "Becoming Enlightened"