May 2005 Archives

*sighs* Once again, QUT is advertising courses in the extraordinarily fashionable management tool, the Enneagram.

There are thousands of sites online talking about the value of this tool and you hear people tell you what personality type they are all the time. Businesses use this "psychological testing" as a means of determining whether potential employees are going to become a problem in certain crises due to their personality type indicator according to this system.

There's only one problem. THE ENNEAGRAM IS A LOAD OF DINGO'S KIDNEYS.

It has no scientific validity. Stop arguing. It doesn't. One PhD from one loony student based on one other study of less than 300 people DOES NOT REPRESENT SCIENTIFIC VALIDITY.

Now I am the first person to say that there are scientists out there who radically get things wrong in the way they deal with alternative therapies and belief systems. The way some doctors belittle naturopathy by labelling it a "placebo effect" is evidence that they are incapable of opening their minds to alternative theories. But that argument just doesn't wash for the Enneagram, because the latter is being applied as a rationale to employ, promote and defer to the business "acumen" of people who have been identified with particular personality types under the Myers-Briggs and Enneagram personality systems. And they are all bunk. Further, anyone with half a capacity to understand testing systems can fake any personality type they choose. Much like an IQ test - which, in spite of the fact that your 2nd grade school teacher told you that you can't fake an IQ test, you can actually 'fake' by learning how to answer questions - the Enneagram is as scammable and as stupid a device as any other in the history of modern management techniques.

Perhaps one day someone important will work out that you might as well have your palm read or get your astrological star chart as get an Enneagram test. And perhaps then everyone else will listen.

But perhaps I'm also being rather naive.

... because I'm about to head off to other things on the 'To Do' list...

* Star Wars Episode III Easter egg guide is worth reading if, AND ONLY IF, you have seen the film;

* Scott Berkun's essay, 'Why smart people defend dumb ideas', is a must-read; and

* Google now has a print search which goes through the titles and content of books.

Also thanks to Creepy and Clare for staying this weekend. All my very best to you Creepy, mate. Enjoy the California lifestyle!

What is this? Home??? On a Friday night? Wearing my 'black furry' (a soft, button-down men's jacket)? Watching DVDs for goodness sake?

Clearly something is desperately wrong.

After a long day at work trying to solve an unsolvable problem, I finally gave up and came home, heating up the remnants of a rather good Thai Chilli Beef & Vegetable noodle mixture and parked myself in front of my box and watched a DVD. It only now occurs to me how sad this is.

Me. Becoming domesticated.

I should be out there in one of my many haunts, hitting the dance floor and partying on. I suppose I could still go out but that would require effort, and it's cold. Plus I've only received one invitation to go out tonight. I'm used to getting at least 4 or 5 invitations every Friday night.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

Let's call it the "Save Jo from Domesticity" campaign, and next Friday night I want to see some invitations to parties, I want to see some people I haven't been out with before, and I want to see some serious dance floor action. Most of all, I want to be prevented from finding myself on a Friday night checking my email at 8:30pm. Because let's face it, wearing my black furry at 8:30 on a Friday night is not where I thought I'd see myself at this time of my life.

You remember that question I had about wireless headsets from yesterday or the day before? Well Engadget has just announced the first ever wifi headset with the release of the iMuff.

:-)

It is 7:27pm. It is Game 1 of the State of Origin series. Therefore, my home phone is off the hook, my mobile phone calls are all diverted and I won't be answering email. Deal with it.

GO QUEENSLAND!

HALF TIME EDIT....
13: NIL lead to QUEENSLAND! GO BOYS!

REMAINING EDITS IN THE EXTENDED ENTRY TO PROTECT THE VICTORIANS!

I left work at 5:20pm.
I got home at 6:40pm
The distance I travelled was less than 7km.
I reckon could have walked home faster.

Anyone have any information about the existence/affordability of wireless/bluetooth MP3 players (where the earplugs are not connected to the base units through wires)? I'm finding the process of untangling my headset exceedingly tiresome.

There is so much that is bloggable at the moment it's just not fair... I'm not even close to keeping up with email at the moment, but I'm hoping the situation will improve after Origin night tomorrow.

First of all, the possum man has come to my place and not only do I have a family of rats in the roof, but they've been fighting with the pair of possums who also are living there. Apparently my roof cavity is the Noah's Ark of the rodent/marsupial* population of Brisbane. In the meantime, my sleep patterns are regularly punctuated by the screams and crashes of the Rodent Wars. I'm figuring I probably should be running a book on the outcome. Odds are 5:4 on for the possums belting the stuffing out of the rats. However if either species should actually get in to the apartment it's unbackable odds that I will beat every last breath out of intruder. I can be a mean so-and-so when uninvited rodent/marsupial* guests pop in for a bit of warmth and a forage around my pantry and/or potpourri.

In more important news, IT workers are being paid more (YAY!) and the new chief of Telstra wants to sell the rest of the telecommunications giant (BOO!).

Apparently the writers behind Star Trek were right, and wormholes aren't any use for time travel, but the jury is still out on whether you can use wormholes to travel through space.

I so want an RFID set of house keys so I don't have to drag mine around all the time, but I'd really need to have a sub-dermal implant to make it worthwhile.

The discussion between Steven Levy and Uses of Blogs chapter author, Mark Pesce, on the future of television is well worth a listen.

And finally, the Sith Sense (a variation on the game of 20 Questions to work out what you're thinking of) is a hoot.

* Edited for accuracy. Possums, as Stephen notes, are not rodents but marsupials. I just figure if they are in my roof and they are driving me nuts, they might as well be rodents. I can think of a few other choice descriptors, but this is a PG-rated blog.

The extended entry includes the first page of an article I'm writing on performance measures for business, and how existing indicators of profit margins, improvement and technology penetration (a horrible concept to begin with) are really not providing outcomes which can adequately assist in strategic planning. All comments, suggestions and input greatly appreciated as usual.

Just wanted to take this opportunity to wish my Mum a very happy birthday and thank her for being such a fab Mum! Hope you have a happy day and enjoy all the pressies!

Love always!

(No spoilers here)

Generally I very much enjoyed it. Many, many fantastic scenes. There is one rather unfortunate plot inconsistency, and some sections were dramatically underplayed (sections that actually have a massive impact on the entire story, and you almost need to know the novels to get their significance, but I guess that's a reward for die-hard fans), but other than that, I have to say I am very happy with the final chapter.

More when more people have seen it!

In the extended entry I explore the reasons why this last Star Wars film means so much to my generation.

When Brisbane only manages to get a top temperature of 18.5° Celsius for the day, it's officially winter. I'm wearing scarves, so it must be cold.

In other news, I'm presently doing some rather interesting research tracking the reasons behind changes in online application submissions over time, and the process is rather similar to being placed in an unfamiliar town and just told to find your way around. There are no absolutely clear reasons for change, and so it becomes a process of testing and eliminating issues on the basis of the data you collect. First you compare online to offline submissions, then company to the industry generally, then you compare churn rates (people who access pages but don't complete submissions), then you consider technological issues (network downtime and changes to structure and site navigability), then you consider the timing of company versus competitor marketing campaigns, then external events.... it all becomes rather a matter of "what else can we think of?". But it is rather fascinating research. Much of the data that's out there is simply a publication of numbers and is not particularly interpretive, so what I've been doing is effectively interpreting these statistics, which can be quite an interesting challenge. It's certainly keeping me interested for the moment.

As for those of you who want to catch up on various issues, please feel free to contact me over the next week or so. Happy to meet up for lunch!

I would just like to take this opportunity to bask in how magnificent it is to spend time in the company of a dear friend. Thankyou to Van for a lovely meal tonight, and for being part of my life. It's amazing how being in the company of a friend you haven't seen for a long time can really make you feel blessed.
*hugs and much love and thanks to Van*

You know it's always great to get good feedback. Thanks to all those who attended Saturday's MBA Orientation session on IT issues, and for your kind comments on feedback forms. I was shown a summary of feedback by our Marketing crew at BGSB, and so many people listed the IT session as being one of the highlights of the weekend, it was absolutely humbling. Thanks - it's great to feel that my sessions are useful to you all.

Thanks also to students in the Brisbane City Council class for always being such active participants in the program, and for exploring all the paths I take you down. It's great to feel that the ideas are beginning to really take flight.

Finally thanks to all those who keep accessing this blog and participating in discussion. It's one of the great boons of blogs that I receive feedback - good or bad - on posts. I do take comments on board, so feel free to be as critical or complimentary as you perceive to be appropriate.

Wishing all mothers a very happy day today, and to my Mum a big thankyou for being such a fabulous mother! Love you heaps, Mum.

First of all I'd like to invite all who are interested to the first function associated with the Ideas Festival. Tickets are going fast so book in now to see Jared Diamond who will be speaking at the Playhouse Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Complex, Brisbane.

Jared's most recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, discusses how societies have managed to just crumble away, sometimes without warning, and shows how the lessons of history can surely repeat themselves on modern societies. A fantastic speaker, Diamond has given us the chance to explore similar issues in this one-off Ideas Lecture, and at $16.50 a ticket, this is a must see event. Book now because it's going to sell out incredibly quickly. There are only 800 seats and as soon as this gets advertised it will go in a moment.

And on a much lighter note (as a result of today's Ideas Festival Advisors' Meeting), I'm wondering whether being called a "dangerous radical" by Phillip Adams is concerning or the highest form of compliment? Perhaps I shall just take it as a compliment and leave it at that. :-)

Good: Google patents quality search to add value to its present quantity search.
Interesting: a small business personal management tool based online. Probably nothing new, but based on the "keep it simple" interface that attracts people who don't want to learn new tools.
Why?: HHGTTG one of a trilogy of films. Are Americans really that stupid? Is the British film academy so short on funds?
Fascinating: The Bill Gates interview, conducted by Engadget. Enjoy part 1 and part 2.
For my students: The E-Readiness rankings for 2005. After three consecutive years of falling in global rankings, Australia actually managed to claw back to 10th position (from 12th in 2004).
LATE UPDATE - YAY!: NSW bans employer snooping of employee email.

Hi. So I can't actually connect to update this blog during the day for the next few months as Suncorp won't allow internet access to secure systems. Nevertheless, I will do my best to keep up with things after hours. Not tonight though; give me a few days to settle in.

There are a few great ideas out there at the moment. Here are three.

1. Time travellers' convention.
The biggest problem faced in science fiction about time travel is the embarrassment/disbelief/paradox of meeting yourself, your friends or your relations in the past, as a result of time travel. Particularly if you haven't thought about time travel when you happen to bump into yourself in the fruit and vegetable aisle at Woolworths. You're most likely to (a) not believe it's really you, (b) think you are on some kind of candid camera TV show, and/or (c) think you've gone mad and try to attack your future self (possibly wiping yourself out of existence, if you do real damage). So what better way to get around this, than to organise a Time Travellers' Convention, so that if you do bump in to yourself, you'll be mentally prepared and may even give yourself the solution to time travel, which would pretty much be the equivalent of the babelfish, in proving the non-existence of God. In any case, the Time Travellers' Convention is on next week, for all those time travellers out there who want to make their presence known without disturbing too many people in the process.

2. Peer-to-peer airlines
Ever wanted an airline service that effectually acts like a chartered jet, is a company run by geeks, allows you to bypass security queues, and can give you flexibility of travel arrangements, but doesn't cost an arm and a leg? Have a look at the concept described by Cringely behind DayJet. Pretty soon I can foresee the 13 329538 (DAYJET) number being registered for air pickups.

3. Blog commercialisation
It was always going to happen. Turning blog advertising and news generation into a business is both logical and timely. Particularly after dear old Rupert has just told everyone he thinks mainstream media should be blogging. So it's hardly surprising that Roger Simon, Charles Johnson and Marc Danziger have teamed up with some other A-List bloggers to produce Pajamas Media. Check out the concept here, and Danziger's explanation here.

The German newspaper, Der Spiegel, has conducted an interview with Steven Speilberg and Tom Cruise in the lead up to the release of Speilberg's take on the HG Wells classic, The War of the Worlds. It's actually a curious interview. After the initial pleasantries, Spiegel becomes provocative to say the least, questioning both about the US-centric focus of the film, then questioning Cruise about his belief in Scientology. Look in particular, for the way Spiegel catches Cruise out on three specific issues - the ethics of setting up a Scientology tent on the set of the film (after getting Speilberg to admit that he enjoyed raising fear in films like Jaws), the 'effectiveness' of the Scientology drug detox program, and Cruise mistaking intolerance for hatred.

It might take a fairly critical perspective to read this interview and see how Cruise has been totally annihilated during its course, but it's well worth taking that perspective. Cruise is self-contradicting, foolish and downright wrong about several aspects of his beliefs. Speilberg comes out sparkling, but does appear rather protective of his star, when he tries to turn the discussion of Scientology into a discussion of the role of celebrities in forwarding their beliefs.