A celebration of diversity

October 10, 2010 Leave a comment

Motivational Poster - rowingPeople crave unity – and dream of a world without conflict. Business emphasises the idea that all staff should be singing from the same songsheet. Motivational posters emphasise such teamwork through relevant pictures – typically showing sporting images such as rowers – all pulling together in unison.

Having rowed, while at school, I can appreciate this image – a boat where the rowers fail to row as one will quickly flounder. However I question whether such unity is good for business or the world.

The bible story of the tower of Babel gives a different perspective on this that is worth considering (and thanks to Rabbi Andrew Shaw for the idea). The story is related in Chapter 11 of Genesis.

Verse 1: Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.

On first reading this fails to make sense. If they were one language, then surely they were “one speech”. However this is not what the text is saying – it is suggesting that not only did they all speak the same language, but they all thought the same and said the same. There was no disagreement. A few verses later, this sense of common purpose is manifested as an action plan:

Verse 4: And they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

The people are behaving as one – they all agree and show a desire to congregate together, rather than spreading across the earth and showing independence of thought and action.

This view seems utopian. No racism; no hatred; no conflict; total harmony and love of fellow man, to the extent that they don’t want to separate.

Yet what happens next, in this context, is incredible.

Verses 6-8: And the LORD said,  Behold, the people are one and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be withheld from them which they have imagined to do. Come, let Us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off building the city.

Rather than supporting human endeavour, God seems to be punishing it – and actually destroying this unity, so that mankind is forced to spread out across the world. The question is why? What is so wrong with thinking the same, acting the same and believing the same? The text even suggests that mankind would have been able to do whatever it wanted to do, had God not acted.

I believe that in fact there is a lesson for business here. Imagine two businesses: the first expects conformity, has top-down management that gives instructions and punishes a failure to obey. Such a business will quickly oust anybody who fails to follow company mores – leading to a strong culture, and way of working. In contrast, the second business encourages diversity and embraces change. There may also be a strong culture for this second business but it will be based on flexibility and recognition that each staff member is an individual and it will respect their differing opinions.

The first business would succeed when their isn’t much competition and where the business environment is stable and unchanging. In fact such a business could become a powerhouse in such circumstances, as its single purpose and single mind would allow it to do whatever it wanted.

Unfortunately in the 21st century, this doesn’t happen. All business faces competition and change is a fact of life. A business that was unwilling to respect differing opinions would fall into an almost idolatrous believe in routine, and be unable to change course easily. It would be impossible to suggest that an agreed business plan had weaknesses – as challenging the established order would be anathema. In contrast, the second business type would flourish as it would take ideas from wherever or whoever they came from, and use them as relevant. Flexibility would be key, and such a business would be able to move out to new markets and geographies.

That is the lesson of the story of the Tower of Babel: diversity is key as expecting the world to remain constant is not the real world. Change is inevitable and fearing change is poor management. Instead businesses that respect different ideas and opinions are the ones that can adapt and grow – rather than those for which routine becomes their business idol.

Getting found on the web

September 20, 2010 Leave a comment

I’d planned to write this post on business culture, working as part of a team and leadership. Meanwhile I’m still tinkering with WordPress – trying to get to know it better. There’s a couple of things I liked about Google’s Blogger tool that I’ve not yet managed to work out how to do on WordPress. Actually that’s not completely true. If you download WordPress and blog on your own server it’s fairly easy. However there are also things against doing that – for example some technical details, security & spam, etc. Conversely WordPress.com won’t let me download some of the plugins I wanted. Despite this, I’m pretty happy with WordPress as a blog platform.

While searching around, I came across a great presentation from Matt Cutts of Google, given at WordPress’s 2009 San Francisco conference.


Matt Cutts is well known as not only a Google expert (naturally) but also as an expert on search engine optimisation – in other words, how to get found on the web. There is so much in this one presentation that I think it should be compulsory viewing for everybody who writes for the web. Although I try and do most of what was said – there’s still more for me to do, and he had some great examples. The focus was on blogging using WordPress but in fact much of the content was much wider – with explanations on what search engines (and specifically Google) look for when indexing the web.

As not everybody will spare 45 minutes to watch the video, I’ll summarise some of the content – and the slides can be found at Matt’s web-site.

Matt starts by asking why write a blog in the first place, but quickly moves onto optimising sites for the web and how to increase your chances of being found. He gives a simple explanation for Google’s PageRank (named after Google founder, Larry Page, rather than that it measures the web page importance / popularity based on the number of links to the page).  Around half way through the presentation, he starts emphasising the most important thing about writing for the web (whether for a general site or for a blog). The writing has to be relevant and reputable. Good and interesting writing gets read. Boring, trite, repetitive writing doesn’t. In other words, if you don’t love what you are writing about, and don’t know or have anything to say, then don’t say anything. (For more on good writing, read the Write Way – my brother’s blog – covering how to produce technical documentation that’s understandable).

Then we get to the bits on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation – i.e. writing web-sites so that they can be found). When I take training courses on finding competitive intelligence on the web I always emphasise the need to understand how sites get to the top spots. If you understand this, then it becomes easier to think of ways of finding sites that aren’t found on the first page – and often these are the pages that hold the hidden gems that the competitor analyst has to find.

One key skill is to think of alternative terms. As a portable back-up device I tend to use a memory stick. However other terms for the same device are “flash drive“, “USB drive” and a few others. Searching for only one of these risks missing out sites not using that term but one of its synonyms. Cutts gives an example of searches for ipod car for connecting an ipod to a car’s radio / entertainment system. There is an alternative less costly technology called iTrip that also allows an iPod to be connected to the car radio. For every two searches using the term iPod Car, there was one that used the key word iTrip. This means that excluding the latter term from sites selling the former will result in them missing out on a third of the potential Internet traffic. From a competitive intelligence perspective, it would also mean missing out information on a competing technology. Just because it’s not exactly the same, using a different technological approach and costing less, doesn’t mean it’s not also a competitor – so searching for one and not the other would mean missing out on what customers are actually looking to purchase.

Other SEO techniques covered include web-page naming, establishing a reputation, monitoring visitors via analysis of log files / google analytics and how not to spam (and scam).

The camera never lies… or does it?

September 16, 2010 1 comment

When people look at a photograph, they see a snapshot of history. That is one reason that people used to say that the camera never lied. Of course, today, with Photoshop people are warier and look for signs that the photo has been edited. There have been a number of notorious recent incidents of photo editing that highlight this problem. Examples include

However there is another problem with photos – and also news stories, and gathered information in general. That is the context. Understanding the context is crucial for effective business decisions. Gathering information is not the difficult bit. It’s analysing the information to convert it into intelligence that is hard. Without the correct context, poor or even disastrous decisions may be made. These may impact both business and individuals.

An example of how this can happen was highlighted in a sermon given by Rabbi Ivan Lerner on the sabbath between the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashana) and the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). Rabbi Lerner pointed out that the Hebrew word for truth (אמת Emet) is made up of the first, middle and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Truth about an event isn’t just information about what is happening at a point in time, but also includes the events that led up to that point, and the consequences of the actions taken based on the event. It includes the beginning, middle and end. Rabbi Lerner gave an example from the famous photograph taken by Eddie Adams on the 1st February 1968.

Eddie Adam's Pulitzer Prize photo. This photo led to Adam’s gaining the 1969 Pulitzer prize for spot news photography, as well as the World Press Photo award. The photo showed the moment of execution of a Viet Cong prisoner by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. Close examination even showed the bullet exiting from the prisoner’s head.

The impact of the photo was immeasurable. Calls were made to charge General Loan with a war crime for the execution of an “innocent” civilian. The anti-war movement used the photo to justify their protests against a war that was seen as overly savage, cruel and gratuitous.

The impact on General Loan was significant. A few months later, Loan was severely wounded and taken to Australia for treatment. When people realised he was the same man from the photo, protests led to him being evacuated to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Even then protests continued – and Loan returned to Saigon, leaving the army due to his injuries. At the fall of Saigon his pleas for help from the Americans were ignored although in the end, he and his family managed to escape and he moved to the US – where he took on a new identity. He opened a pizzeria in Virginia but in 1991, he was discovered – and business disappeared, with graffiti scrawled on the restaurant walls.

The story so far shows the event and its aftermath – but not the context that led to the execution. General Loan was vilified as a war criminal, while Nguyễn Văn Lém was seen as the innocent victim. Loan had to hide his identity and lost his future as a result. In fact, the executed prisoner – Nguyễn Văn Lém – was not an innocent. He commanded a Viet Cong death squad that had targeted South Vietnamese police and their families. He was captured near a ditch containing over 30 bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives – men, women and children. Lém was personally responsible for the deaths of several. Adams has confirmed that this was the case. The Viet Cong had attacked during a truce arranged for the Tet Holiday. Some of their victims has been at home celebrating.

Subsequently Adams found out more about General Loan. Loan was seen as a hero to the South Vietnamese. He wasn’t just a soldier. He fought for the construction of hospitals, helping war orphans and for a way of life that was destroyed. Adams regretted taking the photo because of what happened afterwards. (Eddie Adams describing his notorious Vietnam photograph)

…Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and GENERAL NGUYEN NGOC LOAN. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. What the photograph didn’t say was, ‘What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?…’ (Eulogy: GENERAL NGUYEN NGOC LOAN, Time Magazine, Jul. 27, 1998)

Information needs a context. When gathering information it is important to know the source and why the information became available. It is important to understand the context and when interpreting it, there should be no hidden agenda. The Adams picture failed in that it didn’t give the context and instead only helped to support and confirm the biases of anti-war journalists, letting them further their own agenda. As such, it ruined Loan’s life.

Reading the news

June 18, 2010 Leave a comment

In 1979 I visited Turkey for the first time. I like Turkey – it’s a great and beautiful country with lots of history. It also shows how Islam and extremism don’t go hand-in-hand and how an Islamic country can also be a liberal democracy. Like all free countries, it has its share of extremists who spout forth nonsense that would guarantee a jail sentence or death in the autocracies that govern most of the world. However that is not what this post is about – although Turkey is the seed for the post.

It was August 1979, and I was backpacking, staying in cheap hostels. A standard item of conversation back then was whether it was safe to travel through Afghanistan on the overland route to India. Turkey was one of the first stopping places on this route that travelled through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and on to India.
From a 1970s Trailfinders brochure showing suggested routes to India
Travellers were talking about the attacks on tourists journeying through the country and how some tourist buses had been shot at.

A postcard sent to me by a friend I’d met when travelling through Europe who wanted to go on the overland routes to India. Karla had hoped to go through Afghanistan but as I’ve highlighted, felt it wasn’t safe. This postcard was sent the day before the Iran hostage crisis and shows the atmosphere in Iran at the time.

I knew nothing about Afghanistan at all and when I got back to the UK started to read up. There was very little in the press – and certainly no headlines. However reading between the lines, I realised that not only was there a civil war going on, but that this was threatening the Southern borders of the Soviet Union. The situation was unstable and something had to happen.
Over Christmas in 1979, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan with the aim of bringing back order to the country. The Soviet aim was not to colonise the country but to prevent the ferment from spreading and leading to sectarian movements on the Soviet borders. However that is not how the world, led by the USA saw things. This was the time of the cold war. Any way that the West could score points against the Soviet bear was legitimate. The initial response was massive anti-Soviet propaganda, ignoring the initial context. Later on, the US funded the Mujahaddin fighting against the Soviets, including Osama Bin Ledin – a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
My response however was different. I saw that the Soviet incursion had been an obvious solution to a problem that they faced, and that the correct approach was to treat it as such, rather than as a global problem. Afghanistan had been a flashpoint that the world had seemingly ignored. It led, eventually, to the break-up of the Soviet Union, when it became impossible to hide the costs in both lives and money by the secretive Soviets. I believe that Perestroika and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union was partially a result of the Soviet’s Afghan adventure.
The point of all this is that newspapers publish
  1. what their editors view as of interest to their readership
  2. news when they have sufficient information for a story.
This is important for competitive intelligence, business analysis and common sense. Without this realisation people are likely to jump to incorrect conclusions based on what they read. The only way to read a newspaper is to question each story and ask why it was published – to understand the hidden agenda.
When there is insufficient information or where it is dangerous for journalists to publish a news story, then however potentially important that news story is, it won’t get published. That is why so few bad news stories highlighting lack of freedom, atrocities and so on are published on the autocracies that rule much of the world. Instead, news focuses on countries where there is a relative freedom to publish, and journalists can report on what is happening unimpeded by the authorities.
If something is not fashionable then it won’t be published or what is published will correspond to what people want to read. This is the case with much reporting on Israel. Israel is now seen as a “shitty little country” (as described by a former French Ambassador to the UK). It’s definitely not fashionable to support it – despite the fact that it is the only full democracy in its region with a free and functioning press, Arab parliamentarians, and equal rights for all its citizens. It has also been at war for over 60 years – with its enemies being countries that, in general, are totalitarian and that imprison, torture and execute dissenters. It has been attacked with missiles fired daily at its cities, yet is lambasted when it responds – most recently by blockading the territories from where the missiles were fired (Gaza). Israel is condemned for trying to protect its citizens and for fighting a territory ruled by a group, Hamas, that is viewed as a terrorist group by Western countries, including the US, the EU, Japan and Canada.
In contrast to the situation in Israel – where every action is microscopically analysed and hits the headlines, much less appears on newspaper front pages and as headline news about the very recent massacres of Uzbeks in Kyrygyzstan. Virtually nothing came out about the Syrian destruction of the city of Hama in 1982, in contrast to the blanket reporting of the events at Sabra & Chatila in the same year. Even in this case, Israel is blamed for the actual attacks while in reality the massacre was carried out by Christian Phalangists in revenge for earlier attacks on them by the Palestinians. The reason for all these examples is that much less information was available from Syria and Kyrygyzstan. Both countries don’t have the free press that Israel has, and in both cases, publishing such news could lead to the journalists being arrested, and probably tortured or killed. As a result very little is seen.
The same selectivity appears in the business press too. Currently BP is under the spotlight for its responsibility for the US oil spill. Although I’m sure that BP bears much of the blame for this disaster, very little has been written about the other companies involved including Transocean and Halliburton. Although BP was the largest shareholder in the well, Texas based Anadarko Petroleum owned a quarter and the Mitsui Oil Exploration Company via its MOEX Offshore subsidiary owned 10%. Transocean owned the rig and of the 126 people working on the rig, 79 were Transocean employees (against only 7 BP employees). Halliburton cemented into place the casing for the well that blew. In fact, the other companies bear some of the blame – if only by not ensuring that best practice was followed and allowing BP to cut corners (if that is what happened). The US regulator, the Minerals Management Service, that had approved the well should also shoulder some responsibility.
It is now fashionable to attack BP – with President Obama (showing an anti-British prejudice), referring to the company as British Petroleum, when the correct name has been BP for many years, reflecting the fact that more of its employees are American than British (BP has 23,000 US employees and under half that number of British employees. Of its 9 senior executive members there are more non-UK members than UK ones with four US positions). The problem is that sometimes it is better for those in power to hide the truth – whether they run a company or a country.
Competitive Intelligence means looking behind the news and doing an analysis to find the truth. That is not the role of newspapers. Their role is simple: to sell and make profits for their owners. If that means subjective reporting, then so be it. Fortunately the quality press sometimes does publish unfashionable news stories and carries out independent analysis. An excellent recent example is an article by Jose Maria Aznar – the Prime Minister of Spain between 1996-2004. Aznar writes (in the London Times – 17 June 2010) about Israel and how failure to support Israel threatens Western values overall. He states that the Gaza episode “is a distraction” and that “Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region“. A shame that there is not more analysis of this type. As this is what true objectivity involves.
Proof of Aznar’s thesis can easily be found. For example, a recent Twitter tweet lamented the loss to the Moslem world of Andalucia, and advocated the route of the martyr, and reaching for life in the hereafter in preference to life in this one.

@Jnoubiyeh the second we lost andalus we lost dignity. wars came 2 remind us again. We lost it was when we chose this life over hereafter

Unfortunately publicising such views are unfashionable and often suppressed – so instead we draw incorrect conclusions and victimise the victim (e.g. Israel) and praise the oppressor (e.g. Hamas).