Government Quality Promo Video

My friends and colleagues have been asked to do some blogging in behalf of quality and organizational improvement in the public sector. This is a brief promotional video I created with the excellent Visual Communicator software, and my $99 Logitech quickcam. As the slogan says, Government Quality - all that you deserve, more than you may expect.

Imagine...

We are hopelessly mired in the Iraq war. Whether you believe we were justified in starting it or not (and I believe we were not), there is no way we can justify continuing. Those who would characterize supporters of immediate cessartion of hostilities as "surrendering to the enemy" or "assuring that we lose," do not really understand the possible outcomes of this conflict. What would "winning" mean in Iraq? Is winning even possible? In my view, we can not "win" in the way that most Americans, and certainly the Administration's remaining supporters, would define victory.

America has squandered an immense fortune on the war. We have lost thousands of courageous volunteer soldiers, and seen many many more come home crippled both physically and emotionally. Our great nation has spent an incredible amount of its political capital and energy in the pursuit of stability and democratization in Iraq.

What if there was another way to proceed. What would an army waging PEACE look like? Who would be in it, and what would it do? By what rules of engagement would such a force interact with enemy groups or nations?

If tens of thousands of ordinary people, all dressed in simple white clothing, landed in Baghdad, and began to go about the tasks of just helping common Iraqis with the activities of daily living - food, clothing, shelter - what would happen? Would the peaceful warriors be murdered? Would they be captured and beheaded? If the army of peace took no political stance, advocated no faith, and simply stood for loving one's neighbor as we do ourselves, how would the Iraqis respond?

Is this Gandhi's dream, or Dr. King's dream? Do we need a new dreamer to imagine the possibility, and bring it to life?

One bean

At the age of 54, I suddenly developed a liking for coffee. No one can explain this. I always disliked the taste. Too bitter, to acidic, too thin, too strong. The only coffee I had previously enjoyed was a small pot I got at a cafe just off Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

So now that I like coffee, I make it myself. I have a small electric grinder. I use a French Press to brew it perfectly.

When my perfectly brewed coffee is steaming in my large mug, I clean up and throw away the grounds. Staring at the large layer of spent beans in the bottom of the Press, I think about the energy that it takes to bring this drink to me. Coffee is not grown anywhere near my home in the mid-Atlantic region. Each bean requires energy to grow and mature. The beans are picked, packed, shipped from their remote origin to some place near me. Mine come from Dunkin Donuts, and started life probably in Central America. A long journey. More energy goes to roasting the beans, a necessary step to make them usable for coffee.

What is the energy cost of my cup of coffee? What did it really take to produce each bean, and get them to me.

It occurs to me that in an era of diminishing oil, and significantly rising prices, we will someday see labels on food and other products that give the emergy cost. It will be like the calories and nutritional value on food labels now. We forget that calories are units of energy too. The growing local food movement, and the movement towards once again living close to the source of what we consume, are leading indicators of this trend. All things being equal, we should choose a product with a lower energy cost. In time, we will.

Assuming I am neither the first nor the only person to think about the "energy cost of food," I Google search the phrase. I find one article. It is by professors at the University of Florida, in 1993. Look it up. Use a bit of energy to finnd it and read it. The percentage of our total energy use that just goes into transporting our food is astonishing. Of course this is just as true for the cheap goods from China and elsewhere, that we Americans love.

What will the balance of trade become, when rising energy costs level the fact of cheap foreign labor? Will America see a re-emergence of manufacturing when it becomes cost-effective to compete with local production once again?

Maybe one day we will have hothouse hydroponic farms in abandoned buildings in every town, and some clever entrepreneur will be able to grow coffee in the Garden State.

cmplxty

Complicated vs. Complex - Part Two

Back again for another short journey into the minds of automobile engineers. My son recently returned for his Junior year of undergraduate study. This is the first time he has brought his car along. We thought he should keep the spare key and fob for the remote entry in his apartment. But just in case something should happen, I wanted a key to have back home. So we stopped by the local Ford dealer. A friendly person in the parts depaqrtment asked if we had the car with us. It is a 2002 Ford Escape. No, it was back in the college parking lot. We were told that these cars used a "smart" key that had to be programmed to the exact vehicle. It wasn't clear if this was part of a theft-protection scheme, or served some other purpose. But it was clear that the car knew if its properly programmed key was in the lock or not. Moreover, getting a new key cut and programmed would cost $106! We looked at the key closely and sure enough, there was a small removeable part that presumably gave access to the programmable memory chip inside the key.

We decided that it was not worth the time or money to have a third key made.

Cost of a key to get into my home - a few bucks at the hardware store.

Cost of an allegedly "smart" key for the Ford - $106.

The value of simplicity in design and manufacturing - priceless.

Iraq and the Great Red Spot

With increasing frequency, the news reports tragic losses in Iraq. We tend to focus on the injuries and deaths of Americans, but of course, the suffering of the Iraqi people is many times greater. Public support for the war has significantly diminished.

Without arguing the politics of the conflict, it appears that the overwhelming majority of military and other analysts believe that this is a war we can not win. Devising an exit strategy has become problematic as well. There is little doubt that when the U.S. troops withdraw, Iraq will become embroiled in chaos and bloodshed. If we know this, and if we can not prevent this, what should we do?

What would be our objective in Iraq after we withdraw our forces? That seems comparatively clear. We hope for a stable government and society in Iraq. We hope that those inside Iraq who would do us harm, stay where they are.

Perhaps our exit strategy can be shaped by a look at the massive planet Jupiter. Its atmosphere is a constant swirl of enormous complex whorls and turbulent storms. Yet amidst the chaos there are clear and recognizable patterns of order. One feature known to observers for centuries, is the Great Red Spot on the surface of Jupiter. At its boundary, the Spot is surrounded by smaller vortices that spin and interact with it. But the vast Spot remains relatively calm. The chaos and conflict at the edges seems to act in defining the boundary, and containing the Great Spot from spreading more.

In a post-war Iraq, perhaps U.S. force could be deployed a the boundaries. Both military and diplomatic pressure might work to constrain the Great Red Stain that is sure to flow in Iraq. Perhaps we can influence the turbulence there to stay largely within itself. The red spot that engulfs Iraq may persist as long as the Great Spot on Jupiter. With luck, some form of order will prevail over chaos, and both the U.S. and Iraq can grow healthy again.

cmplxty

Hyperbolic Planes

Check out the work of Daina Taimina on Google. She has become very well-known for her discovery that the craft of crochet could be used to create the surface known as a hyperbolic plane. The geometry we learned in high school does not work the same way on a hyperbolic surface. The image at the right is of a piece she graciously made for me. We spent several hours at her home, talking about this surface, and what it might represent as social metaphor.

At a recent Princeton lecture, Daina's work was used by freelance geometer Jeff Weeks, to talk about the possible shape of the universe.

cmplxty

Resonant Coupling and Community Psychology

From time to time I work as a guest leecturer to classes of doctoral students in psychology. these are primarily students in the field of community school psychology. More recently, I've worked with classes in the broader field of community psychology.

Preparing for a recent guest stint, I borrowed the textbook being used by the instructor. It was a very current release, with references to Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. The book is very well-written, and I spent a couple of hours going through it. Several things struck me about this textbook. One was the fact that the authors chose not to define "community" right away. Instead, they chose to first present a list of seven foundation principles that underlie the field and practice of community psychology. These principles were generated by attendees at a pivotal conference some years ago.

While most fields of endeavor have standardized bodies of knowledge, I thought about the process by which this one and others are generated. How did people get invited to that conference? Were any non-psychologists included in the dialogue? Stakeholders such as community activists, or just "orinary citizens?" Among the seven prionciples are things like "social justice" and "advocacy." Clearly citizens are encouraged to take a direct role in shaping their communities. But how does it happen that a list of defining principles for the profession emerges?

Ralph Stacey, a thought-leader in applying complexity concepts to both management and psychology, talks about "complex responsive processes of human relating" (CRPR usually). To Ralph, iterated patterning of the "gesture and response" of human communication gives rise to our norms, values, and ideologies.

But what IS a community? Do I have to be physically proximate? With the internet, can't I just have my social networked "friended" on MySpace? If I am aware of all of you, but none of you are aware of me and my interests, am I a part of the "community?" What if I have read your work, and am thinking or even blogging about it - but none of you have seen it? If a blog falls in the forest, does anyone care?

In the amazing world of sub-atomic and quantum physics, scientists have made discoveries that seem to defy our understanding. Two particles may co-exist in an atom, and share similar properties, such as rotation or spin. When these are physically separated, I believe scientists have found that changing the spin on one produces an immediate and identical change in the other. can we say that these particles have some kind of unique bond of "community?" Clearly they are coupled and resonant, one with the other.

Is it sufficient for us to say "I am here, and I am a part of you. . ." without anyone else knowing? Can we really say we aer a part of the community in that case? If "I feel your pain. . ." in terms of some social issue, are we "coupled" like the particles?

cmplxty