Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Poise (& Balance)
Absolutely! I agree with Gary Henry on this one- Poise (my emphasis: and Balance), is one of the greatest qualities for leadership success, most especially in the turbulent environment of transformational leadership.
It has (poise) has always kept me out of trouble, and always alert to those little funny detractors of my transformational agenda...
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/idx7
The Real Story of Christmas
It is probably a story not one (of those who believe in Santa, Xmas & all) wants to hear. Most religious leaders who know and have studied the history of religion, including that of Christianity, will be well aware of the claims on this interesting article.
After having read this, and inquired widely, and researched appropriately, I ask, as Lawrence Kellemen, does in his conclusion, how will you celebrate this one, and the subsequent Xmases?
Amplify’d from www.simpletoremember.com
The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’
birth. The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the
baptism of an adult Jesus. This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked
interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birthdate.
C.
The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius
Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery. His calculation went as
follows:
a.
In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from
ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome]). Thus 1 AUC
signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of
Rome’s reign, etc.
b. Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor
Au
Popular myth puts his birth on December 25th
in the year 1 C.E.
B.
The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’
birth. The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the
baptism of an adult Jesus. This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked
interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birthdate.
C.
The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius
Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery. His calculation went as
follows:
a.
In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from
ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome]). Thus 1 AUC
signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5th year of
Rome’s reign, etc.
b. Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor
Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.
c.
Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years
old, it was the 15th year of Tiberius reign.
d.
If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius’ reign, then he
lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus’ 28th
year of reign).
e.
Augustus took power in 727 AUC. Therefore, Dionysius put
Jesus birth in 754 AUC.
f.
However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus’ birth in the days of
Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which
Dionysius places Jesus birth.
The DePascha Computus, an anonymous document
believed to have been written in North Africa around 243 CE, placed Jesus
birth on March 28. Clement, a bishop of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 CE), thought
Jesus was born on November 18. Based on historical records, Fitzmyer guesses
that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE.
How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on
December 25?
Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia,
a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During
this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could
be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong
celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the
Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected
a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures
throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th,
Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by
brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.
B.
The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in
his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in
his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread
intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other
sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some
English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).
As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th
and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were
forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers
of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome
sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual
Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to
make any innovation.”[6]
On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into
Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews
were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped.
Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.
The Origins of Christmas Customs
The Origin of Christmas Tree
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with
the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were
recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.[7]
Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes
and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian
veneer by the Church.
by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use
mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.[8]
The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of
the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.[9]
by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below)
Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and
later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He
was only named a saint in the 19th century.
b.
Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened
the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they
produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil”[11]
who sentenced Jesus to death.
c.
In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved
his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas
supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua
Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts. The
Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the
Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant
they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.
d.
The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by
German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden
–their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long,
white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When
Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard,
mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.
In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom
modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby
face. The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca
Cola red. And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and
commercial idol.
IV. The Christmas Challenge
carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept
away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the
celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.
Many of the most popular Christmas customs –
including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are
modern incarnations of the most depraved pagan rituals ever practiced on earth.
On December 25, 1941, Julius
Streicher, one of the most vicious of Hitler’s assistants, celebrated Christmas
by penning the following editorial in his rabidly Antisemitic newspaper, Der
Stuermer:If one really wants to put an
end to the continued prospering of this curse from heaven that is the Jewish
blood, there is only one way to do it: to eradicate this people, this Satan’s
son, root and branch.It was an appropriate thought for
the day. This Christmas, how will we celebrate?
KELEMEN
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"If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, then the world is yours and all that's in it." -- Rudyard Kipling http://amplify.com/u/idkh
Sunday, December 12, 2010
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." -- Martin Luther http://amplify.com/u/i8ai
"You have a calling which exists only for you and which only you can fulfill." -- Dr. Naomi Stephan http://amplify.com/u/i8aa
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
4th Annual BEE Conference
It is the Compliance issues of BEE, as well as the required leadership and organisation culture shift, that will deliver growth, both at macro, and at micro-economic level of our economy in South Africa.
It is also required that we shift our personal spectrum of consciousness regarding our history, so that we make sure the culture of exclusivity does not creep up on us, due to failure in exercising our own personal rank and power, irrespective of our position in the hierarchy of the organisations we serve.
Amplify’d from www.annualbeeconference.co.za
Brown
Ayn Brown is the Executive Head: Human Resources – Nedbank Business Banking. Ayn is a Human Resources Professional, with both a strong Generalist and Learning and Development background, but with a special focus on identifying and developing young talent, as well as the role that personal mastery and engagement plays within team effectiveness. She has played an integral role in the merger, turnaround and growth of several key teams and business units within Nedbank. She is a true proponent of the “HR as Business Partner” philosophy and has excellent business acumen, which makes developing and delivering through the HR value chain, both practical and sustainable, but with high impact. As a keen photographer and interested in the natural world, she is a constant student of the impact of human behaviour on people and the environment.
Brown
has a BCom in Business Management and a background in finance and education; he has been involved in the black economic empowerment (BEE) industry since 2007. His BEE experience includes strategic BEE consulting, verification assistance to businesses of all sizes, and Enterprise Development programme development, feasibility studies and implementation. Duncan is a regular speaker around the topic of Black Economic Empowerment and focuses specifically on the potential economic impact and sustainability of BEE programmes. He has been involved in changing the mindsets of many people throughout corporate South Africa.
Goodnews Cadogan is a Director of The Village Leadership Consulting. He qualified as an Engineering Electrician at Volkswagen South
Africa. He moved to Goodyear SA and assumed a role of Production Area Manager. His ability to coach and mentor others was seen in the marked improvement of the
scorecard for the manufacturing plant.
In 1999 he joined the South African Revenue Services as Manager: Personnel, with
achievements in the areas of change management and policy development.
As the regional manager for Gauteng Central enforcement, he
focused on changing the way people, systems and processes interacted to create a high
performance region.
His deep understanding of the public sector as well as the interaction between the
executive management teams and the politicians, make him the ideal person to help
teams with both intra-team and inter-teams relationships and
performance pressures. In March 2008, Goodnews became a director and equal shareholder of The Village
Leadership Consulting, a boutique leadership consulting company, specialising in
organisational development, leadership development and change management.
Africa. He moved to Goodyear SA and assumed a role of Production Area Manager. His ability to coach and mentor others was seen in the marked improvement of the
scorecard for the manufacturing plant.
In 1999 he joined the South African Revenue Services as Manager: Personnel, with
achievements in the areas of change management and policy development.
As the regional manager for Gauteng Central enforcement, he
focused on changing the way people, systems and processes interacted to create a high
performance region.
His deep understanding of the public sector as well as the interaction between the
executive management teams and the politicians, make him the ideal person to help
teams with both intra-team and inter-teams relationships and
performance pressures. In March 2008, Goodnews became a director and equal shareholder of The Village
Leadership Consulting, a boutique leadership consulting company, specialising in
organisational development, leadership development and change management.
Ntshona
Sisa Ntshona is the General Manager for Specialised Finance Solutions at Absa Business Bank, focusing on the development and fostering of emerging enterprises through innovation and product development. Prior to this, he worked at the Absa Small Business division and at Absa Capital as an Investment Banker. Sisa is a seasoned executive who for six years worked extensively in the rest of Africa and the Middle East fulfilling business and operational roles in the Financial Services Industry, he has the experience of working with diverse cultures and languages and concluding agreements in different juristic and legal environments. An accountant by training, Sisa also holds an MBA from GIBS and an International Executive Programme from INSEAD in France and Singapore.
ENQUIRIES
E-mail Ryan or phone him on (011) 726-3040.
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UNIQUE, YOU ARE... "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson http://amplify.com/u/hz00
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Cancun Calling: Rorts and all
My take is that the rich nations are at their games again, and do not seem to be able to shake the 'vested interest' label, which is closely tied to their own short-term economic stability.
They lack the ability to break away with the present, and the poor nations know no better, as they want to have it all: an economic shift, coupled with being paid, along with the oil-rich nation states that seek compensation for reduced dependence on fossil-fuels.
No one cares about what the science is telling us, but they all care about how they can cook the books such that everybody looks good, without responding to the scientific challenge.
I wonder how the 2nd generation, and subsequent ones that follow, will judge us, if at all they will be able to pass that judgement, when humanity is no more...
Amplify’d from www.climatespectator.com.au
Cancun Calling: Rorts and all
Giles Parkinson
Don’t pay too much attention to the emission abatement targets coming out of Cancun at the end of the week. They may not mean much.
When Australia's climate change Minister Greg Combet joins the high level round of talks that kick off this week, one of his key briefs will be to play his part in one the biggest negotiating stings since the Kyoto Protocol numbers were agreed to in 1997.
A study by Simon Terry, the executive director of the New Zealand Sustainability Council, goes further. Terry says that by adding in aviation and shipping – which are not accounted for under the Copenhagen Accord – the pledges may turn out to produce an increase in global emissions of 3 per cent from 1990 levels, rather than an advertised fall of up to 18 per cent.
To help achieve this, Australia will not rock the boat over the issue of “hot air”, the estimated 1.3 billion surplus credits created by the huge overestimation of economic growth in Russia, Ukraine and other eastern Europe countries.
Australia – along with New Zealand, Canada, Russia, Norway and several well-treed EU countries – is also at the heart of highly contentious negotiations on land use and forestry in a mechanism called LuLuCF. This seeks to define accounting rules for complex issues such as forest and rangeland management, droughts and bushfires.
This is significant. If retained, it will allow the review to not just take into account the latest science that will roll out from the IPCCC during that time, but also what UNEP describes as “gigatonne gap” – the difference between what the parties have aimed for (2°C) and agreed to do (3-5°C) and the impact of hot air and LuLuCF – heading towards 6°C and 7°C. There is also an agreement to consider aiming for a target below 2°C.
The priority, however, is the need to obtain an agreement to continue meeting – hence the importance of a “positive” Cancun outcome.
Simon Terry says that one of the problems dealing with complex issues such as LuLuCF is that so very few people – and only a handful of negotiators – fully understand them. Forest industry lobbyists – who understand enough to know they can potentially make windfall gains for the industry – are thick on the ground in Cancun.
The CDM now looks like extending to carbon capture and storage, partly as bait to win over the recalcitrant Saudis, who are reluctant to agree to anything that might result in less oil consumption. Oil and gas companies have a particular interest in this, which may explain their strong presence here, as new rules being developed could allow them to claim credits for reinjecting CO2 to assist in the recovery of oil and gas reserves – an activity they already undertake.
It could mean that LNG tankers that return empty from Asian destinations may instead bring back millions of tonnes of CO2 from China and Japan to sequester in depleted gas basins, generating huge credits to the LNG industry. But that may also mean they have less claim for compensation under an Australian carbon price.
Party, party, party
The basic idea is to drink as much tequila as you possibly can, dance, and take the water slide from the back of the main bar, over the dancefloor, past the balcony, and into the lagoon. Then hope that somebody will save you. Some Australian types were set to attack this task with considerable gusto and aim for the 5am closing time, until an advisory came just before midnight from an office-bound flunky that Combet would give them an audience at 10am the next morning. Recovery plans were hastily implemented, but even the water costs $3 a glass.
Saudi Arabia returned to the podium as Fossil of the Day on Friday for complaining about the number of representatives from “civil society”, which it said were a distraction to the talks. “Is there a pressing need to spend time with engaging these people,” its representatives are said to have argued. Saudi Arabia has also been pleading a special needs case, which some countries suspect may lead to claims of compensation if climate change policies result in the consumption of less oil.
The UNFCCC is also wary of the NGOs, and their habit of upping the ante with their protests in the final week of negotiations. So on Friday, the UN declared that NGOs now had to give 48 hours notice of a protest instead of 24. NGOs complained that was hardly conducive to spontaneity and their ability to respond to the issues of the day.
He will not be alone. While then environment minister Robert Hill had the element of surprise when he pulled one of the great negotiating coups by getting avoided land clearing included in Australia’s Kyoto numbers, Combet will enjoy an air of complicity: Other rich nations are looking to employ similar accounting gymnastics – if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
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Friday, December 3, 2010
"The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. That is why I wish to pay fair price for every value. If I have to pay for it or earn it, that makes something of me. If I get it for free, that makes nothing of me." -- Jim Rohn http://amplify.com/u/hczk
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Cancun Calling: One small step
Is it just mere involvement in shaping the future of global sustainability, in the face of anthropogenic impact on climate change, or is it real commitment, from those who contribute to the status quo, with enough resources to support the poor nation states?- How much do vested interests contribute to the lack of leadership commitment?
Amplify’d from www.climatespectator.com.au
Cancun Calling: One small step
Giles Parkinson
The thorny issue of a legally binding agreement raised its ahead again in Cancun on Wednesday, threatening to disrupt the collegial nature of the talks that the UN and Mexico are trying so hard to foster.
Centre stage was once again Ian Fry, an Australian environmental lawyer representing the island state of Tuvalu, whose insistence that a legally binding treaty be discussed at Copenhagen brought sharp divisions to the surface and caused a walkout of island states and the temporary suspension of the plenary sessions.
“We don’t have time to discuss whether we have legally binding agreement,” Saudi Arabia said. “We see this as threat to the KP. The most important question is how to maintain the status of the KP.”
The major players have been determined to maintain a positive spin on proceedings. UNFCCC secretary Christiana Figueres said she was confident that the six-pack of agreements that is the key ambition for a “balanced outcome” for Cancun, can be achieved.
Pershing also said it was possible to achieve the six-pack although he recognised that the toughest task would be in transparency and how to lock in the Copenhagen pledges. And he would not comment on whether a failure to reach agreement on all six items would imperil agreement on any. That remains a crucial question.
Unenlightened
It remains something of a mystery why so many countries – and businesses for that matter – have been slow to pick up on energy efficiency. The UN Environmental Program today highlighted the potential savings from replacing incandescent lamps with energy-saving lightbulbs, saying it could reduce energy costs for 100 mostly developing countries by $47 billion and avoid the need to construct $120 billion of new power infrastructure.
UNEP has launched the en.lighten program, in partnership with lightbulb manufacturers Osram and Phillips, to try and unlock funding to implement the program in developing countries. One of the mechanisms might be the type of “programmatic CDMs” pioneered by Australian company CoolNrg. UNEP is also looking to future technologies such as LEDs and solid state lighting, which it says can avoid some of the concerns about mercury levels in CFLs and achieve even greater efficiencies.
Look out overhead!
One of the hot topics among official parties on the endless bus trips to and from the COP16 venues has been the cost of this business. Anyone who thought that a country that offers a basic wage of $5 a day to its own population, and $40-a-day-all-you-can-drink holidays to US college students, might be less costly than the notoriously expensive Copenhagen, has been mistaken.
Another delegation lamented it would have been three or four times cheaper to buy their own printers than to hire them. “It’s just price gouging,” said one. “Even the sandwiches are $8 each and there’s no chips.” Others said the prices were not much different from Posnan and Copenhagen. “Prices have a habit of going up just as you arrive,” said the head of one of the larger delegations. At least the hosts are not insisting on serving organic food as the Danish did, although in my experience, refried beans have much the same effect.
The first demonstration was held inside the Moon Palace today, with a dozen or so waste collectors from South American countries, India and Africa protesting against waste projects funded by the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. The CDM is designed to bring investment in emissions abatement projects in developing countries, but the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers and Allies complains that its members were losing their jobs because of the emergence of huge landfills and waste incinerators, and families that made their living – or even lived – on large rubbish tips were being moved and disenfranchised.
It was suggested today that Qatar had been selected ahead of South Korea to have the honour of holding Cop18 in 2012, the one that will follow Cancun and Durban next year. That means that the cost of attending the event might not go down. Perhaps Australia could consider a bid for COP19 if the Frank Lowy-sponsored bid for the 2022 World Cup misses out later today. The Westfield COP has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
*Giles Parkinson will be filing daily from COP16 in Cancun for the duration of the conference. To read the previous dispatch, click here.
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A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.- R.Digest http://amplify.com/u/h37t
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
"Personal leadership is not a singular experience. It is, rather, the ongoing process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with those most important things." -- Stephen Covey http://amplify.com/u/ghl1
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
I am an Afrimist, jut like Edward B Mendy
If one is not an Afrimist, they are limited, as even if data screams at the them at the highest of decibels, with strong positive signals, they fail to hear the positive message. Even if this data comes through one of the other four human senses, they become blind, oblivious, deaf, and are devoid of the ability to taste the uplifting nuggets of good news.
It is for the very same reasons that business leadership in most companies, have failed over the recent past, to harness the high returns associated with the perceived risks of doing business in Africa. Many business, risk and financial analysts, have been suffering from 'herd mentality' when it comes to how they judge Africa, only to be pipped at the post, by off shore researchers, who have recently rated Africa, as one, on the high rise in most aspects that a risk-averse institutional & nation-states investor would be looking at.
The foresight (displayed by Pan-African leaders) that led to the revamp of the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) into the AU (African Union), as well as the formation of its project (NEPAD), as well as its business arm, the NEPAD Business Group, is paying off. The African Peer Review Mechanism is bringing a shift away from rulership to leadership, where leaders in Africa are behaving in ways that indicate their acceptance of sharp eyes of their constituencies.
The very same Mo Ibrahim Foundation, is a product of new African pride, supported by many, who want to leave a better legacy, and bequeth an Africa that the 7th generation will be proud of...
I repeat, I am an Afrimist too!
Amplify’d from www.sagoodnews.co.za
Africa is not depressing
On October 4 2010, the headline on the BBC's website announcing the
results of the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance read: Africa
democratic rights advances reversed, says report.
The article went on with an overall focus on the reversal of
democratic advances outlined in the report. According to the BBC
article, the index suggests that across Africa, economic and health
gains are being undermined by declines in political rights, security and
the rule of law.
The emphatic conclusion of the BBC article was that the results of
the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance 2010 report were
'depressing.' According to the BBC article, the report points to the
fact that 35 of 53 states have become less secure, while two-thirds of
African countries show a declining performance in terms of human
rights.
The BBC article, in my opinion, was a typical distortion and
sensationalising of news out of Africa. After reading it, I couldn't
help but wonder whether the author of the article read the same report I
read. While it is true that there have been some reversal of
democratic advances on the continent, as the index suggests, the report
provided more good news than bad.
In addition to an unchanged average score in the report, Africa
advanced in more areas that the index assessed than it regressed. In
overall scoring, Africa advanced in two index group indicators while
regressing in two others, a tie at worse. More importantly, the advances
were made in the areas that matter most to Africans-our health, food
in our bellies and overall development. African citizens are becoming
healthier, have greater access to economic opportunities and are better
off from a human development standpoint than they were five years ago.
That this economic growth and improvement in the life of the average
African were achieved while Africa was receiving less help from the West
and in a period of great economic upheaval in the world gives me hope
that Africa's progress continues to gather steam, and is unstoppable.
The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance ranks 53 African countries
according to 88 indicators, ranging from corruption to education. The
index, which has been published since 2007, scores countries on a
scale of zero to 100, sponsored by Sudanese telecoms mogul Mo Ibrahim.
The official press release on the report made the following observation:
- In both Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development there
have been improvements in many African countries. Importantly, no
country has declined significantly in these categories.
- In Sustainable Economic Opportunity, 41 African states improved; ten of these were significant.
- In Human Development, 44 of Africa's 53 countries progressed driven
by improvements in most countries in the Health and Welfare
sub-category. Two of the improvements in Human Development were
significant.
The indisputable fact is: Africa is developing. The development may
be slow but it is sure. This development is not just economic. It can
be found in just about any aspect of human development-politics,
education, health, governance and other human development indicators.
While the road is not smooth and Africa incessantly experiences
setbacks, the progress is incontrovertible. The progress is seen in the
resolve of Africans to improve their lot and of African policy makers
to address the needs of Africans. It is evident in the efforts being
made to integrate the economies of the various regions of the
continent. It is demonstrated in the world's improved perception of the
continent as a great place to do business, courtesy of African
countries like South Africa, Egypt, Libya and Nigeria, as well as the
BRIC countries, the World Cup press and the myriads of reports and
publications incessantly touting the African economic renaissance.
Like it or not, Africa is on an irreversible path of economic
transformation and development that will overshadow any regression made
in the political and personal safety areas.
Read more at www.sagoodnews.co.za
By Edward B. Mendy
Edward B. Mendy is an African
lawyer educated and practising in the United States. Mendy is an avowed
Africa-optimist (Afrimist), who will be blogging for Africa - The Good
News.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Leadership Caffeine: Mistakes are the Raw Ingredients of Leadership Courage
Certainly, the more I became BOLD & Courageous, and in the process, committed leadership mistakes, the more the dreaded fear DISAPPEARED, and the less mistakes I made. I gained more courage, and personal confidence, fueled by a higher degree of self awareness, AND I am making my mistakes, without losing my self esteem, as I know they are LEADERSHIP Caffeine.
Amplify’d from artpetty.com
Leadership Caffeine: Mistakes are the Raw Ingredients of Leadership Courage
I’ve made a number of mistakes over the course of my leadership career that make my head spin and my stomach turn just thinking about them. No life or death or business impacting mistakes, but, definitely some people and team impacting issues that created ill will and most definitely didn’t show me off at my leadership best.
Learning from those mistakes helped me evolve my thinking on the role of a leader and on my true priorities in supporting my business, my peers and my team members. While it would have been nice to skip these speed bumps, the lessons are forever burned into my cerebral cortex or wherever it is in our brains that those things are burned on to our hard drives.
Somewhere along the road to making my share of mistakes, an interesting thing happened to my fear of making mistakes. It disappeared! And don’t misinterpret the statement. I don’t seek out mistakes and I don’t not (double negative by design) care about mistakes, but, I just don’t fear them. In fact, I’m more concerned about not riding on the cutting edge of what I believe to be the right thing for my stakeholders than I am about falling off and getting shredded in the process.
A leader preoccupied with the fear of making a mistake is playing not to lose versus playing to win. It turns out that developing personal courage is critical to developing as an effective leader.
. Doing the right thing promptly and fairly when it comes to dealing with performance issues.
2. Screwing up the courage to deliver the tough feedback everyday.
3. Accepting accountability for your own and for your team’s mistakes or performance lapses.
4. Supporting the person that you believe in to your core, in spite of the prevailing opinion from your peers or leaders.
5. Supporting a person that you believe in, in spite of the fact that she may not believe in herself.
6. Advocating a direction that challenges the traditional thinking (Prahalad’s “dominant logic”) while taking direct hits from the slings and arrows of, “We’ve never done it that way before.”
7. Being smart and confident enough to understand the politics of organization-life, and tough enough to avoid the traps and land mines that others attempt to draw you into on your journey.
8. Learning to say “no” to people and projects for the right reasons. “No,” may be the toughest word to learn in the leader’s vocabulary.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Writing this post is like cueing Sinatra’s, “My Way,” but Ol’ Blue Eyes had it right, in my opinion. You’ll make more than a few mistakes, and if you’re committed to developing as an effective leader, you’ll learn to quickly seize the learning opportunities, adjust your course as needed and move on to better performance. Here’s to our mistakes and the lessons learned as we develop our leadership courage!
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Sunday, November 21, 2010
"Very few of us are authorities on the truth. About the closest that any of us can get is what we hope is the truth or what we think is the truth. That's why the best approach to truth is probably to say, ‘It seems to me...’" -- Jim Rohn http://amplify.com/u/ft4f
How to Control Your Privacy With Foursquare and Other Geolocation Services
I wouldn't publish my whereabouts for the risk of getting my house burgled, or being known by unsavoury characters, where I could be 'chilling'...
Amplify’d from socialmediatoday.com
How to Control Your Privacy With Foursquare and Other Geolocation Services
Geolocation is one of the hottest trends in social networking today. Users enjoy connecting with friends at nearby locations. Businesses are beginning to take note of the opportunity to tie their brick-and-mortar locations to their online marketing.
In addition to the main local social networking applications—Foursquare and Gowalla—Google, Facebook and Twitter have added geolocation features to their services to tap into this trend.
As users provide more information about their location, serious privacy implications are beginning to surface. For instance, a Webroot study released in July 2010 found that more than half of survey respondents who used geolocation services were worried their privacy was at risk.
Privacy Problems
The first wave of criticism about the privacy implications of geolocation social networks followed the launch in February 2010 of Please Rob Me, which combined people’s physical location through geolocation services with data about their residence from other public data.
When people were “checked in” at other places, unscrupulous individuals could find out and take advantage through Please Rob Me, though the site’s founders said they were only trying to demonstrate the problems posed by sharing geolocation data.
In March 2010, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit with the FTC alleging that Google violated people’s privacy by making geolocation data available to the general public in its Google Buzz product.
The geolocation privacy backlash continued with the launch of Facebook Places, which enabled users who had recently checked into a place to see all other users who had been there through the “Here Now” feature.
This launch prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to put out a data sheet on how people could protect their online privacy and voice concerns about the practice of listing physical locations through geolocation services.
Social Networks React
An example of a Facebook Place
To assure users that participating in geolocation social networking was safe and controllable, social networks began to provide additional privacy controls. This was likely in response to the concern and potential litigation regarding privacy and by the spate of violence through Craigslist connections.
Twitter users can select whether to include their whereabouts for each message. Privacy advocates were never as keen to target it for criticism, though many of the same negatives exist for sharing location data in this way. Twitter also lets you delete your entire geolocation history, which makes users feel more comfortable with the choice to display location data.
In response to the privacy backlash, Google made the option to make contacts private more prominent. It also allowed users to block Buzz followers directly from profile pages.
Facebook addressed privacy generally after several separate privacy issues
arose over information-sharing settings, but has yet to make public statements about the implications of Facebook Places on privacy.Potential Solutions
Face2Face is a geolocation social networking service that restricts location data to user-specified friends.
Startup geolocation companies are popping up to serve the supposed market need for a service with the best of both worlds. Once such company, face2face, markets itself as “a discreet way to let your friends know when you’re nearby.” It restricts geolocation data to specific friends set by the user, giving more control over the privacy question back to the end consumer.
Another way to protect against negative uses of geolocation data is to take precautions to avoid tying your current physical location to your home address. Jason Falls gave this sound advice in a column he did on safety tips for Gowalla and Foursquare.
In the Webroot study mentioned above, many users of social networks—geolocation social networks in particular—did not follow best practices to keep interactions on these networks safe. For example, 31% of survey respondents accepted friend requests from strangers. These types of shocking data points show that people are probably not treating online interactions with enough caution, especially those with a geolocation component.
Geolocation social networks do raise some privacy concerns worth noting, but prudent use of each service, including understanding how to properly establish privacy settings, clears up much of the concern. As long as you’re smart about it, geolocated interactions will stay as harmless as other online social interactions.
Location-based Social Network Users: What are ways you protect your privacy while enjoying these services? Have you ever had an issue with privacy on any of these services? Leave your comments in the box below.
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