PI2K - Perspectives Insights 2 Knowledge

On the power of words

2011-12-19T12:50:00.000-05:00

"All important events in the world - whether admirable or monstrous - are always spearheaded in the realm of words" Vaclav Havel

Vaclav Havel passed away last week. He was a playwright, essayist, poet, dissent who ended up as the president of the Czech republic (see Wikipedia for further information). He is a strong believer in the power of words. His writings are quite interesting and relevant with all the changes we are seeing around the world. Here are some excerpts from his “The Power of the Powerless” and his acceptance speech after receiving a literature prize in 1990.

There is a documentary on "The Power of the Powerless" narrated by one of my favorite actors Jeremy Irons. Time to look it up...

Until when Montreal? qu'est ce que nous attendons?

2011-10-14T07:14:00.000-04:00

Are we lucky or what? Perceptive and proactive window cleaners notice issues with the facade of the building and call the emergency services.
Concrete blocks come loose on University St. building - CTV News
Nous sommes chanceux à Montréal... un désastre potentiel a été évité (encore une fois) grâce à des laveurs de vitres avertis...

Immeuble sur la rue University à Montréal - Des morceaux de ciment menacent de tomber - TVA Nouvelles

Make this a movement Montreal!

2011-10-02T13:12:00.001-04:00

The October 1st, 2011 edition of the Gazette of Montreal focused on the infrastructure issues in Montreal by putting back in the limelight the July 2009 Peel street tragedy in which Lea Guilbeault (33) lost her life and Hani Beitinjaneh (34) was terribly injured by a large cement block while having dinner at Mikassa Sushi under the Mariott Residences building.

The Gazette did an excellent job of putting together an interview with Hani (his first since the tragedy) and several related commentaries to move this topic of infrastructures forward. Some key statements from the interview:

"How do we make this into a movement? I do not understand why everybody is arguing. We all have the same point. We all want to work. We all want to be happy. We want to be safe"

It's not one person, it's the whole system that needs to be changed. We need to fight for concrete laws that will improve our society. The word is concrete."

The interview by Peggy Curran:

Hani Beitinjaneh: A broken-hearted man in a city breaking down

Two years after his wife Léa Guilbeault was killed by a falling piece of concrete, this reluctant activist is frustrated by how little has been done

The Gazette’s View: End the foot-dragging on high-rise inspections

An independent infrastructure unit: it's a good idea

From the archives - the Peel Street Tragedy timeline (as of July 15, 2010)
We have created a Facebook page if you would like to discuss further or to be part of a movement to change things.

Join us at http://www.facebook.com/groups/198770686847671/

More infrastructure failures in Montreal?

2011-08-11T22:38:00.001-04:00

Reading the news today, I could not determine if a piece of cement fell from the Papineau overpass (see 1 hurt as Montreal overpass sheds concrete - CBC) or was dropped (see Morceau de béton lancé sur une voiture à Montréal : la police enquêtera - Radio Canada).

Let's see what happens with the investigation... in all cases, our infrastructures in Montreal are not getting any better!

Facebook : Montréal : Qu'est ce qu'on fait? Nous nous Souvenons ♥ Lea Guilbeault ♥

2011-08-01T00:24:00.000-04:00

Nous avons commencé sur Facebook :
Montréal : Qu'est ce qu'on fait? Nous nous Souvenons ♥ Lea Guilbeault ♥

Nos buts:
- de s'assurer que la tragédie de Léa Guilbeault ne se reproduira pas ici au Québec
- de célebrer la vie de Léa et le bonheur qu'elle nous a donné

Our Objectives:
- to ensure that no other Montrealers go through what we went through.
- to celebrate Lea's life

Please forward as appropriate.

Partagez le site.

Death from Above + Fallen slab is concrete proof Montreal’s crumbling

2011-08-01T00:15:00.000-04:00

Two articles stories on Montreal's crumbling infrastructures. Now it is Ville Marie's Tunnel turn. A 15 meter slab fell.

Death from above just part of life in Montreal
From The Gazette 31 July 2011

Fallen slab is concrete proof Montreal’s crumbling - Thestar.com

An important statement from the article:

No one was injured in the collapse in the Ville-Marie tunnel, but the incident could have had disastrous consequences if it had occurred on Monday at the same time, during rush hour traffic, police said.

Have we become a pass the buck society?

2011-07-17T23:31:00.003-04:00

On July 7th, 2011, the Montreal Gazette published two excellent articles that every Montrealer / Quebecer should be reflecting on.

Analysis: Living in a pass-the-buck society

By Peggy Curran

The Gazette’s View: End the foot-dragging on high-rise inspections

Make your own conclusions...

Action is needed.

Building Inspections: Quebec needs to pick up pace

2011-02-05T08:42:00.010-05:00

Time is always of essence when it comes to averting disasters. Montrealers are still not safe from infrastructure problems more than 18 months after the tragedy that started with the crushing death of Lea Guilbeault on 2045 Peel Street under the Residence Inn by Mariott Hotel.

How long are Montrealers to wait?

From the Gazette 5 February 2011

QUEBEC NEEDS TO PICK UP PACE
The provincial government is taking its sweet time drafting new regulations for Quebec's building code. Until the new rules are established, the city of Montreal can't get on with a much-needed program to identify buildings "at risk" of endangering the public and force their owners to file regular inspection reports.
Montreal was made horrifyingly aware of the problem of decaying buildings when in July 2009 a concrete slab fell from a Peel St. building, crushing Lea Guilbeault. Quebec City should realize this is a serious public-safety issue and act accordingly.

This is from an editorial with title

And another thing...
Concise comments on the issues of the day

To send a letter of support to the Gazette for reporting on this delay or to make your opinion on the tragedy know, please go to http://bit.ly/mtlgazette

Read more: http://bit.ly/fIsLek

Bylaws to force building inspections stalled

2011-02-01T07:06:00.001-05:00

Reading through the Montreal Gazette today, this article related to Lea Guilbeault's tragic death caught my attention "Bylaws to force building inspections stalled". It has been more than two months since the minister of Labour, Mme. Lise Thériault announced that bylaws will be drafted.

Why would these bylaws be stalled? The author (James Mennie) quotes the Mayor of Montreal (Mr. Gerald Tremblay) saying that Montreal's bylaws would be more focused (than those of in New York city local law 11) and that:

A coalition of building owners in the province has already complained the proposed amendments are simply more government red tape

Besides complaining about having to maintain their own buildings, I would be interested to hear what these building owners propose to stop having blocks of cement or glass raining on top of the heads of people.

We, the citizens of Montreal, should not have to live through a similar nightmare.

If you have any comments, please send them to the editor of the Gazette ( http://bit.ly/mtlgazette ) or contact me.

Management - Case study: Nortel

2010-12-18T19:13:00.001-05:00

Having spent a portion of my career with Nortel, it is always interesting to read what others have to say about the challenges the company faced.

Recently, the Financial Times did a case study on Nortel (FT.com / Management - Case study: Nortel) and came up with certain conclusions. Among others, reasons such as Nortel management's “irrational exuberance” through customer financing and push towards a “software-centred telecom product company” were given for it's demise.

Do you agree with them?

References & Articles on the coroner's report for Lea Guilbeault tragic death (Montreal) - Références & commentaires

2010-11-16T17:33:00.017-05:00

Références
Reference material

Open letter from Lea Guilbeault's parents
The Gazette

Les commentaires de Hani Beitinjaneh sur le rapport du coroner sur la tragédie de Léa Guilbeault
Texte Integral

Hani Beitinjaneh's commentary on the coroner's report
Full Text

Décès de Mme Léa Guilbeault - PRÉVENIR LES DANGERS LIÉS AU VIEILLISSEMENT DES IMMEUBLES DE GRANDE HAUTEURS
rapport d'investigation du coroner - Sommaire
Coroner's Press Release (in French)

Des articles et commentaires
Here are some articles and commentaries on the topic

Revenez souvent pour lire des mises à jour. Veuillez me laisser savoir s'il y a d'autres @ nabilbeit@gmail.com

I will be updating this section with new articles regularly. Please come back. If you see any articles you would like me to add, please let me know @ nabilbeit@gmail.com

Parents devastated by loss of daughter (Lea Guilbeault) killed by concrete.
The Gazette

La famille (de Lea Guilbeault) dénonce la négligence
Journal de Montréal

Widower wants stricter Que. building inspections
CBC.ca

Projet de loi 122 sur l'inspection des bâtiments - LE GOUVERNEMENT DU QUÉBEC CHOISIT LA MAUVAISE APPROCHE, ESTIME LA CORPIQ
CNW

Tuée par un panneau de béton - Mort de Léa Guilbault : le rapport du coroner tombe
Canoe - Info - Sociéte

Family speaks out as coroner reports on woman killed by falling concrete
Vancouver Sun

City to have 'at risk' buildings inspected
The Gazette

Investigation sur le décès de Mme Léa Guilbeault - L'Ordre des architectes du Québec appuie sans réserve les recommandations du coroner
Newswire.ca

Effondrement sur la rue Peel: le manque d'entretien pointé du doigt - Matin - Montréal
Branchez-vous Matin

Victim's husband raises concerns in letter
The Gazette

Horrific accident prompts Quebec building-code reform
The Globe and Mail

Tuée par un bloc de béton - Le conjoint de la défunte réagit
LCN

Coroner's report: death from concrete slab 'entirely preventable'
CTV Montreal - CTV News

Institute high-rise inspections, coroner says
The Gazette

Hani Beitinjaneh commente sur le rapport du coroner sur la tragédie de Léa Guilbeault

2010-11-16T17:24:00.001-05:00

Le rapport du coroner http://bit.ly/cPUSXO sur la tragédie de Léa Guilbeault a été déposé le 16 novembre 2010.

Voici le texte intégral de Hani Beitinjaneh comme commentaire sur ce rapport.

---

Seize mois sont maintenant passés depuis la violente tragédie qui a coûté la vie à mon épouse adorée, Léa Guilbeault. Cette tragédie brutale ne se limite pas seulement à la défaillance de points d’ancrage et à la chute d’une dalle de béton. Cette tragédie a beaucoup plus rapport aux nombreuses lacunes qui ont causé cette grande perte pour nous tous. Il s’agit aussi de parents qui ont perdu leur seule enfant, d’un époux qui a perdu sa conjointe, de membres de sa famille et d’amis qui ont perdu sa présence dans leur vie et de notre société qui a perdu son potentiel. Nous avons tous dû composer avec la douleur de cette perte et avec l’incompréhension des causes à l’origine d’une telle tragédie dans notre ville tant aimée.

Nous nous attendions à ce que le rapport du coroner émis le 16 novembre nous apporte une certaine résolution face à ce deuil. Malheureusement, ce rapport a généré plus de questions qu’il n’en a résolues. Ces questions outrepassent cette tragédie et touchent les fondements de nos vies de citoyens dans notre société, comment nos organismes publics chargés d’assurer notre sécurité assurent leur régie et comment les entreprises réalisent leurs activités parmi nous. Nous avons conservé le silence avec dignité pour que les enquêteurs puissent terminer leur travail, que toutes les parties concernées puissent fournir tous les faits pertinents, et ultimement, que des recommandations fiables soient émises et des plans mis en œuvre afin d’éviter à d’autres de telles tragédies.

Le dépôt du projet de loi 122 constitue un aspect positif de ce rapport. Le fait d’attribuer des mandats périodiques pour l’inspection des édifices et la conservation des dossiers est louable. Nous appuyons les efforts de la ministre du Travail, Mme Lise Thériault, pour que ce projet de loi soit adopté et nous invitons nos concitoyens à exprimer leur soutien et faire pression sur l’Assemblée nationale en ce sens.

Nous avons constaté que le texte du projet de loi 122 est plutôt vague et ne présente pas la transparence et la direction nécessaires pour tenir les propriétaires d’entreprises et les inspecteurs d’édifices responsables de futures tragédies. Nous appuyons la volonté du législateur telle qu’il l’a exprimée, toutefois nous aimerions obtenir des détails additionnels.

À Montréal, un laps de temps important est nécessaire avant que les expériences notées dans d’autres villes semblables à la nôtre soient mises à contribution lorsqu’il s’agit d’adopter des ordonnances et des règlements. Qu’en est-il de nos fonctionnaires de la sécurité publique et de nos législateurs? Nous sommes de l’avis que les personnes nommées pour nous protéger ont fait preuve d’un sérieux manque de jugement. Sont-ils uniquement incités à agir lorsque des tragédies et des décès surviennent?

Maintenant, passons aux éléments qui nous préoccupent :

Le fait d’attribuer le blâme à l’entreprise en construction d’origine est une dérobade puisque cet édifice est passé entre les mains de plusieurs propriétaires qui ont tous eu l’occasion d’inspecter l’édifice et sa structure avant d’en prendre possession. Par exemple, nous voulons savoir comment le propriétaire de l’édifice a réglé le problème de calfeutrage signalé lors de l’inspection de 2006. Le rapport du coroner est silencieux sur ce point. Pourquoi ne pouvons-nous pas avoir accès aux rapports d’inspection?

À propos des blocs de béton

Ces immenses blocs de béton auraient dû être examinés sous tous les angles et faire l’objet d’une vérification structurelle parce qu’il s’agit d’éléments indépendants à la structure de l’édifice qui sont fixés à celle-ci à titre décoratif. Ces blocs de béton subissent des tensions constantes à la verticale et à l’horizontale causées par l’oscillation de la tour et de nombreux autres facteurs, comme les mouvements de la circulation, les éléments météorologiques tels le froid et la chaleur ou même l’effet de faibles séismes. Toute fragilisation des charnières peut compromettre l’intégrité structurelle des blocs de béton et créer des risques de dommages. De plus, toute vérification de l’édifice aurait dû commencer par les points de contact de l’édifice (soit les côtés et le dessus de l’édifice).

Lorsque la façade de l’édifice a fait l’objet de travaux de ré-ancrage bloc par bloc, est-ce que d’autres blocs ont été touchés? Est-ce que des problèmes ont été notés?

À propos de vérification diligente

Pourquoi les sociétés d’Halifax et du Texas n’ont-elles pas effectué une vérification diligente de la structure complète de l’édifice? Comment l’examen visuel a-t-il été réalisé? Le coroner a émis l’hypothèse que cet examen a été effectué depuis le sol à l’aide de jumelles. Cette hypothèse a-t-elle été confirmée par les propriétaires? Par ailleurs, le rapport mentionne l’absence de tout « défaut majeur ». Y avaient-ils des défauts mineurs qui auraient pu indiquer un problème? Lorsque la question du calfeutrage a été signalée en 2006, quelles démarches ont été entreprises pour régler le problème? Voilà d’autres éléments qui ne sont pas mentionnés dans le rapport du coroner.

De nombreuses autres questions nous viennent à l’esprit à propos de l’entretien périodique de la structure extérieure de l’édifice. L’absence de renseignements tangibles sur les origines / les antécédents / les plans relatifs à l’édifice aurait dû préoccuper sérieusement les propriétaires successifs de l’édifice. On pourrait penser qu’un examen diligent approfondi aurait été effectué puisque le risque était plus important pour la sécurité du public. Est-ce que la Ville ou un autre organisme gouvernemental a exigé des propriétaires de l’édifice d’entreprendre quelques démarches que ce soient ou de préciser ces risques?

En raison de la participation d’entreprises transfrontalières et internationales dans l’achat et la gestion de l’édifice, il est important de savoir s’il s’agissait d’une décision délibérée de la part des gestionnaires d’omettre certains éléments sur leur liste de vérification diligente quant à l’intégrité structurelle d’immeubles de grande hauteur simplement parce que les lois du Québec ne l’exigent pas. Autrement dit, ces entreprises se conforment-elles strictement aux lois du pays, même si celles-ci appliquent des normes moins élevées que celles dans leur pays d’origine ou d’autres endroits où elles ont des activités? De quels autres éléments qui n’ont pas été divulgué ont-elles connaissance?

Existait-il un conflit d’intérêts possible lorsque le propriétaire initial gérant les travaux de construction a créé l’entreprise qui a effectivement effectué les travaux? Le fait qu’il n’est pas clairement établi qu’un professionnel ait inspecté l’édifice aurait dû susciter l’intérêt de l’Ordre des ingénieurs et de l’Ordre des architectes. Pourquoi n’ont-ils pas participé à l’étude menée sur la sécurité du public? Nous sommes de l’avis que ces organismes et autres entités ont failli à leur mission de protéger le public.

Nous nous demandons combien d’autres édifices à Montréal présentent de telles lacunes. À la lecture de la rubrique de Martin Croteau dans La Presse du 12 novembre, nous trouvons inquiétant, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire, que seulement vingt-cinq pour cent parmi 63 propriétaires d’édifices ont fourni à la Ville un rapport produit par des ingénieurs confirmant l’intégrité de leurs structures. Les propriétaires de l’édifice qui nous concerne se trouvaient-ils sur cette liste?

Le problème ne date pas de quarante ans. La question, c’est comment nous sommes parvenus aujourd’hui sans qu’aucune attention ne soit portée au problème pendant quarante ans. Cette tragédie a révélé une défaillance généralisée monumentale et un manque de leadership à plusieurs niveaux.

Ils parlent de leadership…

Ils auraient fait preuve de leadership s’ils avaient tenu compte de l’expérience de villes semblables et adopté de nouvelles lois et des mesures plus strictes pour atténuer les risques avant qu’une tragédie ne survienne.

Les propriétaires de l’édifice auraient fait preuve de leadership s’ils avaient appliqué les mesures les plus rigoureuses qu’ils connaissent et effectué les examens appropriés afin de préserver la sécurité du public, sans attendre d’y être forcés par la loi.

Ils auraient fait preuve de leadership s’ils avaient révélé au public l’état de nos plus importantes structures et les risques possibles que courent les citoyens. De ce fait, les citoyens et organismes (publics, privés et non gouvernementaux) auraient pu participer au processus de prise de décisions et à l’établissement des priorités.

Les organismes chargés d’assurer la sécurité du public auraient fait preuve de leadership en se montrant à la hauteur et en effectuant un examen approfondi pour identifier les causes fondamentales du problème et qui en est à l’origine.

Nous espérons que nos questions et préoccupations amèneront nos concitoyens à se rallier pour faire face à ces problèmes qui nous concernent tous et qui nous ont été révélés à la suite du cauchemar qui a débuté pour nous l’après-midi du 16 juillet 2009. C’est par amour pour Montréal et par conviction de la bonne volonté de tous que nous exprimons nos doutes et mettons en question toutes les parties prenantes dans l’espoir d’éviter une tragédie semblable à d’autres.

Le projet de loi 122 représente un pas dans la bonne direction en imposant la tenue d’inspections périodiques et la conservation de tous les documents pour les générations successives. De plus, nous recommandons, à titre de famille concernée, qu’un faible pourcentage des nouveaux frais d’inspection soit versé dans une fondation qui serait destinée à aider les personnes touchées par de futurs événements similaires. Léa aurait voulu que nous partagions ce que nous avons appris de la tragédie qui nous a touchée et que nous nous assurions que la ville qu’elle aimait demeure une ville dont nous pouvons tous être fiers.

Je vous remercie de votre soutien.

Hani

Hani Beitinjaneh's commentary on the coroner's report for Lea Guilbeault

2010-11-16T16:37:00.002-05:00

Below you will find the full letter (in English) of Hani Beitinjaneh's commentary on the coroner's report (http://bit.ly/cPUSXO) issued on November 16th 2010, This report is relative to the July 16th, 2009 death of Lea Guilbeault which happened on Peel Street in Montreal.

---
It has been 16 months since a violent tragedy extinguished the life of my beloved wife Lea Guilbeault. This violent tragedy is not just about anchor points failing and a slab of concrete falling. It is more about the many failings that led to this tremendous loss to all of us. From her family who lost their only child, to her husband who lost his spouse, to her relatives and her friends who lost her presence and to our society who lost out on her potential. We have all experienced the pain of her loss and the bewilderment of how could such a tragedy happen in our beloved city.

We were expecting closure with the coroner’s report issued on the 16th of November. Unfortunately, it opened more questions that those that were closed. These questions go beyond the tragedy to the core to how we as citizens live in society, how our public organizations that tasked with our security regulate and how corporations operate in our midst. We have maintained a dignified silence to allow the investigations to complete and for all who may have be involved to provide all the facts allowing solid recommendations to be made and plans in place to spare others from similar tragedies.

Proposing Bill 122 to be adopted as law is one of the positive aspects of the report. Mandating regular inspections of buildings and retaining the records is commended. We support the Minister of Labor, Mme. Lise Thériault, in her efforts to get the bill adopted and recommend to our fellow citizens to provide their support through pressuring the National Assembly to adopt the bill.

What we read of Bill 122 is very vague and does not provide the necessary transparency and leadership to hold the owners of corporations and those who inspect the buildings accountable for future tragedies. We support the intent as announced yet would like to get further details.

In Montreal, there was a significant delay in learning from the experiences of other similar cities to ours on their adoption of rules and regulations. Where were our public security officials and our professional organizations and our lawmakers? We consider this a serious lapse in judgement by those who are appointed to protect us. Are they only moved to action based on tragedies and loss of life?

Now, for what concerned us:

Putting the blame on the original construction firm is a cop-out as many successive owners had the opportunity to inspect the building and its structures before taking possession. For example, we would like to know how the building owner dealt with the caulking issue raised during the 2006 inspection. This was not provided to the coroner according to his report. Why can’t we see the inspection reports?

On the blocks

These huge cement blocks should have been thoroughly examined and structurally investigated because they are independently designed structures attached to the building as decoration. These blocks are subjected to constant stress in both the vertical and horizontal directions due to the high rise building oscillation and the effect of many factors such as the movement of traffic, effect of the elements such as freezing and heat or even the effect of minor earthquakes. Any weakening of the hinges could compromise the block’s structural integrity with the potential for damage. In addition, the first place to start an audit would have been the interface points (side of the building and top of the building).

When the building façade was re-anchored block by block, were any other blocks changed? Were any issues identified?

On due diligence

How come the Halifax and the Texas companies did not do a complete due diligence on the structure of the building? How was the visual inspection done? The coroner’s hypothesis is that it was done visually using binoculars from the ground level. Was it confirmed by the owners? Additionally, there is a point about no “defaut majeur”. Were there any defaut mineurs that could have raised flags? In 2006 when the caulking issue was raised, what steps were done to resolve it? These steps were not provided in the coroner’s report.

Many more questions come to mind with respect to the regular maintenance done to the outside structure of the building. Not knowing the origins / history / plans of the building should have been a serious point of concern to the successive owners of the building. One would expect that extra due diligence would have been done as the risk would be higher for public safety. Did the city or any other public entity ask the building owners to do anything or highlight these risk issues?

With the involvement of several trans-border and global companies in the purchase and operation of the building, it is important to know if there was a conscious decision by their management to bypass certain items on their due diligence check list which are related to the structural integrity of high rises just because the law does not require it in Quebec. In other words, do companies only follow the law of the land even if it is below its own standards in their country of origin or other locations they operate in? What else do they know and did not share?

Was there a potential conflict of interest by having the original owner manage the construction work by creating the company that did the work? The fact that it was not clear if a professional inspected the building should have been a concern for the Order of Engineers (OIQ) and that of the Order of Architects (OAQ). How come they were not involved in this study which involves the security of the public? We view this as a failure for these organizations and others that have as mission protecting the public.

We wonder how many other buildings in Montreal have similar deficiencies. Reading Martin Croteau’s LaPresse commentary published on the 12th of November, that only 25% of 63 building owners provided the city with an Engineering report that certifies the soundness of their structures is disturbing to say the least. Were they on that list?

This is not a 40 year old problem. This problem is of how we got here and did not deal with it for 40 years. This tragedy exposed to us to a systemic failure of epic proportions and to a lack of leadership at many levels.

They speak of Leadership,

Leadership would have been to learn from the experience of similar cities and adopt new laws and strong measures to mitigate risks before tragedy hit us all.

Leadership would have been for building owners to use the most stringent measures they are aware of and do the appropriate tests to ensure that the public is safe without having to wait for laws to be passed.

Leadership would have been to put in the public domain the current state of our largest structures and the potential risks we face as citizens. This would help citizens and other organizations (public, private or non-governmental) participate in the prioritization and decision making process.

Leadership would have been for the organizations that are tasked with public protection to rise to the occasion and do a more thorough investigation to determine the true root causes of the problem and who was involved since the beginning.

We hope that our questions and concerns rally our co-citizens around the issues we all face and which were brought to the forefront because of a nightmare which started for us in the afternoon of July 16th 2009. It is out of our love for Montreal and our belief in the good will of all that we question and challenge all the groups hoping we can avert a similar tragedy for others.

Bill 122 seems to put us in the right direction by insisting on regular inspections and the storing of all documentation for successive generations. Additionally, we recommend, as a family, that a small percentage of the new inspection fees be put into a foundation that would be dedicated to help those who are impacted by future similar events. Lea would have wanted us to share what we learned from our tragedy and to ensure the city she loved so much remains as a city we could all be proud of.

Thank you for your support.

Hani

Freedom of Religion - a viewpoint

2010-09-21T23:27:00.001-04:00

Recent events such as the "Ground Zero Muslim Community Center" debate and the "International Burn a Koran" day moved the muse in me to write an article on religious freedom.

Faith is an intensely personal matter for me and I never thought that I would weigh in on the topic in a new dialogue and debate forum called islamcomment.com.

A paragraph from the article follows

In the 18th century, the town of Sür (Tyre in Lebanon) did not have a single Christian living in it. Jirjis Mishaqa (a Greek Catholic businessman - and one of my ancestors (NB)) was persuaded by its two ruling Mutawäli sheikhs to move to the area with his family. When the Christians there had grown in numbers, work was begun on the church of St. Thomas the Apostle.

Noting that there was no mosque for the local Shi’ite Muslim community, Jirjis Mishaqa thought it would be a good thing to build a mosque for the Muslims with his own funds. It was begun simultaneously with the building of the church. When he was called in by the Vizier of Sayda he said:

“I see Muslims coming to Sür, merchants, transients and wandering dervishes, for whom there is no place of shelter or gathering for prayer. Indeed the lack of a mosque in the city is a matter that attracts criticism of its inhabitants abroad. The Creator does not permit such negligence”

The vizier was delighted with the response and asked Jirjis to share in the good work by leaving the minaret to be built from his own money.

For the rest of the article, please go to my page on the site.

For a series of articles with different viewpoints on the topic of building houses of worship - please go to the site directly. While there, check the newsfeed.

Feedback and rating on my article and the other ones are welcome!

What happened 1.600 years ago on 24 August 410?

2010-08-25T00:16:00.000-04:00

The first hint is the word "Visigoth"

The second hint is something to do with Rome

The solution is the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths (a western group of Goths) who were led by Alaric I.

For further information see the documentary The Dark Ages: The Sacking of Rome. I started watching it and learned about this historic event.

Maybe it is time to watch Rome - the complete series. The younger generation keeps telling me how awesome it is.

The Mathland in Alice in Wonderland

2010-03-14T23:18:00.001-04:00

Last week I attended Alice in Wonderland (3D version) with my children and father. Despite my reasonable grasp of English, I was left wondering at times if I fully understood the dialogue. Given comments made when I was younger about a link to drugs (the caterpillar and the hookah) and the Mad Hatter being mad because of the glue fumes, I put aside my misgivings but left with many questions.

Further research pointed out that a subplot of the author Lewis Caroll (a mathematician) is a satire on the new forms of mathematics that were coming out at the end of the 19th century. See NPR's The Mad Hatter's Secret Ingredient: Math. A more detailed article on the mathematical issues embedded in the book was issued in New Scientist Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved through a disseration written by Melanie Bayley.

Interesting to see how some individuals dealt with the changes to the traditional ways of thinking (Euclidean geometry had been around for 2000 years). Even more interesting is the fact that it took more than a century to find many of the allusions in the original text given that the text is very popular.

For those who would like to listen to Alice in Wonderland in Audio format, I found this wonderful site that provides books in mp3 (IPod and ITune ready).

An Olympic pool from Damascus to Ankara (or Damascus' 2009 water deficit and the 830 km long pool)

2010-03-02T17:10:00.000-05:00

To conceptualize the deficit of 41.5 million cubic meters of drinking water Damascus faced in 2009 (see SyriaStep's article written on 27 Feb 2010), one could think in terms of an Olympic swimming pool with length of 830 kilometres, width of 25 meters and depth of 2 meters . This pool would go from Damascus to Ankara (a distance of 778 km according to Wolfram│Alpha the source of the map).

This pool would cover 2,075 hectares and would take a person nearly 20 days to walk from start to end if the person covers the equivalent of a marathon (42 km) every day.

As a point of comparison, it would have more 1,660 times more water that the largest swimming pool acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records which covers 8 hectares has a length of 1,013 meters and a capacity for 25 million litres of water. This lagoon is located in the resort of San Alfonso del Mar in Chile and has the capacity equivalent of 10 Olympic pools.

This deficit (20% of the overall need for drinking water) is 15,400 litres per person (assuming a population of 2.688 million for metropolitan Damascus – again from the sme Wolfram│Alpha search) which would take up half a 20 foot shipping container per person. If we are to take an unofficial statistic of 6 million, the volume is still staggering (a container for each 4 person family).

Uploaded on April 26, 2006 by Telstar Logistics (Flickr)

My final thoughts, let's hope:

that the article is wrong (please provide links)
I made some calculation errors (my assumptions are included below).
Damascus gets lots more rain (the trend is good according to a Syrian official in Syria-news on the 28th of February relative to building a new dam)
serious efforts are put in place to conserve drinking water given the population growth. Is 20% a good target?

-----------------

Post scriptum:

1) These are the numbers I used to do the calculations:

1 Hectare equals 10,000 square meters
Olympic pool dimensions are 50 meters length by 25 meters wide by 2 meters deep according to section 3 of the FINA website). As such, we can find 50 x 25 x 2 = 2,500 cubic meters of water in an Olympic size pool.
1 cubic meter of water equals 1,000 litres
41,500,000 cubic meters divided by 2,500 meters gives 16,600 equivalent pools. If put one pool after another (50 meters length) we get 830,000 meters (or 83 kilometres)
A 20 foot container is approximately 33 cubic meters (5.919 length x 2.340 width x 2.380 height = 32.96 cubic meters) as per WikiAnswer

2) I would love to have the numbers corrolated between both articles (SyriaSteps and Syria-news). For example, the official stated a requirement for 150 litres per person per day. Does it match the required amount? Note that the dam would have a capacity of 60 million cubic meters.

An unexpected anniversary

2009-06-13T08:37:00.008-04:00

Today, I woke up to a beautiful day in Montreal. As luck would have it, I will be visiting a friend's chalet up north which should make the day exceptional.

A couple of things that happened together this morning put me in a thinking mode on milestones and our fascination with milestones.

Reading through my e-mails, I received one of those "what I have learned from the years" from one of my relatives. I also received an agenda planner that reminded me that today is my first job's work anniversary. I also received a comment on the post I made on Paolo Coehlo. Paolo is someone who asks that you reflect at the signs around you. This combination of minor events coupled with recent invitations to milestone birthdays got me thinking.

It has been twenty years since I got my first position in a company. Since then, there has been many changes to my career and profession and the many ups and downs of life. I have been blessed with health, a great family and many friends who are walking along the path with me. Twenty years? is that half way through? or two thirds of the way? What does it mean to have worked for 20 years relative to all the other milestones in a person's life?

A couple of days ago, I read an article on The Miracle of Turning 40 and how the chances of reaching 40 are slim in some countries. Constrast that with a 40 year career we expect (or for some of us may be forced to have given the economic conditions).

In the Middle East, there is a fascination with the "next" milestone. While celebrating an occasion for a milestone, many Middle Easterns will wish you the best for the next milestone. For example, after graduating from highschool, the person will be wished well for their university graduation, then marriage, children and then their children's milestones.

In Microsoft Project, you can set a milestone by giving a task a "zero" duration. Interesting to note the attention executives place on these zero duration activities. In general, more attention is given to the milestone than all the challenges it took to get there.

Reflections to keep my mind busy on my drive towards the next milestone.

Dog doo and the global meltdown

2009-04-25T23:04:00.004-04:00

Walking with my children a couple of evenings ago, we saw an older lady stoop over to pick up her dog's doo with a little plastic bag. Reflecting on it, I started wondering if it is an act of love or was there anything else behind the act

Then the image of me, in Paris circa 1982, walking with my head lowered down to scan my steps to avoid walking into doo popped into my head. At the time, if one did not pay enough attention to the placement of their steps, it was extremely likely that they would end with doo all over their shoe.

I do not believe that our older Canadian lady loves her dog any more than the legions of dog owners in Paris. Dogs seemed to be well loved in Paris as I recalled mentioning to my friends after the trip that I saw more dogs than kids in Paris.

Then the word "regulation" lighted up in my mind. The difference between Montreal and Paris '82 is due to laws in place that fine dog owners for not picking up after their beloved dogs.

This led me to surmise that the global meltdown in part was a result of under regulation. Adding to the greed was an attitude of "Après moi la déluge" which ended costing us all a lot more than those who did the decisions.

My apologies to the residents of Paris. Maybe by now, you have put some laws in place to protect those tourists who like to look up and enjoy the scenery. A thank you goes to the older lady who got me thinking and sorry if I misjudged your love.

Some of Paulo Coelho's quotes

2009-04-08T22:56:00.003-04:00

This is an experiment to see if the code works. the quotations are classic Coelho.

You can flip pages and read different quotations...

Which one resonates with you?

A question of taste (on Orange Juice and Marketing)?

2009-03-06T20:21:00.001-05:00

A couple of months ago, I had a (lightly) charged discussion with a good friend on Orange Juice. Specially, my belief that most boxed orange juices (including my favorite Tropicana Orange Juice) had to have some form of (artificial) flavoring added. My view was that to get a consistent taste year round, the companies had to resort to additives such as flavoring.

My friend's reply centered on the "100% Pure & Natural" labeling and the ingredients which are described as "100% freshly squeezed oranges". My friend insisted that there cannot be additives in there without the companies disclosing them.

This is where Alissa Hamilton comes is to shed some light on the topic in her Q&A interview in the Boston Globe on her upcoming book "Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice," due out in May from Yale University Press.

...Orange Juice is not what it is portrayed to be. Consumers have a right to know what they are consuming...

A couple of key points:

The juice is heated and it's oxygen is removed to avoid oxidation,
the flavor is stripped from it,
it is stored for up to a year (so much for freshness!),
At packaging time, companies such as Firmenich are brought in to add the flavor back through flavoring packs.

Flavor packs add "flavor, texture and sensation" to provide "a focus on freshness, authenticity and naturalness" (my interpretation through Firmenich's site).

Alisa states that these flavoring packs are "technically made from orange-derived substances, essence and oils. Flavor companies break down the essence and oils into individual chemicals and recombine them". Is that considered natural?

This brings us to the issue of labelling. What is juice? what is natural? what is fresh? The nature of marketing is such that each word on the label conjures images for consumers that may or may not reflect what is really inside the box. It seems that the FDA had a couple of run-ins with the juice industry (Juice Label Rule Asked By F.D.A. -1991, Labeling of Juice Products -1998 - could not really understand it from a first glance). If someone has more up to date (and readable) articles, I would appreciate getting them.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting. In this particular case, a discussion on the taste of something as ubiquitous as orange juice revealed much more than what meets the eyes.

Communicating via Web 2.0 - the McKinsey & Company view

2009-03-02T16:49:00.010-05:00

Two weekends ago, I sat down with a Non-For-Profit I am involved in to discuss a communications plan. We discussed many different topics including the communications channel.

I wish I had the following presentation at the time to walk the group through it. All is not lost though, as the discussion shall continue.

It shows clearly how Web 2.0 could be harnessed internally and externally. The interesting part is that I got this via Twitter even thought I get McKinsey & Company updates via e-mail. Thus, McKinsey & Company are following the strategy they have proposed.

For a Non-For-Profit, it all starts with the organization having a high level of credibility and trust. Based on it, the right people within the community should be involved to provide value added contributions.

Charity creativity - tapping into the collective

2008-12-20T11:14:00.014-05:00

With the approach of Christmas and Year End, it is time for personal reflection and review. As such, I will go back on some topics of interest and provide some updates.

Freerice.com continues to impress me. For a while, I was inundated with Facebook requests to join different sites that were linking into Freerice.

The site has now expanded their offering quite a bit by now providing different categories for those who want to go beyond words. New categories include areas such as famous painting, languages, math, grammer and geography.

Freerice depends on the masses and social networking to click correct answers to give rice to the poor. The site indicates that since its inception,
55,442,745,510 grains of rice have been donated (20 grains per correct answer) by people around the world who answered questions correctly. This translates into approximately 60 containers of rice. Pretty impressive when they will be delivered.

Other charities have followed suite with a click to give approach. You can help women get free mamograms by clicking on thecancersite.com . They additionally solicitate donations and purchases. for the 6 months of 2008, 1,460 free mamograms were donated through clicks and another 1,803 by purchases.

Technology allows charities and non-profits (and companies obviously) to tap into the collective power of the masses. Small activities add up pretty quickly when you are on the web. The first time I came across a similar approach was the seti@home project which used idle computers to do calculations. A couple of months ago, I came across a downloadable game from which biologists learn better ways to build protein molecules by folding, unfolding and nudging them.

Another brilliant application was using security captchas to scan books. This is described in the article "You might be digitizing books on the Web without knowing it thanks to this stealthy anti-spam technology". The article states that the creator estimated that people solve 60 million-plus CAPTCHAs a day, amounting to 150,000 or more man hours of work that can be put to use for the digitization effort.

There are two ways to look at this. The first would be to state it is amazing how many hours are wasted on a global basis on non-value added activities. The other is to find creative approaches to use the collective brainpower and click time to solve problems!

Greetings across all channels

2008-11-18T13:48:00.015-05:00

For my birthday this year, I received greeting on many different media and through different channels.

Physically / interactive

In person (family and friends). Kisses and hugs included!

Phone calls

via-chat

Electronically / not interactive

Facebook : mostly comments on my wall

E-mail (multiple accounts, including Facebook)

Voicemail

Skype messages (offline)

Chat messages (offline)

On paper via good old mail

Interesting to me was the fact that I received the largest number of my greetings electronically on my Facebook wall. This is a shift from last year in which the majority were received via e-mail and on the phone. The saddest part for me (as an origami enthusiast) is that I only received a few letters and cards from friends in the mail (or in person).

Time to think about reviving the tradition of mailing letters to our friends... I will admit to being deficient in this area despite the fact that I am a member of elfa and I love paper folding.

Join elfa-e (the envelope and letter folding association's e-mail list) by sending an e-mail to elfa-e@yahoogroups.com . As an incentive for you start sending beautiful mail; I will send you if you (a subjectively beautiful) envelope if you send me via e-mail your mailing address...

My word clouds - visualizing key words in my blog and articles...

2008-07-27T21:48:00.007-04:00

Putting the url for the PI2K blog into the the wordle online application created the following word cloud:

Pretty impressive! I did not realize how many times I used the word "Chess" in my blog. information, time and rice follow from a frequency perspective. Information and time are themes of the blog. As such, their appearance is expected.

Trying it on the tags of my del.icio.us account (general articles of interest) was even more interesting as it shows the key tags and their frequency of occurance. Science, Health, Privacy, Trends, Politics, Psychology come up on top which mirrors closely my interests.

Try it out and let me know what you think of it.

Be afraid... be really afraid :)

2008-04-03T21:32:00.003-04:00

Googling your own name might give you a couple of references to you especially if you do work in the public domain. Add to it what you have put into Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, LinkedIn or Plaxo and a more detailed picture of you is presented to your friends and colleagues of choice.

With most social networks, you may believe that you control your message and the image you project of yourself online given that it is you who chooses the information and at times who can access it.

The reality is much scarier than that. There is a tremendous amount of information about each of us in different databases all over the place. Many companies hold mind boggling amount of data about us from the credit card companies onwards. With every transaction we do, another bit of information is stored about us somewhere. If you go online to read articles and surf the net, your internet provider has a record of all sites visited. We need to add to that the amount of information available at the municipal (property for example), provincial/federal (tax, medical and others)

It was just a matter of time before all this data started to be combined together. If you want to get a glimpse into the future, read "Centers Tap into Personal Databases" from the Washington Post. Fuse in additional information such as phone number, computer IP address and all related activities and a pretty scary picture could emerge especially if rogue elements get their hands on the data or a hard drive is lost by "the forces of good" (Data Leak in Britain Affects 25 Million - NY Times).

One of the things that I found interesting with this presidential campaign is the amount of "data" used by each candidate to attack the other either with respect to voting on issues patterns, specific statements made during past speeches, pictures, ...

We are moving towards living in a very transparent society where most of your moves / interests / preferences / mistakes are for public consumption (or for political gain). The worst part is that you cannot control the information proliferation as anyone could set-up a site or send disparaging information about you to some sites / databases without recourse.

Maybe we should update Warhol's quote on fame to "In the future everyone will have their fifteen minutes of infamy" to reflect the new realities of the searchable net.

----
PS: I have so many references on the topic... For future entries and possibly an article.

The death of a genius

2008-01-20T23:53:00.001-05:00

A chess legend and artist passed away recently. On Friday, January 18th 2008, my spouse told me that she heard on TV that a known chess player has died. I asked her if it was Bobby Fischer and she replied with a yes. In my mind, his physical death confirmed the closure I had with him as a hero for a period of time in my life as chess has been relegated to a far away activity. These days, chess problem solving and some uncompleted games with my young son is the extent of my involvement with it.

Bobby Fischer is the only American Chess World Champion and the one who broke the Soviet’s domination of chess. The story of him winning the championship has been retold countless times and includes elements of intrigue that transcend the chess board.

As a child and a teenager, I was fascinated with chess. Given lots of travel and my study schedule, I ended up reading a lot of chess books and playing chess (including correspondence chess for a while). I loved chess as it involves pattern recognition, strategy, tactics, logic and psychology … It is a fascinating game (and a sport) that survived through centuries even thought it was banned many times by different rulers and different religions at different times. I was fascinated by Sissa’s story of the invention of chess and the evolution of chess (shatranj) through time and geography.

Bobby was one of my chess heroes while going up… I still have “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” in my library even though most of my chess books have been donated or lost over the years. For a while, chess was an addiction for me whereas I would spend hours analyzing games and playing both against real players and computers.

Fischer always impressed by his style and way of playing… through his games, I understood the true meaning of an artist as he would win games by doing very “obvious” and extremely “simple” moves… obvious only after they would be done and simple because they captured the essence of chess…

Reading the (sparse) news about Fischer over the past couple of years created a large disconnect between the image I had of him from reading my books and the real person. Initially, his self imposed exile reminded me of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in which the "individuals of the mind" go on strike, refusing to contribute to the rest of the world. Society, they believe, limits them by interfering with their work and underpays them by appropriating the profits they deserve. These individuals start disappearing from their cities without a trace. Bobby had refused to defend his title in 1975 and then disappeared from the chess world (and lucrative sponsorships) for a long time. His retreat also reminded me of J.D. Salinger of the Catcher and the Rye fame who also became a recluse after writing his best known novel.

Unfortunately, his personal problems would come out every now and then in the news (see this 2003 article in the Guardian). Sexist and racist comments were quoted from him. He got involved with a sect and gave them all his winnings. This his subsequent fight against the sect. The Belgrade incident in which he defied US sanctions. His unfortunate 9-11 comments. All items which showed an unsavory side of him and pointed to some unresolved problems he was facing.

This begs the question if we as a society are failing our geniuses? Are we putting difficult expectations on them and not giving them the space to be integrated in our society? If we take a more popular icon and discuss the derailment of Britney Spears and the undue attention she is getting at a time she needs support (in this case – I do not believe we are talking about genius – my focus is on the potential physiological and mental illness issues of an singer who gets a lot of media attention). What about the case of Chris McKinstry and Pushpinder Singh, the two Artificial Intelligence pioneers who ended up taking their lives separately not too long ago. We as a society have a lot to think about when it comes to talent, innovation and the reckless way we treat and support each other.

If I think of Bobby Fischer, I would like to think of his chess playing and his achievement in popularizing chess in North America. If I would imagine him post his 1972 coronation as world champion, I would have loved to see more of his games, and, most importantly, how he would approach playing against the top computer programs. Computer chess has moved forward tremendously in the past couple of decades with world champions succumbing to their tremendous calculating abilities.

Let’s for this time, separate the genius from the individual and let the rest fall into its rightful place…

Absolutely Brilliant : Learn and feed the poor simultaneously

2007-11-26T22:21:00.001-05:00

I just stumbled on a fantastic site called Freerice (www.freerice.com) in which you try to guess the meaning of different words. For each word you get right, a donation of 10 grains of rice is given to the United Nations World Food Program.

This allows you to improve your vocabulary and give to the poor at the same time. The neat thing about it is that it figures out your level of vocabulary and works with you (it can even remember your last level). There is a maximum level of 50 (my best for the few times I played was 40 - beat it and brag to me about it!).

10 grains of rice is not a lot by itself, but it adds up pretty quickly. On November 25th (the site has been up only since October), 140,583,040 grains of rice were donated. If we assume that a kilogram of rice is 43,000 grains of rice (from Solving Math Problems Kids Care About), then 3,250 kilos of rice were donated. This is the equivalent of (+-) 65 polypropylene bags of 50 kilograms each. Given than a 20 foot container could have between 18 to 23 Metric Tonnes of rice then yesterday's players donated approximately 15% of a container... In other words, within a week, a full container could be loaded and shipped to feed the needy.

This is just incredible and shows the power of numbers especially when put to the common good.

To reap the full benefit of the learning experience, visit the sites behind the site (such as poverty.com and the Unite Nation's World Food Programme)...

I'm going to head back right now to see if I could go higher than level 40 and give my first 1,000 rice grains to the poor...

From Thanksgiving to Peacegiving

2007-11-22T21:22:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving is a very special holiday celebrated in Canada and the USA. One of my favorite stories on its origin is written by Art Buchwald (R.I.P.) with the title of Meanwhile: Chacun à son goût on Thanksgiving (thanks JF for forwarding it). The essence of the day was summarized by a classmate (FH) in a correspondence from London by stating that Thanksgiving "is very inclusive (not religious, not ethnic, not political, ...). Just family and friends. "

I ended up reading many e-mails and articles today on Thanksgiving and ended up sent a few myself. Friends have shared their fond memories of the day, best techniques for preparing the turkey (chestnuts Ari?), the advantages of grain fed vs. farmed turkeys and how the poor turkeys are treated in the slaughterhouse. Suffice to say, it seems that Turkey Saves the Brain as there are Antioxidants abound in holiday meals...

Reflecting on Thanksgiving and how it brings diverse people together in North America, I thought we should dream together about a new holiday called Peacegiving in which nations get together to celebrate our humanity and our potential for good. What would be a good day to have our first Peacegiving? Would a day in June do the job? Should we start at a more grassroot level and make peace with our neighbours? Let's start the dialogue on this... I would love to hear from you!

The Perspective Vortex: Are we just a statistic?

2007-09-14T17:15:00.000-04:00

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series; Douglas Adam defined the Total Perspective Vortex as the ultimate form of torture. It is a device that shows the entirety of the universe with a tiny arrow with the caption "you are here". Discovering one's true insignificance causes the victim to be lobotomized...

Recently, I had a chance to suddenly look into a "perspective vortex" and seem to have survived the encounter... This "impactfull" tool by Peter Russel (which is reproduced partially below) focuses only on the world we live in and, as such, is a bit more mundane giving the viewer a chance to escape the vortex while hopefully giving them a chance to think about our world and how we can work together to make it better.

Looking at the number of births and deaths roll by while reflecting on the enormity of each event for the family affected and realizing that every year more than twice the population of Canada is added to the world may make us feel insignificant. Worst is reflecting on each illness and how it affects the individual inflected and his/her entourage may make one consider the amount of (unnecessary) suffering we have in the world.

A quotation I heard from Wayne Dyer (maybe paraphrased a bit) helps to give a bit of perspective:

"Wisdom is to know I am nothing. Love is to know I am everything. Life is to move in between them..."

Looking at the causes of death while thinking that so much suffering is unnecessary makes one wonder. A "killer" fact is the amount of military expenditures... I wish that could be contrasted to the amount of medical research or the amount spent on education on a similar basis.

We all have choices to make. As individuals, communities and nations, we need to define our priorities and where we want our money spent. Right now, the emphasis seems to be away from what really matters. At the same time, we should not be scared of the enormity of the task(s) ahead of us as each little bit helps. Momentum is created by many little synchronized acts.

Poodwaddle.com

Getting caught...

2007-06-17T21:38:00.001-04:00

On friday, I got the following picture joke which I thought would be a good introduction to the topic of creative thinking and simplicity... (the pencil says Microsoft Word for Blondes 1.0).

I had forwarded to some of my friends an e-mail on the difference between focusing on solutions instead of on problems. One of the two cases in the e-mail was about the Space Pen used by NASA. I quote:

When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity (ink won't flow down to the writing surface). To solve this problem, it took them one decade and $12 million. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature range from below freezing to over 300 degrees C. And what did the Russians do...?? They used a pencil.

The above sounded very plausible until I decided to do some more research into the pen so that I could buy one to use as a prop. That's when I came across the fact that the above is a hoax and is simply not true. Both Scientific American and NASA's own web site had more information on the pen and the manufacturer (Fisher Pen Co.) who spent $1M of their own funds to develop and patent the technology.

I normally pride myself on doing cross checks to detect hoaxes and incorrectly attributed quotes/statistics. This time, I fell into the trap and forwarded the e-mail on. The real question is why? is it because we have been conditioned to accept that NASA (and other large organizations) are bureaucratic? or are there other causes at play?

In any case - to those I have sent the 2 cases - I'm sorry.

PS: Actually, NASA did good when it came to procuring the product having paid $2.39 for 400 pens (according to SCIAM). If you want to buy one today, you would have to pay around $50. This is pretty impressive given a new introduction of technology (even if one takes into consideration inflation from the late 60s to now).

“A serving of ethics for them… please”

2007-06-03T23:24:00.000-04:00

Meeting an old friend of mine on the train ride home, discussions turned from our common friends into what new we were doing. He informed me that he is now writing a column in a local newspaper and asked me if there are ethics in corporations as he will be writing on the topic.

My quick reply was a qualified “yes and no – ethics do exist in some corporations but in many cases they are used by upper management against employees”. We discussed shortly how leadership teams treats ethics as an enforcement tool but the train ride was too short to elaborate further.

As life would have it, the next day, I was catching up with another friend who has survived several downsizing activities in his company and had a new leadership team at the helm of the company for a short while. My friend told me about one of their Vice Presidents (Mr. Joel Hackney) who was accused of throttling a young lady after a basketball match (see Nortel exec admits assault).

During our discussion, we went over what was given in the ethics training they received for insight. In one of the videos they viewed, a man making a lurid suggestion to a woman colleague was considered grounds for firing since it was unethical. The comment made by my friend was: “I guess the physical assault and threatening of a young woman in front of his family is ethical… Mike Z (the CEO) messed up by doing nothing…”.

An interesting development which happened at the same time was the quitting of NT's Chief Ethics Officer (Susan Shepard). Ms. Shepard quit “for no really obvious reason” on Nov 6th 2006 (Mr. Hackney’s episode took place on Oct 13th 2006). One would hope that Ms. Shepard had some objections to the way the incident was handled internally by the leadership team. It is worth pointing out that the company had forced all of its employees to follow an ethics training course and sign off on it. Employees were told directly "if you do not sign the papers you should consider other employment". This is a strong message to all employees with a built in expectation that all in the company fall under it.

What came out of our discussion was the perception that there are two sets of rules which are applied to people inside the company: One for the executive team and another for the employees. This is manifested in many areas including compensation and how many executives earn their money. The forced ethics approach coupled with its flouting at a moment of truth negated even further all the messages from the top.

This mirrors what is happening in the political arena where most people perceive the ethical disconnect to have always existed and to be even bigger. Adversaries are held to different ethical standards (“Gingrich had affair during Clinton's probe”), promises are made and not held, statistics are manipulated to special means and laws are followed only when they suit the specific group in power. This is exemplified well in Henry Kissenger’s quote “The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer”.

For many, work was viewed as an area in which they could live their values. However, employees are having more and more difficulty building trust in corporations and their “hired” executives. This at a time when corporations face incredible challenges and need all the resources and creativity it has to survive in a competitive world.

The creation of Ethics Officer positions in corporations is welcome as long as ethics training and development is not used as a mind control tool for employees and is only used selectively when looking for an excuse to pressure or eliminate a person. Leaders are expected to live the principles they want their followers to espouse.

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PS: after I wrote this posting, I went online to search for further information on the topic and found an e-mail from the CEO to his employees on the topic. It is for the reader to read it and see if it changes their opinion on the topic.

Outsourcing death?

2007-02-02T00:44:00.000-05:00

While reading the following article on how a trial on an anti-HIV gel was stopped (Trial On Anti-HIV Gel For Women Stopped) because the group of women using the active gel were being infected with HIV at a higher rate than the placebo group. I noted the following paragraph:

"The trial was being conducted on over 1,300 women in Benin, India, South Africa and Uganda. Another trial in Nigeria, sponsored by Family Health International, using the same product has also been stopped as a precautionary measure, although there is no news as to whether this trial was giving similar results."

I am intrigued to know how the choices of the selected women were done and the ethics behind the decision to use control groups in Africa and India to test North American created products. Have we outsourced our riskier clinical trials to poorer nations with weaker laws and controls to avoid the costs of having to do the tests in North America and the long term follow-up issues in case of product failure? What consent mechanisms are in place? Are the participants fully aware of the implications of their choice to be part of the trials?

This approach of farming out product testing does not look right at first read. If anyone has further information on this, please send it to my e-mail. Thank you.

Structure overkill - taking the hammer approach

2007-01-16T13:46:00.001-05:00

I'm all for methodologies and tools. By applying rigor to a systematic approach to solving problems, the outcomes in general are of much higher quality.

Last week, I was participating as a judge to the John Molson MBA International Case competition . The different teams are given the same case and three hours to read through the case, discuss it and prepare the presentation for the judges.

Given the time pressure, most of the teams have similar approaches to the presentation. SWOT analysis is prevalent for North American teams for example. What I noted after listening to many presentations is that some of the teams apply a structured approach to presenting their response. They have an outline to the presentation they will be making and then they fill in the blanks with the analysis they generate.

Applying this structured approach works well for standard cases in which there is both a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data to be analysed. However, certain cases are different and require a different approach and this is where the cookie cutter approach was laid bare. The team's presentation came across lacking and not suited for the case in question.

This made me reflect on my practice and how we have to understand our client and their company's culture and needs in order to be able to match the approach and methodologies proposed. A master mason selects the appropriate tool (from a range of tools) to use depending on the type of the stone and the results he/she wants to get. An amateur stone carver can only use a few ( I experimented with stone carving - I reflect my experience here)...

Expertise is built by doing an applying in a practical setting and the young MBA students will one day (hopefully) have the practical experience to see the nuances in order to select the right approach.

"when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail..." Anon

A prelude to "Animal Farm"??

2007-01-08T19:27:00.000-05:00

This article caught my attention:

Farm worker attacked by herd of pigs"

It reminded me of the takeover by the animals in Orwell's book called Animal Farm.

For some reason, the book was fresh in my mind.

How come? I read the book over 20 years ago and I do not profess to having an encyclopedic memory... However, a couple of weeks ago, I was reading a recent Chomsky interview that was forwarded to me (Iraq: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Noam Chomsky interviewed by Michael Albert, December 27, 2006 - thanks SD) and there was a comment that I found interesting:

"In our society, intellectual elites are deeply indoctrinated, a point that Orwell noted in his (unpublished) introduction to Animal Farm on how self-censorship works in free societies. A large part of the reason, he plausibly concluded, is a good education, which instills the understanding that there are certain things "it wouldn't do to say" -- or more accurately, even to think."

Part of my interest was in the fact that we (as humans) seem to keep on repeating similar actions over and over within a lifetime and between generations (that's why The Prince by Machiavelli is still a classic on power). The other part was the note that there was an unpublished introduction. That seemed odd given that the book was published and its message was reasonably clear at the time of the writing.

As such, I looked up the unpublished preface called The Freedom of the Press. I enclose what I found even though I cannot vouch for its authenticity (the site was cross referenced twice - but that does not make it right). If anyone can find a better reference let me know.

Reading quickly through the unpublished introduction - I am reminded that many things have not really changed when it comes to group norms...

PS: I also enclose for you a bonus - a summary of the Animal Farm book by Penguin Press as a reminder of the big themes of the book. It is a quick refresher of the big themes of Animal Farm.

seeing with new eyes

2007-01-08T12:11:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, while reading the news; I noticed an ad for an international online newspaper that made me think. The ad was simple - yet it used a word I have seen countless times without seeing what they showed with it.

The word was NEWS...

What's so special about the word? We must have heard it (and seen it) 1/2 a million times during our lifetime.

In the advertisement, the letters were decomposed and put around the logo of the newspaper in the form of a compass.


            N 



      W           E 



            S

How about that for a new way of looking at this word?

It brought back memories of discussions I have had with a customer a couple of years ago on consumer sales and what "the next great thing" is all about. "It's about repackaging the familiar into new forms" (my recollection) as he talked about the candle market specifically and the changes it has went through from adding scents, to materials and the look and feel. At the end of the day it is a "candle"...

It also brought back a discussion with a dear friend who suggested to me to look deeper into what I have. This was after she saw a crumbled paper I did. Somehow, she concluded that there is much more that could be done with what's already on the table.

To conclude:
- Innovation in many cases is based on changing the familiar
- One could always extract / create value with what they already have

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new lands, but in having New Eyes." Marcel Proust.

Priorities

2006-12-27T23:40:00.000-05:00

This entry was triggered after reading some of the season's numbers pulled from ThomasNet. Initially, I was intrigued by the volume of global shipments around this time of year. For example, UPS will deliver 240 packages every second through its network on December 20th. Other numbers such as how much the average shopper (in the US) is expected to spend this year on holiday merchandise($791.10) and the value of total retail e-commerce sales for the fourth quarter of 2005 ($27.1 billion) were a subnote for me.

Then, on boxer's day, I went to my annual breakfast get-together with close friends. We have been holding these reunions for the past couple of years to discuss global issues and how we could help each other. There, I recalled a statistic from an article on the number of cigarettes smoked annually. 5.7 Trillion (10^12) cigarettes. If one assumes a cigarette costs 5 cents on average globally, $285 billion goes up in smoke annually.

Further into the discussion and after many coffees, an additional two data points were put on the table - the cost of war and development aid. The cost of just one conflict almost equals the value of global annual development aid. A civil war in a low-income country could cost $54 billion compared to the worldwide aid budget in 2004 which was $78.6 billion.

If we contrast the spending numbers against the development and the global poverty numbers such as the fact 50% of the world's population lives on less than $2 per day and of these 1.1 billion people live on $1 or less per day; one could only reach the conclusion that we are not putting our priorities in the right places.

In other words, shifting some of the spending from war, cigarettes or other areas could solve many of our society's pressing problems from overcrowded hospitals, disease, education, ... The real issue seems to be a question of priorities from individuals to institutions to governments.

What do you think?

Speech on water @ Irrigation Modernization Symposium

2006-12-25T14:44:00.000-05:00

International Symposium on Irrigation Modernization: Constraints and Solutions
Nabil Beitinjaneh
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, NOSSTIA
28 March 2006

Opening remarks

All of us have heard the expression “water is life”, a beautifully simple slogan – or is it?? In the past little while, I was wondering if we have masked the true nature and complexity of the water challenge we face through the use of such an simple expression.

Coming here, I had a very long trip which gave me the opportunity to explore the expression with different people along the way. Here follows are my learnings:

Most knew that more than 60% of our body is composed of water and 70% of the surface of the earth is covered by water. However, they were quite surprised to know that less than 2.5% of that water is fresh water and only 1% is accessible.

When they are told that distribution is a huge issue for water, most viewed it as a problem that has been solved… just open the faucet! Discussing the World Water Council’s (WWC) statistics that approximately 30 countries suffer chronic fresh water shortages, they only think of Africa… However, the WWC foresees approximately 50 countries by the year 2025 including countries in South Eastern Asia. This includes emerging economies such as India.

Most implicitly understood that we use more water today than anytime in our past. If you tell them that demand for water in the last century has increased 6 times, twice the population increase; they shake their heads in disbelief.

When you tell them that Darfour is only a continuation of resource wars in the region. For this statement, you get many other examples.

An interesting discussion happens every time you discuss water usage with them. 66% of fresh water used is for irrigation of which 50% is not used. They are quite impressed by this statistic. I was quite impressed when I learned that to produce 1 kg of wheat, 1 metric ton of water is required. This is the equivalent of 650 bottles of bottled (Boukein) water approximately.

Even scarier are the World Health Organization’s (WHO) statistics which state that approximately 5000 children 5 years and under die every day around the world because they do not have access to clean water and sanitation. If we take this in context, this is the equivalent of 10% of Syria’s population. For these children and their parents, water is life.

As a society we have not internalized the fact that even though water is a renewable resource, it is scarce and its true cost is higher than we expect.

To change behaviors, we have to go back and explain the true richness of the expression “water is life”.

We have to learn from our history and the experiences of others. I recall reading in history books about al-Ghouta and the 7 rivers of Damascus.

As decision makers, business owners, civil society, parents, family members, we have to encourage the adoption of a scientific approach towards water issues. We also have to take advantage of the fact that scientist love a challenge by giving them the data and information they require to further their research. We also have to make tough decisions as we cannot break the laws of physics or change them. What we can change are the physical systems, processes and peoples beliefs towards water to get different outcomes to better use what we have.

Water usage is becoming a competitive advantage to those who know how to integrate it into a bigger whole which includes the environment and the economy.

We are all here to learn from each other and focus on the challenges of water irrigation and the experiences of many experts locally and internationally.

Some final points

Time is of the essence here
Take advantage of the formal and informal networks you form
Discuss, challenge and ask lots of questions
Enjoy your stay in beautiful Damascus. There is a lot to see…

Thank you for being here.

[End]

References:

Costing MDG Target 10 on water supply and sanitation: comparative analysis, obstacles and recommendations. March 2006. World Water Council, World Water Forum. http://194.242.113.59/index.php?id=3&L=0

Evolution of Water withdrawals and consumption since 1900, powerpoint, World Water Council. http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/fileadmin/wwc/

Geography 210: Introduction to Environmental Issues. 8.6 Water Management and Conservation http://mail.taramaki.com/index.cgi?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geog.ouc.bc.ca%2Fconted%2Fonlinecourses%2Fgeog_210%2F210_8_6.html×tamp=1144759467&md5=AMbvuYnxx43CSnFTlvqqWA%3D%3D

World Water Facts http://mail.taramaki.com/index.cgi?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fnow%2Fscience%2Fwater2.html×tamp=1144759467&md5=AMbvuYnxx43CSnFTlvqqWA%3D%3D

Water at a Glance. World Water Council. http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=5
GEO-2000, Global Environment Outlook. Chapter Five: Outlook and Recommendations, UNEP, http://www.unep.org/Geo2000/english/0243.htm

on change: macro changes - no change

2005-10-03T21:11:00.000-04:00

chatting recently with a friend from Russia, the discussion turned to the topic of change... Replying to the question on what changed since the break-up of the USSR? Paraphrased answer : "nothing! I could not travel before because I could not get travel documents... Now, I cannot travel because it is too expensive..."

2005-05-14T18:50:00.000-04:00

Visual Search - Daniel Goleman books

Dr. Jay Conger - overview

2005-04-23T23:33:00.036-04:00

To understand Dr. Conger and the evolution of his thought processes over time, the best place to start would be his Curriculum Vitae. This CV is found on the website for the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business Link to PDF...

A couple of points of interest:

He is a Harvard graduate in Organizational Behaviour. His doctoral thesis was on "Charismatic Leadership in Business".
He worked in Montreal for 10 years approximately starting as an assistant professor at McGill and ending as a Professor of Management in Organizational Behaviour (1995).
He teaches at the London Business School and the University of Southern California - Center for Effective Organizations

Reading through his publications, books, chapters in books the broad patterns of his research and practice come out:

Charismatic Leadership
Persuasion
Training Leadership
Board and CEO performance and Improvement
Leadership Change
Leadership and the Spirit

Now for some references:

BusinessWeek Oct 15, 2001 edition. Dr. Conger is ranked 5th in the Top Management Gurus. Link to article...
Excellence 100: Feb 2005 edition of Leadership Excellence. Dr. Conger is ranked 27th. There are many excellent articles in the edition Link to PDF... which could be found on Eileen McDaragh's web page (www.eileenmcdargh.com)
Thought Leadership and "Coaching for Leadership Development In this article The Coaching Landscape by Linkage Link to PDF..., you will find a "survol" of coaching trends and Linkage's view on the profession of coaching and trends in coaching.

A couple of excerpts and summaries picked randomly:

Winning 'Em Over: A New Model for Managing in the Age of Persuasion.

Four steps are provided building credibility, finding common ground, developing compelling positions, and connecting emotionally--that he contends will help managers more effectively direct their employees toward this goal (Link to source...)

In Learning to Lead, London Business School professor Jay Conger usefully identifies four key components for leadership development initiatives, whether university based, independently managed, or company sponsored: (1) develop and refine teachable skills; (2) improve conceptual abilities; (3) tap into the individual's personal needs, interests and self-esteem, and (4) help participants see and move beyond their interpersonal blocks.
Link to source...

The 2001 Conference Board report, “Developing Business Leaders for 2010”, explores a variety of experimental approaches companies are using to develop leadership skills for the future. A selection of these are reprinted below for your information (Copyright The Conference Board): Link to article...
A number of companies are moving beyond today's best practices to explore new ways to meet anticipated leadership needs. Jay Conger, Val Markos, and Jim Shanley all suggest that the highest development leverage in the next decade will come primarily from refining and implementing existing best practices in leadership development. But those interviewed did highlight some potential new approaches that can amplify and extend these practices.Experimental approaches include innovative ideas not yet developed, newly developed approaches that are still experimental, and the refinement of existing approaches. These emerging interventions can be grouped into four basic categories:

Adaptations of current practices — apprenticeships, sponsorships, group mentoring, off-site retreats;
Technology enabled — executive chat rooms, thought leader access, e-learning advances,e-mentoring/shadowing, business simulations;
Renewed emphasis — decision making, scenario planning, self-awareness, work/life balance; and,
Outside positions/projects — "loaning" employees, projects with charitable organizations, community leadership.

To finish off

To finish off this entry, I leave you with an Interview with Jay A. Conger by Ann On-Line (www.annonline.com)
Link to article... . A great listen (45 minutes long)...

Miscellaneous articles referencing Conger

2005-04-23T23:33:00.035-04:00

I picked several articles from different sources to generate discussion and thought on specific themes advocated by Dr. Conger:

Best of T+D - On Leaders and Charisma Link to PDF...

Three feature articles from this year’s annual Leadership Issue: March 2003
1 The New Core of Leadership— How to use power, tension, ideas, and other elements to lead effectively
2 The Myth of Charismatic Leaders— Leaders with charisma can lead people to disaster, so step to the forefront yourself
3 A Boot to the System— Military-style training served as a wake-up call to leaders at General
Physics to make major changes in their leadership approaches

BearingPoint - L’Art d’être Leader

Avec cette série exceptionnelle d'articles, Le Figaro Entreprises et BearingPoint ont contribué à animer la réflexion stratégique au cœur des entreprises. Chaque article était accompagné du témoignage d’une personnalité impliquée dans l’art d’être leader
Link to article...

Spirituality: The Emerging Context for Business Leadership Link to article...

this article provides an wide ranging view on spirtuality at work

Can Leadership Be Taught? Perspectives From Management Educators Interview and Commentary by JONATHAN P. DOH

Villanova University Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2003, Vol. 2, No. 1, 54–67.
Link to PDF...

Several interviews including one with Dr. Conger.

Managing organizational change Communication and change

ISO Management Systems – May-June 2003

Link to PDF...

Individual director evaluations: The next step in boardroom effectiveness
By Jay A. Conger and Edward Lawlor III
IVEY MANAGEMENT SERVICES • September/October 2003 article...

Can We Really Train Leadership? By Jay Conger Leadership programs offer everything from white-water rafting to encounter groups. But do they really train leaders? Yes, if they take a multi-tiered approach and recognize that it takes skill and time to succeed. Link to source...

Charismatic Leadership

Global Perspectives, Ray Berndtson ( http://www.rayberndtson.com ), Summer 1997

Link to PDF...

Leadership Research: serious topic for the social sciences? Deanne den Hartog
European Business Forum (EBF) ( www.ebfonline.com )
Link to article...

No More Rubber Stamp - Engaging the board in corporate strategy
By David Nadler From Mercer Management Journal 17

Link to PDF...