Gullibimundi

Whilst the physical battle is being fought in Afghanistan. The war is being fought in the mind.

"Ali and Sarwar went to deliver aid to the refugee camps - and their experiences radically altered their world view.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the group, was shocked by the appalling conditions. His anger was compounded by the failure of the 2003 mass protest against the Iraq war." BBC

Howard Gardner suggests that changing minds is as difficult as pushing string.

So, researchers agree that there is no real absolute version of 'social truth', and that people have differing views on what is right and wrong.

Mind you I suppose the clue is in the title when it comes to deciding legal matters. A 'Judge' is exactly that. They make judgements not measurements.

I cannot tell a lie because you might not think it is one.

The aptly named 'G' fo Gullibility 20 claim to have come with a way of controlling the banks.

They have come with no specific limits on the amounts our banking friends can get.

Does the G20 seriously think that the bankers are running scared? Of course not. What they say sounds good.

Have you ever heard a paper tiger roar.

I think Andy is being gullible if he believes that everyone in the lucrative game of international tennis are as social media savvy as he claims to be.

Rules are introduced to set boundaries. Its the people at the edges of understanding or of moral rectitude that need to have them defined.

He also underestimates the impact of inadvertent Twttering on Personal Brand and Brand Equity in particular. Just one thoughtless tweet and a Tennis player's reputation and the commercial brand they represent could be tarnished and that would end the earning power of the player.

Just look at what's happened to Kerry Katona. OK she wasn't tweeting but her income was directly linked to her alleged behaviour.

The risks are considerable and they need regulating.

What if, someone found an unattended multi media phone or laptop and started twittering on his behalf? what if he had a bad day a fired off a twitter he later regretted, what if he was in 'party mood' and twittered something inapproriate?

The problem is not with communicating but with the speed and reach of social media. Say something controversial and it doesn't 'stay in the room'

My son has just been on a stag weekend. The rule was 'what happens on tour stays on tour'. That was until one of the group decided to reveal all (sic) on Facebook! Mud sticks and the face to face human impacts of his cyber slips of the tongue (true or false) were huge.

Andy the regulations are not lame they are astute.

So, Mark Lester the ex child star of Lionel Bart's 1968 movie Oliver claims to be the biological father of Michael Jackson's children.

In the prophetic words of the song Mark:

Considers himself at home.
Considers himself one of the family.
He's taken to them so strong.
It's clear they're going to get along.
Considers himself well in
Considers himself part of the furniture.
There isn't a lot to spare.
Who cares?..What ever we've goin we share!

In practical terms Mark raises the distinction between the biological and the psychological. Those of us with less gullible bones in our bodies (ask Mark to check them over) will know that Michael's daughter was grieving because of a strong emotional bond, and that Mark's rather timely claim stretches the belief that there is a reciprocal emotional connection based on a prior biological arrangement.

Now I'd never say Mark's on screen experiences were influencing his actions simply because:

In this life, one thing counts
In the bank, large amounts
I'm afraid these don't grow on trees,
You've got to pick-a-pocket or two

You've got to pick-a-pocket or two, boys,
You've got to pick-a-pocket or two.

Why should we break our backs
Stupidly paying tax?
Better get some untaxed income
Better to pick-a-pocket or two.

Clearly Mark doesn't want his intentions to be misunderstood and that:

A man's got a heart, hasn't he?
Joking apart -- hasn't he?
And tho' I'd be the first one to say that I wasn't a saint...

I'm finding it hard to be really as black as they paint...

So Mark...Where ere ere ere ere is love?

Archbishop Vincent Nichols seems to presume that people are gullible when it comes to the majority of us not grasping the adverse impact of social networking. He warns us all in a rather sweeping generalisation that social networking sites, texting and would you believe it e-mails are undermining community life!.

Now lets just run past that again. Modern society is falling apart because of e-mail?! OK...let me ponder on that for a moment. OK...done that and concluded that it sort of runs counter to the evidence given its contribution to long-distance family life and commerce. The same holds true for all other forms of digital communication.

Of course his conjecture will contains grains of truth, and he draws attention to the well worn fact most social media users have been blogging about for years, the well understood phenomenon of 'social networking friendship'

Now, notwithstanding the extreme cases in any large population, I'm pretty confident that most people who have friended and followed me across Twitter, Friend Feed, Blogcatalog, MyBlogLog and so on don't really consider me to their 'bosom buddy'. The label 'friend' in this context is merely an evolved use of the term for use in a social media situation. Sure I'm in touch on a regular basis with a handful of fellow bloggers who I've got to know, and I would consider them my 'friend' in the sense of 'pen-pal', and of course we haven't physically 'met'. Nevertheless I regard them as a social networking Friend (capital 'F' - proper friend) not just a social networking friend (lower case 'f' - digital aquaintance)

Had the Archbishop been commenting in previous decades would he have claimed that having 'pen-pals' was socially dysfunctional.?

In his criticism of 'transient' relationships that cause grief and upset when they fall apart, he seems to be describing the common socio-psychological characteristics of any relationship and somehow blaming a technological medium for when they go wrong!! In social networking Trolls and Flamers are socially and psychologically dysfunctional they are not technologically dysfunctional. They would behave as they did in a family, on street, in a village, in a town because that is how they are!.

The Archbishop has missed his target if he has any cause for concern. The clue is in the title. SOCIAL networking. Its the PEOPLE stupid!. The network is merely the technological medium not the attitude and behaviour of its users.

What about all the people who have found enduring relationships through sites like Match.com and so on? People who have traced lost family and friends through Friends Re-United, People who have found work through LinkedIN?

Instead of patronising us by thinking that he can see issues and problems that people less perceptive than himself the Archbishop is foreclosing the opportunity of social networking to his own vocation. Come on 'Bish, you would like to socially influence people about your attitudes and beliefs wouldn't you?, you'd like bigger congregations hearing what you have to say wouldn't you?. Well...just a suggestion...why not consider delivering your message through the medium that a significant number of people choose to use in the 21st century instead of relying on a social networking technology of the the 1st millennium aka the physical Church building. After all isn't the true meaning of Church really about a congregation of people with similar beliefs NOT the physical place they meet!!

Now here's the question. Archbishop Vincent Nichols...will you be my friend?

So the surviving Mubai terrorist wants to be executed. What possible reason does he have for thinking that anyone should give him what he wants. His victims had no choice.

We'd be gullible if we hung this Mumbai terrorist. A far greater punishment would be to keep him alive. It might also be important to insist that he develop his education during the rest of his life by studying alternative world views.

He might even reach an epiphany where he recognises the appalling nature of his crime and atones for it by convincing people pursuing a similar path to give it up.

The longer he is alive the more we frustrate his original ambition. Surely this is something he must fear, and we must give him the time to reflect on that.

Are we wasting time and money going back to the moon? The argument 'for' says that it will be the ideal springboard for exploring further. It is an argument based on the practicalities and technology of 'now' not the an ambition for the future.

On the other hand going for Mars is driven by more philosophical ambitions. To go to Mars is difficult, to go to Mars is demanding, to go to Mars stretches the capability of mankind.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals are what get people going places and doing things. I'm with the Apollo astronauts on this one. The very process of 'going for Mars' will produce far more than the mere technical and commercial benefits. The Mars ambition is aspirational, it is inspiring, it is exciting.

Getting there requires collaboration. Getting above petty differences and the medieval mind-sets of the gangsters and terrorists that are so consumed with this place and this time. The people of the world need to see far into the future of possibility so that they can reject the idea that we are stuck on the Blue Marble to be forever at each others throats.

We need heroes. We need to go to Mars

The BBC reports that Bank boards are to come under closer scrutiny. In the article it is pointed out that several banking heads have no banking industry back ground and no banking qualifications.

This shouldn't really come as any surprise. The reason this has happened is because business and society have bought into the 'MBA' myth that has historically reinforced the idea that a professional manager has 'transferable skills' allowing them to manage any business regardless of its commercial setting.

General tools, deployed by general managers who all speak the lingua franca of business-ese. The language of 'forces', of 'gap analysis', of ROI, of 'brand equity' and so on and so on.

This 'managerialist' philosophy is 'taken for granted', so deeply embedded that its truth and nature is, for most aspiring managers self evident. It is 'the' way to run a business successfully, because it 'stretches competences' (sic) and wraps ruthless scientific rationality up in the soft velvet of service and relationship rhetoric.

Kurt Lewin said there was nothing more practical than a good theory. The implication of this observation is that the way in which a person conceives of their world determines how they act in it. Chris Argyris calls them 'theories for success', deeply held ideas that determine how problems are defined and solutions created.

So why would a supermarket retailer get a job as a top banker then?

One reason is because he is a 'general manager'. At one level all businesses are the 'same' so they can all be run in the same way. The other reason is because of the answer to that most profound of business questions - 'what business are you in?'

This question will have a senior management team split asunder if they have never pondered on it before. It demands an explanation of what exactly the business 'does'. So what business are the banks in?

Generating ROI for investors (the avowedly Freidmann-esque position)?

The 'Service' business (the deceptive landscaping of the service offer pushed by most banks to disguise the fact that they are aggressive sales led organisations)?

The 'Retail' business (we sell consumable products to individual consumers through high street and on-line channels to market)?

Add the last explanation to the previous two and you have a justification for employing Barrow Boy MBA at the senior level of your banking business!

On the other hand, characterise the business of banking as something rather more profound, something rather more central to social welfare of the country and its citizens, something rather more essential to the working of a modern society, then, the business the banks are in is nothing at all to do with getting the sales team to push the latest 'gee-whiz' offering from new product development, nothing to do with callously casting itself as a friendly service provider who cares for YOUR finances through the journey of life.

What if Banking is a prudent guardian of financial stability, the essential counterpoise to the pull of rampant consumerism with its powerful and persuasive temptations to overstretch the wallet? What if it is about 'saving' to spend rather than 'borrowing' to spend?

Retailers want every last penny from us, because every little helps their profit margins, they don't care if its baked beans or shoes for the kids. The banks should,and the way to do it to have absolute clarity about what business they are in!

Dr Huw Davies writes a fascinating article in this BBC article about British involvement in Afghanistan. Given the recent shift of strategy to increase face to face combat instead of using air support it is tempting for the armchair strategist to reach for history books and predict the improbability of success.

The key of course is to recognise that the 'context' is different from before. The British and their allies are in the country to deal with a specific group of ideologues, and whilst they might have local knowledge only their terror tactics provide local support.

So are the British being gullible thinking they will achieve a positive outcome? I don't actually think so.