Mis-Matched Shoes

This afternoon I arrived at The College of Lake County at about 1:30.  My plan was to print off and duplicate the fourteen page final exam I was giving to my Elementary Statistics class later in the afternoon.  I had emailed the exam to myself so I could retrieve it on campus.  I have done this over a hundred times with no issue, until today.  The exam document was nowhere to be found on either of the two email addresses I use for such.  I was perplexed as I was absolutely certain that I had emailed it on Saturday.  Sadly, I must not have.

What had been plenty of time suddenly became a tight time frame as I had to return home to retrieve the exam and get back to campus and duplicate the exam.  So, I jumped in my car took off.  En route, I took a phone call from a good friend.  She called to tell me that I could not imagine what she had done.  I could not imagine at all especially since I was preoccupied with my own idiocy.  She related that she got to her workplace this morning and realized that she had two different shoes on.  They were both black.  One was zippered and the other was laced.  We laughed.  I told her of my predicament and we laughed some more.  I joked and told her that she had a matching pair of mis-matches waiting for her at home.

Having done what seems like more than my fair share of bone headed boo-boos.  I cannot recall ever having worn two different shoes.  I like to think that I somehow picked up two different shoes, I would probably notice as I put them on.  If not, I would for sure have noticed after taking a step or three.  The feel or thickness of the soles should be detectable.  The key to prevent wearing two different style shoes is to store the shoes in pairs.

Then I began to think, always a scary proposition, why it was that mis-matching shoes never became a fashion statement.  The avant-garde and the youth are always looking for the new new.  They want to be the first on the block to blaze a new trend.  Amazing matches and mis-matches of colors, plaids atop of stripes, really expensive jeans with holes in them, body piercings to the extreme, and tattoos have all come and gone and come into fashion again over my lifetime.  Hair has gone from WWII neat and trim to Brylcreamed slick, from duck tails to mullets, from Beatles to shaggy dog to shaved bald.  Women have dyed their hair henna color you can imagine including purple and pink.  Anything you can imagine has had its moment in the sun or maybe longer.    

Amid all the whirlwind of fashion, shoes have always matched in color and style.  The only difference tolerated was that mirror image between left and right.  They could be outrageous platforms, sequined high top basketball shoes, ultra-spiked stilettos, and even wearing flip-flops in a blizzard.   Yet, no matter the extremes in design and fashion, shoes have always matched.  Why has this not happened?  It cannot possibly be that I am the first to dream up this fashion innovation.  Can it?

If mis-matched shoes becomes all the rage in the next few years, remember you heard it hear first.

November 2011: The Internet Makes it All Easier

Technology, namely the Personal Computer and the Internet, have made me more organized, competent, and rigorous than I ever was.  I write more.  I write more effectively.  I maintain three blogs and am a heavy contributor to our business blog.  It is cool and a lot of fun.  

Truth be told, however, I am not the most organized person.  Also, I have had a major gap or disconnect between my ambition and my track record of realizing those ambitions.  For example, up until recently (recent being 2002), I hated to write.  I hated to do research.  I wanted to do both but they were tedious.  They were not just tedious; they were incredibly and ridiculously tedious.  When I was coming of age, writing meant pen and paper, editing drafts and then typing it into a typewriter, onto paper.  Simple changes to almost final drafts were unbearable.  It was boring.  Writing and re-writing drafts, typing and re-typing drafts and final products, was a major pain.  Therefore, I rarely did it.

Research was the same way.  It involved going to the library.  Sometimes it involved going to specialty libraries at a university as the journals I was searching for were not available at the local libraries nor were they available at the main university libraries.  Then, I would have to pore over telephone book sized tomes of journal summaries taking copious notes.  The next step was to take those notes and go find the journals in the library either on the shelves, on microfilm, or perhaps having to order the journal from another library and wait weeks for it to come in.  For me, this was mega-complicated and, I am not sure if I have used this word to describe it, tedious.  Therefore, I rarely did it.  

There is an inherent laziness at work here.  I know and admit this.  The laziness is greater than the ambition when the path to realizing the ambition is overly tedious.  Overly tedious is essentially boring and thus anything else is more interesting.  I have always wanted to get things done quickly.  Even as a kid, I tired of anything that did not be done in one sitting.  All my model airplanes and cars were horribly done because I could barely wait for the glue, paint or decals to dry.  Any long term project in elementary school?  The same thing.  

In junior high, we were taught how to use 3x5 index cards to do proper research for a term paper.  Then we were taught how to create an outline while amassing more and more cards.  Then after all this, we could sit down and type the rough draft of the paper.  Upon editing and reviewing with the teacher, we would type the next draft.  Upon another edit, we could finally type the final paper.  Mind you, all of this was done on a typewriter... multiple times.  Oh my!  This was not for me.  It was not for anyone.  I waited until the last minute.  I typed up the only draft of the paper with books and magazines all about it.  It was chaos but essentially done in real time.  Then, and only because the teacher required it, did I also type an outline and hand wrote enough 3x5 cards to give the appearance that I actually followed directions.  

The PC and the Internet has made this all easier.  Case in point, take an example form a few paragraphs ago.  I wrote “I would have to pore over telephone book sized tomes...”  I was not sure if pore, pour, or maybe a third word, poar, was correct.  In days of yore, I would have opted for pour and let the teacher or professor decide.  Sure, I could have looked it up in a dictionary or  style and grammar book but then I would have had to get up, find the book, the research my question.  Blame it on attention span, but if I were to do that, the chances of coming back to my writing would be minimal.  As I pondered the question tonight, I simply typing “pour over” into Google and quickly found ample instruction that led me to use the proper word, pore, and also realized there is no word poar.  It was easy, though there is still a risk that I could have been diverted by what a friend of mine calls “shiny things” that always seems to pop-up in my Internet searches.

For me and certainly many others, technology has helped.  I love the ability to research almost anything from my easy chair or desk via laptop or iPad.  I was talking with another friend on the phone a few weeks ago.  Somehow, don’t ask me how, we got to talking about a game that was played way back when by children.  It was a basic, simple, and seemingly boring game.  It involved a wheel and a stick.  The stick was used to keep the wheel rolling.  That’s it.  Sure it was an odd thing to talk about but we had somehow gotten there.  The next question was, “I wonder what that game was called?”  Who cares?  Who knows?  In the pre-internet days I would have simply let it go.  It is a small matter.  That day in front of my laptop, I simply typed in “wheel and stick game” and voila, sever listing for hoop rolling, hoop trundling, simply trundling.  Trundling?  Yes, trundling.I  am trying to fathom youngsters who could be amused, for who knows how many hours, with a hoop and a stick.  I wonder about the trundling youngsters of yore the same way young people playing the amazing graphic video games of today wonder how my generation  could have been so fascinated with Pong.

My first realization of how liberating this technology would be for me was back in the early days of the Internet.  I had arranged for Senator Joe Liberman to visit our church: The Armenian Church of the Holy Ascension in Trumbull, CT.  We were very excited as it was the highest US Government official to ever visit our church.  Our priest, Father Untzag Nalbandian, asked me to be the emcee for the event for being the driving force behind this auspicious event.  In truth all I did was contact the Senator’s office.  It was more do to the Senator’s very good policy of engaging the community.  We tried to do the same thing a few years later with Senator Chris Dodd.  We did not even get a reply from his office.

But I digress.  I was travelling to Argentina the week before Senator Lieberman was to visit our church.  I returned late Saturday evening.  I was expecting mail from the Senator’s office that was to include his biography.  There was no such mail.  It was 10 pm and I was wondering what I was going to do.  I did not want to embarrass the Senator, our church, or myself by not having a proper introduction for such a distinguished guest.  I then thought that perhaps they emailed me.  So, I checked my first email address, the kind that came with whatever dismally slow dial-up Internet service I had.  Again there was nothing.  

What to do?  The public library did not open early enough for me to get there and get to chruch on time.  What to do?  I then thought of using that new thing I had just got... what was it... ah yes... Netscape.  It came with what was then a new computer.  I typed the Senator’s name into the search box and hit enter.  Soon, I was at the Senator’s website.  He had a bio tab.  Wow.  This was amazing.  It was like midnight.  I was able to get and print his bio that I could read verbatim if I had to.  How cool!

It was incredibly cool.  I realized the power of where technology was going and what it would allow me to do.  The information world was literally at my fingertips.  From that moment on, the availability of information and the speed of retrieval has only gotten better, broader, and faster.  It is easy to learn about almost anything and everything really quick.  If you have any rights at a university library, the entire world of journals and papers are on-line.  The most classic papers in almost any field are available in pdf form on-line, this includes the Harvard Business Review which is probably the best in the world at trying not to provide free content.

I wanted to learn about alternative oud tunings.  A short internet search and voila:

• http://www.oudcafe.com/stringing_and_tuning.htm - This site provides alternative Turkish and Arabic tunings.
• http://www.arabinstruments.com/112730/Tuning-the-Oud - which is actually an on-line tuner.

People with any passion share their knowledge and lore on-line with, basically, the world.  I am amazed with the volumes of people who read my blogs and which pieces are most read.  The ones most read are not necessarily my favorites.  

There is a negative side of all this freedom.  I can do easily get lost for hours.  The Internet is full of shiny and distracting things that can lead to hours of not doing what I originally intended.  Case in point, consider November 16 and 17th of this month:

• On November 16th, I learned that Karl Slover passed away in Georgia at the age of 93.  Karl who?  Karl Slover was one of the last surviving Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.  Karl Slover played the lead trumpeter in that classic film.  Karl Slover NYTimes
• The distracting bit for November 17th was just as obscure.  Yahoo News informed me that the composer of A Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini, Lee Pockriss, also died.  Besides the bikini song he also composed the music for Johnny Angel and Catch a Falling Star.

I am not even sure what I had set out to do when I ran across these stories and veered well off my intended path.  Apparently some degree of focus is still needed.  Yeah, I just searched on “maintaining focus” and then clicked on the sub-choice of “maintaining focus to achieve goals.”  There is a lot of sites in this topic many of which point out in their abstract that maintaining focus is important in helping one achieve ones goals.  Yes, the Internet certainly can hammer home the obvious.  It does, however, seem like the kind of topic I may want to blog about at some later date.  

Technology is not standing still.  Voice recognition will one day rule the way we input into our various electronic devices.  Of course, that is only until we develop an interface for brain waves.  Right now, voice recognition  it is mostly on cell phones.  It can be very useful when driving to either text someone or have the phone retrieve a phone number from the web or one’s directory and then make the call.  It is useful for activating the GPS on one’s phone to provide guidance to a destination.  It is quite useful and much easier to use then in the recent past.

Almost every phone I have had has been equipped with voice activated calling.  In the early days, it was simply a matter of luck when it worked.  I would activate the system and speak the name into the phone, such as Jim Davis.  It was a surprise if it dialed Jim Davis instead of Jim Clayborn or perhaps Jerry Danville.  I used to get quite frustrated with it.  I would try to speak more clearly on the next few iterations.  When that didn’t work, I would speak more forcefully a few times as if that would have any impact on the software.  Often, I would give up and just look up the number using the keypad.  One time in the car with my daughter, Armene’, I was trying to call home to inform Judy of our whereabouts.  I said, “home.”  Nothing.  I said, “home” again yielding the same results.  After a few more times, I began to speak more clearly and also more forcefully resulting in the following chide from my daughter that she still brings up frequently, “Dad, if saying ‘home’ didn’t work, what makes you think constantly repeating ‘homa’ is going to help.”  She was absolutely correct.

Someone told me that my first edition Droid phone had voice recognition.  I thought I would give it a try.  So, with out glasses, I dictated a short text message to Armene’ and hit send.  She wrote back saying, “what are you trying to say.”  I was trying to say, “hey look, I am using voice recognition to text you.”  That was not anywhere near what the voice recognition system interpreted and filled into the text box.  Only the word ‘look’ was correct.

I let voice recognition go for a while.  A few months ago, I tried it again on a whim.  It is working much better.  I am convinced they have made a software upgrade unbeknownst to me.  I use it all the time now and am quite happy with it.  It is only a matter of time before we will be giving voice commands to our home appliances, entertainment systems, cars, and even computers.  It is inevitable and possibly the last minor information before the systems that help us self-realize and maybe self-actualize.  Well... the latter may still be on each of us individually.

I appreciate what technology has done for me.  I look forward to future innovations to enhance my ability to more easily research and communicate.

Leaves not Falling

Tree by my house 11-13-11

I do think about global warming now and then.  I write about it less frequently than I think about it.  Thoughts of global warming are usually triggered by crazy extremes.  It might be an exceptional cold spell in the summer or the extreme flooding that has suspend both business and daily activities in Thailand.  Another example could be the October blizzards in New York and New England that shut down everything and left millions without power for over a week.

Sometimes I think about global warming because of trend that I think that I see.  This year the leaves seemed reluctant to fall.  It is November 10 and I am sitting in a Starbucks at dawn awaiting a meeting with a prospective client.  As I look out the window, it seems like half of the trees still have leaves on them.  This seems is late.   The trees with leaves still on them are the maples and oaks:  the hardwoods.  These are usually the last trees to drop their leaves.  The softer woods, the aspens and ashes, are the first.

My recollection is that by the first of November, be it Detroit, Connecticut, or now Chicago, the leaves were usually gone.  The weather also takes decided turn toward the colder.  As far as the weather, that actually happened a week ago.  There is definitely a mid-fall chill going.  The heavier coats are out.  But, there are still too many leaves still on the trees.

I am a Professor of Statistics so I know that there is good chance this year is just part of the ebb and flow, the natural year to year variation, of how fall transforms summer into winter.  This could be at the long end of that variation.  It might be a sign that the globe is warming.  I would have had to have kept better records to actually have drawn an actual statistical conclusion.  I would have to see a trend that is established over a period of years.  That, of course, would have taken initiative, planning, and dedication.  I am more of a casual observer than even an amateur climate scientist.

I think back to the shamans, medicine men, and wise elders of native peoples.  It was a time before all of the modern diversions.  There were no TV or internet.  There was not even electricity.  Smart people noticed the natural world and the yearly cycles.  They had a practical knowledge that was passed on orally.  They may have not had official months or written calendars, but they could measure the number of moons from when the leaves budded and sprouted until they turned color and began to drop.  They would know by lore and necessity when the weather is expected to change.

Late or not, global or warming or not, I am not sure.  Will it still a cold, snowy, and long winter?  Or are we a few years away from the leaves never falling?  I cannot answer any of those questions.  All I can say is that I think the leaves are taking noticeably longer to fall this year.

Hey, it is just something I think I noticed.

Car Wars

I was watching college football on Saturday, October 29th.  I watched my favorite team, Michigan, beat Purdue 36-14.  I also watched Nebraska methodically beat Michigan State and Illinois snatch defeat from the jaws of victory versus Penn State.  As night set in, I switched between two epic battles:  Ohio St vs. Wisconsin and USC vs Stanford. But, this bloggy bit is not about football.  It is, of course, about automobiles.  It is specifically about Honda and Toyota.

As good as a channel surfer that I am, I do end up watching a few commercials.  Perhaps it is just for nostalgic feelings for the days when one had to get up and walk across the room to change the channel.  Amongst the commercials I watched were two for Honda and Toyota.  Seeing car company commercials during a football game is nothing special.  These ads, however, stood out.  Both companies were offering 0% financing on their cars and SUVs.   This made me raise both eyebrows and wonder why.

I recall when my daughter Armene’ was buying her first car, we had looked at a variety of makes including Honda and Toyota.  Back then in late 2008 and early 2009, in the pit of the recession, Toyota and Honda were not really dealing.  Their dealerships were alive with shoppers whereas we were usually the only potential customers in any other dealership we visited.  It was very apparent.  As a result, Honda and Toyota simply were not dealing.  The salesmen at both Honda and Toyota basically said the same thing, “if you do not buy this car, someone else will soon.”  Well OK then, we went to Jeep, the SUV my daughter wanted anyway, and got a tremendous deal.

Toyota and Honda rarely given 0% financing.  I wondered what was up.  I simply assumed the entire automotive market had to be soft if Toyota and Honda was doing this.   With the power of the Internet at my fingertips, I can easily answer such questions.  So, I investigated.  A quick Google and a click took me to http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html which is the Wall Street Journal’s Market Center - What’s Moving:  US Auto Sales.  

The site was graphs and tables.  I first saw that all segments were selling more than 2010 with the exception of large cars which is tracking 9.8% below last year.  Mid-Sized SUVs were a whopping 48.7% at the max end with Large SUVs up only 1.9% on the minimum end.  I was more perplexed why Honda and Toyota were offering 0% financing.

I scrolled more and found the section that told the story:  The Top 20 selling in the US were in this chart.  Everything was showing positive growth year over year except for five vehicles

1. Toyota Camry        -  8.5%
2. Honda Accord        -15.7%
3. Toyota Corolla        -10.7%
4. Honda Civic        -15.6%
5. Nissan Versa        - 6.7%

Wow.  The top selling vehicles from these storied auto makers were down compared to last year.  

I am guessing this has to do with the all the turmoil in Japan due to the earthquakes and tsunamis.  Was supply constrained?  Or were consumers simply leery of buying cars they might be able to service so easy?  Given that both Toyota and Nissan are providing incentives, I have to conclude that if supply was a constraint, it is not now.

Seven Billion

The world population surpassed 7 billion on Halloween.  It is an incredible milestone.  People around the world are celebrating this historic threshold.  Both India and the Philippines had picked a child born that day and dubbed that baby the ceremonial 7 billionth person.  It is impossible to find precisely the birth that took us over the 7 billion threshold.  I have a friend, Bill Connelly, who told me his fourth grandchild was just born.  I told him that his granddaughter could easily be the 7 billionth person.  He and his family should simply declare that as they did in those two Asian countries.

It is an achievement for sure but it worries me more than it pleases me.  I worry about the world population growing so fast that we outstrip our food and natural resource supplies.  Growing beyond the food supply will be simply catastrophic.  I remember from biology class in high school what happens when a bacterial culture grows.  The growth is exponential while the food supply is ample.  As soon as the population is larger than the food supply, the drop in population is abrupt and significant.  There is a school of thought that basically believes the Earth is a petri dish and we are a bacteria growing in this dish at an exponential rate.  It is a scary school to be an alumnus of..

Here are some basic facts of human population growth:

• Human population reached 1 billion in approximately 1804.  That is not all that long ago.
• It took 123 years to reach 2 billion in 1927.
• We achieved 3 billion just 33 years later in 1960
• I remember I was in college in 1974 when the global population reached 4 billion.  The Chinese were 1 billion at the time - a quarter of the world’s population.  It was only 14 years to add this next billion.
• In another 13 years we hit the 5 billion mark in 1987.
• 12 years later, in 1999, the human population on Earth hit 6 billion.
• Another 12 years later, bringing us to today, we crested 7 billion.
• In 207 years, humans have grown 7 fold.   

There are any number of world population counters available on the internet.  The only one I looked at is http://www.7billionactions.org/.  Their population counter as on 9:53:45 CST October 31st was 7,000,153,407... 408... 409...  Yes, apparently we have blown past the 7 billion by, oh my just a few minutes later, by 155,650!  It is an amazing counter to watch.  We have added the equivalent of Eugene, Oregon in less than 24 hours.  It is a little scary to think that we are adding the equivalent of Eugene, Oregon each and every day.  The numbers boggle my mind.  I had heard on NPR in the morning that 51 babies born just in India every minute.

It may be easy to dismiss the Occupy Wall Street movement as a “bunch of kooks.”  But, there is something at the core of their movement that should ring true today.  We cannot keep growing and consuming without end.  The impact that has on the environment and our ability to sustain life in any modicum of quality is severely strained.  We have to bring some rationality to the way we live, work, and operate in this world.  It begins with the way capitalism, the profit motive, and the distribution of wealth works and extends to all areas of governance and planning.

I freaked out when we hit 4 billion in the early 1970s.   There were predictions of gloom and doom.  It was in my sophomore year of college when we read a book, Limits to Growth, in a Social Philosophy course.  I was young, impressionable, concerned, and really took the book to heart.  The book was an everyman synopsis of an MIT study conducted on population growth and the consuming of natural resources.  The population growth and the consumption of resources from water and food to metals and fuels all were growing exponentially.  The study and book predicted a grim future unless mankind began to act differently.  In our Social Philosophy course, we took that “acting differently” to mean acting more proactively for the welfare of the entire earth to ensure a sustainable place for generations upon generations of humans to live harmoniously with each other, with the natural world, and capping our population at that 4 billion number.   We surmised that capitalism and communism needed to find some common middle ground.  

We also realized despite our sophomoric naivete and sincere intentions... the vision we had laid out was far fetched and had little chance of coming to fruition.  I became resolved that we would be the generation that would see a catastrophic decline in population due to us outstripping our food supply which would probably result in the US and USSR unleashing the nuclear arsenals.  The world would emerge as depicted in the lyrics of the rock ballad “Wooden Ships” written by Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Paul Kantner and recorded by two of my favorite bands Crosby, Stills, and Nash and The Jefferson Airplane.

Something funny happened on the way to the scorched and barren earth.  Beyond the rise and fall of disco and the go-go 1980s and 1990s, the world population grew to 5 billion, 6 billion, and now 7 billion.  We are still here and thriving.

Literacy rates continue to climb.  38% of the world was illiterate in 1970.  Today, 15% or so are illiterate.  Some 5 billion of have cell phones.  While there some issues with food, there is not any kinds of shortages that keep us having hit the 5, 6, and now 7 billion thresholds.  There are more cars than ever and apparently enough oil being pumped, refined, distributed, and sold to keep things going.

We read about global warming, the sooner than we think end of oil, and, of course, the food and water catastrophe looming.  We hear about the demise of whales, big cats, and whatever is in the Amazon.  We hear about super bugs that will make the plagues from the middle ages look like a common cold.  We have seen the ebola virus, mad cow, and even AIDS come and go.  We hear about medicine resistant TB, staph bacteria, and who knows what else.  

We hear to predictions of what appear to be very smart scientists and concerned global citizens.  In 2004, a thirty year anniversary update of Limits to Growth was published.  The model was refined but the message was the same forecast of gloom with a glimmer of hope if we act soon.   We hear the naysayer politicos and talk show hosts naysaying what the aforementioned are saying.  Remember “drill baby drill?” I remember reading that there is enough shale oil in the US to sustain the world for centuries.  Who is right?  Is the die cast and the humans are dead men walking?  Or will capitalism, free trade, and human innovation figure out some way to thrive  at human populations of 10, 50, and even 100 billion?  Will God teach us a lesson or provide us an answer?

Does it matter if I am approaching 60 and I now kind of believe that none of these doomy and gloomy things will happen in my lifetime?  I could easily join the vast majority of the 7 billion earthlings who do not give any of this much thought.  They are more concerned with what they have to do today and tomorrow than worry about g obal issues.  They know they cannot do anything about the global issues.  I suppose they believe that our leaders will somehow guide us through this.

Humans can comprehend broad sweeping issues.  But, as a species, we act in the short term and somehow believe that will yield optimal results.  That however is simply not the case.  Short term optimization does not necessarily lead to optimization especially if long term strategies are the only thing that will work.  Systems analysts (not the IT type) and operations research professionals understand this very clearly.

I still am inclined to believe our population cannot keep growing at this rate.  There are limits to the resources of our planet.  The only question is when that will happen.  But, the when it will happen assumes nothing will change.  It assumes there will not be some miraculous scientific breakthrough that allows us to transform the mountain of refuge with which we have polluted the Earth into a material plasma that can then be easily transformed into fuels, food, metals, plastics, and fibers to satisfy our every need.  It is possible, I have seen it in the movies.  

Steve Jobs: 1955 - 2011

Steve Jobs passed away on October 5,2011

He was only 56 years old. 

The impact he had on the world was substantial.

He was the heart, soul, creative cheerleader, guru, CEO, showman, innovator, and genius that ran Apple.  He and his company, for they are in a sense inseparable, brought the world the personal computer, the iPod, the iPhone, and lately the iPad (on which for obvious reasons this letter was composed).  Each of these products either created a new business space or revolutionized the ones they competed in.

The personal computer, and all the enhancements that have followed since, were offshoots of the first Apple that Jobs and Wozniak built in Job's parents' garage.  It created a new marketplace.  It was revolutionary.  People were able to much more on their own from word processing to various analyses.  One of the first software programs, Visicalc, allowed for so much more to be done in accounting and business planning than people imagined.  When the internet and email were added to the mix, people were unshackled from their desks, secretaries became obsolete, and productivity began to soar.  All the while, Jobs and Apple continued to refine and re-define their product.  Apple became the company and their PC line innovated into the brand name Macintosh then simply Mac to the current iMac series.  Their machines and operating systems distinguished themselves by being more reliable, not susceptible to viruses, and most importantly providing a superior more intuitive and easier to use user interface than their competition.

PCs and windows took over the business world.  Macs were relegated to the art departments, education, and other specialty aficionados.  The people that wanted them, liked them, and needed them were happy to pay the premium that these PCs commanded.  They commanded premium prices from the beginning and that has lasted to today.  One can pay twice as much for a comparably equipment iMac than the cheapest Windows based PCs.  It seems that people in increasing numbers are doing just that.

Steve Jobs was genius and an innovator.  He could see ahead of everyone else.  He was not an inventor in the style of Edison (who may have indeed been the last solo inventor).  Jobs did not invent anything himself but guided new product conceptualization, new product development, and marketing.  His genius was seeing what technological innovations were making possible.  He saw this before anyone else.  He not only saw it but had created an organization that could bring the concept to market faster than anyone. 

Apple was more innovative in the early years of personal computing than most of us probably give them credit for.  They had the first networking capability for PCs.  They had the first real laptop computer.  They were the first to use much of the technology developed at Xerox's Research Park in Palo Alto including the mouse.  Apple did not just borrow or steal this technology.  They, under Jobs guidance, acquired the rights to and innovated beyond the bulky high cost yet groundbreaking Xerox prototypes and brought them to the mass market. 

The created an operating system that really truly made the PC the useful tool we all rely upon today.  They made the operating system work intuitively using icons, windows, point, click, and drag to really free people to create written work, spreadsheets, and artistic displays.  Their work was the underlying example for the highly successful Microsoft Windows and Office software that is so ubiquitous today.

But, this was only half of his genius.  He had another, perhaps even rarer, gift.  He could create simple, elegant, intuitive, and superior user machine interfaces.  Once one had one of his products in ones possession, this superiority in ease of use and navigation became crystal clear.  No one else could do this, not even close.  He had a gift for seeing how emerging technologies could be used to make innovative ground breaking game changing products that changed entire industries and marketplaces.  He had a gift for marshaling the resources and people of Apple to make this all happen.  There is no question that Jobs was the mastermind and leader of all of this. 

This was all there in the PCs but that was only the beginning.  The new century became the Apple century, at least thus far.

On October 23, 2001, they released the iPod.   This product revolutionized the music business immediately and across the board.  This miraculous device the size of a deck of playing cards allowed one to access all of their music all of the time anywhere they were.  They stole the portable music business from Sony that had invented  the transistor radio, the Walkman cassette player, and their whole line of CD based products.  Sony never recovered from this and was never able to launch anything in their proprietary format that could remotely compete with the iPad. 

There is definitely a case that Napster, the creation of Sean Parker, is more responsible for the demise of the record stores and changing the industry.  Parker and Napster might have been the catalyst but he did not create anything sustainable.  It was Jobs and Apple that created an integrated channel that replaced stores, distribution, and physical products i.e. CDs with the iTunes and iPads.  Plus, what Jobs and Apple did was legal and has been generating revenue since its inception.

Jobs took over from Sony's Akio Morita as the innovator in portable music devices practically without a fight.  Without Morita, Sony was not the same when the innovative dynamo was no longer running things.  This makes one wonder how Apple will fare without Jobs. 

On January 29, 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the IPhone at MacWorld 2007.  At the time the cell phone was dominated by Nokia and Blackberry with the occasional success from Motorola and the up and coming Samsung.  Jobs and Apple took it to a new level.  It was the phone everyone has had to have since its launch.   It is the product which all other phones are measured against. 

One would think that having innovated, invented, or coordinated the innovation and invention of the personal computer, the most intuitive operating system for personal computers, the iPad, and iPhone would be more than enough.  Anyone of these products would have made for an amazing achievement and spectacular lifetime achievement.  This was not enough for Steve Jobs and Apple.  He may have saved his best for last.  On January 26, 2010, the man introduced the iPad.  The iPad (again the device upon which I am writing this tribute letter) is something new and and also something in-between.  It is neither a smart phone nor is it a PC.  Yet, it does some of what each of these devices do and it does more.  It is something new and in-between. 

The iPad runs on apps just like the iPhone.  The bigger screen makes it a superior device for watching video, reading books, playing games, and other diversions.  The smaller size, instant on, and quick response makes it more convenient and easier to use than a laptop.  It is a revolutionary and evolutionary product that is taking the world by storm.  It is amazing to see how people that owns them use them is such unique ways to serve their own interests and passions. 

Why might the iPad be the best product Jobs ever shepherded into the market?  The competition, simply, does not come close.  While many looked at it as something evolutionary and inevitable, Apple surprised everyone and caught the competition a little flat footed and unprepared. 

There was lots of press when the iPad was launched about how they market was about to be flooded with pad devices.  Samsung, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell soon came out with their own products.  They were all lackluster, despite the advertising campaigns, by comparison.  Hewlett-Packard's product had such unimpressive results that they decided to pull it off of the market after just a few months.  They reneged on the decision when their small but avid user base complained and decided simply to lower price.  The only strategy that these competitors can possibly use is to drop their prices.  The press is now rife with predictions of the next wave of newer cheaper pad devices with Amazon leading the way.  We shall see.

When he introduced the iPad, he reported that in three short years since the introduction of the iPhone, Apple had become, in terms of revenue, the largest mobile device company in the world.  It had become bigger than Sony, Samsung, and Nokia. 

His genius was not just in the hardware.  He has created an integrated the hardware, software, and how software is bought and managed.  Apple under his tutelage created a integrated business supply system.  There are Apple Stores for browsing, touching, trying, drooling, and buying devices and machines.  Software, music, books, and other media flow from iTunes to the various Apple devices.

People that never owned an Apple product, save for perhaps the iPod, bought iPads and love them.  They love them so much, they are moving to iPhones and MacPros when it is time for them to upgrade their other devices.  iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro are the must have trio of business devices. 

The world is expecting Apple to take this integration to the next level.  The only thing missing from the suite of devices:  interconnectivity and Apple launched their iCloud based file sharing this month.  This allows the sharing of files between all of one’s Apple and Windows devices.  This would include photos, music, books/magazines, and office suite files.  It might also include apps.   iCloud would allow one the ability to read one's books or listen to one's music on any of one's Apple devices.

Beyond the market share numbers and everything written above, there is a very visual way to see and understand the popularity of Apple and Apple products.  Go to an Apple Store.  Sit outside the store and take note of the traffic going into and out of the store.  Notice how many people are leaving with purchases.  If the store is in a mall, take note of the traffic going into and out the stores around the Apple Store.  The traffic and comparisons will have as big an impact on how well Apple is doing as anything you might read in the business press.  It would be interesting if we could see the traffic in and out of the iTunes store.

He was impressive in life.  But, immediately upon his passing, it was as if the world as a whole truly realized how incredible this man was and how big a loss this has become for all of us.

·         Top Ten Quotes of Steve Jobs

http://www.shockya.com/news/2011/10/08/top-10-steve-jobs-quotes/

·         Steve Jobs -  June 2005 Commencement Address Stanford University

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

This Stanford University website contains both the text of Jobs famous speech and an embedded Youtube video.  It is well worth the 15 minutes it takes to listen to this speech.  Another website that I found, http://t.co/fOUH63PL, has summarized Steve’s seven rules of success:

1.    Do what you love

2.    Put a dent in the universe

3.    Make connections

4.    Say no to 1,000 things

5.    Create insanely different experiences

6.    Master the message

7.    Sell dreams, not products

Not everyone, however, is enamored with the man or his memory.  Someone in a discussion group I belonged to posted the following:  “I predict that when the glitter settles, he will be largely remembered as a clever, obsessed guy, who made an enormous amount of money paying workers very little while getting top dollar from middle class consumers for prettier, slightly more reliable toys.”  Another person in the same group provided a link to the darker side of Steve Jobs with “There is blood in those gadgets” and referred us to a blog posting:  http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs

I started to respond to those postings in that discussion but it was running out of steam, so I thought I would respond to it here. 

This whole debate in that discussion group took place with people around the world via... semaphore? smoke signals?  Ah yes, we are using the www, the internet, using devices from a variety of manufacturers including servers, wires, chips of all kinds, bloody devices that have sped up the mining and dissemination of data, information, thoughts, and wisdom to practically the speed of light.  We love the convenience.  We are mostly blind to slimy underbelly of it all:

·         Pollution:  there is a huge issue in this silicon chipped device world we love.  Obsolete batteries and devices in landfills are a pollution bomb of toxic materials and heavy metals we bequeath to future generations.  The amount of electricity server farms suck up and the heat they generate is an issue that has been expounded upon in the press.  We should worry about this every time we put finger to keyboard, cell phone, or tablet screen:  toys many of us use all the time.

·         Conditions in factories:  All companies chase cheap labor around the world.  The more fast paced and competitive the industry; the more this is true.  We should think about this when we buy any new device made in any third world country.  Even if the factory is well run respecting people.  The workers are often displaced.  Yet, they somehow take the jobs.  Why?  Simply it betters their lives even if it is the result of factories closing in the west.

Why just beat up on Steve Jobs?  We all drive cars, wear clothes, eat meat, and enjoy electricity.

·         Do we think of the pollution that cars spew out?  The natural resources they consume?  No we enjoy the convenience and freedom of conveyance.

·         Do we think of the conditions in clothing factories when we buy a shirt made, undoubtedly in a sweatshop in some third world place?  No... we need clothes and appreciate the low prices.  

·         Do we think of the conditions for animals and workers that produce meat in feed lots?  Factories that hatch 250,000+ chickens a day and slaughter the same number 20 some days later?  No, we appreciate the "everyday low prices" and seeming abundance of it all.

·         Do we think about the amount of electricity we use to run every gizmo we own and light our house?  Where does the coal come from that is used to fuel the power points?  Who works in those coal mines anyway?  No... we take electric light and the ability to make ourselves sleep deprived as some kind of basic human right.

We want all the conveniences of a modern life.  Collectively, we want to have them at the lowest cost possible.  Companies that provide these goods and services want to make as much money as they can in providing these goods and services to us.  Very few companies and leaders can constantly innovate and hit more than their share of home runs.  Akio Morita and Steve Jobs are from the same cut of cloth in my opinion.  They are very rare and special business leaders.

Are we collectively willing to do with less and pay more for what we do get simply in order to make the world a little better for everyone?  Versus making it a whole lot better for just me?  Or just you?  The answer from the majority is a very loud NO WAY.

Lastly, I imagine Steve Jobs was driven, ambitious, and very hard on people at times.  I imagine as that he could be one offensive SOB.  Good coaches and motivators from the ranks of business, warfare, and government are often that way.  They have to be in order to get their troops to be aligned with and act on their vision.  To do great things, organizations have to be yanked in the direction the visionary leader sees as the direction to go.  The organizational inertia wants to do what is known and comfortable.  It will never stumble in the direction the visionary wants it to go in the same way consumers will never tell companies what the next innovative breakthrough product should be.

Addendum:  I wanted to keep this part separate from the above tribute to Steve Jobs.  Again, upon his passing emails were sent in Armenian circles with the subject:  Steve Jobs spoke fluent Armenian.

My first reaction while waiting for the email to open was "Huh??"  If that were true, why hadn't I heard about it.  This is definitely something the Armenian community would want to tout and be proud of:  Steve Jobs is Armenian.  Who woulda thunk.

I had made an extrapolation on the subject that Steve Jobs spoke Armenian.  He is not Armenian per se.  He was adopted by John and Clara Jobs who raised him.  His  adoptive mother is Armenian.  Her maiden name is Hagopian.  http://www.tert.am/en/news/2011/10/06/jobsarmenian/

Even the Turkish Newspaper, Today's Zaman, carried a similar story with the headline, "Steve Jobs adoptive Armenian mother has Anatolian roots.  Clara Hagopian Jobs family were from Malatya and immigrated to United States following the "1915 incidents.”

His birth father was a Syrian Muslim.  I am sure that both Arabs and Muslims are noting this positively for the same reasons both Armenians and Turks are doing so:  some part of his genius must be due to his (...fill in the blank...) background.

Muammar Khaddafi

Yesterday, Muamar Khaddafi was killed in his hometown of Sirte.  He was wounded in the final battle of the liberation of Libya.  He was found hiding in a drainage pipe by the vanquishing combatants.  Their hatred for him was so intense that instead of getting him medical attention, they opted to humiliate the dying dictator dragging him through the streets from the back of a pick-up truck. 

That was the story yesterday.  Today, there are conflicting reports.  He is still dead.  It is just the circumstances.  He may have been in better health upon capture than first reported.  Now there are reports that someone shot him in the gut when he was captured and that is the wound that killed him.

Khaddafi was as the LA Tiimes obituary called him in their opening lines.  "In the modern pantheon of the world's dictators, Moammar Khaddafi stood apart. Far apart."  He was ambitious, ruthless, flamboyant, tough, congenial, calculating, self-serving, charming, and what the LA Times also called "cartoonish."

From afar dictators like Khaddafi, Hussein, Chavez, and Castro can look comical.  They rant.  They rave.  They wear ridiculous uniforms.  Some of these characters routinely orate to captive audiences for 4 or more hours.  They write little black, red, yellow, or green books of their vision and "insights" that they make everyone in the country read.  From afar they look comical and perhaps even harmless.  In their countries, however, it is quite the opposite.  People are deathly afraid of their ego driven cruelty designed to create loyal cowering subjects.  You can be in one minute and being tortured the next.  You can be arrested for no apparent reason and perhaps never seen again.  Sometimes, the world gets a taste of their mania firsthand like when Khaddafi had that nightclub in Berlin bombed or when he brought down Pan Am 103 blown out of the sky.

Khaddafi was more flamboyant than any of them.  Google his name and click on images.  His costumes over the years are really something to see.  The one pictured here is for some reason my favorite though they are all colorful and comical.  He may have been a cartoon character to the world, but to his people, he was as tough, cruel, and ruthless as any of the dictators.  He clamped down viciously fighting to his own death when the Arab Spring came to Libya.  The world was horrified at his reaction and level of violence he brought to his own people.  He was not about to lose power.  He was not about to be told by anyone how he should govern or that he needed to make reforms.

Yet, like many others he could be charming.  He decided to change and be more of international player especially after the US bombed his country.  Khaddafi did convince, until this Libyan Spring, that he was a better global citizen.  Once his true colors re-emerged in the past several months, it seems like the entire world turned against him.  It seemed like it was what the European NATO countries needed to take the action they had long wanted to take against him.  Everyone seemed happy to see him killed today.  It is reminiscent of the killing of Bin Laden earlier this year. 

He challenged the US a few times over the 40 years he ruled Libya.  In the 1980s we challenged him twice.  After he bombed the nightclub in Berlin killing and wounding US soldiers, President Reagan authorized an air strike on Libya, targeting Khaddafi’s living quarters.  People were killed in this raid including an adopted daughter of Khaddafi.  A US government spokesperson was asked if the goal was to kill Khaddafi.  I will never forget the answer, “If you bomb someone’s home at 2 in the morning… presumably.”

In the same decade, the United Nations agreed that a country’s territorial extendted to twelve miles from the shoreline.  Khaddafi decided to defy this and extend Libya’s to something more.  This led to a US – Libya confrontation.  The US began flying sorties from Mediterranean based aircraft carriers into the airspace between the UN and Libyan territorial water borders.  We did it to challenge and taunt the Libyans i.e. Khaddafi.  Two Libyan fighter jets, of Soviet vintage if memory serves me correct, fired on two US fighters.  The US jets were beyond the range of the Libyan missiles.  The missiles fell into the sea.  The funny part to me at the time was that the Libyan jets were within the range of the missiles the US jets were carrying.  The US pilots were given the OK to engage.  They did.  Splash.  Splash.  Both Libyan fighters were destroyed.

The video that I saw yesterday morning was on the New York Post website was taken with someone’s cell phone and was jumpy and erratic.  It should a bloody Khaddafi being manhandled by his captors.  He passively waved his hands which was all the resistance he could muster in his weakened state.  All the while someone was shouting “Allah Akbar.”  He was held by the shoulders at the edge of a pick-up truck.  His feet were the only things to be dragging in the street.  They were jostling him around and pulling on his hair.  They did this instead of getting him medical help.  They denied him any kind of show a trial might have afforded.

This morning there were photos of a dead Khaddafi lying in the street.  It did not look like the same person as in the video yesterday.  So who knows?

Glad he is out of power.  Best of luck to the Libyans.  May they create a new government that allows the people to live freely and prosper.