Business Cards

cleverbusinesscards.com

     There was another article in the Wall Street Journal this past week that caught my eye. This one, about business cards, was nowhere near as serious as the one by Mr. Morgenthau. The article is titled: Business Cards Aren’t Dead, They’re Just Getting Weirder.
     There are online companies like moo.com and cleverbusinesscards.com that specialize in creating cards that are different and standout. A business card is a handout and a reminder. Everyone has them and are happy to pass them out to prospective clients, people that we want to stay in touch with, or for general networking purposes. It is not uncommon to return from a conference, seminar, convention, trade show, or networking event with a stack of business cards. If you don’t do something with them almost immediately, these piles of business cards become desk or briefcase clutter. The next step is to toss them.
     What is an immediate action for business cards? Sales folks know what to do with them as the cards represent new contacts and leads that are essential to business development. They used to file them in a Rolodex to keep on their desk and so they could access whoever they wanted whenever they wanted to. The quality, depth, and breadth of one’s Rolodex was a sign of influence, importance, and connectivity in the 1960s and 70s.
     Now, of course, Rolodexes have been replaced with electronic contacts. They have been replaced by smart phones, LinkedIn and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. There is really no need to keep a business card after a LinkedIn connection has been made and the address, phone, and email has been entered into one’s contacts or CRM. It is even possible with phones to exchange contact information electronically.
    So, are business cards still important? Why carry them around and why pass them out?

     The answer?  They are still very convenient. Not everyone is phone and tech savvy. It takes no time and very little effort to take someones business card and put it in your shirt or jacket pocket to follow through with it the next time you are at your desk or on your computer. This is all well and good, assuming the card is not lost or you simply forget to do it; both of which, I have been guilty of.
     With the flexibility of programmable controllers business cards no longer have to adhere to a standard size. In fact they come in varieties of colors, shapes, and thicknesses that until just a few years ago were not possible. People have taken to making them unique in hopes that it will differentiate them from all the other business cards a perspective customer or client may have collected at a networking event or conference.
     This desire for differentiation is what draws folks to the moo.com and cleverbusinesscards.com. It is also what makes businesses provide coffee cups, pens, and calendars with the same information that is on their business cards. They want people to keep these handouts, trinkets and trash in promotional products industry slang, on their desk to keep their names top of mind. While I appreciate a good pen or coffee cup, I do not think I have ever thought of a product or service that I needed, looked at the pen or coffee cup, and then called or emailed that person or company. I have no idea what the statistics are for this or how one might even track such. 

4allpromos.com

     What led me to write this piece is the Lock Pick business card featured in the WSJ and on cleverbusinesscards.com. I was fascinated because I never thought of such a thing and for some reason I have always wanted lock pick tools… like I would ever use them. Clever Business Cards does indeed live up to their name with their offerings.
     A product that used to be more popular is the small desk calendar as in the photo. 4AllPromos.com, where I copied the photo, calls this the Legacy Desk calendar. I remember my parents always had one or two either from an Armenian Funeral Director or my father’s first cousin, John Baronian, who had an insurance agency in Medford MA. I cannot recall the last time anyone gave me one of these, if ever. Heck, I cannot remember the last time I actually saw one.

     Actually on cue, between editing and posting this piece today, I went to an operations/supply chain business networking cocktail party.  I met folks there from a Chicago based packaging company, PackSmart.  They were passing out mouse pads with a calendar on them.  They have been giving out these mouse pad calendars for years.  They are so popular that people call each year looking for the new one.  I will certainly replace my coffee stained old mouse pad with this one.
    A few years ago when I was trying to make a go of a consulting business, I added a dimension to my service offering: Business Writing. I would help folks write the business equivalent of term papers i.e. business plans, strategic plans, requests for proposals, responses to requests for proposals, and website copy. The reasoning was that the last thing most small business owners wanted to do was to put finger to keyboard and have to produce such a document.  I understood business and liked to write.  It was a good addition to my supply chain consulting.
     I thought to make a more creative and distinctive business card for this

more creative and distinctive service offering. I just seen the movie Hitch in which the star, Will Smith, had a square black business card with rounded corners and shinier black printing. I liked the shape and went for it. I did not go for the black on black opting instead for more legibility. My friend Rose Kostan-Schwartz (rosekostanschwartz.com) helped me with the logo and layout and the Alphagraphics in Bannockburn, IL printed them out. I got a lot of compliments when I passed them out as they were unique. Today, I still like them but they are not so unique.

Tell the Truth About the Armenian Genocide

Ambassador Henry Morgenthau

     Robert M. Morgenthau had an Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today: Will Trump Tell the Truth About the Armenian Genocide? The gist of the article is that president after president has come into office with a promise to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and to move the US embassy there. These same presidents have also promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Both promises were never fulfilled. As President Trump has recently lived up to his promise of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and has committed to move the US Embassy there, Mr. Morgenthau suggests that President Trump should recognize the Armenian Genocide as well.
      Mr. Morgenthau, 98, who was was the Manhattan District Attorney from 1975 to 2009 is a valued friend of the Armenians. His grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916. Ambassador Morgenthau was the most prominent American to speak out against the Armenian Genocide at that time and perhaps ever. In Mr. Morgenthau’s words from his article:

For me, this chronicle is not confined to history books. My paternal grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was President Wilson’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire as the horror began to unfold. He quickly understood that this was slaughter on a scale the modern world had never seen. He protested to Turkish leaders, who replied that the Armenians were not American citizens and thus none of the ambassador’s concern. Besides, they said, Ambassador Morgenthau was Jewish, and the Armenians were Christian. 

The Turks even threatened to pressure Washington to recall him. My grandfather’s reply was eloquent: “I could think of no greater honor than to be recalled because I, a Jew, have done everything in my power to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”

     In the past two days, I had a chance to make two new friends. One is a talented ceramic artist. He is a Kurd who grew up in Iran. Amongst other things we talked about how Turkey, just this week, bombed US backed Kurdish forces in Syria. We talked about how the Turks had the Kurds do some of the dirty work during the Armenian Genocide. With the Armenian Question then answered, the Turkish Government has been trying to solve the Kurdish Question. It is scary to think what might happen given Erdogan’s rhetoric and action. My other acquaintance is a student in my operations management class.

Robert M. Morgenthau

She is from Rwanda and has lived in exile with her family in South Africa, Botswana, and a few other African countries before her family settled in Chicago last year. We talked about how hard it is for the international community to step in and stop mass killings and genocides. This may be true even when there is economic interests and other national interests at stake.
     Maybe it is finally time for a US President to recognize the Armenian Genocide this year. Turkey is not the ally we once thought they were and President Trump may just express his frustrations with Turkey and Erdogan. As far as I am concerned, he could even do it in a tweet.
     As Armenians, we have hope every year as April 24th approaches. We will speak out, write letters, to the President, Senators, and Representatives encouraging them to do the right thing and acknowledge a historical truth. Every year we are disappointed. We will do the same this year and every year until the US government does the right thing. Again, as

Mr. Morgenthau wrote in the last two paragraphs of his piece:

Every April, the president issues a proclamation recognizing the atrocity that was inflicted on the Armenian people. But bowing to Turkish pressure, that proclamation has never contained the word “genocide.” That must change. 

I do not underestimate the concerns of those who say the wrath of Turkey may work against U.S. interests—as I do not dismiss those who say moving the embassy to Jerusalem may complicate peace negotiations. But a just and lasting world order cannot be built on falsehoods and equivocations. Let President Trump demonstrate that commitment once more by declaring the truth of the Armenian genocide. This would send clear message to the thugs in power around the world: Your criminal acts will not go unnoticed.

     Thank you Mr. Morganthau.

The Proofreading Conundrum

www.wikihow.com/Copyedit-and-Proofread-Written-Work

     Oh my!
     My friend Ara, yes that Ara, called to commend me on the Oud Strings and Mzrabs blog post of yesterday. As he also blogs, hyetimesmusic.com, he also asked a simple and innocent question: “do you proofread before you post.” I responded with, “I take it there were some errors in my post.” He said, “A few.” “Dang, and I proofread it twice.”
     I just went over yesterday’s post and there were a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. I was embarrassed seeing how many there were. I proofread it twice, last evening, before posting it and still the errors got through. I usually proofread all posts twice. I do not like to make errors. After all, my industrial career was rooted in quality management.
     Some of the errors were certainly my bad typing, misspellings, and poor grammar. Others were the fact that I was typing the word “ouds,” the plural of the instrument I play, which kept getting autocorrected to “ours.”
     So, what’s going on?
     There are two things. First, it is harder to proofread one’s own writing than that of someone else. I think there is an underlying belief in my mind that “It is impossible for me to have made any errors.” Thus, when I proofread my own stuff, I might just gloss right over some of the errors.
     The second factors is what I can only call biorhythms. Some days, I can type like the wind, well a gentle breeze, everything flows, and there are very few errors. On these same days, I am an astute and diligent proofreader. On other days, I type like the keyboard is under a layer of mud and I, seemingly, proofread without my reading glasses i.e. in a blurry state.
     What the heck are biorhythms? It is a concept developed by a German physician in the late 1800s that was quite popular in the 1970s here in the US.

According to the theory of biorhythms, a person's life is influenced by rhythmic biological cycles that affect his or her ability in various domains, such as mental, physical and emotional activity. These cycles begin at birth and oscillate in a steady (sine wave) fashion throughout life, and by modeling them mathematically, it is suggested that a person's level of ability in each of these domains can be predicted from day to day. The theory is built on the idea that the biofeedback chemical and hormonal secretion functions within the body could show a sinusoidal behavior over time. Wikipedia

     No one talks about biorhythms anymore. Most scientists do not believe in them. I never believed in them. I believe the theory is nonsense especially if the periodicity is a fixed sine curve set at birth. Hey, they were popular in the 1970s. It was a whacky decade. I am the only person I know that keeps referring to biorhythms these days. I even blogged on them back in 2010: Biorhythms and Mood Rings.
     On the other hand, I do believe there are ebbs and flows in focus, aptitude, and cognition. These ebbs and flows are stochastic both in terms of amplitude and frequency. 

     Let’s see if my proofreading of this post is any improvement.

Oud Strings and Mzrabs

With a Najarian Electric, OU80 Strings, and Yissi mzrab. 

     Recently, a friend and oud playing brother, Rich Berberian, texted me and a few other oud players. He wanted to know which strings we might recommend for a Najarian Electric Oud. He has been playing about as long as I have. I realized that I was not alone in testing and using different string brands and gauges. The exchange made me think to blog about oud strings and picks which I shortly gave up on.
     A few days later, another friend, Elyse Semerdjian, Professor of History at Whitman College, texted me asking a similar question. She has an Arabic style oud and felt the strings on her instrument were too thick, too heavy a gauge that is, and thus not as comfortable to play as she might want. I gave a string recommendation but also suggested she use a lighter more flexible pick. I took her inquiry as a divine sign that I should write the bloggy bit I had previously shelved, so here we go.
     Since I was sixteen I have played the oud. It is a middle eastern instrument that is oval shaped with with six strings. The five higher pitched strings are double strings while the lowest pitched string is a single. The double strings, I am assuming, are for acoustic volume, while the lone bass string, is loud enough to be a single. The oud gets it famously mesmerizing sound from that fact that the face and soundboard of the instrument, often made from spruce, is unfinished and for most ouds the strings are tied directly to the bridge as opposed to having a separate bridge. Thus, a plucked string does not ring and linger like a guitar but is muted.
     Like all stringed instruments, the strings used to be made of gut. Literally, they were made from fibers found in the linings of animal intestines.  That was like over fifty years ago. Since then, they have been replaced by nylon. In the Armenian/Turkish tradition that I grew up in, I use a EABEAD tuning from bass to most treble. The bass E and A strings were octaves to the higher pitched ones and are generally hit to reenforce and enrich which was being done on the higher octave string. The higher pitched strings are nylon with the remainder of the strings having a multifilament nylon core that tightly wrapped with a fine gauge metal wire that is usual steel, nickel, bronze, or copper plated with silver or other alloy.
     When I first started playing, it was impossible to buy oud strings. They simply didn’t exist and if they did elsewhere in the world, they were unavailable in Detroit, Michigan. Instead, we had to buy two sets of classical guitar strings. I remember Savarez and D’Addario being amongst the brands I often used. The problem with using classical guitar strings was that classical guitars were tuned EADGBE. The G string was nylon and not the best choice for the higher octave E string on the oud. It just didn’t sound as good. I would either make do with the nylon E string or have to buy single strings and special order a special gauge wound string for the E. This was both a pain and more expensive. I am not sure strings were readily available in the Middle East back in the 1940s - 1960s either. I heard stories of Udi Hrant Kenkulian, the great Armenian oud master, coming to the US buying several difference gauges of fishing line, which he cut to an arm’s length, coiled, and enveloped them into sets of oud strings he would sell to other players on his return to Istanbul.
     Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, as programmable controlled manufacturing came to the wire and cable and thus the string industry, it suddenly became easy to run strings at various gauges whether they were pure nylon or wound. The great American born Armenian players Richard Hagopian and John Bilezikjian worked with the E. and O. Mari company that made LaBella and Daniel Mari strings to produce strings to their specifications. As soon as I heard that LaBella had oud strings, the OU80 model, I bought and tried them. I was astonished, impressed, and delighted to see Richard Hagopian’s photo on the back of the package. They were the only oud strings I have used for like 30+ years. I used them on all my ouds either electric or acoustic. When I bought a Cengiz Sarikus Iraqi style oud with a floating bridge, I bought La Bella OU80A strings; the A being for Arab tuning of EADGCF.
     The oud is played using an elongated plectrum or pick that is held between the thumb and forefinger. The plectrum is called mzrab or mzrap in the Armenian/Turkish tradition and rishi or risha in the Arab world. The length of the pick runs along palm at the knuckles and emerges out the other end of the hand. Sometimes, which is my style, the mzrab emerges out between the ring finger and pinkie. The old masters in the Armenian/Turkish tradition used eagle quills as mzrabs. The end of the

Part of my current inventory of oud strings

feather was flattened out, oiled, and trimmed. The style then was to have to leave a bit of the feather at the end, the part that was sticking out of the pinkie side of their hand. It was a nice bit of flair. The shape of the mzrab, how it is held, and the round belly of the oud effects the geometry of hand, mzrab, and string. It is different than using a guitar pick where the hand is more flat against the face of the instrument. I do believe the mzrab forces the player to strike the string differently. I did experiment using a guitar pick for a while. It did not take me long to return to a more traditional mzrab.
     These days mzrabs are made of celluloid, nylon, or teflon. The modern mzrabs are much better. The Arab rishis were made of cow horn that were cut, shaped, sanded, and oiled. The best Arab oud players I know still use and prefer cow horn rishis.
     And what was a more traditional mzrab in my early playing days? Certainly not an eagle quill as they were hard to come and requiring too much processing. I used what all the other oud players were using. We would take nylon cable straps of the proper thickness which we could cut to the desired length and tip shape. We would then tapper down the tip with sandpaper. It was very effective though I believed that my hand heat reduced what the called memory and resiliance. In the 1980s, I became aware of the Jim Dunlop company that developed and sold some excellent nylon guitar picks. These are the guitar picks I experimented with and liked them. I wrote the company and asked if they could provide sheets of their nylon that I could craft into mzrabs. As I suspected, their nylon guitar picks were molded and thus not available in sheets. The did offer me strips of another material, Tortex, the might be suitable. I loved them. Tortex had great memory and resilience. The came in red which is the smallest thickness, orange which is the medium gauge, and yellow, the stiffest of the three. None of the other oud players liked the Tortex mzrabs I gave them. The orange mzrab was all I used until 2010.

Growing collection of mzrabs and rishis

     In 2010, I went to Istanbul. I was there delivering a speech and course on Supply Chain Management. Needless to say I went to Cengiz Sarikus’s shop where I bought the aforementioned oud. It was there I tried a teflon mzrab. I fell in love with them and have mostly used them ever since.
     Certainly, when it comes to playing, the quality of the oud is first and foremost. There is no substitute with a well-crafted instrument with good action which is basically dependent on the distance from string to fingerboard and a great sound. The better the maker, the better the fits of the pegs, and thus the easier to tune. But, next come the strings, mzrabs, and the interaction of the two. For me it is a dynamic system. On any given day, I may want a stiffer or softer mzrab. It has something to do with how much I have been practicing and probably biorhythms.  At the start of most gigs, I will start with a softer mzrab and switch to a stiffer one as the gig progresses. I might even do that twice. With different strings, some are lighter gauge and some are heavier, I will use different thickness mzrabs to get the feel I like.
     Recently, this whole string-mzrab thing has gotten more complicated. For years, I have been able to buy LaBella oud string online. Recently, like in the past two years, the brands and sellers of oud strings online has exploded. Not only strings but now there are mzrabs and rishis available domestically and internationally. I kind of went crazy with the plectra basically because they were so cheap. Now, even the mzrabs are branded. I have gotten Yissi mzrabs from Pyramid mzrabs from Germany. Pyramid is a German based string company and, yes, they have oud strings which I have yet to try, but I will.
     I have used a site, juststrings.com, to buy oud strings. Lately, I have switched to stringsbymail.com which has lower prices and offers 27 different oud string SKUs and the full line of Pyramid Celluloid Oud picks. At any gig, I always have a few Pyramids and Yissis in my shirt pocket.
    Gotta love the flexibility of modern manufacturing and the creation of a global marketplace thanks to e-commerce!

Oh to Hand Write!

The Handwritten Draft of this Post

     Oh to hand write indeed!  When I was a youngster, I could not wait to learn to hand write. It seemed so magical and mysterious.  How could these markings, these endless flows of penish waves be made in such a way that others, in on the code, could decipher them.  I wanted to be part of the inner circle.  I wanted to know the key.
     At Burns Elementary in Detroit, they first taught us to print.  I understood why.  As we were learning to read printed block letters, we should first learn to write the same way.  But, come on, I wanted to hand write.  I really wanted to hand write.
     If not the first day of 3rd grade, it was in the first week, we began to learn cursive writing.  We didn't call it anything so highbrow.  We simply called it handwriting.  I was excited.  The day had finally arrived.  We spent the whole first session writing i's and e's.  I was proud of my page of i's and e's truly.  I took it home to show my Mom.  But, it also felt lame.  I felt like I could have handled three, five, ten, heck, I was ready for all 26 letters.
     Actually, it came very quickly after that first day.  Almost as quickly as I learned, two negatives popped up.  First, it was faster than printing but dang if it wasn't still tedious.  I always thought because of the flowy and graceful appearance, the handwriting would be much faster.  Second, my handwriting was not uniform.  It was just not very elegant looking or beautiful.  A few of the girls seemed to be very good at it.  Their handwriting was uniform, elegant, and beautiful.  Mine was ugly and embarrassing.
      Soon after we learned to write, we were given themes, book reports, and such.  I struggled.  I struggled with the handwriting and the content.  I do believe a lack of eloquent content was the biggest factor.  It took everything I had to fill a page with the handwriting that I had so longed for.   And when I say a page, it was that greenish very wide rule beginning handwriting paper.  I used every schoolkid trick in the book.  I wrote larger and longer.  I cheated on the margins but never enough to be obvious.  Who am I kidding?  I am sure our teacher, Mrs. Blakely, knew.
     I remember Gail Palmer, Patti Haley, and especially Mary Simmons.  As I would be turning in my ugly handwriting wide margin page, I might catch a  glance at the girls' papers.  They all seemed like they had six pages of the most beautiful handwriting with no extra margins.
     I was not until I started this daily writing habit back in 2002 that I really became comfortable with my handwriting.  I am OK with it today and realize I have my own style that is elegant and uniform in its own way.  Plus, I can now  crank it out when I want to.  It may have taken a long time but I may have fulfilled that childhood dream of handwriting. 

Resolution Update

starwars.com

     In changing a habit, or in this case, recharging one, it is good to celebrate little victories.
     On New Year’s Day, I made a resolution to resume my habit of writing everyday and posted such on this blog.
     I am happy to report that I have, so far, written everyday. That daily writing has resulted in nine blog posts. That surpasses the number of posts for all of 2017 was at a all time low of just eight posts. Also, the number of page views is the second highest ever and may actually beat my all tie high month because a post about the Detroit Lion’s suddenly become not awful went viral, relatively speaking. The post on Ara Topouzian has the most page views and the one about taking our grandson to Disneyland for his third birthday is number two.
      I made other resolutions as well. But, I did not make them public nor do i plan to. They are the typical resolutions many people make. And like many people, my performance on these other resolutions have been so-so to dismal.
     I am OK with this. Many of our resolutions are about changing habits that are very well established and very hard to change. We tend to believe that stating a resolution firmly is all that is needed and, presto, the habit is changed and everyone lives happily ever after. With this mindset and approach, it is no surprise that by this point in January most everyone has abandoned their resolutions.
     We should view it as a continuous improvement process where we get a little bit better every day. This allows us to gradually, but steadily, wean ourselves of a bad habit while simultaneously replacing it with a better one. It seems to make more sense to me. Or it just may be a rationalization for not really getting going on these other resolutions.
      A resolution is something we have resolved to do. A quick search on definition of resolve yielded “decide firmly on a course of action.” Decide firmly. Then stick to it. Make it happen. Or as the Nike folks say, Just Do It.
      I have often downplayed the Nike slogan. But, maybe it is right. In a 2011 movie, Friends with Benefits, Woody Harrelson played Justin Timberlakes boss. At one point near the end, the Woody character gave the following little sermon:

Hey, everybody wants a short cut in life.My guide book is very simple:You wanna lose weight? Stop eating, fatty!You wanna make money? Work your ass off, lazy!You wanna be happy? Find someone you like and never let him go. Or her…

     Or as Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”  So I should lace-up my physical and mental Nike's and Just Do It.

The More things Change…

IMDB

     The world has certainly changed. Much of the dramatic change seems to have happened in more recent history. As they say, since 1900 the pace of change has simply been accelerating.
    Think of smart phones. They are essential to the way we live and they have only been around for ten years. Think of the internet, another indispensable time saver and a large part of what makes smart phones smart. The internet has only really been available and useful to the common man for just over twenty years. Think of how television replaced radios, and how cable and the internet have changed how and on what devices we watch TV and listen to the radio. Think of recorded music. We went from wax cylinders to 78 rpms to 45 and 33 and a third rpms. Records gave way to cassettes which were quickly replaced by CDs and then… iTunes and iPods. Now we have Spotify. Think personal computers and how they have both freed us and enslaved us. Washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, toilets, running water and more have all made our modern life convenient and requiring less physical labor that all generations before. We have the automobile and airplanes that make travel and freight inexpensive and available to all.
     While we are amazed and obsessed by the latest and greatest, e.g. smartphones, perhaps the greatest invention since the wheel was the electric light. Today, we just take lighting for granted and can barely imagine a time when people relied on candles, lanterns, whale oil, or gas lamps. The generation and distribution of electricity began in the late 1800s and it took a good thirty plus years the entire US. When people got it, it changed their lives like nothing before. I would argue that the light bulb and the distribution of electricity is the biggest game changer of the past 150 years.
     Yet, with all of this change, with all of the studies and observations that show how all of these innovations have changed us, there are somethings that somehow seem the same. Every generation thinks that the latest generation entering adulthood doesn’t have the same work ethic and feels more entitled. Parents are always telling their children to stop listen to the radio, accusing them of being glued to the television, addicted to video

oldmainartifacts

games, iPods, their smart phones, etc. 

     I have an oil painting in my North Park office. It was given to me when I worked at
Sanford Brands (now Newell Rubbermaid Office Products). It is, of course, a mass produced reproduction of a painting by Norman Rockwell commissioned by Sanford Inks for advertising like the one pictured here. My students will see the painting and often ask, ”What year is that painting? Is the lady using a laptop?” I am not sure of the year, but for sure the lady is using a stenographer’s or secretary’s box which was basically a portable desk with a writing surface when opened and storage for paper and writing utensils. I will admit that when I first glanced at the painting, I saw that same thing.
     The other day I was watching a classic old movie, Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) and Melyn Douglas (Leon). The movie was released in November 1938 and set in the time period between the two World Wars. There is some pretty witty dialogue in the film. This one really got my attention and inspired this piece.

Ninotchka: Radio. What's radio? 

Leon: Radio is a little box that you buy on the installment plan and before you tune it in, they tell you there's a new model out. wikiquote

     Dang if I don’t feel that way every time I buy a car, computer, or phone. While technology changes ever more rapidly, some things seem the same.

Government Effectiveness

     Ah the title, Government Effectivenss. It is always good to title a piece with an oxymoron. As Will Rogers said, “I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
     Well here is a fact. Over the weekend a “thing” happened in Hawaii. If it had not been all over the news, I never in a million years would have guessed what the “thing” was.
     What happened was that on January 13th a text was sent to every cell phone in the state saying there was an inbound missile threat directing everyone to seek immediate shelter. Needless to say, many people panicked. There were reports of people putting their kids in the tub and lying on top of them. Others climbed down manholes either alone or with their families for protection. This was all taken pretty seriously given the tensions with North Korea over their missile tests. It took the state Emergency Management Agency just over 30 minutes to send out a second text saying it was a false alarm.
     The Governor apologized for the error attributing to “an emergency worker hitting the wrong template during a routine drill” CNN.  CNN also provided "The texts loved ones sent during the Hawaii missile alert mishap."  These give a sense of the kind of disbelief and panic that people experienced. 

    Oh my… there is a basic adage in quality management that a human error that can be easily made will be made. To know that such things are possible, however, requires an analysis to determine the likelihood of errors happening and the impact if the do. This is called a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). The team would then have to develop fixes for the failure modes that have a high likelihood of occurring and huge effect. I am guessing sending out an alarm that Hawaii is under a missile attack when it indeed wasn’t, would have qualified for such a fix.
     It seems very odd and definitely wrong, that something like this could happen so easily. I suppose that is why they do routine drills to catch errors such as this.
     This incident in Hawaii reminds me of my biggest and maybe longest standing pet peeve: The No-Call List. To me, it has been a dismal failure. My usual rant on this subject

is that how can we solve any of the serious problems facing this country such North Korea Nukes, our decaying infrastructure, education, inequality, health care, hacking, and poverty to name a few if we cannot make the No Call List system work. All of these other problems seem bigger and more complicated. Put my tax dollars to good use and make the No Call List live up to its name and promise.
     The Washington Post had an article in their January 10 Magazine: 'How robo-callers outwitted the government and completely wrecked the Do Not Call list'. The No Call List began in 2003. Something like 50 million people signed up for it almost immediately. I was one of those. Today, there are 230 million numbers on the No Call List today. The governing authority over the No Call List , the Federal Trade Commission, gets 19,000 complaints a day! Just today, as an example, I got two unknown calls on my cell and six on my home phone.
    The Washington Post article helped me understand the history and challenges in what I have been assuming to be an easy thing to get done. It seems the No Call List was created in the era of telemarketing i.e. humans calling from call centers. Apparently, it worked for awhile. I suppose I am just not remembering that era at all. Then, two things happened that have circumvented the system: more sophisticated robocalling software and internet based calling (VOIP). VOIP allows for very low cost calling from anywhere in the world. Basically, all one needs is a good laptop, some good software which I am guessing is readily available, and one is in business. The software these days can give the appearance of the incoming call coming from one’s own area code which fools both the person being called but apparently also the Feds. There were 1 billion robocalls in 2015. In 2017, that number jumped to 2.5 billion.
     For the most part, Robocalls are illegal in this country. It seems the callers are way ahead of the FTC on this and they are close to impossible to catch and prosecute. The Washington Post article introduced a fellow, Michael Aaron Jones. The FTC called in this very well off owner of robocalling businesses to testify on his business and the industry in general. Apparently, he was very forthcoming. After his testamony, “he returned to California and resumed robo-calling. In January 2017, the FTC sued him. Five months later, a federal judge banned him from telemarketing and hit him with a $2.7 million penalty. He didn’t bother contesting the judgment.” Clearly, the fine was a cost of doing business in his very lucrative enterprise.
     MarketWatch reports similar numbers in an article, ‘2017 was the worst year yet for robocalls’:

There was five more times the number of robocalls in 2017 than there was in 2009, a report from the Federal Trade Comission said. The commission received a total of 4.5 million robocall complaints in 2017, up from 3.4 million in 2016. In addition, the FTC received 2.5 million complaints about telemarketing calls, up from 1.8 million live calls. 

Phone scams result in more than $350 million in financial losses annually, according to Consumers Union. Spam calls vary in purpose, according to a study released in July from caller ID and spam blocking service Truecaller, with 43% of them general nuisance, 29% scams, 19% financial service, and 7% debt collectors.

     Most everyone I know simply do not answer the phone if they don’t recognize the number. Obviously, enough answer to wrack up $350 million in losses per year.
     The FTC has challenged the best tech companies in the country to develop counter measures. We are talking about companies like Apple and Google.
     In my simple view of things, making the No Call List work is the first line of government effectiveness. I hope with the new tax cuts, funding for my pet peeve project don’t get slashed.

Daily Writing vs Daily Posting

Professors Gavoor and Farruggia

     My colleague and good friend Professor Gianfranco Farruggia sent me a text earlier this week commenting that he had not seen a This Side of Fifty post for a few days. “I thought your resolution was to write every day! Let’s get on it.” This is why he is a good friend. He has my back and is urging me to stick to my resolution and I appreciate greatly. He finished with, “Do you need some material?”
     Let’s start with the first question. I did make a resolution to write every day. I did not make a resolution to blog what I write everyday. My resolution was in fact to write a minimum of 500 words a day. Those that I deemed interesting enough, I will post here. The remainder will stay in my notebook or hard-drive.
     My resolution was to resume an old habit that I have let lag the past few years. From June 25, 2002, my 49th birthday, until a few years ago, I wrote a page every day. The intent was to have a really engaging, very funny, and full insight autobiographical book ready to go by my 50th birthday. I had illusions of being the toast of my generation having written a handbook on crossing the mid-century mark. I envisioned myself being a frequent guest on Oprah and Letterman.
     Well that didn’t happen. While I wrote dutifully every day, sometimes at dawn, on the train or an airplane, or just before turning in, I quickly came to the realization that my writing was less engaging, way less funny, and lacking the insight I had wanted. In fact, much of it was self-indulgent, introspective, um…, how do I put this? Ah yes, whiney. I was bored reading some of the drivel I wrote.
     I had to decide what to do with all of this writing. I started distributing a monthly e-Letter to friends and family. The first e-Letter, February 2004, which is now on this blog explains how the idea of an e-Letter came about. Throughout a month of daily writing, a topic would emerge, which I would then craft into the monthly e-Letter. Another good friend Marilyn Davidow named the letter and this blog which evolved from it: The Other Side of Fifty.
     So... my intent this year was to take up the habit of daily writing but not necessarily daily blogging.
     As for the second question: Do I need material? I would say that material is all around me. If indeed I do write everyday, there is no shortage of material. Topics pop up in the news, in conversations, in the sweet, mean, or humorous things I see people do.  Topics are everywhere if I am looking for them.  For example, Gian’s text provided the topics for today’s bit of writing. I could have all written about President Trump’s use of the word shithole. I need to write about Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). I will probably write about both over this long weekend and if they meet whatever standard it is I am using for blog-worthiness, I will post them.
     Thanks for checking up on my Gian! I appreciate it.

A Manifesto?

     I am on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. I am doing my doing my writing on the plane connected to WiFi that I glad paid an unreasonable $16 for. It is January 7th, and I have written every day this year thus far even though this my fifth post of the year. I am happy with that and committed to continue writing everyday with the cautious optimism of of someone trying to replace a bad habit with a good one.
     I have even written a haiku every day. The only one I kind of like is:

this fresh page, less blank,
full of some kind of thinking
fragrance or reeking?

     We are heading back to a less cold Chicago than we left eight short days ago. The plane will actually land in the very wee hours of Monday, January 8th. No time to rest though. I will be off to Detroit to visit my parents and participate in a business meeting or two. I

     I was set with all all this technology including my slender smaller screen Macbook on the tray table with Wonder Woman playing on the seat back screen just above it. I was pretty comfortable. Then I realized I was at the geometric limit of that comfort when the WWII veteran in the seat in front of me reclined his seat. I can only imagine how comical I now look.

     Despite this rambling preamble, I had a notion to write a manifesto of sorts tonight. I have always wanted to write a manifesto. I like the sound of a manifesto and the idea having my own. It has to be rooted The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx. It is the only manifesto I really know about.  Growing up in the dregs of the Cold War, I was compelled to read The Communist Manifesto since it was the philosophical cornerstone of our then national enemy. In reading it, I was surprised that it actually made sense to me.  Over time I realized that the USSR had usurped the utopian vision of Marx. Reading it made me want to write a Manifesto even more.

     In the resurrection of this notion to pen a manifesto, I have yet another chance to show how naïve I am and how much more I have to learn.  I, laughingly, hereby admit that I am not exactly sure what a manifesto is and, golly gee whiz, I ought to before ever attempting to write one. 

     So, I turned to the internet. I read a few defintions and liked this one from merriam-webster.com: “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.”

     Thankfully, that is, in fact, what I kind of thought a manifesto was but just never articulated. In a sense, this blog, at times, is a manifesto. Perhaps, I am in the habit of writing it but not quite ready to edit and consolidate it just yet.

     It makes me realize that I need to focus my darling writing by have a clear vision of th book or books I want to write and then preparing outlines that would guide my daily writing.  One of those books is the Manifesto I think is in me.