A FEW THOUGHTS

Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

Both for those of us who enjoy and charish the possibility of being alone – without being lonely – and for those of you who just doesn’t get it yet; Collette Bernhardt  recently wrote a post for Matadorlife on “Being With Yourself: Lessons in Lone Ranging“.

I will also recommend, by Michaela Lola the “6 Reasons to Wander Alone” at “BraveNewTraveler” describing some of the joys of being on the road alone.

I have for the last ten years worked as an independent consultant and project manager. For some years I did this as sole proprietorship. For a couple of years ago I started a private company, still just myself though. For these years I have been lucky to get a lot of good assignments and projects with large and interesting companies as well as government departments. These have in many of the cases been through other consulting companies, temp-agencies and recruitment companies. I am not sure how the situation is in other countries but I will try to explain these markets in Norway.

For ten-fifteen years ago there was a very clear difference between what was categorized as a temp agency, a consultancy firm and a recruitment company.

• A temp agency handled short term and some long term assignments with a majority of their assignments within areas of basic office work, clerical work, accounting, canteen work or cleaning. Maybe also some very basic IT resources.
• The consultancy firms handled projects and assignments within management, IT, audits, sales etc.
• A recruitment company handled recruitment to permanent positions.

I think maybe the real difference between the two first was that the consultancy firms delivered services with more of a quality assurance and control. The temp agency basically just delivered the manpower and it was more or less up to the customer to make sure the temp delivered as ordered. The agency of course did an interview with the person but no in-depth look at whether this person was the right person for the job, other than qualifications. The consulting companies delivered more as a service, often with their brand, methods and reputation as proof of quality. This kind of separation between the three different type of companies has in Norway really been washed out over the last ten years and there isn’t that much of a difference between them. They all do temp assignments, they all do recruiting, and they all try to sell it with their logo as a proof of quality.

If the latter was their only agenda I could certainly understand it and it would not be a problem. However I suspect that the issue is more or less that their business has gotten a lot tougher and more competitive and that this actually makes them explore “new territory” and lower the quality while doing it. These days they all fight over the same customers and the same consultants. The customers put out the assignment for all bidders and the agencies go through their databases to find candidates. To compete in this market of course I need to make sure I am registered in the database of every single agency even though that fact itself only drives the competition further. I have on a “good” day gotten calls from three different ”agencies” regarding the same assignment. If you then were so unfortunate that you accepted to be profiled with the first who called, the other two will definitely put you on their black list. I have even gotten phone calls from these agencies going “are you sure you don’t want to go with us on that contract instead of that other company?” How low is that? Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for capitalism and letting the market forces rule. The problem I think is that the tougher the competition, the tougher the “rules” of the game get. I wonder if this is also related to the fact that the job market for temp agencies and recruitment has so high turnover.

Earlier I could actually feel some kind of team feeling by being affiliated with an agency and to have an assignment for them. The recruiters would actually go out of their way to make you feel good during an assignment, buy you a lunch once a year and bring you a small chocolate with their logo on it for christmas. Now, I can usually afford my own lunch so that is really not the issue, but I like to think that a company that gathers $20-25 per hour I work (as their fee) should in fact be just a bit grateful that I stick with them and cherish that in a way. That way; by supplying me with assignments, a single lunch per year and a $2 chocolate they would in fact earn approx $38.000 (1900 hours x 20$) per year. Not bad really.

Now, with a tougher competition it seems like the focus has shifted from investing in that long term loyalty to just getting that next assignment, that next customer and finding a consultant for it. Again, don’t have a problem with the market forces, but if I am to earn a temp agency $38.000 per year I think that trying to gain my loyalty by building a team feeling, buying a lunch and a chocolate is the least they could do. Oh yes, I have been told for the last four or five assignments what a magnificent experience this will be, and it has lately just become a laughing matter. I just don’t buy it anymore. So that of course drives me to “sleep with every possible partner in this business” as well as promoting myself directly to potential customers. Because really, I don’t need that agency between me and a customer. I do have contract templates sufficient enough. I do not need their extra 15 days delay in payment. I don’t need them to take a $20 cut per hour. The only benefits I see with an agency is:

• They could have a network of potentially good customers
• They could provide some kind of social network I could benefit

So if I build up the first myself, and really don’t get the second anyway I don’t really see the reason to use them. So, as I know there are quite a few (at least in Norway) with me on this, here is my suggestion for the recruitment-, temp- and consultant agency: If you want to survive beyond the next 10 years you need to:

1. Make sure you operate with ethics, keeping your word, respecting your opponents, customer and consultants
2. Work for a long term relationship with both your customers and consultants
3. Give me as a contractor reason to use you. I do manage to get quite a few contacts myself in a short while you know
4. Give me as a potential customer a reason to use you in the future
5. Provide me something beyond just the assignment. You need to make me feel that THIS IS the place to be
6. Keep in mind: The more are not always the merrier. Think quality in addition to quantity

I do in fact think that some of them have to change their methods quite fast if they are to survive. This is both because dirty ways of doing business often looses in the long term, and because I think the new generation of workers, consultants and also customers are so used to handling both job offers and social communities that the demands will change. I think, and certainly hope, that good ethics and moral will be a more important issue when selecting business partners in the future.

This weekend I went to see the movie Avatar, which I had seen a lot of buzz about but not really looked into before a friend of mine mentioned that he’d seen it and thought it was amazing. Since I trust his judgment in movies I thought “OK, I’ll bite” and went to see it. First of all; don’t even think about watching Avatar in anything other than 3D in a big theatre! Those factors are at least half the experience, maybe even more. We did and I must say I was positively surprised by this movie. I don’t think the story is all that genuine and original. Some people argue it is the story of Pocahontas all over again and I can sort of agree to that. It is the story of mankind doing something stupid… again. Taking over other new worlds and cultures for the sake of money. No news there. The exciting parts of Avatar are really the computer generated graphics, the use of motion capture, the movie techniques and the 3D experience. WOW! What you maybe remembered as 3D movies from before, the ones you watched with red/green tinted glasses is really nothing compared to this. They have indeed taken the movie technique and experience to a new level.

My friend wo recommended the movie later commented that it reminded him about when the first Mission impossible movie came out sometime in the 90′ies and everybody was stunned by these incredible action scenes… After watching The Matrix and now Avatar he really couldn’t understand the hype of it. And I agree. The development in the movie industry and the technical possibilities we have seen the last 10-15 years are incredible. I especially remembers Jurassic Park which came out around 97-98, which had some amazing computer animation. But I guess it is all about having the right people and the right equipment on the team. Sometimes you can still watch TV-movies made recently with animation that looks as if from the 80′ies.

I hear that the director James Cameron have mentioned the possibility of two sequels to Avatar. Not so sure what I think about that though.. I think we have seen enough examples of movie sequels where the first was really enough. But I guess the smell of green cash is the element that rules..

Nearly as soon as the Apple iPhone 3GS arrived in Norway I bought mine. I had previously only tested the last version briefly. The UI and the feel of the phone was there at the time bot not the speed. So when the 3GS was announced I put it in my agenda to get one as soon as I could.. and I did. Almost half year later I have trouble expressing the satisfaction over this great phone/computer/tool/toy. Before this I was a hardcore Nokia fan. Not the most advanced user though, I used mostly the standard functions like Calendar, SMS, MMS, Alarm clock, POP3 mail and occasionally internet browsing ( to the extent the small screen would let me). The iPhone surely opened my eyes for what kind of functions I could have in the phone and the usability for it. You might of course say that this kind of phone and the marketing behind it only promotes to give you “needs” you don’t really have. To a certain point I can agree with that, but with the free applications available there today there is so much useful apps and mind opening gadgets that really does thrill you when using them. I don’t think I am using more time on the phone-part of it at all but using the phone instead of small yellow notes, as a wine dictionary etc sure does come in handy.

At the moment I am using apps like; VG TVGuide (norwegian), Facebook, LinkedIn, Vinforum (wine dictionary in norwegian), MotherTED (Videos and audio lectures), Wikipedia, Gowalla, Shazam, CameraBag, Best Camera, WordPress, Chess Free and the Fuze Messenger. And let’s not forget that the iPhone actually holds a decent camera and videocamera as well.

No, I must say; I will not go back to a “regular phone” after this, and as long as Apple provides me with an innovative, decent and enduring product I will be faithful to them. Though I’ll keep my PC with Windows for now…

When we look around us and see that so may problems in the world are based on, or is projected from, differences in religious beliefs as well as religious “excuses” (the christian crusades, fatwas and jihads, one can really start to wonder whether we may have a bit too much religion in the world. I can certainly acknowledge the fact that religion is the key element in many peoples lives and that religion in most ways contribute to hope and peace of mind rather than war and chaos. Though I can not shake the voice in my head going “Come on, Enough already!” when I read about six “new religions” at the Matador Network, “new” being just a figure of speech meaning that these are religions more or less unknown in “the west”.  Though it seems that only two of these are beliefs dated A.D.; the persian/iranian Baha’i from the 1800′s and Mandaeism dated back to Late Antiquity.  The other four all seem to origin from before christianity/BC.

Baha’i was proclaimed by a young Iranian, who called himself The Báb. He said that a messenger would soon arrive from God, who would be the latest in a line of prophets including Moses, Muhammad and Jesus Christ. It was founded as late as in the 1800s, and all the prophets of the world’s major world religions are all accepted as valid, including Krishna, Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad.

Mandaeism,  originally practised primarily around the lower Euphrates and Tigris, was a Gnostic Christian religion believing both Jesus, Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad to be false messiahs.  There are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide, and until the 2003 Iraq war, almost all of them lived in Iraq. Most Iraqi Mandaeans have since fled the country, and by 2007 the population of Iraqi Mandaeans had fallen to approximately 5,000.Most Iraqi Mandaeans now live in Syria and Jordan, with smaller populations in Western countries.

Jainism is an ancient religion from India that teaches that the way to liberation and bliss is to live a life of harmlessness and renunciation by living rightly after an ethical code known as “the three jewels of Jain ethics“: right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. Parshvanatha, the twenty-third Tirthankar, is the earliest Jain leader who can be reliably dated. However, Jain mythology asserts that the line of Tirthankars began with Rushabhdeva. Jains themselves tend to believe that Jainism has no single founder, and believe that Jainism is the one of the world’s oldest religions, predating Hinduism.

 Zoroastrianism was founded by the Prophet Zoroaster in ancient Iran approximately 3500 years ago and was for many years one of the most powerful religions in the world. Zoroastrians believe in one God, called Ahura Mazda (meaning ‘Wise Lord’). In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda has an adversary called Angra Mainyu (meaning ‘destructive spirit’), and it is in the Abrahamic religions accepted that the concepts of Heaven and Hell, as well as the Devil, were heavily influenced by Zoroastrian belief.

The Yorùbá religion originated from the Yoruba people, one of the largest ethnic groups in west-africa. Yoruba includes one creator and approximately 400 supernatural spirits. The god Orisa’nla (The great divinity) also known as Obatala, chosen by Olodumare, descended from heaven on a chain, carrying a small snail shell full of earth, palm kernels and a five-toed chicken. He was to empty the content of the snail shell on the water after placing some pieces of iron on it, and then to place the chicken on the earth to spread it over the primordial water. Yoruba religious beliefs are part of itan — the complex of songs, histories, stories and other cultural concepts which make up the Yorùbá religion and society.

Mami Wata is another African religion that describes a water spirit known as Mami Wata. She is pictured as being incredibly beautiful with long hair and is frequently accompanied by an incredibly large snake. The religion holds that Mami will sometimes assume human form in bars or busy markets and also will abduct people while they are swimming or boating on the water. These captives are then released in dry clothes and better health, but only after agreeing to an oath of sexual fidelity to the spirit. Mami Wata is related to the Vodoun, which later has been transformed into what is knowns as Voodoo, these days in Haiti.

As a project manager in the IT-industry I would welcome an architect and migration specialist for a huge migration project of world religions, but that’s only in my dreams of course…

Telemarketing. Phone Sales. Telephone sales. Harassment. I guess that sums it up.
What on earth do we need telemarketing for? Have we, as human rase, not come further than this yet? Do we still accept to be bothered and harassed by strangers on the phone? And I am not talking about the relief organizations calling for support. I’ll allow that, and sometimes even support a good cause. But telemarketing, as in trying to during a phone call get really friendly with me, sell me a product and theng hang up. I really thought telemarketing would be a phase we could look back on with amusement, like the fax machine and small pagers (prior to mobile phone). Do you rememeber when you had a pager? Someone called it, left their number and you had to run 4 blocks to find a payphone. I know some companies still use the fax machine, and in lack of a scanner and e-mail I can understand. But next time the fax breaks down I hope they buy a scanner. But telemarketing… The irony here, must of course be that I did in fact work with telemarketing for a year or so when I was young, like 17 or 18. But who haven’t done that. It seems like the job entry point for many young people. Maybe passed by working in the local supermarket or hardware store.

For me it has got to be quite a sport to see; 1. How fast can I spot a telemarketer? 2. How fast can I break him/her off? I think I am quite good at it. I mean, first of all, you can normally spot them just to look at the caller ID. If there is no caller ID it is usually someone selling. And at the point we can of course choose not to answer the phone at all. Then if I pick up, and there is someone presenting them exaggerated happy “Hi !!! This is Tom from the xxxxx Group” (which I have never heard of), he is probably selling something. So I would guess I usually manage to spot him in something from 1 to 4 seconds. Now, the next part is to break him off. Now that is really depending on whether I’m in a in a cheerful mood or not. I might break him off right away after “xxxxx Group” with “It sounds like you are selling me something, and I am not interested”. I also might await him finish off his introduction of the product before I give him a courteous ”no, thank you”. Whether I do that to be courteous or to waste some of his time too I don’t know.

Telemarketers who then courteously say “ok, have a nice day” I have no problem with. I’m not out to make their day miserable. But, the salesman who starts to argue and ask my “WHY” I don’t want his product, and maybe questioning whether I am doing whats best for me… may he burn in hell! Really! Also, the salesman who all the time in his sales pitch overenthusasticly using either my full name, first name or last name. My name at all, really. “Well, Mr. xxxx , do you not agree that this is a fine product?”. I mean, Who the hell are you? Maybe, just maybe, I’ll allow you to use my name if you give me all your personal information so I can screw with your life on my spare time. If he or she, on top of it all, manages to mispronounce my name I’ll cast them a spell they have never experienced before.

The best example on how to get rid of a phone salesman I think I saw on an epiosde of Seinfeld where Jerry answered the phone with ”You know, I am really busy at the moment but why dont you give me your name an home number and I’ll call you tonight. Oh’ you can’t do that. You don’t want someone bothering you on your spare time? Well, then you know what I mean.” Click!

In the digital media-internet age that we are in, is not telemarketing a bit obsolete? I am certainly at the point where I don’t want to be called up and told what I should buy or subscribe to. I like to figure that out for myself. And, somehow I always think of the Eighties when someone tries to sell me something on the phone. It is something about the way they present themselves and their product. I would think we had a bit more finesse and panache in 2010. But maybe not.

Newsdesks all over the world are now covering the situation in Haiti after the mindblowing earthquake that shook Port-au-Prince with 7.0 on the Richter’s scale.
I’ve just read the story about a couple, she working in christian aid in Haiti and got stuck in the collapse of the office building but manages to call her husband for ten seconds. He of course gets in the car and drives for six hours to get there. Manages to find the building in the rest of the chaos, jumps into a hole and finds his wifes hand waving. And after being pulled up with cuts and bruises she has now told rest of her family she can’t go home but have to stay to help others. Some of her co-workers had worse injuries. This is one of many stories we will hear I am sure. And we need to hear them. What we need to know is also that these are stories of people making it. We will not be told the stories of the hundred thousand or so that did not make it and the families they leave behind.

What struck me first was the idea of the stress and thoughts the husband goes through while he is driving for six hours with no idea of where his wifes is and how bad it is. What thoughts goes through a mothers head while se frantic digs through concrete blocks and dust for her children. What thoughts goes through a childs mind after finding his/hers family members killed. And what can they do, other than to search for loved ones.

Video of CNN in the streets of Port-au-Prince

People of Haiti are now digging by hand. Corps are lying around in the streets. They have no power or water. I know that help is on the way, but this is a situation that is not going to get solved the next week. It is time for each and everyone to do something. And I am sitting here in my nice and cozy home, 5000 miles away and wondering what the hell to do. Trust me, I have already praised the aid organisations, the volunteers, Wyclef, Brad and Angelina and the rest of the people that are standing up to help out. And I wish I could do the same. I wish there was something reasonably helpful I could do in this situation. Thats my grief. Not really much compared to the real problems. So…

If you cannot go yourself: Donate to those who can.

If you can not donate: Get someone else to donate.

There are many organisations on the way there and they need money to continue their work. If you do not know to which organisation to turn to: One of the teams that are able to help the situation are among others the Doctors Without Borders.  Here is a link for how to donate.
Please, let us not have another Tsunami- or Katrina-situation here.

Rescue teams. Get on your way. I beg you.
People – Get on your way – or open your wallet.

illustration by: Ron Tandberg

Both in our everyday life and on journey we are faced with new people and that often means making up an opinon on that person, his/hers beliefs, actions and way of life. Christine Garvin just wrote an interesting post at the BraveNewTraveler where she debates this issue and how we as humans interact with others based on what is often only our first impression. Maybe we all have something learn by some inner soul searching and maybe a more critical approach to our own fear and prejudice.

A month ago I wrote about the idea of creating a Life List to help achieve ones goals. This has been on my mind for some time, and writing about it made me think some more. I don’t know whether this will help me achieve more than I would if I didn’t write a list, but it is certainly an interesting experiment for the mind to write it. I don’t know if I am supposed to add things later on if I think of anything else. I think I will. I will certainly cross them of when accomplished. This is certainly an entertaining exercise and I think I have written a list that is quite true to what I want. I think I can recommend others to try this as well, if not for anything else but for the mindprocess of it. Here we go, it is now out in the open!

So Impressive, So Simple Tool, So Powerful…