Tiferet Journal The mind has to be made malleable like clay. Just as clay sticks wherever you throw it, so the mind must be made to dwell upon whatever object you concentrate it. Swami Vivekananda / a good thing to recall when today’s flood of information seems overwhelming…

http://www.facebook.com/TheTiferetJournal?v=wall&story_fbid=104551206270264

Not sure if i have the semantics right…does khan mean mind in the eastern way?

To ‘train to check the activity’, is very different than -(almost opposite) to ‘master directing’ or to make malleable as clay. 

My sense is that “‘mind” (and the levels or layers of mind) is not subject to control – perhaps we can direct it as a river to ocean. Its very nature is elusive to words”. 

In my semantic, it’s the other way around…A ‘dance’: Mind watches, ego watches. The overinformation reality makes the dance of ego and mind ever more important. I watch in awe – checking, listening, testing back and forth between my ‘real’ and illusion (which i am doing with you right now.)  Mind and ego both need to be honored and strengthened each in it’s respective merit. 

Yes, perhaps, Stillness flows where dance melts away.

(c) copyright Christian Mekarzel 2010

I’d like to sift through segmentation and highlight perhaps a new paradigm with some paradoxes.

There is a need to segment the many purposes of online.edu:  A first approach would be to tier the knowledge needs of various audiences.  The now famous Khan Academy on YouTube is a great example of one knowledge tier where an audience can go to learn/re-learn something very specific.

For the experienced professional, online classes can be essential to updating a skillset.
For traditional students, online material can present a level of engagement through marrying the online/offline platforms which, in turn, can yield higher productivity.

For the undergraduate student though, there is so much more than data/information/technologies or knowledge transfer.  Right now for example, I benefit from your great article/resources.  But a meeting in person is so much more cognitive and individuated, as an authentic teacher or mentor feels/intuits the student in the moment.  (Does this economics work in a university class of 120+ students?)  Can the system improve from re-configuring the human interface in a new model of engagement?

At a higher level, we are also in the midst of evolutionary change – with a multitude of motivations for students as I read between these lines:

To take a programmatic angle, the online.edu trend brings something akin to object-based learning:  It was much more difficult in the brick and mortar days to actually criss-cross fields in search of learning ‘modules’ to amalgamate into a ‘secret’ potion!

Nowadays, one can hunt across fields and technologies to put together a new specialty.  This is a great value-add in a cross-functional age – looking to master complexity.

Having said that, traditional multi-disciplinary studies don’t afford the depth required to delve into many disciplines – something which takes years to master/evolve into.  And this begs a deeper question:  Cost.  It becomes evident in the USA that as we lead the world in the production of knowledge, our universities are becoming unaffordable and may themselves not be able to sustain this cost structure.

Online allows the student not only to engage at his/her own pace, but with varying levels of engagements.  Eventually the Universities will evolve the educators’ tenure model -  to perhaps one of field/domain engineer or master coordinator – facilitating a platform of ‘web 2.0’ collaboration towards thought leadership and new knowledge production.  (The challenge will be figuring out a way to monetize this participation.)

But even in the totally virtual worlds, there is an affinity towards meeting in person:   Can a Web2.0 education make up for something sought out in the top schools:  meeting/getting-to-know future captains of industry.

We can see parts of this collaborative model at work better in the private sector (where a highly educated workforce is contracted.)   Such example is intel.  Intel overcame the limits of computing beyond materials and process engineering boundaries through their famed town hall meetings – (where cross-functional engineers hammer at a bottleneck.)

So in concluding, there are many study needs – all the way to the social perspectives of Universities as the R&D centers for tomorrow corporate success stories.  A student then needs to evaluate/tier his/her needs and compare them to the Univerisities knowledge levels, the platform models and optimal configuration for personal engagement. There are varying ROIs accordingly.

…Give or take generational aptitudes: the younger generations – Gen Y/D (etc.) the ‘multi-taskers’ criss crossing the fields of knowledge to shape tomorrow’s world…ideal for object-based learning!

http://www.internetevolution.com/messages.asp?piddl_msgthreadid=230670&piddl_msgid=216427#msg_216427

65% cash, then in descending order

I do own an ETF on China, some TIPS which I purchased a while ago, as the government was about to pump money into the system. (Yes I rushed to sell the Lehman TIPS and bought the Barclays ones! go figure.)  Yahoo from its post Microsoft dump, Microsoft from its pre-W7 launch.  Consumer staples ETF, Medco, the industrial military ETF (to hedge against geopol risk) and a couple more.

Hoping for the end of year uptick, I am selling my midcap growth fund which “used to” have top fund managers! (They have been dismal as the market rose 60%!  I thought that space required proven stock pickers’ given the importance of cash and access to loans…my vanguard ETF did better!)

Moving forward, my objective is to restructure my positions on the second dip along the global theme of:

• Green, clean, renewable energy
• Aging population
• Gold
• Growing Asia/Commodities
• Tech tech tech.

I hope to get smarter and learn to be a better value buyer like Warren.  But hey.  until then, I will just play to my strengths.

A portfolio hedge trade will evolve together with a probability allocation tied to regional scenarios of stagflation, inflation and growth (hence in part the gold and commodities,) until the de-leveraging takes place and an asset allocation makes sense.

If one steps away from the day to day coverage and looks at the bigger picture of the healthcare debate,  something has been amiss – and it goes back to the many prior Presidents’ attempt to reform healthcare.

At its face, this issue should be non-sequitur. The reality on the ground today is that democrats are heading to a health insurance policy regardless and republicans (and the conservative right) have always had its moral obligation not to leave millions of fellow Americans to rot to bankruptcy if wounded.  But there is a bigger issue at hand (not to minimize the pain/angst of fellow citizen on both sides of the debate.)  The fact that it took so long and we are dealing with it in this way.

There are 2 underlying currents – One national and the other cross-cultural that point to pressing issues that need to rise in our national dialogue.

2 points sum up the plethora of issues:

1.) On the national front, the symptom on one side is a grass root polarization heightened to a caricature – where public dialogue stops at a seemingly defining moment in our country’s history with one side screaming and the other silent. Then, there is the not-so-optional coverage option, the nuclear option.

The root cause behind this frustration is nothing less than the friction between who we are becoming and where we are today.

This polarized state of affairs indicates a deeper condition: If the real test of integrity is in the here and now, where the rubber meets the road, and not just in opposing prose and ideology, but in sacrifice and results/consequences – how much we are each willing to sacrifice for what… therefore where does our integrity lie?

Soldiers have integrity. Their values call to never leave anyone behind. Their values and actions are aligned.

Previous Presidents have failed health care, because our sense of values is not aligned but rather polarized.

Here’s another way to look at it better:  what is in question is a lack of sense that our nation is our village.  In the old village days of prior centuries, people were not just working towards their betterment as individuals but also as a small society. Today, the discourse seems to defray a sacrifice beyond one’s good.

Today, parties come at this debate from the angle of “I’ll take all I can get – - no one is watching for me (under the opposing administration.)” And this disconnect further feeds a polarizing of citizens’ distrust.

In this reality-check for President Obama, there is more work for him to lead a united nation – one willing to sacrifice the many million people’s health care…Many today are unwilling to compromise individual needs for the village.  (as the current healthcare trends are not sustainable for the nation and would backfire on every individual citizen.)

This calls to nothing less than a dialogue on what our American integrity means.  Right now, this is implied and not as conscious. It is taking place in old world negotiation posturing. To ask this question directly, is to adopt the forward-looking attitude of our founding fathers, rather than get stuck in old world negotiating styles.

It has to be done openly: Surely, to refine/renew – in modern words – what it means to be American in our day and age is faster achieved as a side discussion to policy-setting.  But this is central to everything, and a side discussion does not address the polarity of views but rather will likely leave many with the feeling of having been unheard and sidelined. ‘Hardly a cure for a United States.

It needs to be brought to light, because it does nothing short of asking us to integrate our American values and actions… Has passing social security or medicare gone beyond a solution that appeases the angst of that time and has it planted the seed to more easily work out issues today?  A renewed sense of American integrity will also lead to a more efficient policy-making!

The time is now because the magnitude of change presents a unique opportunity for meaningful dialogue. And people are engaged on an issue that affects all – not just a special group.  This is also a time saddled with many issues beyond healthcare.  Sadly, synthesizing the answer to a renewed American identity takes time for an individual, never mind to integrate it in a democratic national dialogue with conflicting interests.  This is why we make a recommendation to move in lockstep.  (More on this soon.)

2.) There is an interplay of complex factors best seen through the lens of history. And revisiting the individual meaning of being an American calls on discernment 1.) as individuals, 2.) professionals and 3.) villagers,  (not necessarily in this order.)

Where we are is akin to the days when old-word villages moved to form a nation (back then, under the less democratic ideals of feudalism.)  How do we align our values in the face of misaligned systems:  There is a conflict in the evolution of nations and institutions?  Not to debate the economics of healthcare, but rather to ask for perspective in light of questions that come to the surface: basically, do we think as members of a village or a marketplace? Historically, there was no conflict of interest between these two institutions; but marketplaces were within the villages.

Today, there is a marketplace that transcends the village (i.e. our country) with no authority to coordinate the transnational corporation. Investors/owners/corporation are global…and professionals reporting to these stakeholders act accordingly. Furthermore, this village-neutral institution, in the evolved Corporate America, leaves the villager competing with the emergence of nationalized capitalism (in other countries at earlier stages of development. (e.g. China and Russia.)  Hence the resurgence of union effort as one way to protect the villager!   This is important for 2 reasons at least:

1. because our representatives/policy-makers also represent America including Corporate America and their lobbyist (as corporations are legal entities in each place where they operate, yet make economic decisions transcending each village and to their own favor.)
2. It is also important,because the American mindset identifies itself also in terms of the global marketplace (as the worlds’ consumer.)

How is the American to integrate all this in his/her principles and integrity?

This rising disconnect begs to the old world v/s globalism debate…and ultimately for each one of us to ask where does our integrity lie as a village and then within the world at large. And as the forces at play tell, we need to start at home for now – for a divided home leads to more fear and distrust and this breakdown in dialogue. Does all this go away if we pass some policy – whatever it is? Yes it may seem easier to preside and lead a democracy with an assumed consensus and a pat on the back.  Or is it really so in our electronic age?

The Call to Principled Action:

How to face reality best: do something and rebuild trust in steps!  As a national dialogue may be protracted, can we agree at least on a set of minimum health care reforms that address basic moral and economic questions along with a roadmap to workout esoteric differences?

If we start from this point, how can we as a nation come out stronger as a result of this?   Concurrently, set a roadmap to continue work on the issue. Hence the recommendation to move forward, in lockstep, addressing both

1. the defining questions of what does it mean to be American in this day and age, and
2. making the defining decision of which pragmatism is needed in the face of our many national issues as Americans.

And both need to be done simultaneously:

1. Not asking the fundamental question of who we all are as a people, will leave us divided for someone to conquer (on both sides of the debate and regardless of what policy is put in place. That is the status quo that many Presidents faced.) Worst, we would have lost a wonderful opportunity to refine our American identity and renew our commitment to this great nation. There is great energy at work and our President’s responsibility would be to rise above it all with rolled up sleeves. But he/we cannot get entangled in this longer term process at the expense of the present.
2. As Pres. Obama eloquently stated, Not making a decision, will have us (and our children) prey to the limbo we have been heading towards for years/decades – and the ills of a bankrupt nation under the weight of medical bills…

So to conclude: the recommendation is to create a lockstep program that engages the country/representatives

1. to agree on a set of minimums which can be made policy right away, and
2. a timed agenda of defining questions that leads to defining decisions.

Considering the magnitude of the issues ahead, it would be fair to say that representatives would have to commit at least 30-60 days a year – every year to this…and let us see how we can define who we are so we can make decisions more efficiently that lead us to a place that is better than where we are today.

Except that today, we are at the technological point where we can amplify devastation on a mass scale and as the capitalist highways of knowledge and online education open, we stand to achieve more than the fall of great civilizations.  We may be nearing the point where the rules of the game change and the outcome of  history’s replay is simply doom.

How do we redefine ourselves to transcend beyond the  defeat of others.  Surely one example comes from mother Theresa and the other from capitalism’s Wocial web 2.0 – a gestalt greater than what today’s aggregation engines can harness.

Two opposites in an interesting dialectic of the  material and spiritual inside another  symbiotic dialectic of democracy/capitalism:  Power to the people.  Power to the consumer.  Empowering the powerless. We seem to seek balance.  Since this is a game changer, what is the razor’s edge to transcend the zero-sum game of history.

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/corkindale/2009/08/should_work_make_us_happy.html

We need to evolve the definition of both ‘work’ and ‘happy’ in keeping with the times and the person – and I see a wide spectrum in your great blog (thank you.)

I loved watching a former manager who noticed it and said: ‘this sure beats Work.’ That said it all to me. He was a fish in his water: He loved the industry, subject matter, his functional expertise, social interactions…
Today there is enough technology to help guide one into his/her waters, Or his/her zone. And we live in a specialized society that one can find the right pieces that fit him/her to create value (or contribute to the value creation.)

Happiness or the pursuit also needs refining. I cannot speak for all. Rather, I like 2 ideas of happiness
1. as a craftman who truly gets into his craft (be it parenting &/or woodworking,)
2. as an everyday mystic.
It all comes back to Csikszentmihalyi/University of Chicago saying that in that zone for that player, time almost does not exist. (It takes a lot of practice, but having changed enough diapers, I can say that I conquered what was easier for my better half to do – with a loving smile (and odd noises.))
Yes for me diapers was work! but in the bigger picture, I could reframe it as the labor of love.

As a former executive and practitioner/manager, a father and talking to other parents, I see people as either having talents that stand out, or coming to them if patient long enought to follow their interests and listento themselves.

It’s a journey best shown against Malcom Galdwell’s ‘Outliers’, where, for those outside of these select outliers, (i.e. the majority of people,) it becomes a fine juggling act of discovering their interests/gifts and honing their skills. It is hardest when one succeeds at most jobs. This can easily take years. There is an interplay of several maturities – psychological, intellectual, spiritual…

For the individual who has not found the bridge between ‘work’ and ‘happy’, looking at this search as a series of principled explorations, and not losing faith in oneself when faced by desert, s/he can eventually hear whispers or joys emerge from the silence.

There is also seemingly a generational ‘maturation.’ Gen x y z not only have differing vantage points – their values have taken on the social contract of the modern workplace – learning from seeing prior gens. In a more connected age, will they come to their zone quicker than older ones … if only for using the internet to tap into the vast domains of knowledge quicker (factor-in maturity.)

Finally, to your choice of the word: “Should” work make us happy? I think it is an imperative – on all levels, including the competitive edge of nations!
From a business standpoint too, companies with the most players who have found their zone can have a global competitive edge. From an individual’s standpoint, to experience that point where time does not exist takes away the need for work/life balance (making it an oxymoron as it should be.)

In the past couple years, we (the USA) seem to have realized our might in the face of the sleeping political giants who got drugged to the potential of their commercial awakening.

After Kuwait, we engaged in not one but two wars. Not one enemy, but an invisible base of tribes ! Manifest only in so far as we focus the arena of battle to allow its rage to come out.

Who wants peace offshore to give that invisible one, time to focus on our shores (again?)

Or is he so invisible?

One day we will realize that we have been fighting the wrong wars!

No, I don’t meant to drop the long-term war on poverty.  Rather the landscape shifts and I see the next target materialize in an even bigger game.

So what?

In the ultimate game of life and death, the true player seems to always be played – even when winning – as he plays himself.

copyright 2009, Christian Mekarzel.

We know that knowledge is growing exponentially and with the google vision/products this can be done.

The idea can be implemented via 3 subsets:

1. Combine the wikipedia knowledge tree, to
2. the google books/news (via an index of fields, keywords and authors, including citations) to
3. the google timeline product in beta.  (It may require altering the timeline table into a structure like a decision tree with colors to show population of knowledge producers.)

Benefits would be tremendous if only from a couple perspective.

1. a place to measure the growth of knowledge;
2. seeing gaps on many fronts (e.g. country, domain, field, etc.) for new research;
3. possibly expanding the google tables product to start to include access to the vast array of primary data that complements some of this research…hence accelerating the exponential speed of knowledge growth.

This will have tremendous impact on civilization – as the world gets more crowded and competition intensifies, it can open up new fields and products/services to make room for new value-added, (ultimately lessening the propensity to war that occurs every century out of scarcity.)

At its face, this issue should be non-sequitur. The reality on the ground today is that democrats are heading to a health insurance policy regardless and republicans (and the conservative right) have always had its moral obligation not to leave millions of fellow Americans to rot to bankruptcy if wounded.  But there is a bigger issue at hand (not to minimize the pain/angst of fellow citizen on both sides of the debate.)  The fact that it took so long and we are dealing with it in this way.

There are 2 underlying currents – One national and the other cross-national that point to a pressing issue that needs to rise in our national dialogue.

3 points sum up a plethora of issues:

1.) On the national front, the symptom on one side is a grass root polarization heightened to a caricature – where public dialogue stops at a seemingly defining moment in our country’s history. On the other side, there is the not-so-optional coverage option, the nuclear option.

The root cause behind this frustration is nothing less than the friction between who we are and where we are today.

This polarized state of affairs indicates a deeper condition: If the real test of integrity is in the here and now, where the rubber meets the road, and not just in opposing prose and ideology, but in sacrifice and results/consequences – how much we are each willing to sacrifice … therefore where does our integrity lie?

Presidents have failed, because our sense of values is not aligned but rather polarized.

Soldiers have integrity. Their values call to never leave anyone behind. Their values and actions are aligned.

Today, what is in question is a lack of sense that our society is our village (or nation – though the image of nation makes it less tangible.) In the old village days of prior centuries, people were not just working towards their betterment as individuals but also as a small society. Today, the discourse seems to defray a sacrifice beyond one’s good. Villagers today are unwilling to compromise individual needs for a neighbor’s or the whole village.

Today, parties come at this debate from the angle of “I’ll take all I can get – - no one is watching for me (under the opposing administration.)” And this unprincipled disconnect from a national identity feeds a polarizing of citizens’ distrust.

In this reality-check for President Obama, there is more work for him to lead a united nation unwilling to sacrifice the many million people’s health care…and his dialogue implies asking oneself nothing less than what  our American integrity means.  Right now, this is implied and not as conscious in old world negotiation posturing. To ask this question is to adopt the forward looking attitude of our founding fathers, rather than get stuck in old world negotiating styles.

It has to be done openly: Yes to refine/renew – in modern words – what it means to be American in our day and age is faster achieved as a side discussion to policy-setting.  But this is central to everything, and a side discussion does not address the polarity of views but rather will likely leave many with the feeling of having been unheard and sidelined. ‘Hardly a cure for a United States.

It needs to be brought to light, because it does nothing short of asking us to integrate our American values and actions… Has passing social security or medicare gone beyond a solution that appeases the angst of that time and planted the seed to more easily work out issues today?  A renewed sense of American integrity will also lead to a more efficient policy-making!

The time is now because the magnitude of change presents a unique opportunity for meaningful dialogue. And people are engaged on an issue that affects all – not just a special group.  Sadly, synthesizing the answer to a renewed American identity takes time for an individual, never mind to integrate it in a democratic national dialogue with conflicting interests.  this is why we make a recommendation to move in lockstep.  (More on this soon.)

2.) Who does this limbo serve?  Global benchmarking ROI done for prior employers shows the impact of health costs – and as Walmart’s endorsement tells, corporations welcome some change.  Yet there is true resistance. There is an interplay of complex factors best seen through the lens of history. And revisiting the individual meaning of being an American calls on discernment as villagers, professionals and individuals.

Where we are is akin to the days when old word villages moved to form a nation (under the less democratic ideals of feudalism.)  How do we align our values in the face of misaligned systems:  There is a conflict in the evolution of institutions: Not to debate the economics of healthcare, but rather to ask for perspective: basically, do we think as members of a village or a marketplace? Historically, there was no conflict of interest between these two institutions; but marketplaces were within the villages.

Today, there is a marketplace that transcends the village with no authority to coordinate the transnational corporation. Investors/owners/corporation are global…and rofessionals reporting to these stakeholders act accordingly. Furthermore, this village-neutral institution, in the evolved Corporate America, leaves the villager competing with the emergence of nationalized capitalism (in other countries at earlier stages of development. (e.g. China and Russia.)  Hence the resurgence of union effort as one way to protect the villager!   This is important because our representatives/policy-makers also represent Corporate America and their lobbyist (as corporations are legal entities in each place where they operate, yet make economic decisions transcending each village and to their own favor.)  How is the American to integrate all this? 

This rising disconnect begs to the old world v/s new world debate…and ultimately for each one of us to ask where does our integrity lie as a village and then within the world at large. And as the forces at play tell, we need to start at home for now – for a divided home leads to more fear and distrust and this breakdown in dialogue. Does all this go away if we pass some policy – whatever it is?  Can it bring clarity?

3.) How to face reality best: do something and rebuild trust!  As a national dialogue may be protracted, can we agree at least on a set of minimum health care reforms that address basic moral and economic questions along with a roadmap to workout esoteric differences?

If we start from this point, how can we as a nation come out stronger as a result of this?  Concurrently, set a roadmap to continue work on the issue. Hence the recommendation to move forward, in lockstep, addressing both

-the defining questions of what does it mean to be American in this day and age, and

-making the defining decision of which pragmatism is needed in the face of our many national issues as Americans.

And both need to be done simultaneously:

A) Not asking the fundamental question of who we all are as a people, will leave us divided for someone to conquer (on both sides of the debate and regardless of what policy is put in place. That is the status quo that many Presidents faced.) Worst, we would have lost a wonderful opportunity to refine our American identity and renew our commitment to this great nation. There is great energy at work and our President’s responsibility would be to rise above it all with rolled up sleeves. But he/we cannot get entangled in this longer term process at the expense of the present.

B) As Pres. Obama eloquently stated, Not making a decision, will have us (and our children) prey to the limbo we have been heading towards for years/decades – and the ills of a bankrupt nation under the weight of medical bills…

So to conclude: the recommendation is to create a lockstep program that engages the country/representatives

1.) to agree on a set of minimums which can be made policy right away, and

2.) a timed agenda of defining questions that leads to defining decisions.

Considering the magnitude of the issues ahead, it would be fair to say that representatives would have to commit at least 30-60 days a year – every year to this…and let us see how we can define who we are so we can make decisions more efficiently that lead us to a place that is better than where we are today.

The impact is similar:  Massive loss of value / wealth and massive Keynesian intervention … albeit economic bubbles incur a lesser loss of (human) lives.

For the most part, Wars – in the days where politics was the dominant institution – happened because of the lure of gold and slaves for the king or emperor…

Likewise, today, where business is the dominant institution, a similar pattern takes place  in corporate marketplaces:  A huge number of  corporate mercenaries converge to battle for your dollars.  The best outcome, is akin to king Solomon or Alexander the Great or Charlemagne. In their best case, there is good value created by tribal companies,  (e.g. Intel, Apple, Google…)   In the worst showing, wall street greed belies the  ARMs, ARCs and CDOs …. all the way to the meltdowns of marketplaces, main streets and villages and possibly states. (Best parrallel come from Attila the Hun, the Visigoths, …) But the story is still the same:

Value creation and destruction (destruction with a high component of redistribution from the vanquished to the victor.)

One exception: In technology, the short product life cycle has built-in value destruction. And that’s a whole new story we write. Or is it?

(c) copyright 2009, Christian Mekarzel.