Waste of time.

The meeting went long. The trains were late. The download took forever. The traffic was stalled. The upload took forever. The project went over time. The developers hit a snag. It seems everything takes longer than you think and I have no idea at all, how long anything takes anymore. My expectations have been raised to unattainable heights, thanks to technology but anytime there is a hitch, a snag, a delay or even a hesitation, the timeframe for finishing anything on time, goes out the window. I have succumbed to the best case scenario argument and with that comes disappointment when tasks are not completed on time. I only have myself to blame for being sucked into the technology vortex built around speed of information, speed of communication and speed of expectations.

I am wistful for bygone days when projects would take forever because we didn't have the equipment or resources and expectations were low and if by chance there was an early completion, we celebrated. Today, completion expectations run high for anything from simple developments tasks to getting to work on time but calamity awaits us at every turn. There is a reason for all this disappointment and it was cognitive scientist, Douglas Hofstadter, who came up with a law in 1979, that stated any task you were planning to complete will always take longer than expected. Doh! He surmised we habitually underestimate the time it takes to do things, citing projects such as the Sydney Opera House, completed 10 years past the original end date. Yet even when we take Hofstadter's law into account, we still don't finish on time as unforeseen delays, being unforeseen, are not accounted for.

So the consequences of being late, running overtime in a meeting, encountering a technical hitch or getting caught in a train strike are far more extreme than the positive side of everything working out for you. Nassim Taleb in Antifragile, uses air travel as an example, for when things go right and you arrive 30 minutes early, you have some time up your sleeve for a coffee but arriving 30 minutes late is compounded by missed meetings, missed flights, cancelled agendas and generally a more extreme aftermath to those expectations you had when getting out of bed that morning.

The technology culture has compressed time for all of us and along with the aspiration of that culture, comes a faint mist of discontent as time betrays us by never being in accord with our planning. So I struggle along, hearing the words of my Mother, "if you're not 10 minutes early, you're late" ringing in my ears and I struggle with the comprehension that no matter how well I plan, my plan is likely to be disrupted by unforeseen circumstances. For it seems no matter how much in control I think I am, I can't see around corners and the vague notion of control is just a trick of the mind to keep me motivated and galvanised in my actions.

The only saving grace in all of this, is we are all in the same boat. So next time it doesn't work out as planned, someone arrives late for a meeting and that document just won't download, remember, you are not alone.

Father & Son.

I was born within sight of the Hamburg docks and then moved half way round the world to the heart of a steel city. So it was inevitable to end up left of left whenever discussions arose about politics, the state of the roads and wages. The attitudes developed at a young age mirrored those of the people around you, especially Fathers and the likelihood of change was a distant future you couldn't see. For in those days there was no middle ground and no one had ever met anyone from the right, so the chance for political or any other kind of change was slim. You did what your Father did and you said what your Father said, it was a black and white argument because people read, watched and listened to only those who were around them. The global opportunities were decades away and attitudes ingrained were attitudes difficult to change.

"It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy, you're still young, that's your fault, there's so much you have to know". The first lines of the Cat Stevens song encapsulate the thinking of my Father at the time, personifying the attitudes of all those around him. Congenital thinking, dyed in the wool attitudes and strong beliefs with no other sides to the argument, left little to negotiate.

I mention the above as a segue to today, as the political parties ramp up their mud slinging, their denouncements of each others policies and their general bad behaviour towards each other and their voters. Left and right have long since raced to the middle because polarising attitudes leave nothing to negotiate and today, everything is up for negotiation. Political intrigue is no longer the domain of shady back rooms but is played out in the glare of media not in control of the politicians but in control of the masses.

This change in control has finally given people power to speak out and not just follow in the footsteps of the Father. It has given people the amplitude and capacity to envisage change via their own voice, via media not anticipated by their Fathers, to affect change for personal and widespread equivocation.

So I watch and read in anticipation for rallying cries and rumblings from below, challenging the parties to confront the issues of the day. Certainly there are pockets and the QI brigade are keeping politicians accountable for their actions but the broader society can't see beyond the past and the past belongs to their Fathers. The ability and capability for change is finally in the hands of the people, you need only to look at the global landscape of change brought about by media avenues such as Twitter, Facebook and all the online forums, allowing opinions and attitudes to be challenged and changed.

With an election only weeks away, it behoves all within earshot of technology to stand up for their beliefs and give the politicians something to think about, other than slanging off at each other. The power and authority for change is not just about the vote, it's about attitudinal change bought about by knowledge wider than your Father ever thought about. Knowledge you don't have to ask your Father about.

Competition.

I haven't changed my landing page in years, Yahoo is so last century, I haven't deviated from my news searches or thought of changing my book supplier, why is that? Most of my friends have not changed their favourite shopping sites in ages and wont look at others until they are of comparative size and breadth to the ones they are used to using, if that is even possible. Competition for your attention, your time and your money depends on many variables, the main one being, having an alternative choice that brings with it, extra value, a good price point, convenience, knowledge and the capacity to be 100 times better than what you are using now. Not an easy accomplishment, so will the likes of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, YouTube et al, ever face strong opposition again? Even a giant like Microsoft can't gain ground with their search engine Bing. Will there ever be competitors that do what they do better? Why aren't people looking for alternatives?

The answer to a lot of those questions lies in human behaviour that abhors change once a plateau of satisfaction has been reached and no amount of cajoling or attention grabbing behaviour from competitors will entice them from that plateau. The net is Darwinian in its make up, ceding the high ground to those that have become the top of the food chain. I am still fascinated by the disappearance in the 70s of the orbital engine, designed by Ralph Sarich for greater efficiency, it would have revolutionised the car industry but quickly disappeared under a mountain of money, when Detroit came calling to take care of the competition. Times haven't changed much when we look at the web, with larger fish eating their way through the schools of competition. Whenever we hear of an innovative APP, a new way of navigation or a creative aggregator, a bank roll of cash from the big fish, isn't far behind.

From billion dollar investments like Instagram for Facebook, to eBay's purchase of Skype through to Google buying ITA, there are more smaller companies that no longer exist because the big 10 have more money than the rest of the world combined. There is no shortage of new and ascendant companies with evolving ideas to prick our imagination but the lifespan of most will depend on their relevancy to the dominate sites. If the big sites see you as competition or worse a synergy to their business plan, your days are numbered, The dominant sites are all looking to build closed eco systems, to control your attention, your buying behaviour and your capacity to change. Where else can you search for Facebook information, other than Facebook?

The Times recently released a list of the most interesting new sites on the web, from newsworthy like Quartz and Narratively, to audio and video sites such as SoundCloud and 5-Second Films, through to social sites RebelMouse and NextDoor, not forgetting shopping via Outgrow.me and Outgoing. It's not an exhaustive list but it does cover everything we like to do on the web but as you read this, think small fish surrounded by big fish and know the list is decreasing. I was going to look at some of the new entries but I couldn't find them on Google.

Forks.

My Mother often sites her decision to emigrate as the reason for any success I may have achieved, believing that success, would not have been duplicated in the country she left. I cannot conclusively argue the point because that decision had been made for me as child and all I could do was manage my way to the future without reference to what might have been. Decisions and life directions are often made for you, caused by external circumstances, accidental occurrences and people deciding for you. Without a chance to influence those directions and standing at those forks in the road, you have to become more adept in your ability to manage change and have the capacity to see the opportunities, regardless of whether they were your decision.

Decisions are often seen as the accumulation of our intentions but nothing could be further from the truth when your life, your work or your family is affected by external happenstance. When a fork is presented, your choices are limited to taking the new road or not seeing it and finding out later, there was a better way. So where, as Seth Godin, describes the difficulty in the fork in the road being, seeing it and taking it, the greater difficulty for most is the management of change that comes along with the new direction they are travelling.

Stories abound of successful people raising themselves from poverty and adversity, achieving against the grain of a life chosen for them. Malcolm Gladwell, in his seminal book on success, Outliers, sites the month you were born as a precursor of success for many professional athletes, the cultures and times that influence what you become when he described the top lawyers in New York but countered those arguments with his thinking on the 10,000 hours of work, sweat, determination and not giving up, that can counter everything else and bring success.

My favourite examples sites the Beatles, hailed as overnight successes in 1962, when their records hit the airwaves. Not achieving any success outside of their local cavern and only offered some gigs in the bars of Hamburg, the mop tops took it upon themselves to hone their skills to unimaginable heights via 10,000 plus performances before they put the grooves on their first record, to become overnight successes. Hard to imagine an act nowadays even performing that many gigs let alone doing it before their first success.

If a government changes, if you are made redundant, if relationships breakdown, if your Mother takes you to another country, standing at those forks in the road and all you can see is desolation, take an extra moment to look down the other path, for opportunity is not always about a path chosen for you but how you walk the one you take. So where a fork in the road is presented to you, there is still a decision to be made and success to be had but where as you thought it had nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with you.