Dumb and dumber.

Time is the only hindrance, time is holding me back, time is the only curtailment in my quest for knowledge. If I could spend the rest of my life on Google, would I become the smartest person on the planet, the most up to date individual in the world or would I still meet someone at lunch who knows more about the finer intricacies of Chinese fiscal policies? I'm not talking about total omniscience, actually knowing everything that can be known but inherent omniscience, the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known. Seth Godin recently wrote about knowledge becoming ubiquitous and that no excuse could be given for not knowing something, which still amazes me when I meet people who are clueless on all levels about the people and industries they work in.

With the web available on every device known to man, available 24/365 and constantly being updated, the excuse for not knowing something is astonishing on the surface and almost criminal on every other level. The ability to look someone up, look at their industry and even their company, minutes before you talk with them has become so easy that excuses can no longer be tolerated in the business world. Business ignorance today, can only mean severe isolation from technology or choosing to live on a desert island.

It's no longer okay to not know something for any extended length of time, it's no longer okay to not know what people do for a job and ignorance is no longer bliss, it's ignorance.
Every effort is being made, to make the world's information available to every level of society, Google, Bing, Yahoo et al are taking it upon themselves in a race to compile and collate everything of value to everyone and some things of no value to anyone. The accomplishment for individuals is all about a continued search for knowledge and the ease with which that can be attained.

The days of acceptance are over, no matter if you are talking to a doctor, a lawyer or your family know it all. Having the recourse of instant information at your finger tips, behoves you to at least make the effort and once having made the effort, to then digest the information for your own good. Don't be the last one to know, nothing takes longer than a few minutes with the investigative power of the meta search engines. The ubiquity of "just Google it" gives everyone the chance to stay ahead by drilling straight to the core of any information needed.

This ability to find everything out about everything, doesn't negate the need for the education process, it just gives people dexterity to refine the broader education base and bring forth matter expertise when required. You no longer have to find that mountain top and gaze at your navel for extended periods of time, to figure out what it all means, it's all there, right in front of you on Google.

One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.

The above quote is from English novelist E. M. Forster and I mention it today as I find myself short of ideas, passion and stories to write about. I ask myself who cares, I quickly come back with my answer, I care and this gets me thinking about what creates and drives passion in people? Whatever you are passionate about and lucky enough to do for a living or even a hobby, has limits and sometimes you run out of steam and just can't seem to find that zeal, to get out of bed, go to work, go for a workout or call your best friend. So how do you rekindle that passion, and I'm not talking romantic moonlit dinner, but about refocusing your desire to accomplish, be authentic, regain purpose and re-like what you like?

The surfeit of psychiatrists, social psychologists and self help gurus who comment on our lives, have libraries dedicated to ways we can zero in on our passionate core and many offer up opinions but we are more attuned to listening to admired leaders or people close to us. People like Richard Branson never miss an opportunity to opine on passion and his work history gives credence to someone who found his essence and indulged all the way to success. From Richard through to Obama, there is no shortage of achieving archetypes to chose from and it is good they are willing to open up and expose their feelings for others to learn from.

From aspirational lists, through jobs with purpose and the way of Buddha, people are constantly looking for ways to find that spark to accelerate them to the next level, the next best thing and bring an accord of achievement. For me it's less about the leaders and more about my peers who spur me on by way of their own determination, commitment and stories. People leading extraordinary lives based on their passion for work, for helping others, learning, educating and being a pillar to their tribe of family and friends. Yet sometimes it's just up to me and then I need to find ways of obtaining that spark again.

As morbid as it sounds, envisaging your own funeral brings with it an appropriateness and exactitude for honesty hearing your eulogy wrapping up your life's accomplishments, finding out where you made a difference, brought smiles to people, generally succeeded and elucidating your search for the missing passion. The clarity of death brings with it a focus not evident in day to day activities but don't dwell on the dark side. I also think about what I could be teaching people and this again brings back focus to my commitments. Daydreaming about what I wanted to be when I grow up or what I want to do next year can also articulate and scrutinise my thinking to refocus that inner amplitude of passion. Self analysis of this kind, brings out the best in you, if you bench mark yourself against relevant and passionate high achievers.

The more conversations I have with myself, the more I fixate appropriately on the challenge at hand, getting my arse into gear and doing what I enjoy most with the passion it deserves. I'm back.

I know, you didn't think I was gone.

Please turn off.

"Any mobile devices, as they may interfere with the aircraft's navigational system."

Alec Baldwin was tossed from a plane ( not literally ) last year for refusing to stop playing a game on his phone during take off and it caused an incident because he was defying airline safety rules. We've all been there, with one more text needing to be sent before the plane takes off, one more goodbye to say before the plane door shuts and an urgent call that can't wait for the tyres to hit the airport runway on landing. So do we really have cause for concern, our technology will bring down aircraft or is everyone too scared to push that envelope with a 50 kilogram gate keeper handing out coffee and tea?

The airline restrictions on the use of technology date back to the early 90s, when mobile phones weighed more than a brick, all computers were beige and apple was still a fruit. To err on the side of caution, airlines used anecdotal evidence from pilots and flight crew, who surmised navigational glitches that had occurred were likely caused by the new gizmos people were wanting to carry on board aircraft. For years, aircraft manufacturers like Boeing tried to replicate the scenarios to empirically define answers to the anxiety brought forth by technology wielding passengers who were less than diligent in traveling to airline accord. Without any replaceable and authenticated evidence, airlines decided to agree on the possibility that technology may interfere with aircraft equipment but no one could say for sure.

Who hasn't forgotten to turn off their phone, their tablet or PC? I know I stopped worrying after the first few times forgetting to turn of my devices, thinking my errant attitude could cause a malfunction that would bring me to earth with a crash. Surveys and research done with hundreds of flyers in the US, over the last year, showed over 40% never bothered to turn off their phones during take off and landings, with a Bolshie 2% doing an Alec Baldwin and using their devices whenever they liked.

So why haven't aircraft dropped out of the skies? Aircraft are designed with fail safe systems that flying through a hurricane may cause bumps, yet turning on a phone with the runway in sight is considered more dangerous. Has logic left us, the numbers from the surveys and likely your own experiences show decisions made over two decades ago don't have much bearing on today. The chances that every device on every aircraft, flying right now, being turned off is imponderable and yet the fear remains.

The cause and effect of something going wrong and something else happening at the same time, like a navigational glitch while some piece of technology is turned on is a great story and anecdotally believable, giving the airlines plausible deniability and playing on our fear of the unknown. Airlines are all working on retaining and acquiring as many passengers as possible, so why isn't one of them doing a full scientific study of technology and its affect on aircraft navigational equipment. You have to believe, the first airline that has a flight attendant announcing all and any technology devices can be left on and operated throughout the flight time, take off and landing included, will garner praise along with increased passenger uptake.

The fact no aircraft fall out of the sky because flight attendants are diligent in their duty to make sure no one is seen to be using their technology, affirms the belief in the status quo and links our fear to uncorroborated evidence from decades past. Too many plane crash movies will keep that phone in our pockets but it may not be turned off.

Please Release Me.

In the inimitable words of Englebert Humperdinck, "let me go". How much did I love those emails when they first arrived, the emails about the latest and greatest of everything I was interested in last year. With the world on offer I took up all the offers, why not, when space is not a premium. Why not tick the box that will fill my inbox with offers, recipes, news, music, art and all manner of interests to engage me, edify me and make me interesting to talk to at the next gathering. You know the ending, so many emails I don't have enough hours in the day to even open up the interesting ones.

So a concerted effort this long weekend to rid myself of emails that no longer piquéd my interest, to clear my inbox and unclutter my mind, was supposed to take no longer than a coffee break. The first thing to surprise me was how many irrelevant emails I now get from subscriptions I thought would be of benefit, to my work regime, to my own education or just absorbing to read. From recipe catalogues, through sport reports to technology and entertainment, I find my inbox overwhelmed with correspondence that in the old days I would have taken from my letter box and used to light the BBQ. Nowadays that process is only a click away and my inbox will once again be mine, or so I thought.

Technology can lull you into a false sense of security with its speed, its attention to detail and its ability to cut corners to get you where you want to be right now. It is never as easy as they say it is and I found this out pouring my third cup of coffee and having hardly scratched the surface of my tidy up. I should have guessed by the fourth unsubscribe that caffeine was going to be my friend this morning.

The first email asked me to hit the unsubscribe button, which then led me to a website where I needed to re-enter my email address and re-hit unsubscribe, which then sent an email back to my inbox with a link for me to unsubscribe, which redirected me back to the website saying they were sorry to see me go and if I maybe, someday, somehow I wanted to receive emails again, I should just hit a designated button. I needed lots of coffee after the first go around. Today you cannot send commercial emails without the obligatory unsubscribe button but there is nothing to say they should make it easy to leave once they have you on their list, even if there are laws governing the use of such emails.

The CAN-SPAM law ( Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 ) enacted by George Bush was an example of governments trying to cope with the tirades of unhappy voters who's inbox had become a battleground for pornography and commercial marketers that had maybe forgotten, to put that little unsubscribe button at the bottom of their most important messages. Yet they never thought the activity could be so onerous and some time lines last up to ten days before you can get off the lists. Meaning many never bother and the inboxes continue to fill.

My morning was baffled by the myriad of processes and amazement at the lengths many companies employed to keep me informed. I gave up eventually, because my time is precious but I did finish with a plethora of subscription emails ending up in my spam filter to be cleared at the end of the month with a flourish of the delete button. In the end I retained my right to not be abused for hitting that subscribe button and regaining some control over my inbox, with the help of Mr Nespresso, who I still subscribe to.

Weekends.

According to research, 30% of people claim they are different people on the weekends. Begs the question, who are they during the week and how come the other 70% don't change? What is it about a weekend that has the ability to transform us? What is it about a weekend that promises so much but often becomes the swamp of good ideas, sunk as we wallow in the mire of discontent where two days is never enough? We often talk about the pressures involved in the so called normal working environment where 24/365 contact-ability, no off switch, no finish line or even lunches as we knew them has many primed for a melt down. Mondays to Fridays, are days filled to the brim where we have compromised away the little free time left, into a concentrated block of time that has more affiliations with the industrial revolution than the technology revolution supposed to free us of all the mundane tasks.

So the pressure on the weekend to outperform the other five days, often finds us looking to fit in extra hours that aren't there, running ourselves ragged doing chores that have backed up and generally dreading Sunday night as we get ready for Monday morning. That seems to be the way of the 70% that don't change but what about the mad 30% who claim they are more spontaneous, impulsive, imaginative, creative and agreeable? Have they discovered something special that makes them more fun to be around, have they worked out stress levels on weekends are four times less than the morbid Monday blues? They even seem to know they are more productive than during the week and somewhere in there, they are 55% more likely to travel on a weekend than the rest of the population.

Conforming to the researchers, the earmark of the 30% of people not being themselves, is about being less organised, less neurotic and less competitive than during the work week. To such an extent that some respondents claim avoiding a shower all weekend, avoiding people all weekend and not getting out of their pyjamas all weekend, helps them to regain their sanity compass. Along with all the things we did everyday, in younger days, like staying out late, watching too much TV, eating whatever we want, eating out every meal or not doing anything at all, are at the heartland of the wild and crazy 30%.

Too often, research shows our inability to turn off our work day cycle, rewards us with weekends as blurred segues between Friday and Monday. The work ethic applied to being breadwinners from Monday to Friday is sometimes parked at the local on our way home Friday evenings. The skill set used for promotion, success and accomplishments is diluted by the end of the week and it seems 70% of people have nothing left for themselves by the time Saturday morning comes around.

Seems the enthusiastically deranged 30% don't stop working, even on a weekend. They are just working on themselves or whoever else they want to be.

Friends.

Who didn't love the six twenty somethings, inhabiting their small New York apartments, navigating life's mysteries, finding the best coffee houses and trying to maximise time outside of work. Willing to sacrifice all for each other, they were the "best" of friends, regardless of family and work challenges thrown at them, over a decade of television laughter. The circle was so tight it was difficult for anyone to be admitted, especially from the disparate work situations they found themselves in and the feeling was, work, family and other friends were discordant from each other. Each space was sequestered and dealt with humourously but no one from outside the circle was ever allowed to break the chain of six.

If the program was still being produced today, work relationships would have a more compelling story arc as the friends find they spend so much time at work, their success would depend on having "best" friends to get them through the day. As loose as "best" can be defined, friends at work is seen by researchers globally as an indicator of accomplishment and endeavour, not achievable singularly. A Gallup study of five million workers over 35, found workers with a "best" friend are seven times more engaged, productive and successful than those going it alone.

The survey goes on to indicate "best" friends can become buffers between management which doesn't dole out enough thank you's, encouragement, recognition or make staff feel their contribution is worthwhile. Friends at work have the capacity and capability to provide all of the above within a small circle of relevance that keep many people at jobs longer than management knows. Work "besties" are an unfailingly predictable cure for the malaise of work ailments brought on by expectations of longer hours, 24/7 contact-ability and under resourced departments.

Work friends may not be for life, may not be family and may not show up at your wedding but the above choice is becoming blurred as the time spent at work triples and doubles the time you spend with anyone else, including partners and parents. For many lucky enough to work in smaller organisations, work can have a familial feel but for the rest of us it's about finding like minded souls within your work space and making sure the reciprocity of giving back becomes the norm. The jokes about work husbands and wives has long hidden the deep friendships that can be made at work as you accomplish and become successful as a duo or a team in ways you could never have achieved individually.

Howard Schultz of Starbucks was successful in creating the "third" place, after home and work, a place for people to gather and socialise. The "best" friend at work has become something akin to Schultz' thinking, where family and friends outside of work don't understand the machinations of the work day landscape but your "bestie" does and this "third" friend becomes invaluable to you. What has become obvious to the researchers, is the way you treat your friends outside of work, forging life long relationships is encroaching on the work place and creating the incubator for connections that outlast your CV.

In the end friends are friends, no matter where you meet them.

Loyalty.

For a quick definition I go to the new global encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, where people seem to agree on many things and they say, "loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause. Philosophers disagree as to what things one can be loyal to, many argue it is only possible for loyalty to be to another person and that it is strictly interpersonal".

The thinking about loyalty came about because A good friend of mine left his airline role yesterday. He was in a senior position at Virgin and worked hard at turning around perception, processes, procedures and engagement with the flying public and the airline will miss his input and insights. I mention this in passing because I always felt a peculiar sense of loyalty when flying "his" airline, something that has now dissipated with his leaving. The airline, like most things in travel has become totally commoditised and no matter the number of frequent flyer points I accumulate the loyalty to that product, has suffered with his departure.

If I analyse that thinking it occurs to me the loyalty associated with the airline is personality related not product related. Without that personal connection, it shows a fickleness and a shallow engagement on my behalf, with a product that works perfectly fine, does the job, meets and doesn't exceed my expectations and delivers on the promise of getting me from A to B. You'll notice no great plaudits for anything out of the ordinary and that is the point as far as I am concerned, for without that personal anchor to a product it's hard for me to have any feelings of loyalty. After all I can't engage with every flight crew, joking I'm taking the flight to keep them in a job and get back a humorous reply recognising the part I play in the cycle.

It's that recognition, no matter how small or unperceived by others, that drives the loyalty gene and re-engages me with the product. This personal aspect of product alignment with real people works best when associated with larger purchase items where the variety of choice is governed by dollars but chosen because you know someone well, who is associated with that product. If my friend were to join another airline, I would of course change my allegiance as it is of more importance for me to have the human connection than than the product features.

I thought about the many products I use daily, chosen with great care but not necessarily with anyone in mind other than myself and realise not many have the "amigo" gene attached. Not many give me reason to have a conversation about my experience and receive personal acknowledgement driving my loyalty even higher. The convenient fact I know a lot of people at the "other" airline gives me hope, my flying experience will continue to matter from a loyalty view and that conversations outside of the product will enable me to pass on my allegiance to those involved. They say frequent flyer points can make you price blind, I say personal loyalty disregards price but not many products involved in the aviation landscape have worked that out.

The Three Rs.

Reading, writing, 'rithmatic were the pillars of the education system for a century before technology decided to throw it a curve ball and everything about the three Rs changed forever. Sure we had calculators decades before tablets but did we have Wolfram Alpha or Solver to ask the really difficult maths questions? Where the humble calculator replaced the slide rule, algorithms made them all obsolete, to the extent no one is afraid of mathematics anymore. The times table has long since died, along with trigonometry to be replaced by APPs that calculate every computation known to man. Maths was easy to disrupt with technology because it was the backbone already, reading and writing was another matter.

In its short 17 year lifespan, Amazon, has totally disrupted how we read, what we read, where we read and why we read. It has revitalised books, reformatted books and analysed books, while infuriating the publishing world, kept up innovation with the likes of Apple and never wavered from it's mission to become the World's Bookstore. Amazon has opened up a library so big and so vast, there will always be something for someone to read and now they want to make it easier for those that write.

They are playing around with analytics where books are serialised, so the author can interact with his reading audience throughout the story. The way "The Bold and The Beautiful" look at ratings depending on which characters are introduced and then write scripts accordingly, Amazon wants to do the same for writers. Reader interaction will be measured along plot lines, characters and cause the story line to meander and pander to the audience's taste.

Serial writers of past, like Charles Dickens and even Stephen King, published weekly instalments of their novels but they never had the advantage of gauging the audience embracement of plot and character to then take advantage of likes and dislikes to complete their novel to total audience gratification. Amazon is not alone when it comes to writing analysis, companies like Hiptype indicate where readers lose interest in a character or story and also where they are most captivated, enabling writers and publishers to give people exactly what they want to read. None of this is possible without digital readers like the Kindle and the Kobo, constantly gathering information on how, what, and where we read.

So for those of us that write, we now have other considerations to take into account, other than writing because we like the experience. Considerations along the lines of what we start to write may not be what we end up writing, if we want to totally satisfy our readers. Consider the social network and ask for ideas to include in writing, consider the time taken to write a book that is serialised and have the ability to keep up with societal changes and most of all consider loyal readers who now have the ability to be engaged on a very intimate level with the writing.

More than the occasional comment made in a review, analysis has the ability to tailor reading tastes individually and why wouldn't you want to read your favourite author, writing on your favourite character with your input. Okay, I'm waiting for input.

Alas, poor Yorick!

I've always been a fan of the "obits" and I have a few favourite places to read them. One being the New York Times which prides itself on journalistic excellence in all facets of the newspaper, from copy writing ads, through breaking world news to the obituary column. This is not a morbid fascination, as nobody I know, least of all myself is ever likely to find themselves in the hallowed halls of the NYT obits section. What I am fascinated by, are the legacies left behind, sometimes ground breaking, sometimes inspiring, sometimes so trite as to be hilarious in context, showing some people use lives on things insignificant to 99% of the population but important enough for them to carry on, hoping to make them famous or celebrated within their own circle.

Sometimes people get to write their own obituary and the single person prose lends acuteness not gained by third person journalistic intervention. Sometimes, as is the case for very famous people, common practice for news organisations is to write the obit way before they kick the proverbial. Sometimes an obit does not do justice to the life lived.

I mention the above because in a small way, maybe in a big way, everyone is getting a chance at their own version of the NYT obit. In the past, a funeral was a place of discovery, as family and friends celebrated achievements, successes and little known insights of the person heading south that members of the audience would discuss later over a whiskey, noting their surprise that so and so had done such and such.

The legacies I find so absorbing in the NYT are today multiplied by the millions, for the millions, who will use the vast amount of personal knowledge we have of each other to hopefully flesh out lives well lived. For today everyone has the chance to be heard, to be seen, to be appreciated, sometimes celebrated by their corner of the world long before, as Shakespeare so eloquently put it, they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Maybe it's an old fashioned view that the last words said about you, show meaning, show you in the way you would have chosen yourself and show you have contributed and made a difference. Maybe the next generations won't even have funerals and instead have online gatherings, chats, forums as they discuss a life lived openly on the net. Becoming acquainted with unknown facts, uncovering truths and encountering an appreciation of people's lives is today no longer the realm of the final say, be it obits or the knees up celebratory wake.

Today the self aggrandisement common on many social platforms leaves little discovery for a later summation of life but maybe it's better we have the chance to recognise and appreciate now, rather than later, when it's too late to say something worthwhile. So every photo, every comment, every like and every posting made online becomes part of your legacy, your NYT obit and isn't it time to consider the future because your past is written everywhere. Does your online life do you justice?

Hipsters.

Not long ago people dressed up to go out, they dressed up for Sunday and they dressed up to go on holidays. They didn't dress up to travel on the bus but with the commoditisation of air travel, along with the drop in airfares, jumping on a plane has become an everyday occurrence, like jumping on the bus to go to the shops. If you read the latest determinations handed out by some airlines it seems the dress sense of ordinary people was left behind at the customs counter.

Here we have become used to the long accepted singlet and thongs brigade heading to Bali, the end of year footy flannel fiascos and the ubiquitous "tracky dacks", as inroads into the fashion sense completely abrogate the allure of travel from the romantic age of suits and dresses. For the airlines, this has become a minefield as passengers push the boundaries of good taste, good taste decided by Captains and flight attendants.

Being denied boarding on a Southwest aircraft recently, a woman named Avital posed for pictures at Las Vegas airport in a T shirt showing too much cleavage for the airline to allow boarding. Vegas and cleavage go together well and posing at the airport says enough to consider that Southwest may have been within their rights on this occasion. It's a fine line, what constitutes good taste in a confined space, especially when there are limited places to cast your gaze if you have seen all the movies.

T shirts with inappropriate language or slogans, swim wear and no shoes have all been targets in recent years as airline passengers have been denied boarding. Airlines will tell you they don't enforce dress codes and they certainly don't document dress codes and unless there are safety issues involved, ie no shoes, they take a pretty lenient view of their passenger's couture. They also need to consider the laws and mores of society that make it okay to walk the streets in all manner of dress. After all who knew we wanted to wear our jeans so low to help advertise Calvin Klein and Dolce and Gabbana underwear, Marky Mark has a lot to answer for. So much so, that a passenger pulled from a US Airlines plane last year was arrested for not pulling up the said jeans and covering the said underwear, yet the prosecutor declined to file said charges saying, “They can’t arrest him for what someone perceives to be inappropriate attire.”

So there are lines and then there are lines. The freedom of speech act, oft quoted in the US, pertains to the government but does allow private companies to bar someone coming into their restaurant or boarding their aircraft if they think language or slogans on T shirts are inappropriate or their dress sense will cause disruption within that space. For the airlines it ends up being, not a dress code issue but a disruption issue and in the small confines of an aluminium canister hurtling through the sky at 900 kilometres, any disruption should be avoided.

The airlines will continue to work in the grey when it comes to decisions made by chic fashionistas determined to stand out. Our only hope is fashion icons like Lady Gaga remain reasonably chaste in their choice of garments or you could be sitting next to someone so distracting you won't notice the safety presentation. Come to think of it, a little distraction might be just what we need.