20XI2009 Dubai
one of the challenges that designers face is how to help without being perceived as the help.

the move to san francisco has been a study in centricity. how many places, groups, people feel that they are the centre of the world. who is right? in an way each are as each are indeed the center of their own little world. the boon and bane of my existence is that i see so much all over the world that nothing seems centered at all. there are times that i truly envy those whose world is so small that they are so sure that they already know all the answers to all the questions that will ever be asked.

every day i feel that there are more questions that need to be asked. questions waiting to bubble up to find their way to daylight. biding their time. my head swims at times. most of the time actually. the thing that then brings me back is a word or gesture by a random person. a reminder that we are all one race. here and now. occupying a fragile blue gem that needs us all to never stop asking questions and searching for better answers.

change is constant. the context is always variable.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2009/01/a_design_manife.html

by Bruce Nussbaum. it is a good read.

http://www.mazneb.org/
the recs that will be presented to the governor. interesting.

an African Minister stated 'i want a CEO of NGOs' they are running around doing anything they want with people who are paid far more than my staff. if we could only harness them for the national good, rather for their personal gratification.'

it reminds me of the great advice from another African leader at WEF Davos 2007 who said 'stop giving us aid; help us help ourselves!'

this is a plea that really resonated with me. the big question is, then what should be done....

STRATEGIES FOR DEALING WITH DEAD HORSES

Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a
dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business we
often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Saying things like "This is the way we always have ridden this horse."
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Increasing the standards to ride dead horses.
7. Appointing a tiger team to revive the dead horse.
8. Creating a training session to increase our riding ability.
9. Comparing the state of dead horses in today's environment.
10. Change the requirements declaring that "This horse is not dead."
11. Hire contractors to ride the dead horse.
12. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.
13. Declaring that "No horse is too dead to beat."
14. Providing additional funding to increase the horse's performance.
15. Do an outsourcing study to see if contractors can ride it cheaper.
16 Purchase a product to make dead horses run faster.
17. Declare the horse is "better, faster and cheaper" dead.
18. Form a quality circle to find uses for dead horses.
19. Revisit the performance requirements for horses.
20. Say this horse was procured with cost as an independent variable.
21. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Question: What do these humorous comments suggest about organizational rationality?

____________________
i heard reference to this at a conference that i spoke at in Venice. GREAT line. how do we deal with those dead horses in our lives? no idea where the original came from.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR66ZdQt0aM