Academia at its Finest

Part 1: the initial paper as published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

See here

Part 2: a follow-up paper by multiple authors, later published in the same journal

See here

Don't worry, they don't take long to check out.

Book: Myself and Other More Important Matters

by Charles Handy

Myself and Other More Important Matters is an autobiographical book by British business and management guru and author Charles Handy.

Handy's impressive CV includes co-founding and teaching at the London School of Business, a stint as Warden of St George's House, Windsor Castle, nine years working in Shell Oil Asia and many years of writing, broadcasting and speaking.

One of the things that makes this book impressive is the humility with which Handy paints the events of his life, to the point where the reader might wonder exactly how he achieved some of these accomplishments. Moreover such humility allows Handy to tell the stories of both failures and successes, times of great enjoyment and times of immense frustration, and his own path to finding enjoying, fulfillment and a sense of vocation in what he does.

In an entertaining example of failure, during his time working for Shell Oil in Borneo Handy had the great idea to install large petrol tanks at busy locations along the sides of a major river in order to reduce the inefficiencies caused by numerous small boat runs delivering small amounts of fuel. A great idea, but Handy later found he had failed to account for two things:

1. He was first investigating the river during the tropical rainy season, when levels were very high, and
2. Local suppliers would certainly not point out problems that made this a bad idea if it meant losing business.

Come dry season, the large tanks were stranded high and dry, well away from the river waters and any ability to replenish them. River commerce carried on further down the river banks, well away from the tanks, as it had for many dry seasons before and after. The tanks were a write-off.

On satisfaction and frustration in work, Handy offers valuable insight when describing several crossroads in his life: the decision to leave Shell Oil after nine years, spending time at MIT followed by the move into education and writing, and his time spent as Warden of St George's House. Frustrated and dissatisfied at Shell Oil despite excellent income, Handy instead moved into economics, then business studies at MIT, then co-founded the London School of Business upon seeing the lack of any equivalent education in Britain.

Increasingly focussed on communication and education, the move to St George's House meant minimal monetary gains but the opportunity to lead a place "where serious people - from all walks of life and holding diverse opinions - can come together to discuss serious issues seriously."

One of Handy's ideas that has become very commonplace these days is the Portfolio Lifestyle, a mixture of consulting, speaking, writing, or other such components a person might use to replace their full-time career. The autobiography is interesting in charting Handy's own road to such a lifestyle, including some of the potential pitfalls and difficulties.

Overall, Myself and Other More Important Matters an enjoyable, human and though-provoking book. Perhaps Handy's tendency to focus a lot on other more important matters at the expense of himself means this is not so much a book for anyone wanting a "how to be like x" book such that fill many a business section; rather, this is more a case of seeing the world through Handy's eyes.

Back to School: MBA Studies

It seems my blog has fallen into disrepair and dishevelment through neglect.

I have been doing a lot of writing, however very little of it has been in any way designed for posting on a blog; most of it has been because I have gone back to school.

Doing an MBA had been on my to-do list since the moment I returned to New Zealand, but everyday life, work and procrastination meant I only began this degree in July 2010. Yes, July - the last six months have seen many a busy night spent immersed in fascinating books, academic journals, group work, and ABInform and EBSCO business databases (not to mention Google Scholar, another good idea from Google).

Papers finished so far are:

• Managing Organisations and People
• Quantitative Analysis
• Supply Chain Management
• Financial Reporting and Control

The study experience has been even more enjoyable than my previous foray into the business school (Graduate Diploma in Business in IS Management) in two ways: firstly, the material is deeper and the expectations of research and work higher, and secondly, the business school has moved since my earlier time to a far nicer place to study, the Owen Glen Building, a few pictures of which follow:

I have seen the end

Oops, shouldn't forget the flying dogs...

Answering the Cry of the Poor

For the past year or so I've been assisting on the board of ANCOP New Zealand. ANCOP (or ANswering the Cry Of the Poor) is the original work out of which the Gawad Kalinga movement grew. The following is an article I wrote for the Auckland Filipino newspaper Pasa Pinoy.

It was a new-year article (now safely out of moratorium), hence the new year theme.

Answering the Cry of the Poor

On the 12th of May 1787 the persistent call of God culminated in a far-reaching decision in the heart of a wealthy Englishman. He would use his position and privilege to help those who completely lacked either. He would move beyond his own personal faith and spiritual practice to work in a cause that would set millions free, most of whom he would never meet. It would mean giving the rest of his life to help fulfill God's plan for uplifting the poor and oppressed.

Battling heavy opposition at every turn and many heart-breaking failures, it was twenty years later that the man - William Wilberforce - stood in the British Parliament with tears streaming down his face, as the British Parliament at last passed his law that would ban the buying and selling of human slaves. It would take another thirty years of fighting and striving before existing slaves were too set free. William Wilberforce heard the news from his deathbed, and died three days after hearing that slaves would be set free. His work was complete.

In the Philippines today, helping the poor and exploited is becoming less about one's own spiritual practice - "giving alms" per se - and more and more totally about ANswering the Cry Of the Poor. Giving alms has been changing to Padugo, giving oneself.

Filipinos (and increasing numbers of non-Filipinos) are pouring out their hearts, time and resources for their downtrodden kababayans - evidence of hearts that have heard the cry of the poor and listened. Filipinos are building a country that more closely models the Christ depicted on millions of tricycles, jeepneys and paintings. The cry of Malachi is being heard: "Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God."

The call that many received in the first few years of the millennium is being held closely to hearts around the world.

With 2010 here, a new year lets us dwell on the successes of the past year, as well as reflect on the huge challenges and opportunities of the coming year. 2009 was a year of remarkable highs and lows, refining by fire, and gaining of new strength through great adversity. It was a reminder of magnitude of difficulties we face, as well as a celebration of how much transformation the love and padugo of caretakers, volunteers, supporters and full-time workers has wrought.

Tremendous successes were had, such as an invitation to GK advocate Tony Meloto to address the APEC summit in Singapore - the only NGO invited to present to the event. The remarkable success stories emanating from the work of caretakers and volunteers on the ground were bearing fruit in increasing international approbation, it seemed. It was also a year of expanding vision, as GK unveiled GK2024, the vision of bringing five million families out of poverty by 2024.

It was a year that ended with a massacre that broke hearts and threatened to undermine hope. GK mourned as SIBOL teacher Pinky Balayman Edsing and GK advocate Bai Genalyn "Gigi" Mangudadatu were massacred along with 57 others. Some wondered, can things ever really change in the Philippines? Is the change we’ve seen so far truly even real?

But it was also a year when the devastation of Typhoon Ondoy showcased the residents of GK villages as pillars of strength in the surrounding areas. Former slum-dwellers now GK residents became leaders and rescuers, providers of refuge as floodwaters ravaged the slums and left hundreds of thousands without food or shelter.

Sitio Ruby, a former slum of 5,000 near the Sta Mesa dam in Quezon City - now a GK village - was one such rock in the midst of turmoil. Thanks to quick action the village sustained no casualties. The village chapel became a relief centre for neighbouring communities. GK Caretakers led by Gerry and Willy left their exclusive subdivisions to be at Sitio Ruby at the crack of dawn, there to help the villagers. With Sitio Ruby as a hub for relief efforts, the village residents’ priority became the welfare of the less fortunate around them.

GK Brookside also sustained no casualties. Courageous members of the GK Kapitbahayan worked for seven hours to save the lives of over a hundred women and children from neighbouring shanties, using the rooftops of GK houses as a bridge to safety. Using rafts and ropes to reach the wall of the neighbouring affluent village, GK residents and rescued neighbours were welcomed with open arms and given food, water and dry clothes. In the words of Tony Meloto, "it took a calamity to cross the wall of mistrust that separated the haves and the have-nots for years".

With GK initiating Operation Walang Iwanan, thousands of volunteers answered the call, pouring in from rich subdivisions and GK communities alike. In six days, six thousand volunteers processed 182,000 food packs out to thousands more volunteers in the field. The Philippine armed forces provided seven trucks for GK to distribute aid from.

At the same time, Filipinos around the world gave generously from the heart, equipping and encouraging those in the Philippines.

So as 2010 begins the next fifteen years of Gawad Kalinga, it is a time of celebration as well as sober reflection. There are trials, pains and joys. There is always padugo.

In New Zealand, Filipinos are reconnecting with the Philippines more than ever. The upcoming YGAT tour will immerse more young Kiwi-Filipinos in GK life, an experience that has already for many changed the Philippines from being “the country my parents are from” to “my country!”

And we are looking ahead to the next fifteen years, just as we remember the example of others called to answer the cry of the poor and oppressed. Freeing the slaves began with a few people who heard the call. Gawad Kalinga began with a handful of CFC volunteers building a single house.

The vision has grown as more have heard the call, and as we seek to uplift five million families through GK2024 it will demand the love, padugo and generosity of many. The call has grown for the Philippines to be a place where justice and mercy abounds, a testimony to the world.

It’s not about us. It never has been. It’s about ANswering the Cry Of the Poor.

"The work of Gawad Kalinga stems from genuine conviction of the heart and can never be imposed. It is a choice inspired by a concrete experience of transformation, hope and love. Many will enlist but not all will endure; many more will be invited, but only those hearts willing to embrace the poor without counting the cost will glue this backbone organization together." –Luis Oquinena , GK Executive Director

Embrace Life

Excellent new advertisement. Surely one of the most effective in its field.

Ukraine's Suffering, depicted in a Sand Animation by Kseniya Simonova

The winner of Ukraine's Got Talent is someone remarkably different from many of the national talent TV shows around the world. Kseniya Simonova moves the audience to tears as she tells the story of Ukraine's World War 2 sufferings using sand:



The final text Kseniya Simonova writes at the end of the piece is in Russian, translated "you are always near" or "you are always close".

And for some background information on Ukraine's suffering:

Nazi Germany’s greatest war crime is the Holocaust, of course, but the genocides against Ukrainians and Belarusians constitute a close second. And yet, while the Holocaust is common knowledge, few know much about the extermination of Ukrainians and Belarusians — and Germans may know about this least of all. The tragedy of these peoples’ suffering in the war has been compounded by the world’s almost complete ignorance and indifference.

That lamentable condition may be about to change, if only among professional historians. In a ground-breaking article that was published in the July 16 issue of The New York Review of Books, Yale University historian Timothy Snyder describes in excruciating detail just how Nazi policy was directed at exterminating first the Jews and then the Slavs. Since Belarus and Ukraine were occupied for almost four years, they suffered enormous population losses.

According to Snyder: “Half of the population of Soviet Belarus was either killed or forcibly displaced during World War II: nothing of the kind can be said of any other European country. … The peoples of Ukraine and Belarus, Jews above all but not only, suffered the most, since these lands were both part of the Soviet Union during the terrible 1930s and subject to the worst of the German repressions in the 1940s. If Europe was, as Mark Mazower put it, a dark continent, Ukraine and Belarus were the heart of darkness.”

The devastation that affected both countries is even greater when one considers their experiences in the Stalinist 1930s and in World War I. Ukraine lost at least 3 million people in the genocidal famine of 1933. Both countries also served as the main killing fields of the Eastern Front during World War I (1914-18), the Civil War in Russia (1918-21) and the Polish-Russian War (1919-21).

Ukraine and Belarus experienced nearly 40 consecutive years of relentless death and destruction, starting in 1914 and ending with Stalin’s death in 1953.

Although Soviet Russia bears a great deal of responsibility for the killing, the lion’s share falls on Germany.

And yet Germany, which so assiduously remembers its crimes during the Holocaust, has still to build one monument to the millions of Belarusians and Ukrainians its armies killed in the 20th century.

How can this blindness be explained?

Read the full article here