The way we communicate

Last night, I finished watching the final episode of "The Big Silence," a documentary created by BBC2.  In the show, it takes five people from all over the UK, and has them explore the purposeful silence in their life.  They are led on their journey by Fr. Christopher, of Worth Abbey (full disclosure, I had the chance while studying in England to go on a weekend retreat at Worth. The priest on 'loan' to the Cambridge Newman Center was a former Abbot of Worth Abbey, and gave us the chance to go there for a weekend retreat.  I thus had the opportunity to meet the priests featured in the program - truly an amazing experience if anyone is looking for a place to make a silent or guided retreat).  I would also highly suggest watching BBC 2's "The Monastery" - the first of these series that gave five men the opportunity to live in a Benedictine Monastery, and to see the results of which play out in "live TV."

At any rate, the program "The Big Silence" is meant to give the watchers a cause to pause and reflect on just how busy we are filling our lives with things. There are the obvious perpetrators such as digital devices, the television and cell phones.  But the program also touches on deeper issues, such as our inability to be in company with those around us without filling the time/place with noise.  Or the habit of many people to go, go, go in every moment of their life with a constant to-do list, which necessitates constant movement (heaven forbid we let one moment lapse - that would be laziness!).

I have dawdled with the idea of silence for the past few years.  Growing up Catholic, I always loved going on retreats - especially now as a working adult.  To spend time in a place outside of a city, where one could hear the cacophony of birds and animals outside, well, to me just feels like being wrapped up in a blanket of luxuriousness.  However, despite how much people gain from silence and pause, we seem to revert back to ever more-connected means of communications.

It led me to ponder upon going to bed last night, what impact is the lack of silence and self-reflection having on our culture as a whole?  Are we stifling ourselves from the moments of reflection that can lead to genuine insight?  Are we overbooking ourselves into mediocrity?  What is happening, as a result, to our ability to communicate with others either by person or through written media?

On the one hand, it can be very easily argued that improvements in communication have made it so much easier to communicate.  I can use Skype to call friends all over the world - or pop an email to my Aunt in England asking her for her recipe for Yorkshire Pudding, and receive an almost instantaneous response.  Yet on the other hand, how is our new method of communicating via tweets and texts changing how we actually think and make decisions - is everything now being condensed to 140 characters?  If so, what are we loosing as a result, or what are we gaining?

The thoughts above took me back to an undergraduate Anthropology class I had at Michigan, where I remember reading Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal, where Professor Ahearn discussed the impact of written language had on traditional marriage rituals and ceremonies.  I never made the connection before, but is it possible that we are witnessing our own shift in cultural values and implications of that shift in real-time?  Admittedly, linguistic anthropology was never my strong suit, but still the fascination of how our language is both a by-product of our time, and a key shaper of how we relate to the world is fascinating.

And that brings me back to the whole silence question.  Last week, a boss of mine posed a question to our internal group and that is should we consider taking a one day electronic hiatus?  He was inspired by this article, but the responses of the crowd at large was fascinating.  Most everyone responded "yes, we need an unplugged day."  A few keen observers though had the insight of why do we think of this technology as somehow impeding our communication - why is it not just an innate part of culture, where it is seen as natural as it was to use the original land-line telephones to communicate (as opposed to writing letters or going over to your neighbor's house to 'call' upon them).  Regardless of what you think of the use of electronic devices, I do think that we each need to have our moments of silence.  Where we can take the wealth of information before us, have time to meditate, or to pray, and to see how new innovations and solutions - or perhaps questions to answers that impede us may bubble to the surface.

I am curious to know the general populations' thought on this.  Agree/disagree?  Anyone have a better understanding of the paradigmatic shift we're seeing when it comes to our language?

Emotions and the search for 'Truth.'

My mind has been occupied the last few days at some of the news I have seen coming from Tibet. I have been following the events and social unrest there for quite some time, always reading multiple accounts of what human rights activists say is happening, versus what the Chinese government has said is happening. I have been first astounded at how bold the Tibetan monastic and local populations have been in standing up to what they believe are unjust policies and practices, and also equally astounded at what a harsh crackdown the Chinese government has taken to suppress these movements - believing that the protests are actually a form of mild terrorism and actions against the tranquility of the PRC.

As someone who has sympathy for the Tibetans, yet also understands the intricacies of the politics surrounding the Chinese point of view as Tibet as part of the Middle Kingdom I've always attempted to stay neutral - to stay academic, and to view things through an apolitical lens of observation and commentary. However, never before have I been impacted on what I believe to be a personal level. Never before has the issue been an emotional one for me (partly out of self preservation). That is until last week when I heard that the protests had spread to Dzogchen Monastery in Western Sichuan province.

For those of you who don't know me, I carry around on my keychain a keychain from Dzogchen Monastery- the name of which is written in Tibetan on one side and Chinese on the other. The keychain for me has come to symbolize the complex interplay of the cultures of the Chinese and Tibetan - and the fact that there are real people at the heart of this turmoil. Both Tibetans and Chinese who want the same thing that anyone else in this world wants: life, liberty, and the ability to pursue their own dreams. For the Chinese entrepreneur, this may mean entering a new market of the "wild west" of China to start a business or to explore. For the Tibetans, this could mean the freedom to worship as and whom they choose, to have jobs that will support their family, and so on.

For me, I remember clearly the valley around Dzogchen - a glacial mountain rising high above the valley interspersed with thousands of prayer flags in every color and size. A series of three glacial-fed pools surrounded by fields of mountain wildflowers; a scene I only thought existed in my dreams. A monastery being built brand new, funded by Tibetans and Chinese buddhists, a lively monastic center - a place of learning. I remember sitting by a stream about 9pm at our campsite. Over the loudspeakers at the monastic learning center down the road I heard the voice of a chant being played against Tibetan flute. I sat, with the sounds of these chants, the gurgling water, the stars above me and just cried. I was homesick, I was confused, I was happy - and I knew that there was so much more complexity to this situation than any one person could ever understand. I was at once incredibly disturbed and oddly, at peace. It was the climax of my three month trip to Tibet - and one of those moments that is etched in my memory forever.

That is why when I heard this news I was so angry. Not at the Chinese, not at the Tibetans, but just angry. How dare they desecrate such a place? How dare they desecrate the place of my memory, my epiphany? I felt I had to keep these emotions to myself - because who am I (an outsider! An American!) to judge either the Tibetans or the Chinese? Who am I to know what it is like to be there on the ground witnessing this.

And that is when I read this post by Carole McGranahan, about our sometimes lack of emotion in the academic or professional world. We are trained as anthropologists, and as business people, to be judgement neutral. To examine our subjects from as much of an etic perspective as is possible - and to observe patterns of behavior. But what happens when that cannot happen? What happens when we know our own viewpoint is thwarted by memories and connections and our culture? How can we maintain integrity to report on what is happening? How do we maintain composure?

How do we know what is Truth?

Reposting: Big Data in Government and Higher Education: A new paradigm?

Now I am about to embark on a completely new adventure, something that is relatively new and has been receiving a lot of buzz lately in the blogosphere and twitterspace: Big Data!

What is Big Data? Well - it is is exactly what it sounds like, a study of all the questions that arise when confronted with the massive and incredibly complex amount of data available to us from common media sources. Google's recent decision to link all of its products with the Google+ feature had enlightened many average internet users to the power of what can happen when massive amounts of data are correlated to be able to give you specified links and adds as you search the internet.

The implications, then, of Big Data on government and especially within Higher Education is not a small one. Just last week, the White House announced a new initiative to embrace the idea of Big Data in Government. As a result the technology world has been a buzz in terms of how they can cash in on assisting the Federal government in its quest to collaborate all data together.

Of particular interest is the impact that Big Data can have in higher education. For instance, as written about in the Chronicle for Higher Education, a professor is utilizing Google and Google Reader with his classes to source over 1000 literature sources. This being my first day using Google Reader, I sympathize with the overwhelm these students must feel. But then I stop and consider, imagine what would happen if we all have access to incredible amounts of data on a day-to-day basis? What potential could we have to reach beyond the bounds of what is known through perhaps our teacher and our classmates, to connect with scholars and workers from around the world thereby expanding not just our own political footprints, but also the ability to gather heretofore unknown research and input that information into the common lexicon.

Within Higher Education once can already see how the massive amounts of Big Data are shifting the parameters of what is acceptable research - and what is not. For instance, when I was in school sourcing items from the internet was really only ok if you were sourcing from a major news sours (i.e. the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist). No one would ever think of utilizing a blog as a source of real information - in fact I think blogs were just in their infancy as I left grad school. Nowadays, people would not think to leave the blogosphere at least untouched when researching a new issue.

So given the impact Big Data can have on higher education - what, then, should the institutions be doing now to ensure that the chance for access to this information is not wasted?

Well - for one, the government should look to funding not only its own research for BigData, but to also support in the form of grants and research BigData ThinkLabs at major universities and corporations. These organization would be able to utilize the support of the government to better understand the vast socio-cultural implications of data (ex: crowdsourcing, crowdsharing, and the like).

Further, the government should take care not to fall down the same holes it has done in the past with similar collaborative efforts - that is the goverment has to be willing to experiment with Big Data in real time. As indicated in Information Weekk, the government must, must, MUST make sure they are working on this in a collaborative nature. I believe the government should create a big data site where people can work in a sandbox environment with realtime, non-sensitive data, to figure out ways the Federal government can utilize the information covered by Big Data to answer the various questions it is plagued with on a day-to-day basis. Health and Human Services, by nature of the electronic health records push, is having to deal with some of these issues already - but it (as well as the rest of the Government) still has a long way to go.

And this brings me to the last part of my musings. You may notice the title of my blog ends with a question "A New Paradigm?" The reason I ask that question is that throughout researching the idea of "Big Data" and seeing just how 'hip' and 'cool' and 'sexy' it appears to be, I wonder why that is the case. I believe it has something to do with our innate trust of numbers. For some reason, in business, in government, and in life we are more compelled to change when there are numbers and so-called 'facts' to support one claim over another. But why is that so? Especially in the realm of big data, we are dealing with such large amounts of data and information that it is nearly impossible for two people to look at the same amount of data in the same way. Let alone compile it, display it graphically, and then draw some sort of conclusion from that data. I think that the big data issues illustrates that we are on the cusp of some kind of new paradigm of thought - where we will start to see the emergence of a new culture, and new realms of understanding that have their basis is data, facts, and so-called information. The days when people segment themselves into 'right-brained' or 'left-brained;' people who have a proclivity to data and mathematics, versus social issues and arts, I believe will start to blend together into a world where those who will be truly successful will dance on the edge of data tnd creation; figures and art; social trends and supported tweets. I, for one, look forward to this venture and what the future will bring.

For those looking to learn more, check out Twitter #bigdata or #bigdatagovt. Also the company Integrated Software Solutions and Lucid Imagination, as well as IBM and various government agencies (DARPA and the Office of Science and Technology Policy) are all working in this field.

Land, Culture and Development

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a lecture sponsored by Machik, an organization devoted to the "development of education, capacity-building and innovation on the Tibetan plateau." I have been following Machik for a few years now - but this was my first opportunity to attend an event here in D.C. It was so wonderful to walk into a room with people from, and who had visited Tibet. To hear the language spoken (even though I can only understand words here and there) was like a long-lost part of me coming home.

The talk was entitled "Palzan Salon on Water Management in Golok." I know, not too sexy huh? But it was so incredible! The speaker's name was Palzang, from Ngawa (the site of the 2008 earthquake that devastated a monastery I had visited in Summer 2004). He has been working the past few years on helping to clean up area waterways in the Nyinpo Yurtse mountain region. This mountainous area is the home of some of the major rivers of Asia - including the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Mekong, and Brahmaputra to name a few. Yet in this area the notion of 'trash' is a somewhat novel idea. I saw this myself in 2004 - in the middle of Lhasa. Up until recently (and this was confirmed by Palzang), most of what Tibetans used (or re-used) was biodegradable in nature. However with the influence of 'modern' society - and the materials that accompany a more developed lifestyle, Tibetans were exposed to new materials that are non-biodegradable (plastics, chemicals, etc.). So in Lhasa it was not out of the ordinary to see, for example, kids eating candy and just throwing the wrapper out on the side of the road. My group even remarked that an area outside of Lhasa was known as the Plastic Bag Forest - as the wind would whip through Lasha, pick up plastic bags, and they would get caught in the trees on the outskirts of town making it look like a forest of plastic bags.

At any rate in the Nyinpo Yurtse mountain region this same cultural influence is being felt acutely in the waters. People, nomads in particular, would dump everything, from batteries, to chemicals, to typical waste in the headwaters of some of the major rivers leading to a huge pollution problem. So what to do about this situation?

Well, Palzang decided to take quite an anthropological approach. Despite his own education in ecology and biological sciences - he turned to the local lamas for help in this solution. In particular, he appealed to the local Tibetan's sense of what we can refer to as an 'eco-sacred system,' that is areas where spirits are believed to reside in natural forms. In Nyinpo Yurtse, there are an abundance of Lu, or traditional water spirits that are said to reside at the headwaters. Thus much of Palzang's education was from a religious perspective - appealing to the desire to honor the Lu, or not to anger it. In particular, a common practice among the natives in the area is to make offerings to the Lu, called Ter. As the region has grown in tourist and religious eyes - Ter were sold and thrown into the water at an alarming rate. So Palzang worked with local monasteries to develop bio-degradable Ter that would help lessen the amount of trash in the areas. They also organized entire clean up teams to help rid the rivers of the trash - and they were all locally organized.

The impact was amazing - he was able to help organize whole communities toward a beneficial effort to produce clean water not just for the local communities - but to the benefit of the entire Asian continent (talk about good karma!! - which was, by the way one of the other teachings that was used to teach the importance of not polluting the river). It was just amazing how by looking at a situation from an etic perspective - whereby you understand what is really going to impact the people to change their cultural perceptions is just amazing. The results he has for the clean up effort are quite extensive given the low amount of funding and the difficulty found in reaching these areas; and the success with grassroots organizations.

All in all it was an incredibly refreshing afternoon - and reminded me about all the theology that I had forgotten regarding Tibetan Buddhism and the importance of physical, natural locations to the local culture and populations. Definitely makes me want to pick up some old college books to refresh my memory... and it was just plain inspiring to hear some good news coming from a region that has been hard hit these past few years.

If you are interested in finding out more, Palzang's work was funded by both USAID and Winrock International - though I have had difficulty finding any presentations that are publicly available.

Paradox of Global Development

A few days ago a friend sent me a link to a blog article on HuffPo, titled "The State of our Disunion," by Robert Reich. In the article, he goes on to briefly illustrate how the private sector is becoming increasingly global, while public sector is becoming increasingly private.

While his article illustrates some high-level observable trends that really are not that revolutionary to anyone following Big Business, he does make an interesting point when reading in between the lines: the cultural assumptions we make about various players (i.e. 'the state' 'big business,' etc.) are quickly changing. Take for instance the U.S. Government of the 1960s. It was an era when NASA was reaching to the moon, when the CIA and FBI were in full out clandestine operations, and when, unbeknownst to many of us, DoD researchers were putting into motion research that would one day bring us the internet. In short - government was the place to be for an aspiring young mind.

Yet what do we hear today, vitriol and downright hate regarding state employees (from back office workers, to public teachers). What is the cause for such a shift? Well some of it belongs to the shift of history books - and the waxing and waning of various political parties in power. However, the crux of it lies at the impact of culture on our perceptions. What has changed in the past forty to fifty years are the multitude of players, the invention of the internet, the 24/7 news media, and technology changes that make it easier for us to learn information ourselves, and do it in a quick manner. Unfortunately, much of the larger government apparatus seems stuck in time - and has not readily adapted to the changing times, hence the implications that government does nothing.

And herein comes Mr. Reich's opinion that the public sector is becoming increasingly private. Why is that, many ask? Well as a gov't contractor it is quite simple - we can do things faster, more efficiently, and can get things done. We get buy in from major stakeholders and implement practices that are known in business circles to improve many things, from efficiency, to employee morale and loyalty. Yet - we are never seen. Many companies, mine included, take special note to ensure that all the work we do looks as if it comes from the government office - it is a tenant of 'good service: ya make your boss look good!' But it leaves one feeling sometimes like the Wizard of Oz, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain..."

I am not sure if the current system in place is going to remain there - or if, as is my hope, government catches up and learns from the things contractors are doing and we can get the agencies to a point where they can, in turn, fire us. But regardless this is a culture currently in place and relatively accepted by many within the two groups.

Now as per global corporations - well that deserves another blog post altogether. For now I will just leave you with this:

New Year's, Resolutions, and Development Goals

Ah! It is the New Year! 2012, Year of the Dragon - the end of the World!?! (According to the Mayan calendar). Inevitably talk of the New Year has us discussing New Year's resolutions: losing weight, smoking less, drinking less, making more time for family and so on.

I found it somewhat interesting that during this time period I also happened to go through my mid-year review process at work. One of the key items examined are our yearly 'development goals,' and how our performance has or has not enabled us (or me, rather) to achieve those goals. Part of the mid-year discussion involves refining those goals, rewriting those goals, and/or deleting some altogether.

Amidst all this pressure to define myself in terms of 'goal accomplishment,' I found myself musing as to when did our American/Corporate culture get to this point? At what point did we move away from our only goal being survival, to all these nuanced items that reflect more what our culture expects of us, rather than what we expect of ourselves. I could not help but think of my time in other parts of the world: Tibet, Spain, Italy, England, and wondered are those cultures as obsessed with perfection and constant improvement? Ok, so granted I know that my company is global in nature - so therefore my colleagues in Europe and Asia are expected to uphold similar standards of performance. But what about other home-country companies? For example, what are the 'performance' expectations of a state-owned Chinese company? Do they reflect at all the expectations of Chinese culture writ large?

These distinctions are important because as companies expand beyond their natural borders, something as simple as performance, or performance expectations will change from culture to culture. For American companies, continual self-improvement is seen as a very good trait to have, whereas nations in other parts of the world value more the emphasis on team-work, and improving the lot of the company, organization, or community. What are some ways in which performance expecations take into consideration cultural implications on performance. Is the idea of "performance reviews" too Western an idea for other businesses?

Any other insights anyone has on this topic would be great to see.

Global Workforce Planning - Trends from China

A few weeks back I was bombarded from multiple media outlets with articles about how the Chinese workforce and the way it is trending may impact our domestic American workforce planning policies and procedures?

One article in the Washington Post, by Vivek Wadwa discusses the move by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to open their doors to recruit international talent. The other article, "Foreign firms less attractive: Professionals opt to join State companies," from the 11/7/2011 Capital Business Report (Authors Wu Wencong and Li Jing) details how many high performing indivudals who work for foreign companies in China, are leaving the lucrative private enviroments to work for their own SOEs. Both of these articles demonstrate an increasing focus of China on attracting, and hopefully retaining the world's best talent.

The challenges outlined in both articles mimic much of what we see in the United States: bright young minds abandoning public service in the sake of working for a 'name brand,' private company are now re-thinking their decisions given the current economic uncertainty. However, with both governments recognizing the new need for bright talent to address the issues facing the entire world (economic uncertainty, technology, advanced manufacturing techniques, the 'war for knowledge'), are we starting to see a trend away from private companies back to government or service-oriented jobs?

Or - is this purely a reflection that during the 2008 global economic crisis, private companies were the first to shed their jobs and tighten their belts? OR, are younger employees recognizing that the idea of company loyalty no longer exists in the way it did for our parents' generations, just leaving to follow the highest paycheck and benefits packages? Regardless of the answers to the above, having a clear understanding of the demographic trends of workforce states and future projections would better be able to shed light on workforce planning trends for the next 5-10 years. Accurately predicting wher ethe employees will tend to look for work could help organizations and governments hone their recruitment practices, and internal operating procedures to best suit the needs of the ever-changing workforce.

Expanding this to a global audience will be the next great challenge, requiring Human Resource officers to have a very nuanced understanding of the needs of each cohort of employees from countries throughout the world. What attracts a Chinese ex-pat, say, may not be the same as what attracts a British ex-pat, an Indian ex-pant, an American ex-pat, or a Brazilian ex-pat. While money does seem to be the overwhelming driving force - I think that deeper seated cultural tendencies will have a larger long-term impact on the decisions persons make to stay at their current place of employment, or to leave altogether.