Chaos Lashes Out!!!

Quite a lovely class discussion we were having on Thursday. I found it to be rather useless yet fun none the less. I was laughing most of the time because what else can you do in a situation like that. I think what was going on was that due to the fact that none or maybe just a hand full of us know what we are somewhat doing causing great frustration. We have been told to do “it” when we know not what or how to do “it.” This would obviously cause tension. Now mix in the fact that those who are passionate about what ever we are doing were all trying to get their points across to a frustrated almost upset audience. I had the most vivid picture come in my mind when this all was taking place. “Lord of the Flies” Now only could see hear and see the disorder and frustration but we could feel the arising conflictions in the class. I do have to commend those who sat through that and wanting to shout out loud but did not. My hat is off to you all. I don’t think we should do that again in that way, I mean unless we all just want to break out into a full on fisty cuff brawl. Maybe Technology and Organizational can team up and take on The Market and People group as Capital bets on who’s going to win. Hahaha. Anyway it did make my Thursday afternoon quite fun. Thanks to all who were involved.

Knowing your Limit

I really liked today’s class about thresholds. We all have them and I think it’s something very personal. We all function differently I’m talking about mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc. Ok let’s use a physical analogy; we’ve all heard that our brain is a muscle. When we go to the gym we work it out. If we don’t for a while then go your muscles become sore. Everyone knows this. As you work out your muscles become stronger being able to lift more, run faster, etc. So by working out we raise our threshold of fuctionablity. It’s so hard to at first go just for 30 min. then after working out for while you’re in there for like some 2 hours or so and feel just fine about it. It works the same way with our mental capacity. We need to work our brain out to where we can take in more and at a higher rate. The gospel principle is not a secret and can be applied to just about everything. Now a word of caution: don’t over do it yet. But don’t let the idea or fear of over doing it hinder thine progress. I love people who go to the gym because they want to get fit and on the sight of a sweat drop they stop because they “don’t want to over do it.” Let us push each other to make us the best we can be. It’s like that army quote, “Be all that you can be.” Blah blah blah. I guess there’s truth in that. Well good stuff yet again.

Takin' Care of Business

Well today was a great class. I feel like we are finally about to jump in the pool. I mean we took care of the on going problem of the blog. (Sounds like some old horror movie.) I’m feeling good about it now, well more then yesterday at least. Then we got to actually almost find out what exactly what we are doing. See then again this being lost in the dark, blind following the blind, event does have its fun bits. I can totally see how this would help in the future. I mean as if real jobs are al clear cut as school is. I think Bro. Adams is trying to set us up for the working world but not only that I think it’s for the future working world. Just like he said today the world is changing and we, as the next generation of the world, have to have it all down. So today my hat is off to you bro Adams. Ok so I have to comment on the 7 habits I don’t know about ya’ll but this is good stuff. It’s like the sweet sweet nectar that comes from the bees, like the ice cream next to a warm apple pie, it just makes everything better. Can you image a piece of apple pie with out ice cream? I mean what is that? It’s just a dessert. But with ice cream it’s like a gourmet dish. I wish you’ll just have to try it to understand. Peace and Love

Optimizing The Whole

OK so this is my little two sense of what I got from this optimizing business. Let’s use a sports analogy shall we. Say I was trying to make a football team and I have 10 million dollars to buy players on to this team. So I have to first look at the team as parts of the whole. Ok so let’s see, a football team has an offence, defense, and special teams. All are vitally important to the success of the team. I can’t rationalize and say, “Well because the offence is the one who puts points on the board I will spend most of my money on them.” That would be called optimizing a part. When that happens you know in a game when the defense is on the field we will be demolished every time. So we have to look at all the parts as important and divvy the funds to the parts almost equally. If we don’t nearly equalize the funds then all is lost and so is the game. I say this as perhaps from the organizational group and we need to not only focus on our own parts but realize the importance of the other parts and collaborate to discuss to maximize the potential of each group. So let us all hold hands and think of the greater good.

The word is Miscommunication

Today, within our little organizational group, (talking about the Colombia case) we discussed the problem that occurred and looked at it from an Organizational perspective. In other words we tried to answer the question of how was the organization as a whole and parts contributed to the demise of the shuttle Colombia, R.I.P. See in my opinion majority of problems that occurs in most everyday to corporate level situations are due to a little thing which I like to call miscommunication. According to Webster, the definition of this word is, “failure to communicate clearly.” Well I thought of this definition as, Lite, to use a beer analogy. So I went to dictionary.com and found a definition most satisfactory to my liking, “Lack of clear or adequate communication.” That is exactly what our group thought about the so called “NASA organization” and what happened.
Now I’m a friendly guy and don’t particularly like to think of anybody as not being able to perform in their jobs at least at par level especially at NASA. Let me tell you it’s not easy to get into NASA. When I was in high school the opportunity to go check out what NASA does and everything associated with Astronomical something or another was present. Well they only take to crème de la crème of the kids so that left me out. This was just to go look and play around and stupid kids couldn’t even do that because they only wanted to elite. Anyway my point is NASA doesn’t just take any Joe of the street and have him work for them. So even to minions at the bottom, I think, hold some credibility. Well Big guys at the top didn’t think so. The info was all there but due to the guys who wear the pants in the organization that most vital information never reached the ears of those willing to hear which could have in turn saved some people’s lives.
Now in defense of the tyrants on top they do have, I would believe, the most pressure from the people who are funding this. I was in intro to Journalism for 2 days and the one of three things I learned was you have to please people behind the advertisements because they are the ones who are paying you for what you do. So in NASA’s case they have to please the government or there would be no NASA. So you can’t just take every little bad feeling that anyone who works for NASA has and investigate it thoroughly. That takes too much time and time is money. So they were probably making some executive decisions in foregoing the warnings. The demand of, “go to space and tell me what you see,” from the government was greater then, “warning problems with the o-ring.” So before we jump to judgment on how bad the top people were we have to try and see it from their point of view. And that is what I have to say about that.