John McCain and the art of losing well

So Barack Obama ended up winning around twice as many electoral college votes as John McCain (365 vs. 173). The actual votes cast show a closer race than that (52.8% 45.9%) but it was still very clearly Obama's election. The worse the economic crisis became, the more Obama looked like the man who would be better able to steer a course through it (please God!)

If it's any consolation to McCain, there top job looks like the most poisoned chalice around. As The Onion ironically reported under the headline Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job - In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it.

Even dealing with the current crises (plural) will put years on Obama fast. Just imagine if it were McCain with a 72-year-old body already damaged by torture and bouts of illness.

All in all, John McCain probably got the best result for him, for the United States and the world. His loss was clear but not crushing and certainly not humiliating. And whatever he goes on to do, he will be remembered for one of the most gracious, courageous and magnanimous concession speeches on record.

John McCain will win

At the time of writing everything is set for Barack Obama to achieve an historic victory in the US Presidential elections on November 4th 2008. The polls are showing him with a six-point lead at a time when the panicky economic situation seemed to cry out for his reassuring coolness and detachment. McCain is an experienced, older man, but economics are not his strong suit. And his party was on watch when the credit party ended and the economy turned hyperbearish.

There are signs of a rift in the McCain camp. His VP selection Sarah Palin and her fervent supporters are eager to attack Obama with whatever weapons come to hand (some of them literally), while McCain himself is standing up to defend Obama and asking highly partisan crowds to tone down the attacks.

But there are at least three factors set to upset the predicted Obama victory. One is that although there are waverers among both affliliated Republicans and affiliated Democrats, there are more Democrat waverers leaning towards McCain than there are Republican waverers leaning towards Obama. Another is that McCain's support is stronger among older voters while Obama's support is stronger among younger voters; older folk are more reliable at turning out to vote than youngsters. And the third is the so-called Bradley factor - up until the last moment, liberal and moderate white voters go with their conscience, but in the privacy of the booth, they go with their gut and vote for the white guy.

Teaching Creationism and Darwinian Evolution

Once again, thanks to Sarah Palin, there's been a lot of debate about whether schools should teach Creationism / Intelligent Design alongside Darwinian Evolution.

I'm all for teaching both alongside each other, but not in the science lesson - nor in religion. Evolution is a scientific theory based on tangible evidence, with some scope for testing the hypotheses, and belongs in science teaching. Creationism / Intelligent Design are based on scriptures and belong in religion.

Both are dependent on belief systems, and what kids (and adults) need to learn is the ability to examine belief systems and ask smart questions about them. So maybe they should come together in PSHE of philosophy.

FWIW when until the age of 7-8, my youngest never asked the typical kiddie question "why?" - he asked the far tougher "how do you know?"

Does the future need us?

A few years back, Bill Joy wrote a disturbing and interesting piece for Wired Magazine, called "Does the future need us?". And more recently the Luminous Landscape forum had a worried thread about humanity being reduced to just another machine.

As far as I'm concerned, if mankind comes up with a machine that's kinder, more compassionate, more empathic and more loving than humans, great. What's not to like?

As for taking photographs, composing music, playing chess, playing tennis, speaking foreign languages or any of the other things in which I take an interest, I know with 99.999999999% certainty that at age 53, I will never do any of them well enough to rank in the top 1000 in my country, let alone in the world. There are more than 6.8 BILLION humans out there, and the number is growing and my chances of getting near the top of any field of activity are shrinking.

So for me, whether the entities that do those activities better than me are humans or machines makes not a lot of difference. What matters for me is the experience of doing those things, and interacting with others as I do them.

As for the products of machines compared with the products of humans, similar considerations apply. What counts for me is whether a photograph, or a piece of music or a piece of writing connects with me. If a machine has produced it, then that's amazing.

The strange attraction of Early Music

I've become very partial to what's known as "Early Music", which means stuff written up to around 1760 - Bach and before. I guess it helps that my piano teacher Sophie Yates is a specialist in that era and her husband - a former rock musician - is a lute player.

Some of that early music sounds strangely modern - not in an MTV, Indie way - and some of it evokes Elizabethan drama, Spanish grandees and the like.

Anyway, at last Friday's piano lesson I was just relishing getting my ten thumbs round a particularly pleasing couple of bars and I wondered out loud what it was about music from 350 years ago that was getting to me. And Sophie said it's just music from another place, except that it's also from another place in time. Which seemed to hit the nail on the head for me.

Push media revisited, thanks to the NYT

Back in the days of slow dial-up connections I was a huge fan of Pointcast, a downloadable newspaper reader. I chose my desired selection from a range of news media and every day the programme would download the content to the reader. That way I could read the stuff on my computer without having to be online.

Then Pointcast hit all kinds of problems and disappeared. But with always-on broadband, newspapers and magazines are never more than a click away anyway, so it didn't matter so much.

So what's the point of a media reader now? The New York Times has a very handy product called The New York Times Reader that I'm trying out at the moment. It delivers all the content of the paper every day, and the cache holds seven days worth of NYT. The quality of writing and coverage of the New York Times is probably better than British papers such as The Times, The Telegraph and The Guardian - after all, the NYT is one of the world's great newspapers.

When the trial ends in 10 days or so, the critical issue for me will be the price point. The NYT Reader is a nice-to-have, not an essential. Anything less than $50 a year I'll sign up without a second thought. Anything approaching $100 will be too much.

Apple - close and getting closer

For almost 20 years I've been having my ears bent by Mac fanatics intent on converting me to the true faith. But I hated having to use a Mac (OS 9.0) when I was with Y&R in the late 90s and reverted to Windows as soon as I could.

Then the iPod came out and I relented and bought a G4 TiBook with MS Office loaded. I ended up sticking with Windows for work and using the TiBook to manage my music and digital photos - pretty kit but flimsy, with poor wireless range.

Then I had a chance to work on the iMac, digital editing with James Mairs using Final Cut Pro. So I splashed out on an Intel iMac and even an Intel MacBook Pro. But again, I ended up sticking with Windows for work and using the Macs for music and photos.

All along, I never felt comfortable enough switching to Mac for work. But having just had (another) Windows data wipe-out, this time with Vista, I've decided my next spend will be a switch to Mac. What's changed?

1) The guys at the local Apple dealer, Farpoint Developments in Bath know their products inside out and they're helpful. With any luck, that will mean much less of my time time wasted on IT DIY. Two days less a year will make it worthwhile.

2) Mac's OS-X is a lot more stable than Windows, it boots and runs faster and it doesn't leave a mess of DLLs all over the system.

3) The new iPhone finally looks like a smartphone that's usable for work and relevant to my needs - which don't include taking photos and movies

4) The new Me.com service looks like it could tie everything together in exactly the way I need. The only doubt at the moment is whether it will allow me to use my various domains as e-mail send addresses.

The Game is always there

Always. Whether you recognise it or not. So you may as well call it:
1. 1.What’s the game here?
2. How is it played?
3. What are the rules? What's allowed and what's not allowed?
4. How does the scoring work?
5. What's the ultimate objective?
6. Do I want to play this game - or is there another game I could invent?

Happy with what I've got

Guys love gadgets and I'm no exception. In my case, I got the photography bug almost 30 years ago and have been poring over equipment magazines and reviews and outlets ever since. It was bad enough in the days of silver halide film. Now, with digital, the scope for gadgetry is vast.

Part of gadget mania is wondering whether your gadgets are up to scratch, and whether there are gadgets out there that could do the job better. Of course, there always are. And they usually cost a lot more.

So I'm surprised and happy to realise that until further notice, the one camera and three lenses I have are absolutely all the hardware I need to get decent pictures. What I need now, apart from using the software better, is to work on the wetware - my vision and skills as a photographer. Thank you Nat.

A totem bird

Last month I was giving some training in the Netherlands and staying with friends near Amsterdam. As happens so often there, the weather was changeable but late on the Saturday afternoon there was enough sun for me to grab my camera and 100-400 mm lens and head off looking for Great Crested Grebes - one of my favourites.

They're shy little birds although in Holland they can be found all over the place, along with the ducks and the coots and the herons. The difference is that when people approach, the ducks swim towards them expecting food, the coots swim away, the herons take flight with many a "grawk" and the grebes dive under the water and reappear 10-15 metres away.

Late March must be breeding season for those grebes because they were all getting together and jostling and in their finest feathers. Just right for being photographed.

There's Steve Jobs, and there's everyone else

So management by fear is right after all!!

A very interesting article in Wired magazine (click) shows how Apple's founder and CEO Steve Jobs has driven his company to the top the old way. No cuddly, buddy-buddy relations with staff - rather, relentless attention to detail and results, and a legendary temper that has people quaking in their boots. Apple was practically dead in 1997, but according to the article it's now worth more than Dell. As a brand it's certainly a lot sexier.

Does this all mean that bosses can forget all that tiresome stuff about management by persuasion? Does it mean that "do as I say, or else..." is this most effective approach? It may well be so if you've got a proven track record of creating industry-leading products, as Steve Jobs has. It may well be so if you are the founder and guardian of a brand that inspires deep devotion among its users, as Steve Jobs is. It may well be so if you are a master of PR, as Steve Jobs is. It may well be if you are acknowledged to be many, many times smarter than the average bear, as Steve Jobs is.

A while ago I had dealings with a global organization that was headed up by an inspirational, visionary leader. He was something of a Steve Jobs in a very specialised industry segment. Charismatic, autocratic, involved in every aspect of the business from the science and marketing to the HR and lay-out of the canteen. He talked well but listened badly. He decided what everyone needed to do and told them, without actually getting them on board. His company worked well for a while then things went badly wrong.

Do I wish I had bought shares in Apple in 1997? Absolutely. Would I now invest in any other company run as Apple is run? Probably not. Management by fear and diktat is a high-risk approach and there's only a handful of people as good as Steve Jobs who can pull it off.

Kicking the online social networking habit - update

Just over two months ago I came out and said I was taking a break from my online social network on Ecademy. Unlike many New Year resolutions, I've stuck to this one. So what's happened?

Well I was expecting to have at least an hour more of spare time a day freed up. Somehow or other that hasn't happened. I occasionally dip into an Ecademy spin-off called Last Thursday but it rarely holds my attention for more than a couple of minutes at most. I have certainly spent more time on the forum at Luminous Landscape, which is really an excellent site with some outstanding contributors and discussions on photography and art; but that's no more than 10-15 minutes a day. And I've occasionally dipped into a Skype chat with old Ecademy contacts.

However, though I don't feel as if I have more time, I do feel a bit less fragmented and a bit more at ease with myself. But what about business.

Ecademy is a business-oriented social network, so being away from Ecademy might have been expected to have a negative impact on business. But no. I did a day for a new client in January (an Ecademy contact), I've just started working with a new client in Holland (a long-standing friend from pre-Ecademy days) and there is something brewing with a new business locally - thanks to a contact from my local Academy for Chief Executives Group 33 run by Mike Wilsher.

So all in all, I'm pleased with my decision to take a break. It's freed up mental and emotional space for other activities. It's enabled me to become more focused. It's given me the satisfaction of overcoming a compulsion. And it's given me a bigger perspective on the benefits and disbenefits of online networking.

I don't regret a moment of my Ecademy activities, and I would certainly recommend it to the right sort of person. Whether I return, and how, remain open questions.

"Communicating emotion" - enough already!

People talk a lot about "communicating emotion" through creative works - music, painting, photography etc. Personally, I find the "emotions" thing a bit twee, a bit illusory and certainly very self-centered. For me, the question is what is the "state" elicited by a particular work in people who are seeing it or hearing it?

Talking images, for example, I find a perfectly-executed portrait or landscape or product shot generally tends to elicit what I would call a completed state; I may linger and look at the detail, I may think "that's nice" or "great image" and I may even get excited or I may laugh, but I end up feeling that I've "got it" and moving on. The loop of noticing, looking, processing, and understanding closes.

What interests me far more are images that elicit an incompleted state, where the loop remains open - especially photos that are ambiguous or don't strictly confirm to the normal criteria of technical excellence. A photo that has the mojo evokes what feels like a (neurological) state of potential, of receptivity; I'm not just "consuming" the photo passively, and I'm just not doing a technical appraisal of it. Somehow the photo sets off a cascade of conscious and unconscious activity, mental, emotional ... maybe even spiritual.

Speaking rich and resonant

On Malcolm McLaren's album Duck Rock, one of the "listeners" chatting with the DJ between tracks says "I love the way you talk, man", and she's right, and I love the way she says it too. Then more recently, finally getting round to watching "The Wire" on DVD, I'm finding myself spell-bound by the way the black characters speak. Okay, it's all scripted, but the delivery and the swing really work.

The contrast is striking. The sad fact is that somehow, richness and resonance seems to have been bled out of the language we all use. There's the professional speak of educated people, finely tuned to communicate technical expertise; there are all the regional speakers saying the same words as everyone else but with a cute regional accent; there are all the wannabe young and wannabe cool types talking cod street, cod black ("wicked innit").

It says a lot when Tony Blair is held up as an example of a great speaker. Lord help us!!

I'm hearing a lot of people using language functionally - aiming to move a thought from A to B. And I'm hearing a lot of people using language to create an impression. But I'm not hearing many people at all using language with love of its richness and resonance. I hear very few people who I can just listen to for the pleasure of how they speak - for the craic.

There was one back in the early 1980s - the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Dries van Agt. He wasn't a fiery orator; his style was a subtle mix of old and new words, big and small, serious and humorous, occasionally laced with proverbs and sayings. And in the early 2000s we took yoga lessons with Philippe Barbier, aka Ajita, a French-speaking Belgian who had learned Dutch and spoke it brilliantly. With both van Agt and Ajita, it was a deep pleasure just to listen to them weaving thoughts and words together.

In the bleak midwinter....

I went on a "retreat" with my local ACE group, organised by the stalwart and much-loved group leader Mike Wilsher. Out into the wilds of mid-Wales we went, to spend a couple of days in reflection and discussion with fellow professionals at the Ceridwen Centre. Very nice it was too, full of insights and magic moments and good wholesome food.

The obligatory walk up hill and down valley was long enough and muddy enough to satisfy manly pride and work up a good appetite.

Disappointments were few indeed - just the absence of Welsh accents (apart from our own cod Welsh) and few breaks in the low cloud and horizontal rain. Still, we could have had similar weather in Seattle and it would have been a lot more time-consuming and expensive to go there.

So here's a big thank you to our hosts Simone and Roger for the hospitality, great food and a rollicking good poem performed live by Simone, a big thank you to all in the group for being real without being (too) revolting, and a big thank you to Mike himself for making it all happen and keeping it happening.

Photographic inspiration from Nat Coalson

Sometimes I come across a site that just blows me away. This week it's been the turn of Colorado-based photographer and artist Nathaniel Coalson.

Looking through his images reminds me of watching a great all-round athlete, such as Michel Platini at his peak - it looks natural, effortlessly graceful. Platini could dribble, tackle, pass, run and shoot all with equal mastery. Similarly, Nat's images have a common quality of artistry whether they're abstract, nature or impressionistic.

Nat has the mojo.

The art of being late with New Year wishes

It probably says a lot about modern living and/or the human mind and/or my own "powers" of organisation that Christmas and New Year suddenly find me unprepared every year. Actually it's probably all down to denial - I really dread the "festive season" so I'm metaphorically sticking my fingers in my ears, closing my eyes tightly shut, singing LaLaLa very loud and waiting until it all goes away.

Anyway, it's all over now for another year but not quite too late yet to wish you all a year that exceeds your expectations in good things.

Bucking the social networking trend

A few days ago I made a snap decision to take a "sabbatical" from online social networking at Ecademy. I've been very active there for the last three years, so it's a deeply-ingrained habit.

I told my kids this morning that I had given up Ecademy for a while, with the intention of having more time for them, and I hoped they would have more time for me too. Between us, we seen to default to screens (TV, computers) all too easily when we're feeling a little anxious or bored. They were pretty pleased.

It's no use me despairing that the kids spend too much time interacting with screens when I do precisely that myself. Lead by example! So I'm keeping this short ;)