Telling It Like It Is

THE ENTERPRISE--The Future for Humans

THE ENTERPRISE

Every now and then, I take the time to think about what the future might hold for us all. One of those times was last Friday when I toured a new Center for Medical Education and Innovation at Riverside Hospital, here in Columbus. Some of its technology only exists in 1-2 other places in the US.

I saw a state of the art conference facility, in which there were a suite of "Operating Rooms" containing (6) mannequin like "almost-human" bodies (4 adults, 2 kids). These lifelike, plastic skin coated replicas, also interact with a sophisticated computer system and programs which equip them to have a beating heart, give off vital signs like those seen on the monitors in hospital rooms (Pulse rate, blood pressure, Oxygen intake, etc.). In fact they replicate most functions and reactions of a real human. They can blink, bleed, cry, slobber, urinate, and generally react like human would to a huge number of biological stimuli and the associated medical treatment, including the right and wrong outcomes of drug injections, treatment practics, etc. (using, of course computer-coded syringes instead of real drugs.) They even can represent simulated wounds, limb amputations, and much more.

I saw a demonstration of a heart catheterization in which you could feel the resistance and vibration of the catheter as it was inserted and watch it's progress on a large fluoroscopic (computer) screen overhead, just as if it was really happening--because in one sense, it is. Then the Doctor demo'd a balloon angioplasty and insertion of a stent. These "almost-real" people forms were equipped to be defibrillated, injected, operated on, and much more. In another room, using a different simulation system for just part of the body, I saw a gall bladder removal through minimally invasive (endoscopic) surgery, along with how the system recorded errors in technique, etc..

The doctors, residents and interns can now learn and "practice" on these "almost-real" simulated people, but not run the risk (or stress) of learning from their errors on a real person. The work is recorded on computers and digital video, where it can be viewed by others, replayed to critique the technique and errors and studied for improvement in techniques (just like they do in big league sports)! This is huge progress in the medical profession's ability to teach the "practice of medicine" in such a way that it really is "practice" for interns and residents (and experienced Docs requiring re-certification.)

When I came home, I started reading about the projects at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) where their efforts are sort of the inverse of the ones I had just seen. These scientists are actually working on enhancing the human body and its performance, its healing capability, its endurance and much, much more. While the immediate goal is to create more effective soldiers, the broader implications and applications of such research are mind-boggling. Check out these concepts: Pain Control (vaccine); Limb Regeneration (blastemas-regeneration buds); Control Bleeding (mind control and nanotech magnets); Sleep-Free Soldier (brain chemistry). And that doesn't consider all the unmanned-Robotic Device programs. Folks in this world talk about the GRIN technologies, which are Genetic, Robotic, Information, and Nano-based efforts.

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FYI: The first time in history a soldier surrendered to a Robot was in Gulf War I when 5 Iraqi soldiers waved a white flag at an unmanned air vehicle. The first instance of a human being "incinerated" by a robot was in Yemen in 2002, when a Predator (unmanned air vehicle) fired a Hellfire missile at an al Qaeda leader's SUV.
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Novelist Dale Brown, a former Air Force pilot, wrote about an aircraft flown by mind control (Flight of the Cheetah) almost 10 years ago. In 2004 a paralyzed man whose neurons were being monitored by computer sent the first email, using only his thoughts. His more recent books feature exoskeleton suits that permit humans to perform extraordinary feats. Exoskeletons are a DARPA project--right now. The fiction and the fact are converging fast.

The point I am making is that on one hand science is creating human replicas and simulations to advance the care of humans. On another, it is seeking ways to either enhance the performance/endurance of humans or supplement them with implants, exoskeleton suits or complete unmanned robotic "soldiers" (perhaps in DARPA's case, with the opposite intention--to fight and or kill enemies!)

Writer Joel Garreau tells about much of this in his May 30, 2005 FORTUNE article "Perfecting the Human" and (I suspect more of it) in his book RADICAL EVOLUTION. I haven't read it, so I can't relate any more except that it will probably boggle my un-wired, un-implanted and largely conventional mind.

If you believe that the acceleration of technology marches on (and I do) then the advances and change of the past 20 years will be squeezed into the next 10-12, and those of the last 50 years, into the next 15. It's coming fast. Are you ready?

Best, John

THE ENTERPRISE--CEO's MIA?

THE ENTERPRISE

First, Happy Father's Day to all of you fathers out there. There is something special about being with your children to celebrate Father's Day (and Mother's Day too). This edition of THE ENTERPRISE is not intended to answer questions, but rather to raise them for your consideration. The two questions I want to raise are:

Question 1. Why can journalists see things that the so called experts and executives seem to overlook? My examples for this question are Thomas Friedman and Malcolm Gladwell. A journalist is, by trade, someone who is an observer and then a reporter. The best ones do this with a great deal of insight and intensity (Friedman has won a Pulitzer Prize, so I'd say that qualifies him as one of the best). Perhaps more significantly, if you judge the last two books by each of them, they also see things that many of the highly regarded "experts" miss, overlook or misinterpret.

Who should be the "experts?" How about leading educators, top executives, and government officials in the relevant areas of global business and our country's (and our companies') competitiveness? Unfortunately, either they are too busy working on something else, or they simply don't have the ears and/or eyes of these journalists--either for hearing and seeing what is happening--or the audience to read and listen to their analysis of the situation.

For readers' information, the books I refer to are Friedman's THE LEXUS AND THE OLIVE TREE (written several years ago) and IT'S A FLAT WORLD (recently released) and Gladwell's THE TIPPING POINT and his newest, BLINK. Make no mistake, these are not deep theoretical tomes. But they do raise some very important points and reach some rather insightful conclusions.

Question 2. What is up with so many American CEOs? Why aren't they stepping up to help influence the course of our country--and their companies--in a more positive direction? Are they too busy reading their contracts to make sure they collect a big payoff regardless of how their business performs for shareholders? Or are they worried about raising their head and getting hit by some stray bullets from an SEC regulator's attack? Or have we just created and nurtured a crop of CEOs that are not nearly as strong and influential a group of leaders as their eight digit comp deals would warrant?

Reprinted below are large excerpts from a column Friedman wrote in the NY Times, May 25, 2005 entitled, C.E.O.'s, M.I.A.
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"After six weeks of being a foreign correspondent traveling around America, the biggest question I have come home with is not 'What's the matter with Kansas?' but rather, 'What's the matter with big business?' America faces a huge set of challenges if it is going to retain its competitive edge. As a nation, we have a mounting education deficit, energy deficit, budget deficit, health care deficit and ambition deficit. The administration is in denial on this, and Congress is off on Mars. And yet, when I look around for the group that has both the power and interest in seeing America remain globally focused and competitive - America's business leaders - they seem to be missing in action. I am not worried about the rise of the cultural conservatives. I am worried about the disappearance of an internationalist, pro-American business elite.

Is there any company in America that should be more involved in lobbying for some form of national health coverage than General Motors, which is being strangled by its health care costs? Is there any group of companies that should have been picketing the White House more than our high-tech firms, after the Bush team cut the National Science Foundation budget by $100 million in 2005 and in 2006 has proposed shrinking the Department of Energy science programs and basic and applied research in the Department of Defense - key sources of innovation? Is there any constituency that should be clamoring for a sane energy policy more than U.S. industry? Is there any group that should be mobilizing voters to lobby Congress to pass the Caribbean Free Trade Agreement and complete the Doha round more than U.S. multinationals? Should anyone be more concerned about the fiscally reckless deficits we are leaving our children than Wall Street?

Yet, with a few admirable exceptions, American business has not gotten out front on these issues. ... So with business with its head in the clouds, labor with its head in the sand, the administration focused on terrorism and Congress catering to people who think "intelligent design" is something done by God and not by Intel, it's not surprising that "we don't have a strategy for making America competitive in the 21st century - a century of three billion new capitalists," as Clyde Prestowitz put it. He is the author of a smart new book about the rise of China and India, called, appropriately, "Three Billion New Capitalists."

If we don't get our act together, this will affect not just our economy, but also our power. ...That domestic strength made us both feared and attractive. Remember: America won the cold war not just with containment, but, even more important, with attraction - attraction for the society we were building....
But who will tell the people? If not the situation room, it better be the boardroom - otherwise the costs to our country will exceed anything that can measured on a balance sheet."
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Many readers know I don't always agree with Friedman's political leanings, but his ability as an observer and a reporter combined with his keen sense of perspective have allowed him to reach insightful conclusions that are worthy of everyone's notice.

YOU can make a difference. We are all leaders, either in fact, or by our actions as seen by others. It's time to, as Stephen Covey put it in his Eighth Habit book, "find our voices" and speak up. If we don't, who will?

Happy Father's Day,
John

THE ENTERPRISE--Immigants

THE ENTERPRISE

Vacation time still has THE ENTERPRISE "out of synch" with its normal timing...but here goes another mid-week edition:

When a friend sent me this last month, I read it and was stunned. I know illegal immigration is a problem in our country. Perhaps, even legal immigration is a problem--or can become one depending on how we deal with it as a country and a government. Immigration is a problem when terrorists enter the country and wreak havoc. Immigration is also a problem when identity thieves find that illegal immigrants are a primary market for stolen identities. Immigration can also be a problem when immigrants are willing to work harder for less money (and are better educated) to take jobs that complacent, entitlement-minded American workers once could have held.

Immigration was, however, the genesis of this country. America was a melting pot. We are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. The difference was that in the earlier era the immigrants assumed and embraced the culture and learned the language of their new homeland. Sure a generation or two were bi-lingual, but overall, the European immigrants that settled most of the Eastern half of America and made their way, as pioneers, across the purple mountains and golden plains thought of themselves as just "Americans." They didn't expect frontier towns to have signs in German, Irish, Italian, Polish and all the other European tongues. Neither did they care about the hardships they had to overcome, because this was their new land of plenty. 

As more immigrants come from non-Caucasion countries--many from Asia and Latin America and intermingle with the Caucasians and African-Americans, the EEOC will be unable to categorize racial differentiation in another two generations. Perhaps, then, we will once again all be "just Americans." But until then, what happens?

Now, with that prelude, read the story about former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm's speech...
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We all know Dick Lamm as the former Governor of Colorado. In that context his thoughts are particularly poignant. Last week there was an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of American's finest minds and leaders. A brilliant college professor named Victor Hansen Davis talked about his latest book, "Mexifornia," explaining how immigration - both legal and illegal - was destroying the entire state of California. He said it would march across the country until it destroyed all vestiges of The American Dream.

Moments later, former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm stood up and gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'"

"Here is how they do it," Lamm said:
First to destroy America, "Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.  

"The historical scholar Seymour Lipset put it this way: 'The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy.' Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons, and Corsicans."

Lamm went on:  
Second, to destroy America, "Invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds.

Third, "We could make the United States an 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: 'The apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.'"

Lamm said, "I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America reinforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school."

"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.' I would get all minorities to think their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population."

"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other - that is, when they are not killing each other. A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshipped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games. A common enemy Persia threatened their liberty. Yet all these bonds were not strong enough to over come two factors: local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions. Greece fell. "E. Pluribus Unum" -- >From many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'Unum,' we can balkanize America as surely as Kosovo."

"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits ~ make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century - that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'xenophobe' halt discussion and debate."  

"Having made America a bilingual/bicultural country, having established multi-culturism, having the large foundations fund the doctrine of 'Victimology,' I would next make it impossible to enforce our immigration laws. I would develop a mantra: That because immigration has been good for America, it must always be good. I would make every individual immigrant symmetric and ignore the cumulative impact of millions of them."

In the last minute of his speech, Governor Lamm wiped his brow. Profound silence followed. Finally he said, "Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."

There was no applause. A chilling fear quietly rose like an ominous cloud above every attendee at the conference. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm enumerated was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States today. Every discussion is being suppressed. Over 100 languages are ripping the foundation of our educational system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures that practice female genital mutilation are growing as we celebrate 'diversity.'

American jobs are vanishing into the Third World as corporations create a Third World in America - take note of California and other states - to date, ten million illegal aliens and growing fast. It is reminiscent of George Orwell's book "1984." In that story, three slogans are engraved in the Ministry of Truth building: "War is peace," "Freedom is slavery," and "Ignorance is strength."

Governor Lamm walked back to his seat. It dawned on everyone at the conference that our nation and the future of this great democracy is deeply in trouble and worsening fast. If we don't get this immigration monster stopped within three years, it will rage like a California wildfire and destroy everything in its path, especially The American Dream.
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Whew! I don't know what to think right now...but I am sure thinking a lot about different things than I was before. I bet you are too--and we should. Ours, and our children's future is inextricably intermingled with this new "melting pot" country and what happens next. I wonder what it will be...and who will shape it, if we don't.

Best, John

THE ENTERPRISE--New Words for 2005

THE ENTERPRISE

THE ENTERPRISE is taking a weekend off writing about serious topics to get in some R & R. Some of you may have seen this on the Internet, but I'd guess that many have not. I last time I saw one of these was about 7-8 years ago and I used part of it in my IndustryWeek column at the time.

Many of these made me grin, and I hope they do the same for you. Next week, we'll get back to the serious topics.

NEW WORDS FOR 2005, (some of which you won't find in any dictionary):

1. BLAMESTORMING:
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

2. SEAGULL MANAGER:
A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, eats all the food, craps on everything, and then leaves.

3. ASSMOSIS:
The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

4. SALMON DAY:
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die in the end.

5. CUBE FARM:
An office filled with cubicles.

6. PRAIRIE DOGGING:
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a Cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

7. CROP DUSTING:
Surreptitiously farting while passing through a Cube Farm.

8. SITCOMs:
Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids.

9. STRESS PUPPY:
A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

10. SWIPEOUT:
An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

11. XEROX SUBSIDY:
Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

12. IRRITAINMENT:
Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo and Ben wedding (or not) was a prime example.

13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE:
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

14. ADMINISPHERE:
The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

15. 404:
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located. (For those in Toronto, it's also Hwy 404 . . . destination can not be located.)

16. MOUSE POTATO:
The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

17. OHNOSECOND:
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake.

18. WOOFS:
Well-Off Older Folks.

Back to you next week,
John