Blog

yet another tagging tool:
Shadows

Here’s a link that has been lingering in draft status for the last couple of months:

How to learn from your mistakes

I’ve been meaning to write up some of my own thoughts on this topic. But so far I haven’t got round to it yet… So here’s the link instead.

How do you learn from your mistakes?

stumbled across this Newsweek article at Kottke.org:

At Google, we think business guru Peter Drucker well understood how to manage the new breed of “knowledge workers.” After all, Drucker invented the term in 1959. He says knowledge workers believe they are paid to be effective, not to work 9 to 5, and that smart businesses will “strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers’ way.” Those that succeed will attract the best performers, securing “the single biggest factor for competitive advantage in the next 25 years.”

I’m asking myself: is the “knowledge worker” really the biggest factor?

Just got back from an excellent gospel concert held by the Basileia church choir in the Theodorkirche.

A great way to start the Christmas season on an icy cold and grey November day.

[Note to my readers: This restless nomad is developing traditions. See last year’s entry]

found this excellent posting on the African brain drain dilemma:

I am weary of the brain drain argument. It belongs to donor and NGO conferences, not to the real lives of those who must live by their wits and effort as opposed to a cheque from Western taxpayers. Those who bandy the argument are relentlessly statist and even now have their eye on remittances that they believe can be directed better by government and development organisations than by the people who earn them. It is an argument beloved by middle class paternalists in hock to donor money and who believe that without those who have left, everything at home will fall apart – it is nonsense of the worst kind.

The article describes how a nurse was able to improve her living conditions for herself and her family by working and studying in the UK for a couple of years.

Think again before trying to introduce regulations to restrict qualified workers from working in Europe. Better: fight corruption, introduce a fair and just legal system, promote the free economy, and reduce the bureaucratic red tape required to start a business.

[…] average cubicle dwellers work at one thing for just 11 minutes at a stretch and this is divided into three-minute chunks. Once they are interrupted from the task in hand it takes them 25 minutes to get back to it.

source: print version of yesterday’s FTD

and here’s the original article, which was published in the NYT:
Meet the Life Hackers

Stumbled across this:
dodgeball.com :: mobile social software

Sounds like fun. And more stress.

Don’t know about you, but I’m getting kind of tired of all the different networking platforms like Open BC and Linked In.

Creating Passionate Users: How to spend your marketing and ad budget

Flickr Backup is a utility that allows you to download the pictures you have uploaded to Flickr back down to your computer for personal backup or restore.

See:
sunkencity.org

See also the Flickr tools discussion

for future reference:
Lussumo Vanilla – forum software using PHP and MySQL

Molly.com on Web Design and Development Personality Indicators

Absurd bureaucracy in many poor countries leads to the fact that only the rich and well-connected elite can get around the laws and regulations. Better than doubling development aid and cancelling debts would be to promote private property, set up a fair legal system and a free economy.

Die Entwicklungsländer, sagt er, könnten die Armut aus eigener Kraft bewältigen. Dazu bräuchten sie keine Verdoppelung der Hilfsgelder und auch keinen Schuldenerlass, wie das jüngst der G-8-Gipfel in Schottland beschloss und diese Woche der Uno-Gipfel in New York bekräftigt hat. Erfolgversprechender als alle Milliardengeschenke, sagt der Sohn eines sozialistischen Politikers, seien: Privateigentum, Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Marktwirtschaft. Diese Botschaft verbreitet de Soto mit dem Talent zum eingängigen Beispiel. Beschwörend schüttelt er beide Arme und sagt heiser: «Vergessen Sie doch Ihre eigene Geschichte nicht. Die Schweiz war noch im 19. Jahrhundert das Armenhaus Europas, ein Drittweltland mit nur wenigen natürlichen Rohstoffen. Auch sie wurde nicht dank Entwicklungshilfe wohlhabend, sondern weil sie sich eine funktionierende Marktwirtschaft und einen intakten Rechtsstaat schuf.»

source: Weltwoche.ch

Further link on Hernando de Soto:
Biography

Example how external aid supports unproductive policies:

James Shikwati, who heads the Inter Region Economic Network, a Kenyan NGO, says drought aid to his country in the 1990s “killed production” in many areas and increased dependency.

Aid can also encourage misguided policies. Mr Shikwati says this has been the case in Ethiopia, where farmers are not allowed to own land.

Instead of introducing reforms, he notes, the government appeals for aid.

When donors respond, Mr Shikwati says, “they are subsidising a government policy that makes it difficult for people to be productive”.

source: BBC NEWS | Africa | Can aid do more harm than good?