Author: Alan

Conference

Being at a conference – even a good one like this – is like being on an elevator for two days, all looking in the same direction. The room we are sitting in is a bit something. Clearly a nod to generic euro-aristo, fake faded tapestries, gold trim on cream wall, far too many bevelled mirrors. The site of wedding parties – grannies have sat where I have sat ecstatic at the match and finding themselves surprisingly beyond their two wine limit. High school pals have proven themselves less than they were remembers. Five hundred bands that have not made it have not made it here. The room shows it bit. The aged gold upholstry has aged more than intended, gone pilly. Faux antique finish now looks less faux but not antique either. Beers have spilled on this carpet and been cleaned up again.


Many still keen early on

Conference orgaization has always interested me in in how it is as mannered and structed as a high Anglican mass. Who decided we need to meet like this? A few years ago I discussed creating a consultancy in disruptive converence giving, playing with the format, the book of common prayer, with the goal of making people think and learn. It only got as far as me saying and writing “zymurgy” whenever “synergy” was expected and even likely still heard.


Fast-talking man needs to get more information out after lunch is over

Two presenters present two ends of the scale. A hyper interested fast talker cannot get all his ideas out. He sounds like a bobolink, his words falling upon each other. He should attempt multiple information streams, speaking about one thing, his power point slides working on another theme, the hand-outs giving more on something else. He could be flanked by two blue-glow screens on different subjects, his pace and volume steadily increasing. Another speaker is from MegCo and he is grabbing us with the topic “what is outsourcing” – he is a good speaker but someone else, a committee perhaps, wrote his script, told him to run TV ads as part of the presentation. Apparently, “key consultants say that outsourcing has great growth potential” – dandy. Twice he refers to his power point lap top as being “McGivered” and says that we have to bear with him. How would disruptive conference consulting deal with this moment? Someone in the crowd might laugh too much at the ads and say out loud “hahaha – I saw that on TV!” If the speaker is a “recognized leader” does that make those in attendence at the conference “recognized followers”?


Friday afternoon the seats start to empty

I am a fidgetter. I fidget. I move to the back of the room so I can get up fuss with my papers, go get a juice when the speaker is not on an area that applies to me like the jurisdiction of a tribunal I cannot reach. By the end of Friday afternoon, even the speaker jokes about we who remain.

Iraqis Vote

Good to see that Iraqis are voting in big numbers. One inevitable – and, frankly, somewhat cliché – election day event occurred:

Further north in the Kurdistan town of Salamanca, CNN’s Nic Robertson reported seeing a 90-year-old woman being taken to a booth in a wheelbarrow. Others came on crutches to cast their ballot.

Something tells me there was a grannie in a wheelbarrow story out of the first elections in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa as well. It would have been interesting to find out why their kids are such deadbeats, as you can’t exactly wheel barrow yourself to a polling booth. Can’s the UN organize a “Taxis for Grannies” bureau. First you would have to register your intention to be wheelbarrowed, then actually produce the barrow in question in order to receive a taxi chit. I would, of course, accept the first commissionership for the bureau along with the apartments in Geneva which would go along with it.

Train

 

Lake Ontario from the 5:35 am to the Big Smoke. Click if you must.

I met a man on the way back who took the train to and from Detroit every week. Ten hours each way to his work. I was tired of being on the train after two and a half hours. I do not seem to travel well anymore. Maybe it’s because trains in the past took me on holidays rather than work. Not complaining but sitting on a siding in Napanee waiting for the on-coming train to pass is not like heading to Belgium with a backpack when you are twenty three.

These shots are from the way there when I was more wowsie. I was very surprised to see that Lake Ontario was entirely ice-less at the shore near Oshawa. The clouds at the blue horizon in the photo above are the lake effect, laying more snow on Buffalo. VIA Rail could pick a more exciting interior colour scheme than beige and seafoam. They used to be more into navy blue and orange, didn’t they?

The Devil Does Not Recommend Canada

Because you all need more Robert Burns (1759-1796) in your lives and this is his birthday. I hope you all had your haggis, neeps and tatties.

Address Of Beelzebub

To the Right Honourable the Earl of Breadalbane, President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society, which met on the 23rd of May last at the Shakespeare, Covent Garden, to concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of five hundred Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr. M’Kenzie of Applecross, were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lords and masters whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of Mr. Macdonald of Glengary to the wilds of Canada, in search of that fantastic thing-Liberty.

Long life, my Lord, an’ health be yours,
Unskaithed by hunger’d Highland boors;
Lord grant me nae duddie, desperate beggar,
Wi’ dirk, claymore, and rusty trigger,
May twin auld Scotland o’ a life
She likes-as butchers like a knife.

Faith you and Applecross were right
To keep the Highland hounds in sight:
I doubt na! they wad bid nae better,
Than let them ance out owre the water,
Then up among thae lakes and seas,
They’ll mak what rules and laws they please:
Some daring Hancocke, or a Franklin,
May set their Highland bluid a-ranklin;
Some Washington again may head them,
Or some Montgomery, fearless, lead them,
Till God knows what may be effected
When by such heads and hearts directed,
Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire
May to Patrician rights aspire!
Nae sage North now, nor sager Sackville,
To watch and premier o’er the pack vile, –
An’ whare will ye get Howes and Clintons
To bring them to a right repentance-
To cowe the rebel generation,
An’ save the honour o’ the nation?
They, an’ be d-d! what right hae they
To meat, or sleep, or light o’ day?
Far less-to riches, pow’r, or freedom,
But what your lordship likes to gie them?

But hear, my lord! Glengarry, hear!
Your hand’s owre light to them, I fear;
Your factors, grieves, trustees, and bailies,
I canna say but they do gaylies;
They lay aside a’ tender mercies,
An’ tirl the hallions to the birses;
Yet while they’re only poind’t and herriet,
They’ll keep their stubborn Highland spirit:
But smash them! crash them a’ to spails,
An’ rot the dyvors i’ the jails!
The young dogs, swinge them to the labour;
Let wark an’ hunger mak them sober!
The hizzies, if they’re aughtlins fawsont,
Let them in Drury-lane be lesson’d!
An’ if the wives an’ dirty brats
Come thiggin at your doors an’ yetts,
Flaffin wi’ duds, an’ grey wi’ beas’,
Frightin away your ducks an’ geese;
Get out a horsewhip or a jowler,
The langest thong, the fiercest growler,
An’ gar the tatter’d gypsies pack
Wi’ a’ their bastards on their back!
Go on, my Lord! I lang to meet you,
An’ in my house at hame to greet you;
Wi’ common lords ye shanna mingle,
The benmost neuk beside the ingle,
At my right han’ assigned your seat,
‘Tween Herod’s hip an’ Polycrate:
Or if you on your station tarrow,
Between Almagro and Pizarro,
A seat, I’m sure ye’re well deservin’t;
An’ till ye come-your humble servant,

Beelzebub.(The Devil).
Hell,
1st June, Anno Mundi 5790.

Surely you are each embarrassed by the suggestion that you might need a translation.

Blahging

Bloggers talking to bloggers about blogging.

Darren and Will share their notes from the same presentation at a blogging conference. It’s great that they are enjoying themselves and all but why do their notes give me the willies? Will noted the comment: “if you talk about something long enough, you will become an authority on the topic.” Yikes!

How about this one: if you isolate yourself and others from legitimate expertise, you will appear smarter than you are.