The situation in Haiti

A few years ago, I was sitting in an economics class and the professor was talking about how, right now, the only real difference between a developed country and and underdeveloped one was infrastructure. Well, if you have roads, a train system and the like, supplies will move faster and reduce the costs of building other infrastructures, giving out services, etc. Building lasting infrastructure takes time and expertise. Usually, this expertise, in “Third World” countries will come from the wealthier areas of the world, from people wanting to do charity work. This is a problem since, part of why infrastructure is so important in our economy is because it creates usually well paid jobs locally.

Now, from what I’ve seen, in a country like Haiti, two things may happen. One, as I said earlier, expertise comes from external sources and the money spent doesn’t really profit the country. Yes, in the end, the project is built and given to the government but, as we’ve seen with the current “stimulus spending” spree, this is only a small part of the benefit. The other possibility is that local talent does indeed get used. However, there is, probably due to the lack infrastructure, a very low amount of locally produced wealth. A lot of goods are imported, but, what’s even more interesting, a lot of the trade activity occurs outside of the country’s boundaries. Indeed, even in a country like the US where there is a large trade-deficit, wealth is still created by internal trading: people buying stuff from merchants in the US.

Maybe it is because of the culture, or maybe there is some other root cause but the Haitian “diaspora” sends a lot of goods back to their families and friends. This is an institutionalized system where you can go to a store that will take care of the whole transfer for you

This means that some of the imported goods are not only not made in Haiti, but produce a minimal amount of economic activity in the country. Now, these are just thoughts and might be totally off. If anyone has any other ideas, please pitch in. I find that this is an interesting discussion. Also, if you have trouble reading this in English, remember that you can copy any URL in Google translate for a rather fair translation. I already did it for French, so click here!

The Division Model part IV – Organic Growth of leadership

One thing that companies need is structure. This formalizes the leadership of some individuals and gives them a bit more legitimacy in their endeavours. The point is that it may be hard to come up with compelling arguments for a cause but you absolutely need people to do a certain task. In this case, being the boss really help. From this evolution however, you have the idea that people that are in certain position are actually leaders or that leaders need to be named as such.

If you look at it, people that start in their first management position usually perform poorly. The reason is that in most cases, those people were great solo performers but have yet to learn how to leverage the combined strength of the team they are now leading. I want to add that this is not a bad thing: a smart person will adapt rather quickly to this new situation. There might be, however, a better way to do this and this brings me to my second point.

A lot of the great leaders in history hadn’t been named as such until they had accomplished quite a bit. If you look at Ghandi or Mandela, they elevated higher than their position would warrant. Because of this, they had no choice, if they wanted to achieve anything, to listen to others and maybe more importantly, bring sound arguments to get others to follow them. This might be harder than simply giving an order, but you get much more involvement from followers this way. Also, once you are used to this way of operating, once you get formalized as a leader, you will keep doing the same thing.

To get back to the division model, that’s a side effect I foresee. A leader will organically grow within the division. They shouldn’t however be formalized. This will create an environment where the people that will elevate to lead will be able to get picked later on for formal management and will not go through the usual learning curve (or at least be significantly reduced in length).

This is, in my opinion, one of the most important points of the division model. It is the fact that it lets the individuals evolve more than in the regular setting. There will of course be more conflict than in a regular structure and the leader might change overtime, even several times. In the end though, the division will basically be similar to an organism, growing to meet the different needs of the workplace.

DESTA Black Youth Network

My friend and I went yesterday to visit a group called DESTA. Basically, it’s a non-for-profit organization aimed at helping black youth aged 18-25. What is interesting is that they are really about self development. For example, they give courses for the youth that need to finish their Sec. 5 (High School) diploma. They also have CV clinics or other job seeking support. I liked how they worked and the atmosphere I felt over there. We, at the Project, will hopefully be working with them in order to promote microcredit but we’ll also probably help them in any other way we can.

I encourage anyone from Montreal (or anywhere, really) to check out their website destanetwork.ca. I’ll be posting a longer profile later this week on the Project’s blog.

The Division Model part III - Ability

In creating a team, you want to create a certain amount of diversity. With the divisions, most of the diversity will be in the form of the member’s personalities. There will be a little difference in people’s ability to do tasks but mainly you want them all to have the same skills. In this, you want each member to have to tools to do any job the division is assigned to.

The first step in this is to train the members fully in their jobs. Often, when training isn’t mandatory to do a certain job, it will only be given based on the necessities of the moment. Once everyone is on equal footing on paper, you want to make sure that, at least within one division, everyone performs equally. The design of your divisions plays a big role in this. A bit like the lines in hockey, you might want to put your strongest assets together. This will mean that if you have three divisions doing the same job, one will be better at it than the two others. It might seem weird but you assign the workload based on the weakest team. This will give you the flexibility necessary to react to unforeseen event.

Of course, if there is a huge discrepancy in skill between the divisions, there will be a problem as the higher groups will have too much idle time. This is something that should be evaluated based on cost and, of course, politics (managers don’t like seeing idle employees).

On another note, there are the five Rs used to enhance workers abilities..

• Resupply: Most people think that everyone doing the same job should use the same tools. The fact is that people are not the same, something that also holds true for divisions. You must find out if this particular group has the tools that they can use for their job, to make them perform as well as possible. This goes for software, hardware, support, etc.
• Retrain: Usually, this will be very similar to the resupply point except that it focuses on the members’ knowledge
• Refitting: This is much harder for divisions as they are made based on the work descriptions. Normally, refitting will need to be done in rare conditions. In this case, if it has to happen, the point would be to look at the team members themselves and not just only the division.
• Reassign and release: These two would again be based on the individual since, because of the nature of the divisions, where they are tied to the job description, they cannot possibly be reassigned or released.

The Division Model Part II – Motivation and Rewards

We live in interesting times. As I’m writing this, I’m chatting with two of my friends in different countries. We now have so many tools to contact each other but we are getting more individualistic. One might say that we are moving towards becoming a singular plurality. Concepts aside, we live in a society and expect that this state will give us some benefit. We also do not want to let go of our individuality. I think a simple model starts with this set of equations:

Performance = Ability X Motivation where Ability = Aptitude X Training X Resources and Motivation = Desire X Commitment

For this post, let’s focus on Motivation (Ability we’ll deal with later…). As the preface suggested, you will need to motivate your divisions as both groups and individual members. There are tons of publications on how the manager can create a positive environments for her/his employees. You put the goals in place and give them the tools they need. The division would fall in the “tools” category. They would enable its members to do more than what they could do individually. With this initial work, work with a division would be similar to what would be done with an individual.

It becomes more interesting when you think of how you are going to use rewards. The division’s rewards should encourage team spirit and cooperation. Most people take the easy way when looking at groups and reward all members equally for any good action in the group. What you’ll achieve however is not quite what you want. The group might perform a bit better but every member of the group will feel like they are doing good work. If this is not the case, you are reinforcing bad behaviour in certain of your people. The better approach is to target a set of traits that you want in the members of the division. Once you have them identified, you reward the individuals that exhibit those traits. Punishing those who do not act the way you want them shouldn’t be necessary if you are clearly making the distinction in giving out your rewards.

This approach is not perfect. It will probably create tensions within the division and exacerbate the storming phase. You have to be careful to truly understand the division and what they are going through. You must make sure that the appropriate people are rewarded. The worst thing that can happen is the reinforcement of the “stealer” behaviour, the one who takes all the glory after someone else has done all the work.

It should be noted that, in a performing division, the members should be close to equally useful and this problem shouldn’t arise.

Next post, we’ll look at the Ability part of the equation.

The Division concept Part I – Introduction and Tuckman’s model

In 2009, everyone agrees that teams are the way to go in management. Everyone has strengths that put together are better than just the sum of them. That synergistic event is what most people seek when they create teams. This is why companies create cross functional teams. In this post however, I’m mainly thinking about reinforcing the structure of unifunctional teams through the idea of Divisions. These divisions would be comprised of people with more or less the same skill set and the same official position. The only large difference between the members would be their personalities.

Before going into the details of the concept, let’s just look at Tuckman’s old model for team development, with the four phases, and how it would apply to a division.

• The Forming Phase: The team is created. Normally, members get to meet each other, learn about themselves and their objectives. This is a period of awkwardness where a certain form of “polite” groupthink emerges. Basically, everyone tries to be polite with one another and doesn’t disagree with anyone. Idea rarely emerge at this stage. With a division, this stage would be short. If you create it within an existing structure, the members will already know each other and their objectives. As we’ll see later, these objectives will be the same the members had individually before the creation of the divisions.
• The Storming Phase: The created team starts to generate ideas. Members start to find out how to work together. The ideas that arise create conflict but there isn’t enough synergy in the team to quickly resolve them. This is the phase where the most problems arise. Within a division, this phase will be longer and more dangerous. Members are used to working as individuals and having their actions only impacting themselves. Some will work more, some will work less. Those working more will enter in conflict with those working less. A lot of mistakes will also be made at this point and demoralization might seep in. This might seem like a bad idea but this phase is important. These hard times are what will create the bonding necessary to create a performing division. Members will learn the strengths and weaknesses of others. Yes, they did know each other before but because the work was mainly individual they will still find out quite a bit about the others during the storming phase.
• The Norming Phase: The team emerges from the storming phase. Objectives are understood and a team structure starts to appear. The team members start to work together effectively. It is during that phase that the real groupthink might begin to rise its ugly head. As they get to see the team as a unique entity, members start to think alike. This might stifle creativity and should be avoided. Our division has survived storming and is now in a good position. At this point the benefits will make themselves obvious. The work will get done more efficiently and the members will be more engaged. Also, during this phase, a leader should organically emerge in each division. This should be encouraged. By this I mean that a formal division leader should not be named in the beginning. By having the leaders evolving from the situation, you will get the most adapted person for the job. Formally naming a leader at this phase might be possible but even then I do not think it is a good idea since, as said in earlier posts, leaders are situation dependent. Let the division evolve as naturally as possible.
• The Performing Phase: Tuckman says that not all teams reach this phase. Indeed the norming phase is usually enough to meet most objectives. In the long term however, a performing team is a truly impressive tool. All team members understand their roles and the objectives of the team. They all know what they have to to do and how to do it. The division IS a long term team but getting to the performing phase might be harder since the goals themselves change continuously through time. They are not created for a single clear project but with the idea of making their department work. A performing division will be able to anticipate problems and as with a regular team, the division’s supervisor’s job will be that of a mentor. The division will be mostly autonomous and will perform with far greater ability than the sum of its members. The danger here is to have disengagement. The division should be constantly challenged and its successes must be met with salient rewards.

With this overview, I’ll post next on how to bring together the division’s group idea with the individuality of its members.

Reblog: Kiva Loans

I recently posted on the Projet Credit Solidaire blog (in french), about the Kiva loans. I wanted to also send that message here simply because I think the idea is awesome.

Basically, you use the website to choose who you are going to loan the money to (as little as 25$) and send them the money through paypal, using a process that takes about 4 clicks and 2-3 minutes. I would be saying that “giving has never been so easy” but the cool thing about this is that it’s not even giving: after a period of time, you get your money back. Now, I don’t know if you actually get interest on the loan but if you do, this would make it a viable investment vessel. If you don’t then you are doing a good deed while only spending a minor opportunity cost. At any rate, go check it out: www.kiva.org

Pharmaceuticals, generics and health care

It is interesting how many misconceptions there are about the pharmaceutical industry. People seem to think that pharma are there to profit from their bad luck. I'm guessing that, since if everyone was healthy, there wouldn't be any customers, this is somewhat true. But, the drug prices have a strong logic behind them.

An innovative pharmaceutical company will spend from 500 million to about three times that amount in order to develop a drug. Early in this process they have to apply for a patent, good for 12 to 20 years. Taking into account the amount of time it takes to successfully bring the drug to the market, the company will have around a decade left to recuperate its initial investment and turn a profit before cheaper generic drugs can come out and take a big part of their market. Of course, the price of a drug increases with demand but there is a lot of cost involved with creating a drug that isn't included when people usually talk about the manufacturing cost of a particular product.

This is also why generic drugs can cost less, not because generic companies cut corners in manufacturing or that the drugs are of lesser quality. Generics are subject to the same regulations as the innovators. Because they don't have so much spending on R&D, generics can actually spend more on safety and quality than innovators. There are, of course differences. the pill might have a different shape or there might be other cosmetic changes which may appeal to some but be less ideal for others. But these are minor and, in a situation like Canada's, where there is universal health care, generics are an effective way to cut costs without any real sacrifice.

The United States are in the middle of a debate right now about whether or not they should adopt a universal health care system. No matter what then end result is, it is evident that they must find ways to save money (they are already paying too much as it is and costs are going up).

Even if it might hurt innovator companies in the short term, putting a greater emphasis of generics would be beneficial for them. In the long term, it would simply drive innovators to merge with generics, creating stronger companies. Competition would not suffer since, in theory, there would be the same amount of generic companies.

In the end, like pretty much everything in the world lately, the pharmaceutical industry is changing. Hopefully this will mean more profits for the companies while getting higher quality drugs for less money.

Leading one’s life

I was listening to the radio a few weeks ago where a comic was making fun of the idea that we, as adults, had no idea where we were going. We acted like we knew what was going and that this was really the difference between being a child and a grownup. Later, a friend of mine said that, as kids, we had a safety net that disappears as we grow older. We could make decisions but our parents were there to correct us if we were wrong. In the end, this really adds weight to the idea that most people, to some extent, are leaders: leading their own lives.

One of the biggest hardships of leadership is this lack of a safety net. You can have advisors, but in most cases you are the one taking the decisions and the risks. You also have to act like you are certain about what you are doing even if you have doubt lest people undermine your leadership. You are alone as a leader, the same way you are, to some extent, alone as an adult. Of course, there are exceptions and variations to this. Some people take fewer decisions in their lives than others while some haven't really passed the childhood stage and still let others rule their lives completely. Also, (some) couples have this twin leader structure within their unit that shows as a single entity when compared to the rest of society. The fact though, is that our society encourages each adult to act as the leader of their lives.

Multi-Level Marketing

If you stay on twitter long enough, you'll encounter a myriad of people offering you the business opportunity of a lifetime: the infamous Multi-Level Marketers.

As an idea, multi-level marketing is a smart one. You pay a person a very small amount of money to advertise your goods to their contacts. To make it more attractive you also pay the person that referred you that person and so on until you spent a certain percentage of your profit. For a company this means a pretty robust and targeted marketing campaign with a low initial investment. This would acutally be pretty interesting if the model didn't hinge on tricking the potential customer/employee. Indeed, the potential revenues are greatly exaggerated while the pitfalls are downplayed. It is even advertised as having your own business and while the law may consider you self-employed, the structure of an MLM is such that you have a boss, coworkers, etc.

Because of this bad representation, being too closely associated with MLMs can be damaging for brands. In the long term, the brand, rather than the current sale, is the real value. This is why most regular marketing campaigns not only advertise products but really focus on pushing the brand's image into the potential customer's subconscious. In the long term, this brand association will mean a much bigger sales network than what you can get with direct or multi-level marketing alone.

It is not to say that MLM is doomed to failure. There are several examples of companies succeeding but the MLM must always backed by a solid and wider marketing plan and a tight control of what the independant MLMers are doing.

Welcome back to Canada!

For the last two weeks, I had a wonderful time in Britanny, France (explains the internet silence). At any rate, airplane security has increased quite a bit since the last time I flew. When leaving, I had forgotten I had liquids in my carry-on so they had to check it. The person at the counter was polite and took great care not to disturb my clothes. I didn't mind the checkup as it was my mistake.

Coming back, I had brought fine canned food from a friend's factory. I declared it fully knowing the customs would have to search my bags. Where the previous search could have been seen as, well, necessary unpleasantness, this was just downright hostile. The thing is, none of what I had brought was illegal. I was well within my right to bring these items, so what they were doing was simply checking that I wasn't bringing anything dangerous. The mentality however was that they were dealing with some sort of criminal. In truth, this is just bad customer service.

Customs are the first impression people have in a country. Pleasant custom agents are key in having tourists (and investors) see the country in a favorable light. The first row customs agents at the Montreal-Trudeau airport were nice enough but every single element of the customs department should act towards serving the country AND their customers.

Actually, the whole way the customs are handled at the airport is flawed. The declaration card is filled in on the plane by the customers. They decide what they write on it. This is only effective if there is little penalty for saying the truth or a high chance of finding a lie. The first case comes back to my "bad customer service" gripe. A person might think that it's better to not declare anything that they brought. They aren't running drugs so why should they be treated like criminals? Of course, some people ARE running drugs or bringing potentially dangerous items in the country. ¹ People who would bring these items knowing it is illegal would not write it on their card. I know the custom agents do random checks of people luggage but a simple way to make more certain would be to search everyone. We have the technology, why not apply it? Searching by hand is annoying to both the passenger and the customs agents. It can also be dangerous. Using scanners seems like a no-brainer. Yet…

¹note, by dangerous, I'm not talking about bombs or weapons as these would probably be stopped before getting on the plane. This is more about the things that might affect the ecosystem like raw meat or vegetables.

Marketing and leadership part II – Becoming a better leader

A popular concept in leadership theory is the Action-Observation-Reflection model. In a nutshell, the method is basically putting words on the action of learning from past experiences. The first thing to do is to look at what you did (Action) then find out the results (Observation) and think about what you have learned from the situation (Reflexion). It is nothing complicated but is a powerful tool if used often. I personally find that putting it in writing makes it more efficient.

For a company looking to get customers, the AOR can be used to great effect in hatching a marketing strategy. While a complete startup might have trouble looking back on their experience, they can always look at what happened with other businesses in similar situations. With any history however, it's very interesting to looks systematically at what was done in the past and break it down. Good and bad experiences are valuable nothing should be disregarded. As I said before, a market leader, much like any type of leader, is a contextual position. The situation plays a big role in the leader's success and using the AOR you can find out how much and whether or not there's been a change in the situation. A great marketing approach might have tanked because of external factors that have already disappeared.

In practice, what I've been doing is to look at what the company's processes are in their approach to customer service. Mapping each process (Action) and finding out their impact on customer gathering, workflow, efficient and overall customer satisfaction (Observation) will make it clearer for the company what their strengths are and where there should be improvements.

Are leaders born or made?

Last week, in the "Carrière et Emplois" insert of La Presse, there was an article about Leadership. It was based around Michel Leclerc's book "Qu'est-ce que le Leadership". One of the first questions the article asks is whether leaders are born or made; the answer that people always give in the end: "It is a little bit of both".

Every leadership class that we did in university started with the professor asking the students that question. In the earlier classes, the answer would be simple: "What the hell would we be doing here, in a leadership development course, if we thought that leaders were simply born that way". But then we realized that it wasn't that simple. The very fact that we wanted to learn more about leadership set us apart. The question then became whether this interest came from the environment or was something genetic. Again, this is not simple, since our environment is set by our genes. Our parents are the ones who create the world we initially live in which in turns defines what we will like or hate in the future. This intermeshing of external and internal factors means that the easiest answer is "Both".

And indeed, looking at past and current leaders, they all had to go through ordeals in order to become who they are right now. They had to learn how to become effective speakers, perfect their craft whatever it is, learn to inspire others and attract followers. However, their reaction to failure was not like everyone else's. They managed to come out of it greater than before. This seems to be something genetic, since we've seen so many people completely destroyed in similar situations.

In my opinion, all of this seems to overlook the sheer number of humans on earth. Basically, for every situation, there is a small probability that someone will manage to gain something from it. If it happens often enough, it will strengthen their position as leaders. Basically, if you overcame one obstacle, you will know that you can jump over the next one. Each victory builds upon the previous ones and cancels any potential failure. In the end, those who encounter those situations in which they can fail more often have a greater chance of becoming leaders. What this also means is that those leaders probably failed more often than regular people. History doesn't always remember those since, well, losing a senate election when you become president a few years later is not very important.

So, are leaders born or made? In my opinion, in everything we do, there is a genetic component. But the environment is always the most important. This is also in line with my idea of leaders as change agents. Change is always dependant on the situation which is a part of the environment.

Marketing and Leadership

I met with a friend last week to help him work on his company's marketing plan. We first just set up our plan for the coming weeks and thinking about what the final product will contain. It still got me thinking that, in line with my "leadership is everywhere" post that really, this is kind of a logical and systematical way to create a leader.

Thinking about the establishment of a new product with the leader-follower-situation framework gets interesting. Technically, most people find out a product (leader) and then go on to try to find buyers (followers) for it. This approach works to a certain extent, at least here in Montreal, since there are so many potential buyers. But what one should look at is the situation.

Usually, leaders somehow organically arise based on a situation, nearly completely created by it and the followers who need help or guidance. It is possible to replicate this to some extents with products through a thorough and unbiased analysis of the market. So, before you think that you have the best product, you leave yourself open and allow heavy modifications to your product and look at your potential market. You understand what their needs are, what they really want. Basically, you want to understand the situation and find the best leader for it. Responding to the situation means you are also telling your followers that you understand them and want to change an area of their lives that they feel is inadequate.

Of course, most marketing plans, like what I'm trying to do with my friend, do not start out that broad. You do already have a product, sometimes even customers, and you are trying to better focus it to fit the situation. This is why, as I said earlier, keeping an open mind about your product and being willing to modify it is crucial.

Creating a new type of society

In 2006, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize. The idea of making microloans available to the poorest people had truly made a difference and was worthy of praise. This is not charity; it is a profitable endeavor that had the benefit of also helping people. It is a social business.

By itself, the Grameen Bank was able to do more than straight (and initially much bigger in amplitude) government aid could do. It really is old common sense: "give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime". What the Grameen Bank did was simply give the people the knowledge and the ability to take themselves out of misery.

Our current society takes the easy way out in helping the poor by simply buying out their silence. It is convenient since it doesn't require much sacrifice and should we feel morally strapped, we can go back and buy more good conscience. Also, people seem to think that there is disconnect between making profits and creating a better environment (in the large sense) for everyone. To change this perception and introduce the idea of social business as a societal pillar, my friend Charles Sancy and I created the "Projet Credit Solidaire" here in Montreal. The Project itself is not a business but a social movement that hopes to create a wave of social businesses around it. Over the next few weeks, we will start the project's blog and website, outlining our plan in greater details. For now, feel free to join our facebook group (yes, no twitter page yet…)

Understanding your leadership

We can't all be leaders now can we? Well, the truth is that yes we can, and actually, we already are. Most people do take leadership roles, whether it is within their family, their workplace or with their friends. Most people, at one point in their lives do want to change something around them, whether it is the weekly Mac&Cheese or the company's vision.

An important in being an effective leader is really to understand what you are a leader of. Basically, as I said in earlier posts, a leader can be summed up as an agent of change. As those who have learned about change theory, one of the main parts of initiating lasting change is to set up a vision and steps to achieve this vision. People will follow you if they perceive that the change you propose is beneficial to them and that you are indeed capable of leading them through the change. This last part means that you might feel that some change is needed, convince people that they need the change, but still not initiate it because they feel you lack the skills needed to guide them through it. Understanding what exactly it is that you want to change, basically, what how you want to lead others, means that you will be able to position yourself as an authority on the subject. Of course, it is easier to do this when the risks associated with the change are lower (like what your family eats on Wednesdays) as opposed to "paradigm shifting" events.

Fundamental rights

Earlier this week, I was reading Lysiane Gagnon in La Presse. She was talking about the fact that the French three strikes law on piracy had been overturn by the Supreme Court since its harshest penalty (banishment from the Internet) was deemed too strong, denying a fundamental right.

Now whether or not Internet access is a fundamental right or not is an interesting discussion but is not the point of this post. One of Mrs. Gagnon's arguments was that because of internet penetration is far from 100% in France, it made no sense to have it as a fundamental right. Therefore, it couldn't be a right because everyone doesn't have it already?

A fundamental right is based on a society's morals, not on the practicality of it. If you say that health is a right, then you find a way to make everyone have access to health care. At one point in history, every single fundamental right that we have was not available to everyone and our societies worked hard to achieve their universality. The same can be done with the Internet.

Barack Obama, change and his place in history

No matter what you think of him, you have to agree that Barack Obama is working hard and will probably have a lasting effect on the US of A. He already earned his place in history books as the first "non-Caucasian" president. And, at least from my Canadian point of view, he's bringing about change.

In leadership school, you always learn that change is hard. People usually fight it because, even if they see the potential benefits, change will be uncomfortable in the beginning. This is why, usually, politicians promise change (hey! Everyone wants a better life) but never really do anything (sacrifice? Actually, it's not so bad right now…).

If you need to enact change, you have to be relentless about it. You have to show people that the benefits outweigh the costs and you have to keep saying it ad nauseam. You also need to have a plan in order for everything to go smoothly.

What Obama is doing is different. He's basically on the post-iceberg Titanic trying to keep it afloat. He can enact most of what he wanted to do with the country since the alternative is, well, drowning. This also explains his lack of success so far on foreign grounds (On that note, I don't think that what he accomplished with other countries so far, just that the extent of what he did within the US in such a short of time is very impressive). The question is: does he have a plan? To continue with nautical metaphors, you can't only be keeping the boat afloat, you need to find help or get the boat to a port.

It is with such a plan that he will be able to secure a much more significant place in history than the "token black guy". The leaders who lead in a crisis are in a tremendous position to enact long term change that will shape the destiny of their country. For better… or for worse.

 

Executive compensation

There have been calls lately to curb the compensation executives make. The idea behind this is that they are making an insane amount of money compared to their workers, which is even worst since most companies are not doing too well right now. But why are CEOs and other executives making so much? And what is really the problem.

First, here is a graph of the compensation packages of the highest paid executive in the US from 1997 to 2007 (from the Economic Research Institute). You can see that the base salary remained more or less constant (indexed to inflation) while the stock options sky rocketed. An interesting comparison is with the DJIA (from Google Finance).

 
 

The trends are similar. Executive compensation increased until the bubble burst of 2000 and went down during the following recession. When all hell broke loose however, CEOs were making the most, a bit like how it is now. This is only one prior example, but it's safe to assume, especially with the amount of public outcry this creates, that CEO remuneration will be lower in the coming years than it is now. They will be getting less stock options and the value of those will be lower (due to the market).

These stock options are a big part of the problem in my opinion. The idea is good: you link the employee's pay with how well s/he directs the company. However, since the stocks themselves are subject to the company's perceived value at a moment in time, it encourages them to do things that only affect this perception. The enduring value of the company becomes less important than the next quarterly result (this makes the partner idea of some non-incorporated firms superior in terms of long term growth). Of course, companies have tried to curb their agency problems through forbidding their executives from exercising their options before a certain amount of time which has proved somewhat successful (though probably not enough). No doubt this will keep evolving.

This blog post was sparked by a Sophie Cousineau article in La Presse Affaire's new magazine. She was actually talking of letting shareholders vote on the top executive packages. It has been done in countries such as Australia with some results. The problem is that the votes are not binding and that the Council can just do what they want. In my opinion, the shareholders are the owners of the corporation and should be able to decide its destiny. Yes, the government would need to step up and force such a vote but is this really different than the laws saying that corporations have to produce quarterly statements?

I also want to point out that I'm not saying that shareholders will necessarily make better decisions than the administrators, but that it's simply the democratic way to go about this and that shareholders should have total control over their company.

New posts coming

I was a bit busy in the past few weeks but I should be posting regularly here again… expect something more today and a reblog post as I catch up on my google Reader (1000+ new articles… yea!). In the meantime, an amusing website: http://survivingtheworld.net/

L’exclusion

Ces dernières semaines, dû à une annonce plutôt inattendue de la Fédération des Femmes du Québec, on a eu droit à un débat bizarre sur le port du voile dans la fonction publique. Au départ, les opposants à la position de la FFQ se faisaient nombreux et plusieurs avançait un argument étrange voulant que le voile soit un symbole d'oppression de la femme et qu'il devrait être interdit.

Donc, selon ces personnes, il faut interdire à certaines femmes musulmanes le port du foulard car nous (et non pas elles) jugeons qu'il les place dans une position de soumission aux hommes. C'est complètement ridicule. Je comprends l'idée d'un symbole mais lorsque quelqu'un est opprimé, ce n'est pas à la victime qu'il faut enlever des libertés mais au tortionnaire. Si des hommes forcent leur autorité sur leurs femmes et leurs filles, c'est sur eux qu'il faut agir et sévir.

Ceci dit, toute cette histoire vient de la question de l'interdiction de porter le voile dans la fonction publique et, en cela je crois qu'il faut mettre des balises. Le voile est un signe religieux qui démontre un certain niveau de dévotion de la part de la personne qui le porte. Ceci pourrait offenser certaines personnes qui voient la représentation de toute religion autre que la leur comme un affront. Oui, en tant que société ouverte et tolérante, notre gouvernement se doit de servir ces gens dans un environnement plaisant (pour eux) car il s'agit du gouvernement de tous les Québécois. Dans cette optique je crois que nous pourrions interdire les objets religieux ou contentieux pour ceux qui doivent travailler avec le publique.

Nous vivons dans une société ouverte. En fait cette ouverture fait partie même de notre identité et tout mouvement se dirigeant visant à enlever des choix aux citoyens devrait être perçu comme une attaque contre la Nation Québécoise.

French Vs Anglais

Cette semaine, une déclaration de Gilbert Rozon a fait un peu le tour de la presse montréalaise. Selon lui « il faudrait s'ouvrir plus que ça et trouver des aménagements pour attirer des immigrants qui, en plus de leur langue maternelle, vont apprendre le français et l'anglais ».

Je crois que nous regardons la protection de la langue française de la mauvaise façon. Nous voyons un danger et décidons de nous terrer dans notre terrier alors que nous pourrions l'attaquer de plein fouet. En fait, en protégeant les acquis présents du français comme nous le faisons, la langue ne fera que perdre du terrain en Amérique du Nord. Ce que nous devons faire est exporter le français autour de nous. J'aimerais voir plus de francophones diriger les grandes compagnies de la ville reine. Mais pour qu'un Québécois aille travailler à Toronto, il lui faut parler anglais. Nous devons cesser de voir l'apprentissage de l'anglais comme un coup porter au français mais plutôt comme une corde de plus à l'arc d'un francophone pour rayonner l'extérieur de la province.

Pour revenir à Montréal, outre l'avantage mentionné plus haut, une emphase sur le bilinguisme nous permettrait d'attirer plus d'immigrant de qualité. Présentement, un immigrant ne parlant ni français ni anglais qui vient au Canada a un choix. Il peut aller à Montréal, apprendre le français et pouvoir travailler au Québec ou aller à Vancouver ou à Toronto, apprendre l'anglais et se trouver de l'emploi n'importe où en Amérique du Nord sauf au Québec. En offrant aux immigrants qui arrivent au Québec la possibilité (ou l'obligation?) d'apprendre les deux langues officielles du Canada, nous donnons un avantage certain à Montréal par rapport aux deux autres grandes villes. Pourquoi en effet, quelqu'un se limiterait à n'apprendre qu'une langue quand une ville lui en offre deux.

Nous avons un grand potentiel au Québec car nous sommes différents. Je crois que le temps où nous devions nous cacher pour protéger cette différence est révolu et que nous devons sortir et montrer au monde qui nous sommes vraiment!

Reblog: women, The Pirate Bay and Mr. Internet

Okay, this is not Friday… but it's still reblog day!

• Criss has two new good posts. The first is about something that I never thought of. Women have had, at least in some parts of the US, higher rates of health insurance. I'm not sure where I stand on this since on the one hand I personally think it makes sense that someone who has a greater chance (or risk) of using the service could be charged more for private insurance (the same way young men pay a lot more for car insurance). On the other hand, I also think that health care is a need and should be available to everyone equally. In the end, I'm glad I live in Canada! The other post is about the abortion ban in the Dominican Republic. We here in Canada seem to think that the US are lagging on social issues but really, the truth is that the more homogeneous countries have those laws that greatly restrict the freedom of their citizens. It goes widely under the radar because of that homogeneity. If all (influential) people are for it, there aren't going to be protests in the street.
  
• From Thinksketch design, the Pirate Bay's have been sentence to a year in prison because they assisted in the availability of illegal downloads (something you could probably pin on the whole internet). As much as my artist friends may disagree, I think there is something fundamentally flawed with their way of distribution. Illegal downloads are not hurting creativity, far from that. They are hurting those that based their remuneration on the old way of cashing in on creativity, focusing on intellectual property. If the focus was on wider distribution instead, a group could devise a way to make the intellectual property rights seamless and make legal downloading as easy and painless as the illegal one. The half-mast flag is there in support of innovation instead of punishment and status quo.
  
  
• The entertainment industry might have its chance to sue the whole Internet as my last post is about a story about the net becoming self-aware from Kurzweil AI news. It is an interesting read as an expert named Ben Goertzel says that we are really close to that and that it won't drastically change anything for us humans.
  

 

Science and politics

In a previous post, I brought up the fact that no matter how weird government leaders' ideas may seem economically, they do know the basics of the field and do have advisors well versed with the intricacies of high level economics. With the current issues I felt like broadening this idea a bit.

Earlier this week, the European parliament has voted to ban seal products from Canada. In the meantime, in a seemingly weird move, Egypt has decided to kill all pigs on its territory becoming the real life equivalent of this comic. All of these situations have in common the fact that they don't really have any scientific reason behind them. The seals in question are not an endangered species and while the hunt is graphic, it does not incur an abnormal amount of suffering to the animal. The reason the decision was taken was that it was politically profitable. Very few people in Europe use seal product, so no "seal industry" would be destroyed by such a decision. The same is true with European relationships with Canada. Even though we are talking about it now, the "seal embargo" will not have much of an effect on seal hunters as only 5% of their exports are to Europe. The end results are European governments winning the votes of the part of their population that are easily impressed by pictures of a cute baby seal while not really bothering the rest. From the Canadian point of view, the PM will try to fight it as he can but he probably won't succeed. This will however give us good munitions in order to break a profitable free trade agreement with Europe in the coming years.

Egypt's reaction to swine flu first made me smile. Personally, I somehow pictured Mubarak huddled in a cave in fear of anything that would dare sneeze next to him. But really, such a measure is not targeting animals, or even a virus. It is aimed at the Christian minority in Egypt which are the only ones affected by this. I want to say this is not a conspiracy per say. It is simply that Mubarak's power is based on the Muslim majority in his country while he also wants to increase Egypt's influence with the other Muslim countries. With this in mind, it really is the same as in Europe. The government is catering to the people that will get them more power in the future while only angering, in Egypt's case, people that have very little power of their own.

Swine flu

Getting your facts right

Today I was reading this article on DIGG calling rapper "Bow Wow" names for not attending a venue. Because of him cancelling it, the owner was forced to sell her business which was doing community service by keeping kids off the streets and out of gangs. Reading the comments on the social news site, people at first seemed to be in accordance with one another in saying that the artist was at fault. Then, some people realized that some of the facts didn't make sense. I won't go over the whole thing, but it simply painted whatever the owner was doing in a bad light.

My point is that spinning a story about a good cause to further it can backfire. In this case, the attention was taken away from Bow Wow's action to the owner's management of the venue. In other cases, people might look at exaggerated details, as was the case with several global warming arguments, and use it to show that the whole idea is exaggerated.

Usually, where you are doing a good thing, charity work, environmental and the like, you really do not need to add to the argument that "It really does more good than bad". You do not need to exaggerate or falsify information. Doing so will tremendously weaken your case once the truth is told. Yea, there is a chance that this won't happen, but when you are trying to better other people's lives, can you really afford to take that chance?

Le registre des armes à feu

Denis Côté, le président de la fédération des policiers municipaux du Québec, a signé une lettre dans le journal La Presse exhortant le gouvernement Harper de ne pas couper dans le registre des armes à feu. Selon lui, il s'agit d'un outil important pour permettre aux policiers de résoudre leurs enquêtes de façon sécuritaire.

Je comprends que le registre soit agaçant pour les chasseurs utilisant leurs armes de façon légale. Je comprends aussi que les criminels endurcis ne s'en font pas trop et n'enregistrent pas leurs armes. Par contre, il s'agit d'une barrière supplémentaire à l'achat d'une arme et cela a un effet sur les criminels moins endurcis, les détournant de la possession d'un item qui pourrait blesser des citoyens.

De plus, comme l'écrit M. Côté, les crimes passionnels commis avec des armes ont été réduits drastiquement depuis l'arrivée du registre en 1991. Il est beaucoup plus facile de tuer une personne avec une arme à feu qu'avec une arme blanche. Ce que cela signifie que la présence d'une arme à feu dans une maison augmente les risques d'un accident grave.

Re-Blogging Friday: Bits about the economy, education and design

• Alright, I don't quite remember how I got to this post but judging from the favicon and URL it seems to be from a guy called "Rick" wanting to get elected for the federal Conservative party: http://voterick.com/wordpress/?p=161. I checked this out because I had the post where I was talking about the way the politicians affect the economy and the discussion in the comments went to how much knowledge of economics our politicians have. Rick's blog post is about the other side of this, the voters' ability to understand economic policies. I must say that I do not think that the voters are that clueless about their economy (really, most people know what a deficit is!) but I do agree that with better knowledge we can make better decisions.
  
• Education Futures and Education 2.0 are blogs that really fascinate me. Education Futures has this tremendous article on what they call "Education 3.0". It is actually part of a series of posts so I suggest you also check out their homepage.
  
• Education 2.0 (@fmeichel's blog) has a post about the value of design and beauty within the economy. I had the idea that, from an architectural perspective, beauty could be seen as an intrinsic value to a project but they make the point that it also has monetary value as well, which makes sense.
  
• From another singularity website, KurzweilAI.net, we have the prediction that universities will become irrelevant in the next 20 years. Their point comes from the fact that the information will be readily available online. I think that they are missing the fact that going to college is as much a social endeavor (networking, bonding activities) as it is an academic one.
  
• Not a blog, but here is a link to the twitter search page for "Stephen Hawking". If you didn't know, he was rushed to a hospital earlier this week due to a chest infection but is expected to make a full recovery. I wish him well.

The end of AIDS

We were having a discussion at l'Auberge that went from "Pharmaceuticals are evil" ¹ to talking about AIDS. This conversation was continued later on through twitter. The point was that current AIDS therapy is good enough so that people can survive for a long time and prevent transmission to a certain degree. So, why is this still a problem?

My first thought was cost, but I then thought that any nominal cost would be worth it pretty quickly so, I went and took a closer look at it. The lowest CURRENT price per patient per year would be $300. Of course, in the short term, this would increase with the increased demand but lower once supply catches up. I then looked to see how many people would need AIDS treatment. According to avert.org, there were 32.8 million people with HIV in 2007. Assuming that all of them develop AIDS eventually (which isn't that likely but is a worst case scenario), that would mean the initial cost of treating those people would be 9.9 billion dollars per year.

This is not an astronomical number. This is something that would be doable for many one countries and certainly this shouldn't be a problem for any of the trade blocks, providing that there is the political will. The problem AIDS victims have is that they are not citizens of the countries that could afford such a program. While I'm sure that a most people here in Canada or in other developed countries do not wish ill for the poor people of the world, they do not care enough to sacrifice their well beings in order to save others. Which of us would be willing to send $1000 every year for the next 50 years to end the pandemic? Yes, that seems like a lot of money, but with that kind of money it would only take 10 million people, not much if you consider the whole western developed world, to eradicate the HIV (or at least AIDS) over two generations.

 

¹ I might be biased, but pharmaceuticals are not evil. I think most people misunderstand how much work goes into making the pill they take.

Pour redresser l’Action Démocratique du Québec

This is my first post in French. I figure that I'll start doing more regularly from now on (once a week or maybe every two weeks). For those of you who don't read French I can direct you to Hyperwords, a Firefox¹ add-on that lets you translate right on the page.

Pour ceux qui ne le savent pas, j'ai été le candidat de l'ADQ en 2007 dans Sainte-Marie-St-Jacques. Vu la course à la chefferie, je voulais m'exprimer sur quelques points que j'aimerais voir appliqués dans les prochaines années et qui, selon moi aideraient le parti.

Premièrement, un parti d'intégrité se doit d'être proche de ses membres. J'aimerais pouvoir donner à tous les membres la possibilité de s'exprimer sur les aspirations du parti. Si nous voulons adéquatement représenter la démocratie au 21eme siècle, nous nous devons d'utiliser tous les moyens à notre disposition pour permettre au plus de gens possible de participer à la vie du partie. Nous devons nous distancer des vieux partis qui font les yeux doux aux élites sans se préoccuper de la masse. 

Deuxièmement, nous devons nous tourner vers l'avenir. En utilisant les connaissances et la créativité de nos membres, nous pouvons arriver avec des idées qui frapperont l'imaginaire des Québécois et nous aiguiller vers un brillant futur. Je peux paraître idéaliste en ces temps économiquement difficiles mais la récession se terminera éventuellement. C'est maintenant que nous devons nous préparer à la reprise et c'est maintenant que nous devons nous affirmer en leaders.

Troisièmement, nous devons développer une vision cohérente de notre partie. Si nous voulons être perçus en tant que leaders, nous avons besoin d'une vision claire que tous les Québécois pourront embrasser. Nous devons appuyer les événements et les personnes qui appuient cette vision même si cela ne semble pas nous donner d'avantage politique. Il ne faut pas que nous ayons peur de nous lever pour dire que nous croyons en notre vision pour le Québec. Les citoyens verront ainsi que, même si nous n'avons jamais dirigé, nous avons un but, un plan et qu'ils peuvent compter sur nous.

Nous avons l'opportunité de nous redéfinir en tant que parti. Nous ne devons pas la gâcher.

¹ If you aren't using FF
click here or if you think that's a bit too involved, click here.

Re-Blogging Friday: Access to information makes us better students and better professors

I had started to reblog posts or stories from other websites. However, there is so much stuff going on that I feel that it would eventually drown out my normal posts (the same way I think my RTs are taking over my twitter updates). So, I've decided to post them all on the same day: Friday

• Earlier this week, I was talking about the fact that information was readily available to anyone who wanted it. In this vein, Youtube EDU brings information and discussions that were only available to students, professors or those affiliated to top universities right unto the computers of the masses. Here is Physorg.com's story (although, I think it first comes from AP): On the Net: College too expensive? Try YouTube
  
• Another post with a similar idea from Education Futures: Going Global and Purposive. The idea is that we must use the technology to our advantage. As an example, I took a Corporate Finance class last semester at McGill (great course by the way) and the professor was recording all lectures and posted them in two formats on the web. This meant that you could take the class whenever you wanted and enabled the professor to reach people that would not have the time to come to his lectures otherwise.

8% unemployment in Canada

Losing your job can be a traumatizing experience. Depending on your relationship with uncertainty, it can give you a tremendous amount of stress which leads to other health problems. If you think about it, though, getting laid off can be a great time to reorient your life. If you were laid off, chances are that the industry you were working in is in trouble. In this case, going back to school, or getting new training seems like a smart thing to do. As an example, the CSMO-ESAC has training programs that everyone can enter to gain theoretical and practical knowledge in certain fields. They are partnering with companies to offer those courses. The provincial government also takes punctual actions to relocate those hit by mass layoffs into more competitive sectors of the economy.

The point is that, as a society, you want to support the industries that have long term viability. However, as a government, you need to see to the needs of those who have fallen on hard times. The simplest way to do this in the employment area is to prevent layoff by subsidizing dying industries. Eventually, the only things that are keeping those industries viable on international markets are the government subsidies. But those subsidies are sending the wrong message to the markets: they are saying that the industry is a profitable one. After a while, investors and entrepreneurs start to increase but realize quickly that they too need subsidies to survive. In the end, the governments increases payments until it has no breathing room and has to cut spending, killing the whole industry. I fear that this is something that may happen to the forestry industry if it doesn't recycle itself.

All this to say that the government might want to institutionalize career switching formations as it would be like hedging your life choices. As unemployment rises they will have to deal with more and more people looking for these types of programs but as the recession ends, there might still be people within ineffective industries living precariously on the "governmental respirator" that could benefit from the programs.

Econductivism or transferring your effective skills

    I was raised by my parents, learned basic things in primary and secondary schools. I went to CEGEP then University where I gained technical knowledge. Normally, I would go on to practice my craft, gain experience possibly get promotions, get a pension plan, and retire at 60 (or 75?). Within this career, the only transfer of knowledge will have occurred when I trained more junior members, sharing the experience I will have amassed over the years.

    In our 21^st century society, everyone is bombarded with information they have no idea how to use. Whereas in the past we needed to give the information, now we only need to teach people how to use the information pertaining to a particular field to make them knowledgeable. Because of this, it would take little time for an accountant to teach the basics of his profession to anyone, given them information that can help them improve their daily lives. Of course, I'm not talking about the shady parts of GAAP here but of simpler concepts.

    We could create institutions dedicated to spreading non-specific knowledge: something useful, but not inherently technical, something that would not necessary make you a "professional" in the field. In my previous post, I was talking about volunteering and this could be that kind of organization. You know something, teach it to someone else. This will make another person happy, will also grow your reputation as an expert within your field and will be a fulfilling experience. I can see such organizations growing in the near future as more information is available, for cheaper.

    Besides, for l'Auberge, we are working on a budgeting and economic "course" for the homeless and previously homeless people. If anyone has any ideas, if you want your knowledge to reach and transfer to others, feel free to respond. After all that is what Economic Conductivism, or Econductivism is all about.

Volunteering at L’Auberge Communautaire du Sud-Ouest

Today I went to visit a shelter called L'Auberge Communautaire du Sud-Ouest. The shelter focuses on young homeless people, trying to help them go through life. The first thing is meeting their basic needs, such as food and… well, shelter. Afterwards the goal is to give them the tools they need to gain their independence, such as helping them find jobs or apartments.

I want to volunteer there because I think I can make a difference but there is also a selfish reason. Volunteering gives you satisfaction. As a species, we've evolved to feel that helping others is an essential part of our lives. Seeing that you made an positive impact in someone's life is empowering.

Volunteering is also an important part of our society. Together we can accomplish great things but to get the best of everyone's potential, we must help those who fell on hard times.

In the end, I simply urge anyone reading this to volunteer. You don't need to become Mother Theresa. You can do it simply, an hour a week, every two weeks, any kind of help is appreciated. Find a place that needs help and help them by doing something that will make you feel complete.

The real cost of Canada’s universal health care system

I think that a lot of people do not really see the truth about the universal health care system. I was reading an article about Natasha Richardson's death and stopped to look at the comments section on Digg. People were comparing the cost of Canada's health care system to the US' basically saying it was $0 versus a lot of money. While I personally think universal health care is a good thing, I do think that people should realize that they are in fact paying for it. This is why its card is called an "insurance card" and not a "hospital pass".

In 2007-2008, the annual cost per Quebecer was $2 518. Basically, our taxes, income or otherwise, go to pay the system we have come to take for granted. This is the same idea as any other "safety net" system in our province. They are not free.

With this being said, the universal health care system makes sure that people are paying for it based on their ability to do so since it is linked to the tax system. It might not be perfect and I think that there is a lot of money lost in inefficient management of the system but even then, it is a better starting point for something great than an all private system like the US' can be. Also, no matter what people say about wait times at the emergency room, if you come in with a bullet wound, or your head bashed in, you will get world class treatment.

Consumer confidence and stimulus plans

Niels Veldhuis, Charles Lammam and Milagros Palacios wrote a text in the Fraser Forum slamming Flaherty's latest budget. Their problem is the stimulus spending that will drop the Canadian government into the red. They are saying that stimulus spending doesn't work. Their argument, I find, is a sound one. Since the government will have to borrow money for its stimulus spending it means that it will essentially be taking money from its citizens to give it back to them with a shiny new name. The alternative would have this money either spent (which "stimulates" the economy) or saved at the bank who will then lend it (and "stimulate" the economy). By their account, it simply means that the only thing the stimulus spending does is put the country further into debt.

They are forgetting that a government is a political body first and foremost. They have to be seen in action and these actions, no matter how small an effect they actually have on the environment, resonate strongly in the population's psyche. Basically, the fact that the government is spending all this money has people feeling a bit more confident about the economy and spending more. The banks see that the governments bail out troubled companies and might take a bit more risk in lending, opening up the stranglehold they have on credit right now. Basically, a stimulus plan is like a marketing campaign. No, it's not only like one, it IS a marketing campaign telling people and corporations "Don't be afraid, spend, invest and let's get this economic train going again!"

Re-Blogging: Leapfrogging to the new basics

OK, so there's been a lot of talk lately about the education reforms in Quebec and there seem to be quite a few people saying that they are not very efficient. I think that a lot of it has to do with the human's fear of change. Basically, we don't see the benefits of a new system so why get out of our comfort zone. The problem is that the world is evolving and sooner or later we are going to find out that the way we teach children is irrelevant to how they will live their lives after school.

So here is a post from the Education Futures blog about several possible points that a future curriculum might look at.

Leapfrogging to the new basics

Re-Blogging: Homeless, not phone-less

I might seem obsessed, but here is a good post from Change.org

Homeless, not phone-less

I am black

Friday I went to a conference-spectacle at Cegep Ahuntsic. The show was helmed by the KEPKAA group and was basically a play interspersed with PowerPoint presentations giving background information on what they were talking about. The story of the play was that of a professors teaching members of his family about the story of a slave girl named Americana. It begins in the 19^th century where she managed to escape slavery in the US and come to Canada and ends in the early 20^th century at her death. The most interesting "character" in my opinion was the PowerPoint presenting computer named Historika. It was truly a wealth of information and opened your eyes on how the world had changed in the last 200 years. We had presentations about the life of escaped slaves, about the first black people in Canada, those who managed to carve their places in society and about the daily lives of others. We also had one about black inventors which leads me to think that, as it has been the case with students, a lot of discoveries and inventions were awarded to the one that had the money or authority to publish it rather than the actual discoverer.

There was also a presentation about how the white occidental world demeaned black people in order to keep their economic system viable. Before the industrial revolution, the only way to get the "massive" amounts of food and materials needed for cities, wars and the like was to use slaves. Only with the advances of technology were people actually able to look at what they were doing with objective eyes and say "What the hell is wrong with us?" (or maybe "Those slaves could drive the economy if they were paid and could buy the stuff our machines produce").

To conclude, for those who didn't click the link, KEPKAA is basically a school that teaches people to write and speak Haitian Creole. They did an awesome job in creating an informative play with Friday's event. I just wish the room wasn't 99% black and sold on their ideas. It is my firm belief that we can all learn from the struggles others have endured. At any rate, the evening ended with some pictures of Barack Obama which received a standing ovation so loud that he probably heard it in Washington.

An eye for an eye

This is a bit of a follow up on the Bus Beheader post. I had a good reason to say that, while I disagreed about the fact that he was held unaccountable for his actions, I was okay with the sentence he got. Basically, my approach to justice is that there should be a societal gain (not necessarily monetary), or at least no loss in the sentences given. The thing is that every time something horrible happens, there is an increasing number of people calling for harsher penalties. When we do so, we must ask ourselves what we would gain by sending the guy to prison for an extra 10 years or do we want to live in a society that gets rid of its troubles by executing them.

Earlier this week, I was in a discussion with Nouaman (www.khaimi.com, @NouamanK) about how some embezzlers have gotten off lightly maybe (especially in Canada). I do agree that the population who has seen their RRSP accounts go down lower than Montreal's climate might be enraged that a guy made millions ripping them off but their calls for tougher sentences are really just them wanting vengeance. They basically want the person who hurt them to suffer at least as much as they did. This is the eye for eye mentality updated for the 20^th century.

But really, why are we putting people in jail? Why do we have a justice system? The reason is to protect the innocent citizens and this is what sentences should aim at. The embezzlers go to prison to prevent them from ripping off other people (this might not be the best way but that's another discussion!). Vince Li is going to a hospital because that is where he belongs. He might not suffer as much as if he was in jail (although that's up for debate) but he will still be separated from a society in which he cannot coexist. This brings me back to what I wrote in the first paragraph… would a harsher penalty make your life safer? If you are saying no, then there is no reason for it.

Prince William serves soup too!

I like that the take home message of that article is that, in these though times we should help those who have less than us…

http://homelessness.change.org/blog/view/prince_william_serves_soup_too

My first meeting with Michael Ignatieff

This was an interesting weekend. A week ago, I received invitations to two events with the Canadian Liberal Party: a Shabbat dinner on Friday and a brunch on Sunday. Both of these had party leader Michael Ignatieff as the guest of honor.

The Sunday brunch was just a "bain de foule" where MPs would just meet the people that supported them. This was nothing new for me as I had been to many of those events with the ADQ at the provincial level. The one thing that struck me was how popular Justin Trudeau was. When he was first named, he received nearly as much applause as Ignatieff. He also seemed to be positioning himself as close to the leader as possible. He's been bred by the media as a possible future Prime Minister so he's acting like it.

Stéphane Dion also received a standing ovation at the event but he seemed a bit sad. He didn't seem to have the energy that the other MPs like Rodriguez or Coderre had. I heard someone say that his wife had predicted his win at the Liberal convention a few years ago to which Dion replied "Yes but we didn't win the one after that".

I also managed t speak to Pablo Rodriguez about free cell phones for the homeless. He told me to meet him at his office to discuss further. I personally want to know what steps would be necessary to bring this project forward within the Canadian government. Even though the Liberals are not in power, I hope he can help me do that.

Now, about Iggy! At the brunch, he gave an energetic and inspirational speech about how he was a strong leader and how the liberal party was awesome. He also gave us the creepy directive that went like "Allez frapper aux portes et dites aux gens que les Rouges sont de retour" (This is not a straight quote). All in all, I felt that this was a good speech to an audience that was already sold on his message.

So, I spoke about the brunch first. The reason is that the Shabbat was a very different experience, at least for me. So, on Friday, I went to the Opus Hotel not knowing at all how the evening was going to go. I had never been to a Shabbat dinner before and actually knew (and still knows) very little about the Jewish faith. I also knew no one at that dinner. This made the evening memorable. The Jewish community seems to be very tightly knit. Everyone knew each other and seemed to have helped one another in some way. They were also open insofar as I had no trouble striking conversations with anyone. I was also very impressed with the organizer Zach Battat. He gave a very interesting and emotional speech about the importance of Shabbat for him and his family. You could see the passion in his eyes and I felt he was, by far, the best speaker that night. And yes, that includes Ignatieff who seemed, at least to me, tired. The liberal leader's speech was thoughtful and intelligent but he didn't seem to have energy (something he displayed a lot on Sunday). He talked about his stance on the Israel-Palestine situation which is, in my opinion, fair.

That evening, I also learned that the Israelis in particular and the Jews in general were being persecuted in Venezuela through governmental actions. In answer to this, Canada decided to open its embassy doors to any Israeli who might need shelter and flew the Israeli flag. At any rate, when someone asked Ignatieff what he thought of this, he answered in a way that resonates with my values: state-sponsored hatred of an ethnic group, in this case jews, is unacceptable and Canada should work as hard as it can to prevent or stop such actions.

Oh and yea, I did get to shake Michael's hand and say that I am a fan, to which he said: "I am glad!"

Free cell phones for everyone!

Homeless people are the scapegoats of our society. We somehow think that they deserve their conditions and that they shouldn't bother us. Eerily enough, homelessness is nearly equal to prison for us. An homeless person, much like the con in prison, is someone who made a bad choice earlier in life and must pay for it. Notwithstanding the fact that this kind of logic makes no sense at all, they, as members of our society still deserve our attention.

One thing that I found out about earlier this week was an initiative in the US called Safelink Wireless. This is a government program whose purpose is to help those in need get a cell phone. The idea is born out of the sheer number of people losing their jobs in the US and not able to afford any type of communication device and plan. I just want to clarify that this is not just a free cell phones, but free useable air time as well. This might help people look for a job, give them a number so that they can be reached and, something important in the case of homeless people, a way to call for help if needed.

Oh… and that'll also help them take pictures of someone important (from change.org)!

Changing the layout

I'm just experimenting a bit with a new template until I settle for something more "me" in the future. Just tell me what you think. 

By the way, the credits for the template are at the bottom of the page

Accountability

My friend Lenka pointed me to this story of the "Bus Beheader" Vince Li. The man gruesomely removed the head of a sleeping passenger in a traveling Greyhound Bus. Earlier this week, the man was "found not criminally responsible" of the murder as he did not know that what he was doing was wrong. He is to be sent to a maximum security institution for treatment.

Anyone who felt bad (or good) after taking psychotropic substances like alcohol can attest that a person's mood doesn't always have anything to do with reality. Taking it farther there are quite a few drugs that can induce psychosis rather fast in an individual. By watching enough of those events, we start to realize that these interactions between external and internal mental modifiers are what make up our personality. This personality is what makes us ourselves and this is what affects our behavior.

All this is to say that a person's abnormal behavior can be explained by neurological defects but that this should not exempt them from any of the consequences. To give an example, saying that Li was not criminally responsible for his actions because he was schizophrenic is similar to saying a drunk is not responsible for running over a little girl because he is an alcoholic (different diseases, but alcoholism has genetic predispositions and is not always entirely the fault of the drinker).

I have no problem with Li going to a mental institution instead of prison. He is clearly sick and deserves treatment. But I think he should still be held responsible for what he did.

Alex talks about democracy

I just want to point you out to this article on Critic Al's blog about a more direct democracy.

http://criticalex.blogspot.com/2009/03/its-2009.html

Responding to Russian aggression

There was a lot of activity in the media lately about the incursion of a Russian warplane in Canadian airspace two weeks ago. I personally found it unsettling that this was not this was only the latest of a series of such violations. When the Americans do it, at least we know that they stand much to lose should they become too aggressive. The Russians, at least from my point of view, are much more obscure.

So, should we send the mighty Canadian Legions to conquer Eurasia? The first thing that comes to mind is increasing the Canadian military presence in the arctic. This is the 20^th century response. The geographical position of an army is not that relevant in our world. Indeed, the CF-18s that intercepted the bomber were stationed in Alberta. Of course, moving the army closer to an aggressor sends a message that we are monitoring them and this has real dissuasive value. I do think however that the best way to deal with this is show Russia that they would have much more to gain by working with us than by working against us.

Russia, like us, has access to a tremendous amount of natural resources that they funnel to the European Union. Working with us, they could open another trade route to the US while we would gain a more direct access to the Eastern European countries. We would also open another route for goods to travel to northern china, one that might be more effective than the sea route currently use.

Working with Russia would also lay the bases of a strong alliance of arctic countries. The apprehended "Arctic War" would be a ridiculous way to solve the different claims in the region. Working together however, we could achieve great things.

Modern Slavery

For our society slavery is evil. The word "slaver" is similar to what "demon" was a few centuries ago. No politician in their right mind would get up on TV and say "I think we should bring back slavery". The funny thing is, it's all about the word "slavery" rather than the reality of the thing.

The wikipedian gods say that "Slavery is a form of unfree labour where a person (called a "slave") is compelled to work for another (sometimes called "the master" or "slave owner")". Remove the "slave" and "owner" qualifiers and you have the situation that prevails in much of the world today. What we called slaved a few centuries ago is what we call cheap labour today. There is not much difference between someone getting paid just enough to feed his family and another person getting paid in food for her family. The problem is that our society functions in such a way that the use of cheap labour is inevitable. Market forces drive prices in such a way that to increase profits you have to lower prices. There are two ways of doing so. One means investing in technology while the other focuses on getting cheaper labour. The latter way has been proven to work through millennia while there will always be a great deal of uncertainty about the former as you'll always be dealing with new technologies.

In the end even with our best efforts, our society will keep plummeting towards cheaper labour and we will probably be recognized through history as a slaver-like civilization (much like Europe during the Middle-Ages). The only thing that could potentially change this, at least as far as humans are concerned, would be for machines to become advanced enough so that they could reinvent themselves and become automatically reliable and efficient at doing new work. The easiest path to increase profits and increase comfort would then become the technological one.

Our democratic system is flawed (Part II)

We live in an era of tremendous access to information which will keep increasing exponentially as time goes back. The average Canadian has nearly as much information as an MP at their disposal. The only difference is that this knowledge can be tainted by rumors and false data. Right now, it would be incredibly simple to give all the pertinent information to any citizen and enable them to take an active role in the daily running of the government. This means that, in our 21^st century, direct democracy is possible.

The Athenian government in the 5^th century BC, the first recorded democracy, was directly administered by its citizens. 30,000 to 60,000 Athenian citizens were directly voting on the laws affecting them. Of course, there are 33.6 million Canadians which create logistical problems not present in Ancient Athens. However with our technology, it would actually be easier to recreate such a level of involvement than it was in the old Greek city-state. Even though the older generations might be reluctant to do this, internet voting can be secured and implemented nationwide. The internet infrastructure would also be important in providing the information that people would need to take informed decisions. We would need to make sure that everyone, wherever they are on the Canadian territory, has access to the Web (actually, that should be a priority even without direct democracy).

And to everyone saying that people are too dumb to make decisions, this is ultimately an argument towards geniocracy or dictatorship.

Honoring Ancestors?

    These weeks in Quebec there is quite a bit of fuss about the reenactment of the Plaines d'Abraham battle. Some people claim that their ancestors lost the battle and how it is a shame to them. What is interesting is that this battle occurred in 1759. It opposed French colonists to English colonists with quite a few other factions in between. The English won and Quebecers who feel kinship with the French feel that it was their defeat, those of their ancestors. If you think about it, all ideas of ancestry going back that far are ridiculous. Humans, by nature, will try reproduce with everything they can find. The English winners of the battle did produce offsprings that mingled and survived to this day. There is not such a thing as a purebred (and it can be said that there has never been in the past) and we can safely assume that everyone who has ancestors that fought in the Battle of Quebec has them on both sides of the war.

    The same is true for the Haitian War of Independence of the late 1700s, early 1800s. As far as I'm concerned, my ancestors enslaved my ancestors who rebelled and killed all of my ancestors, claiming their independence from the country of my ancestors. Again, this is ridiculous. The reason people look at only one set of ancestors is simply because they do not associate with blood but with easy to recognize characteristics such as language (like in Quebec) or skin color (in Haiti). It is a very simplistic way to view the past world and as we see with feuds, something that can actually be very destructive.

    I, for one, think that we can learn a lot from the people that came before us but that is it. They are not linked to us in ideas or reality and we shouldn't automatically assume that their battles are relevant to us.

The Singularity and society

    I came upon the story of the Singularity University this week (Video from the Singularity blog). It got me thinking about what these possibilities mean for our society.

To give short explanation, the singularity I am talking about is the point in time where machines become smart enough to be able improve themselves. While I agree that this is rather vague, the possibility or the definition of the singularity is not really what I want to talk about. My main focus is actually the inherent advances in technology and how these affect us.

The most important part of the Singularity is the tremendous knowledge that will (did?) become available to us. Right now, anyone can find out relatively accurate details about the history of Zimbabwe with minutes. It does however take an external device to do so. Eventually, technology will let us embed this knowledge into our bodies. It will be up to the people to decide whether or not they want to get this enhancement. Assuming this goes forward, you will have a large amount of people with the knowledge of the world available to them nearly as easily as their own memory. Interestingly, this means we will be moving closer to having a hive-mind.

To conclude, I just want to add that, while the future technological advances will be undoubtedly interesting, the past advances, what has happened in the last 5 years, have given us the tools to drastically affect our society. This is what I will be talking about in the second part of my "Democracy is flawed" post.

Accepting Racism

    First of all, I want to say that I think that the strength of the human race is in its diversity. We all know that if brothers and sisters have children they stand a higher chance of having congenital defects. To a lesser extent, the same could be said of intraracial unions. From that point of view, racists seem extremely misguided.

    Most racists are against the acceptance of foreign people or cultures into their own. They shun diversity and feel that they are stronger by themselves. What I find fascinating is how people that call themselves open and welcoming treat racists the way racists treat foreigners. Basically, racists are pariahs and often can even be arrested for their ideas. If they aren't they become a non-functioning member of society. In that situation, some of them resort to violent or "sublime" acts in order to get themselves heard. Of course their targets will be the hard working members of cultural communities. In the end, society's knee-jerk reaction to people with different ideas ends up hurting those they are trying to protect.

    Obviously, my conclusion is not that we should all be racists. It is that we should accept that others can think differently. It might even make us uncomfortable but we should be able to feel pride in knowing that we can listen to their viewpoints and form logical and civilized responses to them.

Our democratic system is flawed (part I)

    The various forms of Democracy used within the western world are all relatively old and somewhat static. Because of this last characteristic, they are inherently flawed. The question is, is there a way to make the whole system dynamic, adapting through time? This is what the next series of posts will be about.

    Right now, in Canada, we have a parliamentary democracy. Similar to the situation in the US, we elect people to represent us in the government. The difference with the US is the idea of strict party lines. I do not know whether or not this is due to the type of democracy or if it just evolved that way naturally, but we do not choose our representatives based on themselves but based on the party (or brand) that they represent. Because of this, representatives are only given the mandate to follow their party line. The leaders have most of the impact even at local levels. I've seen it when I ran, sometimes, people who liked me wouldn't vote for me because of my party leader and sometimes the opposite was true. From the elector's point of view, it is simply to find information about the leader than about any of the lesser candidates. The party becomes a brand with the leader as its mascot and its ideas as its core values. This streamlines the information gathering process.

    The elected MNAs and MPs therefore have no choice but to follow the party line because this is what the people chose them to do. The problem I see in this is simple. In Quebec there are 4 parties in the National Assembly. The government's role is to come up with their own ideas (different from anything the opposition might have said in the past) to pass as laws. The 3 opposition parties systematically go against those while trying to differentiate themselves from each other. In the end, the parties are defined by one another. The party line makes sure that the same holds true for MNAs. Even if the Member agrees with something another party says and that thing would be a plus for his or her constituents, it will be tremendously difficult to approve of it if the leader doesn't.

    Like in any situation, the leader is also very important in this. In truth, a leader can set the tone and chose to follow his or her core values to make decisions, voting with the opposing party or against it depending on the situations. Sadly, this is not what we've seen in Quebec in the recent past since such actions makes it harder for the leader to differentiate their party, thus win votes.