It’s all about Opportunity

This blog is in tribute to the entrepreneurial poor in the Philippines and how you to can assist

I firmly believe that to “get ahead” or succeed are only 3 things needed

Talent – you need to have a talent for what you are wanting to do – I would never make lots of money as a musician because no matter how hard I tired I was never a good musician.

Enthusiasm – you must want what you want to have, or to put it a way I head last year, in far more direct language

“You get what you want or you get what you deserve”

Commit yourself to your goals and they are more likely to be reached, do not make the commitment and you are setting yourself for disappointment.

Opportunity – you need to have & recognise the opportunities that are present to you get closer to your goal.

It is only this last of the 3 that I can influence for someone else.

This is why I have already supported the Philippines micro finance project, from , the most aptly name “Opportunity International” & colleague Wonderwebby

No matter how small a contribution it all helps increase the number of opportunities for people to change their circumstances.

Decision making

Decisions, we are making them almost every minute of every day, some are important, some seem not so important.

What makes a good decision ?

In my experience, a good decision is one that

• You made, rather than allowed for events to just take their natural course;
• You considered everything you could given the time constraints ;
• You focused on the result you were seeking;
• You commit to making work; and
• You never look back on and say “I wish that  . . .”

To these last 2 points needs some expansion. In my opinion the only “bad” decisions are ones, once made, you fail to pursue at anything less than 100%. Backing off, letting things just happen rather than going for what you want only leads to diminution of the desired results.

With decisions, regret is the yang to commitment’s yin.

That does not mean that you shouldn’t reflect and build the consequences and outcomes into your experience bank. If I put a salt into my coffee and experience the incredibly bad taste (IMO) I should be smart enough to not do it a second time.

Time can seem to be the enemy of decisions,

If I wait just a little more time, . . . “

Unfortunately a decision can only be made with the information you have at the time. Not deciding, whilst a legitimate course of (in)action can, at times, reduce your options to the point where only one possible outcome is left.

Time is also the friend of decision making

To quote my father (who turns 73 soon);-

“The decision to join the RAAF was the best decision I ever made. Apart from the opportunities the RAAF provided me I also met this lovely young woman in the Women’s RAAF ( The WRAAF as it then was ) , . . .who after a difficult romance became Nanna — but not immediately.”

You can only know, retrospectively, the consequences of a decision that you make, there is no 100% fool proof way of predicting an outcome, and you would indeed be a fool if you thought that everything you did was going to turn out perfect

So to finish up, I sometimes get asked to talk to folks about changes in their career, there is only one bit of advice I give.

“In the end only you can decide what will and will not make you happy, there are no bad decisions if you commit to the decisions you make.”

Thanks for reading

A Smart(er) House – the beginning

I want to change my house over to a “Smart house”, or is that “Smarter”? I am spurred on by my employers “Smarter Planet” initiative. If indeed we are running short of most of the resources that we use to take for granted then I believe it is incumbent on each of us to make some difference in the situation. For my home there are 2 major items to consider, Electricity & Water

Electricity

First and foremost my home needs to be energy efficient, it should get maximum benefit out of the energy it consumes, and where possible, use alternative, on site, sources.

A list of the things I am thinking of are;-

• Fully Insulated – My place of residence has a climate from 0 C in the depths of winter to 45 C in the hottest of summer – good quality insulation is mandatory
• Double glazing of windows – a lot of heat comes and goes via the windows yet this is still not part of the building standards, I have listed it separately as it will be an exercise on its own.
• Solar for heating – both hot water & the Pool – as much “free” energy, once the installation is paid for that is, as possible. Western Sydney’s climate is ideal for Solar heating.
• Skylights – I have a number of places that do not get good quality natural light (my home office for one), I should be able to reduce my lighting bill somewhat if I can introduce a bit more natural light into some of the dark corners of the home.
• Smart Grid – I would have to wait till the electricity provider, locally, start down this path before I can make any progress on this item.
• Power monitoring – I think this is the real key to it all, knowing what energy is being used by which devices can assist in doing the cost/benefit of replacing energy inefficient devices.  But it does go a bit further, only by monitoring what appliances & systems are using electricity at any time can you have the information needed to make good educated decisions (obliviously!), and then when smart grid/bidding systems appear you can be far more precise in your demands on the grid or on site generation systems. I read this article on building a home power monitoring system, and I like the concept.

Some other things to consider

• Solar Electricity panels on the roof – the Australian Government is giving rebates on these – a 1 kW panel would cost about 10.5-12k, with an 8k rebate leaves about 2-3k of net cost, and at 12cents per KWH gives about a 10% rate of return
• Blockout Shutters – designed to reduce down to almost zero the radiant heat via windows, may be an alternative to the double glazed windows.
• Wind generator – it would be interesting to know if I get sufficient wind, on average, to get some value out of one of these devices. I remember Dr Max Whisson had what looked like a great invention – part of which is a windmill that turns well in the lightest breeze

Water

Oddly enough I am less understanding of plumbing that I am of electricity – probably has something to do with my training as an Electrical Engineer.

Capturing and re-using as much as possible, In particular

• Grey water recycling – taking the water from, say, washing & showering and reusing it. I never ever water my garden, so I may have far more than I actually need – some temporary storage prior to reuse would need to be built into the system. I could even use the excess for augmented cooling in summer, depending on the quality.
• A water tank – my parents use to have a farm and I am very well aware of the do’s & don’t's of tank water so getting that as a partial replacement of what I take from Sydney Water should be easily doable (subject to building regulations I presume).

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As I progress through this what appears to be a multi-year project, dear reader I will update what I have found and what works and does not work, for me, being an IT guy I have a couple of ideas that may be able to help to really tune down the consumption and tune up the “efficiency” of my place of residence.

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First things first – I think I will need to do a bit of analysis on my usage of Electricity & Water and see what my current consumption profile really looks like, so it’s off to the electricity supply company to see if they can assist – something a bit more granular than every 3 month’s I think is needed.

Thanks for reading.

Hello There

So I have decided to start blogging publicly – my employer, IBM has a very enlightened (compared to some other companies) view and has been encouraging folks like me to engage in public conversations.

So who am I ?

• I work for IBM in Australia as part of our internal IT (we call it “Business Transformation & Information Technology” or  BT&IT for short) for the Growth Markets Unit on the Strategic transformation of IBM’s internal IT.
• I have a teenage daughter who is Goth/Emo
• I am an Australian Citizen, living just outside Sydney
• I am 48 years old, but still feel like I am 17 (though the mirror tells me otherwise)

This blog is NOT about IBM – there may be some things I reflect on from my work life, considering I spend a significant proportion of my conscious hours working for them on the things that they ask me to work on, and a bit more as well.

The intent of this blog will be a public timeline of what passes by my brain and I feel should be expressed publicly. This could be simple things or more likely some vain attempt by yours truly to actually add a train of reflection and maybe, just maybe a trail of hope for those of you who choose to do me the honour of reading it.

So off to my first real post

and, thanks for reading