Happy Easter!

For all you non-Christians out there, and for all you who call yourself Christian but who perhaps have forgotten, today is the biggest event of your religious year. Oh, I know, we like to do things up right at Christmas, but if you stop to think about it, Easter is t-h-e Christian holiday. No Easter, no Christianity.

According to the story, it was Easter when Jesus arose from the dead. It was the resurrection that distinguished the belief of those who came to be called Christians from all other believers at the time. I know a lot of theological baggage has been added over time, but the heart of the matter is that Jesus is the one who many have come to believe has conquered death.

Death, however, is a very touchy subject, is it not? There are not few cultures who have a really difficult time - as a culture, not as individuals - dealing with it. Americans are perhaps the best example. In their obsession with youth and beauty and, more than almost anything else, fun, they tend not to spend a lot of time contemplating death. OK, contemplation may be a bit much, but I really think it is time that we realized that death is as much a part of life as life is.

Death is not as bad for those who die as for those who remain. We can believe what we want about what happens to us when we die, but we can't be sure. We can be sure, however, of how we feel when we lose a loved one, when someone close to us is no more. No, we don't live forever, at least not on this place of existence, and we have to realize that all that we do is constrained by this simple fact. I think a healthy awareness and acknowledgement of this fact can help us think a bit more about what we do, and even more importantly, what we don't do.

We too readily blame, threaten, intimidate, harass, ignore, disparage, or look down on others. We too readily manage, control, order, suppress, force, coerce, or even abuse, others as well (that's really what modern management most legal systems are all about, in the end). We too readily send young people off to war. We too readily accept pain, suffering, despair, hunger, illness, willingly blaming the victims for their fate. We never quite seem to be able to muster the courage, the fortitude, the humanity to just say "no" to greed, corruption, and power.

I like to think that holidays were once the opportunity for us to stop and think, to reflect upon what we do and do not do, what we believe and what we reject, but as it is, most of us no longer know why we have holidays, why we celebrate, or what we could possibly make of such days. You know, there are a lot of ways to die, the most overlooked is simply no longer being able to feel compassion or empathy for others.

Easter eggs and chocolate can help sweeten up the day, to be sure, but do yourself a favor and make a more lasting contribution to overcoming the death that is so widespread in today's world. Resurrect your own feelings and put them to good use.

What's so good about Good Friday?

Growing up I learned about what allegedly happened on this day in history and asked myself, "So what's so good about it?" It seemed silly to call a day "good" on which somebody was put to death in such a horrific way. Granted, it is a necessary event to the big one that follows - Easter - but it all just seemed a bit bizarre to me.

Of course, being young and, well, more ignorant than I am now, there were a lot of things I didn't know. And one of these things is that over time, words simply change and shift their meanings. We tend to think that our language is however it is, at whatever time we speak, read, and write it, but there are times in which it changes more rapidly than others (like now, for example, with the rapid and broad-based influx of English words into German, for example) and there are times when it changes very, very slowly (for example over the couple of hundred years that it took, say, "awful" and "awesome" to literally exchange meanings). The bottom line is, though, that language changes all the time. Trying to stop it from changing is like trying to hold back the tide with your hands. This is very bothersome to some people, but I haven't yet figured out why.

The "good" in Good Friday is one of those words. There was a time when it meant more than it does today. It included meanings such as "pious" and, particularly relevant here, "holy". But, most of us don't know that anymore, and a growing number of people don't care, as long as they get their holiday; that is, a day, or perhaps only half-a-day, off work. Holidays are simply no longer "Holy Days", and it would seem than not much of anything is holy anymore.

This is really too bad. Oh, I know, some really terrible things have been done to our fellow humans beings in the name of things considered "holy". What one person reveres as holy, another thinks is a silly superstition, or as mundane as things can be. I don't think we have to agree on what is or what isn't holy, but there are times when I think that thinking something is holy isn't a bad idea.

The word has negative connotations for some, I know, but all religiously and spiritually tinged words do, but what is at stake is really the acknowledgement that there just might be something that we could all agree is worth striving to uphold or protect or that we could agree is actually priceless; that is, not "without price" but "beyond price", beyond what money could possibly buy, even if we wanted to.

In thinking about this, I became dismayed that I wasn't able to identify anything that all of us could agree on. We've come to a time in which there are significantly large groups of people in various places, who, for various reasons, believe that anything can be bought and sold. This was a sad realization. Maybe I just didn't think about it long enough, or hard enough, or clearly enough, even though I think I did. Maybe I've overlooked something, and if I have, do let me know. In the meantime, I'll just have to muddle along with the consequences of knowing that no matter what it is, someone somewhere is probably willing to pay money for it. How sad can you get?

On the road again, again

Speaking of going nowhere fast. Duty calls, and I'm off to Vienna. I think it's only fair to remind you, that these jaunts are anything but vacation.

OK, OK, I'll make a confession. Our meeting ended a bit earlier than scheduled, so I had a couple of hours to myself. And I did what any self-respecting tourist in Turin would do: I went looking for the Shroud. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against what anybody believes. I truly believe we are allowed to believe what we want to and everyone should simply respect that. As long as what you believe isn't hurting anyone, it's fine. It's your belief. Go ahead and believe. As for me, and for everyone who knows me, well, I'm a bit more skeptical about what a lot of people believe, including myself. The things I do believe, I believe because those beliefs are the result of long, intensive and skeptical investigation and reflection. For the most part, I keep them to myself. After all, why should I think anyone should believe what I do? Belief is a personal matter.

Be that as it may, I made my way down the Via XX Settembre looking for the Turin Cathedral. If you didn't know what you were looking for, you could walk right past it without noticing. It is anything but one of those flashy, gothic, over-powering pieces of architecture. It is an understatement in and of itself. Inside, of course, it's old, and well traversed, full of wood, dark wood, hard benches, but it is quiet, sedate, unimposing, but not necessarily welcoming. It's not as threatening as some.

I say threatening because a Chinese friend of mine once told me that after visiting a number of dark Spanish cathedrals and seeing all the brutal crucifixes on display, he had nightmares for weeks. I doubt that was the intent of the sculptors, but he has a point. Touchingly, the only crucifix I encountered was humanely placed off to the side in a small chapel niche in the right-front of the church. It was worthy of its Spanish counterparts, but anything but in-your-face.

The Shroud itself is opposite this display on the front left. A prayer bench is in front of the massive (plexiglass?) window, behind which is a large box covered quite tastefully in a symbolically worked cloth, with a stylish wreath and centerpiece of thorns. Above the box, suspended majestically is a photo-enlargement of the face on the Shroud. It's a simple corner of the church that invites reflection.

But, before you get into the corner to meditate, you have to pass this massive flatscreen that is showing a continual subtitled presentation of the history of the Shroud. It wasn't the fact that the subtitles were in Italian. I doubt I would have sat long watching. No, it was the fact that there in this house of worship, steeped in the Middle Ages, there is, well, this garish, modern, high-tech display. It was almost an event. Not quite. But almost.

I don't know if the Shroud is real or not. I don't even know if it's really there, or not. It really doesn't matter to me, because I was there to sit quietly and reflect ... on what the Shroud may be, what it may mean to some, why it might be important or insignificant ... but I really couldn't. The ever-changing, ever-moving, ever-flashing of the heartbeat of modern media simply distracts your attention.

Once again, information, not inspiration, is writ large. And, as always, we're the poorer for it.

Are we getting anywhere?

My EU-project involvement brings me into contact with a lot of information about vocational education and training, the lack of qualified employees, youth unemployment, skilled-worker shortages, business-education interfaces, employability, and everything and anything that is related to topics such as these.

When seen in one light, it's all very depressing: more and more young people can't find work, businesses (especially major, global corporations) complain about everything they can't find but claim they need as far as workers are concerned, governments are broke and can't pay for education or training and there is no money for fundamental, employment-creating investments either, and skilled, older workers are being forced out of the labor market, because, well, they simply cost too much. And the outlook in all these areas is anything but rosy, too.

I try to fight the depression, of course, and sometimes I'm more successful than others. One of the things that often keeps me from being successful is the amount of nonsense that you have to put up with if you bring up what appear to me to be ready solutions to the problem.

For example, it is a well-known and better-documented fact that corporate profits are once again at an all-time high. It is also well-known and documented that wages most places have either stagnated or have declined for the past few decades. The salaries and bonuses of top managers has exploded, forcing everyone to rethink executive compensation, so why not simply spread the work we have around a bit more? What is so bad about breaking the cycle of workaholicism and making the standard work week, say, only 25 or 30 hours? Take most jobs and simply cut them in half. Instead of bludgeoning one person to do the work of two or three, actually have two or three do the work.

Yes, yes, yes, I hear all you über-capitalists squealing, but it would cost a lot less than you think. Is it really a set-back of the CEO only makes 100 times the earnings of the average employee? Is it really the end of financial-market confidence if corporate profits only grew by 20% instead of 40%? And if everybody is doing it, would we notice any relevant difference in the relative standing of the "most profitable", or the "best run" corporations out there? I don't think so, and it has two additional, knock-on effects that are very much worth thinking about: increased tax revenues for government, and increased consumption, which in turn would benefit companies, and on and on and on.

Personally, I think this would be a huge leap forward, for as things are now, we're going nowhere fast. If you want things to be different, you have to start thinking differently. It's that simple.

On the road again

I just got back home again. I had to travel to Turin for two-and-a-half days for an EU project meeting. Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for this.

Some of my colleagues, and everyone who does travel much think I'm mostly on vacation. I'm not. Anyone who does travel regularly knows what a hassle it is anymore: worrying about missing train, plane and bus connections; those incessent, silly, ineffective security checks conducted by unmotivated individuals who are more than overworked and underpaid; the unexpected surprises at the hotel, including what's for breakfast (which can vary considerably from country to country ... Italy tends toward sweet); very often eating alone, and the mere living out of a suitcase, well, it's not precisely my idea of fun.

As usual, it was get into town in time for a late dinner; meetings all day, regardless of the weather; the whole project team gets together for dinner; and meetings the next day and out to catch the bus to the airport. Sightseeing: none. Free time: none. Simply enjoying the ambience of a foreign city: none. Getting some insight into the local customs and culture: none. My question is, what is so vacation-like about that? Oh, right, I wasn't in the office.

With smartphone and internet access everywhere, I'm also expected -- whenever -- to check my work mail and return calls and well, do more or less what I would do if I were in the office. Too often, though, this takes place after normal working hours. After all, if I'm in a meeting, I simply find it impolite to be taking other calls and working my mails when I'm supposed to be paying attention, contributing, and ... you all know the drill.

So, my question is: what's so great about work in the modern world? And, also, why, if computers are supposed to be such productivity enhancers and labor-savers why is it that I find myself simply working more and enjoying it less?

The answers are actually quite obvious: computers are neither productivity enhancers nor are they labor savers; ubiquitous internet and mobile phone access are neither either. All these "conveniences", these "technological advances", these "innovative work practices" are, in the end, are ways to keep me chained to my work for longer hours. Productivity overall might have increased, but in many cases, I'm sure that productivity pro hour has declined.

Yes, I was on the road again, but I'm feeling a lot more like roadkill than the happy traveler.

Boing!

I don't know if you hear it, but yesterday at 11:02 UTC Spring sprang. Looking outside, you probably wouldn't know it otherwise, if I hadn't have told you. Some of us were thinking it's today, others were sure it was tomorrow. I mean, none of us is far off, it's always around this time, but the astrophysical time-masters have been tracking the data and if anyone knows just when what out there is supposed to be somewhere, they're the ones to ask.

We made it! Winter is officially behind us.

Of course, when I look out the window and when I think about being outside, I'm not thinking spring, official or not. That's the thing about something being "official". I'm not sure it means a lot out here in reality where just about everything of significance is anything but "official".

Really, when my kids were born, that were some of the greatest moments of my life, but none of those births were "official" until they had been registered. Or when their birthdays come. It's past midnight, and anyone and everyone can -- and should -- wish them a Happy Birthday, even though it's not "official" till at least their birth time comes around, but hey, who's counting? The same is true for anniversaries, both happy and sad (such as weddings, engagements, and, yes, even deaths). What is real, and when we choose to remember is necessary and important, and it's never really "official".

Things have certainly changed since the times when I grew up -- as well they should have, some of it for the better, of course -- and I have to admit that one of the things I hear less about these days than then is how "official" things are. When I say that winter is "officially" behind us, it really doesn't carry that authoritative tone that it did when I was young. That's good I think. Part of the consequence is that a lot of young people have less respect for authority than we were encouraged (required?) to have. I don't think that's a bad thing.

You see, in my day, people were shown (not necessarily given) respect by virtue of their position: the policeman, the pastor or priest, the teacher, the mayor or governor or ... oh, the list goes on. These were, and are, of course, "official" personages. But, most of those people today are people somewhere around my age, and I have to say that associating respect and position just doesn't cut for me. It didn't do a lot for me then, and absolutely nothing for me now: each and every one of these officials have shown us quite clearly that money and power and advantage were more important than what their "official" position actually required. So we have scandal after scandal after scandal and it doesn't strike us as odd that there is nothing respectable about scandals. It is now up to each and every "official" person to show, demonstrate, and prove that s/he is worthy and deserving of our respect.

Yes, it's "officially" spring, but it's not acting like it. So, I'll keep waiting.

The luck of the Irish

I've often wondered where that saying came from. One of these days, I'm going to look it up. One of these days. Being of Irish extraction (my ancestors emigrated to the US in the mid-19th century from County Down in what is these days Northern Ireland (it wasn't then). From what I can tell, some of them were originally from there, and some ended up there having been driven out of mostly likely Scotland. Neither part of the clan struck me as being particularly lucky though. In fact, were I to choose a family motto for a crest we'll never have, I'd choose "If it weren't for bad luck, we'd have no luck at all." Yes, luck plays an enormous role in all our lives, whether we want to admit it or not.

You think I'm exaggerating. Everyone always thinks I'm exaggerating. I'm not. I don't need to. I've told them a thousand times, "I'm not exaggerating" and they still don't believe me. So, how's this? True story:

I don't play the lottery. OK, no big deal, a lot of people don't. I mean, what are your chances of winning the big jackpot. For all of you who aren't real strong on statistics and probability, your chances of picking the six correct numbers out of 49 are less that one in 13,000,000. No, your chance is not non-existant, and some people get lucky, but a lot more than 13,000,000 who play don't. For that reason, I would only play when the jackpot was "worthwhile"; that is, if there was more than 13,000,000 of whatever was being paid out, I'd take my shot. As fate would have it, though, there was series of non-hits as there is from time to time and the jackpot by this time had doubled to almost €26,000,000. I did a couple of quick in-the-head, rule-of-thumb calculations and figured that if I won, I could probably quit my job. I'd have to move, of course, but I wouldn't have to go job-hunting when I did. But that's not the point.

When the results were published, I knew my lottery-playing days were over. I had managed to miss every single number drawn by +/-1 for all six numbers. A 3 was drawn, I had picked a 4; a 15 was drawn, I had a 14, and so it goes, through all six numbers and to make the delight even more complete, the German lottery pulls an extra Super Number to get you the total jackpot and, yes, I missed that by 1 place as well: a 8 was drawn, I had a 9. And so it goes. I'm not a big fan of omens, but to me that was without a doubt the clearest Cosmic When-Are-You-Going-To-Get-It that I had ever seen. There's no such thing as a near-miss. What I had was a near-hit. What are the chances?

Not being a probability guru, I didn't bother trying to figure out what the chances are that you can get seven +/-1 near-hits in two drawings in one session, but I'm guessing it's at least 1 in 13,000,000 or less.

That's my luck, I've got Irish ancestry. Maybe I don't need to look up what the luck of the Irish means. I think I know.

Going green

Most of you are probably thinking I'm going to go off on one of my ecological tangents, ranting on about how we're raping, pillaging, and plundering the environment, how our obsession -- no, addiction -- to fossil fuels is going to be our undoing as a species, how climate change (regardless of what the non-science whackos might think) is turning all of us into dinosaurs, and how heating the oceans, filling them with garbage and poisoning our freshwater aquifers is less than intelligent, but I'm not. Why would I want to do a thing like that? That's something for every day of the week, but not today. Today's a non-holiday! It's time again to celebrate for absolutely no reason at all.

Yes, today's St. Patrick's Day and all across America, and increasingly throughout the world, people are taking the day to put on something green (well, except for some pretty broomstick-up-the-butt types in Northern Ireland ... but, hey, there are party-poopers everywhere ... and how can you poop with a broomstick up your butt? ... uh, another story), put on their buttons that say "Kiss me, I'm Irish" when they've never likely seen, let alone even, owned as much as an Irish setter, and Boston will turn the Charles River green (with something other than chemical sludge, though maybe not as healthy) and Chicagoans will drink green (literally) beer (whereby elsewhere in the civilized world "green beer" is simply unaged beer, but that's another story too).

What's the big deal? Given the recent fascination with Catholic scandals and the Pope resigning, I can't begin to imagine it's some deep and secret desire to revere the fellow who is Ireland's patron saint because he drove all the snakes off the Ireland. I'm sure if you ask a true Irishman or Irishwoman, for that matter, they'll tell you there have been snakes on the island all along, but none of them were native Irish anymore. Or, is it that we're guilty about what we're doing to the environment? No, no, don't get anxious ... I'm not sneaking off on a tangent, I'm only asking the question. I'd find that a difficult one to believe anyway. Why is it then that hard-working, Puritan descendants (to a great extent, either physically or culturally) would want to celebrate the arrival of Christianity in Ireland? Don't get me wrong, folks, anyone and everyone who celebrates for precisely these reasons has my full and total support. I'm wondering more about all the merry makers. The loud ones.

On the one hand, it is the one day during Lent when the ban on sacrifice is lifted. Whatever you might have given up for Lent, whatever fasting you may be doing, you don't have to do today. What is more, the Irish are known world wide as a light-hearted people. If you don't believe me, leave America, travel anywhere in the world and find your way to an Irish pub (there's no major city on the planet without one) and you'll find a warm, welcoming, friendly atmosphere, where you're expected more than allowed to laugh, and where it's fair game to make fun (or take the mickey out) of just about anything or anyone you please.

No, if you ask me, St. Patrick's Day is to spring, what Halloween is to fall: one of those "holidays" we have no real idea about, other than someone at sometime somewhere celebrated it, and since they both occur in the middle of a dry stretch, are all the more reason to get simply loosen up a bit. OK, I think I get it. Cheers!

Spring ahead

Did you know that there is not just one season called spring? No, I don't mean that there's a spring in the Northern Hemisphere and half a year later there's one in the Southern Hemisphere. We've got a tilted earth and there's simply not a whole lot we can do about that. This is what we might call the beginning of cosmological spring, for that's how our particular corner of the universe has been put together.

No, I'm talking about the "other" spring ... the meteorological spring. For whatever reason, whoever came up with our calendar simply refused to acknowledge that the seasons, like the signs of the zodiac, and all that stuff nobody likes to think about anymore all start around the 20th or 21st of their given months. Spring "officially" starts at the spring equinox, that day/time, if you will where we have equal periods of light and dark (more or less ... it's not all that precise). In the spring, the sun is making it's yearly journey north (for those of us upon this side of the world), and at some point, it crosses the so-called celestial equator, whereas in the fall, at the autumnal equinox, the sun is heading south again ... like lots of us in the North would like to do in the winter. That whole snowbird idea was around a long time before we thought of calling it that. Oh yeah, this year it will "happen" on March 20, 2013 at 11:02 UTC (or just after 5 am for those of you in New York).

When you stop to think about it, we're pretty much out of touch with nature and the natural cycles of things. I mean for millennia, literally thousands of years, day began when the sun came up; it ended when the sun went down and that's when night started, which ended when the sun came up again ... well, you get the picture. Actually, if we really wanted to get technical (which I don't) the sun doesn't rise or set at all, the earth turns and it looks as the sun is rising or setting. Some metaphors sit very, very deep. Others not so much. So now a "day" begins and end at "midnight" (which is the completely wrong word when you think about it), and months start on their first, but the actual seasons, well, they still follow pretty much the same old pattern

Pretty much. Weather people, regardless of how chaotic their subject matter may inherently be, are still trying hard to force a bit of order onto that chaos, so they've come up with meteorological seasons. It's simple: March, April and May constitute spring; June, July and August make up summer; fall consists of September, October and November, and winter runs from December through February. Very neat, very orderly, very much out of rhythm, but, hey, who's paying all that much attention anymore?

So, in a sense, spring has already sprung. It sprang ahead of itself. It's already spring, winter's over, aren't we glad? I suppose, but it doesn't feel that much like spring yet. I'd say winter is dragging his feet. I wonder if the sun has some heavy burden that's slowing him down? Oh well, for some of us, we've still got almost a week to go.

Late-winter blues

Gee, I hope nobody gets the idea that I'm just singin' the blues ... that's not my intent at all. To me, the blues, as a genre of music, reflects down-to-earth, everyday experience that, while not always exciting and uplifting, is nevertheless worth thinking about. Yes, anything worth thinking about has something to do with the blues.

Now, in late winter, when the fasting time is upon us, there is a subtle change in the air that is well worth noting. Yes, it made sense that, at least for us here in the northern climes, that a period of fasting be introduced, for there was a time when our stores of food that got us through the winter would be coming to an end. Spring was coming, to be sure, but that was a time of preparing and planting. Late grasses, like field lettuce (or lamb's lettuce, or rapunzel, for those of you familiar with fairy tales) would be available, but it would still be awhile before the first berries would become available, strawberries generally, and that would be after Easter anyway.

This is a time of change, though, if you choose to see it. The days are getting longer ... well actually, we are experiencing more daylight hours (for as long as I can remember days only have 24 hours, both summer and winter) which most of us take to be a positive thing. There are still a lot of cold days, the wind can be particularly biting, and it can certainly be wet, but in between, sometimes even for a few days at a time, it can warm up enough that we find that we have loosened our scarves and maybe even unbuttoned our coats. Yes, things are starting to loosen up after winter's firm and chilling grasp.

The only reason I mention it at all is that I realize how many people don't notice these things at all, unless we remind them. Our modern lives are pretty much divorced from nature, and we don't relate very well to it anymore. We jam ourselves into urban areas, do our hunting-and-gathering at the local supermarket, have fruits and vegetables of all kinds all year round (I still don't like seeing strawberries in the produce department in December), and so we have, for the most part, simply lost touch with the natural rhythms that once guided our lives ... or at least the lives of our forebears.

There is a natural rhythm and flow to nature, and it is one that we're not the better for when we ignore it. Electric lights are wonderful things, don't get me wrong, but they have driven us to an always-on, always-doing, always-working lifestyle, and we lose sight of the fact that periods of retreat, of quiet, of relaxation and reflection, can also be very positive influences in our lives. It is possible to put a bit more rhythm in our lives (which is, just in case you were wondering, not the same as routine: going to the gym on Tuesdays is routine, strawberries after Easter is rhythm), but it means being a bit more aware, not just of the world around us, but of the natural world as well.

Think about it. Get a new groove.

Those still haunting Brussels blues

Don't worry, you'll be off the hook soon. I promise: this is the last reaction from Brussels. And yes, I managed to find my carbonnade, and Belgian beer is still excellent, so there are still things that are right with the world. But, still ...

Just missing the motivation boat is not the only blunder that "the industry" has allowed itself. There was the constant drone at the conference that not enough women were getting into the industry. One large, international telecommunications company gave us samples of one of their latest marketing gags: nail polish; one a light green (Mint) and one deep magenta (an important color for the company). (I need to add here, that MINT is the German form of STEM, not everything translates perhaps as well as we would like.). I have a bottle of each on my desk right now. I'm still marveling at them. This is how you attract young girls to become interested in getting into telecommunications, I suppose. I'm glad to see that in our emancipated world today, old stereotypes have been eliminated so completely. It just goes to show you, though, just how out of touch organizations can be.

It amazes me how out of touch most organizations are. I'm not picking on any one in particular; the one just mentioned is merely an example. The young are not, at least as far as those at the conference were concerned, all that motivated by glitter, glamor or even so-called prestige. Another young participant stated quite clearly in the plenum that the companies up front talking the loudest and making the biggest pledges were simply not offering him the opportunity to follow his technologically relevant bliss, the were more of a hinderance than a help. This is in harmony with the notions I mentioned last time. What is driving the young technologically savvy these days is being able to do one's own thing together with others while remaining true to what is good and right and that benefits others (that's the real "Hacker Ethic"), and that is, I'm afraid we all realize, antithetical to the maximization-of-profit ideal that so many -- particularly these large, globally active, mostly American corporations.

It is quite the dilemma, I will admit. Most people, the vast majority of people, inside or outside this industry, here in the West, work for companies that are small or tiny. Too often, they are simply looking to survive while the really big players are wallowing in their wealth. This means that what's making the world go round is not their riches, it's the blood, sweat and tears of the little guys. But it is there that the ideals that seem to resonate with the young people seem to be.

You can make it about technology, and you can make it about growth, and you can make it about money, but that doesn't make it real. If you want to attract youth to the the hard, tough, demanding world of STEM, don't try to make it fun or attractive or lucrative. Make it worthwhile. Go ahead. I dare you.

Those haunting Brussels blues

No, I'm not obsessed, either with Brussels or the blues, but I do have a bit of this and that I have to work through yet. Here's another notion that's been haunting me for the past couple of days: STEM.

Once you get even a little close to any kind of bureaucracy, you start getting overwhelmed with acronyms and abbreviations. I guess bureaucratic days are so full that they just don't have time to speak in full words. STEM stands for "Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics", and it alludes to those disciplines of learning and study that we need to emphasize if we are going to remain competitive as an economic area and if we are going to advance as a civilization (whatever that means). We simply don't have enough people getting into these areas and over the day-and-a-half in Brussels there was a lot of urgent debate and a lot of wringing of hands, how we were going to accomplish this. I don't know about you, but I find the whole issue rather odd.

STEM is supposed to be about hard science, mathematically rich disciplines of technology (whereby I think IT is most often meant, as if there weren't any other kinds) and engineering. I suppose it's only physicists, mathematicians, technologists and engineers who get anything done. OK, it is an American neologism. I suppose that explains a lot more than we might like to think. Young people are apparently not all excited about entering these fields. They are perceived as too hard, too demanding, too complex, or are they simply uninteresting? The surrounding discussions remind me of those I've heard from church representatives regarding the lack of attendance and participation of young people in church. Their answer is make it more "attractive": more singing, dancing, role-playing, play-acting ... whatever, so that it will be "fun" to go to church. Yes, if we could only make STEM more "fun", then wouldn't young people flock to it in droves? Well, to be honest, no.

The world in which we're called to work these days is anything but fun. Employers think that so-called smart technology can make you accessible 24/7, so now your employer has access to you 24/7. If you come up with a good idea, it belongs to the company, not to you. When you enter the workplace, you leave your conscience at the door and sell your soul. I, for the like of me, can't figure out why young people aren't lining up for that. By the way, once your current skill set is no longer productive, you're out, and by the way, we're not going to pay for your development, personally or professionally, you have to do that on your own, especially on your own dime, and by the way, I'm going to pay you well, but not nearly enough to make repaying those student loans too easy; nothing worth anything should be obtained too easily. Yes, that's the world I'm inviting you to, so why aren't you beating down my door to get it? Yeah, I don't understand it either.

One young panel participant near the end said that he got into technology because of three concepts he had gleaned from the book The Hacker Ethic which he referred to as freedom, challenge, and impact. I took this to mean that he was driven by wanting to do things that may not be easy but needed to get done in such a way that others would benefit and, as is often stated so blithely, that the world would be a better place. I found it fascinating that the motivators weren't anything related to STEM. Those things are just means to a much bigger -- may I say, softer -- end.

I really have to ask myself. Who's not getting it?

Brussels blues deja vu

It was an interesting day-and-a-half, not exciting, not surprising, but interesting nevertheless. There was a lot of "high-level dynamism", as it was called, or hot air, as it could be understood, and there were a lot of serious and sincere individuals who showed quite clearly that they wanted to find a solution to a problem ... unfortunately a problem that probably does not exist.

The real problem as I see it doesn't have anything to do with a skills gap or getting more people into work. It's about big IT companies pitching their wares so that they appear more important than they really are. The biggest round of applause of the day went to a question from the audience asking why the big-company certification programs are so expensive. The answer was that we get national governments to pay for them, so it's not an issue. Not an issue? Our tax euros are at work again, giving money to people who don't need it for a problem that probably doesn't exist. Or, how about the day before when an economist in the crowd merely asked what's the answer to the supply/demand equation? No response. You can't expect the "industry" to make things more attractive to potential employees, just because they are needed. No, I didn't think so. It would appear we're seeking solutions to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Throughout the day-and-a-half, I heard of project after project that was being implemented and what unmitigated successes they were. But we've still got a problem. The participants were allegedly key players in the technology revolution that changes everything, but none of these projects had been heard of by others, so I have to ask who's using the technology for what? This topic has been on the table for at least 15 years, it was interrupted once when the "industry" imploded (remember that dot.com thing?) and once they got their bearings again, they started crying wolf that without qualified personnel, the industry in Europe was doomed, Europe was doomed. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being told that if we didn't do what they wanted this time, there would be hell to pay. And I suppose there will be.

For me, one of the most telling moments of the conference was when a well-placed individual from one of the largest high-tech companies in the world, and particularly in Europe, stated with unmitigated candor that in his company alone, within the next two years, over 10,000 people were going to lose their jobs if they did not re-skill. Yes, there is a skill gap, in this company at any rate, and it was also clear, that this company didn't feel the slightest necessity at all to do anything about their own employees. They are their employees, I suppose, when they are helping deliver profits, and they're on their own, when it looks like they won't be able to.

Yes, the next round of give-me-what-I-want has kicked off. Now, who is going to rise to the challenge? Who's going to make the necessary sacrifice? We know who isn't, so now it's up to either government or potential employees to react. Do we have what it takes? I hope not.

Brussels blues, redux

Perhaps I shouldn't be blaming the technology. Perhaps the real source of my aggravation is not the industry looking for a handout (I mean, they could say "no", but who says no to a free lunch), but rather the unmitigated nonsense that passes for rational argumentation. There is more at stake here than just "jobs". Although it may not seem so at first blush, the issue lies much deeper.

Over the past few years, I've been involved in a number of IT-industry-related projects, all of which have been funded by the European Commission. We have received funding for these initiatives because they have sought to narrow the gap between skills that are needed in the industry and those that potential employees are in possession of. It's been a matter of providing people with the right knowledge, skills, and competences for the positions that exist and will exist in the industry. Sounds noble, I know. And it is, in a sense, but the longer I deal with the matter, the more I am coming to believe that the cure is worse than the illness.

The big general push, both here in the EU and in the US is getting the right people in the right jobs. Across the board, people are pushing for a closer cooperation between education and industry so that the matches are better and more long-lasting. Both here and there, a lot of criticism has been raised against the education sector, be it public schools, vocational education and training, or (so-called) institutions of higher learning: find out what industry wants/needs, and give it to them. And that, my dear friends, is precisely the problem.

The key word describing this is "employability". We have to make people more "attractive" for the employer. Why? No, I don't want to hear about how the employee will be more productive. Employees have been more productive than ever for the past 40 years and all they have to show for it is higher rates of unemployment, lower wages, and highly exaggerated management compensation. No, I don't want to hear how the employee will deliver higher quality. Insisting that one person do the job of two, insisting on unpaid overtime "to get the job done", to push for ever higher margins all have nothing to do with quality. The customer gets the quality that is possible at the lowest cost of production, period ... at least that's how it works in consumer markets. So that's not it either. No, I don't want to hear about how the highly skilled workforce is what drives the economy forward. High-skilled means higher pay. High-skilled means the worker knows what s/he's doing and when you're cutting corners. High-skilled means ... well, trouble.

Oh, I hear what industry says they want, and they want lots of it, especially if the government is willing to subsidize it so they they don't have to pay for it themselves, but at bottom what they want are ready, willing, and ably conforming drones to do what they're told and to go away when they are not needed any longer. We might say it's about training and education and skills and competences, but what it's really about, in the end, as always, is money.

Brussels blues

Yes, I'm off to Brussels again. This time for a two-day conference. I go there often enough, I'm starting to like the place.

Don't get me wrong, it's not Brussels is bad in any way. In fact, if it's anything, it's nondescript. It's not an exciting city. It doesn't have the zip and pizzaz of a New York, it doesn't have the emotion of a Paris or Rome, it doesn't have the bustle of a London. It's a city of bureaucrats, for the most part, and well, they're not the most fun-seeking group of folks on the planet. But, as is so often the case, once you get to know it better, once you get a look behind the facade, once you start seeing it more through the eyes of its own denizens, well, it can be an attractive enough place to be.

When we think "beer", most of us think "German", and some connoisseurs will think "Czech", but one shouldn't underestimate Belgian beer. The Belgian monks knew their stuff. What you will find in Belgium beer-wise is for the most part, robust, hearty, heady, and varietal. The biggest problem you have is choosing: light, dark, ales, pilsners, flavored (they brew a cherry beer that is only served in small glasses ... it's not something you chug-a-lug all night long). There are a variety of traditional and modern establishments available. Of course, what would be a trip to Brussels without a bag of fries? Just ask anyone, the Belge invented them. Double-fried, with mayonnaise (might as well enjoy them like the locals). I find they're great from the nearest street vendor. This isn't a sit-down meal. But, speaking of which, don't leave Brussels without at least one serving of carbonade, a thick beef-stew made with dark beer. Have it with fries if you want a double-dose, and if you're adventurous, do a dark Leffe with it (or whatever beer it was made with, if you can get it), for a taste-treat you won't long forget.

Yeah, there is a tasty side to Brussels, that is true, but unfortunately, I'm not there for the food. As I said, it's for business, two days, an overnight, and an organized dinner, so I'm going to have to do without what's good this time around.

What's the conference about? Another one of those oversized, overhyped, over-regulated kick-offs for yet another digital initiative. Please forgive me if I'm not overly excited about it all. While I'm no Luddite (well, not in the strict sense of the word, but having dealt with digital technology from as many angles for as many years as I have, you really can't blame me for being less than ecstatic about its possibilities), pushing IT is not going to save our economies. Yes, we have 26 million unemployed folks here in Europe. Yes, we have a shortfall of close to a million IT jobs, but, do we really think that shoving more money at an industry whose primary contribution to the economy is eliminating jobs (if a computer can do it, it eventually will) is going to help? Do we really think that they are going to create more jobs than they eliminate? I have my doubts, needless to say, so I'm off to Brussels to see how they want to try and justify it this time around.

Who knows, maybe the conference organizers will go "native" for their dinner. At least that would make the trip potentially worthwhile. I'm not getting my hopes up, though.

Lenten blues

It's time for a change of pace. Did you know we're already a third of the way through Lent?

It's not clear to me that all of us are up to speed on Lent. Oh, I'm not pushing a religious agenda here. I firmly believe that everyone has to decide to believe what is best for them. What I've always liked about religions though has been their feast and fest days. They have times of year when there are good things to eat and one is encouraged to share them with others. We all enjoy good food and good company, so regardless of the "reason", these are good times to keep an eye out for.

OK, for those who know, Lent is pretty much the opposite of that. For those who aren't so familiar with the tradition, let me bring you up to speed:

These days, Lent is considered roughly the period between Ash Wednesday (the end of Carnevale or Mardi Gras) and Easter. Traditionally, in the Roman Church, it lasted from the Sunday after Ash Wednesday (known in the church calendar as Quadragesima, derived from the Latin word for "fortieth", since there are exactly forty days from then until Good Friday (the Friday before Easter). The starting and ending dates were changed along the way, so that there just wouldn't be forty days in this time, rather forty workdays in (that is, not counting Sundays). Traditionally, and even for many to this day, it was a time of doing penitence either through fasting or simply giving up luxuries; it was a period of preparation for the High Holiday of Easter. In fact, in German it is still referred to as Fastenzeit (Fasting Time). I'm sure there are a lot of you who see in this just another way for a powerful organization to keep a stronger thumb on its members, but if you stop to think about it, it's a lot more meaningful that it may first appear.

Giving something up, be it chocolate, meat, going to the movies ... it really doesn't matter ... brings this simple, generally harmless, thing more sharply into focus. By consciously doing without something, we come to realize just what a role it plays in our lives. As I'm not a big chocolate fan, giving up chocolate would not only be easy, but more importantly, I probably wouldn't even notice it. I wouldn't miss it for the simple reason that it doesn't play a very big part in my life. If what I've decided to give up plays a big enough role, however, I will find myself thinking about it, and each time I do, I have an opportunity to reflect upon why this particular thing plays such an important role in my life. In other words, consciously doing without something makes us generally more aware, of ourselves and what we are doing with our lives.

This isn't a great exercise in awakening or illumination, and it certainly isn't a systematic means of punishment for alleged transgressions. There is value, though, in stopping to reflect from time to time on what is important and not so important for us, what moves us and what leaves us cold, what we are and what we'd like to be. Awareness ... particularly self-awareness ... isn't a bad thing. Too bad we don't take the opportunities we are given, even when we are being reminded of them. Such is Lent.