Public Intelligence Blog – Page 3532 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

2010/09/182010/09/18

Review: Rethink–A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Information Operations, Information Technology, Intelligence (Commercial), Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean)

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It's About Context, Business Ecosystems, and IT Impact

September 18, 2010

Ric Merrifield

I bought this book on the recommendation of a colleague whom I have known for twenty years, both of us members of the Silicon Valley Hackers Conference started by Stewart Brand and now managed by Glen Tenney. When I came to buy the book and say all of the very short, very empty, largely negative reviews, I was surprised. Trying to understand this, and having looked up the author's history, I speculate that a bunch of folks bought this book because of who the author is (Microsoft's business rethink strategist and innovator), and then did not have the contextual background to appreciate the story line.

Of course the books suffers some from being a book-length expansion of a core idea originally published in the Harvard Business Review, “The Next Revolution in Productivity” (free online at Phi Beta Iota), but from where I sit, 47 of the 53 reviews miss the whole point, and I am not that thrilled with the remaining six, but they did help me.

POINT NUMBER ONE: Businesses are eco-systems within eco-systems. The industrial era has piled up a mish-mash of stovepipes, conflicting chains of command, etcetera etcetera. Until Web 2.0 (I'm working on Web 4.0) there was not much one could do about it, but now Information Technology (IT) has reached a point where it CHANGES EVERYTHING. Bare bone zero sum reviews are a priority.

Continue reading “Review: Rethink–A Business Manifesto for Cutting Costs and Boosting Innovation”

2010/09/182010/09/18

Journal: US Ruling Class versus Country Class–Deep Insights, Need Integrity and Fact-Based Deliberation

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Officers Call, Open Government, Policy, Reform, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

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America's Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

By Angelo M. Codevilla from the July 2010 – August 2010 issue of American Spectator

EXTRACT 1: They [the bi-opoly two parties] think, look, and act as a class.

EXTRACT 2: The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners — nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, “prayed to the same God.” By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God “who created and doth sustain us,” our ruling class prays to itself as “saviors of the planet” and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over “whose country” America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: “if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

Continue reading “Journal: US Ruling Class versus Country Class–Deep Insights, Need Integrity and Fact-Based Deliberation”

2010/09/182010/09/18

Journal: Supreme Court May Smack Executive Down

09 Justice, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Officers Call

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Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Smackdown of Obama by Supreme Court may be inevitable

According to sources who watch the inner workings of the federal government, a smackdown of Barack Obama by the U.S. Supreme Court may be inevitable.

Ever since Obama assumed the office of President, critics have hammered him on a number of Constitutional issues. Critics have complained that much if not all of Obama's major initiatives run headlong into Constitutional roadblocks on the power of the federal government.

Phi Beta Iota: Our Contributing Editor received the entire story via email but without a date from a Colonel serving in Afghanistan. This story is evidently circulating among military personnel and for that reason we take note. However, we note that it was originally posted9 July 2010, and have linked to that original post rather than post the entire email. We would observe that ever since Dick Cheney was Chief of Staff in the White House, Executive disrespect for the Constitution and Congress has been growing, and that Newt Gingrich was the one who led Congress to its practice of abdicating its Article 1 role in the Constitution, instead playing foot-soldier to a party president. We reiterate, there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by Electoral Reform.

2010/09/18

Journal: U.S. Army Partially Criminal & Drugged Up

03 Economy, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Military, Officers Call

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Marcus-Aurelius-150x150 — Marcus Aurelius Recommends

I can't confirm all of what's in here because I don't currently work with those issues, but this reads like the Vietnam era…

McClatchy Newspapers (mcclatchydc.com)

September 17, 2010

As Iraq Winds Down, U.S. Army Confronts A Broken Force

By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq's most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission.

What he found, he said, was a unit far more damaged than the single death it had suffered in its two deployments to Iraq.

Nearly 70 soldiers in his 1,163-member battalion had tested positive for drugs: methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Others were abusing prescription drugs. Troops were passing around a tape of a female lieutenant having sex with five soldiers from the unit. Seven soldiers in the brigade died from drug overdoses and traffic accidents when they returned to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, after their first deployment.

“The inmates were running the prison,” Wilson said.

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2010/09/182010/09/18

NIGHTWATCH Extract: Indonesia Re-Arms, East Rises

Uncategorized

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Indonesia: For the record. The government plans to order six more Russian-built Sukhoi fighter planes, Indonesian air force Chief of Staff Marshal Imam Sufaat said on 17 September, ANTARA reported. Indonesian President Yudhoyono has approved the planned acquisitions.

Indonesia already has 10 of the aircraft, which are not enough to cover the country's airspace, according to the military chief. The timeline for delivery is not known.

NIGHTWATCH Comment: Indonesia's acquisition of Russian weapons systems revives memories of the Sukarno era when Indonesia had the largest navy — including a light cruiser, submarines and frigates — and the most powerful air force in Southeast Asia, all provided by the Soviet Union.

Indonesia retains many links to the US armed forces and has much US -supplied equipment. Nevertheless, the Russians are marketing an excellent aircraft, apparently on favorable terms.

For many third world states it is more economical and strategically sound to purchase dissimilar weapons systems from different supplies than to rely on single supplier. The systems do not stay in service long enough to justify purchasing an expensive maintenance infrastructure. More importantly, having US and Russian systems ensures something will be flyable irrespective of international political considerations.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota: The Chinese and Indonesia (and the Chinese diasphora in Indonesia) are playing a long game. Completely invisible to the corporate media and most but not all governments (the US Government is still in shock and ineffective), is the perpetual role of the “old gold” families, including Chinese “old gold” families that have legitimate claims on the gold that General MacArthur liberated in the Philippines–the Chinese did not sign the San Francisco Treaty and still have legitimate documented claims on that gold. Buying Russian right now keeps the Chinese spectre from being seen in the south, although the Fiji deal should not be overlooked. China's focus in this century is on the Indian Ocean. Later, the world will be astonished to find that Indonesia is the southern power, and is astoundingly close to China across multiple fronts–political-legal, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, techno-demographic, and natural-geographic. Australia is sleep walking, and will be a speed bump when Indonesia gets ready to move to the South Pole region.

2010/09/17