Daily Archives: 09/26/2008

Afghan Pakistani Border

(Community Matters) Troubling what’s happening at the border, Pakistanis and Americans firing on each other.

October 4 Jump

Jump from Oct 4, 2008 – Highlands Ability Test 



WORK ENVIRONMENT/PERSONAL STYLE


Your preference for Extroversion indicates that you are energized more by external forces and events than by internal ones. Throughout your day you may prefer a great deal of activity, which energizes you. [and I can drive others crazy by constantly needing to interacting, thus they send me on the road]

With a longer Time Frame Orientation – beyond five years – you will probably be viewed as a strategic thinker or planner and contribute to your organization from that perspective. One word of caution about a long Time Frame Orientation: unless your long-range plans are backed with specific short-term goals and intermediate actions, it is very easy to live in the future, believing there will always be time to act.

You may find that when someone needs a fast answer to a problem, you just “know” the answer, without needing to get there logically. This is Classification.

Your Idea Productivity is extremely strong. This means that you may have a constant stream of new ideas and thoughts throughout the day. Managed properly, this stream can be an important and valuable resource for you and for your company. You must exercise care, however, [thinking out loud like this also drives people crazy, especially in board and other meetings]

LEARNING

Your Verbal Memory score is in the mid-range. This indicates that you have a good ability to recall what you read, but that on occasion you may find it necessary to take notes or re-read.

Your score in Tonal Memory indicates that you have a good ability to recall what you hear. You may find that you need to concentrate more intensely when hearing material that is not particularly interesting to you [I’ve almost given up – yeah, I know, this is the problem!].

You have a very strong ability to take in new information in the form of charts, graphs, maps or other two-dimensional forms.

Your Rhythm Memory score indicates that learning something that requires body movement or following a beat will require repetition and effort for you. You may need to repeat a new sports play or dance rhythm more than once before it becomes easy for you [neither ever will!]

PROBLEM SOLVING/DECISION MAKING

You have a consultative problem-solving style. You are able to evaluate seemingly unrelated information and logically explain it to others. With this type of problem-solving style, you are able to draw conclusions quickly and accurately as well as explain how you arrived at the solution.

Your low score in Spatial Relations Visualization means that you are more at ease in dealing with and solving problems that have to do with people, ideas, relationships, feelings, strategy, and concepts than in technical or mechanical areas. The solutions you develop to problems will probably involve these abstractions also, as opposed to purely technical or mechanical solutions. [I glaze over when it’s scientific or involves engineering – i.e., Steven understands ecology and tells me what we need to do]

With a high score in Time Frame Orientation, you are most likely to think of solutions to problems that focus on or bear results five to ten years or more in the future. You consider most the long-range implications of your solutions to problems.

COMMUNICATION

Specialists have their own unique language and perspective. As a Specialist, you prefer to work as an individual and to make a contribution from an expert or particular point of view. You will tend to communicate your view with passion and intensity, because you often “own” your work as a personal extension of yourself. You tend to communicate from your own unique position and tend to have a unique way of seeing almost any issue. Because 80% of the population consists of Generalists, the Specialist is likely to appear and feel out of sync in communicating with a group of Generalists. Sometimes it can be difficult for you to understand how others feel at work, and your communication may not appear to be connected to the group or team goal.

You like and need free social interaction during communications. Situations that require communicating in structured, stereotyped formats will feel stressful and energy-draining. You often process information by talking ideas or information over with others before drawing a conclusion. This can mean that when you communicate your thoughts or ideas, they may represent a series of possible suggestions rather than a final conclusion. You may react immediately to a thought or idea; but your initial reactions may not express your final conclusions.

You may find it quite easy to understand what a person is driving at or intending to say -even before he finishes talking. In working with a team, you may find that an answer to a problem seems obvious to you, but is anything but obvious to others. You may find that you draw conclusions from a stated set of facts long before others do. All of this can make you feel or act impatiently at times. You may often think, “OK, get to the point,” when talking to others and you may find it difficult at times to slow down enough to listen to other points of view.

Your score in Idea Productivity allows you to generate a large number of ways to communicate and many different angles and examples. Idea Productivity helps with persuasion and sales and facilitates communication roles such as teaching, brainstorming, and selling. High Idea

Your low score in Spatial Relations Visualization means that you are most comfortable dealing with words, people, feelings, relationships, and ideas. This is often a huge help in dealing with organizations and teams, because it is relatively easy for you to see, understand and work with the abstract feelings and ideas of work teams or groups.

A high score in Observation can help you in reading body language, enabling you to observe unspoken communication.

Roman And Deniz Act XV

(Community Matters) Finally, the next one . . .


Sometimes you just gotta go with your gay side

No Bailout

(Community Matters) There shouldn’t be a bailout.

There does need to be a rescue . . . .

. . . . but of the average taxpayer, employee, even financial institution that is caught up in this mess because of the irresponsible – sometimes even fraudulent – actions of others. Save the deposits, investments and retirements of the 99% of Americans who had nothing to do with financial meltdown we’re in today.

For those who have gotten us here through fraud, deception or bad practices, let’s wipe out their equity or take equity in proportion to the assistance required. Home borrowers who misrespresented their income or assets, their mortgages shouldn’t be renegotiated, bankruptcy judges shouldn’t provide this relief. Where we find criminal action, this should be prosecuted.

Washington Mutual

(Community Matters) While they are futzing away, the largest bank failure in history occurred. here Not that Washington Mutual didn’t deserve to fail, wiping out shareholders and bondholders. It was imprudent in its lending (mortgages and credit cards) to unqualified buyers. Nevertheless, the continuing credit squeeze places too many financial institutions at risk. Kudos to the fed for engineering the seamless transfer of deposits to JPMorgan without calling on FDIC reserves. The numbers don’t immediately add up in my head but it’s been a long day.

Let’s hope House Republicans really are standing up for the best terms for taxpayers rather than playing politics, the cost of which could include short & long term economic health, jobs and pensions.

Republican Opposition

(Community Matters) Blogosphere speculating House Republicans will vote no on the bailout and that McCain may do so in the Senate. They’d only be able to do this knowing that House and Senate leadership will see a bailout through, since we might see a catastrophic economic meltdown without it. Liquidity has been tightening for the last 14ish months, but dangerously more so last week. McCain as a populist may in fact garner points by voting against the bailout, which Congressional leaders have negotiated to include 1) oversight, 2) equity participation, 3) executive compensation caps (grrr, don’t see how these will work, alas I don’t disagree in concept) and 4) the right for court judges to apply opinion in deciding if a borrower merits relief. In fact, these have addressed the principles laid out by Obama. I’m not sure my usually optimistic perspective extends to believing Americans would see McCain opposition as anything other than politically opportunistic. Comfort in the fact that Obama’s numbers are rising consistently.

Tech Crunch II

(Community Matters)
continued: Eric moderating. LAF CFO says effective marketing campaign today requires combination of new tech and traditional methods. Wow, I didn’t realize LAF has rasied $210mm, $45mm in last year. 25% of $210mm grassroots. 95% of their marketing is online. Obama has created a brand, it’s a change message. Another xyz campaign: Starbucks mistreating coffee producers in ethiopia. Resulting in Starbucks fixing. Word of mouth accelerated throught the web. It’s always been the fact that word of mouth built brand. Metric use to be satisfaction. Now all about advocacy, recommending. Some take exception. Grassroots passion. Domain media? Consumer control. Give them something authentic to be passionate about and tap into that passion. Hmm, grlstrt rep hasn’t spoken yet but neither has Bon Jovi rep. Ok, he just has, “you can’t be a fan of 500 GB of music.”. There are no mktg monies left in music business. It’s all grassroots. Bryan Menell is on the panel too but on other side of table and I can’t see when he’s talking. Spiceworks founder (but not Scott Abel) talked about creating a cause among IT managers. Realized they could when heard words like hate. HomeAway rep sharing too, Eric says they have great vrbo (?). What’s difference between virality, democracy and grassroots. Posted from my blackberry

Tech Crunch

(Community Matters)
at Tech Crunch now. Wow, cool, huge pannel of successful and wanna be successful techies on a huge panel. They found a woman for the panel (after criticism for 20+ and no female), she’s from GrlStart. First, we’re to talk about politics. Vinay from Convio notes Howard Dean used their platform in 04. Obama campaign a phonomema. Not just about money, the social networking is extraordinary. The revenue is the by product of the network’s passion. Another techie says, we’re still waiting if all this results in harder turnout. I take exception, we know it did in the primaries. Another says when online voting occurs, that’s what’ll be radically transformational. Q: what about fraud? A: one says only public vote if online, your name and vote published so you can audit.