A quick video survey of Tornado Damage in Jackson

On our way to Dallas Cup, we stopped at my parents home in Jackson, TN. Their property was subject to tornado damage, during the tornado on February 5, 2008. My brother had indicated the extent of the damage, but until I had a chance to see the damage, it was difficult to understand the scope. I took still pictures and some video of the area, to give some level of the damage. The pictures are after logging activity has started, so it is not of the original damage. Nevertheless, the scope of the damage is clear.

The Creative Process

Had some interesting thoughts and personal revelations, this past weekend, on the creative process. You always hear the phrase that art is for the artist. I never really and truly understood this until working on this blog, youtube video and flickr photos. These creative outputs (you can judge the level of creativity :-)) are fun to work on, even when no-one reads the blog, reviews the video or looks at the photographs. I enjoy the output, for the sake of the output.

Anyway, it is late in the day for too many deep thoughts.

Conversations with Children and Employees

I am struck by a comparison between children and employees. As a parent, there are often conversations which are difficult, but required. The purpose is, through love, to help your child see the need to correct actions or change on-going behaviors. As a manager, the same conversations are required, at times, with your employees. Though love is not the usual reason given in a business situation, it should be the same motivating factor.

Reversing the comparison, the same rules for a manager, when holding these conversations, holds true for the conversation with a recalcitrant child. Calm, yet firm, conversation is the method, with just enough emotion to express the seriousness of the situation. Establishing the position of judge is crucial, and examples of behavior or changes in expected output are also required. Having a solid action plan is essential. Lastly is follow-up, with clear rewards or consequences.

I have found that these conversations with employees are far easier, as the emotional connection is more distant. I also, though, firmly believe that these conversations are far more important with your children. The long term emotional exposure is far greater.

Randomness and Life

I am always fascinated by the view of life as a random machine. By this I mean that many factors of life are exposed to random effects, which can leave us feeling like small particles suffering from Brownian motion. Life's many aspects can be viewed as a string of independent (or dependent, based on your beliefs) probability functions.

In the view on success, education, clear thinking, and prudent behaviors all simply increase the probability of success. They do not guarantee it. Evidence to these facts is available. Observe simply that there are a lot of smart, talented people who are not remarkably wealthy nor overtly successful. Also observe that there are people who are successful who are not remarkably bright. Randomness works both ways. Now, taken over the entire spectrum of humanity, the probabilities are spread and show that successful people are usually bright and unsuccessful are usually not, but that simply reinforces the probability viewpoint.

Randomness in life also is manifest in the actions and interactions of our lives on the planet. The car wreck, exposure to sickness, choice of small action which cascade to disaster all can show the interaction of randomness with our lives. The positive of this randomness is shown in avoidance of tragedy.

I have to say that I am most certainly not negative on the random effects in life. I truly believe that, without the random interactions and their effects on life, we would live in an exceedingly boring existence. I encourage us all to recognize the randomness as valuable, do our best to work through the negative effects, make the best of our situations and keep chugging. What else are we to do?