This article was first published in Govloop.com on December 1, 2017

The benefits of being a positive person and of supporting a cause bigger than yourself includes: happiness, longer life, improved self-worth, better physical and mental health and the list goes on.

Trying to make the world a better place in a positive way = good for you. Being a self-centered negative jerk = not good for you.

Assuming you choose the former over the latter, as a practical matter you need a list of positive things that will make the world a better place. Where do you start? What process would come up with such a list?

There are thousands of people and organizations that work very hard to convince you to support their cause. The trick is to figure out what interests you and will make the world a better place. There is only one person who can answer which causes you are interested in: you.

About a year ago, I had read about the benefits of being a positive, altruistic person. I decided I wanted to actually make a list of positive things that interested me and which could make the world a better place. Not saying you should follow the same process but I can categorically say, making the list is well worth the effort. Below is the process I followed.

For several weeks, a couple times a week, I blocked out 15 minutes on my calendar to research and think about what positive things could be done to make the world a better place. Note: I blocked out 15 minutes but most often I actually ended up spending more like 30 minutes. I decided to limit my list to five items.

I made the self-imposed rule that the list would never be more than 5 items. So when a new idea came up I had to decide whether it was good enough to replace something else on the list.

Of course, “better” is in the eye of the beholder. However, I felt the eye of the beholder should be informed by some objective criteria. As I moved from session to session I found my definition of “better” evolved. I also decided that any idea had to be something I would be willing to tell others about and had to be within the realm of realistic and possible.

Ideas can be of any scale: Is it a global thing, a regional thing, a local thing, an interpersonal thing or a personal thing? The ideas do not have to be original or clever. Positive ideas held for the only purpose of opposing something was also contrary to the whole idea of the project.

Here are the criteria I landed on for making the world better:

• Better means a better quality of life first and longer life secondary.

• An idea could benefit either just humans or the combination of humans and other organisms. However, the idea can’t be about harming other organisms.

• Ideas could be about our relationships with others, personal wellbeing or about the environment but could not harm our relationships, wellbeing or the environment.

• Better could be about learning/changing the way we think about something or about actually changing a physical something.

• An idea could help many and harm a few, but in all cases, the idea is to be about helping the many and not basically about harming the few.

Many ideas felt great at first, but upon reflection, not so much. My list was not a “best of” list. It was a list of things that interested me and in my personal opinion would help make the world a better place. The list was not about how to accomplish any items on the list.

Here are the five ideas on my final list. I did not rank them at the time or since.

• Learn to use connected devices better and encourage others to do the same. We are in the information age and learning to use the tools of the age is a very positive thing to do.

• Make government information more accessible and encourage others to do the same (a job-related goal).

• Replace many of the billions of trees that have been cut down over the last couple hundred years.
  • Take carbon out of the atmosphere and put it in the ground where it belongs;
  • Increase the amount of oxygen in the air;
  • Provide a habitat for more organisms, increasing bio-diversity;
  • Stabilizes the soils reducing erosion.

• Help people understand that reality, for all its warts, is a very rich and satisfying place to live. None of us are perfect, accepting each other for who and what we are is a better path forward.

By inclination and nature, I am not an activist or a community organizer. The call is not that you follow me. But I highly recommend coming up with a list of positive things you think will make the world a better place.

The final item on my list was:

Work on being a better blogger with a positive message about making the world a better place.

Being a blogger and this blog post is me working on this last item.

Finally, this is the signature line from my work email. “Plant trees – Your grandchildren will breathe easy and the water will flow cool and clear.”

 

Paul Leegard is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.
Scaleandperception.com

This article was first posted at Govloop.com on November 17,2017

Careers last a long time. Your career is literally the entire period of your work life. The reasonable base expectation for our work lives is we did our job well and, in return, earned a living. For the record, doing your job(s) well and earning a living over the period of a career is something to be proud of in and of itself.

As the years passed, I have come to realize that a career is about the journey and not the destination. A good career is about what happens on your career journey and how you reacted to whatever it was. In the end, the journey was what it was. Whether or not you feel yours was a good career; it’s in hindsight to decide.

The dictionary definition of Career is a person’s progress or general course of action through life or through a phase of life, as in some profession or undertaking.

We cannot change the past of our careers. The best we can do is heed the lessons our past taught us. This is not to imply you should want to change your past. There are people who work at the same job for decades, growing in experience and learning new things all the time. There are others who seem to have just one year’s worth of experience repeated for years on end. Let me be clear, no matter where you are in your career, changing where you have been is not an option. Your option is how you are going to react now.

The future of our career is yet to be determined. The best you can do about the future is to keep it in mind as you do your job day to day. The past is in the past and the future will be what it will be. Some of the future is in your control but you do not control as much as you might think you do. The real key to a good career is doing the best you can today. It is a real cliché but learn from your past, keep an eye on the future all while living in the present.

In the real world, the trajectory of our career path is not a straight, upward-pointing line. Our paths are influenced by numerous factors – some within our control, some not. Budgets get cut back, technologies change, people have children, interests change, opportunities change, relationships get interesting and the list goes on. Through it all, remember that your job is what you have right now and doing your job well is important. However, your career is long and it will ebb and flow.

Here are some basic thoughts on what might make for a good career:

1. Be as competent as you can be at doing your job. Try new things. Let experience teach you what works and does not work. Be willing to be wrong once in a while, but learn from it. Get training and education. Take a class or go to a seminar. Attend sessions at a conference. Learning is inherently valuable to your career.

2. Suggest and or try new ways to get your job done. Be open to trying new ways suggested by others. Sure, it might be at the expense of your current job but have faith in your ability to land on your feet.

3. It is okay to be ambitious about getting ahead. But it is not okay to hurt the career of others to get ahead. In fact, helping others get ahead is a great answer when you get asked, “why do you want to be promoted?”

4. Be genuine, not a robot. Open up to others and be open when others confide in you. Getting along with others is important in almost every career. It is certainly an important part of being a decent human being. Be reasonably social.

5. Sooner or later you will have a load of crap plopped on your lap. First, clean up the mess the best you can. Do what you can to prevent it from happening again. Worry about who was to blame later. Never take revenge but take the high road instead.

6. Relationships are formed by sharing experiences with others. Form relationships by sharing experiences with coworkers. Lone wolves make good novels but generally not great careers.

7. Do what it takes to learn about your agency or organization. What groups do what things? What are the goals? Who is in charge of what? Be curious.

Overall, education, experience, people skills, willingness to do some of the dirty work, organizational knowledge, camaraderie and the like are what make for a good career.

 

Paul Leegard is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.
Scaleandperception.com

 

This post was first published on November 10, 2017 in Govloop.com

Many of our government agencies have a ton of information (content) that might be helpful to certain people in certain circumstances. But most of the time – to be honest – government agencies have a huge amount of boring content. Yet periodically the right person, having access to that content at the right time, would be a very good thing.

If all of our agencies’ content were to be displayed directly on our websites, wouldn’t that be overwhelming? Who could possibly find anything? Instead, we often put a bunch of links to documents on our web pages. We tell everyone the information is on the web – but likely, we know, it would be hard to find.

The new team was told to get my input on their proposed web page. The proposal was basically a bunch of links under banners with category names on them. It looked nice and they were excited. I knew almost no one actually uses this type of page. It is a tough lesson to learn because you have to observe the analytics for extended periods. I liked them and thought they could handle the truth. I told them, “They call content, ‘king,’ for a reason.” This post is about lessons learned from a project I occasionally worked on since late 2012.

The old Minnesota Stormwater Manual was an 885-page document. The link to it was four layers down from the home page. Additionally, the link was in the middle of 10 to 15 other links. All things considered, the manual still received a couple of thousand dowloads.

The updated Minnesota Stormwater Manual uses read-only wiki technology to display content directly on web pages. The updated manual has received over 9.3 million page views and counting. Note: it is a technical manual targeted for stormwater management professionals, not the general public.

What magic gets a technical manual over 9 million page views in only 4.5 years? Here’s the trick: The web search engines are able to index the entire content when the content is put directly on the web pages. When the content was in a pdf file, the search engines indexed just the title of the document, not the content.

Once the content is indexed, a search for relevant information can include your site in the search results. The requester does not need to know the site existed, let alone how to navigate around the site. They just looked up a topic and the search engine pointed them to the relevant information on your site.

Search engines are a modern miracle. The search engines seem to know what you want, even when you don’t. For example, I entered, “How many search results do people click on?” and somehow it knew to return an article titled, How many Google searchers go to page two of their search results? The answer= Academic research indicates that 91 percent of searchers do not go past page one of the search results and over 50 percent do not go past the first three results on page.

The search engines are sophisticated. They rank sites that have good relevant information higher than sites that do not. Lots of sites try all sorts of tricks but the actual best way to get your pages ranked high is if the page contains good content. It also helps to link to other pages with good content and have them link to such pages.

The search engines do not give extra credit for clever names or the perfect use of color. Search engines like respected, authoritative information from respected sources which are interlinked. The content – boring or not – from a government agency is generally exactly the type of information they rank highly. When the content is interlinked with other government/academic content, it increases the odds your page will appear near the top of a search result set.

Having lots of quality content really is the magic solution to making it easier for content to be discovered by the right people at the right time. The internet is full of tools to make it easy to find and use content. If your site has good content, displayed directly on web pages and if there is a demand for that information, it will be found.

Content is called king for a reason. Make sure the internet can see your actual content, not just a link.

Finally, getting the right information to the right people at the right time is the goal. While the number of page views might help justify funding, accomplishing the goal of your agency is key.

 

Paul Leegard is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.
Scaleandperception.com

 

This post was first published on November 3, 2017 in Govloop.com

Continuous process improvement projects (CIP) are a good way to better a process that needs more than a minor tweak. That said, before you dive into the CIP pool, consider whether doing the process improvement project makes sense in the big-picture direction your agency wants to head.

You can liken CIP to pulling a wagon: A squeaky wheel can get greased, ignored or sometimes replaced. The right choice depends on the planned use for the wagon.

Kids grow up and wagons grow old. Our needs change, technology changes, things wear out and sometimes it just isn’t cool to pull an old wagon. In these cases, you don’t grease the wheel, you replace or go without the wagon instead. Maybe the wagon is best repurposed as a planter.

Most agencies have a process that produces an irritating “squeak” every time it is used. Before deciding to spend significant resources improving that process, take the time to make a strategic decision about the bigger picture that process is a part of. Is it time for the organization to no longer do the thing for which the process is used?  Is it time to bring in new technology that would make the process obsolete? You get the idea.

The fix, replace or ignore decision can be facilitated by calling a meeting with the stated goal of discussing the options before approving a CIP. Be straightforward and direct. Based on the direction the agency is heading, does it make more sense to improve the process, implement new technology – so the process is no longer needed – or do little/nothing and live with a poor process?  The meeting need not be long or terribly formal.

Who should be invited to this strategic meeting? My advice is to invite people who are good at seeing the big picture and at least one person who embodies one or more of the following qualities:

• Interfaces with elected officials and or the public
• Is knowledgeable about your agency’s technology
• Is familiar with the agency budget
• Does or has actually done the process in question

The following cautionary tale actually happened, but not exactly this way. Situations like it happen all of the time.

The agency’s process for reporting by regulated parties was notoriously cumbersome. Everyone wanted it improved. We got an e-mail from the Assistant Agency Director stating consultants were retained to conduct a CIP project to improve the process in question.

Our senior manager addressed the subsequent CIP session with words like: “excited,” “energy,” “you are the experts,” “please participate fully,” – and you get the idea. There were whiteboards, flip pads, markers, muffins, large post-it note pads and more. It was a great session of brainstorming, listing, prioritizing, discussing, summarizing, confirming, reporting out, memorializing, thank you for participation, you guys were great and the like.

The result was:

• The wording on the form should be clarified.
• The forms will be e-mailed in rather than snail-mailed.
• One of the three approval signatures is eliminated.

We guesstimated the revised process would reduce processing time by 25 percent. The CIP session did what it was asked to do, however, it did not do what the sponsors of the session  – Assistant Director and Senior Manager – hoped it would accomplish.

In a budget meeting several months before the CIP session, elected officials and management briefly discussed this notorious process that almost all stakeholders hated. Someone had suggested replacing the current snail-mail process with a new online reporting system that would improve both flexibility and control. Everyone in the room nodded in agreement and the hearing proceeded to a different topic.

Based on that brief mention, the agency’s strategic plan was modified to include: “The agency will endeavor to maximize flexibility and control by taking advantage of new technologies where practical.”

The consultants were then retained to repair the process. Prior to retaining the consultants, it would have been better to hold a “big picture” meeting to briefly discuss whether the goal should be to repair, replace or do little or nothing to the process. The session should have been about replacing the technology.

A couple of weeks later, I am standing in a long line to pay for my lunch. In front of me was the manager who sponsored the CIP project. I told him it was a good session. He nodded and asked, “What would it take to replace the whole process with a new an online app?” We chatted for a minute and I told him that I would write up a request to the technical team to consider the feasibility of an online system.

The new online system works well. It took twice as long as I thought it would and cost more than I ever thought it could. The stakeholders like it much better. The manager now gives me a nod when we pass in the corridor.

The experience re-enforced the importance of calling a meeting to discuss the big picture before deciding what to do about a squeaky process. BTW: Besides improving processes, CIP sessions are excellent team- building experiences. A person like me might end up feeling comfortable enough to have a meaningful discussion with someone way above their pay grade in a lunch line.

Paul Leegard is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.
Scaleandperception.com

This post was first published on October 27, 2017 in Govloop.com

We all know that the use of social media, smartphones, tablets, the Internet of Things (smart thermostats, coffee makers, headphones, watches, etc.) and countless apps are now intertwined with processes used in virtually every segment of the economy. Certainly, you have noticed connected technology is rapidly finding its way into government. It might be obvious but being good at using connected tech is/will be good for your career.

I have had a long career in government. Thinking back to when personal computers (PCs) were first introduced, they were used for a few things but not many. I was in county government and had to get board approval to purchase a PC because my supervisor felt it was too risky for him to approve, even though it was in the budget.  Over the next several years the use of PCs increased to the point of being pervasive not only in the county but also at most workplaces.

The ability/inability to use the influx of new technology was game-changing to many people’s careers. Let’s just say if the past is an indicator, being good at using smartphones, tablets and other connected devices will be better for your career than not being good at it.

As PCs were introduced, the ability to use a PC was not required for most jobs. However, having PC skills was definitely a plus in promotion/new hire situations. As PCs became more widely used, the inability to use a PC caused many who were not PC users to have their jobs marginalized –  i.e. given an undesirable special assignment while a PC literate employee took over their old job. I do not remember anyone being actually fired for not being a PC user but I know of several who were made uncomfortable enough to quit or retire earlier than they would have otherwise. By the late 1990s, the ability to properly use a PC became an outright requirement for most jobs.

Today’s use of connected technology is following a track very similar to when PCs started to become pervasive in the government sector. Some employees knew the technology well enough to not only use the tech but also to understand the possible and appropriate use of the tech to get things done. They would be the ones to propose solutions using the tech. Employees who did not understand the tech, at best, remained neutral, but at worse, often opposed its use for reasons that made little sense to those who knew the tech.

The key to remember is those who knew how to use the tech were the ones who had the ideas and ability to do things in a new and better way. Knowing new and better ways are a big plus when being considered for promotions. Sure, you still need to know how to manage people and think strategically, but having a clue as to what is possible and practical sets you apart from other candidates.

By the way, both back then and now, many staffs are often more skilled at tech than their supervisors and managers. Time to up your game because  not understanding tech is career-limiting for you also.

The odds are good that connected tech has found expanded use in the agency you work for. Connected tech is being used to collect and disseminate information as part of all sorts of current and planned processes. It will not be long before the ability to use connected tech will be as much of a job requirement as the ability to use PCs.

If you are not already “connected,” know that today’s connected technology is much easier to use/learn than yesterday’s PC technology.  If you don’t have a connected device (smartphone or tablet) your excuses may be valid. But be warned, choosing to be disconnected may well become a career-limiting decision.

In case you were wondering, the trick to learning to use devices and the apps is to go to the browser and ask/enter your “how to” question.  It will return a “how to” answer and you will learn.

While you are learning to load and use apps, think about how connected technology might help your agency to achieve its goals.  The odds are good you will be asked for that information as one of your promotion/new hire interview questions.

Finally, when your boss asks you to stop playing with your phone, let him/her know that you are not playing with your phone. You are working hard at learning connected technology to better serve the agency and the public.  Worth a try anyway. Good luck.

 

Paul Leegard is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.

 

What we perceive often depends on how close we look.
Scaleandperception.com

 

Imagine if every single person in the United States had access to quality health care services without the risk of financial hardship. Now imagine this hypothetical healthcare system costing a third less than the current system and resulted in better outcomes. Imagine the difference it would make to both businesses and their employees. Imagine the difference it would make for people if they had access to good healthcare at a very reasonable cost no matter what else was happening in their life.

Universal healthcare is a reality for hundreds of millions of people around the world. The United States is the only industrialized country without universal healthcare. The United States pays the highest percentage of our GNP on healthcare. In the United States, life expectancy at birth is ranked as 43^rd best. Our infant mortality rate is rated 170^th.

We spend about $9,892 per person per year on healthcare coverage. The countries with the best outcomes spend two-thirds to a half of what the United States spends. There is no credible ranking of healthcare systems which rank the United States system very high. Compared to other nations, the United States healthcare system is ranked,  37^th,  84^th, 11^th of 11 countries and you get the idea.

The bottom-line is the current U.S. healthcare system cost the most and delivers mediocre results. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy. Over twenty-eight million of us do not have health care coverage.  The list of reasons we need to fix the U.S. healthcare system goes on and on and on and on. It is time for a better healthcare system.

The people of the United States need a universal healthcare system. Our political system is not functioning at the level needed to get us there. Likely major corporations will form consortiums which will “create” a version of Universal healthcare which we (the population of the USA) may then join.

The World Health Organization defines universal health care as “…all people having access to the health services they need (prevention, promotion, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care) without the risk of financial hardship when paying for them.”

The major components of a universal healthcare system are:

• Governance – The policies, strategy, and plans
• Financing – Who pays for what
• Workforce – The people who provide the healthcare service directly or indirectly
• Information systems – The key component and primary focus of this post
• Access to affordable essential medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and health technologies of assured quality

Governance

Governance of healthcare in the United States is a combination of federal and state regulation which came to be from a wide variety of forces. It is a mish-mash mess. What we need is a standardized set of rules focused on quality healthcare outcomes. Our rules should not be primarily about politics and or profit margins. Assuring good, cost-effective healthcare outcomes for all Americans is the goal.

The strange thing about needed governance is there are already established best practices. The information is available. We already have processes in place to monitor and update the best practices. Sure, there are debates about the processes but the discussion will be about tweaks not starting from scratch.

Healthcare does not exist for the primary financial benefit of the stockholders of healthcare providers. Healthcare does not exist to enforce religious beliefs of the few over the many. Healthcare is about providing quality healthcare to everyone.

Financing Healthcare

Healthcare is currently paid for by a variety of methods. Taxes, employer benefits, private insurance, direct payments, health savings accounts, grants, and the like.  I am sure I have missed several of them. The goal is coverage “… without the risk of financial hardship when paying for them”. A new universal healthcare system will likely be paid for by some combination of the same sources.

The real debate will more likely be about whether the system will be single payer healthcare or multi-payer. Single payer is a single public system, think Medicaid or Medicare. Or multi-payer which is a combination of both public and private payers.  Since our political environment is as dysfunctional as it is, likely a multi-payer system will be needed.  Think a combination of Medicaid, Medicare, employee benefit plans, and private individuals all paying for coverage from a universal healthcare plan.

Workforce

Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 19 million healthcare workers in the US. That is a good base of experienced, knowledgeable healthcare workers. We also have about one-half million health and medical finance related employees.

As we transition into a universal healthcare system the number employees in various healthcare related categories will likely shift. Predicting how much it will shift and who will shift is a fool’s errand. There are just too many variables. The key to remember is that we have an educated population and we have the potential to educate even more of our population. We have the infrastructure and processes in place to educate and help people transition to a new work environment.

Information systems

One of the unique things about the USA is internet usage is pervasive. The universal healthcare solution for the United States can assume that people are connected because we have the infrastructure in place and in fact, the vast majority of Americans are connected.

We also have secure cloud services and the ability to use “big data” analytics. There are existing apps for many healthcare-related activities and the expertise exists to create more apps as needed.

I am not going to pretend I know the secret sauce for an instant universal healthcare system. However, from my perspective, the key is the ability for a patient’s complete electronic medical records to be available to whomever the patient designates.

That will allow the user to easily seek other opinions. It will also break the virtual monopoly healthcare providers enjoy because once they get someone in their system, it is convoluted/hard for them to move to another provider.  It would facilitate the ability to shop for a qualified but less expensive provider.  It will also allow the analytics to suggest a more appropriate provider.  Maybe the analytics will be able to warn the patient that the prescribed service is not deemed appropriate to the malady. Maybe the provider would be less likely to suggest an inappropriate service since they know the system will raise a red flag.

The right information system designed with the best outcome for the patient is probably the key for the U.S. to move toward a universal healthcare system.

Access to affordable essential medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and health technologies of assured quality

In recent years retail, transportation, accommodation, and other industries have shown the power of systems to fundamentally change those industries. There is little doubt that systems will fundamentally change access to healthcare. Disruptive technology will likely revolutionize healthcare delivery.

Conclusion

Our political environment makes it unlikely universal healthcare will be achieved by the political process.  More likely businesses and other groups will form alliances which will result in the creation of a universal healthcare option.

The reality is, we need a system designed to work best for the people of the United States. It needs to cost less than we spend now and the outcomes need to be better.  We want that system to result in all people having access to health services including prevention, promotion, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care without the risk of financial hardship when paying for them.

Deplorable = Deserving strong condemnation; completely unacceptable.

Bastard = an offensive or disagreeable person —used as a generalized term of abuse

The deplorable bastards’ real goal was to promote their own financial and geopolitical interests.  How they did it is what makes them deplorable bastards.

They acquired individual Facebook profiles and a bunch of other information such as age, sex, education, income, voting record, address, congressional district, occupation and the list goes on and on for many tens of millions of Americans. They also acquired information on what Facebook articles we had previously “liked” and when we “liked” them.   From that information, they knew things about what we tended to fear and what we tended to support.

Based on that knowledge and using sophisticated systems, they posted a combination of misleading and absolutely fake articles on our Facebook walls, in our twitter feeds and in our e-mail inboxes. They then tracked how we reacted to what they posted.  Based on that information the posts were refined and re-posted.  This cycle of posting, observing the response, modifying message and posting another reinforcing message, was repeated over and over and over and over again. For month’s on-end, millions and millions of us were each shown thousands of targeted posts

 

Both the campaign and the Russian government were involved.  There is a legal brouhaha as to whether the campaign colluded with the Russians. Time will tell if there will be legal consequences. Legal consequences aside, that the bastards successfully did the above, is not disputed.

The goal was to diminish faith in our leaders, destabilize democracy and maybe convince, enough of us, to vote for an objectively incompetent candidate.  To quote the candidate, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”

The deplorable bastards placed a continual stream of misleading/fake posts on our Facebook walls.  Each article customized to our individual profiles designed to reinforce the following types of feelings:

• Fear and mistrust of the establishment.
• Fear and mistrust of people who do not look like you.
• Fear and mistrust of people who are not from where you are from
• Re-enforce the idea that the way to reduce our fears, is to “drain the swamp” and “seal our borders”.

They essentially trained us to hate and mistrust each other.

The mechanics of how the above worked are sophisticated but similar to what is done in many legal and morally defensible advertising campaigns of our modern world. Targeting advertising to individual’s preferences is not illegal or immoral, it is effective.  Ads and other such posts promoting products and services are continually posted on our social media based on our preferences and profiles.  They judge our reactions and update the posts on our walls to increase their sales, etc. For example, when I got within 6 months of turning age 65 I started seeing many ads for and articles about Medicare Advantage Plans.

What made these deplorable bastards different is the immoral use of grossly misleading and fake articles with the intention of getting us to support a deplorable agenda against our personal and social best interest.

So, how does one convince honest, hardworking people to believe things that are not true and contrary to their personal self-interest?  If you are waiting for a dramatic reveal of intrigue and hidden secrets you will be disappointed.

Here is the truth.  We learn about ourselves based on the feedback the world gives us about ourselves.  If a child has a feeling they are loved, then shown information saying they are loved, it is likely they feel more loved. If a person has a mild fear, then are shown things that reinforce their fear, the fear gets more profound.

If the feedback we receive from the world is honest and sincere, our feelings about ourselves will generally align with reality.  People who are more loved in reality will likely feel more loved. People who really do have more to fear will be more likely to feel more fearful.

The deplorable fraud was in the volume of misleading and fake feedback provided to millions of us in a form we were receptive to.  That misleading and fake feedback reinforced the fears and suspicions for those of us who had mild fears and suspicions already.  The huge volume of negative (fake) information overwhelmed the glimpses of reality that act normally to temper our fears and suspicions.

We see inner-city violence on the news and develop a mild fear of the violence in the inner city.  But when we do business in the city or attend concerts in the city without incident, the fear of violence is thus not reinforced and the fear does not grow.  However, if you see story after story, day after day, about how the inner-city is a war zone it reinforces your fear. The real world evidence you have that the inner-city is not a war zone gets overwhelmed by the news and stories on your Facebook feed. You will very likely come to believe the inner-city is a war zone.

The deplorable bastards created a bunch of misleading and fake negative behavior feedback loops.  Feedback loops are powerful and those not based in reality are dangerous.  They used sophisticated systems to repeatedly spread misleading and knowingly untrue information to reinforce their agenda of fear and suspicion of millions of people.  These deplorable people are bastards.

Here are some stories about the deplorable bastards. 

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/facebook-russia-fake-posts-trump-election-clinton-20171006.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/03/522503844/how-russian-twitter-bots-pumped-out-fake-news-during-the-2016-election

https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/secret-weapon/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-activism-and-muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.3505a1c9ce44

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/us/politics/russia-facebook-twitter-election.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/trumps-social-media-guy-214309

 

 

Topic 1

Too many of Americans (over 40 million) do not consistently have enough money to have the basic needs met for their long-term survival.  Millions more have just enough, with little or no capacity for missing a paycheck or two.  On a related note, the top 10% of the wealthiest hold 76% of the wealth.  The rest of us in the top 50% hold another 23% of the wealth.  That leaves the bottom 50% share about 1% of the wealth.

Long-term survival requires enough: food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, education, healthcare, safety/security and the like.  We need enough of these things consistently for the duration of our lives.  Having more than enough food does not enable us to survive longer.  Having less than enough is heartbreaking.  By definition, and in reality, people with poverty level or worse incomes often do not have basic need security.  People close, but over, the poverty level is only marginally better.

Cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of the poor should not be our highest priority.  Having the rich pay their fair share to help support healthcare and various programs for the poorest of the poor seems like a reasonable thing.

U.S. Census Bureau just published a report titled Income and Poverty in the United States: 2016.  It is a technical report with about 15 tables and 8 graphs.  The median household income in 2016 was $59,039.  The rich are getting richer.  There are over 40 million people living in poverty.  There are a whole lot of additional people not that far from being in poverty.

Topic 2

Does being rich make you happy?  Turns out that happiness is not related to wealth.  The key to happiness is good relationships.  If you have not seen the Ted talk called “What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness | Robert Waldinger”.  Take the time to see it.  Amazing.   Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Social connections are really good for us.  Loneliness is toxic.  It is not the number of friends you have, it is the quality of relationships.  Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies but also our brains.

To have a relationship with someone, you have to share common experiences with them.  Whether that relationship is a good relationship is for the parties in the relationship to decide.  Just saying, to have a friend, be a friend.  It is hard to overstate the importance of having friends.  Humans are innately social.  We need to belong.  We need social exchanges.  We define ourselves in relation to others, our emotions and behaviors are shaped by our relationships.

Topic 3

There is a clump of trees on the far end of the giant parking lot behind the building in which I work.  Over the years, periodically, a plume of black smoke comes from the woods.  We hope the person got out because a cardboard, stick and tarp shelter burns to the ground very quickly.  Those in the bottom income levels, have little resources and are without food and shelter security.  Being homeless is a dangerous place to be.

Topic 4

Retired = unemployed.  Per the Oxford dictionary retirement = “The action or fact of leaving one’s job and ceasing to work”.  Retired means you quit your job or were let go and implies you do not intend to seek new employment.  Being retired does not change the need for having enough income to maintain basic needs security.

Life expectancy has risen to 78.8 years.  If you reach age 65, your average life expectancy increases to 84.3.   If you are 65 on average you will live another 19 years.   Think back to all that has happened in the past 19 years of your life.  Remember when there was a real concern that all of the world’s computer systems would crash at midnight on 12-31-1999.  Use that as a benchmark.  The world has changed.  Back then you could not be on the phone and the internet at the same time.

Too many of us forget that life will go on when we are retired.  Things will be different not only because we will have retired but because things always change over time.

Topic 5

Social Security benefits are designed to replace about 40% of the pre-retirement income.  Nine out of ten individuals over the age 65 receive social security benefits.   46% of the workforce in private industry has no private pension coverage.   39% of workers report that they and/or their spouse have not personally saved any money for retirement.

The point I want to make about social security is not really about Social Security.  If someone is living on only or mostly Social Security, they are living on about 40 – 50% of their pre-retirement income.  In most cases, they are living at or close to the poverty level.  Chances are good they qualify for and receive some government assistance.  Often times some sort of subsidized housing.  Which is a good thing to have if you need it?

It just feels to me that sometimes people should consider not retiring just because they can and instead consider waiting to retire until they can better afford to retire.  Conversely, I think more employers should consider being more schedule flexible with their older employees.  Maybe more of them would work longer if they could start an hour later and take time off more easily.

Topic 6

It was 1979.  Inflation was over 11%.  The U.S. was heading into recession.  A 27-old Industrial Relations Director, me, was working to help White Farm Equipment Corporation survive Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  There was not enough corporate cash flow to cover the unfunded cost of pensions for the thousands of retirees.  The White Farm Equipment and Minneapolis-Moline (predecessor corporation) pension plans were going to be terminated and turned over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).

The bottom line, retires would get most, but not all, of their monthly pension amount.  It was not my fault.  The Board of Directors authorized the termination and some very high paid lawyers out of Chicago handled the legal work.  My name was on the notice to the retirees, I had to appear in Court and I was the one grilled at the United Auto Workers Union vs White Farm Equipment Corporation arbitration hearings.  Judge Miles Lord issued a restraining order with my name on it as an “officer of the Corporation”.  The restraining order was over-turned at trial.  There were protestors and TV news crews in front of my office.  In the end, the pension plans were terminated.

Several high-paid experts spent many hours explaining to me how pension plans worked so that I could be a credible representative of the corporation in the various legal proceedings.  I did my job, which was not fun.  About a year later I was laid off also.

With time, came some perspective.

This post was some of that perspective.

 

 

 

 

My iPhone is connected via Bluetooth to my hearing aids. The phone’s “accessibility” features manage the connection.   For example, when I get a call or if Siri is giving me directions, I hear it through my hearing aids and other active apps get muted.  I talk to the phone in front of me rather than holding it to my ear.  It takes a bit to get used to but is very helpful.

My hearing aids are tuned to the amount of my hearing loss associated with specific frequency ranges.  The volume of each frequency range is adjusted so I hear the frequencies at the correct volume relative to the other frequency ranges.  It is not perfect but it is far better than just making everything 30% louder.

When I use my phone to listen to music, my hearing aids effectively become professionally tuned custom stereo ear buds.  From my perspective, the sound is incredible.  I have had poor hearing since the 5^th grade so this is a way cool thing for me.

Several weeks ago I subscribed to the on Amazon Music Unlimited with its “Tens of millions of songs”.  It might have millions of songs but for the first couple weeks I listened to the popular music from my teen-aged years.  The depth and breadth of the Amazon Music collection of oldies is impressive.  The sound quality I heard made me smile, a lot.

The first draft of this post was about how connected technology made it possible for me to hear my music better.  I choose “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel as my example only because it came up next on the playlist I was listening to.  I then wrote the following sentence: “I have listened to the same version of this same song for over the past 50 years on radio, albums, 8-track tape, cassette tape, CD, windows media player, iTunes, YouTube, Pandora and now Amazon Music Unlimited.”

I could not put my finger on it but something in that sentence gave me a bad feeling. I tried reworking the sentence a dozen different ways.  Each re-write did not work.  It took some time but finally I came to the realization that I literally have spent over 50 years of my life and lots of money on albums, tapes and CDs so I could listen to the same versions of the same songs over and over again for those 50 years.  I did not know if I should laugh or cry.  At home, in the car, at work, while shopping, etc. for 50 plus years I have pretty much listened to the same set of songs.

Most people think the music they listened to between ages 12 to 22 is the best.  There are all sorts of theories why, but for whatever reason, we all pretty much love the music of our own teenaged years.  Sure the songs of my youth sounded better to me now because of my current hearing aids, but the scary thing to me is that there have been 50 years of songs which I have not been paying attention to.  Have I been living in the past?  I literally had to stop writing for a couple days to think about the answer.

When I started this post, I thought music streaming services were cool because they had all of the music from my teen-aged years.  Now I think streaming music is cooler because I am able to try out all sorts of other music for the same monthly subscription fee.  It is about time that I listen to music other than the golden oldies of my teen years.   You have to leave your comfort zone if you want to live a full life.

I started by listening to the Amazon playlist called “The 50 most Played Songs of 2017 – So far”.  Ed Sheeran has several songs on the list.  There is Hip hop, country, pop, and other genres represented.  The lyrics for some songs are explicit

but I am an adult and can handle hearing a swear words in a song.  Kendrick Lamar’s, “Humble” was surprisingly good.  The chorus includes the refrain “Bitch, sit down, be humble” which shocked me at first, then made me smile and then made me think.  Which, as I thought about it, is probably why it is one of the 50 most played songs in 2017, so far.

It was time to re-write this post.  It is now about how connected technology makes things practical that were not practical without the technology.   Connected technology allows me to hear songs better but also makes it easy for me to explore a whole range of different songs from different genres.  .

I like lots of music but have a limited budget.  Amazon Music Unlimited has over 10 million songs and costs me $7.99 per month.  There are other streaming music services, Amazon is just the one I am using now.  They all have numerous ways to access and discover a wide variety of music.  What makes streaming music so cool is that you can discover and listen to all sorts of music.  The artists get paid when you stream but it does not cost you more to stream more.  Sure you can listen to the oldies but you can listen to millions of other songs.  Not only are there the songs but there are lots of ways to access the songs.  Try a playlist.  Try an artist.  Try an album. Try a song.  Try a genre.  Try a station.  Try the song of the day.

I tried some hip-hop.  More interesting than I first thought.  Give me time I will figure out what type of hip-hop I like and dislike.

I tried some opera, the 3 Tenors were good not great to my ears.  Will listen to some more opera but suspect it will not end up as my favorite type of music.

Tried old country.  George Strait is very good.  Thinking some outlaw country will be next for me.

Polka? When I worked as a pizza cook at Cicero’s at Har Mar and riding in a boat with my father-in-law, I heard lots of polka.  I just listened to “Too Fat Polka”.  It was terrible and included the words: “I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me” but I listened to it all the way through.  Probably will not revisit polka for a while.

Show tunes?  The Hamilton cast recording is great.  I like show tunes.

Classical, which kind?  Guitar is great to have in the background while I write.  I will investigate more classical music.

I looked up music from the following:  My nephew was in the Selby Tigers.  Dan Cavanagh is a neighborhood kid who became a jazz artist, professor and omposer.  Buddy Rich was a great drummer.  If you like a punk cover of popular songs, try the group: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.  A friend suggested I try Celtic Thunder.

I am on a mission to discover interesting music.  I am not in a rush but I have a sense of urgency for some reason.  I still like the oldies but there is lots of very good music that is not oldies.

Conclusion

We live in a connected world with access to incredible things.   I ask my phone for directions to a half remembered restaurant and my phone not only figures out what restaurant I want, but gives me their hours and directions to get there.

I have no excuse not to try that interesting sounding place which that person at the party told us about.  I don’t need to know how to get there, my phone knows.  I have no excuse not to listen to some of the music mentioned by that kid or a friend or whoever.

The past is a nice place to visit once in a while but not a place to live.  Life is about creating new memories by living in the present with an eye to the future.  Connected technology makes it much easier to create those new memories.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes – Over the Rainbow