March 22, 2003
Well it wasn't exactly '68 re-visited but you can't fault the Dialogue.
There must be something about Chicago and Grant Park. It was the site of the infamous '68 Democratic Convention protests, "The Whole World's Watching", and just this week it's where "war protest LIGHT" began. Some 10,000 folks turned out for the event and proceeded to march peacfully right up Lakeshore Drive. Of course, rush hour commuters wouldn't agree with the "peaceful" part.
Makes you think of that great tune from the band Chicago recorded over two sessions from September 20-29 in 1971. Titled Dialogue, I always thought the song was incredibly timeless. You can imagine a setting where two college students draw up a chair and a beer after a day at the lecture factory. In this case, it was Terry Kath and Peter Cetera, AKA Chicago's Soulful Voice and Sky Voice discussing their respective views "bout the way that things are going?"
Each of us knew someone who fit Terry's lyric (the deep thinking activist) and Peter's lyric (the go with the flow passive type) No doubt, it's a dialogue that continues today between students with differing opinions "bout the way things are going?"
Here's to the Dialogue:
Terry: Are you optimistic 'bout the way that things are going?
Pete: No, I never ever think of it at all.
Terry: Don't you ever worry when you see what's going down?
Pete: Well, I try to mind my business, that is, no business at all.
Terry: When it's time to function as a feeling human being, will your Bachelor of Arts help you get by?
Pete: I hope to study further, a few more years or so. I also hope to keep a steady high.
Terry: Will you try to change things, use the power that you have, The power of a million new ideas?
Pete: What is this power you speak of and the need for things to change? I always thought that ev'rything was fine, ev'rything is fine.
Terry: Don't you feel repression just closing in around?
Pete: No, the campus here is very very free.
Terry: Does it make you angry the way war is dragging on?
Pete: Well I hope the President knows what he's into, I don't know. Oooh I just don't know.
Terry: Don't you see starvation in the city where you live, all the needless hunger, all the needless pain?
Pete: I haven't been there lately, the country is so fine, but my neighbors don't seem hungry 'cause they haven't got the time, Haven't got the time.
Terry: Thank you for the talk, you know you really eased my mind, I was troubled by the shapes of things to come.
Pete: Well, if you had my outlook, your feelings would be numb, You'd always think that ev'rything was fine. Ev'ry thing is fine.
We can make it better (x3) Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
We can change the world now (x3)
We can save the children (x3)
We can make it happen (x3)
Posted by at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 20, 2003
It's time the wireless industry bought a vowel.
Just back from New Orleans and the CTIA Wireless 2003 show. I attended my first "cellular" trade show in 1985. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Wireless has always been plaqued by what I call "the bookends problem". High cost of capital for infrastructure and the lunacy of high costs in phone/handset subsidies.
Well, the walk from the hotel to the convention center provided the metaphor for the times. Parked along our route was the mobile van for the television show Wheel of Fortune.
Walking around the show and seeing all of the handsets nicely categorized in displays labeled: GSM, CDMA, TDMA, IDEN and imagining the lumbering multiple carrier infrastrastructure and multiple carrier support behind each unit, that gets into each customer's hand, well...it gave me a headache.
The industry can talk about consolidation but as a colleague of mine says, "Egos and Logos" always get in the way. The carriers would do well to put egos and logos aside and with or without consolidation, get serious about "sh_r_d _nfr_str_ct_r_". At a minimum, it made for lively discussion as I joined Accenture's Richard Siber for dinner.
With the cash that squeezed carriers have remaining, they could buy the vowels necessary to realize "shared infrastructure" and the business would be healthier for it.
Posted by at 10:03 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Hey! Now that war has broken out, where are you going?
Disneyland!
Hardly a laughing matter, but I couldn't help but chuckle a bit when I saw today that Homeland Security had created "restricted airspace" over New York, Washington DC and get this...Disney amusement parks.
Needless to say, Chicago's Mayor, Richard Daley wasn't amused. He's been trying to get the post 9/11 restricted fly zone re-instated over downtown Chicago for months. Ironically, on the same day that he learned the Sears Tower had apparently been on the original 9/11 target list, until bin Laden made the final edits, he learns Mickey and Minny have clout in Washington.
Gotta love Mayor Daley. I've always found him to be more right than he's wrong.
As he said upon hearing the news, "Now think of that , Mickey and Minny have it. I mean I can't believe that. They get it before we get it."
Makes you really wonder who does get it?
Posted by at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2003
Why Free-Return?
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of sharing a road trip of appearances with Jim Lovell, the astronaut who piloted Apollo 13. Over several weeks, I got to hear Jim repeat time and again his chilling tale about the troubled Apollo 13 mission.
One point stood out.
Jim explains to non-science types like me that there is a natural "free-return course" that one can draw around the Earth and the Moon. It's this free-return course that gives a spacecraft the benefit of the Earth's pull once it circles the moon. Kind of like staying within the bounds of a space highway with momentum in your favor.
As it turns out, during the trouble-free part of the Apollo 13 flight, Mission Control decided to take Apollo 13 off its free-return course. As I recall, the reason was to put Apollo 13 on a course that would bring it closer to the Moon for the benefit of photo opportunities.
Jim tells the story that shortly after he made the manuever, all Hell broke loose on the spacecraft. It wasn't until sometime after, as everyone at Mission Control and on the spacecraft were crazed trying to figure out what to do next, that it hit Jim. Mission Control had taken him off the free-return course. Suddenly the slingshot manuever around the Moon and back to Earth wasn't workable. Momentum was no longer in his favor. Apollo 13 could very well be buzzing off into the far reaches of space. Forever.
The folks on the ground realized it some time later.
No doubt you may remember the scene from the movie when Jim gets just one chance, with his last boost of power, to put Apollo 13 back on track. Back on its free-return course.
Ever since Jim told that story, I think of the elegance of free-return. A few degree change in anything can make all the difference. Set out to do most anything and it's good to have thought through a "free-return".
In business and life in general, things happen. Gravity is unforgiving. Timing a "burst" that can get you back to free-return can make the difference.
It sure did for Lovell and crew.
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And of course if you find yourself less than satisfied with my oversimplification of Free Return, you can always visit places like http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/finalpresentation/traj/free.html
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