Is it possible to be transparent and authentic online?

This is a discovery post rather than prescriptive on how to be transparent and authentic online. There are a number of recent incidents in various online environments which triggered some thoughts and feelings requiring associated decisions and actions for me. In this post, I’d like to discuss the environment factor.

Environment is an essential factor for success. I believe, like it is in the real world, one expect the online world to be clean and healthy to play with confidence and enthusiasm. If an environment gets toxic with mediocrity and childish behaviour, one’s enthusiasm and willingness relatively decrease. I believe authentic and transparent people instantly affected by their environments. An environment, for example for blogging, makes difference for one’s participation and collaboration.

Spirit of networking is directly related environment which play a significant role for participative actions. Who has the key impact on environment? Without doubt that the members of the environment have the key impact to keep the environment clean, healthy and pleasant to play with.

I’d like to discover how one can be transparent and authentic in this online world. How would you define and describe a clean, healthy and pleasant environment. Look forward to obtaining your insights stemming from your online experience, thoughts, and personal preferences.

Regards,
Dr. Mehmet Yildiz

Are we vulnerably designed dilemmatic machines?

In one of the yesterday's blog on Ecademy a co-networker made a notable and insightful statement which I'd like to quote here "...You can't tell life how to be and you can't second guess your own unconscious mind with all its complex, interrelated and unresolvable narrative threads. These are what dominate your life, not what your consciousness happens to think it wants." I believe you can guess who wrote this statement by browsing the comments on yesterday's blogs related to goal setting.

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And today there was an interesting research finding reported in many news networks as recorded by google "The use and misuse of alcohol and marijuana can be traced to a common set of genes". In addition to the main theme of genes' impact on our lives, it is really eye-opening to know that "41.8 percent of 12th graders reported having used marijuana". This is of course very complex to create a scientific profile considering all aspects but I want to discuss a specific point here.

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My point is, if we have this vast, dark, unknown unconscious mind at emotional and higher levels coupled with so many unknowingly inherited genes at physical level running the show of our lives; what is left to us to manage at conscious level? How can we keep responsible for things beyond our control? Is this dilemma or what? What are our responsibilities for our lives? Feel free to share your optimistic, neutral or pessimistic views [which who knows] may shed some lights on this dichotomy in our limited knowledge process.

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Regards,
Mehmet Yildiz

Promoting+healthy+skepticism+-+Ecademy

Promoting+healthy+skepticism+-+Ecademy

Are you a bower bird? Guess whose fault is compulsive hoarding and clutter making?

Are you a bower bird?

If so this blog can be a sign from the Big Giant Head in the Third Rock from the Sun!
Oh thank God it is a British study rather than an Australian one!:-)

Guess who we can blame for being a bower bird? I mean having a compulsive urge to collect and clutter our homes and offices with junk; at least a partly scapegoat for this amazing habit!
Good guess! Yes our genes! Who else could it be?

Here's the link to the study report titled "Genes to blame for clutter compulsion"

Do you have this urge to keep your old clothes, magazines, junk mail, furniture pieces, school reports, A+ assignments, and many other things that you may be attached?

Do you ever remember a special feeling when you clear clutter in your life? How was that? Have you heard people creating F word disciplines mainly from Asia to deal with this phenomena?

I'd like to obtain your personal view on dealing with clutter in your life from multiple angles and any context you may like to choose. For example, physical clutter, emotional clutter, even spiritual clutter or any type of clutter that you may think of!

Feel free to clutter my blog with your thoughts today!!

Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni || Naymz|| Superfan

Outliers: the story of success! [Point 1: 10.000 hours rule]

On Saturday whilst discussing the characteristics of Blackswans here, William Buist suggested the importance of this book (Outliers) as a response to one of my comments and wanted to see my analysis of this book. William's suggestion of the book, my second reading of it recently, and the importance of Blackswans have inspired me to create this blog series to reflect and learn from important points in this insightful book titled Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.

After reading the book twice with fascination (because it provided considerable insights to my cognitive hypotheses with interesting findings), I believe there are important arguments to be considered in this book and to be followed up with further discussions. Since the scope of the book is comprehensive it will not fit into one blog; hence I will focus on one key point in each post.

One of the most important lessons learnt from this book is repeatedly mentioned as the "10,000-Hour Rule". Gladwell claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours, 10 years or a decade! He provides well proven examples. I believe him because they are very well known and documented cases.

I fully agree with this 10 thousand hour rule as a person observing how thoughts and concepts are processed and make progress in very complex environments. It took me approximately 10 years to certify globally in my discipline in IBM. It took me over 10 years after my master's degree to start authoring advanced research papers in peer reviewed and refereed scientific journals. It took me 20 years to start my first invention to be patented! It took me over 20 years to learn English which I am still feeling shaky!! I can see that it took 11 years Thomas and Penny to bring Ecademy to this level. Based on this first hand experienced based knowledge confirmed by Malcolm's observations, I have difficulty in understanding anyone who declares expertise on a topic less than 10 years. For some reasons, I kept thinking a lot about Edison and Tesla whilst digesting this rule!!

Let's watch the following 2 clips interviewing Malcolm on this book. These clips may help understand the coverage and importance of the book for those who haven't read it yet. I believe you will laugh at what the male interviewer is good at in the second video; and pay attention to what Bill Gates used to do secretly and why Mozart's early works were crap!:-)

Let's be mindful that this is an eye opening, realistic [an anti-self help] book therefore...! I'd love to obtain your views on this 10 thousand hour rule!





Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni || Naymz|| Superfan

Paradoxically, food insecurity may be underlying contributor to...

What is the importance of food security and insecurity? What does it mean?

Food security "refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty".

The article "Household food insecurity contributes to overweight in children" According to the article: "Both household food insecurity and childhood overweight are significant problems in the United States. Paradoxically, being food-insecure may be an underlying contributor to being overweight. A study of almost 8,500 low-income children ages 1 month to 5 years, published in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, suggests an association between household food insecurity and overweight prevalence in this low-income population. However, sex and age appear to modify both the magnitude and direction of the association."

Is this a mental or physical problem? I'd be interested to obtain views on what other implications of food security/insecurity could be?

Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz|| Superfan

Are arranged marriages panacea for preventing divorce?

Arranged marriage is a large and complex topic spanning multi-disciplines with many implications in many walks of life. This is only an exploration blog as I have no experience in the area apart from my curiosity to learn and a cursory review of the literature from social networking aspect to catch some patterns.

It is paradoxical to see arranged marriages still continue with success. According to Kinjo "Twenty-five to 30 per cent of all marriages taking place in Japan at present are arranged marriages". The rate of arranged marriages are higher in South Asia and Middle East compared to Europe, America and Australasia. Through my observations, I believe this rate is much lower in Australia. However, our divorce rate in Australia is so high; at least 40 thousand couples get divorced each year.

Even though arranged marriages are believed to have a lot of negative connotations, I know a few families with arranged marriage reached their 50th and even 60th anniversaries, whereas a number of marriages based on love and prior trial ended up within a year or so. Many of my friends have less than 2 years of marriage duration. I'd like to understand this paradoxical situation. I am wondering whether arranged marriages can help with the divorce?

If we get back to social networking context, would you consider people getting married through social networking without seeing each other can be considered an arranged marriage? What is your definition of arranged marriage? Let's explore this topic from multiple angles with your personal thoughts, experience and cultural impacts in your countries on the topic.

Hope you will enjoy this funny commercial related to this topic with futuristic flavour:


Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz|| Superfan