Ignite the Promise

Big Data -- A Renewable Resource!

Big data is defined by the immensity of data and information generated on most any topic.  It is immense because of the multiple avenues by which data is created.  Methods for collection and capture can be electronic (sensors), human (social networks), and observational (research, reviews) and can come from any number of sources on a local, national, and global scale.  The data may come in diverse forms – numerical, text, locational or spatial.  This tsunami of data has inundated those needing to manage raw information, analyze, interpret and ultimately deliver that data to inform on a subject.  The collection and transformation of data into information then knowledge and eventually wisdom is the big challenge today.  Decision makers understand that those who can first corral the tidal wave of data will have competitive advantages in the marketplace.  Thus there is a race to develop means to efficiently capture, integrate, and analyze big data.

The concept that big data is a new natural resource was reported by Erwin Gianchandani on the speech by David McQueeney, VP Software (IBM Research) in his June 27, 2012 presentation in Washington, DC, “Big Data: The New Natural Resource.”  A resource is defined as necessary or useful to humans.  In today’s world there is little more important than information as it directly impacts our quality of life.  As with any natural resource, efficiency of harvesting, quality of the material, access to markets and availability directly impact it usefulness and value.  Big Data then becomes a renewable resource when analyzed differently and continually to support infinite decision scenarios.  Depending on your immediate point of view (POV), the data will give you one answer.  When viewed from an alternative POV, the data presents yet another answer.  Thus the same data can provide multiple correct answers and is renewable. 

When big data is harvested the resulting informational resource is used to build solutions.  In the Geographic Information System (GIS) marketplace, this resource can be combined with other raw informational resources to produce accurate, current and reliable insight into any problem with a geo-context.  Want targeted insight to pollution and the impact roads and increased automobile usage have on it, leverage big data via GIS.  Change the combinations of information resources used and that same GIS can provide answers on a completely different scale.  As instruments such as smartphones, GPS or other readily accessible hand held devices collect data with location, that new data resource is added, refreshed and subsequently renewed. 

Unlike the oil, gas and coal we pull from the earth to power our manufacturing plants or heat our homes, big data fuels our decision making, is truly abundant and will never be exhausted.  

Guest blogger, Greg Reinecke

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

Love Does

Love Does by Bob Goff (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2012) is an amazing read about his incredible life in an ordinary world.  It's about what a mischievous youth becomes when he doesn't grow up -- an attorney and Consul for Uganda.  His grades and LSAT scores were inadequate for law school admission, so he sat on a bench at the dean's office for ten days (5 days before classes started and continuously for 5 more days after classes started) until the dean let him enroll.  This is a book about living life in awesome ways.  Have you ever heard of a guy who pursued a girl for three years before getting a first date, or spending 16 days on the ocean with five guys and a crate of canned meat?  That's Bob Goff!

Goff must have logged a bucket load of 'firsts' -- first suitor to construct an 8'x4' Valentine's card and hand deliver it to a girl he hardly knew, first person to use a sextant to race from California to Hawaii in the Transpac race after reading a manual, first person to escort his three children to multiple world leaders as their guests after the children wrote letters to ask for a visit (ps: the children gave their house key to the leaders and asked them to visit), and much more. 

As I read each chapter recounting a new life lesson illustrated by his interesting life experiences, I got so engaged in the new and unusual that I missed the messages.  Goss tells his story in a way that life and whimsy and living life are natural and all interconnected.  This book kept my attention and one that even triggered my desire to live similarly.

When I finished reading, I now see the message of Goss' life stories as one of living fully, of believing in doing rather than planning, of trusting in a God that doesn't care if we are not perfect.  It is about moving forward without the trappings of religion, or doing it all 'right.'  It is about engaging in life with all our warts and shortcomings. I even enjoyed re-reading sections because some of the exploits are too amazing to read just once.  Want to smile?  Read the book Love Does!  In a word, Goff would agree that we need to move beyond caring, to doing!  That's what Love Does is about.

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

Too Small to Ignore

Unfortunately, many of us don't consider children important until they 'grow up.'  That is we don't accord them ability to participate in life until some 'magical' age -- teen age, drinking age, driving age, etc.  However, in his book, Too Small to Ignore, Dr. Wess Stafford (Water Brook Press, Colorado Springs, 2007) tells us how wrong we are to not include children in our life activities as soon as they can and 'why the least of these matters most.'  He cites his experience as a child growing up in a missionary family in a West African village of Nielle in northern Cote d'Ivoire.  Stafford says that many of us consider childhood as the preamble to actual life, i.e., someday he/she will grow up to amount to something.  Not someday, but today, says Stafford!

Stafford makes the point that no matter the ills of society, children bear the brunt of bad situations – in famines, adults become weak and hungry, children starve to death; in boundary and ethnic wars, children pay the greatest price; in child pornography and child prostitution, children lose faith.  He cites a 2004 United Nation’s (UNICEF) statistic that says, worldwide, 30,000 children under age 5 die every day!  Because children don’t have a vote, political clout or a voice in global affairs, they are marginalized -- no children protest marches, no Children’s Hall of Fame.  He even cites his experience with church groups who also pay little attention to the children when making long range plans or for outreach.  It is a compelling read that includes his personal one of child-abuse at the hands of leaders of the Christian school he attended.   This experience made Stafford stronger in standing up passionately for the little ones – to change the world one child at a time.

Stafford’s early life in Nielle set the stage for what he is now doing with Compassion International.  The children of Nielle played roles in their society from toddler on up.  As soon as they could walk, they helped pick up twigs and wood for fires.  They learned by following older children and watching their elder.  Children sat together with the adults in group events as there were no children sections.  There was life happening all around.  Children cried were nursed were mischievous were disciplined.  Children grew up in the village. In Nielle, it was a fact that it takes a village to raise a child. 

The children became experts using sling shots to strike prey.  They served as guards of the corn crop that baboons would come to steal.  They would sit in towers and fire stones at the marauding bands of baboons.  Lest you are unschooled about Nielle sling shots, these were serious weapons.  These were not just the ones we shot through a ‘y’ shaped piece of wood, but weapons made with strips of twine tied with a pouch in the middle to hold a round-shaped stone (as large as a fist) that was swung above the head with great velocity before releasing the stone toward a target.  Stafford says that the best shooters were extremely accurate!  Remember the Bible story about David and Goliath?  David was a small statured shepherd boy fighting a giant warrior.  David’s sling shot killed the giant.  This is the same type of slingshot Stafford learned to use.  He said that most of the boys of Nielle could have slain the giant.

Stafford’s message for us is that we need to be deliberate in raising our children.  We need to provide them the love and nurturing exhibited in the African village so children find their way to blossom into fully productive adults.  This is a story about helping children the way we know we should, told from someone who lived the ‘ideal’ in the midst of a simple culture.

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

"Die Broke, Drop Dead Healthy!"

"He was healthy until the day he died."  I want that to be my case as well -- to drop dead healthy! 

Yep, it's a quality of life issue. Live life to its fullest.  Never quit living.  Keep doing things you want to do.  Enjoy life.  Budget and spend wisely, but change the mindset that you need to save everything for someone else.  It must just be that time of my life that this topic surfaces for me.  As I review the bases of the concept of die broke and drop dead healthy, I find the ideas somewhat freeing and refreshing.  It is as if a burden has been lifted from me.  Here is what I gained from each of two books, Die Broke and Drop Dead Healthy.

Die Brokeby Stephen M. Pollan and Mark Levine (HarperCollins publishers, 1997) voices a contrarian approach to the traditional view of retirement and retirement planning. One of the premises by Pollan I fixed on is his notion to use all your funds while you’re alive. It is to maximize the productivity of your money now rather than after you die, i.e., enjoy life and help others.  Many of us baby boomers are still of the notion to save money for our children for their inheritance. Instead Pollan says, "The last check you write should be to the undertaker--and it should bounce!" 

Effectively, Pollan says there should be no inheritance.  He suggests that by the time we die, our children will be adults in their 40s and 50s and should be gainfully employed. Spend it now.  However, with today's economy and difficulties, more adult children are needing support from their parents. In a recent USA Todayarticle by Sharon Jayson (Thur, May 3, 2012), she notes that parents spend more money to support their children now -- a safety net in our tough economy.  In some cases, the children return home to live with their parents.  Says Jayson, "The benefit of this approach is to increase the parents' bond with their children."  We can pass funds to our children now instead of after we parents die.  A recent survey by the University of Michigan notes that 62% of young adults (19-22) get financial help from their parents.  PS: Just read about another approach called SKIN, 'spending kids inheritance now.'  OK.  I get the idea.

The companion book, Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster, 2012) is simply the concept that we need to stay healthy to gain all that life provides. Jacobs documents his one-year quest to get healthy -- to gain maximal health from head to toe. He consulted experts in all fields and subjected himself to every sort of test and diet.  His journey is real, but is hilarious and absurd at the same time.  It is a fun read and may even inspire you to 'do something' to get in better physical shape. You will want to know that the doctor determined that Jacobs spending time reading on the toilet has given him hemorrhoids.  Also, squating, rather than sitting, over the toilet is the best position.  There are 27 chapters with each chapter covering one topic: The Stomach, The Heart, The Butt, The Immune System, The Teeth, The Feet, The Inside of the Eyelid, The Gonads, The Skull, and more.  I smile just listing these few topics.  The goal of Jacobs' quest was to be the most fit he could be for his wife so she would not be a widow at forty-five (and also to write this book).  On the book cover's flap it notes that this "just may be the healthiest book ever written."

If your epitaph reads: "Died broke, died healthy," I translate that as having lived fully and stayed active (young).  Not a bad way to live and die!

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com

July 4th and Our Freedoms

Each year, I acknowledge Independence Day, the fourth of July.  I am proud to be a citizen of the United States. Despite the economy, the social issues, and the politics, I would not trade the U.S. for any other country. Just think, without July 4^th, there would be no America when we declared independence from England. The United States will be 236 years old on Independence Day when we have the biggest birthday party in the world. 

When I hear voices complain about the inequality, the social issues, or the politicians, I wonder where else one could go to have what we have.  These voices complain.  Is it that they only see the 'glass half empty' and take for granted our freedoms?  It is true the United States is not the best in all categories measured -- quality of life, liveability, education prowess, etc.  However, we have the stability and government that keeps us vibrant.  The challenge in an open and 'free' society is that it is important for each citizen to work at all levels -- to build economic success and to protect our way of life.  Unless one wishes a welfare state, then investing in maintaining our freedoms and 'way of life' is an every-person job.

Maybe I need to remind myself why the U.S. is special to me.  For me the single most important attribute about America is freedom -- freedom of expression, of thought, of religion, freedom to chose friends, freedom to live anywhere I wish, and freedom to succeed or fail as an entrepreneur.  That's it for me! 

© Baldwin H. Tom CMC
www.tbgroupconsultants.com