Feedback?

Anonymous said...
mike, you still haven't changed your posting.......it's all wrong......no one will read a posting if it's all shite...strange blog, this, you don't seem to be able to take constructive criticism.......we're trying to help


Thanks for your posting. Interesting point.
I'll be frank: I wish you would be more specific in what posting you mean, and why you think it's wrong. I wouldn't consider it constructive criticism if it's not constructive- meaning useful. Give something concrete that you have trouble understanding or you disagree with, and I'll try to make it clearer, or defend my position better. If you just give general "It's all shite" feedback, it sounds like bellyaching instead of constructive feedback that one can use for improvement.

Just a thought. I do appreciate your post though.


Also- the internet is a medium of limited accountability and famous for abuse of the anonymity. I might take your feedback more seriously if you signed your name instead of just signing it "anonymous". It makes me think that you're a classmate trying to take the piss out of me. Certainly isn't conducive to a relationship of trust and respect as is, right?

Suing Langdon

The authors of The Holy Blood, The Holy Grail are suing the pants off Dan Brown for his work The Davinci Code.

So it seems that the contentious theories were that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, fled to France after Jesus survived the crucifixion where they proceeded to begetting- and they begot the great royal families of Europe, the Danish Royal Family, the Merovingians, the Windors and were protected by the secret society the Knights Templars.

Further, the authors of the 1982 non-fiction book (Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh) saw themselves personified in the 2003 novel in the character- a friend of the hero Sir Leigh Teabing (Teabing is an anagram for Baigent). Hmmm.... Coincidence? I don't recall seeing any annotations...

So- given this information- plus the fact that Dan Brown author of the Davinci Code is rolling in millions of dollars from sales and movie deals- can we really blame Beigent and Leigh for wanting a share?

To put it in context of Strategic Management classes: The Holy Blood Holy Grail authors are already stakeholders in The Davinci Code; they are complimentors as opposed to substitutors, because a certain amount of consumers of one will use the other, so their success is mutual, as opposed to mutually exclusive.

It's coming to trial in a UK court starting today. Isn't it everyone's best interest to settle out of court? I mean creating acrimony and burning resources in a lengthy and expensive court battle will be in the best interest of neither. There are opportunities to solidify and contractualize the complimentor relationship, and to enhance the intellectual recognition due for the originators of the theory that I'm certain will appeal to both parties.

Little Blog

Quick blog.
No time this week up to my ears in projects, articles and case studies.

OK- I just wanted to say how happy I am this week for non-school related stuff.
Thrilled with Stacey and Colin who went to Hawaii this week- and got married on the beach.
Welcome to the family, Broher in law! Can i have a loan- and sleep on your couch for a week, please?

Horray for Beady's cat who survived the operation, and is healthy again! Chase those mice little Peanut!

More next week...

London Trip- The Rugby

I'm back from London for the weekend. Smurfit played 4 games in total.
Here's the breakdown;

We started out facing up against Harvard. We played in Regent Park beside LBS with ionic pillared mansions in the backdrop. We frankly couldn't get our heads in the game and got trounced.

The Second game against INSEAD- we found our grits and were able to put up a great show. We walked away with a victory, meaning we would move on to the Semi-Final (later that day)

The Third game was the Semi-Final against LBS. The Winner would square off against Harvard "A" team (nothing to do with the 80's television show- just schools with more than one team sent categorized them into an A team and B team- the A team being the more organized and experienced squad.

With about 5 minutes left of a brutal game- we were down by a conversion. Then- One of our teammates took a really bad hit and we had to call an ambulance. We all pulled it all together amid calls to "Do it for Bob!!!" (our fallen teammate) and scored a converted and an unconverted try.

The Next day- we woke up extremely tired and sore. We went against the Harvard A Team again- the same from the day before- but this time with some Ringers from the B team in the back row which actually were better than some of the back row A's- not to insult A's back rows from the day before; they did, after all, thump us.

The end result- we got second place in the Tournament, which is disappointing, but still quite respectable and the Captain did say he was proud of all of us...

Anyways- a subsequent blog to come will talk about the other aspect of the trip. The parties!

Ouch! I am in so much pain- from the rugby- not the parties.

Weekend off

I am going to UK for the first time in my life this weekend.

The Rugby team is heading out to battle LBS, INSEAD, and Harvard on the pitch, and party in the bars.

Then on Monday, as if to Pussy-ize myself again- I am going to the Opera on Monday. The Marriage of Figaro in a group with my classmates.

Is that wrong?

Lately- after my High Second class honors in Managerial Accounting, I've been thinking of exploring my accounting side... It scares me a little. What also scares me is that I find myself wishing that I had more time and electives available so I could take Strategic Finance... Not that I'm not loving my current electives! Actually- Project Management has proved to be so interesting and useful that it got bumped up from audit to 'for credit', at the expense of Entrepreneurial management.

Hmmm... Accounting... cost management... hmmm....

Shocking News!!!

I took the Harvard 'tacit' knowledge test discussed by Malcolm Gladwell (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/).

As it turns out:


"Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Judaism compared to Other Religions."

Really??? You don't say!

Cartoons

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei thinks it's a Zionist conspiracy that the European dailies published the now infamous caricatures of Prophet Mohamed.

Meanwhile- I don't really think it's a Muslim filled with righteous anger thing. I don't even think it's a religion thing. I think it's a Mullah or cleric thing, and it's a theocratic means of coercion. In theocracies, as in any other political or socio-economic system, the means of coercion are enforced by methods that are determined by the nature of the system- for example- democratic coercion involves manipulation of the free will and choice which democracy is based on, autocratic coercion involves military protection of the leader and the system, which autocracies are based upon.

Theocracies, where the system is integrally linked to the religion of the system, coercive elements are presented in the form of religious right. In essence- we're not dealing with a Mullah leading his faithful Muslim parish in a protest of an outrage against Islam. This is about a War Lord using starving people- starving for food, starving for answers and starving for truth using Islam deceptively as a reason to rally the crowds, and thus perpetuate their power over the community.