@T: ALWAYS THE TWAIN

The last two days have seen the announcements of MSFT’s new Bing search platform as well as the to-be-launched Google Wave:

TechCrunch’s MG Siegler decided to make a joke out of MSFT’s choice of brand name:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/the-bing-definition-microsoft-probably-doesnt-want-you-to-get-in-your-fortune-cookie/

and this has been followed by all manner of inaccurate (but quite amusing) threads by people attempting to translate and discern what the word “bing” means. According to the TC post it’s “death”.

Fortunately, one commentator does note:

“According to Dr. Qi Lu, who thought about going back to live in his native China before accepting Steve Ballmer’s offer to head up Microsoft’s search effort, Bing means something a little more positive in Chinese:

“Bing” also resonates with an audience Google is yet to dominate: China.

“The actual Chinese characters are two characters, ‘Bi’ and ‘Ying’ and combined these two characters mean ‘very certain to respond’ and ‘very certain to answer’,” Dr Lu said.

“That’s a terrific representation of what our brand stands for in the Chinese language.””

For me, MSFT marketing has made the mistake of thinking they can compound two Chinese characters 必 应 “bi-ying” and anglicize them into BING — as in Chandler Bing from Friends and the Soprano’s “bada bing” — and not double-checking whether the hybrid loses something in the re-translation. One of the homophonic translations of “bing” is indeed “disease”. However there are the other translations; it all depends on the tone for the letter i in the word. Like the French language, Chinese has acute, grave, bass and double acute accents (ì, í,  ī, etc.). The difference is that in French the accents are used purely for pronunciation assistance whilst in Chinese the accent completely determines the word, its pronunciation tones and its meanings.

Here are some possible meanings for “bing”:

http://www.nciku.com/search/all/pinyin/bing

Incidentally, a TC commentator provided the link to translations for “ping” instead of “ding” (and this is why our brain cells are dying and academic research says we’re only using 10 percent of our intelligence — LOL!).

Instead of jumping straight to the “disease” translation, TC’s journalist could have opted for the version of bing which means “ice” and “consult” so the word’s English connotations with search would be “cool consult”.

As for the commentator on that TC thread who says Google’s Wave in Chinese sounds and translates as “death” 危 ……….NOWHERE does that word appear on nciku online for the Chinese translation of “wave”:

http://www.nciku.com/search/all/wave

Actually the only constituents of the character for “wave”, 波浪 are: water, ball and cool. This is appropriate since waves in Chinese are envisioned as ball curls over cool water, so Google’s WAVE loses less kinetic energy and power in translation than MSFT’s BING, that’s for sure.

Also, as you can see in my explanations, Chinese people think poetically, harmonically and in natural Zen because it’s incorporated in the structure of our language (written characters, homophonic pronunciations and radicals replacements etc.) itself!

Anyone lucky enough to be multi-lingual would fall about laughing all the time at the intentional and unintentional double entendres and lost in translations of all sorts of brand names and other popular terms. Previously, I’ve tried to explain that a bridegroom was getting “cold feet” to my mother — not to marrying me, btw, but in the US comedy film, The Bachelor. She said the guy should simply put on some socks!!!

That’s an example of lost in translation……….LOL.

Tonight we’re all going to be at my mother’s for dinner and to watch the final of Britain’s Got Talent, the “search for a star” variety-reality brainchild of Simon Cowell, who also acts as lead judge. My mother adores Simon Cowell and his pronouncements, btw. The Brits affectionately see him as some sort of pantomime villain, the Americans are simultaneously appalled and in awe of his forthrightness (and what the Brits regard as his lack of sickly faux La-La-Land simpering of the ilk: “I really FEEEEEL you, bro’. You’re SO awesome!”), and as for us Chinese………..well, he uses direct pragmatic language and the Chinese mentality is fairly direct and pragmatic (with flourishes of soaring poetic/euphemistic OTT ostentation — please see Opening Ceremony of 2008 Beijing Olympics and films directed by Zhang Yimou), so we sort of “get” Simon. Someone has to — LOL.

My mother and I would like Aidan Davis, the 12-year-old freestyle dancer, to win. As well as the natural fluidity, infectious energy and sheer charisma with which he performs, his choreography skills are sublime and show fantastic, cheeky wit.

However, the bookies and the buzz say that the Scottish Susan Boyle (dubbed the “Hairy Angel” by the media) and Shaheen Jafargholi, the 12-year-old singer from Wales, are favorites for tonight. It’s universally known by now that Susan has captured the imagination and affection of YouTubers, Twitterers, Oprah followers and anyone in the world who believes we shouldn’t judge books by their covers. Talent and character should matter rather than looks and attire. She’s a bona fide Internet viral sensation with view counts higher than President Obama’s inauguration ceremony, Super Bowl stand-offs and ‘Web 2.0: the machine is us/ing us” by the superlative Dr. Michael Wensch:

So, yes, Susan and we are the slaves and masters of the system………..

For me, her rendition of ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ was moving, evocative, expansive and technically flawless so if she sings at this level in the final, there’s every chance she’ll win:

Equally, Shaheen deserves his status as a favorite because his young voice has superb depth, range, power and control:

Plus he shows admirable, mature professionalism for someone so young.

In terms of seriously intelligent interpretation of their tools (musical instrument, music, cool and body parts), Julian Smith the saxophonist and Diversity the street dance troupe are amazing and deserve to do really well too.

Diversity’s incorporation of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” quote, the theme from Chariots of Fire and a dance sequence reminiscent of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation was simply a genius piece of choreography and execution, and it proves that youngsters are not all about gun/knife crime, social disruption or dead-end nihilism. They’re also about wonder, creativity, collaboration and chasing dreams.

It just feels so great when people’s talents shine through and makes us go, “WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and “WOW!!!!!!!!!” again at the audacity and variety of individual and collective genius.

The standard is so high in this final that whoever does get to perform at the Royal Variety Show will be a worthy winner and all of the finalists’ families should be extremely proud of them and cheer the house down on their behalves!

On a less positive note, the British media are already whipping up a storm of cynicism with this type of content in the papers and online:

· Is the show about exploitation / opportunity for the contestants?

· Should Susan Boyle be given preferential treatment and is she about to crack under the spotlight?

· Is it all a “fix”, designed to make Simon and the producers even more money?

· Why’s the show not providing enough emotional support for contestants, particularly the younger ones (the youngest child is 10)?

· Will some of them be forgotten within six months and find that fame is a fleeting and cruel mistress?

Personally, I just want to wish the finalists “Best of luck! Break a leg! Enjoy yourselves!” in the pursuit of their dreams and I’m looking forward to being amazed by their talent. Talent should be proactively sought, nurtured and celebrated, imo — whether that’s on a family entertainment TV show or in a high-pressure corporate environment or within our own social circles. We should all have the magnanimity of spirit and the grace of intelligence to embrace and congratulate whatever natural talents we have ourselves and discover in others.

Talent in any shape or form means the human species is……….SUPER-DUPER COOL, and gives us reasons to be optimistic and hopeful about our survival prospects.

TWAIN’S ALTERNATE / PARALLEL UNIVERSE OF TALENT APPLICATION

Some of you reading this blog will be a wee bit confused and may wonder why someone like me is into a populist light entertainment show like Britain’s Got Talent. Its search for talent is undeniably a million miles away from the search of Google, Wolfram Alpha, cures for cancer, profitable Internet models, the meaning and purpose of our existence, as-yet unanswered queries on the presence of other beings in our Universe, etc. To some, BGT’s search may be considered shallow since it leads to celebrity whilst the other form of search requires more intellectual depth and, hopefully, leads to disruptive evolution.

Well, my perspective is different on what is shallow / worthwhile. Whilst we watch the show, I’ll be teasing my mother and LOL-ing.

I’ll remind her that if she hadn’t emphasized education so much I wouldn’t be the first female in my family (on both sides) to go to university and I certainly wouldn’t be interested in the Global Brain, technology, high finance, business models, scientific exploration, cultural complexities and commonalities or great thinkers. Instead, I’d be onscreen as some sort of entertainer/media fodder, earning astronomical fees à la JLo for wearing sparkly dresses and turning up to “events”, and be paparazzi-ed everywhere I went! I may even be a D.I.V.A. — LOL.

This isn’t as preposterous, delusional or megalomaniacal as it sounds and I do have some sense of what the BGT contestants are experiencing.

As a child, I separately passed the singing and dance auditions to perform at the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games and I chose to dance — which meant I got to spend at least two afternoons away from school lessons, to perfect the routine for the big day; a wonderful experience for any kid and a period of my life which taught me a lot. At the time, I was having dance lessons some evenings, taking part in poetry recital/chess competitions (which I often won), learning the piano and the flute, doing athletics training other evenings (I was captain of our 4X100m relay team, competed in the 110m hurdles and we came 2^nd in the regional championships) and getting the top marks at school (English and Chinese).

Yup, I had far too much energy as a child (I wanted to know and be able to “DO EVERYTHING!”) so my mother wisely decided it should be channeled properly instead of me running amok and wild — LOL. All that extra-curricular training has stood me in good stead because people now remark that I’m “objective-oriented / focused / creative / systematic / collaborative / multi-disciplinary” in my problem-solving. That’s the by-product of having it drilled into me that “practice makes perfect”, “gain is the result of occasional pain” and the “cross application of teamwork equals maybe winning”.

So in a parallel universe “I coulda been a contender!” as Brando said in his seminal role (On The Waterfront).

In any case, it probably is for the better that my parents encouraged us towards education because it means I can contribute to “The Global Brain” etc and perhaps, in my own nano-entity way, catalyze or move civilization and concepts forward:

Besides which, we don’t have to be entertainers to wear sparkly dresses, glitter and killer stilettos………Ha ha.

[Oh and if you follow the symmetry of Wensch's masterpiece with how the Internet and, particularly, YouTube is making Susan Boyle and the other BGT contestants stars..............You'll appreciate this blog post does twain; we just married populism with intellectualism --- LOL infinity.]

BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT: THE RESULTS

The show ended at 20:25GMT with the results announced at 21:30GMT. At about 20:30GMT I gave my preference of how much I enjoyed each performance:

(1.) Diversity.

(2.) Susan Boyle.

(3.) Aidan Davis.

The result was:

(1.) Diversity.

(2.) Susan Boyle.

(3.) Julian Smith.

The dance group really deserved to win. Their routine was technically on-the-ball, imaginative and distinctive — fusing in knowing cheek with big-set acrobatics and superb music editing. Here’s hoping they’ll get the opportunity to open the 2012 London Olympics!

Go DIVERSITY!

There’s an interesting interview with Owen Van Natta, the new CEO of MySpace, on the future for the social networking site of 130 million users:

* http://d7.allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-video-jon-miller-and-owen-van-natta/

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/28/owen-van-natta-myspace-ce_n_208526.html

Van Natta talks about “personalization” again which is a buzz theme inherited from Web 1.0, albeit then it was deployed as “customer-centric” and “tailored”.

I’m still waiting for the social networks to make the paradigm shift from personalization to PURPOSE and what I coined as “socially voiced co-creation” back in 2006. All of the social networks seem to be providing tools, apps and features which will encourage 90% of their audiences to be passive consumers (lurkers et al) whilst 10% are active contributors. That activity may not be the generation of original, innovative and/or substantial content (as in a slideshare presentation), but rather the relay of a link.

What we need are actually social networks with tools where not only political awareness groups can lobby and influence change, e.g.:

* the Presidential election 2008;

* Marks and Spencers climb down over the additional charge of GBP2 for bras over a certain size; and

* Wispa chocolate bars being sold in stores again,

we can also directly impact the inventories of product manufacturers so that they can reduce the likelihood of oversupplying the market. Instead, the social network can be harnessed to find out what products we really need and want AND we (as consumers) are involved in the creation process that will reduce the wastage of over-production.

Then we have a PURPOSE rather than simply be passive consumers of content and active passers-on of links.

On a smaller scale, some of that purposeful company-consumer collaboration is already happening when the likes of Walkers Crisps organize a competition inviting ordinary people to think up a crisp flavor and the winner earns a percentage of crisp revenues as well as a one-off prize of GBP50,000:

* http://www.walkers.co.uk/flavours/

Now we need the CEOs of the top social networks to ask themselves, “How can we get our millions of users to work together towards practical ways to tackle climate change and other big issues like over-production? What tools can we provide to help them indicate whether they’re going to buy a car / a pair of Nike / an iPod / any other goods within the next 3 months and this information is directly fed into the inventories of manufacturers so they don’t over-produce? Maybe we can charge the companies for providing this information. We all benefit because, collectively, we’ll be making supply and demand metrics more accurate. Plus customers will get to design the products they want and maybe share in the revenues generated in product sales.”

That, to me, would be applying positive PURPOSE to social networks and creating new business models in the process!

Last night I watched HARDtalk on BBC News 24, presented by Stephen Sackur, in which he interviewed Hector Sants, CEO of the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA). Here’s the link to BBC iPlayer if you’d like to watch the full interview:

· http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kq2hy/HARDtalk_Hector_Sants_Chief_Executive_Financial_Services_Authority/

There were a number of questions posed by Sackur that reminded me of the dissonance gap between how the media perceives the global economic crisis and the blame attribution to bankers on a wholesale basis, and what collective measures can be pragmatically implemented to reduce the likelihood of a repeat of the global economic implosion we’ve all witnessed over the last 18 months.

Now, since I worked on corporate strategy projects within CEO-Chairman’s Office of a Tier 1 bank during the period when key decisions were taken about building businesses in mortgage CDOs, hedge funds, proprietary trading, prime brokerage and opportunities in US real estate markets due to government policy changes, and more recently tracking the bailout-regulation situation with interest and discussing it with finance sector friends, my insights may be more informed than those who don’t have direct experience of investment banking or how banks operate, create financial products and manage risk.

Yes, I am 100% au fait with the knowledge I did not contribute to the global economic crisis or to the bank’s subsequent US$ billions writedowns, losses and government bailouts because (without any *”I told you so”* on my part) I did present the strategic case that the bank should consider these options:

* develop the asset and wealth management business in BRICs countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China);

* build advisory expertise in Intellectual Property Securitization (to capitalize on developments in the renewable energy and digital content publishing sectors); and

* sanity-check the banking model by incorporating more independent metrics on potential revenue streams and risk diversification

rather than any overly ambitious and risky moves into the US mortgage market.

Unfortunately, the powers-who-were decided to go with some other parties’ business case(s) and their drive towards the issuance and proprietary trading of mortgage CDOs. It wasn’t so much that the information about the potential risks of mortgage CDOs wasn’t publicly available and, therefore, the scale and depth of global economicl crisis avoidable or at least reducible, it was a case of the information being inappropriately interpreted by key decision-makers or, sometimes, vital pieces of analysis being put at the bottom of the pile because they were working towards their own political objectives (internal promotions, fiefdoms and controls of budgets). Mostly, it was a case of the volume and complexity of analysis and information available defeating the decision-makers. Moreover, the rapacious turn of events superseded their ability to properly manage and utilize available resources to prevent the wholesale collapse of their banks and the global meltdown.

When too much noise enters a system — be it a business model or too many chiefs in a senior management team — sense gets drowned out and decisions become confused rather than clear and coherent. That’s the nature and source of fallibility in human existence, alas.

In the HARDtalk interview, the head of the FSA provided an important lead and clear observation about the need to “assess risk concentration” properly rather than to adopt any kneejerk reactions about separating commercial retail lending from the investment banking business. He reminded us that the reason the wholesale or universal banking model developed (in laymen’s terms creating a banking behemoth such as the Citigroups / HSBCs / Deutsche Banks: Main Street banking plus asset management, corporate lending, brokerage services, investment banking — corporate finance advisory, equities, fixed income, irfx, secondaries, etc. — hedge funds and institutional sovereigns all operating under the bank’s brand umbrella) was in the interests of risk diversification and economies of scale.

In other words, don’t put all our eggs into the same basket and, at the same time, the economic principle that producing one egg at a time isn’t going to be as profitable as producing in batches and en masse.

It may also be helpful to think of a bank like a patient who needs surgery. Hacking off the patient’s limbs (aka separating each of the bank’s businesses) may not be helpful or life-saving if, actually, it’s his heart that’s clogged up and he needs a double bypass. It’s the heart where his health risks are accumulating and concentrating rather than his limbs, of and within themselves, which become immobilized or paralyzed by what his heart’s doing.

Again, this is why we need prognostic, diagnostic and remedial tools that are keenly calibrated and sense-making rather than blunt and off-radar/fuzzy logic.

As it stands, the FSA’s proposals to assess risk concentrations and to implement measures to alleviate them within the financial system and, specifically, on issues of risks covered by the Basel II accords seem sensible, progressive and practical. For anyone interested, here are some links to Basel II resources:

· http://www.bis.org/publ/bcbs128.pdf

· http://www.risk.net/public/showPage.html?page=665558

· http://www.ebrd.com/country/sector/fi/conference/willem.pdf

Few media interviews have examined Basel II and capital adequacy requirements to offset operational risk in any depth and most interviews have focused on economists’ forecasts and pronouncements (Nourbini, Krugman et al), but actually more representatives from these firms need to have their insights probed and shared by the media:

* strategy consultancies like McKinsey, Oliver Wyman and Greenwich Associates — how do they envisage the restructuring of the banks and ensuring otherwise silo information is suitably shared between the businesses (equities, fixed income, etc.);

* remuneration and headhunting agencies — what characteristics should and will future CEOs, senior management and board members have, to ensure the risk-reward dimensions are managed properly;

* ratings agencies — what are the measures to insure independence of ratings analysis from relationships with banks; and

* risk management technology providers — how can secure and commonly shared tech solutions be implemented which will allow banks to maintain the competitive advantage of their platforms (trading and intellectual capital) whilst also acting as a one-stop detector and manager of global banking system risk.

If we ask the right people the right questions, sooner or later we arrive at some sensible solutions.

Now the other part of the Sackur interview which made me LOL was when he suggested that there’s a conflict of interest for Hector Sants, Lord Adair Turner and David Walker who’ve all been appointed to senior roles at the FSA since they all either worked in banks or are closely associated with banks as board members (presently and previously). In the US, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s previous tenure as CEO of Goldman Sachs was also pointed to as a potential source of conflict of interest. In other words, that former bankers now working for government bodies would negotiate structures and terms of bailout and regulation which are more favorable to their former employers (the banks) than to their current employers (the public).

Employment contracts governing conduct in the interests of current employers may supersede and be more legally binding than any residual loyalties towards former employers — particularly since that contract of employment is terminated and no longer active and they’re not paying the mortgage / children’s schooling fees / employer pension contributions, perhaps.

In any case, after Sackur asked the question, I kept thinking: “Well, instead of former bankers who actually have direct experience of how banks operate and where the risks of financial cardiac arrests appear on-and-off balance sheets, would people prefer it if the heads of the SEC, FSA, Consob etc. were from the worlds of entertainment / leisure travel / cosmetics?

Instead of Hector Sants with his (supposed) conflicts of interest would the public and the media prefer it if the FSA appointed someone like Paris Hilton who’d have almost negligible conflict of interest since she’s never worked in a bank?!”

We can also think of the global economic system being like a car whose engine has stalled. Now, if your car breaks down do you call a car mechanic you know who’s got a few decades of judgment-experience working directly with cars and has several pieces of paper which say he’s passed the requisite exams, to try and help fix your car or do you call one of these people:

(i.) a used car salesman;

(ii.) a petrol station attendant;

(iii.) a cook working in the restaurant attached to the highway stop-off;

(iv.) a satnav retailer;

(v.) the model who sits next to the man driving the car in the ad;

(vi.) a motoring commentator such Jeremy Clarkson;

(vii.) Jenson Button / Mika Hakkinen / Lewis Hamilton;

(viii.) a best boy electric (aka lighting engineer who works in a TV / theater / film production unit);

(ix.) a cosmonaut who helped fix the Hubble space station; or

(x.) the CEO of General Motors / Chrysler.

Hmmmn………Personally, I’d get the qualified car mechanic in. I certainly wouldn’t jump to the “conflict of interest” connection just because he’d previously serviced my neighbor’s car, charged for his mechanical skills and made their car run more fuel efficiently per mile or more green than mine!

LOL.

On a serious note, it’s vitally important to check that conflicts of interests are at a minimal. We do want to ensure the bailouts and regulatory regimes are as objective, efficient and effective as possible and that all parties are working towards end goals that are beneficial to ordinary households. Nevertheless, the media can act as a check and balance about possible conflicts of interest in a more informed way.

A more interesting question to ask would have been, “Some people will be skeptical the FSA will be able to regulate and enforce policies in the City of London following the recent global meltdown and what look to be cowboy speculators running amok whilst the sheriffs were in the saloon, asleep. They may also feel uncomfortable about potential conflicts of interests since you previously worked at CSFB and ask themselves whether they have trust and confidence in a former banker now policing the banks — in a sense, poacher turned gamekeeper. So……..what would you say are the policy and risk management techniques you developed during your time in banking which can help repair the damage which has been done to the reputation of London and the global financial markets as a whole, and restore market confidence in the FSA?”

That’s a much more interesting question because it recognizes that mistakes were obviously made (with typical wry journalistic vernacular about cowboy speculators and sheriffs), the markets and its participants are wary, the interviewee has an opportunity to bring former experiences to bear in restructuring the system appropriately, and the way forward to solutions.

Solutions are what we need.

I TOLD YOU SO

Yes, sometimes some people don’t understand or appreciate my attempts to help them steer clear of icebergs and plot a path that’s more win-win for company-customer-collaborators alike; objective proposals which will result in their strategic health. Instead, they have some form of obsessive compulsive disorder, narrow myopia or ego insanity to play chicken with the iceberg.

Well, they can play chicken with the iceberg if they want.

I’ll be on the ship heading for open waters, new horizons and reachable destinations.

The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital conference is taking place this week and there are some quite interesting interviews, including with the founders of Twitter about their potential revenue model plans:

http://d7.allthingsd.com/20090526/d7-video-twitters-biz-stone-and-evan-williams/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/27/twitter-founders-revenue-_n_208046.html

There’s also an interview with Facebook’s new Russian investor who’s committed US$200 million to acquire preferred stock at a US$10 billion valuation for the company.

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090526/the-first-video-interview-with-facebooks-new-russian-investor-plus-coo-sheryl-sandberg/?mod=ATD_skybox

What a week last week was in political terms! The UK witnessed the announcement on 19 May that the Speaker of Westminster, Michael Martins, would step down on 21 June 2009 — the first time a Speaker has been ousted since 1695 — and the continuing firestorm over MP’s expenses and how MPs across the political spectrum have angered and badly disappointed the British electorate with their expenses claims, and damaged democracy in the process:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/

Meanwhile, I continued watching out for inspirational people. Here are my three for the week ending 24 May 2009.

(1.)  Joanna Lumley

Joanna Lumley is a British actress and comedienne most recently known for her role as Patsy in ‘Absolutely Fabulous’, one of my favorite satires about popular culture and car crash family relationships.

Over the last year, she’s been an absolute “tour de force” during the Gurkha campaign which led to Gordon Brown’s first defeat in the Commons as Prime Minister over the issue of whether those who had served in the Gurkha regiment and retired prior to 1997 should have the legal right of residency in the UK. After spearheading a highly effective media campaign, Ms. Lumley was both gracious and expansive in her victory speech on 21 May 2009.

During the campaign itself what came across was her absolute and genuine commitment to the Gurkhas to see justice prevail on their behalf. What also struck me was that she epitomized the very traits of honor, bravery and loyalty which she attributed to a battalion of soldiers who had “followed the flag”, sworn undying allegiance to the Queen and put their lives on the line for Britain.

Clearly there was also a personal dimension; her father had been an officer in a Gurkha regiment and had been saved during a battle by a Gurkha. To her the Gurkhas were her family and she fought for them as much as they’d fought for the Queen and for Britain.

This was a remarkable victory for sense and she’s a remarkable lady.

(2.)  Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Tundu

Sir Ranulph “Ran” Fiennes is a well-known British explorer who became the first person to reach the North and South Poles by surface means and was the first one to cross Antarctica by foot. A few months after his heart attack and double heart bypass operation in 2003, he completed seven marathon across seven continents.

On 20 May 2009, he achieved his life-long dream to reach the summit of Mount Everest (on his third attempt). In the process he’s raised GBP millions on behalf of the Marie Curie Cancer Care:

http://www.mariecurie.org.uk/

What was particularly brilliant was the tribute he paid to his Sherpa guide, Tundu, without whom he said there was “no way” he could have reached the top of the mountain.

(3.)  Dame Clara Furse

Dame Clara Furse is a Dutch-Canadian banker who became the first female CEO of the London Stock Exchange in 2001. On 20 May she announced she would be leaving the post to pursue other challenges.

She’s been a personal heroine of mine for well over a decade — not because she’s a woman operating and consistently succeeding in a male-dominated environment, but simply because she’s multi-capable (as well as having a highly mathematical mind which she applied to the derivatives field, she speaks five languages and combines being a high-flier with motherhood).

We won’t find her on YouTube or celebrity gossip pages, but we will find her in ‘Time’ magazine’s 2007 list of the ‘Top 100 Most Influential People in the World’:

· http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/time100/article/0,28804,1595326_1615737_1615532,00.html

Those in the know about the banking sector will also remember her tenure as CEO of the LSE for the LSE’s successful defense against proposed takeovers from Deutsche Boerse and Euronext:

· http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/clara-furse-the-girl-they-all-like-to-court-still-manages-to-keep-her-cool-513979.html

· http://www.economist.com/search/search.cfm?rv=2&qr=clara+furse&area=1&x=0&y=0

As a young woman, it’s genuinely smart, career-committed and capable women like Dame Clara Furse who inspire our generation.

This week I watched this BBC4 documentary, ‘The Great Contemporary Art Bubble,’ by Ben Lewis an art writer for the London Evening Standard. Here’s the trailer on YouTube:

The entire program is still available on BBC iPlayer so if you have a spare hour, it’s worth finding out whether Damien Hirst did sell his diamond skull for US$50 million as the headlines said he did and how the auction houses are adopting Private Equity-esque practices when they underwrite sales, make loans and act as principals rather than agents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kmt51

Obviously, I watched the documentary as part of my ongoing research for Project ART. The auction house system is clearly not an efficient market one since the inferences from the documentary are:

(1.) a handful of gallery owners participate in auctions to support inflated prices for certain artists;

(2.) some buyers are assisted during acquisitions of works via the auction house’s lending practices; and

(3.) some form of oligopolistic mechanism is operating.

From my perspective this represents an opportunity to develop a new model for the promotion, sale and exhibition of contemporary art which leverages the Internet and better private equity practices. There are corporate frameworks which can be introduced to make the acquisition, sale and valuation of art independent and accountable in a way which isn’t wholly contingent on the auction houses and art cliques.

Art appreciation and value can be democratized — much in the same way opinion and commentary (politics, tech launches, cookery, television, etc.) on the Internet is democratizing.

The missing elements for the art sector include:

* How can we quantify this value on a democratic basis?

* What are the financial instruments that can be applied to diversify and underwrite the risks of acquiring a piece of art which is above a US$N valuation threshold?

* What are the legal parameters and triggers that take effect during licensing/assignment of rights to produce and monetize digital versions?

* How can a charitable aspect be incorporated (e.g. so that at least 15% of net profits is allocated to nominated charities)?

It’s by no means an easy challenge. However, it is DO-ABLE and I tend to be extremely pragmatic about challenges. The starting point is always to be acutely aware of the existing limitations of a system and to go in search of focussed and specific materials that will genuinely help you think through to realizing the solution(s). These materials are ones I classify as “pivots and torques” — in other words, they’re the keys which exert the forces that open the doors to the secret chambers that house innovation and Holy Grails in your own mind.

I’m fairly happy the Project ART business model I’ve conceived is a compelling vision and proposition; the appropriate pivots and torques are being sought and applied.

Further to my suggestion on my ‘The Global Brain’ knol:

http://knol.google.com/k/twain/the-global-brain-the-semantic-web-the/31fjy9fjsu1x2/19

that the Linked Data community should consider tidying up their LOD diagram and cross-pollinating it with the debategraph visualization tools, David Price has produced this initial version (please click on the image and you’ll be directed to the debategraph site):

Anyone committed to the advancement of the Global Brain, the Semantic Web and collective sense-making, please visit the debategraph site and help to populate and sanity-check the above graphic.

In seriousness, the debategraph’s systematic and dynamic wiki is a step in the right direction compared with LOD’s current static messy spore:

Bravo to David Price!

* http://debategraph.org/flash/fv.aspx?r=18702&sc=small

and definitely the Semantic Technology 2009 organizers should consider inviting the debategraph team to their event (14-18 June 2009, San Jose, http://www.semantic-conference.com/) to swap notes and move collective sense-making and semantic discern forward!

Oh and you may all like to know that my ‘The Global Brain’ knol has just been awarded the “Top Viewed Knol Award” (my first) to add to its “Top Pick Knol” designation. I’m really proud of this because “Top Pick Knol” is given for knols of the highest quality and it’s good to know that its quantity dimension is doing well too!

Yesterday the Wolfram Alpha team announced the creation of their community:

* http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2009/05/18/announcing-the-wolframalpha-community/

They wrote:

“To that end we are officially launching the Wolfram|Alpha Community, which allows you to submit questions, ideas, and favorite inputs.

We already have a few static forms to contribute things such as facts, figures, and structured data or algorithms, methods, and models. The Community serves to supplement these types of feedback with a more free-form discussion among all Wolfram|Alpha users.”

Everyone knows by now I’m a firm believer in companies providing open, democratic and multilateral channels for users to provide feedback and to interact with the company. Given this opportunity, I suggested that the Wolfram Alpha team could look into providing answers to my test questions:

(1.) Who discovered radium?

(2.) Where is Atlantis?

(3.) How do we make gold from lead?

(4.) Can robots dream?

(5.) What is a sprite? [This is my trick question since ‘Sprite’ is a drinks brand as well as a type of fairy.]

(6.) When did Homo Erectus become Homo Sapien?

(7.) Why are we here?

(8.) How many light bulbs are there in the world?

(9.) Who is the Vitruvian Man?

(10.) Where is Schrodinger’s cat?

COBALT + ERIC SUGGEST I’M CLUELESS

In response to my suggestion, two users by the name of Cobalt and Eric wrote this:

“You misunderstand the point of Wolfram|Alpha I think. It is not a search engine like google nor is it a forum of expertise like answers.com.”

It is a tool that allows you to find and analyse data (i.e hard facts) from the web. It can only answer questions that have a definite answer or present data related to a subject. Things like the weight of 1g of gold or the average age in Australia. Questions with no definite answer such as the location of Atlantis and do robots dream will not and should not be answered as that is what google and the like already do.” — Cobalt

*********************************************************

“2. not a fact
3. not a fact
4. not a fact
6. not a fact
7. not a fact
8. not a fact
9. not a fact
10. not a fact

You don’t understand what Alpha is used for. If it’s not a fact, it can’t calculate it. Where is Atlantis? Mankind doesn’t even know if it existed, how the hell are is Alpha supposed to point it out? Can robots dream? It doesn’t create narratives, it gives you numbers in return. If you want to know why we are here, talk to a philosopher. If you want computable data, use Alpha. It couldn’t be clearer.” — Eric

MY RESPONSE: THERE’S RATIONALE IN TWAIN’S TEST

This is what I wrote in reply:

Unfortunately, Cobalt and Eric, you’re the ones who may be misinterpreting my testing approach. Stephen Wolfram, in an interview with Semantic Universe, notes that WA should be compared with the likes of Google and Yahoo! and not with HAL or Cyc, so it was reasonable for me to run WA results against Google’s and True Knowledge’s. Also let me give some context which may help.

I have a maths degree and have worked in banking, so I understand perfectly well the difference between calculable inputs to derive proofs and business models from information which is unquantifiable or simply has no quantity — such as “How is Michelle Obama related to Barack — which are questions needing answers of a qualifiable nature.

Now, Wolfram Alpha is marketed as a “computational knowledge engine” rather than a fact+figures finder/calculator so it’s supposed to be able to derive KNOWLEDGE not facts+figures alone.

Let’s tackle what logically each of my questions should have derived:

(1.) Who discovered radium —- WA gave the year but not the who (Marie Curie). Moreover, the expectation would be that the system would generate both a visual of the radium atom, some charts of radioactivity, a picture of Marie Curie and some facts+figures on the laboratory conditions of discovery.

(2.) Where is Atlantis — WA could have generated a series of maps not only of actual locations called ‘Atlantis’ (e.g. in South Africa and the US) it should also have produced geo-thermal images from archaeological expeditions that have tried to establish where Atlantis is.

(3.) How do we make gold from lead — instead of producing a “WA isn’t sure what to do with your input” the system could at least have produced some Periodic Table definitions of gold and lead, their reactivity with other chemicals and some paragraphs on historical attempts by people to try to make gold from lead.

(4.) Can robots dream — again instead of producing “WA isn’t sure what to do with your input” the system could have listed all the works of fiction by people who have actually existed (Philip Dick / Isaac Aasimov / Stanley Kubrick) who are factually connected to this phrase. After all, WA is supposed to apply NLP to derive what we mean by the inputs.

(5.) What is a sprite — WA produced a table of nutritional breakdown of Sprite the soft drink. In fact, apart from the faerie connection which is fictional entity, sprite is also a FACTUAL term used in computer graphics and the WA system failed to pick this up.

(6.) When did Homo Erectus become Homo Sapien — again WA issued a “WA isn’t sure what to do with your input” message. It’s an established FACT from anthropology and archaeology that in the evolution of Man, Homo Erectus preceded the emergence of the Homo Sapien. WA failed to produce a timeline graph of that evolution to help pinpoint whether that happened 500,000 years ago or 50,000 years ago.

(7.) Why are we here — again WA issues a “WA isn’t sure what to do with your input”. Fair enough, the system is not sophisticated enough to infer philosophical constructs yet; we are some way from truly consciously aware machines. Nevertheless, the expectation would be that some graphics of Big Bang Theory and the formation of the planets would have been produced.

(8.) How many light bulbs are there in the world — actually, this is a FACTUAL question. There are definitely numbers available of light bulb production, US expenditure on light bulbs per annum and how many light bulbs are used in each household per annum.

(9.) Who is the Vitruvian Man — unfortunately, Eric, you may not have seen sketches of Da Vinci’s masterpiece and which actually exist and are FACT-based. Instead of WA stating it “isn’t sure what to do with your input” the system should at least have generated an image of Da Vinci’s work. It could then have made the linkage of how the Vitruvian Man image has been applied in various fields of science — as clues to atomic structure as well as a reference diagram of human anatomy in medical science.

(10.) Where is Schrodinger’s cat — WA said it “isn’t sure what to do with your input”. This was the most surprising answer of all out of the questions posed. The expectation would be that the engine would at least interpret the question as one related to quantum physics and generate calculations and proofs attributable to Erwin Schrodinger. If it was even smarter it may even have done a compare/contrast with Einstein’s equations and Hawking’s postulations.

As for whether Schrodinger’s cat is a FACT or not, there are all manner of scientific phenomena that cannot be seen or established by the naked human eye (it’s somewhere else on the electromagnetic spectrum) for which generations of scientists have extrapolated proofs, corollaries and reductive provisos.

What matters in the question relating to Schrodinger’s cat is the fact that WA did not even produce an answer which said something like, “Schrodinger’s cat was a scientific experiment conceived by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935 in response to potential limitations in the Copenhagen approach and as a commentary on the ‘quantum indeterminacy or the observer’s paradox’. Schrodinger’s equation itself is applicable in wave physics, energy calculations of chemical reactions and is derived from the Hamiltonian and Poisson functions to produce:

(∂²Y/∂x² ) + (8π²/h²)(E-V) Y = 0

where Y is Schrodinger’s wave equation.

X is the position of the particle.
E is energy in Joules per second.
V is the potential energy in Joules per second.

followed by various corollaries and supporting suppositions of the type similar to those printed in this UCLA paper:

http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/preprints/schrodinger.pdf

Even as the most basic answer, instead of “WA isn’t sure what to do with your input” the simple and FACTUAL answer would have been “In the Schrodinger’s cat hypothesis, the cat is placed inside a steel chamber” followed by some of those equations Erwin Schrodinger is famous for.

All of my questions are science-based and either already have definitive scientific proofs or are established hypothesis based on scientifically-derived means. This includes “how do we make gold from lead” and the evolution of Homo Erectus into Homo Sapien.

WA is marketed as a “computational knowledge engine” and on the basis of its NLP which can semantically derive what our questions mean. If I ask “Who discovered radium?” and the answer provided doesn’t even mention Marie Curie then there’s clearly room for improvement.

As I’ve written elsewhere, WA’s entry into the search/knowledge space is great for us all as information consumers, knowledge connectors and sense discoverers.

Of course it’s fantastic that a tool like WA is made available — not just for the scientific community — but for anyone who needs to crunch any form of numbers or needs a piece of knowledge to support, quantify, qualify and visually compliment their articles (whether that’s on the fluxing orbital paths of the planets or the score lines of the World Series for the last century or projected growth of the shrimp population in the Indian sub-continent).

Nevertheless, we have to identify and be realistic about its current limitations because only then can we as consumers have genuine “computational knowledge engines” which can connect facts+figures from different disciplines, make sense of the world around us (visible, invisible and maybe as yet undiscoverable) and perhaps find solutions to global common ills.

************************************************************************************************************

For me, Cobalt and Eric’s comments are interesting because both point to how users are perceiving and interpreting what these words mean:

* fact

* computational knowledge engine

* definite answers

Again, it’s relevant to semantics and the way we classify axioms via ontologies, taxonomies, folksonomies and other linguistic categoronomies (I’m coining this phrase, ha ha).

To be tic-lol (tongue-in-cheek, laugh-out-loud) I could ask, “Well, since we’re talking “facts and definite answers” how definite will Wolfram Alpha’s calculation of imaginary numbers be and has anyone actually scientifically observed them to establish them as a fact?” The reality is that imaginary numbers are philosophical constructs plucked from mathematical minds just as is most of complex algebra and even the existence or otherwise of Schrodinger’s cat (an example of quantum physicists’ paradigms), Atlantis (anthropologist-archeologists axiomatic construct of a ‘lost world”) and whether or not robots can dream!

Maybe it would have been easier if I’d asked the WA system something straightforward like, “What is the largest prime number in the universe?” or “What is the 123456789th number of π?” Ha ha. Actually not even the most powerful supercomputer has arrived at the definitive answer to the largest prime number on Earth much less the Universe! One day someone from the planet GYG is going to materialize and say that our Googol is only worth a 10 squared in their numerical scales, so the largest prime number is only 100 digits long or something!

In any case, the fact stands that the current Wolfram Alpha can’t apply its natural language processing to semantically extract that when I ask “Who discovered radium” it should give me an answer with Marie Curie in it in priority / precedence before providing me with the year of discovery.

It also can’t calculate how many light bulbs there are in the world. Clearly, some of the light bulbs in WA’s computational clusters haven’t been switched on yet to spotlight this missing information and the inputs necessary to generate an answer which would go along the lines of a simple equation like this:

L = n(A + B + C +….) + q(h1 + h2 + h3….)

where L is the total number of light bulbs in the world.

n is the number of light bulbs produced per year in each country.

A is country A.

B is country B, etc.

q is the quantity of light bulbs in each household (used and unused).

h is the number of households in each country.

By Twain deduction,  Wolfram Alpha is not yet a “computational KNOWLEDGE engine” if it can’t differentiate that a sprite is either a computer graphic term, a type of tiny glowing faerie and a brand of soft drink and can’t make the neural nets connections I’ve noted above. It would probably help the WA team to communicate and market what their service can/cannot do if they called themselves a “computational DATA engine”.

In any case, people suggesting I don’t understand the nature or the application of Wolfram Alpha is good and healthy for intellectual stimulus and keeping my ego in check. It helps me sanity-check the approach of a Twain test and whether its validity stands up.

What matters most is that it will be interesting to experience how Wolfram Alpha, Google Squared et al develop and whether one day they’ll be able to answer my 10 questions — both by deriving facts as well as extrapolating the semantic and philosophical nuances of the queries.

Now THAT’s when we may see truly intelligent and proxy-consciousness agents…………

Starting today, every Monday this blog is going to highlight some stories of humanity around the world that are inspirational. This will act as a reminder to each of us not to become cynical but rather to celebrate the endeavors of people to either help others, enlighten others, move the evolution of our species forward or other acts of genuine consideration and innovation, and to ask ourselves, “What can we do too to make things better?”

In each case, I’ll provide some commentary on the specific reasons why I consider the named person a positive example for us. This is all designed to set us onto productive mindsets and paths at the beginning of every week.

I’m doing this for very valid reasons. Recent months have witnessed the systematic erosion of public trust by people in positions of power such as these cases:

· UK’s MP’s expenses scandal (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/)

· Global economic crisis (http://www.rgemonitor.com/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/global-economic-crisis)

· Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/bernard-madoff)

Adding to this has been the reportage on conflict zones around the world such as the Gaza crisis, the Sri Lanka-Tamil Tigers situation, the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan/Darfur and other issues in which we have an interest as global citizens; citizens who want to be informed about how our societies are shaping up and who are seeking leadership and inspiration.

Clearly, there’s room for improvement so I’m going to do my little bit and highlight some inspirational people. I’ve always believed that our role models need not be elected officials (Presidents, CEOs, headmasters, etc.) and nor do they need to be celebrities (Oscar winners, Grammy artistes, Turner-toting intellectuals, etc). Heroism and inspiration come in all shapes, sizes, cultures, creeds and demographics.

Let me start with these three people from articles I’ve read so far in May.

(1.)     KYAW KYAW MIN

Please read this article of genuine responsibility and care towards others:

* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6241645.ece

This teenage boy is remarkable in the face of both his parents being killed during Burma’s cyclone Nargis and his current mission to raise his younger brother and three-year-old sister. If ever there was a reason to find out more about Save the Children (http://www.savethechildren.org/) and how to help youngsters like Kyaw Kyaw Min and his family, then this article will provide some answers.

(2.)     RACHEL SHABI

She is the author of ‘Not the Enemy: Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands’ which is a book I plan to read soon. I’m mentioning her in this blog because of this article which was published in ‘The Times’ online recently:

* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6241582.ece?Submitted=true

It was a really helpful article for enlightening me about an area of cultural identity wrt Jews and Arabs and their commonailty which I wasn’t previously aware of.

This type of information is the sort that breaks through ignorant stereotypes and empowers us with perspective on how and why there should be racial harmony in the region.

(3.)     GUY HANDS

Guy Hands is a well-known British venture capitalist and the founder of Terra Firma, the private equity group. Whilst others in the financial services sectors have been criticized for putting personal gains before responsibilities to shareholders and investors first, Guy Hands announced the return of EUR40 million in bonuses to his investors:

· http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/02/guy-hands-gives-up-bonuses

I missed this article in March and only happened across it this month whilst reading various reports on how wealthy Britons and companies are moving abroad (to the Channel Islands / Ireland / Switzerland / Monaco / Dubai etc.) in response to the Labor government’s increase in top-rate tax to 50p and the changes to corporation tax.

Whilst, admittedly, EUR40 million may seem like peanuts compared with the US$ billions managed and lost by hedge funds and financial institutions globally, the ethos behind the gesture is a good one.

In the article, Guy Hands notes that, “This is absolutely right; our investors have suffered and therefore our rewards should suffer at the same time.”

This is a reminder to all financial services professionals that they should be stewards rather than speculators of other people’s money and that their rewards should be tied to performance — including retrospectively foregoing bonuses for poor performance.

The Citigroup, General Motors, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland etc. boards should take notes and consider following this lead.