My Notes on "How to Be an Antiracist" a Speech by Ibram X Kendi

I've never considered myself racist, but then again, I don't think anyone does. I never thought black people were anything less than equal. At the same time, I know I've had racist thoughts born of the culture I inherited that has propagated racist ideology throughout the history of our nation. I knew I had the advantage of white male privilege. I assumed that since I wasn't taking direct racist action, I was ok. If someone asked about racism or if I heard someone being racist, I would say something; if I saw someone taking racist action, I would do something. I thought that was enough. I was wrong.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”~Elie Wiesel Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."~Maya Angelou

If you are ready to do your part to be a part of the solution, it is essential to realize change comes from within and starts in our everyday lives. To do that or any other action effectively, you need to educate yourself on the issues and recognize where you can do better. I recommended the movie 13th (link below) and still do if you haven't seen it. This past week I started the audiobook "How to Be an Antiracist" by Ibram X Kendi. Ibram is a black man who has studied African American history for decades. Before starting the book, I listened to a speech he gave on the topic (link below). The first half of the video was his speech; the second half was a Q&A session, both of which were good. Below are some of my favorite parts of the video. In line with the quote from Elie Wiesel above, he lays out a compelling argument for inaction being support for racist society. The oppressor has the power and can continue without your direct support. The oppressed have less power and need help from those who have more power to see liberation and justice. A comforting and eye-opening part of his speech was his admission that he too was guilty of racist thought and propagating racist speech in an oratory competition when he was younger. You can be black and be guilty of racist thought, speech, and action. You can be guilty of saying or doing something racist in one moment, and then say or do something antiracist in the next. Another significant part of his message is the explanation of how other marginalized groups will benefit from antiracism. For all black lives to matter, black female lives have to matter, black disabled lives must matter, and black trans lives also matter. To be antiracist, you must oppose all forms of bigotry that impact people of all colors. The closing part of his speech lays out an essential aspect of making change. In it, he talks about how you have to believe change is possible to make it happen. Two decades of studying the shifting and ever-present racism in our society, and he still has hope. He has seen the omnipresent racist power in America, the progress we have made, and the progress we have yet to make, and believes that change is possible. I believe change is possible. I think accountability for police officers who abuse their power is one step, but it’s only the first step. To continue the journey to eliminating racial inequity, we all need to do our part. That starts with acknowledging our responsibility, educating ourselves, and taking steps in our everyday lives to be antiracist, including political action.

Resources

13th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8

Ibram X. Kendi on How to be an Antiracist, at UC Berkeley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxa43H8m034

A Social Game - Good thread from Google Plus

One of the neat features of Google Plus that users need to try out and understand is the ability to go public with a post.

At the bottom of this entry there is a fun one I took part in with Google employees as an experiment or game if you will. (This is a journey into social) I strongly encourage everyone to get a flavor for Google+ by reading the post. If you like it share as you see fit.

The crux of the situation was I was in a different thread with some of these guys and I wanted to ask a follow up question. Almost like an exercise in citizen journalism. Could one person ask for a response from a real person in a company, who wasn't even really "authorized" by his company to speak out on the manner? Could they actually get a response?

I get a sense that with Google+ you can have that personal interaction with real (or fake if thats what your looking for or suits your collaboration needs best) people, and have the benefit of that conversation being available to anyone wether they have "Friended" you or not, whether you are even logged into the platform or not.

It can be a risk to do so, but there is also great reward that can come from it as well. Some friends I've developed in my company remind me occasionally, that there is (or at least there shouldn't be in most cases) no big payoff available without at least putting a little skin in the game, you have to risk something if you want the reward.

Think big,
get social,
do commerce,
play games.

Let's see if we can find new ways to help Build a Smarter Planet along the way without even trying too hard.

If you've got ideas, but need help refining them, work with your Business Partners who you trust, and have people not afraid to dream enough to find a vision to share in hopes of solving your problems. They can help you build the vision as well as the platform.

I know it works, I've worked for a company that is a great partner to both our customers and our technology partners for years. This is how we work together with our partners to solve problems, with honesty, respect, clarity of vision, excellence in execution, and follow-up when we are done.

Because no one is perfect and we are striving to always improve our game, so that we do a better job of improving your company's game.

Travis

This is a journey into social

The video below is from a record on my 'droid right now, the opening line was the inspiration for the name on the link.



If any IBM'rs read this tell your company I say happy 100th!!!

Social Networks of the Future?

Following is a question that popped up in my stream on Google Plus that I decided to answer. Thanks to Daniel Travolto at gpeep.com for letting me into his circle and asking the question.

what do you think will happen with G+ from a macro perspective? the world will be more connected? More ideas will be put into reality and faster? More talented people will find a way to make money of their art? what else? i am curious what you think

My response to this question was in part from the brilliant people I had the opportunity to record a This Week in Lotus podcast with....
___________________________________________________________

I think a lot of hard drives will fill up with data.

I don't know if the world will get more connected per say. In meat space we already all subscribe to a mass transit system that's got us in a pretty comfy spot in our galaxy, this connects us in a fundamental way that should never be forgotten.

I do think however the connections will get stronger and richer and more serendipitous if you will. We will be able to bring enough of our identity into a network so when a new connection is made it can grow quickly and without a lot of effort.

Now after saying nothing much in two paragraphs, I'll jump the shark and offer this meme to society in the hopes it catches fire, before others to start a fire to ignite social change, thank you Mohammed. I haven’t had time to read his story yet, but the general story and his name I have heard.

One could hope new richer conversations could take place and bubble up through the collective consciousness to transform society as a whole. Imagine the effect twitter and Facebook have had in the Arab Spring.

The internet's ability to carry the news of political turmoil in WI to Egypt, and despite the Egyptians struggle with more fundamental government issues than us, some people there bought pizza for protesters in Madison WI.

If the tools already built can help spark something like the Arab Spring, imagine our tools are where they could be two years from now. What could that level of technical advancement in society have done to facilitate not just the uprising, but the aftermath. The nation building, I hear that stuff is expensive if we try to do it for them.

Now flip that over to the USA, where our starting point isn't so bad. Our political body and physical society is fractured and operating under rules that are not exactly purpose built for this day and age. We don't need a revolution, we just need an honest debate.

Then the people who are struggling to come together to design new governments for the nations that did revolt, could follow our example and use the new tools to facilitate the new governmental structures they need to build.

___________________________________________________________

Is it time to get social and collaborate?

Can we build a smarter planet with our clouds and social networks?

I think the answer to both of these questions is yes.

Link: gpeep

The Impact Google+ Might Have on the Enterprise

Here are some of the notes I compiled for the This Week in Lotus Podcast. Please note there was a lot of discussion on this and other topics on the podcast and the purpose of putting some of these notes out there is to cover content I wanted to share but didn't come up as a natural part of the discussion we had this morning. I know there are great counter arguments to some of my opinions and nuances that should be elaborated on, so have it folks.

Internally run collaboration is still much different from public social networks from a perspective of tools in the network. What is the Facebook answer to Files, Wikis, Blogs? It does not exist. It has status updates, events, pages and groups some severely lacking in tooling to manage anything. Social networks don’t necessarily need these tools baked in because that's not their purpose (socializing). In enterprise we need to get work done and that requires some specialized tooling to help us manage the information we are generating. We aren't at work to socialize, we are there to achieve goals and produce, the social aspect is just an aspect to layer on to do so with greater visibility and productivity.

To be honest I think social networks will develop these some of these tools because consumers can benefit from these tools as well. People with inter-mural sports leagues, boy or girl scout troops their children participate in, etc are using social networks to help coordinate their activities. They are seeing value in doing so but they are still sorely lacking in richness of features to manage the events and groups or present them in different formats enabling new insight. I’ll give Google Plus the benefit of the doubt and assume they will come up with great ways to integrate plus with Google Chat, Sites, GMail and Calendar to provide the rich tooling that is lacking in other networks. Granted with the Facebook app platform thrid parties can provide this is well, but I’m not convinced that is the best way to go for some things that should be core capability. The way Facebook has structured it it opens up a whole new avenue of security concern, now you’re sharing this data with a third party as well and they need to see some benefit from the transactions they are enabling.

Enterprise is not moving internal functions to any public free service platforms, any time soon. Ownership, control, security are all the primary concerns from the enterprise perspective. Can all these be addressed by a purely public platform to satisfy the enterprise? Do the social networks want to take on the liability and or display the flexibility they need to do to win business in the enterprise space. I think the market would have to change dramatically in stance towards risk or the assumed risk of the public platform for that to happen. Hosted and or SaaS commercial only options are a different story where providers can work more closely with customers to meet those needs. The last thing I want is my personal private network changing to win enterprise business. They are best off servicing their number one customer, individual consumers, and providing avenues for enterprises very specific ways of interacting with and understanding their users.

Take Wikipedia for example. It had an impact on validating the use case and value for wikis, however it also provides a wealth of data to the world as well, consumers and enterprise. In the long run that will be it's greater contribution to society in general. Enterprise will benefit from the functionality Google+ will drive through new integration and use paradigms as they make their way into enterprise software, but don't discount the value of other information Google may be able to compile from the new aspects it is adding to the vast hoard of user data it already has.

Workers don’t want Google+ adopeted for work either, they want the user experience because it enables social behavior without the challenges of driving collaboration through email. But who is really going to want finish reading the thread of a post among friends and move on to an alert that a system is down, or a customer is in a pinch and needs some extra attention ASAP.. It’s hard enough to disconnect from work now that so many are carrying corporate mobile devices.If your enterprise integrates with your social network of choice, how can you effectively disconnect? I’ve actually heard in more personal discussions with customers they are looking for the next big social network to decouple from some of the connections they’ve made with coworkers through public social platforms.

Enterprise customers do want to leverage the power of public social networks, I'd expect Goolge+ will be more open and friendly to integration points for back and forth collaboration between internal systems and public networks. I do understand there are a lot of tools on the consumer side living on desktops, browsers and mobile devices that help bridge multiple external social networks and can incorporate internal networks, but CRM and other in house systems can and should do better than having to rely on hacks utilizing consumer tools to move enterprise volumes of data between internal and external collaboration environments. Diaspora may have more impact in this regard than Google+

Just like Facebook design pushed in-house deployed products, Google + will push commercial vendors to add new features, and at a faster pace. The good news for those vendors is they don't have to do the research and development, just adapt what works for their product and it's use cases.

Link: This Week In Lotus Podcast

Happy Birthday IBM developerWorks

A very hearty happy birthday to IBM's developerWorks site. I've been reading articles from the site since shortly after it's inception, and can't give enough credit to the entire team of writers and staff that has enlightened me and broadened my horizons over the years.

To anyone who hasn't spent some time seeing what the site has to offer, do yourself a favor and check it out. If you are working with IBM hardware and/or software it's a no brainer. If you aren't working with IBM product there are large sections of the site that are not product specific, rather focusing on aspects of technology and delivering top notch insights into a variety of topics including: java, linux, open source, web services, web development and xml.

Link: IBM Developerworks

Filed under things I'd like to see more of

I saw this today when evaluating SUSE Studio and it brought a smile to my face...

Your browser is not supported. We have detected that the browser you are using, Microsoft Internet Explorer, is not supported.

Currently we only support Firefox, Safari, Chrome (and other WebKit browsers) and Opera.

Right now Internet Explorer simply does not work.

The part of the message I've left out is regarding plans for supporting Internet Explorer in the future, which kind of ruined the moment...

AWS Plugin for Eclipse

Eclipse based tooling for working with Amazon Web Services... that's hot.

http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/03/new-aws-toolkit-for-eclipse.html

WebSphere 7 Open Beta

Trolling IBM Developerworks yesterday my attention was grabbed by an ad for the WebSphere 7 Open Beta Program.

I downloaded the binaries and went over some of the documentation and was pleasantly suprised at all the new bells and whistles the WebSphere team has added to the product. In addition to the new specification support in WebSphere there are new options and features for administrators as well.

Admin Highlights
Flexible Management
Properties File Management
Business Level Applications
More security options and flexibility

Developer Highlights
Java 6
JEE 5 (in core product no "Feature Packs" required)
JSR268 (yay!)


If you want the details on whats coming with WebSphere 7 head on over to the Open Beta site and check it out for yourself. I'd recommend going over the Getting Started documentation available if you want to read up on the new and shiny parts of WebSphere first.

Link: IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment V7.0 Open Beta

Spotted @ MarketWatch

Eeek, another pundit pontificating on Microsoft Mesh. I read some things that struck a chord and had to chime in. Some of the comments are insightful and John does make some good points even if they are surrounded by a lot of hot air...

I probably would have granted him more respect for this opinions had he not knocked Lotus Notes. (maybe I'm being a bit defensive here...)

If you don't care to read the whole thing, the best part is a new rule for journalists/analysts that I am campaigning for...

On that note, I propose a new rule for all analysts/journalists.
_________________

When writing an article, paper, or blog entry about a product with a buzzword in it's name, you should not utilize other buzzwords from that column on your current years buzzword bingo card.
___________________________

Doing so only confuses people you are trying to impart wisdom upon at the risk of making you sound like a technological hack or worse marketing flunky (if the writing is in favor of the product or paradigm).

Link: The Microsoft mesh mess

Help Rescue my Inbox, Outloook is broken

Don't get me started about why I am forced to use Outlook. Being a long time Notes user it's especially painful to be torn away from the product at a time when it's future was never brighter.

Alas I am required to use Outlook and find it desparately lacking in some tools that allowed me to do my job the way I am accustomed to. Long story short that is why I am looking to get a beta invite to test this Outlook add-in.

If you are interested please click on the image below to learn more about the product. By signing up yourself you help me get my beta invite.

Effective marketing plan xobni!

Power Line Consolidation

Common 2008 was part of the coming out party for IBM's "new" Power Systems platform that formerly was two distinct systems packages - iSeries and pSeries. Am I the only one who thought the rebranded product would be named System π (or System pi)?

The roadmap for this convergance of IBM's mid-range POWER based systems has been public for sometime. It makes sense for IBM from a product perspective, but it remains to be seen how the marketplace will respond to this move, other than the initial concern of how it effects upcoming projects.

Additionally, after roughly 8 years the operating system formerly known as i5/OS (and more formerly known as OS/400) has gotten another new name, IBM i. This rename is not purely a marketing play as the latest version of this OS with many names does have many new features: virtualization enhancements, and an improved implementation of a 64 bit JVM to name a few.

Link: IBM Power Systems

DC Comics 2.0

Offering a new on-ramp to comic artist fame is DC Comics who is promoting it's new brand - Zuda Comics. Zuda Comics is a web based serialized comics platform with a targeted launch date of October. Some of the work will be available in print as well.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out for DC who is appealing to artists by offering contracts for those whose work they feel is worthy, and opportunities for others to get entered into an on-line competition for a contract. In the competition, site visitors vote to decide who the winner is. Zuda has stated that the artists will be able to retain copyright of their own material, but have not shown any actual contracts as of yet.

One aspect of this affair that is causing some lamenting is the fact that Zuda is (at this time) looking only for "print ready" comics. Meaning no flash, no animation, no sound, etc. None of the possibilities that a digital platform can provide.

Sidenote: I thought I was doing good in blogging about something other than IBM or Google, however a Zuda press release mentions IBM's role in this venture.

DC Comics has chosen IBM Global Business Services to design and build the new Zudacomics.com site. The site will embrace leading Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging, commenting, rating and tagging to encourage maximum community participation and feedback on artists' submissions.

Psst, IGS folks working on this.... Web 2.0 and you are adding updates on the home page? We are ready for the feed :) (jk)


Link : Zuda Comics

Google Gears Up for the Enterprise

Google is expanding it's enterprise offerings by open sourcing a tool that will allow administrators to sync corporate directories with Google Apps. While interesting I know I personally feel sharing corporate directory information with a third party in this manner would still be a very large security concern.

There is still a lot of benefit to getting the code open sourced and improved and expanded upon. It will be a great boon to technology implementors when Google has gotten to the point where they are delivering Google Apps functionality via appliances like their current Google Mini.

Link : Our Directory is Your Directory

New Features

I am playing around with the blog layout somewhat to take advantage of the new polls feature (one up already) in Blogger, as well as integrating my shared rss entries from Google Reader.

The Google Reader feed is the one that I really enjoy. There are a lot of times I'd like to bring attention to something I've read, but don't want to color the readers opinion with my own, and therefore don't want to blog about the content itself, and also don't want to have a blog entry with nothing more than a link and a elevator pitch on why you should read it.

There are other services (google and otherwise) I will be integrating into the blog as well. I'm not sure if all of them will pan out, but this is a technological experiment for me as much as it is an opportunity to share my thoughts. With that in mind please feel free to send me any "private" questions, comments, concerns or other feedback at tretzlaff@gmail.com.

Hope you like the new items on the page, look for more in the near future as well as more frequent posts.

Project Zero - IBM Experiment In Collaboration

Thanks to Mac Guidera's for pointing out Project Zero, an IBM incubator project that raises some interesting questions, and hopefully will help simplify the lives of web developers.

First it's goals, from the about page

Project Zero has two, somewhat conflicting, goals of providing a powerful development and execution platform for modern web applications while at the same time having the overall experience be radically simple.

Secondly the manner in which the project leads are looking to build the platform.

This community is an experiment in a new way to build commercial software, an approach we are currently calling Community-Driven Commercial Development.

The goals is one that is hard to argue against. Who doesn't want development to be more efficient?

The manner in which the platform is being built isn't entirely out in left field either. A lot of open source software has been community driven development. It is the word commercial that gives it a twist. So being a community, how does one contribute?

(from the Project Zero FAQ emphasis mine)

Can I contribute to Project Zero?

IBM is following a Community Driven Commercial Development process for Project Zero. Contributions in the form of feedback are welcome and encouraged from everyone. As the Zero Community grows, there will be a facility to share reusable components (libraries, widgets, services, etc.) for the benefit of the community members and Project Zero. Contributions to the Zero Core are limited to approved IBM committers. Others may propose changes to the Zero Core, but the changes must be approved and committed by IBM. All intellectual property on such suggestions is owned by IBM.

I haven't had time to give the project site or technology a solid review however what I did see I found interesting enough to recommend that others take a look around and form their own opinions on both the technology and the way IBM is investing (and offering a chance for you to make a donation) in Project Zero's growth.

Link : Mac Guidera's blog.
Link : Project Zero

How To Take Notes

A new Manager Tools podcast is out today. In typical Manager Tools fashion there is an easy to implement plan to get wayward note takers back on track.

I'll defer to the podcast itself and not list the 6 steps. If you feel you could benefit from a fresh perspective on the practice of taking notes you are best served listening to the entire podcast.

My crib notes- Less writing, more action.

Link :Manager Tools - How to Take Notes

and all that Jazz!

I am a long time fan of jazz, from classics like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Mingus to more modern artists like Stefon Harris and Martin Medeski and Wood.

A new breed of Jazz that could be worth a spin is the joint venture between IBM Research and IBM Rational divisions. From the project site...

Link : The Jazz Project Home Page

What is Jazz?

Simplicity through consistency. Collaboration in context. Agility through transparency... Jazz is about helping people work together to build software more effectively, while making the software development experience more fun!

I have worked with components of the Rational suite both before and after IBM's acquisition of Rational however I don't currently use any of the Rational tooling. From a development perspective the tool I work with most is Domino Designer. That being said I think it could be great for the Domino community to get a voice within the Jazz Project.

The Domino development community has been given a wonderful framework for creating applications rapidly but has been left to cope with relatively few third party solutions and even less out of the box functionality for helping with aspects development artifact and process management. Even a feature as common as documentation generation from code comments is only possible if you implement a standard and functionality offered by the Lotus community outside of IBM. (btw thanks to Mikkel Heisterberg)

Hopefully someday Domino Developers will be gifted with a little of Rational product lines capabilities native within Domino Designer. Not the whole kit and kaboodle, but enough to help satisfy long neglected needs and expose a wider community to Rational software without giving away all the reasons to purchase components from the Rational family. Somewhat of a precedence was already set when Domino Administrators were gifted with Tivoli Analyzer for Lotus Notes with Notes/Domino 7 though the reasoning behind that decision was probably entirely different.

For those interested in the future of Domino Designer, do yourself a favor and let your thoughts be a part of the conversation on the following blogs. These are some of the people who have been tasked with making your work life as a Domino Developer better.

Link : Bob Balaban
Link : Andre Guirard
Link : Maureen Leland

hamming it up

Just playing around with Picassa's Upload to Blogger option.

This was one of those moments you'd never get a picture of if you tried, we just got lucky. Thankfully in the last three years my daughter has dropped most of the attitude she is displaying in this photo and is turning out to be a very sweet little girl.

New Google Docs and Spreadsheets

In addition to the eye candy upgrade, many users will find comfort in Google changing terminology from labels to folders for organization. Search is also vastly improved with auto-complete functionality that will suggest documents whose names contain the text you have typed so far, acting as quick links to those documents or folders, or allow you to launch a search against document contents as well.

The changes are a welcome addition to what was an already useful tool. Kudos to the team who delivered this new front end to Google's online document platform. I hadn't expected an upgrade here, rather I had my open for a clean Google gadget to interface with google docs.

Link : Google Docs and Spreadsheets Blog entry announcing the new interface

Google Gadgets in WebSphere Portal 6

This April IBM will be posting a free portlet in the Portal Solutions Catalog that will allow people to add Google Gadgets to their WebSphere Portal site.

Over 4000 of these gadgets exists, though many of them are strictly for fun and have no business value, even if only a 10% of them can provide productivity benefits that is still at least 400 new bits of functionality that can added to your portal with minimal effort.

It will be interesting to see how this is implemented, as I have plenty of questions about this new portlet IBM is providing.

How much control will administrators have in what gadgets are available?

Will the gadget output be aggregated at the portal server, or pulled into the page directly from the browser?

Will there be any support for click to action type cooperative portlets? For example clicking on a companies address in a CRM portlet pushing that address to a mapping gadget.

A month from now hopefully we will have some good answers to these questions.

Also announced was a utility for enablement of the Sitemap .90 protocol in Portal, later in 2007.