Linkedin LIONs no longer Roar

It’s about 10 years since I first joined LinkedIn, the social network for business professionals. Over the years it’s grown in leaps and bounds to over 350 million users. Not surprisingly LinkedIn it is not blocked in mainland China, and has a solid integration with the mobile messing app, Wechat.

LinkedIn LessonsAs one of the websites I use on a daily basis, I’ve finally had enough of increasing spam. I have only 24 hours per day to do what we need to do and reading yet another Inbox filled with clutter is not high on my values. So because of “Information Overload” it’s imperative that I cull my social media usage often.

You won’t be missing anything earth shattering if you do the same.

Back in 2006 I read an ebook on the benefits of open networking in LinkedIn. It is based on the work of Mark Granovetter, a social scientist, and his Theory of Weak Social Ties. This theory made a big impression on me, and I decided to put it onto practice in my every day life. This lead to a rapid expansion of my online connections.

My own approach led to competition with my good friend Brian Carl Brown. For several years we competed to see who had the most LinkedIn connections in South Africa. In 2015 it turns out this has become a meaningless measure.

LinkedIn, the company, is listed on the stock market. Therefore its doing everything possible to increase users and usage as one important metric for a public tech company. It automatically pulls in Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and other online contact lists. It’s constantly suggesting “people you may know” and in most cases, you can connect without their email address.

This brings me to LinkedIn LIONS. A life time ago this was the best way to quickly expand your network reach. One of the attributes of LinkedIn is that you can only see people who are 3rd level connections. So you can never search the entire database of users and you can never by found by everyone on the website, not within 3 levels. Your reach grows exponentially as you grow your first level, direct connections.

Today I removed myself from the TopLinkedIn group. LinkedIn LIONS promise to accept all invitation – this is open networking. However, this is one of the biggest sources of unsolicited requests that just fill up my Inbox. For the last 3 years I have been unable to keep up with the number of connection requests from LinkedIn.

So as it continued to grow, the value of my LinkedIn network has negatively impacted my experience. The more people I am connected with, the more spam I received.

Recently I deleted several hundred people without photos, without profile headlines. Most of us have too many online connections and profiles. A clean slate is not always possible, so the next best thing is prune your profiles regularly.

If you’re no longer connected to me, it’s probably because we’ve never met, or never had a telephone conversation. In case I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night.

Chappie is not Deus Ex Machina

Chappie movie 2015Since I can remember I loved science fiction aka sci-fi stories. Maybe growing up on comic book superheroes helped. Usually Sci-Fi are stories without limits or boundaries. And yet the “science” part implies some possibility that it may happen, could happen, in some near or distance future. In recent years we’ve seen the excessive use of CGI – Computer Generated Imagery taken to a whole new level of realism.

Chappie (2015) is a new film by South African director Neill Blomkamp. Once again like District 9 it’s set in Johannesburg. Once you’re able to recruit A-list Hollywood actors like Matt Damon and Hugh Jackman to your films, you must be on your way up in Tinseltown.

Recently I watched Ex Machina, another film about Artificial Intelligence (AI). It was a very intellectual film, dark, slow, character driven. It explores the question of how we know whether a machine is intelligent or not, whether it’s conscious or not. The entire movie’s premise is based on what Computer scientists call the Turning Test.

Chappie on the other hand seems to be an action-oriented film with little character development. It relies on the genre the director is known for featuring guns and explosions. The programmer, the maker of Chappie is Deon (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire). He is a frustrated engineer working for a military corporation, which has successful sold the South African government on using robots to police the streets of Johannesburg.

As someone who lived in Joburg for more than 10 years the setting was very familiar. However, the easy with which Chappie seems to solve the problem of consciousness leaves little to the imagination or the deep thinkers among us. The IMDB thread comparing these two AI movies released in 2015 is funny reading. All of them seem to miss the obvious elephant in the room: AI is the technocrat’s wet dream.

Technocracy can loosely be defined as ruling society by technology. Brave New World author, Aldous Huxley, a convincing argument in favour of scientific dictatorship vs military dictatorship.  Simply put

Good arguments are made for the depth and superficial nature of both movies when looking beyond the immediate settings. I do agree that punk rock band, Die Antwoord – Ninja and Yo-landi, are very irritating during key parts of the film. I don’t enjoy their music nor the genre, so they don’t impress me much as Shania Twain once said.

Chappie may have it’s flaws and yet it tries hard to generate empathy for the robot who suddenly discovers it’s consciousness, let alone it’s mother, father and creator. The plot is not conducive to exploring metaphysical questions like Ex Machina does gracefully. Different strokes for different folks.

Am I My Sister's Keeper?

On 21 April, my birthday, my mother told me about a missing teacher from a local high school, Jayde Panayiotou. She’s since been found murdered and her husband is the prime suspect. My mother casually mentioned that Jayde studied teaching with my younger sister at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

This morning I was reviewing the case from various news sources. And there was many unanswered questions going through my mind, such as, “Why is this so similar to Reeva Steenkamp’s murder?” and “If she was a black teacher, would the media give it the same amount of coverage?”

All I know about this story is what my mother told me, and what the news media has reported non-stop. May Jayde rest in peace. And I trust the courts will confirm the guilt of her husband.

Annuscha MurrayAfter all this, I thought about my sister. She’s engaged to be married later this year to her fiancee. Their relationship had its ups and downs, just like my own. But chills went down my spine, when I considered, this could have happened to my very own sister.

At first there was a sadness, a helplessness that came over me. And afterwards a flash of rage, and anger that I have felt before. As the older brother I always considered it was my blood-bound duty to be my sister’s keeper.

Do I feel responsible for her now that she’s an adult? How can I protect her when I’m living in another city or another country for that matter? What can I do when harm comes to her? It pains me to think about the distance, both physical and emotional, between us since she finished high school.

There are few things in life as precious as family, sisters or brothers.

Annuscha, my sister, I love you with all my heart. When I was 12 years old, you were born. The day you were born I was left home alone, and the adults rushed off to hospital with our pregnant mother. This is a memory so deeply ingrained in my soul I can never forget the day you came into our lives.

Some of the fondest memories I have is how I changed your nappies. And how me and your cousin, Alberton, taped your crying voice, and played it back to you on tapes. Your reaction to this was priceless. Your life is precious and I admire your courage to raise two children.

Wherever I may be in the world, you can always count on me to be there for you.

The Magic of Thinking Big redux

The Magic of Thinking Big by David SchwartzYears ago I read the book, The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. It was one of the first self help books to shine a light on achieving my goals. It reminds me of this phrase often used by Les Brown: shoot for the moon and you may end up in among the stars.

Years later I believe thinking is not enough. Everyone dreams of a better life and yet not everyone achieves their dreams. Why is that?

Maybe it is the action that’s missing. Action towards the next step to bring you closer to your dreams. But once again, what action do you take? It’s clear now looking back the times I made the biggest progress towards my dreams was when I surrounded myself with people who already achieved similar dreams.

You are who you surround yourself with. My friend and mentor Irfan Pardesi is a strong proponent of: You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So carefully reflect who are your friends, and whether they can help you grow or not.

Life is short and therefore you cannot waste one more day just dreaming, hoping or wishing to be among the stars. Take a good look in the mirror and do the right things to bring you one step closer to the stars.

Lastly, remember the Taoist saying: Don’t confuse the moon with the finger pointing to the moon. Professor Jordan Peteson taught me this in one of his many lectures available online.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

South African Motivational Speaker Ramon ThomasThere are times in your life when you’ve tried to help people, and it seems it all backfired. This is really the meaning of “no good deed goes unpunished.” And I’m reminded of the failure of friendships every day as I witness how people have withdrawn into themselves either through smartphones or endless downloaded TV shows.

In high school I wrote a angry poem: Nice Guys Finished Last. It was the story of my frustration with being a nice guy, and yet being a lonely guy with no girlfriend. As I reflected upon this poem, it dawned on me that being the nice guy has nothing to do with it. It was clear that I was not being nice to myself. So if I did not respect myself, how could I expect others to do the same.

No good deed goes unpunished – this is a phrase I first heard in some self help audio interviews. The guru was so confident, he almost seemed to be full of himself. I later found out he is a multimillionaire, and I’m sure it didn’t help being rich while making lofty pronouncements.

Since I moved to China in 2013 I tried to spend 80% of my time with Chinese friends. After all I didn’t move half way around the world to meet more foreigners. In my MBA class we are 11 students from all over the world. I was helpful to them as can be being older, more experienced in business. This didn’t work out exactly as planned.

As relationships with my classmates soured, I pulled back. I tried my best to maintain some real friendships until I helped one personal financially. This reminds me of another kind of life lesson: do not mix business with pleasure. In the end I don’t regret helping this particular guy, he just reminded me that no good deed goes unpunished.

You’re far better off helping yourself become the best you can possibly be. You can lead by example, and others will follow. When you help people out of their misery, be careful. You’ve offered them a finger and they may grab your whole arm. The wise among us know that doing less is more.