Category Archives: Beardall.Blog

Bright Friday

Home but not alone

I have been sat at this desk for 623 days now. As I write this blog I am reading news of the World Trade Organisation postponing a ministerial meeting in response to this new Omicron Covid-19 variant {here}. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove presenting a few seconds of comment that reaffirm the news that mutations of B1.1.529 is a variant of concern.

Picture opposite, sourced via BBC citing South Africa’s CERI. An early visual of the mutation which threatens to enable faster spread rates.

South Africa CERI website of note {here}.

For those who do not know, my wife has underlying medical constraints – lung capacity severely compromised – which mean we are both locked-down indefinitely whilst SARS-Covid19 remains at large. Maybe her third dose of vaccine last month will this time offer some underlying protection – the first two did not – but for now we are sitting this out. With variant Omicron B1.1.529 offering a little distraction, there may yet be cause to expect a longer stay.

But that’s okay. We are lucky in many ways. Indeed my whole research endeavour and time at my desk can be directly thanked for this extended retreat. We have many reasons to be thankful to so many.

I reflect today upon my connectivity with the wider world. On how far one can reach without leaving the house. These are truly changing times. I have blogged elsewhere about moments of great upheaval or change being linked to new transmission rates of information and dialogue. We must surely be at the cusp of another. We are all learning to communicate in new ways. That includes world leaders, and institutions, and whole systems of process and exchange. It seems to me inevitable that more transformation will once again follow the communication age now ripe to shine. Visibility is increasing for better or worse. Behaviours are being revealed, worse or just seen. Old trusts are being challenged, new tensions amassing, and transient forces making upheavals of people, power, and influence ever more likely and less bound.

This week I was accepted into the fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacture, and Commerce. A 260 year old institution of great change. I am thrilled my application was accepted. I am researching change, and now find myself among 30,000 fellows intent on connecting, conversing, and collaborating with a global community of changemakers. Maybe you should consider joining too {details here}.

Fellows are committed to inspiring better ways of thinking, acting and delivering change. An integral part of the RSA in creating a better future, Fellows champion new ideas, drive social change, deliver practical solutions and support the RSA mission.

https://www.thersa.org/fellowship

This year I also joined a think-tank called Acumen7. I have just become a contributor to a fantastic thought leadership app based service called Opiner. All of these connection points coming from regular engagement on social media platforms such as LinkedIn.

The more we communicate, the more we can share in intended change. The further into the future we can be aiming. The more paying forward we can do. All in all, I think the communication revolution in the information age is going to work just fine. Not that we will necessarily be the ones to see it shine, but that’s just a question of time.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

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1621

History repeating

I wanted to research Thanksgiving with some depth tonight, but I’m midway through an university experiment write-up that is not going to thank itself. So, here’s the best resource I found as I worked through the many 400 year anniversary tributes. {here}

I will confess to finding the underlying sentiment more worthy of celebrating than the contemporary norm. A story of two bands of cultures, with nothing shared but need of mutual help from common threats. Both peoples seeking peaceful means to be. Neither understanding the other but both using social skills to build relationships with mutual support in mind. And not a turkey to be seen anywhere.

Meanwhile in 1621 Europe much trouble is brewing still. Catholic and Protestant wars on the continent rage on. The high seas are full of privateering awash with plunders of ill-gotten silver and gold. These are chaotic times, amid bouts of famine, wars, and plague. Plenty of reasons to be risking all to find a life anew. Many more ships will soon be bringing these old politics to new shores.

Wishing all who give Thanks today a peaceful few days. Plenty of contemporary need for that moment of community spirit – between very different peoples – if we are to make headway into thanks for the next 400 years…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

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A servant to debt

Being less to be more

This article was sitting in my drafts. It was an attempt to make a second tentative move to introduce being vs having from Erich Fromm into a wider frame of reference of projects. It was less insightful than I had hoped…

Debt

The project finance world I served – through my construction insurance days until 2018 – my more recent mid-career MSc in Project Management, Finance, and Risk – my consulting that is primarily focused on internal control environments – each presents me with a reasonable understanding of how important the relationships of debt is to projects of social and economic infrastructure. Like the great majority of contributors to a capitalist culture, I have also lived much of my life in financial debt.

Perspectival confusion

This article was prompted by my own decision to put debt back into my life project. To help oil my academic wheels as I embark on MSc number two. It remained a draft blog because I knew it had taken a wrong turn. At the time I could not see why.

When being is less than having

Applying Erich Fromm’s having vs being to my decision to move back into being in debt had me stumped. The principles of having are held as less than being, because being (or becoming) is future action orientated which can enable betterment. To be loving, is to contribute to something bigger. To have love, is a possessive state. To be authoritative is to present the characteristics necessary to direct a task. To have authority is to own a position of influence. Only being offers contribution.

My struggle when I first wrote this piece was to find a way to make that work when the state of being is negative, or at least sub-optimal. How could being indebted be better than having debt? And aren’t they just the same thing? Here’s what I think might be going on.

Being indebted

We all owe something to someone

I wonder how often we sit back, and acknowledge our debts? We all inherit benefits or burdens from other ventures. In projects | within project parlance I am calling all of these ventures projects. We all commit to projects today that require us to deny projects of tomorrow. We all wish we had not started some projects yesteryear that now deny us opportunity of projects today. Debt may have a place here.

The process of moving into debt as a state of being was not sitting well with the Fromm notion of being as the better mode than having. We do not want to be in debt. To be in debt, or to have debt to pay, both require us to be a servant to whomever we have borrowed from. The being state we have adopted, in the present, is denying us a freedom to be in the future. We become less free.

If we are agency to change – as agents with intent – taking on debt is intending change that seems a negative. To understand the rationality, and keep to the Fromm notion of being, I needed to see the other projects in play beyond the handicap of debt. Projects | within Projects.

Being | having | being more

Odd that that had me stumped a while – with no real reason beyond my own modal confusion. Quite the admission given my background, and my recent educational revisit to much that outlines how this assessment and decision-making is best done. Investment theory, portfolio management, economics of opportunity cost, all just functional supports to the assessment project. One project decision, that constrains the next. But a decision that enables projects that themselves enable more.

There is a message here, however. I think as a society we take on debt too easily. Have too little regard for the burden we bestow to our future projects. Our future selves. Think upon that in the context of future generations living in the environment we leave them. Perhaps there in sits a reason debt had me stumped a while. It cannot be considered in isolation. Its future impact and immediate return. The projects it enables today, are they worth what we ask others to repay? Perhaps more needs a little rethinking. Interest of a different kind.

Finding this draft post I had clearly parked two months ago tonight prompted a rethink – and a sheepish redraft. A problem solved simply by the repositioning of perspective. Maybe the first of a few…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

Original art
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The press don’t press

Anyone remember that Covid-19 thing?

I’ve just spent an evening with Dr. John Campbell. This is a brief blog to offer a few headlines worth checking out from sources you trust.

Visibility | b | t

Given the lack of press attention it would be easy to think all was now fine. Well, with minimum enquiry the data is still easily found. Here are some headline graphics (links to the data source embedded if other info is desired)

Cases on the rise
UK deaths depressingly high
but mortality rate stable

Which appears to be a glimmer of hope and perhaps not headline news. BUT:

  • whose reporting the worrying case load raise in a few pockets of Europe? And why no questions asking what that means for travel?
Specific spiking European countries
Bulgaria having a tough time
  • what happened about the Wolverhampton 43,000 cases of mishandled testing? BBC BMJ 15th Oct
  • why has the Pfizer whistle-blower story not made headline news? BMJ 2nd Nov

Thankfully, the data is still readily available to review, even if the media have decided to move on.

v | behaviour | t

Social interventions. My psychology readings are indicating that the motivations of people are best orientated around self-determination. Persuasions best aimed at doing the right thing with internal will, not enforced via external carrot and stick demand. So what to make of the Austrian situation this week? Fines of EUR1,500 if the unvaccinated in the population are found to have broken lockdown. BBC. Here is the data showing their worsening situation (interactive link attached below).

Austria fear their hospital system is about to be overwhelmed

Testing questions. I am still struggling to understand the lack of publicity of the Pfizer revelations in the whistle-blower story in the BMJ. Much as I blogged about the Wolverhampton story a month ago this looks to be a classic case of inadequate control systems going unnoticed and largely ignored as governance, intervention, or news. This is not to say vaccines are being questioned. Not at all. The UK case demonstrates a levelled off position and nothing I have read suggests anything but support toward greater vaccination effort everywhere. cf. Dr John Campbell. But that is not to excuse specific breaches of protocols, as being reported with professional candour by the BMJ.

No herd immunity? However, there is more story unfolding now too. It seems herd immunity is not expected anytime soon. This YouTube link explains this better than I could hope to do. Dr John Campbell is a go-to source of sensible analysis. I also loved this response to FaceBook fact-check…and the insights into vitamin D.

v | b | trust

Having spent an evening updating my understanding of existing and new C-19 issues – matters that impact my family – I am reminded of the premise of trust. And how trust is hard won, and easily lost. Plenty to ponder on in considering why some of these high quality medically backed stories sit so low in the interest of the news.

We live in a society of distrust and high blame. Best to remember what motivates those advising and informing. And make your own enquiry from there.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

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Perspective is everything

Less is more, more or less

I am in mid-flow with some college work but a break is as good as a rest, so a few quick factoids prompted by my doodling yesterday.

Original WordArt
(i.e., icons via Microsoft Word)

100 billion stars in the Milky Way – one of 100 billion galaxies

1.4 billion insects for every person on Earth – population 7.8 billion

Bacteria species c. million – not the trillions once thought – yet we still know just 50,000 specie

86 billion neurones in a human brain – 7,000 connections per neurone

Source links included

We consider our projects to be complex, and the data processing demands ever increasing. However, complexities have travelled far before we even offer a thought to what connected us to anything we intend to change.

Perspective is everything…

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

Original art

Remembrance

In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow…

Royal British Legion – Remembrance in their words

The poem that inspired the wearing of the poppy

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders’ fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders’ Fields.

In Flanders’ Fields by John McCrae, 1915

visibility | b | t

Law abiding citizenship

Do a bit, see a bit more. Seek a bit more, see much more. This is a brief blog, highlighting sources of information we may wish to explore.

Good law Project

Lawyer watch

Many more blogsites have come to my attention since I began blogging. Here are two of note.

Increased visibility by looking more

visibility | b | t

Reliance on media feed seems our collective default. However, blogsites with specific interests and specialism are everywhere. It seems to me a more effective means to see more of what needs to be seen. One less filter between the subjective viewer and the objective reality they are trying to see.

v | behaviour | t

But of course there is new bias to reflect upon. It becomes more demanding of the viewer to seek out these better questions. Be more present to the issues. More vigilant to the need to seek out more. Not be overwhelmed by the task of finding the sources that the media headlines do not.

v | b | trust

This then becomes a new form of trust. There is necessary need to trust yourself. To have honed your own ability to seek answers to new questions. To self-determine the validity of the source. Take more care in the degree of trust in the source.

Being present

I have explained this in the language of enquiry I now use. Directing my interest in intended change – as a project. The sources we accept, are our own projects of information gathering. Something we are pre-programmed to do. Something we are minded to make efficient and easy. But not always therefore with necessary interest in what is truly true.

Hope is at hand

The good will of the masses is what I think sits near at hand. The doing actions of those motivated by truth. Their version of truth, but still a better truth, a more visible truth, than what media commercialism has become. I am grateful for finally finding some new windows to look through.

What is immediately apparent is just how much we do not see. What is not reported. What is not of interest to the filters. This is said with no grudge. It is just a commercial reality of life. This is not conspiracy, this is behaviour. Giving us what we want, or what is easy to see. As consumers this is our vague trust. Our happy distance from the real. I see little merit in blaming the media moguls, when it is we the public who can at any moment dictate a different tone. Dictate what it is we intend to see.

Own your enquiry

Blog-sites are everywhere. They just need to be unearthed. Then assessed for quality, bias, and reliability. But if you have the time, or the inclination, there is more than social media click-bait, derived from headline grabbing media feed, waiting for you.

I am learning this only now. Maybe you can learn this too – without having to become a blogger just to take in this view. I began this blog by highlighting two blogsites of note, to get you on your way. The upholding of law is a place where hidden behaviours are exposed. Where trust is questioned. Tested. Sought to be proved. And if so inclined, visible to us all.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

Original art
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@Medium

What’s the last best thing you read? Write about why you loved it, or why it stuck with you.

Medium is a blog site. They have just started a writing hour, where you just log on to sit with other writers, each silently at their craft. Options are made available as a response to a prompt. I chose the title question above.

Webinar Logo
Writing hour

I actually struggled to narrow down a single recent read as best. I read some Oscar Wilde last week. He always carried his diary with him, as “it was important to have something sensational to read”. I am not sure my blog sits in that camp, but I do read my posts again as they are a collected work in progress. Plus, someone has to read them to the end…

Here is a piece I have read several times with wider reading in support. “Sonnet : England in 1819”, by PB Shelley. It is a haunting read, the second time around. It sticks with me now because two hundred plus years later, much of the sentiment remains. I had to read the history of the Peterloo Massacre to even understand the context of the piece. A terrible day. And once the history was read, without needing to equate the living to the dead, it now sits weightily with poem in one hand, and news feed in the other. Cynicism lasts more than one age. Representation in parliament hardly holding itself to sit with more empathy today.

…Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, —

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know.

But leech-like to their fainting country cling.

‘Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow

PB Shelley, from “Sonnet : England in 1819”

…and then the hour was up. Normal blogging will resume tomorrow.

About Me

In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.

Find my professional mask here:

Original art