Sunday, February 25, 2007

Technological Overload

What are we going to do?

Information is flowing so fast, communication makes us accessible at any time, leaving one no way to focus for more than 15 minutes. Our forefathers could focus on a goal for days and weeks on end usually without interruption. No cell phones to interrupt the walk in the forest. No e-mails that “Urgently” caused them to reply instantly. Business was done at the pace of the mail.

Now, we have 2 or 3 conversations with one person at one time. An e-mail comes to us. We reply quickly. Then we think of something else to say. We send a second reply. But, at the same moment, the receiver’s e-mail arrives in our inbox. We reply to that, and they reply to your second e-mail. Now, instead of taking a day or so to think about how to word an intelligent response, you have two conversations going with someone. Instead of being patient to hear back from your correspondent, you “throw the ball in their court” to respond as quickly as possible. If you can’t reach them instantly, you can Skype them, chat with them, and, to make sure they know that something is pressing, you text it.

Is anything so important to disturb one’s quiet time? Children are unfocused, people don’t know why they do things because we don’t allow them time for them to develop their own thoughts.

We have to insist,..No. We have to fight, rather, for quiet time. Business is so much better now that it is global. Other people are working while you are sleeping and vice versa, yet when we awake, instead of morning meditation or a quiet cup of coffee in the brisk morning air to gather our thoughts, we reply to e-mails that are “urgent”.

As a boy, I used to rise early in the morning and go surf before school. Then, I would return, grab some breakfast, and head to school to sit through class. I had a week for each assignment. Now, it seems our class assignments are due by lunch in the professors’ inbox. More information must be consumed.

When I surf after I have done e-mails, it is like little electron parasites are in my blood and taint my thoughts for the rest of the day.

More money can be made, but more information must be handled. We know that the average person needs more than one job to keep up with the speed of information, the speed of economy, today. So, now, instead of that technology giving us more freedom, we have to become a contractor, just so we can juggle 6 clients.

And the sad part is, we only do the base minimal things that client is asking for because of the need of "now".
Client 01: “Change this period.” Period changed. Just ignore the crappy coding.
Client 02: “Could you replace this picture?” Picture changed. Ignore the fact that the layout would be better if you brought out the blues and made it off-center.
Client 03: “did you send me your resume?” Resume sent. Skip updating the current address. They will just e-mail me and when they have to pay me, they will simply ask me via e-mail. It is quicker than thinking to look at the resume.
Client 04: “Did you come up with a layout for the new site?” It has been uploaded. Thank God I just bought a template to work with. It is free and easy, though artistically a 5th grader could do better.
Client 05: “Did you book my tickets to Nairobi?” Booked. Confirmation code. I don’t know if they have customer service, but they must be good because it was the top of the Google list.
Client 06: “What was that website?”

Client 01: “Hey, you forgot to change that period.” Oh crap, I raced on to the picture change, and sending my resume, I forgot that.
Client 04: “You didn’t answer your phone. I need..”
Client 03: “I forgot…”

Balls are getting dropped. Where did finesse go? Where did taking our time to do a good job go? I know the older generation would say ‘well, you have too much on your plate?’ I would say, no, I am working with so many clients because I can’t afford to put anything on my plate!

I know that there is a lot on the plates of this Information Generation, but that is only because we are expected to not only move at the speed of information and adapt, but we are expected to do as good of a job as they did when they had at least a day, if not a week to do the same task. ‘You have computers now,’ they reply. ‘You should be able to do it.’ NEWS FLASH: Not even my techno-savvy generation cannot adapt fast enough to keep up with technology today!!! Hey, down here, in the trenches! I am telling you point-blank that what was good enough even last week isn’t good enough today!!!

A new program is invented every 10 minutes that is better, faster, and more efficient. It took you how long to learn punch-card inputs for your room sized computers? That is 6 new programs an hour, 144 new programs a day (globalization, remember?), 1008 per week (nope, no days off; you will fall behind because others are working on Sundays now too; Saturdays are the new Fridays, right?), 4,032 new programs a month, and 12,094 per quarter. Why did I stop at 3 months? Information will be traveling faster by then, and the rate will have grown exponentially. (Read more about the speed of information.)

I MISS taking my time to put TLC into my HTML! I miss taking time to read a chapter to improve my skills. Or, bless the Lord, a fictional NOVEL! I get my education from an RSS feed!

Now, the managers ask for a good, quality job, but they don’t want to give you the time,..forget the fact that they are still paying $8 an hour!

All I am trying to get at is information overload. People, good, stable, balanced people who are truly cut out for greatness are swamped in information overload. They need space to think. Technology is supposed to allow for MORE flexibility, not constrain us.

I don’t need an electron-induced virus stealing the pleasure of dropping into a wave. I don’t want my mind at the felt cubicle when the cool breeze is blowing my hair, the warm water is rising and falling, and the sea gulls. It is a battle for the mind right now.

We need to use technology to be able to free ourselves, free our minds.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Do People Go to Hell for Eternity? N-O

So, do they? Do people go to hell for eternity?
NO!!! A big FAT whopping N-O!
I declare to you that no one will spend eternity in hell.

Grant, how can you know anything like this? What revelation do you have, Grant, that would dispel hell from a possibility for our future?

Good question.
If one will look in Revelation 20:14, they will find (in the King James Version):
"and death and hell (hades) were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."

Now, one will then reply, 'Grant, well, even though no one will spend eternity in hell, they will spend it in the lake of fire. So what's the difference?'

I only point this out to A) rile some religious devils and B) to bring to light that if we as believers have false beliefs in something like this, we need to assess what else we have false beliefs in.

How much doctrine is based on"Hell"? Does anyone every think of the play Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames? That play is as scary as H-E-double hockey sticks. Many will say they were saved having seen it, or have seen many come to the Lord by it. Ok. Whatever. No argument here.

But, why not say Heaven's Gates and the Lake of Fire's Flames? (Well, that's not really catchy, huh?) Well, other than for marketing purposes, why do we use the false doctrinal fear of spending eternity in Hell?

I will leave that question to fall rhetorically on the pharisees of our day, and let the point marinade in you.

If you are currently teaching a doctrine that is based on a fear of eternity of Hell, what other parts of your doctrine need to be checked?

Our New Book: God's New Breed

Hey, everyone! I just wanted to get the word out to everybody that we just published yet another of Terry Kruse and Donna Kruse's book. It is titled "God's New Breed". You can get it at any of the seminars that the team is holding, but on the back table it will be about $10! Get it for $6, or less than a buck for a download!

This is the 5th book that Terry and Donna have published. You can view the others at www.miraclelifenow.com.

The ministry is cranking forward. We are now in preparation for our April 1st launch. That is when David Newberry and Terry Kruse will both be on television in front of 70 million viewers world-wide! Since David and Terry started teaching on Biblical Finance and began their Success Coaching, doors have opened and we have blazed forward.

This will be a huge day for the ministry, so there is a lot of work to put in between now and then! (Ah, the life of the Administrator!) If you are reading this and would like to be involved in the ministry, please contact me at grant.nieddu@gmail.com, or call at (772) 321-1840. Things are really blasting off.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Gunman kills 2 clowns in Colombian circus

WHO DOES THIS?!

Story Highlights
• Unidentified gunman shoots two clowns before audience at Circo del Sol de Cali
• One clown was killed instantly, and the second died the next day
• Police probe motive behind killings in small Colombian town near Venezuela

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a traveling circus in the eastern Colombian town of Cucuta, police said Wednesday.

The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali on Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Reuters.

One of the clowns was killed instantly, and the second died the next day in hospital.

"The killings had nothing to do with the show the victims were performing at the time of the incident," Henao said in a telephone interview. "We are investigating the motive."

With an entrance fee of under 50 cents, Circo del Sol de Cali attracts mostly poor Colombians. It pitched its tents in Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela, earlier this month.

"The clowns came out to give their show, and then this guy came out shooting them," one audience member told local television. "It was terrible."

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

A.D.D. Success

Why Questioning ADD Can Equal Success


The disorder labeled Attention Deficit has many questionable characteristics. But let us look at what would be otherwise unrelated information. Mainly, the rise of popularity of the ADD diagnosis paralleled the advancement of technology and what we now term "The Information Age."


Characteristics of The Information Age:

  • Information comes at us at break-neck speeds

  • Success in the business world is determined by the efficiency of an entity's ability to obtain, assimilate, and apply information.

  • This requires a GREATER AMOUNT OF ATTENTION
    (side note of logic: anyone incapable of excelling at business is, therefore, experiencing a deficit in their ability to pay attention.)


Characteristic of Man:

  • It is our nature to maintain dominion over our world.


Problem:


  • In trying to dominate our world (careers, relationships, etc.), we are trying to hold each of these pieces of information

  • Humans can only maintain one thought in their conscious mind at a time.

  • As the technology improves and, thus, the speed of information increases, we will have a
    harder and harder time keeping all of this information in our head.

  • Imagine a young puppy who loves his bone. You throw TWO of the BONES, tell the puppy to get both of them, and then reprimand him for not obtaining both.



Brilliant Epiphany:


  • Understand that these young people that we are dubbing Attention Deficit are actually doing quite a good job at processing all of the information and inputs that we are feeding them!