Tag Archives: pirates

Harvard and The Gumboot: More than 10 Global Trends to Watch

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About a month ago, an up-and-coming business magazine, the Harvard Business Review, released an article called “The 10 Trends You Have To Watch.” The article is penned by Eric Beinhocker, a Senior Fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, and also had some help from Ian Davis, McKinsey’s 10th Managing Director, and Lenny Mendoca, Chair of the McKinsey Global Institute and Director of their San Francisco Office. The authors have defined the trends listed below as accelerating, steady and decelerating. For the record, I feel smarter just having read it.

The Most-Watched Trend in Global Business

The Most-Watched Trend in Global Business

What more can you say about brilliant leaders from the planet’s leading strategic management consultancy? As it turns out, not much, covering bases is what these guys do. Here’s what the best of the best think you need to pay attention to:

  • Natural resources feeling the strain – this trend is “steady.” According to Beinhocker et al, “strategists should plan for a future of resource price increases, volatility and even shortages. Google, for instance, has procured land for server farms near hydroelectric power sources in the Pacific Northwest.” The writers conclude that “resource productivity” will become central to competitiveness in global business.
  • Globalization under fire – this trend is “decelerating.” Will countries like Canada be able to reconcile their need for international talent with economic and social protectionism? Well, with emerging markets producing a growing share of of the world’s college graduates and the “relentless march of information and communications technology” the answer is “yes.” Knowledge work will be distributed globally. And immigrants will bridge the demographic gap in places like Canada, so these articles tell me.
  • Trust in business running out – this trend is “accelerating.” No kidding. “Since the recession began, there has been a precipitous decline in trust. The Edelman Trust Barometer found that 62% of adults in 20 countries trusted corporations less in December 2008 than they had a year earlier.” That’s right, folks. There’s an Eldelman Trust Baraometer…
  • A bigger role for government – this trend is “accelerating.” Arguably, previous crises have resulted in permanent changes in government’s role, and, according to our experts from McKinsey, this one will do the same. Creative partnerships between the public and private sectors will be important in meeting future challenges.
  • Management as a science – this trend is “steady.” The economic crisis has exposed the limitations of data, computing power and mathematical models as managerial science. Drawing on behavioural economics, becoming more dynamic, and integrating real-world feedback, Beinhocker argues, will see a more realistic vision of human behaviour applied to places like the finance sector. Because – wow - did those guys ever drop the ball. Well, no, not really. They kinda told us they had, like, fifty balls when, really, they had a paper clip and some old bubblegum. Or something like that.
  • Shifting consumption patterns - basically, the McKinsey team has these tidbits on the changes in the way businesses manipulate the way consume stuff: prepare for slower long-term growth in global consumption, shift your investment to Asia, focus on older consumers, and find ways to offer luxuries on a budget. Hey, CEOs, as it turns out, your corporate jet might actually be cheaper than flying first class!
    Will keeping watching out for Global Business help or hinder this unfortunate trend?

    Will watching out for Global Business help or hinder this unfortunate trend?

  • Asia rising – this trend is “steady.” This is a great business-language quote: “As Western consumers tighten their belts, expect [powerhouses like Haier, Chery, Tata] and other, less-known players to bring their value-oriented propositions to global markets.”
  • Industries taking new shape – this trend is “increasing.” All companies and industries might be suffering from the recession, but the crisis gives strong players more opportunities to reshape their competitive environment.
  • Innovation marching on - this trend is “steady.” Aside from a lot of trimming in the world of R&D, one key example is to be noted: “Apple’s resurgence as a force in consumer technology was fueled by R&D conducted from 2001 to 2003 despite a sharp decline in sales and margins. This bet paid off handsomely, putting the iPod in the pantheon of game-changing innovations born of hard times, alongside Depression-era breakthroughs such as nylons and the jet engine.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: entrepreneurs love a downturn.
  • Price stability in question – this trend is “accelerating.” According to Beinhocker et al, managers around the world will have to question their basic assumption that the developed world provides a stable price environment. Things are going to get interesting…

So there it is. Pretty interesting stuff that can give us all – in one way or another – a more comprehensive perspective on global business, government and human consumption patterns. I think this Harvard Business Review publication is gonna go places.

What about community? We here at The Gumboot, as you know, wholeheartedly embrace ideas from everywhere. We also think that there are a few more global trends that you have to watch. Cooler ones, too. Researchers at The Recent Findings Institute have provided this blog’s editorial board with some data, too. The findings have been listed in a particular order following an exhaustive statistical assessment and managerial matehmatical modeling based on humour,  importance, relevance,  probability, and awesomeness. Without further ado, here they are:

  1. The Great Divide: Fear Mongering vs. Funny Mongering - this trend is “steady.” Who will win? Jon Stewart or Bill O’Reilly? Rick Mercer or CanWest Global? Stephen Colbert or Glen Beck? The Swine Flu or Rational Thought? Really, this battle has been going on ever since Billy Shakes penned some of the greatest, ripping-good-yarns about cross dressing and mistaken identity. In this ongoing struggle, it used to always be about which side could out-yell and out-spend the other; however, with the rise of the Interscape, hilariously inspired twitbloggers are now competing with the barons of mainstream media.  According to this guy, it’s all about coping with the syntheic creation of fear. After all, any good Historian of Humour will tell you that laughter has – ahem - historically been an accurate and common response to fear and tragedy. And nothing oozes human tragedy like Glen Beck and Alex Tsakumis. Who will triumph in the West Coast struggle of positive humour vs. negative personalized attacks on reason and grammar? Only time will tell.
  2. The Alliance Between Pirates and Ninjas – this trend is “decelerating.” Barack Obama’s pledge to halt the rise of piracy combined with backlash following a foiled attempt at world domination by the creator of Real Ultimate Power has marginalized these once prominent symbols of counterculture. Did we even know there was an alliance between ninjas and pirates? Not really. I mean, ninjas, as we know, keep to themselves, and pirates, well, they’ll drink and boast and lie so much that no one really believes anything they say. In any case, what began as a partnership to slander and, eventually, destroy cowboys seems will most likely crumble beyond repair in the coming years.
  3. Community Service - this trend is “accelerating.” Ted Kennedy was a good man. He put forward the bill for the Serve America Act. Over 80% of Canadians do some kind of volunteer work. Dr. Stephen Toope, President of UBC, has mandated that 10% of programming at the university must have a community service learning component by 2012.Yesterday’s “teach English in Japan” is today’s “oversee a micro-financing project in Ghana” – young people from Europe and North America are immersing themselves in the poverty of the developing world and returning home with all sorts of stories and lessons about community. Socialites from priveleged backgrounds are doing it, too! There is a dark side, though, like with the recent funding cuts to Chilliwack’s Time Out program for seniors. The community rallied and volunteers, not paid staff, will now take on the task of spending time outside with the elderly. This is a slippery slope; if people will do jobs for free, other people won’t get paid for them.
  4. Regionalism – this trend is “accelerating.” And not just because of Kurt’s divisive jab against the “Irate Toronto Lobby” over the Coors marketing fiasco. Going beyond our reasons to find food, adventure, business, resources, and everything else will need to be thought about long and hard by many. Prices will rise. And so will heightened ethical, social and environmental awareness. And, no offense to Toronto, but who do we have more in common with: people from The Tdot or folks from Portland, Seattle and Boise? Sam Adams and Gregor Robertson would be a great governing pair for the Republic of Cascadia!
  5. Johnism – this trend is “accelerating.” Despite its few detractors, the general unfairness of the global political system will eventually marginalize people so much that they will look for a new ideology to follow. Any ideology.
  6. Production by the Masses - this trend is “accelerating.” This was Gandhi’s idea. Mass production is unequal and makes a lot of stuff for people in wealthy countries that can afford it. Production by the masses harnesses the priceless resource of “clever brains and skillful hands,” which are possessed by all human beings. This idea suggests that such brains and minds need to be supported with first class tools. For certain, this will empower people from every society on Earth. The rise of social media is a great example of this. The fact that computers can only be purchased by the rich – except in Uruguay, where cheap computers are given out to school children – is an example of how far we have to go.

    "Beware my Ingenious Plan to Enslave Humanity"

    "Beware my Ingenious Plan to Enslave Humanity"

  7. The Rise of Africa – this trend is “steady.” Long story short, when it comes to dealing with catastrophe, Africa eclipses all other continents. Famine, drought, genocide, germs, war, corruption; you name it, they’ve endured it. If/when things start getting really bad around the world, Africa and its people will be able to roll with hardship a lot better than us. This is purely anecdotal, but I have a hard time believing they’re reacting as catastrophically to the recession, swine flu or possible-Terminator-enslavement as we are.
  8. Tipping Point: Technology and Germs – this trend is “accelerating.” All I know is that we’re going to soon be eviscerated by a combination of flu-ish germs and/or hand held, mobile entertainment devices. I don’t know exactly what it is that will destroy us, but I do know that it’s called The Swinepod.
  9. Robots Causing Trouble for Humans – this trend is “terrifying.” Is anyone watching what’s going on in Japan? It’s like a prequel to I, Robot. All one has to do is Google “Japan robots” to see what these soon-to-be servants of humanity can do. Unfortunately for us, this servitude will undoubtedly turn on its head in the not too distant future.
  10. The Re-Engineering of Time – this trend is “steadily accelerating while it decelerates.” As I listened to a wonderful Organizational Behaviour professor today something struck me with what he said: “the thing in business that we can never have enough of is time.” Simultaneously, some movements around the world are trying to cram 36 hours into a 12 hour day while others want to slow everything down. Regardless of what side you’re on, you probably know that, whether it’s domination of fast-paced-efficiency or burnout-induced-relaxed-lifestyle, only one side of this binary will emerge victorious. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m writing this while riding my bike, talking on my other phone, drinking a chai latte, eating a bagel, and I think I just caused a bit of a traffic snarl…

So there it is. At least 20 trends to watch this year. What’s gonna be the coolest? My money’s on robots aligning with pirates to take on ninjas. Or, man, imagine a ninja robot intergovernmental agency of corporate social responsibility!

This has been a trendy experience. Thanks for your time.

- JCH

From Weekly to Daily Gumboots

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“And so with love in their hearts, anxiety in their heads and girding in and around their loins, Vancouver’s coolest and multi/inter-dimensionally-qualified twitbloggers of the interscape take their community building project to the next level. These folks are world changers; and you should use their ideas from everywhere to build community today.”

- Barack Obama, 2009

Okay. So maybe Barack Obama didn’t really endorse the transition of the Weekly to Daily Gumboot. But, hey, embrace the creative world of magical realism, suspend belief and accept the fact that 81.2% of our facts and findings are made up. After all, we embrace it! The trick is figuring out what side of the 19.8% your interpretation of our data, sources and “research” you think is made up. Hey, at least we’re honest about our subjectivity!

gumboot copyMoving on…

Though, we really did get a glowing endorsement about our “employing” Mike Boronowski to backstop a much sexier version of The Gumboot while Kurt Heinrich and I motivate our contributors to provide daily content or suffer the consequences of punishment by catapult. And here it is:

“Kid, just because it comes out every day and because you have your own website – or whatever you just said it was – doesn’t mean it’s not bullshit.”

- My Grandma, Betty, last night on the phone

Well said, Betty. Media consumers need to be mindful of what they take-in. And, hey, there’s a lot of information out there. We here at The Gumboot think it’s important for you, the reader, to know where your information – and our ideas – come from. So, since you might not be 100% familiar with The Gumboot (weekly or daily versions)? Allow me to provide a bit of a synopsis on how we got here:

The Historical Time Line of The Daily Gumboot

5000 BC – Year 0: Egypt and Mesopotamia build communities around beer (a form of currency and central component of many herbal remedies) and either the biggest non-French example of public works projects by employees of the state or, well, slavery.

600 – 1000 AD: Romans combine entrepreneurship, militarism, butter, salt, and ham to create a variety of cheeses and proscuittos that Kurt Heinrich strives to re-create in his kitchen each and every weekend. He also defends himself and his cheese if necessary.

1491 AD: People around the world who aren’t from Europe get this really weird feeling and start to wonder whether or not it’s a good thing that their communities exist in such beautiful places chalked full of delicious natural resources.

1500 – 1650 AD: Shakespeare and some other dudes make writing cool; first blog is published in 1603 to passively-aggressively commemorate/mock King James I’s ascent to the throne.

1650 – 1724 AD: The Golden Age of Piracy provides many ideas and concepts (health, democracy, gender equality, education, environmental stewardship, business, fashion, multi-culturalism) that continue to drive our society today.

1725 AD: University of Glasgow Professor, Francis Hutcheson, creates a mathematical formula for benevolence. The very same formula we here at The Gumboot apply to each and every one of our articles.

1729 AD: Jonathan Swift writes about eating children as an effective way to deal with poor communities and a lot of people take it the wrong way. For the record, people still take it the wrong way.

1812 AD: The British musket-and-cannon their way to a draw with America, yet somehow this “war” is remembered as the one time Canada beat the US at something; our national communities have been dealing with the ramifications ever since.

1848 AD: Soccer (based on supercool Chinese foot-to-ball techniques) as we know it is invented; things get a little ridiculous in all communities but the ones north of Mexico and east/west of everywhere else.

1861: The community of Merville, BC is founded by Sir George “Gumboot” Merville, who, incidentally, got lost with his crew on their way to Cape Horn with a delivery of sheep for the Falkland Islands. Friends of sheep and people who don’t ask questions, they inserted themselves into the landscape quite nicely and built a small, but vibrant, community based on the wild mushrooms that grew in the muddy middle-region of present day Vancouver Island. In the 1920s some re-settled First World War veterans arrived and invented a bit of a different story about Merville. Still, to this day it’s referred to as “the gumboot capital of Canada” for a darn good reason. Somewhere, George is smiling.

1880 – 1987 AD: The fusion of warfare, industry and government makes killing people and destroying things pretty darn efficient. Yet, somehow, the vast majority of people on Earth found time to dance, sing, create, love, give directions to misguided tourists, and not kill each other. In fact, there are a lot of songs, poems and paintings about such things. Technology and human innovation, it turns out, are viciously and beautifully double-edged.

1988 AD: Al Gore collaborates with a Soviet spy named Sputnik, the British Post Office, some nerds at UCLA, and a supercomputer named “Dennis” to invent the Internet. Seriously.

2003 AD: John and Kurt graduate from Bishop’s University with meager writing skills, a penchant for Egyptian beer and a blossoming friendship based on history, pirates and ideas from everywhere. After their proposed Fox sitcom fails spectacularly, they go their separate ways.

2005 AD: The environment – Gaia, I think her name is – demonstrates her/its anger and fury. To quote Paul Hawken on why this might be significant, “When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”

2005 – 2008 AD: Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart coin hilarious phrases like “truthiness” and “twitblogging the interscape,” while Rick Mercer and George Stroumboulopoulos combine razor wit with Canadian humility to lampoon every region of this country from Dildo, Newfoundland to Yak, British Columbia. All master the world of Web 2 before their time (maybe even its time).

December 2008 AD – the present: A descendant of Otto von Bismarck asks John what his family has ever done for the annals of history. John starts on a story of his great, great, great grandmother’s service to soldiers during the Boer War but is quickly interrupted. The question is re-framed and answered and the point is taken. After a few Egyptian beers, a game of soccer and a spirited discussion of whether or not cleeted gumboots would be good for West Coast soccer and/or the First World War, The Weekly Gumboot was born.

So that’s how we arrived at where we are today. Pretty simple. Pretty straightforward. All of it steeped in truthiness and histortical findings. Speaking of honesty, we also have a few values and ideas that define The Daily Gumboot’s mandate:

  • Keep it positive: building communities is hard when we throw stones at each other, or when/if you get hit by them (this metaphor works when it’s not a metaphor, too); focusing on what we have in common as well as finding the humour in our differences is a refreshing change from fear-mongering and finger pointing.
  • Collect ideas from everywhere: everyone and every idea deserves a voice and a venue; so, we strive to find stories about communities from all around the world – ones that are tucked away into the most obscure and unknown and distant places of this planet…like Calgary!
  • Make ideas actionable: it’s one thing to have a good idea, but it’s an entirely different thing to deliver on it; in our Five Ways to Build Community segment – as well as our interviews with community builders from around the world (or the West Coast if our funding falls gumbootsthrough) – we will provide useful tips on what you can do to build community in your, um, community.
  • Be educational edutaining: recent findings show that people learn more when they’re having fun; we hope you have fun with it as you explore our understatedly educational blog.
  • Make it fresh, snappy and sexy: this is where the “publishing witty and provocative ideas every day or almost every day comes in” part comes into play; again, Mike Boronowski gets credit for our new, sexy look.

So there it is. Thanks for taking the time to visit The Daily Gumboot. And, hey, just because we might not post a fresh twitblog each day doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop by for a visit each day! Some of my posts might even take you a day or two to consume and digest…

Stay classy. Keep it positive. And, most importantly, have fun with it!

Your pal,

John

Editor-in-Chief

Learning from Pirate Communities – Treasure in the Classroom

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As per usual, I’ll do my best to tie this whole thing to pirates. So, readers, are you skeptical as to my ability to bring together pirates, a Web 2.0 classroom, discovery-based learning, buried treasure, and constructive criticism from one of my students?

Well, I challenge you to read on, my friends.

The Situation…

A few weeks ago I was asked to participate in the Sauder School of Business’s e-learning “play day.” Okay, it’s not like they just called me up because of my stylish, gumbooty notoriety; I work in the school’s Business Career Centre and manage the career component of the Early Career Masters program. Some wonderful and, I gotta say, pretty darn brilliant colleagues, Denise, Rob and Vivian, needed a classroom facilitator to, I kid you not, “walk the plank” and test out some of Sauder’s new classroom technology. So, I stepped up and presented a career development workshop called Managing your Online Presence. It was sent to Denise a week or so before, and she infused it with technology and ideas that, well, basically made the workshop better. We were ready to roll.

I showed up to the coolest and most amazing classroom in which I’ve ever taught. Video screens and giant monitors covered the walls. Flat screen tvs were like bookends on the tables/desks. And the lectern was equipped with enough widgets, microphones, cameras, screens, and flashing lights to make Captain Kirk and James Bond horribly jealous. Two groups of students were participating. One group was located right in front of me at the Robson Square Campus, the other was “beaming-in” from UBC Point Grey. I was mic’d up. Palms were sweaty. The video feed went live. And I was thrown – albeit with amazing tech-support – into e-learning at the University of British Columbia.

Now, I’m tech-savvy, sure, but I gotta say that I was a bit out of my comfort zone during this experience. Live, streaming video beamed me into the Point Grey classroom as I went through my lesson. Using their laptops, students could race online to solve problems I gave them and conduct five-minute-research on questions I asked. There were iClickers (cool tools for ongoing, interactive engagement that is basically a virtual multiple choice test). There were headsets and microphones. Denise and Rob prepped me for using the Wimba Classroom (approachable, intuitive and in possession of several wonderfully distracting bells and whistles), and, when I inevitably hit a wall, they were there to help. Basically, Wimba allowed for a digitally collaborative classroom, where students could share ideas with instant messages, draft lists and presentations with a wiki/whiteboard and tackle assignments in small groups with the breakout rooms. Sure, it all got messy (headsets worked, then failed, then worked, but the student was in another room by that time; then everyone realized that they could draw funny pictures of me on the whiteboard!), but it was the first time any of us had seen this experience go live and, hey, we all saw the potential.

Teachers of the world. Students of today learn differently than you did; even than I did. It’s getting more competitive to fill up postsecondary classrooms (let alone do it in a meaningful way with an engaged and responsive audience). So, if you are interested in (and hopefully excited about) seeing students use laptops in class for things other than updating Facebook, shopping online and/or various other endeavours to twitblog the interscape, keep reading and get ready to embrace some creative, student-led solutions to a nineteenth-century problem! Needless to say, with players like Vivian, Rob and Denise – not to mention internationally renowned faculty – Sauder is on the way to solving this problem.

Learning from Pirate Communities

So the story goes, pirate communities rejected “the system” in (or under) which they were expected to live. They also buried treasure. Let’s explore these ideas.

In 1573, Sir Francis Drake – an English privateer or “corsair” who made life pretty miserable for Spanish merchants from Europe to, allegedly, Vancouver Island – collaborated with several French pirates and about a dozen escaped slaves – or cimarrones - and hijacked a Spanish mule train loaded with gold, silver and precious gems. According to Samuel Bawlf, Drake, his crew, Le Testu (leader of the French sailors), and the cimarrones smartly ambushed the Spanish traders at the Campos River, about “two leagues” from the town of Nombre de Dios. Working together, they kept quiet and, under their massive loads of booty, staggered to their ships, which were hidden in the mouth of the Rio Francisco. How much, um, booty were they staggering under? Well, “in gold alone the raiders had seized some 100,000 pesos (the peso was worth eight shillings three pence of English money)…and including gems and what silver they managed to recover, the total value of the haul was likely in excess of £40,000.” And here’s the kicker: Drake and his boys stole over 15 tons of silver. Obviously all of this loot couldn’t fit on board their ships. So, they buried and hid the treasure in the forest around the Campos River. The point is that although stories like Treasure Island have romanticized the uncommon occurance of pirates actually burying treasure, it did happen, with Drake and Captain Kidd being the most notorious of booty-buriers.

A recent article in The Independent by Johann Hari suggests that modern day pirates, like their historic brothers and sisters, have rejected today’s unequal, corrupt and punishing global “system.” Hari cites the last words of William Scott, a pirate hanged in Charleston, South Carolina during the Golden Age of Piracy: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live.” Fast-forward to 1991 in Somalia, where the country collapsed and, according to Hari, the worst-of-the-worst in the Western world saw this power-vacuum as a perfect opportunity to steal Somalia’s food supply (over fishing) and use the region as a dumping ground for nuclear waste (“yes: nuclear waste,” says Hari – cadium and mercury were also, allegedly, thrown in the mix). Hari interviewed Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, who claims that “there has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.” Recent findings also show than in excess of $300 US in shellfish is being stolen from the Somali coast by illegal trawlers. Yes, many – or most – of the pirates are gangsters. No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking okay. But also keep in mind that life, the universe and everything is a subjective experience. And also recognize that a new system has emerged in Somalia, as, according to the independent Somali news site WardheerNews, 70 percent of of Somalis “strongly supported piracy as a form of national defense.” Heck, another term for “Somali Pirates,” according to the “Somali Pirates,” is “the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia.” The old system failed Somalia, and people in the region need something different to sustain themselves.

Long story short. I argue that students – like pirates swashbuckling through societies in and around Somalia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Haiti that no longer recognize their governments as part of a fair and equitable global “system” of organization – are rejecting the classroom system. They also like finding/discovering treasure.

“Make us Your Treasure Hunting Corsairs”

The above quote is from one of my students, Anton Rudenko, who also participated in the e-learning “play day.” As educators, I think we’ve been forcing learners into a nineteenth-century paradigm for long enough. Now. I’m smart enough to know a good idea when I see one (they come from everywhere, you know). Anton has a good one:

“You can even consider presenting the whole career program to students next year as a game,” he said. “It could involve a treasure hunt adventure for your students. They are corsairs and the treasure is their job. You can call it “career quest”, and develop a point system with different activities worth a certain amount of points (gold coins?).” Hopefully he’s kidding on the last part, but the young man keeps on describing this outside-the-box approach to career development. “Information interviews would be worth a lot of points. Each information interview would be a ‘captured ship carrying a piece of the map that leads to the treasure.’ So if you capture enough of them, you will eventually put the map together, and get the treasure.” Multi-facetted, multi-levelled kinds of discovery, honestly, blew my mind. And then he brought it all home: “I think it’s a pretty cool analogy. You can go crazy with this. But then of course you are running the risk of students getting addicted to the game and skipping lectures :-) ” Well said and, hey, what would a note from Generation Y be without an emoticon?!

Great idea. It’s got edutainment, experiential learning and is a student-driven collaboration with the instructor. Sure, there are kinks (ie. this pirate thing may or may not be desperately unprofessional and will need to be re-visited by a certain Editor-in-Chief one day soon), but it’s something on which we can collaborate.

Here is why a student-centred, democratic classroom involving “treasure hunting” strategies is so important:

Equality: recent findings from an up-and-coming “newspaper,” the Globe and Mail suggest that un-equal communities fail to flourish and meet their potential. The classroom is no different. Great ideas come from everywhere. Even from students. Belay that. Especially from students. There is so much information out there that we cannot expect a “balanced” and “fair” and, to be honest, “accurate” assessment to come for just one person and/or source. So, encourage them to plug-in, engage and explore the myriad of online resources that exist within the maze of pipes and tubes that is the internet. Pirates chose to be pirates, in large part, because a career in the merchant marine and/or Royal Navy was too authoritarian for them to flourish as people and professionals. Providing a student-centred, collaborative environment for our learners engages them on an, ahem, equal playing field.

Technology: this is a generation that has been bathed in bits. During the classroom technology “play day,” there were moments when, in a split second, a picture or resource found online was copied by a student, pasted on the digital whiteboard, studied by the entire class (simultaneously at two campuses), and discussed by the group (simultaneously at two campuses). Amazing. These mediums allow learners to access and present information at lightspeed, which adds value – and dimensions – to everyone’s experience in the classroom. Further, if educators don’t embrace technology – as well as encourage students to embrace it – then it will be the medium they use to tune out from what we say. Sending them on “missions” or “quests” with their computers, phones and iPods is much more effective then telling learners to turn off their media and pay attention.

Discovery-based Learning: I talk too much. Partly because I love being the centre of attention. Partly because, when it comes to career development, I’m emerging as an expert. Wow. Talk about a dangerous combination for a classroom, eh? No wonder students don’t always pay attention for the full two hours of my workshops! Recent findings suggest that students today can’t pay attention for very long (they’ve/we’ve taken breaks while reading this article to text a friend about the article, make a YouTube video, blog about the NBA playoffs, and purchase food/clothing/term-papers online). For true, pure engagement, we need to make them captains of their own ship and give them personalized autonomy that will allow them to customize their learning experience. Allowing them to discover their education for themselves is the key, my friends. Students should be pirates (Editor’s note: wait, no, that’s stupid. We here at The Gumboot do not in any way condone students or graduates to become pirates or embrace piracy). But think about Anton’s multi-levelled, collaborative, discovery based concept of “the treasure hunt” as you take steps towards planning your next lesson. We provide the map. They discover the treasure.

Trust me. Pirates or not, when you push your comfort zone you’ll have fun with it. And you’ll learn a lot, too.

- JCH

Learning from Pirate Communities – Gender and Women’s Rights

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Long before universal suffrage, Roe vs. Wade, bra-burning, the Eveleth iron mine, Hilary Clinton, or the exporting of women’s rights to places like Afghanistan, a woman named Ching Shih watched her husband die in a hail of musket fire.

It was 1807 and Zheng Yi, a pretty darn good pirate in his own right, just got put down by the Royal Navy. A power vacuum emerged. Hundreds of Chinese pirates were looking for a leader. An opportunity presented itself. And on to the scene emerged the greatest pirate in the history of pirates. She called herself Madame Cheng.

Madame Cheng was ruthless, wily and charismatic. She immediately seized the opportunity (totally embraced planned happenstance, by the way) and consolidated power within the Chinese Pirate Confederation by leveraging her positive relationship with the members of her husbands professional and social networks. Madame Cheng also took a huge risk. As she cajoled and negotiated and charmed her way to prominence in China’s pirate community, Madame Cheng took on a young lover; the adopted son of a fisherman named Cheng Pao. And here’s the kicker: she made the kid head of the Red Sea fleet, which was the biggest and most important in the Confederation.

The move was shrewed and effective. Madame Cheng had an eye for talent, as Cheng Pao had grown up in a “floating community” of Chinese junks, adhoc houseboats and strung-together waterlogged debris. He had an uncanny understanding of the sea and Cheng Pao used such abilities to carry out his wife’s master plan, which, really, was nothing short of dominating the Chinese shipping routes from the Strait of Malacca to Australia.

By 1810, Madame Cheng’s pirate fleet was larger than those of most countries navies. She commanded between 600-800 coastal vessels, hundreds of small, river junks, and tens of thousands of pirates. Recognizing her growing power, the British, Portuguese and Chinese eventually banded together to stop Madame Cheng. But they didn’t. Following thousands of deaths – pirate and seamen alike – Madame Cheng decided to belay the bloodshed. From a position of power, she negotiated a peace treaty with the colonial powers and Chinese authorities and, following the agreement, sought an early retirement with her husband, Cheng Pao. Through organization, relationship-building and recognizing top talent, Madame Cheng created a pirate fleet the likes of which no one has ever seen (or well ever again see). And for three years she ran the shipping lanes of the China Sea and Strait of Malacca for decades.

Now. Madame Cheng wasn’t the only successful lady pirate. Anne Bonny and Mary Read are probably the most famous female pirates. Actually, they arguably made the inspiration for Johnny Depp, Calico Jack Rackam, famous by association. The three sailed together from 1718-1720 in the Caribbean, after Rackam, a charismatic fellow (not unlike another Captain Jack we know and love), was elected by his crew following the former captain was declared a coward and executed. Rackam, who was engulfed in a fairly tawdry relationship with Read, brought to two women aboard during a stop in Cuba, and the women joined the crew in pillaging small sloops and coastal fishing villages all around the Caribbean.

Life was good (there was even an alleged love triangle between Bonny, Read and Rackam), until 1720 when Captain Jonathan Barnet captured Rackam’s ship. Get this. All the men, including Rackam, hid below deck as the Royal Navy ship approached. Bonny and Read, who Barnet claimed could “swear and fight as good as any man,” charged the approaching sailors, killing and wounding dozens before they were finally captured. And while Rackam was quickly hanged, his body put in a cage near Deadman’s Cay, Bonny and Read, who – I kid you not – were both pregnant at the time, were allowed to have their children before returning to trial. Read died before re-trial, but Bonny escaped with her child, never to be heard from again.

Amazing stories, sure. And what does this mean for our current communities here on Earth? Well, I have some findings to report:

Leading women today agree with John’s idea. Okay, maybe, but probably not really. Still, having met Fiona Walsh (FM Walsh & Associates) and knowing her to be pretty darn brilliant and that she has a great sense of humour, check this out. Let’s see how Madame Cheng’s piratical example lives up to the three main components of Ms. Walsh’s Women in Leadership Program:

  1. Develop a professional “BIG PLAN” and have a “Plan B”. Check! Madame Cheng’s initial plan was to, well, dominate the China Sea and Strait of Malacca for another few decades. Plan B was to retire. Well played, ma’am.
  2. Understand your professional value (your reputation, specialized skill set, existing network) and build on these three components. Check! Madame Cheng (not to mention Bonny and Read) had fierce reputations. Cheng’s skill set involved top-level leadership, industry knowledge, talent recognition, and the motivational aspect of organizational behaviour. And she leveraged her husband’s network to become leader of the Chinese Pirate Confederacy. Brilliant!
  3. Build a powerful business network that will support your advancement through the world of business. Check! Beginning with the appointment of Cheng Pao, Madame Cheng surrounded herself with a variety of new business partners (river-going junks was a new idea, not to mention a very lucrative one) as well as a range of existing power brokers from the colonial and Chinese/Japa
    nese/Singaporean/Filipino/Vietnamese business communities.

Hilary Clinton running for President shouldn’t be a big freakin‘ deal! Well, yes, it should, because a woman leading the United States (arguably the world) is an amazing and inspirational concept; however, Madame Cheng, nearly two hundred years ago, showed us that women can not only succeed in a man’s world, but can absolutely and totally change the game. She took on Britain and Portugal and various Chinese city-states. That’s like Hilary taking on the economy, Climate Change and adultery! Point is, we shouldn’t be surprised. Women are, quite clearly, better than men at most things. Even piracy. Probably politics. More often than not, it’s just a matter of timing.

Women are unmeasurably powerful. Thing is, our economic measuring/value-system has been written by men for hundreds of years and, admittedly, is a tad biased. Get this. A recent study by the United Nations Human Development Index revealed that unpaid work, such as volunteering, caring for the young, old and sick, household management, do-it-yourself housing, food-growing, and community service, accounts for $16 trillion per year. The vast majority of this work is done by women. Further, a recent University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business study estimates the annual value of a stay-at-home-mom at $138,095 and points out that these community leaders work an average of 51.8 hours of over time per week. Now all we need are some metrics that measure this kind of contribution instead of just GDP…

Should we be surprised that the greatest pirate in the history of the world was a woman? Not really. Ladies, you might just need to embrace your inner-pirate. If you take one thing away from the story of Madame Cheng, let it be the part about recognizing an opportunity for success and seizing it. And when you do, be sure to collaborate with other women and share your success. Honestly, there are a lot of us out here who are excited for you to run the world. Sorry we’ve screwed it up so badly…

Good luck, and have fun with it!

- JCH

Learning from Pirate Communities – Health and Wellness

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In the last instalment of this series we learned about the democratic nature of pirate communities. Over 100 years before the French Revolution, democracy existed aboard pirate ships, as represented by the written and signed Articles of Piracy, which demonstrated the crew’s power, as opposed to just the Captain’s. Part of those democratic principles included health care and workplace compensation, both of which, once again, existed on pirate ships long before they did anywhere else in the world.

According to Nigel Cawthorne’s A History of Pirates, when it came to healthy living, “many Royal Navy seamen considered life on board a pirate ship heaven compared with conditions they experienced on board the ships of His Majesty.” There was a greater life expectancy than in the navy and, while a pirate could very well depart this life at the end of a rope, he was allowed to leave the ship when he pleased and, if he chose to go ashore, could, as Cawthorne says, “at least look forward to a few years of freedom and high living.”

Life aboard a pirate ship was not only better lifestyle-wise than that with the Royal Navy or Merchant Marine, but pirates were actually given health benefits in the form of workplace compensation. Specifically, they went into battle knowing that, should they lose a limb or have their eye poked/shot out, they would be financially compensated for such loses. Here is a chart that reflects the actual payment as discussed by David Cordingly in Under the Black Flag:

BODY PART LOST

FINANCIAL COMPENSATION

Right Arm

600 pieces of eight

Left Arm

500 pieces of eight

Right Leg

500 pieces of eight

Left Leg

400 pieces of eight

Eye or Finger

100 pieces of eight

Here were the earliest forms of non-governmental (ie. the military), workplace compensation. Further, the ship’s – or pirate company’s – surgeon was the highest paid member of the crew (fun pirate fact: only carpenters, shipwrights and surgeons earned a salary). Aaron Smith, a surgeon working on a merchant vessel, was captured by Cuban pirates in 1822. He was seen as so valuable that, in spite of speaking no Spanish or being trained in their seafaring tactics, the pirates employed him as a doctor and sail-maker – pirates, unlike the Government of Canada, clearly recognized the transferable skills and qualifications of this foreign trained professional. So, aside from seeing the value in medical professionals (instead of, say, lawyers or investment bankers), what else can we learn from pirate communities with it comes to health and wellness? Here are some key points:

Healthy living begins with a Healthy Community: how did these compensated pirates use their money? Well, if they went to shore they invariably spent it in the taverns and brothels of Tortuga or other pirate haunts on isle of Hispaniola or elsewhere in the sunny Caribbean, hopefully, they built a relationship with local communities (should we start a thread on local food?!). Like many of us today, pirates suffered from the ill-effects of instant gratification. They would spend their compensation without thinking of a long-term strategy; however, if a certain amount of time, effort and resources were exchanged by pirate companies and coastal communities, well, then a system of security and care would be formed. Even today the coastal communities in Somalia rarely cooperate with the authorities and provide shelter, supplies and medical attention to pirates-in-need. As it was 300 years ago, when pirates take care of their communities, their communities take care of them. Organized, democratic, healthily-insured, and possessing a sense of community: wow, Barack Obama could take a page out of their playbook!

Health and Wellness in the Workplace: each year the Canadian economy loses upwards of $30 billion because of workplace stress. Our country’s workers are asked to do too much too quickly in an effort to complete projects within razor-thin profit margins. And if you’re an organization that recognizes the relationship between happy, healthy workers and profitability, well, then your organization is going places. Not unlike a pirate ship! If not, hey, you can learn from the pirates. Today, over one million people in Canada’s workforce suffer from some kind of mental illness brought on by stress. In the seventeenth century, life aboard a pirate ship was easier and more efficient than aboard a ship in the Merchant Marine. There were more pirates (typically as many as 80) than merchant sailors (sometimes as few as 12), so buccaneers would actually be more productive and get to work less. How was this possible? Well, the booty, plunder and earnings of the pirates was divided democratically amongst the crew, whereas merchant sailors saw the profits from their hauls go to wealthy businessmen in London, Boston and New York. This is why, argues Cordingly, so many merchant sailors joined pirate crews after their vessels were attacked and raided. Reasonable time to complete less work, more loot and health insurance?! Why wouldn’t they sign up?!

Health Insurance is different from Wellness: pirates, like some of you reading this blog, are a little dirty. Now. There are levels of dirtiness, obviously. For pirates, they got filthy in a venereal sense. In fact, due to syphilis rates that rival modern day Whistler night clubs or Axe body spray commercials, pirates would usually head directly to the medicine chest, not the armoury or treasure-hold, when they ransacked a ship. It was itch-curing mercury compounds, not gold, rum or gunpowder that was the sought-after treasure for so many of these scallywags. Just as with the these wench-pillaging buccaneers, today many of us look to the healthcare system to cure illnesses brought on by excessive smoking, drinking, sitting, eating, stressing, and unprotected sexing. While pirates, like many of us, have access to health care, we must remember that such a system is only part of what it takes to be healthy. Really, it takes a well-rounded, holistic approach that involves diet, exercise, work-life-balance, and happiness. So, the next time you’re thinking about swilling some rum, grabbin’ yer cutlass and hittin’ the port with yer mates, ask yourself if these actions will lead to you being a drain on an over-taxed system that is set up to help people who actually need it. Not over-indulging pirates.

At this point, I’ll add a disclaimer and remind you, the readers, of the context in which these tales took place. Look. Life on board a pirate ship in the eighteenth-century was, yes, better than life in the Royal Navy. Keep in mind, though, that your food still had maggots in it and that you usually slept in a damp room bellow decks and fell asleep beneath a wet, mouldy blanket. So, yes, it was better, but let us keep in mind the standards by which these pirate-ship-havens were measured. Also, just as governments tax their citizens, pirates taxed (and still tax) communities. The Canadian government, when taxing, doesn’t tend to set things on fire, though…

Yes. Subtle differences abide. Long story short, work less and be well…like a pirate!

Thar be it, mateys and matettes! Have yourselves a grand day on the high seas.

- Sir John the Pirate Piratologist

Learning from Pirate Communities – Democracy

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Have you ever caught yourself wondering why our societies zigzag all across the ideological spectrum? This political party is too conservative!! No, it’s too liberal!!! We love the environment and must save it!!! But wait! Not at the expense of the economy!!! Taxes are too high! Cut the GST! Dammit, if we’d been paying 7% instead of 5% over these past two years, that would have made Canada’s future deficit so much lower – taxes are good!!! I love the Olympics! I hate the Olympics!!! Oh, democracy, how did you get this way?

At times, our communities seem to be steering a wayward, unpredictable course through ideology and governance in the world around us. Not unlike a pirate ship.

You see, the Royal Navy and Merchant Marine sailed straight, authoritarian courses. But not pirates. No way. And do you know why? Because the crew, not the captain, decided where the ship was going. In fact, the captain couldn’t even be captain until the crew voted him into, um, office. Because, my little scallywags, pirate ships were bastions of democracy!

One hundred years before the French Revolution, pirate ships – or pirate companies - were run on the ideals of liberty, equality and brotherhood. It was the rule, rather than the exception. According to scholar and fellow Piratologist, David Cordingly, author of Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates, at times, it was difficult to even get a pirate ship going anywhere. You see, the crew actually voted on a destination before the captain set a course; arguably, this accounted for pirates’ time being spent in warm places like the Caribbean, Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca.

Like our Charter of Rights and Freedoms or our American friends’ Constitution, pirates drafted and signed “The Articles of Piracy” before each voyage. These articles regulated the distribution of plunder, the scale of compensation for injuries in battle, and outlined basic rules for shipboard life (ie. no one is allowed to drink all the rum and/or molest the goat) as well as punishments for those who broke the rules (ie. you molested the goat, now it won’t give milk, so we’re going to squeeze you in a vice until you give milk). After the articles were written, every pirate aboard signed them.

Given all this, when it comes to democracy, what have we learned from pirate communities?

  • The onlooking attraction of democracy: when a pirate ship attacked and captured a merchant vessel, the crew of the merchant ship was given the chance to join the pirates. Most sailors did. As with any country’s immigration tests, processes and required cultural-acceptance, new members of a pirate brethren were expected to behave accordingly. Just like today, people working and living in corrupt oligarchies (like the merchant marine, epitomized by the East India Trading Company or Venetian salt merchants) or authoritarian regimes (like the Royal Navy) can’t wait to jump-ship and join a democracy, where everyone got a share of the loot (more or less…just like a modern democracy!)

  • Democracies facilitate social and cultural leveling: pirate ships yielded a collection of multi-cultural castaways, escaped African slaves, openly homosexual seamen, and even women. Did they all get along all the time? No, absolutely not. However aboard these ships began the wonderful journey towards equality and multiculturalism.

  • Democracies aren’t getting us anywhere fast: pirate ships were aimless, inefficient over the long term (though incredibly productive in the short term), and were constantly in search of stuff – or ‘booty’. As with our modern democracies, pirates were – and still are – driven by a romanticized concept of consumerism. Treasure – be it gold or silver or slaves or tobacco or sugar or rum – gave them purpose. They lived day-to-day, and weren’t terribly concerned with the big, long-term picture. Captain’s were worried about getting re-elected (or not killed by their crew), not about a sustainable policies that involved immediate sacrifices for long-term profits. Kinda sorta like our leaders today, who can’t make any progress on meaningful environmental stewardship. They’re a little too concerned about boot-, err, the economy and it’s short-term, re-electing significance.

So there it is. Pirates, democracy and our seemingly pirate-like communities in Canada. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go draft February’s “Articles of The Gumboot” before Kurt organizes a mutiny. Thanks for your time. Watch out for pirates!

- Sir John the Pirate Piratologist

Welcome to the Weekly Gumboot!

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“John Horn and Vancouver Team: telling it like it is, and calling it as they see it since December 1, 2008 (the soft launch). These kids are world-changers. And you heard it here first.“

– Confucius, 442 BC

Merville, British Columbia is the undisputed* Gumboot Capital of Canada. As your host at this stop on your social media journey, I should tell you that I not only hail from Merville, but my upbringing in the tiny Vancouver Island hamlet has done much to shape my worldview. For example, if you have an unhealthy addiction to plaid and think that bears are naturally peaceful, well, you love Merville. Together with a team of unmatched** contributors from around the world, I will do my best to lead an ongoing series of engaging discussions about life, the universe and everything for all co-producers (ie. you, the interactive and collaborative visitor) to enjoy.

I’m also going to mention pirates a fair bit because of their spectacular historical, cultural, political, economical, and grammatical relevance to our ever flattening global village. Stay tuned, there’s much more to come…

Ladies and gentlemen: welcome to gumboot country! Have fun with it.

*may or may not be disputed by several competing gumboot enthusiasts…

**might possibly be matched…