Folklore, fact or fantasy?

Friday, May 6, 2016

Folklore, fantasy or fact?

Wow .... I loved sharing cool stories ... with my blog to be fueled with commentaries.  I think I'm developing my style and my voice on here.  What many don't know, and perhaps I didn't know until recently, is that these are the stories that capture my interest and draw me in for a little read or instigates the desire to learn about little everything that catches my eye :: like the "cloud" and I realize how I was in the leading edge of the cloud, about to fall off the MicroSoft cliff into lil creations like Adobe Photoshop​ .... which by folklore, in case you didn't know was another invention from a retired or departed colleague, scientist and innovator obviously saw a very big problem.  

What was the problem?

Well, Xerox, had a very big problem.  Hidden behind fantasies and fact we should remember the folklore.

If you did a little following or reading up on Steve Jobs was considered one of his single most impactful discovery :: the "mouse".

What others may or may not know or never heard, but Xerox had and to this day has a very innovative center of excellence.  p.s. That is an elegant descriptive that escaped from investor-adverse term like R&D (Research & Development).  

R&D had a really bad reputation.  Corporations reported on profits, and authored wording so carefully to avoid that word now.  

Why?

Because in itself, just beginning to understand spreadsheets of data that MicroSoft created, I picture a guy having a scotch with a colleague, a neighbor, friends over a dinner party.

These people were pretty tuned in to what was going on around them from a technological viewpoint.

This was a time, in the late 70s to early 80s, when scientists, environmentalists started to electrify us with reports on doom and gloom if we don't take care of our planet.  

As computers and printers began imploding because all of the great discoveries and creations emerging had to be printed on paper.

I remember those times.  I lived through those times ... but I was still not in tune with what was going on.  I had to hit a few walls, fall out a number of windows, but in this sweet spot I found a home : digital printing, document management, and file store :: the first hint of mist that would evaporate into "the CLOUD".  Really funny, sorta.  Xerox and MicroSoft were prolific, profitable and leading edge in the 80s.  What is amazing was that behind the scenes, companies like HP and dinosaurs called Attari were nurturing a duo of natural and expansive vision on the direction of aesthetics in printing and design.

A company with a logo of a fruit, was trying to solve a problem:  how do you create a world where 200 year old printing press with massive engines spitting paper in increments of thousands within just one of your eye blinks.  They recognized a problem with the appearance of printing or printed material generated from the awkward, mechanical, functional computers known on that day.  Steve Jobs and the other Steve :: yeah, the guy who created and then dropped out :: him!

It is a fact.  Steve Jobs attributed one very important truth about his brand of computers, that were synonymous together :: graphic design and fonts.  Of course, most of didn't realize how limited the machines, software creating most of the material on these environmentally poisonous inks lacked style.  I'm trying to remember the name of the predominate graphic design at the time.  Darn, I'll have to pop back in and edit later ... or maybe one of my readers who lean against both aesthetic design and functionality will remember?

So how do what sounds like a fantasy epic like Adobe, and an inventor in technology and a fruit like Apple have in common?

Back to the earlier problem of Xerox showing how profitable printers at speeds of light were going to consume the world of paper.  Ironically, all the stats were never showing that the mass of printed material was going to decline.  Why? Well because the products were going to get smaller OR MUCH BIGGER but the numbers of items would be be individually drastically lower in numbers.  BIG, MASSIVE signs and impressively designed items like menus could be designed in color, incorporate graphics arts with magnificent photography and you saw how this problem was going.

So Apple decided not independently, nor do I know if a folklore, that function, form and utility could be merged and expounded with incredible imagery and design.  By the 1990s, nobody could create an Annual Report, that would come out like symphonies of grace in not just the screen, but also in the appealing imagery and how words (or the industry types call text) flowed in and around this incredible design.

One of the most inspirational contributions was the mouse.  Probably back at the time it just looked like something you tooled around with when you weren't entering just text.  

Well, this is the truth and Steve Jobs even admitted it as one of his not so hidden secrets:  that he ripped off Xerox with the technology, science and invention of the mouse.  Yet so many people that is a fantasy to believe that Steve Jobs imagineered the mouse.  You have to give him credit because he was solving so many problems all at once.  And if Apple played its cards right, it would create a language, a loyalty and a dedicated audience that would brave anything than to have anyone think that the MAC was anything but the most fantastic single contributor, cutting down massive hours of work, allowing customers who paid for printed material to have output to the most high quality caliber even difficult to be detected by the most revered premiere printers in the world (think "Franklyn Mint" ? ) 

So the design and functionality was joined at last.  Apple victorious over legions of won-over fans in the creative universe imagined and output to the devices that Xerox was still in development in Pal Alto.  Perhaps it is fantasy to think that they would have taken their eye off the ball.  Like technology.  Like talent.

Watching organizations brain drain is going to be a commentary at another time.  It is one of the most downward spiraling corporate philosophies that is going to burst the most healthiest bubble called talent pool or loyal employees.  These organizations have boasted so broadly on how they look after their customer, or then their employees.  

Which is the GREATEST FANTASY:  that they care for anything other than their shareholders.

Back to the other part of this non-edited story is how another scientist at Xerox's Center of Excellence (or R&D disguised) left Xerox after I don't know how many years.  I don't know if he had imagined the problem or discussed it over dinner, drinks with their social circle.  

This part I know as fact.  There was this big giant obstacle obstructing the progress of where design meets these great big powerful paper spitting machines on material that was soon diverting from the more traditional magazine stock:  Luna Gloss.  How even that word can still cause me to cringe to this day.

There was this big enemy or distraction from design and power, revenue generating machines that would make Shareholders really happy, and stock prices to soar.    The marriage of the two was hampered by one really really big (now, I sound like Donald Trump Canadian girlie version anyhow eh?)  THING:  

The two could not talk!

Imagine me at the forefront of this explosive industry in its very infancy ready to collapse almost to mythical proportions.  

Well, it shouldn't really be rocket science:  The two companies Xerox that built machines and Apple that was exceptional for designers did not have a language in which they could communicate.  Sounds like a merger of two conflicting cultures like EDS and HP (that's another folklore story or commentary I've been writing behind the scenes for quite a few months).

Back to the scientist who had left Xerox.  Maybe he'd invented the mouse and was really ticked off that he did not any copyright rights?  That could be an interesting story as a fantasy or fact as a commentary later on.

He lived in a place in California.  Don't ask me the name because I'm a one person personality army waiting to emerge as a social media voice!

Beside the place where this scientist lived, ran a brook along side his property called Adobe.  He named his creation after the brook beside his house.  How's that for fact that sounds like folklore?

So this genius inventor recognized how the two massive allegiance we so far miss-aligned because they could not communicate.  

I was living those days.  Ha!  The sword thee doth yield.  (A little Cdn ShakespeareGIRLanese)

The biggest executives coming into our shop so that we could print their power point (OK, MicroSoft gets credit here, jeesh). They were about to hussle to the airport to get to an investors meeting in either New York or Toronto, it all started to sound the same:  problem.  Print fast, look nice, or nearly as nice as the generations old printing technology could.  

Then there is the gestapo at the now dubbed digital printing company is telling this executive that he had to have a conversation with his designer because he/she had to create a separate file in a separate language, then proof it because often things jumbled around, accompanied separately with Font codes, graphic files and Images (photography) all had to go where they were meant to.  The executive's disbelief that the rumored in an instant, sparkly, crisp printed design over night was fantasy!

So what Adobe did was bridged the language between the Apple designs/computers and the print engines invented predominantly by Xerox could communicate in harmony and keep everything together until at least the last printed sheet on glorious Hammermille (instead of Luna Gloss that ripped apart during the process and was so thin that both sides were shadowed :: shudders).

That could be a new Blog or story line:  the life and trialing times of a print sales executive.  

We know we all have called a photocopy a Xerox, as in "will you please go xerox a few of these for ..... please and thank you".  But the folklore of inventions by Xerox scientists are so behind the scenes.  It hasn't been really since Steve Job dying words were captured like information instead of confessions in his last authorized biography.  That story is one of the greatest salesman maneuvers of all time!!

Let's imagine examining what secrets were stolen or what technology borrowed to address a problem that needed to be solved either when it met near explosion so great that it could cause an implosion of profits, revenue and shareholders.

That is the true genius of the many greatest innovators.  There is folklore behind some that their greatest achievement would tarnish a few bazillion coins in investments if the real facts were discovered.

Yeehaw, that gets my creative juices going.  Uncovering and commentaries dedicated to the folklore or rumors from Silicon Valley by the giants of our world.  Now, that almost sounds like a NetFLIX special.  Hmmmm, someone who would appeal to both the Millennials and their parents :: will give it some thought and planning my goals on creative control.  (Inspired by the learning and knowledge gathered about PRINCE's true mastered gift:  creative control!

- See more at: http://meanderingsabout.blogspot.ca/#sthash.4Fn50EyQ.dpuf

Mental energy: an asset for everything

Delete

Jeannette Marshall YOU
One of the most wonderful posts I've ever read or at least lately was by Daniel Newman on Linked In :: it inspired me to comment and share my thoughts::. 

You are virtually, professionally and philosophically (8 attempts to spell correctly with resolve to persevere for reputable reasons) spot ON :: You got me thinking :: so what is IT??
Like ingredients we want to deny are in our fuel, or like veggies and fruit are part of the good diet plan, you need a number of ingredients :: not just one specific one.
Remember, the quote "your attitude will determine your altitude" ?? This we also agree, sometimes genetics or background just doesn't realistically match up with goals?? What you described :: i.e. study longer, work harder :: are not always a guarantee. What is IT then?
I'd say it's "mental energy"Have you ever met anyone who you could almost see their body vibrating from the hamster churning the brain wheel with information?? Sometimes, we misperceive that they are ready to pounce on you with a great outburst, as if they were barely listening but just trying to get to their turn in exerting something? A lot of heartache from that misdiagnosis for sure.
Some people just have mental capacity that is a lot bigger than most combined along with the ability to process information, details, at an alarming rate with gift of reading and absorbing a lot of information. Me, I call myself a: "Knowledge Junkie" (big no no by the labeling Gestapo) .
People who are seemingly forgetful only to burp out a really profound and accurate assessment of the situation  .... or ability to extrapolate a memory to the finest detail ::
YES! They're "energetic thinkers" which I'm gonna guess is what captured the most genius visionaries :: they just gathered, gathered, gathered information :: then spit out nonsense nonsense nonsense :: sifting out highly developed intellect that has nothing to do with IQ or academics.
That's what I think  Nice start ya think ?? What do ya think??*^* @optioneerJM Jeannette Marshall

p.s. Thank you for also reminding me of the most immense talent in the universe for social media acclaim were born in the collaborative "mental energetic" people in the universe from @USGuys on Twitter. Yes! Let the bell toll as some are "finally" reaching well earned recognition, separated like cream at the top from the nonstop blowhards ::  a group of innovative, humorous noisemakers, who seem to constantly be talking over each other (like Wolf Blitzer and Donald Trump on CNN tonight, jeesh eh?) or the knack for carrying on multiple conversations at once!!  (That is a gift).
I apologize for being a little slack on stopping by more often to read your gifted insight. 
Perhaps, taking you a bit for granted merely because we started so long ago together :: as a Group, an elite force. /jm

Mythical proportions: social media

One thing I really love about social media is how I can BE little ole me.  Authenticity is the new normal.  I tend to reflect on the past year, where I am in life, and my own personal checkpoints that I've carried over the years.  Sometimes it weighs a ton, and others when I can be refreshed and exuberant at the same time.   

Last year, I reflected a lot about music.  Interesting, now I come to think of it because I would have thought books would have been my highest interests.  Yet subconsciously, while lost in reflection, my natural implosion is music.

Perhaps it shouldn't be.  I still remember figure skating ... how there was times I leaned into the music, hastened my pace based on the music, learned to jump at certain crescendos or spin at others that felt right to.  That must be what it is like to be a true artist and musician:  you simply get lost in it, unfaltering love, hidden talents that you haven't even examined, never mind let them implode.  That is what it is that allows the magnificent visionaries we think of.  When you think of a great visionary do you automatically think of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs?  Or could you even possibly think of Mother Theresa?  Opposite ends of a great spectrum.

So writing has become my crescendo in life I suppose.  It is like all that build up is ready to explode ... the sad, the lonely, the ill would implode.  Cave in.  But not the visionary in life.  Thinking about JJ Rowlings ... she certainly found her greatest talent at her darkest hour.  Others may have ended up at their darkest hours.

I watched the HBO Special with Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt, who at 91 has a girlish giggle and exudes a sense that she is JUST now discovering her meaning to life.   I couldn't even fathom being a very young child and your father dies, then all the adults around you are bickering and fighting, forcing you to go to this very big building, with intimidating strangers jumping into the fold of the bickering.  Blustering to the point of spit and puffed up red faces.  Who needs to worry about the monster under the bed or in the closet when that is your real life.  I'd imagine, she would want to run to the closet and hide, to keep the real monster around her growl and push her around.

It was just amazing.  I haven't really had an idol since Princess Diana passed away::  someone my own age who lived gazillions of years away in how our lives took such different spins.

You had this incredibly beautiful, young beyond her age, vibrant, intensively passionate woman honestly say what makes her tick (her art and earlier her fashion).  I was astounded when she talked about her marriage at 17 to a man 31.  Or her marrying at 20, to a man 63.  Both masters, reveled in their respective vocations. That must be what is part of Gloria's magic, she really had found guidance in her husbands, that disguised the omission of having a father figure in her entire life.  Think of all her influencers:  darling DoDo, her nurse, mother, nanny, teacher or her grandmother who became entangled with the Whitney family.  Then her mother, hidden away in the make believe world of Hollywood.  I adored her frankness when she talked about being an actress or model:  they put makeup on her, dressed her and made her feel beautiful.

In my rambling mind, which hasn't been uncorked for a few days, either on optioneerJM or MEANDERINGSabout ... so I guess I'm letting it rip eh?

I've been so pre-occupied with life, quite frankly, I haven't been too close to the computer.  With the exception of Saturdays Polyvore marathon.  Whew, I wish I would almost, but not quite, be able to buy all those things included in my collections.    Alas, that phase I think has finally burnt out:  shop til you drop, retail therapy, shopaholic, whatever you wanna call it has fizzled out.  Amazing, I really must be coming into myself.

First up this evening was to Facebook.  Like billions others, if I'm going to have a word from my kids, it will be more likely be seeing a post and clicking a like.  Funny how the world has evolved.  A child would know:: hey, I love ya ... OR ... been thinking about you .... wondering about .... this .. or .. that.  I click a like on one of their posts and they know I've been there.

As usual, I skim through the posts on my timeline.  Smart that Facebook:  now giving me the choice as to who or what posts I want to see when I first log on.  I used to think Google had it made in spades with their intuitive predictions of sights or tidbits that may draw me in.  Now, Facebook is our friend of a different sort.  It knows who I likely view, even the mere few ads I'll click, Groups I belong to, Facebook Pages I follow that gives them a real sense of where my head may likely be at.

Lately, at the top is a memory post from a year ago.  I've never been one to get tied up over politics.  I'd far more likely watch the Stanley Cup without the Flames or Canucks than local, national or international politics would register a blip on my heart monitor.  But there I was, asked to step forward to help a former colleague, who used to report to me a life time ago forging a friendship that transcended all that career stuff to step into life stuff.  What a transformation for the both of us.  Both perceived as successful, career women, we got to see each other as a Mother and Wife, and even a Sister ... family was our cornerstone.  Even if how we met and emerged as friends would be from a likely source, some might think.    Yet some of the luckiest of us did find that click.

This wonderful, poised, polished young lady returned to Canada, after serving her country for a number of years :: at embassies and consolates (back in a min or two with the right spelling) :: decided she wanted to take her gift and dedicated talents back to her home city and run for a civic counselor post.  What a remarkable experience and insight it gave me into the world of politics.  I have only gotten into a social media spat once and it was an annoying advocate for my gal's post.    So opinionated and self-imposed on others, it was a lesson I failed to acknowledge.  I was not willing to accept that I could get into a furrow with anyone, never mind politics.  Mind you, I've cheered brothers on to hockey, and jumped up and down if either of my daughters scored a goal in soccer.  Not once, did I ever get into exchanges with the opposing team.  Then, slip into my discomfort zone, an area that was unfamiliar, the shield comes up instinctively.  I just didn't realize how sizable some think they are because of social media.  Like puffing out one's chest to be the biggest and the best ... unfortunately, more likely in their own minds.

And all the unsuspecting new social media enthusiasts who suck up all the BS just so they can feel like they're on the edge of something truly amazing.  A Justin Bieber created for the crowd of cheers from the immense audience that has no commercials, no script, no stifling.  The ego-icons are the fall out from social media, in my humble opinions.  It certainly has a dark side.

Then it popped.  There it was on my home page, top reference compliments of Facebook:  this reflection from a year ago when The Toronto Star published an article on who the highest paid Mayors are in Canada.  It obviously sent a tremor of sorts to my world because I clicked and shared it.  Our very own Mayor Nenshi was there.  It occurred to me, that I realized how important social media IS to politics but there is no follow up.  That is where the real media let us down.  One year their sending out a story, but never asked once, whether the citizens of the highest paid Mayors felt they get their money's worth.

Why shouldn't we ask?  I certainly don't think that a person who came out of obscurity, elected from Social Media campaigns, is what he may have led to people to believe they were getting.  Come on, please.  A Mayor who is single, male, never married, living in his mother's basement could be elected to head up one of the greatest cities in Canada, and often considered in the world.  What has this pinkasaurus got that Barney doesn't?  A successful social media campaign that was so great, the citizens of the great metropolis of oil barons got an impostor didn't he?  If not, tell me what he has done for the citizens who are being laid off, downsized, outsourced, offshore'd, replaced with newly onshores?  That may be a challenge to say.  The only time I hear about him is because he makes the bigger headlines that he's been voted the greatest mayor?  You're right, I didn't capitalize the story, because it wasn't a contest of greatness, it was a contest on social media campaigns which drew recognition.  

This all starts to make me crazy thinking about it.  Well, I'm not crazy, really.  I'm just pumped thinking about it.  My instinct was to ask how Nenshi ballooned to mythical proportions??  When my answer fell in front of me:  the part where MYTH enters the equation.  Which brings to realization that there are probably way way WAY more talented people out there that don't have that social media boost but would have been better trained, better qualified by active experience in representing political offices, a native who was born and educated locally, didn't have a shot because she didn't have the right boost.  My gal?  You betcha.

If you want another small example that grew large, that is, if you want to read more?  It would be how the NDP defeated the Conservatives in Alberta after being in power for 40 or 50 some years.  I think that people liked the caption to the end of the story:  overthrow government by political action!  That was more inspiring than the mythical proportion that did end up as a myth.  A year after this new government is in, the economy is flat, people, families are losing jobs, resulting in losing homes, and so on.  It's disgraceful is what it is.  Being blown up on hype, and unable to deliver on message.


THIS was the article and my reaction when I read a post from a year ago:  (I may have inserted the name of the publication that reported this, but I'm thinking that if brands want to be named, there should be something in it for me.)


I wonder if people in Calgary Culture​ think they are getting their money's worth from Naheed Nenshi​ ... it shows you that social media can pump you up into mythical proportions, and this is exactly what you get:  MYTHICAL proportions.    I've never thought of it before but Nenshi really is an impostor.  Why? Read more: at OPTIONEERjm .... 

I may start making creative license money by dropping in Brands whom I won't name, unless they pay me.  How's that?  Funny almost eh?  Well, when a respectable publication online refused me entry because I had anti-spam with ads turned off.  They actually said I would not be allowed entry unless I turned off my anti-advertisement tool.  Well, two can play that game eh?  Plus, they lost my readership.  The ego that thinks of itself with mythical proportions are going to go from unprinting publications to estranging readership.  Tell that to the paid advertisers.  Well, maybe not.  Hmmmm, I imagine many bloggers who would like to get paid a piece of the pie.  Especially, more people are gravitating towards authenticity, i.e. free subscriptions, and some may even like the lack of advertisers.