Bullying: indignation is growing

Recent cases of cyberbullying have raised fierce indignation. Young people live and relive their humiliations on the Internet and decide to end their life. Kiwanis International magazine published April 2012 an article "Bullying: Why Can't We Stop It?" Kiwanis members run and support anti-bullying initiatives in schools. Prevention is necessary, because bullying is perhaps the biggest drain on manpower and talent, not only at school but also in life in general. Moreover, as work becomes more knowledge - oriented, the impact of bullying is more than ever economic in nature.

Why do we have bullying at all? Bullying is the easiest way to exert power. You terrify the weak, and automatically gain control over silent individuals, who become afraid of being bullied, and therefore start listening to the leader. It is more tempting when power boundaries are weakly defined. Hitler was a master-bully. He could never have reached absolute power without terrifying a weaker minority. Therefore, the silent witnesses are the key to the solution. Will they laugh and let this happen or will they speak up for the victims? It surely takes courage. And it requires belief that change is possible. One can start with refraining from all types of gossip. Even 'true' gossip should never be tolerated, because it is contrary to human dignity.

Today, the indignation is mainly oriented towards the bullying of children. (We should not forget adults, who know the more subtle types of bullying.) Kiwanis Leuven will be supporting the work that is being done within the Praxis-P work group of the University of Leuven. Aim is to study the effectiveness of prevention projects in local schools. Tomorrow the fund will be solemnly inaugurated.

Ode to Joy 2.0

Perhaps you are also disappointed. The possibilities of Internet 2.0 (basis of social web sites) were huge, but how poorly they have been used up to now! I'm not talking now about the attractiveness of web sites, the dynamic tricks and the level of interactivity. They have all improved. It is not sufficient to have a technology, you also need to have content. Removing the commercial content, the average social web content seems poor. I think many people have a similar experience. Some people never even started on Facebook, LinkedIn, Blogger and I can't blame them.

I made two observations in relation to Internet 2.0. First, what other 'peers' write, rarely seems interesting to me. Second, what I write, rarely seems interesting to my peers. Even highly educated people don't seem to be able to offer something more interesting than nice weather, time to do some gardening, and 'stupid politicians'. We are not even talking about rougher things. Internet 2.0 only seems useful to amplify mainstream thinking. What a waste!

Digging deeper, I came to the conclusion I was totally wrong. First, what my peers write, must be interesting to me because I notice I can't stop reading it. I read it, not because I like it, but because I need to know what moves them, what keeps them busy. I know this now like never before, at least for those who have the courage to stay connected with me. But I rarely reply, so they must think I'm not interested. Likewise, my peers perhaps read my writing, but rarely take the hurdle to respond, and I doubt if I would even comment myself to similar writings.

What we just observed, is actually nothing special. Internet 2.0 is just a communication medium, the object of our communication hasn't changed. We just broadcast our own daily concerns, and often fail to listen to other people's concerns. At the same time, we hope that other people will respond to our concerns, and we fear they might consider them trivial. Let us hope that the Internet 2.0 nevertheless shows some positive effect on bringing people together. What other purpose should it serve?

Critical mass

What is the importance of critical mass in innovation and regional development? I have thought about it, but have not been able to figure it out yet. Perhaps you can help.

In today's knowledge economy, products and services tend to become more complex. What we do in daily life isn't really more difficult than what our ancestors did, but the simple products with simple production methods are not the typical start-up business anymore in our country. Therefore, you need smart people and you need a good eco-system around you. Ideally you have intellectual resources, a university, and related companies. Look at Silicon Valley.

Perhaps we try to be good in everything, and lose the opportunity to be good in anything at all. Therefore the need to look at critical mass in certain areas of expertise. On the other hand, looking at a few successful start-ups, I must admit that some of them have been successful without there being any critical mass from the start. They just acquired the needed critical mass to do the job they needed to do. In that case, you need to be able to attract skilled people, if needed from all over the world.

Regional development is then not so much about creating critical mass, but about making the region famous and attractive for newcomers. (In the end, it may come down to the same, the critical mass emerging from integrating the newcomers, and the critical mass increasing the attractiveness for newcomers, a positive circle.) Offering good schools, good health care, easily accessible services, may then be more important than anything else.

Rip Van Winkle

This allegory is not widely known in Europe but in Amerika everybody knows Rip Van Winkle. The protagonist doesn't have a Dutch name by accident. The story stems from the early settlers' time in North Amerika when Dutch colonists had founded New Amsterdam.

Rip Van Winkle stands for laziness and complacency. He doesn't care about his own business. He falls asleep for twenty years, wakes up and notices the world has changed, including his best friends and family. The story was supposed to teach young pioneers the benefits of work and zeal.

Could this story become fertile on European soil as well? I think so. Europe is getting an old mentality. There are good initiatives, but there is not enough spirit in the general way of thinking and decision-taking. Indecisiveness and lethargy are the result. Not the destiny of Europe but the destiny of the next holiday is the main concern. Soon we should wake up and notice the world has changed.

Anständig wirtschaften

"Decent business" (fatsoenlijk zaken doen) would be one way of translating the title of Hans Küng's book. But the German word anständig is hard to translate in either English or Dutch. Anständig also has a connotation of "all right" (tegoei in Antwerpian), careful and diligent. The original meaning is even "not too fast", "stay there before you go".

The message of the book is not hard to guess: "why the economy needs a moral foundation". The author asks: "Was his (Ludwig Erhard's) conviction so wrong, that people can also be brought to common sense and service to the community through understanding, not only through hard laws? Is really nobody prepared to do anything on a voluntary base, only through brute force (Zwang)?"

While reading the book, other questions came up in my mind. Why do we need a stock exchange if this crazy system is not capable of damping out ridiculous panic reactions? I remember one day the Nikè index plunged because of the news of a new Japanese hostage taken in Iraq. If the system can't block this, it is totally useless and dangerous. Another question that came up: why do we allow speculation without commitment? If the value of a house or a factory increases, only the committed owners, entrepreneurs and employees should benefit from this, not the ones who buy and sell shares at computer speed while they are sleeping. I don't have the final answers yet.

The book guides the reader to the final chapter which is a manifesto signed by a number of intellectual world leaders. The preamble is as follows: "Die globalisierung des wirtschaftlichen Handelns wird nur dann zum algemeinem und nachhaltigem Wohlstand und Vorteil aller Volker und ihrer Volkswirtschaften führen, wenn sie auf die beständige Kooperationsbereitschaft und werteorientierte Kooperationsfähigkeit aller Beteiligten und Betroffenen bauen kann." In other words, the manifesto is a call on people to include all "stakeholders" in economy.

I refer to my dutch blog: het principe van de goede huisvader in een technocratie as well as to de dictatuur van de economie, written in 2004.

Mercator

On March 5th, 1512 Gerard Mercator of Rupelmonde was born. This man reinvented geography, more than 1000 years after Ptolemy. He was the first to map the entire new world. He created the most successful globe projection for navigation. Today, navigation and cartography go through a revival thanks to GNSS and earth observation satellites.

This excellent biography, written by Nicholas Crane, brought Mercator more to life than he was at primary school. First, the rough times he lived in, the dreadful circumstances and dangers that made him move from town to town. Many towns can 'claim' him now: Rupelmonde, Den Bosch, Leuven, Antwerp, Sint-Niklaas and Duisburg. His loyalty to his friends, sometimes at high risk to be persecuted. His scientific obstinacy. His passion for quality and beauty. His deep spiritual interests and his consequent sympathy for protestantism. He can still be an inspiration to many people today.

Satellite navigation can save your life (4) - High integrity applications

The increased need for people and goods' mobility has led to the complete saturation of almost all modes of transport, be it road, rail, waterways and airways. Further capacity increase is possible only by reducing the minimum safety distances between subsequent planes, vehicles and vessels. This is where we need computers, combined with reliable position determination and trajectory prediction.


This is the use of GPS and Galileo for so-called high integrity and high reliability applications. A pilot of an airplane does not need to know his position, including his height, very accurately. Centimetre accuracy is not needed. It is however important to know that the indicated position is 'integer', that it can be trusted: it should not differ from the real position by more than a predefined number of metres. 


EGNOS is a first European satellite system that will be certified to support 'general aviation' and 'civil aviation'. The certification of EGNOS as a system is already behind us. The certification of the receivers in airplanes is also required. These types of GNSS receivers must meet very strict requirements on hardware and software reliability, and on EMC immunity and emissions. Hardware and software are continuously monitored with internal algorithms and all measurements that do not meet strict quality indicators are discarded.


Galileo will also support a so-called Safety-of-Life service, indicating not only position, but also position 'integrity' related parameters. The FP7 supported - GaLoRIO project prepares the use of Galileo for train position determination.


In this way satellite navigation contributes to reliable position determination of planes ,ships, trains and cars. This will allow transport capacity increase and/or extra safety where other position determination systems (radar, VOR, etc) may fail. Picture: Freefoto.com

Satellite navigation can save your life (3) - Search and Rescue

This is a new service that will be offered by Galileo: search and rescue people sending an emergency distress signal (VHF 406 MHz) from anywhere on the globe. This is not about people involved in a car crash (where eCall can help), it is about ships in difficulties in the middle of the sea. There are already GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit) and LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellites for search and rescue services, but Galileo has two distinct features that will make a difference.

First Galileo will truely span the globe, so that the satellites will be visible from any point on the globe. Evidently the distress signal will contain the exact position of the sender. Secondly, Galileo will be capable to send back a return 'confirmation' signal (L-band 1544 MHz) that informs the sender that his signal has been received well by the search and rescue services. Experience has proven that chances of survival increase when people in distress know that their signal has been received! (image from ESA)

Satellite navigation can save your life (2) - eCall

There is another satellite navigation application that may save your life one day. eCall is a system that will be introduced in the EU in some years from now. All cars will be able to determine their geographical position through GPS, Galileo and other satellite systems and to communicate this position automatically to emergency services whenever a collision occurs. Needless to say this will save a lot of time in bringing the emergency services to the right location. Very often the victims of an accident are neither capable of calling nor of communicating their own location in an accurate way. Sometimes, they even don't know the emergency service number. (I discover many people don't know.) More information on eCall.

Satellite navigation can save your life (1)

On July 30th, 2004 a major disaster occured in a place called Ghislengien in Belgium. During construction works, a gas pipeline was hit, which resulted in a major explosion with many casualties (24 + 132 wounded). In the national surveyers' magazine GeoPlatform, I was glad to read that much has changed since.

The construction supervisor can now sign in to a web portal and define the planned excavation area. He receives copies of the required maps from the local cable and pipeline companies before the works can start. Inversely, the new cable and pipeline maps should be added to the so-called 'large reference file' which collects all new information in a digital way.

Surveyers can nowadays determine positions quickly and accurately through satellite navigation receivers (GPS, Galileo, Glonass) and Geospatial Information Systems on mobile devices. Centimeter accuracy is possible, ... amazing how satellites can do that.

Whether everything already occurs by the book is not clear, but at least improvement is on its way. Many countries have the same concern now. This shows how satellite navigation, combined with other technologies, can save our lives. Photo: SSN.

Privacy

In the Liveline project, one of the main issues to deal with was privacy of location based services. We discussed the issue extensively during a conference at the Institute for Family Sciences in Brussels.

One of the main findings of the conference was that privacy may not be quite what we think it is. Prof. Jos Dumortier pointed out that the issue of privacy was actually raised after World War II when nations felt that individuals needed to be protected against information collection organised by totalitarian states. Big brother was the keyword.

This is not the concept we have today about privacy. Today, we immediately think of neighbours spying on us using Facebook, or thieves looking at the facade of our house on Google Street View. Tomorrow, people may watch our whereabouts when our mobile phone starts registering our location. Two aspects are often overlooked here: one positive and one negative.

The positive aspect is: information science is capable of protecting and securing private information, provided the work is well done and, if possible, submitted to a certification process. You can share your data with the people you like and avoid sharing it with others. Nothing is 100% secure, but the risk can usually be brought back to an acceptable level. "Code of conduct" already exists in the business and it will mature with the technology. You will need to choose a quality service.

The negative aspect is: the danger doesn't come that much from your friends or neighbours and only rarely from ordinary thieves and criminals. The actual danger comes from commercial criminals, sitting behind computer screens. If your personal data (your purchasing habits, your location, your bank account status, etc..) are not protected well enough, you may experience soon some very nasty things. If receiving e-mails about blue pills makes you feel bad, consider what may be coming:

Being abroad, they could make you pay for zillions of unwanted SMS's when walking through a shopping mall. Driving with your colleagues to a business destination, you may all of a sudden receive a voice message asking everybody to look at the right where your favourite 'pub' or 'shop' is located. You may receive all kinds of publicity about things you are interested in or about things you just seem to be interested in. It will be sufficient you visited the web site at some point in time. Or perhaps it was just your best Facebook friend who visited the web site.

Anyhow, your boss and your employees will know what you like. I hope you will know it. It will be like e-mail spam: as soon as the ghost has left the lamp, it will be difficult to stop him. I wish you good luck in defining your user profile.