On the IBM Corporate Award - recognition event

Yesterday, there was a "recognition event" to recognize those in Israel who received the IBM Corporate Award, and some other awards this year. This award is the highest award that IBM grants to its employees, this year there have been 20 such awards worldwide (IBM employees from Israel have participated in 3 out of these 20 awards - quite an achievement relative to Israel size inside IBM), where each award can be shared among several people.    In the picture above you can see me in the middle between Meir Nissensohn, the General Manager of IBM Israel on my right hand side, and Oded Cohn, the Director of the Haifa Research Lab, on my left hand side.   Actually I got this plaque more than 2 months ago, and handed it over so I can get it back on the stage.  The award was given for "deep insights and groundbreaking research in Event Processing",  and contribution to the event processing industry development in general to be an emerging market, and getting IBM as a leader in this area in particular.


Then they asked me to provide some impressions 

We were briefed beforehand and were told that we'll not be able to use slides, just use voice, so I have given some insights and impressions in a way that was described later by people as a "stand-up performance" (well, I was sitting down), this is consistent with one of my old habits - Ridendo Dicere Verum,  when we started working on event processing in 1998, we did not know that we are doing event processing, we did not actually used that name, we also did not realize that 10-12 years later it will be an established and well-recognized area.   Getting new ideas in a big corporate are never easy, and I have written before about some best practices to navigate.    


Getting a recognition is always fun - but as my motto in life is based on the poem "IF" by Kipling, I'll end with one citation from this immortal poem:


If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;


This award has reflected past work, but the challenge for the present is to work on the future of this area, my recent talk in the OMG conference reflects some of the work towards the future.

On Intellectual Integrity and honesty

The common denominator between the two gentlemen whose picture you can see above (besides being philosophers whose name start with S) is that they both talked about intellectual integrity and honesty. I got a lot of responses (most in Email and not as comments to the Blog) for my post on positive thinking, and decided to have another off-topic posting on related issue.

A few weeks ago I have been in the large conference that IBM is doing to its customers (Websphere Impact), and besides meeting customers, this is an opportunity to meet other IBMers from all over. I had some corridor meeting with a senior person in IBM, whom I never met in person before, and he told me that he heard about me, and that I have a reputation that I stand firm for what I believe, even if I swim against the current. Well, at least I have a reputation for something. Some people appreciate such a behavior, and some are not.

But - instead of telling about myself, I'll tell a related story. In my long university teaching career, I had lot of teaching assistants.

One of the teaching assistants, whom we shall call TA1, has once looked at the slides I was going to present in my class, and said that actually they are not consistent with what he told the students in the recitation, it turned out that he got some (not very important detail) wrong. He asked me to change my slides and talk about this in a fuzzy way so that it will not be inconsistent with what he told the students, I suggested that he'll just tell them that he has some minor correction to the last recitation, but he refused, saying that this will harm his professional authority for the students, in short -- he said he needs to "save face". I did not like his answer and did not change my presentation, I don't know what happened, maybe the students did not notice. I actually allergic to the term "save face". I have seen a lot of bad things done for face savings.



Another teaching assistant, whom we shall call TA2, once asked me to take 5 minutes at the beginning of my class, since he wants to clarify something about the recitation, I thought that he wants to clarify something about an assignment he gave to the students, but surprisingly for me, he said -- in the last recitation I made a mistake, here is the mistake I have made, and here is the correct version, please copy it so you'll not be confused, and I apologize for the mistake. At that point I thanked him and started the class with a discussion with the students about intellectual honesty, and the importance of it. Guess who succeeded better in life
TA1 or TA2 ? you probably guessed right.
Intellectual honesty often does not pay off, there is something in the culture that prefer other values.

I have started with saying that I got many responses to the "positive thinking" postings, I got a cool one today, from Septimiu Nechifor, a Blog reader from Romania, who sent me the ultimate response to Kipling's IF -- any relationships to today's posting is just a coincidence...



ANTI - IF by Kostas Varnalis

If you can fool yourself when someone else hits you,
Pretending him a wise man and never you blame him;
If you don't trust nobody and no one's trusting you,
Forgive your sin is easy, but never others' sins.

If you respite the evil no single moment and
You lie louder and louder when other people lie;
If you're enjoying hitting the love with hate and though
Pretend to have a wise and even saint good side.

If you move like a worm and never fly with dreams,
And interest is always up to your highest aim;
If you leave the defeated for the winner all times,
Though both of them betraying is your standing desire.


If you can gain a thousand for every little gift
And mother land to play at cards is not a heavy act;
If you don't pay a penny as duty you have made,
As for being you paid is always right and fair.


If you can urge your thinking and heart and even nerves,
Ill - old all them to make some new and evil acts;
And indecision bowing low deserves from you as serve,
When all bawl "Forward!" you're the only crying "Back!".


If you reject the evil no single time or plot
And in its shadow feel like in a saint life tree shade;
Yours will be whole Earth and all its gifts and mines,
You'll be the first of masters, but never MAN, be sure!

On Positive Thinking

Two news items have been highlighted in the Israeli press, seemingly unrelated: the first one is Obama's speech in Egypt addressing the middle east people, and the second one is about Dudu Topaz, a famous Israeli entertainer, who was arrested by sending hired people to beat quite hard some senior people in the Israeli media. In the speech that the U.S. president has given earlier this week he addressed the people of this region and called upon them to exercise positive thinking and overcome the differences, to get a permanent settlement. I would say that he called upon the people to desert the "zero sum game" and move to "cooperative game". Some people around me say that this message is very naive, and asserting that since the other side has negative attitude then positive attitude is useless. It is always easier to unite people around negative messages, and indeed the current government of Israel has been elected using negative messages that the people through the collective wisdom of democracy decided to endorse. The other side is not innocent either, generation of children are educated on negative messages of hate. I very much support Obama's call for positive thinking, it will not be easy for people to think that way, after a lifetime of negative thinking, but IMHO this should be the way forward.

The other piece of news was somewhat surprising to most, as written, a famous Israeli entertainer, who was in the past the "king of rating" in commercial TV, hosting a popular show (whom I have never watched). A few years ago, after some embarrassing incidents that he was involved in, the commercial TV stations decided not to hire him anymore, a person like him who felt like a king, with a huge ego, could not stand the humiliation and frustration in repeating rejections and hired some bullies to beat some people hard (they needed hospital treatment and surgeries to undo damages) - one of them was CEO of one of the commercial TV stations, and the other was a program manager of another commercial TV station (the fact that she is a woman did not matter to him), the third was the artist's own agent that did not succeed to take care of him, and the police found in his house plans about several other people. This is an extreme type of negative thinking, but it worthwhile writing something about it. It happens to many people that one day they are stepping out of some position, or some circumstances change, and suddenly they are out of their previous power anymore, some people are going on and doing other things, but some stay on the sideways of the court in which they played before, and feel very frustrated by the fact that they are not the players anymore, since they are convinced that they would have played much better. This lead people to invest a lot of energy in negative thinking and negative actions. Dudu Topaz is an extreme case, but I have seen and am seeing various such cases of investing energy on negative thinking.

I can certainly understand frustration, the wheel is spinning, and as many people, I have been some time up and some time down, but early in my life I decided that positive thinking is much better attitude to life, and looking back is not really a good policy, remembering what happened to Lot's wife when she looked back. Although like any human, I am sometimes tempted to have negative reactions, which mostly proven to be the wrong ones.

I have written in the past about positive thinking in Blog posting, but it is true for other activities as well.

In early stage of my life I have read the poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling (in Hebrew translation) and felt that this is not just written words, this is a code of behavior that I should adopt. I have returned to cite Kipling from time to time, when I am thinking on a way to behave in extreme situation. I have copied Kipling's poem below his picture.


If (R. Kipling)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Back to professional postings -- soon.