Sounds like medieval Wales was a great place to be a visitor …

Those who arrive in the morning are entertained till evening with
the conversation of young women, and the music of the harp; for
each house has its young women and harps allotted to this purpose.

…young women … allotted to this purpose… Wow…

…now where is that time machine?

Just heard the following quote on the Antiques Roadshow and have to say it strikes a chord…

Not What I Have But What I Do Is My Kingdom

The words were engraved on a box made by an old ladies’ mother in the early 1900’s with some connection to the suffragette movement. Wonderful…

I think that the concept of automation taking over routine tasks to the degree envisioned by Papanek in this piece is still a utopian dream (those children stitching footballs in Asia are still a long way from becoming designers) but the description of design as meaningful and crucial is one I wholly agree with.

I’ve hopefully tidied up some of Papanek’s tangled wording at the start of this quotation.

In a world in which [...] work [will] increasingly [...] be done through automation and in which most routine supervision, quality control, and computation are performed by word and data processors, the work of the design team (research, social planning, creative innovation) is one of the few meaningful and crucial activities left to man. Inescapably, designers will be needed to help set goals for all of society.

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, Victor Papanek

I can’ help thinking that Geraldus Cambrensis was after something when he wrote about the Welsh in such glowing terms:

These people being of a sharp and acute intellect, and gifted with
a rich and powerful understanding, excel in whatever studies they
pursue, and are more quick and cunning than the other inhabitants
of a western clime.

The Description Of Wales by Geraldus Cambrensis or download from Project Gutenberg

It doesn’t jump out at you, but Born Shouting is a blog that has been born and bred in Wales. Wales is a country that is little known, often misunderstood and sometimes confused with other places. I love the description written by Geraldus Cambrensis in 1191 - short and concise yet a powerful depiction of Wales’ geography and ancient inhabitants.

It is a country very strongly defended by high mountains, deep valleys, extensive woods, rivers,
and marshes; insomuch that from the time the Saxons took possession of the island the remnants of the Britons, retiring into these regions, could never be entirely subdued either by the English or by the Normans.

The Description Of Wales by Geraldus Cambrensis or download from Project Gutenberg

Going through some old notes from a systems thinking course a did a few years ago I came across the following text, that gave me pause to think about the organisation I work for how it organises itself.

The way top scoring firms work is radically different to the way bottom scorers work, the research has found. In top firms structure was found to enable rather than drive performance. Processes were simple, though not simplistic and designed to expedite decision-making. Risk taking is encouraged and if things go wrong, procedures allow changes of direction quickly and easily.

Communication in top scoring firms goes up, down and across and it is an organisational objective to confer with unions and works councils and share knowledge with those on the factory floor or out in the field.

Leaders of the highest performing firms are seen and heard. Their organisations are not necessarily easy places to work, but there is little hierarchy and people at the top strive to deliver resources and technology to let their teams get the job done.

Although the buzz around leadership currently focuses around the ‘transactional’ and ‘transformational’, leaders of top scoring firms are stewards of their organisations rather than visionaries..

The culture of these organisations is characterised by a sense of pride and vigorous determination not to get left behind. Managers had positive self-image, worked on their own self-development and encouraged others to do the same. Quality not quantity and a focus on the external are exemplified by the way structure and process is subordinated to delivering to the client. This is facilitated by employees having control over how, where and when to get things done.

Finally, a challenging and open working environment determined relations between employees. Though working environments are supportive, these firms are dynamic and maintain employee engagement through a sense of organisational pride.

Cracking The Performance Code: How Firms succeed, 2005, report from the Work and Enterprise Panel of Inquiry

Working for a traditional, old economy bottom scoring firm as I do, the thought of working for a organisation with ‘a sense of pride and vigorous determination‘, rather than in hierarchical school-room with a veneer of empowerment is a beguiling one. But do such places really exist or are these top firms just new organisations with attractive modern veneers hiding old hierarchical hearts?

I’m too young (just about) to remember the Kennedy clan or for them to have influenced me greatly when growing up - but inspirational words such as these make me want to learn more about them.

Some men see things as they are and say, why?
I dream of things that never were and say, why not?

Robert F Kennedy

To paraphrase Sly, who infamously never said ‘Don’t push me‘ in First Blood (he said ‘Don’t push it‘ in various ways)…

Don’t count me!

As a person in a generation that has so many numbers surrounding and defining us(NHS number, National Insurance number, bank account number, annual income amount, number of shares this and that bank …) I fear that those numbers begin to become me.

I feel I need to heed the warnings of those who came before…(here comes Tamkin again…)

The money. They make a killing by fantasy. Now, counting any number is always a sadistic activity. Like Hitting. In the bible, the Jews wouldn’t allow you to count them. They knew it was sadistic.

Dr Tamkin in ‘Seize the Day (Penguin Modern Classics)‘ by Saul Bellow.

“You are Number Six.”
“I am not a number — I am a free man!”

The Prisoner

With a death in the family a couple of weeks ago, my mind turns somewhat morbid. When in comes to how I would like to be able to approach death, Dylan Thomas says it so well.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

If you’re ever in the area then go and visit the Dylan Thomas Boathouse at Laugharne in Wales. It’s a magical place - it certainly inspired Dylan and it may do the same for you.

Money is a counter in the game of life, who plays best or is luckiest has most. It could be worse, we could be hacking each other into small pieces with stone axes.

One fact that should be clear to you by now. Money-making is aggression. That’s the whole thing. The functionalisitic explanation is the only one. People come to the market to kill. They say, “I’m going to make a killing.” It’s not accidental. Only they haven’t got the genuine courage to kill, and they erect a symbol of it. The money. They make a killing by a fantasy.

Dr Tamkin in ‘Seize the Day (Penguin Modern Classics)‘ by Saul Below.

With my luck on the stock market, I’d be a goner by now…