2009 already??

Happy new year to those out there that read my blog. I have been suffering from a little bit of blogitis. Meaning I haven't been blogging as frequently as in the past. For this, I feel a little bad. Some friends that live around the world only really get updates from my blog about the "businessy" stuff. I try to leave the more social aspects of my life off the blog when possible.

But, I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers. I know. Me and everyone else that wears a suit to work. But, really, it was quite impressive and inspiring. For starters it was interesting reading about the population gaps and how timing is apparently more important than one might think. As someone that is truly in a generational gap between X and Y this is interesting. I get classified in both segments depending on who I'm speaking with. The IQ sections were especially interesting...being someone that recently qualified into Mensa it appears that IQ is no prediction of being an outlier according to Gladwell. I definitely agree. The real predictor is a combination of family, opportunity, and willingness to achieve success. Right now I've had 2 out of 3. This is where I think that 2009 will be a great year....Opportunity is bound to knock at some point this year.

So, as a glancing overview of Outliers he talks about hockey players (AGAIN). Next he goes over how some of the other folks were "lucky" by putting in 10,000 hours of work before truly gaining expertise. Bill Gates was a workaholic that lived right next to University of Washington and was on a teletype computer at 4am. Bill Joy lucked out living next to a super computer at University of Michigan. The Beatles played up to 12 hours a day in Amsterdam. Even folks that are naturally gifted in something don't really gain an expert level until hitting 10,000 hours of work. So, we all need to push a bit harder. After this section Gladwell tackles the IQ debate...and demonstrates how family nurturing and support is a more important variable to success than being smart. Interesting. There are a few other sections, but fairly near and dear to me is the the last section talking about Educational reform.

My personal take on Education is that the public school system is in dire need of reform. My dad talks about how the model needs to change because "we're no longer farmers and shouldn't have a school year based on farming timelines." My take is a little different. It follows what Malcolm said, there was a lot of research saying that kids need to rest their brains. My personal take on this is that is a bunch of malarky. Kids only go to school 180-200 days a year in the US. Imagine how smart the kids would be (regardless of class size) if they were in school for 240 days a year. If your kids had more time to learn the same material--it'd probably be retained for much longer. Not only that, less time off wouldn't allow for as much to be forgotten. This concept is a little controversial for a few different groups. Teachers being at the forefront....I know I'll be irritating a lot of primary school teachers that read this (which I have quite a few friends that teach) but they really should teach closer to 10 or 11 months a year. It just doesn't make sense to take so long off on the summer. Less summer vacation means less time to go to all the seminars that they need (but business people have to go to seminars also...during their work year) and they can't go sailing around the globe or travel the US by RV. But seriously, teachers get good pay and even better benefits. Heck, some teachers my age made more than I did as a Senior Software Engineer for a Government Contracting firm. I worked year round, had an MBA, and received 8-10% raises BI-ANNUALLY. I know teaching can be difficult. It can be stressful. But, the rewards of seeing every single one of your pupils go off and change the world should be enough of an incentive to teach more days out of the year. The real impact would be to the vacation and travel industry.

Anyway, hopefully some of you agree with my ranting (which did go on a bit too long...sorry). If you agree or disagree, please comment. I'm interested in your opinions.

Also, have a great 2009! I know that things were tough in 2008. Trust me, my plan of living off my equities while finishing school didn't go as well. But, I do have a great feeling that 2009 will be a year filled with good things. This is coming from a Republican that voted for Obama that undertands that finances may be tight for us all....