“The ones made out of cardboard are more popular with my clientele,” he says. A tailor by profession, Hussain begins making tazias soon after Eidul Azha so that he has enough supply to cater to his customers. His structures look simple enough: four cardboard squares glued on top of each other in receding sizes and a pointed dome fastened at the top to give it a semblance of a mosque — which is not necessarily a replica of a shrine. Hussain then pastes the edifice with shining golden and silver paper, and tinsel in red, blue and green cutwork designs serve as decoration.
“I use moulds for every piece that I cut since even a little miscalculation could disbalance the entire structure,” he says, pointing towards his creations in sizes as small as one foot, to as high as four feet. He uses a special glue which is a combination of flour, liquid glue and copper sulphate, which is a mild poison and protects the tazia from being eaten by rats.
Hussain’s clientele is pretty regular, since most people submerge the tazia later, and need new ones almost every Muharram.
Across the city in North Karachi, a craftsman is busy giving final touches to a replica (shabih) of Imam Hussain’s shrine. Carved out of German silver and brass, this masterpiece speaks volumes of the glory of the original as craftsmen take pains to add as many details as possible to this three-by-four-foot miniature model.
“The entire structure is hand-crafted,” claims Umair Homaey to whose shop the replica was brought to later in Soldier Bazaar. Shias mostly refer to tazias as shabih (replica), roza (shrine) or zareeh, since in most cases they are miniature copies of the shrines of the Holy Imams. And it’s no easy task. Every shrine is designed differently, hence there is no one set of moulds.
“We design the model keeping the original in mind, and mould it accordingly. Some shrines have silver domes others are made of solid gold. Similarly, the minarets are positioned differently,” explains Homaey, “Sheets of the required material are shaped according to the design by hand and every part of the replica is carved with care and attention — the filigree and intricate calligraphy demands expertise. Once completed, it is polished and further propped by electroplating. In the end, the shabih is ‘lacquer painted’ for the shiny, glossy look and to protect it from rusting.”
The tazias brought out by sunni Barelvis are just as easy to discern and no less glamorous, courtesy their elaborate design and gilded finish. A tradition steeped in history, tazia makers over the centuries have borrowed designs from various cultures. Generally, wood, lead, brass and copper are used in its creation and there’s no particular size that one adheres to. They are either octagonal or square in shape; the skeleton carved out of wood. The base, called takht (a hollowed cubic structure), is placed on a charpoy. It serves as a foundation for further storeys which add height to the tazia; a number of mehrabs (concave arches) complement its beauty. On top of that, palki (palanquin), saiwan (canopy), dome and chand-tara (moon and star) complete the picture.
Reminiscing about her guru brings tears to Sujata’s eyes and she shares, “Our personal relationship was never a barrier for our guru-shishya training. He was a respected person and could demand anything but he always made things so easy for me. I remember once I had to enact a scene where I had to place my leg on his head and chest.
I was hesitant and considered it a curse! I was so nervous and tense but he just said one line, ‘You are Ramachandra the character and I am the boatman. You are not Sujata.’ This is what a guru does, moulds his students.”
On the personal front, Sujata believes it was only because of her father-in-law that she could continue dancing. “After I delivered my daughter, he did everything for her, right from bathing to massaging the infant. In fact, he prayed to have a granddaughter.”
Her animated and emotional discussion about her guru gets us to ask — why does this relationship between a guru and shishya lack today? “You see, not everyone gets a guru like what I had. You can safely call Kelucharan Mohapatra a guru. Today, every young dancer wants to be called a guru.
But are they as knowledgeable as the earlier gurus? They can be teachers but guru is a really strong definition which can’t be used for anyone. Even as a guru, you need to evolve and update yourself. Today I am crossing 40 and realise what all guruji did even at the age of 80.
If you cannot do half as much as what they did at that age, you have no right to call yourself a guru.” She adds how today’s generation lacks the faith or patience. “They are in a hurry and want everything quick. They want their guru/teacher to promote them. They want returns.
But it does not work that way. Indian classical dance forms is a treasure box. If you take from it you have to refill it too. It is a never ending learning process. You have to continue to create and evolve.”
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
For website-building trio, values are priceless
While the common wisdom says entrepreneurs must always have a clear exit strategy, the German founders of website-building business Jimdo take a different approach.
Travelling through Australia this month for a mix of work and pleasure, 29-year-old Fridtjof Detzner says he and co-owners Christian Springub and Matthias Henze learnt the hard way that it's better to be your own boss than be beholden to the highest bidder, and they've stuck to their word, recently turning down an eight-figure offer.
“Sometimes you have to get hurt in order to feel what's wrong and what's right,” says Detzner about the experience of a failed strategic partnership with German-based global internet service provider 1&1 three years ago.
Jimdo is a website builder that gives customers the tools to create and host their own websites, either for free or with paid bundled packages. It now has more than 6 million users worldwide, and most of this growth has occurred since pulling out of the strategic partnership.
Advertisement
Before 2009, the trio had self-funded the business with loans and investment from friends and family and grants from European entrepreneurial funds. Keen to accelerate their growth, they sought an investor and ended up signing with 1&1.
But the deal took the joy out of business, and after eight months the trio negotiated to buy back their shares.
“[1&1] was a huge company with 1000 employees, they were always pointing fingers at each other. When you see yourself just doing things for somebody who you don't agree with totally, and you see all your good people give their best for somebody else and not you – it's not that fun any more,” Detzner says.
“It felt so good to buy back the shares. We had to put a lot of focus on getting profitable because we didn't have this funding any more. It was a pretty intense phase of the company's development for us because we had a real goal to get profitable, to get out there, which we managed to do.”
The experience helped the Jimdo founders realise the crucial role that values had in their success, and after the separation from 1&1 they worked with staff to articulate them.
“The only consistent thing you have is values. For us, that's why we stick so much to that. It doesn't matter where your office is, how many people you employ, which programming language you use – it doesn't matter. These values are the thing that binds us together.”
Detzner says the work-hard, play-hard values haven't changed since the three of them started their first business together in 2004 – NorthClick, which Jimdo sprung from – working intensely for 18 months while living rent free in an old farmhouse owned by Detzner's family, with his mother cooking meals for the cash-strapped entrepreneurs.
“It was a pretty cool time. We focused five days completely just working on it, from Monday to Friday nothing else but,” he says.
Detzner says this single-minded focus by a small team led to such productive outcomes that they've re-created it for their staff. Jimdo is a flat hierarchy with no mid-level management and a series of small cross-functional teams.
“We set up these small groups with targets and visions for their own. These small start-up teams are deciding what they're going to do this week and how they're improving on that,” Detzner says. Teams present their work-in-progress each week on a white board so everyone has an overview.
“They are able to go at their own speed, and don't have to rely on interference from other departments. You make them happier because they see what they're actually creating.”
Teams have the option of working at an offsite location for a week at a time to develop their projects, with Detzner's mum's farmhouse being a popular destination.
“She's still cooks for them, she loves it. And now we have people working for us from 11 languages. They cook Spanish food or French food and invite my mum.”
Detzner says having clear business values has also been vital to attracting like-minded staff, and since splitting from 1&1 three years ago Jimdo has grown from 30 to 130 staff, and the business now has offices in San Francisco, Tokyo and Shanghai.
The company's success caught the eye of a top-tier venture capitalist, and earlier this year the trio received an eight-figure offer for investment, which they turned down because they believed this would lead either to a forced sale of the company or an IPO. And an exit strategy is not what these three entrepreneurs are after.
Detzner says they know this refusal of funding will slow their growth, but big dollars are not what motivates them. He says he's never had a 10-year plan for the business, but he does know what his ideal workday looks like.
“The perfect day would be sitting in a company where nobody is relying on me but they could come to me and I could help the teams reach their goals.”
As Detzner enjoys his three-week travels around Australia scuba-diving on the Great Barrier Reef and surfing and paragliding along the Victorian coastline, he is living by some of the key Jimdo values of having fun, keeping an open mind and learning all the time.
Travelling through Australia this month for a mix of work and pleasure, 29-year-old Fridtjof Detzner says he and co-owners Christian Springub and Matthias Henze learnt the hard way that it's better to be your own boss than be beholden to the highest bidder, and they've stuck to their word, recently turning down an eight-figure offer.
“Sometimes you have to get hurt in order to feel what's wrong and what's right,” says Detzner about the experience of a failed strategic partnership with German-based global internet service provider 1&1 three years ago.
Jimdo is a website builder that gives customers the tools to create and host their own websites, either for free or with paid bundled packages. It now has more than 6 million users worldwide, and most of this growth has occurred since pulling out of the strategic partnership.
Advertisement
Before 2009, the trio had self-funded the business with loans and investment from friends and family and grants from European entrepreneurial funds. Keen to accelerate their growth, they sought an investor and ended up signing with 1&1.
But the deal took the joy out of business, and after eight months the trio negotiated to buy back their shares.
“[1&1] was a huge company with 1000 employees, they were always pointing fingers at each other. When you see yourself just doing things for somebody who you don't agree with totally, and you see all your good people give their best for somebody else and not you – it's not that fun any more,” Detzner says.
“It felt so good to buy back the shares. We had to put a lot of focus on getting profitable because we didn't have this funding any more. It was a pretty intense phase of the company's development for us because we had a real goal to get profitable, to get out there, which we managed to do.”
The experience helped the Jimdo founders realise the crucial role that values had in their success, and after the separation from 1&1 they worked with staff to articulate them.
“The only consistent thing you have is values. For us, that's why we stick so much to that. It doesn't matter where your office is, how many people you employ, which programming language you use – it doesn't matter. These values are the thing that binds us together.”
Detzner says the work-hard, play-hard values haven't changed since the three of them started their first business together in 2004 – NorthClick, which Jimdo sprung from – working intensely for 18 months while living rent free in an old farmhouse owned by Detzner's family, with his mother cooking meals for the cash-strapped entrepreneurs.
“It was a pretty cool time. We focused five days completely just working on it, from Monday to Friday nothing else but,” he says.
Detzner says this single-minded focus by a small team led to such productive outcomes that they've re-created it for their staff. Jimdo is a flat hierarchy with no mid-level management and a series of small cross-functional teams.
“We set up these small groups with targets and visions for their own. These small start-up teams are deciding what they're going to do this week and how they're improving on that,” Detzner says. Teams present their work-in-progress each week on a white board so everyone has an overview.
“They are able to go at their own speed, and don't have to rely on interference from other departments. You make them happier because they see what they're actually creating.”
Teams have the option of working at an offsite location for a week at a time to develop their projects, with Detzner's mum's farmhouse being a popular destination.
“She's still cooks for them, she loves it. And now we have people working for us from 11 languages. They cook Spanish food or French food and invite my mum.”
Detzner says having clear business values has also been vital to attracting like-minded staff, and since splitting from 1&1 three years ago Jimdo has grown from 30 to 130 staff, and the business now has offices in San Francisco, Tokyo and Shanghai.
The company's success caught the eye of a top-tier venture capitalist, and earlier this year the trio received an eight-figure offer for investment, which they turned down because they believed this would lead either to a forced sale of the company or an IPO. And an exit strategy is not what these three entrepreneurs are after.
Detzner says they know this refusal of funding will slow their growth, but big dollars are not what motivates them. He says he's never had a 10-year plan for the business, but he does know what his ideal workday looks like.
“The perfect day would be sitting in a company where nobody is relying on me but they could come to me and I could help the teams reach their goals.”
As Detzner enjoys his three-week travels around Australia scuba-diving on the Great Barrier Reef and surfing and paragliding along the Victorian coastline, he is living by some of the key Jimdo values of having fun, keeping an open mind and learning all the time.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
UFC Tries To Prove It's Capable Of A Knockout
On the afternoon before one of the biggest mixed-martial-arts fights of 2012, a group of Ultimate Fighting Championship employees takes up position in a sun-blasted parking lot outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. It's July in Las Vegas. It's 103 degrees of unpleasant. And it's about to get worse--because UFC president Dana White just tweeted their location. White is giving away 20 $1,200 tickets to this weekend's UFC 148 (most fight cards are named by number), headlined by a rematch between Brazilian middleweight champion Anderson Silva and his American nemesis, Chael Sonnen. Any fan who shows up within 20 minutes with a can of UFC-branded Edge shave gel will be entered into a ticket raffle.
It takes less than 10 seconds for Isiah and Dominique Quintanilla, teenage brothers from Visalia, California, to materialize from the back stairs with cans. "Some guy offered us $66 for one," Isiah says. UFC fans, it seems, had cleaned out drugstores on the Las Vegas Strip.
Minutes later, a horde bursts from the casino--mostly men in the UFC's coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic, but women, too, in a dead sprint. They stampede toward the UFC team, grooming products in hand. Some hurdle a chain in the parking lot. One woman tries to scale a fence and bloodies her knee. In the fight business, these fans are known as hardcores. They buy the UFC's pay-per-view shows, which blend wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and other combat styles into an action-packed, often-bloody sport known as mixed-martial arts, or MMA. They buy apparel and merchandise. Above all, they buy into a UFC lifestyle that celebrates everyone's inner warrior.
"Fighting is in our DNA," White likes to say. It's an easy sell. But that dismisses a larger achievement: In a decade, the UFC turned what was essentially a no-holds-barred spectacle banned throughout the country into a sanctioned sport with mass appeal. MMA is now one of the country's fastest-growing sports. And the UFC has become one of the world's most valuable sports franchises, with annual revenue approaching $600 million, according to one of its owners--and a worth, if you believe the smoke signals, of more than $2 billion. That's more than the New York Yankees, more than the New England Patriots, more than Real Madrid. And there's seemingly more to come. In 2011, the UFC signed an unprecedented $700 million deal to air fights in prime time on Fox, the goal being to turn fringe fans into "casuals" and casuals into hardcores. Fight sports have been extremely rare on prime-time network TV since the 1980s.
Now the UFC is at a critical juncture. It could join the country's major sports leagues--an ascension fueled by big profits, network TV acceptance, and aggressive international expansion. Or, the UFC could mismanage its growth--by fatiguing fans with too many events, failing to resolve labor tensions with fighters, or simply overreaching. And, of course, there's an inherent question the UFC is finally large enough to confront: Is this sport too violent to thrive in mainstream America?
On that last point, especially, White already has his answer. When the last Edge cans are collected, he wades into the mob to cheers of "Da-na! Da-na!" As UFC publicists never fail to mention, you don't see NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doing this. You don't see the NBA's David Stern. Hell, the MLB's Bud Selig barely knows how to use a computer. White, on the other hand, is an Internet-age P.T. Barnum, or Don King on Twitter minus the hair and a murder rap. He stands there for an hour in heat that could bake an apple. He poses for every photo and bro-hugs every bro. He stays until the last fan is gone.
But when White and Fertitta attended UFC 27 in New Orleans in September 2000, they were stunned by the empty arena and the anemic marketing. "There was no buzz at all," Fertitta says. "We're literally sitting in the front row and I'm going, 'This has gotta be one of the worst-run businesses. What is missing here? There could be much more to this.'"
The UFC was a victim of its own gore. In its early days, there were no weight classes, no time limits, and only two banned moves: eye gouging and biting. Fighters could surrender (and still can, by tapping out), but promoters played up the death-match atmosphere. That prompted Senator John McCain to successfully petition governors around the country to ban MMA. McCain also pressured cable companies to take the sport off the air. Although the UFC adopted better rules--reating about 30 fouls, such as throat strikes and head butting--it was too late: The company was near bankruptcy. A month after White and Fertitta's New Orleans visit, it went up for sale.
White persuaded Fertitta and Frank III (known as "Three Sticks"), who now runs the family casino business, to take a chance. The Fertittas plunked down $2 million and gave White a 10% stake in the company; in exchange, he took over running day-to-day operations. Now they looked crazy. But Fertitta had served on the Nevada Athletic Commission, which oversees boxing, a sport deep into its nosedive by 2001. "We felt like we had a better product than boxing," he says. "It was the next evolution. But it was as much about the brand as anything."
The new owners began an arduous process of rehabilitating the company's image by further increasing safety measures and working with states to lift their bans. But news coverage was slim, and pay-per-views didn't sell. By 2005, the UFC was $44 million in the hole, and the Fertittas were covering expenses from their personal accounts. They decided to take one more chance.
It takes less than 10 seconds for Isiah and Dominique Quintanilla, teenage brothers from Visalia, California, to materialize from the back stairs with cans. "Some guy offered us $66 for one," Isiah says. UFC fans, it seems, had cleaned out drugstores on the Las Vegas Strip.
Minutes later, a horde bursts from the casino--mostly men in the UFC's coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic, but women, too, in a dead sprint. They stampede toward the UFC team, grooming products in hand. Some hurdle a chain in the parking lot. One woman tries to scale a fence and bloodies her knee. In the fight business, these fans are known as hardcores. They buy the UFC's pay-per-view shows, which blend wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, and other combat styles into an action-packed, often-bloody sport known as mixed-martial arts, or MMA. They buy apparel and merchandise. Above all, they buy into a UFC lifestyle that celebrates everyone's inner warrior.
"Fighting is in our DNA," White likes to say. It's an easy sell. But that dismisses a larger achievement: In a decade, the UFC turned what was essentially a no-holds-barred spectacle banned throughout the country into a sanctioned sport with mass appeal. MMA is now one of the country's fastest-growing sports. And the UFC has become one of the world's most valuable sports franchises, with annual revenue approaching $600 million, according to one of its owners--and a worth, if you believe the smoke signals, of more than $2 billion. That's more than the New York Yankees, more than the New England Patriots, more than Real Madrid. And there's seemingly more to come. In 2011, the UFC signed an unprecedented $700 million deal to air fights in prime time on Fox, the goal being to turn fringe fans into "casuals" and casuals into hardcores. Fight sports have been extremely rare on prime-time network TV since the 1980s.
Now the UFC is at a critical juncture. It could join the country's major sports leagues--an ascension fueled by big profits, network TV acceptance, and aggressive international expansion. Or, the UFC could mismanage its growth--by fatiguing fans with too many events, failing to resolve labor tensions with fighters, or simply overreaching. And, of course, there's an inherent question the UFC is finally large enough to confront: Is this sport too violent to thrive in mainstream America?
On that last point, especially, White already has his answer. When the last Edge cans are collected, he wades into the mob to cheers of "Da-na! Da-na!" As UFC publicists never fail to mention, you don't see NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doing this. You don't see the NBA's David Stern. Hell, the MLB's Bud Selig barely knows how to use a computer. White, on the other hand, is an Internet-age P.T. Barnum, or Don King on Twitter minus the hair and a murder rap. He stands there for an hour in heat that could bake an apple. He poses for every photo and bro-hugs every bro. He stays until the last fan is gone.
But when White and Fertitta attended UFC 27 in New Orleans in September 2000, they were stunned by the empty arena and the anemic marketing. "There was no buzz at all," Fertitta says. "We're literally sitting in the front row and I'm going, 'This has gotta be one of the worst-run businesses. What is missing here? There could be much more to this.'"
The UFC was a victim of its own gore. In its early days, there were no weight classes, no time limits, and only two banned moves: eye gouging and biting. Fighters could surrender (and still can, by tapping out), but promoters played up the death-match atmosphere. That prompted Senator John McCain to successfully petition governors around the country to ban MMA. McCain also pressured cable companies to take the sport off the air. Although the UFC adopted better rules--reating about 30 fouls, such as throat strikes and head butting--it was too late: The company was near bankruptcy. A month after White and Fertitta's New Orleans visit, it went up for sale.
White persuaded Fertitta and Frank III (known as "Three Sticks"), who now runs the family casino business, to take a chance. The Fertittas plunked down $2 million and gave White a 10% stake in the company; in exchange, he took over running day-to-day operations. Now they looked crazy. But Fertitta had served on the Nevada Athletic Commission, which oversees boxing, a sport deep into its nosedive by 2001. "We felt like we had a better product than boxing," he says. "It was the next evolution. But it was as much about the brand as anything."
The new owners began an arduous process of rehabilitating the company's image by further increasing safety measures and working with states to lift their bans. But news coverage was slim, and pay-per-views didn't sell. By 2005, the UFC was $44 million in the hole, and the Fertittas were covering expenses from their personal accounts. They decided to take one more chance.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Learning Lessons from Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy left a trail of destruction on the Eastern Seaboard and, two weeks later, some communities are continuing to struggle. Some have suffered devastating personal loss and many businesses have been severely disrupted. Canadian businesses that have customers or suppliers in the affected areas—including IT service providers or call centre services—have been impacted.
For most, the primary concern during any natural disaster is ensuring the safety of your family and home. Fortunately most Canadians escaped unharmed by Hurricane Sandy, but many will have experienced the last-minute panic of trying to buy essentials like bottled water and flashlights before the storm hit, only to find store shelves were already cleaned out as people scrambled to prepare. This is a good reminder of why it is so important to have a plan in place before an emergency hits.
But it’s not just individuals and families. Business owners need to make sure they have a plan, too. Though rare, businesses also come face-to-face with communication systems outages, fires, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, ice storms, blackouts and even terrorist events.
Businesses need to maintain and recover critical business information and minimize the impact on their day-to-day operations in the event of an unforeseen occurrence. Some businesses that fail to plan for disasters may even go out of business within a year or two of a disaster striking, while others can lose significant revenue or market share. Business must ask themselves how long they can survive if their doors are closed or their systems are down.
Business owners and managers should start by being able to identify their critical business processes and dependencies, assess the impact of a disruption (both internal and external), and then prioritize processes for continuity and recovery. A good recovery plan must also consider things such as ensuring the safety of personnel, the impact of the disruption of transportation, establishing and testing alternative ways of getting the job done for the most important business processes and systems, the protection of important paper and physical assets, site recovery and alternative office space, and the loss of key vendors.
And although it’s natural to think about problems related to the physical location of a business during a disaster, what if something happens to the data or IT infrastructure? We’re living in an increasingly digital world in which IT applications and infrastructures are moving to a virtual rather than physical platform. While cloud computing is on the rise, a recent study showed that only 24% of survey respondents are using the cloud for backup and disaster recovery.1
Once a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan is established, it must be a living document that is tested regularly. Will the backup power systems work? (New York’s University Langone Medical Centre had to evacuate all 215 patients when BOTH back up power generators failed during Hurricane Sandy.) Has the data been properly backed up? (It’s estimated that nearly a quarter of all data backups are not complete.) When things go wrong, who is in charge, and who is on the response team? (In an interview with the BBC, ousted British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward stated that his company was caught flat-footed when the oil spill disaster began in April 2010, saying “BP’s contingency plans were inadequate. We were making it up day-to-day.”) What about your customers and stakeholders—what will their needs be, and can you deliver?
There’s no way to completely insulate a business from every disruption or disaster, but the right plan can go a long way towards ensuring things go as smoothly as possible when the unexpected happens. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans can help to reduce potential financial losses, legal liability, and increase organizational stability and orderly recovery. The right plans can even lower the possibility of a disaster event occurring and decrease “outage” time. Businesses everywhere would be wise to use the lessons of Hurricane Sandy to spur them to look at their own preparedness.
For most, the primary concern during any natural disaster is ensuring the safety of your family and home. Fortunately most Canadians escaped unharmed by Hurricane Sandy, but many will have experienced the last-minute panic of trying to buy essentials like bottled water and flashlights before the storm hit, only to find store shelves were already cleaned out as people scrambled to prepare. This is a good reminder of why it is so important to have a plan in place before an emergency hits.
But it’s not just individuals and families. Business owners need to make sure they have a plan, too. Though rare, businesses also come face-to-face with communication systems outages, fires, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, ice storms, blackouts and even terrorist events.
Businesses need to maintain and recover critical business information and minimize the impact on their day-to-day operations in the event of an unforeseen occurrence. Some businesses that fail to plan for disasters may even go out of business within a year or two of a disaster striking, while others can lose significant revenue or market share. Business must ask themselves how long they can survive if their doors are closed or their systems are down.
Business owners and managers should start by being able to identify their critical business processes and dependencies, assess the impact of a disruption (both internal and external), and then prioritize processes for continuity and recovery. A good recovery plan must also consider things such as ensuring the safety of personnel, the impact of the disruption of transportation, establishing and testing alternative ways of getting the job done for the most important business processes and systems, the protection of important paper and physical assets, site recovery and alternative office space, and the loss of key vendors.
And although it’s natural to think about problems related to the physical location of a business during a disaster, what if something happens to the data or IT infrastructure? We’re living in an increasingly digital world in which IT applications and infrastructures are moving to a virtual rather than physical platform. While cloud computing is on the rise, a recent study showed that only 24% of survey respondents are using the cloud for backup and disaster recovery.1
Once a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plan is established, it must be a living document that is tested regularly. Will the backup power systems work? (New York’s University Langone Medical Centre had to evacuate all 215 patients when BOTH back up power generators failed during Hurricane Sandy.) Has the data been properly backed up? (It’s estimated that nearly a quarter of all data backups are not complete.) When things go wrong, who is in charge, and who is on the response team? (In an interview with the BBC, ousted British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward stated that his company was caught flat-footed when the oil spill disaster began in April 2010, saying “BP’s contingency plans were inadequate. We were making it up day-to-day.”) What about your customers and stakeholders—what will their needs be, and can you deliver?
There’s no way to completely insulate a business from every disruption or disaster, but the right plan can go a long way towards ensuring things go as smoothly as possible when the unexpected happens. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans can help to reduce potential financial losses, legal liability, and increase organizational stability and orderly recovery. The right plans can even lower the possibility of a disaster event occurring and decrease “outage” time. Businesses everywhere would be wise to use the lessons of Hurricane Sandy to spur them to look at their own preparedness.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Emergency services face social media storm front
Australian social media expert Laurel Papworth stressed that Twitter and Facebook had also provided people with a powerful tool for good during Sandy.
''They were able to rescue someone who tweeted their location, there was another couple of people who tweeted things like photographs of the exact insulin they needed and they were able to rush insulin over to them. Social media just means people talking to people,'' she said. ''We have to make a judgment call when we get a piece of information … and say 'who's passing the information to me and how trustworthy are they?'''
It is an issue that emergency service organisations such as the Rural Fire Service are battling.
Responsible for 95 per cent of the land mass of NSW, the RFS needs to communicate quickly with vast numbers of people in a disaster.
It has embraced the tools of social media and has 18,300 friends on its Facebook page and 6300 Twitter followers.
The media manager for the RFS, Ben Shepherd, said social media was increasingly important but in no way superceded traditional media, door knocking and community meetings.
''It's really good for spreading the word, and spreading it quickly, but you can't always hit the people you want to target,'' Mr Shepherd said. ''People whose homes are under threat aren't checking Facebook and Twitter.''
And anyone can post a misleading tweet using the hashtag #NSWRFS or set themselves up on Facebook as an unofficial bushfire expert.
The RFS media team does its best to monitor what bushfire information is going out on social media, correct misinformation and get in touch with those spreading it to ask them to stop. However, particularly at times of crisis, it is an impossible task.
Mr Shepherd said the service encouraged its firefighters and the general public to send photos and information to RFS media first to put out on Facebook and Twitter, rather than doing it themselves, ''to make sure operations advice is only given by the service''.
Ms Papworth said emergency services needed to recognise that huge numbers of people now relied on social media for information and had to make sure they had a prominent social media presence.
Williams and colleagues recorded the electrical impulses from the brains of rhesus monkeys trained to remember a sequence of two locations on a computer screen and, after a short pause, move the cursor to those locations.
They found that the two movements could be decoded, using computer algorithms, from separate, small groups of neurones in the premotor cortex – a part of the brain involved in planning and executing limb movements.
“Our results reveal a new functional structure within the premotor cortex that allowed for accurate and concurrent decoding of two planned motor targets across multiple spatial locations,” the authors wrote in the paper.
“Only a small number of neurones was sufficient to accurately predict the location of both targets, making the decoding of such information highly robust.”
The two distinct subpopulations of neurones allowed the two planned targets of the movement to be simultaneously held, without degradation, in the ‘working’ memory – a brain system that provides temporary storage and real-time processing of the information necessary to perform complex tasks.
Exploiting these mechanisms, the team then developed a BMI that could not only predict both of the intended movements simultaneously, but also drive the movements in real time alongside the monkey’s motor response.
''They were able to rescue someone who tweeted their location, there was another couple of people who tweeted things like photographs of the exact insulin they needed and they were able to rush insulin over to them. Social media just means people talking to people,'' she said. ''We have to make a judgment call when we get a piece of information … and say 'who's passing the information to me and how trustworthy are they?'''
It is an issue that emergency service organisations such as the Rural Fire Service are battling.
Responsible for 95 per cent of the land mass of NSW, the RFS needs to communicate quickly with vast numbers of people in a disaster.
It has embraced the tools of social media and has 18,300 friends on its Facebook page and 6300 Twitter followers.
The media manager for the RFS, Ben Shepherd, said social media was increasingly important but in no way superceded traditional media, door knocking and community meetings.
''It's really good for spreading the word, and spreading it quickly, but you can't always hit the people you want to target,'' Mr Shepherd said. ''People whose homes are under threat aren't checking Facebook and Twitter.''
And anyone can post a misleading tweet using the hashtag #NSWRFS or set themselves up on Facebook as an unofficial bushfire expert.
The RFS media team does its best to monitor what bushfire information is going out on social media, correct misinformation and get in touch with those spreading it to ask them to stop. However, particularly at times of crisis, it is an impossible task.
Mr Shepherd said the service encouraged its firefighters and the general public to send photos and information to RFS media first to put out on Facebook and Twitter, rather than doing it themselves, ''to make sure operations advice is only given by the service''.
Ms Papworth said emergency services needed to recognise that huge numbers of people now relied on social media for information and had to make sure they had a prominent social media presence.
Williams and colleagues recorded the electrical impulses from the brains of rhesus monkeys trained to remember a sequence of two locations on a computer screen and, after a short pause, move the cursor to those locations.
They found that the two movements could be decoded, using computer algorithms, from separate, small groups of neurones in the premotor cortex – a part of the brain involved in planning and executing limb movements.
“Our results reveal a new functional structure within the premotor cortex that allowed for accurate and concurrent decoding of two planned motor targets across multiple spatial locations,” the authors wrote in the paper.
“Only a small number of neurones was sufficient to accurately predict the location of both targets, making the decoding of such information highly robust.”
The two distinct subpopulations of neurones allowed the two planned targets of the movement to be simultaneously held, without degradation, in the ‘working’ memory – a brain system that provides temporary storage and real-time processing of the information necessary to perform complex tasks.
Exploiting these mechanisms, the team then developed a BMI that could not only predict both of the intended movements simultaneously, but also drive the movements in real time alongside the monkey’s motor response.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Pennsylvania County deploys White Canvas
A quickly deployable situational-awareness solution from White Canvas Group helped bolster the efficiency and effectiveness of the Huntingdon County, Pa., response to Superstorm Sandy, according to an emergency-management official.
Called GridMeNow, the White Canvas Group's smartphone-based solution lets users share reports and images — automatically stamped with the time and location — that provide enhanced awareness of a given situation, which can be used to improve damage-assessment and recovery efforts, said Adam Miller, director the Huntingdon County Emergency Management Agency.
"We're not as technologically resourced as metropolitan areas, so to gain situational awareness sometimes here is a big challenge," Miller said during an interview with Urgent Communications. "Allowing folks to be able to snap a picture and send that to us — giving us information that is geo-coded — is just terribly useful.
"When [users] would see something, they would take a picture of it where they were, which would geo-code it on the map for us, send us the information that was relevant, and it would pop up on our screen. It really cut down on a couple of steps for us, and that's big.
Miller said he first learned of GridMeNow about a year ago and had planned to deploy the solution in Huntingdon County this fall. However, he decided the county should use the solution on the eve of Superstorm Sandy's landfall.
"Basically, the day before the event came … I said, 'I believe we can use this and implement this right now,'" Miller said. "So, we pulled the trigger on it at the last minute, and I was shocked how simple it was for me to basically spin up users on it and start making reports from the field to us to start to develop a new level of situational awareness — and, boy, was it a treat."
Establishing a trusted-source rollout of the White Canvas Group solution was "very intuitive," Miller said. After entering a user's phone number, e-mail and device model into the system, the GridMeNow installation instructions were delivered to the users, who began leveraging the technology quickly, he said.
"It was really easy for me … If you can operate Google Earth, you can operate this," he said. "This is really a slick, non-hardware installation — this is all virtual. It was easy. It was instantaneous. It was nothing more than me putting in a couple of numbers, hitting 'send' and people get hooked up. That's huge for us, because I don't have the personnel and the resources to go out and build hardware solutions to solve this problem."
Huntingdon County was not damaged by the storm as much as other parts of the northeast, but GridMeNow allowed emergency officials to assess problems quickly and is ideal for creating damage-assessment reports that are needed to receive federal aid, Miller said.
"When I want to paint a picture of the type of damage that my community has in developing a statement of impact for the federal government … there is no better way to paint a picture than to have actual imagery," he said. Normally, it takes a long time to acquire such data, but with the GridMeNow system, the data-acquisition occurs in real time, according to Miller.
"I will be able to show the impact days before we would be able to compile that information for ourselves [using previous methods]," he said.
GridMeNow also proved to be an effective interoperability tool, as a variety of stakeholders — from the National Weather Service to state agencies — were given user access to the system, so that they could track storm damage in real time instead of having to wait hours for status updates, Miller said.
In the future, utility workers and possibly even citizens could be given access to the GridMeNow system, which would result in greater coverage of an event, he said.
Called GridMeNow, the White Canvas Group's smartphone-based solution lets users share reports and images — automatically stamped with the time and location — that provide enhanced awareness of a given situation, which can be used to improve damage-assessment and recovery efforts, said Adam Miller, director the Huntingdon County Emergency Management Agency.
"We're not as technologically resourced as metropolitan areas, so to gain situational awareness sometimes here is a big challenge," Miller said during an interview with Urgent Communications. "Allowing folks to be able to snap a picture and send that to us — giving us information that is geo-coded — is just terribly useful.
"When [users] would see something, they would take a picture of it where they were, which would geo-code it on the map for us, send us the information that was relevant, and it would pop up on our screen. It really cut down on a couple of steps for us, and that's big.
Miller said he first learned of GridMeNow about a year ago and had planned to deploy the solution in Huntingdon County this fall. However, he decided the county should use the solution on the eve of Superstorm Sandy's landfall.
"Basically, the day before the event came … I said, 'I believe we can use this and implement this right now,'" Miller said. "So, we pulled the trigger on it at the last minute, and I was shocked how simple it was for me to basically spin up users on it and start making reports from the field to us to start to develop a new level of situational awareness — and, boy, was it a treat."
Establishing a trusted-source rollout of the White Canvas Group solution was "very intuitive," Miller said. After entering a user's phone number, e-mail and device model into the system, the GridMeNow installation instructions were delivered to the users, who began leveraging the technology quickly, he said.
"It was really easy for me … If you can operate Google Earth, you can operate this," he said. "This is really a slick, non-hardware installation — this is all virtual. It was easy. It was instantaneous. It was nothing more than me putting in a couple of numbers, hitting 'send' and people get hooked up. That's huge for us, because I don't have the personnel and the resources to go out and build hardware solutions to solve this problem."
Huntingdon County was not damaged by the storm as much as other parts of the northeast, but GridMeNow allowed emergency officials to assess problems quickly and is ideal for creating damage-assessment reports that are needed to receive federal aid, Miller said.
"When I want to paint a picture of the type of damage that my community has in developing a statement of impact for the federal government … there is no better way to paint a picture than to have actual imagery," he said. Normally, it takes a long time to acquire such data, but with the GridMeNow system, the data-acquisition occurs in real time, according to Miller.
"I will be able to show the impact days before we would be able to compile that information for ourselves [using previous methods]," he said.
GridMeNow also proved to be an effective interoperability tool, as a variety of stakeholders — from the National Weather Service to state agencies — were given user access to the system, so that they could track storm damage in real time instead of having to wait hours for status updates, Miller said.
In the future, utility workers and possibly even citizens could be given access to the GridMeNow system, which would result in greater coverage of an event, he said.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Emergency planning
CHAIRMAN of the National Disaster Management Committee, the deputy prime minister, has voiced his hope that flood victims will obey any and all advice and instructions issued by the authorities, especially orders to evacuate. This is the only caveat left that can unhinge the success of flood relief management in the country. As he noted, the government has done all that is physically possible to ensure that nothing untoward happens, including, for example, making sure that the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examinations proceed without interruption, but cooperation from victims is integral if no lives are to be lost unnecessarily. This observation is truer in flood-prone areas where the annual threat is almost a given despite the already extant Integrated Flood Management approach adopted by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) working together with other related government agencies.
Nevertheless, the start of the rainy season in recent days has shown that this time round, it might be a little different as demonstrated by the devastating flash floods occurring in areas not prone to flooding, such as Butterworth and some Klang Valley suburbs. These areas will require greater vigilance on the part of residents -- a challenging thought. And, according to the Meteorological Department, continuous rains over several days are expected to last into March next year because of a weak El Nino, a prospect that will lead to more burst low-lying river banks and overflowing suburban clogged drains. In the case of the latter, a lack of civic awareness is the culprit. Malaysians must learn that every negative action has its horrible consequence: in this respect indiscriminate waste disposal causes flash floods, sometimes severe.
However, for those in low-lying areas subject to the downpour of the northeast monsoons that have gotten worse, due partly to global environmental degradation, they confront life-threatening situations through no fault of their own. While preparedness can help prevent unnecessary loss to property, which is estimated to cost hundreds of millions every year, it, too, is the key to survival. The affected populace must have emergency contact numbers and location of the closest evacuation centres always ready at hand. They must also keep themselves informed of the imminent danger -- rising river levels, expected heavy rains and bad weather conditions in general. Towards this end, the DID has set up InfoBajir, recently upgraded to the PublicInfoBanjir website, where almost real-time information is available. For their part, flood-prone families should have emergency plans and practice flood evacuation procedures, remembering always to follow the instructions of rescuers without protest.
Nevertheless, the start of the rainy season in recent days has shown that this time round, it might be a little different as demonstrated by the devastating flash floods occurring in areas not prone to flooding, such as Butterworth and some Klang Valley suburbs. These areas will require greater vigilance on the part of residents -- a challenging thought. And, according to the Meteorological Department, continuous rains over several days are expected to last into March next year because of a weak El Nino, a prospect that will lead to more burst low-lying river banks and overflowing suburban clogged drains. In the case of the latter, a lack of civic awareness is the culprit. Malaysians must learn that every negative action has its horrible consequence: in this respect indiscriminate waste disposal causes flash floods, sometimes severe.
However, for those in low-lying areas subject to the downpour of the northeast monsoons that have gotten worse, due partly to global environmental degradation, they confront life-threatening situations through no fault of their own. While preparedness can help prevent unnecessary loss to property, which is estimated to cost hundreds of millions every year, it, too, is the key to survival. The affected populace must have emergency contact numbers and location of the closest evacuation centres always ready at hand. They must also keep themselves informed of the imminent danger -- rising river levels, expected heavy rains and bad weather conditions in general. Towards this end, the DID has set up InfoBajir, recently upgraded to the PublicInfoBanjir website, where almost real-time information is available. For their part, flood-prone families should have emergency plans and practice flood evacuation procedures, remembering always to follow the instructions of rescuers without protest.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Malaysia – the Islamic state
The Muslims in this country have certainly come of age. Lovingly protected by the government against the pitfalls of sin and eternal damnation, today a growing majority of Muslims are attracted to the beautiful notion of being governed by the hudud penal code and becoming a true Islamic nation.
It is wonderful to know that a Muslim NGO has called for the banning of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s “My Name Is Khan” movie which confuses Muslims as it promotes liberal Islam and religious pluralism. It has also warned Malaysian broadcasters against airing the hit film and called for the blocking of the distribution of the film CD.
Malay right-wing group Perkasa also called for Muslims nationwide to boycott award-winning singer Jaclyn Victor for singing the Malay-language Christian song “Harapan Bangsa”.
PAS Youth has done its bit to ban Valentine’s Day, a well-known Western celebration and live concerts which promote a loose lifestyle. And now it wants to meet the King, because the MCA president refuses to apologise for purportedly insulting Islam.
PAS is also ready to hold a discussion with former Perlis mufti Prof Madya Mohd Aszri Zainul Abidin on the “Ayatollah” issue should it ever come to power.
Malay bibles have been banned in the Peninsula and the government is serious to disallow Allah’s name to be uttered by non-Muslims.
Umno has been instrumental in the past to Islamise this nation, and it is satisfied that Malaysia is already a thriving Islamic state. It has even planned a mandatory mosque law to build a mosque in every new housing estate.
PAS, however, feels that more should be done and that the hudud penal code be part and parcel of an Islamic state.
Both parties agree that Muslims in Malaysia are weak and open to the temptations of the world. Some form of “state control” is needed to ensure that Muslims do not breach religious etiquette or go over the line.
Weak Muslims cannot be allowed to go through life without the state monitoring their progress and to provide them spiritual guidance.
Many believe that only an Islamic state will pave the way for them to exercise and exert control over the Muslims’ social, mental and spiritual upbringing.
Muslims cannot carry on living a liberal and pluralistic lifestyle like what they are doing now. Something must be done to arrest the hedonistic lifestyle of the current Muslims and a puritanical Islamic way of life must be implemented.
Of course, it is not political. Islam is above politics. Whoever wins the election will still ensure that the Islamic agenda is on course.
One day in the future, PAS may have no choice but to reunite with Umno to form an Islamic state and enforce an Islamic way of life which includes the hudud penal code.
The idea of a Malaysia for Malaysians, where the various races coexist together in peace and harmony and striving to become a developed first world nation, will not be part of this equation.
To prevent further Muslim confusion, an affirmative Muslim Agenda is necessary to ensure that Muslims in this country conform fully to the Islamic code.
Muslim men will be able to contain their sexual desires and concentrate on their work and their religious obligations without any distraction.
Muslim men may never see the face of another Muslim woman again for the rest of their lives, except for their wives. The need to spend on expensive cosmetics and latest fashion will be void.
Muslims will abandon the silly art of dating, or subscribing to love and romance. Women of child- bearing age will be encouraged to get married without delay. If they find difficulties in getting a partner, the option of being second wives should be considered. Women should not be subjected to sexual urges and impure thoughts unnecessarily while remaining single.
It will be apt to follow Saudi Arabia’s policies to disallow women from appearing in public without a related male accompaniment. Women should also be discouraged from driving or working in public.
It is wonderful to know that a Muslim NGO has called for the banning of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s “My Name Is Khan” movie which confuses Muslims as it promotes liberal Islam and religious pluralism. It has also warned Malaysian broadcasters against airing the hit film and called for the blocking of the distribution of the film CD.
Malay right-wing group Perkasa also called for Muslims nationwide to boycott award-winning singer Jaclyn Victor for singing the Malay-language Christian song “Harapan Bangsa”.
PAS Youth has done its bit to ban Valentine’s Day, a well-known Western celebration and live concerts which promote a loose lifestyle. And now it wants to meet the King, because the MCA president refuses to apologise for purportedly insulting Islam.
PAS is also ready to hold a discussion with former Perlis mufti Prof Madya Mohd Aszri Zainul Abidin on the “Ayatollah” issue should it ever come to power.
Malay bibles have been banned in the Peninsula and the government is serious to disallow Allah’s name to be uttered by non-Muslims.
Umno has been instrumental in the past to Islamise this nation, and it is satisfied that Malaysia is already a thriving Islamic state. It has even planned a mandatory mosque law to build a mosque in every new housing estate.
PAS, however, feels that more should be done and that the hudud penal code be part and parcel of an Islamic state.
Both parties agree that Muslims in Malaysia are weak and open to the temptations of the world. Some form of “state control” is needed to ensure that Muslims do not breach religious etiquette or go over the line.
Weak Muslims cannot be allowed to go through life without the state monitoring their progress and to provide them spiritual guidance.
Many believe that only an Islamic state will pave the way for them to exercise and exert control over the Muslims’ social, mental and spiritual upbringing.
Muslims cannot carry on living a liberal and pluralistic lifestyle like what they are doing now. Something must be done to arrest the hedonistic lifestyle of the current Muslims and a puritanical Islamic way of life must be implemented.
Of course, it is not political. Islam is above politics. Whoever wins the election will still ensure that the Islamic agenda is on course.
One day in the future, PAS may have no choice but to reunite with Umno to form an Islamic state and enforce an Islamic way of life which includes the hudud penal code.
The idea of a Malaysia for Malaysians, where the various races coexist together in peace and harmony and striving to become a developed first world nation, will not be part of this equation.
To prevent further Muslim confusion, an affirmative Muslim Agenda is necessary to ensure that Muslims in this country conform fully to the Islamic code.
Muslim men will be able to contain their sexual desires and concentrate on their work and their religious obligations without any distraction.
Muslim men may never see the face of another Muslim woman again for the rest of their lives, except for their wives. The need to spend on expensive cosmetics and latest fashion will be void.
Muslims will abandon the silly art of dating, or subscribing to love and romance. Women of child- bearing age will be encouraged to get married without delay. If they find difficulties in getting a partner, the option of being second wives should be considered. Women should not be subjected to sexual urges and impure thoughts unnecessarily while remaining single.
It will be apt to follow Saudi Arabia’s policies to disallow women from appearing in public without a related male accompaniment. Women should also be discouraged from driving or working in public.
Malaysia – the Islamic state
The Muslims in this country have certainly come of age. Lovingly protected by the government against the pitfalls of sin and eternal damnation, today a growing majority of Muslims are attracted to the beautiful notion of being governed by the hudud penal code and becoming a true Islamic nation.
It is wonderful to know that a Muslim NGO has called for the banning of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s “My Name Is Khan” movie which confuses Muslims as it promotes liberal Islam and religious pluralism. It has also warned Malaysian broadcasters against airing the hit film and called for the blocking of the distribution of the film CD.
Malay right-wing group Perkasa also called for Muslims nationwide to boycott award-winning singer Jaclyn Victor for singing the Malay-language Christian song “Harapan Bangsa”.
PAS Youth has done its bit to ban Valentine’s Day, a well-known Western celebration and live concerts which promote a loose lifestyle. And now it wants to meet the King, because the MCA president refuses to apologise for purportedly insulting Islam.
PAS is also ready to hold a discussion with former Perlis mufti Prof Madya Mohd Aszri Zainul Abidin on the “Ayatollah” issue should it ever come to power.
Malay bibles have been banned in the Peninsula and the government is serious to disallow Allah’s name to be uttered by non-Muslims.
Umno has been instrumental in the past to Islamise this nation, and it is satisfied that Malaysia is already a thriving Islamic state. It has even planned a mandatory mosque law to build a mosque in every new housing estate.
PAS, however, feels that more should be done and that the hudud penal code be part and parcel of an Islamic state.
Both parties agree that Muslims in Malaysia are weak and open to the temptations of the world. Some form of “state control” is needed to ensure that Muslims do not breach religious etiquette or go over the line.
Weak Muslims cannot be allowed to go through life without the state monitoring their progress and to provide them spiritual guidance.
Many believe that only an Islamic state will pave the way for them to exercise and exert control over the Muslims’ social, mental and spiritual upbringing.
Muslims cannot carry on living a liberal and pluralistic lifestyle like what they are doing now. Something must be done to arrest the hedonistic lifestyle of the current Muslims and a puritanical Islamic way of life must be implemented.
Of course, it is not political. Islam is above politics. Whoever wins the election will still ensure that the Islamic agenda is on course.
One day in the future, PAS may have no choice but to reunite with Umno to form an Islamic state and enforce an Islamic way of life which includes the hudud penal code.
The idea of a Malaysia for Malaysians, where the various races coexist together in peace and harmony and striving to become a developed first world nation, will not be part of this equation.
To prevent further Muslim confusion, an affirmative Muslim Agenda is necessary to ensure that Muslims in this country conform fully to the Islamic code.
Muslim men will be able to contain their sexual desires and concentrate on their work and their religious obligations without any distraction.
Muslim men may never see the face of another Muslim woman again for the rest of their lives, except for their wives. The need to spend on expensive cosmetics and latest fashion will be void.
Muslims will abandon the silly art of dating, or subscribing to love and romance. Women of child- bearing age will be encouraged to get married without delay. If they find difficulties in getting a partner, the option of being second wives should be considered. Women should not be subjected to sexual urges and impure thoughts unnecessarily while remaining single.
It will be apt to follow Saudi Arabia’s policies to disallow women from appearing in public without a related male accompaniment. Women should also be discouraged from driving or working in public.
It is wonderful to know that a Muslim NGO has called for the banning of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s “My Name Is Khan” movie which confuses Muslims as it promotes liberal Islam and religious pluralism. It has also warned Malaysian broadcasters against airing the hit film and called for the blocking of the distribution of the film CD.
Malay right-wing group Perkasa also called for Muslims nationwide to boycott award-winning singer Jaclyn Victor for singing the Malay-language Christian song “Harapan Bangsa”.
PAS Youth has done its bit to ban Valentine’s Day, a well-known Western celebration and live concerts which promote a loose lifestyle. And now it wants to meet the King, because the MCA president refuses to apologise for purportedly insulting Islam.
PAS is also ready to hold a discussion with former Perlis mufti Prof Madya Mohd Aszri Zainul Abidin on the “Ayatollah” issue should it ever come to power.
Malay bibles have been banned in the Peninsula and the government is serious to disallow Allah’s name to be uttered by non-Muslims.
Umno has been instrumental in the past to Islamise this nation, and it is satisfied that Malaysia is already a thriving Islamic state. It has even planned a mandatory mosque law to build a mosque in every new housing estate.
PAS, however, feels that more should be done and that the hudud penal code be part and parcel of an Islamic state.
Both parties agree that Muslims in Malaysia are weak and open to the temptations of the world. Some form of “state control” is needed to ensure that Muslims do not breach religious etiquette or go over the line.
Weak Muslims cannot be allowed to go through life without the state monitoring their progress and to provide them spiritual guidance.
Many believe that only an Islamic state will pave the way for them to exercise and exert control over the Muslims’ social, mental and spiritual upbringing.
Muslims cannot carry on living a liberal and pluralistic lifestyle like what they are doing now. Something must be done to arrest the hedonistic lifestyle of the current Muslims and a puritanical Islamic way of life must be implemented.
Of course, it is not political. Islam is above politics. Whoever wins the election will still ensure that the Islamic agenda is on course.
One day in the future, PAS may have no choice but to reunite with Umno to form an Islamic state and enforce an Islamic way of life which includes the hudud penal code.
The idea of a Malaysia for Malaysians, where the various races coexist together in peace and harmony and striving to become a developed first world nation, will not be part of this equation.
To prevent further Muslim confusion, an affirmative Muslim Agenda is necessary to ensure that Muslims in this country conform fully to the Islamic code.
Muslim men will be able to contain their sexual desires and concentrate on their work and their religious obligations without any distraction.
Muslim men may never see the face of another Muslim woman again for the rest of their lives, except for their wives. The need to spend on expensive cosmetics and latest fashion will be void.
Muslims will abandon the silly art of dating, or subscribing to love and romance. Women of child- bearing age will be encouraged to get married without delay. If they find difficulties in getting a partner, the option of being second wives should be considered. Women should not be subjected to sexual urges and impure thoughts unnecessarily while remaining single.
It will be apt to follow Saudi Arabia’s policies to disallow women from appearing in public without a related male accompaniment. Women should also be discouraged from driving or working in public.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
How Store Shelves Stay Stocked Even After a Sandy-Sized Disaster
The day Hurricane Sandy made landfall, the Jersey City, New Jersey, warehouse for food distribution giant Sysco Corp. (SYY) sent out 30,000 cases of food and drinks. Most of the shipments were headed across the Hudson to New York City. On Tuesday, the day after the storm ravaged the city, the warehouse sent out none.
Yet while news of flooding, power outages, downed trees, and other storm-inflicted wreckage abounds, you won’t hear stories of mass starvation in the streets. Food may not be moving in or out of the city, but the data-driven supply chains perfected by some of the world’s biggest companies in the pursuit of profits have become so resilient that even a cataclysm like Sandy registers as little more than a logistical hiccup. While the subways have stopped indefinitely, few in the storm’s path will have to deal with empty shelves for long, if at all.
In fact, the main problem facing Sysco as its trucks sit idle while waiting for the bridges and tunnels into New York to clear is what to do with too much stuff still coming in from suppliers not stopped by the storm. “With that lull, we’ll be filling up shelves in our warehouses faster than we can get product out,” says Charley Wilson, a Sysco spokesman, adding that generators in the Jersey City warehouse have kept refrigerators there working.
Wilson says the key adjustment Sysco made ahead of Sandy was to shift shipments to mainly non-perishable goods to ensure customers would have food to last through power outages. The company also prioritized getting orders to institutions that would have to keep large numbers of people fed through the storm, such as hospitals, hotels, airports, shelters, jails, and college campuses. Restaurants will stay near the bottom of the list as the recovery proceeds. But Wilson says the process of getting back to normal won’t drag out. “It’ll be a week or so of business-not-as-usual. But we’ll get back to business-as-usual eventually.”
Large companies like Sysco with nationwide reach and a long history of managing supply chains can adapt quickly to natural disasters because they’ve been there before, and they have the data to show for it. Over the years, as real-time inventory tracking and analysis has become the norm, companies know what people buy before and after disasters. They know how demand has varied between a Gulf Coast hurricane and a New England blizzard. By cross-referencing that granular data with the latest weather predictions, companies can forecast changes in their supply chain needs in parallel with coming storms.
Shoshanah Cohen, director of the Global Supply Chain Management Forum at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, says the most flexible supply chains have three things going for them: Scale, transparency, and leverage. The bigger the distribution network, the more easily a company can reroute its supply chain to pull merchandise from warehouses beyond a disaster’s reach. The more transparent a company’s inventory — that is, the more closely a company can come to knowing the exact location of every item in real time — the more easily a store can know if a particular product it needs is available. Lastly, the more leverage a retailer has over its suppliers, the more likely that retailer is to get resupplied first.
Taken together, these factors combine to prevent a few broken links from severing the whole chain. “It’s a network effect. And what that does is dampen the risk,” Cohen says.
It comes as no surprise that Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, exploits that effect better than anyone else. Walmart’s just-in-time supply chain has propelled the company to its dominant spot among shoppers. That same retail agility allows it not just to respond quickly to storms like Sandy, but to prepare as soon as a potential weather disaster shows up in the long-range forecast.
At Walmart’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters, the company’s disaster response center has a staff of 50 that since Sunday has been operating much like an incident command center set up by first responders, though with a different goal. An in-house meteorologist works with specialists in everything from energy and transportation, to inventory and communications, to make sure stores stay open as long as possible and reopen as soon as possible. Walmart uses its predictive analytics not just to keep stores well stocked with emergency supplies ahead of storms like Sandy, but to “backfill” distribution centers with what the company knows customers will need afterward.
Yet while news of flooding, power outages, downed trees, and other storm-inflicted wreckage abounds, you won’t hear stories of mass starvation in the streets. Food may not be moving in or out of the city, but the data-driven supply chains perfected by some of the world’s biggest companies in the pursuit of profits have become so resilient that even a cataclysm like Sandy registers as little more than a logistical hiccup. While the subways have stopped indefinitely, few in the storm’s path will have to deal with empty shelves for long, if at all.
In fact, the main problem facing Sysco as its trucks sit idle while waiting for the bridges and tunnels into New York to clear is what to do with too much stuff still coming in from suppliers not stopped by the storm. “With that lull, we’ll be filling up shelves in our warehouses faster than we can get product out,” says Charley Wilson, a Sysco spokesman, adding that generators in the Jersey City warehouse have kept refrigerators there working.
Wilson says the key adjustment Sysco made ahead of Sandy was to shift shipments to mainly non-perishable goods to ensure customers would have food to last through power outages. The company also prioritized getting orders to institutions that would have to keep large numbers of people fed through the storm, such as hospitals, hotels, airports, shelters, jails, and college campuses. Restaurants will stay near the bottom of the list as the recovery proceeds. But Wilson says the process of getting back to normal won’t drag out. “It’ll be a week or so of business-not-as-usual. But we’ll get back to business-as-usual eventually.”
Large companies like Sysco with nationwide reach and a long history of managing supply chains can adapt quickly to natural disasters because they’ve been there before, and they have the data to show for it. Over the years, as real-time inventory tracking and analysis has become the norm, companies know what people buy before and after disasters. They know how demand has varied between a Gulf Coast hurricane and a New England blizzard. By cross-referencing that granular data with the latest weather predictions, companies can forecast changes in their supply chain needs in parallel with coming storms.
Shoshanah Cohen, director of the Global Supply Chain Management Forum at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, says the most flexible supply chains have three things going for them: Scale, transparency, and leverage. The bigger the distribution network, the more easily a company can reroute its supply chain to pull merchandise from warehouses beyond a disaster’s reach. The more transparent a company’s inventory — that is, the more closely a company can come to knowing the exact location of every item in real time — the more easily a store can know if a particular product it needs is available. Lastly, the more leverage a retailer has over its suppliers, the more likely that retailer is to get resupplied first.
Taken together, these factors combine to prevent a few broken links from severing the whole chain. “It’s a network effect. And what that does is dampen the risk,” Cohen says.
It comes as no surprise that Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, exploits that effect better than anyone else. Walmart’s just-in-time supply chain has propelled the company to its dominant spot among shoppers. That same retail agility allows it not just to respond quickly to storms like Sandy, but to prepare as soon as a potential weather disaster shows up in the long-range forecast.
At Walmart’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters, the company’s disaster response center has a staff of 50 that since Sunday has been operating much like an incident command center set up by first responders, though with a different goal. An in-house meteorologist works with specialists in everything from energy and transportation, to inventory and communications, to make sure stores stay open as long as possible and reopen as soon as possible. Walmart uses its predictive analytics not just to keep stores well stocked with emergency supplies ahead of storms like Sandy, but to “backfill” distribution centers with what the company knows customers will need afterward.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)