Geez, I can’t believe that I’m finally getting to this. But on July 10, 2003 the Caribbean Business ranked the Bachelor’s Degrees Granted in Puerto Rico between 2001 and 2002. The big winner by far was Business Management & Administration Services with 35.53%. Rounding out the top five were Education (13.4%), Biological/Life Sciences (7.5%), Health Professions & Related Sciences (6.4%), and Engineering (6.4%).

Although the Engineering area of study did include computer engineering, Computer Sciences came in at … wait for it … 12^th place with 1.6%, with an average of 132 graduates per year. With these numbers, I believe that a knowledge economy in Puerto Rico is not possible. No matter how much we talk about it, no matter how much we prognosticate that a knowledge economy is our next stage of economic development, it will never happen with the number of computer scientists we are producing. These numbers will also reduce once we consider the number of graduates that migrate to the United States to obtain more lucrative opportunities.

Our only hope, even though it is a great stretch of our collective imagination, is if our mainstream programs significantly increase their emphasis on computers and what it means to �align Information Technology with business.� Perhaps this dream (nightmare?) should even become more widespread. If we would extrapolate the impact of open source software and offshore outsourcing, main stream computer science is indeed in great trouble. Maybe all schools in all countries should enhance their curriculum to include a minor concentration on computer science. Only then will we assured that our future graduates will be able to fill-in the decimated ranks of the IT industry.

I borrowed LP Meteora this weekend from Lenny from the SNAP Team. When I plugged the CD into my laptop, it launched an application (like most Cd’s do these days). I was amazed to see the focus this application had on making a LP fan web site. From sample graphics to web site design to merchandise store builders. Pretty cool stuff.

What was also cool was a video on a collaborative art piece the band put together during the recording of the CD. For me it reminded me of how important the creative process is. I’m sure that group of guys walked away that day with a connection between their souls that they will cherish and build upon to further their creativity.

On of the guys of the band said something during the band that really made me think. He was talking about how much work into building their image, in the form of the first CD cover. As he put it, they thought a lot about “how they wanted to present themselves for the first time ever in the world.” They were obviously talking about branding! If there success is any hint, I’m guessing they did a pretty good job of it too.

So once again I’m back at the starting line, I know that the SNAP brand is crucial, but I don;t have a clue where to start. I could create one, it would be rough, and it would be grungy, and it would bring out the angst these students feel in an education system that is grotesquely failing them. Hey, but that’s just me…

I catch myself
thinking about friends lost
left only to my memories
I long to see them
to share our laughter once again
But I know
you can never go back home
you can NEVER recapture the
beauty of good times shared
together with friends
I know I’ll never see again
How my heart aches to see them
to party once again
to listen to good tunes
to remember what we
each have long forgotton
So I’m left with my memories
how sweet they are when they linger
how sour they are when they flee
so to honor them
I must awake each morning
with a new dedication to make it
to make the waves they helped form
becuase they are here with me
pushing me on, picking me up
waiting to see me finish
cheering me on
until the end…

Honor, how we need you.
Valor how we need you.
Loyality how we need you.
Courage how we need you.
Love, how we need you most of all.

Have you ever heard about Chaos Theory? If not, simply it has two ideas. First every system tends to degrade into chaos. Second, although systems appear to be in chaos, they still have a pattern. Put into action, what I think this means for our lives is to accept that no matter how hard we try, chaos will ALWAYS win. That means that we will get frustrated, we will get disappointed, and feel like things are a mess. Haven’t you ever spent hours sweeping and then mopping, and then within five minutes after finishing someone drops something onto the clean floor. Ahhhhh! Perfect point, this is chaos in action.

So we must resolve within ourselves that it is impossible to beat chaos. There is no way to stay ahead. However, even though we lose the battle, we can still win the war. Since there is order within chaos, then what we really need to do is to look for a comfort zone within chaos that we can feel, duh, er … comfortable. I think I really mean at peace. Our minds are pattern matching super-computers. Finding patterns and recognizing them gives us peace. So if we are lucky enough to look beyond the moment and perceive the bigger pattern that those cookie crumbs on your freshly mopped floor are part of, then we will feel more at peace.

To put it simply, we are all a mess, we can’t help it, that is the nature things, but we are all part of a bigger pattern where we fit in. If we acknowledge our part of the pattern, then our minds will have to feel more at peace.

Wow, what a week! What a way to kick off our second quarter in the SNAP project. We had two team meetings, numerous one on one meetings, then an intense day to get my slides ready for the Puerto Rico Open Source Congress, and then we finished with team presentations, a brief intro to SourceForge.net and then to cap it all off, an exclusive peak into the Mono project by my very special friend Paco Martinez.

I met some great people at our PROS Congress activity, and I am stoked to get back in the saddle and ride this bucking bronco of a project. It’s a wild ride, but it is worth the effort. So all I have to say is Giddy Up!

There comes a time

I’m convinced that the SNAP Project is my opportunity to do something great. A very big claim to live up to, but I believe it just the same. However to hit this one out of the park, to take this one the distance will require a discipline, persistence, and determination above what I have been capable of in the past. When I set this goal for myself, I do so willingly. I know that setting my sights above what I have been capable, of extending myself to new heights, I grow into my lofty goals.

One area that will require great effort is focusing on producing instead of consuming. One of my big challenges, professionally and personally is focusing on only one thing. I’ll admit it, I get bored easily. A victim of a short attention span, or a hyper-active society. I need constant input, new data, new challenges, and new problems to solve. I love technology, I love computers, I love reading about them, and playing around with them. To be successful, however, I strongly believe I need to curb that passion. Or better still, I need to focus that passion. I need to concentrate on only what will benefit me and SNAP.

There are some who say, and I’ve seen it within my own professional life, when consuming massive amounts of information can lead to an ability to put things together, solve the trickiest of problems, see patterns where none seem to exist. This is obviously a powerful asset, but it takes time. It can even become a consuming activity, when we believe that we will “miss out” on that one piece of information that will make it “all” fit together.

But there comes a time, when we need to put everything aside. We need to stop researching, minimize our reading (what you thought I would say stop reading?). We need to change our perspective. We need to stop consuming what others write, what others produce, and become a producer. We need to start writing, we need to start coding, we need to make our dreams happen. There comes a time when we must trust that we have the skills, abilities, experiences, information, or whatever necessary to make exciting things happen. We may be able to support our goal along the way, by supplementing our knowledge, but it had better be critical to our success.

Call it the magic bullet theory. Call it the missing link theory. However you want to call it, what we must face. What we must accept, is that there is probably nothing missing, nothing keeping us from our success, except ourselves. What we should be asking ourselves instead is how deep are we going to throw ourselves into our project? What commitment are we willing and able to make? I believe that there comes a time for everyone chasing a dream, to stop chasing, and make the dream come true. For me, I believe that time has come.

They almost always get you in the end. Persistence is an amazing thing. It can carve out the Grand Canyon or it can help you climb Mt. Everest. It can break down a uncooperative prisoner or it can create a world-wide chain of fast food stores. The power of persistence is perhaps your strongest ally or your largest foe.

I must confess, in the past I have succumb to the persistence of the ordinary, the constant clubbing with mediocrity, the ever present status quo. I have spun my wheels until they become smooth from the friction I get when I try to do the extraordinary or when I try to ask the question “no one is supposed to ask”. In the past the “culture of mediocrity” beat me down until I, just like most everyone else, no longer cared anymore about my job, my employer, my performance, my future, my growth. I like most everyone I met would only do the minimum to get by. I would only do just enough to keep ahead of it all. Of course, in the end, I realized that this compromise of my ideals was extremely costly, and I suffered, am suffering the consequences.

Unfortunately, once again I am confronting my nemesis. New surroundings, new people, same old attitudes. Surely everyone who ever finally surrounded, started with grand resolve and great confidence that they would be able to persevere. However, once you have surrounded once, it is usually much easier to do so once again. If I am to withstand the torture I am receiving and will continue to receive I need a new strategy, new allies, and a new defense for I am afraid that blind faith in persistence will not be enough.

Well it certainly has been a roller coaster ride with my emotions, my sleep patterns, and my productivity. Lately I’ve been wondering, do I still have a significant amount to learn or master when it comes to human relations. The more I’ve tried to understand people, the more they still sorta do what they always tend to do, baffle me. I know that I need to be like totally awesome at human relations (HR). That’s what it should be called, instead of Human Resources. In my opinion the department of Human Resources was created by senior executives that were ashamed of the decisions they were taking. So they created a new department to deal with the aftermath. I can’t imagine a group of people in charge of doing more repugnant and unsavory tasks as Human Resources. I think it’s wrong. If a CEO and the board of some company decides to lay off a group of people, they should be forced to fire those affected personally. When you have to meet, face to face, those your decisions affects, I believe that it would force companies to be more socially responsible for their actions. Have you read of these folks who have to train their Indian replacements before getting fired? Talk about demeaning! As one who went through a “down-sizing” , it is demeaning enough., but to force someone to train the person taking your job. Despicable.

Well, the merge is complete. This is now the SNAP Xcito blog. Geez, keeping one blog is challenging enough. Imagine two or three. Well one step at a time.

A little back story. Xcito is my company, if ever sees the light of day, only God knows. In attempting to find a short metaphor, brand that resonated most with me it had to be success. I’ve always been focused on ensuring success in whatever I do, for whoever I work for or with. Unfortunately in the past, my definition of success have not always aligned with those I worked with or for. I learned from those mistakes and emerged even more focused on the success of others. Which brings to me SNAP.

SNAP is, if nothing else, about making students, my friends, my peers and Puerto Rico successful. It is the culmination of about nine months work, and is finally under progress and building momentum. SNAP is an open source software development project, dressed up as a research and commercialization – human resource development project. Wow, how many adverbs can one string together and still make sense? Or are they adjectives? It is quite embarrassing that my grasp of English language grammar even allows me to construct these sentences I’m typing now. In many ways, quite the symbol for my weak programming skills. Grammar is syntax, right? I believe, and am told, I communicate very well, both orally and written, but I almost flunked English in high school. So I get the semantics, but not the syntax guidelines/names. I mean what the hell is a gerund anyway? So I know what programs should do, I just don’t have the patience to master the syntax. Hmm, I digress.

So there is a shift in this blog history, merging the two. However, now that I pull things together. It really has been about success all along. Here’s to yours…