Afghan violence

That is correct that in any society you can find cases of violence, but when it is becoming so frequent that some refuge to religion to justify it, we should really be concerned.

By nature, people tend to minimize contradictions between their behavior and their opinions (cognitive dissonance). I am confident there are little or no grounds one can base Islamic teachings for the widespread violence against women that are happening every day in any corner of the country. It was so unjustifiable for me to hear arguments of Afghan men talking on a BBC radio program on the topic, where they were making up various accounts of hadith justifying violence against women. First of all, the reliability of any hadith in that regard would be questionable having a logical analytical mind, if we of course believe in any logic in religion. Second, any religious basis, including Islam, would be questionable legitimizing such violence. It would be also hard for one to find any biological bases in Afghan male genetics leading to such tendency of committing violence against women.

I believe in though cultural bases legitimizing violence of many kinds, including extreme cases of violence like murder, torture, sexual abuse, to less violent forms, such as street harassment, organizational gender discrimination, family gender discrimination, legal gender discrimination and so forth.

As much unacceptable as violence against women is, it is illogical to think we can change it over a night. It is deeply rooted in our culture. Merely imprisoning the perpetrators would not be a solution to eliminate violence, especially whereas in the society any perpetrator can be also seen as a victim. However, the wave of repulsion against such violence, among Afghan public diaspora, would be an awakening moment in our cultural life.

AUAF Job Fair

On the Job Fair day at AUAF Thursday afternoon, the recruiting companies had little idea what they were doing. They were advertising their products rather than recruiting, which is understandable, but not even in an informed, targeted way for the best students in the fields over the country.

If I were leading the company's recruiting team, I would take advantage of the great opportunity grabbing away the best talents in the fields through providing an idea of what it is like to working at my company, talking about the vision, mission, culture, and life. Clubs, sport teams, food, parking lot, etc. are also attractive topics to talk about. Posters, pictures, and videos would help a lot. I would also talk about why should the student wish and plan to join us after graduation and what career prospect and personal development plans would await him/her in a few years down the road working at my company. I will talk about the compensation advantages, as well.

I would not idly wait for the opportunity of students approaching my stall. For that matter, I will make my stall attractive and different from others' to grab attentions, dragging visitors to that, in a welcoming and appreciating manner. Companies should never forget that their most important asset is their employees, and so, it is vital to develop ever-creative ways to recruit new blood to the vessels of the organization.

You may say, "Oh, this is Afghanistan! We don't have to be concerned about these issues, because they would have to join our company anyway. Because they are poor, etc. etc." Well, you are partly correct. But is that really your vision for your company and for your country, Afghanistan?!

This is an open discussion and your ideas are much appreciated. I may be wrong about the specific ways to attract potential employees, as I mentioned above, but the point I want to grab the attentions to is the significance of the issue, first for our university administration to plan and coordinate better such events, and second for the companies to put more resources into this.

Big Data

Determining probability of occurrence of events and the temptation of finding correlations between the events have been the aspirations that statisticians have been following during centuries. To accomplish those aspirations, the underlying assumption was that a sample of a population represents that population, within some standard errors.

Big Data, an evolving phenomenon thanks to the information age, online social networks, and information systems, is going to radically change these calculations. Data on customer behavior are collected through systems such as CRM, ERP, etc. in helping businesses predict market trends. Social networking websites are also invaluable tools following customers' footprints ubiquitously. The mobile industry, rising on the ashes of cameras and computers, helps the Big Data get bigger. The to-be released Google Glass is a product generating data, ubiquitously, and has been generated out of the mere concept. The Big Data also opens concerns and debates over privacy issues.

The radical difference between the conventional statistical methodologies and the emerging, ever-growing Big Data are in the concepts of sampling populations and explaining events. Whereas statistics is unable to study the whole population, and contents itself with samples through precise measurements, the Big Data does that instantaneously, though, with less precision. On the other hand, statistics tries to explain events through clarifying positive/negative correlations and predictor-variable relations. In other words, it tries to find out the Why. The Big Data, due to its nature, is incapable of doing that, but it rather focuses on the How.

The new world of business is not a battle between ideas, but a greater war between how you implement the ideas. You don't fight the Big Data, which sounds absurd, you embrace it to win!

These two models

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai's and Abdullah Abdullah's versatile appearances in public inevitably makes me wonder if they have any consistent dressing code. A leader at the level of president should not look like a model dressed in flashy clothes, but rather like a serious politician, who is expected to dress up elegantly, but stay conservative and consistent. In contrast, we can have President Obama, President Karzai, Kim Jong Un, Former President Ahmadinejad, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenie, who are good examples of consistency in their dressing styles.

They know better

If you want to help the poor, give them directly and let them decide what the "priority" is, and don't ask what they are spending the money on.

Nature

Nature is a place where men can realize their sense of conquest.

Disruption

Disruptors have always been out there. They don't care how conservative the community is. Their tsunami come and ruthlessly devastate old and broken boats. Their strengths is dependent on how powerful their communications tools are. In the age of Facebook, they are strong.

Disruption is inevitable. Ignoring it is irrational. Preparation is necessary.

A statesman isn't a pluralist

Pluralism isn't a valid concept, nor an effective practice, in politics and administration of a state. Pluralism is applicable in social and religious spheres, where versatility of ideas leads to better understandings. In politics, two is obviously better than one, and so is than three. We don't want to confuse the nation with so many good or bad choices to administer the government, because our aim isn't debating things all day long but to get things done. The administration of a state requires practical approaches than making ideas fight each other.

Pride

"Made in Afghanistan" is no pride unless it is really good. 

True spirit

You talk to me of spirit, but let me tell you that nothing is more spiritual than a true individual self and the natural human greed. It makes you human as we call it. The collective wisdom is a waste of spirit.

Beliefs and questions

When you question their beliefs, they say you don't know enough about it to question it. But the moment you become aware you can question something, it means you know enough to do that, it means the belief has revealed its flaws to you. Reaching a conclusion is the next step, but you can still criticize it, and man, you have every right to do that!

Jobs didn't think out of the box

I doubt Jobs' thinking out of the box made Apple successful. In fact, I don't believe "thinking outside the box" will do any good in the market. That's what people most of the time repeat without putting some thought into it. Opposite to the typical belief, the market is always conservative and do not accept extremely revolutionary products unless there is already a need for it. Meaning, customers have already tried substitute(s) but it failed them. What Jobs did was understanding those failed experiences and provided a better experience. Take iPod as an example. The market had already experienced Walkman and other mobile music players, but the quality of performance wasn't desirable or there was space for further improvement.

As a matter of fact, the greatest improvement Jobs brought about to the electronics market was not the individual products of iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad per se but the total experience a customer can achieve by using Apple products. An integrated, simple experience and the convenience the customers failed to get from other disintegrated, ugly-in-design, and unnecessary complicated products. That experience ranged from production to sale, something Apple competitors had not provided.

Thinking out of the box may do well in Art where the audience is an individual who may or may not connect with the work. The market is not a single person but it comprised of different in taste and pace of accepting changes. Jobs was a brilliant marketer.

Blocked

In a conversation about religion, I received so many bad words from uncivil tongues. But Facebook has removed my comments and blocked me from posting!

Disruption

Innovation leads to disruption of the current markets. Aside from the inevitability of it, is that a good thing for the economy as a whole whereas it collapses big businesses, with thousands of employees? Are disruptions necessarily result in progresses in better quality, enhancement of performance, and economic growth? Or, they are just different ideas that are effectively and efficiently managed?

I am not proud of them

Being proud of Afghans doing extraordinary things in other societies is so meaningless, if I contain myself to avoid using the word "fascist". Attributing their successes to their origins of being Afghan is very low. It is all about the environment where they can flourish and it has nothing to do with the so called "blood". Why are not we able to provide the "sons and daughters" of this land with opportunities/environment/freedom, inside this land, to be able to do those brilliant things. Quite the opposite, I am ashamed of myself, as an Afghan, each time an Afghan does a great job overseas.

Take the charge

I have rarely heard an Afghan says, it is my fault, it is my responsibility. Always, someone else is to blame, always there are foreign, outside hands in work to make Afghans what they are. The British, Pakistan, Iran, the U.S., the UFOs, aliens...

To grow, to survive, to flourish, we must stop these nonsense. We must take the charge, accept the responsibilities, of our weaknesses and shortcomings and failures and evils.

A true god

A true god, a creator, is the one who can also die, if he wants.

Social equality

Social equality doesn't mean those who work harder and earn more should share their earnings with those who don't work as hard as they can. But it should mean, should the latter want to change their social status, the society provides them the same opportunities that provide to the former.

Honesty

They praise honesty, but it'd be the worst thing you want to give them; they hate it!

Personal charisma

There is no such a thing as true personal charisma. It's all about wealth, power, beauty, education, etc. In absence of all these, the charisma is still in result of the day fashionable lifestyle, ideology, and opinion. It is all external. It is all fashion.

Die if you can

I love a god who can die!

Groups

I am essentially an anti-group-ization person. I am an individualist by nature. Groups may do well though in collaboration and efficient use of resources. But if you want to form groups, only have one or two core elements to build your group on. Don't define every single detail as you'd have to find yourself in a vicious cycle of defining yourself against other groups and an inter-group competition for nothing but the illusion of "we are the better than them". In some tragic cases, it may even lead to fascism. Religion can always be an example.

Leadership workshops

So if you ask me what would make up a leader, I'd say I don't know, but certainly not workshops and seminars that international NGOs in Afghanistan believe in.

Worse than bribe

Bribe is bad, very bad. But one thing is even worse, and that is, not getting back a quality service after you paid the bribe.

I love you because

I respect you because you are reliable. Because you are in a higher level of competency and talent, comparing to other people around you.

I love you because you are reliable? Because you are competent? Because you are talented? No, I doubt that... I love you because... I don't really know.

Consultancy

In Kabul, you rarely succeed to find someone with the relevant and true expertise. Here the consultancy service organizations provide everything, from babysitting to assassination services, with donor-type competitive prices!

Weakness

I love myself. Yes, I do, though, not because I think I am a perfect individual, quite the opposite, because I am aware of my weaknesses. Because I have the capability to explore, detect, and more important, admit my weaknesses; first and foremost to myself.

Just wondering...

Just wondering what the God thinks about me

Too fast

I am weird because you have a category in your fast-thinking device of your brain called "weird" (read it "I didn't understand it"). Don't move on, hold on a minute, think more, maybe I am just a common-sense!

Celebrating death

I am not a hot-headed jihadi who is encouraging people to blow up themselves to reach the god, nor a nihilist who hates life. Those who know me in person can certify that. But, I love to think and sound crazy. Those who know me in person can certify that.

Death is natural. It is a decline of physical strength and capability, and consequently, intellectual capacity. It is a fact.

Aging is not the same as death but it can be one of the reasons causing it. People spend huge amounts of their valuable resources to delay aging and death, and prolong their lives. In other words, they want to stay longer breathing, eating, walking, talking, producing... well, the last one may not always be the case.

Many of the methodologies, tools, and lifestyles to prolong life are merely perceptions created in result of marketing strategies in a modern society. People are always unhappy about death though they are sometimes not even sure why they want to stay alive.

What I'm trying to say may sound radical and stupid, but it might be worth having fun (not sure though there'd be so many agreeing on the fun part) playing with stupid ideas for a minute. If you can't take control of death and you are always unhappy about it, why not merely accepting the fact as it is and be happy about it?

By nature, humans tend to take control of the nature. It's fine. You can take the control of death by not running away from it, but by determining when and how to die. There could be so many ways to be even creative about it.

Death is not only unpleasant when it is about human. People don't like to see the death of their traditions, lifestyles, and ideologies.

Don't hate death, and don't hate me repeating that. Death is the start of creations. If you want to create, you should love death. Not mourning it, you should celebrate it.

Books

Books and dinosaurs have one common characteristic: too spacey!

Let's understand scarcity

2014 is close, and it would be of more sense if we start thinking to get a sense of what scarcity means. Yes, I'm serious! For some classes of Afghan society, the international assistance in the last decade provided such an environment where today not so many people can think of a better opportunity than ripping off a donor, be it writing proposals, quotations, (artificially) high salaries (that add no value to the organization and it is given because the "budget" can afford it, etc. etc.

Happy or not, all soon be gone. As we might have felt, with less and less DOD and USAID contracts and grants, and layoffs, we need to start getting worried and wasting our time speaking (as an "expert") at or watching Tolo and other TV discussion panels. Or, we might want to do something different than what have been doing. We can start thinking of how we can change our business habits and build our company visions not on proposal writing but on how we can create value with no money!

Graduated