Returning to the talent

TRANSLATION NOTES: Please read some comments at the end of this post.

Let’s go back to the talent, kill the genius and relive the man that rubbed the lamp, because it is better to believe in the one who had the simple initiative than on the result of three wishes that does not cost us anything.

This was the theme of one of the conferences to which I attended in recent days. The approach was oriented to technological issue, but its essence, the flavor that left me and the time I had to ruminate it on my holidays is invaluable. An encounter with a Muslim in a mosque in London and experience with the Parachicos history of Chiapa de Corzo has given me time to think much in the topic.

It has already quite philosophized on the subject about the genius and talent; for this it should be convenient, if is not already read, to chew with break the flavor of the book named El Hombre Mediocre. This, to identify the difference of the one who makes innovations because is in its nature and the one who after seeing what exists reinvents new ways that are more sustainable.

Last week we took important steps on the feasibility of a sustainable model for municipal and joint cadastre. Indeed it is necessary in a category where the things, mostly, are given, but in which it is invested millions every four, six or ten years in a vicious cycle of thinking that the cadastre should always do it again. The exercise of the last four years has led me through an interesting process of recycling the existing and experiment with new talents of guys (and girls) who desire a career in this field. From what I intended about this year I wrote exactly eleven months ago, and human nature has made some things get along the way; rethink expectations, give one last chance and to include others we considered out of context.

But every day I am convinced that our continuous skating in cadastre field consists either on the sectarian position of wanting to do the same thing or the extreme position of trying to do different things. The talent is in humans, including sustainability; we don’t bring aliens for things that are known they work and fail for not thinking in their future. In the end, I hope that the mix of old sheet instructors, with their rammishes and some obstinacy will have an impact on young people who need to learn from their attributes as discipline, touch and experience. Also the satisfaction to see that the young people’s energy who teach the older –almost– the digital mapping art and Internet, gives me the belief that it will be consultants’ habits in short time.

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In a technological world where wit is evident every second, I believe, and –everybody does– we are sure that it is necessary to stop and check if the genie is really killing the talent. I love what I’ve seen is done by my smoked friends on an Ipad which myself questioned four months ago; my hands are biting so as to input code on that. I am desperate not to be more involved in Open Source environment, which impact will be seeing in the next 15 years and will change the way we see the computer business. But I am also concerned that, conscious of having a fruitful period of genius in the industrial, computing, geospatial, communications, we seem powerless to affect questions such as:

“If we know that fossil fuel is destroying our planet, why the poems of the First World countries do not focus to reverse their use? Why U.S. does not dare to participate actively in the Kyoto initiative?

“If we know that the planet’s days are numbered, why the big global consultation entities we have created are unable to act? Why a person is able to provoke a war and then blame us all for not able to finish?

– Why economic interests have stifled the brilliance of ideas that would give the world 200 years more?

– Why no one can do anything with an idiot who does what he wants in that godforsaken country? How do we bring him there believing the affair would end corruption?

Talent, whose etymological root is born of that currency in the Jewish context and was immortalized in the parable of Matthew 25, does not necessarily require the reinvention of the world in Ubuntu format. Rather, in the reengineering of existing things; definitely what we deal is to find a better way to leverage what we already have and check if many things we accept as useful are having an impact.

As a brief example, I live in a country, which is like many, where each five blocks has an evangelical church, where 25% of the population professes Protestant faith where combined Catholic Church and other religions of Christian faith exceed 90%. This means that almost 100% confess to believe in principles that are correct and where it is believed that an atheist can contribute a little to our moral values.

But in this country, its impact on society is null, if not negative. This is because while statistics of religious denominations say they have experienced high growth in recent decades, the country continues falling at the last levels of poverty, corruption, drug trafficking, insecurity and other appellations of underdevelopment. I realize that is not the same to confess a religion than to live by those principles. But we all understand that it is necessary to return to human talent, review whether it makes sense to continue making the pie the same way and with thoughts as sectarian. If the two million people that on a Sunday morning in a church are applauding will put together their efforts to openly review the impact they are having, surely will draw conclusions, not to change their principles but to renew strategies.

So damaging is to blame the devil and not act, like ignoring something bigger than us that exist out there and here inside. Of course it is needed to dig (in here) and check if we are making efforts to produce the talent to its full potential (out there). Certainly it must be a way to get rid of these bogus politicians who decide for all of us how to steal our money.

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It is necessary to return to the human person as such, to forget so many terms that we have given to what we do and base our sustainability in the imperfect human. Returning to the talent, kill the genius and relive the man who rubbed the lamp, it is better to believe in the one who had the simple initiative than in the result of three wishes that do not cost us anything.

While that happens, I would like to take this anonymity to thank 3 technicians without whose willingness and capacity it would have been impossible to revive the ingenuity of nine boys and 5 girls that for a lifetime will be grateful with them. With this small seed, in 10 years, four of them will be devoted to care for their babies; the rest will be reaping achievements that we don’t even aspire. Each of them on Friday at 7 PM with a coffee and doughnuts will laugh remembering don F’s punishment with its cadastral closure until midnight, or about the Wrammishes when nobody stop his efforts, or the threats from don M!, and who knows, maybe this poem of Don g!

TRANSLATION NOTES:

(*) Si no le paran bola. It’s a Spanish idiom which means if somebody doesn’t stop other efforts.