Reverse Brain Drain

This is a commonly heard term in the US today. I first came across it in Richard Florida's book "Rise of the Creative Class" in February 2004.
It refers to talented engineers, scientists and researchers leaving the US and moving overseas. Precipitated mostly by latest US economic and government policies.

The effects are already visible - the US is no longer the bleeding-edge, technology powerhouse it was 10 years ago. StemCell research is being spearheaded in the EU, WiFi was introduced to the world by China and the (simple, yet significant) cellphone-camera was introduced by Japan.
As time goes by greater effects of this phenomena will become visible. Will be further amplified by the current outsourcing trend observed in US economics.

What we need to do to prevent a bleek situation from occuring is to develop policies that encourage American youth to get graduate degrees and PhDs, and pursue careers in the country. (Currently greater than 60% of PhD holders in the US are foregin born). The overall number of foreign students coming into the US to study has taken a nosedive after 2002.

Juno Beach

Carly Fiorina

Accountability – what make the world go.

Predictability – what the world likes.

Carlys lack of predictability was her demise at HP. Gone, accompanied by a $42M severance package. I still have a hard time comprehending executive compensation in Fortune 500 companies. What do you do with that kind of money. But then again her annual compensation at HP (as of 2003) was around $7M; so she had to have figured out somewhere to put that kind of money.

What will become of her – more than likely, politics. She will end up being a republican politician and the world will certainly continue to track her performance.

What becomes of HP? Still not sure. The company has been in trouble in even before Carly came aboard. Her merger battle for Compaq was a wager she had placed and unfortunately it did not work out. The company will more than likely split up its divisions – separate its profitable Imaging Dept. from Enterprise and PCs (although HP executives currently deny it will happen.)

There is no other road for the company to become profitable. Wall Street is experiencing a HP stock buying frenzy, but being the conservative investor that I am, my word of advise would be to STAY AWAY from it.

Chilli Fritos

People that I meet everyday in class/work/gym, are in general are very nice. They are all motivated and have goals for themselves. The magic to being a leader that people look up to, is being respectful and encouraging towards them.

Humans in general have a lot of insecurities, and it is these that prevent the majority of us from taking on a leadership role. If one knows oneself good enough to define these insecurities and tackle them – the person makes a good leader. Or to say in in a different way, a good leader is someone who has taken steps to overcome her insecurities.

Insecurities may include the little voice inside you that says:

“What if no one listens to me….”,
or
“What if I make the wrong decisions…”.

I personally feel that you have to jump in head first – make mistakes and stumble – but get back up, correct yourself and jump back in the game. Kind of like learning to ride a bicycle. Literature does help a lot – but learning from ones own mistakes is priceless.

I just had an accomplishment (that I was a little stressed about) today and felt like writing this. I have been blessed to have good and encouraging peers and supervisors whose wisdom I have somewhat tried to absorb. Lifes too short, got to make the best of it!

Yes! My own FeedBurner

Backroads. Sneads, FLA

The Hydrogen Economy – Are we there yet???

Ahhh! The time when we are independent of foreign oil. Car and truck exhausts will produce nothing but clean, pure water. When your Honda Accord gets low on fuel, you fill up with hydrogen at the local “gas” station – hydrogen that is made from water and electricity.

This is the pipe dream that a lot of us are waiting for, to come true. Politicians have been talking about it, engineers have been restlessly working on it – and our president has opened up a budget (small, but existent) for it. But the question is “When are we going to get there?”

Keeping a long story short, ladies and gentlemen – the answer is “Not for a while”. Current technolog, which is being shown at car shows, is a long way away from the point where it will be used in cars, which would drive and last like our gasoline powered cars. Furthermore the infrastructure for hydrogen delivery has some hurdles of its own to overcome. Governor Schwarznegger of California plans to have hydrogen refueling stations, every 20 miles on major interstates, by the end of 2010 – but unfortunately this is going to be an exercise in proving that “clean” hydrogen production is very expensive.

Let us fast-forward a couple decades: The hydrogen-economy is now here - this is what we will see: Hydrogen will be the energy carrier – it will replace the batteries and gasoline we use today. The energy to create the hydrogen will come from some other source – it could be a combination of wind, solar and hydro, as geography permits – but, in the US, it will more than likely be nuclear. This translates into more nuclear plants and finding ways to safely deal with nuclear wastes.

In the interim what do we do to help? Our best bet now, as we inch towards this transition is conservation. We have to conserve our natural resources by minimizing wastes and using energy efficient transportation. The gasoline-electric hybrid cars, available in the market are today, are an excellent tool to use.

However, surely and certainly we will wean away from our dependency on the dinosaur. A child born today will have a hydrogen-powered automobile for her first car.