Where the Agile Manifesto starts with “Individuals and Interactions” the Harvard Business Review kicks off Jugaad with “Thrift not Waste”.

All too often I’ve seen Agile work because a scarcity of resources (money, time or knowledge) pushed an otherwise waterfall loving group into giving Agile a shot. The tenants of Jugaad resonate with me as a more general philosophy about how to get things accomplished then Agile’s focus on “working software”.

Agile Manifesto

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value

Jugaad (quoted from HBR):

It feels like we are talking about the same thing. Get a team together and empower them to solve the necessary problem. Nowhere is there a concept of ‘throw money at the problem’ or ‘hire more consultants’. Plan for change and change plans in order to achieve success.

I’m on a barcamp high today. We could have had a conference with a big budget, focused our marketing on the demographic of web designers/developers, planned it from an executive committee and wrote a gant chart tracking the critical path from start to finish. It would have been a big show, but it would not have been barcamp and it would not have been awesome.

Software engineers learned that top down does not work. Indian’s entrepreneurs espousing that top down does not work.

Spend a few moments today to consider if you think top down, centralized control of food production is a good idea: http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/s-510-is-hissing-in-the-grass/

I've actually been on the fence until the Palin decision. (I have daughters and have a strong opinion about the difference between family values and statutory rape)

Anyway I got an email that was anti-Obama in silly ways. I could name a number of things about him that truly concern me. I'm not sold that he would make a good president. Unfortunately our election is not about if he will be a good president, it is about if he will be better or worse the McCain.

The first 'fact' in this message was to cast aspersions regarding the reason that he changed his name from "Barry" to Barack. I did 5 minutes of googling to learn that his formal name is Barack and he took the nickname Barry. To attack him for that got to me in a personal way because although my given name is Aaron my dad gave me a middle name of Daniel. My middle name was just in case I had to work in an anti-semetic environment. I grew up with the need to hide my identity and culture being a very real possibility.

I replied to the email with this:

His given name is Barack. Barry was a nickname in high school. As Jews we should understand the social pressure that causes someone to change their name or go my a nickname. My Hebrew name is Chaim but my dad gave me a middle name of Daniel in case I had to deal with anti-semitism.

Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/128633 (source for the Barack info, see my dad about my name)

I answered a number of things that I thought were incorrect and sent back the email. Most of the replies I got were positive but I got some more challenges.

This one made me think:

Any fact check about this story?

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/29/mccain-slams-la-times-double-standard-withholding-obama-khalidi-tape/

And this

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/19/20081028/img/pwl-mideast-israel-palestin-f382be870d87.html

That took me as more of a challenge so a little googling and I was able to answer them. The first was easy. Basically Barack toasted a Palestinian professor at a event ( he maybe a terrorist supporter, maybe a moderate depending on the ratio of Fox/BBC in your world view). I simply wrote back that there is factual evidence that Barack was at the event and may have said kinds words about the professor, but a committee that McCain runs funded Khalidi's organization in the US.

So it appears that McCain who is talking small government and a strong America funded over $400k to give to a possible terrorist. Khalidi is such a threat that the world must know if Obama praised about him in public.

So again I've found both candidates lack.

But the second one bothered me more. It was about a Palestinian cold calling the US and getting people to vote Obama.

Here is how I answered that one:

Not sure how to 'fact check' this one.

A young man in another country wants to get Obama elected.

We can read good into this as the kid sees Obama as a hope to bring stability to
the region, which would benefit him.

Or we can real evil into this and see the kid as wanting Obama in office because
he thinks Obama will not back Israel or pour money into the hands of his
terrorist friends like Khalidi.

With regard to a 'fact check' I think this is a true Fact. Its really the
interpretation that you are challenging. Personally having a kid make a
political phone call, which our own political parties do, is much better then
having him strap on a gun or bomb or kill people.

Isn't this what democracy is supposed to be about?

It is much better then something like an Al-Qaeda terror strike before the
election to scare people into voting McCain (like what happened in Spain a few
years ago).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/al-qaeda-supporters-endor_n_136779.html

So you are surmising that Palestinians support Obama and he is bad. I've offered a story about
Al-Qaeda supporting McCain. Your story involves master plan to make phone
calls. My story involves people planning something much worse:

"If al-Qaida carries out a big operation against American interests," the
message said, "this act will be support of McCain because it will push the
Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them
against al-Qaida. Al-Qaida then will succeed in exhausting America till its last
year in it."

We can't just throw down a headline anymore. Things are too critical now. We
are now seeing nuclear weapons in the middle east. I don't think the MAD
concept that kept us alive during the cold war will work with fanatics. People that
chant slogans and cast another country or culture as evil and fit only for
extinction will embrace MAD as a worthy sacrifice.

note: mutually assured destruction. See wargames for a more entertaining explaination

I did 10 minutes of research and was able to disprove a point. I didn't start out to support Obama. I started out to try to disable propaganda and let people make an informed decision. In reading back what I wrote I'm thinking that I just created some propaganda for the other side. There simply is no link to the truth. Where is the 'System of record' that has the facts linked to the key "Barack"?

Leaving work today Karl suggested that the Internet allows people to shelter themselves in the facts that they want to believe.

It is true.

In grad school I learned to make charts that can take any numbers and prove (or disprove) any hypothesis. The new skill seems to be able to search the net and paste 'evidence' to support and attack any idea.

There may be no better example of this then the famous internet chart proving the cause of global warming is the worldwide decline of pirates: http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/001857.php

So for now I'll use my google-copy-paste prowess to support Obama, but clearly we in the business of the "Internet" must take a step back from this creation and examine the social aspects of what we have wrought.

and I think it is imperative that every Philadelphia blogger mention that yes indeed - the

Phillies won!

And thus ends my deep thinking for the night as I follow tales of spontaneous parting on twitter.
(Tomorrow's post will be on how 4 innings of baseball disrupt my attempts to solve the fundamental knowledge issues with out democracy)

(Thanks Comcast for little billy!)