Water : Facing the scarcity

Water is a scarce resource every where in the world; yet we do not really care about it. We act blind; thus we do not realize it. 

I often wonder why cannot resorts in Maldives reuse the treated waste water instead of discharging it to the sea ? It is not necessary to follow exactly what they do in Singapore i.e. to use recycled / treated water as drinking water; but use at least for limited usages such as floor cleaning, gardening & toilet flushing. One excellent example can be quoted (without just quoting from internet) which I witnessed myself . Few years back in Sri Lanka, we worked with i.e. Brandix group waste water plant project. Brandix was more concerned about environment & this was also one of their critical success factor in achieving  awards & standards. The plants were designed to get treated water up to Central Environment Authority standards; reused as toilet flushing water. The result water gave no odour & no colour . Brandix follow the same up to date. 

Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) can be defined as the amount of oxygen that would be consumed if all the organics in one liter of water were oxidized by bacteria and protozoa (ReVelle and ReVelle, 1988)

Maldives sea is polluted by unseen ways of discharging treated sewage & water into sea. Although it is called " treated", we all know that the process is not completed. 

Increasing BOD levels due to discharge of sewage & waste maters to sea, can cause create critical issues in very near future. Severe effects which may result can be listed as following. 

1. Organic matter from sewage would break down & reduce dissolve Oxygen in sea. This increased BOD level in water which is needed for aquatic organisms. 

2. The level of nutrients goes up causing plankton productivity changes. Algal blooms rise up. Contaminants become toxic for  already existing phyto-plankton .

3. Half treated sewage increases the turbidity & suspended solids reducing the sun light penetration. This inhibits sea plant growth & damage fish gills eventually affects on natural green food available for other sea creatures. 

So what can we say if guests find snorkeling in Maldives is less attractive due to reduction of fish population in sea?

4. Waste water introduces pesticides, other chemicals, heavy metals which can bio-accumulate within animal tissues and have long-term toxic effects. So now we do understand that these chemicals may cause skin irritations & other effects. 

Don't you think our continuous actions may make path to a day of end less guest complains about skin irritations or sea water allergies in Maldives? 

5. Free Chlorine or other disinfectant reactors might create harmful compounds such as chloroform or halo-ketons. 

These are only few results. Sometimes releasing of improperly treated sewage & waste water may seem to be without option. But if we really focus on the right solutions, we are able to make it. It is understandable that the initial set up for a right treatment process to get treated water with reusable level is high in cost. In marketing point of view, resorts must look into meeting the bottom line as well which might be difficult with this type of investment. However it is not something impossible when compared the investment amount with long term benefits.

As an agriculturist, marketer & a person with experience in water treatment field,
I think that everything is inter-connected.  My feeling is that we must not forget that we have a responsibility to environment where we live in.  Shouldn't we create the competencies to deal with our own waste without waiting till the rest of ecosystems finish our unfinished job? It is something to think. 

x

I am seeing outside from the window

November 11, 2015

I am seeing outside from the window from the seat I am sitting. The window is only ten feet away from me. They say there will be a big storm going to come in next few weeks. Well, the signs are visible; all happens suddenly. Sky mother starts crying suddenly with her cursing on earth people, cold wind closes doors and windows making noises as if ghosts arrives from no where. The wind is cold , environment is not hot like the other days. It is like winter is going to fall on islands.

I am seeing outside from the window from the seat I am sitting in 4th floor. The sea in grey colour far away beyond the buildings. The sky above the two islands also are grey spreading dull colour changing people's minds to no intention of working today. The only remaining few trees moving branches 360 degree as if they do not want to stay on the ground.


I am seeing outside from the window from the seat I am sitting in front of my computer. Air conditioner is not switched & balcony door is opened as the breeze brings the cool air directly from sea.

I am thinking how would it be in heaven or how it feels like to be in heave ? Will they sea the grey sea & dull sky. Storms are going to start soon, gods & goddess will have to be careful. Storm will come, great mountains will fall, sea will take away the land , rain will swallow the earth. There will be many deaths. Human will curse; human will curse on god.

Will gods ever think about those curse ? Will they ever feel them or anything happens to them ? Will those curses reduces their glory & luxury ? They will be always gods & they would never care. May be they want to punish everyone for not "being human". But, will these punishments ever make human realize the two words ? Will they ever change ? Will they realize : Human makes gods; Gods make human.

I am seeing outside from the window. Colour is turning dark & grey. Storm is coming..........

Ten Proven Ways to Create Better Stories And Persuade People

 

If you want to easily persuade people, here is the article you must read

http://www.businessinsider.com/strategies-for-persuasion-2013-1  

http://www.sparringmind.com/story-psychology/#ixzz2I39FbScg 

Management Is (Still) Not Leadership

Dear Friends,

Today I thought to share with you a wonderful artical written on leadership by Mr. John Kotter , professor of Havard Business School. We observe today many people confuse with managemnet & leadership where they think all the issues & complications in organizational structures & employees could be solved with managemnet. The ugly truth is all such cases canot be solved only by management. There are some instances where leadership plays a vital role & more respect & priority by employees is given to what leaders say but not to what managers command. Organizations should understand when they lack leaders, the whole journey could by mislead.

Lets look into what professor Kotter has to say on effective leadership.

A few weeks ago, the BBC asked me to come in for a radio interview. They told me they wanted to talk about effective leadership — China had just elevated Xi Jinping to the role of Communist Party leader; General David Petraeus had stepped down from his post at the CIA a few days earlier; the BBC itself was wading through a leadership scandal of its own — but the conversation quickly veered, as these things often do, into a discussion about how individuals can keep large, complex, unwieldy organizations operating reliably and efficiently.

That's not leadership, I explained. That's management — and the two are radically different.

In more than four decades of studying businesses and consulting to organizations on how to implement new strategies, I can't tell you how many times I've heard people use the words "leadership" and "management" synonymously, and it drives me crazy every time.

The interview reminded me once again that the confusion around these two terms is massive, and that misunderstanding gets in the way of any reasonable discussion about how to build a company, position it for success and win in the twenty-first century. The mistakes people make on the issue are threefold:

Mistake #1: People use the terms "management" and "leadership" interchangeably. This shows that they don't see the crucial difference between the two and the vital functions that each role plays.

Mistake #2: People use the term "leadership" to refer to the people at the very top of hierarchies. They then call the people in the layers below them in the organization "management." And then all the rest are workers, specialists, and individual contributors. This is also a mistake and very misleading.

Mistake #3: People often think of "leadership" in terms of personality characteristics, usually as something they call charisma. Since few people have great charisma, this leads logically to the conclusion that few people can provide leadership, which gets us into increasing trouble.

In fact, management is a set of well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and problem-solving, which help an organization to predictably do what it knows how to do well. Management helps you to produce products and services as you have promised, of consistent quality, on budget, day after day, week after week. In organizations of any size and complexity, this is an enormously difficult task. We constantly underestimate how complex this task really is, especially if we are not in senior management jobs. So, management is crucial — but it's not leadership.

Leadership is entirely different. It is associated with taking an organization into the future, finding opportunities that are coming at it faster and faster and successfully exploiting those opportunities.

Leadership is about vision, about people buying in, about empowerment and, most of all, about producing useful change. Leadership is not about attributes, it's about behavior. And in an ever-faster-moving world, leadership is increasingly needed from more and more people, no matter where they are in a hierarchy. The notion that a few extraordinary people at the top can provide all the leadership needed today is ridiculous, and it's a recipe for failure.

Some people still argue that we must replace management with leadership. This is obviously not so: they serve different, yet essential, functions. We need superb management. And we need more superb leadership. We need to be able to make our complex organizations reliable and efficient. We need them to jump into the future — the right future — at an accelerated pace, no matter the size of the changes required to make that happen.

 

There are very, very few organizations today that have sufficient leadership. Until we face this issue, understanding exactly what the problem is, we're never going to solve it. Unless we recognize that we're not talking about management when we speak of leadership, all we will try to do when we do need more leadership is work harder to manage. At a certain point, we end up with over-managed and under-led organizations, which are increasingly vulnerable in a fast-moving world.

(John Kotter Dr. John P. Kotter is the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and the Chief Innovation Officer at Kotter International, a firm that helps leaders accelerate strategy implementation in their organizations.

http://blogs.hbr.org/kotter/2013/01/management-is-still-not-leadership.html

Chinese Growth

Hi friends,

Today I thought to bring your attention on an article I saw about Chinese growth. Would China be stable in front of upcoming economical crisis' too & for how long? However recent past, China has shown a dramatic booming on its economy. Economists expect that 2013 would be the year that China would start stabilizing. Anyway, we wish them good luck as the most powerful country in the zone Asia. After all , we are not USA or UK to be jeolous with them :)

Refer below web site if you need to refresh on Chia economy booming.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/12/daily-chart-18?fsrc=rss


 

The world didn't end on 21st

  

World did not end & will the mayans be blamed?
What would be our responsibility ?

It is the end of the year & the world did not end.

 What would be the next step? Should the Mayans be blamed? It may the great humans earned one more opportunity to do something meaningful. May be Mayans had foreseen the evolved environmental crisis & predicted a fake world end. So it would give us another chance to think what we were really doing with our environment.

It is the perfect time to give it a little thought on “Green sustainability. Still we are not too late to start caring about the environment & bring the green technology in. Universal power or the Mother Nature has offered us one more opportunity to prove that we would care our world that we do now.

Many companies & many of us would not care about these concepts. Even when we heard the words, we would not care for the real meaning of them. We have been too busy not to spend a single second. To give the proper impact, the words as “sustainability " & " green " should be often used in presentations & speeches.

So let the green products & green technologies help you. Make use of organic farming & eco-friendly products. Of course organic products would give you the results maintaining the sustainability of your business. No doubt on that, thus say no to artificial fertilizers & chemicals.

Then for your day-to-day life. Turn off your PC when you take the off from the office. Use your A/C at 24 degree Celsius which is the most comfortable temperature zone for human body. This will expand the life span of your A/C unit as well. Many of us did not born in Alaska or Greenland, so why we need to put it on at 16 degree Celsius. I often wonder why people tend to do it. Imagine a day to be spent without A/C inside a hot building. Obviously you would feel like you are on a hot plate & this day would come very near future.

Markets keep on expanding everyday with the introduction of new products & technologies. Instant shower heaters & electric water boilers are been replaced by the "Solar power water heaters ". The energy & heat recovery systems have been come into play as a solution for the industrial power crisis. Although the initial costs are been high, the investors would never have to regret.



Now the organizers & industries focus moreon waste recycling such as paper, cardboards, plastic, glass & metals. Many product have proved their "pay back periods” are to be lesser than we assume.

It again is a must to consider whether our true passion lies in this. Many industries focusing on high short term profits, neglect the proper implementation of above aspects. Sometimes these green technologies have been applied, but not focused. Some keep them displayed for the sake of ISO or 5S standards.

So the question still remains. Will we keep on doing the same thing or will we take a step to change what we do now. Else shall we put the blame on Mayans & wait to see how our nature punishes us which is not so far.

( If you read this until the end , please feel free to leave a comment positive or negative, it will help me to enhance my writing . )

Pets

(In memory of Simba & Chuti )
 

Pets, they are wonderful. Sometimes you can watch them & forget all the sorrows in your head. They don’t hurt you, they don’t cheat you even you do hurt or cheat on them. So often you will show something as if it is something to eat & you will cheat them just to bring them closer to you & catch them. Also you will show something like fish or meat & make them stand in feet or jump. You take them on your lap & touch them to make yourself comfortable with their fur knowing that they would like it too. Watching their funny works, you can laugh for hours. They are wonderful & cute.

“Sindy “ / “Kitty Glow” / “Elder cat “ he was cute when he first came to our house with his bigger ears. He used to play with “ Blacky “ when both were small. As he grew, he became different , quiet , coward & thin too. When I was studying for SLIM exam, I kept him on my lap & he used to disturb me with his paws. We could not understand Sindy most of the times. Whatever we give, he wouldn’t eat, he doesn’t show any interest. He would spend most of the times in a dark corner. Of course this made him to be scared on the outer world including vehicles, people & animals.

 “Blacky “ as I remember first came home in 2008 when it was the monsoon period. He was dark black , fat & chubby. I used to watch him & sindy as I study for the exam. Their little quarrels brought us smiles. Also “Sindy” used to provide “Blacky” the required warmness as if he understood that Blacky was younger than him. As time passed, they used to sleep close to each other sharing the warmness & we called them “ brothers from a previous birth”. But as they grew Blacky seemed to be forgotten about his childhood brother.  May be as he got a new brother “ Ricky” who belongs to same species he had to let go ‘Sindy” . Their younger days , Sindy & Blacky could share the same meal & they used to eat from two corners of the plate. As time passed, Balcky grew up & had to eat more. He would not like Sindy to come closer. When Blacky is upset, he would make a sound to show that he is crying. He would shoe that he is sad. He wants other to know that he is sad.

“ Ricky” although when I was not there when he was brought home, of course he was a wonderful doggie. His eyes & face with fox look made  my brother to give him a name “ marusi pala “ . He would hide his face & body in a corner when we take a stick just to make him scared or if we wanted to see his actions. Also as he is not very much big in his body , as he is still young & growing up when he sees a bigger dog, he would not try to bark or quarrel. Instead he would start peace talks by wagging his tail & go closer & speaking in his language. I would not touch Blacky or Ricky as I don’t want them to lick my hands & to avoid their saliva. So I would give a quick pat on their foreheads. They liked even that pat & they would wag their tails. Pets or animals should be loved equally as my friend Mano does. She would love animals including wounded dogs & cats wherever she sees them. My brother once told that it is the proper love & said my love for pets are so artificial & selfish. Yes, It can be. Wherever I see a cat, I can touch it & take into my hands. But it would be difficult with dogs, but I would care for them, do whatever I can do. But difficult to take into hands. But  love cats. I can’t recall a single day that I took Ricky or Blacky in my hands except when Blacky’s small days. I loved them little less than “Simba” , “Sindy “ & “ Chuti”.

“Simba” , my family named him after the name of the great lion king. He was with lot of fur which gave us a comfortable feeling as we touch him. He never liked to stay in our hands. Even our mother, who does not like pets, liked Simba as he was cute & also different. He reminded us our old , beloved pet “Chuti” with same fur color. But his eyes were brown & lower side of the body like tummy , neck & legs were yellowish brown. He was not scared. Often he goes & fights with bigger cats like a little lion cub. His tail would become larger & if see him going to start a quarrel, we would bring him home to avoid him getting hurt.  But he was about to become the next gangster or the kind in the area. Also when we call him to offer meals, he would come from insides of the neighbor houses. Nobody shouts or hits him as he was so cute. He was little cunning too. When he was hungry, he would not cry. He would let Sindy to cry when Sindy was there, so that we won’t get mad at him, but we would get mad at Sindy. So we shout “ This one never eats , but he is the one cries for food every time”.  Simba was very clean as my brother would take him to showers. He & also two doggies would get kings & queens treatments with shampoo , brushing & then food. Simba was like a feather with his clean fur. His silky fur become straighten as we touch his neck downside. Of course cats like it. We would hold him in our hands & make him irritated, he tries to avoid them like a small kid. When he is on the floor, my brother would keep his feet on his tail & just give a little pat ,so that Simba becomes easily angry. With his angry voice, Simba tries to hit us back with paws with long pointed nails & once he is annoyed , he would go & hide himself under a table or a cabinet. He was so proud & would avoid us touching him as much as he can. He would change his path & take ninja paths to the kitchen to avoid us touching him. He knows if we are there, there won’t be any escape for him. He was such a smart cat. And it is still unbelievable that he is dead.

“ Chuti “ means “ tiny” & he was my childhood friend for 13 ½ years. The name was given by my sister after her childhood nick name. For a cat, it is quite a long age to live. But he lived for 13 ½ years. I would bring my school time small small problems to him & I used to tell them too him. He would listen ,of course he does not understand, but he would listen. His forehead was having 3 lines just like a squirrel. I used o call him many names. “ Squirrel “ because of the three lines, “carrot “ because of his bright brownish orange color , “Shindey “ becase of his rowdy look when he goes to fights with other cats, “Sudu chute “ as his lower body was snow white & so on. As I goes to school & college, he would wait in the front of the door. I would give him a kiss on his forehead. His eyes were yellow & lower neck, legs & tummy were snow white. If he can’t be seen , we always knew where to find him. He would sleep on my shoes , or on my table & under our beds. He was a kind of cat. He gets up in the morning & stares at father as he prepares tea. That was when we were schooling. That was the time, I started dubbing first for Chuti. He was requesting milk as he stares at father . When I was studying for exams, I would keep Chuti in my lap. Unlike Sindy , he won’t disturb me. Unlike Simba, he won’t try to escape. Instead he sleep nicely for hours. I would cover him with my own bed sheet, so that even mother appears she won’t see him & tries to chase him. He sometimes used to sleep on my table, on my books. But I won’t care. Of course my brother & me cried , when he died. He was one from my two kids. Still I see him in my dreams , the bond is strong.  After all he is our first childhood pet & also one & only “Chuti”. No pet can take his place. He was different with his qualities. Very much different having human qualities.

Now that all of them left except Blacky & the new puppy. Within a shorter period , three of them are gone. May be they tried to tell us something before they left . As they cannot speak like humans, may be they tried to show us something in their language. Pets are like angels. They bring you life. Now they have gone after making our lives bright even for a shorter period. As there is a reason for everything happens in our life & who come into our lives, there must be a reason for them to come to our lives. A link which is unseen; May be they were our old friends or relations in a different time. They did what they could do. They made our lives happier. And we would miss all of them forever. “Dear friends, Journey well” just like my brother says. We can only make a wish for you all that we would meet again & attain our goal together as a family.  Until that day, we would say good bye to all of you. Journey well....!

(My first article is dedicated 3 cat lovers i.e. Era , Mano & Hiru  ... My next article will be on "CATS " )