Travels etc.

I was have been recently attending to the great online course - Constitutional Struggles in the Muslim World by University of Copenhagen . It has been a very interesting journey through the Muslim world. I have never had an opportunity to see this type of overview which is sophisticated enough and gives a big picture of how complex and interesting it is. I was not able to watch all the videos in the time frame provided and also missed some readings - but I saved it all for later to definitely come back to the material to continue my education. Even now I understand how important the issues raised by certain groups of religious people are to them in a geopolitical and historical context and I know more about Islam as well. I think the main aims of the course - 'to equip participants to better understand Muslim contemporary discourse about the res publica , better contextualise the demands for religious law in public life, and to better ascertain the theoretical and practic...

Some interesting ideas from the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith regarding big capital: "The trade of a joint-stock company is always managed by a court of directors. This court, indeed, is frequently subject, in many respects, to the control of a general court of proprietors. But the greater part of these proprietors seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business of the company ; and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it , but receive contentedly such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make to them." "The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own , it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own. Like the stewards of a rich man, they are apt to consider attention to small matters as not ...

Not long ago I published an article  Economic Lessons - Consumer Influence on Price  with an intent to show that not everywhere rules of supply and demand work as per the textbooks and as per wishes of some people. I have discussed this topic with many people and majority seem to still believe in supply-demand mantra. Today I stumbled upon the article by BT Financial Group -  4 surprising facts about the property market : "Supply and demand pricing rules don’t always work with property".

Have read the article  The Collapse of Big Law: A Cautionary Tale for Big Med In my opinion it is all logical. When instead of thinking about health (or law, or education) as a goal, but of money as a goal - this is a natural consequence. If everybody else around is focused on maximizing the profits why lawyers, teachers or medics should be exceptional? They are part of the society.

I will be facilitating a workshop at "Intranets and The Australian Government" on the 19-20 May 2014 in Canberra. More info on the event: http://www.arkgroupaustralia.com.au/Events-F003IntranetGovernment.htm The hashtag for this event is #intranetgov and the Twitter handle is @Arkgroup . In the workshop, I will discuss the practical aspects of Intranet implementations and ways of building it using SharePoint, for it to be an efficient working platform. We will explore what can be done to design and create magnificent tools for your daily information work that may not only improve the business processes, but also increase involvement of people in information sharing and collaboration within the company. Features such as: Selection of the applications, social features, search, personalisation and other interesting topics will also be reviewed. Many new ideas straight from #SPC14  about industry best Intranet implementations and applications based on Office 365 , SharePo...

With the New Year resolutions came new wave of communication with the vendor and builder regarding unresolved defects from last year. Vendor has been contacted by the owner, because: - In the contract of sale there is a clause which states that all defects should be reported within 3 months after settlement and should be repaired by the vendor (and at the vendor's expense ) within 6 months after settlement - The vendor and their relevant contacts were notified numerous times about those defects and their response has been always "all issues will be resolved" which changed to "the building came with 12 months warranty and the responsibility passed on to all owners" - The owner didn't have any direct agreements or contracts with the builder. Therefore it has been decided to work with the vendor. An email correspondence with the vendor looked like this: Owner (O): Hi, it's been two years since the defects were reported, but not ...

From time to time an opinion comes up regarding state deficits, national debts etc. Here's the insight on how it is relevant and whether it does influence wealth of the country or not: "The balance of produce and consumption may be constantly in favour of a nation, though what is called the balance of trade be generally against it. A nation may import to a greater value than it exports for half a century, perhaps, together; the gold and silver which comes into it during all this time, may be all immediately sent out of it; its circulating coin may gradually decay, different sorts of paper money being substituted in its place, and even the debts, too, which it contracts in the principal nations with whom it deals, may be gradually increasing; and yet its real wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its lands and labour, may, during the same period, have been increasing in a much greater proportion. The state of our North American colonies, and of the trade ...