QF32 – Airmanship at its best

On 4 November, 2010 Qantas flight QF32, an Airbus A380 outbound from Singapore, ran into serious problems when a turbine on its Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine suffered an uncontained failure. The crew professionally dealt with the incident inflight and successfully landed the aircraft without serious injury. It is also very interesting from a flight operations/safety aspect demonstrating how standards, procedures and training come together to cope with an extremely rare, but serious emergency like this. You must wonder what the outcome would have been for a lesser airline, without the level of competence that was evident in flightdeck and without the landbound resources at hand.

The Royal Aeronautical Society provides a great story with not only an interview with one of the pilots (not the Captain/pilot in command but the supervising check captain) but shows in-flight pics of the emergency as it happened. Royal Aeronautical Society QF32

Some of you may have seen this. A bit “60 Minutes” but an interesting 15 minutes of a great re-telling of the Airbus 380 incident. Sixty Minutes QF32

Great Circle Route

When travelling to Johannesburg, South Africa from Sydney, Australia you fly over Antarctica. Believe it or not this is the shortest distance between the two cities on two different continents. The flight path is what is called a “Great Circle” track. This means it is the shortest distance between the points and along the way there needs to be constant heading changes. For instance when you leave Sydney you travel SW (see image below.) However when arriving on the African continent you are travelling in a NW direction. Don’t believe me? Take a piece if string and hold it between Johannesburg and Sydney and pull it tight.

Flying over Antarctica is spectacular. Mostly polar weather has Antarctica in cloud but occasionally you will be blessed with an absolutely amazing view of the ice shelf and accompanying icebergs. Also there is opportunity to see Mawson’s hut if your lucky.

Love Bridge in Paris

Recently I had an opportunity to ‘stopover’ in Paris for a few days on the way back to Australia from Western Africa. Though I had last visited Paris three years back with my son on a Europe soccer tour this particular visit gave me a different perspective. Without the rush of a strict timetable I had time to absorb what must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

One thing that did catch my attention was a bridge called Pont de l’Archevêché (Archbishop’s Bridge) and is a bridge crossing the Seine river. It is located on the South Eastern corner of the Notre Dame and is very impressive at sunrise.

What tweaked my attention was the thousands of padlocks attached to the fencing on this pedestrian bridge. With closer inspection I realised these padlocks are declarations of couple’s love that now stand time-locked next to one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Notre Dame. Lovers often throw the keys into the river Seine as a sign of undying love, or keep it and open the padlock when they next return to the French capital.

As I’m not one to miss out on the action I ventured to a local hardware store, duly purchased a padlock and summarily proceeded to declare my undying love for my wife on the landmark by attaching my own padlock.

For those that are travelling to Paris and want some brownie points with a loved one I’d suggest you proceed to do the same. Engrave a padlock prior to travelling as this will eliminate the hassle of trying to find a padlock in Paris and wasting time finding a place to get it engraved.

What now?

Well today was my last day at Ericsson. A little over 4 years service to this Scandinavian company. Now what?

Over the last 8 years I have built two companies from scratch. Zero to greater than $1m AUD in annual turnover. Mind you both companies are not doing greater than $1m in annual turnover now but that is a different story! So what I intend to do over the next few weeks is build a business but instead of renting office space, hiring staff and carrying a lot of overheads I’m going to build a business with the following parameters in mind:

• Mostly online
• Build with virtual architecture that is transparent and cheap
• Use open source as much as possible
• Carry minimum inventory (strive to drop ship)
• Create an automated vehicle for generating revenue without spending a lot of time i.e. build a business that runs on autopilot
• Own a business but spend minimal time on it

Sound ambitious?

So off the top of my head it needs to be a product business. Avoid the services per-hour model as it doesn’t scale. To put a business on autopilot I need to avoid direct customer contact where possible – hence another reason to steer away from a service business. To narrow the field of potential products I’ll look to test a product that costs no more than $500. I’m not the type of guy that invests and hopes for the best. I will do smart testing, smart positioning and make sure my distribution is up-to scatch. Further I will limit wholesale distribution so as to maintain a consistent profit margin.

OK so I’m going to pick an affordable niche market and attack it. The order to start a business is 1) find a market, 2) define the customer 3) then I’ll find or develop a product for them. It is more profitable to be a big fish in a small pond than a small undefined fish in a big pond.

Stay tuned for progress.

Are you Invaluable?

ChangeThis is a site that frequently posts manifesto’s that support and spread great ideas. Topics are diverse and most provide interesting reading.

A recent short manifesto that intrigued me was The Six Invaluable Factors by Dave Crenshaw. Basically Dave outlines succinctly the 6 attributes that make one invaluable. The less valuable you are the more susceptible you are to being let go/fired and reduces your earning capacity. Worth a read. Check it out at http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/73.03.Invaluable

Animation – Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Recently I had an opportunity to visit my daughter’s classroom and was amazed at the degree of technology in the classroom today. Multi-media was everywhere. What an amazing vehicle to facilitate learning.

I came across what must be the ultimate multimedia educational tool – animation. This is a brilliant, 10 minute video of a talk by Dan Pink and illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. Check it out… it will amaze you.

More info at http://digital-examples.blogspot.com/2010/06/autonomy-mastery-purpose.html

www.theRSA.org

Desert Riding in Dubai

Dubai is often described at Disneyland for adults and is considered to be one of the more relaxed cities of the Middle East. It is so over the top with a lot of activities available to suit anyone tastes. A work colleague Howard and I had enquired about riding motorbikes out in the sand-dunes nearby to the city. We researched and found the local KTM agent had a sand-tour available. We set off early in the morning to beat the heat of the day and were riding by 8am.

We had a fantastic time riding up and down sand-dune avoiding camels and tents from nomadic campsites. Occasionally we would come across a bitumen road in a remote place that had been laid straight through the sand. I’m thinking with the shifting sands it must be an exercise to keep sand off these roads as the winds move sand-dunes overtime.

Good fun.

Cape of Good Hope

The most South Western point of the African continent is Cape of Good Hope. Coastline is both spectacular and rugged on the short drive down from Cape Town.

For those of you that love the elements I’ve found the ideal house for you to live in…

Should I Do with My Life?

I enjoy reading books about Silicon Valley and the culture that prevails there. Recently I finished reading Nudist on the Late Shift by author Po Bronson. Another interesting book Po wrote was What Should I Do with My Life? For those entrepreneurs amongst us there are parts that ring a bell particularly those of us starting out in a second career. Stories abound of individuals who have overcome fear and confusion to find a larger truth about their lives and, in doing so, have been transformed by the experience.

Some key highlights of the book to think over are below. Enjoy and thanks Po!

• Of our life we demand something deeper, or richer, or more substantive
• We will not have squandered our time here
• People who have unearthed their true calling fought with the seduction of money, intensity, and novelty, but overcame their allure
• attack on our freedom made life precious and weighty. People were reassessing what mattered to them
• Ordinary people – did not have available to them resources or character traits that gave them an uncommon advantage in pursuing a better life
• In hard times people usually changed the course of their life; in good times, they frequently only talked about change. Hard times forced them to overcome the doubts that normally give them pause.
• They spoke of fulfillment not happiness
• I became hyperaware of what mattered to me
• Very real stumbling blocks that prevent us from pursuing this question: not enough money, never enough time
• Many psychological stumbling blocks keep us from finding ourselves
• The quest for identity through ones labour – American phenomena
• Its so easy to let yourself be talked out of it
• Paradox of trying to make a “right” decision in the absence of experience
• Patience, long-term planning, resilience. Thats when you embrace your true identity, you will discover a productive power you never imagined having.
• I’d rather help than watch. I’d rather have a heart than a mind. I’d rather expose too much than too little. I’d rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I’d rather know all of this about myself than have more money than I need. I’d rather have something to love than a way to impress you.
• They want to find work they are passionate about.
• We need to encourage people to find their sweet spot. Productivity explodes when people love what they do.
• The value in their companies came from the employees who were passionate about being there. The extra effort came from them. The new ideas come from them. They took it upon themselves to teach and lead others.
• Those who are lit by this passion will be the object of envy among their peers, and the subject of intense curiosity. They are the ones who, day by day, will rescue this drifting ship.
• turning point
• We are looking for an environment that nutures our soul
• Perhaps you identify yourself, by age, gender, race, where you live, number of kids you raise or your PROFESSION
• We are not identified by what we do – our identity is anchored in what we’ve had to overcome to get there
• pay attention and not sleepwalk through life
• Inevitably time will erode memory and I will be left with fading highlights, and then only fond feelings
• A calling is not something you know, its something you grow into, through trials and mistakes. Work should be like life-sometimes fun, sometimes moving, and defined by meaningful events.
• Freedom is the confidence that you can live within the means of something your passionate about. Failure’s hard, but success at the wrong thing can lock you in forever.
• Get your mind 80% of the way there, then go looking for a catalyst.

Shift Happens – Did you know?

Karl Fisch, a high school administrator at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado, pulled together a powerpoint with some interesting and thought-provoking ideas.

Shift Happens – Did you know?

Karls blog is here.