ILLUSTRATING

On a non-political and lighter note than usual.. this morning I stumbled on a website page about creating charts in a more professional way. I'm a real Excel veteran, given that I started using spreadsheets back in the days of Lotus 1-2-3 on DOS based PCs with only a keyboard and no mouse in sight - no really! But, those Excel charts can only be pushed so far - and modelling the whole of the UK's water resource flows and stocks was about as far as you could go! I do use dashboards and can create interesting effects in Excel, such as this..


..but their presentation is growing tired I must admit. Enter three options. First is to use an add-in to Excel to increase its design look and feel. Already noe that though, and regularly use Xcelsius. It's ok, a little lcunky but good for 3-D'ing charts I guess.

Second is to ditch Excel (or rather use it to do the heavy computing and modelling) and use another output format such as Business Objects standalone packages. Expensive. Good output, but still not that pro edge and editability I want.

Third is to go to a full fledged vector graphic format. Cue Adobe Illustrator. We use Creative Suite 3 in the office and it is installed on my PC. But I tend to stick to the web-design bits of CS3, Dreamweaver and Fireworks mainly with a (very small) bit of Flash thrown in. Illustrator doesn't fill me with dread but I haven't a clue what I'm doing in it! Anyway, I stumbled on a page about 3D graphs and using Illustator's in-built charting tool.. which led me to doing this in around 5 minutes..


So, be prepared for more to come as this is seriously easy to do, can be applied to a full chart, has lots of options and can use any graphic to overlay and create a really professional look and feel.

More later. Illustrator is about to take up a good few days of my time!

PAY DAY OR NOT?

Sorry, am I going mad?

Are we rapidly heading towards Winston Smith's future world of getting up, doing our exercises in front of a big flat screen on the wall, trudging to work for little or no pay that is dictated to by someone else with little or no chance of doing anything different, all the time watched by CCTV cameras and being pacified by cheap alcohol and films about a war somewhere else where some unknown figure is trying to harm us all?

ah..

but today's BBC carries the news that more "public figures" have added their name to a list of campaigners for a cap on relative wage levels and rewards for people who earn more than the average.. I quote, "The government must now take decisive action on excessive pay at the top when it has had such a damaging and corrosive effect on the real economy and wider society."

In the same way the Low Pay Commission was set up in 1997 to advise on the minimum wage, a High Pay Commission was needed to introduce "a wide-ranging review" of pay at the top and bring in new measures to curb excessive remuneration, it said."

Excessive pay? What does that phrase mean exactly? One person's excess is another's normal isn't it?

Don't get me wrong, rewards going to those who mess up I'm certainly against. I have one or two old friends - shall we call them acquaintances? yes, that's better - who earn 6 figure salaries with final salary pension schemes that will be larger than any of my other friends standard salaries and they certainly don't deserve them just for echoiing what others have said to them and generally licking butt for a few years before moving on ahead of the shite hitting the air con unit. But, let's just break this beying for high paid blood down a little shall we?

The Low Pay Commission and thereafter the Equal Pay Commission was based on a sound psychological and equitable basis that a minimum level of pay for anybody is a just and grown up thing to strive for. The psychology is simple, pay that is too low creates a vacuum among people that are not working who basically think, "I can't be arsed working, after all what additional benefit is there in it for me?" To a point I would agree and thus a minimum wage is something that makes sound economic, ethical and psychological sense.

Now maximum wage levels? What piece of psychology or market efficiency is that based on? Tell you what, why doesn't everybody get up today and work as hard as possible for their employer in the knowledge that you'll only ever be able to earn a fixed amount. It won't put you off working harder tomorrow or the next day 'cos you love your job and the company.. I think not.

Maximum pay has of course already been experimented with in a different economic system, in the former Soviet Union. Factory Managers and the equivalent of our Fat Cats were paid bonuses according to quantitative targets (in a similar vein to the financial scene of the City of London). However, targets were set with the bosses around the table and whilst discussing the resources needed to achieve them (ring any bells?) and so targets were not particularly demanding. The other aspect of the system (and the one we should take heed of now) was that it didn't matter whether a factory hit 101% or 1001% of its target, the bonus was the same amount. Fixed maximum pay, fixed bonus structures. There are many documented examples of factories working until target +1% then all the workers downing tools and drinking cheap alcohol (or more often making something else that wasn't in the plan for the factory boss to sell out the back door).

Maximum pay? Kiss goodbye to the work ethic then. Kiss goodbye to building a better Britain. I run my own business. What point is there in doing any more for it than reaching the maximum return point for my own salary? No more employment for others, no re-investment into the economy. Sod England, I'm off elsewhere Jack. Nice society. Not. I think Compass (the pressure group behind the calls) have got their needle bent, else they are being pulled by a different magnetic field to everyone else. Which might well be the case.

So, what should you make of maximum pay schemes?

You make of it what you will. Me, I feel like Winston pushing his chin further into his jacket as the chill winds of 1984 come in faster than anybody expected at the turn of the 21st Century... Please strike out at any hint of a totalitarian society coming to a pavement near you today.

NEXT GENERATION

The BBC is running a story of a reporter who has sat with some nine year olds and asked them about money and their future. Interesting enough. Worth a read. It's here.

The final section is very illuminating though. A question is asked about what would you do if you didn't have enough money to live.. The responses are worrying. Click here for the entire page but here's the end section:

If you had children but not enough money to feed them, what would you do?

V: Go to my parents, or an older brother or sister, or a good friend.

E: I would first of all start begging on the streets, secondly start praying, and thirdly, ask my friends for some money.

G: I'd make sure I looked good so I could get a very rich husband who could pay for things.

Not one mention of going out and getting a job, working harder, buying and selling anything, going off and getting training to earn more in the future. Three responses that are, from where I'm sat, all too typical of the generation that is coming up (and I don't just mean 9 yr olds). That's where I'm going wrong. I'm still sat here in my pyjamas and need to go and make myself look good so I can get a wife that has loadsa money.

I can't help but think the BBC edited this section, but if they didn't God help us all. Whoever he is.

PRISON SENTENCES

A few sentences I found on an unrelated Forum site i was just using to get a spare part number for my car. Not my words, but words to think about and raise debate nonetheless.

>>>I was dismayed the other day to read of Ronnie Biggs' release on compassionate grounds , in the wake of news that the same dispensation is being considered for the Libyan intelligence officer convicted in connection with the Lockerbie bombing

I found the picture of Biggs sitting up and smiling in bed , as his train driver victim lay in his grave , highly offensive .

This completely undermines the judiciary who hand down 'life' sentences and makes a mockery of the whole criminal justice system with no real deterrent against committing serious crimes as criminals can count on being 'let off' eventually .

At least the Germans got it right the other day by handing down a life sentence to a ( edit 90 year old ) former German soldier who was involved in the murder of a number of Italian civilians during the war ( albeit a number of years after an Italian court had found him guilty in absentia of the same charges ) and , at least , in Germany life means life .

In this country the politicians who overturn the judgements of the judiciary should hang their heads in shame as they send out entirely the wrong messages to the criminal fraternity .

Another post said:

>>>.........and televise the sentences being carried out .

Showing a few murderers , rapists , drug dealers etc being hanged , shot , electrocuted , lethally injected ( not neccessarily in that order ) might deter others from offending in the same way .

Likewise , public floggings outside the courthouses for less serious , but still nasty , offenders would be an effective deterrent as well as being less costly to the taxpayer ( giving someone 20 lashes has to be cheaper than even a weekend in jail ) .

So, there we have it. A few sentences. A lot to think about. The way the economy is going I may just go out and 'do a robbery' myself! At least I'll only be gone for a few years before coming out to my ill-gotten gains (if nobody finds them and digs them up first!)

Good job I'm only joking. For now.