Kulula is a low-cost South-African airline that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

It’s name says it all. Kulula is a Zulu word that means:

Some great lessons for the majority of boring, unfriendly and darn-right nasty airlines across North America …

Kulula airline attendants make an effort to make the in-flight “safety lecture” and announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:
——————————————————————–

On a Kulula flight, (there is no assigned seating, you sit where you want) passengers were apparently having a hard time choosing, when a flight attendant announced,

“People, people we’re not picking out furniture here, find a seat and get in it!”

—o0o—

On another flight with a very “senior” flight attendant crew, the pilot said,

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve reached cruising altitude and will be turning down the cabin lights. This is for your comfort and to enhance the appearance of your flight attendants.”

—-o0o—

On landing, the stewardess said,

“Please be sure to take all of your belongings. If you’re going to leave anything, please make sure it’s something we’d like to have.”

—-o0o—

“There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane.”

—o0o—

“Thank you for flying Kulula. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.”

—o0o—

As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Durban Airport, a lone voice came over the loudspeaker:

“Whoa, big fella. WHOA!”

—o0o—

After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in the Karoo, a flight attendant on a flight announced,

“Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted.”

—o0o—

From a Kulula employee:

“Welcome aboard Kulula 271 to Port Elizabeth. To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. It works just like every other seat belt; and, if you don’t know how to operate one, you probably shouldn’t be out in public unsupervised.”

—o0o—

“In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask, and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with more than one small child, pick your favourite.”

—o0o—

“Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds, but we’ll try to have them fixed before we arrive.  Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Kulula Airlines.”

—-o0o—

“Your seats cushions can be used for flotation; and in the event of an emergency water landing, please paddle to shore and take them with our compliments.”

—o0o—

“As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses.”

—o0o—

And from the pilot during his welcome message:

“Kulula Airlines is pleased to announce that we have some of the best flight attendants in the industry. Unfortunately, none of them are on this flight!”

—o0o—

On Kulula flight 255 just after a very hard landing in Cape Town, the flight attendant came on the intercom and said,

“That was quite a bump and I know what y’all are thinking. I’m here to tell you it wasn’t the airline’s fault, it wasn’t the pilot’s fault, it wasn’t the flight attendant’s fault.  It was the asphalt.”

—o0o—

On a Kulula flight into Cape Town on a particularly windy and bumpy day, during the final approach the Captain really had to fight it. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant said,

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to The Mother City.  Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the Captain taxis what’s left of our airplane to the gate!”

—o0o—

Another flight attendant’s comment on a less than perfect landing:

“We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal.”

—o0o—

An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a “Thanks for flying our airline.” He said that, in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment.

Finally everyone had gotten off except for a little old lady walking with a cane. She said,

“Sir, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Why, no Ma’am,” said the pilot. “What is it?”

The little old lady said,

“Did we land, or were we shot down?”

—o0o—

After a real crusher of a landing in Johannesburg , the attendant came on with,

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt against the gate. And, once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we will open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal..”

—o0o—

Part of a flight attendant’s arrival announcement:

“We’d like to thank you folks for flying with us today. And, the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you’ll think of Kulula Airways.”

—o0o—

Heard on a Kulula flight:

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to smoke, the smoking section on this airplane is on the wing. If you can light ’em, you can smoke ‘em.”

—o0o—

When people ask me to describe myself I often say that I am a reformed trader who has become a builder. That may sound somewhat trite but for me it explains a fundamental paradigm shift / change that I’ve made in my life:

In my trading days, I bought and sold things (stocks, bonds, derivatives, information).

Trading was fun, entertaining, electrifying and exciting.

It was the ultimate thrill ride.

It allowed me to connect to many people, many markets and many events in the World.  It offered me the opportunity to profit from insights, knowledge and intuition. It offered me the opportunity to travel the World and sample the good life across four continents. It cut through all the bullshit and politics.  Each day was a new day with it’s own P&L and with the joys of mark-to-market, my bank balance changed on a daily basis. There was no politics, no meetings, no drudgery, no BS.

So much for the upside! The life of a trader has a dark side too. My mood swings were legendary and my friends, family and colleagues began to read the state of the markets based on my mood.  Things lost their value. Everything in the World became a commodity that had a price. If I wanted a new car, a new house, a new ___, I thought of it in terms of how many points I needed to make on a trade.

I had lost my humanity to the market. It was time to step away and redefine my life.

It has been 16 years since my life as a derivatives trader.  Since then I have built companies, brands and teams.

In the past 8 months, I’ve been focused on building a new product / service that will be the first creation / “incubatee” of JazLabs and I’ve learned so much.  I’ve reawakened dormant skills and attributes within myself and discovered and developed new ones:

• Building takes time. It takes a lot of time and effort to create something of value – something that is exceptional and new.  Way, way more time than you may initially think.
• Building requires a team. I am lucky to have a business partner who is smart, hard-working and diligent.  We have complementary skills and interests and push each other to reach higher every day.
• Building takes patience. I’m probably the most impatient person you have ever met and I have really struggled to learn this one.  You need to prototype, test and rebuild if you want to get to that exceptional customer experience that is required for success and patience is a major key to success.
• Building takes focus. No more time for Twitter. No more time for continuous partial attention.  Only time to focus on the task at hand and completing it in the best way possible. (Dear David letter)
• Building requires getting into the details.  This is an obvious one and one where I initially struggled the most.  No room for the quick-fix. You have to get dirty and dig into the details but always within the context of the overall plan / 10,000 foot view of there you’re going.
• Building needs to be done fast. Deadlines (self-imposed or external-imposed) are a vital constraint to bring out creativity and ingenuity. We’re building a business and we can’t afford to ignore market pressures / competitive pressures.
• Building takes you on a journey into yourself.  I’ve discovered untapped resources and abilities that I never knew I had.

Now it’s time to take the best parts of the trader mentality and the best parts of the building paradigm and merge them together to take me to the next level of my journey of discovery!

Having spent two days examining as much of the evidence as I could, there are two points that deserve to be mentioned.

Israel acted well within the confines of international law and maritime practice in enforcing a legitimate blockade of the Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip. Moreover, in halting the flotilla, the Israeli forces involved in the incident began with restraint. International Waters are of no account, if it is clear that the ship is clearly heading towards a blockaded area… the US Navy for instance, has been known to halt and inspect suspected North Korean ships bound for Iran on the high seas on numerous occasions.

Blockades and interdictions are common, and have been so for decades since the Second World War (where unrestricted violence was frequently used). The normal convention is to open communications and demand the ship ‘heave to’; if it fails to comply a shot from a large caliber gun or a burst from a machinegun is fired across its bows. If the ship still refuses to comply; this is repeated — albeit the shot is aimed more carefully and comes closer to the ship. If the ship still refuses to halt, it is warned once more before a shot is fired at its bridge. If it still refuses to heave to, the blockading force has the right to sink it. Once a ship has hove to or slowed down, it may be boarded by personnel from the blockading force.

The Israelis offered another choice to the flotilla (which was refused) and otherwise seems to have behaved with restraint. It is not clear if the ships came to a dead stop or proceeded towards Gaza and a slow pace, but it is abundantly clear they were not sunk!

It is also abundantly clear that the passengers and crews of the boarded ships offered potentially lethal violence — using “improvised” weapons that had been carefully stowed beforehand. A crate of dishes dropped on someone’s head from 6m overhead does not seem as malevolent as shooting them, but a crushed skull is a crushed skull regardless. High pressure hoses and swung chains directed at somebody climbing a rope ladder from a zodiac boat are also potentially lethal.

Canadian and US naval personnel boarding ships (as they regularly do) brandish submachine guns and shotguns; the Israelis came aboard with paintball guns only to be reminded of an unwelcome truth. Metre long metal rods and knives do not seem as lethal as modern assault rifles, but they are in close confines in the dark. This is a calculation that was made ahead of time by many of the so-called peace activists. Many police bulletins remind officers — often using graphic photographs — that somebody with a knife within arms reach is equally deadly to a man with a handgun; a man armed with a paintball gun is in very serious danger.

The restraint that the IDF personnel showed on boarding the vessels of the flotilla was directly responsible for the loss of life that ensued when the protestors’ pre-planned brawl erupted. Next time, the IDF should behave in a manner more consistent with those used by other navies (including those of Canada) in similar circumstances — display your firepower and don’t hesitate to use it. It saves lives in the long run.

John Thompson

Director of the Mackenzie Institute

John Thompson is a Canadian military and terrorism expert who spent 13 years in the Canadian military. Thompson has been associated with the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, the Royal Canadian Military Institute, and is currently the director of the Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian think tank focusing on terrorism, political extremism and warfare.

[via Alan Winer, Chair, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto]

From every corner of the world, Israel is facing condemnation for yesterday’s raid on the ship Mavi Marmara, part of the flotilla carrying goods to Gaza. Unfortunately, nine of those on board died in a confrontation with Israel’s Defense Forces and several members of the IDF were injured. Just as in April 2002, when Israel was accused of a non-existent Jenin “massacre,” the world is, once again, convicting Israel of murder and kidnapping long before the all the facts are known. Sadly, the world is also judging Israel by different standards than even the most tyrannical regimes.

Here are facts to date from Canada Israel Committee and video from other sources clarifying what occurred.

• Israeli sailors, attempting to board the Mavi Marmara, were attacked by dozens of activists armed with knives, metal bars, Molotov cocktails and stun guns. Fearing for their lives, the Israeli soldiers had no choice but to respond. The video below shows IDF personnel under attack, and passengers on board the ship throwing one of the IDF sailors off the boat.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• The Mavi Marmara is sponsored by a terrorist Turkish organization known as IHH, which has a long history of cooperation with Islamic terrorists. IHH belongs to an umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good. In 2008, Israel banned IHH along with 35 other Islamist charities worldwide, for its ties to the Union of Good. The U.S. government also views the Union of Good as a terrorist organization.
• This video shows flotilla members chanting slogans about the 7th century battle of Khaybar in which Muhammad’s forces killed many Jews.

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2489.htm

• Israel made every effort to provide the flotilla organizers with an opportunity to avoid a confrontation. Israel offered to bring the flotilla into the port of Ashdod, and to transfer their goods to Gaza following appropriate security checks. The organizers rejected this offer.
• Israel repeatedly warned the flotilla about a maritime blockade off the coast of Gaza and that it would be brought to an Israeli port for cargo offloading. To view the IDF warning, please click below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• There is no blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza. In fact, Israel delivers 15,000 tons of humanitarian aid – including medical supplies, food, and water – to Gaza every week. The blockade exists to prevent unauthorized individuals and unknown cargo from entering Gaza and falling into the hands of the Hamas regime. Hamas is presently smuggling in massive amounts of military supplies.

Here’s what you can do to help reveal what
really happened on board the Mavi Marmara:

• Post the videos in this e-mail to your Twitter and Facebook pages
• Distribute them virally to all your friends and acquaintances
• Write letters to the editor and online in response to media articles, emphasizing that IDF personnel acted in self-defense after being clubbed and attacked by a mob on board, and that the Mavi Marmara was sponsored by a terrorist- supporting organization, with many extremists as passengers.
• For information on how you can contact Canadian political party leaders, please visit www.cjpac.ca

I just read Nancy Duarte’s analysis of Bill Gates’ TED presentation. The classic comparison of presentation styles between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates has been written about a lot before. What a contrast to the many comments of how boring Bill Gates’ presentations normally are.

This week at TED, Bill came through with flying colors.

What changed?

Gone were the long bullet lists and boring, complex slides of the past:

Instead, we saw the following:

This week we saw Bill Gates’ connecting to his passion and brilliantly sharing that passion with his audience in a dynamic, authentic and empathetic way.  Bravo Mr Gates!

On a personal note, I took a small leaf out of Mr Gates’ book this past week when I presented “How do companies champion their brands in this current digital age” to the OCAD Masters class in Toronto.

Thanks to Slideshare for putting this up on their “Featured Presentation” section on their homepage and thanks to all of you for tweeting about the presentation!

As we approach the end of the year, we all think about New Year’s resolutions. Instead of making a whole bunch of new resolutions, I thought I’d share a 12 point checklist on leadership that I just discovered in an old journal of mine.  I made this list for myself back in 2003 and think it still applies for 2010:

Motivating yourself:

1. Keep a positive outlook. When you experience challenges, you’ll find optimism works wonders.
2. Believe in yourself. Guess what – there’s no-one else in the World like you!
3. Set yourself meaningful and achievable goals – keep measuring your success.
4. Develop and follow an action plan.
5. Find ways to enjoy what you’re doing.
6. Keep your enthusiasm levels high. Celebrate your successes / achievements.
7. Be kind to yourself. Self-criticism will lead you nowhere.
8. Move on from your mistakes. Learn from them and grow.
9. Avoid negative people. Know when to cut lose and move away. Surround yourself with successful, positive people.
10. Never stop learning.
11. Know that you will succeed!
12. Set yourself new challenges.

Motivating others / motivating your team:

1. Let your positive outlook be infectious. Spread it around.
2. Tell and show your team you believe in them.
3. Work to set meaningful, measurable and achievable goals.
4. Develop an action plan with them and help them stick to it.
5. Keep it fun for them.
6. Acknowledge and recognize their achievements, privately and publicly.
7. Never criticize. Instead, commend their achievements, make recommendations and lead by example.
8. Don’t worry about their mistakes. They need to make them. Your role is to help them learn by doing.
9. Overcome any negativity with action plans, tips, training and new ideas.
10. Show them, by example, how to duplicate themselves.
11. Keep dreams alive by constantly reinforcing the big picture.
12. Encourage them to keep setting challenges for themselves.

One year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled, “A Personal Crossroads : Choosing Light or Darkness:

We have been seduced by the “American Dream” for the past 20+ years, borrowed money we couldn’t afford, bought things we didn’t need and speculated wantonly in the pursuit of more and more. Avarice and stupidity at their respective best. Humanity at it’s collective worst.

So, we are at a crossroads.

My brother-in-law once described the choice we face as follows:  “Can’t keep propping up a dead dog .. At some point you bury it and buy a puppy and raise it differently.”

Are we ready to bury this dead dog? Or will we simply continue to prop it up via additional loans to the Big Three, the banks, over-leveraged credit card holders, … the list continues. At what cost?

Looking a little more deeply, this crossroads and choice is a fundamentally spiritual one.

Some see this as simply the symptoms of another speculative bubble. “The market will correct itself.” The US taxpayer will pay for all of this greed and nothing needs to change. We’ll return to times of plenty once we’ve ridden out this current storm.

I believe we are being given a huge opportunity to change the game. To abandon the dominance of our selfish nature and to embrace a new world where giving back and caring for others is the path to our redemption. We have the opportunity to temper the destructive nature within ourselves where personal gain triumphs over everything else. We are being given the change to balance it with empathy, concern and care for others …

What has transpired over the past year? Did we choose the path of Light? Or did we just continue down the familiar road of Darkness? Here’s an example of this huge game-changing opportunity that I wrote about one year ago:

I’ve written several times about charity:water as they continue to innovate to help the 1 billion people on Earth who do not have access to clean drinking water. It’s a major problem that has major repercussions for health, education, woman’s rights and empowerment across the globe.

Their most recent campaign idea, mycharitywater.org, launched at the end of August.

Their vision was ambitious, crystal clear and simple:

Water changes everything. Our vision is simple and ambitious: clean, safe drinking water for everyone on the planet. Welcome to mycharity: water.

Charity:water built an online fundraising tool that enabled individuals to launch their own personal campaigns to help solve this 1 Billion person problem. Over 17,000 people have launched their own personal campaigns and, as of today, the collective fundraising efforts of these 17,000 people and their personal networks have yielded a phenomenal result:

• $1,024,112 raised
• 16,854 donations received
• Average of $60.76 was donated
• Charity:water’s efficient well-drilling operations ensure that every $20 raised, provides water to one person for 20 years. Thus, the total raised to-date via the mycharitywater campaign will provide 51,205 people with clean, safe drinking water for the next 20 years!

So, do you agree that we’ve chosen the path of Light? Or not? Please provide your feedback below in the comment section.

We’ve all witnessed the crash-and-burn of Tiger Woods over the past few weeks.

At first his corporate sponsors stood behind him but then in the past few days both Gillette and Accenture have officially dumped him. Nike is still standing by him but that is understandable given that they are more than just sponsors — they have a global business unit producing a range of products with the “TW” brand on them.

The paparazzi have had a field day and Woods’ team is scrambling to stop further stories leaking out … Mistresses being paid off; CNN “Breaking News” coverage … the saga continues …

I’m not going to discuss the psyche of Tiger Woods and what drove him to pursue all his “transgressions.” We all now know that he has decided to take a hiatus from golf to focus his attention on being a better husband, father, and person.

The core issue at play here is integrity – both personal integrity and professional integrity. In our ever-increasingly corrupt world, integrity lies at the heart of Golf. The game is all about the alignment of one’s personal and professional persona.

However, we are all human and by definition we make mistakes. None of us is perfect.

What could have been an alternative outcome?

Tiger Woods and his PR agents don’t appear to be living in our transparent world of social media. Their first reaction was to hide, lie and say nothing, hoping that everything would simply blow over. Sorry, in today’s hyper-connected world, that’s just not going to work. In the absence of the human voice of Tiger Woods, the media and the World were left to fill in the resultant void. A static statement on a website just wasn’t enough.

Instead of refusing to make a statement to the police or to the press, just imagine how differently this could have turned out for Tiger if he had come out and told the truth when he was first released from hospital. Speaking out in a human voice (on TV, in person, on Twitter, on Facebook, on his blog, on Youtube, … there are many channels he could have chosen to expose the truth) and letting the world see him as a vulnerable, open and honest human who made a mistake; admitting it and asking for forgiveness.

Wouldn’t we have forgiven him? Wouldn’t his corporate sponsors have stood behind him? Wouldn’t he still be playing golf?

The lesson: Don’t hide; don’t lie; don’t be quiet. Instead, speak out in a human voice. Reveal your vulnerabilities. Be honest. Be open, Be transparent. Engage in conversation with the World.

Remaining silent in today’s world can be very expensive.

(Update: Tiger’s wife apparently plans to file for divorce in California where any prenuptial agreement will be set aside and she can get half of all that Tiger has)

Starting on Friday night, December 11, I’ll spend 8 nights lighting candles for Chanukah. Every year, I’m reminded of why these days matter. Because by a miracle, oil enough for one day burned long enough to last eight days. As with our faith, and as with many things in life, a little proved to go a long way.

When I found out that more than a billion people live without clean, safe water every day, I realized Chanukah was the perfect time to start a campaign. A little can go a very long way with water. Just $20 gives someone clean water for twenty years. And just $250 gives two families of six clean water. These are small amounts of cash to us. They are years of life for others.  Donate here!

My goal? I want to raise $1,000 by the time we light the 8th candle on Chanukah. But I need your help. Because of charity: water’s innovative new business model, 100% of every donation funds water projects in the developing world, and each project is “proved” using GPS technology and photos and placed on Google Earth.

Together, we’ll be able to see what we’ve accomplished.

Let’s make our little go a long way. Donate here!

Happy Holidays!

Best,
David

There has been a lot of positive sentiment recently around the trend of releasing government data to the public. Some prime examples are Washington DC’s Apps for Democracy contest and Toronto’s OpenTO initiative. The noble intentions are to spark innovation, transparency and discovery.

However, here’s a scary tale from the New York Times Magazine’s Ninth Annual Year in Ideas highlighting the dark side of Open Data: