Excessive use of chemicals and pesticide is certainly having adverse effects on nature. Of late I have been reading on vermin-composting and organic farming. I inquired with ‘AREU’ Agricultural research extension unit, to check if it was possible to compost with worms in Mauritius. I was told that AREU they are experimenting on this composting method and are having difficulties in finding enough worms to operate a composting system.

I am stunned to hear that in Mauritius the population of earth worms has gone so low. As a kid I recall that the back yard of my kindergarten school was infested with worms particularly area where the soil was moist.

Methods for Collecting Your Finished Worm Compost

After you have been feeding your worms for three to six months, you may notice the bedding has been eaten, and you can begin harvesting the brown, crumbly worm compost. Harvesting the compost and adding fresh bedding at least twice a year is necessary to keep your worms healthy.

Method 1:

Move the contents of your worm bin to one side, place fresh bedding in the empty space and bury your food wastes there for a month or so. Harvest the other side after the worms have migrated to the new food and bedding.

Method 2:

Remove one-third to one-half of the contents of your bin, worms and all, and add the worm compost to your garden soil. Add fresh bedding and food to your bin.

Method 3:

Spread a sheet of plastic out under a bright light or in the sun. Dump the contents of the worm box into a number of piles on the sheet. The worms will crawl away from the light into the center of each pile and you can brush away the worm compost on the outside by hand. Soon you will have wriggling piles of worms surrounded by donut-shaped piles of worm compost.

Using Your Worm Compost

Worm compost is more concentrated than most other composts because worms are excellent at digesting food wastes and breaking them down into simple plant nutrients. Use it sparingly for best results.

Mulching and Amending Soil

To mulch with worm compost, apply a one-inch layer to the soil around plants. Be sure the worm compost is not piled against plant stems. To amend soil, worm compost can be spread one-half to two inches thick over garden soil and mixed in before planting, or mixed into the bottom of seeding trenches or transplanting holes. You can also mulch your worm compost into:

1. Houseplants: Sprinkle worm compost around the base of plants to fertilize. Each time you water, plant nutrients will seep into the soil.
2. Potting Mixes: For healthy seedlings, mix one part worm compost with three parts potting mix or three parts sand and soil combined. Peat moss, pearlite and worm castings are also good ingredients to add.

Warning Signs

Some symptoms that your worm composting is not going as well as it could are:

• If your worms are dying
• If your bin smells rotten and/or attracts flies

Worms Dying

If your worms are dying there could be several causes:

1. It may be that they are not getting enough food, which means you should bury more food into the bedding.
2. They may be too dry, in which case you should moisten the box until it is slightly damp.
3. They may be too wet, in which case you should add bedding.
4. The worms may be too hot, in which case you should put the bin in the shade.
5. The bedding is eaten, and it is time to add fresh bedding.

Bin Smells

If your bin smells rotten and/or attracts flies, there may be three causes:

1. First, it may be that there is not enough air circulation. In this case, add dry bedding under and over the worms, and do not feed them for two weeks.
2. Second, there may be non-compostables present such as meat, pet feces or greasy food. These should be removed.
3. Third, there may be exposed food in the bin. In this case, secure the lid, cover food scraps with bedding, and cover worms and bedding with a sheet of plastic.

http://earth911.com/blog/2007/04/02/composting-with-worms/

This Sunday has been not usual as other Sundays, as I decided to attend the weekly mass on Saturday to be freed to attend another service at the Presbyterian Church St. Columbus in Phoenix.

Philip the president of Toastmasters had informed me that he would be speaking in church there and later I was informed by Wairu and there will be a special service to pray for Nina, a founder member of Toastmasters, who will be undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumour in India. I was also marvellous to pray together with all the friends in a different church. I was really pleased to have attended the different service.

Today’ reading was commented by Philip who started off using his fondness of movies watching by asking: “if each evangelist was a movie producer, what sort of movie would they have produced to tell the story of Jesus?” Luke would have produced a narrative movie. May be Matthew would have produced a much researched and as near as possible factual movie. Whilst John would have yield a movie from the angle of his own thoughts and in sights on the facts, the last evangelist Mark being a succinct and direct he would have produce a short action movie giving the essence of the story.

What lessons today’s reading can we draw? When you read through the first lines, we observe the compassion that Jesus had for the large crowd from the whole town that gathered in the house. Jesus was busy, attending to the demand of one and all and servicing their wants. Very much like us, who are busy attending to all what we are requested to do?

Then the next morning, Jesus left to a solitary deserted place to pray. Is he not indicating to us the need to pray? Do not all of us need to recollect our spirit and enter in a dialogue with God and have some heart to heart communications with our Lord?

Jesus must have had been praying for a while as the disciplines were looking for him. The crowd wanted him for more healing. Mark does not detail the prayer conversation that Jesus had. By observing Jesus’ action, we could deduct that after conferring with His father, he had received other instructions that to keep healing the persons who were after him.

Philip used a very appropriate story which demonstrates the pushing or others on oneself which might divert oneself from one’s mission. The ‘thermostat story,’ which I shall have the pleasure to write thereon separately. Jesus was refocused on his main purpose: to preach elsewhere. He had to move on.

I also enjoyed the wonderful story of Philip explaining the possible meandering route taken to the main purpose of Jesus. As much as we need to achieve our mission, we may travel through somewhat devious routes to experiment the joy and happiness of the journey to our ultimate goal.

To conclude Philip saw in today’s reading the compassion, servicing, praying and purpose of Jesus.

Lord give me the compassion and the spirit of service that I need to look after my brethren, through the practice of heart to heart dialogue, prayers with You Lord bless me in finding my purpose in my life and lastly with Your eternal love grant me to be accompanied throughout my earthy journey by You and other persons You decide to place on my path.

Thank you Lord for the wonderful time I had with the congregation I met this morning and I implore you with the congregation to bless Nina and to heal her. You got the whole world in your hand; you got our sister Nina in your hand.

All of us definitely are required to perfect our communications skills.  I continuously need to sharpen all my skills, of all the skills, the one of  persuasion would yield instantaneous and the largest pay back. I was lucky to have known this fact early in my life career and later joining the Toastmasters club was delightful.

Perfecting Your Powers of Persuasion

The Persuasion Process
Simply stated, persuasion is the ability to sway others toward a different perspective. It takes careful preparation and the ability to frame/reframe, offer concessions, communicate one’s position through evidence/logic, and to correctly match the other party’s emotional state.

The starting point is credibility. It is your expertise, your relationship, your reputation in the organization, and your ability to be proactive when dealing with others. Trust is the foundation of persuasion and is manifest in certain behaviors: honest communication, body language that displays interest, listening and questioning, and so on.

The content of one’s message and the way the content is delivered is also important. The content needs to focus on the goal that is common to both parties and on the need to reach that goal mutually. This makes the message attractive to the other party
and generates reciprocity on the other side. In other words, if your message is constructed correctly, the responding message from the other party will be something you can build on.

As with any message, yours must be supported with evidence and rationale. This may take the form of an analogy, statistics, or even a reference to a value the other party has. For example, when you are trying to persuade an employee to change performance behaviors, you may discover that he or she values working alone (the reason for the lack of proper performance behavior). Wanting to work alone is validated by reframing it as having a strong personal work ethic. This, in turn, establishes a discussion that takes this issue and reframes it as a value that would benefit others in the organization. This may persuade the employee not to work alone as often so that others can see his or her strong work ethic.

Finally, a skilled negotiator is quick to assess the emotional state of the other party and to respond to that state. This requires on the part of the negotiator a high self-esteem level and emotional balance when handling conflict. Having self-esteem allows the
negotiator to display passion for reaching agreement, while the emotional balance makes certain that the passion is not over- or underwhelming.

How to Be More Persuasive
Most people use only facts to persuade. This is unfortunate, because facts only justify a position if you tend to agree with that position. Persuasion is a complex art. It involves a careful blend of feelings, logic, WIIFTs (what’s in it for them), and values. Because people feel differently about different material needs and situations and because WIIFTs vary from person to person, persuasive techniques must be adapted to each person in each situation.

To successfully persuade someone, you must appeal to them on three levels:

1. Emotion (opens the mind)
The use of emotion in persuasion must be planned carefully. You need to be enthusiastic and confident about your plan, idea, or settlement (emotion really does open the mind). However, like garlic in stew, too much of an emotional appeal will fail as surely as no emotional appeal at all. You need to find ways to keep the other party emotionally involved in the discussion. You will notice a distinct lack of energy at the table if you or the other party is emotionally uninvolved.

2. Logic (justifies the recommendation)
Logic is the rational, factual, reasoned discourse about the merits of an idea or settlement. Logic is a core part of persuasion. Emotion opens the mind and logic justifies the position you are taking.

3. Values (seals the deal)
The final part of persuasion is the appeal to values. Values are beliefs that guide behavior. Each of us has values that are unique to us and values that we share in common. You should make your persuasive appeal within the context of the other party’s “dominant receptivity mode.”

“Dominant receptivity mode” refers to predominant values that the other party holds dear. Perhaps the person you are dealing with is a conservative traditionalist favoring the status quo. You would not persuade such a person to buy your product by pointing out that your item represents state-of-the-art technology used by entrepreneurs. Instead, you might position the product as one that will help him/her preserve assets that increase the efficiency of the workforce. You market your product or idea to match the other person’s dominant receptivity mode (i.e., value system).

How, then, do you use this persuasion model in everyday negotiations? You can use the model in this way:

• Appeal to emotion—State a claim
  A claim is an opinion unsubstantiated by fact. The claim is generally the vehicle by which an emotional appeal is made. An effective claim stimulates the interest of the listener—it opens the listener’s mind. For example: “I could show you a way to increase your sales by 18 percent. Would you be interested?”
• Appeal to logi—State facts to support the claim
  A fact is information that can be verified by independent sources or proven through empirical investigation. Facts must back up claims and be verifiable by independent sources. Facts are the logical part of persuasion. For example: “In a carefully designed and controlled study in two organizations similar to yours, those who took this course in negotiation settled on average 18% higher in their sales efforts than those who did not take the course.”
• Appeal to values—Assign a meaning/WIIFT
  A meaning is the personal benefit that someone can make of the claim or fact.
  For example: “What all this means is that you’ll have increased profits in your
  division.” You can demonstrate a personal WIIFT meaning at this point, speaking to the issue in
  terms of the party’s dominant receptivity mode. For example: “John, with increased profits you will be in a position to negotiate increased commissions for you and your staff.”

Listening
In any negotiation, it’s important to remember to listen to the other party. This involves:

• Responding to the person rather than to the concepts
• Following the other party’s claim, facts, and meaning rather than trying to go to areas you think should be explored
• Clarifying what the other party is saying
• Acknowledging the feelings being expressed by the other party

Text printed from AMA web site to whom I am indebted.

Recycling of PET bottles

I saw on Euro news yesterday, that in Portugal, a new factory has been set up to produce quality blankets from used water bottles (PET). PET stands for polyethylene terephthalate.

The situation in Mauritius:

PET post consumer bottle recovery and recycling: The Mauritius Soft Drink Bottlers’ Association , regrouping the four big producers of soft drinks has contracted a private company (POLYPET RECYCLERS LTD) to sort and export PET bottle waste, in response to a producer responsibility regulation from the Ministry of Environment. Special dustbins in strategic spots have been placed and a collection rate of 30% of the 3000 MT of PET used on the island (or about 80 million bottles) has been reached. In addition the Association promotes community initiatives with NGOs to create an opportunity for locals to find some additional revenue obtained from the reselling of PET waste. Workers directly engaged by Polypet are more than 30 and indirect job creation is around 100 on the collection side.

For the time being the collected PET bottles are crushed for export. The quantity collected may not justify the setting up of a factory to recycle and convert the resins.

What tonnage could be collected in the region? How much can be collected in Reunion island, Comoros and Madagascar? Will the volume then justify the setting up of a plant to transform the resin? Has anyone studied the issue?

Je savoure encore en ce moment ‘le commencement d’un monde ‘ de Jean Claude Guillebaud.

J’ai lu et relu les chapitres sur ‘un rendez vous pour l’islam’. Une perception et projection de l’Islam très intéressantes. Je dirais que l’opinion de l’auteur est optimiste par rapport à ma projection. Que suis-je pour avoir une opinion avisé sur le sujet ? Par contre en opposition de la conférence que j’ai assisté l’année dernière et le livre que j’ai parcourue d’Alexandre Del Valle, je conclu que Jean Claude Guillebaud a plus d’espoir sur le monde musulman que les autres et il pense que les poussées extrémistes s’estomperont. Chapeau à Jean Claude Guillebaud, qui s’est bien documenté.

J’aurai tellement aimé que le rêve de Tariq Ramadan dans  « Islam, la face à face des civilisations, quel projet pour quelle modernité. » se réalise. Même la sincérité de Tariq Ramadan avec ses grands discours pacificateurs est en doute ! Alexandre nous met en garde ! Tariq serait un cheval de Troie ? Qui croire ?

Islam en somme est ébullition. Allons-nous subir la victoire des extrémistes sur les modérés ? La masse des islamistes économiquement faibles vont-ils être menés par les radicaux ou le tempérés ? L’islam modèle turque ou indonésien ou encore Iranien ou Iraquien ?

Enfin seul l’avenir nous dira. A quand la laïcité dans les pays de l’Islam ?

In these days and testing times, what need to be done? I have read an interesting article from Mc Kinsey which would be of us to entrepreneurs. Do put in your comments.

Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. Through our work and research, we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation

The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. Today, in the high-technology, consumer product, and automotive sectors, among others, companies routinely involve customers, suppliers, small specialist businesses, and independent contractors in the creation of new products. Outsiders offer insights that help shape product development, but companies typically control the innovation process. Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders—cocreation—in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

Information goods such as software and editorial content are ripe for this kind of decentralized innovation; the Linux operating system, for example, was developed over the Internet by a network of specialists. But companies can also create physical goods in this way. Loncin, a leading Chinese motorcycle manufacturer, sets broad specifications for products and then lets its suppliers work with one another to design the components, make sure everything fits together, and reduce costs. In the past, Loncin didn’t make extensive use of information technology to manage the supplier community—an approach reflecting business realities in China and in this specific industrial market. But recent advances in open-standards-based computing (for example, computer-aided-design programs that work well with other kinds of software) are making it easier to cocreate physical goods for more complex value chains in competitive markets.

If this approach to innovation becomes broadly accepted, the impact on companies and industries could be substantial. We estimate, for instance, that in the US economy alone roughly 12 percent of all labor activity could be transformed by more distributed and networked forms of innovation—from reducing the amount of legal and administrative activity that intellectual property involves to restructuring or eliminating some traditional R&D work.

Companies pursuing this trend will have less control over innovation and the intellectual property that goes with it, however. They will also have to compete for the attention and time of the best and most capable contributors.

Further reading:
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom, Cambridge, MA: Yale University Press, 2006.
Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.
James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, New York: Doubleday, 2004.
Eric von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005.

2. Using consumers as innovators

Consumers also cocreate with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance, could be viewed as a service or product created by its distributed customers. But the differences between the way companies cocreate with partners, on the one hand, and with customers, on the other, are so marked that the consumer side is really a separate trend. These differences include the nature and range of the interactions, the economics of making them work, and the management challenges associated with them.

As the Internet has evolved—an evolution prompted in part by new Web 2.0 technologies—it has become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Consumers increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organizations of all kinds. Companies can tap this new mood of customer engagement for their economic benefit.

OhmyNews, for instance, is a popular South Korean online newspaper written by upwards of 60,000 contributing “citizen reporters.” It has quickly become one of South Korea’s most influential media outlets, with around 700,000 site visits a day. Another company that goes out of its way to engage customers, the online clothing store Threadless, asks people to submit new designs for T-shirts. Each week, hundreds of participants propose ideas and the community at large votes for its favorites. The top four to six designs are printed on shirts and sold in the store; the winners receive a combination of cash prizes and store credit. In September 2007 Threadless opened its first physical retail operation, in Chicago.

Companies that involve customers in design, testing, marketing (such as viral marketing), and the after-sales process get better insights into customer needs and behavior and may be able to cut the cost of acquiring customers, engender greater loyalty, and speed up development cycles. But a company open to allowing customers to help it innovate must ensure that it isn’t unduly influenced by information gleaned from a vocal minority. It must also be wary of focusing on the immediate rather than longer-range needs of customers and be careful to avoid raising and then failing to meet their expectations.

Further reading:
C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy, The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value with Customers, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, New York: Portfolio Hardcover, 2006.

3. Tapping into a world of talent

As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence. Much as technology permits them to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks.

Top talent for a range of activities—from finance to marketing and IT to operations—can be found anywhere. The best person for a task may be a free agent in India or an employee of a small company in Italy rather than someone who works for a global business services provider. Software and Internet technologies are making it easier and less costly for companies to integrate and manage the work of an expanding number of outsiders, and this development opens up many contracting options for managers of corporate functions.

The implications of shifting more work to freelancers are interesting. For one thing, new talent-deployment models could emerge. TopCoder, a company that has created a network of software developers, may represent one such model. TopCoder gives organizations that want to have software developed for them access to its talent pool. Customers explain the kind of software they want and offer prizes to the developers who do the best job creating it—an approach that costs less than employing experienced engineers. Furthermore, changes in the nature of labor relationships could lead to new pricing models that would shift payment schemes from time and materials to compensation for results.

This trend should gather steam in sectors such as software, health care delivery, professional services, and real estate, where companies can easily segment work into discrete tasks for independent contractors and then reaggregate it. As companies move in this direction, they will need to understand the value of their human capital more fully and manage different classes of contributors accordingly. They will also have to build capabilities to engage talent globally or contract with talent aggregators that specialize in providing such services. Competitive advantage will shift to companies that can master the art of breaking down and recomposing tasks.

Further reading:
Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life, New York: Basic Books, 2004.
Daniel H. Pink, Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, New York: Warner Books, 2001.

4. Extracting more value from interactions

Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities. As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration—tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total US employment, up from 40 percent today. Europe and Japan will experience similar changes in the composition of their workforces.

The application of technology has reduced differences among the productivity of transformational and transactional employees, but huge inconsistencies persist in the productivity of high-value tacit ones. Improving it is more about increasing their effectiveness—for instance, by focusing them on interactions that create value and ensuring that they have the right information and context—than about efficiency. Technology tools that promote tacit interactions, such as wikis, virtual team environments, and videoconferencing, may become no less ubiquitous than computers are now. As companies learn to use these tools, they will develop managerial innovations—smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactions—that will be difficult for their rivals to replicate. Companies in sectors such as health care and banking are already moving down this road.

As companies improve the productivity of these workers, it will be necessary to couple investments in technologies with the right combination of incentives and organizational values to drive their adoption and use by employees. There is still substantial room for automating transactional activities, and the payoff can typically be realized much more quickly and measured much more clearly than the payoff from investments to make tacit work more effective. Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging—but critical—for managers.

Further reading:
Bradford C. Johnson, James M. Manyika, and Lareina A. Yee, “The next revolution in interactions,” mckinseyquarterly.com, November 2005.
Scott C. Beardsley, Bradford C. Johnson, and James M. Manyika, “Competitive advantage from better interactions,” mckinseyquarterly.com, May 2006.
Thomas W. Malone, The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.

Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding the frontiers of automation

Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and HR; product and customer databases; and Web sites. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What’s more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.

During the late 1990s FedEx and UPS linked data flowing through their internal tracking systems to the Internet—no trivial task at the time—to let customers track packages from their Web sites, with no human intervention required on the part of either company. By leveraging and linking systems to automate processes for answering inquiries from customers, both dramatically reduced the cost of serving them while increasing their satisfaction and loyalty. More recently, Carrefour, Metro, Wal-Mart Stores, and other large retailers have adopted (and asked suppliers to adopt) digital-tagging technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID), and integrated them with other supply chain systems in order to automate the supply chain and inventory management further. The rate of adoption to date disappoints the advocates of these technologies, but as the price of digital tags falls they could very well reduce the costs of managing distribution and increase revenues by helping companies to manage supply more effectively.

Companies still have substantial headroom to automate many repetitive tasks that aren’t yet mediated by computers—particularly in sectors and regions where IT marches at a slower pace—and to interlink “islands of automation” and so give managers and customers the ability to do new things. Automation is a good investment if it not only lowers costs but also helps users to get what they want more quickly and easily, though it may not be a good idea if it gives them unpleasant experiences. The trick is to strike the right balance between raising margins and making customers happy.

Further reading:
John Hagel III, Out of the Box: Strategies for Achieving Profits Today and Growth Tomorrow through Web Services, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
Claus Heinrich, RFID and Beyond: Growing Your Business with Real World Awareness, Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, 2005.
Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David C. Robertson, Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006.

6. Unbundling production from delivery

Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently by disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components, measuring and metering the use of each, and billing for that use in ever-smaller increments cost effectively. Information and communications technologies handle the tracking and metering critical to the new models and make it possible to have effective allocation and capacity-planning systems.

Amazon.com, for example, has expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services. It also gives independent software developers opportunities to buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don’t have to buy their own. Mobile virtual-network operators, another example of this trend, provide wireless services without investing in a network infrastructure. At the most basic level of unbundled production, 80 percent of all companies responding to a recent survey on Web trends say they are investing in Web services and related technologies. Although the applications vary, many are using these technologies to offer other companies—suppliers, customers, and other ecosystem participants—access to parts of their IT architectures through standard protocols.¹

Unbundling works in the physical world too. Today you can buy fractional time on a jet, in a high-end sports car, or even for designer handbags. Unbundling is attractive from the supply side because it lets asset-intensive businesses—factories, warehouses, truck fleets, office buildings, data centers, networks, and so on—raise their utilization rates and therefore their returns on invested capital. On the demand side, unbundling offers access to resources and assets that might otherwise require a large fixed investment or significant scale to achieve competitive marginal costs. For companies and entrepreneurs seeking capacity (or variable additional capacity), unbundling makes it possible to gain access to assets quickly, to scale up businesses yet keep their balance sheets asset light, and to use attractive consumption and contracting models that are easier on their income statements.

Companies that make their assets available for internal and external use will need to manage conflicts if demand exceeds supply. A competitive advantage through scale may be hard to maintain when many players, large and small, have equal access to resources at low marginal costs.

Further reading:
“Jeff Bezos’ risky bet,” BusinessWeek, November 13, 2006.

Leveraging information in new ways

7. Putting more science into management

Just as the Internet and productivity tools extend the reach of and provide leverage to desk-based workers, technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From “ideagoras” (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches, ubiquitous standards-based technologies promote aggregation, processing, and decision making based on the use of growing pools of rich data.

Leading players are exploiting this information explosion with a diverse set of management techniques. Google fosters innovation through an internal market: employees submit ideas, and other employees decide if an idea is worth pursuing or if they would be willing to work on it full-time. Intel integrates a “prediction market” with regular short-term forecasting processes to build more accurate and less volatile estimates of demand. The cement manufacturer Cemex optimizes loads and routes by combining complex analytics with a wireless tracking and communications network for its trucks.

The amount of information and a manager’s ability to use it have increased explosively not only for internal processes but also for the engagement of customers. The more a company knows about them, the better able it is to create offerings they want, to target them with messages that get a response, and to extract the value that an offering gives them. The holy grail of deep customer insight—more granular segmentation, low-cost experimentation, and mass customization—becomes increasingly accessible through technological innovations in data collection and processing and in manufacturing.

Examples are emerging across a wide range of industries. Amazon.com stands at the forefront of advanced customer segmentation. Its recommendation engine correlates the purchase histories of each individual customer with those of others who made similar purchases to come up with suggestions for things that he or she might buy. Although the jury is still out on the true value of recommendation engines, the techniques seem to be paying off: CleverSet, a pure-play recommendation-engine provider, claims that the 75 online retailers using the engine are averaging a 22 percent increase in revenue per visitor.² Meanwhile, toll road operators are beginning to segment drivers and charge them differential prices based on static conditions (such as time of day) and dynamic ones (traffic). Technology is also dramatically bringing down the costs of experimentation and giving creative leaders opportunities to think like scientists by constructing and analyzing alternatives. The financial-services concern Capital One conducts hundreds of experiments daily to determine the appropriate mix of products it should direct to specific customer profiles. Similarly, Harrah’s casinos mine customer data to target promotions and drive exemplary customer service.

Given the vast resources going into storing and processing information today, it’s hard to believe that we are only at an early stage in this trend. Yet we are. The quality and quantity of information available to any business will continue to grow explosively as the costs of monitoring and managing processes fall.

Leaders should get out ahead of this trend to ensure that information makes organizations more rather than less effective. Information is often power; broadening access and increasing transparency will inevitably influence organizational politics and power structures. Environments that celebrate making choices on a factual basis must beware of analysis paralysis.

Further reading:
Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris, Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007.
John Riedl and Joseph Konstan with Eric Vrooman, Word of Mouse: The Marketing Power of Collaborative Filtering, New York: Warner Books, 2002.
Stefan H. Thomke, Experimentation Matters: Unlocking the Potential of New Technologies for Innovation, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.
David Weinberger, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, New York: Times Books, 2007.

8. Making businesses from information

Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities.

Frequent contributors to what economists call market imperfections include information asymmetries and the frequent inability of decision makers to get all the relevant data about new market opportunities, potential acquisitions, pricing differences among suppliers, and other business situations. These imperfections often allow middlemen and players with more and better information to extract higher rents by aggregating and creating businesses around it. The Internet has brought greater transparency to many markets, from airline tickets to stocks, but many other sectors need similar illumination. Real estate is one of them. In a sector where agencies have thrived by keeping buyers and sellers partly in the dark, new sites have popped up to shine “a light up into the dark reaches of the supply curve,” as Rich Barton, the founder of Zillow (a portal for real-estate information), puts it. Barton, the former leader of the e-travel site Expedia, has been down this road before.

Moreover, the aggregation of data through the digitization of processes and activities may create by-products, or “exhaust data,” that companies can exploit for profit. A retailer with digital cameras to prevent shoplifting, for example, could also analyze the shopping patterns and traffic flows of customers through its stores and use these insights to improve its layout or the placement of promotional displays. It might also sell the data to its vendors so that they could use real observations of consumer behavior to reshape their merchandising approaches.

Another kind of information business plays a pure aggregation and visualization role, scouring the Web to assemble data on particular topics. Many business-to-consumer shopping sites and business-to-business product directories operate in this fashion. But that sword can cut both ways; today’s aggregators, for instance, may themselves be aggregated tomorrow. Companies relying on information-based market imperfections need to assess the impact of the new transparency levels that are continually opening up in today’s information economy.

Further reading:
Hal R. Varian, Joseph Farrell, and Carl Shapiro, The Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction (Raffaele Mattioli Lectures), New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian, Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

Conclusion

Creative leaders can use a broad spectrum of new, technology-enabled options to craft their strategies. These trends are best seen as emerging patterns that can be applied in a wide variety of businesses. Executives should reflect on which patterns may start to reshape their markets and industries next—and on whether they have opportunities to catalyze change and shape the outcome rather than merely react to it.

About the Authors

James Manyika is a director and Kara Sprague is a consultant in McKinsey’s San Francisco office; Roger Roberts is a principal in the Silicon Valley office.

The authors wish to thank their McKinsey colleagues Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, Tony Huie, Brad Johnson, Markus Löffler, and Suman Prasad for their substantial contributions to this article.

I invite you to visit a St Mary’s school mate’s site. I would have loved to see more Watercolors from Mauritius!

Are we in Mauritius creating enough opportunity for our artists to prove themselves and reaping income from their art whilst creating the notoriety of the country?

Is not what most of us are after? Who does not want to be H A P P Y?

La béatitude ou le bonheur c’est bien notre quete?

Thomas d’ Aquin pose la question:

[Qu’est-ce que la béatitude?]

Il faut donc savoir ceci : bien que le désir de tout homme tende à la béatitude, certains ont tenu diverses opinions à son sujet. Plusieurs se sont trompés sur le lieu de la béatitude, d’autres sur sa durée, d’autres sur l’occupation ou l’opération.

En premier lieu, se sont trompés ceux qui ont placé la béatitude en ce monde, comme dans les choses corporelles, les vertus ou les sciences. Isaïe 3, 12 les contredit : Mon peuple, ceux qui te disent bienheureux, ceux-là t’égarent. Cela est juste, car cette opinion va d’abord contre la perfection de la béatitude, puisque, selon le Philosophe, la béatitude est le bien parfait parce qu’elle est la fin ultime. Il est donc nécessaire que le désir s’[y] repose, ce qui ne serait pas le cas s’il restait encore quelque chose à désirer après l’avoir obtenue. Or, en cette vie, la perfection du bien ne peut exister dans les choses du monde, car, en les obtenant, on en désire encore davantage; ni dans les vertus ni dans les sciences, car tout homme doit toujours progresser dans les vertus et dans les sciences, comme le dit le psaume 139[138], 16 : Tes yeux m’ont vu quand j’étais imparfait, etc., et 1 Corinthiens 13, 9 : Nous connaissons seulement en partie.

En second lieu, [cette opinion] va contre la pureté de la béatitude : si, en effet, elle est le bien suprême, elle ne doit être mélangée d’aucun mal, comme le blanc parfait doit être sans mélange de noir. On ne peut donc appeler bienheureux celui qui souffre quelque misère, car on ne peut à la fois être malheureux et heureux. Et on ne trouve personne en cette vie qui ne souffre de quelque misère ou d’incommodités au sujet de biens, d’amis ou de sa personne, lesquelles empêchent leurs actes, leurs vertus, leurs connaissances. Job 14, 1 dit de l’homme qu’il est rempli d’une foule de misères.

En troisième lieu, [cette opinion] va contre la stabilité de la béatitude, car la béatitude n’apaiserait pas le désir si elle n’était pas stable. En effet, plus on aime un bien possédé, plus on s’affligera si on craint de le perdre. Ainsi, selon le Philosophe, on ne peut croire qu’est heureux le caméléon qui change de couleur. Mais il faut que la béatitude soit immuable, ce qui ne peut exister en cette vie, car les choses extérieures et le corps humain sont soumis à diverses circonstances, en sorte que nous pouvons dire par expérience qu’en cette vie il n’y a pas de stabilité. Job 14, 2 : On ne reste jamais dans le même état, et Proverbes 14, 13 : Le deuil remplace la joie extrême. Si tu demandes au psalmiste où se trouve le véritable lieu de la béatitude, il répond : Bienheureux ceux qui habitent dans ta maison, Seigneur!

À propos de la durée de la béatitude, certains se sont trompés en disant que les âmes séparées de leur corps obtiennent la béatitude; quand, après bien des années, elles reviennent à leur corps et sont soumises aux misères de la vie présente, elles cessent d’être bienheureuses. C’est l’erreur de Platon et de ses sectateurs, dans laquelle est tombé Origène. À ceux-là peut être appliqué ce que dit le livre de la Sagesse 2, 22 : Ils n’ont pas compris l’honneur des âmes saintes, ou encore Matthieu 25, 46 : Ils s’en iront à une peine éternelle, mais les justes à une vie éternelle.

Cette opinion est mauvaise pour trois raisons. D’abord, parce qu’elle contredit le désir naturel. Par nature, en effet, le désir de toute chose est de se conserver dans l’être et dans sa perfection. Mais il faut noter que les choses sans raison ne tendent pas à l’universel et que leur désir ne tend pas à ce que soit conservée leur perfection; mais la nature raisonnable, connaissant l’universel, tend naturellement à conserver sa perfection pour toujours. Ainsi, son désir ne serait pas satisfait, si l’âme ne jouissait pas d’une béatitude perpétuelle, et sa béatitude ne serait pas véritable, puisque les carences de l’avenir ou la prescience du futur seraient ignorées. L’Apôtre parle de ce désir naturel en 2 Corinthiens 5, 2 : En effet, nous gémissons, désireux de revêtir par-dessus l’autre notre habitation céleste.

Ensuite, [cette opinion] est contraire à la perfection de la grâce. En effet, toute chose, naturellement comblée par sa perfection, y persévère de manière immuable. C’est pourquoi la matière première ne reste jamais sous la forme de l’air, car une telle forme ne peut remplir toute la capacité de la matière. Mais l’intellect demeure de façon immuable dans l’assentiment des principes premiers, car c’est par eux qu’il est entièrement comblé par ce qui peut être démontré, et ainsi il y consent de façon immuable. Or, l’âme bienheureuse est totalement comblée par la béatitude; autrement, il ne s’agirait pas d’un bien parfait. Le psaume 16[15], 11 le dit : Ton visage me remplira de joie, etc. Et c’est pour cela qu’il poursuit : Délices éternelles en ta droite jusqu’à la fin. Et parce que la perpétuité découle d’une telle plénitude de grâce, l’Apocalypse3, 12 dit : Parce qu’il a vaincu, j’en ferai une colonne dans le temple de mon Dieu et il n’en sortira plus.

En troisième lieu, [cette opinion] s’oppose à l’équité de la divine justice, car l’homme adhère à Dieu par la charité avec le propos de ne jamais s’en écarter. Romains 8, 35 : Qui nous séparera de la charité du Christ? [Dieu] ne rendrait pas pleinement justice à la charité, si [l’homme] était à un moment écarté de [sa] jouissance (fruitio). Ainsi, Jean 6, 37 [dit] : Celui qui vient à moi, je ne le jetterai pas dehors. Et si on interroge le psalmiste, il répond : Ils te loueront pour les siècles des siècles (Psaume 84[83], 5).

Au sujet de l’occupation des bienheureux et de leur opération, les juifs et les musulmans se trompent, quand ils disent que les hommes sont bienheureux en s’adonnant aux festins, aux beuveries, au commerce avec les femmes. Ce que réprouve Matthieu 22, 30 : À la résurrection, on ne prend ni femme ni mari, etc.Cette opinion est à juste titre repoussée. En effet, elle va d’abord contre le privilège de l’homme, car, si la béatitude consiste dans l’usage de la nourriture ou des facultés sexuelles qu’on trouve aussi chez les autres animaux, il faudrait que la béatitude existe non seulement pour l’homme, mais qu’il y ait des béatitudes pour les animaux, alors que c’est un privilège de l’homme d’être seul capable de béatitude parmi toutes les créatures inférieures, comme le dit le psaume 36[35], 7s : Tu sauveras les hommes et les bêtes, Seigneur, à savoir, pour la santé du corps, mais les fils des hommes espéreront sous l’ombre de tes ailes.

En deuxième lieu, cela va contre la joie de la nature, car la nature supérieure ne peut être rendue bienheureuse par une nature inférieure. Car, si la béatitude de l’homme consistait dans le fait de manger et que l’homme était rendu bienheureux par le fait de manger, alors l’homme deviendrait bienheureux grâce aux aliments qu’il mangerait. Ceux-ci seraient donc plus dignes que l’homme, alors qu’il est placé au-dessus de toutes les natures inférieures. Psaume 8, 7 : Tu as tout mis sous ses pieds.

En troisième lieu, cela s’oppose au zèle de la vertu. En effet, la vertu consiste pour l’homme à s’écarter des plaisirs. Toutes les vertus qui portent sur des plaisirs sont donc nommées à partir de l’opposition à ceux-ci, comme l’abstinence, la tempérance et autres choses du même genre. Mais c’est le contraire pour les vertus qui concernent les choses qui exigent beaucoup d’effort et sont difficiles, comme la force, la magnanimité et les choses de ce genre. Si la béatitude de l’homme consistait dans les plaisirs de la chair, la vertu, qui est le chemin de la béatitude, n’écarterait pas des plaisirs, comme cela arrive à ceux dont parle Philippiens 3, 19 : Leur Dieu, c’est leur ventre! Si tu interroges le psalmiste sur l’occupation et l’opération des bienheureux, il te répondra : Ils le loueront (Psaume 84[83], 5).

[Comment parvient-on à la béatitude?]

Il reste encore à voir comment parvenir à cette béatitude.

Il faut savoir qu’il existe trois béatitudes. La première est mondaine : elle consiste dans l’abondance et la jouissance des biens de ce monde. Psaume 144[143], 15 : Ils ont déclaré heureux le peuple où il en est ainsi. Cette béatitude consiste d’abord dans les honneurs, les richesses, les plaisirs, car, comme on le dit en 1 Jean 2, 16 : Tout ce qui est dans le monde, la convoitise de la chair, etc. Sous le terme d’honneur, on comprend la dignité et la renommée, en sorte que ces trois choses incluent les cinq en lesquelles, selon Boèce, consiste le bonheur terrestre. Les ambitieux s’efforcent d’arriver à la dignité par le l’orgueil et l’argent, car il est écrit dans Siracide 10, 19 : Toutes choses obéissent à l’argent, et dans Proverbes 19, 6 : Beaucoup honorent la personne du riche. Le Seigneur, quant à lui, enseigne de parvenir à la dignité par le chemin contraire, à savoir, par la pauvreté et l’humilité, car, ainsi qu’il est dit en Luc 1, 52 : Il a renversé les puissants de leur trône, et en Matthieu 5, 3 : Heureux les pauvres en esprit, etc. Il est question de «royaume», car cela est précieux parmi les honneurs. Cette béatitude convient principalement au Christ, car, alors que les anciens pères jouissaient des richesses, il fut le premier à annoncer et à enseigner cette béatitude. 2 Corinthiens 8, 9 : Vous connaissez la grâce de notre Seigneur Jésus, le Christ. Matthieu 19, 21 : Si tu veux être parfait, va, vends [ce que tu possèdes], etc.

Les hommes de ce monde obtiennent souvent les richesses au moyen de querelles, de combats ou, à tout le moins, de luttes dans des procès. Jacques 4, 2 [dit] : Vous bataillez et vous faites la guerre. Mais Dieu enseigne une voie contraire, celle de la douceur qui n’irrite pas et n’est pas irritée. Et cela n’est pas étonnant, car, comme il est dit dans Proverbes 3, 34 : Le royaume sera donné aux doux. C’est pourquoi [le Seigneur] dit dans Matthieu 5, 4 : Heureux les doux! Cette béatitude convient aux martyrs, qui ne se sont pas irrités contre leurs persécuteurs, mais ont plutôt prié pour eux. 1 Corinthiens 4, 12 : Maudits, nous bénissons. Ainsi, c’est d’eux qu’il est dit : On n’entend ni murmure ni plainte dans leur bouche[8].

Les hommes s’efforcent de parvenir aux plaisirs par divers moyens, comme le dit Job 21, 12 : Ils jouent du tambourin. Mais le Seigneur enseigne, au contraire, une voie opposée, à savoir, celle des pleurs : Heureux ceux qui pleurent, etc. (Matthieu 5, 5). Il est dit aussi dans le livre de Tobie 2, 6 : Tout s’est changé en lamentation et en douleur, etc. Cette béatitude convient aux confesseurs qui ont mené leur vie en ce monde parmi bien des gémissements et des larmes, selon ce passage de Lamentations 1, 22 : Nombreux sont nos gémissements.

La seconde béatitude est politique : elle consiste en ce qu’on se gouverne bien dans ses actions grâce à la vertu de prudence, et elle est au mieux lorsqu’elle gouverne non seulement soi-même, mais aussi la cité et le royaume. Voilà pourquoi cette béatitude convient surtout aux rois et aux princes. Il est dit d’elle en Job 29, 11 : L’oreille qui m’entend me rend bienheureux. Mais il faut savoir la différence entre un roi et un tyran, car le roi cherche, par son gouvernement, le bien de son peuple, et son propos ne s’écarte pas de sa sagesse. Proverbes 8, 15 [dit] : C’est par moi que gouvernent les rois. Le tyran, au contraire, entend s’écarter de l’ordre de la sagesse divine, car il cherche plutôt à combler ses désirs afin de faire ce qu’il veut, et il entend y parvenir par sa rapacité, en dépouillant injustement les autres. Ainsi, il est écrit dans Proverbes 28, 15 : Un lion rugissant, un ours affamé : tel est le chef impie pour un peuple faible. Mais le Seigneur enseigne, au contraire, la justice, quand il dit : Heureux ceux qui ont faim et soif de justice (Matthieu 5, 6). C’est aussi ce qui est dit dans le livre des Proverbes 13, 25 : Le juste mange et est rassasié. Cette béatitude convient aux anciens pères qui avaient le plus grand désir de la parfaite justice du Christ. Isaïe 63, 19 : Puisses-tu déchirer les cieux! Ensuite, le tyran recherche l’impunité pour les maux qu’il accomplit, et il s’efforce de l’obtenir par la cruauté, de sorte qu’il soit tellement craint que personne ne s’oppose à lui. Il est question d’eux dans le psaume 79[78], 2 : Ils ont livré les cadavres de tes serviteurs en pâture aux oiseaux du ciel. Mais le Seigneur enseigne le chemin inverse pour gagner la voie de la miséricorde : Heureux les miséricordieux, etc. (Matthieu 5, 7). Matthieu 6, 15 : Si vous ne remettez pas aux hommes leurs péchés, etc. Cette béatitude convient aux anges qui sont miséricordieux pour nous sans passion et nous secourent dans nos misères. Isaïe 33, 7 : Les anges de paix pleurent amèrement.

La troisième béatitude est contemplative : c’est surtout celle de ceux qui tendent à acquérir la vérité, et par-dessus tout la vérité divine. Siracide 14, 20 : Heureux l’homme qui demeurera dans la sagesse!

Cette béatitude, les philosophes se sont efforcés de l’obtenir par deux moyens, eux qui avaient deux buts, à savoir, connaître la vérité et acquérir l’autorité. Ils se sont efforcés de connaître la vérité par la pratique de l’étude. Mais Dieu enseigne une voie plus rapide, la pureté du cœur : Heureux les cœurs purs, etc. (Matthieu 5, 8), et Sagesse 1, 4 : La sagesse n’entrera pas dans une âme malveillante et n’y habitera pas, etc. Cette béatitude convient surtout aux vierges qui ont gardé intacte la pureté de leur esprit et de leur corps.

Mais les philosophes ont voulu acquérir l’autorité en s’engageant dans les disputes controversées. Mais, comme le dit 1 Corinthiens 11, 16 : Si quelqu’un parmi vous cherche à ergoter… C’est pourquoi le Seigneur enseigne qu’on arrive à l’autorité divine par la paix, de sorte qu’un homme soit considéré en autorité par les autres, selon [ce qui est dit] dans Exode 7, 1 : Je te fais chef pour Pharaon. C’est ainsi qu’il est dit : Heureux les pacifiques! (Matthieu 5, 9). Cette béatitude convient surtout aux apôtres dont il est dit en 2 Corinthiens 5, 19 : Il a mis en nous une parole de réconciliation, etc. Quant à ce qui est dit : Heureux ceux qui souffrent persécution, etc. (Matthieu 5, 10), il ne s’agit pas d’une autre béatitude, mais elle renforce les précédentes, car on ne peut être ferme dans la pauvreté, la douceur et dans le reste si, dans les persécutions, on s’en écarte. C’est pourquoi toutes les récompenses qui précèdent sont dues à cette béatitude, et on revient au commencement : Car le royaume des cieux est à eux (Matthieu 5, 3; 5, 10). Et on doit comprendre de la même manière : Car ils posséderont la terre (Matthieu 5, 4), et ainsi de suite pour le reste.

La béatitude des saints a donc quelque chose de toutes les [béatitudes] précédentes selon qu’elle possède tout ce qu’on y trouve de louable. De la béatitude mondaine, elle possède la riche demeure : Heureux ceux qui habitent dans ta maison (Psaume 84[83], 5). C’est la maison de gloire dont parle le psaume 27[26], 4 : J’ai demandé une chose au Seigneur, etc. Dans cette maison, on obtient tout ce qu’on désire. Psaume 65[64], 5 : Nous serons rassasiés de biens dans ta maison. Apocalypse 5, 10 : Tu as fait de nous pour notre Dieu un royaume et des prêtres. Là se trouveront des richesses qui apportent la satiété. Psaume 26[25], 8 : La gloire et les richesses sont dans ta maison. Là se trouveront les délices qui renouvellent l’homme en son entier. Psaume 36[35], 9 : Ils s’enivreront de la graisse de ta maison, etc. De la béatitude politique, les saints possèdent la perpétuité, car le dirigeant de la cité doit s’efforcer de préserver pour toujours le bien de la cité, comme il est dit : Dans les siècles des siècles (Psaume 83, 5). Cette perpétuité provient de trois réalités : d’abord, du partage des biens : Je me rassasierai à l’apparition de ta gloire (Psaume 17[16], 15); ensuite, du rejet du dégoût, car, bien qu’on ait été rassasié, on aura toujours faim. Siracide 24, 21 : Ceux qui me mangent auront encore faim. Enfin, de l’immunité de toutes sortes de maux et de misères. Apocalypse 7, 16 : Jamais plus ils ne souffriront de la faim et de la soif. De la béatitude contemplative, les saints posséderont une certaine familiarité avec les choses de Dieu, car la béatitude contemplative consiste surtout dans la contemplation. C’est pourquoi on dit : Ils te loueront (Psaume 84[83], 5). En effet, ils verront Dieu sans intermédiaire et clairement : Nous le voyons maintenant comme dans un miroir, etc. (1 Corinthiens 13, 12), et ils l’aimeront sans cesse comme des fils, car, selon les Grecs, «fils» dérive d’amour[9]. 1 Jean 3, 1 : Voyez quel amour le Père nous a donné pour que nous soyons appelés fils de Dieu, et nous le sommes, et comme de bons fils, ils l’honoreront par la louange. Isaïe 35, 10 : Ils obtiendront joie et allégresse, etc. Le psaume ne parle que de cela, à partir de quoi le reste se comprend, car ce qui est loué est connu et aimé. C’est pourquoi Augustin [dit], La cité de Dieu, XX : «Cette fonction, cet amour, cet acte est pour tous comme la vie de l’éternité.»

Que le Fils nous y conduise, etc.

Saint Jérôme (347-420), prêtre, traducteur de la Bible, docteur de l’Église
Commentaire sur l’évangile de Marc, 2 ; PLS 2, 125s (trad. DDB 1986, p. 49)

« Le secouant avec violence, l’esprit impur sortit de lui en poussant un grand cri. » C’est là sa façon d’exprimer sa douleur : en le secouant avec violence. Puisqu’il ne pouvait pas altérer l’âme de l’homme, le démon a exercé sa violence sur son corps. Ces manifestations physiques étaient d’ailleurs le seul moyen à sa disposition pour signifier qu’il était en train de sortir. L’esprit pur ayant manifesté sa présence, l’esprit impur bat en retraite…

« Tous furent saisis de frayeur et s’interrogeaient : ‘ Qu’est-ce que cela veut dire ? ‘ » Regardons les Actes des Apôtres et les signes que les premiers prophètes ont donnés. Que disent les magiciens du Pharaon face aux prodiges de Moïse ? « C’est le doigt de Dieu » (Ex 8,15). C’est Moïse qui les accomplit, mais ils reconnaissent la puissance d’un autre. Plus tard, les apôtres ont fait d’autres prodiges : « Au nom de Jésus, lève-toi et marche ! » (Ac 3,6) ; « Et Paul ordonna à l’esprit de sortir de cette femme au nom de Jésus Christ » (Ac 16,18). Le nom de Jésus est toujours cité. Mais ici, que dit-il lui-même ? « Sors de cet homme », sans autre précision. C’est en son nom propre qu’il donne l’ordre à l’esprit de sortir. « Tous furent saisis de frayeur et s’interrogeaient : ‘ Qu’est-ce que cela veut dire ? Voilà un enseignement nouveau. ‘ » L’expulsion du démon n’avait en soi rien de nouveau : les exorcistes des Hébreux le faisaient couramment. Mais que dit Jésus ? Quel est cet enseignement nouveau ? Où donc est la nouveauté ? C’est qu’il commande par sa propre autorité aux esprits impurs. Il ne cite personne d’autre : il donne lui-même les ordres ; il ne parle pas au nom d’un autre, mais de sa propre autorité.

La lecture du texte ce matin renforce en moi, la ferme conviction de l’amour du grand Patron, notre Dieu pour l’humanité. Dieu s’est bien fait homme pour nous montrer la voie vers Lui. Je Lui suis infiniment reconnaissant. Il se soucie de moi, un pauvre pêcheur et sa créature par amour. Il me donne un libre arbitre, qui exige que j’opère un choix conscient de vie. Sachant que je suis faible et pêcheur, bourré de défauts, IL est toujours prêt a m’aider sur ma demande et insistance. Il me demande que de vouloir venir dans Sa voie et faire l’effort nécessaire.

O Seigneur, prend pitié de moi. Ordonne que l’esprit mauvais sorte de moi.

This complete text of The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc is in the public domain.

I think that this is an opportunity for branding.

Arsene Lupin would now have been invented out of the imagination of Maurice Leblanc a hundred years ago. I cannot imagine the number of persons and the numbers of hours spent to read the stories of Arsene Lupin, neither can I think of the hours spent watching the movies and TV series.

Would you use the brand Arsene? Could we have Arsene T shirts or Lupin menswear? There might well be an opportunity to catch!