diary of a madman

Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly.

All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, the decisions about the decision making process itself, and all final decisions, are made publicly and remain publicly archived. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_transparency)

Why is there a need to have a structure in an organisation, when decisions made “at the top” remains status quo? Do individual member votes count, if the people in power and authority decide to hold “further discussions” and ultimate decide to act against said decision, or to reverse a particular decision?

Hierarchial structures in an organisation, regardless of size, is of utmost importance because it legitimizes the organisation, and provides a clear leader, or leaders, for its followers, or members, to look to for guidance, advice, and to settle and resolve conflicts.

However, for an organisation to be truly legitimate and recognised as such, hierarchial structures are not the only things that would play a part, but should work in tandem with transparency and accountability.

Though the concept of transparency should be perceived as

Transparency is introduced as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption. When government meetings are open to the press and the public, when budgets and financial statements may be reviewed by anyone, when laws, rules and decisions are open to discussion, they are seen as transparent and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system in their own interest. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_%28humanities%29)

it can be “dumbed down” and seen as a means of holding individuals in positions of power accountable to decisions made by either by said individual, or by a group that includes said individual, without prior knowledge or consultation of other ordinary members of the organisation.

Some people may argue that transparency and accountability should only be important where the decisions made are of great importance, or if there’s money involved in the decision. But I say that’s total bullshit, because irregardless of the position you hold, as long as you make a decision, you make it an open, and a completely transparent decision, explaining to members and committee members alike why you made the particular decision. If you asked for a vote prior to decision making, yet changed your mind after a “discussion” with the committee members, then make that clear and make a statement explaining and detailing the factors that led to a “discussion”, and ultimately, the revamped decision.

It doesn’t matter how important you think your organisation is, or is not. It doesn’t matter how important you think you are, or are not. It doesn’t even matter how much of a difference you think it’ll make, or will not make.

We bitch, whine and complain about how much lack of transparency we have to endure as Singaporeans, and how the government only makes privy information that works in their benefit. How often have we took a step back and examined if we as logical, educated Singaporeans have made this leap of faith in our daily lives, and in the organisations and committees that we dedicate ourselves to?

Some updates for you trolls out there still reading my blog.

I ditched my mac book pro for a dell inspiron 1420 (2.2ghz centrino duo, 4gb ram, 250gb hdd, geforce 8400 128mb video card), and took 1st runner up for the 10th XQRJ national song writing competition with Lara’s song of “Ai This Way”.

It was a pretty productive day yesterday, though it was rather irritating as well. The sound-clowns at NTU’s surf and sweat managed to fuck up our sound, and not know how to rectify it, and best of all, forget to bring a keyboard down. That meant our keyboardist had to sit out for the gig, and Ivan had to fill in her parts. But we still managed to put up one hell of a show, and the stage, we rocked. \m/

XQRJ at UCC was not much better, apart from the fact that we won. Too many goddamned Indian Chiefs, inadequete soundmen on stage, too many students on stage trying to boss us around, and fucked up monitors. My original plan was to use my 20″ k custom ride and my 14″ byzance hats, but I ended up only using my 14″ byzance hats and my yammie snare because I had all of 30 seconds to setup before the lights came on and we were live.

Zhang Pei’s song was amazing - it literally blew the audience away. The judges had nothing but praise for her during the comments section, but they did comment that her lyrics were a little simple - but hey, that’s chinese pop for you isn’t it? The 10-15 mins before the announcment of the top 3 winners felt like eternity to us (Gerald, Daniel, me)

We heard the Emcee call out our band for 3rd position, and we literally went crazy, flipping and jumping all over the place. The next thing we heard was the announcement for the grand prize. Before we could figure out wtf was going on, one of the organisers came to us and said “You’re 2nd!”

So yeah, we went crazy again. But we fucking deserved it after the amount of effort we put into it!