Should You Be A Core Facility: Fill & Download for Free

The most interesting one? There are a lot many leadership lessons that Shiva teaches usRhythm Divine: The Shiva SigmaThe Trusted Aide: So out of all the aides(gana) of Shiva, who do you think is his most favourite aide? An easy guess would be Nandi. So much so, that Nandi forms an integral part of every Shiva temple. Is it because Nandi is also his Vahana? Maybe, but Nandi is known as the principle Gana of Shiva. Not only his Vahana, Nandi is also a door-keeper to Shiva's abode Mount Kailash. He also is the commander-in-chief of all the Shiva-ganas, and when Ravana attempted to move Shiva from his abode to Lanka, he fought Ravana and even cursed him for his attempts.Clearly, Nandi is Shiva's favourite gana. But think of it, did Shiva, as per any of the scriptures say it to Nandi that "you are my favourite"? Or did he say this to anyone else? The answer is no.There is a management term called "Job Enrichment", where an individual is delegated more decision making powers and responsibilities. A good leader should never pick up and declare a favourite of his or her out of his team or followers, but rather, keep on delegating more responsibilities on his most efficient men. He should not let others feel the neglect of his favouritism, but let the work of his most efficient aides speak for them. He should thus, in a way, keep a team of most trusted aides, where the employees also feel valued.Doing the right thing: Ravana was one of the biggest devotees of Lord Shiva. So much so, that he even sacrificed his head not once but ten times when performing an obligation for Shiva(Shiva would give his head back each time, as per legends). Ravana loved and respected Shiva, and Shiva acknowledged the respect that Ravana showed for him. He even asked Ravana to master all the Vedas and spread the message of the Vedas on earth, clearly delegating more responsibilities on him.Ravana, however, once became adamant to take Shiva from Kailash to Lanka, as he knew that Lanka would be all powerful with Shiva being there. He became adamant and even fought Nandi for the same. When Nandi didnt let him enter, he attempted to lift the mountain itself and take it to Lanka. Clearly, an arrogant attempt by him.What did Shiva do? The right thing! He didnt hesitate to punish Ravana for the same, and put the toe of his feet on the mountain firmly. Ravana's hands got stuck beneath the mountains, and if legends are to be believed, Ravana stayed the same way for some thousand years, pleading for forgiveness all the time.Though a leader should not openly declare his set of favourites, there may be a few followers or employees who would openly acknowledge the credibility of their leader and would place their utmost trust and respect in their leader.What if some decision or attitude of these employees become a deterrent in the overall roadmap of the company or the leader himself? Well, deal it with the Shiva way. Do the right thing.Attachment to the cause: When Ravana comes to pursue Shiva to move his abode from Kailash to Lanka, lets put in perspective what Shiva had and what Ravana offered. Shiva lived on Mountain Kailash not in any palace or constructed house, but under open nature. Though there are ganas who love and respect Shiva, he treats them more as followers and friends, rather than servants(again an important quality of leaders). The food they must be having would rather be natural fruits and vegetables(though tough to say if Shiva would even need food, he is Mahadev).Ravana on the other hand, wanted to take Shiva to the Golden Lanka. So, Ravana offered a huge and magnificent palace, hordes of servants, the most delicious of foods and festivities, and all the luxuries which Ravana could give(though Ravana misinterpreted Shiva probably, he is much above the worldly desires).The point however is, Shiva not only refused Ravana's repeated attempts, he even punished him, as explained in the aforementioned point.How many MBA degrees you pursue, whatever management courses you complete successfully and whichever corporate trainings you attend, there is a certain human factor which comes into play when you are leading an organization. Though all these courses and trainings and programs and seminars would teach you to be professional to the core, a leader simply cannot succeed, unless he is attached emotionally to the organization, or the cause which he is supporting. If you are not attached to your organization, and are ready to move to a better organization because it could offer better facilities(or salary?) to you, chances are, you wont be able to attach to your second organization as well(what if a third organization offers even more), and thus would not ever be a good leaderByproducts of success: Referencing the Sagar Manthan and the Halahal poison once again. all the deities wanted to get hold of Amrit which was due to come out of the sea, and everydeva wanted to be a part of it. However, no one wanted to be a part of the poison. If Indra was ready for Amrit, he should have been equally willing of poison as well.Everybody loves success, there is no two way about it. Every leader and the people or followers under him are bind together by one simple cause and effort, to succeed. There is no truer a fact than this.However, at times this success doesnt come so easily. At times it takes a lot of sacrifices and efforts from the seekers of this success. Everyone wants to be a part of success, however a true leader is one, who is equally willing to be a part of the toxic products of success, or the sacrifices which are made in the process.Value proposition: What exactly is value proposition?The simplest definition of Value proposition could be "a promise of value to be delivered and a belief from the customer that value will be experienced"For a leader to believe in a simple notion as above, it would start from his very basic nature. For this, a leader should be able to value even the most basic of stuff around him. He should be able to judge and evaluate every single resource or asset available to him and try to use its value to the maximum.Once Sati asked if Shiva is Mahadev, why did he live devoid of all luxuries. She asked him to show her his house where they would live after marriage. As Shiva didnt have any, she asked him what protects him from sun in summers. Shiva showed her the valley full of Deodar trees. Then she asked what protects him from rains, Shiva took her to a cave. When she asked where would he keep fire, Shiva showed her the burning pyres.Imagination is value, and value is imagination. Shiva being a Mahadev never really thought of worldly comforts. Caves or even Deodar trees are not of much value in terms of worldly luxuries, but Shiva found and valued all the resources available to him.Partners in Equality: One of the most distinct legends attributed to Shiva is that of Ardha-Narishwar.A composite androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati, the form is depicted as half male and half female, split down the middle.Symbolically, the form represents that male and female are inseparable from each other. It also represents the law of duality. It also represents the equality of male and female. That both are incomplete without each other, a concept which many legends of Shiva very clearly point to and acknowledge. As per legends, this form has primarily been associated with fertility and growth.A leader, similarly, no doubt shall treat his subordinates with respect and equality, he shall also have mutual trust and understanding with fellow partners in business. They shall understand that for the cause to be successful or the company to be a success, they all need to work together with one goal in mind. The purpose would be incomplete in the absence of any of them.

That’s how it used to be done, and there was very good reason why the functions are now distinct and separate. I can’t think of a single efficiency that would be gained by going backwards.This isn’t me being a precious VA employee who wants to protect my old stomping grounds. This is me being a bureaucrat who’s seen the innards of the two largest bureaucracies in government - VA and DoD - and is telling you, in as direct a way as possible, why you do not want to combine those sausages.Let’s start from the beginning. Like, the beginning-beginning.Veterans’ compensation in the United States literally goes back to the Pilgrims. The Plymouth Colony determined in 1636 that those who were disabled in their fight with the Pequot Indians should receive regular compensation for their service.Flash forward 150 years, and Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, angry that he was still owed compensation for his service (as were basically all veterans), took up arms against the Massachusetts government in a rebellion that literally shaped the nation as we know it today[1].The first Congress under the Constitution established a pension for veterans as one of its first acts, and so began the bureaucratic nightmare.The pension program (and its growth with various amendments) was run by the War Department until 1849, when it grew too large and was moved into the newly formed Department of the Interior.Any health care for veterans, meanwhile, remained principally a state responsibility until the end of the Civil War, when the influx of disabled veterans was too great for the patchwork of Soldiers’ Homes (some of which were Federal) to manage. In 1865, as the Civil War was coming to a close, the government formally established a network of facilities to provide long-term care for severely disabled veterans.Over time, Congress expanded the eligibility criteria for admission into these homes; and in so doing, they gradually transformed to being able to provide hospital level care.America’s entry into WWI had, perhaps, the longest repercussions for veterans’ care and benefits.The number of disabled veterans overwhelmed both military hospitals (where many were undergoing long-term recovery) and the Soldiers’ Homes network. In 1919, broad responsibility for veterans’ health care spun off to the Public Health Service and contracted private hospitals; and in 1921, Congress authorized the construction of hospitals specifically for veterans’ care.Also in 1921, Congress attempted to consolidate the various veterans’ programs under a single umbrella (the Veterans’ Bureau), but their efforts were incomplete. While the Veterans’ Bureau took on responsibility for insurance, outpatient care, and education benefits, the Bureau of Pensions (Department of Interior) still had responsibility for, um, pensions, and the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers remained a separate entity.In 1930, Congress tried again, and so created the Veterans’ Administration to consolidate the Veterans’ Bureau, the Bureau of Pensions, and the National Homes.For the first time, the Federal government assumed, under a single organization, total health and compensation responsibility for veterans and their dependents.Between the influx of WWI veterans and the retirement of Spanish-American War veterans, spending on veterans’ services shot up through the 1920s. Moreover, Congress continued to expand eligibility requirements and levels of compensation. This led to a fateful decision in 1924 to authorize bonus payments to WWI veterans, payable beginning in 1944.When the Great Depression hit, many veterans found themselves out of work with the rest of the population. In the spirit of Daniel Shays almost 150 years before - but much, much less violently - veterans marched on Washington to demand that their compensation be cashed out so that they could support their families.Congress said, “No,” and the Hoover Administration responded by sending in the military to disperse the encamped veterans and their families at bayonet point[2].So that was a great episode in American history (and in 1936, Congress relented and authorized early payment).But the trauma of the Bonus Army and the general experience of WWI veterans during the Great Depression spurred Congress to make significant reforms to veterans’ compensation and care leading up to and during WWII. This included wide expansion of education benefits, home loan assistance, and unemployment compensation.However, as with WWI, the rapid demobilization at the end of WWII caught VA under-prepared. By the end of 1947, it had doubled its staff to operate 126 hospitals and 721 offices to manage care and process claims. The Korean War further expanded VA’s operational capacity.To get ahead of the problems encountered with rapid demobilization of forces abroad (and, if you’re wondering, I’m now starting to get to the crux of the question), VA in 1967 sent field officers to Vietnam to educate soon-to-separate servicemembers on their entitlements as veterans. This was the forerunner what’s now codified as the Transition Assistance Program (TAP).What was then a loose affiliation between the Department of Defense and Veterans’ Administration is now a statutory, funded program that includes DoD, VA, the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security, and the Small Business Administration. Attending the program - which not only covers veterans’ benefits but includes financial literacy and general career advice - is mandatory for separating servicemembers.The VA’s on-the-ground assistance to returning Vietnam veterans made it clear that many of them would need long-term assistance readjusting to civilian life. This spawned the establishment of the Readjustment Counseling Service (ie, the Vet Center program) to provide ongoing services to combat veterans who may be having difficulty making the transition back to civilian life - and, uniquely, the services are run by counselors who themselves are combat veterans.But the influx of veterans from Vietnam put strains on a system that hadn’t seen significant investment in physical infrastructure since the end of WWII. VA’s medical budget tripled between 1967 and 1977, and its rehabilitation and education spending increased ten-fold.In 1977, the Veterans’ Administration commissioned the creation of an electronic health record that could be used across its hospitals, as veterans’ paper-based records were too prone to being lost or inadvertently destroyed[3][4]. This was America’s first electronic health record, and for a long time the only one of its scale anywhere in the world. It was designed to have a core architecture that could be modded by individual hospitals to meet their own needs.It was so successful - and free to the public, having been created by the US government - that in 1988 the Department of Defense awarded a $1 billion contract (~$2.1 billion today) to copy the system for its own purposes, and make that copy totally proprietary.…Yes, you are reading that correctly. DoD paid $1 billion to take a perfectly functioning, free electronic health records system that was already US government property to make a private copy.Oh, and they managed to make it worse in the process[5].That created a decades long tech schism that defied both Congress and successive Presidents to resolve. It’s even spawned its own, little bridge bureaucracy[6].So now, with DoD and VA having failed to get along (and even failing to make use of the Bridge Bureaucracy[7]), both Departments’ records systems are being put in the hands of a single, private provider[8] (and lots of other happy tech vendors[9]).Because in no way, shape, or form will entrusting the private sector to reform the largest electronic health records systems, arguably, in the world lead to any kind of cost overruns[10] or become an attractive target for ne’er-do-wells[11].Nope.Anyway, how does all this support my position that merging DoD and VA is a bad idea to ensure continuity of care?A major takeaway from the experience of Vietnam veterans’ return to the US is, to be quite blunt, that the military gives very few shits about its people once they’re no longer connected to military operations.The Department of Defense and the services have one overarching goal: combat readiness - to train and support war fighters. Once they’re no longer in or supporting combat operations, then as far as Defense is concerned, you’re no longer their issue[12] .Going back to TAP, the law requires that DoD ensure that all servicemembers complete the course more than 90 days before they separate. This is because servicemembers often complained that, frequently, they weren’t made to take TAP courses until their very last two days in the service - the two days that their minds were very much elsewhere.However, despite both the legal requirement and the length of time afforded to separating servicemembers to complete the training, more than half of servicemembers don’t complete the training until their last 90 days, with DoD doing the baremost to monitor compliance[13] .And going back to the (ongoing) debacle of VA-DoD records inter-operability, a major issue was that VA didn’t have the political clout to go toe-to-toe with DoD on the issue.The Veterans Administration did not become the Cabinet-level, Department of Veterans’ Affairs until 1989[14] [15]. And while the previous Administrator position still required Senate confirmation, it didn’t share anywhere near the prestige (which, in Washington, equals power) as a Secretary appointment.If you were to fold the Department of Veterans’ Affairs into the Department of Defense, well, you can’t have co-Secretaries; and given that DoD has higher precedence than VA, VA would be bumped down the chain. You would be organizationally sending the message that veterans are less important than the active Armed Forces.And if there were ever a conflict between the Secretary of Defense and the now-Under Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs, the Under Secretary would basically be stuffed. They wouldn’t have direct access to the President or Congress to get their point of view across without being seen as undermining their boss.VA and DoD don’t need to be under the same umbrella to provide lifetime continuity of care. They just need to be on the same page when it comes to collecting and sharing data on servicemembers’ health history (which they mostly are[16]), at which point the VA can take over and focus on long-term care while DoD concerns itself with readiness.And if the assumption is that having everyone in the same organization will break down silos and improve the flow of data, well, that’s not grounded in the reality of the inner workings of America’s largest bureaucracies[17] [18].Of all the possible ways I could think to reform VA and DoD to improve information sharing and continuity of services, merging the two Departments would be an act of desperation at the bottom of the list.Footnotes[1] Carter Moore's answer to What was Shays' Rebellion?[2] Carter Moore's answer to How disastrous to the US would it be if all war veterans benefits got slashed to zero?[3] The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center[4] A 40-year 'conspiracy' at the VA[5] AHLTA users sound off about military EHR system[6] VA Information Technology[7] EHR interoperability for VA and DoD, who’s responsible? Lawmakers, officials can't agree[8] VA picks Cerner to replace VistA; Trump says EHR will fix agency's data sharing 'once and for all'[9] Cerner reveals long list of VA EHR modernization partners[10] DoD raises budget on Leidos contract for Cerner EHR project by $1.2 billion[11] U.S. data breaches and exposed records 2018 | Statistic[12] 126,000 service members in crosshairs for separation as DoD’s ‘deploy or get out’ policy takes effect[13] Transitioning Veterans: DOD Needs to Improve Performance Reporting and Monitoring for the Transition Assistance Program[14] Reagan Would Elevate V.A. to Cabinet Level[15] Reagan signs bill creating veterans department[16] https://www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Access-Cost-Quality-and-Safety/Access-to-Healthcare/DoD-VA-Sharing-Initiatives/Separation-Health-Assessment[17] https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/11/14/dod_and_the_cloud__moving_out_bureaucracy_to_focus_on_national_security_113956.html[18] After A Year Of Turmoil, New VA Secretary Says 'Waters Are Calmer'

Back in 2004, the company I worked for, Cogent Systems, was awarded a $50 million USD contract to build and deploy Venezuela's National Voter Identification System in six (6) weeks.Our responsibility was to assemble, transport, install, and support a enterprise-level solution (clients + servers) that could "plug-in" to the Venezuelan telecommunications infrastructure.The solution had to enroll-and-match 10 million individuals over 10-hours in real-time using biometrics, while responding within 2-4 seconds to the operator that someone was attempting to vote a second time on election day.When people say "Corporate Structure", we think slow, wasteful, and bureaucratic. Watching this project unfold from the inside, in six (6) weeks time, made me realize that culture played a greater factor than size --- I saw mountains move, rivers turning on a dime, and a force-of-will that could only be cultivated by long-term company culture.Multiple companies were involved. We were the prime, our partners were AVNET, IBM, and ArrasaMex.My role was web development, testing, training, and client security. I was working with Steven (my supervisor), Julia, Jay, and Hamsa. We were adopting AJAX web calls well before they were popular. The tech was very basic: HTML, Javascript, AJAX, Apache, ActiveX controls, and Internet Explorer!!!! What? ... Yes... IE... What?We could use IE, because we were in full control of the client environment. We knew the exact laptop, the OS, patch level, the processor type, how much RAM, and even their serial numbers.As part of the web team, our goal was to build a stateless, web-server-farm ready web solution that could work on two sets of 28 web-servers sitting behind two cross-linked load balancers. The web app would feed into a larger system of parallel-processing servers for matching. Once the results were known, we had to feed that back across the country to the client laptop.The web solution had to be simple enough that we could prototype it in week-1, train our partners ArrasaMex in week-2, send them off to Venezuela where they would train 500 technicians, who then trained 16,000 operators all over the country. This was binary-tree-speed process management. Pretty cool. Training had to finish in week-4.My secondary task was to build a WinXP locking tool that would keep operators from screwing around. The team worked together to help test my client tool and thinking of all the possible ways a hacker might break into our network and take down the whole infrastructure. We were operating on a satellite connection over several thousand voting facilities, so putting up something as simple as bit-torrent between two points might have caused us hours of grief. We only had a 10-hour voting window, or opposing hackers only had to disrupt us for 10-hours.I built this GUI locking tool in week-1, placed it on a laptop which we tested and patched, cloned the hard-disk and sent out the disk image to IBM and ArrasaMex. The tech was dumb: registry hacking, DLL replacing, USB locking, etc... Just a ton of stuff that we had to block as we found more loop-holes that might give any access. They should only have access to the desktop, one web-page, and be able to shutdown the laptop.IBM halted an entire factory somewhere in the world and was only producing Laptops. A total of 12,000 laptops had to be produced in the exact configuration. They had to do this in three weeks and ship them to Venezuela for operator training in week-4.ArrasaMex delivered our build to the Venezuelan military which attempted to break into it without disassembling the laptop. We had some BIOS tools from IBM that would lock down the boot sequence and we were pretty sure we had the windows segment down. Sergio, a project manager from ArrasaMex, told me that the Venezuelan military was unable to break into the laptop. He told me he was sweating bullets because that would have been a show stopper. We passed, 1-try.Cogent only had 40 employees in headquarters at the time. One elevator ride (3 floors) and 4 cubicles away was Ron (genius IMHO) that calculated the number of servers we needed. He made this calculation and sent the hardware requirements and specifications off to our partners. To any other engineer or economist in the world, this would be a gamble, some mathematical estimation. But Ron's a genius so this was a dead-on specification down to the amount of CPU cores in what GHz, type/quantity of RAM, Disk RPM, NIC-cards, and fiber connected SAN storage. Any miscalculation would be a show-stopper.AVNET & IBM procured the server system in week-1 to an IBM facility in Arizona. Our entire IT/implementation team of 8 people were sent to the facility to unbox, boot, firmware-update, cable, and test the whole system. In week-3, we had remote access for our server team back in Pasadena, CA. The servers had to be tested and ready by week-4.IBM contacted the American Military, US Customs, and Venezuela Customs and scheduled a military style air-lift from the Arizona facility across the Gulf of Mexico to Caracas, Venezuela. Our server team had to be DONE by the end of week-4.Server team had it worst. "Here's a bunch of servers in another state. You have 1 week and a slow remote connection. Make EVERYTHING WORK. Good luck." Didn't make it. End of week-4, they were on multiple airplanes for Caracas with expedited VISAs. Multiple airplanes because if they were all on one airplane that went down, that would be the end of the project.From week-2 to week-4, our web team was testing, implementing, and following the prototype we carved out. 16,000 operators would be trained based on what we showed in week-1, too much deviation would result in massive user error and possibly "unacceptable usability".Servers arrived beginning of week-5, two weeks before the unmovable election day. I was in headquarters, Pasadena, CA, USA, but I was told that after a few days of crate-busting and power-wiring, that the servers kept up for 40 mins before the room overheated and halted the whole system. Several SANs took a dump. Pizza box servers had amber-led warnings that should be flashing which just stayed solid. People said it was unbearable to stand in the server room.Beginning of week-6, they had a new (working) cooling system. Hardware was still functioning. Some of them did actually die, un-bootable. 6-7 server engineers on-site, 3 client engineers on-site, and 5 web engineers at HQ. We did our dry-runs, throughput tests, corner-cases, over-night regression testing... We all had very little sleep.Over 12,000 IBM laptops deployed.Over 16,000 Operators.Election started.No one slept that day.Success.We all took three-weeks off.The following year in 2005. We were contracted to do it again. This time we had a bit more time and an expanded scope of work. We only deployed six people to handle the project. I was one of the six that went on-site. =)On-site make-shift war-room. Several ethernet cables trailed from this room into the server room. We managed the upgrade, testing, and support from here.Carl, client team engineer, standing in front of the servers. I'm told by the guys that went in 2004 that the room looks significantly cleaner and the cables were much better organized in 2005.Ron, awesome genius and great teacher. We had body guards assigned by the Venezuelan military because they were afraid we might be targeted.Proof this actually happened. :P :P :PCogent Systems Awarded $20 Million Follow-on Contract from Venezuelan National Electoral CouncilCogent Systems Announces Record Third Quarter Results; Revenues Increase 37% Sequentially to $23.4 Million GAAP Net Income Reaches $0.28 per shareCogent Systems Receives Letter of Intent for $31.75 Million Follow-on Order from the Venezuelan National Electoral Council