Bold Words

I’m in the middle of reading Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an absolutely fascinating book that has me thinking a lot about luck. One of the main premises addressed how we try to attribute skill or intelligence to events that are due more to chance. In actuality, we often have very little to do with our supposed success. Sometimes, events just happen outside of our control, both good and bad.

In spite of this reality, it doesn’t keep us from trying to arrange circumstances to our advantage. How much time do you spend trying to control the world around you versus enjoying the experience? In some respects, I think we give too much power to this idea that we have control. As Taleb does an excellent job of pointing out, not only in Fooled but in his more recent The Black Swan, all it takes is one event to shift the balance or change the outcome.

I think that’s why we’re inclined to laugh, even if only on the inside, when individuals purport to control events. For example, the guy who things he can control a viral event makes me shake my head. I think a successful viral is all about this idea of chance and the random event that triggers the spread of an idea. Otherwise, how is it any different from a traditional campaign?

Now it’s confession time…I’m a bit of a control freak. My inner self would love to believe that it can manage and maneuver in such a way to successfully predict every outcome. Reality has proven otherwise, and I’m coming to terms with my failure to control life. It’s a work in progress.

I think that’s why I enjoyed Taleb’s description of humankind:

“…there is the Tragic Vision of humankind that believes in the existence of inherent limitations and flaws in the way we think and act…the ideas of this book fall squarely into the Tragic category: We are faulty and there is no need to bother trying to correct our flaws. We are so defective and so mismatched to our environment that we can just work around these flaws…Perhaps ridding ourselves of our humanity is not in the works; we need wily tricks, not some grandiose moralizing help.”

Anyone willing to share their wily tricks?

Comments?

Last night, I came across this line in one of my current reading options:

“I remember forty—a hard age. It is the age when a man discovers that he is all that he is ever going to be. Some men are rather pleased at the discovery. I suspect your brother is not.”

Perhaps this author was somewhat prescient. Today, researchers announced the results of an 80-country study measuring depression in men and women. Apparently, hitting your 40s triggers something:

For men and women the probability of depression slowly builds and then peaks when people are in their forties—a similar pattern found in 72 countries ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe, the researchers said.

About eight nations—mostly in the developing world—did not follow the U-shaped pattern for happiness levels, Oswald and his colleague David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College in the United States wrote.

“It happens to men and women, to single and married people, to rich and poor, and to those with and without children,” Oswald said. “Nobody knows why we see this consistency.”

One possibility may be that people realize they won’t achieve many of their aspirations at middle age, the researchers said. (link)

It makes a sort of morbid sense that we use age/time to determine the plausibility of our aspirations. After all, we haven’t figured out the key to individual immortality, so our time in this world is finite. But with life expectancy in the U.S. edging towards 80, I wonder why we aren’t shifting away from focusing on the amount of time to focusing on our desires.

The data (for more of my thoughts on data, see this earlier post) would seem to indicate that a high probability exists you won’t be happy in your 40s. I suggest that it’s time to prove the data wrong. The first step would require that we stop associating a particular age with an event. Heresy, I know, but if we didn’t feel like it was a race against an internal calendar, perhaps we could make better decisions about the choices we’re pursuing.

I believe the key is to reframe the aspiration so that time doesn’t become the driving factor behind the decision. Reframing requires pushing against many of society’s traditions because we’ve become entrenched with idea of timing everything in our lives. Are you ready to throw the clock and the calendar aside?

Comments?

(Image courtesy of Lava. Some rights reserved.)

How many times have you given into the lure of the “sure thing?” Maybe you placed a bet, accepted a job, or went on a date because you believed it a sure thing. Sure things are dangerous because they lower your shields, raise your expectations, and leave you open to disappointment.

The recent Australian Open, one of professional tennis’s four Grand Slam titles, makes more than one excellent case for the danger of sure things. On the women’s side, the previous year’s winner, Serena Williams, was knocked out in two straight sets. In the next round, the number one ranked woman, Justine Henin, was then beaten by the eventual winner, Maria Sharapova.

An even surer thing failed on the men’s side. Roger Federer, the number one ranked male tennis player in the world appeared unstoppable with his 12 Grand Slam titles until he met Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals. Both are skilled players, ranked high, but Federer always appeared to dominate and many thought he was on his way to an 11th STRAIGHT Grand Slam final. Djokovic proceeded to beat him in straight sets, something that hasn’t happened to Federer since 2004.

Beyond Sports

Tennis matches are only one example of a potential sure thing that can disappoint. Over time, we start to associate this sense of a sure thing with other aspects of our lives: jobs, investments, relationships, etc. Then, when someone or something upsets a sure thing, we shake our heads in bewilderment wondering how it could have happened.

You’ve seen this scenario play out during the recent weeks and months as markets have shuddered under pressure from the sub-prime mess and fears of an American recession. We were so sure that the housing market would continue to grow that the popping of the bubble was unheard by many.

Searching for Certainty

Without meaning or planning to, we search out guarantees. We want a sure thing because we believe it gives us a lodestone in all the chaos that swirls around us. We’re particularly drawn to sure things of late because of the increased sense of chaos in our world as markets shifts and countries crumble. However, as I pointed out earlier this month, there’s something to be said for chaos:

From my perspective, chaos’ attractiveness lies in its unpredictability, the sense that anything, both good and bad, is possible….I think that our current hunger for order in all the chaos for information cheats us out of what’s possible. A top 10 list and other filters that we pay attention to skip over the uncertainty of a butterfly flapping its wings and goes straight to someone else’s interpretation of the chaos. Why waste time wading through all the different thoughts if someone has been kind enough to provide you with the answers?

If you are a lover of sure things, you need to ask yourself why. And if the answer doesn’t do you or your life justice, consider the chase after a sure thing to be a part of your past instead of your future. Perhaps it goes too far in the other direction, but any time I hear the words, “It’s a sure thing,” I want to run in the opposite direction. What will be your reaction?

Comments?

(Image courtesy of Cold Cut. Some rights reserved.)

Today was my first official day training for an Olympic-length triathlon I try to do each summer. Every year, I wonder what possesses me to sign up, particularly during the last few miles of the race. However, once I’m finished, there’s such a sense of accomplishment. I’m nowhere close to winning (the winner usually beats me by at least an hour). In this particular pursuit, all I care about is finishing and beating my personal record (3 hours).

I’m curious, what pursuits do you continue with, in spite of or because of not being the best? What drives you to keep going after whatever goal you’ve set? I’ve been wondering about this question and its connection with social media. I’ll never have as many “friends” on Facebook as Robert Scoble or gain the master status of Chris Brogan on Twitter, but I don’t necessarily want to copy either one’s efforts.

I think that’s the beauty of these social applications and others like them: they’re a custom fit. In order to participate, I don’t have to meet a set standard. I create my own. In a world that can seem driven by standards, I’m excited by the continued growth of opportunities that let you create your own experience. How are you customizing your experience?

Comments?

On the Fast Company blog, I found this post highlighting the dangers of predictability for a business, in this case, Starbucks:

It’s not just the service that is average, but predictable. The coffee is the same way…Predictability can be a double edged sword. It can put people in auto pilot, for example. Or it can lull a company into believing that all is well as its best customers start moving away. Predictability is the friend of complacency and taking things for granted—on both sides of a relationship. Was Starbucks too much of a good thing? Maybe predictability is fine if you achieve success, then move on to innovate in another (or related) area.

To date, society has taken comfort in predictability, but I think we’re seeing a change. For example, the success of the VCR, followed by the DVR, highlights how we want to watch video on our own schedule. We don’t want the predictability of being glued to the television at a specific time on a certain day.

The Losers of Predictability

We’ve embraced the innovation of picking the time, and even place, for our viewing. And we’ve seen how advertisers and media producers have panicked at the notion that they no longer control our eyeballs on a specific schedule. These groups have lost the predictability of a captive viewing audience, which has destroyed their equations for determining value at a particular time.

I believe that’s predictability’s underlying weakness: once the core of something predictable is lost, it can’t be recovered. The question remains, how do you determine if you’ve become too complacent to innovate and recover? Starbucks answered the challenge to its dominance from companies like McDonald’s by recently starting a pilot program in Seattle that offers a small coffee for $1, along with free refills in on all sizes.

The hope that you’ll one day have this amazing thing that’s too great to change applies to a very small percentage of ideas (classic Coke vs. new Coke, anyone?). The market, and customers, will require that businesses maintain a balancing act between predictability and innovation. Remember the famous words of Charles H. Duell who headed the U.S. Patent Office:

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.“(link)

That was in 1899. He was slightly wrong.

Confusing Predictability with Consistency

Old Faithful, the famous geyser in West Yellowstone National Park, was so named for its predictable eruption schedule. While still predictable to an extent, the average time between eruptions has lengthened:

Because Old Faithful has held to its historic pattern, park naturalists can still accurately predict most of the geyser’s eruptions within a window of about 20 minutes. But some visitors lose patience with the geothermal wonder.

“The one comment the naturalists hear a lot when they tell people the prediction is, ‘That long?’” said Yellowstone spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews. “Some people don’t want to wait.”

The shift in the geyser’s pattern to more frequent long intervals between eruptions does not mean Old Faithful is losing steam, as many headline-writers crowed when the geyser’s slowdown was first widely reported in the 1980s.

Generally, the longer an eruption, the longer the geyser will take to recharge before the next eruption, providing the basis for park naturalists’ predictions. And the longer the geyser takes to recharge, the taller and longer the next eruption will be and, consequently, the more water it will eject.

By taking its time between eruptions, Old Faithful may have figured out how to put on more striking shows by sending water higher on average than it used to. (link)

I would argue that Old Faithful changed its predictability, but not its consistency. Old Faithful consistently produces eruptions, although on a slightly different schedule, but with even more exciting results. You don’t have to be predictable to be consistent, and I think it’s consistency that matters more to customers and creates a stronger impression. You might be muttering, “Aren’t consistency and predictability the same thing?” Not really, from my perspective. Here’s an example of my interpretation.

You likely won’t get the same customer service rep each time you attempt to resolve an issue with a particular company. If you did, that would be predictability. However, if you get the same results, regardless of the rep, that’s consistency. Which would you rather have? The same rep or the same results? The debate is far from over, but as I hear people discussing what I consider to be the differences between predictability and consistency, I hear more people voting in favor of consistency. And I believe that consistency is much more kind to innovation that predictability.

Comments?

(Image courtesy of brothergrimm. Some rights reserved.)

UPDATE: While my original concerns about adult attitudes still stands, the teacher I quoted below, Steven Maher, commented in this post and kindly pointed me to the original transcript of his full interview. Clearly, Frontline made an effort to edit his interview to the greatest effect. I’ve added the additional parts from his interview below that clarify his remarks.

Reality check. I’m currently watching Frontline’s latest episode, Growing Up Online. I’m less concerned about what I’m hearing coming out of the kids’ mouths and more what I’m hearing from the adults. If you haven’t seen the show, go here and select Chapter Two, skip to 3:47 and listen to what a supposed adult (a teacher no less) has to say about cheating, or sorry maybe it’s not cheating:

Huh? If borrowing, stealing even, doesn’t meet this teacher’s definition of cheating, then what does? Going beyond that, I’m listening to these parents wigging out about how immersed kids are in technology and the “dangerous” Internet. Here’s a suggestion: if you’re worried quit buying the technology. Yes, they may access it at school, a friend’s home, or Internet cafe, but don’t aid and abet then toss your hands up in dismay.

One kid had two monitors plus a flat panel television in his room. Then, his dad comes on screen shaking his head over how he always feels like he’s intruding or interrupting his son when he goes into his bedroom. Maybe you shouldn’t have purchased all the expensive gear. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this particular kid bought his toys with an allowance buoyed by inflation. Same thing with the cell phones. Parents can’t believe how the kids refuse to separate themselves, even when on vacation. Sigh. When did parents stop being parents? To clarify, I’m not advocating against technology. I am advocating for a little common sense.

Perhaps I’m stuck in a time warp, but I always felt that I had boundaries growing up. I knew what was acceptable and what would create consequences. I never had a computer in my room, and I didn’t get a cell phone until I turned 16, and only then because I was driving back and forth to basketball practice and games during early mornings and late nights. Based on the interviews that I saw this evening, I want to shake some of these parents. You’re buying the cell phones, putting computers in bedrooms, then wondering why your kids have created such separate lives that appall you. I keep hearing the argument that everyone’s doing it. That’s the same argument I used growing up, too, and it got me exactly no where. I must have missed when that logic suddenly became acceptable.

As part of the show, they also interviewed danah boyd, one of my favorite social media researchers. She makes the very valid point that the Internet and these other technologies are a part of daily lives. They aren’t going away, so adults need to learn and kids need to be taught how to deal with the issues surrounding them. However, she also advocates that individuals need to be responsible about their participation, something I didn’t hear from many people in the show.

Please watch all of Growing Up Online because I think it has revealed as much about the adults as it does about the kids. The language used blows me away. The rationalizations by some, and this idea that parents and other adults don’t play a role in what’s happening, is ludicrous. For example, allowing kids to believe that analytical thinking and reading can be replaced by technology or that it’s somehow a benefit to know how to borrow and steal does them a disservice. The words adults use, regardless of what kids may say, do register at some level. Changing the definitions, because we want to avoid the fight, isn’t the answer.

Comments?

If I offered you immortality, would you take it? I think in a way, many of us are already pursuing an immortality of sorts. Perhaps it’s on the small scale, but I wonder if our passion for user-generated content (or whatever you want to call it) is part of our desire to create our own immortality.

According to William Faulkner,

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist’s way of scribbling “Kilroy was here” on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass. (link)

Is that what all our bytes of data are about, achieving a type of immortality? Faulkner’s idea of arresting motion seems to fly in the face of a world that seems constantly in motion. So are we leaving anything behind for strangers a 100 years from now to put into motion? Are we creating things worth reviving in the decades and centuries to come, or are we so busy producing that we’ve lost sight of what we’re trying to accomplish?

What form of immortality are you pursuing? And is immortality as Faulkner defines it even possible anymore given the amount of what is currently being produced? Will we all end up in one big pile, no longer distinguishable from one another, no longer put into motion during the years to come? This post is not an argument for limiting creation, but rather a caution to think about what you’re creating and where you want to go. Don’t be the person who says, “If I’d only had one more day, one more week, one more year, I could have…”

Comments?

(Image courtesy of rnickme. Some rights reserved.)

I have commitment issues about books, houses, and relationships. I confess these shortcomings because some might consider them aberrations in an otherwise “normal” life. For example, at any one time, I’m reading 5-6 books. It’s only difficult if I go too long between reading cycles because I forget some of the details.

Regarding houses, I have little to no desire to pay a mortgage every month. In spite of “rent is tossing money done the drain” advice, I’m inclined to maintain the flexibility of month-to-month living versus a 30-year contract. Then there’s relationships.

I’ve found little to recommend the partnered version of life. Given the small, conservative community I live in, my single state perplexes more than a few people. I’ve adopted the standard line that I won’t be with anyone who doesn’t make life better than being single. So, here’s how my issues relate to you: I believe we’ve been told that fitting a niche is important and that aberrations need to be stamped out—and I think we’re ignoring it.

I can already hear people saying, “We’re living in one of the most open and accepting of times.” On the surface? Maybe. Dig a little deeper and I’m not convinced that we’re any less susceptible to the idea that people should fit, whether it’s within a family, a community, or another social group.

Technically, there’s nothing wrong with my commitment issues. They affect few if any people other than me, but the outward appearances they create leave me open to the criticism of others. Consider how you define people based on the brands they choose.

If you’re a Mac person, doesn’t part of you always feel a little sorry for those unenlightened PC people? If you’re a PC person, don’t you wonder why the Mac people pay more for essentially the same machine? What about how we define people based on the jobs they hold? As much as we might wish otherwise, we make our judgments.

I’m still undecided on the goodness or badness of this particular behavior (thus the post to hopefully start a discussion). For me, the bigger issue is how we ignore the role of these judgments. We make assumptions about general acceptance and then wonder why our country is closely divided on so many issues, including politics, business, and technology.

I hear it in conversations when I travel, among members of my social groups, and in blogs from the around the world. We pick up on the things that are different and use them to make our judgments. As our social networks continue to expand, breaking through the previous barriers of cost, distance, and language, our society may actually have to become what we’ve believed it to be: open and accepting.

Comments?

(Image courtesy of Ryan Christopher. Some rights reserved.)

The government is coming to your rescue. This morning President Bush gave a non-detailed statement about how the government will help stave off the coming economic crisis.

“The package must be big enough to make a difference in an economy as large as ours,” Bush said. “By passing a growth package quickly, we can provide a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy, and it will help keep economic sectors that are going through adjustments, such as the housing market, from adversely affecting other parts of our economy.” (link)

But wait, the Los Angeles Times reports that no consensus exists that a recession awaits the American economy.

But some analysts say the action in stocks and bonds is overstating the chances of grave trouble in the economy. And they contend that the Federal Reserve, Congress and the Bush administration are being goaded by markets to take economic-stimulus measures that may be costly, excessive and even unnecessary. “The administration, Congress, the Fed and the day traders on Wall Street all seem to be in panic mode,” said Allan Meltzer, a veteran economist and Fed watcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Uncomfortable with Bumpiness

Ah, yes. Panic. A sensation that seems to grip individuals, groups, and countries for sometimes inexplicable reasons. These events make an excellent case study of sorts for how unaccustomed we are to bumpiness in our lives. For many individuals, particularly in the Western world, their biggest crisis during a day can involve getting the blue screen of death. However, for other individuals, say for example the people trying to survive the current turmoil in Kenya, actual survival is a daily concern.

We’re spoiled. As danah boyd points out:

Part of why people are so shocked about what is going on in Kenya right now is because Kenya was so stable. (I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if Gore supporters would’ve taken to the streets after my country’s corrupt election rather than be so complacent.) (link)

What would have happened if there had been riots in the street after the 2000 election? We take our general, day to day stability for granted, giving little to thought to how often unrest impacts other countries. So when the media types start talking about how the American economy is taking a dive, and the general population gets caught up in the hubbub, I wonder about our ability to avoid panic-induced behavior.

Panic Incited by Government

Going back to the post I wrote yesterday, we’re being told a story about the economy. Yes, some people are losing their homes, some people are losing their jobs. For comparison, consider these little facts: the jobless rate in 1930, prior to the Great Depression was 8.7% and topped out at 24.9% in 1933. Today’s unemployment rate? 5.0%.

Without questions, things aren’t as happy and carefree as they were back in the late 90s and during the last few years. They’re is more volatility in the markets and in the world, but the sky isn’t falling (yet), so don’t let panic rule your decisions. Pay attention to the words you’re hearing from government officials. Pay attention to how quickly the economy became a central news topic. This story is being told for a reason.

Panic Incited by Business

Panic also makes an appearance courtesy of certain business practices. We’re told that we NEED certain products or services. Consider how many things we consider necessities that previous generations managed quite ably without: television, computers, iPods, cell phones, and automobiles. On top of what we now consider necessities, we allow ourselves to be goaded into panicking if we don’t have the latest and greatest. (What? My iPod only holds 40GB! I must have the 80GB version.)

Panic is an emotion that groups have taken advantage of throughout the ages to accomplish their goals. Keep this fact in mind the next time someone tries to make you feel uptight and worried about events. Take a deep breath, step back, and ask yourself, “Who stands to gain if I panic?” I promise that the person who benefits isn’t you.

Comments?

(Image courtesy of Isaac Schlueter. Some rights reserved.)

Raise your hand if you’re tired of the media’s “the sky is falling” approach to the American economy. Since at least 2006, publications like The Economist and Reason were predicting that the United States housing bubble was going to cause economic pain. Sadly, it appears that few people were paying attention, which led to headlines like this one from Forbes:

Recession Risk Watch

I’m curious, did people really think that their homes were going to continue gaining value if the market reached a point where buyers wouldn’t be able to afford them? Apparently so given the amount of debt people now face from a time when they were house rich. Now, the “R” word is tossed around in every other story and the topic has finally made an appearance in the presidential race.

Parts of a Story

There’s at least three things going on here:

1. Our belief EVERYONE should own a home—Homes are not the only thing we believe everyone should extend themselves financially to own, but they are one of the riskiest. We’ve been told for years that homes are a safe investment. I wonder how the people who owe more on a home than it’s currently worth feel about the people who told them it was a good investment.
2. Our increased acceptance of massive consumer debt—I’m talking to you, the guy who bought the big screen television on a store credit plan. I’m not talking about the people who’ve gone into to debt due to health emergencies, for example. I’m talking about the people who see something they want, then buy it without consideration to whether they can actually pay for it.
3. We want more—I’m the first to admit that I want more. My more is usually books, but the point remains, I don’t really need more books. Media types have been wailing about the recent shopping numbers from December that show a drop in buying. Reality check—how many people actually NEED something? Christmas shopping has become mostly pointless at my home because what’s left to purchase other than newer, bigger, better, etc., of what we already own?

These are all parts of a story we’ve been told, and the conclusion to this particular story has been there’s only one way to save the economy: spend more. This story is important because we hear similar ones all the time in other areas, but we don’t always recognize the story when we hear it, so we overlook the issues like the ones outlined earlier.

The Impact of Stories

Currently, we’re told stories about global warming (note: to avoid having to explain in comments, this isn’t a challenge to it’s veracity, but rather to the idea that a story has developed around it), terrorism, identity theft, online predators, and hundreds of others. We’re told these stories because “somebody” wants a certain response, and as our world becomes more uncertain, the stories will flow at never before seen levels.

In spite of the benefit of multiple channels and sources, I think we’ll have an even greater responsibility to check out the stories we’re told. A kernel of truth is usually enough to get people to bite, but it doesn’t necessarily make for the best decisions. Keep this reality in mind as you listen to and read the stories filling your inbox, feed reader, newspaper, and television. The people telling the stories want a certain response, but is that particular response the best one for you?

Comments?

(Image courtesy of Paul Graham Raven. Some rights reserved.)