CircaSpecting: People, Tech, and Business

The power of "I was wrong"

I don't watch much TV since West Wing went off the air.  But, I love the lead character in House, played by Hugh Laurie.  I mean, aside from the fact that he's got more character flaws than a $10 diamond -- he's completely, brilliantly, insane. 

That's right, I think brilliant insanity can be a good thing. 

William James once wrote that the insane can actually reveal to us some ignored truths about reality, because they don't feel obligated to respect our group-hallucinations.  In other words, I like House because his character shows us how silly many of our supposedly "normal" perspectives are.

To wit, in an episode that aired (rerun?) last week, Dr. House taught a class of newbie residents (the "normal" people), using a difficult but real-life case from his past.  When the students were given insufficient information and asked to choose between two mutually-exclusive treatments, one of which (but they don't know which) would certainly kill the patient, roughly half chose the treatment which turned out to have saved the patient.  House then commented that the other half of the students just killed the patient, at which point one of them objected "but we can't be blamed", on the grounds that there was really no way to know for sure which treatment would work.

To which Dr. House replies with this gem:

I am sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist.  Just because you don't know what the right answer is -- even if there's no way you could know what the right answer is -- doesn't make your answer right or even OK.  It's much simpler than that: it's just plain wrong.

Nobody wants to be wrong.  But, nobody's perfect.  We need to get past this obsession with not being wrong.  It's debilitating.  Don't be paralyzed by the possibility of being wrong.  Be informed; use your head and your heart... and make a decision when needed.  Then, when you are wrong ... own it; learn from it; and move on.  Great security, comfort, and confidence derive from honest self-appraisal.

Beware: Falling Objects

A friend of mine who buys large portfolios of real estate from banks recently told me that his firm has decided to stop buying properties from banks at 80% of appraised value -- because the firm believes those offers will fall by another 20-25 points THIS YEAR, to roughly 55-60% of current appraised value levels.  Ok, folks, so assuming 10% costs to hold and market, and assuming they want to make 25% over their investment -- you could interpret their current strategy as a forecast of an additional 15-20% decline in retail price levels in the housing market this year.  Yikes.

U.S. Politics: How NOT to Lead

It’s only January, and I’m already bored to death with the presidential campaigns.  Sad.

Why is it that we have to choose between someone representing one group of people and someone else representing another group of people?  Zero-sum-game politics is so uninspiring.  Do you think that Lincoln saw himself as optimizing the then-current system toward the interests of a certain group of citizens, or did he see himself leading toward a new-and-better-for-all-of-us future?  I bet the latter.  So much of what we hear nowadays in the political arena is simply a debate about whether left or right, poor or wealthy, state or entrepreneur, hawk or dove, young or old, secular or spiritual (1) sees things as they truly are and (2) needs more of our money, time, attention, patience, talent, and the like.  Instead of the United States, our political process sounds more like it belongs to the Opportunistic Individuals.  Again, sad.

Where is the bold goal, rooted in a clear vision of our shared future, bent upon giving our grandchildren the greatest national inheritance?  Where is the crisp, compelling call to be we the people of something called one nation, with pride in the uniqueness of its socio-religio-political culture?  And, what happened to growing up?

Adulthood
We’ve grown out of "Growing up."  To borrow a notion from Mark Steyn, isn’t it odd how we fight to maintain control over choosing our cable packages, but we’re willing to let the government control our health care choices?  That sounds like something a 12-year-old would say -- instead of putting money into a college fund for me, Dad, why don’t you just buy me a new XBOX 360.  Only a child who (1) does not think about the future and (2) thinks it’s the parents’ job to worry about problems, will make such a grossly short-sighted, impulsive, and self-indulgent choice.  There is no freedom without responsibility.  That’s an old saying, but it’s taking on new meaning lately: if American citizen-adults are unwilling to step up and take personal responsibility for their choices, their families, their work, their legacies, their health, their education, their manners -- then we will continue the cultural regression into adolescence.  Most of the dominant societies of history have followed a similar course, but it would be nice to take a unique path.

Identity
When we host guests at our home for dinner, we offer thanks to God for our blessings, which include the dinner and the guests.  We play CD’s from our collection.  We serve wine from our collection.  Now, we have friends who do not share our beliefs, friends that prefer rap to our Sinatra, friends who prefer Italian wines to our Clos du Val.  But, our home is the place where Scott, Julie, Hunter, and Parker live.  We are proud of the unique traditions and practices that have made our family what it is and each family member who they are.  We are proud of our priorities -- how we spend our time, what we discuss over dinner, how we see the world, what we do for others, how we protect one another, what we sacrifice for the future.  Our kids have a sense of self AND of belonging to a clearly identified family AND of a future that blends the two in a harmony of "me" and "we."  If society is an extension of family, then there ought to be a parallel with our government.  But, I don’t see in the political discourse today a clear, compelling, and distinctive identity for "we" in a national sense.

Vision
So, assume that citizen-adults wake up and start acting like adults, and assume that we all begin to focus on our great national identity.  Then the question becomes what does the future challenge us to achieve?  I have heard no candidate deliver a clear and specific vision of the future and its challenges.  I have heard no candidate translate that vision into a grand opportunity, a grand project -- one worthy of our national effort, one capable of elevating our nation for generations, one that unites "we the people."  Interstate highway system, done it.  Man on the moon, been there.  Cold War, won it.  What’s next?  My vote is for Cheap Unlimited Renewable Energy that makes us 100% energy independent within 10 years.  Great international competitive advantage for businesses.  Great works and research opportunities for the public sector.  Great improvement in capital controls for Treasury.  Win-win-win.  Talk about transcending party politics.  Not that this is the only possible grand vision, but it’s an example of the kind of calling that we need but are not getting from any of the leading politicos.

Now, that’s a 3-point message worthy of a great leader and a great nation.

Neither Bird nor Axeman

Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day
I paused and said, "I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther--and we shall see."
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went down. The view was all in Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.

A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather--
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.

And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.

It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled--and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was grey and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.

What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

Robert Frost, "The Wood-Pile"

I love this poem.  It reminds us that life is not about "me" or about "work."  It is a good thought with which to begin the new year.

Two Books to Re-Read Every Year

I am a sentimental sap.  So, though I read voraciously, two books have a special place in my heart.  I try to read both again each year (sometimes more than once), because they reset me after bombardment with so much distraction and pseudo-sophistication and needless complexity.

• The Abolition of Man, by C. S. Lewis
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship, by Peter Drucker

Cicero said "a room without books is like a body without a soul."  Add these to your library and use them to feed your soul each year.

Double-yikes

Across the world, the less students know about science, the more optimistic they are about the chances of solving the planet's environmental problems.

A keen interest in science does not always mean being good at it.

The Economist, 12/07/2007, summary of findings from survey across OECD countries

Your Right Brain is Right

Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life 
                                                                              Pablo Picasso

It always amazes me how many people impune themselves as "uncreative."  The essence of being human is creating.  We all create, and we all love beautiful creations.  Some of the best quant geeks I've ever met are also some of the best musicians.  Some of the best coders I've ever met have the greatest taste in art.  And some of the most blue-suit-red-tie business types have created charts and presentations that are just simply artistic. 

.

I guess Picasso was right; there is something therapeutic about creating and viewing works of art.  Even for Bob in Accounts Receivable.

Sure Bets: Death, Taxes, and Failure

When I was a kid, you had to beat the other guys to get a trophy.  There was a crisp line between success and failure, and we ALL became intimately familiar with the latter.  Somewhere between then and now, along came the self-esteem campaign.  Everyone gets a trophy.  No one ever fails.

Phooey.  I fail.  You fail.  We all fail. 

But, we get to choose HOW:

Quickly     or    Slowly
Cheaply    or    Expensively
Honestly   or    Deceptively
Uniquely   or    Repeatedly

Choose wisely.

Hate Signals Success

The opposite of love is ... apathy.  In business, I’d rather be hated than just generate apathy, because apathy means you’ve failed to deliver unique value.  When you find an incredible new way to deliver precisely what some people have dreamed of having, then almost by definition some people will talk profusely about all the reasons why it’s terrible. 

When the haters come out, you know you've done something special.

Gustave Eiffel and The Democratization of Technology

This is what people thought of the Eiffel Tower when Gustave Eiffel was trying to pitch them his  project.  It’s also what many Parisians thought about it in the years immediately following its completion. 

A toy.  An eyesore.  Silly.  Not fitting with its elegant environment.

The Eiffel Tower was pitched by Gustave as a temporary exhibit for the World’s Fair.  The French authorities actually required his permit to include a provision allowing for the tower’s destruction. 

Now, over 100 years later, you’d need an army to separate the French from their tower.  It’s been visited by more than 200 million people.  It’s the most recognized image of Paris.  AND, it’s come to represent many things -- like romance and beauty -- that Gustave’s contemporaries thought it contradicted.

Sometimes visionaries look nuts.  Sometimes iconoclasts create things that elevate. 

IT professionals need to be intentional about creating opportunities for odd innovation by end-users.  For ugly innovation.  For innovation that looks like a toy.  Silly innovation.  IT must equip end-users with basic building blocks from which they can assemble new stuff: new information, new reports, new analytical systems, new publications, new communities. 

1. Open access to data.
2. Provide basic, usable construction tools.
3. Allow experimentation and discussion.
4. Watch.

If we provide them with usable components and the opportunity to plug into the data resources we control, it’s possible their simple visions can create something truly transformative.