How do you Re-culture a Culture?

11 Saturday May 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, management, psychology, Uncategorized

Tags

collaboration, competition, cooperation, culture, essay, innovation, life, marketing, sports, teamworkd

We now live (at least in the USA) in such a divided and divisive political climate that I hesitate to bring up something that sounds political but really isn’t. I don’t even have a position, at least as of yet. It’s just a thought I had while I was reaching out to people in India and inviting them to my blog.

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Here it is. The USA has a very competitive and individualistic culture. It’s been that way my whole life, but now, it’s insanely so. For one thing, people spend proportionally much more time watching TV and playing on the Internet than they do interacting face to face. In effect, everyone is “competing” not just with local talent, but with people from all over the country. In a nation of 330,000,000 people, 329,999,999 of them will not be the best runner in the country. The vast majority of people will never be winners. This may be why lotto and the Reader’s Digest drawing may be so appealing to so many.

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But it isn’t just running, and throwing, and high jump where we see competition. We have contests around human activities that have traditionally been mainly about bonding and cooperating, not about competing and winning. We have contests about cooking, and dancing, and singing. I grant you that in the past, small communities might have a dancing contest, once a year. But most of their activity was cooperative activity face to face, and certainly not cutthroat competition. Now, the contest is not part of the yearly festival. The contest is all there is. And, for the most part, the contest is all that is broadcast.

It seems that we here in America, with many exceptions and so on, have a culture of individuality and contest is everything there is. Oh, and of course, money. For instance, for far too many Americans the first question they ask about anything is “how much money?” I’ve seen articles that purport to tell retirees what the best place to retire is. Some of those articles focus solely on the financial aspects. Some articles ask which college provides the best education but all they really talk about is ROI.

We’ve actually accomplished a lot as a nation with this kind of crazy culture. It helped us achieve in terms of invention, discovery, and innovation. But what if the problems of the 21st century are of a fundamentally different nature? What if most of the problems we faced in the 20th century resonated well with a culture that encouraged competition, but that now, as we embark on the 21st century, the nature of problems has shifted. Perhaps now we face problems that require a much more collaborative and cooperative cultural attitude in order to solve?

Naturally, these are large trends that I’m talking about. Not every single problem we faced changed lock-step overnight. Let’s examine some examples though. A 1930’s problem might be: “How can we clear cut this forest as cheaply as possible?” And the logging company that solved that problem “won” and got rich. A 2030’s problem might be framed this way: “Is it feasible to provide material by using this forest in a sustainable and humane fashion? How?” One lends itself fairly well to top-down direction. One does not. The reader can guess which is which.

depth of field photography of brown tree logs

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A 1950’s problem might be: “How can we entice consumers into buying one of our new cars when their old car still works?” A 2050’s problem might be: “How do we provide a transportation system that is effective, efficient, and pleasant for everyone involved?” One is about manipulation and disregards collateral damage. The other collaboratively looks to a sustainable solution without side-effects that are so negative they outweigh the good done by the transportation system.

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Can American culture evolve quickly enough to be a partner on the world stage in the 21st century? If not, the absolute best we can hope for is slow decay full of internal bickering and hostility as people point fingers and shout loudly in order to establish blame.

Do we really need to change our culture and change it quickly to avoid that? Or, is the emphasis on competition and individuality still the right way to go?

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Other countries and cultures are already ahead of us in cooperation. Look at the cost versus benefits of their health care systems for one.

How can we change and work together as a culture to a develop a more cooperative view when we seem to be so divided and competitive? That is a real puzzle.

Do you have a piece of that puzzle? I’d love to hear about it.

Or, do you think we should “double down” on competition and individuality? I’d love to hear about that as well.

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Corn on the Cob

06 Monday May 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, family, management, psychology, Uncategorized, Veritas

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

altrusim, cats, fascism, gratitude, politics, science, selfishness, truth

{This is not part of the “Myths of the Veritas” series. But writing about these ancient, if mythical, people has caused me to reflect on how much we owe today to the millennia of humans who preceded us.}

Corn on the Cob.

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I made corn on the cob tonight for dinner. I cooked it in the micro-wave the perfect amount of time and put just the right amount of butter and seasoning. I loved it. And, I have loved corn on the cob ever since I can remember.

Now, I am guessing that most of you saw no problem with my first statement. Indeed, this is how most people speak about “making dinner” and generally the way I think about it as well.

But think for another moment. Did I really make the dinner? I might have grown the corn in my garden (in this case, I did not), but I certainly didn’t build the microwave from scratch! And, I did not milk the cow nor churn the butter. And similarly, the seasonings were not something I went out and found.

Corn? Corn was first domesticated in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. It did not look or taste like it does today. Consider: the first corn was not something that these early Mexicans discovered in a seed catalog or happened across on an afternoon stroll through the supermarket.

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There were people among these tribes who learned from people who learned from people who learned…from many generations how to grow food, how to choose the very best from among those foods and then not eat them but instead use them to seed the next generations.

I am quite sure that most of you have worked hard in your careers. Maybe your career lasted 50 years, like mine. A half century is not an inconsiderable time. But the corn that we eat today is the result of the labor of many people: ancient Mexicans; early settlers to the American continent; scientists from across the globe. The overall effort it took to create the corn that I cooked today is undoubtedly thousands of times greater than the effort I spent preparing it.

Not to mention the microwave! How did that come about? How many scientists and engineers over how many years? Of course, they could not even have begun to work on such a thing without other scientists and mathematicians from around the world advancing basic physics, equations, zero, numbers, counting — going back again — thousands of years!

Statue of Archimedes who brought value to many, and who was killed by a Roman soldier.

A similar timeline exists for salt, pepper, and butter. Have you ever actually seen a cow? They’re big! They’re strong! Who knows how many ancient peoples died in the process of trying to domesticate cows.

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And, let us not forget the leisure that comes from living in a house and not fighting off Saber-Tooth tigers while I’m trying to cook. (Although our youngest kitten Luna, did persistently try to lick the butter and nibble the tuna salad. She’s still young and has much to learn.)

Everything in the way of goods and services and security that we enjoy in a so-called “civilized” society is something we might think is something we “deserve” because, after all, we worked hard all our lives. But let’s not forget that if you were born in the stone age, you could work hard all your life and not get anything like the luxuries we have today. Those products and services are the result of countless numbers of other people who tried to leave the earth better for their fellow humans than the way they found it.

The next time a thought crosses your mind that you ought to be able to keep every cent of the income that “you” earned, hopefully you will chew awhile on the fact that everything you enjoy today is the result of other living beings doing things for themselves and doing things for future generations. Some of them were your direct ancestors but the vast majority were not. They were people of all colors, countries and religious persuasions.

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And, every time you look at your computer screen, or watch a movie, or put on a pair of shoes, or use your indoor plumbing, or sleep in a vermin free house, or listen to a song, or pet your dog without it biting off your hand — all these things we take for granted were vast gifts from earlier and current generations.

Yes, you should we rewarded for your hard work, but let’s not delude ourselves. The fraction of all that we have that we could have achieved on our own is miniscule.

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Tu-Swift’s Dream

27 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized, Veritas

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Tags

communication, ethics, horses, legend, myth, story, truth

Tu-Swift dreamed of one of the childhood games he most loved. In the game, the children stood in a circle and one, the “beater” tapped out a complex and complicated rhythm, typically just hitting one stick on another. The “caller” then called out a series of moves. The “dancer” then had to perform the moves in time to to the rhythm. The rest critiqued the performance. Generally, the “dancer” had to repeat the moves several times before perfecting the timing. Tu-Swift almost always “got” the correct rhythm immediately. Indeed, he often added various embellishments for “style.” His only fault was sometimes performing a movement one beat too quickly. Indeed, it was this, rather than his running speed, which first encouraged his clan-mates to call him “Tu-Swift.”

Now, he had returned in his dreams to these pleasant games, but as he viewed the dream children, they made longer and ridiculously complicated rhythms. The children in the dream grew old, morphing into Veritas adults such as Shadow Walker and Fleet of Foot. The tempo accelerated and even Tu-Swift had trouble keeping up. The game had gone all wrong and they seemed to all be drumming much too quickly to follow.

A snake slithered toward the drum. Its giant fanged mouth opened wide and it reared back ready to strike. Tu-Swift heard a scream and awoke. He shook his head in the dim early light of day. He was puzzled that the children and the adults had all disappeared. He realized he had been dreaming and that the scream was his own.

Day-Nah face furrowed into a worry gully. Tu-Swift smiled and spoke reassuringly to the younger boy. Though Tu-Swift realized the youngster understood very little of the tongue of the Veritas, he hoped his tone would communicate enough. It seemed to work. The boy no longer looked frightened.

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Tu-Swift realized now that a nearby woodpecker tapped out the complex rhythms he had heard. They really were complex though. He frowned. Something was not right about this particular woodpecker. It had too many variations and the sound was too “bright” yet not loud enough to sound right.

The phrase “On the northern side” suddenly came to mind. Then, “Are you okay?” Tu-Swift began to wonder whether he was still dreaming. “Where are you?” “Answer when you can.” I am not dreaming, Tu-Swift thought to himself. Those are drums! Well, not exactly drums, but this was the drum-style of Shadow Walker! He was out there pretending to be a woodpecker and sending him messages. They had come for him!

Just then, he heard the the voices of the captors talking amongst themselves and drawing nearer to the building where the horses were kept, and where he and Day-Nah now made their home as well. Soon, the two boys were untied from the pillar and led, their feet still tethered, to the paddock where the same three burly men gestured and shouted that they were to further separate the foals from their mares. The narrow passage that Tu-Swift had engineered worked pretty well, but a few of the foals had not yet ventured into the narrow passage and would have to be encouraged to enter it. Such “encouragement” might be misinterpreted by the mares who might, in turn, smash the small boys with their hooves or give them a nasty bite.

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Tu-Swift grabbed two sticks from the nearby woodpile and walked over slowly to a point outside the fence near where a mare and her foal foraged inside. He spoke gently to them, as he always did, as he approached. Now, he took the two sticks and banged them together. He glanced over at the three burly men who seemed to be more concerned with their own heated discussion than they were in directing the labors of the boys. Tu-Swift hoped the Veritas were still nearby for the paddock was near the northern end of camp. He tried to use his drumming so that the three who stand atop horses would think he was trying to scare the horses into separating, but meanwhile, he tapped out: “I am here. I am OK. There is a small boy here too. Horses will soon escape. Come back after dark. After moonset. We are tied at night. I can untie. We will be in large building with horses.” He repeated the message again and managed to scare the foal into the small side pen. The foal’s mother was furious and wild that she couldn’t get back to her foal and slammed her hooves into the fence. For a moment, Tu-Swift thought she would destroy the fence. But all that sound and fury, even though it came from his mother, scared the small horse further into the corner.

The burly men now came and tied the two boys back to back against a small elm tree while they threw other loops of rope around the foal and led it somewhere unknown. The mare grew frantic as the three men dragged, pushed, and scolded the foal into another place that the boys could not see, nor presumably could the mare.

Tu-Swift wanted to tell the small boy about the rescuers and the drum messages. But Day-Nah’s understanding of Veritas remained minimal. Without being able to use his hands, he didn’t think he could explain how their situation had changed. As he thought about it, Tu-Swift considered than perhaps it was better not to explain the situation. Day-Nah was almost as helpless as the foals that he had just helped capture. Who knew how he might react to such news. Tu-Swift had himself struggled not to let any joy escape his heart and make visible camp on his face.

Soon, the men returned and “freed” the two boys so they could separate another pair. Tu-Swift again wielded two sticks and repeated his message. In due course, the third and final pair were separated. Now, the boys were returned to the barn, provided a meal, and tied to a pillar so that they could move about five feet in any direction.

Shadows grew long and the evening air grew chill. Tu-Swift busied himself teaching Day-Nah some simple commands that could prove useful if they got the chance to escape. It occurred to Tu-Swift on several occasions that they could simply leave the boy behind. But each time he considered it, such an action, while recognizing its convenience, he had no doubt whatever he would be feeding the “bad wolf.”

Tu-Swift noticed that his mind always offered plausible excuses when such cowardly thoughts arose. “Let his own tribe come and save him.” “He will just slow us down.” “He’ll give away our position.” “Maybe he’ll be happier here. Who knows?” Tempting, but like the other Veritas, he had been taught at a very early age to understand that such thoughts were “Poison Ivy seeds.”

Many Paths had used that analogy showing Tu-Swift that, as is the way of many plants, poison ivy could spread by vine growth but also did sometimes sprout flowers and these flowers made white fruits which would fall to the ground and if conditions proved favorable, new vines could grow. Such seeds were poison to eat or even to touch, Many Paths had explained and so were easy rationalizations of selfishness.

The knocking of the “woodpecker” returned and tore away his reverie. Shadow Walker’s drumming continued and repeated. “We will come for you just after moonset. Be awake. Be ready.” Tu-Swift took out the small sharp stone he managed to squirrel away and tapped out his response against the pillar to which they were tied. He hoped it could be heard, for there was now much stirring and moving about in the camp as they prepared for dinner.

“Ready. We are in large building with horses. Take me to horse fence. I will set them free.”

Tu-Swift had still not found a way to communicate any of this to Day-Nah, and tried to hide his excitement. He made sure Day-Nah understood Veritas for “fast,” “slow,” “quiet,” and “hide.” After it seemed that the people who steal children were all asleep, he tapped out his message again. He hoped it sounded enough like a woodpecker not to arouse suspicion. He tried to recall whether he had ever heard a woodpecker at night but he wasn’t sure. Soon, the moon would be setting. He again emphasized “quiet” for the youngster. Then, he tried to explain escape. He had been worried the boy might shout for joy, but there was neither a shout for joy, nor, so far as Tu-Swift could see, the slightest understanding of “escape.”

Well, he either would understand when the time came or not. Tu-Swift took his sharp stone and rapidly shredded the remaining bonds on his feet, weakened earlier by the hungry, eager teeth of the horses. Each foot still sprouted a long length of rope, not ideal for running through underbrush to escape a people who stood atop horses. He had no time to cut through all the ropes but tied the loose ends as tightly as he could around his ankles to make it less likely they would trip him. Then, he began cutting through the bonds that held Day-Nah’s from full strides.

Tu-Swift saw the youngster’s eyes grow wide in the dim light. Day-Nah whispered the word for “escape” and smiled. Day-Nah’s bonds at last were also cut through and Tu-Swift tied each of the loose ends around first one and then the other of the boy’s ankles. Now, they waited. Tu-Swift listened but no drumming came. The frogs were certainly noisy tonight though!

Then, the image of Shadow Walker came to his mind. Shadow Walker had once spent an evening talking with Many Paths and Tu-Swift about snakes and frogs and made a very realistic frog sound. It suddenly hit Tu-Swift that Shadow Walker was talking to them! He was hiding his voice in the voice of the frogs! What was he saying? Of course! He was instructing them to go outside if they could and sneak back to the paddock.

After the first night, they had always been tied to a pillar at night. He had no idea whether there were nearby guards, but he had not seen or heard any evidence of such. He again emphasized to Day-Nah that they must be quiet, quiet, quiet. Just as the last moonbeams sunk beneath the forest of firs, Tu-Swift lay along the ground and looked out into the large open space next to the barn. Seeing nothing, he wriggled a bit further as the wind blew. “Patience, Tu-Swift, patience” he told himself while imagining Many Paths saying that to him.

brown frog surrounded by green floating pants on water

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Essay on Feeding the “Good Wolf”

The Drums of Hooves, Humans, & Hearts

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized, Veritas

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empathy, horses, innovation, myths, politics, rescue, truth

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The search party followed the obvious signs of the horses. Eagle Eyes and Fleet of Foot took the lead. Just as they approached a considerable foothill covered mainly in weeds and scrub oak, Fleet of Foot noticed that Eagle Eyes glanced ahead and shook her head. Fleet of Foot queried her. “What does your head shaking signify, Eagle Eyes?”

Eagle Eyes laughed slightly. “I cannot fathom how they can be so bad at hiding their trail. How can they be smart enough to train horses and yet too stupid to cover their own trail?”

Fleet of Foot paused in his long, loping strides. “Indeed. Unless it is a trap. It is very much as though they actually want us to be able to follow their trail.” He held up his hand and they all stopped before ascending the hill in order to parley briefly.

Lion Slayer and Hudah Salah came up to the scouts and Lion Slayer asked quietly, “What’s up? Did you lose the trail? No, I can see you didn’t.”

Eagle Eyes spoke next. “That’s just it. This trail is so easy to follow, we again worry that we may be following the trail into a trap of some kind. I know we all hurry to save Tu-Swift, but it won’t help him much if we are all captured!”

Shadow Walker sensed the group worry of facing an uncertain enemy. Each of them, even their banquet guests, felt urgency to find Tu-Swift as quickly as possible, even knowing that he might have been killed days ago. He scanned the land ahead.

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“You are right to be cautious. A people who stand on horses and steal children are difficult to understand. Now, we also learn from our friends from the South that such people lie as a way of life, pretending to something they do not really believe to gain material benefit. Also, we see from our own eyes and fingertips and ears that they have some kind of hard, dead rock that they have fashioned to their own purposes. Who knows what other tricks they may have. Still, the trail is clear for now. Let us ascend this hill at least and before we attain the summit, before we may be clearly seen to stick out among the brush, we will stop again and plan our next steps. There is insufficient cover for a large party to ambush us. The pups seem to sense no danger either but are eager to continue. I still suspect, but do not know, that these people rely on speed more than stealth. Perhaps they judge that it takes too long to cover their trail. Covering the trail of trained warriors is one thing. Covering the trail of our huge four legged cousins might be too difficult and time-consuming. It would diminish their advantage of speed.”

After a silence, they all nodded their agreement and the group again spread out and ascended to just below the hill crest without further discussion. They reached a pleasant spot near a bent oak. Eagle Eyes crept alone to the brim of the hill, being careful to move only when the wind moved the grasses and weeds. She crawled back after a time to report on what she had seen.

“I think we are close! The trail continues just as obvious as ever. The other side of this hill is much like the side we already know. At the end of the downslope there is another stream to ford. It appears that there is a broad road down there. On the far side of the stream, I see the smoke of several fires rising among the fir trees. Of course, I do not know what lies further beyond, but it appears we are close to at least one of their villages. Yet, I see no sign of lookouts.”

Shadow Walker considered this as everyone seemed to look at him for a plan. “You do have amazing sight, Eagle Eyes. Though the child stealers do not care about their trail, we now much proceed with some caution. Rather than come up over the crest of the hill, where we could easily be seen, I think we should descend on this side and wait until cover of dark and very carefully ford the stream to scout out their camp without being seen or heard. We should go in our three pairs, see what we see, and return to this place to further plan with our new knowledge. Does that seem a good plan?”

The group looked at each other, but no-one had a better plan and they all nodded. When the moon rose, they began to pick their way down the leeward side of the hill. Privately, Shadow Walker had been a bit concerned as to whether the Nomads of the South could tread silently but he quickly realized that they were every bit as stealthy as the Veritas themselves.

Soon, they were all at the edge of the icy river. Each braced themselves for the cold shock so as not to gasp aloud. The river proved easy to ford and on the far side they split up into pairs, cautiously and slowly approaching the camp though none could see a sign of any guards.

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Shadow Walker and Easy Tears crept around the eastern side of the encampment, giving a wide berth. The ROI, if that’s what they were, seemed singularly inactive at night. They heard no dancing, drumming, or singing. At they worked their way further north, Shadow Walker heard the noise of horses. He made a gesture to signify the animals with his fingers and Easy Tears nodded. Shadow Walker recalled that once, long ago, he had played with a very young Tu-Swift making the shapes of all manner of creatures with their hands while mimicking their sounds as well. He felt his love for Tu-Swift and, for a moment, wanted to scream his name out in the night. But such foolishness, he knew, could mean death for them all, including Tu-Swift. At last, they came quite close to a large fenced in space where many horses milled about and nickered nervously. The human duo hid behind a large, nearby stack of split wooden logs.

Shadow Walker peered again at the horses and frowned. Something was not right about these horses. Although their main task was to free Tu-Swift, he also wished to know more about these horses. Putting his head close to the ground, he spied around the wood pile at the horses. He frowned. He could see that they were tethered leg to leg and foot to foot so that they could not really run free but only walk slowly from place to place. Shadow Walker grimaced. It felt unnatural and anti-life to him to tether a creature with such an obvious love of speed and freedom. Apparently, the horses did not much care for such tethering either for several of them were attempting to chew through these ropes or vines that ligated their legs. He watched the horses but learned little more.

He looked over at Easy Tears and noticed how beautiful her skin looked in the glow of the moon. He thought then of Many Paths and wished once again that they had had time to talk of whether they should marry. He smiled as he recalled the first time he had felt true love for her beyond his strong desire. It had happened when she was describing what she had learned about the wolves. He had listened to her words and felt beyond her words to her imagination, her cunning, her careful observation, her empathy and even love for the wolves.

He wished that he could have her advice right now along with the gentle touch of her hand. He looked at his own rings of empathy and remembered their trials. He took off the First Ring of Empathy, with its odd double-vision crystal and took it between forefinger and thumb and turned it in the moonlight. Easy Tears noticed and smiled at him.

He looked at the face of Easy Tears. She said nothing, but he distinctly heard the voice of Many Paths say, “Drums” as clearly as though she had been right beside him. He looked again at Easy Tears but she had not spoken. He was sure of it. And, the clear and gentle voice he had heard was definitely that of Many Paths, not Easy Tears.

Shadow Walker shook his head. He was probably tired from the long journey and the lack of sleep. Perhaps they should be turning back to rejoin the others. Who knew how late these people awoke, these stealers of children. Again, he heard Many Paths speak the word “Drums” quite clearly and distinctly. He shook his head at his own foolishness and recalled the time that they had used drums to communicate with Pond Mud among the …

Shadow Walker returned the ring to the ring finger of his left hand.

“Drums!” he whispered aloud. Easy Tears turned to him and frowned, thinking it odd he had broken protocol to speak, even in a whisper, so deep inside an enemy camp.

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Symmetry

23 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by petersironwood in management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

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Business, Design, HCI, human factors, Human-Computer Interaction, politics, truth, UX, Web design

{Something went wrong with WordPress the first two times I tried to post this. I tried to track it down. As best I can tell, my problems came from trying to cut and paste pictures from my Pages file. Even though it looked fine in the editing interface, it appeared blank in the actual viewing interface.}

Symmetry

(Original, free-hand drawing by Zoe Colier).

There are many varieties of symmetry. In many cases, symmetry exists rampantly in nature and symmetry is incorporated into many human designs as well. In this short essay, I want to remind people of several varieties of symmetry and then show how symmetry may also be used as a tool of thought to help solve problems by simplifying the space of possibilities that must be considered.

Symmetry is a concept with far broader application than cutting out paper snowflakes or choosing a nice looking Christmas Tree, Menorah or other Holiday decoration. It is fundamental in logic, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and even in social science. Symmetry exists at many different scales as well. Planets are generally roughly spherical and their orbits are roughly circular.

The human body, along with most other animals, exhibits rough bilateral symmetry in external appearance. If you examine your own fingerprints or the pattern of your moles, for instance, you will see that one side of your body looks slightly different from a mirror image. If, like me, you are a righty who play tennis, you will find the forearm muscles on your right arm are slightly larger than those on the left. What is remarkable to me is not that there are slight variations between left and right but just how slight those variations are! And, we are not alone. Fish, insects, flatworms, roundworms, snakes, turtles, lizards, horses, dogs, cats, apes, and humans are all roughly bilaterally symmetrical in appearance. I say “in appearance” because our internal arrangement of organs is not at all symmetrical.

External Appearance and Internal Organs

In general, it seems to me that most animals possess more complete or “perfect” bilateral symmetry than do most plants. I suspect that this is because animals generally move through a physical environment. Since we can move around, the environmental forces are generally symmetrical and so our ability to react to those environmental forces is also symmetrical. A tree, on the other hand, may have a genetic “blueprint” to be bilaterally or (more likely) radially symmetrical, but it may be subject to strong asymmetrical forces such as wind, a water source, or sunlight versus shade.

Our designed objects are also most often (at least) bilaterally symmetrical, and particularly for those objects which must interact and move through the physical world. Cars, boats, motorcycles, busses, trains, trucks, bikes, skis, surfboards, roller skates, ice skates, snowshoes and tennis shoes all tend to be bilaterally symmetrical. On the inside, however, again just like us, there are often some irregularities. The arrangement of controls of the car, for instance, are asymmetrical. (Each control in itself often does show symmetry. In some cases, this makes it easier to use, especially without looking. I suspect that the symmetry may often be for aesthetic reasons, for ease of manufacturing, for ease of maintenance or replacement or some combination.) The asymmetry of arrangement “works” because the arrangement of displays and controls does not interact with the natural world the way that the car body and wheels do. The controls are designed to interact with a human being. There are also rough conventions for where controls are laid out, how they operate, and what each type looks like. Asymmetry of arrangement is also evident under the hood. However, some of the components such as the engine, the battery, the radiator have symmetry within them. The radiator, which arguably has the most interaction with the outside world, is symmetrically placed though its plumbing is not.

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In the design of User Interaction and Experience, an argument can be made for certain kinds of symmetry. For example, in the Mac editor Pages, which I am using to write this, if the B for bold button background turns blue when bolding is turned on, I expect the background will turn back the way it was (white) when bolding is turned back off. I also expect that italics and underlining will behave the same way, especially because all three are in the same toolbar.

Where possible, it also generally makes sense, I believe, to design so that the functionality of a system is symmetrical. This isn’t always possible. Some actions are necessarily irreversible. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who has toddlers or who has cats as pets. In the real world, if you shoot someone dead, you cannot “unshoot” them. Unlike a computer system who asks, “Do you really want to delete all your files?” before doing so, guns do not ask that. If you are designing what can be done with a toy robot however, if you can make it go forward, you want to make it so it can go back as well. If it can turn right 90 degrees, you would like to enable it to turn left 90 degrees. Saying, “Oh, yes, but don’t you see, you can, in effect, make it turn left 90 degrees by making it turn right 90 degrees three times?!” does not cut it, IMHO.

Typically, you not only want the functionality to be symmetrical, you also want the control functions and appearances to mirror the symmetry of the functionality. For example, if you can issue the command: “MOVE ROBOT FORWARD THREE PACES” you want the symmetrical function to be evoked this way: “MOVE ROBOT BACKWARD THREE PACES” and not, “THREE PACES BACKWARD FOR ROBOT MOVE.” If you decide to give auditory feedback for the first command that says, “ROBOT MOVING FORWARD THREE PACES” you do not want the reverse command to provide feedback that says, “ROBOT THREE PACES BACKWARD MOVING.” (Oh, by the way, if you cannot provide symmetrical functionality, please do not pretend to do so with a facade of symmetrical looking commands that actually behave asymmetrically!)

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A lack of symmetry (or consistency) in the functionality, command structure, or visual appearance often arises because of a lack of communication within the development team. If different functions of the robot are to be implemented by different people, then it’s important that those various people use an agreed upon style guide or Pattern Language or that they communicate frequently. Of course, this is not the only cause of asymmetry. Even if your team communicates really well, they can’t design an effective gun with an “unkill” function.

There are, of course, various types of symmetry. Bilateral (mirror) symmetry is what the external appearance of our bodies has. There is also translational symmetry, where the same shape is repeated along a line. The string ABCCBA shows bilateral symmetry while ABCABC exhibits translational symmetry. Most human factors people now agree that hot water faucets (usually on the left) and cold water faucets (usually on the right) should both be turned off by turning to the right and turned on by turning to the left (translational symmetry) as opposed to having the faucet on the right turn off to the right and the left faucet turn off to the left. But you will definitely experience both types.

In both music and poetry, at least in the culture I am most familiar with, translational symmetry is more common than mirror symmetry. It does sometimes happen that musical composers experiment with playing a tune backwards or even with the staff turned upside down. But this is far less common than repeating a theme or melody. Similarly, a rhyme scheme like ABCABC is much more common than is ABCCBA. {In this notation, ABCABC means that the first line rhymes with the fourth line, the second line rhymes with the fifth line and the third line rhymes with the sixth line.}

black and brown millipede on a green and brown branch

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In biology, we also find translational symmetry or something close to it. The segments of a tape worm, the segments of the body of a millipede or centipede, the small legs of a lobster, and even our own vertebrae and ribs show translational symmetry. In social structures as well, we find both mirror symmetry and translational symmetry. For instance, the Golden Rule says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In addition, as it happens, if we are nicer to other people, then, generally speaking, they are also nicer to us. This is not always true, however. Some people simply take advantage and view all of life as a zero sum game. Whatever you gain, they lose and vice versa. This is a very limited, inaccurate, and self-defeating attitude in most social situations. Most social situations, are, of course, much more complicated. Generally speaking, there are a great many situations that both you and your “opponent” or even your “enemy” would agree are good and a great many others that both of you would agree are bad. If you are playing tennis or golf outdoors, for instance, you may be fiercely competitive but both of you would probably find a game that brings out the best play is better for both of you. Both of you would probably also agree that being rained out is a bad outcome.

men in black and red cade hats and military uniform

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In the military and in many industrial settings, there is a great deal of translational symmetry. The “ideal” set-up is to have many groups at each of many levels and each group is meant to be as similar as possible to all the other groups at that level. The marching that military groups learn is both symbolic of this translational symmetry and practice in behaving as a unit composed of identical parts. Whether or not this is the best way to run a military is debatable. To me, it’s undeniable that this management style has been imported into a huge number of organizations where it is definitely not the best way to organize.

The last thing to note is that symmetry also pops up in design. There is often a whole series of information exchanges from people who have quite different areas of expertise. These exchanges can result in mutual learning, solutions that work, and often patents, and occasionally, some really cool, transcendent, game-changing designs. In my experience, it is much better to have a design process based on symmetrical relationships founded in mutual respect than to have a design process based on having someone in a hierarchical power relationship make decisions that are to be implemented by an identical set of “underlings.”

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The Takeaway

Symmetry is everywhere. There are many forms. If you start looking for symmetry, you will find examples in nature, in mathematics, poetry, art, music, machine design, the military and even in design problems and design processes. Thinking quite consciously about the types of symmetry that exist in a problem space and what could or should exist in that problem space, can lead to novel solutions.

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Author Page on Amazon.

Resonance

20 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

creativity, Design, Feedback, golf, harmonics, learning, politics, programming, resonance, sports, testing, thinking, timing

Resonance

If you have ever pushed your kids on a swing, you know that timing is important. If you add the power of your next push just as the child reaches the apex and begins to fall back, you will swing your child higher and higher with little effort. On the other hand, if you add the power of your next swing at the bottom of the arc just as the swing is moving toward you at maximum speed, you will nearly stop the swing and likely injure yourself and/or your kid. Please don’t try it.

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In sports as well, the timing of when you add your effort is critical. In golf, for instance, many beginners think a lot about their hands, probably because we use our hands for many daily tasks such as texting, flipping burgers, playing video games, etc. While the hands are certainly important in the golf swing, they are the last thing to bring to bear on the golf swing, not the first. If you add your hands and wrists at the last moments right before you hit the ball, you will be accelerating the club face as you hit the golf ball. You will have greater velocity and also more stability and hence more accuracy for the shot.

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The golf swing is a complex athletic move that I cannot describe in detail. Here’s what is important in this context. Some parts of the golf swing (notice the word: swing) are much like a pendulum. The longer parts of the body (e.g., the arms) take longer to swing on their own. The shorter parts of the body take a shorter time to swing on their own (e.g., the hands). In addition, the shortest pendulum (the hands) is at the end of the longer arm swing. This means that for the arm swing and the hand/wrist moves to multiply effectively, you must engage the hands and wrists toward the bottom of the arm swing when the arms are already moving at top speed.

What is True in Mechanics and Sports is also True in Social Engineering.

If you work in a highly competitive, even cut-throat sales environment, in which there is a long tradition of stealing commissions, grabbing each other’s customers, etc., having the sales manager say something like, “You know what? Let’s cooperate! Put the customer’s interests first, not your own commission” is pretty much useless. A manager’s exhortation to cooperate is a short term high frequency “push” but it will be just as ineffective as trying to start your golf swing with your hands, or trying to push a swing with all your might when your kid is swinging toward you at top speed. If the cultural milieu is cut-throat, the manager’s statement will not be sufficient to change that culture. What the sales people will do is make sure that they have a semi-plausible story ready about how stealing someone else’s commission was really best for the customer.

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On the other hand, imagine instead that sales people have shared commissions for years and that the company takes many steps to build social capital and cooperation among everyone on the sales force. Now, the manager may do something publicly to praise an actual instance of cooperation. It doesn’t have to be heavy-handed or over the top. It is a gentle push that adds energy to what people are already doing. This is akin to adding the hands to a good golf swing or adding your swing push just as your kid begins to descend.

Don’t get me wrong. If your house is on fire, you should leave. Grab your kids and pets but don’t bother with last weeks losing lottery tickets.

But — you also need to understand why your house caught fire – perhaps faulty wiring – and why the fire was not immediately doused – e.g., your fire extinguishers are out of date. If you don’t fix underlying problems, your next house is likely to catch fire as well.

If your culture is so materialistic and superficial that a blow-hard sleaze bag who seems to have great material wealth is celebrated no matter how he or she came by that wealth and fame, you may have to deal with the short term problem first, but unless you also deal with the underlying cultural, social, and economic problems, you’ll likely find yourself in precisely the same situation again. The same or other foreign enemies will attempt to exploit those same weaknesses again by finding a different celebrity with deep underlying character defects. Those enemies will push particularly hard during a crisis or an election and they will push particularly hard in the errant directions that society is already trending toward.

The String’s the Thing Wherein We’ll Capture the Conscience of a King

Next time you have access to a piano, try the following experiment. Gently push down the C, E, and G keys above middle C. Keep them pressed down with your right hand and then strike middle C sharply with your left hand and let it go. What you will hear is that the strings of C major (C, E, G) will vibrate for quite a time after you release the middle C key. If instead, you gently push and hold down the D, F, and A keys above middle C, you will hear very little sound coming from them. Why? Because the harmonic resonance of middle C is greater with the C, E, and G than it is the D, F and A keys. Similarly, some people will tend to “resonate” with certain messages more than others will.

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This is why, for example, Russian fake news that was meant to suppress the black vote carried false stories to indicate Democratic candidates didn’t care about the “Black Lives Matter” movement, while false stories about how Democratic candidates don’t care about gay rights were targeted toward the LGBTQ community. Of course, even putting Russian election interference aside, candidates typically target their messages to those that will “resonate” with particular voters. For instance, a candidate who believes in an isolationist foreign policy, forgiving student loans, low estate taxes, and better benefits for veterans might focus a speech to a group of veterans on their desire to see better benefits for veterans. The same politician, when speaking to college students, will tend to focus on forgiving student loans. That has been “business as usual” for my entire adult life. What was really new to me in 2108 was this: an entire raft of Republican candidates promoted the idea that they were concerned about making sure that insurance companies covered pre-existing conditions. In fact, they had always voted against it and were suing to make this provision of Obamacare illegal.

Prior to the existence of lying news networks and fake web sites who would echo such lies, politicians of either party would be reluctant to employ blatant lying about their positions because, even putting ethics aside, they would be easily discovered. However, if some of their constituents only believe fake news networks, then such politicians feel that they can lie with impunity The news presented on such networks resonates with what the lying politicians say and resonates with what those viewers want to hear and believe about the people toward whom they are already favorably disposed.

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Resonance and the Overly Long Time Lag.

While managing a research project on the psychology of aging at Harvard Med School, I lived in a suburb called Woburn. This rented house had a hot water heating system, and at some point, during a particularly bitter cold New England winter, the furnace stopped working. I could have called in a professional, but instead, I tried to fix it myself. As a part of this system, there was a small gauge that looked a lot like the gauges in a level, but this one was upright and generally half filled with water. I noticed that now, instead of being half filled with water, it was only about 1/10 filled with water. I didn’t exactly understand why this could be problematic but the instructions said it should be half filled with water and there was a valve to let more water in. So, slowly and cautiously, I opened the valve. Nothing happened. I opened it a bit more. Nothing happened. I opened it a bit more. Nothing. I was about to give up and call a repair person. All at once, the little vial began to fill. Yay, me! I turned the valve off because the instructions also said the gauge should not be overfilled. But it kept filling. And filling. Damn! I made sure the valve was closed tightly. It kept filling anyway! Double damn! The gauge exploded! I had been the victim of — well hubris, of course, because I thought I could figure it out — but also a victim of delayed feedback. When feedback is delayed, all sorts of havoc can ensue.

photography of green and red fire works display

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You may have experienced a similar time lag issue with hotel showers. You turn up the hot water and the shower water stays cold. You turn it up more. It stays cold. You turn it up more and it still stays cold. And then…all at once you’re being boiled to death in your own shower and you begin wondering who will find the naked body.

Back in the early days of using LOTUS NOTES, there was a button on my screen that said, “REPLICATE.” And if I clicked on that button, a replication process would start. (Basically, it was downloading my email from the server to my ThinkPad). But sometimes, the mouse click did not register. This might not be a giant issue. In other cases, I would simply click again and this worked for most applications. But in this case, NOTES put up another button, in the same exact spot as the REPLICATE button, that said, “STOP REPLICATION.” The State of the Replication Process, however, was not accurately reflected by the State of the Button on the screen! This was endlessly annoying and could easily have been avoided. There was plenty of screen real estate to put a “REPLICATE” button along side the “STOP REPLICATION” button. Once connection speeds were faster and the computational facilities themselves were faster, this UX issue ceased to be an issue because there was no noticeable time lag between the state of the process and the state of the button.

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However, I still run into similar issues with Cable TV remotes. Do you? The time lags associated with clicking something on the remote and something happening on the screen is so long, that you begin to wonder whether the battery has gone dead or whether it is aimed wrong or whether the button was not fully depressed. Indeed, I sometimes wonder whether the entire system is truly electronic. I have begun to believe that the button press actually sends an ultrasonic dog whistle to a pack of hungry weasels who hear the whistle. To them, it’s a signal that they are about to be fed. They begin scampering in unseen cages toward their food dishes. The scampering of their feet is picked up by sensors under the floors of the cages. These sensors cause dials to change in a control room staffed by retired school janitors who push a series of buttons that change the channel or the input designation or turn on captioning, but only after they finish the New York Times crossword puzzle they are working on. Then, and only then, does the desired action take place. But if and only if you’ve been patient enough not to hit the button a second time.

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Of course, if you are the user in this scenario, there is a fix. Push the button once and only once. Now, go outside and run around the neighborhood for fifteen minutes before interacting a second time with the remote. Sure, it takes a long time to get to your program but you’ll be in much better shape after just a few months of this regimen.

On the other hand, if you are the designer of such systems, you might consider that it would be less expensive in the long run to replace the ultrasonic dog whistles, the weasels and the retired janitors with an actual system of electronics which, after all, is supposed to run at nearly the speed of light.

landscape photography of field with wind mill with rainbow

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The Takeaway

In comedy, timing, as in life, and UX design, and pushing your kid on the swing, and your golf swing, and social interventions, and election interference, and human short term memory limitations, is everything.

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Author Page on Amazon.

Non-Linearity

20 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

environment, equilibrium, feedback loops, ping pong, research, science, systems thinking, table tennis, testing, truth

Non-linearity

A Chessboard Full of Rice

According to myth, the Emperor’s wise adviser once did him a great favor. So grateful was the Emperor that he begged his wise advisor to take any gift she might like from the vast treasures of gold or jewels, any lands or gardens, any of the Emperor’s many male children to be her companion. However, the advisor answered as follows: “Thank you for your generosity, oh mighty Emperor. I have no need of great material wealth. My needs and wants are simple. I do get hungry and thirsty, of course, as do we all, and sometimes my household runs short of rice. You see this fine chessboard?”

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“Oh, yes, my wise counselor, it is indeed finely made of gold and silver and I would gladly give you twenty such!”

“Thank you again for your generosity, but I only wish for a some grains of rice. Give me one grain on this space and tomorrow, two grains on this space and the next day, four grains on this space. Each day for 64 days, double the number of grains of rice you gave me the day before. At the end of the 64 days, I will ask for no more.”

The Emperor looked puzzled. “Surely, you must have something more valuable than rice! Name it!”

“No, Sire, that is all I desire. Just the doubled rice will do quite nicely.”

“Well, it shall be so!” And thus the Emperor told his staff that they were to provide a grain of rice for the first day, two grains of rice for the next day and to double the amount each day until all 64 days had passed. At first, it seemed such a pathetic gift for such a great favor.

Even after 8 days, the wise counselor only received 128 grains of rice – not even a bowlful.

Readers familiar with exponential growth realize that on the 64th day, the Emperor has promised to deliver 2**63 grains of rice. This is not only more rice than the Emperor had at his disposal. It is more grains of rice than exist in all the kingdoms of earth. To be exact, the last payment is meant to be 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 grains of rice while the total is one less than 2**64. To put the matter scientifically — it’s a lot of rice! Much more than exists in the world.

How would you like the story to end? A wise Emperor, to my mind, would thank the counselor after a couple weeks and say, “I see, oh wise Counselor, that you used my gift to give me another gift to enhance my wisdom. For I now understand that what seemed at first an easy thing to do is actually quite hard. Doubling soon undoes even the richest king. I will keep this in mind when I think about interest rates and population growth.”

A crummy Emperor, on the other hand, might say, “I offer you a gift and you see fit to embarrass me by making me agree to an impossible task? Boil her in oil!”

The Lily Pad Pond Puzzle.

Beside my house is a pond. In this pond, a lily pad began to grow. Every day, it doubled in size. On day 20, it completely covered the surface of the pond. The surface of the pond is 400 square feet. How many days did it take to cover half of the pond?

red and green lily pads focus photography

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At first glance, you might think this problem is insoluble because you don’t know how big the lily pad was initially. In fact, you don’t even need to know how large the pond is. It will cover half the pond on day 19.

The Ping Pong Table Ping Pong Player Population

When I began at IBM Research in 1973, I soon discovered that a fair number of researchers were avid table tennis players. At lunch time, somewhere between six and twenty researchers would show up to play. There were two tables and some small amount of room for spectators to stand on the edges of the two ping-pong rooms and watch. Our rule was that if a person won, they would stay at the table and a new challenger would play. However, if you won three times in a row, you had to sit down regardlessly. I didn’t go over every lunch time, but I went over quite a few times over the course of my first ten years there and there was invariably someone to play with. Sometimes, I had a longer wait time than others, but it was never too long a wait.

Then, because management wanted to use one of the two ping-pong rooms for other purposes, they repurposed one of the rooms. Now, there was only one ping pong table. In the two ping-pong table case, remember, I never had to wait too long nor did I ever go there and have no-one to play. As I said, the number of players varied between somewhere around six to twenty. What is your prediction about how many players showed up when there was only one ping pong table?

Here’s what happened. The first day after this change happened, I went over and about fifteen people showed up. I, like everyone else, waited a long time for a game. Our “official” lunch hour was actually 42 minutes and the building was a five minute walk away. So, if you had to wait a half hour for your chance to play, it really wasn’t that much fun. In addition, there were some more subtle effects. All the players were good, but there some substantial differences in skill level. People tried to arrange it so that they played someone at about the same level. WIth only one table, this was trickier. In addition, when a relatively large number of people showed up, it was too crowded for everyone to see the match without interfering with play. It happened that I was too busy to go for a few days. The next time I showed up, no-one was there. Some of us talked about trying to “organize” the ping pong to insure that enough people showed up but everyone was busy and no-one wanted to take this on. Scheduling researchers is harder than you might think. It was hard for people to make a commitment to show up at noon because a meeting might run over, their manager might give them extra work, etc. The number of people showing up swung wildly for about two weeks and then stabilized.

At zero.

What had been a vibrant community with two ping pong tables did not stay the same size, or shrink to half when we were limited to one table. It went to zero.

Warring Positive Feedback Loops.

We’ve already talked about “positive feedback loops” which are also known as “vicious circles.” Sometimes, there are actually (at least) two positive feedback loops hiding beneath what appears to be a stable system. In the Case of the Missing Ping Pong Table described above, one positive feedback loop was simply that when you went there and had a good time through some combination of watching good matches or playing yourself, you were more likely to go there again. There was also a positive feedback loop that was more of a social nature. The more people who were there, the more likely it was you would find a good or interesting match. It was also more likely to be able to find someone you wanted to have a conversation with although the venue prevented this from being a big part of the adventure. Another way that having more people there increased the chances that more people would be there the next day was that it was kind of exciting to have a larger audience watching, cheering, throwing the ball back when the ball crept under the radiator after pin-balling around for awhile after a decent slam.

At the same time, there were other feedback loops, sometimes of the same factors but in a different range. For instance, beyond the point of having the periphery of the playing field covered one or two deep, additional spectators added only a little excitement and they were more likely to infringe on the needed space around the table. In addition, while the first ring of spectators felt very much a part of the action, the experience for the second ring of spectators was far less engaging. While I mentioned above that more players meant a better change of finding a good match, it also meant that one had to wait longer between matches. The worst case scenario, of course, is that you are the only one who shows up.

Behind Every Abstraction are a Host of Personal Stories.

Yes, you can practice against the wall, and I did this a few times, but it is significantly less fun than a real match. I love to serve, for instance. I have a raft of difficult serves. Just to give you one example, with most set-ups, I can hit the right side of the ball so thinly that I put enough side-spin for the ball to appear as though it isn’t even going to hit the table on the second side, but it does; it curves radically back around the left. Sometimes people are so surprised that they miss it entirely. Even if they get there, the sidespin often makes them hit it off the table or the curve causes them to mis-hit the ball on their thumb or finger. I can also add a fair amount of top-spin or under-spin as well. Anyway, I didn’t get to do any of that just hitting the ball against the wall. The wall was not perfectly smooth either. So I might hit three of four shots and then the ball would hit a little imperfection in the plaster and careen off to scribble scrabble along the floor and then crawl under the radiator. It’s the kind of annoyance that everyone has experienced. And if someone else is there, you can kind of glance at your friend who nods nearly imperceptibly as you get down on your hands and knees and stretch your fingers into the territory of God-knows what spiders or broken glass and feel around through the grit and dust until you retrieved the ball. And that little glance and that little nod actually make quite a difference. If you’re on your own, it’s not any fun at all. It’s just an annoyance. The only reason I even bother to hit against the wall is to learn to keep focus for extended periods of time. For this, it is good practice and a good challenge. But, if I’m interrupting this to go fish my hand into a pile of dust every couple minutes, it isn’t so likely I’ll come back.

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These various factors were all in a dynamic balance so long as there were two tables. When the tables went from two to one, however, what had been a stable equilibrium became a very unstable one. Eventually, of course, it did find a new equilibrium point and that was zero. To crawl out of that, one person might show up. But most of the time, they were the only one. So, they would be less likely to come again. Even if two showed up, since no-one could play every day, you might still find yourself wondering whether someone would be there the next time.

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You might have read this whole story and wondered why the hell this building full of Ph.D.’s couldn’t get their act together and arrange some matches. It’s an interesting question and here is my personal opinion. When it came to these brilliant scientists and engineers, they came from every part of the globe and they came in all shapes and sizes. Some were vastly overweight and others were ultra marathoners. But the ones who liked to play table tennis were, by and large, athletic and “hyper” – an impatient lot. What all of us really loved was working to find out the truth. And, these truths that we sought were ones the company that we worked for wanted us to seek. True enough, but by the same token, that meant the truth found and utilized would make people’s lives better in some way in the not too distant future. But working in a corporation also meant doing a bunch of administrivia. So, the ping pong set in particular, wanted to get up from their intense sedentary mental and administrative work and play hard at something completely physical and different. The last thing any of us wanted to do was add more administriva to our lives.

The Takeaway

It’s easy and common to assume implicitly that the systems you deal with are linear.

They often aren’t.

Things can go out of control extremely quickly (into a dominant positive feedback loop) once the dynamic equilibrium is disturbed.

Would the invention of the iPhone have kept the ping pong community going?

Another takeaway: there are two quite distinct ways of analyzing that are going on in the essay above: a fairly abstract one (even if it uses concrete examples like rice and lily pads) and a very concrete and experiential one. In my experience, both of these modes are useful and valid and if taken together give a fuller picture of what’s going on. My experience in this was mainly in human computer interaction but I think it is equally true for many in law, medicine, management and many other fields. What’s your experience?

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Author’s Page on Amazon.

Problem Finding

18 Tuesday Dec 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, management, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Design, life, marketing, media, problem finding, problem solving, research, truth

Problem Finding

Today, I googled “problem solving” and it returned 287,000,000 results. In most of our school life as well as most people’s work life, we are given problems and asked to solve them. “Problem finding” only returned about 2.5 million or fewer than 1/100th as many hits. Solving problems can make processes more efficient and more effective. Solving problems can even save lives. We generally reward people both at school and at work for being good problem solvers. We seldom train people in problem finding. In fact, the reaction of many teachers and many managers when someone finds a problem is to dismiss it as being a non-problem.

I can understand this sentiment. As a teenager driving my dad’s car home from a date with my girlfriend, somebody beside me tried to make a right turn from the left lane and ran right into my dad’s blue Dodge. I heard what sounded like the voice of God say “NO!!” loud and clear. It was actually louder than the sound of crumpling metal. For a split second, I was in complete denial. Even some moments later, when we pulled over to assess the damage, it looked minor enough to ignore in my mind and just drive off. A more experienced guy from the corner gas station near where this happened said that while it may look minor, it would cost hundreds of dollars to fix and we therefore needed to trade information. I was stunned.

grayscale photo of wrecked car parked outside

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In many cases, it is a human tendency to want to deny that a problem really exists. If you can get past that tendency however, and embrace problems and indeed, even learn to seek them out, you may be able to create tremendous value for yourself and for those around you. Problem solving can make your bookstore more profitable. Problem finding lets you invent Amazon. Problem solving lets you build a better internal combustion engine. Problem finding leads you to a Tesla.

What might you do to discover problems? First, you might take your own negative emotions as a jumping off place. If you find yourself angry, or anxious, or depressed, to the extent that you can trace back what is going on to the initiating event, you may be able to be consider whether that event is unique to you — or, more likely, that event is likely to trigger a negative reaction in many people.

person holding white polaroid land camera

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If you found waiting even 48 hours to have your photographs developed and printed — and you thought others might also be impatient to see the results, you might invent Polaroid instant photos. If you found cooking a casserole too time-consuming and messy for your taste, you might invent frozen dinners. If you drove a lot in hot, humid climates, you might be motivated to put air conditioning in cars.

Of course, you do not have to limit yourself to your own misfortune. If you read about someone having a miserable time, you could dig a little deeper and ask yourself how a tragedy might have been prevented or how an accident could have been avoided. You can also look at a change that seems minor and ask yourself what will happen if this change becomes widespread.

For example, if you read in the newspaper that a robot has been invented that harvests tomatoes, you might extrapolate to a more universal situation. What if all crops were harvested by machine? This might make groceries cheaper. But what else would it mean? Tomatoes are rather delicate, after all. You might wonder whether growers using a machine to harvest tomatoes would harvest them early to avoid them being mashed by the machine. You might wonder whether they would even genetically alter the tomatoes so that they were easier to harvest by machine (even if they were no longer as tasty). You might wonder what will happen to the tomato pickers? Politicians may tell you that they will all be retrained for higher paying jobs as machine inventors, machine programmers, and machine maintenance folks. But this makes no sense. If there were an equal number of IT jobs as there used to be tomato pickers but each of the new jobs came with a higher salary, why would the growers use robots? There will be fewer jobs after automation and in some cases, far fewer.

close up of hands holding cherry tomatoes

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You might look at the global temperature trends and ask yourself what will happen if they continue. What will happen if global temperatures continue to rise? What can be done about it? Of course, once people start seriously mapping out the consequences, some people will react by saying, “Oh, it isn’t really happening!.” Why do they think that? Because it’s too scary to contemplate the truth; or too inconvenient to take the necessary actions. There are vested interests in old energy sources who will be happy to help you along in your fantasy of denial. In the short run, it’s often easier to imagine that problems do not exist, or are not that bad, or won’t get worse, or that there is just nothing to be done.

Even most of the people who rail against what most of us think of as sensible gun regulation (requiring a license, showing ID, getting at least some training and testing the would-be gun owner’s knowledge, competency, and eyesight as we do with cars) don’t think that mass shootings of innocent children is a fine thing. They see it as a problem — just one that cannot be solved or one that can only be solved by adding cost and inconvenience to the potential victims. After such a tragedy, they may even send “thoughts and prayers.”

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There is a possible “down side” to problem finding. The greedy may decide that they can make a lot of money by generating a solution to a problem that isn’t really a problem and making you believe it is a problem. My favorite, and so far made up, example is “Elbow Cream” for those unsightly skin wrinkles that appear on the back of your elbow when you straighten your arm. But that made up example is not too far off. You eat spicy food and it upsets your stomach? We can fix that! Of course, you could too by not eating spicy food! But nobody makes money that way. So they will sell you something that supposedly fixes the “problem.” While it might be fantasy to imagine “Elbow Cream” that will “fix” your “unsightly elbow wrinkles” it is not fantasy to imagine that people have been hoodwinked into spending money on “fixing” their faces and bodies.

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Americans spent 16 billion dollars on cosmetic plastic surgery in 2017. There are 50 countries who each have a lower GDP than that. The beauty industry in the USA overall was supposedly around $445 billion in 2017. That’s more than the GDP of each of 151 countries! Both figures are also less than the federal government spends on reducing climate change. Or cancer research.

Do you see that as a problem? I do.

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Negative Space

17 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by petersironwood in creativity, management, psychology, sports, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

art, Design, HCI, music, negative space, problem formulation, problem framing, sports, UX

Negative Space

When you look at a scene, it is natural to concentrate on the objects in the scene. So too, when one begins to design, it is natural to concentrate your attention on the things you put in the design whether those are menus, icons, images, banners, buttons and so on. You tend to give little thought to what is not there because, after all, there’s nothing there!

As your expertise grows, you will find it useful to spend some time and resources thinking about what is not there; the “negative space” if you will. In art, the “negative space” refers to the space around and between the objects. Often, paying attention to the “negative space” can result in a much more interesting and aesthetically pleasing composition. It is a concept that has applications far beyond artistic visual composition however.

Consider music for a moment, or better yet, listen to some and you will note that the silence is just as important as are the notes. Increase or decrease the silence in a tune by a factor of two and it becomes a different, and in most cases much worse, tune.

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The same can be said of great acting whether on stage or in a movie. The silence while we wait for the actor’s response to some news — while they are saying nothing and possibly even showing nothing or very little on their face, can often be the most poignant and moving parts of the picture. If the actor reacts “too quickly” with no space, we can tell that the stimulus presented is something that they “trigger” on because they are upset about it or trying to deny it. The leading man, for instance, asks a seemingly innocent question on a first date, such as, “So, do you like French Cuis…” “NO!” she cuts in. The audience’s attention is immediately drawn to see what comes next. The response that is too fast indicates a “sore spot.” Did the leading lady want to become a French chef? Did she just end a love affair with a Frenchman? What is going on here?

On the other hand, imagine the leading man, says, “So, do you like French Cuisine?” One beat, two beats go by. No answer. A long pause. The leading lady’s face shows nothing. Perhaps she tightens her lips ever so slightly or frowns to the slightest possible extent. The pause continues. The leading man tilts his head as though to ask whether she’s okay. Finally, we come to expect a tirade about the French or French Cuisine or French wine or … something. Instead, after this long pause, the leading lady says nothing but punctuates her silence with something that sounds like a cross between a humorless laugh and a karate grunt. There are probably no words she could have said which would have intrigued us more than the non-response. We think, “What the hell is going on with her and French Cuisine?”

Speaking of French Cuisine, when you go to a fine restaurant, your focus is on the food. So too is the focus on the chef and the server. But the space is important as well. It is annoying when you are paying good money to have a nice dining experience and you are shown to your table, given menus and then ignored for the next twenty-five minutes. On the other hand, it is equally annoying when your server comes back every 30 seconds and asks, “Are you ready to order yet or do you need more time?” The optimal time to wait between courses is not always obvious either. Some people need or want much more time between courses. Maybe this nice dinner is all they have planned for the evening. The patrons are having a nice quiet dinner with good conversation. They are in no hurry. Just as one of the diners launches into a complex story or joke, the server comes over and interrupts to tell about the specials. Conversely, another foursome may be planning on attending a play and long pauses between courses may mean missing the first act.

The negative space in dining is not just about the timing of events. It is also about the spatial arrangement of the food, the spacing between textures and colors. Often, the artistic arrangement is as much about the negative space as the objects on the plate.

Sometimes, the food itself has positive and negative elements. In a meal with varied and complex and contrasting tastes, for instance, the rice or the bread can provide a kind of “negative space” between the tastier and more salient constituents. These neutral or negative elements allow more contrast among the salient elements than if the more salient elements were enjoyed right after each other.

Negative space is important in architecture, paining, typography, cinematography, the design of user interfaces, culinary arts, music, and the design of other stimuli. It is also important in activity.

One of the first popular video games was called “Asteroids.” In this black and white vector graphics game, you controlled a small space ship that shut bullets in the direction the space ship was aimed. All you could control was the speed and direction of the space ship and whether it was shooting. The screen also showed a number of large, irregular “asteroids” that you were meant to hit. When you hit one of these large asteroids with a bullet, it split into two moderate asteroids. When you hit a moderately sized asteroid with a bullet, it split into two small asteroids. When you hit a small asteroid with a bullet, it disappeared. If you got hit by an asteroid, you would die. There was also a flying saucer who came to hassle you. Anyway, I found that if I focused on all these floating asteroids and trying to not to get hit by one, it was a difficult game. For me, at least, it was much better to visualize a path among the asteroids and try to follow the path. In a way, concentrating on the negative space, helped.

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The importance of negative space in sports can hardly be over-emphasized. In American football, the back tries to find the holes to run through. In soccer, players seek paths between. In baseball, the hitter wants to “hit it where they ain’t.” In tennis, beginners often play only during half a point. Their attention is focused on the ball and the opposing player(s). They choose a target on the other side of the court and watch to see how well they hit that target. Just as their opponent begins to hit the ball they shift their attention to their opponent and watch where that opponent hits the ball, scurrying there as quickly as possible so as to hit the next shot. What does such a player do between the time they hit the ball and their opponent hits the ball? They watch! They want to see where the next ball goes. If you are young and fast and your opponent is not well skilled, you can often get away with this process. However, what higher level players do is something quite different though it may look similar. The good player has a target in mind but watches the ball while their mind has the target clearly in mind. By watching the ball, they are much less likely to mis-hit the ball. Furthermore, they are not giving away their intended target with their body language. Perhaps most importantly, long before their opponent hits a return shot, the good player thinks about the open spaces on their side of the court and go to cover the most likely of those spaces.

Many otherwise well-skilled athletes only focus on the game during play. For example, many hitters on amateur softball teams, pay little or no attention to the game while their team is batting until they are “on deck” (almost ready for a turn at bat). This is absurd in the majors, but it’s even more absurd in amateur games. You should be taking this time to learn about the opposing pitcher and about the weaknesses in the opponent team’s fielders. Just because you’re not in the batter’s box doesn’t mean you can’t improve your play. Similarly, in tennis, you can use the time between points to think about tactics and strategy, as well as to mentally “reset” yourself if necessary. Some players wave their hands in front of their face after a point as a reminder/trigger to forget about what just happened and focus on the next point. Some will even turn away from the play, seemingly to talk with their “imaginary friend.”

To close, a very short, short story based on true events in my first trip to Japan.

tokyo tower behind black and white dojo building during daytime

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The Touch of One Hand Clasping

Japan, Tokyo, 1977. I walk crowded streets and beautiful gardens where care is taken for spaces as well as things that grow. I struggle — try to speak Japanese language but usually mispronounce “Key-Ray-Ee-Des” (It is beautiful) as “Key-Rah-Ee-Des” (It is dirty). I tip-toe through minefields of culture steeped in subtlety; lose huge chunks of flesh and karma with my thunderous, blunderous New York strides.

Shin-Ju-Ku: lights dim Times Square into grandmother’s fruit cellar. Row on countless row of Japanese stare hypnotized at small vertical pin-ball game called Pah-Chinn-Koe. This bright hustle bustle hassle hides deeper subtlety, deeper calm, inside, beneath, where foreign eyes can peer not.

I enter Tokyo subway. Then — she enters — total stranger, totally beautiful, black hair, endless eyes. I, of course, having learned small little in my many minefield walks, look everywhere but at her. Better, she looks everywhere but at me. We ride, totally not looking at each other. She stands in middle — nowhere to hold on to — unprotected, beautiful, vulnerable.

Suddenly, train lurches. Simultaneously: she shoots hand out to only spot I can possibly reach while I shoot hand out to only spot she can reach. Our hands clasp strongly for instant and I save her from fall.

Slowly, we release.

Next stop, she rushes out. But — just before the doors bang shut, she turns — looks straight into my eyes. “Kohn-bahn-wah” she says (“Good Evening”).

Thus, Japanese beauty touches beyond body into very soul of clumsy Westerner.

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Negative space….

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Fraught Framing: The Virulent “Versus” Virus

16 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, creativity, driverless cars, management, psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Climate change, Design, environment, framing, innovation, IQ, politics, problem formulation, problem solving, school, testing, TRIZ

Fraught Framing: The Virulent “Versus” Virus

Like most of us, I spent a lot of time in grades K through 12 solving problems that others set for me. These problems were to be solved by applying prescribed methods. In math class, for example, we were given long division problems and we solved them by doing — you guessed it — long division. We were given history questions and asked who discovered [sic] America and we had to answer “Christopher Columbus” because that’s what the book said and that’s what the teacher had said.

Even today, as of this writing, when I google “problem solving” I get 332,000,000 results. When I google “problem formulation” I only get 1,430,000 results — less than 1%. (“Problem Framing,” which is a synonym, only returned 127,000). And yet, in real life, at least in my experience, far greater leverage, understanding, and practical benefit comes from attention to problem formulation or problem framing. You still need to do competent problem solving, but unless you have properly framed the problem, you will most often find yourself doing much extra work; finding a sub-optimal solution; being stymied and finding no solution; or solving completely the wrong problem. In the worst case scenario, which happens surprisingly often, you not only solve the “wrong problem.” You don’t even know that you’ve solved the wrong problem.

There are many ways to go wrong when you frame the problem. Here, I want to focus on one particularly common error in problem framing which is to cast a problem as a dichotomy, a contest, or a tradeoff between two seemingly incompatible values. We’ve all heard examples such as “Military Defense Spending versus Foreign Aid” or “Dollars for Police versus After School Programs” or “Privacy versus Convenience” or “A Woman’s Right to Choose versus the Rights of the Unborn Fetus” or “Heredity versus Environment” or “Addressing Climate Change versus Growing the Economy.”

One disadvantage of framing things as a dichotomy is that it tends to cause people to polarize in opinion. This, in turn, tends to close the minds on both sides of an issue. A person who defines themselves as a “staunch defender” of the Second Amendment “Gun Rights”, for instance, will tend not to process information or arguments of any kind. If they hear someone say something about training or safety requirements, rather than consider whether this is a good idea, they will instead immediately look for counter-arguments, or rare scenarios, or exceptional statistics. The divisive nature of framing things as dichotomies is not even what I want to focus on here. Rather, I would like to show that these kinds of “versus” framings often lead even a single problem solver astray.

Let’s examine the hidden flaws in a few of these dichotomies. At a given point in time, we may indeed only have a fixed pool of dollars to spend. So, at first blush, it seems to make sense that if we spend more money on Foreign Aid, we may have fewer dollars to spend on Military Defense and vice versa. Over a slightly longer time frame, however, relations are more complex.

woman standing on sand dune throwing hat

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It might be that a reasonable-sounding foreign aid program that spends dollars on food for those folks facing starvation due to drought is a good thing. However, it might turn on in a specific case, that the food never arrives at the destination but instead is intercepted by local War Lords who steal the food and use it get money to buy more weapons to enhance their power; in turn, this actually makes the starvation worse. Spending money right now on military operations to destroy the power of the warlords might be a necessary prerequisite to having an effective drought relief programs.

Conversely, spending money today on foreign aid, particularly if it goes toward women’s education, will be very likely to result in the need for less military intervention in the future. That there is a “fixed pie” to be divided is one underlying metaphor that leads to a false framing of issues. In the case of spending on military “versus” foreign aid, the metaphor ignores the very real interconnections that can exist among the various actions.

There are other problems with this particular framing as well. Another obvious problem is that how money is spent is often much more important than the category of spending. To take it to an absurd extreme, if you spend money on the “military” and the “military” money is actually to arm a bunch of thugs who subvert democracy in the region, it might not make us even slightly safer in the short run. Even worse, in the long run, we may find precisely these same weapons being used against us in the medium turn. Similarly, a “foreign aid” package that mostly goes to deforesting the Amazon rain forest and replacing it with land used to graze cows, will be ruinous in the long run for the very people it is supposedly aimed to help.

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False dichotomies are not limited to the economic and political arena. Say for example that you are designing a car or truck for delivering groceries. If you design an axle that is too thin, it may be too weak and subject to breakage. But if you make it too thick, it will be heavy and the car will not accelerate or corner as well and will also have worse gas mileage. On the surface, it seems like a real “versus” situation: thick versus thin, right? Maybe. Let’s see what Altshuller has to say.

Genrich Altshuller was a civil engineer and inventor in the Stalin era of Soviet Russia. He wrote a letter to Stalin explaining how Russian science and engineering could become more creative. A self-centered dictator, Stalin took such suggestions for improvement as personal insults so Altshuller was sent to the Gulags. Here, he met many other scientists and engineers who had, one way or another, gotten on the wrong side of Stalin. He discussed technical issues and solutions in many fields and developed a system called TRIZ (a Russian acronym) for technical invention. He uses the axle as one example to show the power of TRIZ. It turns out that the “obvious” trade-off between a thick, strong but heavy axle and a thin, weak, but light axle is only a strict trade-off under the assumption of a solid axle. A hollow axle can weigh much less than a solid axle but have almost all the strength of the solid version.

One may question the design assumptions even further. For instance, why is there an axle at all? If you use electric motors, for example, you could have four smaller, independent electric motors and not have any axle. Every wheel could be independent in suspension, direction, and speed. No-one would have designed such a car because no human being is likely capable of operating such a complex vehicle. Now that people are developing self-driving vehicles, such a design might be feasible.

The axle example illustrates another common limitation of the “versus” mentality. It typically presumes a whole set of assumptions, many of which may not even be stated. To take this example even further, why are you even designing a truck for delivering groceries? How else might groceries go from the farm to the store? What if farms were co-located with grocery stores? What if groceries themselves were unnecessary and people largely grew food on their own roofs, or back yards, or greenhouses?

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For many years, people debated the relative impact of environment versus heredity on various human characteristics such as intelligence. Let us put aside for a moment the considerable problems with the concept of intelligence itself and how it is tested, and focus on the question as to which is more important in determining intelligence: heredity or environment. In this case, the question can be likened to asking whether the length or height of a rectangle is a more important determiner of its area. A rectangle whose length is one mile and whose height is zero will have zero area. Similarly, a rectangle that is a mile high but has zero length will have zero area. Similarly, a child born of two extremely intelligent parents but who is abandoned in the jungle and brought up by wolves or apes will not learn the concepts of society that are necessary to score well on a typical IQ test. At the other extreme, no matter how much you love and cherish and try to educate your dog or cat, they will never score well on a typical IQ test. Length and breadth are both necessary for a rectangle to have area. The right heredity and environment are both necessary for a person to score well on an IQ test.

This is so obvious that one has to question why people would even raise the issue. Sadly, the historical answer often points toward racism. Some people wanted to argue that it was pointless to spend significant resources on educating people of color because they were limited in how intelligent they might become because of their heredity.

Similarly, it seems that in the case of framing dealing with climate change as something that is versus economic growth, the people who frame the issue this way are not simply falling into a poor thinking habit of dichotomous thinking. They are framing as a dichotomy intentionally in order to win political support from people who feel economically vulnerable. If you have lost your job in the steel mill or rubber factory, you may find it easy to be sympathetic to the view that working to stop climate change might be all well and good but it can’t be done because it kills jobs.

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If the planet becomes uninhabitable, how many jobs will be left? Even short of the complete destruction of the ecosphere, the best estimates are that there will be huge economic costs of not dealing with global climate change. These will soon be far larger than costs associated with reducing carbon emissions and reforesting the planet. Much of the human population of the planet lives close to the oceans. As ice melts and sea levels rise, many people will be displaced and large swaths of heavily populated areas will be made uninhabitable. Climate change is also increasing the frequency and severity of weather disasters such as tornados and hurricanes. These cause tremendous and wide-spread damage. They kill people and cause significant economic damage. In addition, there will be more floods and more droughts, both of which negatively impact the economy. Rather than dealing with climate change being something we must do despite the negative impact on the economy, the opposite is closer to the truth. Dealing with climate change is necessary to save the world economy from catastrophic collapse. Oligarchs whose power and wealth depend on non-renewable energy sources are well aware of this. They simply don’t care. They shrug it off. They won’t be alive in another twenty years so they are willing to try to obfuscate the truth by setting up a debate based on a false versus.

They don’t care.

Do you?

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petersironwood

~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

Category Archives: management

How do you Re-culture a Culture?

Corn on the Cob

Tu-Swift’s Dream

The Drums of Hooves, Humans, & Hearts

Symmetry

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Non-Linearity

Problem Finding

Negative Space

Fraught Framing: The Virulent “Versus” Virus