Starbucks Doesn’t Care about your Health

Over the weekend, Starbuck enacted a policy at its US and Canadian stores whereby smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of its store premises (not just the front door or outdoor eating area, the entire perimeter).  According to a Starbucks’s spokesperson “The intent is to provide a healthy environment for our customers in the outdoor seating areas of our stores."

Many have applauded this measure citing SB’s commitment to its customer’s health, a sign of its continued commitment to corporate social responsibility. Unfortunately, corporate social responsibility is a euphemism for a type of marketing approach and so Starbuck’s doesn’t really care about your health.  Like all public companies, what matters is shareholder value, or in other words, the health SB cares about is that of its balance sheet. 

Let’s dissect this: If SB cared about their customer’s health, they would have banned smoking within 25 feet of its stores at all of their approximately 17,000 locations globally (not just most of the 3,000 franchise stores in the US and Canada). According to SB, they also serve customer is in: Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Curacao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong/Macau, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates.

So if the health of its customers is not driving this, then what was the impetus to this new policy? Here are four possibilities:

1. Listening to Customers: SB is listening to its customers in the US and Canada many who are non-smokers. Ok, if that’s true, then why 25 feet? Is second hand smoke such a concern “outside” the SB store and that far away from the store? I don’t think so and my guess is that most people don’t care enough to voice their concerns to SBs about some smokers outside the store - not letter writing campaigns. Complaining is easy but there is a general lethargy amongst most when it actually comes to doing something like voting or drafting a letter to the CEO (particular lethargy in the US based on the amount of abuse it citizens are willing to take from government and corporations). Sure a few ardent customers sent letters to SB  - probably former smokers who, based on my experience, have the most visceral hatred for anything tobacco - but not enough to elicit change.

2. Employees Breaks: This policy was aimed at changing employee bad behavior: Too many SB employees smoke and they were taking too many smoking breaks. Certainly this policy would make it inconvenient for them but this is unlikely the reason for the policy. There are other less public and more effective measures to keep employees from smoking such as increasing the cost of health insurance for smokers or simply enacting a employee policy that prohibits the behavior.

3. Cost of Cleanliness: Cigarrette butts are garbage and it was costly to keep the storefront clean. This is unlikely because storefronts need to be swept regardless; moreover my guess is that 15 of the 25 feet is the street (public sanitation is responsible for cleaning).

4. Marketing: I think the most plausible reason is that this is propaganda in a good disguise. SB can feign it cares about the health of its customer even if they don’t. The press on this has mostly been positive from what I can tell and people actually believe SB cares about the health of its customers. People have taken the bait and are arguing about how SB is a good corporate citizen by tackling the second hand smoke menace. This marketing strategy redirects the conversation away from SB products many of which are unhealthy by any standard (and not to mention that they sell these products to kids too – think Frappuccino). The outdoor second hand smoke argument is a BS arguement as well – I mean this is a ban *outside* the SBs store – 25 feet away from it. The outdoor second hand smoking argument is intellectually dishonest and conflates a mouse with an elephant.   I won’t get into the details on this as it should be common sense.

So what’s the cost of this marketing effort for SB?  Probably not more than the paper for the press release. There isn’t any cost for enforcement because this policy isn’t enforceable. SB can’t keep people from smoking in the street even within the 25 foot perimeter. They can’t keep the owner of an adjacent store from smoking within his store. They can’t keep people from smoking inside their cars while they are parked enjoying their Sausage & Cheddar Classic Breakfast Sandwich. So unless there is a related local law that has this prohibition, SB can’t call the cop or chase away smokers with a broom. SB is aware of this policy overstepping: "If it's public space and something we do not have control of, and the law allows it then we can't enforce it.”. Well then, why didn’t they simply make the ban effective on their premises, both inside and out, instead of the seemingly arbitrary 25 feet rule?  Simple: shock value. In other words, the press wouldn’t have picked up on this story if this was just a point of clarification of an existing policy. Certainly I wouldn’t have (which raises the question: have I fallen for the bait too?)

I hope this clears this up a bit. And if you ever want to have a stogie but are concerned about violating SB policy - whether inside the 25 feet limit or inside one of its stores - just travel outside the U.S. and Canada where SB cares less about the health of its customers. You’ll certainly find an accommodating SB franchise.

Vergil

The Seemingly Peculiar Property of Projects

I recently drove over the Henry Hudson Bridge that connects the Bronx (Riverdale area) to Manhattan. It looks very much like it did five years ago – that is, that it is still under heavy construction.  My guess is that it’s over-budget and should have been completed a few years ago. These sights are not the exception, they are the norm.  Take the Freedom Tower in downtown Manhattan:  it was supposed to be completed in 2003. Now ten years later, it’s still not complete. Or the recent deployment of New York City’s Upgraded 911 System (which by the way has been experiencing periodic crashes since it recently went live) is $1 billion over budget and seven years behind schedule.  These incidents aren’t isolated to government run projects. Anyone who’s worked in a corporate job knows that projects frequently run over budget and rarely finish on-time as planned (or even as re-planned). What is going on here? Why do projects seem to always live longer than expected, sometime so long that the only way to stop them is to kill the project entirely?

There are a number of theories that try to explain this phenomenon. They’ve never satisfied me and are as follows:

1. Talent: The wrong people were on the project
2. Buy-In: Not sufficient support from senior stakeholders (managers)
3. Incentives:  Individual rewards were not  aligned to project objectives
4. Project Management: Undisciplined project management methods were employed

I don’t buy this. I’ve seen it too many times where all four of the above were not present and yet failure occurred. Less "consultant" theories on planning failures include personal bias/psychological issues and inherent uncertainty in predicting the future.  But I don’t’ buy these either.  If they were the case, there would be an equal distribution (or more equal distribution) between projects that go over budget and projects that go under budget.  In short, these reasons are project platitudes. If everyone knows them you’d think that project failures wouldn’t occur anymore. There is something else going on that until recently escaped me. Projects fail not because of any of the reasons above. They fail because 1) they are projects and 2) projects are typically structured incorrectly.

Let’s address the first point: projects fail because they are projects. To understand this, let me refer to the ideas of Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Like many things, projects are susceptible to the effects of random events. But for projects, the impact from random events is asymmetrical in that it favors negative results.  In other words, things that go unexpected on a project tend to have a negative consequence for the project rather than positive.  For example, when random events are introduced into a project (say an entire business unit was overlooked and not included in setting requirements), the project doesn’t get completed sooner; it goes over budget and off schedule. This effect is similar in non-project domains. Take for example air travel: random events (e.g., a pilot’s union strike) tend to delay a flight rather than accelerate it.

Not only do random events introduced into a project carry with them negative impacts, but those negative impacts are scalable.  Here’s an excerpt from NNT’s seminal work The Black Swan that helps to explain this concept of scalability:

“Like many biological variables, life expectancy… is subjected to mild randomness. It is not scalable, since the older we get, the less likely we are to live. In a developed country a newborn female is expected to die at around 79, according to insurance tables. When, she reaches her 79th birthday, her life expectancy, assuming that she is in typical health, is another 10 years. At the age of 90, she should have another 4.7 years to go. At the age of 100, 2.5 years. At the age of 119, if she miraculously lives that long, she should have about nine months left.  As she lives beyond the expected date of death, the number of additional years to go decreases. This illustrates the major property of random variables related to the bell curve. The conditional expectation of additional life drops as a person gets older.

With human projects and ventures we have another story. These are often scalable, as I said in Chapter 3. With scalable variables… you will witness the exact opposite effect. Let's say a project is expected to terminate in 79 days, the same expectation in days as the newborn female has in years. On the 79th day, if the project is not finished, it will be expected to take another 25 days to complete. But on the 90th day, if the project is still not completed, it should have about 58 days to go. On the 100th, it should have 89 days to go. On the 119th, it should have an extra 149 days. On day 600, if the project is not done, you will be expected to need an extra 1,590 days. As you see, the longer you wait, the longer you will be expected to wait.

Let's say you are a refugee waiting for the return to your homeland. Each day that passes you are getting farther from, not closer to, the day of triumphal return. The same applies to the completion date of your next opera house. If it was expected to take two years, and three years later you are asking questions, do not expect the project to be completed any time soon…This subtle but extremely consequential property of scalable randomness is unusually counterintuitive... But let us say for now that they are central to our misunderstanding of the business of prediction. “

So for a project, a random event extends its life expectancy and every day that passes without completion exponentially increases the project’s life expectancy.  This scalability helps to explain the old adage referred to as Hofstadter's law: a project will take longer than you expect even though you know that it will take longer than you expect (or for you techies, the 90% Rule: The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.)

Random events are unpredictable so the answer is not trying to better predict. Although this is common sense, many project managers are asked to predict tasks and milestones months (sometimes years) in advance and to stay the course the entire way. These often are those projects with a status of “green” until a few weeks before a critical milestone date when suddenly the status goes “red” and management wonders WTF just happened.  Expecting project managers to predict and not allowing deviations from plan only leads to surprises. Talent, Buy-In, Incentives and Disciplined Project Management are not the answers either – they are things of consultant. Of course every project should strive for these things, but they are tertiary to project proclivity and as we will see, project structure.

Projects cannot be monolithic. They cannot be command and control. They need to be structured to take advantage of tinkering. I covered tinkering in an earlier post, but in short tinkering (also known as organic, grass roots, agile, along with a slew of other names) is the process of unplanned trial and error – of experimentation – to see what works and what doesn’t and then move forward with what does (or perhaps move forward with what doesn't if it turns out to be better).  Tinkering is inherently about smallness and components and projects structured to take advantage of it work for a number of reasons.

• Failure avoidance: Allows for changes to be made before the failure occurs. Accepts small errors over total failure.
• Loss management: Allows for changes to be made before significant costs are incurred. Accepts small costs associated with tinkering over risk of total loss.
• Results realization: Incremental approach reduces latency between expected and actual results.
• Discovery exposure: Increases the chances of accidental discoveries (i.e., serendipities).
• Random event mitigation: Impact from random events can be isolated to individual components. Accepts small delays per component rather than larger systemic delays. This is critical because each day a project goes over expected timeline, the longer it can be expected to take to complete. If projects delays can be isolated to units and distributed across those units, delays run in parallel as opposed to serially.

The challenge with adopting a tinkering approach is that errors are more frequent, which gives the perception that things are going wrong all the time.  Delays too are more frequent as negative impacts are addressed on small cycle times rather than once at the end of the project.  There are often frequent change requests which give the perception that requirements weren’t properly gathered. There are apparent redundancies in processes (e.g., multiple small iterative releases instead of one big one) which increase upfront costs (big projects that don’t use tinkering always look cheaper upfront but cost more overall). Results are incremental and are subject to the dilettante's "yeah, so that's all you have to show?" Finally, with complex projects, more components working in parallel are needed which is unmanageable in a command and control environment. In order for tinkering to work, control needs to be decentralized into the hands of individual teams. Although large projects fail in a command and control environment, the perception while managing in this structure, although illusory, is control.

Vergil Den

Consider the Animals

I’m in my David Foster Wallace phase again. I recently purchased DFW’s collection of essays Consider the Lobster after having scoured the internet to find, for free of course, all of the essays contained therein.  A few important ones I couldn’t find, so I chalked up the money and bought the book. It was money well spent (pardon the cliché).

The essay that I was most interested in is of the same name (viz. Consider the Lobster). It was first published in 2003 in Gourmet Magazine and begins like a “Foodie Review”, discussing the Main Lobster Festival (MLF) and all of its corny attractions. It slowly descends (or ascends) into a moral assessment of animal torture, specifically, the boiling of live Lobsters as a culinary delight (I can just imagine the effect this had on some of the readers of Gourmet Magazine as their appetites went metaphorically limp). 

I don’t want to spoil the read, but I think DFW was deeply affected by the moral aspects of animal torture. So much so that I think that it was the influence behind his short story in Oblivion called “Incarnations of Burned Children”, about a toddler who is accidentally scalded by boiling water, which is horrific enough until you find that the child, unbeknownst to the parents who are frantically trying to dry of his arms and chest, is burned for a few minutes more by the scalding water trapped in his diaper. I think DFW was trying to humanize the traumatic effects of what boiling alive must be like as it’s hard to empathize with a lobster. 

So in that same vein of empathy with our fellow animals (and crustaceans, et. al.), I rewrote my story “A Recipe Face Up.”  It’s not nearly as good as a DFW story (nor as effective nor anywhere near equivalent to any DFW story in any way), but it’s my own little way of saying - consider the animal….or else.

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A Fine Line

There's a fine line between being dead and not being alive. That really sums up this short story of mine (apprx 2100 words).

A Man Not There

SPINETTI, SALVATORE (SAL) F OF SPRINGFIELD ILLINOIS, PASSED AWAY ON SATURDAY, JANUARY 10 AT PRESBYTERIAN FIRST MEMORIAL HOSPITAL OF A HEART ATTACK. HE WAS 54. SAL IS SURVIVED BY HIS WIFE OF 29 YEARS, PATRICIA, HIS DAUGHTER NINA, AND SONS MICHAEL AND JOSEPH. HE WAS A VETERAN OF THE US NAVY. FOLLOWING HIS MILITARY SERVICE HE WORKED IN COMMERCIAL TRUCKING. HE WAS A LOVING FATHER AND A GENEROUS MAN. VISITATION WILL BE HELD ON THURSDAY AT MCNEAL’S FUNERAL HOME FROM 1:00 PM–4:00 PM AND 6:00 PM–9:00 PM. HIS MASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL WILL BE HELD AT 10:00 AM ON FRIDAY AT ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI CHURCH. BURIAL WILL FOLLOW AT GATES OF HEAVEN CEMETERY.

You can't make the dead look like the living, Kennedy thought, regardless of how much makeup they wear. She didn’t like wakes – particularly the open casket kind.

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Flash Fiction

I just finished reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Needless to say, it got me thinking about all sorts of morbid topics – suicide in particular (of course, only in an intellectual way).  So I decided to write a very short story (aka flash fiction) about an erudite who commits suicide; this event known to the reader through his suicide note.  This erudite is a cross between, I think, Ivan and Alyosha with a hint of… David Foster Wallace?

And So I Go

It’s not easy to write a note that is intended for others to read after your death. Especially when you know they will scrutinize every word in order to find answers as to why you would do such a thing.  I didn’t want to write anything.  I don’t think anyone seriously contemplating suicide wants to write anything. You just want to go ahead and do “it”. So I am writing this only as a courtesy to you. Because I love you, and know you have a wild imagination.

You know I’m a perfectionist, so if I were to write this as prose, I’d never finish this letter, and would never get to do “it”. So I’ve decided to just leave you with these last thoughts of mine, listed like, I think, Wittgenstein would.  

1. Don’t blame yourself. This has nothing to do with you. If you feel guilty about something, it’s your own selfish mind torturing you.  Read the ancient classics to resolve this.

2. This decision is (was) my own, not anybody else’s.

3. I am not depressed.  Actually, I am very content.

4. This is my body, regardless of what Father Brennan or the State says.  I can do what I want with it. If the former says I’m going to hell or the latter says I’m a criminal, tell them to go fuck themselves (see item 9).

5. This has nothing to do with DFW, Hemmingway or anyone else that I’ve read who’s killed themselves. It’s a false pattern, a coincidence. Pure chance, as with most things in life.

6. Love doesn’t always go hand in hand with dignity.  Dignity must always come first.  Remember this.

7. No one is superior to you. If you feel someone is, it’s your own fault.  Read the ancient classics to resolve this.

8. No war is good, regardless of what they tell you. They are lying. This has always been true and will always be true.

9. Call a fraud a fraud, or else you’re a fraud.  It’s alright to be scared, but do it anyway. That’s called being brave. The fraudulent hate the brave and that’s a good thing.

10. Don’t believe anything new a scientist tells you, including doctors. Everything that science has to tell us, they’ve already said. Listen to yourself, your instincts. Trust Mother Nature, she has more experience.

11. If I didn’t do this now (then) this way, I would’ve done it anyway. So don’t think you could’ve done anything. Again, if you feel responsible, you’re not. If you still feel troubled, look to the soft lines of the hills and the hand of the evening, it will teach you much more (I’m paraphrasing of course).

12. I will see you again, no worries. It’s called eternal recurrence of the same. The tralfamadorians called it unstuck in time. That’s a reference to Kurt Vonnegut from Slaughterhouse Five. Read this, and not Nietzsche, if you want to understand eternal recurrence better (and no, neither of these two authors had anything to do with me killing myself).

13. And finally, the keys are in the drawer. You know what I’m talking about. If this made you happy, then I would be sad. Either way, I hope it makes your life easier.

So that’s that. Oh, I purposely chose thirteen points – there is no bad luck in the number thirteen. Read up on the Knights Templar and you’ll see what I mean.  Some charlatan back in the day was trying to control somebody, and now office buildings don’t even have thirteen floors. As if ostensibly calling the 13th floor the 14th floor changes anything.

END

Naïve Intervention and Humanity

A recent discussion initiated by FOT (Friend of Taleb) Greg Linster about Antifragility, Humanism and the apparent contradiction between the two -- namely, that protecting the weak potentially fragilizes the human race -- got me thinking (these FOTs are good at that). The more I thought about it, the more daunting the problem seemed. I feel (believe, trust, know, whatever) that naïve intervention is a sacred human right; that the alternative is vulgar, profane; but how does one explain the… ineffable; how does one explain nature’s preference for humanity is the former and not the later? I can probably find aphorisms from great thinkers and philosophers to support this. I can even prepare an essay that tries to reason it through.  But I think there is a better way for me to express my thoughts. I went to the cemetery of my old stories and resurrected one that was looking for life. I feverishly rewrote it and here it is anew: “Things Great and Small”, a story about a guy named Ray whose life can explain my position better than me.

Things Great and Small

Ray and his wife Amelia came home after a night that included dinner at a trendy Latin-Asian fusion restaurant followed by drinks at a romantic little wine bar. Now that their daughter was a teenager, they felt free to spend an evening out, as if they were dating again. Years had gone by and they hadn’t done anything for themselves; their sole focus was on Gabby. But now she was older, and they began to let go. Recently, they had been spending their Saturday nights sampling the restaurant scene. So much had changed over the years, and they were eager to catch up.

They were in a giddy mood, acting like teenagers themselves. Ray opened a bottle of Cabernet and poured two glasses. They toasted and indulged in a tender kiss.

The phone rang.

Ray and his wife broke from their kiss and looked at each other. A call near midnight wasn’t uncommon; they had fielded many calls in the past at this time of night.

The phone rang a second time.

Most often, it was just their daughter calling for a ride home from a friend’s or from the movies. Yet even knowing this, each call always brought fear with it.

The phone rang a third time.

“I’ll get it. Gabby probably just needs a lift,” Ray said, smiling at his wife. The smile was only a mask. He always tried to reason with himself that it was nothing, but he could never shake the nervous spasm in his stomach that would reverberate to his chest. He smiled only to help offset his wife’s momentary fear. He was aware that whatever he was feeling, she was feeling it exponentially worse.

Ray picked up the phone.

“Hello? Yes. Oh, hi, Mary. Is everything OK?”

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Effects of Forced Cohabitation

I've always been fascinated at how humans behave when forced to cohabitate, particularly at work. One is compelled by the need to earn a day’s wage to "work" with others. Day in and day out they suffer yet they continue on; although some eventually break. My short story “Shared Remunerations” (~2300 words) takes this idea to the absurd extreme.  Edmund and Matthew, both recent hires at a law firm, take turns telling the story of the events since Matthew’s hire. Edmund is an effete, arrogant dandy; Matthew is more of a regular guy. Edmund, while possibly as intelligent and superior as he believes himself to be, is also both unbalanced and fragile. He thinks that a great friendship exists between them. Matthew sees Edmund as an eccentric, but pleasant enough and no more than a colleague. When the firm moves Matthew into Edmund’s office, Edmund begins to see Matthew as a threat to his position, and finds one of Matthew’s personal tics to be infuriating.  

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Core Principles of Freedom and Maintenance of Liberty

Absent a moral code, I’ve been wondering what exactly are the fundamental principles to a practical code of Freedom.  I’ve compiled a list of what I think are these key principles. I collected them as fragments from a number of thinkers including Popper, Hayek, Socrates, etc. They may exist elsewhere as a whole, but I’ve been unable to find them (Update: I came across the Non-Aggression Principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle)

Principles of Freedom

1. Do no act to harm a man or woman. 

2. It is better to suffer an injustice than to do an injustice.

3. If Principle 1 is violated, the victim (or their proxy) has the right, but not the obligation, to exact a punishment of equal or less measure on the individual(s) who violated Principle 1.

4. If men and women choose to come together in mutual cooperation for the purpose of protection against physical violence and fraud or more generally, the enforcement of the Principles 1 and 3 (collectively "defense"), the system that they design should not seek first what is best, rather, they shall seek first what can easily be dismantled without violence.

5. The men and women that have come together for the purpose of defense can exact a tax on one another only in order to cover the expenses required to enact and maintain (collectively "implement") the system of defense.

6. If the system of defense or any system that is implemented violates Principles 1 and 3, an individual has the right and the obligation to restore adherence to Principles 1 and 3 using non-violent means against the system.

7. If the system of defense or any system that is implemented violates Principles 1 and 3, and all non-violent means to restore adherence to principles 1 and 3 have been exhausted and principles 1 and 3 continue to be violated, an individual has the right and the obligation to use violence against the system to restore adherence to principles 1 and 3, even if it violates any of the aforementioned principles.

Breakdown

Principle 1 is the rule of Freedom and asserts that one can do as one wishes as long as one does not actively hurt another in the process.  It is important to note, however, that if one hurts another through an omission, Principle 1 is not violated. In other words, a free person cannot be forced to act, even if it means someone is hurt by their inaction. To assert otherwise is a rule for a moral code.

Principle 2 is a rule for Justice and it is important because without it, one can assert a violation of a principle even if one isn’t certain that it was violated and by whom (it must come before Principle 3)

Principle 3 is a rule of Justice and without it; freedom is tyranny (see Paradox of Freedom). It asserts that one can seek justice if someone acts and hurts another. Justice can only be in proportion to the action, and whether or not to seek it is at the discretion of the victim. Indeed if one kills another and commits suicide during or after the act, justice is served.  Principle 2 must come before Principle 3 as it is necessity to offset erroneous capital punishment (see Albert Camus’ essay Reflections on the Guillotine for support).

Principles 4 thru 7 outline the maximum amount of government that can support Freedom and the recourse afforded the individual in the event the government violates an earlier principle. In extreme cases, an indvidual has the right and the obligation to restore freedom through violence even if they must violate earlier principles.

 Vergil

The Illusion of Progress

Karl Popper wrote extensively on a number of topics, most notably on objective knowledge, the fallacy of historicism, and the enemies of an open society. There is a common theme through these works – that is, in order for there to be progress, there must be free and open discourse.

In the following exposition, I attempt to deconstruct Popper’s argument supporting this contention. Furthermore, by doing so, I hope that it becomes clear why ‘too big too fail,’ the expert problem, and other modern complexes present significant risks.

Truth vs. Untruth

Fundamentally, progress is synonymous with solving problems, leading to improved knowledge. To understand this, first, we need to understand the concept of truth and untruth. The difference between truth and untruth is not binary – in other words, a proposition isn’t either true or not true. There are gradations of truth. So think of truth as a bull’s eye and untruths as the circular bands around it. The nearer the proposition is to the bull’s eye, the closer that proposition is to the truth (or less untrue, however you like it). The farther from the bull’s eye, the farther from the truth it is (or more untrue it is).  The objective of improved knowledge is to move closer to the truth (note the word "improved" as this distinction will be important).

Schema of Knowledge

So the growth of knowledge is all about problem solving.  Popper has a problem-solving formula, or schema as he calls it, that is characterized by the following expression: PS1 then TT1 then EE1 the PS2

First, there must be a problem PS1. In order to solve the problem PS1, one must formulate a Tentative Theory TT1 (e.g., proposition, conjecture, etc.).  How this theory is formulated is not relevant. It can be established through induction or intuition or quite frankly through any means – even from a dream.  It doesn’t matter. The point is that it should be a solution to a problem.

Next, the tentative theory TT1 must be tested. This is called Error Elimination EE1. This is perhaps the most crucial element in the schema. The process of error elimination should be as rigorous as possible through falsification, i.e., proving the tentative theory to be false.  Examination of TT1 will show that 1) it is proven completely false, 2) it is proven partially false, or 3) it is not proven false at all. The better the theory is at surviving the refutation process, the more “fit” the theory is. However, although it is more "fit," it is not necessarily more true as we shall see later.

If the theory survives, either partly or wholly, one or more new problems are raised (PS2) which are more complex than the predecessor problem (PS1), and the evolutionary cycle repeats itself with the new problem (PS2) at its base.

The Growth of Knowledge

So the growth of knowledge is evolutionary in that, if the tentative theory survives, other new problems and theories arise from it like children, and if they survive, they have children, and so on and so forth. The crux of the issue should be more apparent now. That is that the growth of knowledge is a progression – however, to my earlier note, there is a distinction between improved knowledge and worse knowledge (i.e., ignorance).

Ignorance grows in the same way and therein lies the problem.  Ignorance is knowledge that moves farther from the truth or becomes less true with each successive cycle of Popper's schema.

For example, a problem is addressed with a tentative theory. The theory, however, is either not tested or not rigorously tested, so it survives the error elimination process with a multitude of errors. It then spawns a new set of erroneous problems, each more complex than its predecessor, and the cycle of ignorance continues.

The error elimination phase of the schema is most critical because it determines survival.

Freedom

Rigorous error elimination is performed by critical argument. When critical argument is hindered, then the process is not as rigorous. There can be no constraints as part of an argument, and freedom of expression is so important. But it is deeper than simply a government provisioning this freedom. One needs to be free in all things. As Nassim Taleb pointed out in his aphorism, it is “Only he who is free with his time will be free with his opinion.”

For example, a man’s opinion is inhibited if he can’t argue freely because he doesn’t want to lose his job, or he has a conflict of interest with the one who owns the tentative theory he is arguing against. Think of the agency problem such as the incestuous relationship between regulators and bankers, or the relationship between researchers and corporations.  Only freedom can ensure that the error elimination process can run its course.

‘Too Big to Fail’ and the Expert Problem

It should be clear now why ‘too big to fail’ and the expert problem are such issues. The process of error elimination was running its course during the financial crisis in 2008, but instead of allowing it to run its course, it was replaced by the bank bailouts. The U.S. federal government allowed these financial institutions to survive when they shouldn’t have. Instead of having one set of problems to deal with that would have risen from the failed banks (problems that lead to improvement), we have another set of problems, a worse set, based on the bailed banks.

The same concept applies to the expert problem. Experts often act as the sole error eliminators of a tentative theory. Often an expert can propose a theory, and because of the standing of that expert, it is presumed that the theory is correct and no critical testing is necessary. There are entire institutions that have developed from this expert problem and are built either upon fallacious foundations (e.g., economics) or on fallacious reasoning (e.g., healthcare).

Modernity Retrogression

This is the fundamental argument for the failure of modernity or why there has been little progress (or even that there has been retrogression) in modern times. Unless you understand the argument presented, it is hard to appreciate why this is the case. People have confused increased complexity for progress. They also assume that the future will only bring progress – as if time and improvement were in lockstep. This is the illusion of progress.

Modernity is building on ignorance and fallacies that with each successive cycle worsen the situation because of new erroneous problems and increased complexities that successive problems bring. We are not improving our knowledge; rather, we are increasing our ignorance. We are moving farther from the truth.

“Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made. “ --Franz Kafka

Anatomy of the Failure to Learn From Failure

There seem to be hundreds, if not thousands, of postings on the Web about failure. Most talk about why failure is a good thing, touting how valuable it is because you can learn and grow from it. As many of you know, I don't subscribe to this. My point: why not try to avoid failure? Negative thinking and tinkering support learning and growing more effectively and, incidentally, improve the likelihood of success. But except for a few contrarians, you can hardly find a wisp about failure avoidance in the ether. 

With all this talk about failure, how does one actually learn from mistakes? It takes humility and a little understanding on how we think about past events. Both, however, are usually in short supply. Typically, the retrospective process of failure recognition is fraught with a number of cognitive biases – which of course will lead to a high likelihood of repeat failure.

Stages of Failure Recognition

1.      Why did this happen?        Self-Serving Bias

2.      How did this happen?        Confirmation Bias

3.      What can I do to avoid future failures?     Hindsight Bias

Nonetheless, when failure occurs or when it becomes imminent, one typically takes stock of the preceding events in the hopes of discovering the cause(s) of the failure. So what does this process of discovery look like? I thought about this for some time and perhaps the failure recognition process would look similar to the following three stages. I use a failed restaurant as an example to provide context.

Why did this happen?

This may be the first question that is asked and for most, it really means “Why did this failure happen to me?” Of course most people don't want to take the blame for failure, so they look for someone or something else to blame besides themselves. The bias associated with this type of thinking is called self-serving bias.

Self-serving bias is a cognitive bias that attributes personal success to skills or talent and failure to randomness. For example, a restaurateur believes his restaurant failed because of the poor economy which is a random event that he had no control over. However, he ignored the fact that he overstocked his refrigerators with perishables which resulted in a high spoilage rate. Not to mention, he bought his products from a wholesaler who sold him the goods at retail prices.

For those that watch Kitchen Nightmares, you often see this delusion of the restaurant owner. Owners blame their workers, their spouses, their families – you name it and they blame it. Never do they take ownership of their mistakes – not until Gordon Ramsey stuffs it down their throats. Only then do they realize that they ultimately own their failure. But I digress.

How did this happen?

Now armed with the external excuse and the reason for the failure, the search is on for details to support the hypothesis – a validation exercise if you will. Another bias comes into play here – confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is the tendency for people to confirm a hypothesis regardless of whether it is true. In this case, given that the bad economy was the reason behind the failure of the restaurant, the restaurateur looks for data to support his contention. And by golly, he finds data to support it.

He finds an article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that states that on average, due to the poor economy, people are dining out less. The restaurateur believes that this supports his assertion as to why his restaurant failed. But he fails to scrutinize the information – what are the data to support the analysis by the WSJ? Are people dining out less on average? Is the restaurateur’s area experiencing more people dining out rather than fewer? If the economy is so bad, why are his competitors running profitable businesses?

What can I do to avoid future failures?

With this evidence, the restaurateur is now certain that the poor economy was the cause of his restaurant's demise. This raises the question, to avoid future failure: How can a person know whether the economy will be good or bad? This leads to the next bias – hindsight bias.

Hindsight bias is the inclination of seeing past events as being more predictable than they actually are (i.e., illusion of predictability or the “I should’ve seen it coming” illusion). In the case of the failed restaurateur, he will open restaurants only during boom economic cycles. He will determine when the boom cycles will occur by reading economic predictors in the WSJ which notoriously does not predict well.

So how did the restaurateur do the next time he opened his restaurant? It turns out that he was wildly successful (during a bad economy no less). He attributed his success to his “front of the house” charm and the handsome menus he designed.

In fact, the restaurateur's success can be attributed to other things. During the bankruptcy proceedings, his judge had just eaten lunch resulting in a more favorable outcome. This allowed the restaurateur to open his next restaurant three months earlier than expected. By opening in advance, a soon-to-be-retired restaurant reviewer at the local paper was able to rate his restaurant. And since it was going to be his last review, he wanted it to be positive so ... I think you seeing where I am going with all of this.

It is a difficult undertaking to determine causality in general, even more so when analyzing past events of something as uncontrolled as real life. Success and failure are often the result of fortune (aka unpredictable events). There are just so many reasons why things happen – how do you determine which reasons are salient? Further complicating matters are our own cognitive biases that further distort the retrospective analysis.

But there are things that you can do to improve the likelihood of success – avoid failure whenever possible. By protecting your downside risks (negative thinking) coupled with tinkering (small iterative controlled steps of trial and error) avoiding failure is possible – but of course, nothing is guaranteed.

P.S. The restaurant failed because the "closed" sign was inadvertently, but prominently, displayed in the window for weeks.

Failure as a Prerequisite to Success?

I recently read an article on a self-improvement blog about failure and its relationship to success. The article stated that "... everyone that has ever succeeded did it by failing first.” And that “You have to have the guts to pick yourself up after you fall and try again, and again, until you find the right fit.”

Obviously we all fail in life at some point or another so the statement was logically true. The dumbest clout would also agree that one needs to learn from one’s mistakes. But I am sure this is not what the author meant. The author’s meaning is that to be successful in a particular area (probably some business venture) one needs to have failed first. But why fail at all and why make that an attribute for success?

My guess is that the writer is trying to sell a book on positive thinking. If the author wanted to be honest and accurate about success, which unfortunately does not sell a lot of books, he would have provided a practical and better reason for success, or more importantly, for failure avoidance.

A better reason would be that one should prevent failure whenever possible. So to be able to recognize when something is going to fail rather than let the thing fail is an important attribute. By being preemptive, you can take action before the failure actually occurs. This is called being agile, adaptable – some may call the process tinkering.

Now back to success – let’s first identify the attributes that are not critical for one to be successful.

• Good ideas – Many bad ideas are or were successful (think pet rock)
• High GPA – People with average GPAs are successful
• Failure – People can be successful without experiencing failure in the area they are trying to succeed at. They know that failure is an option but choose otherwise when possible (see Tinkering)

So what are the practical attributes of success?

• Luck – Many successes come by serendipity. Plain and simple.
• Preparation – This is also called “doing one’s homework.” This can be as simple as talking with people who have done it before or performing some market research. A restaurant in Manhattan is likely to fail – so one should avoid opening up a restaurant in Manhattan.
• Tinkering – If things seem not to be working, make adjustments. Recognizing and adapting to change is called evolving. Those that fail to evolve are extinct.
• There you have it. So please, don’t go around trying to mess up so you can be successful.

Raise Your Hand

There is a great Sam Adams beer commercial from a few years back. It goes something like this: A bunch of businessmen are sitting around a lunch table. The waitress comes over to take their drink order. The first bloke orders a glass of water, and the rest follow suit. The last bloke to order switches it up. He orders a Sam Adams and then the rest change their orders to a Sam Adams.

Aside from being funny, there is some truth to this phenomenon. It’s called the "Asch Paradigm" or the conformist of groups. Tim Hartford covers this in his excellent 2011 TED presentation Management Lessons from the War in Iraq. At about 5:50 into the clip, he speaks about the suppression of dissent and its dangers. It’s basically the Sam Adams commercial if no one ever dissented from the group and ordered a Sam Adams.

It got me thinking. How many times, when a bad idea was introduced, did people who thought the idea was bad just sit on the sidelines and never voice their opinion? My sense is that the leadership at Blockbuster fell into this trap when they decided not to purchase Netflix in 2000 for $50 million and chose instead to invest in Enron. I am certain they continued to fall into this trap in the decade of debacle that followed.

PwC is another example. Back in 2002, PwC Consulting was spun off from the Audit and Tax service lines and was shockingly named “Monday.” Before this was published, someone must have thought, “Geez, Monday doesn’t remind me of a fresh start. Monday is depressing because the weekend is over.” Only after it was published and the public ridicule that followed did PwC reconsider the name. The comedy of errors continued in the subsequent months. The new company was offered $18 billion by Hewlett Packard which was rejected as too low. A few months later and given the change in market conditions, PwC consulting sold to IBM for a mere $3 billion. Do I know for certain that no dissenting opinion was voiced in the above cases? Of course not, but because of the domino effect of failures – I suspect that it wasn’t.

But we all know that you just can’t go about voicing your opinion indiscriminately. Those blokes don’t last too long in a company because they are seen as bigmouths and know-it-alls. So what can you do, given the obvious side effects to dissensions? Here are some tips:

1. Advice from the advisor is neither good nor bad. This maxim from Machiavelli's The Prince is a good summation: “Good advice, whatever be its immediate source, has its true origin in the wisdom of the prince.” In other words, raise your hand and voice your opinion. Let others decide its efficacy.

2. Be careful where you voice your advice: Not all advice can be perceived as good – particularly when someone may take offense to it. For example, you may have the best intentions with the dissenting advice you want to provide your boss. But this advice may make him look bad in a meeting. So unless your true intention is to challenge him in public, be discreet when providing advice.

3. Try to provide preemptive advice: Some advice is best given BEFORE a meeting or event rather than during the event or after it – particularly if this advice will help keep your boss from looking like a fool. So again, if your intention is to humiliate your boss – the omission is a good tactic. But if you want him to save face, give it to him beforehand.

4. I told you so: When your advice is not heeded and hindsight proves you correct, don’t rub it in. This is not to say it shouldn’t be raised – but again discretion is the better part of valor. Gently point out the mistake but, moreover, provide advice on how to fix the problem. You will be positioned to look like both a prophet and a savior.

5. The above tips can be useful but only if your boss or company culture values openness. If you work in an environment that actively suppresses opinion through intimidation or general ignorance – you may want to find another company to work for or you may end up in a Blockbuster. 

A Job Well Done

As an ardent procrastinator, time management has always eluded me. I much prefer to work hard than to work long. I am amazed at how people seem to tread the work water for eight hours every day. I seem to have fits of excited activity (working) with long moments of recovery (not working). It has been told to me more than once that there is something wrong with me.

It wasn’t until a few years back, when reading Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Work Week, that I realized that I was not utterly crazy (nor was my method of habitual procrastination). I was comforted by the reintroduction of a theory on time management – particularly something referred to as “Parkinson’s Law.” In short it states that work effort will expand to fill the time available for its completion. Tim suggests that we shorten the time allowed for a task, and by doing so, the time pressure forces us to focus on only the bare essentials required to complete the task. He purports that the quality of the work will be equal to, if not better than, the quality of work had you afforded yourself the additional time.

There is some truth to this. Heaven knows that if you give yourself too much time, things seems to just drag on – from pruning and questioning, to reordering and overanalyzing. I think for me, unconsciously, my procrastination was the application of Tim’s method.

Needless to say, Tim’s method shouldn’t be taken to an extreme. That is, if you shorten the time allowed to perform a job by too much, you will certainly sacrifice quality. David Hume, the famous philosopher, partially blamed the lack of acclaim for his book A Treatise on Human Nature on this exact problem – “I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going to press too early.”

The art, then, is finding the threshold where quality is maximized and time wasted minimized – or otherwise put, finding the right balance of quality and time. I am rather good at finding the right balance when doing the work myself (albeit, it’s never quite level). But this balance becomes ever more difficult to find as the complexity of the work effort increases – even more so when the people dimension is added.

I think that most sellers of people services and managers of people/projects believe that there is a science to finding this balance. They tend to apply overly quantitative approaches in search of getting it right. This approach inevitably assumes people are machines and the result of the work is an output. The end product is delivered “on time” and “on budget” (the quantitative measures) but quality and human dignity are sacrificed (the qualitative measures).

So choose your poison. Some choose to offer unrealistic stretch goals by compressing time and changing nothing else. I’d rather give everyone a bit more time and let people work as they choose. The procrastinators may be stealing time, but I don’t measure output – I measure outcomes.

Be a Generalist Specialist

Recently I was browsing the Web and checked out Seth Godin’s website. For those that don’t know, Seth is a best-selling author and successful entrepreneur. On a daily basis he posts a short thought about one topic or another. They are usually very insightful and on point. Today, however, I was somewhat disappointed. The topic of today was titled “Unskilled Labor” and in short Seth contends that “Unskilled now means not-specially skilled.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t disagree with him more.

The article is not well reasoned (I don’t blame him – daily blogging is difficult) but this is what I think he was trying to say:

People with and without college educations have high rates of unemployment. The reason is that for many, their skills do not match the demand in the market. Neurosurgeons and talented database designers, etc., on the other hand, have low rates of unemployment because they have the specialized skills that the market demands. Unskilled today therefore means not skilled in the right specialties.

Even if he had reasoned this way, I would have taken it a step further because, frankly, this is fairly obvious. What is not obvious is how to keep oneself from being unemployed.

The skills that are in demand today may very well not be in demand tomorrow. For example, in 1999, COBOL programmers were in high demand and they commanded high premiums for their specialty. Today, COBOL programmers are not in demand. If the COBOL programmer in 1999 did not change with market demand, he probably would be out of a job today.

The most important skill to have today is adaptability and recognizing that, like in nature, the highly specialized are the first to go extinct. So be a generalist specialist instead. Have a great command of the general concepts in your specific field. For the programmer, understand the tenets of programming. Understand Web development, database programming, object-oriented concepts, software as a service, etc. By doing so, you can adapt and change when needed.

Some argue that the downside to the generalist specialist is that you may not command the highest salary. True, a specialist does command higher salaries for delivering his services. But on the contrary, the generalist specialist has longevity. Moreover, generalist specialists know how to leverage the specialist and usually rise through the ranks within the organization. In other words, they are the bosses.

Don’t Trust Walls

“The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry.” This maxim couldn’t be truer than when we talk about the human obsession with building walls and our undying faith that walls will fulfill their objectives to either keep things out or keep things in. Walls just don’t work – at least over the long term. At first blush, the wall seems to make sense. If it’s high enough and long enough – or even better, enclosed – it will meet its objective to protect or imprison/enslave. Let’s take a look at some of history’s greatest walled failures.

• Keeping Things Out: Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall, Wailing Wall (remains of the ancient wall in Jerusalem that surrounded the Temple), Maginot Line (Hitler went around it), sea walls (e.g., Kamaishi City in Japan spent $1.5 billion to construct the world's largest sea wall – I think they deserve a refund). Corporate firewalls (social engineering makes circumventing them quite easy). I suspect the Israel West Bank wall and the Mexico-U.S. barrier will in the future be examples of failures as well.
• Keeping Things In: Berlin Wall, dams (e.g., levee breach in New Orleans), prison walls (e.g., most prisons are run by prisoners), nuclear power plant walls (does this need an explanation?).

But what about more common walls, such as the walls of a home? One might argue, “The walls of my house work well – they keep out both intruders and the elements.” Well ... not really. Most intruders are not deterred by the walls of your home. The deterrent is the law, occupants in the home, or some lack of good opportunity. If an intruder really wants to get into your home, he will. As per the elements, an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, will flatten your walls in a hot second. Except for the expected statistical exception, physical walls will eventually fail due to deterioration, nature’s fury, or human ingenuity/persistence. So ephemerally, walls work – long term, they do not.

Practically speaking, we need walls for a lot of things so I am not advocating tearing them down. Just don’t put total faith in walls. Know that they can fail and will fail, so have contingencies and redundancies in place where possible. Consider the simple example of failure to apply this logic. Over the last decade, a large number of people have erected mansions literally on the Jersey Shore. These mansions replace the homes on the Jersey Shore that were built as throwaway shacks. Why were they built like that? Because the sea walls had failed many times before. I am certain a hurricane will come and wash many of the new mansions away too. It’s just a matter of time.

Physical walls will fail, but what about conceptual walls (or metaphorical walls)? They are a bit different. The very fact that the wall is built is failure in itself. For example, businesses that are not open to change (the wall), become defunct. Animals that can't adapt (the wall), become extinct. People that don’t open their minds to new ideas and possibilities (the wall), remain ignorant. A heart that is not open to human contact (the wall), is loveless.

For conceptual walls (and if possible for physical walls) consider instead a deflection or transference. Most martial arts are founded on this principle. For example, when someone is charging at you, it is easier to perform a judo throw (or perhaps just moving out of the way and tripping him) than to meet the force directly. Movement is a very powerful option; modern militaries have evolved to be more agile. The best exercises are those that are based on natural movement (e.g., MovNat). Tinkering is more advantageous to big design upfront. New forward-thinking business transformation methodologies that are based on the principles of movement (e.g., M2C) are better than assembly line methods.

Anyway, enough with my rant about walls. I don’t like walls. I don’t trust them. Neither should you.

Lockdown and Lock-in Perpetuity

Let me ask you a pointed question. In the U.S., how would you improve the prison system? I know what you’re thinking – this is a trick question. But bear with me. So think for a second ...

OK, now that you've thought about, let me guess how you may answer.

I imagine that some of you may answer that the purpose of prisons is to reform prisoners; to better reform prisoners, improvements should focus on prisoner betterment, like improved education and real-world skills training. Or you may say prisons are costly; to improve the prison system we need to remove costs by enhancing facility technology so as to use fewer guards. You may say that to improve the prison system, prisoners need to be treated more humanely; perhaps we need to give prisoners more space by making prisons larger and offering prisoners better amenities such as quality and variety of food. You may also argue that due to prison overcrowding, there is a need for more prisons. Or you may say that the key to improving the system requires offering higher pay and more intensive training for prison guards.

Wow – there ARE a lot of ways to improve the system. Which one to choose?

What if I were to tell you that to improve the prison system, the system itself needs to be drastically transformed – a transformation by reduction? We need fewer prisons and prisoners and to achieve this we need to address the criminal justice system and crime. In other words, we should address the cause (the need for prisons) and not the symptom (the prison system). I think most people would agree that fewer prisons and prisoners are good things if you can reduce crime.

Now I am getting to my point of this post. Let’s take the prison system metaphor and apply it to the health care system.

To improve the health care system, do we need more, better and more highly paid doctors? Do we need more enhanced technology and facilities? Do we simply need more hospitals? Of course not – to even suggest this sounds absurd in the context of the prison system metaphor. To improve the health care system we need fewer sick people.

For many of us that is a scary thought because it requires us to change how we think about the problem. Moreover, it directly challenges our industrial ethos and the systems that support it (the health care system employ lots of people as do the franken-food, pharmaceutical, and many of the other industries and sectors that perpetuate it). But it is well known and agreed that there is a causal relationship between our industrial complexes and the epidemics of Western civilization, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. In other words, one of the production outputs of our industrial system is sick people (just one of the many negative externalities of the Complexes).

So, to improve the health care system, the answer is not found in a method that adds to it and perpetuates it. We don't need universal health care. Rather, the answer lies in something that reduces the size and dependency on the health care system – we need healthier people. To achieve this, we need something called universal self care. Give me clean water, natural food, unpolluted environment, and natural movement. I can take care of myself and remain healthy if I’m afforded these. I think most people would agree that they could remain healthy as well.

I know that even in the most hopeful scenarios, there will always be crime and the need for prisons. I know there will always be sickness and the need for hospitals. However, by addressing root issues rather than symptoms, the size and scale of these systems can be a fraction of what they are today.

The proliferation of prisons and the rise of the prison complex are a sign of the failure of society to address crime and criminality. And so the proliferation of health care facilities and the rise of the health care complex are the failure of our society to address the causes of sickness. Both represent a failure of civilization. Unless we demand a change, we will be endlessly locked down and locked into a failed system.

On Spices and Gifts

I haven’t posted in awhile because I’ve been lacking inspiration. That was until today. I have had enough – enough of the expression “variety is the spice of life.” Really – variety? Perhaps if you value structure and habit above all else, or maybe comfort and pleasure. I suppose a little variety can break up the monotony and uniformity.

But I prefer something else. I think that unpredictability is the spice of life. Actually, I think it’s the gift of life. My reasoning – anyone can have variety, but only the free can have unpredictability.

Variety is planned and is predictable. Zoo animals have variety. They may be given a different ball to play with or a different meal for dinner. Zoo animal don’t have true unpredictability because they lack freedom. Yes, they may have the unpredictable event here or there but it’s just a temporary bump in the road.

True unpredictability is not a bump in the road. Rather, it is a break in the path. It allows you the option to choose or even forces you down a new route. Unpredictability challenges and forces growth; variety merely helps maintain interest. Variety is passive while unpredictability is active.

The final scene from the movie Shawshank Redemption sums up how I feel about it rather well. The scene follows Morgan Freeman’s character Red after he’s been released from prison after 40 years of incarceration. He is on his way to find his friend Andy Dufrain. He says, while gazing out the window of the bus, “I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.”

Every day I wake up and I'm scared – scared of the rut. Then I think about freedom and how the path is not fixed. And it gives me hope.

The Art (and Science) of Tinkering

Top-down design and implementation – I'm not a fan. The people at the top are usually disconnected from reality and, more importantly, from what works. In my experience, whatever the top pushes, fails (except for the random occurrences where good fortune saves them). Anyone who has been part of an IT implementation project is aware of the failure of big design upfront. By the time the requirements are gathered and the system designed, so much has changed that the new system is obsolete before it is even implemented.

Proponents of the top-down method speak of failure as a prerequisite to success. This is true to them because of the top-down approach they follow. But failure doesn't need to be an option. There is another way to success.

I prefer the bottom-up approach. This is also referred to as organic, grass roots, agile, along with a slew of other names. I prefer above them all the term tinkering. Tinkering is the process of unplanned trial and error – of experimentation – to see what works and what doesn’t and then move forward with what does (or perhaps move forward with what doesn't).

For me, tinkering is something that comes naturally. As a child, I used to deconstruct every electronic device I could get my hands on – radios, televisions, you name it – I took it apart and put it back together. Each time, I would make slight modifications to see the effect of the change. Oh, the Frankensteins I created.

But outside of child’s play, tinkering plays a large part in many important areas. Evolution and biological adaptation rely on tinkering. Even in this age of technology and information, tinkering is all around us, as startups in their early lifecycle depend on it. Tinkering works for a number of reasons.

• Failure avoidance: Allows for changes to be made before the failure occurs. Accepts small errors over total failure.
• Loss management: Allows for changes to be made before significant costs are incurred. Accepts small costs associated with tinkering over risk of total loss.
• Results realization: Incremental approach reduces latency between expected and actual results.
• Discovery exposure: Increases the chances of accidental discoveries (i.e., serendipities).

If you don’t already know it, see where tinkering plays a role in your life, and perhaps where it could play more of a role. Nassim Taleb put it best: “We need more tinkering: Uninhibited, aggressive, proud tinkering. We need to make our own luck. We can be scared and worried about the future, or we can look at it as a collection of happy surprises that lie outside the path of our imagination.”

The Before and After

Marketers love this sales technique. To prove that a product really works, they show the audience “before” and “after” pictures (or even bring in a live person for the “after” shot). Most often the product being pushed has something to do with a physical transformation – a physical activity regime, a piece of midsection reduction equipment, a fat loss miracle pill/cream or some combination of the aforementioned. Granted, not all “before” and “after” shots are bogus – just the large majority of them.

Other than the survivorship bias testimonial, two of the most prevalent sales tricks are the tan and the smile (this is by no means scientific and is based solely on my observations of endless hours of infomercials and commercials). For the tan, it’s probably a bit of the added color and the artistry of the sprayer hiding or highlighting certain muscles and curves. Coupled with the smile, a frowning pasty white chubby actor looks ... well ... better. Wow! The product must work.

It seems for the causal observer that these two slight of hand tricks are effective at convincing consumers to buy – why else would these types of infomercials and commercials proliferate? But perhaps it’s more than just these slight of hand tricks. Perhaps marketers are tuning in to something else. Why would any reasonable person purchase a product that he can clearly see is bogus?

I think Gym Jones answered the question well in a recent tweet: “Why do we give products, promises and shortcuts supernatural power and imagine an easy way out? Hope is seductive when you…” I think we know what he’s getting at.

The Cemetery of Ideas

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Nassim Taleb. The concept of silent evidence, as represented by the cemetery of books and ideas, is very intriguing to me. So much so, it was one of the inspirations behind my short story “Fahrenheit 72.” But also having read Wrong: Why the Experts Keep Failing Us – and How to Know When Not to Trust Them, and rediscovering some of its concepts recently when browsing David Freedman's website, it struck me that I missed a major association between an idea shared by the two authors. The cemetery of ideas is all around us and the implications are greater than I first believed.

In Wrong, Freedman points out the many failures embedded in scientific studies (which is not to say the failure of the scientific method). Most studies are fraught with biases and errors and are just plain incorrect. What startled me was how wrong it is to test on animals as a precursor to human testing (not the moral or ethical wrongness – that is an entirely different point that I will not address here). Firstly, the logic is flawed – test on animals because they are like humans, but because they are like humans, we should not test on them.

Not only is the logic of animal testing flawed, but so is the very practice. We assume that animals are very much like humans – so the practice is: Test on animals; if it works, test on humans; if not, then take it no further. But animals are very different than humans. Countless instances have shown that certain treatments (e.g., medicines) that seem to work effectively with, say, a mouse, fail horribly when used on humans. But what about the reverse – in other words, those treatments that fail on animals but are very effective on humans? They go no further than the mouse. And this is my point – there are a large number of effective treatments that never came or will come to fruition because of this, and so are buried in the cemetery of ideas. And to take my point to its conclusion, what about all of the human suffering and death because these treatments lie buried? There must be a better way.