I recently had an interesting chat with a person who I know regarding relationships and what to value in them. I'll grant that the person in question is a young person (even when compared to me), so we'll be very nice to them. But regardless, I was more or less appalled by what I heard from her. Supposedly the three main attributes in the significant other, in order of importance, are 1) outlook, 2) IQ, and 3) social networks. I don't even know where to start enumerating the issues that I have with this approach, but I shall try, anyway.
Outlooks. This is entirely random, and if you are looking for a person with whom to spend the rest of your life, it is of course important, but hardly the deciding factor, I would say. The issue is that however beautiful or ugly a person is, if it doesn't click, it doesn't click. The physical appearance, I would argue, is a sanitary issue: your significant other needs to look good enough that you will in fact want to wake up next to him/her. But I would hardly say that outlooks weigh much more than that; in fact, physical attractiveness is a diminishing attribute in the sense that people get old and unattractive. Even more so with women. So in the list of things to score, I agree that physical attractiveness is important, but it is hardly the most important aspect. And to top if off, physical attractiveness is in fact entirely random: the way you look is more or less random and you typically have not really had that much say in it yourself.
Then... IQ. Intelligence is traditionally measured by Mensa and other such institutions. The metrics have received a lot of criticism and rightly so, as there are many different types of intelligence. I understand that what she may have meant was intelligence on a larger scale, but she did not specify the criteria in any more detail. Again, while I list intelligence fairly high in my list of things to value in a significant other, it is again, at least, secondary to that "click". Intelligence is hard to measure and again mostly the way the metrics work can be studied and learned and thus if traditional IQ metrics are used, I venture that it is possible to train oneself in those. This is why Mensa does not allow you to do the test very many times and this is also the reason why traditional IQ exams have favored people with western educations... The tests are biased. Again, I would suggest that the metrics are difficult and again, even if an absolute IQ that covered the Mensa intelligence as well as e.g. emotional intelligence could be determined, the problem is still that these are things that you are essentially still more or less born with, and again can't affect too much.
Now, social networks. These are of course important. I would argue that from a "young" persons perspective there are multiple types. From my personal perspective I know two types of people: people who actively shape the world via political and economical (e.g. business) mechanisms and then the rest. The problem here, as I see it, is that you on some level inherit social networks. I personally wouldn't know these "big names" based on my own merits, but I do know them via other routes. And then again, if valuing a social network, the "other people" aren't really that important. So valuing the social networks that a person has is again fairly silly, since the most valued acquaintances are again established beforehand. If you are born into circles who know people, then you will more or less automatically learn to also know the people who have the power.
Out of these three dimensions the common denominator appears to be that these are in essence things that you can, at best, inherit through your parents and your genes. And because I'm a keen advocate of meritocracy, I reject this view right up front. I personally don't see any intrinsic value in these: you are either born beautiful or not, you are either born intelligent or not, and you either have social networks or you do not. As I discussed previously, it is in fact the movement that I value. I personally don't really give a damn where someone comes from, it is the amount of movement and velocity that they demonstrate, be it in a career or by building a functioning family or whatever, that's what counts. Out of the three dimensions listed above, I would argue that only the third one, social networks, is one that a person can actively develop, and thus might be a thing to consider. And in fact, many people in the venture captital world who I've had the pleasure of meeting also agree that it isn't necessarily what you know but who you know that counts. But the discussion at hand is about significant others, and I personally do not give a damn who my ideal significant other knows or doesn't know.
In light of this, in the scope of significant others, I value this intrinsic and extremely vague concept of "click". If things "click", then you've found a good significant other. If things don't "click", then get rid of the situation and move along. What that means, I have no idea. Base it on intuition, I would suggest. But whatever you do, do not apply the same metrics as you would apply at work; they should be kept very separate. Along with "click", I also judge by the amount of movement and momentum that a person is able to gain. In terms of outlook and appearance, I would not value (outside the basic sanitary requirements) how the person looks by default, but I would in turn emphasize the way they've created and found their own style, how comfortable they are in that style and so on. Intelligence is difficult to measure and arguably should not even be done, but if movement is required, I would value intelligence from the perspective of how well a person is able to manage abstract concepts, deal with social situations (e.g. behave in public, understand and discuss about emotions, etc.), discuss about current events, be opinionated, etc. This is not necessarily movement as such, but again, I would not wish to measure this. Instead I would use the concept of wavelength. You are either on the same wavelength or you are not. If you are, you are able to communicate very well with your significant other, otherwise not. And finally social networks: depends on the type. Facebook friends do not carry any value at all. If you seriously want to value social networks, then you need to analyze the networks in respect to what you can benefit out of them. The beneficial type of social networks may be a good indicator for some attributes that a person may have (e.g. leadership, sociability, etc.), but I would hardly classify it as an intrinsic value by itself. In business acquaintances I value connectedness, but in a significant other I just value the match and the "click".
It may be that I am very simple (hell, I am from the country-side, so what can you expect from a simpleton like me ;), but I feel that in this case the metrics are very skewed. I venture that it has quite a bit to do with me being a supporter of meritocracy (i.e. movement and momentum), but on the other hand with meaningful, romantic relationships, I'm just a simple person who values the concept of "click". If I am happy in a relationship, then I'm happy. If not, then do something about it. Relationships are just one aspect of life, so even though it is very important, it should not be overstressed. Instead, I argue that sustainable happiness (is this analogous to sustainable competitive advantage in the business literature? :) comes from two aspects: 1) a relative balance of different aspects of life (social life, romantic life, work/career, children, education, intellectual pursuits, etc.) and 2) perceived movement and advancement in the different aspects.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Catastrophe!
As I previously noted, I was in London about a month or so back and it was a very nice trip, all in all (even though British Airways insisted on me checking in my James Smith & Sons umbrella, which in turn caused quite a bit of frustration). Anyway, things were fine up until today, when I figured out that I had horribly overlooked one little thing that I was supposed to additionally accomplish on the trip. And no, I'm not referring to the brunch with Natalie, which in the end didn't happen, unfortunately.
You see, more often when considering proper dress, I've always focused on what I wear outside the comfort of my home. Mostly because, well, I'm almost never at home. I've spent this Christmas at my parents' place in the countryside, and all the lounging about has proved a very fatal hole in my wardrobe, namely the lack of a proper dressing gown to lurk around in when not feeling ready to dress properly. Now, London ties into all of this in the way that Turnbull & Asser is one of the stores which, amongst other things, offers very decent dressing gowns. This is an even more sore subject as I did in fact visit Turnbull & Asser to get a nice and nifty ascot tie for myself, and entirely forgot about this gown issue. So now I will have to deal with the situation, one way or another. Of course if the pound sterling keeps on plummeting, I may as well make another nice trip to London later this winter to rectify this error. Otherwise I'll have to search around Helsinki to find nice dressing gowns, but I'm not holding my breath with this choice. I am, however, accepting all sorts of advice on where to solicit a nice dressing gown for myself...
And yes, it is Tom Ford sporting a very decent dressing gown in the photo above. And yes, I blatantly ripped the image from some site I can't remember which I found from Google's image search. So credit goes to whomever wants to claim ownership of the photo.
You see, more often when considering proper dress, I've always focused on what I wear outside the comfort of my home. Mostly because, well, I'm almost never at home. I've spent this Christmas at my parents' place in the countryside, and all the lounging about has proved a very fatal hole in my wardrobe, namely the lack of a proper dressing gown to lurk around in when not feeling ready to dress properly. Now, London ties into all of this in the way that Turnbull & Asser is one of the stores which, amongst other things, offers very decent dressing gowns. This is an even more sore subject as I did in fact visit Turnbull & Asser to get a nice and nifty ascot tie for myself, and entirely forgot about this gown issue. So now I will have to deal with the situation, one way or another. Of course if the pound sterling keeps on plummeting, I may as well make another nice trip to London later this winter to rectify this error. Otherwise I'll have to search around Helsinki to find nice dressing gowns, but I'm not holding my breath with this choice. I am, however, accepting all sorts of advice on where to solicit a nice dressing gown for myself...
And yes, it is Tom Ford sporting a very decent dressing gown in the photo above. And yes, I blatantly ripped the image from some site I can't remember which I found from Google's image search. So credit goes to whomever wants to claim ownership of the photo.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
On movement
Movement is an interesting phenomenon in the sense that it is dependent on both temporal and spatial dimensions. As per definition, speed is the distance covered over a period of time. Thus speed requires two different metrics before it can be determined: a concept of distance/length (typically e.g. meters) and a concept of time (typically e.g. seconds). It is thus synthetic in the sense that it combines two fundamental building blocks to construct a third element. Speed is useful as it implies movement of sorts, and if we value movement, we can say that we value A more than B if the speed (or velocity) of A is higher than B.
This trail of thought is useful on a personal level as well, as it gives us a very simple framework for analyzing the relative movement and the associated speed that we are able to achieve in our personal lives. Very often, especially in western economies, the metric of distance is synonymous to wealth. This means that the faster we gain more wealth, the better. But the framework itself need not be this simplistic, as wealth is a difficult metric and spawns many different feelings from a wide range of people. Wealth may be a good metric in some cases and a very bad metric in others. But if we replace wealth with a function x(a, b, ...), which takes into account different aspects of ones life, and where each given attribute is given a weight of w(a), w(b), ..., this may become a very interesting exercise indeed. Thus, as per our definition, speed is measured by the delta of x(a, b, ...), when we also give the function a temporal dimension and judge the change in the value of x.
What I'm aiming at with this analogy is that people might be well off if the every once in a while evaluate what they've actually achieved (x(a, b, ...)) and reflect that against their on values (w(a), w(b), ...). If no movement is perceived, then something must be fundamentally wrong as the individual is stagnating. This might imply that the individual is already at a local or global maximum, i.e. the person is already as satisfied in life as he or she can be and thus does not benefit from any additional movements. But as this is rarely this case, we might as will just work towards optimizing our movement in general.
Class reunions are brilliant position of time to stop and see what your x() function looks like and compare it to that of others. Sometimes you get motivated by seeing how others are progressing with life, and at other times you get disheartened by the amount of confusion and lack of direction that young adults present. I was recently discussion about the fates of various people with an old classmate of mine at a local bar and this lack of coherent direction was one that was obvious, especially this the so-called mid-crowd. What I mean by this is that the ones who more or less dropped out of the "pre-academic" scene after junior high school are now already trying to manage a family. On the other hand, there are the people who aimed academically higher and possibly also have an academic career to show for. These are the two extreme opposites, but both are able to demonstrate tangible movement, albeit they have fundamentally very different values (as determined by the very different weights, i.e. w(a), w(b), ...).
Now, the third class are the people who fall between the two. The people who may have previously shown academic promise, but discarded that path in favor of other alternatives. What is typical in these people again is very often the situation that they have also discarded the career-building option that the people who began that phase right after junior high. Very often they are also ones who demonstrate long-term relationships that lack tangible progress as well. It is very difficult to see very rapid movement of any sorts for these people, as they seem to just idle away. But interestingly enough it may just be, that traditionally the easiest ways of interpreting this framework do not apply here. These are not the people who work their arses off at manual labor, making sure that the wheels keep turning. Neither are these the people who contribute the most intellect or the most effort into building the systems and constructs that the world is based on. These are the people that go home at 5 PM. But in fact, this might be precisely the group that is fundamental to the backbone of the society. I have to admit that very often I may poke fun at them and ridicule them for the lack of obvious movement, mistaking them for dead. But it is this more or less silent and unnoticeable group, the very middle, which may in fact be the one that is the crucial glue between the other two ends of the system. The connecting factors without which the wheels don't touch each other and things fall apart.
As a fairly analytical person, I analyze my doings very much through the framework of movement, as described above. If I don't see myself moving, then I try to figure out what has happened and try to solve it. But these traditional metrics of movement may not, in fact, be applicable to all. They may work for me, but maybe that's because I'm a lost cause in the first place. And maybe it implies that we are in fact using the wrong metrics at large and that even though I still argue that people like me are important, it may be that in fact even I might need to take a longer look at the mediocre people at the class reunions and actually see the slow but steady movement that they are demonstrating. Maybe that type of movement is more sustainable than the movement that may be more apparent in strongly competitive fields.
This trail of thought is useful on a personal level as well, as it gives us a very simple framework for analyzing the relative movement and the associated speed that we are able to achieve in our personal lives. Very often, especially in western economies, the metric of distance is synonymous to wealth. This means that the faster we gain more wealth, the better. But the framework itself need not be this simplistic, as wealth is a difficult metric and spawns many different feelings from a wide range of people. Wealth may be a good metric in some cases and a very bad metric in others. But if we replace wealth with a function x(a, b, ...), which takes into account different aspects of ones life, and where each given attribute is given a weight of w(a), w(b), ..., this may become a very interesting exercise indeed. Thus, as per our definition, speed is measured by the delta of x(a, b, ...), when we also give the function a temporal dimension and judge the change in the value of x.
What I'm aiming at with this analogy is that people might be well off if the every once in a while evaluate what they've actually achieved (x(a, b, ...)) and reflect that against their on values (w(a), w(b), ...). If no movement is perceived, then something must be fundamentally wrong as the individual is stagnating. This might imply that the individual is already at a local or global maximum, i.e. the person is already as satisfied in life as he or she can be and thus does not benefit from any additional movements. But as this is rarely this case, we might as will just work towards optimizing our movement in general.
Class reunions are brilliant position of time to stop and see what your x() function looks like and compare it to that of others. Sometimes you get motivated by seeing how others are progressing with life, and at other times you get disheartened by the amount of confusion and lack of direction that young adults present. I was recently discussion about the fates of various people with an old classmate of mine at a local bar and this lack of coherent direction was one that was obvious, especially this the so-called mid-crowd. What I mean by this is that the ones who more or less dropped out of the "pre-academic" scene after junior high school are now already trying to manage a family. On the other hand, there are the people who aimed academically higher and possibly also have an academic career to show for. These are the two extreme opposites, but both are able to demonstrate tangible movement, albeit they have fundamentally very different values (as determined by the very different weights, i.e. w(a), w(b), ...).
Now, the third class are the people who fall between the two. The people who may have previously shown academic promise, but discarded that path in favor of other alternatives. What is typical in these people again is very often the situation that they have also discarded the career-building option that the people who began that phase right after junior high. Very often they are also ones who demonstrate long-term relationships that lack tangible progress as well. It is very difficult to see very rapid movement of any sorts for these people, as they seem to just idle away. But interestingly enough it may just be, that traditionally the easiest ways of interpreting this framework do not apply here. These are not the people who work their arses off at manual labor, making sure that the wheels keep turning. Neither are these the people who contribute the most intellect or the most effort into building the systems and constructs that the world is based on. These are the people that go home at 5 PM. But in fact, this might be precisely the group that is fundamental to the backbone of the society. I have to admit that very often I may poke fun at them and ridicule them for the lack of obvious movement, mistaking them for dead. But it is this more or less silent and unnoticeable group, the very middle, which may in fact be the one that is the crucial glue between the other two ends of the system. The connecting factors without which the wheels don't touch each other and things fall apart.
As a fairly analytical person, I analyze my doings very much through the framework of movement, as described above. If I don't see myself moving, then I try to figure out what has happened and try to solve it. But these traditional metrics of movement may not, in fact, be applicable to all. They may work for me, but maybe that's because I'm a lost cause in the first place. And maybe it implies that we are in fact using the wrong metrics at large and that even though I still argue that people like me are important, it may be that in fact even I might need to take a longer look at the mediocre people at the class reunions and actually see the slow but steady movement that they are demonstrating. Maybe that type of movement is more sustainable than the movement that may be more apparent in strongly competitive fields.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Who are you? - Demographics of a blog
1984 was (and still is) a very remarkable piece of fiction, which is increasingly transforming into a factual piece of text. Big brother, as a concept, has been spread wide and far. It has even gotten its namesake in the contemporary TV schedule at prime time, albeit the show itself seems quite horrid, based on the 15 minutes that I've spent watching it. The internet is also starting to exhibit some Orwellian aspects and whereas theoretically anonymity is still possible, most of the time a governmental entity will be able to order individual ISPs, websites, etc. to give out enough data that the anonymity is questionable, at best.
Individual website owners have also had a longstanding hobby of creating statistics about the visitors of their websites. A few years back Google brought out its own offering called Google Analytics, which allows just about anyone to add a small snippet of text into their own websites and begin to collect information on their visitors. At this point I should note, however, that this information is technical in nature and does not really violate privacy; if I am able to say that someone in the past week has looked at my blog and has had a screen resolution of 1024x786, that doesn't really invade your privacy.
Anyway, I thought that I might share some things that Google has gathered on this blog. And maybe that can tell something about what sort of people are reading this blog (i.e. you)...
Since February 25th, there have been 1620 individual visits to this blog, consisting of 2108 page views. So you are not a person who spends very much time digging deep into the blog. But that's not such a surprise, considering the nature of blogs and how the typical use case consists of a person quickly checking the main page of the blog for new entries. No need to dig deeper. This is also supported by the fact, that out of the 2108 page views, 1482 were of the main page of the site. The second most popular page was my entry on convertible cuffs in shirts with 71 page views. Also, over 86% (1400) of the visits consisted of only a single page view, offering even more support for this interpretation.
But even if the attention span of a reader of this blog only allows 1.3 page views per visit, you are still a very persistent bunch. Out of the 1620 individual visits, 1075 visits were from returning visitors. This is comforting, as it seems that you find the ramblings that I write engaging enough so that you actually bother coming back.
Maybe slightly unsurprising is the fact, that 960 visits originated from Finland. In general Europe was very well represented with 1227 visits in total, followed by the Americas with 342 visits. The other continents were all minute compared to these two. The image of the world map is slightly misleading, as the clustering around North America is due to the large number of one-off visitors, who jumped on the site from search engines and the like. On a national level, two thirds of the visits from Finland (604 out of 960) come out of the greater Helsinki area.
On a more tech-y note, it appears that the readers of this blog, you, are a very educated crowd as nearly three quarters (1198) of visits to this site are made using Firefox. This is in sharp contrast with the historical data which gives Internet Explorer a very solid foothold. IE is, however, in second place and the other browsers make up a thin long tail. So kudos to all you enlightened people.
There are also some other statistics which Google provides, but I don't really think that they are that interesting. So of course it would be very interesting to know who exactly reads this blog, but I guess that's something that I'll never truly get to know. However, that said, I do know individual people who read this blog. It becomes quite apparent when I start discussing some topic with another person or within a group, and I automatically get an answer not so dissimilar to: "Yes, we know, you already blogged about that."
Individual website owners have also had a longstanding hobby of creating statistics about the visitors of their websites. A few years back Google brought out its own offering called Google Analytics, which allows just about anyone to add a small snippet of text into their own websites and begin to collect information on their visitors. At this point I should note, however, that this information is technical in nature and does not really violate privacy; if I am able to say that someone in the past week has looked at my blog and has had a screen resolution of 1024x786, that doesn't really invade your privacy.
Anyway, I thought that I might share some things that Google has gathered on this blog. And maybe that can tell something about what sort of people are reading this blog (i.e. you)...
Since February 25th, there have been 1620 individual visits to this blog, consisting of 2108 page views. So you are not a person who spends very much time digging deep into the blog. But that's not such a surprise, considering the nature of blogs and how the typical use case consists of a person quickly checking the main page of the blog for new entries. No need to dig deeper. This is also supported by the fact, that out of the 2108 page views, 1482 were of the main page of the site. The second most popular page was my entry on convertible cuffs in shirts with 71 page views. Also, over 86% (1400) of the visits consisted of only a single page view, offering even more support for this interpretation.
But even if the attention span of a reader of this blog only allows 1.3 page views per visit, you are still a very persistent bunch. Out of the 1620 individual visits, 1075 visits were from returning visitors. This is comforting, as it seems that you find the ramblings that I write engaging enough so that you actually bother coming back.
Maybe slightly unsurprising is the fact, that 960 visits originated from Finland. In general Europe was very well represented with 1227 visits in total, followed by the Americas with 342 visits. The other continents were all minute compared to these two. The image of the world map is slightly misleading, as the clustering around North America is due to the large number of one-off visitors, who jumped on the site from search engines and the like. On a national level, two thirds of the visits from Finland (604 out of 960) come out of the greater Helsinki area.
On a more tech-y note, it appears that the readers of this blog, you, are a very educated crowd as nearly three quarters (1198) of visits to this site are made using Firefox. This is in sharp contrast with the historical data which gives Internet Explorer a very solid foothold. IE is, however, in second place and the other browsers make up a thin long tail. So kudos to all you enlightened people.
There are also some other statistics which Google provides, but I don't really think that they are that interesting. So of course it would be very interesting to know who exactly reads this blog, but I guess that's something that I'll never truly get to know. However, that said, I do know individual people who read this blog. It becomes quite apparent when I start discussing some topic with another person or within a group, and I automatically get an answer not so dissimilar to: "Yes, we know, you already blogged about that."
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Objectivity
Prior to running the half-marathon last spring, I received plenty of advice from more experienced runners regarding how to survive and maybe even get a good time out of the run. The guidance was very good in general, and in retrospect the key issues were where I stumbled horribly (I guess that's why in certain fields academic literature has defined the concept of critical success factor--things that are, well, critical to the success...). I took all the advice, pondered a bit, thought I understood it, and then failed. Knowing is something, applying the knowing to practice is another beast altogether. Next spring when I run the half-marathon again, I'm very confident that based on my previous experience, the results will be better. Heck, they can't be any worse after this spring's run...
Learning for me is a very iterative process. I would argue that it is for most, but recently some more intelligent people have struck the fear of god (or at least the fear of generalization) in me, so I shall not speculate with such broad strokes. You try, you fail, you pick yourself up and try again. And at some point you absorb knowledge and wisdom from other sources, and sometimes it is a really slow process. And when you stubbornly refuse to accept conventional wisdom and rely on your own intuition, you might occasionally be able to create new wisdom. At least for yourself.
There is a Finnish idiom of "Aika kultaa muistot", but unfortunately I can't recall the English counterpart right now. The idea, anyway, is that over time your memories will become distorted and should not be relied on for anything more serious than casual conversation. I'm sure there are plenty of papers explaining the process of taking what originally might have been a relatively objective interpretation and how it becomes very biased and subjective when sufficient amount of time is allowed to pass. This is again conventional wisdom, which I've been unfortunately forgetting. I've been delving on past issues a bit more than I should've during this year. The reasons are many, but none of them are especially good. Personally I experienced how a technically small thing escalated into one of the biggest bogeymen for me. I cannot entirely open the situation up, as I fear that grasping the entire situation is even beyond my capabilities, but sufficient to say that at the same time I loved and hated my experiences. I put them up on a pedestal but still feared them and was angered by them. And eventually they grew very much out of proportion. So what is the way to kill the bogeyman? Stand up, stay firm, and stare it in the eye. And as is often the case, even now the bogeyman didn't appear so terrible anymore once you actually confront it.
The irony here is that as objective as some people (e.g. me) think they are, it is very much an illusion. Actually it is an even bigger irony that I am a judgemental person, and still dare argue that I am capable of objectivity. But I guess that is not an entirely fair statement either. Another funny thing is related to the aforementioned bogeymen. Typically one hides them from general view, but in fact letting the light into the attic, where the bogeyman lives, might very well show that the bogeyman is in fact gone. Clean the dust, do some housekeeping, and the mind becomes lighter and healthier as well. And on that note, I've been playing around with the idea of hiring a housekeeper to come by a couple of times a month to take care of my flat...
Learning for me is a very iterative process. I would argue that it is for most, but recently some more intelligent people have struck the fear of god (or at least the fear of generalization) in me, so I shall not speculate with such broad strokes. You try, you fail, you pick yourself up and try again. And at some point you absorb knowledge and wisdom from other sources, and sometimes it is a really slow process. And when you stubbornly refuse to accept conventional wisdom and rely on your own intuition, you might occasionally be able to create new wisdom. At least for yourself.
There is a Finnish idiom of "Aika kultaa muistot", but unfortunately I can't recall the English counterpart right now. The idea, anyway, is that over time your memories will become distorted and should not be relied on for anything more serious than casual conversation. I'm sure there are plenty of papers explaining the process of taking what originally might have been a relatively objective interpretation and how it becomes very biased and subjective when sufficient amount of time is allowed to pass. This is again conventional wisdom, which I've been unfortunately forgetting. I've been delving on past issues a bit more than I should've during this year. The reasons are many, but none of them are especially good. Personally I experienced how a technically small thing escalated into one of the biggest bogeymen for me. I cannot entirely open the situation up, as I fear that grasping the entire situation is even beyond my capabilities, but sufficient to say that at the same time I loved and hated my experiences. I put them up on a pedestal but still feared them and was angered by them. And eventually they grew very much out of proportion. So what is the way to kill the bogeyman? Stand up, stay firm, and stare it in the eye. And as is often the case, even now the bogeyman didn't appear so terrible anymore once you actually confront it.
The irony here is that as objective as some people (e.g. me) think they are, it is very much an illusion. Actually it is an even bigger irony that I am a judgemental person, and still dare argue that I am capable of objectivity. But I guess that is not an entirely fair statement either. Another funny thing is related to the aforementioned bogeymen. Typically one hides them from general view, but in fact letting the light into the attic, where the bogeyman lives, might very well show that the bogeyman is in fact gone. Clean the dust, do some housekeeping, and the mind becomes lighter and healthier as well. And on that note, I've been playing around with the idea of hiring a housekeeper to come by a couple of times a month to take care of my flat...
Monday, December 01, 2008
Finland 0-7 England+Italy
One of the biggest differences between London and Helsinki was one which also separates Milan and Helsinki: dress. I don't know whether it has something to do with Helsinki residing in such a cold climate that we must emphasize functionality of clothes or if it's just because we Finns have grown in a forest, but it seems that the Italians and the Brits outdress us by, well, a lot.
There's an old saying which states that you are able to identify a Finnish business man at the airport by his shoes. And that's not a complement. This has been attributed to the horrid weather in Finland, which eats through all types of shoes in a matter of months. But it does not explain how it is possible that Finns cannot wear suits that fit well. The suit, to many Finnish men, is some horrid apparatus, which they feel has been devised only to restrict and constrain. The most typical Finnish suit is one which resembles a box. I do not wish to describe it in more detail, as I'm sure that you will already have an idea what wearing a box might look like. Tapering is entirely unheard of and the armholes are cut so large that movement is just horrid. So no wonder Finns fear suits.
Brits and Italians, on the other hand, have a long history with everything related to style. Brits through their class hierarchies and dress codes. Italians, on the other hand, need nothing more than sprezzatura and they're able to always come out on top and not even break a sweat. But for Finns, mastering even a single knot to tie the feared tie with seems to be beyond all hope.
Helsinki does, however, have some fashionable people. Or at least I would imagine so. But fashion is again something that I do not want to know anything about, which means that from my perspective the Finnish society consists of people who think that wearing a shell suit in town is acceptable and then people who think that it's cool to dress like a member of the opposite sex (to be slightly provocative, as I have no idea about the rationale or reasoning behind the fads of the fashion crowd). We are lacking the group of people who master the art of style. I'm not necessarily even referring to the dandies, but maybe a slightly towned down version of them. It shouldn't be so difficult, but apparently it is. Unfortunately.
There's an old saying which states that you are able to identify a Finnish business man at the airport by his shoes. And that's not a complement. This has been attributed to the horrid weather in Finland, which eats through all types of shoes in a matter of months. But it does not explain how it is possible that Finns cannot wear suits that fit well. The suit, to many Finnish men, is some horrid apparatus, which they feel has been devised only to restrict and constrain. The most typical Finnish suit is one which resembles a box. I do not wish to describe it in more detail, as I'm sure that you will already have an idea what wearing a box might look like. Tapering is entirely unheard of and the armholes are cut so large that movement is just horrid. So no wonder Finns fear suits.
Brits and Italians, on the other hand, have a long history with everything related to style. Brits through their class hierarchies and dress codes. Italians, on the other hand, need nothing more than sprezzatura and they're able to always come out on top and not even break a sweat. But for Finns, mastering even a single knot to tie the feared tie with seems to be beyond all hope.
Helsinki does, however, have some fashionable people. Or at least I would imagine so. But fashion is again something that I do not want to know anything about, which means that from my perspective the Finnish society consists of people who think that wearing a shell suit in town is acceptable and then people who think that it's cool to dress like a member of the opposite sex (to be slightly provocative, as I have no idea about the rationale or reasoning behind the fads of the fashion crowd). We are lacking the group of people who master the art of style. I'm not necessarily even referring to the dandies, but maybe a slightly towned down version of them. It shouldn't be so difficult, but apparently it is. Unfortunately.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The large questions in life
Life comes down to a small number of really big questions. Questions that will define the direction of the rest of your life. Questions that will be so large in nature that under no circumstance do you want to rush things. One of them involves a question, which at first brush seems pretty irrelevant. But it is not, and it really should not be underestimated. The question is as follows: If you were spending three days and two nights in London, what jacket would you wear?
The three alternatives (from left to right), along with their respective motivations, are as follow:
- The brown, single-breasted jacket with two buttons and a single back vent with tapered sides. Combined with jeans, brown leather shoes, and a crisp white shirt it would be an absolutely perfect combination for having breakfast in. And yes, I am aware that a gentleman never wears brown in town. And because I said that, it means that I'm allowed to break the rule. Naturally.
- The really dark blue, single-breasted blazer with two buttons and side vents and slight tapering. Can match with anything, and combined with tan trousers, a blue and white striped Sea Island cotton shirt with nice cufflinks would be a brilliant outfit for having a drink at the airport and just lounging around town on a weekend.
- The really dark gray, Italian, single-breasted suit with two buttons and a back vent with some tapering. Would be very nice for contrasting with the British cuts and perfect for going out in the evening.
Out of the three choices, the most versatile, hands down, is the blazer. You can dress it up, you can dress it down. You can wear it with jeans or you can wear it with trousers. You can wear it with shirts, turtlenecks, or t-shirts and knitwear. You can absolutely do anything with it and always get away with it.
(And for those who are interested in it, a jacket should have four cuff buttons. Not three or two or one or none. Those are too few. Nor should it have five, since that makes it too cluttered, and I don't care whether Paul Smith does it or not. Four is the perfect number. It's not too many, it's not too few. It gives weight to the cuff, but does not clutter. And as for lapels: notched. Not peaked, as they should be reserved for more formal clothing as well as double-breasted suits. And on the topic of double-breasted suits: if you're not nearing retirement, stay well clear of them, unless you know precisely what you are doing...)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Networks and whatnot
As part of the remaining school work, I've been reading a bunch of articles on a rather broad scope, but basically everything has been related to management theories, etc. An interesting thing is that all of the different facets seem to be the "most important point of view" while other parts are obviously subordinate. Tonight I was reading about how marketing may be impacted by the increasingly networked economy, and without going into it in too much detail, one conclusion was that marketing as a field will evolve and change and is a lot more central to companies than it was before. That everything should be viewed through the lenses of the marketing world. I guess Kotler & Keller have at least discussed about this as "strategic marketing" (and that is actually another funny aspect; just add "strategic" to anything and it's automagically really cool).
Amusingly enough, at the same time elsewhere some other people are advocating that in the modern world it's technology that drives most of the disruptions in the world. And that we should actually focus on managing technologies and so on. Marketing is one part of the set. A tool for cultivating and growing new technological innovations. And then there's the logistics crowd. Logistics is incredibly important and a central to the success of a company and that sometimes it can even be a really core competitive advantage and that logistics should be supported by other fields.
And then there is the strategy crowd. In the corporate world I guess there are essentially two types. The guys from BCG/McK/Bain axis and then the guys who previously belonged to this first group but are now employed by their former clients directly. And of course they do the Strategy stuff, and everything is subordinate to them. Or something like that.
Interestingly enough, however, it would appear that all this is pointless. Everything's networked and hierarchies are falling. And I would even go so far as to argue that for the people with slightly failing eyesight (like me), the whole network looks like one big lump. Sometimes I don't even really make a distinction anymore. Everything, in the end, aims at competitive advantage. They just approach the same goal from different angles, but they're not necessarily competitors. More like complementors. Now, what was the point that I was trying to make? I don't really know; at this point I'm just finding this very amusing as the marketing crowd has been writing really nice papers with really big and fancy words which I don't even understand and all the while advocating that they're in the center. But according to contemporary understanding about network economies, the center is dumb and the magic happens at the edges of the networks. So yes, feel free to be in the center, for all I care...
Amusingly enough, at the same time elsewhere some other people are advocating that in the modern world it's technology that drives most of the disruptions in the world. And that we should actually focus on managing technologies and so on. Marketing is one part of the set. A tool for cultivating and growing new technological innovations. And then there's the logistics crowd. Logistics is incredibly important and a central to the success of a company and that sometimes it can even be a really core competitive advantage and that logistics should be supported by other fields.
And then there is the strategy crowd. In the corporate world I guess there are essentially two types. The guys from BCG/McK/Bain axis and then the guys who previously belonged to this first group but are now employed by their former clients directly. And of course they do the Strategy stuff, and everything is subordinate to them. Or something like that.
Interestingly enough, however, it would appear that all this is pointless. Everything's networked and hierarchies are falling. And I would even go so far as to argue that for the people with slightly failing eyesight (like me), the whole network looks like one big lump. Sometimes I don't even really make a distinction anymore. Everything, in the end, aims at competitive advantage. They just approach the same goal from different angles, but they're not necessarily competitors. More like complementors. Now, what was the point that I was trying to make? I don't really know; at this point I'm just finding this very amusing as the marketing crowd has been writing really nice papers with really big and fancy words which I don't even understand and all the while advocating that they're in the center. But according to contemporary understanding about network economies, the center is dumb and the magic happens at the edges of the networks. So yes, feel free to be in the center, for all I care...
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Form and substance
In Finland, at least, when you're working towards your driver's license, one of the key things to remember is to always explicitly show the instructor that everything you do is intentional and that you are on top of things. It doesn't matter if you don't really check whether or not a bike is approaching as long as on a shallow and superficial level you let the instructor see that you made a gesture. It is funny, but that's how its done. A good driver will automatically start acknowledging things without actually thinking too much about it, but for some odd reason it's not enough that you don't crash into anything during training, but you have to formally demonstrate that you know how to survive.
Similar situations arise at work and at school. Especially at school. Substance is, more often than not, a secondary issue, as long as the form is good. You can write papers and as long as you cite the right authors and structure the paper in a seemingly intelligent way, you can pretty much say whatever you want and nobody will care too much about it. At work it is again slightly different, but the same elements are present there. This may be how a cynic views the world, but I firmly believe that there is an element of truth behind this; you get points for form and only then, if at all, for the substance.
I've also recently figured out what was one of the really annoying parts in my previous serious relationship. There were many different things, but one aspect was that I didn't see the regret in her actions. I'm sure she felt bad for whatever it was that she had done, but she didn't clearly communicate or show this. Granted, I might not be a person who is approachable at all when I'm in a seriously foul mood; in fact, I'm quite convinced that if I'm seriously ticked off, it might just be better for other people to head for the hills. But regardless, I didn't see the effort in righting the wrongs. There was no effort on a superficial level, nor was there any in the substance level. The message, as I interpreted it, was that "Well, this sort of stuff happens, deal with it. Oh, yeah, I guess I'm feeling sort of bad or something." And because the name of the game is forgiving people, that didn't help the situation all that much. How can you even try to forgive someone who does not even appear to be regretting her actions.
But this actually illustrates one funny aspect of us humans; we are incredibly easy to manipulate, regardless of whether or not we admit it. As emotional beings, all you have to do is understand ever so slightly what the other person needs and then just play along. Some people are better at playing along in some situations than others. I guess the general consensus is that I'm not the most emotional of people (and then again, those who know me know the exact opposite), but that is mainly because my issue is with expressing the emotion. It's the superficial side that I should work on. It's what the Americans are so good at: acting. And acting isn't as bad as it sounds here; it just means that if there are the two levels that were previously argued, substance isn't very much without form, and acting is the form. The connection is symbiotic, in fact. Form without substance is unfortunately very much present in the corporate world, where endless Powerpoint slides and lots of expensive suits and seven-fold ties have replaced the actual substance.
Similar situations arise at work and at school. Especially at school. Substance is, more often than not, a secondary issue, as long as the form is good. You can write papers and as long as you cite the right authors and structure the paper in a seemingly intelligent way, you can pretty much say whatever you want and nobody will care too much about it. At work it is again slightly different, but the same elements are present there. This may be how a cynic views the world, but I firmly believe that there is an element of truth behind this; you get points for form and only then, if at all, for the substance.
I've also recently figured out what was one of the really annoying parts in my previous serious relationship. There were many different things, but one aspect was that I didn't see the regret in her actions. I'm sure she felt bad for whatever it was that she had done, but she didn't clearly communicate or show this. Granted, I might not be a person who is approachable at all when I'm in a seriously foul mood; in fact, I'm quite convinced that if I'm seriously ticked off, it might just be better for other people to head for the hills. But regardless, I didn't see the effort in righting the wrongs. There was no effort on a superficial level, nor was there any in the substance level. The message, as I interpreted it, was that "Well, this sort of stuff happens, deal with it. Oh, yeah, I guess I'm feeling sort of bad or something." And because the name of the game is forgiving people, that didn't help the situation all that much. How can you even try to forgive someone who does not even appear to be regretting her actions.
But this actually illustrates one funny aspect of us humans; we are incredibly easy to manipulate, regardless of whether or not we admit it. As emotional beings, all you have to do is understand ever so slightly what the other person needs and then just play along. Some people are better at playing along in some situations than others. I guess the general consensus is that I'm not the most emotional of people (and then again, those who know me know the exact opposite), but that is mainly because my issue is with expressing the emotion. It's the superficial side that I should work on. It's what the Americans are so good at: acting. And acting isn't as bad as it sounds here; it just means that if there are the two levels that were previously argued, substance isn't very much without form, and acting is the form. The connection is symbiotic, in fact. Form without substance is unfortunately very much present in the corporate world, where endless Powerpoint slides and lots of expensive suits and seven-fold ties have replaced the actual substance.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Making decisions for other people
I was talking to a very good friend of mine recently about how I sometimes feel that I just want to cut some dates short because I don't want to waste the other party's time and effort needlessly. I always thought that I was being very polite to attempt to adhere to a policy like that, but my friend begged to differ. She was telling me that I had no such right to make decisions like that for other people. For a while I didn't really grasp her point that well and left it at that, thinking that of course there is nothing wrong with my view and that she had simply not understood it. That she had missed the point regarding how courteous I was in not dragging things on needlessly.
But I do have to admit that I may have finally understood what she meant by this. I recently went out on a couple of dates with this girl and after last January and some silly rebounding after that I had decided that instead of just trying to rush into anything, I would primarily just try to get to know people and if things didn't click, I would at least try to be friends, assuming they weren't totally horrid. This was more or less what happened with the girl; she was cute and fun to be around, but I hadn't really felt any real connection. I had been honest with her that I was mainly looking for just new friends and didn't necessarily feel like forcing myself into a relationship, having seen what that is like. And I have to admit that this casual pseudo-dating was actually surprisingly fun, even without having any sort of agenda. My theory is that a person should try to meet and get to know a very wide group of acquantances from very different places in an attempt to broaden one's own horizons, and this was the primary motivation, as such.
In situations like these, however, there seems to be a very high probability of some type of expectation mismatch occuring. I should've understood that whereas I was just in it for the fun, she might've been looking for something else, something more than just friendship and that she would feel as if she's wasting time if it is clear that there are no deeper feelings present. But the way in which she articulated this was so much a cliché and illustrated my friend's point in such a clear way that I couldn't help but laugh when I understood how silly I had undoubtedly sounded in the past. Her comment was that "She feels that I might not be looking for a girl like her." The was obviously very clear, but hearing that myself made me understand how stupid it is to phrase it like that. How could she know what I was looking for and how could she make a decision like that for me? A better phrasing would've been "You're not what I'm looking for" instead. As a matter of fact, I'm quite ashamed that I've also been scared enough to avoid direct confrontation myself and used phrases like the former in an attempt to not have to say the latter. The former is of course politically very nice, but incredibly annoying and spawns the following questions: a) do you suggest that you are so good at interpreting people that you know what they think, b) are you so afraid of confrontation that you cannot take ownership of your own decision, and c) do you think that that actually works?
So, to summarize, another lesson learned. And to whomever it may concern, I do have to offer my apologies for not being the upstanding person I thought I was. But I am learning, and I guess that's always a good thing.
But I do have to admit that I may have finally understood what she meant by this. I recently went out on a couple of dates with this girl and after last January and some silly rebounding after that I had decided that instead of just trying to rush into anything, I would primarily just try to get to know people and if things didn't click, I would at least try to be friends, assuming they weren't totally horrid. This was more or less what happened with the girl; she was cute and fun to be around, but I hadn't really felt any real connection. I had been honest with her that I was mainly looking for just new friends and didn't necessarily feel like forcing myself into a relationship, having seen what that is like. And I have to admit that this casual pseudo-dating was actually surprisingly fun, even without having any sort of agenda. My theory is that a person should try to meet and get to know a very wide group of acquantances from very different places in an attempt to broaden one's own horizons, and this was the primary motivation, as such.
In situations like these, however, there seems to be a very high probability of some type of expectation mismatch occuring. I should've understood that whereas I was just in it for the fun, she might've been looking for something else, something more than just friendship and that she would feel as if she's wasting time if it is clear that there are no deeper feelings present. But the way in which she articulated this was so much a cliché and illustrated my friend's point in such a clear way that I couldn't help but laugh when I understood how silly I had undoubtedly sounded in the past. Her comment was that "She feels that I might not be looking for a girl like her." The was obviously very clear, but hearing that myself made me understand how stupid it is to phrase it like that. How could she know what I was looking for and how could she make a decision like that for me? A better phrasing would've been "You're not what I'm looking for" instead. As a matter of fact, I'm quite ashamed that I've also been scared enough to avoid direct confrontation myself and used phrases like the former in an attempt to not have to say the latter. The former is of course politically very nice, but incredibly annoying and spawns the following questions: a) do you suggest that you are so good at interpreting people that you know what they think, b) are you so afraid of confrontation that you cannot take ownership of your own decision, and c) do you think that that actually works?
So, to summarize, another lesson learned. And to whomever it may concern, I do have to offer my apologies for not being the upstanding person I thought I was. But I am learning, and I guess that's always a good thing.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
You scratch my back, I scratch your back...
I'm becoming more and more convinced that people these days have long forgotten how the world works and what the dynamics are. The age old wisdom of "you scratch my back, I scratch your back" seems to have been forgotten. There are many examples of this, even from my personal life. It seems that things have become a free-for-fall, every person for themself.
One of the most simple scenarios is located in the bar setting. In a group of people, it is often very convenient to have one person at a time get rounds of drinks for everyone. That means that your group won't lose seats and that instead of everyone having to queue one at a time, only one person needs to queue. As an additional perk, this sort of exercise slowly creates trust in a group. Everyone is of course free to leave when they will, but buying rounds shows trust in the other people, that they are not opportunists only looking to score a free drink. Of course, even in this simple game, there are still two types of people who ruin it: a) the idiots who do not understand the nature of the game at all and b) the purely opportunistic bunch. Group b) is easy: evolutionary biology has a concept of reciprocal altruism, and when a parasite is present, it is cast out of the society as punishment. In the bar setting it means getting a round for everyone else but the castout. Group a) is more difficult, as this bunch consists of morons who just don't understand, for one reason or another, the dynamics. What should one do with this group?
So again, here we have another topic concerning trust and altruism. Trust could be understood as a two-sided issue. On on hand trust could be said to exist when two or more players optimize their own utility and where their utility functions are aligned so that it is in the interest of both parties not to screw the other party. On the other hand, trust also requires belief and confidence that even though you expose yourself, the other party does not attempt to opportunistically benefit and increase their utility at your expense.
Now, there was an interesting case tonight at dinner. It may not inherently have that much to do with opportunism, but there is a longer term trend appearing which might suggest something to that extent. It is of course not fair to suggest that it would've been the case today, but passive opportunism may still lurk about. Anyway, it is interesting how this group a) is also very much unable to understand and arrange a trivial operation, such as reserving a table at a restaurant, let alone arriving at the agreed time. And I admit that even though being 5-10 minutes late is still annoying, it can be tolerated. Being 50 minutes late is very interesting, indeed. Now, the other interesting issue arose at the end of the dinner, when I indicated in an annoyed fashion that considering the overall course of the evening, it would fit the theme for me to pick up the bill. I have nothing against picking up a bill as such, but considering the amount of bills that I've picked up here and there, I would've assumed someone else to step in and offer to take it. But no. This is what I would label as passive opportunism.
It is, of course, always possible to start doing math afterwards and split the bill by calling people up and asking them to pay their parts. This, however, is very tasteless, in my opinion. As described above, I understand the system to work in the way that the next time I'm out to dinner, someone else could pick up the bill. But alas, with some people this is too much to expect, and I am at a loss whether to just admit defeat and begin calling in all the beers and dinners and other such tabs that I've picked up in the past.
And finally, for the two top tips of the evening: 1) do not be late for if you've agreed on a time and do reserve a table if there are more than two people coming, and 2) if someone buys a round or picks up a bill, do remember this in the future and do return the favor. Nobody likes a leech, and unless there are other understandings in play, the default dynamics remain the ones to live by.
As I final note, however, I have to admit that all of this is still fairly minute when compared to the entirely rotten group of people who always actively want something from you when they contact you, but never extend a helping hand themselves.
One of the most simple scenarios is located in the bar setting. In a group of people, it is often very convenient to have one person at a time get rounds of drinks for everyone. That means that your group won't lose seats and that instead of everyone having to queue one at a time, only one person needs to queue. As an additional perk, this sort of exercise slowly creates trust in a group. Everyone is of course free to leave when they will, but buying rounds shows trust in the other people, that they are not opportunists only looking to score a free drink. Of course, even in this simple game, there are still two types of people who ruin it: a) the idiots who do not understand the nature of the game at all and b) the purely opportunistic bunch. Group b) is easy: evolutionary biology has a concept of reciprocal altruism, and when a parasite is present, it is cast out of the society as punishment. In the bar setting it means getting a round for everyone else but the castout. Group a) is more difficult, as this bunch consists of morons who just don't understand, for one reason or another, the dynamics. What should one do with this group?
So again, here we have another topic concerning trust and altruism. Trust could be understood as a two-sided issue. On on hand trust could be said to exist when two or more players optimize their own utility and where their utility functions are aligned so that it is in the interest of both parties not to screw the other party. On the other hand, trust also requires belief and confidence that even though you expose yourself, the other party does not attempt to opportunistically benefit and increase their utility at your expense.
Now, there was an interesting case tonight at dinner. It may not inherently have that much to do with opportunism, but there is a longer term trend appearing which might suggest something to that extent. It is of course not fair to suggest that it would've been the case today, but passive opportunism may still lurk about. Anyway, it is interesting how this group a) is also very much unable to understand and arrange a trivial operation, such as reserving a table at a restaurant, let alone arriving at the agreed time. And I admit that even though being 5-10 minutes late is still annoying, it can be tolerated. Being 50 minutes late is very interesting, indeed. Now, the other interesting issue arose at the end of the dinner, when I indicated in an annoyed fashion that considering the overall course of the evening, it would fit the theme for me to pick up the bill. I have nothing against picking up a bill as such, but considering the amount of bills that I've picked up here and there, I would've assumed someone else to step in and offer to take it. But no. This is what I would label as passive opportunism.
It is, of course, always possible to start doing math afterwards and split the bill by calling people up and asking them to pay their parts. This, however, is very tasteless, in my opinion. As described above, I understand the system to work in the way that the next time I'm out to dinner, someone else could pick up the bill. But alas, with some people this is too much to expect, and I am at a loss whether to just admit defeat and begin calling in all the beers and dinners and other such tabs that I've picked up in the past.
And finally, for the two top tips of the evening: 1) do not be late for if you've agreed on a time and do reserve a table if there are more than two people coming, and 2) if someone buys a round or picks up a bill, do remember this in the future and do return the favor. Nobody likes a leech, and unless there are other understandings in play, the default dynamics remain the ones to live by.
As I final note, however, I have to admit that all of this is still fairly minute when compared to the entirely rotten group of people who always actively want something from you when they contact you, but never extend a helping hand themselves.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Fresh...
Strangely enough things are looking up again. Or, it's difficult to describe, but in a really weird way the above song just really clicks with my current mood. It's slightly playful, light, optimistic. The strings are just so sexy and the beat continues to move things on with great ease.
School started again a bit less than a month back and for the first period I'm only looking at two courses. That said, I did already read the course book for a course starting in the second period. Out of the two courses, both promise to be interesting, but in different ways. The advanced course in software business is actually an interesting course with a small group of people and the sessions are more discussing in nature. And then the other one... Software Development Project I. There's an eight person team and the intent is to revamp some older piece of software for an external client. And I'm having some sort of a culture shock with our project manager, who seems to not have any experience in running these types of projects... Or any projects for that matter.
Work is taking up more and more time and even though I'm being pushed increasingly hard by managers, it's still amazingly enough interesting and challenging. And even though at times I'm just about ready to give up and throw my hands in the air, I just end up pushing on. This whole project has taught me so much that even now I consider my time very well spent.
What else...? I bought my first blazer a couple of days back and I'm totally addicted to it. Wore it yesterday for the first time and combine it with khaki trousers, a light shirt, a repp tie and voila, amazing. The blazer itself promises to be one of the more versatile investments that I've made and it certainly has that prep-appeal present. And yes, the really relevant question here is: How is it possible that I've not owned one before?
And while taking into account the current situation of the economy, I've also been running a personal project during this year of minimizing my fixed costs by shifting e.g. phones and the internet to the company, killing some of my own magazine subscriptions that I can read at work, and so on. But amazingly enough it seems that when you save somewhere, you start spending elsewhere. So now that the fixed costs are down, my next project is to shift myself to a 20e a day budget. Meaning that every morning I take a 20e bill from the ATM and I have to get through the day with that. And whatever remains of it at the end of the day, I through that into a glass on my bookshelf. This means that hopefully I'll be able to cap my monthly spendings quite a bit. Because it would really be a shame to miss the upcoming possibility to broaden my investment portfolio due to lack of cash. I guess I'll also need to review my strategy for investing and go through some fundamental questions...
But, it's Saturday morning and even though it's slightly raining outside, I'm feeling great and a large breakfast might be a good idea before the evening in with some friends.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Emotion vs. reason
The concept of yin and yang is very dominant in Asian religions, as everyone is very much aware. In a way, they are polar opposites, but instead of fixing in an stalemate and ending up with a static equilibrium, they are ever moving and their balance is dynamic. This circular nature of things is also instilled deep in how people of the eastern cultures understand the world; some academic writers suggest that if westerners are keen to identify a start and an end, the Asian cousins are in turn in a loop, so to say. Projects versus processes. When yin gets very strong, yang also starts growing, thus forcing yin to shrink again, only to cause the opposite. There are four qualities to yin and yang:
Different people also sway different amounts. This might be understood to be stability; the less you sway the more stable you are. Meaning that if we draw a bell curve around the average, the smaller the variance is, the more stable the person. The curve, of course, may not be a bell curve. Personally I am very often a very rational person, but that does not mean that I am not emotional as well. This year has been very emotional for me, and although extremely rational individuals often scoff at the uncontrollable nature of emotion, one should still not underestimate the power of emotion. This I've learned the hard way.
The dualistic nature of the situation, however, need not be a weakness or a problem. In fact, I think that it is in fact a strength, if one is able to tap into it. Emotion enables passion, and life without passion is not a life worth living. And passion, much like fire, must be kept a steady eye on as an uncontrolled fire will turn into a forest fire and consume everything. Similar to how passion will consume the individual. So reason, then, is the cool opposite of the fire-y emotion and keeps emotion in check. They are in a symbiotic relationship, as one without the other is a dead end. If emotion without reason is a forest fire, reason without emotion is a robot. And a person sways between the two, striving to find the right balance.
But ultimately, both emotion and reason are still meant to be subordinate to the individual. Much like neither fire nor water can ever be truly controlled, neither can emotion and reason. But they should be harnessed and the energy they create should, in the end, be used towards happiness. I am sure that this is nothing new, but as seems to be the case with me, I have to learn everything myself--and preferrably the hard way--before I can truly grasp it.
- They are opposites
- They are complementary
- They mutually transform (e.g. when yin reaches its maximum, it starts going towards the minimum)
- They are in a dynamic equilibrium (e.g. when yin grows, yang shrinks, and vice versa)
Different people also sway different amounts. This might be understood to be stability; the less you sway the more stable you are. Meaning that if we draw a bell curve around the average, the smaller the variance is, the more stable the person. The curve, of course, may not be a bell curve. Personally I am very often a very rational person, but that does not mean that I am not emotional as well. This year has been very emotional for me, and although extremely rational individuals often scoff at the uncontrollable nature of emotion, one should still not underestimate the power of emotion. This I've learned the hard way.
The dualistic nature of the situation, however, need not be a weakness or a problem. In fact, I think that it is in fact a strength, if one is able to tap into it. Emotion enables passion, and life without passion is not a life worth living. And passion, much like fire, must be kept a steady eye on as an uncontrolled fire will turn into a forest fire and consume everything. Similar to how passion will consume the individual. So reason, then, is the cool opposite of the fire-y emotion and keeps emotion in check. They are in a symbiotic relationship, as one without the other is a dead end. If emotion without reason is a forest fire, reason without emotion is a robot. And a person sways between the two, striving to find the right balance.
But ultimately, both emotion and reason are still meant to be subordinate to the individual. Much like neither fire nor water can ever be truly controlled, neither can emotion and reason. But they should be harnessed and the energy they create should, in the end, be used towards happiness. I am sure that this is nothing new, but as seems to be the case with me, I have to learn everything myself--and preferrably the hard way--before I can truly grasp it.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Vampires of misery
Why do people feed on other peoples' misery? Or, well at least some do. Might it have something to do with an inherent, biologically programmed tendency towards automatically handling situations as zero-sums? Or are some people just inherently more evil than others? Or maybe it has something to do with trying to get even or righting some past wrongs?
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Summary for week 36
Well, since I'm turning into Antti already, I guess I should start listing what I'm actually doing to improve my physical shape. Alas, I don't have any sort of GPS contraption right now, so I can't make those nifty maps of the routes that I'm running in the way Antti can, but oh well...
Oh, and on an entirely unrelated note, I have to thank Mikko and Kristina for the brilliant present they got me from Stockholm. It was a refrigerator magnet with Audrey on it! So now I have my very own Audrey!
- Sunday 31.8.: Run around Keilalahti
- Monday 1.9.: Gym at work
- Wednesday 3.9.: Gym at work
- Thursday 4.9.: Run around Lauttasaari
- Saturday 6.9.: Run to the office, gym, and run back home
Oh, and on an entirely unrelated note, I have to thank Mikko and Kristina for the brilliant present they got me from Stockholm. It was a refrigerator magnet with Audrey on it! So now I have my very own Audrey!
Friday, September 05, 2008
Offshoots from exercise
I've been recently reading a bit about the history of Sparta. The rationale behind this is that whereas Athens was famous for the intellectual endeavors of its citizens, Sparta was known for its incredibly pragmatic and determined ways of waging war. The planning versus execution discussion revisited, so to say. So naturally Sparta might be an interesting subject to study a bit in the quest to find the will to act or to execute. And it might also be interesting from the point-of-view of my recent increased focus on exercising.
One aspect that I regarded as especially interesting was the role of Spartan women, who seem to have been a lot more ahead in the journey towards gender equality than their Athenian sisters. Cartledge suggests that Spartan women were also considered very beautiful, as can be recalled from Helen of Troy (previously Helen of Sparta). No, I cannot help but wonder if the beauty and the fact that women were more equal and able to e.g. actively engage in sports had anything to do with each other. I'm of course not speaking for all men here, but at least personally I find athletic and strong-willed women more attractive than their opposites...
And tomorrow's exercise will consist of running to the office along the shores of Lauttasaari, Kaskisaari, Lehtisaari, and Keilaniemi, followed by a light gym routine before heading back to Lauttasaari.
One aspect that I regarded as especially interesting was the role of Spartan women, who seem to have been a lot more ahead in the journey towards gender equality than their Athenian sisters. Cartledge suggests that Spartan women were also considered very beautiful, as can be recalled from Helen of Troy (previously Helen of Sparta). No, I cannot help but wonder if the beauty and the fact that women were more equal and able to e.g. actively engage in sports had anything to do with each other. I'm of course not speaking for all men here, but at least personally I find athletic and strong-willed women more attractive than their opposites...
And tomorrow's exercise will consist of running to the office along the shores of Lauttasaari, Kaskisaari, Lehtisaari, and Keilaniemi, followed by a light gym routine before heading back to Lauttasaari.
Monday, September 01, 2008
On exercising
I was recently attending a seminar on segmenting at work. The idea, as everyone knows, is to try to understand who your customers are and what they actually want and need from you. It certainly seemed like the segmenting folks had really done a thorough job by interviewing over 100 000 people around the world over the past years and compiling a fairly exhaustive database from which they had derived 13 different archetypes. Technology-focused early adopters, family-oriented pragmatists, and so on. Of course with slightly different terms, but anyway.
One aspect which was brought up was the relationship that people have with health and keeping fit. One person argued that instead of trying to sell the more conservative late-adopters the coolest possible technologies right now, one should perhaps try to solve problems that are important to them. For instance, health might be important to the slightly older people. I guess I can reflect on that since both of my parents seem to be very keen joggers and enjoy spending time outdoors in general.
I would venture a guess that at some point of your life, you start paying more attention to health in general, especially when you start noticing that you shouldn't take it for granted. But the relationship is one of very pragmatic nature; the intent is to keep fit and maybe enjoy the activities at the same time. My relationship to exercising is sort of different. Because I'm still a fairly young twentysomething, I don't really have a problem in controlling the size of my waist. My body is still young and hasn't yet starting showing any visible wear and tear. So why do I go out running or to the gym or to play tennis?
I think in my case sports and exercising in general act as metrics of sorts, as one could already see from my previous blog posting. They offer the means of proving that I am moving, advancing, and evolving. So it is the delta which I derive my value and pleasure from. It's not a necessity (in terms of staying alive) that motivates me, but instead the competitive aspects. And now that I think, it may also have something to do with vanity. So, the question is, is this model of transitioning from competitive/vanity-driven exercise to survival-driven exercise more widely applicable?
One aspect which was brought up was the relationship that people have with health and keeping fit. One person argued that instead of trying to sell the more conservative late-adopters the coolest possible technologies right now, one should perhaps try to solve problems that are important to them. For instance, health might be important to the slightly older people. I guess I can reflect on that since both of my parents seem to be very keen joggers and enjoy spending time outdoors in general.
I would venture a guess that at some point of your life, you start paying more attention to health in general, especially when you start noticing that you shouldn't take it for granted. But the relationship is one of very pragmatic nature; the intent is to keep fit and maybe enjoy the activities at the same time. My relationship to exercising is sort of different. Because I'm still a fairly young twentysomething, I don't really have a problem in controlling the size of my waist. My body is still young and hasn't yet starting showing any visible wear and tear. So why do I go out running or to the gym or to play tennis?
I think in my case sports and exercising in general act as metrics of sorts, as one could already see from my previous blog posting. They offer the means of proving that I am moving, advancing, and evolving. So it is the delta which I derive my value and pleasure from. It's not a necessity (in terms of staying alive) that motivates me, but instead the competitive aspects. And now that I think, it may also have something to do with vanity. So, the question is, is this model of transitioning from competitive/vanity-driven exercise to survival-driven exercise more widely applicable?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Targets, 2H08
Well, I recently finished planning my targets for the second half of 2008 at work, and I guess to get things moving on other parallels as well, I should be setting my personal targets as well. So, in another test of my last year's method of listing my New Year's resolutions online, I'll try to put my targets for this half in my blog and also try to weekly report on how things are going. So, here goes...
- Pushups. Target of 100 consecutive pushups with a minimum of 75 pushups.
- Running. Target of 3km in 12 minutes and a minimum of 2.75km.
- Running. Target of 2 runs per week (average from now up until end of year) with a minimum of 1. To constitute as a run, the running time must be at least 30 minutes and the distance must be at least 5 kilometers.
- Gym. Target of 2.5 gym visits per week (average from now up until end of year) with a minimum of 2.
- Misc. Finish orthodontics and post-operation aspects by end of year. Due to difficulty in measurements, the target is to comply with expert guidance as strictly as possible.
- Misc. Finish treatment as planned with PA/Mehiläinen.
- School. Finish Physics 1B.
- School. Finish Accounting & Profitability intro course.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Why big companies matter not
Just about every person who has read anything related to business in the past five or so years will not have been able to miss Clayton Christensen, the guy behind the concept of disruptions and disruptive technologies. His idea is that good companies fail because they are too good at serving their best customers and are not able to give proper value to underlying disruptions, which eventually dethrone said company.
He may have an idea, possibly because he's from Harvard but also possibly because it seems true in quite many cases. Now, I'll extend the trail of thought on why big companies fail. Or not necessarily why they fail but why they become uninteresting. It's related to physical attributes, namely the fact that by definition, big companies are BIG. That is, big as in fat. And fatness is not a good thing, since it makes moving difficult and all so slow and you break a sweat just by thinking of any type of action. Fat also attracts parasites. Parasites are especially annoying in big companies because they dig in and fortify themselves. They have their own nice sandbox via which they can suck wealth from the company and justify their existence.
Big companies also require tons of administrative positions. Management. The issue here is that when professional managers step in, they lose all touch with reality. Who the hell even knows what the customer wants. In some cases, entities from within the company start living a life of their own, doing things for the sake of doing things. Not because it increases customer value or because it increases shareholder value. But perhaps because when idle people are idle long enough, they get an urge to actually do something. And if they can't do anything intelligent, then they do the next best thing: type up Powerpoint slides and manage technologies. People start attending more and more meetings and becoming more busy and all the while, reality turns upside down and becomes distorted. This doesn't matter in a big company because the cash cows from yesteryear are still bringing in the cash and papers can be shuffled around at ever increasing speeds.
A total farce are the meetings which are attended by fortysomething people who are all management and who start making decisions. At some point they figure out that making technical decisions might require some understanding, and that it might just be better to make a rule saying that the meeting will not discuss any sorts of technical details. Only high-level stuff. Not that it would matter, since technology is now created in a vacuum, again not for the sake of the user or the customer but for the sake of doing things.
So, the big company starts living a life of its own. It does the same thing that it has always done, but it will not renew itself without massive layoffs and a strict diet and exercise routine. But it doesn't matter, because money keeps coming in and people can feel secure by pushing papers around. It may be that the company won't be able to understand or identify the disruptions. But it may also be that even though upper management says that it is committed to change, nobody really gives a damn. Hell, you might actually have to do something tangible if the status quo rocks.
But fear not, big companies are useful because while they once were cutting edge companies and on the edge of cool, they are now still able to provide commodity platforms. Somebody has to provide the base on which small companies can create the new cool. And the new cool is where there is no fat, because fat is not tolerated and extreme pragmatism is king. You solve a concrete problem with a tangible solution and demonstrate end-user value or you die. No safety nets, no Powerpoints, only solutions, services, and products. Responses are sharp and the small company can rapidly realign itself and reinvent itself without too much drama. And it is this reason why mid-management in established companies is afraid of the lean and mean approach. To cite Gordon Gekko, the norm in large corporations seems not to be survival of the fittest, but instead survival of the unfittest. Since the fit ones have already left to exploit the potential provided by the fat companies.
It is very simple: when the fat guy gets stuck in the door, you merely remove his wallet and go in through the window, leaving him to ponder about the greater things in life. But at least he won't die since he has plenty of nutrition around his stomach region...
He may have an idea, possibly because he's from Harvard but also possibly because it seems true in quite many cases. Now, I'll extend the trail of thought on why big companies fail. Or not necessarily why they fail but why they become uninteresting. It's related to physical attributes, namely the fact that by definition, big companies are BIG. That is, big as in fat. And fatness is not a good thing, since it makes moving difficult and all so slow and you break a sweat just by thinking of any type of action. Fat also attracts parasites. Parasites are especially annoying in big companies because they dig in and fortify themselves. They have their own nice sandbox via which they can suck wealth from the company and justify their existence.
Big companies also require tons of administrative positions. Management. The issue here is that when professional managers step in, they lose all touch with reality. Who the hell even knows what the customer wants. In some cases, entities from within the company start living a life of their own, doing things for the sake of doing things. Not because it increases customer value or because it increases shareholder value. But perhaps because when idle people are idle long enough, they get an urge to actually do something. And if they can't do anything intelligent, then they do the next best thing: type up Powerpoint slides and manage technologies. People start attending more and more meetings and becoming more busy and all the while, reality turns upside down and becomes distorted. This doesn't matter in a big company because the cash cows from yesteryear are still bringing in the cash and papers can be shuffled around at ever increasing speeds.
A total farce are the meetings which are attended by fortysomething people who are all management and who start making decisions. At some point they figure out that making technical decisions might require some understanding, and that it might just be better to make a rule saying that the meeting will not discuss any sorts of technical details. Only high-level stuff. Not that it would matter, since technology is now created in a vacuum, again not for the sake of the user or the customer but for the sake of doing things.
So, the big company starts living a life of its own. It does the same thing that it has always done, but it will not renew itself without massive layoffs and a strict diet and exercise routine. But it doesn't matter, because money keeps coming in and people can feel secure by pushing papers around. It may be that the company won't be able to understand or identify the disruptions. But it may also be that even though upper management says that it is committed to change, nobody really gives a damn. Hell, you might actually have to do something tangible if the status quo rocks.
But fear not, big companies are useful because while they once were cutting edge companies and on the edge of cool, they are now still able to provide commodity platforms. Somebody has to provide the base on which small companies can create the new cool. And the new cool is where there is no fat, because fat is not tolerated and extreme pragmatism is king. You solve a concrete problem with a tangible solution and demonstrate end-user value or you die. No safety nets, no Powerpoints, only solutions, services, and products. Responses are sharp and the small company can rapidly realign itself and reinvent itself without too much drama. And it is this reason why mid-management in established companies is afraid of the lean and mean approach. To cite Gordon Gekko, the norm in large corporations seems not to be survival of the fittest, but instead survival of the unfittest. Since the fit ones have already left to exploit the potential provided by the fat companies.
It is very simple: when the fat guy gets stuck in the door, you merely remove his wallet and go in through the window, leaving him to ponder about the greater things in life. But at least he won't die since he has plenty of nutrition around his stomach region...
Friday, August 22, 2008
Regarding last miles
As I mentioned before, I ran the Helsinki City Run, a half-marathon, earlier this year. It was an experience that taught very many things, and is still teaching on some parallels. One of the biggest mistakes I made was when I started off too quickly. If you're not in a decent enough shape, starting off too quickly will be the end of you, as it was for my run. The last miles were pure torture.
Similar things hold true for other parallels, e.g. work. Right now I'm sort of running up against a wall with a work project. As was the case for the half-marathon, I have a more or less good idea about what the route looks like and how to get to the finish. But I'm running out of energy and it feels that the road has turned into a swamp. In this case I think the biggest issues were that initially I didn't have that good an idea about what I was getting involved in. In hindsight the picture is always a lot more clear, but this has been a decently steep learning process in which I set off too quickly without thoroughly understanding the landscape and the routes.
This is also applicable to relationships. Running too fast in light of your physical condition and abilities will only cause cramps and a severe drop in energy levels as well as a possibility for not finishing at all, or at least in an unsatisfactory manner.
Similar things hold true for other parallels, e.g. work. Right now I'm sort of running up against a wall with a work project. As was the case for the half-marathon, I have a more or less good idea about what the route looks like and how to get to the finish. But I'm running out of energy and it feels that the road has turned into a swamp. In this case I think the biggest issues were that initially I didn't have that good an idea about what I was getting involved in. In hindsight the picture is always a lot more clear, but this has been a decently steep learning process in which I set off too quickly without thoroughly understanding the landscape and the routes.
This is also applicable to relationships. Running too fast in light of your physical condition and abilities will only cause cramps and a severe drop in energy levels as well as a possibility for not finishing at all, or at least in an unsatisfactory manner.
It's funny...
It's funny, people can firmly stand by some principle and be a cheerleader for an idea, yet at the same time it is not even that difficult to do precisely the opposite. And it's even more funny how anyone and everyone is capable of that. You. Me. Everyone. Very deceptive, very annoying, very despicable.
I'm having a bad week, a bad month, and a seriously bad year. But not so much bad that not something good, too. At least the skin is getting thicker and I'm getting more cynical.
(Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, if you were thinking about driving around town drunk this weekend while also high on crack and stark naked while masturbating with a prostitute you picked up and ending up crashing into a parked car... Sorry, you're apparently too late, according to this article.)
I'm having a bad week, a bad month, and a seriously bad year. But not so much bad that not something good, too. At least the skin is getting thicker and I'm getting more cynical.
(Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, if you were thinking about driving around town drunk this weekend while also high on crack and stark naked while masturbating with a prostitute you picked up and ending up crashing into a parked car... Sorry, you're apparently too late, according to this article.)
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Religion
Religion is a widespread mental illness, of which the defining feature is delusional belief in a powerful invisible being who is always watching you and will punish you if you don't follow their will (the paranoid delusions found in schizophrenia are often similar).
Part of the definition of religion, according to the Uncyclopedia.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Will to act
While listing shortcomings in key areas, another that easily comes to mind is the will to act. A strong will is often considered a good trait in people, with the exception of some special cases (the army comes to mind; strong-willed individuals may not be as easy to sculpt and fit into the standardized mold that a person has to fit if he is to succeed in armed service--this all is also applicable to areas where strict conformance to a certain model is required and where individualism is not rewarded). But where will is general, the will to act is more specific. It is one thing to know what to do and roughly how to do it, but it is a separate thing to motivate oneself to move. The reasons for not moving might be many.
Martial arts have different dimensions and to be a good combatant, the person should excel in as many of these dimensions as possible. Off the back of my head, these dimensions might include technique, strength/agility/physical attributes, and of course the will to act. Technique is crucial when facing situations where raw strength might be overwhelmed. How does one fight multiple attackers if one has not mastered the technique and learned the skills required for surviving such a situation. Mastering the technique, however, is sort of pointless if one is lacking the required physical strength and other similar attributes and cannot execute the technique. But thirdly, all of this is pointless if the person freezes and for one reason or another won't execute any sort of action at the crucial moment.
This all is, of course, at a high enough abstraction level that it is applicable to many different areas. In war, one must know how to wield a weapon efficiently and precisely, be able to execute the technique, but all is lost if at the crucial moment the soldier is not capable of pulling the trigger. In a business environment many projects fail due to hesitation. In night clubs, many men leave alone as they have failed to act (or if they have acted, they have failed in other areas, in this case they typically leave with the help of the bouncer at the end of the night).
Interestingly enough, people are unhappy quite often, but are not willing to do anything about it. I can identify this in myself. It is as if I'm at the slope of a mountain. I know in which direction the peak is, but I have stopped moving. I am unwilling to take risks to get to the peak in fear of falling or getting lost or overall shaking the status quo. Many students are unwilling to graduate for the fear of having to change their life, go outside their current comfort zones and move onward. Many people stay in violent relationships for the fear of provoking even more violence or for the fear of being alone. Others fail projects because they fear failure. The common attribute here is fear. Of course there are other things also inhibiting people from the will to act, but fear is one of the more prominent ones.
In the early 1990s I was living in California and a prominent brand, at least in some circles, was No Fear. No Fear has since been attached to extreme sports, but the idea of advocating a No Fear approach to everything was a good one. The company was based in Carslbad, very nearby, which might explain the reason why I still own two or three No Fear baseball caps. If previously fear was on an individual level, I would say that the collective fear of different things, as embodied in the United States of America these days, is even worse. When an individual fears, it is terrible, but when a whole nation is gripped by fear, history changes directions. Americans might wish to take a look towards Carlsbad and find their No Fear attitude yet again, step up, and demand their freedom back from the oppressors, who ironically can be found very close to home, this time round. From Washington.
Martial arts have different dimensions and to be a good combatant, the person should excel in as many of these dimensions as possible. Off the back of my head, these dimensions might include technique, strength/agility/physical attributes, and of course the will to act. Technique is crucial when facing situations where raw strength might be overwhelmed. How does one fight multiple attackers if one has not mastered the technique and learned the skills required for surviving such a situation. Mastering the technique, however, is sort of pointless if one is lacking the required physical strength and other similar attributes and cannot execute the technique. But thirdly, all of this is pointless if the person freezes and for one reason or another won't execute any sort of action at the crucial moment.
This all is, of course, at a high enough abstraction level that it is applicable to many different areas. In war, one must know how to wield a weapon efficiently and precisely, be able to execute the technique, but all is lost if at the crucial moment the soldier is not capable of pulling the trigger. In a business environment many projects fail due to hesitation. In night clubs, many men leave alone as they have failed to act (or if they have acted, they have failed in other areas, in this case they typically leave with the help of the bouncer at the end of the night).
Interestingly enough, people are unhappy quite often, but are not willing to do anything about it. I can identify this in myself. It is as if I'm at the slope of a mountain. I know in which direction the peak is, but I have stopped moving. I am unwilling to take risks to get to the peak in fear of falling or getting lost or overall shaking the status quo. Many students are unwilling to graduate for the fear of having to change their life, go outside their current comfort zones and move onward. Many people stay in violent relationships for the fear of provoking even more violence or for the fear of being alone. Others fail projects because they fear failure. The common attribute here is fear. Of course there are other things also inhibiting people from the will to act, but fear is one of the more prominent ones.
In the early 1990s I was living in California and a prominent brand, at least in some circles, was No Fear. No Fear has since been attached to extreme sports, but the idea of advocating a No Fear approach to everything was a good one. The company was based in Carslbad, very nearby, which might explain the reason why I still own two or three No Fear baseball caps. If previously fear was on an individual level, I would say that the collective fear of different things, as embodied in the United States of America these days, is even worse. When an individual fears, it is terrible, but when a whole nation is gripped by fear, history changes directions. Americans might wish to take a look towards Carlsbad and find their No Fear attitude yet again, step up, and demand their freedom back from the oppressors, who ironically can be found very close to home, this time round. From Washington.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
The difficulty of casual
Dressing well for formal occasions or business is in fact surprisingly trivial, unlike most people would have you believe. It isn't difficult to pick out a suit or a tie or decide which knot to use. In fact, everything related with dressing well while being in a city is more or less simple: using common sense and the rules set forth by the more knowledgable dandies of the past will allow anyone to look stylish.
The difficulties start emerging when one does not go to the office. Or to the theater or the opera. What does one wear on the weekends, when sporting a spiffy pinstriped suit is not really an option? That, I guess, is one of the key questions which separate well dressed men from the rest. And as of now, I have no clue as to what a well dressed man should wear outside the office. Depends on the weather, depends on the activity. The choices are endless and closet space is finite. So in short, according to this definition and distinction, I am not really in any way a knowledgeable dresser.
The difficulties start emerging when one does not go to the office. Or to the theater or the opera. What does one wear on the weekends, when sporting a spiffy pinstriped suit is not really an option? That, I guess, is one of the key questions which separate well dressed men from the rest. And as of now, I have no clue as to what a well dressed man should wear outside the office. Depends on the weather, depends on the activity. The choices are endless and closet space is finite. So in short, according to this definition and distinction, I am not really in any way a knowledgeable dresser.
Friday, August 08, 2008
On Deltas
Delta commonly refers to the Delta Air Lines, the second largest airline in the world in terms of passengers. I personally haven't had the pleasure of enjoying their services, but if other airlines are to be considered when plotting a trend, I don't really feel that bad. Hopefully no more flying for a while. Except for a possible trip to Oktoberfest as Luftwaffe seems to be offering dirt cheap tickets to Munich in September.
Beside those horrid jet-propelled sardine cans, delta should also bring back to mind the math and physics classes from school (you know, that place you go to get certified...). Delta signifies change or difference in a value and quite often absolute change. I never really did get around to switching my mindset to completely embrace relative change. Absolute change was always a lot more concrete: you invested 1k at 10e per share and the share price is now 11e, meaning that the delta is 1e in share price or 100e in your total investment's value. Of course +10% would've also worked, but then it gets tricky when you're mentally tracking values and one day it goes +5%, then -0.47% and then +1.53%. A lot easier to just remember that it was at 11e and now it's at about 11.67e.
The problematic thing with looking at absolute change is that, because it's absolute, it sort of makes you lose perspective. An increase of 1e from 10e is only a 10% increase whereas it's a 100% increase from 1e to 2e. Meaning? Instead of the 1.1k, you would now have 2k. But because of this absolute mindset, a conscious effort needs to be made to grasp this as it's not embedded directly into the way the world is perceived. At least not for me.
As is so often the case, the "real" world applications and implications are also sort of interesting. When things are going well, you demand relatively high successes. But after a crash, you're still in the same mindset and demanding similar absolute increases in your well being, without realizing that in a relative sense the demands are entirely ludicrous. Gyms, for instance, are nice places if your intent is to obtain the physique of Christian Bale (who we're incidentally going to see in the new Batman movie later today, and who makes an absolutely brilliant Patrick Bateman). The problem is that while you're pumping iron, you slowly gain strength and mass. Well, that's not really the problem. The problem arises when you go on a break, maybe because of a surgical operation which requires you to take a couple of months off from physical exercise. Now go back to the gym and demand similar absolute values and perform the routines from a couple of months back. The result? You guessed it: moving your arms or squatting down will, well, cause pain.
But to summarize, one thing that I should take away from this is that I need to learn to look at things from a relative perspective. Small absolute increases my be large relative increases and always going for the absolute highest payoff may not be realistic or even feasible. But I guess age will also correct this flaw...
Beside those horrid jet-propelled sardine cans, delta should also bring back to mind the math and physics classes from school (you know, that place you go to get certified...). Delta signifies change or difference in a value and quite often absolute change. I never really did get around to switching my mindset to completely embrace relative change. Absolute change was always a lot more concrete: you invested 1k at 10e per share and the share price is now 11e, meaning that the delta is 1e in share price or 100e in your total investment's value. Of course +10% would've also worked, but then it gets tricky when you're mentally tracking values and one day it goes +5%, then -0.47% and then +1.53%. A lot easier to just remember that it was at 11e and now it's at about 11.67e.
The problematic thing with looking at absolute change is that, because it's absolute, it sort of makes you lose perspective. An increase of 1e from 10e is only a 10% increase whereas it's a 100% increase from 1e to 2e. Meaning? Instead of the 1.1k, you would now have 2k. But because of this absolute mindset, a conscious effort needs to be made to grasp this as it's not embedded directly into the way the world is perceived. At least not for me.
As is so often the case, the "real" world applications and implications are also sort of interesting. When things are going well, you demand relatively high successes. But after a crash, you're still in the same mindset and demanding similar absolute increases in your well being, without realizing that in a relative sense the demands are entirely ludicrous. Gyms, for instance, are nice places if your intent is to obtain the physique of Christian Bale (who we're incidentally going to see in the new Batman movie later today, and who makes an absolutely brilliant Patrick Bateman). The problem is that while you're pumping iron, you slowly gain strength and mass. Well, that's not really the problem. The problem arises when you go on a break, maybe because of a surgical operation which requires you to take a couple of months off from physical exercise. Now go back to the gym and demand similar absolute values and perform the routines from a couple of months back. The result? You guessed it: moving your arms or squatting down will, well, cause pain.
But to summarize, one thing that I should take away from this is that I need to learn to look at things from a relative perspective. Small absolute increases my be large relative increases and always going for the absolute highest payoff may not be realistic or even feasible. But I guess age will also correct this flaw...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Schools and certifications
Schools are starting again in Finland shortly and many school-goers are having a difficult time to motivate themselves to do their best. Not so with my cousin, who is very eager to get to first grade, but alas, I fear that even she will wake up one morning and decide that school is annoying. Of course the parents are always going on about how important it is to go to school and do your best, and as is typical, they are right. The motivation, however, may sometimes be borderline despotic: "You'll go to school because the law says so, as do I."
This morning I actually got around to wondering what it is that you actually get from schools. Of course when you look at grades 1-6, you're taught to read, write, do basic mathematical operations. Then of course the long process of conditioning the child to adhere to authorities and to just follow instructions is started. But the further along the road you go, the less important things become. Now, don't get me wrong, learning the history of the egyptians is important, as is learning that F=ma and that you can derive many interesting other formulas from it. But if I reflect what I'm doing in school, most of the lectures are about topics that can't really be applied to real world things, at least not without experience. It's nice to listen to smart people drone on and on about competitive advantage or corporate strategy, but then what? You won't really learn anything as such, nor does the exam grade really tell anything either. The topics are such that you need to go the extra mile yourself and think about them. And even then they'll require years of experience before you can really say that you're starting to understand them.
So, if in primary school you are taught discipline and given a basic set of tools with which you can search for information and process information with, what's the rest about? In some way I can't help but think that it's all a very long and tedious certification process. Sort of like when company XYZ decides that it wants start shipping products that utilize technology ABC as part of a network. XYZ needs to obtain a certificate for their implementation to show others that they know how to talk ABC. Of course XYZ may also skip the certification and just implement the specification and it will still work, even without the certification.
What is the point of a certification, then? As is the case with technology certifications, the lack of school certifications does not necessarily mean that a person is somehow lesser. And from the other side, possessing a certificate that certifies that XYZ's product complies with the ABC spec does not necessarily mean anything, as the certification process may also be flawed. But if the product displays the logo of the certifying organization, it certainly goes a long way to suggest that it should work. It decreases the risk involved. Same goes for schools. Schools ram students through a pipeline, more or less. Some are especially efficient and have a good reputation. Their graduates go on to brilliant places, further enhancing the value of the certifier in the eyes of the clients, in this case the employers who are highering the graduates.
The employer is naturally trying to minimize the risk associated with new recruits, and certificates are one easy way to screen people. If you hold an engineering degree from MIT and it is commonly known that degrees awarded by MIT require quite a bit of work, then the expected value increases as the associated risk for negative outcome decreases and the risk for positive outcome increases. Of course, a person may not be MIT-certified, meaning that the risk increases. But it may be that the person is very brilliant too. But the issue is still that even though every company says that they are highering the top 5%, that can't be true, since then the other 95% of the workforce would be unemployed. So regardless of the fact that rockstar employees are very nice, in the long run you'll end up also employing people who are average, or even below average. And situations like these increase when the company grows. And all of a sudden the fact that you are able to decrease risk, decrease the volatility of candidates, becomes very attractive.
So from one perspective schools can be seen as certificate awarding institutes. Their interest, typically, is to keep up churning out very competitive people. This serves both of their customer groups: the students and the companies employing the graduates. If the graduates are of high quality, the companies will compete more for the graduates. This in turn signals the students that the school has a good reputation and that the graduates from the school are often recruited into good positions. Interestingly enough, though, some schools have to be worse for the other schools to be better. Only 50% of schools can be above average schools, after all.
In light of this, it seems, a rationale player should optimize her studies to be able to obtain certificates with high enough marks to gain access to better schools and earn more certificates. This is at least the route of a risk-averse player. A risk neutral or risk-seeking player, however, may be more satisfied with skipping the certificates and aiming to provide good expected value by looking for unlimited upsides, however unlikely they are. In fact, this trail of thought would lead us to a discussion about how engineers and other boring people are often clustered very closely into the average of a Gaussian distribution whereas artists and other more free-spirited people tend to not follow a Gaussian distribution and instead have more people cluttered at both ends of the scale (i.e. some become very successful and others never break even near to success--think about actors).
This morning I actually got around to wondering what it is that you actually get from schools. Of course when you look at grades 1-6, you're taught to read, write, do basic mathematical operations. Then of course the long process of conditioning the child to adhere to authorities and to just follow instructions is started. But the further along the road you go, the less important things become. Now, don't get me wrong, learning the history of the egyptians is important, as is learning that F=ma and that you can derive many interesting other formulas from it. But if I reflect what I'm doing in school, most of the lectures are about topics that can't really be applied to real world things, at least not without experience. It's nice to listen to smart people drone on and on about competitive advantage or corporate strategy, but then what? You won't really learn anything as such, nor does the exam grade really tell anything either. The topics are such that you need to go the extra mile yourself and think about them. And even then they'll require years of experience before you can really say that you're starting to understand them.
So, if in primary school you are taught discipline and given a basic set of tools with which you can search for information and process information with, what's the rest about? In some way I can't help but think that it's all a very long and tedious certification process. Sort of like when company XYZ decides that it wants start shipping products that utilize technology ABC as part of a network. XYZ needs to obtain a certificate for their implementation to show others that they know how to talk ABC. Of course XYZ may also skip the certification and just implement the specification and it will still work, even without the certification.
What is the point of a certification, then? As is the case with technology certifications, the lack of school certifications does not necessarily mean that a person is somehow lesser. And from the other side, possessing a certificate that certifies that XYZ's product complies with the ABC spec does not necessarily mean anything, as the certification process may also be flawed. But if the product displays the logo of the certifying organization, it certainly goes a long way to suggest that it should work. It decreases the risk involved. Same goes for schools. Schools ram students through a pipeline, more or less. Some are especially efficient and have a good reputation. Their graduates go on to brilliant places, further enhancing the value of the certifier in the eyes of the clients, in this case the employers who are highering the graduates.
The employer is naturally trying to minimize the risk associated with new recruits, and certificates are one easy way to screen people. If you hold an engineering degree from MIT and it is commonly known that degrees awarded by MIT require quite a bit of work, then the expected value increases as the associated risk for negative outcome decreases and the risk for positive outcome increases. Of course, a person may not be MIT-certified, meaning that the risk increases. But it may be that the person is very brilliant too. But the issue is still that even though every company says that they are highering the top 5%, that can't be true, since then the other 95% of the workforce would be unemployed. So regardless of the fact that rockstar employees are very nice, in the long run you'll end up also employing people who are average, or even below average. And situations like these increase when the company grows. And all of a sudden the fact that you are able to decrease risk, decrease the volatility of candidates, becomes very attractive.
So from one perspective schools can be seen as certificate awarding institutes. Their interest, typically, is to keep up churning out very competitive people. This serves both of their customer groups: the students and the companies employing the graduates. If the graduates are of high quality, the companies will compete more for the graduates. This in turn signals the students that the school has a good reputation and that the graduates from the school are often recruited into good positions. Interestingly enough, though, some schools have to be worse for the other schools to be better. Only 50% of schools can be above average schools, after all.
In light of this, it seems, a rationale player should optimize her studies to be able to obtain certificates with high enough marks to gain access to better schools and earn more certificates. This is at least the route of a risk-averse player. A risk neutral or risk-seeking player, however, may be more satisfied with skipping the certificates and aiming to provide good expected value by looking for unlimited upsides, however unlikely they are. In fact, this trail of thought would lead us to a discussion about how engineers and other boring people are often clustered very closely into the average of a Gaussian distribution whereas artists and other more free-spirited people tend to not follow a Gaussian distribution and instead have more people cluttered at both ends of the scale (i.e. some become very successful and others never break even near to success--think about actors).
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Innovation
Everyone needs to be innovative today. If you're not innovating, shame on you. But even innovation by itself is not enough as innovation should be accelerated. You need to beat your competitors in innovation, lest you be left behind. So, what exactly is innovation?
Apparently innovation is, according to Mckeown, the radical and incremental changes in thinking, in things, in processes, and in services. Apparently some also feel that it is synonymous to the output of a process. But wait a minute, this becomes interesting. It seems that innovation can be created with a process. In engineering a process is often understood to be a serious of operations done to an input to obtain some sort of output. Fair enough: let's devise a process for innovation. You take some inputs, for instance creative ideas, apply a magical formula and out comes innovation. And of course accelerating innovation just means that you engineer your black box to speed up the process.
Now, according to my understanding, an important part of a process is that the process creates consistent outputs. If I have a manufacturing process for creating nuts and bolts, it's not very nice if the variation between the individual nuts and bolts is too big. In business, processes are often used to ensure consistent actions and is the opposite of what rock stars and divas do: Sarbanes-Oxley attempts to ensure that the processes of companies are well defined and adhered to so that individuals within a company can't create new Enrons and Worldcoms. Innovative accounting is the enemy of Sarbanes-Oxley, so to say.
But wait, if the point of processes is to introduce standardized ways of working or applying transformations and operations to inputs, that doesn't really sound very radical. Alright, maybe we're talking about incremental change, then. Incremental isn't necessarily radical; it may be a fair deal slower and the impact more minute. But it is often understood that innovation should create something new, and it should be substantially different from the previous in order to be considered an innovation. If you consider a field where an entity, say a company, might have a very solid foothold, the company might be able to plan and devise a very clear roadmap of incremental enhancements. 3G comes to mind, for some odd reason. Would someone consider a minor increment in the evolution of a technology an innovation? I guess one could, but I would still venture that it is neither radical nor necessarily substantially different from prior things (sustaining technologies vs. disruptive technologies, if we cite Christensen).
Now, my hypothesis is that innovation cannot be manufactured with rigid and well defined processes. It's not something that can be really grasped and managed in a consistent enough way so that one could say that Innovation Process A, B, or C could consistently bring significant value. In fact, intuitively an innovation process sounds like an oxymoron. Most innovation management processes, I guess, start by assuming that a great enough set of "creative ideas" are present. The a screening process of sorts kicks in and gets rid of the ideas that aren't relevant or promising. Transforms and other actions are then performed in some way and finally out comes innovation, as previously noted. At different steps along the way the process gets rid of more and more ideas; the motivation comes from Darwin and the idea is that only the fit will survive and that eventually only the best and most valuable ideas persist. But the truly greatest innovations have been creations of coincidence. It should not be assumed that visionary people have been able to foresee the consequences of their doings, unlike what analysts and other people watching the world from the rear view mirror would have you believe. There's always too much chance and uncertainty involved.
Look at entrepreneurs. For every Google there are a million and one failures. Google didn't become what it now is because Larry and Sergey were that much more special than the competition. Of course they are incredibly talented, but so are the other guys. They just happened to be talented enough (threshold criteria), but also in the right place at the right time with the right idea. One shouldn't over-analyze things and downplay the significance of chance. Nassim Taleb has written very interesting books on the subject.
So to summarize, really great innovation can seldom be created with rigid processes enforced by bureaucrats. Innovation management processes may be fine and dandy, but they create predictable and minute things. Creative chaos is overlooked by technocrats and boards and the concept of innovation has been done a great disservice by the aforementioned parties, who have consciously or unconsciously devalued innovation and all things related by placing it on every Powerpoint slide that they can. It's disgusting. And that's why corporate innovation is silly; it'll just happen if it is allowed to and if the processes don't kill it. It's like love, you can't force it.
Apparently innovation is, according to Mckeown, the radical and incremental changes in thinking, in things, in processes, and in services. Apparently some also feel that it is synonymous to the output of a process. But wait a minute, this becomes interesting. It seems that innovation can be created with a process. In engineering a process is often understood to be a serious of operations done to an input to obtain some sort of output. Fair enough: let's devise a process for innovation. You take some inputs, for instance creative ideas, apply a magical formula and out comes innovation. And of course accelerating innovation just means that you engineer your black box to speed up the process.
Now, according to my understanding, an important part of a process is that the process creates consistent outputs. If I have a manufacturing process for creating nuts and bolts, it's not very nice if the variation between the individual nuts and bolts is too big. In business, processes are often used to ensure consistent actions and is the opposite of what rock stars and divas do: Sarbanes-Oxley attempts to ensure that the processes of companies are well defined and adhered to so that individuals within a company can't create new Enrons and Worldcoms. Innovative accounting is the enemy of Sarbanes-Oxley, so to say.
But wait, if the point of processes is to introduce standardized ways of working or applying transformations and operations to inputs, that doesn't really sound very radical. Alright, maybe we're talking about incremental change, then. Incremental isn't necessarily radical; it may be a fair deal slower and the impact more minute. But it is often understood that innovation should create something new, and it should be substantially different from the previous in order to be considered an innovation. If you consider a field where an entity, say a company, might have a very solid foothold, the company might be able to plan and devise a very clear roadmap of incremental enhancements. 3G comes to mind, for some odd reason. Would someone consider a minor increment in the evolution of a technology an innovation? I guess one could, but I would still venture that it is neither radical nor necessarily substantially different from prior things (sustaining technologies vs. disruptive technologies, if we cite Christensen).
Now, my hypothesis is that innovation cannot be manufactured with rigid and well defined processes. It's not something that can be really grasped and managed in a consistent enough way so that one could say that Innovation Process A, B, or C could consistently bring significant value. In fact, intuitively an innovation process sounds like an oxymoron. Most innovation management processes, I guess, start by assuming that a great enough set of "creative ideas" are present. The a screening process of sorts kicks in and gets rid of the ideas that aren't relevant or promising. Transforms and other actions are then performed in some way and finally out comes innovation, as previously noted. At different steps along the way the process gets rid of more and more ideas; the motivation comes from Darwin and the idea is that only the fit will survive and that eventually only the best and most valuable ideas persist. But the truly greatest innovations have been creations of coincidence. It should not be assumed that visionary people have been able to foresee the consequences of their doings, unlike what analysts and other people watching the world from the rear view mirror would have you believe. There's always too much chance and uncertainty involved.
Look at entrepreneurs. For every Google there are a million and one failures. Google didn't become what it now is because Larry and Sergey were that much more special than the competition. Of course they are incredibly talented, but so are the other guys. They just happened to be talented enough (threshold criteria), but also in the right place at the right time with the right idea. One shouldn't over-analyze things and downplay the significance of chance. Nassim Taleb has written very interesting books on the subject.
So to summarize, really great innovation can seldom be created with rigid processes enforced by bureaucrats. Innovation management processes may be fine and dandy, but they create predictable and minute things. Creative chaos is overlooked by technocrats and boards and the concept of innovation has been done a great disservice by the aforementioned parties, who have consciously or unconsciously devalued innovation and all things related by placing it on every Powerpoint slide that they can. It's disgusting. And that's why corporate innovation is silly; it'll just happen if it is allowed to and if the processes don't kill it. It's like love, you can't force it.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Gifts and begging
From a very early age on children are taught not to beg. Yet when I was little, this rule went largely unnoticed. The person who happened to have a bag of treats was of course the center of attention with others hanging around begging and pleading to get their share of the candy. Adults were of course doing there best to teach some basic manners to us and get us to understand that a constant process of begging and moaning is very irritating and degrading and that it is something that should not be engaged in.
Fast-forward a decade or two and the lessons have been learned. Accepting money is not as clear cut as one would assume. I'm still a student and during the first two years of my studies I didn't work during the semesters, so much budget was quite limited. In part things were helped by the occasional subsidy of 50 euros from my parents, which allowed me to get the soy sauce for the rice, so to say. But accepting the money does dig into oneself. In a way, at least according to how I interpret it, it is a way of someone to enforce their authority over you. You take the money and regardless of the terms (be it a gift or whatever), you're still indebted to the other person. In a way you are no longer on the same level.
This might in fact also explain why students in Finland typically stear clear of student loans, even though they are state-backed and fairly cheap loans. But you tie yourself to a bank and agree to give away some of your freedoms in order to attempt to pay back the loan at some point. With inter-person money transfers, things get even more tedious. Some people may initially seem to be giving you gifts, but may implicitly assume that when a certain moment comes along that you know what to do.
According to traditional etiquette, men should treat women to dinners. Contemporary feminism will have its views and I would venture a guess that they are against this practice as it is yet another ancient relic which men use to demonstrate their authority over women. But quite many women still do expect the man to pick up the bill. This in turn translates to an interesting phenomenon concerning the transfer of wealth between the genders, especially during weekends.
So amidst the rise of feminism and the attempt for gender equality (I know, they are not synonyms...) it is quite interesting to see that women are partly becoming more aggressive in attempting to utilize the lax monetary policies followed by many men. The more interesting practice was one which I encountered last weekend in Turku. While waiting at a bar counter, I was rapidly approached by two girls. One started snuggling up to me and it was pretty obvious that she was trying to get a drink for herself and her friend. Or maybe I'm just so drop-dead handsome that it was that instead. Anyway, to see what would happen, I decided to play dumb and move myself a bit further. And lo-and-behold, the girl followed, still initiating slight physical contact. Finally I couldn't help myself anymore but decided to ask what it is that she wanted. And I was shocked to hear that they wanted drinks (well, ok, I wasn't shocked). So being me, I of course complied and ordered myself a beer and two glasses of ice water for the girls and walked away with my beer.
But this begs the question of where the line between normal behavior and whoring goes. I would in fact considering the actions of this specific girl to be borderline whoring as it was quite clear that leveraging the assets afforded to the more beautiful gender in a fashion like this was so blatant that it cannot be interpreted in any other way. The question becomes more difficult during e.g. dinners. My own personal policy is that during dates, I typically tend to offer to pay for small things if I was the one inviting the other party, but I reserve the right to go Dutch if I feel like it. It is a lot rarer that I let the girl pay everything, but it has also happened. But she has to insist upon it strongly before I give up this pleasure.
However, as is the policy that is suggested by different PUAs (pick-up artists), I do not buy drinks for strange women who I just met in nightclubs. Period. That is not only to save my hard earned cash but also to offer the chance to keep the field level. If I'd buy the drink, then a gift would already have been given and this would imply that I may demand something in return. And that sort of starting position is already becoming biased and slanted and offers too many angles for both sides to try to play. And as much fun as playing is, a distorted field spoils it for everyone involved.
Fast-forward a decade or two and the lessons have been learned. Accepting money is not as clear cut as one would assume. I'm still a student and during the first two years of my studies I didn't work during the semesters, so much budget was quite limited. In part things were helped by the occasional subsidy of 50 euros from my parents, which allowed me to get the soy sauce for the rice, so to say. But accepting the money does dig into oneself. In a way, at least according to how I interpret it, it is a way of someone to enforce their authority over you. You take the money and regardless of the terms (be it a gift or whatever), you're still indebted to the other person. In a way you are no longer on the same level.
This might in fact also explain why students in Finland typically stear clear of student loans, even though they are state-backed and fairly cheap loans. But you tie yourself to a bank and agree to give away some of your freedoms in order to attempt to pay back the loan at some point. With inter-person money transfers, things get even more tedious. Some people may initially seem to be giving you gifts, but may implicitly assume that when a certain moment comes along that you know what to do.
According to traditional etiquette, men should treat women to dinners. Contemporary feminism will have its views and I would venture a guess that they are against this practice as it is yet another ancient relic which men use to demonstrate their authority over women. But quite many women still do expect the man to pick up the bill. This in turn translates to an interesting phenomenon concerning the transfer of wealth between the genders, especially during weekends.
So amidst the rise of feminism and the attempt for gender equality (I know, they are not synonyms...) it is quite interesting to see that women are partly becoming more aggressive in attempting to utilize the lax monetary policies followed by many men. The more interesting practice was one which I encountered last weekend in Turku. While waiting at a bar counter, I was rapidly approached by two girls. One started snuggling up to me and it was pretty obvious that she was trying to get a drink for herself and her friend. Or maybe I'm just so drop-dead handsome that it was that instead. Anyway, to see what would happen, I decided to play dumb and move myself a bit further. And lo-and-behold, the girl followed, still initiating slight physical contact. Finally I couldn't help myself anymore but decided to ask what it is that she wanted. And I was shocked to hear that they wanted drinks (well, ok, I wasn't shocked). So being me, I of course complied and ordered myself a beer and two glasses of ice water for the girls and walked away with my beer.
But this begs the question of where the line between normal behavior and whoring goes. I would in fact considering the actions of this specific girl to be borderline whoring as it was quite clear that leveraging the assets afforded to the more beautiful gender in a fashion like this was so blatant that it cannot be interpreted in any other way. The question becomes more difficult during e.g. dinners. My own personal policy is that during dates, I typically tend to offer to pay for small things if I was the one inviting the other party, but I reserve the right to go Dutch if I feel like it. It is a lot rarer that I let the girl pay everything, but it has also happened. But she has to insist upon it strongly before I give up this pleasure.
However, as is the policy that is suggested by different PUAs (pick-up artists), I do not buy drinks for strange women who I just met in nightclubs. Period. That is not only to save my hard earned cash but also to offer the chance to keep the field level. If I'd buy the drink, then a gift would already have been given and this would imply that I may demand something in return. And that sort of starting position is already becoming biased and slanted and offers too many angles for both sides to try to play. And as much fun as playing is, a distorted field spoils it for everyone involved.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Risks
As part of a project at work, we had a discussion about risks quite a while back. Risks are inherently interesting as intuitively everyone is continuously evaluating their probabilities and impacts, whether or not they recognize it. Do I cross the street now? Do I quit my job? Do I enter this relationship?
Risks are also interesting in the way that the ones that you can sort of attempt to foresee and prepare for are seldom the ones that are really the ones to look out for. Nassim Taleb wrote a very fascinating book on the improbable and he brings up a case of casinos. Casinos are in a sense the pinnacle of probability-related studies; everything is calculated and risks analyzed. The house always wins. And recently they've been very heavily investing on technology to catch cheaters. And they're very good at it. But according to Taleb, the top four individual losses that were accumulated by an unnamed casino were not because of cheaters or amazing streaks of luck, but in fact they were caused by the very improbable; risks that nobody had even thought about. These incidents ranged from a disgruntled builder threating to blow up the building to an employee forgetting to file some forms to the tax authorities to the head of the casino dipping into the casino's funds to pay the ransom to release his daughter, and so on.
Similarily Taleb suggests that instead of spending too much effort on catching cheaters in your life, you should focus on minimizing the downside and subjecting yourself to risky situations that have unlimited upsides. Rich people become rich by inheriting their riches or if they don't, then by being lucky. If rich people became rich by being talented and intelligent, then the world is very broken, since I know very many very intelligent people who are not rich.
What about implications to relationships? Well, if one understands risk to be the combination of probabilities of events and the impacts of the same events, then one should, again, focus on managing the downside by minimizing exposure to risks with negative outcomes. Minimize probabilities and impacts. But herein lies another interesting conflict. Relationships are based on trust. I trust that you will not harm me. But if you effectively manage risks and downsides, what might in fact happen is that trust will not grow. If I tell you that I trust you, but am all the time covering my rear and making sure that exits are close by, would you really believe me? And therein lies the pickle.
But in fact, as contradicting as it is, I guess it's just a question of decision making. On one hand by minimizing the downside you also restrict the upside. But by aiming for infinite bliss and happiness and the unrestricted upside, you also, by definition, subject yourself to an ever increasing amount of negative risks as well. The question is where one decides to draw the line. If the meteor hits and the negative risks materialize, will it kill you? Or send you back into the stone age emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, and so on?
So... T-bills, stock, or derivatives?
Risks are also interesting in the way that the ones that you can sort of attempt to foresee and prepare for are seldom the ones that are really the ones to look out for. Nassim Taleb wrote a very fascinating book on the improbable and he brings up a case of casinos. Casinos are in a sense the pinnacle of probability-related studies; everything is calculated and risks analyzed. The house always wins. And recently they've been very heavily investing on technology to catch cheaters. And they're very good at it. But according to Taleb, the top four individual losses that were accumulated by an unnamed casino were not because of cheaters or amazing streaks of luck, but in fact they were caused by the very improbable; risks that nobody had even thought about. These incidents ranged from a disgruntled builder threating to blow up the building to an employee forgetting to file some forms to the tax authorities to the head of the casino dipping into the casino's funds to pay the ransom to release his daughter, and so on.
Similarily Taleb suggests that instead of spending too much effort on catching cheaters in your life, you should focus on minimizing the downside and subjecting yourself to risky situations that have unlimited upsides. Rich people become rich by inheriting their riches or if they don't, then by being lucky. If rich people became rich by being talented and intelligent, then the world is very broken, since I know very many very intelligent people who are not rich.
What about implications to relationships? Well, if one understands risk to be the combination of probabilities of events and the impacts of the same events, then one should, again, focus on managing the downside by minimizing exposure to risks with negative outcomes. Minimize probabilities and impacts. But herein lies another interesting conflict. Relationships are based on trust. I trust that you will not harm me. But if you effectively manage risks and downsides, what might in fact happen is that trust will not grow. If I tell you that I trust you, but am all the time covering my rear and making sure that exits are close by, would you really believe me? And therein lies the pickle.
But in fact, as contradicting as it is, I guess it's just a question of decision making. On one hand by minimizing the downside you also restrict the upside. But by aiming for infinite bliss and happiness and the unrestricted upside, you also, by definition, subject yourself to an ever increasing amount of negative risks as well. The question is where one decides to draw the line. If the meteor hits and the negative risks materialize, will it kill you? Or send you back into the stone age emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, and so on?
So... T-bills, stock, or derivatives?
Evenings
Antti may have gotten his Alfa Romeo, but we've shared a common passion before too: Italy. I still have to thank him for getting me interested in Italian cuisine, and even though I still can't cook to save my life, I'm at least interested in taking small steps to learn. And today, after finally washing my dishes last night, I decided that it was time to cook some tortellinis and have some white wine.
Earlier this evening I finally met R's fiance and was able to give them the hot air balloon trip as an engagement/house warming present. And, it was worth it. I think they were very surprised and even happier about the present.
Anyway, fast forward and I'm back at home and what's a better way to spend a Tuesday evening than to have tortellinis, white wine, enjoy the company of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's and plan a trip to Germany. Perfect. Oh, and I had to put an end to the watch fever I've been having, since yesterday I nearly bought an IWC, and that would've been quite a bit too expensive. So I bought a Tag Heuer Carrera instead. Oh well. At least I "saved" a couple of thousand euros...
Earlier this evening I finally met R's fiance and was able to give them the hot air balloon trip as an engagement/house warming present. And, it was worth it. I think they were very surprised and even happier about the present.
Anyway, fast forward and I'm back at home and what's a better way to spend a Tuesday evening than to have tortellinis, white wine, enjoy the company of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's and plan a trip to Germany. Perfect. Oh, and I had to put an end to the watch fever I've been having, since yesterday I nearly bought an IWC, and that would've been quite a bit too expensive. So I bought a Tag Heuer Carrera instead. Oh well. At least I "saved" a couple of thousand euros...
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Rhetorics
I recently started reading Naomi Klein's newest piece of work, The Shock Doctrine. However, I won't delve into the actual substance of the book as I haven't finished it yet, but an interesting point came to my mind about it already. Her work revolves heavily around economics, which is traditionally a quite tedious subject in school and which consists of endless hours of staring at diagrams and trying to understand how things work. But her book doesn't remind me of the course books in economics that I've read. Instead it reads more like The Da Vinci Code, and that isn't necessarily meant to be a complement.
Klein has, however, mastered the art of rhetorics. Her style of writing is very provocative and if one is not careful in understanding what she is saying, she can be very persuasive. However, it is clear that being such a, shall we say, shocking book, it has to cut some corners and go to extreme interpretations in order to achieve the sensational nature and aura. And for me it is always a warning sign when any sort of "serious" book reads like the tabloids. Needless to say, Klein's book is full of fairly far fetched interpretations and even some oddities.
At the start of the book Klein goes to use neoconservatism and neoliberalism rather interchangeably. She then suggests that Friedman is a neoconservatist. And at this point alarm bells should be ringing. Granted, this is very much a nitpicking issue about terminology, but according to my limited understanding of things, neoconservatism is more or less what the Bush administration is about, neoliberalism is closer to libertarianism, which in turn holds pretty much the opposite views as the neocon crowd when the discussion turns to governmental issues. Neolibertarianism in turn is a strange combination of neoconservatism and libertarianism, but I personally just don't understand this school of thought as it seems sort of inconsistent with itself. And out of these, I would understand Friedman to have been a libertarian. And libertarianism itself can, according to Friedman, be defined in two different ways. But maybe I'll just stop with this word play as I'm not even trained in political philosophy.
But, if this should start sounding the alarm bells, one will soon notice that Klein does present a vast amount of all sorts of trivia statistics. And naturally most of her evidence does appear to support her case. But the zeal with which she presents these bits of information begs the question regarding where the figures are from and whether or not she has just picked the bits and pieces of the puzzle that support her conspiracy theory. Granted, I am very biased, but I have this feeling that free trade and free markets as such have increased the overall wealth and that in the grand scheme of things poverty has decreased in the world. Maybe some places have gone in the opposite direction, but at large things are going in the better direction, and I am fairly certain that if one digs around, one will find a lot of numbers to support this.
I promised that I wouldn't go into details, but I do agree with Klein that there is something fishy going on these days. But I have a gut feeling that the real relevant issue isn't about whether or not free trade and free markets are enforced upon people by use of violence and coersion. I think the fishy business revolves more around the corporatism and the dealing out of e.g. rebuilding contracts in Iraq in a very nepotistic fashion, etc. The bad apples seem to be the people in charge of the big companies and the big governments. To my understanding the libertarian point of view is that the influence of goverments should be made as minimal as possible, but not any more minimal than that. One might argue that by forbidding the goverment from engaging in interventionism in the scale that it can according to the neocons that the end result is undoubtedly a winner-takes-all situation where a single company will eventually gain a monopoly. Granted, that is a fair point and I would imagine that, besides the ultra hard liners of laissez-faire, many libertarians would agree that a monopoly may not serve the interests of very many people and that healthy competition would be a better option. This is by no means an easy discussion, but the point I'm trying to make is that where Klein has some decent points, she's in fact succumbing to her own trap and indeed using the "shock" from Iraq and natural catastrophies and so on to sell people her own thoughts and ideas, and that is precisely what she is speaking out against.
So to sum it up, saying that Milton Friedman is the devil behind all the suffering today is in my opinion quite a harsh statement. If one reads Klein's complaints very carefully, one will notice that she and Friedman are not in fact very similar, at least according to how she portrays Friedman. Reality, again, might be even more different. But hey, at least she does know the noble art of rhetorics.
Klein has, however, mastered the art of rhetorics. Her style of writing is very provocative and if one is not careful in understanding what she is saying, she can be very persuasive. However, it is clear that being such a, shall we say, shocking book, it has to cut some corners and go to extreme interpretations in order to achieve the sensational nature and aura. And for me it is always a warning sign when any sort of "serious" book reads like the tabloids. Needless to say, Klein's book is full of fairly far fetched interpretations and even some oddities.
At the start of the book Klein goes to use neoconservatism and neoliberalism rather interchangeably. She then suggests that Friedman is a neoconservatist. And at this point alarm bells should be ringing. Granted, this is very much a nitpicking issue about terminology, but according to my limited understanding of things, neoconservatism is more or less what the Bush administration is about, neoliberalism is closer to libertarianism, which in turn holds pretty much the opposite views as the neocon crowd when the discussion turns to governmental issues. Neolibertarianism in turn is a strange combination of neoconservatism and libertarianism, but I personally just don't understand this school of thought as it seems sort of inconsistent with itself. And out of these, I would understand Friedman to have been a libertarian. And libertarianism itself can, according to Friedman, be defined in two different ways. But maybe I'll just stop with this word play as I'm not even trained in political philosophy.
But, if this should start sounding the alarm bells, one will soon notice that Klein does present a vast amount of all sorts of trivia statistics. And naturally most of her evidence does appear to support her case. But the zeal with which she presents these bits of information begs the question regarding where the figures are from and whether or not she has just picked the bits and pieces of the puzzle that support her conspiracy theory. Granted, I am very biased, but I have this feeling that free trade and free markets as such have increased the overall wealth and that in the grand scheme of things poverty has decreased in the world. Maybe some places have gone in the opposite direction, but at large things are going in the better direction, and I am fairly certain that if one digs around, one will find a lot of numbers to support this.
I promised that I wouldn't go into details, but I do agree with Klein that there is something fishy going on these days. But I have a gut feeling that the real relevant issue isn't about whether or not free trade and free markets are enforced upon people by use of violence and coersion. I think the fishy business revolves more around the corporatism and the dealing out of e.g. rebuilding contracts in Iraq in a very nepotistic fashion, etc. The bad apples seem to be the people in charge of the big companies and the big governments. To my understanding the libertarian point of view is that the influence of goverments should be made as minimal as possible, but not any more minimal than that. One might argue that by forbidding the goverment from engaging in interventionism in the scale that it can according to the neocons that the end result is undoubtedly a winner-takes-all situation where a single company will eventually gain a monopoly. Granted, that is a fair point and I would imagine that, besides the ultra hard liners of laissez-faire, many libertarians would agree that a monopoly may not serve the interests of very many people and that healthy competition would be a better option. This is by no means an easy discussion, but the point I'm trying to make is that where Klein has some decent points, she's in fact succumbing to her own trap and indeed using the "shock" from Iraq and natural catastrophies and so on to sell people her own thoughts and ideas, and that is precisely what she is speaking out against.
So to sum it up, saying that Milton Friedman is the devil behind all the suffering today is in my opinion quite a harsh statement. If one reads Klein's complaints very carefully, one will notice that she and Friedman are not in fact very similar, at least according to how she portrays Friedman. Reality, again, might be even more different. But hey, at least she does know the noble art of rhetorics.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Speaking of Porsches...
A friend of mine recently picked up an Alfa Romeo 147. Among the core arguments for the car were things like "It says benzina next to the fuel gage!" and that "It will be broken all the time since it's an Italian car, but it won't matter as it is so beautiful!" This sort of mindset is driven by the view that passion is enough. I contest this point by arguing the exact opposite point: passion, while needed to some extent, typically just gets you in trouble. That is not to say that passion is bad, but it cannot be the only thing. An analogy would be a relationship. While passion is crucial from the outset, if there is no other substance, no respect, no kinship, the relationship will be a short and painful one.
Porsche has been criticized by some people for being too engineered a car. They say that it lacks soul, it lacks the aforementioned passion. That it is cold and sterile. That it is too rationale. Maybe so. But there is beauty in engineering. It is backed by numbers and hard facts. But it has its own spirit, its own soul, and its pride. The engine is at the back, as it has just about always been. It is up for debate whether or not this is a good or a bad thing, but they've kept their head and have not changed their minds about it. Some may call this stubborn, but it need not be seen in such negative light: it may be also seen to be consistency and strong will, both considered to be good traits.
But in fact the discussion around passion versus engineering comes again to the question of balance. When doing analysis work on strategic questions, taking a purely quantitative approach will always result in incorrect results, because the initial numbers are always wrong and the models always lacking. But a purely qualitative approach is not any better either, as it just hangs high in the air and lacks firm numbers to back feelings with. No one will make a multi-million dollar decision based solely on gut feeling. But because mathematics is considered by many to be tedious and boring, it is often overlooked or not utilized properly. Waving hands around with qualitative analysis is a lot easier and a lot more fun than analyzing numbers, so that is too often what gets done instead.
In relationships, passion ignites the chain of events. But too often the boring things are overlooked and it is assumed that strong enough passion will conquer all. In a number of years, however, reality will hit and gravity will kick in. And at that point it would be nice to know that the ground work has been done properly and that effort need not be spent on fought on things that are not at the core: fire fighting by attempting to kill the smoke while the fire is elsewhere seldom helps with anything. Same thing with cars; the first year or two with a car might be nice and everything works. The design of the body might be nice, but when you come up between a rock and a hard place, you do want to know that the engineers have done the mathematics and that the airbags will deploy and the body will stay intact, protecting you and your significant other so that you two can continue having a passionate relationship.
And with that, I'll leave you with a two-part video about the new Porsche 911 Turbo (977), which is not only engineered, but it is engineered with passion. And it is pretty damn sexy as well... And Antti, good luck with the Alfa. And I'm sure it'll be a fun and nice car.
Porsche has been criticized by some people for being too engineered a car. They say that it lacks soul, it lacks the aforementioned passion. That it is cold and sterile. That it is too rationale. Maybe so. But there is beauty in engineering. It is backed by numbers and hard facts. But it has its own spirit, its own soul, and its pride. The engine is at the back, as it has just about always been. It is up for debate whether or not this is a good or a bad thing, but they've kept their head and have not changed their minds about it. Some may call this stubborn, but it need not be seen in such negative light: it may be also seen to be consistency and strong will, both considered to be good traits.
But in fact the discussion around passion versus engineering comes again to the question of balance. When doing analysis work on strategic questions, taking a purely quantitative approach will always result in incorrect results, because the initial numbers are always wrong and the models always lacking. But a purely qualitative approach is not any better either, as it just hangs high in the air and lacks firm numbers to back feelings with. No one will make a multi-million dollar decision based solely on gut feeling. But because mathematics is considered by many to be tedious and boring, it is often overlooked or not utilized properly. Waving hands around with qualitative analysis is a lot easier and a lot more fun than analyzing numbers, so that is too often what gets done instead.
In relationships, passion ignites the chain of events. But too often the boring things are overlooked and it is assumed that strong enough passion will conquer all. In a number of years, however, reality will hit and gravity will kick in. And at that point it would be nice to know that the ground work has been done properly and that effort need not be spent on fought on things that are not at the core: fire fighting by attempting to kill the smoke while the fire is elsewhere seldom helps with anything. Same thing with cars; the first year or two with a car might be nice and everything works. The design of the body might be nice, but when you come up between a rock and a hard place, you do want to know that the engineers have done the mathematics and that the airbags will deploy and the body will stay intact, protecting you and your significant other so that you two can continue having a passionate relationship.
And with that, I'll leave you with a two-part video about the new Porsche 911 Turbo (977), which is not only engineered, but it is engineered with passion. And it is pretty damn sexy as well... And Antti, good luck with the Alfa. And I'm sure it'll be a fun and nice car.
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