Rowan's Future of Choice

What's next for the executive suite: Velcro wingtips?

Sir Ken Robinson talked at the 2006 TED conference about 'academic inflation' (my post is here). Put simply, the value of an academic degree has declined as the need for educated people has increased.

The problem is not the degree; it is what students are taught. This 30 second video takes a jab at an educational system that teaches students to avoid situations where they may make a mistake. Mistakes are critical to making better decisions; how else can we learn?

The young executive in the video is not being a snob about working in the mail room--as the video implies--he is afraid he will screw it up.

Video link

Who is telling stories: bloggers or the old media?

Getting unbiased 'decider' information continues to be difficult. It seems that every source of information is trying to influence the decisions we make for their benefit, not necessarily ours.

The major news and entertainment outlets have led us to believe that bloggers are a rabid group of politically motivated journalists.

According to a new Pew report, this is not true. Or maybe the Pew report is not true. At least it is based on real data and a research methodology.

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Source: Pew Internet study, "A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers."

Mistake #1: Letting others make your decisions

I think of the times I voted with the crowd, joined the popular club, wore what they wore, held back what I really thought. Does a lifetime of little compromises make me feel sad? Yes.

Why is it wrong to let others help us make our decisions?

After all, they may be smarter. They may be luckier or have insider knowledge. If a decision goes bad, we can blame them. If it is a really horrific, awful decision we have made--such as smoking cigarettes every day or the SUV we bought knowing it was designed to roll over easily--there may be a class action suit involving millions of people like us. This is a really horrific, awful decision turned kind-of-good. 'Good' because so many people choose so poorly that it can't be anyone's fault. It just happened.

That is one way to feel better.

How do we resist others' decisions? Like most skills, it takes practice. Our self-determination muscles have gone flabby, so we need exercise. Try the "10-Second Stall." Faced with any decision or choice--big or small, but not immediately life threatening--stop for 10 seconds, look around you, and think about what is driving you to this particular decision. Who will benefit? Who will lose? Are you deciding for the good of yourself and those you love, or for strangers? Answer these questions, and at the end of the 10 seconds, begin again.

Do this often.

To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, follow your bliss, not others'.
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Follow your bliss; the other Top 6 Mistakes We Make as Deciders.

Your body is a way of getting your head to meetings

Free video replays from the TED conferences are a great resource. I highly recommend this 20-minute talk by the English educator, Sir Ken Robinson. Click here to go to the TED web site.

Thanks to Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen for posting about this.

The 7 Basic Mistakes We Make as Deciders

Here is a list of common mistakes. I will write more about them in the coming days and weeks. Comments are welcome.

1. Letting others make your decisions. UPDATE is here
   
2. Confusing decision with action.
3. Believing decisions are irreversible, or that choices are final.
4. Rolling several small decisions into one large one.
5. Accepting barriers that are imaginary or insignificant.
6. Misunderstanding the risks of one choice over another.
7. Guessing about the future.

Note to my uniquely qualified self:

I will fall on a sword if I ever write this about myself:

"Taylor and LaBarre, who spent almost two years focused on the travel, research, interviewing,and writing of this book, are uniquely qualified to take readers to the front lines of the future of business. They are influential thinkers, authors, and speakers whose past work has shaped how executives make strategy, build companies, and reflect on the meaning of success."

This is from their ChangeThis "manifesto for mavericks." BTW, the ChangeThis blog does not accept comments, nor does the manifesto.

Fly away in your personal yacht

It is finally Friday, and I am just loving Dan Nachbar's personal blimp, which he built and flew near where I went to college in Amherst, Mass.

Thanks to another Dan (Dan Dubno) whom I met at PopTech last month, and the other folks at Gadgetoff for posting this at their blog here.

Have a great weekend!

A bank teller's perspective

This Bank of America closed-circuit TV picture interests me because of the wide range of tools used by the teller and the man at the teller's window. It also shows what it looks like from the other side of the window. The Police believe this man has committed several bank heists in northern Virginia.

Witnesses say the man brandished a butcher's knife at each teller's window, demanding money. He fled after none of the bank employees complied. (How often do I get to use 'brandished,' 'fled,' and 'complied' in one of my posts?)

First off, he used a kitchen knife--not a gun, which is the most common hold-up tool. The teller is 'protected' behind a small pane of safety glass. There is an empty penholder stuck to the counter. (Ancestors of the ball point pen date to the 10th century.)

The teller's computer is an inexpensive PC connected as a network device. The application on the screen shows the blue screen interface that IBM developed in the late 1960's. Experts describe this technology, called CICS, as "durable." No friendly (or frustrating) Windows interface, although I would guess the PC does have installed a copy of Windows 2000 and the Microsoft browser. If allowed by the manager, I imagine that bank employees take full advantage of the joys of internet shopping.

There is quite a bit of paper on the counter: receipts, tickets, ledger sheets, etc. We all know that the paperless office is a fantasy.

There is a small key-lock safe bolted to the counter top. Nothing fancy about that, or about the plastic tray for separating coins. Trays like this are as old as money. There is also a plain wired telephone and a portable tape player/radio.

The environment shown in the picture does not fit my mental image of the 21st century financial services industry: high-tech, secure, impersonal, and paperless. Whichever picture you believe is the 'truth,' it shows how influenced we are by corporate communications and marketing campaigns.

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On the chance you live in my area and have seen this man, the Police number to call is 1-866-411-8477. From the Fairfax County Police report: "The suspect is described as an Asian man who appears to be 45 to 55 years old. He is approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 160 to 170 pounds. He was wearing a blue jacket, tan pants and light colored sneakers."

So what is the future of choice?

Because this blog is called the "future of choice," it dawned on me that I should take a crack at addressing the topic head on. Here goes.

First, a brief recap of the past 10,000 years or so to the present:

1. The less you have, the fewer choices you have, and the less you have to decide upon.
2. Our range of choices and options is determined by those with the greatest privilege, authority, or power.
3. Shortages of tolerance, knowledge, and freedom are reflected in shortages of choice.
4. Scientists and preachers debate the roles of evidence and delusion in decision-making, while the rest of us struggle with them.
5. Deep beliefs that the world is incomprehensibly complex lead to arbitrary decision-making and a distrust of simple explanations.

My guesses in the near term and the next 30 years:

1. As evidence about the world accumulates, cheap and easy tools help us ‘boil the ocean’ of available information (e.g., Google).
2. At the same time, new and simple theories and frameworks emerge and begin to guide decision processes.
3. As evidence about the world and how we perceive it are better understood, those relying on ‘snap’ or ‘gut’ decisions that impact others are relegated to the fringes of society.
4. The ability to create choices and options becomes open to all, leading to the birth of the “unique member,” and the resulting challenge to re-define and accept the meaning of accountability.
5. Coupled with ‘virtually free’ resources and technologies that allow anyone to make anything, from a car to a college curriculum, the distinction between supply and demand (manufacturer and consumer), disappears, replaced by a new, boundary-less concept of creative choice and decision-making.

After reading this you probably have a couple of questions about some of these, as do I. I will continue exploring this area. As always, your comments are welcome.
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Heaven only knows what we want

Polls, precedent, and prognostication can make good entertainment, but they are ineffective tools for making public decisions. We must supplement them with frequent and constructive communications between citizens and leaders.

On this, day three after record numbers of U.S. voters choose one candidate over another, we are no closer to understanding collectively what Americans want and need from our government. That does not stop us from twisting stories into facts, and ultimately, wishes into budgets.

In every recent political news story and op-ed, the author or reporter is guessing what the results of millions of individual votes mean for the bigger picture. Some writers are using exit polls to gauge what people are thinking. Many are predicting based on historical events. I suspect that many are simply going from their gut.  Here are some samples:

Voters want U.S. out of Iraq
-- Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette

We know you want a better way of life, and now is the time to seize it
-- President Bush

Voters ... want to see Congress take a stronger role in providing checks and balances to the President's actions in fighting terrorism
-- ACLU

Voters Still Want Tax Cuts
-- Wall Street Journal

We Know What Voters Want ... Voters are looking for good jobs, for help from soaring health care, energy and college costs
-- Jesse Jackson

This is all rhetoric. It is not specific or actionable. It cannot be measured. Voters may seem to be saying they want "change," and a "fresh approach," but that is no wind to set our sails to. We have not directly told our leaders anything practical and useful. For now, we can only hope that heaven knows what we want, and that someone is listening.
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