Month: May 2013

Suspect this effect is as old as Orpheus, but interesting that the study suggest a hormonal right-brain effect different between the sexes . One for the growing collection on brain hemispheres. (Hat tip to Johan on Facebook)

Several levels of hypocrisy in this Slate report on Google CEO Larry Page’s keynote and in Larry’s thoughts themselves of course. Google are in big business to make big money, and that involves competing “against” their competitors for sure. That’s the world which they (and we, and journo’s) inhabit. (Hat tip to Hugh McLeod @gapingvoid)

But one interesting point is the idea of a separate protected – physically segregated – nation or world.

It’s an aspect of Darwinian evolution that is often overlooked – but, progressive, diverse evolution can’t occur if the world in which species compete is a “single market”. Un-crossable mountain ranges, deserts, rivers and oceans are part of the global system of eco-systems. (It’s why enlightened members of the human species exercise artificial restraint in competing with other species that inhabit multiple eco-systems on the only planet we have. We are actually capable of crossing these physical barriers.)  There have to be niches insulated from outside competition in order for new species to develop – this is not altruistic protection of existing species, but segregation of new advantageous mutations long enough to actually become a species (a distinct product in the market-place). Secure zones are needed for nurture (collaboration) as well as “nature” (tooth-and-claw dog-eat-dog free-for-all) and obviously when we’re talking about new mass market consumer technology species, that niche needs to be pretty large to be meaningful.

Changing the world requires collaboration unless your definition of changing the world is to replace everyone else’s world with your own. Last man standing is NOT the optimum game strategy for the majority.

Remote working is all well and good, but as I’ve always said, unless the work is trivially straightforward, you need a pre-established good working relationship with the team; those you need to collaborate with remotely. And you need to top up that relationship, get re-aligned, back on the same page, etc with regular periodic face-to-face working sessions – real team-building.

Well now it seems that concept of regular rotations between remote and co-located working has a name – the Oscillation Principle. Sounds to me like maybe an overblown name with a much wider potential context for meaning, but hey, any name in a storm allows shared communication.

[Also liked this post from Nancy Dixon, if only because like my work it includes reference to Argyris wrt the psychological “games” involved in organisational behaviour of teams.

When team members perceive the possibility of embarrassment or threat, they act in ways that inhibit the team from learning; in short they remain silent or resort to meaningless generalities rather than risk negative consequences.

That’s shared embarrassment and threat notice – individuals are more embarrassed by the threat of embarrassment to others, than any direct threat to themselves – we’re all “man enough” to believe we can defend ourselves against invalid challenges, but we “feel for” or “identify with” others. And there’s more on the effects of silence – often hollow agreement – in team communication. You know the behaviour “All agreed ? OK? Anyone? No comments? So, agreed. Let’s move on to the next topic on the agenda.” Yeah, right, a sure sign a team is not really working. Also “sense-making” in the sense I’ve picked up from Dave Snowden before. Interesting blog Nancy Dixon’s Conversation Matters – hat tip to David Gurteen for the link.

Johnnie Moore also commented on this post :

I’m often inclined to say “can’t we just talk” when offered a complicated way of organising things, but of course it’s not as simple as that, as Nancy’s post elaborates.

I was particularly interested in the bits about how power(status) differentials diminish the effectiveness of groups. It reminded me of Matthew May’s story which really dramatised this point.

Having exactly that problem right now – where an “agile” project team has grown to a state where the “stakeholders” have imposed more formal management hierarchy, based on external organizational roles rather than knowledge within the project, and some of those individuals are in danger of using their “power”.]

I count myself as one of those who has never seen Star Wars. OK, I’ve obviously seen plenty of clips, and experienced the memes,  and maybe even accidentally seen large chunks of the original as “Christmas TV” – but I’ve never deliberately watched any of them.

Like any good vs evil soap-opera, they’re a rehash of the perennial myths, same old underlying plots with a new cast of characters, situations and props. Ditto Narnia, ditto Lord of the Rings, (or Godfather I, II and III in my case) etc. That’s a given and indeed a necessity for each generation, each culture, each evolution of current media and story-telling fashion. But I agree here with Tiffany Jenkins that rehashing the rehashes to milk the franchise is not the point – that is too much.

Can’t stand Dan Brown, but this BBC magazine article is somehow interesting none-the-less.

Feynman already was inspirational when he was alive, but “The Fantastic Mr Feynman” was an excellent science documentary for a science editor to conclude, as Feynman himself did, that love is more important than science.

Ironic that they included that science-101 lecture clip where he emphasises the basic falsification rule of science, that if the experiment doesn’t agree, your theory is wrong. Hmmm. Pretty sure he’d have highlighted more likely conclusions if he’d created that lecture later in life.

That is, the more removed the theory from an experiment representing an individual’s empirical experience under control of that individual (like the clip of the clamped Challenger O-ring in the iced-water), the more the “experiment” is a complex logical network of people, experiments, equipment, interpretations, reports, organisations, culture, memes, politics, myths, media, motives, funding, rewards and reputations. Then, the less-significant-whilst-still-relevant the core scientific rule is when compared to all the other possible relationships involved – love (true, misguided, or the lack of it) conquers all.

It would have been fascinating to hear him elaborate on the value of “authority” and “respect” in the context of who can we trust, what can we value, and how that value gets realised and “recognised”. The Swedish Nobel Academy may be imperfect, but the value of a body of work is surely not a scientific question.

Great documentary on many other levels too. Art & Science, Science & Fun, Science & Technology Applications, Education & Learning, Information & Computation, Visuals & Stories …. and so much more. (Hat tip to Smiffy on Facebook for the link.)

[Ha – topical – today, as if to make my point; George Monbiot in the Guardian (Comment is Free) The Treason of the Scholars. I said “lack of love” – George says, quoting Julien Benda, “the chorus of hatreds”. Science is indeed full of moral judgements, prejudices and a wishful “redeeming hypocrisy”. The sooner science takes its head out of its arse, reverses the denial and recognizes it actually needs (humanist / cosmic) ethical underpinnings, the better. Thanks to Nick Maxwell for the link. Real world empiricism really is, and should be recognised as, “aim oriented”. Continuing to pretend it is neutral wrt to values is the denial, the hypocrisy, the neurosis of science. Behaving neutrally wrt to values is to leave ethical decisions to random opportunism. Here with Nick Maxwell’s response to George Monbiot:

I applaud George Monbiot’s call for “a disinterested class of intellectuals which acts as a counterweight to prevailing mores” (‘If scholars sell out, where’s the moral check on power?’, 14 May).  But, as I have argued for decades, we need to go much further.  We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom and not just acquire knowledge — wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others.

We have inherited from the past the view that the proper way for academia to help promote human welfare is, in the first instance, to acquire knowledge.  First, knowledge is to be acquired; then, secondarily, it can be applied to help solve social problems.  This view not only encourages the kind of amorality Monbiot depicts.  It is also damagingly irrational.  If we take seriously that the fundamental task of universities is to help promote human welfare by intellectual and educational means, then the problems that universities should be centrally concerned to help solve are problems of living, not problems of knowledge.  It is in general what we do, or refrain from doing, that enables us to achieve what is of value, not what we know.

Knowledge is of course important but secondary.  What we lack is a world-wide system of universities rationally devoted to helping us learn how to solve our problems of living, above all our global problems, in increasingly cooperative, wise ways.  In order to create a wiser world we need to learn how to do it, and for that, in turn, we need institutions of learning devoted to the task.

]

Interesting, the full live Moshcam You-Tube video of PiL performing in Sydney 10th April includes Public Image amongst all the regulars from the recent tour sets. Starts riskily with the sparse and least accessible Four Enclosed Walls. The mix and visuals make a great record of a current PiL performance.

Not sure what the full running time is (two minutes shy of two hours) but even second track Albatross is a 14 minutes version! Interesting Flowers arrangement. Only regular missing so far as I can see is USLS1.  Whoa! no Religion either – weird. Thought they’d dropped old “hit” Public Image forever – fortunately not – a great 3 minutes “goodbye, you got what you wanted, goodbye” to end the main set, with Open Up as the regular final encore.

[Coincidentally, just finished reading John Lydon’s “Rotten – No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs.” Great inside story on the Pistols’ story from a 1992 perspective. Interesting on several levels – the historical content obviously if the musical events interest you, but the style – chapters in John’s voice with quote inserts from others, but also chapters entirely in the voice of others, with John’s inserts – and the players – including Chrissie Hynde and Richard Branson – the back story on New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders and the dreadful Nancy Spungen. Great use of language by John – yes, his arrogant over-confidence can make him a pain in the arse, but it’s “his” autobiography “and we don’t care, (reverb to fade)”. Love the Lydon vs McLaren court battle – simply presented as the written witness affidavits – honesty pays.]

One major reason why “democracy” by popular vote is the worst form of governance (apart from all the others).

(Consensus vs tyranny of the majority, etc. Concensus = Parker-Follett integrationism.)

Interesting review of David Graeber (Occupy Wall Street) book The Democracy Project by Dave Pollard.