Business Evolutionist

Fast and Far...

Two great posts from our buddy Claire over at l-e-mental.com.

First up is Life in the Fast Lane:

The pace at which city dwellers walk has increased by 10 per cent in the last decade, [a new study] has shown.

Second, The 100 Mile Diet

When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles.

Loads of interesting stats in the second post... like, Ratio of prisoners to farmers in the U.S. population: 5:2.

What are you still here for? Go check out Claire's blog! :-)

Fight bad ideas not people

Great post over at Tantek's Thoughts - by Tantek Celik, one of the speakers at The Future of Web Apps conference. (I couldn't find a way to trackback to this post... DAMN! If someone can give me the TB URL, let me know so I can update this)

We are not at war.

Ideas are at war. We are merely their pawns and canonfodder.

Fighting a war by fighting people is merely attacking symptoms rather than causes.

In the long run, fighting a war by fighting people is only as effective as fighting a disease by fighting the people that have contracted it rather than fighting the disease itself.

But there is no equivalent to antibiotics for ideas. You cannot kill an idea.

Several approaches have been attempted to fight ideas.

1. Deprive them of hosts and transmission vectors, by quarantining people that have contracted them, e.g. as McCarthyism attempted. Or worse, what Stalin did with purges etc.
2. Refute them openly, logically, rationally. This tends to work in science, mathematics, and philosophy. It also works to dispell children of simple mythological constructs such as Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. More complex mythological constructs have for the most part evolved immunity to reason and logic. This doesn't mean you should stop trying (hat tip: Mike Linksvayer).
3. Replace them by developing better idea(s) which outpropagate, overwhelm, and ideally displace the idea(s) you are fighting. This is how science could defeat widespread superstition. How freedom has a chance at defeating fascism. How hope can defeat fear. How love can defeat suicidal hate.

Which approach do you think is the most effective?

There is a fourth approach which AFAIK has never been attempted by design though instances have clearly evolved in the wild.

Whatever method(s) you choose, the larger choice is clear. Will you stand up to fight the bad ideas? Or will you waste your time fighting the people?

This reminds me of an article I read in Strategy + Business: "Karen Stephenson’s Quantum Theory of Trust" (free registration required)

Professor Stephenson’s concept, which she calls the “quantum theory of trust,” explains not just how to recognize the collective cognitive capability of organizations, but how to cultivate and increase it. At age 50, Professor Stephenson is the most visible member (particularly in business circles) of a small but growing academic field called social network analysis. Originally derived from the complex math used to explain subatomic physics, it is being used to understand and manage the ineffable forces of human interaction within an organization’s walls — particularly those forces that can’t be captured in formal structures, such as pay scales and reporting relationships, but that implicitly govern the fate of every enterprise.

“The organization chart basically shows you the formal rules. But the ropes of the organization, how it actually works, is the human network,” says futurist Thornton May, one of Professor Stephenson’s former colleagues at the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she taught for most of the 1990s. “Karen, more than anyone else, knows how to make it visible.”

...

Since the events of September 11, 2001, she has also become a military researcher. Under the auspices of a new government contracting firm, she is helping the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Awareness Office (the counterterrorism branch of the same government research agency that created the original design of the Internet) draw inferences about the weak links in Al Qaeda’s network.

This is very interesting stuff to me - and is further evidence that violence is not the only weapon against hate.

What do you think? Is war the only answer? How do you fight ideas? What would you do if you were in charge?

What the terrorists want...

Great post from Bruce Scheier (via Fouroboros)

I'd like everyone to take a deep breath and listen for a minute.

The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

In truth, it's doubtful that their plan would have succeeded; chemists have been debunking the idea since it became public. Certainly the suspects were a long way off from trying: None had bought airline tickets, and some didn't even have passports.

Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers' perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they've succeeded.

Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that's basically what's happening right now.

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the effects of their terror.

(I am not saying that the politicians and press are terrorists, or that they share any of the blame for terrorist attacks. I'm not that stupid. But the subject of terrorism is more complex than it appears, and understanding its various causes and effects are vital for understanding how to best deal with it.)

The implausible plots and false alarms actually hurt us in two ways. Not only do they increase the level of fear, but they also waste time and resources that could be better spent fighting the real threats and increasing actual security. I'll bet the terrorists are laughing at us.

Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.

But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.

The surest defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a particularly common one at that. And our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.

No Child Left Behind

That title is a nicely packaged soundbite. Who wouldn't support legislation with a name like that? I know that this is old news, but it was discussed last night and I've been meaning to write about this for some time.

No Child Left Behind is government legislation designed to ensure that children in this country get the best education possible. So, how does NCLB attempt to do that?

Well, for starters, one of the cornerstones of the legislation is that it mandates Teacher Certification. The amount of money a school district gets is partially based on having all teachers certified.

From the NCLB site:

No Child Left Behind defines the qualifications needed by teachers and paraprofessionals who work on any facet of classroom instruction. It requires that states develop plans to achieve the goal that all teachers of core academic subjects be highly qualified by the end of the 2005-06 school year. States must include in their plans annual, measurable objectives that each local school district* and school must meet in moving toward the goal; they must report on their progress in the annual report cards.

(* Highly qualified = Certified)

This is flawed. Big time.

I led a project last year to redesign the hiring process at a large, east-coast, inner-city school district. As you can imagine, getting teachers to come to an inner city school district is no easy task, let alone certified teachers. The same is true for rural teachers. The two school systems that need help the most, urban and rural school districts, are being "left behind" by this legislation. Getting "highly qualified" science and math teachers is a serious problem and since most of these urban and rural school districts can't recruit enough of these teachers, they're penalized financially for it.

This is not the worst part....

Again, from the NCLB site:

No Child Left Behind puts a special emphasis on implementing educational programs and practices that have been clearly demonstrated to be effective through rigorous scientific research. Federal funding will be targeted to support such programs. For example, the Reading First program makes federal funds available to help reading teachers in the early grades strengthen old skills and gain new ones in instructional techniques that scientifically based research has shown to be effective.

Okay, if we are going to grow skills for 21st century jobs, should we be relying on clearly demonstrated programs and practices? I mean, in order to prove that they are effective, that means they're old and don't we need new educational programs to grow a new workforce? Next, how have they proven that that these programs are effective? What is the scope of the research? Does it end at the conclusion of a school year? Does it end when a student graduates? Does it end when they've gotten a "good" job? Wait, what is a good job?

Our education system needs fixed alright, but you don't fix it by treating children, teachers or school system as if they are all the same. You start by understanding children and figuring out how to get them to want to learn.... until you've figured that out, everything else is just noise.

How would you improve the school system in this country?

Terror in the Name of God

This is off-topic of what I normally post... but, I caught this program on CSPAN this past Saturday.

Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill with Jessica Stern

Description: Jessica Stern was a guest on Booknotes in 2003 to talk about her book, "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill." The author provides a first hand account of her experiences with religious terrorism around the world. She argues that many leaders use religion as justification for violence and that the war on terror is more psychological than militant.

Bio: Jessica Stern is a lecturer at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. From 1998 to 1999, she was the Superterrorism Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The Real Video feed of the show (57 minutes) is available at the following link

Deductibles are backwards

Great post over at BuzzMachine the other day about the Health Care War. The post is pretty good but the best part is the comments (62 at last count).

This is an issue that I've been thinking more and more about.

It got me thinking that insurance deductibles are backwards - 100% backwards of how they should be. They penalize the people who use the service very infrequently and reward people who use the system more. Think about it, your average person doesn't get everything from insurance that they put into it. The people who use it a lot are the people who are getting best bang for their buck. Now, before you think I'm some cold-hearted bastard who doesn't think that people should given service, let me stop you there: Nothing, nothing, could be further from the truth. But think about the way deductibles work, you pay some amount over some period of time and if you continue to use the service it is free after that. I think it should be the opposite - the more you use it, the more you should have to pay.

With Health Insurance it might act as a way to prevent people from going to visit the doctor for every little ache and pain or cough. It might also prevent people from harming themselves with obesity, cigarette smoking, etc. "I'll have to pay more if I want to get my tummy stapled." [full disclosure - I smoke]

I think I've been to the doctor 3 times in the last ten years... and one of those was just a physical when I turned 30. Another was a freak soccer accident that I'm too embarassed to share here! Anyway...

Now, of course some diseases might prevent people from being able to afford to pay for service. The insurance companies should continue to take care of those people (maybe they do?), that is the business they are in. Actually, what I'd like to see are the combined profits of all the insurance companies over the last ten years... I bet the number is staggering. I know, we live in a capitalist society, they should be free to run their business any way they want - and some of them do have shareholders to answer to... but, come on, if these people choose this business because of the money, well, sorry, I think there is a certain amount of moral responsibility that comes with it.

Another issue here are the drug companies - they have a pill for everything nowdays, huh? I think they're doing some wonderful stuff with medicine, but again, I think there is some moral responsibility that you should shoulder.

Actually, I'd like to see average annual profits of the health insurance and drug companies combined. I'm just guessing that the number is fairly large.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that most of the drug and health insurance comapanies do a lot of charity work, but I read this story recently in Parade magazine:

Today, 44 million Americans are without any health insurance, an increase of 10 million since 1989, with 2003 marking the highest increase in a decade. Eight out of 10 uninsured, including children, are in working, tax-paying families; more than one-third are in households earning $25,000 to $49,999 a year.

Are those numbers legitimate? Who knows. Even if it is half that, it is a huge CRISIS. I was never a huge fan of Hilary Clinton, but, I think she was fighting a good fight on this one.

Don't be surprised if I post more about this in the coming weeks as I think more about it.

QUESTION: How would you change health care if you could?