BRAIN DRAIN

Overloaded?

2012-02-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, I took this picture (with great care!) while driving.

Look, if you saw something like that, you'd probably do the same, right?

I mean...just look at that thing!

The Instant Economist

2012-01-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Economics is such an important field of study, yet it is often perceived as too technical and complex for the everyman. Indeed, economics today relies on so much higher-order mathematics and calculus that it is considered the "queen of the social sciences" -- a subject that approaches the rigor and quantifiability of the hard sciences. As such, many economics textbooks of late seem inscrutable to the lay reader because of its various graphs and equations, which itself is surprising in view of the fact that early thinkers in the field could explain complex relationships without invoking such tools.

For this reason, there is plenty of room for accessible books that demistify what economics is all about -- I hear, for instance, that some people swear by Steven Landsburg's The Armchair Ecomist, though my personal favorite is the more recent Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan. The success of such resources lies in their ability not just to simplify the (seemingly) complex but more importantly to shed light on why and how these things are relevant to our daily affairs. It is in this context that Timothy Taylor makes an important contribution with his new book The Instant Economist: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works.

From the title alone, it's obvious that Taylor seeks to achieve two things: to explain the essentials and to do so in a practical way. He manages both quite ably, beginning with the requisite discussion on demand, supply and pricing, and thereafter branching off into weighty topics in macro- and international economics. When he does so, his presentation is often fairly Socratic: he identifies several specific issues (such as the minimum wage), poses an apparently polarizing question about them ("Should it be higher or lower?"), and then proceeds to present both sides, often with some statistics to back up the analysis. As a consequence, readers are left with a very balanced perspective on relevant economic concerns, and are hopefully empowered to make their own judgments accordingly.

Overall, the book's evident practical and macroeconomic bent, focused necessarily on the U.S. economy, works quite well. Yet the part of me that is an graduate student in economics wonders whether The Instant Economist would make appropriate introductory material for economics as a whole. Naturally, I understand the content that Taylor has put together, but sometimes I find this unorthodox to the point of teetering on the far end of the learning curve. For instance, there is an entire chapter dedicated to elasticity -- by no means a subject one often finds in "casual" economics books -- as well as a statistics-driven chapter on Economic Growth. Whether the book's intended audience will find such discussions enticing is certainly open for debate; but if they come away from having read these more interested in the topics, then it will certainly be to Taylor's credit as a professional economist.

Which he surely is. In fact, there are several chapters that I particularly appreciated, having taught undergraduate macroeconomics myself. For example, the chapter on the monetary system (i.e. Federal Reserve, to use the U.S. case) is excellent, and I wish I had it as a reference back in my teaching days. Likewise, Taylor very capably devotes a chapter to exchange rates, and it is positively enviable that anyone can write so clearly about the subject.

The Instant Economist isn't your usual introductory economics book, even for casual reading. It's a little more than that -- a little more advanced, a little more practical, and arguably a little more interesting. For that reason, it's material well worth having a look at in order to delve a little deeper into topics from Econ101, whether you took it last semester or years ago.

[This review is based on a pre-publication proof obtained through NetGalley.]

Shine

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

At the start of every year, I make it a point to look for a book that can help inspire me for the work that I know will have to be done for the rest of the year. Let's face it: even if you love the work that you do, sometimes it can feel like a struggle just to get out of bed, knowing the challenges, routines, and personalities that you have to deal with. So it always helps to have some source of inspiration, some added jolt of enthusiasm to help right the ship, as it were: something to assist us so we can soldier on and reaffirm for ourselves why we do what we do.

This year, for me, that book was Chris Baréz-Brown's Shine: How to Survive and Thrive at Work.

It's a short book (as these books usually are), one that channels the likes of Paul Arden, Seth Godin, and Hugh MacLeod. But there's something about Baréz-Brown's treatment that amuses, possibly even endears, as it hits the nail on the head and sets the reader on course for an attitude adjustment. Just a few pages into Shine I caught myself smiling; and I'm quite certain the smile was still on my face when I finally put the book down.

So those of you looking for a little work-related pick-me-up, check out Chris Baréz-Brown's new book. It might just inspire you and give you what you need to shine at work for the rest of the year.

[The US Edition of Shine will be published on 31 January 2012; but the UK Edition is available now(!). This review is based on a pre-publication proof obtained through NetGalley.]

Quiet

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

It would not be an understatement for me to say that I've never been "Mr. Popularity".

I've never quite been a people person. Growing up, I was always the kid who preferred to keep mostly to himself. In general, I find it hard to relate to others (or do they find it difficult to relate to me?), and while I'm capable of making connections in small groups, when faced with larger crowds my mind just seems to shut down. Bright lights, loud noises, hustle and bustle are all anathema to me. Privacy is something I value highly, and my idea of a good time is getting very lost in a good book, or similar experiences best enjoyed in an environment of peace and quiet.

In short, I am a self-confessed introvert. Hence, it shouldn't come as any surprise that I jumped at the chance to read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain's exposition of the societal implications of introversion.

What's interesting about Quiet is that it isn't your token piece extolling the virtues of introversion (although there's that, too). Instead, Cain starts off by presenting a cogent discussion on the cultural underpinnings of introversion and extroversion in modern society, and how the latter came to be accepted as an ideal over the former. According to this thesis, there was a shift from a "culture of character" -- in which traits such as hard work, perseverance, prudence and the like were what society valued -- to a "culture of personality" -- where being outgoing, eloquent and socially adept came to be seen as important characteristics for success. As a result of this subtle cultural shift -- as exemplified by Dale Carnegie's drive to help others to "win friends and influence people" -- extroversion came to be seen as an ideal, the sine qua non for wealth, power, and success.

This paints an incomplete picture, however. True, many individuals who rise to positions of leadership and prominence might be described as extroverts -- or at the very least, we notice them because they are extroverted. But what of the silent majority who are introverts? The qualities often associated with introversion are equally important to achieving professional success and obtaining social esteem, and there are many examples of self-described introverts who have become exemplary leaders (such as Ghandi), businessmen (such as Warren Buffett), and even artists (such as Barbra Streisand). As such, perhaps we ought to look beyond the extrovert ideal to see what sets introverts and extroverts apart, and in the process come to an appreciation of what exactly introverts have to bring to the table.

This is what Cain aspires to offer in Quiet, which is without a doubt a very thoughtful read. That it is a critique of the extrovert ideal is certainly the best reason to pick up the book, by far. But more than this, Quiet is compelling because it goes further by providing insights on introversion and extroversion from the field of neuroscience, as well as useful advice for how introverts and extroverts can make the most of each other's innate traits. Granted, this is not without limitations. Obviously, the studies that Cain describes in her book often rely on people self-reporting themselves as either introverted or extroverted, which is clearly fairly subjective. Additionally, the self-help turn that the book occasionally takes may not be to some readers' liking (this is perhaps what I liked least about the book). But these do not detract from the intelligent discussion that Cain provides in Quiet, on the whole.

Surely, Quiet is a book that will appeal to those who have never been known to be Mr./Ms. Popularity, to those who have always liked to keep mostly to themselves, to the multitudes of self-confessed introverts out there in the world today. But because it's more than just a rah-rah-rah piece for introverts to rally around, it's a book worth paying attention to and learning from -- regardless of what one's individual disposition might be.

[This review is based on a pre-publication proof obtained through NetGalley.]

In-Flight Entertainment 15

2012-01-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

On the last trip, was able to catch two movies that I hadn't seen in theaters:

Moneyball. Having read and enjoyed the book by Michael Lewis, I was wondering how Hollywood would turn it into a movie. So now I know: with star power and a script from Aaron Sorkin. Personally, I found the treatment interesting, if not entirely even: the film was an almost biopic-sports underdog story, but with obvious limitations in the material (statistics and number crunching in general do not a blockbuster make). Still, great performances from Brad Pitt -- who looks nothing like Billy Beane and is almost too slick for the role -- and Jonah Hill. Bottomline: it's a film that sports and baseball enthusiasts will enjoy.

What's Your Number. Uh, yeah, I watched this one. It was actually pretty well done for what it was, with perfect roles for Anna Faris and Chris Evans. In my opinion, the filmmakers missed a chance to make this into more than it was, although they do have to be commended for striking a decent balance between the demands of rom-com, raunch, and light drama. Still, I couldn't help but feel all the talent that went into this movie could have been put to better use elsewhere. But I'm just being a stick in the mud. And I guess that's all there really is to say about that.

Random Travel Notes 15

2012-01-18T00:00:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I did one of these missives, so here's a write-up on a brief trip to Singapore and back:

Destination: Wedding. The reason for the trip was that my wife and I were invited to my former roommate's wedding, which just so happens to be the first wedding I've ever attended outside of the Philippines. And it was a blast. Winning moments: the priest asking the happy couple, "Are you nervous?"; the ceremony including blessings in English, Chinese and Hebrew; the bride singing to her parents and in-laws; the groom proclaiming to his bride "And I will buy you your favorite bags..." (Epic!).

A decade later. For the record: it's been more or less ten years since I graduated from college, and ten years since I lived (briefly) in Singapore. Time flies.

Irregularly scheduled programming. Something odd I came across while watching some tv at our hotel: at certain intervals, the Fox Premium Movie channel would flash an image of a cartoon soldier and the words "Landing Deck", "Barrier Reef", "Cross Country", and "Heat Stroke". I still have no idea what that was all about, but it did make me wonder whether the hotel's cable connection was coming from a private signal, or if there were some kind of subliminal non sequitur brainwashing going on.

Birding. Since we had a free day, the wife and I decided to spend some time at Jurong Bird Park. It must have been at least twenty years since I'd last been there (seriously), and I think I enjoyed it much better now, even more so than the Night Safari. It's mostly as I remember it -- hilly, organized, with and quite educational -- but I suppose the difference is that as an adult I appreciate it more, especially with a camera in tow. Perhaps the next time we're in Singapore I'll suggest to the wife that we check out the Singapore Zoo, as it's probably been just as long since my last visit there, and I'm guessing I'd be pleasantly surprised again.

Inhuman scale. The wife and I made it a point to pass by Marina Bay Sands since we never had an opportunity on our last trip to Singapore. We didn't go up to the SkyPark anymore, deciding instead to stroll around the theater and shops. I won't deny that the development is immensely impressive (as in: WOW!), but there's something about it that just feels out of whack. I think it's because the building feels way too massive and practically out of proportion to "human scale". But that's just my opinion, and I've been known to think small, if not simple.

Good Shepherd Cathedral. It never ceases to amaze me how, in a country as prosperous as Singapore, a Catholic Church can be in such a sorry state. I know it's not easy to fundraise in general, but I would presume that the funds it would take to restore and renovate the Cathedral would be a drop in the bucket for Singaporean Catholics.

Spill water, get cards. On the flight home, a flight attendant accidentally tipped over a glass as she was clearing my food tray, and was completely mortified that the water had spilled. I tried to reassure her I hadn't gotten wet, but she just kept coming back to make sure that I was fine. Then, as if a final act of penance, she came by and gave me a bunch of postcards and two decks of playing cards as souvenirs. This reminded me of how airlines would give away playing cards back in the eighties (we'd have decks and decks of cards at home from all the traveling my dad did for work, so it's a particularly vivid memory). But I digress: Hey! Free stuff!

In-flight ice cream. Singapore Airlines served ice cream on our return flight to Manila, but not on our flight to Singapore. Granted, it was just a Walls Cornetto cone (the one with KitKat in the middle), but it was a welcome treat. Personally, I think that this is a ploy designed to elicit pleasant emotions from travelers on their trip departing Singapore (similar to how Thai Airways treats travelers to all manner of beverage as you fly into Bangkok, as my wife and I experienced a coupe of years back). Sure, I could be wrong; but if I'm right, I will grudgingly admit that it works.

When In Doubt

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

That right there is my new outlook in life.

And it's working out great so far, thanks for asking.

Social Contract Theory [Presentation Thursdays]

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

One of joys of teaching Political Thought was exposing students to the ideas of Hobbes, Locke and Rosseau. Much of our understanding of modern government owes to the philosophies of these three luminaries, whose ideas are often collectively referred to as Social Contract theories.

View this presentation on Slideshare

Although it was Jean Jacques Rosseau who wrote explicitly about The Social Contract, it's always more interesting to begin discussions about Social Contract theories with Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes, of course, famously opined that "Man is a wolf to his fellow man" and that life in the state of nature "is a state of war", "the war of all against all". For this reason, Hobbes argued that the state should be endowed with the greatest political power in order to curb man's violent tendencies, going so far as to call the state "Leviathan".

(Of course, when I taught this course I couldn't help but point out, as an aside, that Hobbes the stuffed tiger in Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes is named after Thomas Hobbes. And as a fan of the comic strip, it never failed to disappoint me to see how few people knew what I was talking about.)

View this presentation on Slideshare

Hobbes' ideas contrasted with those of John Locke, who had a decidedly more optimistic view of human nature. As such, Locke submitted that the purpose of the state was to secure people's property, suggesting that only in the context of private property could civil society thrive. This germ of an idea has perhaps singlehandedly shaped property rights in modern society.

View this presentation from Slideshare

Finally, there was Jean-Jacques Rosseau, who seemed to represent an intellectual middle ground between the two. It always fascinated me that Rosseau very clearly made the distinction between society as a collection of individuals and society/government as a corporate entity that must subordinate itself to the notion of the "General Will". Indeed, it's one of the more compelling expositions of how individual interests are sometimes different from that of a state's. Looking back at the slide deck, it amuses me how bad my mathematical notation was as I tried to express Rosseau's description of the General Will as "the sum of the differences of interests in society" as formula. There's no denying I failed utterly (mea culpa!) but it nonetheless got the message across to my students (or so I would like to think).

View this presentation on Slideshare

If memory serves, it would take three weeks or up to five to six class sessions to go through this material. I even put together the above "by-way-of-summary" slide deck just for good measure.

But it didn't seem right to break up the slides across several posts, so I figured I'd just upload them here all at once.

I wonder if my students would have preferred it this way.

[For more about Presentation Thursdays, read the first in the series].

Reviewed: 35mm AF-S f/1.8G DX Nikkor Lens

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

In the time since I posted about the unboxing of my 35mm prime lens, Nikon has released a 50mm prime lens, a 40mm macro lens, and announced its first line of EVIL (or micro four-thirds) cameras.

That and I added a new lens to my collection. But more on that another time.

Anyway, I promised to post my impressions, so here are some thoughts, albeit belatedly:

A prime lens is one of those things that are nice to have if you own a DSLR, and when I was shopping around for one for my D40 I was immediately drawn to the 35mm. Since my objective was to have a versatile lens that would effectively turn my camera into a useful point-and-click, I felt the focal range of the 35mm was sufficiently wide to offer enough flexibility in the absence of zoom. Further, with a practically wide open aperture of f/1.8, the lens itself was reputed to take crisp and clear photos. Of course, the 35mm also has the advantage of coming with Nikon's built-in Silent Wave Motor, meaning that it would allow auto-focusing with my D40 (which lacks such a motor).

On all these points, the measures up against expectations. Attached to my D40, the camera becomes a no frills point-and-click that takes great photos. In fact, I find that it's the lens I bring along for very casual photography when I don't want to be bothered with carrying a long lens barrel, and is particularly useful for indoor and night photography (which my kit lenses typically have trouble with). The fact that it's a very fast lens is quite noticeable, too.

I've had to adjust to using it, though. For one thing, the lens has a somewhat shallow depth of field. While this can make for dramatic compositions (i.e. fantastic bokeh), it can prove to be a little unwieldy at times. Other than this, I've noticed that the lens compounds the D40's penchant for capturing overexposed photos. My guess is that this problem can easily be remedied by adjusting the camera's settings. This is something I'm still experimenting with.

But as it stands I'm very happy I made an investment in this 35mm prime lens. Given that it's priced at around US$200, it's a worthwhile lens to acquire, especially for DSLR users just getting started with their own supply and collection of lenses.

The Whisperer

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

There are any number of thoroughly entertaining police procedurals that have captured the popular imagination: CSI, Bones, and Criminal Minds immediately come to mind. Of course, these are produced for television, whose appeal is undeniably visual in nature. For the printed page, Donato Carrisi provides an entertaining take on the genre in his acclaimed novel, The Whisperer.

The novel's premise is straightforward: the discovery of six severed arms, all belonging to children, alerts law enforcement agents that there is a serial killer on the loose. In response, a special unit is assembled, consisting of a criminal profiler, an experienced interrogator, veteran policemen, and an agent with an expertise in finding missing children. But to catch the perpetrator, the team will have to be at their best, as they come to terms not just with the killer's complex and devious machinations -- frustrating the team by being a step ahead practically the entire way -- but with their own inner demons as well.

There's much to like in The Whisperer, which presents a very "big concept" thriller to readers that often satisfies. The novel's success owes in large part to the care that Carrisi takes to put readers in the heads of criminal profilers, based on his own background as a student of law and criminology. When it hits its stride, the novel is a real page-turner, one in which readers become emotionally invested in both the story and its characters, precisely because Carrisi ably captures the dynamic tension that must be present among those in such line of work.

Yet at the same time, it's equally clear that The Whisperer occasionally stumbles in execution. It's unfortunate, for instance, that Carrisi is deliberately vague about the story's setting. Certainly, the novel would have been more compelling if it were rooted somehow in actual places. But the story's main shortcoming is in the inexplicable twists that are often introduced. The most egregious of these is probably when a psychic is involved in the investigation, which really makes it difficult for readers to suspend their disbelief. Fortunately, such twists do eventually make sense in the context of that bigger picture that Carrisi obviously has for the novel, and therefore can be excused by even the most critical reader.

The Whisperer earned Donato Carrisi the prestigious Premio Bancarella literary award in 2009, and the novel has since been translated from its native Italian into several languages. It's not hard to see why: the book is a fine example of a psychological thriller that will appeal to fans not just of television police procedurals, but of traditional murder mysteries as well.

[This review is based on a pre-publication proof obtained through NetGalley.]

One Less Year

2012-01-03T00:00:00.002-05:00

It's funny how we take stock of time's passing.

Human beings are acquisitive by nature, so we usually equate more with better. When we say, "There goes another year", what we really mean is: "I've got one more year's experience than last year." Or: "I've been around one year more." Maybe even: "I've lived [X] years longer than [insert name here]".

By our own calculus, each of these is a good thing -- something to look fondly upon and celebrate. Why? Because we ultimately have no idea how much time we have on this earth, and therefore every additional moment that we have must necessarily be a blessing.

Yet if you think about it, precisely because we don't know how much time we have left, each year behind us is one that we'll never get back. Inasmuch as every year we notch under our belts represents one more year that we've been fortunate to experience, they each stand for one less year available to us.

One less year to try that something new.

One less year to take that trip.

One less year to get that project started.

(One less year to get that project finished.)

One less year to follow that dream.

One less year to become a better person.

One less year to "be the change".

One less year to do that something amazing you've always wanted to do.

Maybe if we took stock of how many fewer years lie ahead, we'd be more driven to make the most of the time left to us, to do something meaningful with our lives, to strive to do things that matter.

Best of Brain Drain: 2011

2011-12-31T00:00:00.001-05:00

What a year it's been. While it's been a struggle to keep the blog up and running, I'm rather happy with how the blog shaped up in 2011...even if I might have scared some of you away.

For your consideration, these are my ten favorite pieces of content that I created/wrote/posted this year (in chronological order):

If anything else on the blog caught your fancy, do tell. It's always nice to know.

And as always, thanks for reading, folks.

Books of 2011

2011-12-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

The annual rundown of "books I read this year":

AUTHOR	TITLE
Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith with Carlye Adler	The Dragonfly Effect
Romeo Alaeff	I'll Be Dead by the Time You Read This: The Existential Life of Animals
Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager with n+1	Diary of a Very Bad Year: Confessions of an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager
Stephen Baker	Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything
Nicholas Bate	Instant MBA: Think, Perform and Earn Lika a Top Business School Graduate
Ken Blanchard	Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations
Anthony Bourdain	Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Richard L. Brandt	One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com
Natalie Canavor and Claire Meirowitz	The Truth About the New Rules of Business Writing
John Cassidy	How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities
Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler	Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
Cathy N. Davidson	Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Learn
Cory Doctorow	With a Little Help
Nancy Duarte	Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
Judy Dutton	Science Fair Season: Twelve Kids, a Robot Named Scorch...and What It Takes to Win
Douglas Edwards	I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
Michael Ellsberg	The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late
Jasper Fforde	One of Our Thursdays is Missing: A Novel
Joshua Foer	Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Christopher J. Frank and Paul Magnone	Drinking from the Fire Hose: Making Smarter Decisions without Drowning in Information
Paolo Giordano	The Solitude of Prime Numbers: A Novel
Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo	Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers
Seth Godin	Poke the Box
Paul Hammernes and Margaret Moore with John Haas	Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life: Train Your Brain To Do More in Less Time
Tony Hsieh	Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose
Walter Isaacson	Steve Jobs
John Kay	Obliquity: Why Our Goals are Best Achieved Indirectly
Martin Lindstrom	Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy
Paul La Monica	Inside Rupert's Brain
Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams	The Big Enough Company: Creating a Business that Works for You
Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Oglivie	Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers
Matthew E. May	The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change
Hugh MacLeod	Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination
Mark Magnacca	So What? How to Communicate What Really Matters to Your Audience
Scott Nicholson (ed.)	Write Good or Die: Survival Tips for the 21st Century
Al Pittampalli	Read This Before Our Next Meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard for Successful Organizations
James O'Rourke	The Truth about Confident Presenting
Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur	Business Model Generation
Dev Patnaik with Pete Mortensen	Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy
Scott Patterson	The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It
Michael W. Preis with Matthew Frederick	101 Things I Learned in Business School
Steven Pressfield	Do the Work
Oliver Pötzsch and Lee Chadeayne	The Hangman's Daughter: A Historical Novel
#quakebook	2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake
Tom Rachman	The Imperfectionists: A Novel
Garr Reynolds	The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without Slides
Jeff Ryan	Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America
Tim Sanders	Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence
Paul J.H. Schoemaker	Brilliant Mistakes: Finding Success on the Far Side of Failure
Adrian Slywotzky with Karl Weber	Demand: Creating What People Want Before They Know They Want It
Peter Taylor	The Lazy Project Manager: How to be Twice as Productive and Still Leave the Office Early
Richard Templar	The Rules of Work, Expanded Edition: A Definitive Code for Personal Success
David Thorne	The Internet is a Playground: Irreverent Correspondences of an Evil Online Genius
Jerry Weissman	Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story
Dan Zarrella	Zarrella's Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design and Engineering of Contagious Ideas

Obviously, I did a lot of reading this year, spurred on mostly because of my Kindle. On balance, I think it was a good spread of material that found its way to me this year. Granted, the bulk of my reading list is composed of business books (and all that this implies), and yes, there were a bunch of clunkers (there always are), but there's also some truly exceptional stuff in the mix, too (likewise). Oh, I should also mention: fiction!

The best book I read all year was Moonwalking with Einstein. Runners-up would be I'm Feeling Lucky and Evil Plans.

As always, if there are any books out there you'd like to recommend, please do. My 2012 reading list thanks you in advance.

Neuroscience Lite

2011-12-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

While browsing NetGalley, I chanced upon Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life and found myself intrigued. Written by Paul Hammerness, a practicing psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, and Margaret Moore, a professional wellness coach, the book promised to describe relevant developments in neuroscience that might be helpful to people in search of ways to be better organized and more focused.

While I don't have a particular fondness for self-help books (not this kind, anyway), I was curious about how successful it would be as a resource on neuroscience, a subject of which I've developed a particular interest of late.

Overall, there's no doubt that Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life isn't in the same league as more comprehensive and entertaining books that discuss neuroscience, but then it's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be a book that discusses neuroscience in a way that is appealing and comprehensible to the average reader, providing the requisite self-help tips and tricks to put the aforementioned insights to good use. By this yardstick, the book largely succeeds, mainly because its individual authors write about areas of their respective expertise: Hammerness gets the task of describing the research, while Moore is the one responsible for discussing how such insights apply in daily life.

It's important to remember, however, that Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life is above all else self-help material, with all that the genre implies. For instance, readers will find that the book itself takes a while to get to the topic at hand, owing to unnecessarily folksy back-and-forth between the authors as a by-way-of-explanation to how the book is structured. Likewise, it should be clear from the very beginning that the book can only offer only so much as far as the research on neuroscience is concerned, more so given what seems to be Hammerness' particular expertise dealing with patients who have ADHD.

Still, I'd have to say that Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life is a decent enough layman's introduction to neuroscience. If it turns out to be as helpful to readers as its authors envision, then that would be a real bonus.

[Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life will be published by Harlequin on 27 December 2011. This review is based on a pre-publication proof obtained through NetGalley.]

One Click

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

You'd be hard pressed to think of a book that represents the must-read history of Amazon.com. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that significantly less is written about Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos than other darlings of the technology industry.

It would seem that Richard Brandt seeks to make amends for this with his book One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com.

Where One Click succeeds is in providing a holistic account of how Amazon came to be. It's interesting to learn, for instance, that Amazon was originally supposed to be named "Cadabra", or that by patenting the eponymous one-click system for making purchases on the site the company effectively estopped other online retailers from introducing the same convenience. But the book is perhaps even more successful at providing some perspective into the life and personality of Bezos himself, an achiever who first found professional success developing computer systems for investment houses on Wall Street. Personally, it was learning about such details that I appreciated most about the book.

Yet, for everything that the book has to offer, it's hard to escape the fact that it's missing something, as if it has all the ingredients of a good read but never quite gets there.

Notwithstanding the fact that I enjoyed reading about Bezos and Amazon.com, I couldn't help but find One Click lacking in personality. To me, it felt almost as if Brandt could've been writing about any subject, and in this instance it just happened to be Amazon.com. Moreover, it seemed as if the book was rehashed from other material already written about Bezos and Amazon.com. Sometimes authors can get away with such an approach -- Jeff Ryan's Super Mario was a rather good book about Nintendo, even if it didn't really go beyond what was already known about the company -- but in this case, the book came across as bland and anemic.

Ultimately, I think One Click comes across as the beginning of a great book about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com, and one that, unfortunately, didn't realize it's full potential.

[This review is based on a pre-publication proof obtained through NetGalley.]

The Mind Museum

2011-12-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

Last week was the ceremonial opening of the Mind Museum. A project of the Bonifacio Art Foundation, the Mind Museum promises to be the Philippines' first world-class science exhibition center, at par with institutions such as Singapore's Science Centre.

The official opening of the Mind Museum is still scheduled on March 2012, but guests and donors were provided a sneak peek of what to expect. Although there are some finishing touches still in the works, even with only about fifty percent of the finished exhibits in place, you can already tell that the place will be real spiffy when it opens its doors to the public in a few months time.

Below are some photos so you can judge for yourself. Before you ask: that's just a replica dinosaur fossil, but it's impressive nonetheless. (The "rocks" you see thereafter are actual fossils, however.)

All in all, it'll be a fantastic time to be a science enthusiast in the Philippines with the Mind Museum around!

Bodin on Sovereignty

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

View this presentation on Slideshare

More slides on Political Thought, now moving on to the modern period. The above slide deck is about Jean Bodin and the concept of sovereignty.

True story: I always enjoyed teaching this lesson in class if only because it allowed me to point out that sovereignty is pronounced ˈsäv(ə)rəntē, and not "sovereignity" (ˈsäv(ə)rənitē).

Cheap thrills? Sure. But if you've ever been a teacher, you'll understand.

[For more about Presentation Thursdays read the first in the series].

The Broken Bond

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

You can always tell whether a licensed intellectual property is any good by whether it makes you want to know more about the original. Consider Naruto, for instance. I have no particular affinity for the popular anime/manga, and the series has its own fair share of panned video games. But after playing Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, I simply wanted to know as much as I could about the series -- proof positive that the game, despite its faults, was actually pretty good.

So good, really, that once I was finished with it I sought out its sequel, Naruto: The Broken Bond. I'm embarrassed to say that that was well over a year ago. But I've finally only gotten around to playing it, and I must say that it's just as satisfying as its predecessor, if not more so.

Ubisoft got it right by keeping the overall conceit of the game intact: its RPG-like elements, the cel-shaded graphics, the overall combat and control system, and the mission objectives for players to fulfill. Overall, Naruto: The Broken Bond can be considered an incremental improvement over Naruto: Rise of a Ninja, and it makes the right kinds of improvements to interest those enamored by the latter game as well as longtime followers of the series who will enjoy the unabashed fan service this game represents. There's more to explore, more characters to use, and simply more things to do. Indeed, on a personal note, it was the "sidequests" (ramen delivery!) that I particularly enjoyed in the first game, and I wasn't at all disappointed by the variety of quests that Broken Bond has to offer, even if these were delegated to the game's supporting cast (and occasionally wonky controls notwithstanding).

As far as straightforward story-driven pseudo-platforming games go, Naruto: The Broken Bond is worthwhile decent fun, and, just like its predecessor, I would say worth owning for Xbox 360. If I have any regret about playing the game, it would be that the underlying story in the anime/manga hasn't concluded yet (or so I hear), so it seems it will be some time until a sequel is made and I get my Naruto fix again, if at all.

Expertise

2011-12-06T00:00:00.000-05:00

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, famously wrote about the "10,000-hour rule". As he explains it, when most people exhibit virtuoso skill at something, it's less because they have preternatural talent (though there's that, too) but more because they quite literally put in the hours. In this regard, it so happens that 10,000 hours is more or less the amount of time it takes for a person to become an expert at something -- proving that there is some truth to the saying that practice makes perfect.

In a similar fashion, you could also argue that Expertise is the result of the steps that you take to go from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence:

This is very intuitive to grasp:

Unconscious Incompetence. A state of obliviousness. You're blissfully unaware that you're bad at something. Or, to put it differently, you don't even know that you don't know.
Conscious Incompetence. A state of self-awareness. You may continue to stumble and struggle, but the difference is that you realize you're not as proficient at something as you would perhaps like to be.
Conscious Competence. A state of improvement. Aware of your shortcomings, you've started to gain proficiency, even if it takes plenty of effort just to do things well.
Unconscious Competence. The state of expertise. You're good at what you do; so good, in fact, that it comes effortlessly.

Regardless of how you see it, the simple fact is that achieving even a little Expertise takes a lot of effort, beginning with the realization that much can stand improvement. In that respect, it turns out that Socrates was right: wise is the man who knows that he knows not.

[Note: This missive -- the diagram, in particular -- was inspired by Atul Gawande's New Yorker piece about coaching for professionals, which is a great read.]

The Authorized Steve Jobs

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000-05:00

Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs was heralded to be the closest thing that Apple's founder would ever have to an authorized biography. Famously, Jobs was the one who convinced Isaacson to write the book, made himself available to the author, and encouraged others to do the same, all the while insisting that he would exert no control over the book's contents whatsoever. In fact, he had no intention to read the finished draft before publication -- and we can presume that he never was able to read it at all, owing to his passing in October.

Hence, Isaacson's book is perhaps the most complete account of Steve Jobs' life. Would Steve Jobs (the book) have passed Steve Jobs' quintessential standard of "insanely great"? Probably not. But it sure comes close.

The book is, without a doubt, the definitive reader on Steve Jobs. In fact, one could argue that it is three books in one: Jobs' life story; the corporate histories of Apple, NeXT and Pixar; and Isaacson's own impressions and reflections on the larger significance of the life that Jobs led. Clearly, to have to weave all of this together in a coherent fashion is no mean feat, and many times one might say the book comes across as independently written notes in need of further editing. Yet by and large it does paint a compelling portrait of a complex, temperamental, and passionate human being.

In this regard, it's fortunate that Isaacson was not intimately acquainted with Jobs per se and had to be convinced by Jobs himself to take on the project in the first place. This allowed Isaacson to approach his subject with a little more distance and objectivity. If anything, the book arguably presents a very fair portrait of Jobs. Yes, the man dropped acid in his youth. Yes, he could be cruel and unforgiving toward people he felt were bozos. Yes, he could be difficult to live with, but he loved his family very much. Yes, he had an unquestionable commitment to making his products not just the best, but also beautiful. Yes, he set out to change the world -- and he did.

Much has already been written about Jobs in the wake of his passing that sum up the man's life and his achievements. For instance, Steven Levy, after nearly thirty years of covering Jobs for various magazines, wrote perhaps the best obituary of Jobs, while a series from BusinessWeek recaps Steve Jobs' beginnings, "wilderness years", and return to Apple. Indeed, there are any number of sources to which one can turn in order to learn more about Jobs. But none are as comprehensive as Isaacson's, which succeeds at putting into context how truly exceptional Jobs was.

Inasmuch as some have criticized the outpouring of emotion and sympathy following Jobs' death, the truth is that Jobs himself never asked for the public's adulation. But he deserved it. At least this much is clear from Isaacson's book. Jobs was a unique person who happened to live at a unique time in history -- the rise of Silicon Valley -- and whose work changed at least six different industries. But his lasting legacy will be how his passion helped define the way we see and relate to technology -- proving along the way that computers could be wonderful, magical, beautiful things.

Steve Jobs has died. The world has moved on. But nothing will ever be the same.

Brandwashed

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Last I checked, Martin Lindstrom was receiving a lot of flak for claiming in the New York Times that neuroscience proves that people literally love the iPhone. The oped piece was typical of Lindstrom's penchant for making bold claims about consumer culture and marketing, invoking science and empirical evidence to back it up, but glossing over maybe one too many crucial details along the way.

Yet I happen to like Lindstrom's work, which I agree must be taken with a grain of salt. I enjoyed his other book, Buy:ology, and find his regular column in FastCompany both insightful and entertaining. He seems to be in touch with the pulse of consumers and what marketers do in order to capitalize on it. Furthermore, even if the research he uses to support his claims could stand improvement (in presentation, if not substance), his appreciation for how data and science underlie successful sales and marketing is most definitely worth learning from.

His latest book, Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy, perhaps captures all the reasons I find Lindstrom's work worthy of attention -- as well as many of the reasons why he is excoriated by his critics.

As the title suggests, the conceit of Brandwashed is straightforward: it is an exposition of the many techniques that marketers use in order to compel/encourage/trick people into wanting/needing/buying the products that they peddle. Most people think that they make consumption decisions independent of whatever gimmicks companies use to bring prominence to their brands, that they are sophisticated enough to tune out most marketing messages and sales pitches. But as Lindstrom points out in his book, nothing could be further from the truth. We have become primed to crave the "new new thing", to identify with logos and brand identities, to associate products with the lifestyles we want to lead. Companies have become very adept at grabbing our attention, keeping it, and convincing us to part with our money. Whether we realize it or not, each of us in our own way has become brandwashed.

You could say that Lindstrom's book is a tell-all (of sorts) of the different tricks at the disposal of today's marketing professional. Indeed, Brandwashed lays much of it bare for readers to behold, bringing to light many of the sales tactics that people have ever suspected companies of using -- such as clothes that are labeled a size or two smaller to flatter unsuspecting consumers, or products targeted at infants in the hope of developing lifetime consumers -- but taking care not to spill too much of the beans. Therein lies the book's appeal: it reveals just enough to interest/horrify/amuse the average reader, but not enough to be of too much concern to fellow marketers (many of whom, I suspect, will come away from the book thinking, "Why didn't I think of that?"). Thankfully, not all of it is sleazy, and I think most readers will come away from Brandwashed marveling at why we are susceptible to such techniques in the first place.

Still, just as in his piece regarding the iPhone -- which is also in the book, by the way -- Lindstrom deserves criticism for jumping too readily to conclusions based on arguably questionable science. At the very least, it can be deemed questionable barring further information. For instance, he repeatedly invokes studies conducted by a neuromarketing firm in support of some his claims, but isn't able to provide sufficient details that speak to the credibility of these studies (e.g., representativeness, research design, etc.). In fact, I'm rather certain that most readers will find the real-life experiment Lindstrom conducted and recounted at the end of Brandwashed to be blatantly unethical -- even if it makes for riveting reading.

But that's really the point, isn't it? If it abided by the strict rigors of science, then Brandwashed wouldn't be anywhere near as fun to read, which it undoubtedly is. Such is the masterstroke Lindstrom has achieved with Brandwashed: to entertain us with the folly of our own ways, to provide plausible explanations why this must be the case, and maybe -- just maybe -- help turn us into savvier consumers in the process.

The Hangman's Daughter

2011-11-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

The Hangman's Daughter is a novel by Oliver Pötzsch's that Amazon bet on in a big way: the online retailer took in this German work of historical fiction under its AmazonCrossing imprint in order to bring it to a wider English-speaking and -reading audience.

I would have to say that they made a very good choice.

The novel centers around events in a 17th century German town, where the mysterious deaths of several children give rise to hysteria over suspected witchcraft. As such, a midwife known to have cared for the children is accused of being a witch and it is left to Jakob Kuisl, the town's hangman, to extract a confession and eventually execute her. But things are not so simple: Kuisl believes the midwife to be innocent, as does the local physician that examined the children's wounds. Working together in secret, they set about to bring the true murderer to justice before Kuisl is compelled by the town council to do his duty and take the innocent woman's life.

One might assume that the reason the novel is a piece of historical fiction is because of its plot and premise. While the specific events in the book did not occur per se, they are events that could very well have taken place, given the setting. But there is more that is historical about the book than that. Indeed, while the events in the book are fictional, the character Jakob Kuisl is not: it turns out that Kuisl is an actual ancestor of Pötzsch, and really was the hangman of his village. So it should not at all be surprising that Kuisl comes across as the iconic character of the book, as close to a scene-stealer as any written character might be.

This interweaving of fact and fiction mostly works well for the book. It is interesting to learn, for instance, that hangmen were shunned by society in the 17th century, yet were also considered medicine men that could provide treatment much cheaper than town barbers or doctors. Such details, researched by Pötzsch, contribute a lot to the story's atmosphere. At the same time, the plot unfolds like a modern-day police procedural and murder mystery, with what could be described as believable 17th century forensic science. Thankfully, Pötzsch does not try to oversell it -- I would say the story itself is largely believable -- but he manages to inject just enough modern flair into the narrative to make it exciting.

My only disappointment with the book is its title. As I neared the story's end, I grew more expectant that there would be some grand revelation that would explain why the novel was entitled The Hangman's Daughter. But there was no grand reveal, no memorable "A-ha!" moment that would prompt me to look at the book in a new light, despite the fact that Kuisl's daughter Magdalena is also a prominent character in the novel. I would go so far as to say the book could have been titled...well, anything, and that Pötzsch eventually settled on The Hangman's Daughter just because it sounded cool.

But no matter. Overall, I enjoyed reading The Hangman's Daughter, learning things about 17th century European culture I hadn't known before, and seeing the story's mystery unfold to its foreseeable conclusion. And I'm quite certain I would have enjoyed reading it no matter what the novel might have been called.

John of Salisbury [Presentation Thursdays]

2011-11-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

View this presentation on Slideshare

More slides on Political Thought, this time featuring ideas from John of Salisbury.

Since the course content was organized in a more or less historical/chronological fashion, by this time the class was venturing into medieval political thought. This is somewhat evident in the presentation.

And yes, as the teacher I dealt with my own fair share of inevitable "Did he invent the Salisbury steak?" questions, too...

[Confused about Presentation Thursdays? Then read the first in the series].

Read All About It [The Internet is Down]

2011-11-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

If you ever wondered whether news websites bothered to be creative about their error pages, then this one's for you

First, I came across this very cleverly worded error message on the New York Times

"We seem to have lost this page," it says, "but we don't want to lose you."

As Shakespeare once wrote, there's a double meaning in that.

Meanwhile, the New York Daily News has this little gem of a reference to the newspaper industry of yore:

All in all, pretty neat don't you think?

[Confused about The Internet Is Down? Then read the first in the series.]

Hmph

2011-11-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

Just had to be said. So there.

Again, I think this'll look good on a t-shirt.

And yes, this is me riffing on an idea from Gapingvoid, so hat tip to Hugh Macleod.