Here’s a good Wall Street Journal article that examines the recent claims of declining reading rates in the US (Primarily the NEA report from last year). He takes the statistics to task and points out quite a few places where changes were overstated in the
report.
It’s worth reading the comments – the question of how online reading compares to book reading comes up in a few places.
(hat tip, metafilter)
Last year CNBC put together a 5 hour series on the business of innovation. They’re doing it again this year and I’ll be one of the expert panelists on the show.
The website for this year’s series is up, and the first episode airs Monday June 2nd, 9pm. Each new episode will air every following Monday night. Plus there’s an online forum for people to discuss the show.
The show will be on in the US, Europe and Asia, and the full show schedule is posted here.
Hope you’ll tune in and check it out.
With the recent post on the problem with consultants, I wanted to point out the impressive inventory of failed management methods that have grown in the comments section for last year’s post on asshole driven development.
Some are tech specific, but many apply to just about any kind of management. The comment count is over 250 – if you’re looking for a laugh or to give a name to what’s wrong in your world, check it out.
As I’ve grown older my tolerance for humorless people has declined – but does everyone feel this way? What about team leaders and project manager types?
Some folks at Bremen University in Germany are doing a study to find out.
They have an online survey that explores this question and they’d love to hear your opinion.
One of the frustrating results of renaming a book is the listing on amazon.com for Making things happen doesn’t include the reviews for the first edition of the book. I’ve asked the folks at amazon.com about this, and, by policy, aren’t willing to move the old reviews over.
So as a favor, anyone out there who reviewed the first edition of the book – could you take two minutes minute and re-enter the review for the new edition? The review count for books makes a big difference and I’d appreciate the help.
Cheers.
Over the last month I’ve spent more time than usual with consultants and it is making me miserable. Is there a support group I can join? A ten step program? A nearby happy-hour? There are some great consultants out there, but damn, I wish there were more of them.
My passion for trying to get to the heart of things, to be clear and direct, makes it impossible for me to talk with most consultants for more than 5 minutes without wanting to punch them in the face. This might not be their fault – my spine shudders in revulsion when I’m faced with people who go out of their way to make things sound as complicated as possible. Consultants aren’t alone here – some academics, politicians and doctors are just as guilty, but I haven’t been dealing with those folks recently, and today, they get a free pass.
The inherent problem is this: I look at the English language as a good thing. Shakespeare did some good with it, didn’t he? Although he did invent some words here and there, I don’t think most of us need to create new words to get our points across – 200,000 is plenty to work with. In fact unless your new word enhances my understanding of what you’re trying to say instead of diminishing it, it’s hard not to see you as either a fool or a blowhard. You’re not making a new word or using obscure language to help me, you’re doing it to help you. If you look at how most consultant talk, you’d think they hated English, had a personal vendetta against it, as they seem to take such pride in burying clear thinking under layers of vacuous, disingenuous jargon.
My recent experiences have convinced me many consultants see jargon is an advantage – how, I’m not sure. Perhaps like the bait on a hook, it distracts potential clients into error, just long enough for them to open their wallets and bite on the hook. But for whatever reason I personally don’t know how to take the bait. And the result is many of my conversations with consultants (note I say many – there are exceptions) leave me feeling one of three things:
Certainly (bad) consultants aren’t entirely to blame for what they do – some clients want the made up stuff, they want to believe in things they don’t understand, or they want to rely on a outsider simply so they can blame the outsider later on.
So how do you separate the useful, well-meaning consultants from the less savory ones? What are your biggest gripes from past experiences working with consultants? I’d like to know.
(Update: also see How to call bullshit on a guru)
A recent New Yorker had another excellent piece by Malcolm Gladwell, this time about simultaneous invention, the core topic of chapter 5 of The Myths of Innovation. Much of his coverage is spot on – we underestimate how many inventions and discoveries were achieved independently, despite how specific and isolated the credit we give often is.
It’s an excellent article and I recommend it. One highlight for me is this:
Stigler’s Law: No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.
A law which Gladwell points out also applies to Stigler’s law :)
My critique begins with his coverage of Nathan Myhrvold and his company, Intellectual ventures (IV). A firm dedicated to creating what they call “an invention economy”. He never asks any questions about the conflicts between a patent system designed centuries ago to protect individual inventors, and a well-funded company created, as best I can tell, to dominate entire domains of Intellectual property through massive patent fillings and then selling them. Who is best served by “an invention economy’?
It’s not his job to raise every question – that’s my job as the reader. But since the article focuses on Myhrvold & IV, it literally begins and ends with him, the fact that he never questions his company’s place in all this paints them as a positive evolution in how invention will be done. They are loosely portrayed as heroes, an idea which I couldn’t help but find personally depressing – Not entire sure why yet, but I did feel that way.
But more important is his overstatement of artistic creations. He writes:
A work of artistic genius is singular, and all the arguments over calculus, the accusations back and forth between the Bell and the Gray camps, and our persistent inability to come to terms with the existence of multiples are the result of our misplaced desire to impose the paradigm of artistic invention on a world where it doesn’t belong.
Shakespeare owned Hamlet because he created him, as none other before or since could. Alexander Graham Bell owned the telephone only because his patent application landed on the examiner’s desk a few hours before Gray’s. The first kind of creation was sui generis; the second could be re-created in a warehouse outside Seattle.
If you talk to most writers or artists they’ll tell you about specific influences for specific pieces. Picasso said “bad artists borrow, great artists steal”. We’re pretty sure Shakespeare based Hamlet, and many of his plays, on stories and plays he’d heard before. Reading Joseph Campell or Karen Armstrong on mythology reveals the incestuous nature of stories: they breed like rabbits and steal like thieves, and to claim any creative work as Sui generis (means, roughly, something uncategorizable) usually means there’s a kind of ignorance at work about that particular kind of art, or a lack of imagination about what a category is.
And as a kicker, what is one to say about amazing song covers, Like Johnny Cash’s cover of the Nine Inch nails song “hurt”? The fact that an idea can be both deriverative and creative means our definitions aren’t that good (For reference, Cash’s version – you really should see this).
Michelangelo’s David and Picasso’s Guernica are masterpieces, but an analysis of these works by people in the field can point out influences, progressions, and connections to other works the creator knew of or was deliberately trying to emulate. Sometimes, like simultaneous invention, artists pursue similar ideas at the same time: they’re called artistic movements. It’s not the same as simultaneous invention, but it’s close enough. I’ve studied art for years and I still have trouble telling Picassos from Braques, despite works by both being considered masterpieces.
I totally grant there are differences between artistic creation and engineering invention. And Gladwell’s piece had me thinking about them for the better part of a plane flight, a gift which I’m thankful for. But his cut at the differences isn’t quite right.
The more I learn about creative thinking and about teaching, two subjects of great interest, the more depressing organized education in the U.S. becomes. I’m familiar with Montessori, Waldorf and various other well known private school brands, as well as public school programs here and there, but it’s all vaguely disappointing. I’m often left feeling there is no substitute for parents and extended family: they are the best hopes young minds have for learning what it means to think free. Perhaps that’s as it should be.
Two bright spots I’ve found are these two programs, aimed at giving kids exposure to creative problem solving in team environments. I’ve yet to see these things in action but I’d love to visit and maybe even help out with a local chapter.
Odyssey of the Mind – An international program that focuses on creative problem solving projects. It’s a world-wide competition with regional finals and programs.
Destination Imagination: Similiar to Odyssey of the mind, but offers 5 different tracks each with a different creative focus, from technical, to artistic.
If you know of other resources for parents who want to augment their kids exposure to creative thinking and problem solving skills, or have experience with either of the above programs, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear more.
