Putting time into perspective

Original post: Aug 31, 2015

At a website called waitbutwhy.com, there is a fascinating infographic that discusses time from a very interesting perspective. It's far too large to replicate in its entirety, but I thought I would show you the part that goes back to Christopher Columbus landing in America. It's something of an arbitrary point, but it does give you some idea of how we perceive historical events. It's interesting to compare that to our perception of the current moment to try to get some mental idea of how long ago some of these events really were.

I was quite amazed to think about how different history might be for someone who is 30 than it is for me. I don't think of someone at that age as that much younger than me, but I think the reality is quite different!

There were a couple of fun facts sprinkled in there:

• A current 90 year-old was born closer to Lincoln's assassination than to our current day!
• The oldest living human today is 116. She was born closer to Washington becoming the first president than to today!

A matter of scale

Original post:  Aug 21, 2015

There is a huge disparity in the geographic location of the population in the United States. If you graphed the states based on that population instead of their land mass, the resulting map would look very different.

This article in Vox shows one artist's interpretation of that map:  This is what the United States looks like if you scale states by population - Vox

California might actually be undersized considering the Census Bureau estimates that there are almost 39 million people living there!

I was actually surprised at how large both Massachusetts and New Jersey are, relatively speaking. I've also never seen a map with Hawaii larger than Alaska!

Perspectives lost

Original post:  June 16, 2015

In the headlines today, a ruling came down from the federal courts. Maurice Greenberg, the former head officer at A.I.G., had filed suit against the federal government. Before we get to the decision, a little history is in order.

During the financial crisis, A.I.G. had mad some spectacularly bad bets on worthless mortgage-backed securities. They were now on the hook for billions of dollars that they could not repay. Several pillars of the financial community like Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns had already gone bankrupt. The entire US financial market was in disarray. To prevent further damage, the federal government took the unprecedented step of bailing out A.I.G. They extracted a heavy toll by taking over about 80% of the company and charging a hefty 14% interest rate on a loan of about $80 billion. Still, the plan worked. The company never went bankrupt and the shareholders were saved from a total loss.

Mr. Greenberg did not feel that the original action of taking over the company was justified. He sued in federal court for billions more in damages. The ruling yesterday was actually a split decision. The judge did rule that the government overstepped its bounds. At the same time, the judge ruled that there was no financial impairment since the alternative would have been bankruptcy which would likely have resulted in the shareholders getting next to nothing.

There is a quote from Paradise Lost where Lucifer is quoted as saying "Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven."  It seems like Mr. Greenberg spent millions of dollars to prove that he should have been allowed to drive his company into the dust. Unfortunately, had he been allowed to do so I wonder how many other innocent victims would have followed in the panic that would have likely occurred. I, for one, am glad we did not find out.

Here is a link to the full article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/business/dealbook/judge-sides-with-ex-aig-chief-greenberg-against-us-but-awards-no-mon…

Seeing from another point of view

Have you ever played the word game Boggle? There are between 16 and 25 cubes with letters on all sides. You score points by coming up with words. Longer words count for more points. The catch is that any word found by other players doesn't count. It pays to be unique. It also pays to find the harder, longer words.

Players generally sit opposite from each other. With more than two players, each player gets oriented to a specific side of the board. A sample is shown here:

You could imagine four players with each sitting at a point on the compass:  north, south, east, and west.

Whenever I've played, I always find that for some reason it is much easier to visualize certain words in your head if they are closer to your side or if they are oriented so that they are "upright" in your direction. As shown, this would be your view if you were playing from the "south" position. Here is how it might look if you were across from this player:

Which view do you find easier? Do you notice that there are different words that seem to jump out at you.

Sometimes, it takes a different perspective to see the answers. Nothing about the board changed except your view!

By the way, I do see a few six-letter words (spiker, thrips, traits). 3 points each (but only if you didn't find them, too).

Taking a wider view

Original post:  May 1, 2015

We often get so focused on our day-to-day tasks that we may sometimes lose perspective. There are many occasions where what we might personally be working on seems disconnected from a larger whole. It's only when you take a few steps back that you can gain adequate distance and appreciate a more coherent view.

Recently, I attended an exhibit with my kids that helped explain this much more elegantly. Here are some physical examples of the phenomenon.

Do you see anything in either of these two photos below?

Most people can make out the keyboard keys and the toast in the pictures. With a little wider perspective, the rest of the picture snaps into focus.

Believe it or not!

Here are the credits for the artwork:

Putting time into perspective

At a website called waitbutwhy.com, there is a fascinating infographic that discusses time from a very interesting perspective. It's far too large to replicate in its entirety, but I thought I would show you the part that goes back to Christopher Columbus landing in America. It's something of an arbitrary point, but it does give you some idea of how we perceive historical events. It's interesting to compare that to our perception of the current moment to try to get some mental idea of how long ago some of these events really were.

I was quite amazed to think about how different history might be for someone who is 30 than it is for me. I don't think of someone at that age as that much younger than me, but I think the reality is quite different!

There were a couple of fun facts sprinkled in there:

• A current 90 year-old was born closer to Lincoln's assassination than to our current day!
• The oldest living human today is 116. She was born closer to Washington becoming the first president than to today!

Here is the link to the full infographic:  http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/08/putting-time-in-perspective.html

Trying to get you see my view

Original post:  Feb 25, 2015

We are in the midst of creating new potential use cases to help prove out new ways to get data identifying the product from packaging and barcodes into electronic health records and beyond. There are many different ideas. When you gather in larger groups that are aiming to solve difficult problems, there are any number of people each representing their own distinct views. It is often extremely difficult to extend our perspective to accommodate some other way of analyzing the issues. Sometimes, we are so deeply ingrained in a certain way of looking at the world that it is hard to imagine any other way of understanding the complexity.

I'm hoping I can open my mind to the possibility that someone else has a better way. I'm further hoping that the others in my group might also be willing to yield if my way shows promise.

Delaying the inevitable

This morning, I found two gray hairs. There is an odd symmetry--one on each temple just above the ear. Nestled among their jet black neighbors, they certainly stand out prominently when you are looking for them.

While there are many ways to look at it, I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I've generally been able to avoid this for most of my life. Now that I am advancing in years, this is usually the inevitable result.

It's always amusing when you are watching others go to comical lengths to deny or delay the inevitable. It's not so funny when you see it in the mirror yourself.

Oddly enough, I almost feel resigned to my fate. There is no sense in getting upset over it. I could just pluck them out if they bothered me that much. I thought about it as I looked in the mirror this morning after my shower, but decided against it.

Lately, I've been reminded more and more of the slow erosion of my current state of being. As I wander down the hallways at work, the faces around me grow slightly more hazy until they are almost up on top of me. It seems like my sight is narrowing and closing in ever more tightly. I suppose the hair is just another gentle reminder that nothing is permanent.

I'm really glad that I'll get the chance to play ball with my son later today. It will help remind me of better days and the overall joy in being alive.

Putting things into perspective

Original post:  Oct 22, 2014

Fear is a powerful emotion. Once unleashed, it can overwhelm our rational side and become an all-consuming beast. Today's headlines scream out warnings about potential dangers. Much of it is aimed at grabbing your attention to earn more advertising revenue. There are even some who hope to profit off our insecurities. Witness the story of a scavenger who claimed the "ebola.com" URL and wants to sell it now for $150,000!     Entrepreneur tries to sell Ebola.com for $150,000 - Telegraph

We often lack objective evidence that will help us keep some of these potential threats in perspective. This article from Vox actually ranks a number of different threats to Americans. It is interesting to see the comparison of the threats that are hyped on the nightly news compared against actual results from other "everyday" occurrences that are, in fact, much more deadly. To give just one example pulled from the article, ebola has only sickened a handful of people and resulted in one high-profile death. By contrast, a severe flu epidemic in 2004 killed 48,000! Despite the disparity, the level of alarm was far less. Some of it may be due to the lesser effects of 24 hour news networks and social media back then. Much of it is due to the relative unknowns about ebola which make it much harder to comprehend.

One other example is the fact that about 40,000 Americans are seriously injured by falling furniture in their own homes! Cases of "tip-over" caused a little less than 30 deaths last year. That makes it a much more serious threat than ebola!

Here is a link to the full article:  Threats to Americans, ranked (by actual threat instead of media hype) - Vox

A matter of perspective

Original post:  Jan 17, 2014

As a parent of two young boys, there are times when I find myself struggling to maintain composure. At the same time, children have a way of changing your perspectives in more ways than you could have ever realized.

I envy the ability of my boys to find wonder in the world. They still believe deeply in magic. They are constantly running into situations they have never faced before and never fail to find the joy and excitement that I often miss. As an adult, you often know how the illusions work. But even at my most cynical point, I do find that their innocent awe allows me to suspend disbelief (if only for a moment).

Our experiences are often shaped by how we choose to perceive them. It isn't easy to step outside our narrow view and see things from a different perspective. At times, we might be amazed by the results.

I found an illusion online that illustrates this point. When seen from a particular angle, it literally seems to come alive. Watch it for yourself and let me know what you think.

The Prensky rules

Original post:  May 15, 2013

I just finished an article titled "The Touch-Screen Generation". With the advent of tablet computers, young children are now able to use all kinds of applications. If you have ever seen how intensely some young children engage with iPads, you know precisely how intently they can focus on these little screens. There have been many debates about whether or not this is a positive development.

Many parents feel guilty about allowing their children to play on tablets. One way they attempt to ease their consciences is to insist on educational applications. Marc Prensky, an education and technology writer, takes a very different approach. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Prensky’s 7-year-old son has access to books, TV, Legos, Wii—and Prensky treats them all the same. He does not limit access to any of them. Sometimes his son plays with a new app for hours, but then, Prensky told me, he gets tired of it. He lets his son watch TV even when he personally thinks it’s a “stupid waste.” SpongeBob SquarePants, for example, seems like an annoying, pointless show, but Prensky says he used the relationship between SpongeBob and Patrick, his starfish sidekick, to teach his son a lesson about friendship. “We live in a screen age, and to say to a kid, ‘I’d love for you to look at a book but I hate it when you look at the screen’ is just bizarre. It reflects our own prejudices and comfort zone. It’s nothing but fear of change, of being left out.”

I found this unusual perspective to be very thought-provoking. While I can't say I will personally do the same thing, there is a lesson in his approach. Other parts of the article question why we focus so relentlessly on education at the expense of fun. Fun might actually lead to creativity much more effectively!

Here is the link to the full article:  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/the-touch-screen-generation/309250/4/

A new perspective on coffee

Original post:  Sep 10, 2012

A story for Monday morning:

A young intern was struggling at work and thinking of quitting. Amidst the loud complaints, the intern's mother placed three pots on the stove full of water and brought them to a boil. She placed carrots in the first, a few eggs in the second, and coffee grounds in the third. Ten minutes later, she shut off the heat and turned back to the intern.

She carefully placed the carrots and the eggs on one plate and strained the coffee into a mug and placed it in front of the intern. She asked, "Tell me what you see."

"I see some soft carrots, a hard-boiled egg, and some coffee. What does it mean?"

The mother explained, "Each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently... The carrot went in inflexible and unrelenting. After being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The fragile egg has a thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior. After sitting in the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans actually worked with the boiling water to transform it into something very useful while remaining largely the same." 

She went on, "The boiling water represents the adversity you are experiencing now. The carrot seems strong but wilts under pressure. The egg allows the heat to harden its heart forever. The coffee is the only one to change the adversity into a positive. As the water increases in temperature, it releases even more flavor and aroma. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you improve the situation around you."

*********************************

Be the bean!

Knowing how the story ends

Original post:  Sep 6, 2012

Bedtime stories can be an exercise in patience. My boys are like most other children. They love repitition and familiar patterns. They can listen to the same books or watch the same movies multiple times and find them endlessly fascinating. At times, it is difficult to approach the hundredth reading of the same book with the same passion and enthusiasm as the first.

I imagine it must be that way in many service industries. At our recent visit to theme parks, you see the attendants having to go through the same safety routines for the rides over and over again. It must be challenging to hide the hint of boredom that inevitably sets in.

There are times at work when we have done a task so many times that we almost seem to know how a situation will turn out well ahead of its actual conclusion. It must be tempting to wish we could press a magic "fast forward" button to get through the preliminaries. I suppose that is the curse of an age where we expect all of our experiences can be like a digital video recorder (where we can simply bypass the "boring" parts).

Once in a while, I smile when I see that experience paying off. Yesterday, I was in a meeting where we were discussing training and adult learning. One of the persons in our group was highly experienced--having run the training department for many years. As we struggled through a live demonstration, he observed the moderators walking around the room helping people troubleshoot their issues on their computers. As the flash of recognition hit him, he smiled and shared with the team the vital importance of having those floating personnel available for that very purpose during technical demonstrations!

Sometimes it pays to have read the book before seeing the movie!

Same old story

Original post:  Jun 25, 2012

We have had the grandparents visiting over the past two weeks. The in-laws came for the first week and my mother visited this past week. While the experience overall went quite well, there were a few minor downsides.

All of the grandparents have their favorite stories. Mine are no exception. Unfortunately, we have gotten to the point where they have begun to repeat themselves. The anecdote that was fresh and lively begins to lose its luster after the fifteenth retelling. At times, I have to catch myself from blurting out the end to the story before the current replay is completed. Sometimes it's a struggle to listen and wait for your opening to reply since it can take quite some time.

It took the space of this weekend without them to realize a few things. First, I ought to cherish the fact that they made the enormous effort to visit. They came from quite some distance away (my mother flew 5,000 miles and my in-laws drove seven hours) to be with us. Second, I should remember that these experiences are part of what makes them who they are today. There will come a day when I am the one who has told the same story one too many times. I should have the patience with them that I hope others will have with me. Finally, I ought to look for new angles. Perhaps a question or two could take the story in a slightly different direction. They could talk about some minor point which could lead to a very different discussion.

In the same way, there are times when I need to take the same approach at work. There may be times when I am tempted to tune out someone at work who seems to be repeating themselves over and over. Perhaps there might be some way to expand on the conversation or learn something new. If I am open to it, I might even learn something that I had not expected.

There are people I know who hate to watch the same show twice. I actually don't mind. Even when I know where the story is going, I am analyzing it to see what I liked and what I didn't. I might think about ways I might have done something differently or explored a different possibility. Many times, I'll even come up with an insight that wasn't there before.

I'll try to see if I can apply that same principle at work in the coming weeks.

A Nation in panic

Original post:  Apr. 6, 2012

Talk radio is filled with hyperbole. That mentality has spread so deeply that it is difficult to get away from it in any format. It seems like the competition for attention has gotten so bad that if anything is called "good" it is automatically discarded. It has to be "the best ever" in order to even be discussed at all.

We see this magnified in sports talk. If a team wins the championship, they are automatically entered into a discussion of "best ever". If they win more than one, the talk of "dynasty" begins. The converse is also true. A string of a few losses and you are on the discussion of "collapse" begins. The only saving grace on the downside is that it can be really tough to enter the "worst ever" discussion because there does seem to be a lower threshold. If you haven't lost the most games or the most games in a row, you (thankfully) don't qualify.

Here in the Boston area, baseball season began yesterday. The off-season was filled with grumbling because we didn't spend inordinate amounts of money chasing high-priced free agents in an attempt to leverage our way to the World Series. There were even some whispers that the team might stumble to a fourth-place finish with a payroll of over $180 million. The screams have intensified now that we dropped the season opener in excruciating fashion. It doesn't help that we allowed our best relief pitcher to sign with a rival for $50 million and replaced him with someone who will now be recovering from thumb surgery for a few months.

It must be really difficult to be a professional baseball player. The season is 162 games. The crushing pace of games averages out to about five per week from April through the end of September. You have to sustain peak performance at a relentless pace against players who are often nearly as good or better than you at all times. One injury could literally be the end of your career. Through it all, you must learn to block out the howls of the crowd who will turn on you during a prolonged slump even if you are (or once were) a superstar.

I think there's a lesson in there. It may involve fortitude or perseverance. Or perhaps it is just about survival.

There are days when it doesn't seem all that different at work....

Do you see what I see?

Original post:  Mar. 28, 2012

During a recent presentation, I thought I was moving at my normal pace. At one point, one of the participants raised their hand and asked me to slow down. I had not realized how quickly I was moving through the material. I suppose it is easy to forget that the slides I was presenting for the twentieth time were being seen for the first time by this audience.

We often overlook the fact that there is literally no one who has our complete experience. There are going to be times when we might be the only person in the company who possesses that bit of knowledge and expertise. Without a background in the subject, it is difficult to appreciate the nuance that a fully trained individual might have.

In my own life, my six-year-old son shakes his head when he has to explain to me the difference between green and red light sabers. He scoffs at my inability to differentiate between the MTT and the Venator. When I ask him how he can tell Qui-Gon Jinn apart from Obi-Wan Kenobi, he rolls his eyes. He takes a passionate interest in Star Wars and cannot understand how I fail to share his level of commitment.

I have to keep reminding myself that what I think is self-evident often is not. Sometimes this effect is most apparent when I speak to my direct supervisors. I have sometimes assumed that they were more directly involved than they were. I am guilty of forgetting that they often have many other issues that are going to be at the forefront of their mind (well ahead of my daily struggles). If I can add some context and give them the highlights, they can quickly get back up to speed and at least see a small portion of my field of view.

Perhaps tonight I ought to spend some time in a galaxy far, far away....

The fierce urgency of now

Original post:  Mar. 14, 2012

Patience has never been a strength for me. I certainly wouldn't classify myself as having no patience, but I have a hard time waiting for things. Idling in heavy traffic drives me bonkers. I feel as if I am constantly calculating all the other things I could do with the time that is slowly wasting away.

I try to check these impulses as much as I can with my boys. Last night, they had set up a battle scene with their Lego minifigures in our upstairs hallway. I asked them to clear a path since it was time for bedtime stories. After first arguing that they had not had enough time to play, we agreed that they could stage a strategic retreat of the figures to defend their home base near the wall. This had the double advantage of clearing a passageway for normal foot traffic. It might have been easier to insist that they immediately put everything away, but I thought that we could work out a compromise that still accomplished the mission.

It's interesting when the roles are reversed. One strategy we often use with the boys is to defer gratification. We don't say no. We simply say that they can't have it now. If they would like to read one more story but it's bedtime, we let them know that they have to wait until tomorrow. After the ritual of begging and pleading, we eventually hold firm. That wait can seem like an eternity to a young boy. I can also report that they almost never forget to collect the following day!

I often forget that for a child a day is a much greater share of their young life. Twenty-four hours seems so long to them. In our high activity world of business, it almost seems as if it is over before it has begun.

I am working to try to temper my impulses while still retaining a proper sense of urgency in my work life. There is a story associated with that, but it will have to wait for tomorrow.

We are not as different as we think

Original post:  Jan. 9, 2012

Yesterday, our family went to see the Pompeii exhibit at the Museum of Science. In an ironic twist, the ruins of Pompeii are in their condition because a disaster nearly two thousand years ago buried the city and preserved it until the eighteenth century.

My wife and I were amazed by the treasures. We were also pleasantly surprised that our two boys displayed remarkable patience and allowed us to linger as a family for over 90 minutes in the exhibit hall.

The picture above is from the exhibit. As I studied the details, I thought that this frescoe reminded me of some of the sketches of Leonardo DaVinci. Then I realized that he would not be born for about 1,400 years. I had always thought of the Romans as being relatively primitive (at least from an art perspective). I thought that the use of the vanishing point to give the illusion of depth wasn't invented until the Renaissance. You can clearly see that at least some artists over a millenia prior to that were well on the way.

There were other aspects of the exhibit that clearly reminded the viewer that these people were quite sophisticated and ingenious in their own ways. At Pompeii, there were fruits and vegetables from the Far East that passed through the thriving port city. Elaborate marble tables looked as if they were recently made and could be found in a regional antique store. There was even evidence of the doctors of the day splinting broken bones and suturing wounds.

Perhaps it is not so much that people have changed as much as our tools. It is difficult to imagine what our world would be like if we lacked the technology that undergirds much of our present economy. If those things were stripped away, we might actually be far less capable than these citizens of a long forgotten past.