thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

At the recent New Yorker conference, called “2012: Stories from the near Future” was a piece by Malcolm Gladwell on two ideas of Genius. The video link is here - but check the size – it is 27 minutes long (and my HD version is 350mb! – HD Xml feed)

What is fascinating to me about the speech, is how Gladwell tells the story with his historians ear for detail and uses it as a learning observation on problem solving styles. Gladwell has a wonderful story telling style, as you will know if you’ve checked his books (Tipping Point, Blink) or his video presentation on Spaghetti Sauce at TED.

This story is about the differences between work methods used by Michael Ventris in solving the Linear B code from the ancient Mycenean writing in 1953 and Andrew Wiles who solved Fermats Last Theorem in 1994.

By way of background, the theorem had been unsolved for 357 years and really most people know little about it and care even less. However it has been a magnificent obsession for mathematicians and might have some other less abstract value – (a story for another day – and BTW -what does solving the theorem achieve? – answers please)

Sidebar: Incidentally, Gladwell quotes Paul Erdos as saying that ‘a mathematician, is a machine for turning coffee into theorems’” in his wonderful essay on the rise of java man. Did you also know that Malcolm Gladwell was a history graduate which could be perfect training for his writing and speeches, and other amazing roles as suggested by Ion Valiskakis in “The Return of History”

Daniel W. Rasmus has elegantly summarised the arguments for and against Gladwells thesis that Ventris represented the “lone genius” while Andrew Wiles had 13 helpers – my paraphrasing. In other words, that modern genius was more about collaboration and focus than the archetype eureka moment. ( Note: Rasmus points out that Ventris had help from Kober and Chadwick so he wasn’t entirely isolated in his quest.)

Gladwell worked out that Wiles had done his 10,000 hours and that was very much needed to solve the problem and extrapolated that this might be some kind of rule. It certainly struck me as a usable idea for mastery of a subject and we should think more about this. Gladwell’s rough calculation was that 10,000 hrs equates to 10 years – however my calculation is that 5 years would do it if you were lucky enough to work the equivalent of a standard work week on your specialist subject.

So for Gladwell 10,000 hours of time represents some kind of threshold of advanced competency that Wiles was able to achieve.

Rasmus is not so sure and notes that problem solving is only one kind of genius and that:

“Collaboration is right. Obsession is right. So are many other attributes, like pattern recognition, building consensus, creating relationships, and incremental and purposeful innovation….

“Let us not be so narrow in our definition of genius because with change we can not foretell what kind of genius we will need so as we do with learning, pushing toward life long learning, we should be pushing for life long pursuit of insight, because we never know who, or where or what may be needed as the world’s values and economics and technologies shift around us. “

He goes on to suggest that:

“Ventris represents the model of the lifelong learner, the person who strives to add value based on their talent despite the lack of interest in formal studies in an area, a lack of aptitude for an approach or technique — but with a keen insight into problem solving that may in fact, be innovative, too innovative perhaps, and too time consuming to be supported in an academic world driven by the productivity of publication.”

Rasmus also notes the rise of the amateur professional as represented in part by Ventris and this is also the topic of a presentation by Charles Leadbeater @TED (see below)

This idea of the amateur professional is also supported by Charles Leadbeater in a TED talk called “The rise of the amateur professional” see the 19minute video on TED.

“Passionate amateurs, using new tools, are creating products and paradigms that companies can’t.”

…and he makes the point that the mountain bike industry came from professional amateurs who reinvented the cycling sector to the point that 65% of it is mountain bike related innovation. (ultimate mtn bike here)

So what do we all learn from this – within the context of a blog on thinking about business and technology? Shouldn’t I be trying to link this to business systems and the use of crm software for example?

At the very core of a CRM system is the idea of knowledge management and especially “tacit knowledge” management which I wrote about as CRM & Knowledge management a while back.

In your company you will have very experienced staff who have long ago completed their 10,000 hours of mastery and much more and now they are experts at the art of the deal.

Somehow they are able to craft brilliant results from what looks to be unstructured territory; and that can be a challenge for any business to incorporate that learning and knowledge transfer to others.

Part of the way we transfer tacit knowledge is story telling and I was pleasantly surprised to find that a company called anecdote even have a consulting workshop called “sensemaking”. Shawn Callahan of Anecdote suggests: (after checking the genius video)

1. persistence and collaboration might be more important personal traits than lone genius in a complex and changing world; and
2. a person needs to invest 10,000 hours of concentrated and reflective practice to achieve mastery—this amounts to about 10 years.

Part of what makes us successful into the future is the way in which we which can foster knowledge sharing, learning and collaboration by using new tools such as blogs, video and other new media tools to connect and leverage our own ideas.

In Gladwell’s story of genius, may I suggest that role of collaboration is the key learning point and that is we should look to capitalise on our supreme advantages of education, bandwidth and collaboration tools. The idea of capitalisation which Gladwell highlights is also very useful.

Capitalisation is the concept that all 6’10″ tall males – have probably tried out for basketball where they might be a natural; but we don’t do that for other advantages like education , as a rule (at least to the same extent.)

Innovation and change can come from unlikedly sources and often do as Charles Leadbetter suggests and the youthful Eva Vertes hypothesis on cancer show us.

It can also be something much more prosaic and no less vital such as: doing better in the way to we address and service our existing customers and reach out to get new ones where collaboration, feedback and even stories form part of the learning process.

Malcolm Gladwell Fermats last Theorem New Yorker Conference collaboration knowledge management Charles Leadbeater Andrew Wiles

P.S Some of this research and content was used in Malcolms latest book “Outliers”. He is interviewed below by Kim Hill on Saturday morning radio. 13-Dec-2008

The big mystery for us down-under was the significance of holidays being when kids fall behind as we have a relatiovely short summer holiday with other 2 week holiday periods during the year. Apparently US holidays are longer and more concentrated.

I also liked the comments about the positive effects of “class” and entitlement thinking on individual performance.

RadioNZ podcast is over here from 13-dec-2008 with Kim Hill

A key challenge for policy makers is how to tell a compelling story with numbers. It is not easy to visualise the impact of change in a meaningful way—but help is now at hand.

Ironically it doesn’t come from the business intelligence (oxymoron alert) community—it is more the result of being able to add graphical tools and creative vision to the core data.

The person driving this vision is Dr Hans Rosling a global health professor. Google like the approach so much that they have now invested in the gapminder software developed by Rosling.

The second irony here is that it is much better for you to go view this video presentation than to carry on reading at this point (click here to display.) 20.35 minutes this link

“Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called “developing world” using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation.

The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid—toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten.

In Rosling’s hands, global trends—life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates—become clear, intuitive and even playful.” (from Ted.com)

It is easy to try the gapminder software out and what will be even more exciting is if policy makers actually use some of this to help communicate in visually compelling ways.

Note: TED is “like drinking from a firehose” see a report from Brian Sweeney who was at TED 2007 and has attended quite a few of previous conferences. His liked the Rosling presentation and recommended it as follows:

“See especially the presentation by Hans Rosling at the 2006 conference, it will change your world view of what is happening and what is possible”… and

“For me TED has been life-changing in terms of seeing ideas up close from the folk who had them”……Sam Morgan presented a new design for dispensing pain relief medicine which can save lives the world over.

He has also kindly posted his conference notes on TED 2007. See full post.

Also – Guy Kawasaki linked to a budget poster (yes really) which uses relative sizes to communicate well. Check the full poster over at budget poster use the control or shift keys to zoom in/ out. Another example of visually useful fast communication.

As of June 26th there is now a second video from Has Rosling:In a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 presentation, Hans Rosling demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty.

He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software — which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Ten days later, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale. (click here for video.)

TED.com Hans Rosling add to del.icio.us here

If anyone mentions/raves about a 20 minute video featuring spaghetti sauce by Malcolm Gladwell (remember Tipping Point & Blink) don’t be surprised. The video is found on Ted Talks which is a bit like a youtube channel for adults.

TED (Technology Entertainment Design) has been around since 1984 and was started by Richard Saul Wurman but seems to have really taken off under the direction of Chris Anderson. But back to the sauce…”What we can learn from spaghetti sauce”.

“In this witty monologue, Malcolm Gladwell follows the career of a food industry consultant who uncovered a key secret to what eaters like. Running huge focus groups to find customers’ truest tastes, Gladwell’s hero draws a radical conclusion, an epiphany that has defined food marketing ever since. Note: The theme of the 2004 conference was “The Pursuit of Happiness” — hence the talk’s quirky presence. ….

Malcolm Gladwell specializes in surprises — counterintuitive truths discovered by clever researchers, obscure historians, and ordinary people observing the world.”

Malcolm is a great speaker and this is a good opportunity to see him and many other presentations that are often only found at expensive conferences and take forever to deliver. This one is meandering and discursive and totally fascinating to a contrarian like me.

In the TED format each presenter has 18 minutes and a few go over time but one of the best presentations is only 3 minutes long. You do have to register to get full access but it is free and a brilliant resource. The new improved website for the talks was relaunched on 16th of April.

Other video presentations I really like are:

Richard St. John: Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes
Inspired by a chance encounter with a high school student who asked him how to become a success, St. John interviewed more than 500 successful people, then distilled what they told him into eight simple principles.  

 Joshua Prince-Ramus is best known as architect of the Seattle Central Library and his presentation is mind blowing. There is also a presentation by Frank Gehry on TED talks as well – but I haven’t seen that one yet.

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? is one of the most popular presentations. Sir Ken led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.

(Update: I found a transcript of a similar speech by Sir Ken over at The second Principal Voices round-table which took place in Beijing, China, on Monday 16th May 2005.)

There are even a couple of NZ connections with Sam Morgan (TradeMe) and an intriguing project called “GoVirtualMedical” (GVM) which is a group of surgeons, educators, businessmen and computer experts who have created a multimedia clinical skills trainer that meets the practical training needs of health professionals.

GVM which features a brace of significant NZ names including Professor John Windsor,  Dr Rick Boven (whose PHD thesis I once read – very rare event!), Greg Sitters and Craig Meek who are well known in tech circles here.  This sounds like a project well worth checking out so watch this blog space for news about them.

Actually there was/is a NZ mini version of 7 minute presentations inspired by TED and some of those NZ presentations are also available at this site.

“TED is owned by a non-profit foundation whose mission is to leverage the power of ideas. The new website was inspired by the viral success of TEDTalks, the audio and video podcast series, which premiered in June 2006 and has been viewed more than 8.5 million times worldwide. The TEDTalks series was exclusively sponsored by BMW, who returns as the inaugural sponsor for TED.com.”….which features:

• More than 100 full-length TED talks, including 30 never-before-seen outside the exclusive TED Conference
• Ideas, insight and inspiration from a diverse group of thinkers and doers, including Kevin Kelly, Bono, Bill Clinton, Jeff Bezos, Jane Goodall, Stefan Sagmeister, Seth Godin, Alex Steffen, Nicholas Negroponte, Peter Gabriel, Al Gore, Richard Dawkins, Ted Warren, Hans Rosling, Jeff Han, and many others including Sam Morgan  (whose presentation was this year and is not posted yet.)
• Social-networking tools — including Profile Pages, Comments and Favorites — that allow for interaction among members of the extended TED community including TEDblog see news
• Free site membership for everyone worldwide

Finally here is a great reason to blow that datacap. This is what broadband was built for. Note: a 20 min clip is around 70mb and there are also audio clips as well. Could be perfect for the Ipod too as you can save (possibly not all clips) in iTunes mp3 or mp4 formats for the desktop or devices.

Note: A slightly different version of this is also over at Idealog Magazine blog area where you can also read other blogs as well.  

See also a post by Brian Sweeney over at NZ Edge TED Conference: Edge Experience