thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

As beings it seems to me that  - we are all wired to look for patterns partly to decipher meaning but also because the sheer amount of information we get can be so overwhelming.

We are also constantly comparing the “news” to our own reference points and expectations to  weight the content and relevance to our own situations.

Now the media stories seems to overshoot much of these expectations with so much coverage splashing over the metaphorical sides of the tea cup that we actively discount “news” when it gets too saturated.

One example is swine flu coverage. It is definitely an important story but the way in which it is being covered paradoxically switches many of us off the full significance of the event. There are two key facts about previous pandemics we should be picking up on (key patterns?.)

1. In 1918 and other pandemics it was the second and repeat waves that were more lethal once the virus has been through larger numbers of humans and mutated a bit more.
2. The secondary story on swine flu is how disorganised we have been  with group planning on previous disasters with very fragmented responses.

In 2007 Laurie Garrett: What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic? presented this talk at TED based on real analysis of earlier pandemics and global health planning.  Most of use can point to more local health issues to see that not much has changed.

Moving right along – Does this thinking apply to other “news” stories and events like the global financial crisis for example?

In recent weeks I have been fascinated to see surveys of business confidence go lower and lower and last week they have suddenly topped out at the highest for some time.

“(NZ) Business sentiment has perked up this month – the National Bank’s survey has recorded its biggest monthly gain since December 2000.“

We want to see better news after months of coverage fatigue about the global financial crisis and so expectations appear to be over shooting again.

Two weeks earlier we had Aust economic index at 26-year low New Zealand is not more resilient than Australia although I’m beginning to think that we all have outrageous optimism partly because most local business markets are shallow and tough.

We could argue that Australia’s commodity boom has slowed them into the slide andc so NZ is ahead of the cycle and our primary commodities and huge fall in exchange rates has provided an early upswing of confidence that differentiates the NZ economy.

Translation NZ business sectors and local markets are small, highly developed and very demanding and so any glimmer of hope from export markets or the “weighless economy” has us revving our economic engines.

Central banks are aware of this tendency and so the Reserve Bank Governor Bollard was at pains to signal interest rates should stay low for at least a year to 18 month longer.

The lag between recovery of some market segments / indicators and actual local recovery can still be long enough to cause serious medium term issues for many of us.

The March exports number was way higher than the imports number and that has boosted confidence as have changes to housing and employment markets. (Trade deficit melts as imports shrink)

“In the same article economist Bagrie notes Structural imbalances, like negative household savings rates and a large current account deficit, needed to be corrected and that would not be quick or easy..” and we know rationally that is true but still the survey overshoots the hope index.

In today’s TED talk videos is a new 7 minute  presentation by Sean Gourley: The mathematics of war

“By pulling raw data from the news and plotting it onto a graph, Sean Gourley and his team have come up with a stunning conclusion about the nature of modern war — and perhaps a model for resolving conflicts.”

I won’t pretend to understand what Sean is saying in this 7 minute clip but I know the patterns he is discovering appear everywhere and deciphering the economic news is every bit as mathmatical as it is for any major human induced crisis.

The group dynamic does plot patterns and we can use some of that to make sense of the overall trendlines.

Sean does a good job of explaining the “so what” part of this analysis but at 7 minutes this is really a teaser and we need to go deeper.

For example I’d like to see the analysis of Iraq right as the end compared with  Irelands history and the transformation of the IRA into a more credible polticla rather than military force.

I think with maths the risk is that we can describe events much better but unless we go compare with other histories we can still miss the underlying out takes.

In the “Fog of War” did a much more personal analysis which we seem to have forgotten.

Now I’d like to see Robert (b 1916) make some personal sense of Sean’s math but for now I’m pleased that we have a chance to think about clustering information and media through some new filters.

I also caught part of a radio dicussion yesterday which described “belief” as a recessive gene. The idea being that as a society we have become much more evidence based but that is not something we see on the actual regular news.

For me Jon Stewarts satirical Daily show makes far more sense of the news than regular media as it acknowledges the bizarreness of the human condition.

So a recap formula might look like this

Sean Gourley + Robert McNamara – Jon Stewart  = many a true word is spoken in jest – we just need to know which ones and if our math/model makes sense.

It’s true I’m a TEDhead and if we’ve met it would be unusual if I didn’t mention the TED conference videos at some point.

One of the incredible delights of the today is that even though we read less; if we can find time to watch an 18 minute video – paradoxically we have even greater access to some of the best minds in the world  via TED and sites like it.

In my house we call it Teducation and personally I just love being able to get an idea of what the best subject matter experts in the work are thinking about their chosen topics and what they actually care about.

Even better when they have only 18 minutes to express their passion (which is the standard TED format) that is short enough to be useful but not too long if the presentation sucks.

This week TED announced A TED Fellows programme for this year and buried away in the detail was the name Sean Gourley described as  Physicist/military theorist; Rhodes Scholar. New Zealand

Sean has been away in the UK on a Rhodes Scholarship for the past few years but his background from Canterbury University is

Bachelor of Science with Honours and Master of Science in Physics
Sean researched nano-scale blue light lasers for his first-class BSc(Hons) degree in Physics and self-assembled quantum nano-wires, for his MSc before enrolling for a DPhil at Oxford University, researching complex adaptive systems and collective intelligent systems.

Over on younoodle it says that Sean is a

“New Zealander, Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, PhD in Physics specializing in ‘networks and complexity’, just finished a research fellowship at Oxford in the quantitative analysis of war and terrorism. “

So what is the Ted Fellow award and how can we be involved?

I think we can all be involved in scouting for the unusual suspects. Anyone can become a member of TED. As at today’s date there are apparently 908 NZ linked members on the network. My TED profile is here but anyone can join – check the joining TED blurb here.

Getting into a conference and paying the $US6k in fees plus the travel and other costs of getting there and back each time takes some serious effort for most of us so it is fantastic that there is a TED fellows sponsorship programme.

Go Sean Gourley @ TED .  For more detail download the TED fellows PDF and check page 21 of 45. Some of the other Fellows like Patrick Awuah we have seen in action before and I have also spent time on Jennifers Brea‘s blogs in the past as well. Her work on Africabeat is worth reading.

If you read this Sean – make sure all of those guests know that NZ is not just a rock in the Pacific or Fiji with snow – but a really vibrant community of creativity and world class thinking.

Update:4th Feb We are following Sean via his twitter feed in the top right sidebar / see comments.

Sean says

• Talk to me about – Politics, Venture Capital and innovation, Mathematics, Physics, running, single malt scotch, the latest book I have to read or movie I should go see.

For background on the Fellowship programme:

Ted Fellows

“Introducing TED Fellows, our new international program that will bring 50 eclectic, up-and-coming world-changers to our Long Beach and Oxford conferences each year….

All TED Fellows will receive special benefits including pre-conference programs, training from world-class communications professionals, the opportunity to give short TEDTalks at TED University, the opportunity to spread their ideas on TED.com, a private social network and more. Of course, TED will cover their conference fees, travel and lodging.

We’re targeting individuals aged 21-40 from all of TED’s many disciplines, including of course, technology, entertainment and design but also science, humanities and the arts, entrepreneurs, NGOs and political and community leaders. We’re focusing on candidates from five regions of the world: Africa, Asia/Pacific, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. However, anyone 18 and over is welcome to apply. The first application cycle begins February 23rd, 2009.

These men and women were selected for their achievement but especially for their promise. Each of them shows real potential to create positive change in their field — whether it’s technology, entertainment, design, music, art, science, business or the NGO community — in their country, and even around the world.”

However ;  I can’t help thinking that some of our brightest TED prospects are now outside the university systems especially in the creative sectors.

What do you think -?  Who would you nominate as a representative of your sector, company, organisation or country. Who are the unusual suspects?

Here is hoping that Sean enjoys his time at TED and reports back.

TED 2009 Conference starts 3 Feb (today – depending on your timezone.)

If I was at the conference I’d be keen to see Daniel Lebskind, Oliver Sacks, Herbie Hancock, Dan Ariely and Liz Coleman for starters. Jacek Utko thinks good design can save the newspaper? He will be presenting on that — and good luck with that one from me.

For more on the TED Conference 09  speakers

Really I’d love to be at TED one day but the next best thing is helping a smart New Zealander make it there. Lets nominate some more TED fellows for next year and trust that Sean will have a great time this trip.

The third best thing to being at TED are the T shirts. Premo purveyor of T’s to the thoughtful REMO Generalstore is the TED T-shirt supplier so Australia are already doing their bit for TED.

Founder Remo Giuffré is at TED – Remo on twitter

Footnote: As always if you are at TED 09 – feel free to add a comment here or contact me via TED or LinkedIn.

We really enjoyed David Cowan‘s posts from TED last year (Check the Dave Eggers post) and Brian Sweeney’s notes before that.

The TED prize is webcast live at Thursday 5th Feb at 5 pm US Pacific Time. LA time is currently

For NZ – this makes local time of 2 pm Friday 6th or Friday Feb 6 12 noon for Sydney, NSW readers. For your location you may want to double check the meeting planner.

TED prize winners this conference are deep ocean explorer Sylvia Earle, astronomer Jill Cornell Tarter, maestro José Antonio Abreu.   I’m sure they are all great but I especially like the sound of :

Jose Abreu, a retired economist, trained musician, and social reformer founded El Sistema (“the system”) in 1975 based on the conviction that what poor Venezuelan kids needed was classical music. After 30 years and 10 different political administrations, El Sistema is now a nationwide organization of 102 youth orchestras, 55 children’s orchestras and 270 music centers.

Update: Some of this post have also been added to Idealog Blog