Matt's Book Reviews

Honest To God - John A T Robinson

Matt — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:03:07 GMT

Copyright: 1963

Publisher: The Westminster Press

Honest to God was a recommendation from a talented and insightful acquaintance. When she heard that I was going through a spiritual rediscovery in my life, she immediately recommended this book. I suspect she may have been referring to the book written by Bill Hybels by the same name but the Robinson book was a fascinating read for me! John A T Robinson was a Bishop in the Anglican church who began to question some of the religious activities of the church. Many of the stately and ornate traditions of the Anglican church seemed far removed from modernity and he wondered out loud if perhaps the church was stuck in traditions that had little or nothing to do with true worship of God. Robinson's questioning of the long standing traditions of his church is where my own journey intersects with his work and at times in reading the book I felt he was writing directly for me (though for the record, the book was written well before I was even born!)

From "Up There" to "Out There"

Robinson starts his exploration of the religious question by looking at the question of "where is God?" In the New Testament numerous references were made to God being "up in the heavens." Of course in that day, the world was still flat and the notion of "up there" and "down there" (for the Devil) were quite convenient.

Christianity hit a bit of a bump in the road though when we found out that the world was actually a sphere. This made it so that God might be "up" for some of us but not for those on the other side of the world. We cleverly got around this by referring to God as being "out there" as opposed to "here on earth." This worked quite well because there was no way to get "out there."

Back in the 60's however we started going one step farther than Babel when we started making rockets that were quite literally capable of reaching the heavens. At the time of Robinson's writing, the Church was facing an existential crisis because we were exploring space... and not finding God "up there."

Robinson's approach seemed (indeed seems!) blasphemous. He posited that perhaps God wasn't any particular place in the Physical Realm. Perhaps the idea that God exists as a separate Being simply isn't true. Perhaps God needed to be experienced as a "depth of being" rather than as a "separate Being."

He puts it this way: "The question of God is the question whether this depth is a reality or an illusion, not whether a Being exists beyond the bright blue sky or anywhere else. Belief in God is a matter of 'what you take seriously without any reservation', of what for your is ultimate reality."

Robinson at times flirts with Pantheism but he always brings his conception of God back to relationships.

"God, the unconditional, is to be found only in, with and under the conditioned relationships of this life: for he is their depth and ultimate significance."

He then points out:

"Our contention has been that God is to be met not by a 'religious' turning away from the world but in unconditional concern for 'the other' seen through to its ultimate depths, that God is... 'The personal ground of all that we experience.'"

Grace

Robinson quotes Paul Tillich at length and I wanted to be able to find this quote again so bear with the lengthy quote:

"It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!" If that happens to us, we experience grace After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.

In the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion of life with life. We experience the grace of understanding each other's words. We understand not merely the literal meaning of the words, but also that which lies behind them, even when they are harsh or angry. For even then there is a longing to break through the walls of separation. We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs to the same Ground to which we belong, and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the sexes, of the generations, of the nations, of the races, and even the utter strangeness between man and nature. Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong. For life belong to life.

And in the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to ourselves. We experience moments in which we accept ourselves, because we feel that we have been accepted by that which is greater than we. If only more such moments were given to us! For it is such moments that make us love our life, that make us accept ourselves, not in our goodness and self- complacency, but in our certainty of the eternal meaning of our life. We cannot force ourselves to accept ourselves. We cannot compel anyone to accept himself. But sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say "yes" to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate and self-contempt disappear, and that our self is reunited with itself. Then w can say that grace has come upon us."

Christianity without Religion

Robinson does not equivocate regarding his view of modern religion. It is out of touch with reality and is designed to make us feel better about worshiping God rather than make God feel anything regarding our worship. He points out that worship has become a realm into which we withdraw from the world in order to "be with God." Why though when God is right here with us?

The real function of worship should be to focus, sharpen and deepen our response to the world in which we live. When Jesus walked the earth He was actutely aware of the needs, physical, emotional and spiritual, of all around Him. Why then should we strive to separate ourselves from the world in such a way as to be wholly disconnected?

The real test of worship then is how far it makes us more sensitive to Christ, not "up there" or "out there" but rather in the naked, the homeless and the prisoner.

Legalism

In my own journey I have left behind a movement steeped in a desire to prove themselves to God through holy living. These are good people who love God but in my estimation they are unaware of just how deep our sin nature lives within us. The idea that I can, of my own volition, do anything that is pleasing to God is to forget His assessment of my righteousness as filthy rags.

That said, I have wondered lately how I can best be a help to those from my past. Robinson seemed to be speaking directly to me when he said regarding his own Anglican church, "one must have a realistic assessment of one's revolutionary capacity." I have come to the conclusion that my past is my past and while many good people are in my past, they are wholly uninterested in my ideas or opinions. Rather than try to revolutionize them, my time is better spent engaging in the work of Christ in my own community.

Recently I have had some interesting discussions regarding the Sermon on the Mount and the role that Christ played in fulfilling the Old Testament Law. Robinson addresses the Sermon on the Mount by saying that it "is not 'do this for all time' but rather 'at any moment, if you are unconditionally open to God, this will be demanded of you.'"

At times I find myself disagreeing with Robinson's theology but his view of sin, or more specifically what many Christians regard as "sin actions" is interesting. He argues that actions are not intrinsically right or wrong but rather a lack of love in any action is what makes it wrong. This is a very relativistic view of morality and while I am not sure to what level I agree, I suspect he is closer than those who extract rightness or wrongness from even the punctuation of the Bible.

Conclusion

This book was a fascinating read for me. For anyone looking for a theology with which they agree, I doubt you will enjoy this book. On the other hand if you are looking for a book with which you may not agree but will definitely make you think, pick up a copy of this book and dive in!

Envisioning Information - Edward Tufte

Matt — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:51:04 GMT

Publisher: Graphics Press

Copyright: 1990

ISBN: 0961392118

Envisioning Information is very similar to another of Tuft's books I read, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Envisioning Information doesn't focus as much on the display of data per se but rather broadens the scope to include all types of information. As you would expect with a book on such a topic, this one is a visually pleasing experience. The included graphs, maps and pictures along with the anecdotal evidence for Tufte's conclusions made this an enjoyable read.

Flatland and Floods

Tufte uses the term flatland to describe the 2 dimensional world onto which we transcribe data that lives in our 3 dimension plus time world. The amount of data we try to transcribe often determines the method we use and is in turn often determined by how long we have been collecting a particular type of data.

For instance when Galileo first began charting sunspots, he had only a few samples from his new telescopic arrangement. He used a spot diagram to first show what he was seeing. Then he became interested in the changes over time so he used a small multiple chart... the same diagram repeated on the same page with only the differences showing.

Over time however scientists built up hundreds of thousands of observations and in 1904 a man by the name of E. W. Maunder drew a chart of sunspots that became known as the butterfly chart. His chart covered hundreds of observations over several decades and showed the cyclical nature of sunspots on the sun's surface.

Now we have charts that show this effect over a hundred years times and on this chart, Tufte superimposes some macro level data regarding not just the number of spots recorded but their relation to the equator of the sun and what percentage of the sun's surface was covered by spots.

When data goes from a trickle to a flood, there is a series of strategies used to aggregate and display the data. Tufte delineates this progression as such:

Spot diagrams
Small multiple diagrams
Dimensionality and data compressions
Micro / macro displays combining patterns & details, averages & variations.

The last bit was emphasized considerably by Tufte. There are two fundamental summary measures in statistical data: averages and the variation about the average. Charts need to show these two things in order to be effective.

Notes & Quotes

"If the numbers are boring then you've got the wrong numbers."

"To clarify, add detail."

"Clutter and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information."

"Information consists of differences that make a difference."

Re: Grids. Try to do away with the lines of a grid if at all possible. Allow the data to draw the lines.

Re: Use of color. There are 4 major uses of color:

Label
Measure
Represent (imitate)
Decorate

Conclusion

I love reading books like this. Short and yet packed full of useful information. If you are involved in design in any way, whether it is full fledged graphic design or just making a newsletter for your local organization, you should read this book and frankly anything you can get your hands on that Tufte wrote.

The Overton Window - Glenn Beck

Matt — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:03:28 GMT

Publisher: Mercury Radio Arts

Copyright: 2010

ISBN: 9781439184301

I like Glenn Beck but sometimes I don't like him for the same reason I dislike Jon Stewart. Most of my conservative friends don't like Jon Stewart because he is too liberal. I don't like him because he takes himself too seriously. If you are going to be an entertainer... entertain me but don't ask me to take you seriously. If you want to be taken seriously... then stop hiding behind humor and enter a serious dialogue. Glenn Beck isn't necessarily a humorist but he is firmly ensconced in the role of entertainer and with The Overton Window he did nothing to distance himself from that position.

The Constitution, Living Document or Monument?

Rather than ticking off a list of things I agree with or disagree with in the book, let me address a general idea that seems to permeate his thinking and certainly came across in this book. Glenn Beck (and a large number of those on the right) hold the Constitution up as a monument of perfection in human government. This seems a bit odd to me given the fact that even the Founding Fathers weren't sure they quite had it right.

Please don't get me wrong, I have a copy of the Constitution on my phone, I read it through quite often and I refer to it when thinking or writing about political issues. In addition I have a copy of the Federalist papers on my phone and a copy in print in my personal library. (I do not read through that tome quite as often!) Reading the Federalist Papers however will give you a very good glimpse into the nature of the debate and contention that these men went through when forging the Constitution.

Given that these reasonable men disagreed, sometimes quite vehemently, over the solutions to human government, it seems reasonable to me that after nearly two centuries of thought and contemplation, serious and reasonable minds can still disagree. At one point in the book Beck even points out that Thomas Jefferson, the man who had a large part in penning the document declaring that "all men are created equal" owned slaves. No doubt if Jefferson were alive today he would reverse his position on slavery and disagree with the provision in Article 1, Section 2 that only allowed for three-fifths of slaves to be counted toward representation and didn't allow for any Indians. For it's time and in the social environment that the document was forged, this probably seemed to be the best compromise for governance but only the most hard-core racist can get on board with these ideas today.

Given that the Founding Fathers tacitly admitted to the living nature of the document by providing for amendments, I find it odd that conservatives are rushing to embrace the original document. Certainly we need a solid foundation but to say that it can never be improved upon is either naivette or hubris, I can't decide which.

Of particular concern to me is the length to which Conservatives go to "prove" that their ideals are rooted in the Constitution. In The Overton Window Glenn Beck has one of the characters exclaim, "Do you know why it's so small? Because the government itself was meant to be small!" I read that and thought "or maybe it's small because the Founding Fathers were not so arrogant as to think they had all the answers?" How can we infer from the length of the document what the Founders intended as the size of government? Much like some preachers twist the Scriptures to mean what they want them to say, Conservative pundits have taken to twisting the words of the Founding Fathers to give some sort of moral heft to their arguments.

The question ultimately comes down to this: is the Constitution a living document or a Final Monument to a Republic? Much has changed in the world since the words were penned, not the least of which is the number and density of our population along with an increased understanding of humanity. When Conservatives try to claim Capitalist principles from the Constitution, I wonder if they realize that Adam Smith didn't even publish The Wealth of Nations until the same years as we declared our Independence? Ideas didn't spread as quickly back then in the days before the internet, telephones, electricity, automobiles, locomotives and CNN. Certainly some of the ideas were brewing about during that time but to use the Constitution to support our current understanding of an economic system is a bit of a stretch.

So if times have changed, why shouldn't our conception of good government change? Some will argue that "principles should never change" but when the rubber meets the road, most of the arguments about the Constitution focus on the particulars ("right to bear arms") rather than the principles ("the folks have to be able to defend themselves").

The Crisis (of radio talk shows)

Rush Limbaugh made his career while President Clinton was in office. It was much easier for him to garner an audience while a foe was in power. Similarly, Glenn Beck seems to have seized the opportunity of the Democrats coming to power in 2006 in Congress and then taking the White House in 2008. He operates his radio and TV show with an intensity that indicates that if you don't listen to what he has to say, the evil Democrats are going to destroy the world. Listening to Glenn Beck sometimes I check the sky to make sure it is still up there. Have you ever wondered why there were so many commercials for gold investment firms during the last year or so on Glenn Beck's show? His entire show was a "the sky is falling so you should invest in gold" fun fest.

In other words, Glenn Beck likes a crisis. Millions of folks tune in every day to get their daily dose of crisis news. The urgent and the immediate tends to sell. The problem he has had is giving people an outlet: what can I do right now to help with the crisis? The Overton Window is a not-so-subtle attempt to convince folks that he is definitely not advocating violence. But the question I have is this: "what should I do?"

I have incredibly strong disagreements with Liberals and Progressives. I can argue all day long against the weaknesses of Keynesian economics. But at the same time I can also understand and respect their viewpoint and I don't think these are evil and desperate people out to destroy the world as I know it. They are simply in disagreement with me as to what is the best way to build a government and an economy.

Conclusion

The plot of the book is decent although it is broken up too much by stilted dialogue while Glenn makes his political points. To his credit, Beck must have known he would get beat up over the conspiratorial nature of this book and yet he went down that road. Perhaps he had a higher goal in mind but at least it made for a better plot!

The Pursuit of God - A W Tozer

Matt — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:51:01 GMT

ISBN: 1600660541

A W Tozer is an interesting person and I would encourage anyone picking up this book to do a little research on the man before reading. In The Pursuit of God Tozer explores what it means to build a personal and meaningful relationship with God. With flowing prose he explores not just what it means to have this relationship but why we should have it and how we can get there. In just a hundred pages he covers more ground than you might expect.

Premise

The premise of the book is found in the Preface. Here Tozer says:

"There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals oft he faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives."

There are a great number of Christians content to go through the motions of religion and call that a "Christian Life" but Tozer would have none of that. Instead he points out the arrogance of such a position and calls on Christians and Christian leaders alike to revisit their notion of what it means to have a relationship with God.

Pursuing Even After the Catch

One of the great paradoxes of the Christian life is why anyone would want to try to live the Christian life in the first place. After all, if God has already saved me, what is the point of trying to live a good Christian life? The Apostle Paul addressed this question this way, "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"

Some Christians answer this with Lordship salvation (or those who are honest just call it works salvation) and say that until you make Jesus your Lord, you really aren't saved. Thus the pursuit of making Him your Lord is a lifetime goal.

For those of us who take Scripture literally, we find that salvation is by grace through faith alone. Therefore some Christians believe that a lifestyle of licensiousness is called for since there is nothing left after Grace.

Tozer addresses the problem this way: "To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily- satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart."

In other words, once you have found God, there is still pursuit. It is not to "have" God that you pursue Him, or even that He should have you. Rather it is that you should experience God.

Regarding Christian leaders, Tozer puts it this way: "Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy Presence, is a privilege open to every child of God."

Selflessness

A common theme throughout the book is the notion of letting go of self. Tozer seemed to believe that the greatess issue facing the whole of Christianity was selfishness.

In his chapter on possessing nothing, Tozer points out an interesting phenomenon with Abraham. He says that after Abraham proved himself willing to give up his son, he still had all of his earthly goods and he even still had his son. The difference after the experience was that he no longer possessed those things. In other words God still allowed him to have the use of all the things in his life but he longer cared for them as he had before.

Tozer surmises that until a Christian comes to the point of possessing nothing, the Christian life is all but useless to him or her.

In the chapter on meekness, Tozer delineates the burdens of pride, artificiality and pretense. These burdens cause a great number of other problems in our lives and in letting go of them and resting in God's promise of an easy and light burden, we can take advantage of His meekness.

Conclusion

There were a great number of stirring phrases, statements and paragraphs in this book. So much so that I ordered a hard cover copy of the book immediately after finishing the audio recording I was listening to. I recommend this book to any Christian seeking a better understanding of the Christian life.

Non Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny - Robert Wright

Matt — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:26:00 GMT

Copyright: 2000

Publisher: Pantheon Books

ISBN: 0679442529

I came across this book in a reference to former President Clinton. Apparently towards the end of his time in office this book came to his attention and upon reading it he began urging those around him to read the book. Robert Wright asserts that all of human history can be understood in terms of game theory. He builds on two very high level concepts from game theory: zero sum and non-zero sum games. His primary assertion is that throughout history, human interaction has by nature become more and more complex and the advances we have made as humans come from non-zero sum interactions. Zero sum interactions tend to be regressive and therefore humanity has tended towards the non-zero sum kinds. The first 200 pages of this book are a fascinating and whirl-wind tour of the history of humanity in light of these two types of interactions.

What the difference?

In a nutshell (and with due apologies to von Neumann et al.) zero sum games are ones in which one person loses if the other wins. For instance if you and I make a bet on the over and under of the Michigan vs. Ohio State game next year (yes... I am still a Michigan fan even in the lean years!) one of us must lose if the other wins.

In a non-zero sum game it is possible for both of us to win or for both of us to lose. The most famous of these is the classic Prisoner's Dilemma. Essentially it's a contived situation in which cooperation between two individuals results in a better final sum than if either of the players acts strictly in his or her own interest.

Game theorists and behavioral economists use non-zero sum games to explain some seemingly irrational behavior in human interactions. Robert Wright uses them to explain how groups of people in various societies throughout history have been able to advance relatively quickly by using cooperation and engaging in non-zero sum activities.

Random Notes and Thoughts

A particularly poignant quote that supports the notion of cooperation among people is "The best place for an Eskimo to store his surplus is in someone else's stomach." The idea of course is that if I try to save all of my surplus it will likely spoil. If I feed my fellow Eskimo, the next time I have a run of bad luck and his is good, he will remember and reciprocate. This is a classic example where seemingly altruistic behavior actually has its roots in self preservation.

"If two societies are in contact for a length of time, they will either trade or fight."

"If you add literacy to Attila the Hun, you don't get Plato, you get Genghis Khan."

Studying Chinese history shows that the Chi'n laws of standardization led to great increases in productivity. They even standardized on the width of a wagon's wheels so that all the ruts in the kingdom would be the same width to ease travel. This has shades of the economic impact of Herbert Hoover's efforts to standardize American industry as Commerce Secretary under President's Harding and Coolidge.

"Algorithm"'s etymology points to an Islamic mathematician in the 9th Century named Al-Khwārizmī.

A "one world government" is seen by Wright as an inevitability given that in 1500 B.C. there were some 600,000 political entities. Currently there are somewhere less than 200 in the world. As humans become more interconnected and information flows freer, there becomes less need for sovereign, localized government. Interesting concept!

Robert Wright returns over and over to the trend of human history to improve both the transport and the processing of:

Matter
Energy
Information

While we live in the "information age" it is clear throughout history that trading in information has been the largest and most profitable non-zero sum game.

Conclusion

The historical perspective of this book makes for a fascinating read. In Parts 2 and 3 of the book, Wright lost my attention as he dove into the realms of molecular biology and philosophy and religion. I enjoyed the read but I wasn't as impressed as President Clinton apparently was. All in all though it was a good read and I would recommend it to anyone who is a history buff and wants a new perspective on some old topics.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us - Daniel Pink

Matt — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 23:26:09 GMT

Copyright: 2009

Publisher: Riverhead Books

ISBN: 9781594488849

Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is a timely, practical and fairly well researched work that delves into the practical application of intrinsic motivation. Sprinkled with pop-culture references (TPS reports and Facebook) alongside the results of personal interviews with some well-known names (Deci and Csikszentmihalyi) the book is a quick and interesting read that pulls together a number of disparate ideas. I took a lot of notes in my read and this is just a sprinkling of what I wrote.

Compare and Contrast

The entire premise of the book is to compare and contrast what Pink terms Motivation 2.0 and Motivation 3.0. Motivation 1.0 of course is primal urges: thirst, hunger etc. Motivation 2.0 is what has governed social interactions for centuries: reward and punishment. Motivation 3.0 is the less discussed intrinsic motivation.

Behavioralism (the proper term for reward and punishment motivation) has held sway in Business circles for many years. Frederick Winslow's time motion studies and B.F. Skinner's writings encouraged managers to structure the work environment as a place of reward and punishment.

Pink explores the idea that there are two basic types of work: Algorithmic and Heuristic. Algorithmic work is well-defined, step-by-step to accomplish a goal. Heuristic work on the other hand requires a person to use creative thinking to accomplish a task. As the U.S. economy grows more and more technical and we export more and more of our step-by-step jobs, the nature of work in America has changed from algorithmic to heuristic on the order of 30% to 70% respectively.

The author points out that historically, behavioralism works well in algorithmic environments. When the goal is clear and there are no obstacles, you can encourage workers to run faster and reach the goal quicker with rewards.

Heuristic work on the other hand responds poorly to reward. Workers tend to focus more on the reward and less on the solution. Focus on the task leads to a lack of creativity by reducing the time spent looking for alternative solutions. The narrowing effect can be seen in both the breadth (alternative) and depth (long term) of the thinking. There are numerous studies that indicate this is factual rather than speculative.

When a job requires creativity, be it writing an ad campaign, writing software or finding a new way to parse financial numbers, contingent rewards can backfire and actually crippled productivity. Counterintuitively goals that are improperly set can encourage workers to take shortcuts in order to receive a reward.

7 Reasons Carrots and Sticks Don't Work

They can extinquish intrinsic motivation
They can diminish performance
They can crush creativity
They can crowd out good behavior
They can encourage cheating, short cuts and unethical behavior
They can become addictive
They can foster short-term thinking

Rewards that Can work

Extrinsic rewards can work well but generally only when tasks are routine. In these cases it's best to acknowledge that the task is boring, explain why it is necessary and allow the workers some latitude in how to accomplish the task.

Even so, rewards are often best if used as "now that we are done here's what you get" rather than "if you get this done, here is what you will get." This allows the workers to maintain focus on the task at hand. These types of rewards should be accompanied by specific feedback on exactly what you liked about the accomplished task.

Self Determination Theory

Deci and Ryan came up with a theory of motivation called the self determination theory. They identified three basic needs that humans have: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Pink uses these three needs as a framework for the bulk of his book in which he explores three themes: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose

Autonomy

Several times the concept of a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) came up in the book. This concept grew out of some managers at Best Buy who reorganized the corporate offices to focus less on putting your time and more on getting things done. This focus allowed greater flexibility in how things were done but of course required management to give up some control. The payoff was quite large and has been in several cases where ROWE's have been implemented.

Empowerment and flex-time are sometimes pointed to by managers as instances of autonomy. The reality though is that these concepts really only pay lip service to true autonomy. To truly engage workers with autonomy, managers need to focus on four areas: Task, Time, Technique and Team. Allowing employees autonomy in all of these areas will go a long ways towards unleashing intrinsic motivation in the work place.

Mastery

Mastery is a mindset
Mastery is a pain
Mastery is an asymptote (you will never reach it though you can approach it)

An interesting discussion that Pink explored in this section dealt with two different types of goals you can set for yourself. Performance goals have a clear defined measurement that indicates the goal was reached. Learning goals on the other hand are about improvement rather than reaching a specified level.

Taken in the context of school, a performance goal oriented student needs to prove they are smart by passing a particular exam. A learning goal oriented student on the other hand will walk away from a test with a better understanding of where to go next in their learning.

An interesting side effect of these two viewpoints is a persons view of effort. If you are performance goal oriented you tend to regard effort as an indication that you aren't very good at what you are doing. Learning goal oriented people view hard work as simply a way to get better at what they do.

Purpose

Many of my conservative friends have a view of economics that holds dearly to the proposition that wealth maximization is the most efficient way to utilize our resources. Thus profit maximization is the best (indeed only) acceptable goal for business endeavors.

Pink quotes Gary Hamel as saying "... wealth maximization lacks the power to fully mobilize human energies." When taken in the context of intrinsic motivation and the power of people engaged in volunteer work, I tend to agree with Hamel.

I am not sure where purpose maximization fits in my view of economics but it is certainly a direction of thought I am going to pursue in my studies.

Conclusion

Very interesting and light read. If you are interested in intrinsic motivation and want a good survey of the ideas and concepts that are out there, this book would be a great place to start.

A Geography of Time - Robert Levine

Matt — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:31:39 GMT

Copyright: 1997

Publisher: Basic Books

ISBN: 0465026427

A Geography of Time: The temporal misadventures of a social psychology is a delightful and fascinating read by Robert Levine. Levine, a professor of social psychology, takes the reader around the world examining how various cultures and people's tell, interpret and use their time. In one of the chapters he takes a short diversion from the trip to examine a brief history of time and the telling of time. When I picked up this book I wasn't sure what to think of it but I am very glad I took the time to give it a read.

Social Time

Different people in different cultures view time differently. We have all heard the stories about Latin American countries where "time seems to stop" and the "manana" culture of Mexico or Brazil. Levine explains that this is not just because there is nothing to do in these countries... it is because they view time quite differently than we do here in America.

When looking at the pace of life there are a number of facets to time:

Tempo - Pace of life
Rhythm - Work, Play, Sleep ....
Sequences - Work before play? Play before work?
Synchonies - How attuned are your activities to others?

When viewing these facets across countries and regions, a number of factors come into play:

Industrialization
Climate
Population
Cultural values

Levine started out to explore whether or not the stereotypical beliefs about different cultures and regions were indeed true. His extensive research proved that indeed, the stereotypes were fairly accurate. Rather than detail what we already know however, Levine explores some of what we might not know about these stereotypes and how we can use our temporal knowledge to our advantage.

RULES OF TIME

Time is money (in most cultures!)
Law of supply and demand regulate the length of lines for waiting
We value what we have to wait for
Status dictates who waits for whom
The longer the people will wait for you, the greater your status
Money can buy you a place at the front
The more powerful person controls who waits
Waiting can be an effective means of control (patience!)
Time can be given as a gift

When dealing with someone from another culture, it is very easy to be ethnocentric and view their perspective on time as wrong or bad. When I shared some things from this book with an acquaintance recently she exclaimed "well no wonder those people in those poor countries are so poor... they don't value time like we do!" While there is some truth to that, there is also some truth to the fact that we value our time more precisely because we are indeed rich. Correlation and causation are not always easy to see!

Psychological Clock

Understanding an entire society and how they view time is interesting but our view of time can change on a very personal level as well. Duration is essentially our perception of time. How long does it seem to take to do something? Ever had a Monday just drag by very slowly? Ever had a weekend fly by in a flash? That is duration in a nutshell.

Some factors of duration are:

Pleasantness of the experience
Urgency of the task
How much physical activity is taking place
Variety
Creative involvement (time-free or flow tasks)

History of Clock Time

The third chapter of Levine's book covers a history of time keeping with a particular focus on America. Some interesting factoids I gleaned were:

The railroads were the ones pushing for 4 times zones in America. With close to 8,000 different times zones across the country, it was difficult to schedule trains!
Cincinnati refused for a long time to acknowledge the new railroad times zones. They printed the railroad schedules with a notice at the top stating "This is Cincinnati Time. 22 minutes faster than railroad time."!
Time was marketed... or more accurately, the telling of time was heavily marketed by those selling watches and time clocks.
It wasn't really all that long ago that 'telling time" was a matter of looking at the clock or seeing what part of the pasture the cows were in.

There is a lot more intersting material in this chapter and I would encourage anyone who likes this sort of thing to pick up the book, even if it's only to read this chapter!

Random Thoughts

An interesting perspective on the Japanese culture is that there is very little difference between "work time" and "family time". Their culture of collectivism rewards them for collective effort rather than individual effort so their view of time takes that into account. There is no such thing as "my time" or "company titme".

Another interesting note was the concept that poverty is consistent with "present-mindedness". People in extreme poverty don't plan for or take into consideration the future. In fact one of the toughest transitions for children from these homes going to school is moving to an environment where time is a factor. Imagine a child who has never had a structured life at home who shows up at school to color a paper and has it taken away before they are done because it is 10 o'clock and time for juice. Then they get in trouble for getting up to look at the gerbil because it's not time for that now. Many of the problems faced by inner-city children are caused by a basic lack of understanding of time.

Clock Time vs. Event Time

In America everything happens on clock time. We depend on the clock to tell us when to do certain things. In some cultures however they depend on event time. Events are the important thing... not the clock.

This has interesting side effects. For instance, a study showed that overweight people tend to eat "because it's time to eat" whereas average weight people tend to eat "because they are hungry". In this case, clearly allowing the event (hunger) to drive things is better than allowing the clock to do so.

Another thought experiment is this. What if a professor has an appointment at 11:30 with a 4.0 student to check in on grades. At 11:20 a student steps in that has been struggling for months to generate ideas for a doctoral thesis... and they have just stumbled on one. Do you make the 4.0 student wait while you take time for the troubled student? Or do you push the troubled student out the door because "it's time to take my next appointment"? What is more valuable... sticking to the clock or helping your students reach their full potential?

Lessons for Travel

When visiting a different culture, here are some tips of understanding the temporal shift that is likely to happen:

Learn to translate appointment times to local time
Understand the line between social and work time
Learn the local rules of the waiting game
Learn to reinterpret "doing nothing"
Ask about accepted sequences
Are you operating on clock time or event time?

Conclusion

Hands down the most enjoyable and interesting book I have read in some time. I loved this book and strongly recommend it to anyone, even if it's just for the chapter on the history of time keeping!

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology - Ayn Rand

Matt — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:43:34 GMT

Copyright: 1967

Publisher: Meridian

ISBN: 0452010306

The Tea Party craze lately has been bringing Libertarian politics to the forefront and at the same time Objectivist philosophy has been bubbling up here and there across our national conscious. I have a number of acquaintances and colleagues who consider themselves followers of objectivist thinking and they have encouraged me (it didn't take much) to learn more about the topic. Accordingly I borrowed a copy of Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology and happened to get a copy of the expanded second edition with Leonard Peikoff's essay The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy. While I am not a big fan of philosophy, it always intrigues me when I dive into the field and this was no exception.

Formation of knowledge

Recently my 7th grade daughter remarked to me "You can't really tell someone what 'red' is without either using the word 'red' or pointing to something that is red!" Her question came on the heels of my reading of Rand's book and it made me think of some of the questions that Ayn Rand tries to answer. How did we all decide that "red is red"? Why did we decide that a table is a table... but a desk is something different although very much the same? How do we know if something is true or false?

These are fascinating topics to me. In my work with human-computer interaction, information theory is full of similar problems with regard to perspective in communication.

Ayn Rand starts at the very beginning: "Existence Exists" is her foundational premise and from there she systematically builds a theory of knowledge that is based on the fact that you can objectively identify and quantify everything. If you have never read any philosophy (and who could blame you!?) this might seem to be quite obvious. If you have read philosophy (and realized just how odd these philosophy guys usually are) the question of "how can we know what we know?" is a legitimate question. Rand soundly rejects Kant and a whole slew of other philosophers in her own inimitable style.

Notes

Rather than pretend that I am an Objectivist or even pretend that I fully understand Objectivism, I am going to simply write out some notes I wrote down and my thoughts about them. If you are an Objectivist, don't be offended if I get something wrong. If you are looking to learn something about Objectivism, then by all means you are in the wrong place!

Formations of wider concepts requires more knowledge than just the base concept. You must also understand the concepts that the wider concept will be subsuming. You can't just understand one or a few of these smaller concepts but rather all of them.
- Interestingly a number of Objectivists that I know cling tightly to Capitalism and Free Markets but they have little to no understanding of any other systems of economics. (I am still a Monetarist though I have read and understand Keynes)
"The truth or falsehood of all of man's conclusions, inferences, thought and knowledge rests on the truth or falsehood of his definitions."
- "A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept."
Counting is a way to reduce the number of concepts we must keep in mind.
- Rand would have definitely benefited from some of the recent discoveries and research in the field of cognition. How we chunk information down in order to maintain our various levels of memory would have been definitely interesting in light of her theories.
The two primary questions Rand seems to be answering are: "What do I know?" and "How do I know it?"

Ayn Rand seems to envision herself in a grand battle to save "reason". I often wondered as I read if this was from her background growing up in socialism or if it was a result of her being a female in the "man's worlse" of philosophy?

She states at one point that "philosophers... serve as the guardians and integrators of human knowledge." I have never held philosophers in such high regard! Perhaps because I am not one?

Peikoff's essay was particularly interesting although I found it far less convincing. At one point he argues against the opposition's position and in a lengthy parenthetical explains that the terminology they use (their "mode of speech") is unjustified so he will use his own terminology to explain their position. I found this hard to justify in light of Rand's assertion that "words convey meaning". You can't just change what the other person says and argue against the new terminology. That's a classic straw-man in my opinion and caused me to take everything Peikoff said afterwards with a large grain of salt.

I probably completely missed his point but at one point Peikoff asserts "In a serious epistemological sense of the word, a man cannot conceive the opposite of a proposition he knows to be true (as apart from propositions dealing with man-made facts)." "Only ignorance or evasion can enable a man to attempt to project such an alternative." What does this do for counterfactual thinking or "what-if" creativity?

Conclusion

This book is an excellent introduction into the thinking behind Objectivism. Reading the book made me wonder though if most of the Objectivists that I have come in contact with have ever seriously considered any other philosophy? I am not one to subscribe to a particular thread of philosophy... I don't think I am smart enough to play with Kant, Aristotle and the likes. Many objectivists on the other hand seem to fancy themselves quite intelligent and smarter than the average person. It seems that "thinking about things that other people don't think about" must make you smarter than them. Perhaps... but then my grandfather is smarter than most everyone put together because he knows more ways to keep a groundhog out of a garden than anyone I have ever met! Specialized knowledges does not equal intelligence in my opinion and this goes for philosophy as well as gardening. My grandpa is really a smart guy... smart enough to tell you that he doesn't think he is very smart!

The City in Roman Palestine - Daniel Sperber

Matt — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:47:18 GMT

Copyright: 1998

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 019509882X

This book might seem out of character for my reading list, however history is a hobby of mine. This particular period of history fascinates me as I grew up with church and Christianity as a large part of my life. Understanding the day to day life during this time period in history makes the life of Christ more realistic. In The City in Roman Palestine, Daniel Sperber does an excellent job of using both archeology and the historical record of Jewish historians of the time to paint a very detailed and incredibly well-researched picture of the daily life in the cities of Palestine.

Notes

Markets

Sperber describes the market place in detail. He explains how the various layouts worked and the significance of the placement of the merchants. Some markets were open markets with the merchants arrayed around an open space. Others were street markets where each side of a long street had places for merchants.

He points out that the 2nd floor of most buildings was used for storage because of the difficulties of carrying water to the second level. For this reason, many fires started in these storage areas. With our modern plumbing we don't even think twice about living on the second floor!

There were statues in many of the markets and the rabbis debated whether it was OK to walk by these statues. They feared that some might see them near the statue and think they were worshipping an idol. As a compromise they agreed that it was OK to walk by but they must avert their eyes while doing so.

Bath Houses

The discussion bath houses was fascinating! Apparently the bath houses had a series of pools with cold, tepid and hot water. The process of bathing in each in the correct order, along with the proper application of oils and fragrances would allow for the removal of the dirt and grime accumulated in everyday life but would also replenish the oils that were lost in the dry climate.

Bath houses were apparently dangerous places at times. Newly constructed ones were warned against by rabbis as the floors might cave in and drop the unsuspecting bather into the hot fires below. Apparently the entire place was built over passageways where fires were stoked to heat the floors along with the water in the baths.

In addition, bathers were not allowed to bring their own oils for fear of dropping the containers. The combination of water, oil, steam and marble floors along with the naked bathers was not a good place to have broken shards floating around.

Streets

The streets in towns were narrow and quite often not straight. While our towns today benefit from surveyors and urban planning, ancient Palestine had no such luck. The streets were so narrow in fact that often the second floor balconys would reach out almost touching each other across the street.

In areas away from the markets where second floor spaces were not used for storage, the rabbis had lengthy discussions about passing objects from one balcony to the next on the Sabbath. Moving objects around in the public domain was prohibited by the Sabbath law but the rabbis decided that passing things across from balcony to the next didn't constitute a violation.

Conclusion

If you like watching the History Channel like I do, this book is probably right up your alley. It is chock full of interesting tidbits that reveal what life was like several thousand years ago, around the time of the stories we heard in Sunday School growing up!

Emotional Design - Don Norman

Matt — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:19:11 GMT

Copyright: 2005

Publisher: Basic Books

ISBN: 0465051367

Don Norman has a fascinating way of looking at the world. As with many of the thought leaders in design much of his work is academic in nature. One of the frustrations of my research in human computer interaction is finding work that is pragmatic. While Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things has a tremendous amount of valuable information, after reading it one wonders what practical purpose might be served. I suppose that makes sound like I am not smart enough to understand these guys but that's perfectly fine with me. I like having my thinking challenged, I just wish Don Norman was writing about stuff that he personally had designed and was explaining why his products were vast commercial successes. Regardless, his book made me think which makes it an excellent read in my opinion!

Thoughts and Notes

Again, here is just a dump of my notebook.

Three components of design
- Visceral (Appearance)
- Behavioral (Pleasure and effectiveness)
- Reflective (Rationalization and intellectualization)
Anxiety causes us to narrow our focus; "feeling good" causes us to open our minds to creative and alternative solutions.
The correct response to failure with computers is to try an alternate solution (yet many users don't)
Cognitive assigns Meaning; Affective assigns Value
User Experience is made up of:
- Function (What it does)
- Peformance (How well it does it)
- Usability (How easy it is to do it)

Quotes

"Engineers and designers who believe they do not need to watch the people who use their products are a major source of the many poor designs that confront us."

"Great products are visions of one person. Profitable products are iterative and user centered."

Conclusion

As always, Don Norman's work is thought provoking. The latter half of his book deals with some interesting material with regard to intelligence and robots. If you are interested in designing robots you should definitely read this book, particularly the last half.

The Humane Interface - Jef Raskin

Matt — Sun, 30 May 2010 02:01:54 GMT

Copyright: 2000

Publisher: Addison - Wesley

ISBN: 0201379376

Jef Raskin was an early influence at Apple and he is given credit for a number of things that came out of Apple during the early 1980's. His book The Humane Interface was his treatise on how human computer interaction should work. His ideas have gained traction in the thinking of many in the field today, however none of the products he designed after leaving Apple ever became commercial successes.

Concepts

The following is simply a brain dump of the notes I took while reading the book.

"Where most of the users' time will be spent in routine operation of the product and where learning is only a small part of the picture, designing for productivity - even if that requires retraining - is often the correct decision."
Interface Laws
1. A computer shall not harm your work or through inaction allow your work to come to harm
2. A computer shall not waste your time or require you to do more work than is strictly necessary
Three Types of Memory
- Out of conscious (the locus)
- Short term memory
- Long term memory
Any confirmation step that elicits a fixed response soon becomes useless because of habit
You should allow users to take advantage of habits in order to smooth the flow of work
Absorption: People should not become so absorbed in using a computer that they forget their task.
Context switching is only slow if it is not habitual
- Branched thinking allows us to switch context fairly quickly
Toggle buttons are problems because they both indicate and change state
"Double Dysclicksia" Users were observed having issues with double clicking. (Really? I have never personally seen this)
Whenever you find yourself writing an error message, stop and design out the error condition if at all possible.
Sign-ons should be simplified. Why do we need a username and a password both? (indeed..why?)
When a customer (or user) makes a suggestion don't take it as an attack.

Conclusion

Raskin's work is thought-provoking but much of it is academic rather than practical. He often argues that "[some design] leads to errors" and yet copious amounts of research details the level to which our brains are error prone. It is entirely possible that even the best design possible will still "lead to errors" because that is how our brains work. Sometimes trial and error might well be the best design for an interface!

Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson

Matt — Sun, 30 May 2010 01:36:13 GMT

Copyright: 2007

Publisher: Penguin Books

ISBN: 0143038257

I intended to read this book before going to hear Greg Mortenson speak at my alma mater but I was glad that I heard him before I read the book. Hearing this man speak of his vision for the mountain people in Pakistan and Afghanistan gave me a different perspective in reading the book. I expected a heart-warming tale of humanitarian good deeds, but I wasn't expecting to come away with a new way of looking at the conflict in the middle east. Indeed at the end of reading Greg Mortenson's tale of building schools my heart was warmed and my intellect was informed.

This post is simply going to serve as a place holder. I cannot adequately convey what you would gain from reading Three Cups of Tea. I can't guarantee that you will agree with everything that Mortenson says but I guarantee that reading the book will make you think. Read it!

Looking for Spinoza - Antonio Damasio

Matt — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:32:11 GMT

Copyright: 2003

Publisher: Harcourt

ISBN: 0-15-100557-5

Recently I read an article from the Journal of Information Architecture by Brigitte Kaltenbacher regarding the role of emotions in Human Computer Interaction research. She referenced Damasio's book, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorry and the Feeling Brain and the idea intrigued me. Kaltenbacher's premise is that the human decision making process is highly influenced by emotion and therefore emotions and feelings cannot be ignored by the interaction designer. Antonio Damasio explores the connection between emotions and cognitive processes from a number of angles. He explores the physiology of emotion and feelings, the sociological ramifications of emotions and feelings and the philosophy of emotions and feelings. It is the last of these perspectives that gives rise to the book's title for it is the philosophy of Spinoza that Damasio relies on for this exploration.

Emotions and Feelings

Most of us use these terms interchangeably yet Damasio is insistent that they are fundamentally different. He explains that emotions are actions or movements that are visible to others, they play out in the theater of the body. Feelings on the other hand are hidden and unseen by others, they play out in the theater of the mind.

In driving home this distinction, Damasio delves quite deep into the physiology of exactly how emotions are useful to and used by the body. By deconstructing the human body's reaction to various stimuli, he creates a roots up view of the body. At the bottom level of course we have metabolic regulation, basic reflexes and immune responses. These are reactions to stimuli that we not only don't control but rarely even pay attention to.

The next level up is pain and pleasure along with behaviors. These are typically reponses to large aggregates of stimuli at the lower levels. For instance, if your immune responses are operating full-tilt at the cellular level, you are likely to experience a whole body feeling of pain or discomfort.

Next up in the tree comes drives and motivations. Here we find hunger, thirst, curiosity etc. These are not just behaviors but behavioral states of the entire organism. As the lower stimuli of metabolic regulation reports lowering levels of glucose, the next level will report the discomfort. This discomfort will become the motivation of hunger that will drive the organism as a whole towards behaviors consistent with self-preservation.

Finally we come to the level of emotions. Joy, sorrow, fear, pride and sympathy live here. These are overall states of the body that encompass all the lower levels. Damasio maintains that emotions at this level however are still a physical state and are only mental in that they affect the brain in a physical fashion.

Only after emotions have come into play do we have feelings. Feelings are a state of mind. Damasio spends quite a bit of time in his book exploring the philosophical side of such questions as "can the mind exist without the brain and can the brain exist without the mind?" From a practical standpoint however it is important to note that feelings are a mental state whereas emotions are a physical state.

A quick example that might help explain Damasio's distinction between feelings and emotions is the difference between an appetite and a desire. He points out (as does Spinoza in a much earlier work) that appetite describes a "behavioral state of an organism engaged by a particular drive." Desire on the other hand is the "conscious feeling of having an appetite and the eventual consummation or thwarting of the appetite."

Three Types of Emotions

Damasio explores three different types of emotions:

Background emotions: i.e. "I feel good today!"
Primary emotions: i.e. anger and fear
Social emotions: i.e. compassion and sympathy

In chapter 4 of the book, Damasio explores the role of social emotions in helping humans create and embrace cooperative strategies for surviving and thriving. The chapter is somewhat tedious for someone like me, primarily interested in the cognitive behavior of the individual, however anyone interested in sociological phenomena should definitely enjoy this chapter!

The Two Paths

At the heart of the book lies the interaction between emotions and decision making. While at times Damasio tends to get in way over my head with the biology of the brain, he does a phenomenal job of explaining this interaction.

"Normal decision-making uses two complementary paths. Confronted with a situation that requires a response, path A prompts images related to the situation, the options for action, and the anticipation of future outcomes. Reasoning strategies can operate on that knowledge to produce a decision. Path B operates in parallel and prompts activation of prior emotional experiences in comparable situations. In turn, the recall of the emotionally related material, be it covert or overt, influences the decision-making process by forcing attention on the representation of future outcomes or interfering with reasoning strategies. On occassion, path B can lead to a decision directly, as when a gut feeling impels an immediate response. The degree to which each path is used alone or in combination depends on a person's individual development, the nature of the situation, and the circumstances."

Some very intriguing material acccompanies this section of the book as Damasio details the experiences of patients who have had the emotional context (Path B) removed due to some level of brain damage. These people are fully capable of reasoning out a good decision in a laboratory session however when faced with the same decision in real-life they are often incapable of finding a good solution. The usefulness of the emotions in decision making, particularly in day-to-day life should not be underestimated.

Quote of the Book

"Happiness is the power to be free of the tyranny of negative emotions. Happines is not a reward for virtue: it is virtue itself."

Conclusion

This book served the purpose of expanding my understanding of the role of emotions in decision making. My curiosity has been aroused and I will likely continue to look for useful information in this field, particularly as it relates to human computer interaction. Beyond that, the book would be a good read for anyone with a general interest in psychology, particularly if you have a bent for philosophy. A great portion of the book deals with the philosophy of Spinoza, a fascinating character in and of himself.

Decision Making Using Game Theory - Anthony Kelly

Matt — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:38:03 GMT

Copyright: 2003

Publisher: Cambridge

ISBN: 0-521-81462-6

Game Theory fascinates me even though I am not nearly a good enough mathematician to claim to be any good at the subject. Even so when I saw this book, Decision Making Using Game Theory, by Anthony Kelly, I decided to dive in and enjoy! While it is a bit technical at times, for the most part Dr. Kelly keeps the topic on a very practical level with all of his examples pulled from the business world. Even though the examples are simplified, they are not contrived. This is a great book for anyone with even a cursory understanding of game theory who wants to apply their knowledge to the business world.

Definitions

Kelly uses very clear terminology and explains what each term means in context. Here are a few definitions that helped me understand game theory better.

Perfect / Imperfect information. Describes the knowledge of the other players moves. If you have incomplete information you don't know what moves the other player has made.
Complete / Incomplete information. Describes the knowledge of probabilities and payoffs in outcomes.
Games of Chance with Risk: You know the probabilities and associated payoffs.
Games of Chance with Uncertainty: You don't know what the probabilities or payoffs are.
Utility value: Relationship between your preference for an outcome and a lottery of alternative outcomes.
Maximax: Choose the greatest payoff
Maximin: Avoid the worst possible payoff
Minimax: Avoid the strategy of greatest regret. (What is the difference between a given choice and the greatest payoff)
- Find the Minimax by looking for the minimum row & the maximum column

Random Musings

I won't attempt to give a comprehensive overview of everything covered in this book. The book itself is fairly short and a quick read. These are just some thoughts that jumped out at me as I read.

Bernoulli thought that the relationship between money and utility was probably logarithmic rather than linear.
Von Neumann - Morgensten point out that players will always try to maximize their utility value rather than their expected value
John Kenneth Galbraith - "A wrong decision isn't forever, it can always be reversed. But the losses from a delayed decision can never be retrieved." (A Life in Our Times)
Minimal social situations are covered by a "win-stay, lose-change" strategy.
- I want to explore the possibility that UI design is a minimal social situations game.
Mixed Nash lead to cooperation with regard to information, which is the opposite of zero sum games.
Exploitation games can explain why terrorism is a "rational" choice. (Rational is distinct from moral here)
In Duopoly models, Nash equilibriums aren't usually pareto efficient.

What is Rationality?

In the final section of the book, Kelly covers a number of criticisms of Game Theory. One such criticism surrounds the differing definitions of rational behavior. As mentioned in the previous section, terrorism can be considered rational if not moral. Kant might argue otherwise!

Instrumental rationality: All humans act in their own self interest
Kantian: If not all players can select a strategy, it is irrational. (Unselfishness)
Bounded: We have limited computational resources so we use simple rules to govern rational behavior

Conclusion

This book is thought provoking at times but mostly it is an intensely practical application of game theory to business management and leadership. I would recommend this book for any business manager who wants a better understanding of how to quantify decision making.

Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty - Ram Charan

Matt — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:24:22 GMT

Copyright: 2009

Publisher: McGraw Hill

ISBN: 978-0-07-162616-3

Ram Charan is an interesting character that intrigues me with his view of strategic management. I will confess that much of what I read in this realm is way above my head in terms of usefulness. I simply read his work as sort of a guilty pleasure because strategic management is fascinating to me. In Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty, Ram talks specifically about what companies need to do in light of the recent turmoil in the world's capital markets. The book dates itself but is a great primer on how to manage in crisis mode.

Leaderhip Traits

Ram lists six essential leadership traits for managing in times of crisis. I found these interesting because they aren't necessarily what you would list as essential traits in general, although they aren't a bad starting point.

Honesty and Credibility
Ability to Inspire
Real time connection with reality
Realism tempered with optimism
Managing with intensity
Boldness in building for the future

Numbers 1 and 2 seem pretty standard fare for leadership traits as does number 6. In the book Ram points out some specific details about these traits that explain why he finds them essential for this time of turmoil and change.

Random Thoughts

In normal times, sales focuses on helping customers cut costs. In these times, sales needs to focus on helping customers gain market share, improve margins and help with general customer satisfaction
It doesn't cost anything to brain storm with people in side your company
Operational goals in a downturn
- Lower operating costs
- Efficient use of resources
- Lower working capital
- Conservation of cash

Conclusion

As I mentioned, my primary motivation for reading this book was pleasure. I wrote down a few nuggets that I gained as I read but many of the notes I took were actually for emails that I wanted to share with my co-workers immediately. That is a sign of an immensely practical book which exactly describes this book.

Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

Matt — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:15:57 GMT

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN: 0789723107

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability is the result of Steve Krug sharing his expertise in a very controversial field. If you count up all the web designers in the world, that number would come close to the number of opinions on the One Right Way to design a web site. Krug addresses how to resolve these "religious debates" as well as how to take a common sense approach to web usability. He also details a great way to do some usability testing which he insists is an absolute must if you are going to design a great site.

Question Marks

Krug asks us to imagine a user perusing our site for the first time. Imagine thought clouds or bubbles popping up over the user's head as he or she pokes around the site. Those thought clouds could include things like "Ah, that button allows me to search" or "There is the main menu" or "If I wanted to see the privacy policy I could click there." These are good thought clouds but what if they thought clouds were "Where would I click if I wanted to see the purchase options?" or "I wonder if that button will search just this site of the entire internet?" In these cases, the thought clouds are bad because they end in question marks. Steve Krug wants us to design sites by eliminating the question marks from the users mind.

Some sources of question marks are:

Ambiguous or odd names
Is something clickable or not
Navigation issues

This principle can help us resolve one of the big issues in web design: How deep should my site be? We have all heard the idea that "nothing important should be more than [insert arbitrary number] of clicks away from the home page. In reality the number of clicks is far less important than the number of clicks with question marks. When you have to think for a second before clicking on a link, that click is far more costly than the one where you click without thinking.

One reason this idea is better than "X number of clicks away" is that a good number of your site users are not going to start on the home page anyway. Clear navigation from anywhere, to anywhere is more important than how quickly a user can find his or her way from the home page to some arbitrary location on your site.

How do Real People use the web?

A friend of mine often says "people are strange... I am glad I am not one of THEM". Often when doing web design we think about our users and try to imagine what they are like. Since you are reading this on a web page (and I am typing it on a web page) by definition you and I are one of those strange creatures called "web users".

So how do we use web sites? Do we carefully read every word on every page? Do we carefully analyze the clever iconography that the graphic designers slaved over for hours? Do we methodically visit each section of a web site in order: Introduction to Product, What can this product do for me, What is the best way to use this product, and finally Here's how to order? Or do we do something else? In reality here is how we use the web:

We don't read pages, we scan them
We satisfice- we don't weigh options but rather we take the first reasonable option offered to us
We don't figure out how things work, we muddle through

In other words, our audience uses our web site like a giant billboard. Taking in the really big important stuff and ignoring the rest and making a snap decision about the relevance of what we see. So Krug asks the question: If our users are going to use our website like a big billboard, what is a designer to do? The answer is simple: Build a really great billboard!

Here are some ideas to do just that:

Create a clear visual hierarchy on each page so things are easy to find
Take advantage of conventions
Break pages into clearly defined areas
Make it obvious what is clickable
Minimize the noise

Krug argues that much of the text on most websites is either Happy Talk or Instructions. The author has a rather brutal method for handling copy on web pages:

Get rid of half of the words on each page. Then get rid of half of what's left.
- This reduces noise
- Useful content becomes more prominent
- Pages are shorter

Pet Peeve

Let me get a pet peeve off my chest. At the top right of each page on this site is a disclaimer that these "book reviews" aren't so much book reviews as just my personal notes. I think it's important to be upfront with readers about exactly what the author is providing. So when Krug promises early in the book not to engage in site bashing but rather show us good examples of web sites, I believed him. That is until about 1/3 of the way into the book when it struck me that nearly every example he was giving was of something that he didn't like on a web page.

I personally think Krug has every right to criticize all kinds of web sites and designs, but he shouldn't do so after telling us that he isn't going to do that. OK.. end of pet peeve! :)

Navigating

Navigation on websites is a field unto itself. Any web designer will tell you that he or she agonizes over where to put the navigation and how to best convey navigation information as well as how to structure the site so navigation is as simple as possible. Why is navigation such a difficult issue? In a nutshell the internet is a medium that creates these unique circumstances:

No sense of scale (How big is a given site anyway?)
No sense of direction (Is this page left or right of the last one you were on?)
No sense of location (Where does this page site in the vast sea of web pages?)

Krug has an entire section devoted to navigation and it is highly recommended reading. One of the nuggets he gives us is the analogy of Page Names to Street Signs. It is important to know where you are at any given time, so give each page a name!

Random Thoughts

Trunk Test - If you were blind-folded, thrown in a trunk and let out on any random page of your site, how quickly could you find your way around?
Home page - Above all else, convey the big picture!
Don't ask for personal information until you have to.
The only answer for religious debates is user testing.

Testing

The last 20% of this book is devoted to the topic of usability testing for the web. Krug takes the approach that cheap testing is possible and far more useful than no testing. The only way to really know if your site is good is to do some usability testing. Usability testing however is different than focus group testing.

Focus groups - A group setting good for getting opinions and feelings about a product or site
Usability testing - Individuals that are observed doing tasks and gathering information on a site

Here is a list of things that Krug says he knows about testing:

Testing is an absolute must for a great site
Testing 1 user is 100% better than testing no users
Testing 1 user early on is better than testing 50 users late in the project
The importance of getting "representative users" is highly over-rated
The point of testing is not to prove anything but rather inform opinions
Testing is iterative
Nothing beats a live audience reaction

Conclusion

This is a great little book about web usability. I loved the common sense approach along with the distilled principles that Krug applies. Anyone doing web design would benefit from reading this book. I strongly recommend getting a copy and putting it into your library. (Incidentally, I read the copy that my boss had in his library but there is now a second edition out that you should probably get instead!)

Non-Designer's Design Book - Robin Williams

Matt — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:56:33 GMT

Publisher: PeachPit Press

ISBN: 0961392142

In The Non-Designer's Design Book, Robin Williams presents a succinct primer on how to get started doing good design. The thoughts laid out in the book are simple enough for someone with little formal training to compehend and yet sophisticated enough to launch a novice down the path of excellence.

Principles and Ideas

Williams presents her ideas with lots of clear examples. The book itself is a quick read and is a well-designed book for use as a quick reference or refresher down the road. Here I am going to bullet-point some of the useful things I learned from this reading.

Proximity: group related items together for the purpose of organization.
- Avoid too many elements
- Avoid putting things in the middle or the corners
- Avoid leaving equal space between all elements
- Avoid confusion of what the different elements (headers, titles etc) are supposed to be
- Avoid creating relationships in the design that don't exist in the information
Alignment: Find a strong line and use it
- The eyes like straight edges and borders
Repetition: Consistency is reinforced through repetition
- Avoid the overuse of repetition. It can easily become annoying
Contrast: If you use it USE it
Typography
- Concord: One face combined with similar variations (Good)
- Conflict: 2 or more slightly different faces (Bad)
- Contrast: 2 or more very different faces (Best)

Conclusion

I think the author was trying to be humorous in using phrases such as "don't attempt this without training" and "don't be a wimp!" but they come across at times as rather condescending. As someone who doesn't wear his feelings on his sleeves these phrases still jumped out at me as out of place for a book whose audience by definition admits they are not strong on design. The information in the book is quite useful, however I would caution that the author is interested in graphical design and layout issues... not information design. She uses multiple examples of how to lay out a business card with good layout principles but she never once asks (much less answers) the question "What is this business card supposed to do?" Without answering that question everything in the book becomes simply a tool in your tool box that should only be pulled out once you have defined the problem. This is an excellent book for beginners (like me!) and a quick read. I plan on getting the updated version of the book and putting it in my library.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte

Matt — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:46:03 GMT

Published: 2001 (original 1983)

Publisher: Graphics Press

ISBN: 0961392142

Edward Tufte lays out a very comprehensive study of how to effectively display information in a visual format. Charts and graphs are a huge part of today's corporate communication medium and yet they are often malformed and fail to convey information properly. This is a great book for laying down some principles that can apply across technologies and medium and help to formulate high quality information communication. Due to the nature of this book, my notes here will be a very brief summary of the principles in the book. I highly recommend reading this book if you are charged with visually displaying information!

Graphical Excellence

Graphical excellence consists of:

Well designed presentation of interesting data.
- Substance
- Statistics
- Design
Complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency
Give the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space
Nearly always multivariate displays
Tell the truth about the data

Graphical Integrity

Physical dimensions should be proportional to the numbers
Clear, detailed labels should explain
Show data variations and not design variations
Deflated & standard monetary measurements should be used
# of dimensions depicted should not be more than the data
Graphics should not quote data out of context

Data Graphics

Above all else show the data
Maximize the data-ink ratio
Erase "no-data" ink
Erase redundant data ink
Revise and edit incessantly

Chart Junk

Moire vibrations (hatching) is ugly
The grid should be muted (or non-existant)
The duck (architectural term for a duck shaped building)

General Principles

Small, non-comparative, highly labeled data sets usually belong in a table
Relational graphs are more sophisticated than time series or maps

Bad ideas?

As a general rule, Tufte's ideas are applicable to data design today. Some things stand out as bad ideas and some of the data is old but this is a great primer book on the topic. One bad idea he had was the idea of using range frames. Rather than extending the edges of charts from zero to some arbitrary number, Tufte argued for limited the frame to just the range of the data. This leaves the zero (lower left) corner of the chart unanchored. Some eye tracking studies I have read indicate the eye uses such anchors in order to expedite searching so while removing them might convey some extra little bit of information, they reduce the overall effectiveness of the chart.

Another thought he had was moving the boxes from the classic box plot. The problem I see with this is we are left using empty space to indicate the range. If the range of the box plot is the important piece of data, empty space is not the best way to convey that. Empty space can be used to effectively accentuate the important data but shouldn't be used to indicate the important data.

Conclusion

This book is a must-read for anyone interested in HCI or data design. The principles are effective and useful in a great number of areas. Designers and programmers alike should read this book for a better understanding of the best way to communicate data to the user.

Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Matt — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:24:57 GMT

Publisher: Harper Collins

ISBN: 006135323X

Dan Ariely tells a fascinating story of pain at the beginning of his book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. As a youth he was involved in an accident that left 70% of his body badly burned. During his recovery he explains that he began to view the ordinary and everyday experiences that he used to experience as though he were an outside observer. He began to analyze the "why" behind daily decision making. This led him to an interest in the field of behavioral economics and what he refers to as JDM, Judgement and Decision making.

Decoys

Ariely starts into his exploration of human decision making by looking at the Decoy Effect. Humans are incapable of placing a value on something without a reference point. We use relative value when making economic choices which makes us susceptible to certain marketing ploys.

For instance, The Economist, a well known periodical had a subscription offer that Ariely came across while surfing the web. They offered the "web only" subscription for $59.95 and the "print only" version at $125.95. Then they had a third offering of both the web and the print versions together... for $125.95. Clearly, the web and print offerings together at the same price as the print only is the better offer. Right?

Ariely decided to do an experiment with this data. He surveyed students in his classes to find out which subscription would have the most appeal. A large number predicably chose the great deal of essentially getting the web only version for free along with the print version. The next part of the experiment was the interesting part though because Ariely removed the "print only" subscription and offered simply the two options, namely, web only at $59.95 and web + print at $125.95. This time the results were quite different. Even though in the earlier experiment virtually no one had signed up for the now missing "print only" subscription, its absence now made a difference in the results. Now a large number of students took him up on the much cheaper offer of $59.95.

The point of this experiment was that the print only subscription was a decoy. It was intended to give us a point of reference. We don't know how much the print only is worth or the web only. But we do know that if we can get both of them for the same price as the print only... then obviously that's the better deal because we are getting one of them for free. The decoy causes us to have a frame of reference for our decision... a frame that is chosen by the marketer and not our experience.

FREE is not just another price point

Another experiment that Ariely performed involved one of my favorite things, chocolate. He and his colleagues set up a table in an area busy with foot traffic. They offered two prices of chocolate. The higher priced truffles were $.15 each... arguably a bargain if you are a chocolate lover! The lower priced chocolates were simple Hershey's kisses at $.01. Unfortunately for chocolate lovers they were only allowed to buy one or the other... not both.

Because $.15 is a good price for a fine truffle, predictably more shoppers elected for the finer chocolate (no offense to Hersheys!) This is what the experimenters expected but what happened next they were not able to explain so readily. In the second part of the experiment, the price of both chocolates was lowered by $.01. Thus the truffles were now $.14 and the Kisses were FREE. Even though the value proposition was exactly what it had been before, now the Kisses went like crazy!

After several other experiments that controlled for things such as the hassle of searching for change etc, Ariely and his team found that chocolate lovers (and indeed all of us) are in love with the price of FREE. Making something free changes the equation and quite often can cause us to value the exchange differently. Thus offering a FREE pair of socks with the purchase of one, we can be persuaded buy a pair of socks that we might not otherwise be interested in buying.

Imprinting and Anchoring

First impressions are important. When we first see a particular brand of watch (or chocolate) the price we see associated with it when we first begin contemplating a purchase becomes the reference point for that brand. Ariely is an entertaining as well as thought-provoking author and he tells the delightful story about Tahitian Pearls. When they mottled gray pearls first hit the market, no one wanted them because they were different (and compared to smooth milky-white pearls they were ugly!) The early marketers took a step back and decided to try again.

Contacting a well-known jeweler in New York city they persuaded him to display a strand of these pearls in a shop window along with a collection of high priced and quite beautiful jewelry. In addition they took out large glossy print advertisements that similarly displayed the pearls in this context. Soon after, Tahitian pearls began to appear around the necks of the finest and wealthiest in New York and around the world.

The principle of relative value came into play. The new purchasers now had a context or an anchor for valuing the pearls. Now that they knew that these pearls belonged in the company of expensive diamonds and other beautiful jewelry, they were willing to pay a premium for these previously unknown jewels.

Irrational Motivations

What are some of the reasons we value things irrationally? Here are a few:

Attachment bias (we value what we own more than if we didn't already own it)
Loss aversion (we focus on the risk of loss - see prospect theory)
We assume other have the same perspective as we do

Attachment bias is an interesting one. Ariely goes into detail with a great example about Duke students and their value of tickets of basketball games, both after owning and before owning. The disparity is stark and the reasons given were quite intriguing. The book is worth the read if for no other reason than gems like this story!

One thing I noted as I was reading this book was that ownership bias can be costly when it comes to the ownership of ideas. When we have an idea that we believe is our own, we tend to value it more than we would if the idea belonged to someone else. Understanding this is key to having an open mind when discussing ideas in a collaborative environment.

Death By Options

Ariely launches this section with the story of Sun Tzu burning the ships behind his men to eliminate the possibility of retreat. When you eliminate options, you begin to approach the decision process of the remaining options differently. An important skill in decision making is the ability to eliminate options as you move forward.

The author's team did a number of experiments to show that we are in love with options. In one, students played a quite simple game on the computer in which they were offered three options in the form of "rooms". After choosing a room, clicking in that room would earn you a random number of pennies. Each room had a different payoff range and most students could quickly determine which was the best paying room and they would use all of their limited number of clicks in the one room. The cost of switching a room was just one click but once students found the right room they would still stay in that room clicking.

Next, the experimenters changed things up. They made it so that the door to a room would only stay open if you clicked on it every so often. So if you clicked 12 times in one room, they other doors would be closed and you could no longer click in them. This should be no problem since most students could figure out in less than 12 clicks which room offered the best payoff and rarely ventured back into the other rooms anyway.

Oddly though, even though it cost them a click to keep the other doors open, students couldn't stand the thought of those options going away. Even though they knew they would not be clicking in them any more, they would still waste clicks in order to keep those options open. Even after the experiment was changed so that it actually cost the students a few pennies to keep the useless options open... they still couldn't help themselves. They had to keep the options open, even though they weren't going to be using those options any more.

How many times in business do we make the costly decision to keep options open even though we know they aren't good options and we have decided not to pursue them. We often decide to "make sure we can still go down that road" even though we aren't ever planning on going down that road. Sometimes we need to just let go and move on with the good options and forget about the others.

Conclusion

This book is a fascinating book and well worth the read. I found some of the social explorations to be insightful into the liberal mindset. Many liberals have argued that free markets don't always work. Ariely explains clearly why these thought processes exist even in the face of much evidence that they do indeed work. Ariely argues that the markets can't fix irrational behavior since they rely on rational behavior to work. It is worth noting however that markets can correct for irrational behavior over time. Each of the examples that Ariely gives where irrational behavior might cause market failure can be extrapolated over time and you can easly see how competition can correct for irrationality. Overall the book is very though provoking and a great read.

Punished By Rewards - Alfie Kohn

Matt — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:11:06 GMT

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

ISBN: 0-395-65028-3

Alfie Kohn doesn't like B.F. Skinner. At least he spends the first 180 or so pages of his book, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes, ranting against the basic elements of Skinner's writings on behaviorism. He derisively calls refers to "pop-behaviorism" throughout his book as the "Do this and you'll get that" mentality of getting what you want out of people. If you are want to read a somewhat narcisstic and lopsided discussion of Kohn's views, read the whole book. If you (like me) are just interested in a practical alternative look at incentives, skip to page 180 and read part III of the book and save yourself some time...I wish I would have.

The Problem with Rewards

In a nutshell the problem with rewards seems to be that Kohn doesn't like them. At times he sounds like a kid that didn't get enough cookies after class in school and is still upset. At other times he sounds like a condescending college professor speaking to a group of sycophantic students about how wrong the world is and if only they would listen to his ideas they would finally get it right. Still other parts of the book sound like an author desperately trying to make his point so that people will hire him for more lectures.

The problem with Kohn's book in my mind is simple. He hauls out an endless list of "interesting studies" that either prove his point or disprove Skinner's points. He glosses over the fact that many of these studies contradict each other. I would liken it to two scientists preparing elaborate studies, each of which predicts a different boiling point for water. Each scientist could scamper around looking for evidence from other studies to support his point of view... or he could wisely look at two opposing studies and look for what is different. Then the scientist might be able to write a paper explaining that you can't predict the boiling point of water by temperature alone... you should also consider pressure as well!

Kohn consistently uses hypothetical situations to prove his points. He also makes broad generalizations, usually with a caveat (like this one) that "such and such a state is most often the case." What I am interested in is why it isn't always the case? For instance he claims "most of us can think of something we enjoyed doing until we got paid for it" beside which in my notes I wrote "What is he talking about?!?!" He also claims "watching someone else get an award is a powerful demotivator" beside which I wrote "What kind of a person thinks that way? Must be an emo dude."

In spite of the meat-fisted approach of Kohn, I am interested in reading more about these ideas now that a decade and a half has passed since Kohn wrote this book because I think he missed some interesting things in his haste to prove himself right. For one, I would like to see a discussion about incentive in light of varying personalities. I would also like to see a discussion of incentives and motivation in light of different views on the distribution of power. Kohn approaches the subject as though everyone has the same personality (and thus reaction to externalities) and he views any disparity of power as a negative. What if these things aren't the case?

Teachers

Some interesting observations that Kohn makes that I think are still relevant relate to teachers. Teachers consistently object to merit pay and attempts to measure their performance in the classroom. Yet these same teachers insist that handing out grades (merit pay) is the only way to explain how well their students are doing (measure performance). What is good for the goose is apparenlty only good for the goose when it comes to teachers!

Some practical advice he gave for praise that can apply in a classroom is:

Praise the action, not the person
Make praise a special case
Avoid phony praise

Thoughts on Rationality and Motivation

One observation of Kohn's was that the western economic model makes two assumptions about people. First that rational people seek pleasure and avoid pain. Second that rationality is central to humanity. These seem to be reasonable assumptions to me but Kohn starts his book by questioning them which I think is a perfectly rational thing to do!

Another concept that he touched on is what social scientists call the equity principle. This principle essentially states that people should get what they deserve. Again, Kohn questions the validity of this principle because while it sounds like a sound principle on the surface, it raises more questions than it answers. For instance, what does it mean to deserve something? How do you properly allocate rewards for collaborative endeavors?

One last thought was raised by a quote from Kohn: "Rewards to not require any attention to the reasons." I think this is a very important idea for anyone involvced in incentives to understand. Simply gaining the right actions or reactions doesn't mean you have accomplished your real goals. Robert Austin covers this topic in detail in his book Measuring and Managing Performance In Organizations.

Conclusion

Skip to part III of the book and you will save yourself both pain and time!

Matt's Book Reviews

Honest To God - John A T Robinson

Envisioning Information - Edward Tufte

The Overton Window - Glenn Beck

The Pursuit of God - A W Tozer

Non Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny - Robert Wright

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us - Daniel Pink

A Geography of Time - Robert Levine

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology - Ayn Rand

The City in Roman Palestine - Daniel Sperber

Notes

Conclusion

Emotional Design - Don Norman

Thoughts and Notes

Quotes

Conclusion

The Humane Interface - Jef Raskin

Concepts

Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson

Copyright: 2007

Publisher: Penguin Books

ISBN: 0143038257

Looking for Spinoza - Antonio Damasio

Copyright: 2003

Publisher: Harcourt

ISBN: 0-15-100557-5

Emotions and Feelings

Decision Making Using Game Theory - Anthony Kelly

Copyright: 2003

Publisher: Cambridge

ISBN: 0-521-81462-6

Definitions

Random Musings

What is Rationality?

Conclusion

Leadership in the Era of Economic Uncertainty - Ram Charan

Copyright: 2009

Publisher: McGraw Hill

ISBN: 978-0-07-162616-3

Leaderhip Traits

Random Thoughts

Conclusion

Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

Copyright: 2000

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN: 0789723107

Question Marks

How do Real People use the web?

Pet Peeve

Navigating

Random Thoughts

Testing

Conclusion

Non-Designer's Design Book - Robin Williams

Copyright: 1994

Publisher: PeachPit Press

ISBN: 0961392142

Principles and Ideas

Conclusion

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte

Published: 2001 (original 1983)

Publisher: Graphics Press

ISBN: 0961392142

Graphical Excellence

Graphical Integrity

Data Graphics

Chart Junk

General Principles

Bad ideas?

Conclusion

Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Copyright: 2008

Publisher: Harper Collins

ISBN: 006135323X

Decoys

FREE is not just another price point

Imprinting and Anchoring

Irrational Motivations

Death By Options

Conclusion