Author: JP

This is a short post about what could be a big subject. [Do I hear sighs of relief? Enough already! :-) ]

There’s a fascinating article in the latest Scientific American MIND:

Scientific American Mind: The Teen Brain, Hard at Work
Under challenging conditions, adolescents may assess and react less efficiently than adults

The Big Endians argue that there is such a thing as a teen brain, distinct and different from an adult brain, that these differences can be seen by fMRI scans of prefrontal cortex activity, and that endogenous behaviour control begins to win in its battle with exogenous behaviour control as the adolescent grows into a mature adult. That this maturing process involves synaptic pruning and more efficient use of prefrontal cortex resources over time.

The Little Endians argue that this is pure hogwash, that all these differences are culturally and environmentally triggered, that the entire Big Endian argument is a Sell More Psychoactive Drugs campaign.

And somewhere in between they’ve figured out that the brain stays pretty much the same size from the age of six or so.

I am not a neuroscientist, a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Just an interested amateur. But the whole debate intrigues me greatly, since it has significant implications for how we deal with education and how we deal with Generation M.

Of course there are physical and physiological and hormonal changes going on, this is not in doubt. What I am intrigued about is whether there are significant changes in the brain, other than that we would call learning and adaptation.
So I ask myself, “Is it possible that teenage angst is a function of the environment and culture rather than age? That the “teenager” finds himself (or herself) asked to behave “like an adult”, while amongst a heap of adults who patently don’t “behave like adults”. And it is this that causes the angst.”

I ask myself “Is it possible that adults could have the multitasking high-speed responsive cognitive abilities that “teenagers” exhibit, if only they hadn’t had their synaptic pruning and endogenous behaviour control kicking in?”

I ask myself “Have we perpetrated a con on ourselves, force-fitting a unnecessary teenage phase into everyone’s lives by defining such a phase, then describing all the painful consequences of that force-fit as “what teenagers do”?

And finally I ask myself, “Is Generation M different because they were the first Western generation to refuse to accept the con? Did Generation M hold on to the different ways of handling the prefrontal cortex, did they refuse to allow synaptic pruning, did they somehow avoid some of the conditioning and anchoring and framing that previous generations did in the name of Growing Up?”

Update: Let me try and frame all this a little better. Is it possible that children stop asking why because they get told “because I told you so?”, and that some of this shows up as “synaptic pruning” ? Is it possible that everyone has the cognitive and multitasking abilities that Generation M portrays, but that these abilities are “conditioned” out of existence? Is it possible that the videogame and MMOG generations have held on to some abilities that prior generations have lost? Is it possible that something in what we call “maturing”, as endogenous capabilities override exogenous, actually loses some of these innate capabilities?

Hope that helps people understand where I’m coming from. In no way am I challenging the physical growth stages, these are obvious. What I seek to understand are the mental changes from a neurological sense rather than from what we term education.

Just musing. As I try to understand. Comments welcome.

I’ve been immensely frustrated with e-mail in enterprises over the years, for a variety of reasons:

• Dangling Conversations, where an e-mail sent to a specific mail list then creates a number of partially-overlapping conversations as people subtract and add people to the list for random, often selfish reasons. Decision-making gets difficult as a result because the conversations are very dispersed
• CC Riders, people who cover their fundaments by copying in the world and her husband, creating conversations that aren’t necessary in the first place, and overloading everyone in the process
  
• Blind Trusters, who somehow convince themselves that having a conversation with one person while letting someone else in surreptitiously via bc is a good way of building trust. These things have a habit of biting back, which is a good thing.
• Giant Haystacks, who habitually file everything, every version of everything, even e-mails they neither sent nor received. If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t, file it.
• Needlepointers, who habitually look for e-mails in said haystacks, and manage to convince themselves that spending hours doing this is considered productive activity, while things like blogs aren’t…
• Iceberg Lettuces, who regularly forward “private” conversations with adverse comments to the person the adverse comments were about, without realising what lay below the visible part of the iceberg. Enjoyable to watch but intrinsically unproductive; maybe more productive than the snide comments in the first place, but it’s a close call.
• Oops-I-Did-It-Againers, who provide both laughs as well as immense frustration by unthinkingly Replying All in the most painful circumstances.

Of course we can set filters to solve some of this. Of course we can set policy to solve some of this. Of course we can educate to solve some of this.

Of course we are all addicted to all this.

And for some unknown reason, we are all programmed to “fix” mail rather than use tools that are more suited to the things we want to do. I still remember the reactions Stowe received when he first prophesied the death of e-mail. He might as well have declared that Pluto wasn’t a planet; this was some years ago :-)

With all this in mind, I loved seeing what Lars Plougmann had to say about e-mail and project management in mindthis, excerpted below:

• 9 people read the email
• 8 people file the email (in their private folders, thereby duplicating effort)
• 7 people are interrupted in their work or thoughts when the email arrives
• 6 people will never be able to find the email again
• 5 people didn’t actually need to know about the change
• 4 people joining the project in the next phase wouldn’t have received the email
• 3 people will be able to find the email again, should they need to
• 2 people will check back to the email at a later date when they need the information
• 1 of them will understand the email in context, be able to find it at a later date and action it

Great stuff, Lars. And thanks to Kiyo for the heads-up.

There’s been a lot of coverage on “monetising” blogs of late, partly catalysed by a Business 2.0 article titled Blogging for Dollars.

So I thought I’d write about something else, something far removed from “monetising”. Things I have been able to do Because Of my blog, rather than With my blog. These are (in no particular order):

1. Connect with long-lost friends I may not have found easily any other way

Chutki Ramaswamy, Deepak Wassan and Devangshu Dutta come to mind. It’s been over a quarter of a century since we were in contact, and yet an active blogosphere makes this possible. More importantly, it makes it happen non-intrusively and low-touch, almost serendipitously; in addition, there is an inherent collaborative filter present, since people who read my blog and comment on it are more likely to be interested in the same things as I am. Which brings me to points 2 and 3.

2. Extend my network with an implicit collaborative filter in place, connecting me with people with similar interests

Sure we can do this with other social-networking software and communities. But I think blogs are a richer, softer, less in-your-face and more accurate form of connection-making; in fact I think the better term is relationship-making, going beyond the connection very quickly. The process is not an automated matching of profiling and preference information, but something far more elaborate. I now have relationships with people I did not know, and have had the good fortune to meet a number of them face to face in places as disparate as Copenhagen and Amsterdam and San Francisco and Boston. And there are many more I will make a real effort to meet in person, because the conversations have been that worthwhile.

3. Use a collaborative filtering process in ways I hadn’t considered before

One of the criticisms levelled against the blogosphere is that it can become a real back-slapping mutual admiration society. [And yet, perversely, one of the biggest criticisms levelled against the same blogosphere is that it’s full of flames and hate and venom. Go figure]. When you’re dealing with ideas rather than people-gossip or events, I think the mutual-admiration aspect is weakened, almost negligible. The people I connect with are people who don’t necessarily share the same views as me, they are people who share the same interests. Important distinction. So we can have pro-Ayn-Randers discussing things with anti-Ayn-Randers, opensource-for-ever thinkers arguing with proprietary-wins-thinkers. And it helps keep me honest in my thinking, because I get to listen to opposing points of view I would not otherwise receive as easily. Which brings me to my next point.

4. Acquire new and different perspectives on things I’m interested in

Whether it’s Clarence Fisher on education or Dave The LifeKludger on kludging through life or taking a different view on what identity means through NextIdentity, a recent commenter, I get to experience a richer learning. People who are doing the job they are commenting on, helping me understand what I’m interested in anyway, but doing it in a way that adds an extra dimension to my learning.

5. Find things I’m looking for

No better example than the photograph I’ve already blogged enough about. But there are many others. Book recommendations that are far more accurate than an Amazon or a Google, because human brains have processed human information prior to making the recommendation. People I should meet, places I should visit, things I should do. All done on a voluntary and (yes it’s that word again) altruistic basis. Which brings me to my last point

6. Learn more about vulnerability and humility

You make yourself vulnerable when you blog, you can’t hide behind titles and walls and what-have-you. Occasionally you get active feedback, through conversation, comments and e-mail. But most of the time you don’t know, and you’re baring your mind. It may not be the case for everyone, but for sure I feel vulnerable when I blog. But I’m relaxed about it, because no relationship of value can exist without that vulnerability in all parts of that relationship. Why humility? Sure I can put on a mock-humble persona and  ask for comments and views while being completely closed to external input. But not for long. People aren’t stupid. You cannot game this. When people you don’t know bother to read what you have to say, that’s one thing. When they take the time and the effort to think about what you say, and respond with views and suggestions and comments, they’re doing this free-gratis-and-for-nothing. I feel privileged to have received the readership and comments I’ve had, because there’s no axe to grind, no business deal in the offing, no hidden agenda.  And I don’t think people will bother to do so if they perceive there’s no real humility. Why should they?

The point of this post is that none of the items on the list above were expected outcomes when I started blogging. They were serendipitous by-products, and wonderful ones at that.

Doc has just put up a great “post’ on Suitwatch; it’s more an article than a post, and Suitwatch’s not a blog, but so what? Subscribe via this link if you want to read it.

Update: You can now read the entire article via this link at Linux Journal.

Let me tempt you with a few tidbits from the story:

Identity is a first-person matter. It comes from the inside, not the
outside. So does everything else we do as individuals. Which is why I’m
not just talking about identity this time. I’m talking about everything
that’s missing in everything we’ve been doing ever since we first started
calling computing “personal”, way back in the late Seventies.

All the identities in our wallets and purses, from social security numbers
to credit card numbers to library and museum memberships, are given to us by
organizations. More importantly, they represent “customer relationship
management” (CRM) systems that at best respect a tiny fraction of who we are
and what we might bring to a “relationship”. What CRM systems call a
“relationship” is so confined, so minimal, so impoverished and so incomplete
that it insults the word.

No matter how “user-centric” we make our CRMs, the fact that we burden the
vendor side with the entire relationship reveals how one-sided and lame the
whole system really is. Also how antique it is, in a time when individuals
are only becoming more empowered by digital technology and networking. It
doesn’t matter how respectful we make “federation” between CRMs of different
companies. The CRM system will remain broken until it appreciates, embraces
and truly relates to customers — not just as complex human beings, but as
entities with many other relationships, and as potential sources of highly
useful intelligence. Not to mention money.

As usual Doc hits the nail on the head.

If we want individuals to be valued, then we must also value those things that make individuals individual. An individual’s Credentials. History. Behaviour. Values. Relationships. Intentions. Even fingerprints and DNA. Whatever that individual wants to share with others. Whomever the individual wants to share with. Whenever and however that sharing is done. At the individual’s behest and choice.
[A number of useful links are also provided, particularly to what Steve Gillmor and his Gang have been doing in this space, as also the work being done by Drummond Reed et al.]

And no, this is not a mutual admiration society of A-listers like Doc and apparent A-lister wannabes like me.

I do not want to see, or be part of, a society that makes “agreeing with someone” a sin. I do not want to see, or be part of, a society that makes “cutting people down to size” and “belittling” someone in a Weakest-Link way something to be admired. What utter tosh.
I want to see, and be part of, a society that encourages people, that provides constructive criticism, that has covenant and not contract relationships, that believes in building people up rather than smashing people down.

Despite the success of opensource, despite everything we have learnt about the way human networks operate, despite everything we have learnt about man’s make-up, drivers and emotional intelligence, I keep meeting people who just cannot accept the concept of altruism.

As far as they are concerned, man was born to be selfish. Period.

There are many such people about. Which makes life interesting for anyone trying to derive value from social software in enterprises; when you talk to them about it, their eyes glaze over, they get the Does Not Compute signal flashing over their foreheads, and they quickly disengage. I’m sure you’ve seen that look a zillion times.
And that is partly why I looked harder at group selection and at emotional intelligence and at the Nohria/Lawrence Four Driver model in Driven.

Today I saw a spark of light, a modicum of understanding, while reading an unlikely source. George Orwell.

I had chanced upon Orwell’s Why I Write monograph while vacationing in the US, but I hadn’t got around to reading it as yet. Until today.

How can you possibly not read a book subtitled “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” ?

Orwell thinks that there are four great motives for writing that “exist in different degrees for every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living“.

He lists the motives as:

• Sheer egoism
• Aesthetic enthusiasm
• Historical impulse
• Political purpose

It’s not a very long essay, so I shall let you savour it for yourself, save for an expansion of the first motive. He defines sheer egoism as:

• Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc. etc. It is humbug to pretend that this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition — in many cases, indeed, they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, wilful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centred than journalists, though less interested in money.

I have a lot of time for Orwell and his writing, though I don’t always agree with his point of view. Much of the time I do agree with him. But that’s a separate discussion.

Orwell wrote Why I Write towards the end of his life, sandwiched neatly between his two primary successes, Animal Farm and 1984. In 1946, when he wrote the tract, he was only just becoming financially secure for the first time in his life. I am no Orwell expert, but that’s the way it looks to me.

What I find fascinating is the conditioning and worldview expressed by him in that short statement I quoted above, on writing for “sheer egoism”. Here’s my rewrite, obviously biased to help me try and make my point:

• “the whole top crust of humanity” are a bunch of insecure, fame-hungry, selfish, back-stabbingly ambitious people who are “a minority of gifted, wilful people”; “the great mass of human beings”, on the other hand, are fundamentally unselfish, live for each other, setting aside selfish ambition by the time they are thirty and getting on with life.

Winners; and losers.

Orwell obviously saw things that way, in order to have expressed himself the way he did. I don’t think I’ve placed much bias in my interpretation.

This is not about him being right or wrong. Just that even then, there were apparently many people who were comfortable in “dying to self”, who were relaxed about not kicking, biting and scratching their way up the organisation that is life, who were happy to help each other and live for each other. And they were looked down on. For being altruistic and not particularly ambitious.
But that was then. Now, with globalisation and disintermediation and the possibility of universal connectivity and enfranchisement, maybe things have changed.

Maybe the old Winners Losers model based around selfishness and lofty ambition was a Hits model, and maybe we are really moving to a new Long Tail world. Which is not a Hits model, not a Winners Losers model.

And maybe it’s OK to be unselfish and collaborative and not-loftily-ambitious and even altruistic in this Long Tail world.

Just musing. Until I saw Orwell’s words, I never quite realised how bad a press altruism had, how poor a public image being unselfish had.

This puts the altruism-questioners into perspective for me.

My bad. I guess.