Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: Stanford University
Format: Audio
Length: 1 hour, 14 minutes, 20 seconds
This Saturday, I was fortunate enough to share drinks with a group of friends including a young woman who teaches at a charter school. The simple description she gave of her job immediately caught my attention: "I teach underprivileged fifth graders in New York City, I expect all of my students to go to college, and I can be fired at any time if I am not helping them reach that goal." This was NOT what you'd expect to hear from most inner city elementary school teachers. My experience with charter schools prior to Saturday night had been peripheral at best - I know donating to charter schools is in vogue for hedge fund managers and investment bankers. And I know that a group of my fellow jurors vehemently opposed charter schools during a lunchtime discussion a few months ago. Anytime I see such passion on both ends of the spectrum of a debate, my kneejerk reaction is twofold: 1) I want to learn more and 2) the underlying reality probably lies somewhere in between those parameters.
First, what are charter schools and why should anyone care? The why to me is fairly obvious - I believe education represents the single best chance at human progress. As such, our educational system is worthy of intense scrutiny and discussion. For all practical purposes, primary and secondary education in the United States has historically been public - a monopoly. (Yes, of course private schools exist, but a cursory search suggests they make up only about 10% of total students in the US.) As a student of economics, I despise monopolies. They inhibit competition, provide end users with poor choices, and are terribly inefficient. By definition, monopolies are institutions with "sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it." Without getting too political, let's just say that the government is not the institution I'd like defining the terms on which our future minds have access to education. As for charter schools, they are publicly funded schools that are free from many of the onerous regulations on other public schools. In exchange for this freedom, they are expected to perform. The metrics by which performance is measured are outlined in a given school's charter, or mandate. In other words, while they have to meet all state curriculum requirements, charter schools often have an additional specialty or focus (e.g., music or languages). Private funds are often raised in conjunction with public funding (which for charter schools is identical to other public schools), giving charters more freedom to increase teacher pay or fund teaching tools.
Charter schools are intellectually interesting to me for two key, related reasons. The first is the many levels of accountability within most of these schools... accountability at the organizational level in the sense that the schools must live up to their specific charters... accountability at the teacher level in the sense that charter school teachers are not given guaranteed tenure after a few short years, and can be fired if they are objectively bad at what they do... and accountability at the student level in the sense that children are expected to complete their work, finish school and go to college. Because of this accountability at different levels, which some claim is "cruel" to teachers who they say should not have to worry about job safety, students may have marginally fewer uninspiring teachers and more inspiring teachers. I despise the fact that the "compassionate" political push for teacher job safety in many cases creates a system that has no mechanism for eliminating bad apples. And the losers are, uniformly, the children. The second and related part that I appreciate is the schools' intense focus on the kids. Everything revolves around the students. The schools exist because the current system doesn't work well. It is classic creative destruction, which I believe creates innovation and progress. I'm not saying there are no phenomenal teachers or administrators outside of charter schools. It also is not a blanket support for charter school personnel. My point is that if an organization is created with an intense, transparent and pervasive focus on the core issue - student education and success - that framework will over time foster better learning, better teaching and better management than the alternative.
The flipside is that research on charter schools has been mixed. For one, there are very different rules regarding charter schools depending on what state you're in. Furthermore, charter schools are not really bound together by a common thread, other than that they are all nominally charter schools. So there is nothing that ensures a charter school will be a GOOD charter school. According to Wikipedia, 12.5% of the roughly 5,000 charter schools in the United States have closed due to problems (financial, managerial, etc.). To me, this number seems way too low for a system that hopes to challenge the education monopoly. It seems that this is indicative of the still nascent movement - the hope that comes with opening a new school is powerful. But like everything new, it quickly becomes not new. And once something is not new but rather systemic, the associated inertia keeps it in place for longer than it should be (regardless of its initial intent).
Where does this leave us? The goal of the charter school movement is, of course, to promote its students and their education. But the broader goal is to show that by presenting an element of choice and competition to public schooling, a tipping point of sorts will be realized whereby the old, entrenched modus operandi becomes unacceptable. I love the idea, and I love many of the anecdotes the fifth grade teacher gave me about her school. She even invited me to speak to her class next year about finance and possible careers in business. Of course I readily accepted. The charter school movement has clearly gained significant traction in the United States. It is now entering a new phase in which it has to prove itself and justify its existence and its growth going forward. This can only happen over time and by measuring results and strict accountability for those results. Needless to say, I'll be tuned in to the action. For the record, I will be rooting for charter schools and for any other innovative system that attempts to breakdown bureaucracy and any other barriers to what is such a critical issue in a globalized world: giving young people the tools and the opportunity to succeed in life.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Week 20: What makes Apple so great?
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Simon Sinek
Format: Video
Length: 18 minutes, 5 seconds
Link: Simon Sinek on TED.com
What makes Apple so great?
I'm sure many of you are rolling your eyes, especially given that I've already posted indirectly about the company once before.
I'm sorry, I can't help myself - I believe strongly that companies like Apple are our only hope for getting out of the current mess. But really, even if you hate the company, either for its success, its products, or its fanatic followers, the question still stands: how has one company managed to become so synonymous with what hundreds of companies strive for - innovation?
For me, Apple has always been intuitive. Not necessarily their products - although you can make that argument as well - but their ethos. Marketing words like "sleek" or "revolutionary" are projected onto the company's products, but its success is rooted in something deeper - a connection with people who innately desire what its products provide. The iPhone of course has had resounding commercial success, but at it's core it came from a fundamental belief: given the technological capacity that exists in the world today, there is no reason we should not have a device that seamlessly combines a phone with a music player with a gaming platform with an email server. And the tireless efforts to realize and perfect the product of this belief have revolutionized the world.
But this post is about more than Apple. It is about the way in which leaders, at an individual and an institutional level, inspire and mold our lives. I use Apple as an example because it is something we can all relate to, a case study in successful institutional leadership. This week's video really struck a chord. It describes why very different leaders are able to be so successful - to resonate with us.
Simply, the argument made by Simon Sinek is that people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. He says - and I agree - that the true innovators are those whose message comes from the inside-out, not the outside-in. Yes, I admit this sounds hokey, but his framework for explaining this makes a lot of sense. He starts by drawing concentric circles, with the outermost circle saying "what", followed by "how", and finally the bulls-eye, "why." Everyone knows what he or she is selling, from the Girls Scout who is hawking those delicious thin mints to the beer vendor at a baseball game. Fewer people know how their product or concept creates value or meaning. How in this case refers to both the mechanics and the actual value proposition of a concept or product. And fewer still have the answer to the elusive question of why...
In this case "why" is not something obvious; the answer is not "to make money." The why is much more about the core of an idea. The why is ultimately why you subscribe to an idea or buy a product. As much as we'd like to believe otherwise, this is not based exclusively on rigorous, rational analysis. How many times have you heard a completely logical argument for purchasing something, and then decided not to because it didn't "feel" right? Conversely, how many times have you seen someone buy into something - an idea, product, whatever - based purely on "intuition"?
It turns out there is some cognitive science underlying all of this. The brain's neocortex is what controls rational thoughts (ie, "what"), while the lymbic brain is focused on the feelings ("how"/"why"), and also on the decision making - with no capacity for language. When we communicate from the outside-in people can understand the words and the logic but it does not drive behavior. But when we communicate from the inside out it speaks directly to this part of the brain and allows people to then rationalize the message using the neocortex.
To bring it back to Apple using Sinek's example, if Apple were like everyone else, their marketing might sound like this: "We make great computers, they’re beautifully designed, and they’re easy to use… want to buy one?” This is how most people operate - they say what we want and expect some behavior. But guess what? This approach is neither inspiring nor successful. What if instead Apple starts with the why: "In everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo… we believe in thinking differently.. the way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautiful and simply designed. They just so happen to be great computers. Want to buy one?" Anyone who has seen the Apple iPhone or iPad commercials will recognize the company's approach as the latter as opposed to the former.
Again, why harp on Apple? To me, it's obvious: where others have had the same opportunity with as many or more resources, they have fallen short. As Sinek points out, Gateway made a flat screen computer and nobody bought it. Dell made mp3 players and PDAs and I challenge any of you to find someone who owns one. Why would you buy an mp3 player or PDA from a computer manufacturer? It doesn't make sense... But in Apple's case, it does. From Apple, people are more than willing to buy a music player, or a phone, or a computer. Apple's genius has been its ability to be defined by its ingenuity and not by a product category.
Of course the underlying message goes beyond Apple. Consider Sinek's examples of the Wright Brothers, or Martin Luther King Jr. MLK had no internet or mass media through which he could invite people to hear his speech at the Lincoln Memorial. So why did 250,000 people come? Instead of talking about what was needed to change America, Dr. King had made a name for himself speaking about what he believed - the "why." People who heard his beliefs and believed in his beliefs told others... and others... and people showed up. A lot of them. They showed up not for him, but for themselves, in the same way that the buyers of Apple's products do so for themselves and not for the company's profit margins.
It is the capacity to create something so instinctively purposeful that also happens to make the company one of the most profitable on the planet. There is a fantastic lesson here for individual leaders: the difference between Apple and other companies is the difference between leaders and those who lead. To paraphrase Sinek, leaders have a position of power or authority, while those who lead - those who start with "why" - are the ones who inspire us. We follow those who lead because we have to and because we want to. Those who truly lead help us by reflecting a piece of ourselves back to us. This reflexivity develops our self-awareness, fosters our growth, and hopefully over time builds in us the capacity to lead others.
Content Source: Simon Sinek
Format: Video
Length: 18 minutes, 5 seconds
Link: Simon Sinek on TED.com
What makes Apple so great?
I'm sure many of you are rolling your eyes, especially given that I've already posted indirectly about the company once before.
I'm sorry, I can't help myself - I believe strongly that companies like Apple are our only hope for getting out of the current mess. But really, even if you hate the company, either for its success, its products, or its fanatic followers, the question still stands: how has one company managed to become so synonymous with what hundreds of companies strive for - innovation?
For me, Apple has always been intuitive. Not necessarily their products - although you can make that argument as well - but their ethos. Marketing words like "sleek" or "revolutionary" are projected onto the company's products, but its success is rooted in something deeper - a connection with people who innately desire what its products provide. The iPhone of course has had resounding commercial success, but at it's core it came from a fundamental belief: given the technological capacity that exists in the world today, there is no reason we should not have a device that seamlessly combines a phone with a music player with a gaming platform with an email server. And the tireless efforts to realize and perfect the product of this belief have revolutionized the world.
But this post is about more than Apple. It is about the way in which leaders, at an individual and an institutional level, inspire and mold our lives. I use Apple as an example because it is something we can all relate to, a case study in successful institutional leadership. This week's video really struck a chord. It describes why very different leaders are able to be so successful - to resonate with us.
Simply, the argument made by Simon Sinek is that people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. He says - and I agree - that the true innovators are those whose message comes from the inside-out, not the outside-in. Yes, I admit this sounds hokey, but his framework for explaining this makes a lot of sense. He starts by drawing concentric circles, with the outermost circle saying "what", followed by "how", and finally the bulls-eye, "why." Everyone knows what he or she is selling, from the Girls Scout who is hawking those delicious thin mints to the beer vendor at a baseball game. Fewer people know how their product or concept creates value or meaning. How in this case refers to both the mechanics and the actual value proposition of a concept or product. And fewer still have the answer to the elusive question of why...
In this case "why" is not something obvious; the answer is not "to make money." The why is much more about the core of an idea. The why is ultimately why you subscribe to an idea or buy a product. As much as we'd like to believe otherwise, this is not based exclusively on rigorous, rational analysis. How many times have you heard a completely logical argument for purchasing something, and then decided not to because it didn't "feel" right? Conversely, how many times have you seen someone buy into something - an idea, product, whatever - based purely on "intuition"?
It turns out there is some cognitive science underlying all of this. The brain's neocortex is what controls rational thoughts (ie, "what"), while the lymbic brain is focused on the feelings ("how"/"why"), and also on the decision making - with no capacity for language. When we communicate from the outside-in people can understand the words and the logic but it does not drive behavior. But when we communicate from the inside out it speaks directly to this part of the brain and allows people to then rationalize the message using the neocortex.
To bring it back to Apple using Sinek's example, if Apple were like everyone else, their marketing might sound like this: "We make great computers, they’re beautifully designed, and they’re easy to use… want to buy one?” This is how most people operate - they say what we want and expect some behavior. But guess what? This approach is neither inspiring nor successful. What if instead Apple starts with the why: "In everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo… we believe in thinking differently.. the way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautiful and simply designed. They just so happen to be great computers. Want to buy one?" Anyone who has seen the Apple iPhone or iPad commercials will recognize the company's approach as the latter as opposed to the former.
Again, why harp on Apple? To me, it's obvious: where others have had the same opportunity with as many or more resources, they have fallen short. As Sinek points out, Gateway made a flat screen computer and nobody bought it. Dell made mp3 players and PDAs and I challenge any of you to find someone who owns one. Why would you buy an mp3 player or PDA from a computer manufacturer? It doesn't make sense... But in Apple's case, it does. From Apple, people are more than willing to buy a music player, or a phone, or a computer. Apple's genius has been its ability to be defined by its ingenuity and not by a product category.
Of course the underlying message goes beyond Apple. Consider Sinek's examples of the Wright Brothers, or Martin Luther King Jr. MLK had no internet or mass media through which he could invite people to hear his speech at the Lincoln Memorial. So why did 250,000 people come? Instead of talking about what was needed to change America, Dr. King had made a name for himself speaking about what he believed - the "why." People who heard his beliefs and believed in his beliefs told others... and others... and people showed up. A lot of them. They showed up not for him, but for themselves, in the same way that the buyers of Apple's products do so for themselves and not for the company's profit margins.
It is the capacity to create something so instinctively purposeful that also happens to make the company one of the most profitable on the planet. There is a fantastic lesson here for individual leaders: the difference between Apple and other companies is the difference between leaders and those who lead. To paraphrase Sinek, leaders have a position of power or authority, while those who lead - those who start with "why" - are the ones who inspire us. We follow those who lead because we have to and because we want to. Those who truly lead help us by reflecting a piece of ourselves back to us. This reflexivity develops our self-awareness, fosters our growth, and hopefully over time builds in us the capacity to lead others.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Week 19: Eyjafjallajökull
Distribution Source: Multiple
Content Source: Multiple
Format: Audio & Video
Length: 1 hour +
Last week I promised another write-up on Warren Buffett and his annual shareholder conference. But with the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull blowing smoke again, I decided to move on to a more explosive topic. For those of you who haven't heard, Eyjafjallajökull's first eruption since 1821 single-handedly shut down European air traffic in mid-April, costing airlines over $3 billion. In addition to forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights, the relatively small volcano prevented President Obama from attending the Polish President's funeral, forced FC Barcelona to take a 14 hour coach bus ride to their Champions League semi-final match in Milan, and most tragically prevented Miley Cyrus from attending her European film premiere.
As you may have noticed from my post on grizzlies, the more I learn about nature the more I respect and fear its power. Volcanoes - or the "pimples of the earth" as my girlfriend calls them - are a perfect example of this awesome power. And Iceland, a country of just over 300,000 people, has plenty of them (35 active volcanoes, to be exact). But this particular volcano has literally wreaked havoc on millions of travelers. Seismically, the eruption is quite small, but it has produced an unusually large amount of fine ash. Apparently the chemical interaction between cold fluid (ice) and hot fluid (magma) produces more explosions, which in turn fragment the material being spewed out of the volcano. The more fragmented the material, the lighter it is and the easier it can be carried with the wind, in this case thousands of miles away to continental Europe and over international aviation corridors.
Why does volcanic ash cause problems for big, sturdy airplanes? The ash clogs important sensors and can prevent pneumatics from working well, but most dangerous is the detrimental effect on turbine blades in the engine. The hottest part of a jet engine is 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, while volcanic ash melts at about 1,000 degrees. When the ash melts, it turns into molten glass, which coats itself onto the engine blades. These blades are made with extreme precision, so even a slight change in their physics will likely shut down the engine. The only way to fix this is to actually turn off the engine, allow for cold air to shoot into it (thereby blowing off the glass coating), and then re-start the engine. Even for Captain Sully this is a dangerous mid-flight proposition. This actually happened in 1982 when a British Airways flight had all four of its engines shut down simultaneously after flying through volcanic ash spewed from Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. Remarkably, the crew was able to re-start all engines and nobody was hurt.
Given all the risks, the European travel authorities erred on the side of safety in April, effectively shutting down transatlantic and European travel for days. As bad as this was, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the worst is behind us. Most volcanoes erupt for only a day or two, but some take weeks, months or even years to become dormant. Unfortunately, the last time Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 1821, it did not stop until 1823. While this week's ongoing ash-spewing has not grounded as many flights as in late April, a simple shift of the fickle trans-Atlantic winds could change that. What if Eyjafjallajökull goes for another year? There is literally no backup plan. All the incredible aviation technology and innovation of the past decades will not be enough to overcome a large cloud of volcanic ash.
More ominous is the prospect of Katla, the much bigger sister-volcano to Eyjafjallajökull, erupting. Every documented eruption of Eyjafjallajökull has occurred in tandem with a Katla eruption. And Katla has historically blown every 40-80 years; its last eruption was in 1918, making it well overdue. It has been showing sings of unrest since 1999. And Katla is scary. Ten times more powerful than Eyjafjallajökull, it is the volcano most feared by the locals. Iceland's president, Olafur Grimsson, recently said: "If Katla blows up, the current eruption will resemble a small rehearsal." It is estimated that the amount of water that could flood Iceland per second if Katla erupted would be six times the water in the entire Amazon river! The last eruption extended the coast by 5 km due to lahoric flood deposits. The volcano's current repose is its longest on record. It is simply a matter of time before it erupts...
While this may seem like a gloomy post, it isn't intended to be. I chose to research and write about the Icelandic volcanoes because of the perspective they give, on many levels. For one, it dates the extremely recent advent of commercial aviation. The last major Icelandic eruptions were not that long ago (not even 100 years), yet they preceded most human air travel. The story also highlights the extremely fragile systems we often take for granted. Just like it was a given that your stock-trading platform would function properly until last Thursday's market fiasco, it was expected that you could easily find a flight from New York to London. But this April not even the President of the most powerful country in the world could make the trip, and all because of that pesky, unpronounceable Icelandic volcano.
Content Source: Multiple
Format: Audio & Video
Length: 1 hour +
Last week I promised another write-up on Warren Buffett and his annual shareholder conference. But with the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull blowing smoke again, I decided to move on to a more explosive topic. For those of you who haven't heard, Eyjafjallajökull's first eruption since 1821 single-handedly shut down European air traffic in mid-April, costing airlines over $3 billion. In addition to forcing the cancellation of thousands of flights, the relatively small volcano prevented President Obama from attending the Polish President's funeral, forced FC Barcelona to take a 14 hour coach bus ride to their Champions League semi-final match in Milan, and most tragically prevented Miley Cyrus from attending her European film premiere.
As you may have noticed from my post on grizzlies, the more I learn about nature the more I respect and fear its power. Volcanoes - or the "pimples of the earth" as my girlfriend calls them - are a perfect example of this awesome power. And Iceland, a country of just over 300,000 people, has plenty of them (35 active volcanoes, to be exact). But this particular volcano has literally wreaked havoc on millions of travelers. Seismically, the eruption is quite small, but it has produced an unusually large amount of fine ash. Apparently the chemical interaction between cold fluid (ice) and hot fluid (magma) produces more explosions, which in turn fragment the material being spewed out of the volcano. The more fragmented the material, the lighter it is and the easier it can be carried with the wind, in this case thousands of miles away to continental Europe and over international aviation corridors.
Why does volcanic ash cause problems for big, sturdy airplanes? The ash clogs important sensors and can prevent pneumatics from working well, but most dangerous is the detrimental effect on turbine blades in the engine. The hottest part of a jet engine is 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, while volcanic ash melts at about 1,000 degrees. When the ash melts, it turns into molten glass, which coats itself onto the engine blades. These blades are made with extreme precision, so even a slight change in their physics will likely shut down the engine. The only way to fix this is to actually turn off the engine, allow for cold air to shoot into it (thereby blowing off the glass coating), and then re-start the engine. Even for Captain Sully this is a dangerous mid-flight proposition. This actually happened in 1982 when a British Airways flight had all four of its engines shut down simultaneously after flying through volcanic ash spewed from Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. Remarkably, the crew was able to re-start all engines and nobody was hurt.
Given all the risks, the European travel authorities erred on the side of safety in April, effectively shutting down transatlantic and European travel for days. As bad as this was, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the worst is behind us. Most volcanoes erupt for only a day or two, but some take weeks, months or even years to become dormant. Unfortunately, the last time Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 1821, it did not stop until 1823. While this week's ongoing ash-spewing has not grounded as many flights as in late April, a simple shift of the fickle trans-Atlantic winds could change that. What if Eyjafjallajökull goes for another year? There is literally no backup plan. All the incredible aviation technology and innovation of the past decades will not be enough to overcome a large cloud of volcanic ash.
More ominous is the prospect of Katla, the much bigger sister-volcano to Eyjafjallajökull, erupting. Every documented eruption of Eyjafjallajökull has occurred in tandem with a Katla eruption. And Katla has historically blown every 40-80 years; its last eruption was in 1918, making it well overdue. It has been showing sings of unrest since 1999. And Katla is scary. Ten times more powerful than Eyjafjallajökull, it is the volcano most feared by the locals. Iceland's president, Olafur Grimsson, recently said: "If Katla blows up, the current eruption will resemble a small rehearsal." It is estimated that the amount of water that could flood Iceland per second if Katla erupted would be six times the water in the entire Amazon river! The last eruption extended the coast by 5 km due to lahoric flood deposits. The volcano's current repose is its longest on record. It is simply a matter of time before it erupts...
While this may seem like a gloomy post, it isn't intended to be. I chose to research and write about the Icelandic volcanoes because of the perspective they give, on many levels. For one, it dates the extremely recent advent of commercial aviation. The last major Icelandic eruptions were not that long ago (not even 100 years), yet they preceded most human air travel. The story also highlights the extremely fragile systems we often take for granted. Just like it was a given that your stock-trading platform would function properly until last Thursday's market fiasco, it was expected that you could easily find a flight from New York to London. But this April not even the President of the most powerful country in the world could make the trip, and all because of that pesky, unpronounceable Icelandic volcano.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Week 18: Buffett's Gold Standard Reiterated in Omaha
At 7 AM this morning, I walked into a crowded indoor stadium in Omaha, Nebraska with 40,000 others. Our goal was the same: to listen to the musings of two 80 year-old men sitting at a very tiny table at the center of a very large stage. The two men are well known, particularly to the investment community: Warren Buffett, Chairman & CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and his partner Charlie Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. For years, my Dad and I toyed with the idea of attending the annual shareholder's conference, and for my 25th birthday, we decided to finally make the hike to Omaha. Boy, am I glad we did.
The perspective, wisdom, and elegantly simplistic words and ideas I heard expressed today have inspired me. In some ways, the message is exactly what I - and perhaps we - need. We are at a crossroads. The economy is still in limbo, politics are divisive, and a widespread and legitimate uncertainty underscores our collective sentiment. Personally, I needed to believe again. I needed to hear that the principles of capitalism remain sound, and its byproducts virtuous. The cacophony of Wall Street and Washington has to some degree hijacked our discourse. Instead of focusing on what has to be the way out of our economic mess - the ingenuity, leadership, and integrity of our people - we have been focused on passing (and in some cases avoiding) the blame.
Which brings me to today's content. I will be focusing next week's post on a few of the meaningful topics discussed by Buffett and Munger. But today, I will give highlights and end with some of the incredible (and funny) quotes from the day. I'll start with this: these two guys should really have a television show. Not only did the two octogenarians (for accuracy's sake, Buffett isn't 80 until August 30) play off each other well, they showed incredible stamina. The two in good spirits answered roughly 40 questions over five hours, and had no inkling of the topics beforehand. However it was the first question on which they spent almost 30 minutes. The topic was Goldman Sachs.
For readers not coming from a finance background, Warren Buffett made a $5 Billion investment in Goldman Sachs during the height of the financial crisis. This both strengthened Goldman's capital reserves in a period of severe illiquidity and extended Buffett's venerable seal of approval to the bank at a time when market confidence was crucial to any financial institution's survival. As many of you know, Goldman Sachs and its executives spent a full day this week testifying before Congress. The bank was recently charged with fraud by the SEC. Rumors of criminal charges by federal prosecutors have been swirling as well. While I will save pontificating on this particular situation for another date, suffice it to say Goldman did not have a pleasant time in front of Congress this week.
Perhaps ironically, Warren Buffett had a similar situation to Lloyd Blankfein (the CEO of Goldman Sachs) almost 20 years ago. Buffett became the Chairman of Salomon Brothers in the midst of a trading scandal, and was called to testify to Congress as a result. His words resonate in a way that cannot be recreated - I urge you to follow this link to a two minute clip and hear what he has to say. The climactic quote underscores the seriousness with which Buffett approached the ethical issues of the firm: "Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless." Since giving this testimony in 1991, Buffett has played this clip at the beginning of each and every Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting. But this year it resonated. His candid, unequivocal approach to challenging issues is what we need today.
In my judgment, unfortunately, the Goldman executives fell short. I say unfortunately because there is a very solid response for some of the issues facing Goldman. Most striking today was Buffett's strong support for the firm. When asked who he would want to replace Lloyd Blankfein, Buffett responded: "Lloyd's twin." Quite an endorsement from the Oracle from Omaha. Much of the problem with the Goldman situation, in Buffett's opinion, relates to the media and its inability (or unwillingness) to accurately represent the nature of the transaction in question. Without getting into the details, I will say that Buffett made a wonderful comparison between his own approach to the bond insurance business and that of some customers of Goldman's CDO underwriting and sales business. Importantly, he said that he stands by Goldman because nothing has been proven to be wrong and the facts as he sees them do not suggest any illegality. Equally important was his statement that if the facts did lead to a breach of law he would revoke his support. It is this kind of unbending critical but fair approach that we need more of.
It's easy to be negative about the future - capitalism needs a hero, we all need a hero. Warren Buffett and trusty sidekick Charlie Munger provided that today. Their unique but consistent approach is to be admired, their unparalleled investment track record lauded, and their honesty and transparency emulated. Below are some of the quotes that stuck out to me from today's session. It was a wonderful birthday gift (along with meeting Bill Gates, Peter Buffett, Ralph Nader, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and others), and I look forward to writing more about this next week.
Warren Buffett:
"If you want to give away 100% of your estate, it's a wonderful tax dodge."
"I want to hear about problems."
"We won't trade reputation for money."
"There's a point at which adding 100 pages... obfuscates, rather than illuminates, information."
"(Newspapers) were the only game in town. Now they're not the only game in town. And boy does that make a difference when you're trying to sell something."
"If the best reason you're doing something is 'the other person' is doing it, well that's not good enough."
"People will be living a lot better in India in 20 years, as in China, as in the US."
"In the end what counts is buying a good business at a reasonable price and forgetting about it for a very long time."
"I like the idea of being judged by my own words rather than others writing a few paragraphs."
"You don't have to be brilliant, you just have to avoid the dumb things."
Charlie Munger:
"We celebrate wealth only when it's fairly won and wisely used."
"I developed courage when I realized I could endure hardship. Maybe you should get your feet wet and try failure more often."
"Take the high road, it's far less crowded."
(Quoting Ben Franklin) "It's hard for an empty sack to stand up straight."
"(Ratings agencies) drifted with the stupidity of their times in a way that is regrettable... But I've also yet to hear a single apology from business academia for its significant contribution to the current problems."
"If a small group of people with lots of influence feel very strongly about something and everyone else is indifferent, that small group will get what they want."
"Warren never looks twice at anybody who isn't a little eccentric... all you have to do is look at me."
The perspective, wisdom, and elegantly simplistic words and ideas I heard expressed today have inspired me. In some ways, the message is exactly what I - and perhaps we - need. We are at a crossroads. The economy is still in limbo, politics are divisive, and a widespread and legitimate uncertainty underscores our collective sentiment. Personally, I needed to believe again. I needed to hear that the principles of capitalism remain sound, and its byproducts virtuous. The cacophony of Wall Street and Washington has to some degree hijacked our discourse. Instead of focusing on what has to be the way out of our economic mess - the ingenuity, leadership, and integrity of our people - we have been focused on passing (and in some cases avoiding) the blame.
Which brings me to today's content. I will be focusing next week's post on a few of the meaningful topics discussed by Buffett and Munger. But today, I will give highlights and end with some of the incredible (and funny) quotes from the day. I'll start with this: these two guys should really have a television show. Not only did the two octogenarians (for accuracy's sake, Buffett isn't 80 until August 30) play off each other well, they showed incredible stamina. The two in good spirits answered roughly 40 questions over five hours, and had no inkling of the topics beforehand. However it was the first question on which they spent almost 30 minutes. The topic was Goldman Sachs.
For readers not coming from a finance background, Warren Buffett made a $5 Billion investment in Goldman Sachs during the height of the financial crisis. This both strengthened Goldman's capital reserves in a period of severe illiquidity and extended Buffett's venerable seal of approval to the bank at a time when market confidence was crucial to any financial institution's survival. As many of you know, Goldman Sachs and its executives spent a full day this week testifying before Congress. The bank was recently charged with fraud by the SEC. Rumors of criminal charges by federal prosecutors have been swirling as well. While I will save pontificating on this particular situation for another date, suffice it to say Goldman did not have a pleasant time in front of Congress this week.
Perhaps ironically, Warren Buffett had a similar situation to Lloyd Blankfein (the CEO of Goldman Sachs) almost 20 years ago. Buffett became the Chairman of Salomon Brothers in the midst of a trading scandal, and was called to testify to Congress as a result. His words resonate in a way that cannot be recreated - I urge you to follow this link to a two minute clip and hear what he has to say. The climactic quote underscores the seriousness with which Buffett approached the ethical issues of the firm: "Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless." Since giving this testimony in 1991, Buffett has played this clip at the beginning of each and every Berkshire Hathaway shareholder's meeting. But this year it resonated. His candid, unequivocal approach to challenging issues is what we need today.
In my judgment, unfortunately, the Goldman executives fell short. I say unfortunately because there is a very solid response for some of the issues facing Goldman. Most striking today was Buffett's strong support for the firm. When asked who he would want to replace Lloyd Blankfein, Buffett responded: "Lloyd's twin." Quite an endorsement from the Oracle from Omaha. Much of the problem with the Goldman situation, in Buffett's opinion, relates to the media and its inability (or unwillingness) to accurately represent the nature of the transaction in question. Without getting into the details, I will say that Buffett made a wonderful comparison between his own approach to the bond insurance business and that of some customers of Goldman's CDO underwriting and sales business. Importantly, he said that he stands by Goldman because nothing has been proven to be wrong and the facts as he sees them do not suggest any illegality. Equally important was his statement that if the facts did lead to a breach of law he would revoke his support. It is this kind of unbending critical but fair approach that we need more of.
It's easy to be negative about the future - capitalism needs a hero, we all need a hero. Warren Buffett and trusty sidekick Charlie Munger provided that today. Their unique but consistent approach is to be admired, their unparalleled investment track record lauded, and their honesty and transparency emulated. Below are some of the quotes that stuck out to me from today's session. It was a wonderful birthday gift (along with meeting Bill Gates, Peter Buffett, Ralph Nader, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and others), and I look forward to writing more about this next week.
Warren Buffett:
"If you want to give away 100% of your estate, it's a wonderful tax dodge."
"I want to hear about problems."
"We won't trade reputation for money."
"There's a point at which adding 100 pages... obfuscates, rather than illuminates, information."
"(Newspapers) were the only game in town. Now they're not the only game in town. And boy does that make a difference when you're trying to sell something."
"If the best reason you're doing something is 'the other person' is doing it, well that's not good enough."
"People will be living a lot better in India in 20 years, as in China, as in the US."
"In the end what counts is buying a good business at a reasonable price and forgetting about it for a very long time."
"I like the idea of being judged by my own words rather than others writing a few paragraphs."
"You don't have to be brilliant, you just have to avoid the dumb things."
Charlie Munger:
"We celebrate wealth only when it's fairly won and wisely used."
"I developed courage when I realized I could endure hardship. Maybe you should get your feet wet and try failure more often."
"Take the high road, it's far less crowded."
(Quoting Ben Franklin) "It's hard for an empty sack to stand up straight."
"(Ratings agencies) drifted with the stupidity of their times in a way that is regrettable... But I've also yet to hear a single apology from business academia for its significant contribution to the current problems."
"If a small group of people with lots of influence feel very strongly about something and everyone else is indifferent, that small group will get what they want."
"Warren never looks twice at anybody who isn't a little eccentric... all you have to do is look at me."
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Week 17: Should you take Vitamins & Supplements?
Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: University of California TV (UCTV)
Format: Audio
Length: 2 hours 52 minutes
I've wondered for a long time about vitamins, minerals and supplements. Grocery stores and pharmacies have rows and rows of bottles of VM&S, all of which implicitly or explicitly suggest some health benefit. Fish oil - good for your heart, calcium - good for your bones, vitamin C - keeps away colds. You name an ailment and one of those tinted bottles has the preventative solution. Obviously, there are rows and rows of these bottles for a reason. The biggest reason of course is that people buy them. But why? Are the health benefits real? Or are these wonder pills just another example of America's failed have-everything-for-free approach to life?
I'll start with what VM&S I currently take, and will end with how this might change going forward. Prior to this week's research, each day I took one multi-vitamin, one vitamin C pill, one calcium pill and at least one Omega 3 fish oil supplement. The vitamins I never gave much thought to, the calcium I take because unfortunately I became lactose intolerant in college (making drinking milk less straightforward than I'd like it to be), and the fish oil I began taking recently because I heard a few smart people say it's probably the right thing to do.
So what did the experts I listened to say about the subject? There are two very straightforward and uniform themes. First, absolutely nothing can replace a healthy, diverse diet consisting of in my case 2.5-3.5 cups of fruits and vegetables per day (click here to determine how much you need). Why not? In spite of recent advancements in science, it is still not known how all of the components of your nutritional intake react to each other, and to your body. Thanks to many studies it is known, however, that simply isolating the compounds found in foods (e.g. vitamin C) and taking a dose or pill of these underlying compounds does not offer the same health benefit as the food itself. In fact, the isolation of these compounds has in many cases shown net negative health benefits! The second theme is that each person is very different; nutrition needs vary greatly from age to sex to health conditions to genetics. In other words, you can't just say "this is the best regiment, take x,y and z."
So we clearly have a scientifically confusing and complex assessment to make. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that unlike other drugs, vitamins, minerals and supplements do not have to be tested before being sold. There are not requirements that guarantee safety, purity or effectiveness. The FDA is only now implementing regulations concerning the quality of manufacturing. While these regulations will force companies to keep records of their manufacturing process, the actual quality of the product will remain unverified, at least by the government. If you really care about what you're putting into your body you can pay the ~$30 yearly subscription to consumerlab.com, a site that independently tests the composition of various brands of VM&S.
So let's assume that we can vouch for the safety of these products. Why are they so important (either in pill form or through a healthy diet)? Vitamins serve as co-factors in many essential reactions that occur in our cells. Our bodies need them to function. And even though vitamins are needed only in small amounts, if there is a deficiency the required reactions literally will not happen. One only needs to read the history of pirates to learn about scurvy, one of the many ailments that could result from a vitamin deficiency.
While I listened to almost three painful hours of lectures on the specifics of each type of vitamin, mineral and supplement, I will summarize only those that stuck out as particularly meaningful or those for which scientific clarity exists. The scientific research is clear that free-radicals (molecules with an extra electron) are basically bad and can lead to many types of cancer and make you age prematurely. It is also clear that antioxidants neutralize free-radicals. If you don't like spinach or tea (which I of course love), vitamin C is an antioxidant rich option. While there is no research to support the theory that vitamin C prevents colds, it is crucial to producing collagen (the main protein of connective tissue). The other uniformly praised vitamin was vitamin D3. New studies show that vitamin D's benefits and necessity may extend to all major organs in the body. It has also been proven to be helpful in fighting many forms of cancer. Surprisingly, almost one billion people worldwide are estimated to be vitamin D deficient, in large part due to our fear of sun exposure. The sun triggers a reaction in our skin that allows the body to naturally produce vitamin D. But because we now wear sunscreen and in many cases work and live indoors, many of us are simply not creating the levels of vitamin D required for proper health. Taking a daily vitamin D3 pill can solve this problem. Finally, calcium has been shown to help with blood pressure, hormones, bone strength, and hypertension. Both of the experts took calcium and recommended others do the same, ideally calcium carbonate as opposed to citrate. As for the other vitamins, among them A and E, and minerals (iron and magnesium), the studies were either inconclusive or the benefits were useful only to a specific age or health subset of the population.
It is extremely important to note that taking too high a dose of just about any of these substances is bad for your health. This is particularly true for the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D & E) which can be stored in body fat for some time, as opposed to the water soluble vitamins (like vitamin C) which you will likely dispose of naturally. It is surprisingly easy to overdose on VM&S; one way to prevent this is to visit the NIH's website, where you can find intake guidelines, data and FAQ on most VM&S.
Going forward I will be taking the same assortment of pills described above, but will be adding one crucial vitamin: D3. It has proven health benefits and no major risk-factors. I was on the fence about continuing to take the multi-vitamin until one of the experts recommended it as a vitamin "safety net", but not your primary source of daily vitamins. My conclusion is that taking a select few vitamins, minerals and supplements makes sense. But it is important to understand and respect the potential downsides - mixing these pills with prescription drugs can be harmful. As previously mentioned, taking more than the recommended allowance is a bad idea as well. And finally, I've learned that the science is not only inconclusive in many cases, but it's also changing rapidly. So if you can stick to it (and I can't), the safest bet is to follow the advice of Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma: "Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants."
Content Source: University of California TV (UCTV)
Format: Audio
Length: 2 hours 52 minutes
I've wondered for a long time about vitamins, minerals and supplements. Grocery stores and pharmacies have rows and rows of bottles of VM&S, all of which implicitly or explicitly suggest some health benefit. Fish oil - good for your heart, calcium - good for your bones, vitamin C - keeps away colds. You name an ailment and one of those tinted bottles has the preventative solution. Obviously, there are rows and rows of these bottles for a reason. The biggest reason of course is that people buy them. But why? Are the health benefits real? Or are these wonder pills just another example of America's failed have-everything-for-free approach to life?
I'll start with what VM&S I currently take, and will end with how this might change going forward. Prior to this week's research, each day I took one multi-vitamin, one vitamin C pill, one calcium pill and at least one Omega 3 fish oil supplement. The vitamins I never gave much thought to, the calcium I take because unfortunately I became lactose intolerant in college (making drinking milk less straightforward than I'd like it to be), and the fish oil I began taking recently because I heard a few smart people say it's probably the right thing to do.
So what did the experts I listened to say about the subject? There are two very straightforward and uniform themes. First, absolutely nothing can replace a healthy, diverse diet consisting of in my case 2.5-3.5 cups of fruits and vegetables per day (click here to determine how much you need). Why not? In spite of recent advancements in science, it is still not known how all of the components of your nutritional intake react to each other, and to your body. Thanks to many studies it is known, however, that simply isolating the compounds found in foods (e.g. vitamin C) and taking a dose or pill of these underlying compounds does not offer the same health benefit as the food itself. In fact, the isolation of these compounds has in many cases shown net negative health benefits! The second theme is that each person is very different; nutrition needs vary greatly from age to sex to health conditions to genetics. In other words, you can't just say "this is the best regiment, take x,y and z."
So we clearly have a scientifically confusing and complex assessment to make. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that unlike other drugs, vitamins, minerals and supplements do not have to be tested before being sold. There are not requirements that guarantee safety, purity or effectiveness. The FDA is only now implementing regulations concerning the quality of manufacturing. While these regulations will force companies to keep records of their manufacturing process, the actual quality of the product will remain unverified, at least by the government. If you really care about what you're putting into your body you can pay the ~$30 yearly subscription to consumerlab.com, a site that independently tests the composition of various brands of VM&S.
So let's assume that we can vouch for the safety of these products. Why are they so important (either in pill form or through a healthy diet)? Vitamins serve as co-factors in many essential reactions that occur in our cells. Our bodies need them to function. And even though vitamins are needed only in small amounts, if there is a deficiency the required reactions literally will not happen. One only needs to read the history of pirates to learn about scurvy, one of the many ailments that could result from a vitamin deficiency.
While I listened to almost three painful hours of lectures on the specifics of each type of vitamin, mineral and supplement, I will summarize only those that stuck out as particularly meaningful or those for which scientific clarity exists. The scientific research is clear that free-radicals (molecules with an extra electron) are basically bad and can lead to many types of cancer and make you age prematurely. It is also clear that antioxidants neutralize free-radicals. If you don't like spinach or tea (which I of course love), vitamin C is an antioxidant rich option. While there is no research to support the theory that vitamin C prevents colds, it is crucial to producing collagen (the main protein of connective tissue). The other uniformly praised vitamin was vitamin D3. New studies show that vitamin D's benefits and necessity may extend to all major organs in the body. It has also been proven to be helpful in fighting many forms of cancer. Surprisingly, almost one billion people worldwide are estimated to be vitamin D deficient, in large part due to our fear of sun exposure. The sun triggers a reaction in our skin that allows the body to naturally produce vitamin D. But because we now wear sunscreen and in many cases work and live indoors, many of us are simply not creating the levels of vitamin D required for proper health. Taking a daily vitamin D3 pill can solve this problem. Finally, calcium has been shown to help with blood pressure, hormones, bone strength, and hypertension. Both of the experts took calcium and recommended others do the same, ideally calcium carbonate as opposed to citrate. As for the other vitamins, among them A and E, and minerals (iron and magnesium), the studies were either inconclusive or the benefits were useful only to a specific age or health subset of the population.
It is extremely important to note that taking too high a dose of just about any of these substances is bad for your health. This is particularly true for the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D & E) which can be stored in body fat for some time, as opposed to the water soluble vitamins (like vitamin C) which you will likely dispose of naturally. It is surprisingly easy to overdose on VM&S; one way to prevent this is to visit the NIH's website, where you can find intake guidelines, data and FAQ on most VM&S.
Going forward I will be taking the same assortment of pills described above, but will be adding one crucial vitamin: D3. It has proven health benefits and no major risk-factors. I was on the fence about continuing to take the multi-vitamin until one of the experts recommended it as a vitamin "safety net", but not your primary source of daily vitamins. My conclusion is that taking a select few vitamins, minerals and supplements makes sense. But it is important to understand and respect the potential downsides - mixing these pills with prescription drugs can be harmful. As previously mentioned, taking more than the recommended allowance is a bad idea as well. And finally, I've learned that the science is not only inconclusive in many cases, but it's also changing rapidly. So if you can stick to it (and I can't), the safest bet is to follow the advice of Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma: "Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants."
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Week 16: What We Can Learn from Kids
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Adora Svitak
Format: Video
Length: 8 minutes 13 seconds
Link: Adora Svitak
A very short post this week as I've been in the office all day and things aren't looking any rosier... Last night I saw the movie "Where the Wild Things Are", a book I loved as a kid. The movie on the whole was OK - but it had a few really touching, thought-provoking moments. For me, the most interesting scene was the one in which young, creative-but-crazy Max tells his mom the following off-the-cuff story:
There were some buildings. They were these really tall buildings, and they could walk. There were these vampires and one of the vampires bit the tallest building and his fangs broke off. Then all his other teeth fell out. Then he started crying. And then all the other vampires said, "Why are you crying? Aren't they just you're baby teeth?" And, uh, he said, "no, those were my grown up teeth." And the other vampires knew that he couldn't be a vampire anymore so they left him. The end.
When I heard this story from Max I was struck by the way Max is able to mix fantasy with reality... a clearly unrealistic scale (a vampire biting a building) is mixed with emotion (crying because other vampires left him), empathy (child-teeth falling out and becoming adult teeth) and pragmatism (a vampire can't really be a vampire without his teeth!). It made me wonder what my response would be if someone asked me to tell a story on the spot. As much as most adults would laugh off Max's story, I bet if asked many of them would stutter their way through something not half as entertaining as his vampire tale.
So after Max's story, I was drawn to a TED.com video titled "What adults can learn from kids" - it is a nine minute video of an incredible young girl named Adora Svitak. She is 12 years old, and says things like this: "The traits the word childish addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking." Pretty funny stuff. She has already published books, essays, and stories, and also gave a TED.com keynote address. You should really watch for yourself - the mere typed words of an adult cannot do her enthusiasm, intelligence, and creativity justice.
Her basic point, one I agree with, is that kids aren't as hampered as much by reasons "why not." Kids still dream about perfection. They are in their own way more big-picture than adults, who in my experience too often get stuck in the weeds. While watching Adora speak, I couldn't help but wonder how many great ideas would have been sparked if adults took her rabidly curious approach to the world. It isn't that hard, but how often do you hear grown men and women ask "why?" Not enough, in my opinion.
Kids also have this amazing ability to soak up seemingly complex skills... I'm very fortunate to have been exposed to both music and language at an early age. Not that I'm anything special at either, but I've noticed the approach I take with both is more flexible than those trying to learn for the first time as adults. I internalized the notion that music is something you can break down, play with, and build back up. And that languages are much deeper than subject-verb agreements. The subtle nuances can only come from really communicating, not merely translating. This flexibility is something I'm convinced I picked up - and hopefully to some degree retained - as a child.
Of course, there are downsides. As a five year old my parents read to me about and showed pictures of the wonderful murals of Diego Rivera. I was so inspired that I took my crayons (and artistic initiative) and made my very own mural on our white wall... and yes, we were trying to sell the place at the time. But you know what? As a parent, while I'd probably be forced to put my child in time-out for drawing on the walls, the kid somewhere inside me would be happy.
Content Source: Adora Svitak
Format: Video
Length: 8 minutes 13 seconds
Link: Adora Svitak
A very short post this week as I've been in the office all day and things aren't looking any rosier... Last night I saw the movie "Where the Wild Things Are", a book I loved as a kid. The movie on the whole was OK - but it had a few really touching, thought-provoking moments. For me, the most interesting scene was the one in which young, creative-but-crazy Max tells his mom the following off-the-cuff story:
There were some buildings. They were these really tall buildings, and they could walk. There were these vampires and one of the vampires bit the tallest building and his fangs broke off. Then all his other teeth fell out. Then he started crying. And then all the other vampires said, "Why are you crying? Aren't they just you're baby teeth?" And, uh, he said, "no, those were my grown up teeth." And the other vampires knew that he couldn't be a vampire anymore so they left him. The end.
When I heard this story from Max I was struck by the way Max is able to mix fantasy with reality... a clearly unrealistic scale (a vampire biting a building) is mixed with emotion (crying because other vampires left him), empathy (child-teeth falling out and becoming adult teeth) and pragmatism (a vampire can't really be a vampire without his teeth!). It made me wonder what my response would be if someone asked me to tell a story on the spot. As much as most adults would laugh off Max's story, I bet if asked many of them would stutter their way through something not half as entertaining as his vampire tale.
So after Max's story, I was drawn to a TED.com video titled "What adults can learn from kids" - it is a nine minute video of an incredible young girl named Adora Svitak. She is 12 years old, and says things like this: "The traits the word childish addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking." Pretty funny stuff. She has already published books, essays, and stories, and also gave a TED.com keynote address. You should really watch for yourself - the mere typed words of an adult cannot do her enthusiasm, intelligence, and creativity justice.
Her basic point, one I agree with, is that kids aren't as hampered as much by reasons "why not." Kids still dream about perfection. They are in their own way more big-picture than adults, who in my experience too often get stuck in the weeds. While watching Adora speak, I couldn't help but wonder how many great ideas would have been sparked if adults took her rabidly curious approach to the world. It isn't that hard, but how often do you hear grown men and women ask "why?" Not enough, in my opinion.
Kids also have this amazing ability to soak up seemingly complex skills... I'm very fortunate to have been exposed to both music and language at an early age. Not that I'm anything special at either, but I've noticed the approach I take with both is more flexible than those trying to learn for the first time as adults. I internalized the notion that music is something you can break down, play with, and build back up. And that languages are much deeper than subject-verb agreements. The subtle nuances can only come from really communicating, not merely translating. This flexibility is something I'm convinced I picked up - and hopefully to some degree retained - as a child.
Of course, there are downsides. As a five year old my parents read to me about and showed pictures of the wonderful murals of Diego Rivera. I was so inspired that I took my crayons (and artistic initiative) and made my very own mural on our white wall... and yes, we were trying to sell the place at the time. But you know what? As a parent, while I'd probably be forced to put my child in time-out for drawing on the walls, the kid somewhere inside me would be happy.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Week 15: The Wonders of Tea
Distribution Source: Hulu.com
Content Source: The History Channel
Format: Video
Length: 44 minutes 23 seconds
Link: Tea
Since graduating from college, I have come to love tea. At my first job I had to be on the desk by 6 AM, and caffeine seemed to be a must. So I started with coffee... I quickly decided that for an already stressful job that involved staring at blinking screens all day, consuming large quantities of a strong (and in my opinion foul-tasting) jitters-inducing substance was less than ideal. Our kitchen's free green tea machine was my gift from heaven. That is, until facilities maintenance became unwilling or unable to stock adequately our floor's green tea supply. At this point, my Econ 101 professor's droning lectures kicked in - it was clear to me we were a floor full of green tea drinkers and that demand had eclipsed supply. And what does a supply shortage typically encourage? Hoarding. And hoarding, of course, induces even greater scarcity. This was serious - I was facing the very real possibility of a devastating negative feedback loop resulting in a structural green tea shortage. I had to act quickly. Purchasing green tea was not an option, as I had neither the time or the money as a first year analyst to go to Starbucks each day - the Flavia machine was my only viable option. Then I thought about the problem a bit more strategically; if a shortage of green tea were imminent it would make sense that the floor with fixed income traders would be the first to exhibit these supply and demand dynamics. After all, it's what they did - supply and demand. Bonds... green tea... the principles are the same. However the bankers on the fifth floor (if they were even in the office that early) were more likely to be pricing green tea sales into some spreadsheet for Lipton's management than thinking about an office tea shortage. So I went to the fifth floor kitchen, where sure enough there was an abundance of Flavia green tea! I took a full box back to my desk, and over the course of the ensuing green tea shortage became known by many senior and junior salesmen and traders as "the kid with the green tea." If I wasn't the smartest or the most hard-working analyst, at least I had cornered the third-floor green tea market.
But enough long-winded storytelling - why is tea an interesting topic? Aside from being a pleasant and healthy drink, tea has been symbolically significant to political revolutions (recent and historic), helped drive colonial power and profit, ignited war, and has for millennia represented a philosophic, religious, and of course cultural significance for a large portion of the human race. Oh, it's also the second most common drink on the planet; only water is consumed in larger quantities. Humans drink 1.5 trillion cups of tea per year. And yet it is still in many ways an enigma; while its antioxidants are supposedly able to reduce the risk of cancer, this has not been decidedly proven. The paradoxical qualities of tea further add to its aura; as one tea expert said on the video "if you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are warm, it will cool you; if you are excited, it will sooth you; if you are lethargic, it will stimulate you." Not too shabby.
I was particularly interested to learn that the US is well behind the rest of the world in tea consumption. Anecdotally I sensed this was the case when I recently busted out this nifty tea-drinking contraption, a birthday gift from my dad, and only my colleague from Hong Kong had any idea (or interest in) what it was. In the United States, tea is only the fifth most consumed beverage, behind water, coffee, soft drinks, and alcohol. Americans consume only 50 billion of the 1.5 trillion teas drunk each year. Also distinctive to American tea drinkers is that 80% of all tea consumed in the US is iced tea (as opposed to the globally far more popular hot tea). We also tend to drink tea primarily using tea bags; tea bags are somewhat of a taboo in China, where it is thought that the full flavor is inhibited if you drink anything other than the loose-leaf tea. But it is not hopeless for the US; specialty teas have become increasingly popular in recent years and tea consumption in the US is said to have doubled from 2001 to 2006. Meaningful tea production in the US is limited to South Carolina and Hawaii, the two states that can exhibit the semi-tropical, high levels of rainfall necessary for tea to thrive.
Globally, tea is produced mostly in East Asia, India, and parts of Africa. India is the largest producer, representing 30% of the global tea supply. In aggregate, 30 billion pounds of tea plants are harvested each year, resulting in six billion pounds of drinkable tea (apparently five pounds of plant are needed for one pound of final tea). On the consumption side, it is the Irish who lead the world. The Irish, perhaps to match their four pints of beer per day, drink on average four cups of tea daily. (This is about how many cups I drink each day, for those keeping score.)
I was surprised to learn that the three major teas - black tea, oolong tea, and green tea - all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. The difference between the three has only to do with the oxidation process following harvesting. Green tea has no oxidation, while oolong has about half the oxidation of black tea, the most oxidized tea. The longer the tea leaves oxidize, the greater their caffeine content. Accordingly, black tea is the most caffeinated, with about 40mg of caffeine per cup (roughly half the caffeine in a cup of coffee). However from these basic three teas come over 1,500 varietals. Tea sommeliers go through years of training to learn how to distinguish the various flavors and characteristics.
The two remaining tea topics that caught my attention were its incredible history as well as its medical powers (perceived and actual). The historical side is fascinating because of tea's seeming ubiquity and relevance, whether in China almost five thousand years ago, in Egypt and Iran where tea is the national drink, or in England where it was once simultaneously the drink of the elite, a key driver of the economic growth of the British empire, and a major source of contention with the Americans, the Indians, the Chinese and even lower-class British citizens. As for the medical benefits of tea, there is a similar laundry list; among other diseases tea is thought to protect against obesity, osteoporosis, heart disease, gum disease, and cancer. I can't speak to the veracity of these claims, but it seems reasonable to conclude that the historical significance and the health benefits of tea are linked. The fact that the Bronze Age Chinese did not have powerful microscopes to examine and understand tea at a molecular level does not mean they were wrong about its contribution to a healthy, tranquil life. I will leave you with a quote from the show that summarizes succinctly my current view of tea, namely that there is "no pleasure simpler, no luxury cheaper, and no consciousness-altering substance more benign than our simple tea."
Content Source: The History Channel
Format: Video
Length: 44 minutes 23 seconds
Link: Tea
Since graduating from college, I have come to love tea. At my first job I had to be on the desk by 6 AM, and caffeine seemed to be a must. So I started with coffee... I quickly decided that for an already stressful job that involved staring at blinking screens all day, consuming large quantities of a strong (and in my opinion foul-tasting) jitters-inducing substance was less than ideal. Our kitchen's free green tea machine was my gift from heaven. That is, until facilities maintenance became unwilling or unable to stock adequately our floor's green tea supply. At this point, my Econ 101 professor's droning lectures kicked in - it was clear to me we were a floor full of green tea drinkers and that demand had eclipsed supply. And what does a supply shortage typically encourage? Hoarding. And hoarding, of course, induces even greater scarcity. This was serious - I was facing the very real possibility of a devastating negative feedback loop resulting in a structural green tea shortage. I had to act quickly. Purchasing green tea was not an option, as I had neither the time or the money as a first year analyst to go to Starbucks each day - the Flavia machine was my only viable option. Then I thought about the problem a bit more strategically; if a shortage of green tea were imminent it would make sense that the floor with fixed income traders would be the first to exhibit these supply and demand dynamics. After all, it's what they did - supply and demand. Bonds... green tea... the principles are the same. However the bankers on the fifth floor (if they were even in the office that early) were more likely to be pricing green tea sales into some spreadsheet for Lipton's management than thinking about an office tea shortage. So I went to the fifth floor kitchen, where sure enough there was an abundance of Flavia green tea! I took a full box back to my desk, and over the course of the ensuing green tea shortage became known by many senior and junior salesmen and traders as "the kid with the green tea." If I wasn't the smartest or the most hard-working analyst, at least I had cornered the third-floor green tea market.
But enough long-winded storytelling - why is tea an interesting topic? Aside from being a pleasant and healthy drink, tea has been symbolically significant to political revolutions (recent and historic), helped drive colonial power and profit, ignited war, and has for millennia represented a philosophic, religious, and of course cultural significance for a large portion of the human race. Oh, it's also the second most common drink on the planet; only water is consumed in larger quantities. Humans drink 1.5 trillion cups of tea per year. And yet it is still in many ways an enigma; while its antioxidants are supposedly able to reduce the risk of cancer, this has not been decidedly proven. The paradoxical qualities of tea further add to its aura; as one tea expert said on the video "if you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are warm, it will cool you; if you are excited, it will sooth you; if you are lethargic, it will stimulate you." Not too shabby.
I was particularly interested to learn that the US is well behind the rest of the world in tea consumption. Anecdotally I sensed this was the case when I recently busted out this nifty tea-drinking contraption, a birthday gift from my dad, and only my colleague from Hong Kong had any idea (or interest in) what it was. In the United States, tea is only the fifth most consumed beverage, behind water, coffee, soft drinks, and alcohol. Americans consume only 50 billion of the 1.5 trillion teas drunk each year. Also distinctive to American tea drinkers is that 80% of all tea consumed in the US is iced tea (as opposed to the globally far more popular hot tea). We also tend to drink tea primarily using tea bags; tea bags are somewhat of a taboo in China, where it is thought that the full flavor is inhibited if you drink anything other than the loose-leaf tea. But it is not hopeless for the US; specialty teas have become increasingly popular in recent years and tea consumption in the US is said to have doubled from 2001 to 2006. Meaningful tea production in the US is limited to South Carolina and Hawaii, the two states that can exhibit the semi-tropical, high levels of rainfall necessary for tea to thrive.
Globally, tea is produced mostly in East Asia, India, and parts of Africa. India is the largest producer, representing 30% of the global tea supply. In aggregate, 30 billion pounds of tea plants are harvested each year, resulting in six billion pounds of drinkable tea (apparently five pounds of plant are needed for one pound of final tea). On the consumption side, it is the Irish who lead the world. The Irish, perhaps to match their four pints of beer per day, drink on average four cups of tea daily. (This is about how many cups I drink each day, for those keeping score.)
I was surprised to learn that the three major teas - black tea, oolong tea, and green tea - all come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. The difference between the three has only to do with the oxidation process following harvesting. Green tea has no oxidation, while oolong has about half the oxidation of black tea, the most oxidized tea. The longer the tea leaves oxidize, the greater their caffeine content. Accordingly, black tea is the most caffeinated, with about 40mg of caffeine per cup (roughly half the caffeine in a cup of coffee). However from these basic three teas come over 1,500 varietals. Tea sommeliers go through years of training to learn how to distinguish the various flavors and characteristics.
The two remaining tea topics that caught my attention were its incredible history as well as its medical powers (perceived and actual). The historical side is fascinating because of tea's seeming ubiquity and relevance, whether in China almost five thousand years ago, in Egypt and Iran where tea is the national drink, or in England where it was once simultaneously the drink of the elite, a key driver of the economic growth of the British empire, and a major source of contention with the Americans, the Indians, the Chinese and even lower-class British citizens. As for the medical benefits of tea, there is a similar laundry list; among other diseases tea is thought to protect against obesity, osteoporosis, heart disease, gum disease, and cancer. I can't speak to the veracity of these claims, but it seems reasonable to conclude that the historical significance and the health benefits of tea are linked. The fact that the Bronze Age Chinese did not have powerful microscopes to examine and understand tea at a molecular level does not mean they were wrong about its contribution to a healthy, tranquil life. I will leave you with a quote from the show that summarizes succinctly my current view of tea, namely that there is "no pleasure simpler, no luxury cheaper, and no consciousness-altering substance more benign than our simple tea."
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Two Books to Read: Six Degrees of Connection & Making Ideas Happen
In the past few months two people I know and respect have become first-time authors. Liz Dow has recently published Six Degrees of Connection: How to Unlock Your Leadership Potential, a book focused on the common characteristics of "Connectors." After degrees from Cornell and Wharton and a successful run in corporate America, Liz gave up the rat race to become the CEO of LEADERSHIP Philadelphia. LEADERSHIP's mission is to mobilize and connect the talent of the private sector to serve the community. Scott Belsky is in the process of publishing Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, focused on the importance of execution when it comes to ideas. I guess you would describe Scott as the Harvard Business School and Cornell graduate with a great finance career who decided instead to found and run his own company (Behance). The truth is, in both cases the (stellar) resumes do not do the person justice - Liz and Scott are passionate, intelligent, creative people.... perhaps most admirable to me is that they don't sit around and wait for the world, they act.
But this is more than just a plug for these books - both Liz and Scott have in their own way inspired me to create The 52 Week Project. Through a variety of thought-provoking emails, Liz helped me remember how much I enjoyed writing, and encouraged me to find my voice. And about a year ago I caught up with Scott and ran him through a series of my ideas. Prior to this conversation my mentality had been: how do I decide if and when to quit my job and pursue an idea of mine? In other words, it was binary: job or idea. He suggested a more flexible (and realistic approach): putting aside a set amount of resources - primarily time and money - to develop ideas. This helped me realize there can be a middle ground. It wasn't until I internalized both my desire to write and my willingness to devote time outside of work to a very different kind of endeavor that I was able to jump into The 52 Week Project.
Both books are available for purchase on Amazon - I encourage you to click on the book links to the right (scroll through the carousel and you can find each cover), and purchase a copy of either or both of these books. I'm confident you will not be disappointed.
But this is more than just a plug for these books - both Liz and Scott have in their own way inspired me to create The 52 Week Project. Through a variety of thought-provoking emails, Liz helped me remember how much I enjoyed writing, and encouraged me to find my voice. And about a year ago I caught up with Scott and ran him through a series of my ideas. Prior to this conversation my mentality had been: how do I decide if and when to quit my job and pursue an idea of mine? In other words, it was binary: job or idea. He suggested a more flexible (and realistic approach): putting aside a set amount of resources - primarily time and money - to develop ideas. This helped me realize there can be a middle ground. It wasn't until I internalized both my desire to write and my willingness to devote time outside of work to a very different kind of endeavor that I was able to jump into The 52 Week Project.
Both books are available for purchase on Amazon - I encourage you to click on the book links to the right (scroll through the carousel and you can find each cover), and purchase a copy of either or both of these books. I'm confident you will not be disappointed.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Week 14: Kiva and the Bolivian Potato Farmer
Distribution Source: YouTube, iTunesU, Kiva.org
Content Source: Kiva, PBS, Bill Clinton, Talkathon.org
Format: Video & Audio
Length: 50 minutes
Link:
The Story of a Kiva.org Loan
Bill Clinton on Kiva
Kiva on PBS
I'm going to start with this: I am extremely excited about this week's topic. Yes, it was interesting to learn that a grizzly bear can crush a bowling ball with its jaws or that organized crime makes up an estimated 15% of global GDP. But Kiva.org gets me more excited than even the iPhone's potential to transform the medical field. Kiva.org is a web-based, social networking-esque microfinance platform that allows anyone with an internet connection to make a loan of as little as $25 to an entrepreneur in a poverty-stricken country. It was founded just five years ago and it has already revolutionized microfinance.
The best way to tell the Kiva story is to explain the process by which (a few minutes ago) I made my first Kiva loan. After doing my due diligence on the site and its legitimacy (more on this later) - and with the seal of approval from Bill Clinton and Oprah - I signed up. I first created a username and password, then clicked on the "make a loan" tab. I proceeded to immediately get to work finding the entrepreneur to whom I wanted to lend. The site allowed me to target my search for the right borrower among other things by region, country, and type of business. I decided that I would make my first $25 loan to someone in Latin America, and in the "Food" business category. I was quickly drawn to the profile of a Bolivian potato farmer named Elias. On this profile I saw his name, picture, location and a description of what he would do with the $400 loan he needed (multiple people contribute to each loan). In this case he needed to buy potato seeds to plant, grow, and eventually sell potatoes, all to support his wife and four school-aged children.
After deciding that this was a loan-worthy cause, the finance nerd in me kicked in and I set about trying to figure out the likelihood that I get paid back. Kiva boasts an unbelievable 98.47% repayment rate, but this told me nothing of Elias' individual credit rating. From the profile page, I learned that the Kiva partner in Bolivia was a microfinance group called "Emprender." They were ranked 4 of 5 stars by Kiva, indicating a "Significant" likelihood of facilitating honest paybacks. They have also partnered with Kiva on over 2,300 projects over the last two years, with only a 0.37% delinquency rate. As for Elias himself, he has worked with Emprender for four years. Good enough for me. And if all this transparency isn't enough, look for yourself. Each loan has its own webpage, with all kinds of additional information, including expected repayment schedules and a list of all the lenders (scroll down on that link to see who my partners are on this loan).
As I was going through the loan confirmation process, I realized I could join a Kiva.org "team" and quickly decided on the Cornell team. This simply represented one of the thousands of mini-networks that live inside Kiva. While checking out, I indicated that I wanted my loan to count to the Cornell Kiva running tally and was pleased to see the total Cornell loan amount go from $6,300 to $6,325 following my loan to Elias. I was also able to send messages directly to other Cornell-Kiva lenders.
So this is clearly a cool concept - but why do I think it is revolutionary? It is revolutionary because it is an uber-transparent, bottoms-up, global, viral, reliable platform aimed squarely at the biggest problems on earth. And it works. And there's no bureaucracy. And you get paid back. And they've already made $129MM in loans since inception. Can you tell I love this idea?
Kiva is great because it leverages technology to empower individuals. These individuals, the borrower and the lender, are collectively starting to chip away at the anathema that is poverty and helplessness.
I could write another 10 paragraphs about how awesome this is, but instead I will let the facts speak for themselves. Below is Kiva's "balance sheet" - oh yeah, and they update these stats nightly for the world to see. Perhaps our government could learn from this approach?
Total value of all loans made through Kiva: $129,353,785
Number of Kiva Users: 694,924
Number of Kiva Users who have funded a loan: 442,194
Number of countries represented by Kiva Lenders: 196
Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva: 330,170
Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: 180,952
Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs: 82.28%
Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with): 111
Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in: 52
Current repayment rate (all partners): 98.47%
Average loan size (This is the average amount loaned to an individual Kiva Entrepreneur. Some loans - group loans - are divided between a group of borrowers.): $395.55
Average total amount loaned per Kiva Lender (includes reloaned funds): $186.50
Average number of loans per Kiva Lender: 5.43
Content Source: Kiva, PBS, Bill Clinton, Talkathon.org
Format: Video & Audio
Length: 50 minutes
Link:
The Story of a Kiva.org Loan
Bill Clinton on Kiva
Kiva on PBS
I'm going to start with this: I am extremely excited about this week's topic. Yes, it was interesting to learn that a grizzly bear can crush a bowling ball with its jaws or that organized crime makes up an estimated 15% of global GDP. But Kiva.org gets me more excited than even the iPhone's potential to transform the medical field. Kiva.org is a web-based, social networking-esque microfinance platform that allows anyone with an internet connection to make a loan of as little as $25 to an entrepreneur in a poverty-stricken country. It was founded just five years ago and it has already revolutionized microfinance.
The best way to tell the Kiva story is to explain the process by which (a few minutes ago) I made my first Kiva loan. After doing my due diligence on the site and its legitimacy (more on this later) - and with the seal of approval from Bill Clinton and Oprah - I signed up. I first created a username and password, then clicked on the "make a loan" tab. I proceeded to immediately get to work finding the entrepreneur to whom I wanted to lend. The site allowed me to target my search for the right borrower among other things by region, country, and type of business. I decided that I would make my first $25 loan to someone in Latin America, and in the "Food" business category. I was quickly drawn to the profile of a Bolivian potato farmer named Elias. On this profile I saw his name, picture, location and a description of what he would do with the $400 loan he needed (multiple people contribute to each loan). In this case he needed to buy potato seeds to plant, grow, and eventually sell potatoes, all to support his wife and four school-aged children.
After deciding that this was a loan-worthy cause, the finance nerd in me kicked in and I set about trying to figure out the likelihood that I get paid back. Kiva boasts an unbelievable 98.47% repayment rate, but this told me nothing of Elias' individual credit rating. From the profile page, I learned that the Kiva partner in Bolivia was a microfinance group called "Emprender." They were ranked 4 of 5 stars by Kiva, indicating a "Significant" likelihood of facilitating honest paybacks. They have also partnered with Kiva on over 2,300 projects over the last two years, with only a 0.37% delinquency rate. As for Elias himself, he has worked with Emprender for four years. Good enough for me. And if all this transparency isn't enough, look for yourself. Each loan has its own webpage, with all kinds of additional information, including expected repayment schedules and a list of all the lenders (scroll down on that link to see who my partners are on this loan).
As I was going through the loan confirmation process, I realized I could join a Kiva.org "team" and quickly decided on the Cornell team. This simply represented one of the thousands of mini-networks that live inside Kiva. While checking out, I indicated that I wanted my loan to count to the Cornell Kiva running tally and was pleased to see the total Cornell loan amount go from $6,300 to $6,325 following my loan to Elias. I was also able to send messages directly to other Cornell-Kiva lenders.
So this is clearly a cool concept - but why do I think it is revolutionary? It is revolutionary because it is an uber-transparent, bottoms-up, global, viral, reliable platform aimed squarely at the biggest problems on earth. And it works. And there's no bureaucracy. And you get paid back. And they've already made $129MM in loans since inception. Can you tell I love this idea?
Kiva is great because it leverages technology to empower individuals. These individuals, the borrower and the lender, are collectively starting to chip away at the anathema that is poverty and helplessness.
I could write another 10 paragraphs about how awesome this is, but instead I will let the facts speak for themselves. Below is Kiva's "balance sheet" - oh yeah, and they update these stats nightly for the world to see. Perhaps our government could learn from this approach?
Total value of all loans made through Kiva: $129,353,785
Number of Kiva Users: 694,924
Number of Kiva Users who have funded a loan: 442,194
Number of countries represented by Kiva Lenders: 196
Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva: 330,170
Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: 180,952
Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs: 82.28%
Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with): 111
Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in: 52
Current repayment rate (all partners): 98.47%
Average loan size (This is the average amount loaned to an individual Kiva Entrepreneur. Some loans - group loans - are divided between a group of borrowers.): $395.55
Average total amount loaned per Kiva Lender (includes reloaned funds): $186.50
Average number of loans per Kiva Lender: 5.43
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Week 13: Grizzlies
Distribution Source: Hulu.com
Content Source: Exhibition Wild
Format: Video
Length: 45 minutes, 57 seconds
Link: 800 Pound Best Friend
Earlier today I came across the story of Casey Anderson, a man who apparently is "best friends" with a grizzly bear. The two spend time with each other daily, and the bear - perhaps ominously named Brutus - was Casey's best man and attended his recent wedding (you can find the wedding picture here). Brutus stands 7 ft. 8 in. and weighs over 800 pounds - and is still only an adolescent. This alone seemed ridiculous enough to merit further research.
I quickly confirmed that Casey was not the same person as Timothy Treadwell, the ill-fated "Grizzly Man" notorious for approaching and even touching wild bears in their native habitat. Unfortunately, he and his girlfriend were mauled to death and partially eaten by at least one grizzly in Alaska in 2003. So given this gory tragedy, why would Casey - a naturalist trained to know and understand the serious risks posed by grizzlies - befriend what I consider to be one of the most awe-inspiring and terrifying animals on the planet?
The story begins with young bearcub Brutus, who was born on an overpopulated wildlife preserve. He was therefore likely to be euthanized - there simply wasn't enough room for more grizzlies. So Casey saved Brutus by creating a bear sanctuary in Montana, and has raised him ever since. As Casey describes it, the difference between his story and Timothy's is simple: he would never come close to wild grizzlies. Brutus has grown up with Casey and recognizes him as his keeper and source of food. The cool part about having a large, well-trained grizzly bear (he can even give high fives) is that Casey can measure things like strength, speed and agility without having to risk an encounter with a wild grizzly. (He stays at least 100 yards away when tracking wild grizzlies.) In my opinion it is still outrageous to continually put yourself in such close contact with a grizzly bear, albeit a domesticated one. He is, however, using Brutus to educate people about grizzlies and more broadly about the impact of humans on the natural habitats of wildlife.
One look at the statistics on these animals is enough to send you running in the opposite direction... Not that you'd get away - grizzlies can in three strides reach a speed of 40 mph, equal to the speed of a race horse. Their sense of smell is seven times stronger than that of a bloodhound. Wild grizzlies have claws up to four inches long, to go along with dinner-plate sized paws. They have to eat 20,000 calories per day to sustain themselves. And the most incredible statistic? Grizzlies have a bite force of 1,200 pounds per square inch, enough to crush a bowling ball. Yes, a bowling ball. Ouch.
Apparently there used to be 100,000 grizzlies throughout North America. After decades of hunting and habitat destruction, only 1,500 grizzlies remain in the lower 48 states, of which 600 live in Yellowstone National Park. While still at very low levels, this is better than the all-time low of 200 bears in Yellowstone during the 1970s. At the time, bears had taken to eating from garbage dumps, which quickly became one of their primary food sources. The authorities subsequently decided to remove the garbage dumps. Ill-equipped to fend for themselves, the bears became more aggressive and human-bear incidents increased, resulting in the euthanization or removal of 200 grizzlies. Since the 1970s, the bears have returned to their natural food sources: roots, bulbs, rodents, leftover carcasses, salmon and other fish, and millions and millions of moths. One bear eats up to 40,000 miller moths in one day.
While it is certainly positive that the number of Yellowstone grizzlies has increased, and also that grizzlies are eating more moths and fewer Doritos, major issues concerning the survival of Yellowstone grizzlies remain. For bears, Yellowstone is basically an ecological island. Due to roads, human dwellings, and cattle ranches, the Yellowstone grizzly population continues to be separated from populations in Montana and Canada. As a result, the Yellowstone population is highly susceptible to changes to the environment. In particular, recent changes in climate seem to be affecting the migration of moths to the Yellowstone area. For grizzlies who return from hibernation to the same feeding areas year after year, the shock of removing a major food source could have very serious ramifications to the population.
As far as takeaways from this week's topic, I don't really have a profound message. If anything, I think the Yellowstone grizzly example reminds us of the impact exogenous forces can have on any kind of local environment. Grizzlies are fascinating, solitary, powerful creatures. While I don't necessarily want to raise one from birth, I will be rooting for their ongoing comeback.
Content Source: Exhibition Wild
Format: Video
Length: 45 minutes, 57 seconds
Link: 800 Pound Best Friend
Earlier today I came across the story of Casey Anderson, a man who apparently is "best friends" with a grizzly bear. The two spend time with each other daily, and the bear - perhaps ominously named Brutus - was Casey's best man and attended his recent wedding (you can find the wedding picture here). Brutus stands 7 ft. 8 in. and weighs over 800 pounds - and is still only an adolescent. This alone seemed ridiculous enough to merit further research.
I quickly confirmed that Casey was not the same person as Timothy Treadwell, the ill-fated "Grizzly Man" notorious for approaching and even touching wild bears in their native habitat. Unfortunately, he and his girlfriend were mauled to death and partially eaten by at least one grizzly in Alaska in 2003. So given this gory tragedy, why would Casey - a naturalist trained to know and understand the serious risks posed by grizzlies - befriend what I consider to be one of the most awe-inspiring and terrifying animals on the planet?
The story begins with young bearcub Brutus, who was born on an overpopulated wildlife preserve. He was therefore likely to be euthanized - there simply wasn't enough room for more grizzlies. So Casey saved Brutus by creating a bear sanctuary in Montana, and has raised him ever since. As Casey describes it, the difference between his story and Timothy's is simple: he would never come close to wild grizzlies. Brutus has grown up with Casey and recognizes him as his keeper and source of food. The cool part about having a large, well-trained grizzly bear (he can even give high fives) is that Casey can measure things like strength, speed and agility without having to risk an encounter with a wild grizzly. (He stays at least 100 yards away when tracking wild grizzlies.) In my opinion it is still outrageous to continually put yourself in such close contact with a grizzly bear, albeit a domesticated one. He is, however, using Brutus to educate people about grizzlies and more broadly about the impact of humans on the natural habitats of wildlife.
One look at the statistics on these animals is enough to send you running in the opposite direction... Not that you'd get away - grizzlies can in three strides reach a speed of 40 mph, equal to the speed of a race horse. Their sense of smell is seven times stronger than that of a bloodhound. Wild grizzlies have claws up to four inches long, to go along with dinner-plate sized paws. They have to eat 20,000 calories per day to sustain themselves. And the most incredible statistic? Grizzlies have a bite force of 1,200 pounds per square inch, enough to crush a bowling ball. Yes, a bowling ball. Ouch.
Apparently there used to be 100,000 grizzlies throughout North America. After decades of hunting and habitat destruction, only 1,500 grizzlies remain in the lower 48 states, of which 600 live in Yellowstone National Park. While still at very low levels, this is better than the all-time low of 200 bears in Yellowstone during the 1970s. At the time, bears had taken to eating from garbage dumps, which quickly became one of their primary food sources. The authorities subsequently decided to remove the garbage dumps. Ill-equipped to fend for themselves, the bears became more aggressive and human-bear incidents increased, resulting in the euthanization or removal of 200 grizzlies. Since the 1970s, the bears have returned to their natural food sources: roots, bulbs, rodents, leftover carcasses, salmon and other fish, and millions and millions of moths. One bear eats up to 40,000 miller moths in one day.
While it is certainly positive that the number of Yellowstone grizzlies has increased, and also that grizzlies are eating more moths and fewer Doritos, major issues concerning the survival of Yellowstone grizzlies remain. For bears, Yellowstone is basically an ecological island. Due to roads, human dwellings, and cattle ranches, the Yellowstone grizzly population continues to be separated from populations in Montana and Canada. As a result, the Yellowstone population is highly susceptible to changes to the environment. In particular, recent changes in climate seem to be affecting the migration of moths to the Yellowstone area. For grizzlies who return from hibernation to the same feeding areas year after year, the shock of removing a major food source could have very serious ramifications to the population.
As far as takeaways from this week's topic, I don't really have a profound message. If anything, I think the Yellowstone grizzly example reminds us of the impact exogenous forces can have on any kind of local environment. Grizzlies are fascinating, solitary, powerful creatures. While I don't necessarily want to raise one from birth, I will be rooting for their ongoing comeback.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Week 12: Why we eat more than we should
Distribution Source: CornellCast
Content Source: Cornell University/Professor Brian Wansink
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour, 18 minutes, 43 seconds
Link: Mindless Eating
In honor of my alma mater's historic win today over Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament, I decided to choose a video from Cornell's free collection of audio and video lectures. This week is focused on a fascinating talk by Professor Brian Wansink based on the findings chronicled in his book, Mindless eating: Why we eat more than we think. This topic is of recent interest thanks to numerous cues in my life focused on the issue of food, weight and health. Whether it was my girlfriend watching tonight's kick-off episode of Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" (a push to make Americans less fat), my co-worker's refusal to eat at 90% of restaurants around the office following a viewing of "Food, Inc.", or witnessing the intensity/insanity of a two-month extreme nutrition program undertaken recently by a good friend, it is clear to me that people care about food. More specifically, people care about how food relates to health (or lack of health).
The bottom line is perhaps unsurprising: we Americans eat with our eyes, not with our (abnormally large) stomachs. We often don't know when we are full, why we are eating, or how much we should be eating. I saw more than a little irony when, over the course of the hour-long lecture, I realized I had eaten a small plate of leftovers, about 8 baby carrots (healthy, right?), and chips with bean dip. And it's not like I was hungry - I had a massive Qdoba taco salad just two hours ago. So why are we - and why was I - doing this?
First, because the stomach is not a good or timely indicator of how much (or what) we should be eating, we look to external cues to guide our rationing process. For instance, we add to our plate or glass until it is full. That is, containers instruct our serving-size choices. Alternatively, we look around us and do what other people do. If they are munching on popcorn at the theater then by God, so will I! Case in point: 150 Chicago natives were asked how they knew they were full; their top three responses were "when my plate is empty", "when everyone else is through," and, no joke, "when the TV show I was watching ended." Contrast this with an identical survey of 150 Parisians: "when I feel full", "when the food no longer tastes good to me," and "when the food is cold." You draw your conclusions on this one, folks.
Professor Wansink outlined three food and eating myths: that bowl size does not instruct serving size, that we know when we are full, and that we know what food we like to eat. It is not that unusual to conclude that a bigger plate leads to larger portions. However the professor takes this a step further - he selected 60 graduate students and lectured them for 90 minutes EXCLUSIVELY on how larger serving sizes are a result of bigger containers. In a covert test following this direct and comprehensive education, those grad students with bigger bowls nevertheless ate 53% more than their counterparts. Similarly, he demonstrated that on average people pour 77% more on short, wide glasses than on narrow, tall glasses with the same volume. He did this test with many bartenders, with the exact same results. We pour to fill up the glass - that is our cue, not the objective measure of what portion should be consumed. (Note to self: check for short, wide bar glasses before ordering a whiskey on the rocks.)
As for the "we know when we are full" myth, Professor Wansink conducted a study in which he created a "bottomless" soup bowl that unbeknownst to the subject slowly re-filled his or her bowl. First, and most interesting to me, was that only 2 of 160 actually noticed that the bowl was not becoming less full as soup consumption was quite obviously taking place. Second, after 20 minutes, those with the bottomless soup bowl had eaten 77% more than those with regular bowls and reported IDENTICAL feelings of hunger. In other words, after eating almost twice as much food, they claimed to feel the same as those who had eaten far less!
His point with the "I know what I like" myth is that our tastes are in fact quite suggestable. In one study, he put chocolate syrup into vanilla yogurt and packaged it with a picture of a strawberry on it. All of his subjects readily accepted and spoke to the "strong strawberry yogurt flavors" in the chocolate yogurt. Similarly, at a mock restaurant he served 2 Buck Chuck (a horrendous, cheap wine good for only two things: getting you drunk and giving you a hangover) disguised as either a "California Cabernet" or a "North Dakota Cabernet." The descriptive cues and associated expectation of the California Cabernet resulted in a dramatic difference in results: California drinkers ate more, ate longer, gave the meal better ratings, and said they were more likely to come back than the North Dakota drinkers. Across many studies he has shown that by raising expectations, people actually believe things taste better. Put simply, adding candles and nice plates WILL make your date think you're a better cook (assuming of course that you don't serve her raw chicken).
So how to correct these sneaky overeating cues and impulses? If you think his solution is to get a gym membership, think again. He found that on average, most people gained a few pounds after starting an exercise program. This was not because people were building muscle - rather it was due to calorie compensation. People felt deserving of further indulgences as a result of working out, and consistently overestimated the number of calories they burned. On average people ate 28% more than they did before their work-out programs, but only burned 18% more calories!
He did, however recommend changing your environment, which he claims is much easier than changing your behavior. In other words, get rid of your short/wide glasses and buy smaller bowls. Alternatively, move your chocolate a few feet away rather than keeping it right in front of you and relying on your ability to say "no" fifty times without indulging. He also recommended against eating family style meals, and suggested putting serving bowls in the kitchen as opposed to on the table.
Will I change anything now that I learned more about the duplicitous nature of food consumption psychology? Probably not, but you should.
Content Source: Cornell University/Professor Brian Wansink
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour, 18 minutes, 43 seconds
Link: Mindless Eating
In honor of my alma mater's historic win today over Wisconsin in the NCAA tournament, I decided to choose a video from Cornell's free collection of audio and video lectures. This week is focused on a fascinating talk by Professor Brian Wansink based on the findings chronicled in his book, Mindless eating: Why we eat more than we think. This topic is of recent interest thanks to numerous cues in my life focused on the issue of food, weight and health. Whether it was my girlfriend watching tonight's kick-off episode of Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" (a push to make Americans less fat), my co-worker's refusal to eat at 90% of restaurants around the office following a viewing of "Food, Inc.", or witnessing the intensity/insanity of a two-month extreme nutrition program undertaken recently by a good friend, it is clear to me that people care about food. More specifically, people care about how food relates to health (or lack of health).
The bottom line is perhaps unsurprising: we Americans eat with our eyes, not with our (abnormally large) stomachs. We often don't know when we are full, why we are eating, or how much we should be eating. I saw more than a little irony when, over the course of the hour-long lecture, I realized I had eaten a small plate of leftovers, about 8 baby carrots (healthy, right?), and chips with bean dip. And it's not like I was hungry - I had a massive Qdoba taco salad just two hours ago. So why are we - and why was I - doing this?
First, because the stomach is not a good or timely indicator of how much (or what) we should be eating, we look to external cues to guide our rationing process. For instance, we add to our plate or glass until it is full. That is, containers instruct our serving-size choices. Alternatively, we look around us and do what other people do. If they are munching on popcorn at the theater then by God, so will I! Case in point: 150 Chicago natives were asked how they knew they were full; their top three responses were "when my plate is empty", "when everyone else is through," and, no joke, "when the TV show I was watching ended." Contrast this with an identical survey of 150 Parisians: "when I feel full", "when the food no longer tastes good to me," and "when the food is cold." You draw your conclusions on this one, folks.
Professor Wansink outlined three food and eating myths: that bowl size does not instruct serving size, that we know when we are full, and that we know what food we like to eat. It is not that unusual to conclude that a bigger plate leads to larger portions. However the professor takes this a step further - he selected 60 graduate students and lectured them for 90 minutes EXCLUSIVELY on how larger serving sizes are a result of bigger containers. In a covert test following this direct and comprehensive education, those grad students with bigger bowls nevertheless ate 53% more than their counterparts. Similarly, he demonstrated that on average people pour 77% more on short, wide glasses than on narrow, tall glasses with the same volume. He did this test with many bartenders, with the exact same results. We pour to fill up the glass - that is our cue, not the objective measure of what portion should be consumed. (Note to self: check for short, wide bar glasses before ordering a whiskey on the rocks.)
As for the "we know when we are full" myth, Professor Wansink conducted a study in which he created a "bottomless" soup bowl that unbeknownst to the subject slowly re-filled his or her bowl. First, and most interesting to me, was that only 2 of 160 actually noticed that the bowl was not becoming less full as soup consumption was quite obviously taking place. Second, after 20 minutes, those with the bottomless soup bowl had eaten 77% more than those with regular bowls and reported IDENTICAL feelings of hunger. In other words, after eating almost twice as much food, they claimed to feel the same as those who had eaten far less!
His point with the "I know what I like" myth is that our tastes are in fact quite suggestable. In one study, he put chocolate syrup into vanilla yogurt and packaged it with a picture of a strawberry on it. All of his subjects readily accepted and spoke to the "strong strawberry yogurt flavors" in the chocolate yogurt. Similarly, at a mock restaurant he served 2 Buck Chuck (a horrendous, cheap wine good for only two things: getting you drunk and giving you a hangover) disguised as either a "California Cabernet" or a "North Dakota Cabernet." The descriptive cues and associated expectation of the California Cabernet resulted in a dramatic difference in results: California drinkers ate more, ate longer, gave the meal better ratings, and said they were more likely to come back than the North Dakota drinkers. Across many studies he has shown that by raising expectations, people actually believe things taste better. Put simply, adding candles and nice plates WILL make your date think you're a better cook (assuming of course that you don't serve her raw chicken).
So how to correct these sneaky overeating cues and impulses? If you think his solution is to get a gym membership, think again. He found that on average, most people gained a few pounds after starting an exercise program. This was not because people were building muscle - rather it was due to calorie compensation. People felt deserving of further indulgences as a result of working out, and consistently overestimated the number of calories they burned. On average people ate 28% more than they did before their work-out programs, but only burned 18% more calories!
He did, however recommend changing your environment, which he claims is much easier than changing your behavior. In other words, get rid of your short/wide glasses and buy smaller bowls. Alternatively, move your chocolate a few feet away rather than keeping it right in front of you and relying on your ability to say "no" fifty times without indulging. He also recommended against eating family style meals, and suggested putting serving bowls in the kitchen as opposed to on the table.
Will I change anything now that I learned more about the duplicitous nature of food consumption psychology? Probably not, but you should.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Week 11: What do Magic Johnson and a Paraglider Have in Common?
Distribution Source: iTunesU
Content Source: Open University
Format: Audio
Length: 54 minutes
This week's post focuses on a series of interviews with athletes conducted by Open University, a web-based learning center. I listened to six short interviews with athletes representing a variety of sports, including: a marathon runner, a paraglider, a judo practitioner, a fencer, a cyclist and a soccer player. The athletes focused primarily on a few themes: motivation, coaching, performance and nutrition. In general, they discussed the body as an engine and articulated how (and why) they go to such lengths to prepare for competition.
Perhaps most interesting to me was the reminder of how driven serious athletes have to be. The opportunity cost of what they do is astounding. Mental and physical preparation consumes almost every aspect of their lives. This is even more impressive when you consider that the marginal return of such training by definition has to be diminishing. In other words, there is the "best" you can ever be, and it takes increasingly more hours to move the needle from, say, 98% to 99% of your best.
So why do they do it? While the interviewees included Olympians and rising stars, none of them have been made wealthy by their sport. Indeed, they have spent large sums of money and countless hours on training. This dispassionate view of course ignores what is arguably the most important motivator: a love for the sport. I was in a book store today and flipped through Magic Johnson's autobiography; in it, he discusses how much he loved being with many women. However, he was clear that his love for basketball eclipsed even this intense love for women. As a rule, he would not have sex before any game, and would not invite women to his hotel room if he had a game the following day. Most athletes probably don't have to worry about turning down hundreds of women on the day of competition, but the point remains: sacrifice is crucial. In Magic's case, sacrificing women was a necessary part of his preparation; the young fencer described sacrificing her social life, the paraglider has sacrificed a substantial portion of his discretionary income to purchase equipment, and in the judo athlete's case most agonizing has been sacrificing "crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks."
In addition to sharing an intense love and dedication for their sport, the athletes interviewed all initially competed in many sports before settling on the "one." To me, this seems to suggest, like dedication, an inherent competitive trait of these athletes. Another striking point was the way in which these athletes framed competition. Of course, competition took place in races and matches, but these athletes were arguably more focused on internal competition (with themselves) than on external competition. They unanimously claimed to draw the most satisfaction from improving technique, learning new strategies, and strengthening weaknesses. I guess at the elite level this makes sense - if you get to your best physically and enter a competition with the right mental framework, what else can you do? At that point, the chips fall where they fall...
The issue of coaching was also focused on - in short, the conclusion was that coaching matters. Immensely. As I type this, the girl's basketball team of my high school is taking the court to play for the state championship. They are coached by my former classmate, who scored more points than anyone in our school's history and went on to play college basketball for four years. I have no doubt she has played an integral role in this success story. According to the interviewed athletes, the key for good coaching is to help athletes identify and travel the proper path to their stated goals. A coach first and foremost must have a scientific knowledge of the sport, but must also have the empathy with the athlete to coax her (or him) to where she needs to be mentally and physically. As the elder Olympic cyclist, now a coach, put it: "Psychology is huge. Just a word can ruin everything. Preparation on the day of the event has to be clinical. The impact of a proper diet is immeasurable." I couldn't agree more.
The same elder cyclist pointed out how far the science of elite athletics has come in the past few decades - as a young rider for the British national team, coaches advised him to eat a piece of beefsteak every day for breakfast (which takes three days to digest fully). They also recommended not hydrating during competitions, on the logic that a "drying out" period is good for you. This reminds me of my grandfather advising my father to breathe through his nose while running the mile for his high school track team. While given with the best of intentions, this advice is very clearly not ideal for peak athletic performance.
One lesson here is that in spite of obvious advancements in science, conventional wisdom should be questioned. If eating beefsteak makes you constipated, maybe you should respectfully tell your coaches that it is not something you'd like to eat going forward... Another lesson is that great success is very rarely an accident. In sports and perhaps in life, it takes a motivated, talented person with a dedicated, experienced team to inspire results at the highest level.
Content Source: Open University
Format: Audio
Length: 54 minutes
This week's post focuses on a series of interviews with athletes conducted by Open University, a web-based learning center. I listened to six short interviews with athletes representing a variety of sports, including: a marathon runner, a paraglider, a judo practitioner, a fencer, a cyclist and a soccer player. The athletes focused primarily on a few themes: motivation, coaching, performance and nutrition. In general, they discussed the body as an engine and articulated how (and why) they go to such lengths to prepare for competition.
Perhaps most interesting to me was the reminder of how driven serious athletes have to be. The opportunity cost of what they do is astounding. Mental and physical preparation consumes almost every aspect of their lives. This is even more impressive when you consider that the marginal return of such training by definition has to be diminishing. In other words, there is the "best" you can ever be, and it takes increasingly more hours to move the needle from, say, 98% to 99% of your best.
So why do they do it? While the interviewees included Olympians and rising stars, none of them have been made wealthy by their sport. Indeed, they have spent large sums of money and countless hours on training. This dispassionate view of course ignores what is arguably the most important motivator: a love for the sport. I was in a book store today and flipped through Magic Johnson's autobiography; in it, he discusses how much he loved being with many women. However, he was clear that his love for basketball eclipsed even this intense love for women. As a rule, he would not have sex before any game, and would not invite women to his hotel room if he had a game the following day. Most athletes probably don't have to worry about turning down hundreds of women on the day of competition, but the point remains: sacrifice is crucial. In Magic's case, sacrificing women was a necessary part of his preparation; the young fencer described sacrificing her social life, the paraglider has sacrificed a substantial portion of his discretionary income to purchase equipment, and in the judo athlete's case most agonizing has been sacrificing "crisps, sweets and fizzy drinks."
In addition to sharing an intense love and dedication for their sport, the athletes interviewed all initially competed in many sports before settling on the "one." To me, this seems to suggest, like dedication, an inherent competitive trait of these athletes. Another striking point was the way in which these athletes framed competition. Of course, competition took place in races and matches, but these athletes were arguably more focused on internal competition (with themselves) than on external competition. They unanimously claimed to draw the most satisfaction from improving technique, learning new strategies, and strengthening weaknesses. I guess at the elite level this makes sense - if you get to your best physically and enter a competition with the right mental framework, what else can you do? At that point, the chips fall where they fall...
The issue of coaching was also focused on - in short, the conclusion was that coaching matters. Immensely. As I type this, the girl's basketball team of my high school is taking the court to play for the state championship. They are coached by my former classmate, who scored more points than anyone in our school's history and went on to play college basketball for four years. I have no doubt she has played an integral role in this success story. According to the interviewed athletes, the key for good coaching is to help athletes identify and travel the proper path to their stated goals. A coach first and foremost must have a scientific knowledge of the sport, but must also have the empathy with the athlete to coax her (or him) to where she needs to be mentally and physically. As the elder Olympic cyclist, now a coach, put it: "Psychology is huge. Just a word can ruin everything. Preparation on the day of the event has to be clinical. The impact of a proper diet is immeasurable." I couldn't agree more.
The same elder cyclist pointed out how far the science of elite athletics has come in the past few decades - as a young rider for the British national team, coaches advised him to eat a piece of beefsteak every day for breakfast (which takes three days to digest fully). They also recommended not hydrating during competitions, on the logic that a "drying out" period is good for you. This reminds me of my grandfather advising my father to breathe through his nose while running the mile for his high school track team. While given with the best of intentions, this advice is very clearly not ideal for peak athletic performance.
One lesson here is that in spite of obvious advancements in science, conventional wisdom should be questioned. If eating beefsteak makes you constipated, maybe you should respectfully tell your coaches that it is not something you'd like to eat going forward... Another lesson is that great success is very rarely an accident. In sports and perhaps in life, it takes a motivated, talented person with a dedicated, experienced team to inspire results at the highest level.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Week 10: How Marijuana Became Illegal
Distribution Source: YouTube
Content Source: The History Channel
Format: Video
Length: 42 minutes and 40 seconds
Link:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
I'm not sure how Maryland public schools stack up against other states (and countries) in terms of drug education courses, but I distinctly remember mine. We had an austere state trooper named Trooper Hamby come to our sixth grade science class and lead a course called DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Education. We were taught, basically, that doing any kind of drug would result in either going to jail or dying. The approach was very clearly to scare the hell out of us. We were taught about all drugs, but I remember them focusing specifically on marijuana. In particular, we learned that it was an addictive drug that also served as a "gateway" to all the other, more deadly drugs.
It's clear that America has a certain fascination with marijuana: from its place as the counter-culture drug of choice (perhaps shared with LSD) to Bill Clinton's infamous "I didn't inhale" nonsense, it has always garnered attention. More recently, states have begun decriminalizing it, and given the recent recession, a discussion of legalizing and taxing the drug has gained more support. While still illegal nationally, fourteen states have decriminalized marijuana. (Click here to see how your state stacks up...) Putting aside the politics of the issue, the facts are astounding: 20 million Americans have been arrested, convicted and incarcerated for using marijuana. As of 2006, 44% of all drug arrests are related to marijuana. So how did marijuana become illegal, anyway? And why?
To answer this question, we should start with the understanding that marijuana was not illegal in the United States until 1937. While marijuana had a long medicinal, functional (the word "canvas" comes from cannabis), and of course recreational history in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, the drug did not come to the US until the World Fair of 1876. The sultan from Turkey introduced the drug at his booth, leading to perhaps the largest bakeout until Woodstock in 1969.
Following the expo, pot became more popular in the US. However it wasn't until 1920, when alcohol was outlawed, that marijuana's popularity took off. Indeed, it was the only legal recreational drug in the country. In particular, the drug became linked with the New Orleans culture of jazz and partying. It didn't take long for politicians to pay attention to the drug, and they soon began to blame the general chaos of the city - as well as its high violence rate - on marijuana. It was also a way to target the black population in the city. By 1924, Louisiana and fourteen other states had banned marijuana for non-medicinal purposes.
Each state had come up with different reasons for the ban - in the same way that Louisiana used the laws as a way to target blacks, the southwestern states used the laws to target Mexicans. By the early 1930s the Great Depression had set in, and with whites in breadlines, the surplus (Mexican) cheap labor was not at all appreciated by politicians. Following the 1931 Mexican Repatriation, the marijuana laws in these states became very strict. Possession of one joint could result in a life prison sentence, but more likely would result in a deportation.
The repeal of prohibition in 1934 placed pot squarely in the focus of authorities. Harry Anslinger, a senior prohibition official, was appointed as Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The organization had previously focused on cocaine and heroine, but under Anslinger the focus came to marijuana. The southwestern states pushed Ansliger for a nationwide ban on marijuana, and eventually he took his case - that pot caused rampant sex and murder - to Congress. With strong support from states with immigrant and minority "problems", Anslinger's proposed legislation passed in 1937. At the time, it was believed that an outright law banning marijuana was unconstitutional. As a result, the law dictated that a "marijuana stamp" was necessary to possess pot legally. Conveniently, extremely few stamps were created. Furthermore, one needed the drug in possession to obtain a stamp... of course, this possession was already illegal, by the very same law!
Following the law's passage, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia created a commission to study the affects of marijuana. The LaGuardia Commission released its findings four years later, and based on extensive research claimed that marijuana was significantly less damaging than suggested by Anslinger. However the law stuck. It wasn't until the 1960s that the constitutionality of the 1937 law was questioned, on the grounds that one could not adhere to the law without breaking it.
The Supreme Court overturned the law, but in 1970 the Controlled Substances Act passed, banning the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of a series of substances (including marijuana). This law came at a very divided time politically, and is considered by many to be a direct response to the "hippie" and anti-war movement. Not only did the law expand the nature of the nation's drug laws, it increased dramatically the federal government's policing powers. Similar to the LaGuardia Commission in the early 1940s, the Shafer Commission concluded soon after the law's passage that with respect to marijuana the law was unusually harsh and the punishments did not seem to be aligned with the crimes. Among other things, the CSA listed marijuana as a "Schedule 1" drug with LSD and heroin, and prevented doctors from prescribing the drug.
As we all know, today marijuana continues to be illegal in the United States. The Controlled Substances Act has been the basic framework for US drug policy for the last four decades. Without getting into a discussion of how things should be, there is a broader lesson to be learned from this case study. It is a lesson of how politics, and how the underlying societal forces that dictate the political discourse, drive the laws under which we live. It's clear from my research this week that cultural divides and extreme misperceptions about the effects of marijuana were what initially drove the passage of legislation against it. This is not to say marijuana should or shouldn't be illegal - the point is that objective and scientific study were not the basis of the legislative process. This reinforces to me the importance of observing - and thinking critically about - the political process, and how and why conclusions are reached.
Content Source: The History Channel
Format: Video
Length: 42 minutes and 40 seconds
Link:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
I'm not sure how Maryland public schools stack up against other states (and countries) in terms of drug education courses, but I distinctly remember mine. We had an austere state trooper named Trooper Hamby come to our sixth grade science class and lead a course called DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Education. We were taught, basically, that doing any kind of drug would result in either going to jail or dying. The approach was very clearly to scare the hell out of us. We were taught about all drugs, but I remember them focusing specifically on marijuana. In particular, we learned that it was an addictive drug that also served as a "gateway" to all the other, more deadly drugs.
It's clear that America has a certain fascination with marijuana: from its place as the counter-culture drug of choice (perhaps shared with LSD) to Bill Clinton's infamous "I didn't inhale" nonsense, it has always garnered attention. More recently, states have begun decriminalizing it, and given the recent recession, a discussion of legalizing and taxing the drug has gained more support. While still illegal nationally, fourteen states have decriminalized marijuana. (Click here to see how your state stacks up...) Putting aside the politics of the issue, the facts are astounding: 20 million Americans have been arrested, convicted and incarcerated for using marijuana. As of 2006, 44% of all drug arrests are related to marijuana. So how did marijuana become illegal, anyway? And why?
To answer this question, we should start with the understanding that marijuana was not illegal in the United States until 1937. While marijuana had a long medicinal, functional (the word "canvas" comes from cannabis), and of course recreational history in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, the drug did not come to the US until the World Fair of 1876. The sultan from Turkey introduced the drug at his booth, leading to perhaps the largest bakeout until Woodstock in 1969.
Following the expo, pot became more popular in the US. However it wasn't until 1920, when alcohol was outlawed, that marijuana's popularity took off. Indeed, it was the only legal recreational drug in the country. In particular, the drug became linked with the New Orleans culture of jazz and partying. It didn't take long for politicians to pay attention to the drug, and they soon began to blame the general chaos of the city - as well as its high violence rate - on marijuana. It was also a way to target the black population in the city. By 1924, Louisiana and fourteen other states had banned marijuana for non-medicinal purposes.
Each state had come up with different reasons for the ban - in the same way that Louisiana used the laws as a way to target blacks, the southwestern states used the laws to target Mexicans. By the early 1930s the Great Depression had set in, and with whites in breadlines, the surplus (Mexican) cheap labor was not at all appreciated by politicians. Following the 1931 Mexican Repatriation, the marijuana laws in these states became very strict. Possession of one joint could result in a life prison sentence, but more likely would result in a deportation.
The repeal of prohibition in 1934 placed pot squarely in the focus of authorities. Harry Anslinger, a senior prohibition official, was appointed as Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The organization had previously focused on cocaine and heroine, but under Anslinger the focus came to marijuana. The southwestern states pushed Ansliger for a nationwide ban on marijuana, and eventually he took his case - that pot caused rampant sex and murder - to Congress. With strong support from states with immigrant and minority "problems", Anslinger's proposed legislation passed in 1937. At the time, it was believed that an outright law banning marijuana was unconstitutional. As a result, the law dictated that a "marijuana stamp" was necessary to possess pot legally. Conveniently, extremely few stamps were created. Furthermore, one needed the drug in possession to obtain a stamp... of course, this possession was already illegal, by the very same law!
Following the law's passage, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia created a commission to study the affects of marijuana. The LaGuardia Commission released its findings four years later, and based on extensive research claimed that marijuana was significantly less damaging than suggested by Anslinger. However the law stuck. It wasn't until the 1960s that the constitutionality of the 1937 law was questioned, on the grounds that one could not adhere to the law without breaking it.
The Supreme Court overturned the law, but in 1970 the Controlled Substances Act passed, banning the manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of a series of substances (including marijuana). This law came at a very divided time politically, and is considered by many to be a direct response to the "hippie" and anti-war movement. Not only did the law expand the nature of the nation's drug laws, it increased dramatically the federal government's policing powers. Similar to the LaGuardia Commission in the early 1940s, the Shafer Commission concluded soon after the law's passage that with respect to marijuana the law was unusually harsh and the punishments did not seem to be aligned with the crimes. Among other things, the CSA listed marijuana as a "Schedule 1" drug with LSD and heroin, and prevented doctors from prescribing the drug.
As we all know, today marijuana continues to be illegal in the United States. The Controlled Substances Act has been the basic framework for US drug policy for the last four decades. Without getting into a discussion of how things should be, there is a broader lesson to be learned from this case study. It is a lesson of how politics, and how the underlying societal forces that dictate the political discourse, drive the laws under which we live. It's clear from my research this week that cultural divides and extreme misperceptions about the effects of marijuana were what initially drove the passage of legislation against it. This is not to say marijuana should or shouldn't be illegal - the point is that objective and scientific study were not the basis of the legislative process. This reinforces to me the importance of observing - and thinking critically about - the political process, and how and why conclusions are reached.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Week 9: Why the Stethoscope is on its way out...
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Eric Topol
Format: Video
Length: 16 minutes and 59 seconds
Link: The Wireless Future of Medicine
As many of my friends know, I am a huge fan of the iPhone. From my iPhone I can access my bank account, get directions, send a customized post card (from a photo I took on my phone), read the news, play games.. the list goes on. Hell, my iPhone can also turn into a flute, recognize unknown songs playing on the radio or at a bar, and even repel bugs. Yes, you read that correctly - the phone emits a high frequency noise that keeps bugs away. It is simply unbelievable.
I've always tried to convince people who don't yet "get it" that the iPhone and other smartphones are revolutionary not because they have the internet, or because they have great graphics. They are revolutionary because they represent a very new platform that spans all spheres of life and literally expands the realm of what is possible. I'm not joking when I say that the iPhone has saved me more time than any other single device, person - whatever - in my entire life. By far. And what's exciting to me is that the realization of this potential has barely begun in the two areas in which it may have the most lasting impact on humanity: education and medicine. Indeed, one of the points of this blog is to show how iTunesU - which I access through my phone - provides good, free information to anyone with the internet. But today I will focus on medicine, something my mom and girlfriend know a lot about, but about which I know basically nothing.
Dr. Eric Topol gave a fascinating talk last fall that starts with a bold prediction: the stethoscope, invented in 1816 and still widely used today, will be obsolete by 2016. Why? Because not only will a patient's heartbeat be available to a doctor in real time - anywhere in the world - but so too will all vital signals. Already the technology exists to see a patient's electrocardiogram on an iPhone. In some hospitals, doctors can see from their phones the heart rhythm, blood pressure, oxygen and temperature of their ICU patients - without having to be anywhere near the patients! Here is an example of how this would look on a phone.
Other technologies are equally fascinating - imagine, as an expectant parent, being able to monitor in real-time intrauterine contractions or the fetal heart rate. While we have continuous glucose sensors for diabetes patients, they have to be placed under the skin and then brought to doctors. The technology is almost there to have a non-implantable sensor, link it to a phone, and then send the results electronically to a doctor. Soon every smartphone user will be able to map literally every minute of his or her sleep, with breakdowns by different sleep stages (REM, light sleep, etc). There are already many calorie measurement programs - intake and outtake - on smartphones. Perhaps the most popular exercise-management program is the Apple-Nike partnership where a chip in Nike shoes automatically uploads workout statistics to the iPhone. Over 1.2 million Americans use this technology. The Holter Monitor, according to Dr. Topol, will also soon be obsolete. Now we have peripheral sensors or "smart band-aids" that can be uploaded through a "body area network" to your smartphone. Once it is on your smartphone it can be distributed wherever or however you like - to the hospital, the doctor, etc.
It is important to note that the wireless medical innovations are not limited to just physiologic metrics. They also extend to areas like imaging. For example, GE has introduced a hand-held ultrasound. This device has the capacity to do a Cardiac Echo or fetal monitoring, and is more sensitive than a stethoscope.
While some of this may seem like it is not practically applicable yet, Dr. Topol surprised the audience by revealing he was wearing a wireless device during his talk. He then showed in real time his ECG, heart rate, fluid status, respiration, posture, oxygen level and temperature. All of these are vital for monitoring someone with heart failure, the number one reason for hospital admissions and readmissions. The cost per year is estimated to be $37B, with 80% of costs related to hospitalization. The readmission numbers are staggering: over 50% will be readmitted after six months. This monitoring software is now being used in a trial that will attempt to prevent such high readmission rates among heart failure patients.
The armchair politician in me scratches his head and asks - instead of trying to guess at future health care costs based on models of the number of sick Americans, why not immediately seek bipartisan support for trials like this? In the same way that cheap energy ignited an industrial revolution, shouldn't we be focusing on extremely cheap and scalable preventative monitoring practices? If successful, this would both cut costs and improve the health of Americans in a way that seems to represent the ultimate in consumer-driven health care.
The problem, of course, is huge: 140MM Americans have one or more chronic diseases, and 80% of the $1.5 Trillion in medical expenditures are related to chronic disease. How can wireless medicine help? Dr. Topol outlined the ten targets for wireless medicine, listing the innovations that will improve each:
Alzheimer's (5MM Affected) - Vital signs, location, activity, balance
Asthma (23MM Affected) - Respiratory rate, FEV1, air quality, oximetry, pollen count
Breast Cancer (3MM Affected) - Ultrasound and self-exam
COPD (10MM) - Respiratory rate, REV1, air quality, oximetry
Depression (21MM) - Med compliance, activity, communicatio
Diabetes (24MM) - Glucose, hemoglobin A1C
Heart failure (5MM) - Cardiac pressures, weight, BP, fluid status
Hypertension (74MM) - Continuous BP, med compliance
Obesity (80MM) - Smart scales, glucose, calorie in/out, activity
Sleep disorders (40MM) - Sleep phases, quality, apnea, vital signs
The potential impact of these technologies on Hospital/Clinical Resources are huge, with major implications for hospital beds, outpatient visits, assisted living facilities, sleep labs, Holter Monitoring, mammography, and ultrasound/echocardiography (to name a few). Also fascinating is the potential for overlap in advancements in genetics with wireless advances. We have learned more about the genetics of diseases in the last three years than in human history. Using technology for both monitoring and cross-referencing, we can begin to predict who is likely to get Type 2 Diabetes, who is at risk for breast cancer, who may get atrial fibrillation, sudden cardiac death, etc. To some degree this capability exists, but not on a widespread, scalable, cheap platform like that which smartphones will allow.
In short, the potential changes and implications of wireless medicine span the globe, span age, sex and race, and span the many types of diseases. Put simply: we need to accelerate the era of wireless medicine. An article on this topic said the following: "The personal metrics movement goes way beyond diet and exercise. It's about tracking every facet of life, from sleep to mood to pain, 24/7/365." This may sound very scary, and in some ways it is. But it's not inconsistent with the underlying theme that to some degree has and will continue to define my generation: uber-transparency and significantly less individual privacy. This is yet another piece of the puzzle that is the exponentially increasing volume of information. To me the two key underlying questions are: how do we use this information, and how do we protect both the integrity and security of sensitive information? These questions, while extremely important, are somewhat irrelevant to the bigger picture. The train has left the station: the unbelievable power and scale of these new platforms has been unleashed. Now we must learn to maximize their benefits and minimize their potential costs. Supporting wireless medicine is a good place to start.
Content Source: Eric Topol
Format: Video
Length: 16 minutes and 59 seconds
Link: The Wireless Future of Medicine
As many of my friends know, I am a huge fan of the iPhone. From my iPhone I can access my bank account, get directions, send a customized post card (from a photo I took on my phone), read the news, play games.. the list goes on. Hell, my iPhone can also turn into a flute, recognize unknown songs playing on the radio or at a bar, and even repel bugs. Yes, you read that correctly - the phone emits a high frequency noise that keeps bugs away. It is simply unbelievable.
I've always tried to convince people who don't yet "get it" that the iPhone and other smartphones are revolutionary not because they have the internet, or because they have great graphics. They are revolutionary because they represent a very new platform that spans all spheres of life and literally expands the realm of what is possible. I'm not joking when I say that the iPhone has saved me more time than any other single device, person - whatever - in my entire life. By far. And what's exciting to me is that the realization of this potential has barely begun in the two areas in which it may have the most lasting impact on humanity: education and medicine. Indeed, one of the points of this blog is to show how iTunesU - which I access through my phone - provides good, free information to anyone with the internet. But today I will focus on medicine, something my mom and girlfriend know a lot about, but about which I know basically nothing.
Dr. Eric Topol gave a fascinating talk last fall that starts with a bold prediction: the stethoscope, invented in 1816 and still widely used today, will be obsolete by 2016. Why? Because not only will a patient's heartbeat be available to a doctor in real time - anywhere in the world - but so too will all vital signals. Already the technology exists to see a patient's electrocardiogram on an iPhone. In some hospitals, doctors can see from their phones the heart rhythm, blood pressure, oxygen and temperature of their ICU patients - without having to be anywhere near the patients! Here is an example of how this would look on a phone.
Other technologies are equally fascinating - imagine, as an expectant parent, being able to monitor in real-time intrauterine contractions or the fetal heart rate. While we have continuous glucose sensors for diabetes patients, they have to be placed under the skin and then brought to doctors. The technology is almost there to have a non-implantable sensor, link it to a phone, and then send the results electronically to a doctor. Soon every smartphone user will be able to map literally every minute of his or her sleep, with breakdowns by different sleep stages (REM, light sleep, etc). There are already many calorie measurement programs - intake and outtake - on smartphones. Perhaps the most popular exercise-management program is the Apple-Nike partnership where a chip in Nike shoes automatically uploads workout statistics to the iPhone. Over 1.2 million Americans use this technology. The Holter Monitor, according to Dr. Topol, will also soon be obsolete. Now we have peripheral sensors or "smart band-aids" that can be uploaded through a "body area network" to your smartphone. Once it is on your smartphone it can be distributed wherever or however you like - to the hospital, the doctor, etc.
It is important to note that the wireless medical innovations are not limited to just physiologic metrics. They also extend to areas like imaging. For example, GE has introduced a hand-held ultrasound. This device has the capacity to do a Cardiac Echo or fetal monitoring, and is more sensitive than a stethoscope.
While some of this may seem like it is not practically applicable yet, Dr. Topol surprised the audience by revealing he was wearing a wireless device during his talk. He then showed in real time his ECG, heart rate, fluid status, respiration, posture, oxygen level and temperature. All of these are vital for monitoring someone with heart failure, the number one reason for hospital admissions and readmissions. The cost per year is estimated to be $37B, with 80% of costs related to hospitalization. The readmission numbers are staggering: over 50% will be readmitted after six months. This monitoring software is now being used in a trial that will attempt to prevent such high readmission rates among heart failure patients.
The armchair politician in me scratches his head and asks - instead of trying to guess at future health care costs based on models of the number of sick Americans, why not immediately seek bipartisan support for trials like this? In the same way that cheap energy ignited an industrial revolution, shouldn't we be focusing on extremely cheap and scalable preventative monitoring practices? If successful, this would both cut costs and improve the health of Americans in a way that seems to represent the ultimate in consumer-driven health care.
The problem, of course, is huge: 140MM Americans have one or more chronic diseases, and 80% of the $1.5 Trillion in medical expenditures are related to chronic disease. How can wireless medicine help? Dr. Topol outlined the ten targets for wireless medicine, listing the innovations that will improve each:
Alzheimer's (5MM Affected) - Vital signs, location, activity, balance
Asthma (23MM Affected) - Respiratory rate, FEV1, air quality, oximetry, pollen count
Breast Cancer (3MM Affected) - Ultrasound and self-exam
COPD (10MM) - Respiratory rate, REV1, air quality, oximetry
Depression (21MM) - Med compliance, activity, communicatio
Diabetes (24MM) - Glucose, hemoglobin A1C
Heart failure (5MM) - Cardiac pressures, weight, BP, fluid status
Hypertension (74MM) - Continuous BP, med compliance
Obesity (80MM) - Smart scales, glucose, calorie in/out, activity
Sleep disorders (40MM) - Sleep phases, quality, apnea, vital signs
The potential impact of these technologies on Hospital/Clinical Resources are huge, with major implications for hospital beds, outpatient visits, assisted living facilities, sleep labs, Holter Monitoring, mammography, and ultrasound/echocardiography (to name a few). Also fascinating is the potential for overlap in advancements in genetics with wireless advances. We have learned more about the genetics of diseases in the last three years than in human history. Using technology for both monitoring and cross-referencing, we can begin to predict who is likely to get Type 2 Diabetes, who is at risk for breast cancer, who may get atrial fibrillation, sudden cardiac death, etc. To some degree this capability exists, but not on a widespread, scalable, cheap platform like that which smartphones will allow.
In short, the potential changes and implications of wireless medicine span the globe, span age, sex and race, and span the many types of diseases. Put simply: we need to accelerate the era of wireless medicine. An article on this topic said the following: "The personal metrics movement goes way beyond diet and exercise. It's about tracking every facet of life, from sleep to mood to pain, 24/7/365." This may sound very scary, and in some ways it is. But it's not inconsistent with the underlying theme that to some degree has and will continue to define my generation: uber-transparency and significantly less individual privacy. This is yet another piece of the puzzle that is the exponentially increasing volume of information. To me the two key underlying questions are: how do we use this information, and how do we protect both the integrity and security of sensitive information? These questions, while extremely important, are somewhat irrelevant to the bigger picture. The train has left the station: the unbelievable power and scale of these new platforms has been unleashed. Now we must learn to maximize their benefits and minimize their potential costs. Supporting wireless medicine is a good place to start.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Week 8: The Lucifer Effect - How Good People Turn Evil
Distribution Source: MIT World and iTunesU
Content Source: MIT
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour 50 minutes and 58 seconds
Link: The Lucifer Effect
I was worried this afternoon - after watching the first few minutes of the MIT world video (a new source recommended by a commentor - thanks), I knew I wanted to write on this topic, but also wanted to go to the gym. Given that the video was 2 hours long, doing both seemed impossible. So I decided to see if iTunesU carried the video as well. Sure enough, I was able to download the full video to my phone in 5 minutes... not only that, I was also able to plug my phone into the treadmill at the gym and watch the video while running. Pretty cool.
This week's topic focuses on the human capacity for both good and evil, from the perspective of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. Dr. Zimbardo is most famous for his Stanford Prison Experiment, in which he gathered a bunch of "normal" Stanford students and randomly assigned them to be prisoners or guards. The results are fascinating, and are taught in every Pyschology 101 course in the country. In short, the experiment had to be called off after six days because the prisoner-guard dynamic had become so out of control. For me, this experiment has always reinforced the importance of critical thinking and maintaining individuality in the face of social pressures. If a few dozen smart, regular Stanford kids can abuse each other so quickly, we are all susceptible to situational and systemic pressures pushing us to do something that falls outside of our moral code.
Dr. Z makes an interesting parallel between his Stanford Prison Experiment and the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. I call it a tragedy because it was in my mind extremely unnecessary and was damaging to everyone involved: those who were abused, those who took the pictures and carried out the abuse, and the United States and its perception globally. Following the release of the pictures, Dr. Z highlights how the government - like any institution faced with a scandal - pointed to this as an incident of a few "bad apples." If it weren't so serious this shallow explanation would be laughable.
Few events have received as much scrutiny and military, government and journalistic review as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Across the board, they describe a fundamentally screwed up institution. Similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment, most of the abuses took place on the night shift. For three months, no senior officer so much as visited the prison after hours. The stress level was extremely high - one Army reservist was in charge of over 1,000 prisoners, 60 Iraqi policemen, and 12 Army reserviests. He had received no specific training for the job and as mentioned, had no supervision. The chaotic conditions included constant weapons smuggling by Iraqi policemen, a neverending sewer stench, power blackouts, prisoner escapes, grenade attacks, noise and rationed water. The head Army reservist worked 40 days straight in 12 hour shifts per day. In his off-shift he slept in the prison. In social psychology, this 100% engulfment is called a "total situation."
Because of its proximity to dangerous Iraqi slums, the British told the US not to use the Abu Ghraib prison. Furthermore, for the first time Military Intelligence units were actively encouraging the Military Police (the Army reservists) to help break down prisoners. Of course, this is not the job of the police, whose job it is to keep order in the prison. When viewing this in the context of the administration's policy condoning "soft" torture tactics, it isn't hard to imagine how prisoner abuse resulted.
None of this serves to excuse any of the behavior that took place. Rather, it shows how putting "normal" people into a terrible situation, coupled with a lack of training and supervision, as well as tacit (and in some cases explicit) approval from superiors, results in a total disaster. Dr. Z and others had the opportunity to meet with and review the files of those who took the pictures and committed some of the acts; in his and military psychologists' opinions, these people were very normal. Indeed, Dr. Z points out that the lead officer was someone with the capacity to be a hero in a different situation. Yet instead he was a perpetrator of evil, smearing someone with his own feces and forcing others to similate sex acts while naked.... how is this possible?
Dr. Z's underlying point is that good and evil are hardly black and white. The human brain has an unbelievable capacity to be selfish and caring, heroic or villanous, creative or destructive. In other words, both good and evil are core aspects of human nature, and people can be transformed by powerful situational forces. After describing some other historical examples (the Jim Jones mass suicide, Eichman and the Nazis, etc.), he put together ten simple lessons on how to create evil in good people:
- Create an ideology to justify any means ("national security", etc.)
- Take small steps/minor action first
- Successively increase small actions
- Make sure a seemingly “just authority” is in charge
- Introduce a compassionate leader who changes gradually to become authoritarian monster
- Implement ever-changing/vague rules
- Re-lable situational actors & actions (“Teacher helping” when reality is aggressor hurting)
- Provide social models of compliance
- Allow verbal dissent, but insist on behavioral compliance (verbal dissent is the feel good thing)
- Make exiting difficult (this, he says, is the key to date rape…)
Perhaps some of you have seen a few of these steps in action, either from bosses, religious or government leaders. Dr. Z views corporate or institutional evil as the biggest evil, because it has the capacity to affect many people. In the case of corporations or governments, the rules of action are defined not by ethics, but rather by laws. The question is often not "what is right," but "what can we get away with?" He also described how corporate evil is always about the first little step - perhaps in the name of being a "team player." None of this is meant to be conspiratorial; it should instead reinforce to all of us that doing things because "that's what has always been done" or because someone "says so" is a poor reason that can have serious consequences. It's also clear to me that in a corporate or institutional setting, many of these evils can happen in marginal and indeed insignificant ways... with powerful disincentives to stand up for what is right.
So how do we keep ourselves from being even marginally evil? Dr. Z has also conveniently put together a list of twenty ways of preventing unwanted influences... while I won't list all of them here, you can click on this link to see the full list. Probably the most useful for me will be the following:
In all authority confrontations: be polite, individuate yourself and the other, make it clear it is not “your problem” in the process, or situation; describe the problem objectively, do not get emotional, state clearly the remedy sought, and the positive consequences expected – hold off on the threats and costs to them or their agency as last resort.
See ya'll next week.
Content Source: MIT
Format: Video
Length: 1 hour 50 minutes and 58 seconds
Link: The Lucifer Effect
I was worried this afternoon - after watching the first few minutes of the MIT world video (a new source recommended by a commentor - thanks), I knew I wanted to write on this topic, but also wanted to go to the gym. Given that the video was 2 hours long, doing both seemed impossible. So I decided to see if iTunesU carried the video as well. Sure enough, I was able to download the full video to my phone in 5 minutes... not only that, I was also able to plug my phone into the treadmill at the gym and watch the video while running. Pretty cool.
This week's topic focuses on the human capacity for both good and evil, from the perspective of Dr. Phillip Zimbardo. Dr. Zimbardo is most famous for his Stanford Prison Experiment, in which he gathered a bunch of "normal" Stanford students and randomly assigned them to be prisoners or guards. The results are fascinating, and are taught in every Pyschology 101 course in the country. In short, the experiment had to be called off after six days because the prisoner-guard dynamic had become so out of control. For me, this experiment has always reinforced the importance of critical thinking and maintaining individuality in the face of social pressures. If a few dozen smart, regular Stanford kids can abuse each other so quickly, we are all susceptible to situational and systemic pressures pushing us to do something that falls outside of our moral code.
Dr. Z makes an interesting parallel between his Stanford Prison Experiment and the tragedy of Abu Ghraib. I call it a tragedy because it was in my mind extremely unnecessary and was damaging to everyone involved: those who were abused, those who took the pictures and carried out the abuse, and the United States and its perception globally. Following the release of the pictures, Dr. Z highlights how the government - like any institution faced with a scandal - pointed to this as an incident of a few "bad apples." If it weren't so serious this shallow explanation would be laughable.
Few events have received as much scrutiny and military, government and journalistic review as the Abu Ghraib scandal. Across the board, they describe a fundamentally screwed up institution. Similar to the Stanford Prison Experiment, most of the abuses took place on the night shift. For three months, no senior officer so much as visited the prison after hours. The stress level was extremely high - one Army reservist was in charge of over 1,000 prisoners, 60 Iraqi policemen, and 12 Army reserviests. He had received no specific training for the job and as mentioned, had no supervision. The chaotic conditions included constant weapons smuggling by Iraqi policemen, a neverending sewer stench, power blackouts, prisoner escapes, grenade attacks, noise and rationed water. The head Army reservist worked 40 days straight in 12 hour shifts per day. In his off-shift he slept in the prison. In social psychology, this 100% engulfment is called a "total situation."
Because of its proximity to dangerous Iraqi slums, the British told the US not to use the Abu Ghraib prison. Furthermore, for the first time Military Intelligence units were actively encouraging the Military Police (the Army reservists) to help break down prisoners. Of course, this is not the job of the police, whose job it is to keep order in the prison. When viewing this in the context of the administration's policy condoning "soft" torture tactics, it isn't hard to imagine how prisoner abuse resulted.
None of this serves to excuse any of the behavior that took place. Rather, it shows how putting "normal" people into a terrible situation, coupled with a lack of training and supervision, as well as tacit (and in some cases explicit) approval from superiors, results in a total disaster. Dr. Z and others had the opportunity to meet with and review the files of those who took the pictures and committed some of the acts; in his and military psychologists' opinions, these people were very normal. Indeed, Dr. Z points out that the lead officer was someone with the capacity to be a hero in a different situation. Yet instead he was a perpetrator of evil, smearing someone with his own feces and forcing others to similate sex acts while naked.... how is this possible?
Dr. Z's underlying point is that good and evil are hardly black and white. The human brain has an unbelievable capacity to be selfish and caring, heroic or villanous, creative or destructive. In other words, both good and evil are core aspects of human nature, and people can be transformed by powerful situational forces. After describing some other historical examples (the Jim Jones mass suicide, Eichman and the Nazis, etc.), he put together ten simple lessons on how to create evil in good people:
- Create an ideology to justify any means ("national security", etc.)
- Take small steps/minor action first
- Successively increase small actions
- Make sure a seemingly “just authority” is in charge
- Introduce a compassionate leader who changes gradually to become authoritarian monster
- Implement ever-changing/vague rules
- Re-lable situational actors & actions (“Teacher helping” when reality is aggressor hurting)
- Provide social models of compliance
- Allow verbal dissent, but insist on behavioral compliance (verbal dissent is the feel good thing)
- Make exiting difficult (this, he says, is the key to date rape…)
Perhaps some of you have seen a few of these steps in action, either from bosses, religious or government leaders. Dr. Z views corporate or institutional evil as the biggest evil, because it has the capacity to affect many people. In the case of corporations or governments, the rules of action are defined not by ethics, but rather by laws. The question is often not "what is right," but "what can we get away with?" He also described how corporate evil is always about the first little step - perhaps in the name of being a "team player." None of this is meant to be conspiratorial; it should instead reinforce to all of us that doing things because "that's what has always been done" or because someone "says so" is a poor reason that can have serious consequences. It's also clear to me that in a corporate or institutional setting, many of these evils can happen in marginal and indeed insignificant ways... with powerful disincentives to stand up for what is right.
So how do we keep ourselves from being even marginally evil? Dr. Z has also conveniently put together a list of twenty ways of preventing unwanted influences... while I won't list all of them here, you can click on this link to see the full list. Probably the most useful for me will be the following:
In all authority confrontations: be polite, individuate yourself and the other, make it clear it is not “your problem” in the process, or situation; describe the problem objectively, do not get emotional, state clearly the remedy sought, and the positive consequences expected – hold off on the threats and costs to them or their agency as last resort.
See ya'll next week.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
General Petraeus on Strategic Leadership
I had the privilege of hearing General Petraeus speak today at Princeton University (and also was very fortunate to have met him in 2009). This is not this week's official "post", but I did want to at least jot down a few of the notes I took from his speech.
For those of you who don't know who General Petraeus is, he is the four-star general who leads the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and was the force behind the Iraq "surge" that has proven so successful in stabilizing the country following years of misguided US efforts.
He spoke briefly on strategic leadership, and gave these three guidelines:
1) Come up with the "right" big ideas.... as a leader of an organization you are expected to come up with the ideas that shape and determine the future of that organization. If the ideas are built on shaky or even faulty grounds, the organization becomes susceptible to failure. In Petraeus' opinion, the success of the surge in Iraq was more about a surge of ideas than a surge in troops. Specifically, it was about improving local sentiment, it was about living in the field and not in the barracks, it was about not just leaving after a location was cleared, and it was about partnering with insurgent groups that could be turned.
2) Communicate these ideas... he mentioned that the most important communication is communication DOWN the chain of command. In any type of organization those who are executing a strategy will be the ones who are further down the chain of command. Without a proper understanding of the strategy, tactics at the lower level can interfere with strategy at a higher level.
3) Direct and oversee the proper implementation of these ideas... what stuck out to me here was that General Petraeus, a career military man, said that this requires empowerment and not micromanagement. To me this is extremely interesting - I would have guessed that of all bureaucracies, the military would rank near the top in terms of micromanagement. However he said (correctly) that this stifles the ability to implement ideas and adapt ideas to ever-changing conditions on the ground. I couldn't agree more.
Also interesting was his statement that in planning for the Afghanistan troop increase, Petraeus met with President Obama "9 or 10" times, sometimes for more than three hours at a time! To me, this shows that Obama has taken this situation seriously and instead of simply hearing a briefing and making a decision (like so many decision makers have done and do), he decided to spend meaningful chunks of time to discuss and debate strategy. Political affiliation aside, this is encouraging to me. No matter what the ultimate decisions are, I hope we have more politicians and leaders who are willing to use this kind of process to come to decisions on the many major problems we are facing.
For those of you who don't know who General Petraeus is, he is the four-star general who leads the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and was the force behind the Iraq "surge" that has proven so successful in stabilizing the country following years of misguided US efforts.
He spoke briefly on strategic leadership, and gave these three guidelines:
1) Come up with the "right" big ideas.... as a leader of an organization you are expected to come up with the ideas that shape and determine the future of that organization. If the ideas are built on shaky or even faulty grounds, the organization becomes susceptible to failure. In Petraeus' opinion, the success of the surge in Iraq was more about a surge of ideas than a surge in troops. Specifically, it was about improving local sentiment, it was about living in the field and not in the barracks, it was about not just leaving after a location was cleared, and it was about partnering with insurgent groups that could be turned.
2) Communicate these ideas... he mentioned that the most important communication is communication DOWN the chain of command. In any type of organization those who are executing a strategy will be the ones who are further down the chain of command. Without a proper understanding of the strategy, tactics at the lower level can interfere with strategy at a higher level.
3) Direct and oversee the proper implementation of these ideas... what stuck out to me here was that General Petraeus, a career military man, said that this requires empowerment and not micromanagement. To me this is extremely interesting - I would have guessed that of all bureaucracies, the military would rank near the top in terms of micromanagement. However he said (correctly) that this stifles the ability to implement ideas and adapt ideas to ever-changing conditions on the ground. I couldn't agree more.
Also interesting was his statement that in planning for the Afghanistan troop increase, Petraeus met with President Obama "9 or 10" times, sometimes for more than three hours at a time! To me, this shows that Obama has taken this situation seriously and instead of simply hearing a briefing and making a decision (like so many decision makers have done and do), he decided to spend meaningful chunks of time to discuss and debate strategy. Political affiliation aside, this is encouraging to me. No matter what the ultimate decisions are, I hope we have more politicians and leaders who are willing to use this kind of process to come to decisions on the many major problems we are facing.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Week 7: McMafia
Distribution Source: TED.com
Content Source: Misha Glenny
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 30 seconds
Link: Misha Glenny investigates global crime networks
After a fun but exhausting weekend in Las Vegas, I will be writing a shorter post this week... following Sin City I decided to watch a talk by BBC journalist Misha Glenny on organized crime. Misha chronicles the globalization of organized crime in "McMafia," a book he wrote after spending years traveling the world meeting with both perpetrators and victims, from the drug trade to human trafficking to cyber crime.
While I think Misha was a little too ambitious in his attempt to somehow link all types of organized crime across multiple regions of the world, his basic point - that globalized crime has thrived and evolved in the last two decades, and that "we" are ill-equipped to fight it - makes sense. Organized crime is estimated by Misha to account for 15% of global GDP. If true, this is a staggering number; 2009 global GDP is roughly $57 Trillion, which would put organized crime GDP at over $7.5 Trillion. Were it a country (isn't that a lovely thought), this would make the organized crime industry the third largest economy in the world, after the US ($14.5 Trillion) and China ($8.8 Trillion). In short, we are no longer facing your old-school Italian mob family.
Today's organized crime is not only bigger than before, but significantly more connected. Misha talks about how, when faced with a problem of declining membership, Japan's Yakuza mob simply outsourced their killings to the Chinese mob. He views the various organized crime players as savvy, well-resourced businesses supported by a significant demand base for illicit products and services and greatly assisted by access to off-shore banking services.
He divides the global organized crime business into zones of production (e.g., Afghanistan & Colombia), zones of distribution (e.g., Balkans & Mexico), and zones of consumption (e.g., the EU, US and Japan). The zones of production and distribution tend to take place in the developing world, and are often accompanied with extreme violence. Last year some 6,000 people have been killed as a direct consequence of cocaine trade through Mexico. And this pales in comparison to the Democratic Republic of Congo where, since 1998, 5 million people have died in the fight to control the illegal mineral trade. To give some perspective, in terms of deaths, this represents the largest conflict on the planet since WWII. Mafias around the world cooperate with local Congolese paramilitary officers to coordinate supply of minerals. The trade is simple: Congolese warlords send minerals to mobs in exchange for guns, and the various mobs sell the minerals to western markets.
With this production, distribution and consumption model in place, organized crime has become an increasingly efficient business, and one area in particular, the Balkans, has emerged as a hotbed, for two primary reasons. The first is geography; the Balkans are in many ways a gateway to Europe and are surrounded by the Black, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Seas. All kinds of illicit goods come to Europe through the Balkans: heroin from Central Asia through Iran & Turkey, cocaine from Columbia through Western Africa, women from Russia through the Ukraine & Romania and of course minerals from Africa. In addition to geography, like many Soviet satellites, the Balkans experienced a major institutional collapse following the fall of communism. Governments fell, of course, but so too did the underlying institutions, from the legal systems to the security forces. Across Eastern Europe and the Balkans, tens of thousands of police and intelligence officers, trained in surveillance, fighting and killing, were left jobless. With such a massive structural void, and a supply of unpaid, disgruntled thugs-in-training, it is easy to see how organized crime could thrive. After all, even legitimate business owners would in this environment be forced to buy protection for their assets. And while important political progress has been made in the Balkans since the fall of the Berlin Wall (most obviously the splitting up of Yugoslavia), it is unfortunate that a political void allowed these players to gain power and legitimacy, further entrenching them and their businesses.
From Misha's brief video, it's clear that the illicit goods and services trade represents a complex problem for which there doesn't seem to be a globally coordinated, comprehensive counterbalance. While he does not make any policy recommendations, the lecture takeaway is that organized crime is a massive economic force that has to be taken seriously. I won't pretend to have any answers, but what is clear to me is the impossibility (and futility) of using top-down "bans" on drugs or prostitution in hopes of ultimately eliminating them. It simply doesn't work. So if the zone of consumption cannot be eliminated by force, either another method must be attempted, or we must instead focus on incentives to disrupt zones of production and distribution.
Content Source: Misha Glenny
Format: Video
Length: 19 minutes, 30 seconds
Link: Misha Glenny investigates global crime networks
After a fun but exhausting weekend in Las Vegas, I will be writing a shorter post this week... following Sin City I decided to watch a talk by BBC journalist Misha Glenny on organized crime. Misha chronicles the globalization of organized crime in "McMafia," a book he wrote after spending years traveling the world meeting with both perpetrators and victims, from the drug trade to human trafficking to cyber crime.
While I think Misha was a little too ambitious in his attempt to somehow link all types of organized crime across multiple regions of the world, his basic point - that globalized crime has thrived and evolved in the last two decades, and that "we" are ill-equipped to fight it - makes sense. Organized crime is estimated by Misha to account for 15% of global GDP. If true, this is a staggering number; 2009 global GDP is roughly $57 Trillion, which would put organized crime GDP at over $7.5 Trillion. Were it a country (isn't that a lovely thought), this would make the organized crime industry the third largest economy in the world, after the US ($14.5 Trillion) and China ($8.8 Trillion). In short, we are no longer facing your old-school Italian mob family.
Today's organized crime is not only bigger than before, but significantly more connected. Misha talks about how, when faced with a problem of declining membership, Japan's Yakuza mob simply outsourced their killings to the Chinese mob. He views the various organized crime players as savvy, well-resourced businesses supported by a significant demand base for illicit products and services and greatly assisted by access to off-shore banking services.
He divides the global organized crime business into zones of production (e.g., Afghanistan & Colombia), zones of distribution (e.g., Balkans & Mexico), and zones of consumption (e.g., the EU, US and Japan). The zones of production and distribution tend to take place in the developing world, and are often accompanied with extreme violence. Last year some 6,000 people have been killed as a direct consequence of cocaine trade through Mexico. And this pales in comparison to the Democratic Republic of Congo where, since 1998, 5 million people have died in the fight to control the illegal mineral trade. To give some perspective, in terms of deaths, this represents the largest conflict on the planet since WWII. Mafias around the world cooperate with local Congolese paramilitary officers to coordinate supply of minerals. The trade is simple: Congolese warlords send minerals to mobs in exchange for guns, and the various mobs sell the minerals to western markets.
With this production, distribution and consumption model in place, organized crime has become an increasingly efficient business, and one area in particular, the Balkans, has emerged as a hotbed, for two primary reasons. The first is geography; the Balkans are in many ways a gateway to Europe and are surrounded by the Black, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Seas. All kinds of illicit goods come to Europe through the Balkans: heroin from Central Asia through Iran & Turkey, cocaine from Columbia through Western Africa, women from Russia through the Ukraine & Romania and of course minerals from Africa. In addition to geography, like many Soviet satellites, the Balkans experienced a major institutional collapse following the fall of communism. Governments fell, of course, but so too did the underlying institutions, from the legal systems to the security forces. Across Eastern Europe and the Balkans, tens of thousands of police and intelligence officers, trained in surveillance, fighting and killing, were left jobless. With such a massive structural void, and a supply of unpaid, disgruntled thugs-in-training, it is easy to see how organized crime could thrive. After all, even legitimate business owners would in this environment be forced to buy protection for their assets. And while important political progress has been made in the Balkans since the fall of the Berlin Wall (most obviously the splitting up of Yugoslavia), it is unfortunate that a political void allowed these players to gain power and legitimacy, further entrenching them and their businesses.
From Misha's brief video, it's clear that the illicit goods and services trade represents a complex problem for which there doesn't seem to be a globally coordinated, comprehensive counterbalance. While he does not make any policy recommendations, the lecture takeaway is that organized crime is a massive economic force that has to be taken seriously. I won't pretend to have any answers, but what is clear to me is the impossibility (and futility) of using top-down "bans" on drugs or prostitution in hopes of ultimately eliminating them. It simply doesn't work. So if the zone of consumption cannot be eliminated by force, either another method must be attempted, or we must instead focus on incentives to disrupt zones of production and distribution.
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