Case Study on the Need for Regulation

I’ve been following the discussion in Melbourne over the last few years with the rise of McMansion suburbs featuring large household buildings.  Being the owner of a fairly modest 14,500 square foot home, I found it difficult to understand why it was necessary to have 4 bathrooms in a house for only a couple of people.  During some futures workshops, one issue that kept reappearing was a potential backlash from people who have these places but not the funds to afford energy costs in heating and cooling as well as limited access to available public transport.  A related issue was the forecast of a relative increase in upgrading and retro-fitting existing households over building new ones.

And so it was interesting to see this release from the American Institute of Architects showing that there is a renewed interest in smaller house sizes and upgrading existing homes to make more use of the available area.  Partly this is due to belt-tightening by residents but also an enhanced interest in environmental issues and reducing energy costs.

This raises the issue of the need for regulation, especiallyin the good times, and the potential failings of letting market forces rule alone.  In this case, having regulations that required households to improve their energy efficiency preceded the demand of residents for these measures.  Of course, this also needs to be balanced with the removal of older regulations that are at odds with community sentiment.

Brain Science and Identity

On 1 July 2009, Professor Ernst Poppel gave a presentation at my workplace  titled “Who am I – who are we?  A brain science view towards identity”.  Professor Poppel is a brain researcher, Chair of the Board of Directors at the Center for Human Science, and Director of the Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Munich.

Ernst opened with the statement that brain science is interesting and he certainly made it so.  He stated that the brain is continuously thinking without conscious control.  Rather than the phrase “I think”, we should consider it as “It thinks”.  Hence, when you get an insight of sudden understanding, the brain has actually already been thinking about it for a while beforehand.  This part of tacit knowledge (right hemisphere, implicit, intuitive) is like a giant ocean compared with just small islands of explicit knowledge of the words that are represented primarily through the left hemisphere.

Half of the human brain is dedicated to visual analysis and only 40% dedicated to decision-making and self-monitoring.  Each of the brain’s 100 billion neuron cells is a separate entity that interacts with others.  There are three kinds of brain cells

• 500 million receptors that sense the external world.  We need to be modest about how selective to the world out there.  For example, we are blind outside light frequencies of certain band. 
• We have motor neurons that serve as the output from the brain and help us talk and act. 
• In between is the great intermediate net and within this,
  • Every nerve cell sends info out to 10000 others, and receives information from 10000 others in a process of divergence and convergence.
  • The brain always acts in a mechanism for complexity reduction based on the normal process of cellular excitation and inhibition.  Many brain diseases are caused by an imbalance in excitation and inhibition.
  • There is only a maximum of four steps before information from one cell connects with any other brain cell.  There is no independence of brain cells but there is very high interconnectivity.  Every mental act is embedded within an emotional part of the brain.

Connections between brain cells are not predetermined.  There is no one who speaks another language without an accent if they learn that beyond 10 years age.  To be truly bilingual or tringual, you need to study the language in early years using native speakers – similar for imprinting movement.  The matrix of the brain is fixed in that first 10 years which underlies the importance of being embedded in a culture.  Early learning is critical to cultural identity as it becomes a structure of the brain.  Other areas of the world are imprinted in a different way.

The notion of complexity reduction means that every human being must have prejudices.  This trap of the human mind causes stereotypes.  While we simplify in respect to intercultural communication, we need to take care that we must not simplify too much.

 He showed a number of images that trick the brain.  Some such as the Necker Cube cannot be flicked between their states at a frequency less than half a second due to the brain’s conscious construction latency.  Similarly, with various eye exercises, an image is constructed in the eye which is superimposed on the image in the brain, tricking us into seeing something that is not actually there (although it was there).   Likewise, colours are constructions of the brain.  The brain constantly checks and rechecks what is going on out there, what is going on out there every two or three seconds.

Our brain is always testing itself against how it makes sense of the world.  The brain’s representation of the world is an active construction of world outside and determined by our hypotheses of the world out there.  Rather than there being a straight connection between stimuli and responses, the stimulus is a function of our hypothesis (what we deign to perceive) and our reaction is a function of the stimulus.  We always have hypothesis testing going on.  Importantly, there is a short temporal window of just 2 or 3 seconds in which we make decisions.  Likewise, with music, our brain activates more with music run at a three second tempo.  In all domains, there is this temporal stage which is 2 or 3 seconds – this is a basic machinery of our brains.

We create a memory of our own past – our episodic memory.  For example, if we recollect a memory of ourselves as 10 years old, we will get a picture in our minds that will be place based and it has a strong emotion attached to it (which helps with the imprinting).  We see ourselves in the image of our old memory system as a third person.  This is a basic mechanism to construct our own personal identity; to double yourself.  With Alzheimer’s the problem is not so much losing memory as losing one’s sense of identity.

The picture we recollect may not be an accurate representation of reality but one that fits in with our own personal life history and makes it consistent.  We define ourselves when we duplicate ourselves meaning that there are two kinds of reality; our reflection of world and our interpretation of that reflection. All brains function according to this identity principle.

We define personal identity in both personal autonomy as well as belongingness.  These are complementary and underlie the importance of empathic relationships in communication to the construction of identity.

Some other points from his presentation:

• Our circadian rhythms are such that we should not teach between 12 and 3 pm as these are meant to be periods of rest. 
• Patients who have suffered strokes often need to practice and learn each day in order to function.  Some people are late learners.  Best protection against dementia is to keep your brain active. 
• One third of entire health budgets come from diseases of brain (Alzheimers, Parkinson, etc).  In Europe, this is 100 billion Euro per year and is the fastest growing health market.
• We need to develop improved Human Machine Interfaces to use technology better. 
• His own research is completely globalised and interdisciplinary. 

I found this presentation quite enlightening, particularly around the notion that brains constantly think beyond what we are consciously aware.  I knew about self-monitoring of body functions but the insight for me was around active thinking beyond consciousness.  This helps me understand where insights come from;  those moments when you suddenly realize something new and now I know that your brain has actually thought of it before you have!  Also, the whole notion around how we recall long term memory in pictures was informative and how that needs to be consistent with our own story. 

Professor Poppel’s presentation got me to go back to my book of Steven Pinker – How the Mind Works.  Note that Pinker talks about the mind rather than the brain.  Pinker mentions that understanding is a complex interaction between (1) genes, (2) brain anatomy, (3) its biochemical state, (4) family upbringing and (5) treatment by society and (6) external stimuli that impact on the person. 

But Prof Poppel does not just consider brains but also the mind.  In answering questions, he spoke eloquently about how brain science links with philosophy and psychology. 

Also, Pinker adds that the human brain uses at least four major formats of representation; Visual, phonological (a string of syllables which we use for short term memory), grammatical (nouns, verbs, etc in arrangements) and mentalese which is the language of thought of conceptual knowledge that captures the gist of a concept and also embraces story structures.   These match quite closely with those of Poppel but the addition of the conceptual knowledge and mentalese is critical to including narrative as an important representative element, particularly for longer term memory.

Cost overruns on rail budgets due to knowledge loss?

Article in today’s The Age from Melbourne highlights the exorbitant cost of Melbourne’s first heavy rail extensions for the past 70 years.  Interestingly, one paragraph notes that part of this cost increase could be due to the loss of knowledge caused by the lack of capital expenditure on railways for the past 20 years.

Dube says the Department of Transport has effectively not planned or built any new rail services since the late-1980s when the City Loop was completed. This means there is no expertise in accurately costing an extension to the passenger rail system. Furthermore, the costs of building heavy rail have skyrocketed — far more than inflation. “There’s been very little work done in the railways (since the mid-1980s) … so for 15 years there’s been a hiatus of capital expenditure in the railways and because of that vacuum, the only knowledge people had of what things cost was anchored in the 1970s and ’80s.

This reminds me of another incident described by Patrick Lambe at a workshop in Dubai this week where the discussion moved to how organisations lose knowledge if they do not continue to exercise the knowledge in the people.  You can have lots of wonderful documentation that lists how to do things but that it is still important to have the knowledge of the people who wrote those documents to describe the context and translate that knowledge into meaningful action.  In this case, Patrick was describing the situation of NASA when they were needing to rediscover their knowledge of large booster rockets that can propel material outside the solar system.

For the situation of heavy rail in Melbourne, it clearly portrays the disproportionate investments over the past 30 years in the road network as compared to rail networks.  Part of the exorbitant cost estimate may be due to the need to rebuild much of this knowledge lost over the past few decades.

Three Illusions and More on Strategic Thinking

Some really nice posts (here, here and here) from a guest blogger spot over at the Cognitive Edge site by Bob Gorzynski.  He has recently written a book The Strategic Mind, The Journey to Leadership through Strategic Thinking which outlines seven core disciplines (‘Know Your Own Story’, ‘Think Small’, ‘Go Slowly’, ‘Serve Others’, ‘Reflect’, ‘Be Simple’, ‘Dream’)’ to improve our ability to think strategically.  I really like these and they resonate with me deeply.  Know your own story is required to excel in job interviews!  Think small, go slowly and serve others target working with people rather than trying to change everything and everyone all at once.  Reflect is necessary to ensure that you have integrity and remain true while Be Simple helps you aim for the key leverage points that will have maximum impact.  And finally dream is critical to envisage your desirable future.

I also like his three illusions although the first and third on the illusion of independence and the illusion of control can be combined.  The illusion of size is especially important – that bigger is not always best.

I’m also quite taken with the clarity of his four core elements of strategic thinking, that of challenging deeper assumptions and beliefs, seeing the whole picture rather than just the parts, determining patterns within the whole, and acknowledging our intuition. This could easily be four core elements of strategic foresight as well!

Keep it coming, Bob. And this is another book to add to my ever growing list of books to read!

Debate versus Dialogue

While cleaning up some old boxes, I came across a CD that I had been trying to locate for a few months.  One of the documents listed a tabular comparison of debate and dialogue.  I can’t remember where I sourced this from or whether I made it up myself.  So apologies if I have breached copyright.  It’s from a couple of years ago and my normal approach would be to do a few searches on the Internet and read some books and come up with such a table – so I might have done that – or just copied it from somewhere.  But I reckon it looks like a pretty good comparison; and I know a few people who are better debaters than conversationalists!

Debate (in normal text) versus Dialogue (in italics)

Assuming that there is a right answer
Assuming that others have pieces of the answer
(and that you have it)
and that together you can craft a solution

Combative:   Collaborative:
attempting to prove the other side wrong
attempting to find common understanding

About winning
About exploring common ground

Listening to find flaws and make counter-arguments
Listening to understand and find a basis for agreement

Defending assumptions as valid
Presenting assumptions for re-evaluation

Critiquing the other side’s position
Re-examining all positions

Defending one’s own views against those of others
Admitting that other’s thinking can improve one’s own

Searching for weaknesses and flaws in the other position                 
Searching for strengths and value in the other position

Seeking a conclusion or vote that ratifies your position
Discovering new options, not seeking closure

Narrative in Arabian Nights

Nice article by Hugh Kennedy in last Friday’s AFR review reprinted from the New Statesman here reviewing a new translation of Arabian Nights.  In particular, this section caught my eye:

What distinguishes the Nights and, despite its great length, stops it from becoming tedious, is the different registers of story – comic, romantic, sad, adventurous. It is impossible to predict the twists and turns, and, embarking on any of the stories or cycles of stories, the reader can have no idea where he or she is going to end up.

The most typical narrative device is, of course, the story within the story, in which the lead story of the sequence is repeatedly interrupted as the hero meets people (or animals or jinns) who have their own tales to tell, or when people staying awake at night begin to tell the stories of their lives. No one is ever told to shut up in the Nights: if there are eight brothers, each with a story to tell, they must all have their say. Equally intriguing is the way in which the narrative, after wandering serendipitously in many different directions, gradually brings you back to the main thread and the reader feels that little jolt of recognition: “So that’s how we got there.”

I must admit when I recollect some scenes from my own time in Arabia this feeling of everyone needing to have their say and tell their own story.  The importance here is having the time (which is often so short and punctuated in Western business) to have these conversations and allow people to have their say.  The art of the facilitator is, of course, tied to getting the story back on track after going on tangents but being left with the feeling that those tangents have been important to the overall story rather than meaningless sidetracks.

Russia and Gas Supply

One of the issues that is often discussed with other fellow strategic foresight practitioners is the future of resource wars.  As Peak Oil emerges, demand for fossil fuels and energy prices increase so too does the political pressure to guarantee supplies for a nation’s population.  This is more critical in the countries surrounding Russia that are reliant on it for supply of gas, particularly for heating during winter.

Geopolitical tensions are re-surfacing with Ukraine which has recently sided more closely with the West and wishes to engage more with the EU.  Current economic difficulties caused by the GFHF (Global Financial Hissy Fit – thanks Kim) are creating slowdowns across the Ukraine economy, increasing this tension.

The recent gas wars are multi-layered across international, national, political and economic segments.  Internationally, Europe has had their gas supplies from Russia reduced as about 80% of Russian supplies pass through Ukraine.  Russia wishes to increase its price of gas to Ukraine (which is currently heavily subsidised) and seek recompense from Ukraine for past debts for gas supplies.  In the meantime, Ukraine siphons off some of the gas for Europe for its own purposes ( which it does not pay for).  While there are some other supply routes to Western Europe through Belarus, these are not as large as those through Ukraine.  And the ante gets upped from this regional geopolitical standoff with Ukraine when it seeks to enlist Western Europe and the US in its dealings with Russia, while Russia in comparison is not seeking to elevate the issues.  The Ukraine is very important politically for Russia as a beach-head against Europe and for access to Russian bases on the Caspian Sea and wishes to keep the problem local and not internationalised.

Compounding all of this further is the location of new growth markets for Russian gas – and they do not lie in Europe but east towards Japan and China.  Why bother with providing gas to Europe when there are exciting possibilities to the East?  And so Russia is building new gas supply lines to China and potentially to India if and when Afghanistan becomes stable.

Perhaps this is a foretaste of what is to come.  Regional conflicts escalating into international confrontations with the initial cause associated with energy supplies (or water).  And perhaps also a weak signal of further tensions between new powers (Russia, India, China) as compared with those of yesteryear (Western Europe and the US).  In particular, it could mean that relationships transform so that enemies of the past are economic allies of the future.

Bush-whacking National Records

It’s that time again in the US with the countdown to a new President.  Edgar had posted an article on it and listening to Radio National this morning, there was a great discussion with a US archivist on the legislation requiring outgoing presidents and vice presidents to transfer their records to the National Archives.  Many of these records are in electronic form, particularly in the form of emails which makes their capture difficult as all records managers would know.

These records are incredibly important for future historians and scholars to look back at how policy was made, the reasoning behind judgements and the internal and stakeholder processes which occurred.  This is critical not just for identifying any errors that occurred, but also to help future policymakers and people in power to not repeat the mistakes of the past.  This is especially true for the Bush/Cheney period which has had more than its fair share of troubles.

Based on this article, there are legal and technical difficulties being encountered in recovering these records.  The technical ones are part and parcel of electronic mail systems, especially when trying to recover historical records, let alone the issues surrounding longevity and metadata capture as new email systems are developed.  A far greater proportion of the records would be electronic, due to its ease and simplicity of use.  But as things becoming simpler to use, they also are often harder for records managers and archivists.  It is often easier for a sender or a recipient of an email record to delete it after sending to remove that record from the mailbox.  It appears that previous presidents (and the current one) have not been fully forthcoming with their public records obligations with various lawsuits having occurred to ensure that the records get preserved.

The current Vice President has been particularly less forthcoming, attempting to limit the range of emails that are required to be preserved and shielding them from his personal emails.  Much of the reasoning and thinking behind the policy decisions that have occurred from past Presidents and Prime Ministers has emerged from their personal diaries and hence the personal records of people in high office should be preserved.  Note that these are shielded from publication for many years through legislation.

All this is somewhat bemusing given this recent New York Times article which states that Vice President Cheney believes that “historians would ultimately look favorably on the Bush administration’s efforts to keep the nation safe.”  How could historians properly do this when they have an abridged version of history preserved in the archives?

The Bursting of the Irish Miracle

A few years back, I took my family over to Ireland for my brother-in-law’s wedding. He has recently moved back to Australia with his wife and kids and judging by this article in the New York Times, he sold up his property in Dublin in the nick of time. The luck of the Irish perhaps!

While working in the information economy policy area, we looked at the Irish miracle and admired their stunning economic recovery, blessed with EU funds and a young population.  People flocked there, reversing the historical Irish emigration around the globe.  It was a hub for IT services with generous taxation concessions and a well-educated local population.  The Guiness was pretty good too I heard!

But it appears now that the bubble has well and truly burst.  Unemployment is approaching 10% and housing prices have fallen by nearly 50%. Like the UK, many expats are heading home as the economy shrinks and jobs disappear.  Part of the issue it appears is the rapid increase in housing’s share of the economy (from 5% to 14%) as demand for housing increased.  The voices that asked the government to try and dampen demand were not heeded as the good times rolled.  Unlike the US situation where banks faltered with their lax lending practices to individuals, Ireland’s banks faltered through their lending to property developers.

I keep wondering if these financial problems will occur to this extent in Australia.  We have seemed to be spared the major banking errors through our better regulatory practices.  We do not have a large number of expats who will go home if the going gets tough (Australia is their home now). We are more of a lag economy so the effects of the US economy will take time to filter through the Chinese economy and then to our economy so we may not have seen the worst of it here as yet.  However, we do have particular areas that will be more affected by others, where house prices have increased disproportionately and where people may be less inclined to live in a future of high fuel costs (today’s low reduced petrol prices will not continue for long) and changing economy – more on that in a blog post for another day.

Whatever Works …

Sometimes while reading the newspapers online, I come across an article that makes me laugh!

THE Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached in his bag for a small gift. Four blue pills. Viagra.

“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.

That is a great case of customer satisfaction and effective stakeholder relationships!  Getting into the mind of the people you are trying to influence, seeing what you have that may be of value to them, and in turn getting what you want in return.  In this case, cash and physical goods would not have sufficed as the warlord may not have wanted it to be known in public that he was “in bed” with Uncle Sam.  Instead, he was more than happy to be not seen to be in bed with his wives!