~synthesis~

endurance

Is "good" an absolute or does it change over time? We are creatures of habit and tradition; in general what was true yesterday is true today and will be true tomorrow. This especially applies to the things we value, and while most "goods" do and should endure, there are some that don't, and some that shouldn't.

Often these "goods" are benchmarks or measures that say things should be done tomorrow the way they were done yesterday. But is "good" good enough this time? For example:

1. We expect medical interns to work extended hours because the doctors that came before did. This despite studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, and other publications that prove that this does not improve learning or develop skills, and worse, actually harms patients!
2. We want our kids to do as much or more homework than we did, despite studies that show that it does not lead to meaningful learning. We believe in measuring student performance in the same way we did a generation ago, despite the data that shows that the ability to do well in a test has no correlation to success in the world or to personal achievement or happiness.
3. We base current business models on the past despite the fact that the (business) world has changed fundamentally, what worked yesterday is absolutely not guaranteed to work today, and that the world tomorrow will be different yet again.

We fear tomorrow but know and understand yesterday, so by measuring tomorrow based on yesterday, we are admitting that tomorrow matters less than yesterday. This is not leadership; it is instead a classic example of traditional MBA thinking - administer micro events based on historical trends, and assume the bigger picture will take care of itself.

Leaders who think this way should neither lead nor think.

What happens when a business model comes along that is fundamentally different from what came before? Google's model was brilliant - they turned the end user into the product and the advertiser into the customer. Microsoft turned the application developer into value-added "pull" for their products, and used these external "solution developers" as the sales machine that just dragged Microsoft along. The "establishment" scoffed at these two companies, as they did at Southwest Airlines, PayPal, Skype, Napster, ...and even the once radical notion of using ball-point pens in schools. Forsooth!

But the establishment (teeming with MBAs) does a bit more than just scoff at these upstarts; they actively subvert them by portraying them as untenable, wrong, evil, unproven, charlatans, etc.; they lobby against them through governments, press, and public. This is how incumbents attempt to hold on - by suppressing competitors vs. improving themselves. Just read this article to see that even the market-watchers (supposed innovators) get into the game of decrying those who are challenging the status quo.

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Wozniak said that Google's Android will become the most pervasive smartphone operating system. EVERYONE (media, competitors, Apple-haters) jumped on this assuming he meant that Apple's iOS will lose, and the iPhone is doomed. They compared this to Apple's "loss" to Microsoft in the personal computer marketplace (Windows still enjoys a ~90% market share vs. Mac/OSX and others).

Really? What is the basis for measuring "win" and "loss"?? Narrow minds define winners based on market share - and it's true, from that point of view, Android is more likely to win, because it's free to the manufacturers and they're not limiting the design criteria all that much. But is that really winning? Is Mac/OSX a loser in the PC market because it has less share than Windows? What computer are you using right now? What do you wish you had?

Outside of sports there are very few places where "winning" is clear-cut. In war - the "winning" side does get to write history the way they want, but let's face it, no-one would call America's invasion of Iraq a "victory" despite the fact that they technically won. Take Windows and PCs - it's fair to say that Microsoft "won" and continues to win the PC war but at what cost? Their success put them in the cross-hairs of a number of governments who feared their market share and pervasiveness as threats to competition. This cost Microsoft $billions, and even worse, altered the very nature of the company and its approach to doing business. This is not a "win," but this is the fate of share "winners." Hmmm...

Now let's look at the "loser." Apple seems to have done ...adequately despite their "poor" market share. Looking at their stock price, market cap, share of PR voice, future prospects, etc., I don't know about you, but they seem quite viable for a loser. How do their competitors look?

Perhaps NOT having a dominant market share was the best thing for them? It allowed them to diversify their efforts beyond the PCs, into music players, music services, and other consumer devices. Not being committed to one category or product-type let them be open to cannibalizing their own products, be innovative, creative and driven. When your market share is very high, your tendency is to preserve it vs. usurp it - you only have to look at the music industry to see how well this plays out.

I'm not saying they had a master plan and things turned out exactly as intended, but I am saying that Apple approaches the world differently than its peers, and stays true to its intention despite market pressure/ perception/ etc. This is a mark of leadership and vision. I don't believe for a second that they want to be the most sold phone in the market - I think they want to be the best phone, the best experience, and the most fun. Rather than volume, their obsession is impact or effect.

Are there absolute performance characteristics that will always be "good"? How about:

1. Are you competing on price or value?
2. Do your customers choose you in the face of cheaper alternatives?
3. Are your products more important than your ethos/values ...your "why"?

Arbitrarily deciding that X is good just because it worked a generation ago or even yesterday is naive and doomed. Absolute measures of "good" should be about who you are, and why you are. These are the enduring "goods."

tax refunds

When money is exchanged for a good or service, the buyer and seller enter a contract where the product offered will meet expectations and achieve advertised results; and if it doesn't, some form of restitution/refund is expected.

In a market economy, providers of goods or services that do not operate with integrity should as a matter of course lose customers and go under. This behavior is enforced in America by the Federal Trade Commission. With all of this, one would think that the American consumer is well taken care of... but no.

In 2008, Americans spent almost $600 billion (via income taxes alone) on public education (or well over $10,000 per student per year). That's a lot of money. Where is the consumer protection? If a student doesn't successfully complete high school, fails to get accepted to college, or fails to get a job, shouldn't the "buyers" be entitled to a refund? What if the school doesn't do enough to educate a child? What then? How does one get restitution?

If we look at Education America as a business (EA.com), who are its customers? What is the product (how do they create value)? What does the model look like?

1. EA.com creates value by taking raw materials (students age 5) and machines (curriculum, exams, standards) them within its factories (schools) and with its workers (teachers) into theoretically actualized, independent, and contributing members of society (students age 18-ish) 13 years later.
2. A company's customers are the ones that pay for the good or service, or in this case, the American taxpayer. The customers are the ones that have already passed through the system, not the ones currently in the system. Their stake is in the "future value" of EA's product and not in the process. This is a pretty significant nuance, and rather convenient for EA.com as its customers are unable to judge the quality of the product until well after the product has left the factory, and the payments have been collected.
3. The model is brilliant - get paid to crank out widgets according to an external specification (curriculum) and measured based on an antiquated (standardized tests) assessment, which has no connection to the graduate's ability or likelihood to succeed per the customers' requirements (blue text in #1 above).

By the time you realize the education you bought your child didn't meet expectations, it's already too late 'cause they've already graduated. And since there are no refunds, EA.com is counting on the fact that you will recognize there is no value to airing your very legitimate grievance, and just give up.

This can't be allowed to go on. Since a bad-education-refund is not possible, what can we do??? Where is our Fair Education Commission???

In the spirit of my last post, to create change, we must identify the most influential constituency, pick the most provocative issue, and pour some Tabasco into that wound.

The only way to truly and sustainably change Education America is to mobilize most if not all citizens to vigilantly ensure #1 above for every child. Adults aren't doing this today because it's in their past, and they don't correlate it to their future. We need to reposition Education and make it much, much more viscerally relevant to everyone.

Education America is funded by American taxpayers, all of whom are current or future retirees. Every one of whom expects to receive Social Security and Medicare until they die. Social Security and Medicare (SS&M) are the political third rail - the one place where all political parties fear to tread. This is because both are at risk of bankruptcy, and more taxpayers are closer to retirement than ever before (i.e. they are going bankrupt faster). 

SS&M were designed on the premise that there will always be more employees than retirees (bizarrely, no-one counted on people being healthier, living longer, having less kids) and that the current employees' taxes keep the system afloat (unemployment = bad). So if I'm retiring in the next 10-20 years, I want to make damned sure that today's students are VERY employable and will pay a ton of taxes, otherwise all I've done is fund my parents' retirement, and I'm left holding the bag.

Strategy: Make SS&M the wound, a poor education the Tabasco, and push the masses to personally focus on improving Education America to ensure their retirement benefits.

Let's take a look at the "biggest" education change agent in America - the Gates Foundation. They are investing a TON of money (my guess: $1-3billion/year), but that's less than 0.5% of the total education budget - a relative pittance. They can't make a big enough impact with that - they need a bigger lever.

Rather than creating programs, they should stand squarely on the third rail (since they're not political), and use their $Billions to create a fervor among Democrats and Republicans alike. If the citizens of America want to ensure SS&M access for their own retirement, they need to make sure that EVERY student graduates and is very GAINfully employed very soon after. The Foundation should produce a clear, simple list of three things that the voters must expect from Education America in the upcoming election (step 1). In the following election round, they should specify the next three things that voters must focus on (step 2), and so on.

We can't get a refund on the misspent $600 billion - let's at least make sure all future money is spent well.

lesser evils

How do democracies work exactly? Churchill said that "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." He also said "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Watching the recent election in America, I imagine voters from both parties will agree with the second quote. Except for countries with an utterly homogeneous population (Scandinavia comes to mind), are there any democracies where political success doesn't require an opponent against whom you must incite passion?

One of our basest instincts is fight or flight; we act when we perceive a threat. Politicians have figured this out (Karl Rove is probably the best) and know that the only way to "rock the vote" is to get people afraid enough of the "other guy" so that they donate $$ and vote for you.

Surowiecki, in Wisdom of Crowds argues that "under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them." Now try to imagine the wisdom of 46% of the American electorate that wanted Sarah Palin (now a reality TV horror show) to be Vice President in 2008. The ONLY way this happens in a "wise crowd" is if the alternative (Barak Hussein Obama) is portrayed as so vile and horrific that it raises your righteous indignation to the point where you're able to stomach the lesser evil.

Politicians want voters to do three things - donate money, vote, and convince others to vote. They accomplish this by appealing to the basest instincts and fears, and by counting on the fact that the electorate has a very short memory when it comes to promises vs. actions.

There is a fourth social/constitutional expectation, which is to care, be discerning, and make intelligent choices; but let's face it, that's asking a lot, and you know that politicians would prefer you let them do the thinking...

The election process is no longer an assessment of a candidate's past performance, intentions, and ability to create value for their electorate; it is instead an exercise in emotive herding. Look at either side's campaign in any election around the world and you will see that most if not all of their "voice" is aimed at your gut and your heart, and NOT at your head. Most if not all of their voice is also not about their candidate, it is about how bad their opponent and his party are. A good campaign manager (Rove et al) knows the issues that will incite their base, and more specifically how to spin them to achieve maximum enragement. The better the manager, the more sustained the effect of the spin.

The best way to move a community is to find or fabricate an enemy. People only coalesce when they have something to oppose. I do not believe it is possible to sustain a mainstream movement based solely on a peaceful or positive intention. If you have no opposition to rail against and vilify, you will not be able to keep your audience.

For example, Palin = plain spoken, apple pie, maverick, god fearing, gun-toting, hockey mom. Anyone who is NOT this (Obama) is evil - "she's one of us," and he's not. You can't trust him, is he even American, his name sounds Islamic, he's... Politics today is more about creating caricatures than it is about addressing issues. With the prevalence and reach of media, the voters' connection to the caricature (or the idea) is more profound and more long-lived than their connection to the person.

These days democratically-elected candidates can't be mainstream, they have to be fringe, and they have to establish and nurture a polarized constituency. Once in power, the majority pushes their agenda; and the opposition/minority needs to do everything possible to not just impede that agenda, but to inflame their constituency into a rage against the incumbent. That's the only way they can raise enough money and rock enough voters to win next time.

The effect? Unless one party has a massive majority across the entire government, nothing of substance will happen - the citizens' lives aren't materially improved. The legislation that does get passed is rife with compromise and a pale shadow of what was promised. The spinners happily point the finger at the "enemy," and the citizenry's belief that the real cause of all their ills is at the other end of the spectrum (government and voters alike) is deepened. And the government oscillates between extremes - nothing gets done.

Think of how most advocacy groups function; they don't talk about the rightness of their cause, they create momentum by promoting the wrongness of their opponent. Do you think the Pro-Choice community would survive over time without extolling the threat that the Pro-Life movement represents and vice versa?

Now think about YOUR feelings - is your reaction stronger to an anti- message or a pro- message? Are you more like to vote or contribute or participate because of a fear of what might be if those other idiots get their way, or because you feel passionate and positive about your candidate and their platform?

I think the Tea Party movement in the US began because they wanted to change this dynamic, to see a government and citizenry closer to what the Founding Fathers intended. But in the end, they sacrificed integrity to pander to the media, grow their membership, and raise money, and ended up becoming a fringe instead of a mainstream voice.

If the byproduct of a democracy is that half the citizens hate the other half and wish evil upon them, how is this civilized? How do we claim to be civilized?

The opening Churchill quote has given us permission to be complacent, to concede that there is no better government than a democracy. That's not acceptable. Our imperative should be to prove him wrong, and not acquiesce to democracy simply because it sucks less than the alternatives.

community v ambition

First, it's been quite a while since my last post. A lot's been going on over the last months, and as a result, I prioritized other things over ~synthesis~, but I intend to amend that from now on! I thank all of you who sent me emails and were concerned about my well-being - that was surprising and sincerely appreciated - a thousand times thank you.

Second, I've decided to leave Microsoft - my employer of many years - and embark on a new journey in the world of education and start-ups. The next weeks and months will be spent refining the vision, finalizing the business plan, and of course, securing the funding to make it happen. I may do some consulting work in the interim, but hope to devote most of my energy to creating this new future with the goal of making a difference.

Community v ambition: I was visiting with a friend recently and we got to talking about her recent adventure in India, and then about some of the differences in the way people approach life (broadly speaking) in "developing" vs. "developed" worlds. Out of this came this idea that there are two extremes in how we approach life - community and ambition.

For most of our existence on this planet, community has been fundamental to survival. As competition grew and threats increased, people coalesced into communities where roles were defined, and they took care of each other. For example, in a true community, there are people who will hunt, grow, prepare food, build shelters, heal, and defend the community; more often than not, the children will inherit their parents' roles as they grow older. Similarly, you won't see daycare or convalescence or retirement homes - the young, the recovering and the aged are cared for within the community. The very idea of saving for retirement doesn't occur or exist.

The community can and does sustain itself with relatively lower stress - certain issues that individuals face simply don't arise; and others (will there be enough food today, what if bad weather damages our homes) are dealt with more easily because the burden is shared by the entire community, and there is comfort in that. People never go it alone. The community creates a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, and a sense of beholdenness.

At the other end is ambition. It argues that the individual prevails over everything, that we each go it alone, and that success is self-created, and self-enjoyed. "Ambitious" parents expect their kids to leave the home after secondary school, go on to university (in another town) and then the working world, happily leaving them in the bliss of an "empty nest" - this concept simply doesn't exist in the community.

Ambition is also a zero-sum game - there are winners and losers in everything - and that's how "keep score" and gauge your progress. It's a bit weird that ambition requires us to prevail over fellow humans - a rather counter-to-Darwin strategy.

To and "outsider," community is an oddly stagnant thing - "don't they want/expect/desire more than the status quo?" I am an outsider (ambitious) - but I wonder where happiness lays, where less strain and stress, fulfillment lie, and whether individual outcomes are on an equal footing with community outcomes.

The recent election in the United States was largely a celebration of individual ambition over community impact. Most if not all of the issues in play asked why the one should pay for the many. Incumbents were vanquished because they supported legislation that required individuals to spend their money in support of others. While there is a party line, most members of the party only agree on one thing - that the other party must be stopped. Outside of that, their perspective is largely individual.

Most large corporations believe success comes by pitting individuals (their own employees) against each other (in a zero-sum performance management scheme) in an effort to achieve greater team performance. BUT because success comes comparatively, many of their own employees (presumably rigorously-selected and trained, etc.) must "fail" in order for some of their employees to succeed, and theoretically for the company to succeed. Hmmm... "For us to be a great company a proportion of our employees must be failures - we have therefore designed our system and set our expectations to achieve this."

Does that compute?

It is fair to argue that the community forsakes the individual - the "communistic" view requires each of us to sublimate our desire for the broader good; the innate artist must be a hunter; or the budding mathematician must be a seamstress because those are the things the community requires. They must forgo their uniqueness.

In my family - we often wonder at the fact that the only times we get together is for weddings and funerals, that as much as we say "we must do this more often," actions speak louder than words, and the next reunion is when someone else bites the dust.

Is there a happy medium where the individual is celebrated, and yet a vital and contributing, and nurtured member of the community? Or does the one implicitly pollute the other? Is individuality inherently a corruptive agent in the community? Is there a limit to the amount of corruption that a community can withstand before it evaporates? Does community suppress innovation? Does community perpetuate stagnation?

Over the last ~3 years, I've had the honor to be a part of an amazing community - those that are passionate and committed to improving education around the world. It is vibrant and passionate and energetic and able; but are we really a community or are we just ambitious individuals who share a common goal?

Is there a pendulum effect? Will Western society move back to a community base at some point? I was in Cape Town a couple of weeks ago, and saw community power first hand; but I fear that progress trumps stagnation, and while I appreciated what they have, inside me is the desire for it/them to be more...