Lessons from profession: Running from Safety

The term "Running from safety" is the title of a book by Richard Bach -- a pilot turned philosopher.

I've seen the following trends time and again in professional settings. People are terrified of thinking and debating. Considering possibilities is often so disconcerting that they are sought to be avoided altogether. However, doing something -- an actionable -- is considered less terrifying and more safer than thinking. Finally, endorsement by others is considered safest and is often actively sought.

If you ask me though, things ought to be just the opposite of the above.

A pat on the back by someone usually signifies a hidden agenda or a game plan. If someone says, "you are great", it usually means that they want something to be done, that we may not really agree with.

Even if there is no hidden agenda, a personal endorsement by someone usually means that the endorser is more interested in me than the issue at hand. They're watching me, rather than watching the issue. So, if I try something new and fail at it, they are not likely to understand the significance of what I tried to do and failed. They're more likely to pass a judgement on me, saying that I've lost the old charm and talent, etc.

Building our lives based on endorsements by others is extremely unsafe.

The second issue -- doing something -- is less unsafe than seeking acceptance. If you baked good pudding and nobody endorses it because of political dynamics, you can at least eat the pudding yourself. You know you are worthwhile because you can get something done. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, than in others' endorsements.

However, actions have repercussions and we're accountable for our actions. Actions based on half-baked ideas usually create more problems than solutions.

In professional settings, where we are accountable for our actions, it is important to remember the maxim: do it right the first time.

In order to do that though, we need to think. Unfortunately, thinking requires us to consider possibilities that are unpleasant or even horrific. We need to understand that, we don't necessarily need to accept all that we consider in our thought processes. There is this quote by Aristotle (I think): It is the hallmark of an educated mind to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting it.

Thinking also requires us to be objective -- concentrate on the issue rather than the people involved (something which I've reiterated so many times in my previous posts.) We need to realize that argumentation and debates are collaborative activities and not ego-competition or warfare. The objective of argumentation is to understand an underlying issue -- not to sling mud and clobber one another.

Thought, action, outreach -- in that order -- is the way to be most effective.

Lessons from profession: On Excellence

This post is the first in another series, updated irregularly, on lessons learnt at the professional front.

For a large part of the population -- whether we are talking about individuals or organizations -- those that don't have godfathers, ancestral property or such extraneous resources to rely upon, quality is a survival mechanism. For them, excellence is no longer something to dream about -- they better have it, or else..

Almost all organizations have crucial pockets of excellence that keep them on their toes, alive and kicking. The hallmark of excellence is not awards, recognitions and endorsements by the high and mighty. The hallmark of excellence is often, grudging acceptance or even outright active animosity seeking to "cut down to size."

Excellence is also mostly not the "cream" that "rises to the top" and that which attracts others with its flamboyance. Excellence is mostly somewhere deep inside an organization -- a well-oiled part of the organizational machinery that is all but invisible until it is no longer there. The excellent part of our cellular systems are crucial organs like the heart, liver and lungs. They are not exactly visible outside and are not exactly flamboyant. Nobody thinks about these organs on a routine day.

The biggest detractor for excellence is mediocrity and its push for social acceptance as the only indicator of merit. Social acceptance games are usually more about political manipulations for short-term gains than about addressing core issues. These games are typically lose-lose games. Even when one wins in such a game, all they get is usually a push for even greater compliance.

Social networks are extremely powerful, often destructively so. The more mediocre and short-sighted such networks are, the more power they are willing to use. The one who seeks excellence should learn early on, how to manage social networking games. These games cannot be avoided, as typically one's physical survival depends on such games. But entering such a game unprepared, can destroy all motivation, skills and talent, and may even push folks towards desperation.

Nobody is indispensable. Not even the excellent. The excellent can always be replaced by a mediocre. Just like the beating of a healthy heart can always be replaced by an artificial pacemaker.. :/

Citation mania

Note: Standard disclaimers hold. Please see "About me" for the disclaimer. Especially those who know who I am, let me reiterate that this post is meant to address issues, and it is not about any particular person.

When you ask the Google search engine, a simple question like "23*12=" it gives you an answer: 276, in this case. (Actually, it is the wrong answer as my question was in base 4, but that is besides the point..;-)

On the other hand, if you ask the search engine, a realistic, bigger question like: "Are we really nurturing innovation and exploration in our higher education system?" Google does not provide an answer. Instead, it cites a few URLs with the implication that the answers may be found there. (In this case, the first result is this post itself. Heh :-) Of course, for a question like the above, no cited URL will contain the answer, or the answer that is most pertinent to the context in which the question is stated.

The above experience somewhat summarizes much of the "intellectual" conversations I have at work with students or colleagues or at home with learned folks. And this is what I mean when I say that our education system is creating database engines out of our students, rather than thinkers and problem-solvers. And the problem with this is all too clear: our intellectuals are in danger of being obsoleted by google!

The hallmark of an intellectual in our society today, is someone who can cite a great number of sources and pride themselves for belonging to the creed or school of thought of some great person from the past. In all these, the major casualty is the issue itself. The actual problem at hand does not get enough attention due to these social networking and posturing dynamics and almost always we end up adopting half-baked ideas.

Here is one concrete example to illustrate this. (Note again: standard disclaimers hold.)

Recently, there was this issue of intellectual property ownership for work carried out by research students in a University. The most popular school of thought was that, the University holds all the IP. The matter was sought to be closed there. But then I asked, what does it mean exactly? For instance, if a research student wants to commercially exploit his ideas after graduation, can the University prevent him from doing so.

And the answer I got was "Yes." But then, the University wants the student to publish his work in journals and conferences. So, some other third party may well be commercially exploiting the idea, but the University can still disallow the student from doing so? The problem with algorithms is that they can be easily diffused around the world over the Internet and it is infeasible for the University to stop each and everyone across the world from implementing the idea. The only person that the University can always track down and control would be the student himself.

For this dilemma, to my horror, I still get the answer "Yes." Apparently it is okay even if the rest of the world can commercially benefit from research ideas of a student, but the student can be prevented from exploiting the ideas himself -- because the University says, "all your ideas R belong to us.."

Apparently, this restriction holds even if the idea is not patented, but only copyrighted. A copyright only offers protection to the actual form and not to the underlying ideas. Hence, if a musical note is copyrighted, the exact sequence is protected, but not the underlying abstract ideas that led to this sequence of notes.

The first justification for such arguments starts usually like: "That is how it is done in the US.." and a few example universities are cited. But of course, there is no answer for the question as to how do these universities address the dilemma above?

To address the dilemma itself, I get another citation. A case law is cited where one company used a tagline called "Yeh dil maange more" to advertise their product. Their rival then used a mocking line called, "The heart wants a peacock" to advertise their products. The former then stopped the latter from using this, citing copyright on the tagline. Apparently the judgement ruled in favour of the former and this is used as an argument here that copyright protects the ideas as well, and not just the form.

I don't know the details of this particular case in question, but to say that our dilemma is the same as this case is clearly absurd. Firstly, "Yeh dil maange more" does NOT translate to "The heart wants a peacock" :-) At least, that was not the intended meaning of the tagline. So, clearly the underlying idea was not the issue of contention in the judgement at all.

Second, we are talking about algorithms and engineering innovations in our case. Clearly, a tagline is different from an algorithm? A tagline is meant for marketing purposes -- to create a hype or aura around a product, while an algorithm results from developing ideas over long periods of time. The research student may have had these ideas even before he applied for a research degree at the University.

And lastly, saying that the rest of the world may commercially exploit the ideas that are proposed by the student, but the student himself can be prevented from doing so, is mind-numbingly absurd.

If there is a law that would allow such a thing, then sensibility requires that such a law be challenged. The law has to be subservient to sense-making and natural order (Truth, if you will), and not the other way round. The motto of our courts is "Truth alone triumphs" and not, "The law alone triumphs." The rule of the law may be superior to the whims of any one person; but Truth itself is the most supreme.

It is no use arguing along these lines though. What I would typically get back in return, are a set of some more citations. Sigh.

I make it a point to tell my students the following quote I've coined: Augment thinking with reading, and not reading with thinking.

Or to put it another way: If you want to cross the ocean and get to the other shore, you cannot do so by drinking up all the water and walking across.

When I say such things, I've been asked questions like, "What kind of a teacher are you? You are asking your students not to read?"

Well no, I am not asking them to not read; but I am asking them to THINK. And to make thinking the fundamental driver and the control system of your mind. Reading gives the fuel and creates knowledge. But fuel alone is not sufficient to make us travel. There has to be a machinery that converts fuel into physical movement. And thinking is this machinery for navigating in cognitive spaces. It is thinking that makes you apply knowledge and solve problems. And thinking is not trivial at all. We all think we know how to think. But my experiences with intellectual conversations, belie such beliefs.