THE PROBLEM OF A PERSPECTIVE UNIVERSITY STUDENT: JOB SEEKING v. VALUE CREATION

Yesterday I was at dinner with some church members, a family and some young boys and girls. One of them – let's call her Cecilia – expressed her intentions to study Phsycology at university. She said that her introverted disposition and her ability and patience to listen to people would make her a good phsyc. I agree with her. Then she said she loves everything related to the human behaviour, the mind and social interactions studies. So she'd like to study Freud and friends next autumn. But there is a problem: she is afraid to study this subject for fear not to find a job after she'd graduate.

The change of perspective - non-linear thinking - could help to solve problems. Like in this image where you cannot state whether monks are descending or ascending, there is no right answer, just different point of views. (M C Escher, Ascending and descending, 1960)

Now, I want to help her. First, I think her fear it is a legitimate and honest issue: unemployment rate is high and the job market is very unstable. But I also believe that more important than to have a job, is our intention and ability to create value for others. If we start with this perspective we might end up in another place. So I'll design a question trail – just invented this name – in order to reframe the problem.

From a job- to a value-creation-approach to pick a university course

1. Why does Cecilia want to study Phsycology?
    1. What kind of people does she want to help?
    2. What kind of phsycological problems does she want to solve?
    3. What past experiences do lead her to be a phsycologyst?

These questions should lead Cecilia to understand her own drivers.

2. What value will her help bring to people?
    1. How to measure it?

This is a crucial question. Let's think about the kind of values a phsyc bring to people. They can be more happiness, a sense of lightness and understanding of his own self, a plan of reaction to adversity, more productivity, easier and more stable social relationships, a clear mind to look at new opportunities and achieve new goals. The higher the expected reward the higher the price she would be able to charge. (I don't mean the only option for Cecilia is to start a private practice after she'll graduate from University. These questions are designed to understand whether there is a demand for the services she'd offer. Once graduated she could still look at employers that meet that demand.)

3. How many potential people in need of her help are there?

The answer to this question really depends on where she live and how she will promote her work – this is the branding and marketing side of her job.

4. Will people helped aknowledge her help?

This is a tricky question. In latin countries – i.e. Italy – there is a general skepticism about intellectual professions – lawyers, consultants, phsycologists, software developers, designers, journalists – since people usually think they can do the same job by themselves. I think in order to aknowledge the job a phsyc does and the value she bring to his patients, Cecilia should choose a very specific field very hard to practice.

5. How much will those people willing to pay her?

Here there are two way to approach demand: the value-based side and the competition-based side. With a value-based approach the price should be a fair share of the economic value Cecilia would create to her patients. With a competition-based approach the price should be a slightly lower price that his competitors charge. (Competitors should be a very selected number of players, since phsycological assistance is very much based on personal preferences and so it's hard to compare two different phsycs. It has to be kept in mind that the default mode – doing nothing – is also a non-player competitor.)

What do you think? Are these questions a good way to tackle Cecilia's problem? What other ways do you think of?

WHAT MAKES A GOOD BOY SCOUT LEADER?

As a Scout adult assistant in my church I think how to help young people to learn how to become mature and responsible men and women. Last week I wrote a short list of what traits and skills make any Capo Pattuglia (chief of a 7-9 scout patrol) a good leader.

As I wanted to write these traits, I looked back at my experience in the group over these past 3  years and to my expectations from a leader I'd follow.

What traits has a good Chief Patrol?

1. He has a clear objective - He answers to the questions "Who I am? What do I want? Why am I here? What kind of person I want to become?" - During activities, and in his life, he knows where he wants to go.
2. He is reliable, he is careful toward others, he is accountable over his actions and his group's ones.
3. He is generous by giving, he prefers to give than to receive - He keeps to himself less credit for an achievement and more share of fault for a failure.
4. He cares for others, mostly the youngers and more vulnerable ones - For example, he ties shoes, give away his meal, encourage who is tired - He treats others the way he wants to be treated.
5. He can discipline himself and keep his needs under control (hunger fatigue) - He identify his own feelings (anger sadness joy fear) and he can express them - He breaths when he's afraid or angry, counts to 5, thinks what to do then acts - He cries.
6. He teaches things to others, skills, tecniques, jokes, he tells stories - He holds the group together - He teaches specialty, pushes to improve, helps others being accountable.
7. He loves everyone the same way, he corrects everyone the same way, he does not have preferences.
8. He learns from the best - He keeps an eye on other Chiefs and on any skilled and effective person, finds the best and apply that in his life.
9. He is humble, asks for forgiveness, he seeks advices - He learn from achievements and mistakes - He fails.
10. He can communicate in a clear concise and effective way - He delegates tasks and gives responsabilities to others - He explains strategies, visions, objectives, rules of the games and of life - He motivates to action and inspire others.
11. He knows when to be serious and when to joke (when mission is accomplished).
12. During time of difficulties he keeps himself focused, resolute and secure to the objective - He doesn't let secondary problems disctract him, he doesn't get discouraged, he prays, trust God, others scouts and his chiefs.
13. Everything he does, he does it as a group, not by himself - He asks for help, to topographer, knots-master, strategist, counselor.
14. He has courage, vision, accepts (calculated) risks - He takes initiative, keeps going forward - He talks face-to-face and to his superiors - He is decisive - He wins over his fears knowing that to achieve an objective you need to risk what you have.
15. He looks after for ideas and collaboration with other chiefs patrol - He seeks solutions and participates in projects, outgoings or ideas' organization.
16. He has fun and is fun.

Of course one can agree with some traits and not with others. The question is, even if you know you will fail at some rules, do you want to be a better Chief Patrol? Or a better Leader of your life, family, business or country? You decide.

"If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done." (T. Jefferson)

"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." (C. S. Lewis)

"It is absurd that a man should rule others, if he cannot rule himself." (Latin proverb)

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'." (E. Bombeck)

WHAT DEEP LEARNING IS

Finally, I've got what Deep Learning is. (I mean, my main goal is to understand what Artificial Intelligence is and how to apply it to real life problem, and DL is just a branch of it).

Few days ago Bloomberg's Ashlee Vance wrote about George Hotz who hacked his car and taught how to drive by itself.

"In the month before our first drive on I­280, Hotz spent most of his time outfitting the sedan with the sensors, computing equipment, and electronics. Once all the systems were up and running, he drove the vehicle for two and a
half hours and simply let the computer observe him. Back in his garage, he downloaded the data from the drive and set algorithms to work analyzing how he handled various situations. The car learned that Hotz tends to stay in the middle of a lane and maintain a safe distance from the car in front of him. Once the analysis was complete, the software could predict the safest path for the vehicle. By the time he and I hit the road, the car behaved much like a teenager who’d spent only a couple of hours behind the wheel."

Inside the car. Credit Peter Bohler for Bloomberg Businessweek

So Deep Learnig happens when you give a machine or a computer the intellectual tools to learn a task and than let it teach itself how to do it. It is like a children learning how to walk, talk etc. The Hotz's experiment is amazing.

At the beginning the car was unsecure and unstable. Then it learnt how to follow road lines, and be more careful when a cyclist was riding.

What amaze me is the capability of a computer to learn without putting specific rules of behavior inside. Hotz's software is made of 2,000 lines of codes. (A book-sharing app I had in mind requires around 500,000 lines). He says that if/then statements - the rules the computer will follow when he encounters that certain situation - are imprecise and unreliable. In this way the car can learn a personalized way of driving, based on the single driver teaching and experience.

Go forward George!

(Now, my question is: How can we use the Deep Learning technology to automate a mechanical, repetitive task? Proposals welcome)

LOGIC AND THE SCIENCE OF PREDICTING THE FUTURE

Few days ago I was sewing my sweater to cover two holes in the elbow of the sleeves with a patch. To do such thing you have to put one hand inside the sleeve and to sew without looking the needle, but only “feeling” it with your fingers. Since you cannot see it, you have to calculate and to guess where it will get out of the woven. I call it a type of prediction.

 

The patch on the sleeve of my sweater. Can you easily calculate where the needle will come out?

What is logic? I think as something as “logical” when it follows a rule of cause-effect and it is a way to demonstrate or discover something true. Logic is the way to seek the truth and understand the reality of things. As Aristotle says, analytical – or logical – reasoning is demonstrative and impersonal. The reasoning is a scientific evidence to prove the truth, which is unchangeable no matter who is the listener.

My question is: If I apply all rules of logic, can I predict the future? Can I predict how the day of tomorrow will unfold? Can I predict elections' outcome? Can I predict the stock market performance? Fundamentally, I think it is possible – at least to some point.

Of course no prudent man will ever guarantee the future, neither a portfolio manager will declare how much his investment fund will perform in one year time. The law requires all financial institutions to say ahead of a investment that “past performance is not indicative of future results”. We can all agree on that. It is a fact of life that the future is unknown and we all accept that. We can only rely on one person's claim that a fact in the future will happen as long as he has control and power over its happening. We all trust our partner's promise that she will bake a cake for our birthday party or a student will graduate next session. They all have enough power over their situation to make it possible. But what happen when we have no control over the outcome? Can we predict it?

Ideally I believe it is possible. I agree with the quant hedge fund funder Jim Simons when he says that “past performance is indicative of future results”. The issue is not whether we have control over the outcome, but if we know all variables that determine the structure of the question. It is the knowledge or the ability to predict where the needle will get out of the patch without being able to see it. We can predict how the day of tomorrow will unfold if we know what all people will do, who will encounter who and what, how they will respond to their interrelation, what will be the weather, their boss' requests, their partner reaction. If we know all people habits, how they respond to change, requests and challenge, I believe it is possible to build a reliable model of the future. (On the idea that life is nothing but a bunch of habit, read C. Duhigg, The Power Of Habits, ch. 1 and 7).

One useful and money-making field where to build a model of the future is the financial investments. What determines the value of a stock? I will work on that on the following days. (Ehi, I have control over that, so I can predict it!).

UPDATE. Hey, I wrote Inquiry over Logic of Investments. Any idea?

STRATEGY: HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Last week I came across an article on Edward Luttwak's life and thinking. He is a septuagenarian resident of a suburb of Washington DC, living a ordinary retired age life, and earning his living by giving advices to governments about strategy, military actions and all other kinds of group conflicts - including marital disputes.

His competitive advantages are the huge knowledge of human flaws ("Most people cannot master their emotions"), historic facts and understanding of conflicting interests, the feeling that he is in connection with a deeper and hidden sense of reality and a counter-intuitive approach to strategy ("I never gave George Bush enough credit for what he’s done in the Middle East. He
ignited a religious war between Shi’ites and Sunnis that will occupy
the region for the next 1,000 years").

WHAT IS STRATEGY?

This made me thinking about what is Strategy. Big W defines it as the "high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty". Von Clausewitz, a 18th century Prussian military thinker, says it is "the combination of individual engagements to attain the goal of the campaign or war" (Principles of war). According to Von Clausewitz, the main purposes of war are to conquer and destroy the armed power of the enemy and to gain public opinion. So destruction of other's power and recognition of it are the goals of war.

I agree with that, but I think the ultimate goal, or aim, of strategy is to gain power. Strategy is strictly related to war and military actions, but the art to achieve goals encompass all areas of life, from to get a degree, to conquer a girl's heart, to build a business, to start a polar expedition. Nonetheless there are two areas where strategy is better studied and applied: military and business. Here the means to measure success - the achievement of goals - are visible and palpable: the capture of a city and the return of investment.

A BUSINESS STRATEGIST

On this second field I found a very interesting piece of advice by a hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio. He founded Bridgewater Associates to provide investment advices over securities and government bonds and now manage over 150B dollars. He designed the firm around the principle of seeking truth without regard to position or authority, but based only on soundness of reasoning and merit.

The reason I introduced Dalio is to reproduce the "Process to Getting What You Want Out of Life". In other words is Strategy applied to real life. He says that "failure is by and large due to not accepting and successfully dealing with the realities of life, and that achieving success is simply a matter of accepting and successfully dealing with all my realities" and that without facing pain and reflecting upon it a person cannot evolve to fulfil his potential. We are all faced virtually every moment with choices to make: whether or not to study, progress, make our job done, pursue goals, girls, lay down on the couch, investigate, fight or run, win or accept defeat, step back or push back.

The choice we face every moment to be blocked by pain or to endure through it and progress (c. Ray Dalio, Principles)

THE PLAN

1) Set Your Goals.
You can have virtually anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want, so you have to make a decision about what you want to achieve and to kill what you would like to have but is not really meaningful or important to you.
Avoid setting goals based on what you think you can achieve.

2) Identifying and Not Tolerating Problems.
Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you.
Be very precise in specifying your problems.
Once you identify your problems, you must not tolerate them.

3) Diagnosing the Problems
You will be much more effective if you focus on diagnosis and design rather than jumping to solutions.
You must get at the root causes.
More than anything else, what differentiates people who live up to their potential from those who don’t is a willingness to look at themselves and others objectively.

4) Designing the Plan (Determining the Solutions)
Creating a design is like writing a movie script in that you visualize who will do what through time in order to achieve the goal.

5) Doing the Tasks
What is needed here is good work habits, self-discipline, being proactive and result-oriented.

In order to complete all these 5 steps different qualities are needed. To set goals requires high-level thinking and personal honesty, to identify problems needs perception and intolerance of badness, to diagnose needs hyper-logic, to design plan needs creativity, to do the task needs self-discipline. All these task can be completed by different people with various qualities.

This was Ray Dalio Plan to Achieve Goals in Life. This is what I think is Strategy.

"I believe that you can probably get what you want out of life if you can suspend your ego and take a no-excuses approach to achieving your goals with open-mindedness, determination, and courage, especially if you rely on the help of people who are strong in areas that you are weak." (Ray Dalio)

INVESTING AND THE FUTURE

What is investing?

The Bible tell us a great story of what is investing in Matthew 25. Three servants are given 5, 2 and 1 talent respectively by their master, who is leaving for a certain period of time. Soon after he left, the first two servants start to put their money to work and they gain their capital back - a 100% return! The third servant, instead, digs a hole in the ground and buries his talent. We all know the ending: when the master went back he praised the two faithful servants and award them more things, but he scolded the third one, calling him lazy.



I believe investing is putting hard work, time, dedication, focus and energy to build something that will have value in the future. So if a man wants to invest in something he has to be willing to work hard and to trust in the future. He cannot be like the unfaithful servant, who was lazy - unwilling to work hard - and fearful - unwilling to put trust in the future.

I want to be a faithful servant.

WHISTLE-BLOWING: THE INNER CONFLICT BETWEEN LOYALTY AND JUSTICE

So, who is a whistle-blower? According to Wikipedia is "a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, dishonest, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public". Usually he has an information about something wrong, uncorrect or unfair going on inside the company, public agency or national government he works in.

The most famous case is the one of Edward Snowden. He was a cyber analyst for one US Intelligence agencies, the National Security Agency, and he exposed questionable investigation and cyber intelligence gathering systems performed by NSA and other intelligence agencies around the world. He did so in order to give the public opinion the chance to determine whether this system of surveillance is acceptable or not.

Another type of whistle-blowing may occur in the private sector. An employee or a business partner may denounce a commercial malpractice, potential damages to public health or the environment, tax evasion, financial fraud, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and so on.

Governments and agencies even push for more whistle-blowing offering financial reward for people who provide useful informations.



I was thinking about what motivates employees to do so. In other words, there must be a inner conflict between loyalty to his employer, government, neighbour and something else, like lawful, integrity, compliance, a sense of rightfulness. All these aims try to protect equal distribution of taxes, privacy, the right to be alone, fairness in business, trust in public institutions, safety of water, air and manufactured products, public assets, national security, freedom of choice. I think all these can be summarized as Justice.

We know there is right and wrong. We have a inner sense of Justice. And when we see something wrong, unfair, incorrect, unlawful, unjust we all have a duty to respond to it. It is up to the employee, agent or contractor to evaluate where his duty of loyalty terminate and his sense of justice prevail.

So, yes, I think people, citizens and employees have a duty of loyalty and fidelity to their Country and their employer, but there is a higher duty of justice above it. That is the final seal of freedom.