Why are we surprised

Beware, this is a long one. But I think you will like the ride. I won't say this is a new idea, but it does have new possibilities.

Reading blogs on Discovery.com is interesting. The scientific mind often gets bent out of shape when logic seems to drift. Read this post about a nest of wasps that formed in the shape of a Buddha in Rochester MN. Not only is there the incredulusness of the idea that Buddha and wasp are related, but the people intervied in the referenced story and the author of the original article keep confusing bees for wasps.

The funny thing about Buddhism is that no matter how much it is a philosophy, it still spirals into religion. Not saying that it can't be a pure way of life, but that is not what it is in all Buddhist-based cultures (barring those in California).

The wasps (through the miracle of self-delusion actually bees) must have a 'human' explanation. The purist Buddhist philosophy would simply be that they were being wasps as is their nature - nothing more.

The trick is that Buddhism does not deny the religion that existed prior to the adoption of Buddhism before it arrived. Look at Thailand (I do for 6 months of every year) where there is never a Buddha that is not within arms reach of a creature or god from the indian-based religions. Because they were also very prone to believing in the influence of these other worldly beings, they attribute a lot of how the world works to them. The number of rituals or signs, belief in the cause and effect of the rituals is amazing. This is not necessarily peasants in the jungle. We are talking about the educated masses bowing to the Buddha as well as multi-armed Shiva and other dieties.

I'll add one more thing. No matter how you slice it, humans are the problem - not a religion or other excuse. We can make anything seem reasonable. A Buddhist will not cause damage to another living being. But a Buddhist can (and I have seen it) create a situation where pain or worse is inevitable just as long as they don't strike the death blow... or can claim it was just a reflex. A mosquito cannot be killed, but should it wander into a death trap through misadventure, that's alright.

The purist Buddhist would not do such a thing, but the non purist would argue that they were pure as well. Imagine a dictionary with only one definition for every word. Imagine a book that could not be interpreted to having different meanings (barring pure math).

The simple fact is that we are human. Murphy's law is all about the human's ability to believe something will work, that it is designed right, that it will be used as intended and the consequence of believing any of these has a shred of truth.

And now, the missing ending.

In this case it is all about the sloppiness of belief. A Buddhist can cheat, lie, make mistakes, and do silly things as easily as a Christian or Islamist. Just as an engineer can put in a part backwards (the source of the Murphy tale) people easily can reverse/twist/expand a belief or embelish liberally to support the initial position of their belief or action. Even stranger is how beliefs and their supporting arguments are easily picked up by others. This is acually a bit less surprising because it is simple to go with the flow.

Back to philosophical Wasps building Buddha-shaped nests in Buddhist temples (we call them Watts in Thailand). What stuck me funny as I have said is the bashing of the very science-based blogger of people that are... well, being people. On the one end, Mr Wizard. On the other end, Mr Wizard with prejudice of religion rather than understanding that the human condition easily mistakes a wasp from a bee and gets bent out of shape when deities show up built by insects.

Where is this going? The referenced blog seems to say these folks are stupid. Stupid isn't about being educated or facts. Stupid is is a state of mind that got there through human experience and the way the mind works. Stupid, ten to one, is nothing more than a belief that is wrong. Stupid comes from lack of Critical Thinking
, perhaps education, and even our parents - but it is something that is always there in some amount in all of us.

So, here we are in Triiibes. What does this have to deal with leading? People are not stupid. Note: Not talking about IQ. Lots of smart people belong to cults. Lots of people do stupid things. Stupidity is sometimes fleeting, but I am talking about a persistent stupid. How do you lead stupid?

First, drop the 'stupid' moniker. Treat stupidity as a belief. Find what led to a problem that you have with a co-worker, client, targeted customers, and the rest of the world. Remember that belief is hard to change. Most beliefs exist even in that face of evidence, so don't expect a belief to change.

A variation of what we often label with 'stupid' is related to skills. I want to call this out separately because the English language sucks (it is a human invention and ha a lot of flaws). Good book to read is The Myth of Laziness
. Spelling, the ability to write, speaking skills, fine motor skills are all are related to how the brain is wired. You can't do a lot about that. Worse lots of kids with developing brains or adults that are not quite wired perfectly are labeled as lazy which is closely related to and often called 'stupid'. You get the same issues leading these folks. In addition they have additional beliefs caused by not being perfect and what that entails.

Full disclosure, can't spell, handwriting from hell, and until I learned to juggle, I could not lay on the ground while chewing gum without tripping. But, I use a spell checker, I type, and I now have motor skills thanks to learning to juggle when I was about 35 (balls, knives, flaming torches and toilet plungers in their order of danger to my self and audience). Juggling rewired a brain stuck at age 13 because my beliefs kept me tied to avoiding improvements in my motor skills. The rest are just coping skills that work quite well in modern society.

The trick to leading most beliefs or handicaps of all kinds is to first accept them. Suspending belief should be the game. I became a writer when I realized that nobody really cared as long as I used a spell checker (at a guess I have used the spell checker on about 30 words in this blog entry so far). I also became a writer because I had a goal where the writing was only a small part of reaching the goal. Juggling too was just a means to a really good joke rather than being able to own glassware rather than high impact plastic.

So, here are my steps for curing stupidity caused by beliefs:

1) Accept the belief. If possible, find the source and acknowledge that this makes the belief true given the evidence.

2) Suspend a belief with a different reality or conditions where another belief can be possible. Alternately, ask that a belief take a little time off and try another belief and have the subject see how it works out with their own observations. Goals that are related, but not the focus of the belief are very useful.

3) Follow up and if possible confirm a change or at least progress in loosening the grip of an old belief

There are pitfalls to consider:

Inertia - If you are not dead, the belief has not really affected you that badly. If it is not life threatening, it is hard for the brain to find a reason to change. It takes a lot of effort to change direction in a car or a mind.

Self-limiting beliefs - Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being seen as inferior, fear of mediocrity and others will help support a belief. These can be teated as stated above, but they are deeply held beliefs that likely caused the belief. My favorite book on such limiting beliefs: The Luck Factor: The Four Essential Principles

Energy - The brain uses a lot of energy when rewiring itself. Nature likes to conserve energy. A closed mind is a low energy mind. Changing the energy level through the effort of changing a belief is not something the brain likes to do. That is why having other goals are important. The need needs to be sweeter than the effort so that the effort pays big or such that the effort isn't even noticed against the greater need to reach the goal.

All of this applies to groups as well. Think about Microsoft and Apple. In the minds of Apple fans they have beliefs with inertia, the fear of failure by being wrong, and all the baggage of understanding how to use the products. Microsoft might call these people stupid and Apple plays the same game with Mr Hodgman. Microsoft is playing on the need to be part of a group with their new adverts which is also a deep belief.

Apple is winning market share as much from the new inertia of converts that bring in others simply because nobody dies from buying Apple and they do seem a bit happier. The energy of changing your mind is easier if you observe others succeeding - why waste energy when all the thinking has been done for you?

How many Republicans call Democrats stupid and hear their words mirrored back? How did Obama win? My guess is that he put the goal of change in the air until it overcame many beliefs that were held by Republicans and non-voting youths that had found no reason to vote before. McCain mostly spoke to the beliefs of other Republicans rather than a new belief that would sway youth or existing Democrats.

You can now start to see a new strategy. Don't push against stupidity. Stupidity is just a belief. Change beliefs. You are already changing your mind a little and that has its own inertia.

Let us know what you are thinking. The fear of commenting in public is not a belief we have here :o)

Why the car industry is in trouble? It's just a bad story they tell themselves.

Why is the car industry in trouble? It is sort of simple if you think about it. They have made a model of customizing looks, high-end performance, and amenities, but not more important things like fuel economy or even ways to green out the car.

Why? Because for the most part it is easier to tack on a new plastic part or high-end brakes. It is not as easy to swap an engine or drop 3 or 4 thousand pounds off the weight to reduce the need for power.

If automakers would prioritize concepts like swapping engines based on the market of gas rather than the demand of SUV's, we would not be in this mess. If I could buy a wimpy powered SUV today, but swap in a few cylinders when gas is low again, why not?

Here is the problem: Car companies sell cars, not engines. Somebody else sells engines to the car companies. More profit for the bigger item I guess. But this does not imply that it would not work, just a story these folks tell themselves which prevents them from seeing a different truth.

Anything is possible. But people get in the way. Silliest thing I heard at the peak of high gas prices was that Americans would not buy a 50+ mile per gallon diesel because Americans don't like diesel...

Sorry, but that is just plain silly. How are Americans different from the rest of the world? The sillier fact is that this is coming from the same car company. Owned but the same stockholders, with the same management. They just keep telling the same stories to themselves and believing their own fairy tails.

In Seth's book, All Marketers are Liars, he talked a lot about such stories for marketing. It is a good concept, but it works both sides. There are stories that stifle and smother innovation.

We need new stories.

Think of a current story that would create a petrified forest and make one that would create the Amazon. When someone sings the blues, stop it in its tracks. Change the tune, change the story, look for opportunity, not reasons for inaction.

My idea to save the world? An add-on device that would turn off an engine when stopped at a stoplight or in traffic. What about air conditioning? Stop whining. An electric compressor can be added too if you live in the hot west or an electric heater in the chilly places. More important, an override button. When gas is $5 a gallon, you switch that puppy on and save some cash.

How do I know this is a good idea? What do you think a hybrid is? It saves most of the fuel by just being off when you are not moving. It is a good idea. There are a few things to do, like automating the start process, but that too was solved with hybrids.

See how easy that was? It is just an option, but it is an economy option.

What is your idea? What is the new story? What is your comeback line to the doubting Thomas?

FYI this is a version of a blog moved from a limited membership blog site at http://www.triiibes.com/. I am moving many of those blog entries here for your entertainment and enlightenment.

Marketing truths of fear, guilt, paranoids, and the lonely.

Wouldn't it be nice to decrease the psychological foibles in the world? If you are not selling anti-anxiety drugs you still need to think about what motivates decisions.

Fear motivates, but avoiding a fearful encounter is more powerful. Fear is usually temporary. Avoiding fear is much easier and easier to believe.

Guilt is not as good a tool as a fear of guilt. If you are already guilty, why bother? With fear of guilt, you have a chance at redemption without the messiness of sin.

There are those that avoid pain and those that prevent pain. It is two sides of the same coin but very different approaches. Avoiding pain is about fear and never confronting pain. Preventing pain is a planed activity that includes things that might normally have come with the pain.

Want to know where most pain management is practiced? In hospital management, not patient management. Overheard: "Let's not buy that new hospital IT system. It would be too painful to train our people."

People without fear are really adrenalin junkies. One is simply more powerful than the other.

Being paranoid is a hobby. You always have something to think about.

There are things you do for your self to feel good and then there are things you do so that you can talk about yourself to others so that you can feel good.

The brain is a messy place. It is difficult for some to look at these as part of marketing. The fact is that this is all real. Avoiding these motivators is sometimes bad for your marketing. People like their problems, needs, and fears addressed. In fact they get turned off when you don't.

Our motivations are a resource that you should use. Be careful not to abuse or exaggerate! Use the truth. People will exaggerate the problem far more by themselves than you could anyway. It's just how you phrase the truth that matters.

Time to write about the marketing of the end of the world

The crazies are coming out. I don't mean the people touting the end of the world. I am talking about the people that believe that horse pucky. It is one thing to produce an end of the world special for the History Channel, another entirely to believe that silly tripe.

On the other hand, there is a lot of money in Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD). FYI FUD was created by IBM.

Here I think there is a great deal of the fun with poking fun with the opposite story. Here are a few good zingers to throw around at the water cooler when people start chatting up the various Discovery Channel specials:

The Aztecs couldn't predict their way out of death-by-Spaniards. Why predict the end of the world in 2012?

The Aztec calendar does not end in 2012, it simply resets. There isn't a mushroom cloud or even aliens on that last day. Heck, our calendars are so much better to predict that January 1st 2012 is New Years Day. Look it up if you don't believe me.

They say that Nostradamus predicted the fall of the twin towers. Really? I don't remember anyone hanging out in the lobby that day shooing people away because it was the day.

Nostradamus had gout. He was said to be a healer? Oh, and he died at about age 62, hardly a sage age. None of that rising from the dead stuff either. David Blaine is harder act to follow.

Nostradanus wrote in quatrains and you can say either it was in code or riddles, but why not in the clear French he spoke?

The Aztec calendar was wheel-shaped. Do you really think that a calendar shapped like a wheel could predict the end of time when they could not have invented the actual 'wheel''?

The Aztecs had blood sacrifices. So, how did that work out for them? Did it prevent their demise as a culture?

Nostradamus died with today's equivalent of $300 thousand dollars. Not bad for being psychic without having to prove everything was really predicted accurately.

Alvin Toffler (Future Shock and The Third Wave), probably has a better record than Nostradomas for predictions because he wrote in clear English. Though Alvin did predict that a large part of society would become nomads and that the Mobile Home was the future of housing. Guess that means he didn't predict the housing credit crash either.

The Bible predicts the end of the world too, no surprise. But the book of Revelations was written between the years 68 and 96 A.D. But why not spill the beans in Genesis? Why wait? Why get people all hot and bothered when the end times can't be put on the calendar you got for Christmas? Why the suspense?

Why not just 2000 years? Did we really have to wait for Bush to end his term? Seems a little arbitrary to tack on an extra 12 as well. It's all just a tease! I'll bet they end up changing the date... again! Who want's in on the End Times betting pool. I got $20 on April 1, 2020.

Faith Popcorn is said to have a low return on her predictions too. What do Toffler and Popcorn have in common, they wrote in clear English, not riddles. But they both got some things right. They predicted the future too, not divine it.

What about the last time the world ended? Get in line, here it comes again!

I'm seriously thinking of writing an end-of-the-world book. People will buy it. When the chips are down people will believe anything that wiggles the crazy meter. You don't even have to prove anything. There are a lot of options:

How The World Will End
Digging Your Shelter - Five Shelter Designs From Home Depot
Top five religions to be a part of when the world ends - or, Improving your odds of the hereafter in 2012.
How to make money after the world ends!
Fifty Pithy Phrases For Your Last Words
Introducing Yourself To Your Alien Overlords
What To Do New Years 2013 With Your 2012 End-Of-The-World Hoard
Revelations in Marketing - How to sell your products to the end of time

I'd ask you to comment, but why? Don't want to get between you and your family with less than 3 years to go. But if you have a new date and time for the end of the world, I'd like to know. I need better lead time on the marketing budget.

Here is my other blog of the end of the world. The book will be coming soon!

FYI this is a version of a blog moved from a limited membership blog site at http://www.triiibes.com/. I am moving many of those blog entries here for your entertainment and enlightenment.

Teenagers Can't See Your Point of View - Can you fix that?

New Scientist is full of fun stuff this week. There is an article today about how teens and their inability to see another person's point of view.

This is called Theory of Mind. Wikipedia says: Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own.

According to the article, Theory of Mind gets better as we grow older and that's good news! But you need to really work hard to deal with teens to overcome this.

The article has more bad news saying, "adolescents show strong egocentric behaviour that is very similar to that of young children..." I sort of translate into 15 years old with terrible two's syndrome.

What might this all mean? How could we use this? I suspect that you cannot impose your will or give examples. You could lead and see if they follow. My guess however is that you really need to ask a lot of questions and use their directed opinions to whittle down the possibilities.

You: "What is cool/rocken/all-that/phat/spiffy/mayonnaise to you?"
Teen: "I think X is spastic!"
You: "Why is X... well, spastic?"
Teen: "Because it's what Slink Borders all wear."
You: "So what are Slink Borders?"
Teen: "They are ..."

Eventually you get to some sort of understanding. You figure out what Slink Borders are and what they do, say, believe, and consume. You see how close the teen is to these and you have a better understanding of their point of view and motivations. Pick a subject and work your way around it.

Teaching Theory of Mind is a bit different. Sadly I have found few good references because a lot of this is aimed at Autism and not teenagers. I did find this paper, but it is long and scholarly and I must be off to work. Read it at your leisure.

One more thing to add. People can loose their Theory of Mind over time or may have functional Asperberger's syndrome. In either case we have high functioning adults that seem like angry assholes. They can't understand why the world is so stupid. I have and currently know many of these people. One was officially diagnosed with Asperberger's when he was about 40 years old. He was like a 185 I.Q. train wreck.

Others I know with impaired Theory of Mind are less problematic, but I must say they are really bad. Lots of yelling. World against them. It is worse as stress gets higher. They just fail to see the implications of their actions and anger. Think of the sales mistakes.... The overselling. Not listening. Jumping before understanding a key word.

I am going to be reading a lot more on Theory of Mind and training/confronting those impaired. It seems like a very skill to be good at. My goal would be to learn to do this without the other person noticing. Nobody likes the implication that their thought process in wrong. That is why a lot of stuff bounces off teenagers.

I will caution. There are also Narcissists out there. They could really be Asperberger's, but they are far nastier. Very often they will say they are everyone's friend but they exude evil from every pore. These folks can't be changed. Don't bother. Get far far away.

The common misconception is that Narcissists are egotists. Truth is that Narcissists feel out of control a lot of the time and gain that control by manipulating others to feel out of control. In other words, they are in their element when you are a complete and total failure and pulling your hair out.

Almost forgot. What is your opinion? Words of wisdom? War stories? Stand up, take a break and start writing!

Why crying wolf pays and how to shame that little boy into honesty and positivity

Mary Louise Penaz (you need to be a member of Triiibes) made a comment on an earlier blog of mine about the end of the word:

Mary said "...and who doesn't like being right? Right?"

It made me think about why there are so many detractors and especially a lot of doomsayers.

Predictors of the future are always right until the future is the past. For those that predict with riddles, they will always be right while there is a shred that they could be right sometime soon.

I think the 'cry wolf' story is like this. There are wolves. Crying wolf is never wrong because there 'might' be a wolf. It just wasn't there when you came to help or you scared it away. See how good it was for me to cry wolf? Eventually there will be a wolf. Yeah, we missed all those wolves, but that last time that little kid was dead on. Smart kid!!!

It is amazing though that it is far easier to believe that something will go wrong. What is the ratio of people that believe that aliens will come and shower us in a golden age verses all those that believe in the end of the world?

It is easier to be right about failure than success. I think this is because wrong is wrong. Right can be easily cast as wrong or even not totally right. A successful product can be wrong even if it brings in millions because it could have brought tens of millions.

It is easy to pick apart success and hard to find silver linings in failure without still seeing the failure.

But how do you stop this sort of thing? How do you stop the hobby of doom and gloom spreaders?

I actually have this issue in my tribe. Why does a customer want that? They say it rhetorically and dismissively. There is no question because they see no value. What's a product manager to do?

The key offense is to force them to write positives first. We do that in our product vision. It help set the stage. I also never respond to one negative with one positive. The equation is lopsided in tit for tat. One bad has more points that one good, even when it is a home run of a zinger.

Another good comeback is to challenge. Get them to write the list of possibilities for good. What are the 5 success factors? What do you think will be the five most used features? If that is a problem, what are three possible solutions?

But be careful. Never ask, "so, what would you suggest instead?" This is too open. Ten to one, this guy hasn't a clue. At least I've yet to meet one that had enough mental foresight to buy even a discount clue. They are dissing your idea because they are defending their empty wasteland of ideas. You'll hear the tension and anger in their voice. Tread carefully because exposing this fact will create a shit storm. Concentrate on the attack, not the attacker. You don't win a fight by questioning if the guy's father and mother were related before they were married.

Keep on point. Don't allow the conversation to waver away from the subject the guy is dissing. You can not reward negativity with a voice and a lever of power.

Get a copy of a book on how to argue and a few books on critical thinking. Keept the examples with you written on little cards with the reference. Put them in your slides to cut off the types of arguments you know you are going to hear. Think of the argument and disprove it before the peanut gallery even wakes up.

There are a lot of web resources, like this one. Just type illogical argument into Google to get a bunch.

BTW, you want to have the worst arguments and have the most animosity? Try running a meeting with Robert's Rules of Order. Take my word for it and don't let it happen to you. The issue is that all it takes is one negative space cowboy to take over. Put one guy in charge and force them to read a bunch on controlling meetings, critical thinking, and detecting illogical arguments.

Have a fantastic win against a negative nelly lately? How did you do it? Give us the play by play.

Magic and persuasion - I'd like to float an idea in front of you.

Flying, levitation, people just floating in the air. Imagine how you feel when you see a magician perform a trick that breaks the laws of physics. Our brains are wired to expect gravity. When someone floats into the air, you feel the hair go up on the back of your neck and the chill of goosebumps.

I'm not taking about watching David Blaine or Chris Angel on TV. I mean really seeing this live and in person. You feel like you just jumped out of an airplane - your stomach does a little twist like you are flying too. It is powerful stuff.

I tried a new trick last night. I am not really a good magician, but there are a few good tricks that work themselves and even the most honest magician - i.e. I feel bad that this is a trick and it shows - can pull off something that spins the audience's mind. In this case, just my girlfriend, but a group of 100 tomorrow. This trick is so good, I'll be doing it every presentation or talk in the coming months.

Quite simply, it is full body levitation. Flying up in the air seven inches or so (higher depending on circumstances). It is a bit incredible to see someone see you break the laws of physics. It is even more incredible when you say, "hey watch me do this new trick". People are still falling out of their chairs! It is a trick, they know it, you know it, but they still are surprised! The human brain just works that way. Even if you repeat the trick several times, people still can't stop having their minds twist at the sight.

The brain is predictive. That is how you can know a song fro the first three notes. But when you break that predictive pattern, all hell breaks loose. The brain is both confused and in a state that is far different than normal life. It is also in a state of newness. The brain is ready to see whatever is next because it has gotta figure this all out.

Persuasion can be this way too. Don't need to hide the fact that you are selling an idea or a product. It is in the art of surprise and stickiness of ideas that sell. Knowing it's just there to make decisions easier and entertaining helps drop resistance to the idea or sale.

The world is too full of blah blah blah buy me. It should be more empty hat (the problem), the rabbit (the solution), producing a rabbit from a hat (the idea/product).

You want to sell shoes, I got the trick for you! But I'd guess that anyone that can fly 'literally' through their presentation is going to be able to spin the freedom and power over the 'gravity' of the problem is going to make a sale.

I'm not going to give this trick away. I'm not even going to tell you where it is commercially available. It is for magicians. Are you a magician? Are you the witch doctor of your tribe? Let me know what your tricks are and I'll share mine.

Time to go. Gotta feed my rabbit.