Functional Fixedness

Mitch HobishGrowth, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity

What do a flock of starlings (known as a murmuration) and ferromagnetism have to do with each other? On the surface, probably nothing.

Nothing, that is, unless you are a team of scientists with a perspective and approach that goes outside what their nominal area of study seems to call for.

A team headed by William Bialek at Princeton University (but clearly international in scope) has found that statistical mechanical analysis—such as is used to understand magnetism—may successfully be applied to characterizing the way large bird flocks behave. Their work, summarized here from a 2011 publication, “…predicts the propagation of order throughout entire flocks of starlings…” in a manner that is “…mathematically equivalent to the Heisenberg model of magnetism.”

Take a look at how such a murmuration looks and behaves:

On one level, this is but another example of what I’ll call parsimony in nature, i.e., that common principles apply across seemingly disparate realms. I love finding such!

On another level, it got me thinking about a well-known psychological phenomenon, referred to as functional fixedness. This is a behavior where an individual (or group) sees, for example, a tool only in terms of what it was originally designed for. It’s kind of like insisting that a knife can only be used to cut something: Some knives make dandy emergency screwdrivers!

Questions: How do you handle a new situation or problem? Is your standard box of tools all you use? Is there some other way to attack it that is well outside of the box? How would you know what other tools might be applicable and available?

It Must Be Magic

Mitch HobishGrowth, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity

A little item has crossed my desk twice in the past week. As is often the case, it came from two different correspondents, a continent apart. How and why such things spread is worthy of another post, but for now, allow me to point you to this:

A little thought and some research that confirmed my hypothesis was very satisfying, both as to understanding the mechanism, and a self-generated pat-on-the-back for having derived the physical basis of the phenomenon myself.

But this got me thinking, particularly as the folks from whom I received the original link were left stonkered. It’s not that they were stonkered, although I’m sure they could have done their own research, but rather that in the absence of a quickly reached explanation, they both seemed to default to something akin to “It must be magic!”

Now, I love magic, if by such we mean demonstrations of selective inattention that cause the audience to wonder at how the trick was done. It does not mean something supernatural, but this is basically what I inferred from my correspondents context-setting comments.

Questions:  How do you react when faced with something outside your experience, routine or otherwise? Are you willing to extend yourself to try to find an answer? What are the consequences to your sense of self if you do not make such an attempt?

Hydrodynamics and Crowds

Mitch HobishGrowth, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity

I took some time today to try to catch up on readings that have eluded me owing to other, perhaps more pressing matters. An article in the December 2011 issue of Communications of the ACM 54(12) caught my eye, with the engaging title of “Visual Crowd Surveillance through a Hydrodynamics Lens”, by Moore, Ali, Mehran, and Shah (included just for the sake of completeness).

In summary, the authors describe a means of analyzing the movements of crowds en masse using basic principles of hydrodynamics applied to multiple frames of video sequences. They can–with a bit more noise–follow individuals amongst masses of thousands, such as enter the New York City marathon!

Their analysis is based on adapting the same forces that act on particles in a fluid, including restrictions on movement caused by neighboring particles (people), flow vectors (direction and speed of flow), boundary conditions (rights of way, walls, etc.), and more,  even taking into account personal preference, motivation, and direction. Their presentation is quite convincing, and makes for interesting reading. I’m always intrigued by the way various phenomena across a rather broad expanse of scales may be described by common principles; this is a fine example of that. Highly recommended!

Questions: Are you aware of ways in which your behavior is impacted by those around you? Do you ever find yourself moving in a given direction–either physically or emotionally (or both) because of forces of which you are not entirely aware? How can/do you adjust your trajectory to take advantage of such flow, or to fight against it, should that be more suited to your goals?

A Thought for Today

Mitch HobishGrowth, Innovation, Leadership

The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is someone outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; someone strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action. -Winston Churchill, politician and statesman (1874-1965)

Questions:  How much of your behavior is driven by community standards? Do you ever wonder about what you might be like if you defined your own behavior?  What does this mean for the stability of a group, organization, culture, or society?  Is stability an appropriate or necessary goal?

Organic Connections

Mitch HobishGrowth, Innovation

The Communications of the ACM (Vol. 54, No. 6, June 2011) had a fascinating article entitled, “Biology-Inspired Networking”, wherein the author described how a team at Carnegie Mellon University has developed a new networking algorithm.  Their approach is based on the observation that developing neural cells in fruit flies organize not just themselves, but also the cells around them to ensure efficient allocation of resources, both for growth and development and for subsequent environmental sensing at the whole-organism level.  Without going into the details, suffice it to say that this phenomenon is similar to a way in which data networks can be optimally organized, based on a concept called the maximal independent set (MIS).  The new algorithm isn’t as fast as other MIS-based algorithms, but it is more efficient, based on several metrics.

My purpose in describing this—albeit, cursorily—is that this is a perfect example of several terrific ways to innovate.  In this case, it required the intersection of several sets—of the team leader’s presence at various research institutions, interests, skills, and more—to allow for recognizing the possibilities for one area (data networking) inherent in another (biological development).  More simply, it’s being in the right place, at the right time, with the right stuff.

Whether it’s called out-of-the-box thinking, or cross-disciplinary conceptualization, or whatever, it’s clear that if we seek innovation, increased efficiency, new ideas, or other growth-inducing possibilities, we each must be eternally open to new possibilities, to be ready to make connections that have not been seen before, and to act on them.

Questions:  Are you willing to step outside your comfort zone to explore new ideas? How would you recognize something new? Would you know what to do with it? What can you do to prime your mind to be ready to make new connections?

Prejudiced? Me?

Mitch HobishGrowth, Leadership

I like to think of myself as an equal-opportunity everything.  Despite too many experiences to the contrary, I go into every new relationship thinking that I will be accepted for who I am, and that I will extend the same courtesy.

Not.

I was listening to the radio while making a cup of coffee to support my next task effort (it was a long night last night).  A representative of the state government of one of the southern United States was describing an apparently successful jobs program for which he had responsibility.  I found myself snidely imitating his very southern drawl, and finally exclaimed, “I wouldn’t hire you to represent my company, no matter how well-qualified you were!”  Mind you, this was strictly on the basis of how he spoke, not on the basis of the content of what he said.

I was horrified.

I remember hearing a friend say, “Southerners just sound dumb!”, an opinion with which I now find myself agreeing, despite my having spent a wonderful two years living in the French Quarter in New Orleans, and not having noticed anything amiss.  And yet, some reflection amply demonstrated that I, too, have had this opinion lurking, somewhere.

How could this be?  It’s so antithetical to my self-image, to my value system, to what I think of as being right.

So, I’m faced with this new piece of self-discovery.  The question is, what do I do with and about it?

Questions:  What factors influence your hiring decisions? Are you aware of all of them? How can you go about determining if you have any hidden prejudices that affect your professional and personal activities?  Does it even matter to you that you might be acting on such prejudices?  Or that you even have them?

Married to an Idea: Is it Time for a Divorce?

Mitch HobishGrowth, Leadership, Productivity

I’ve been working on an in-house project for a couple of months. It’s one of those things that can (and did) become almost all-consuming, as there were many components, all of which had to fit together into a cohesive unit for optimum effectiveness.

I was within days of launching it, when I realized that a major piece of it just wasn’t working for me. External review of what I thought was a close-to-finished draft surfaced this dissatisfaction, which finally smacked me in the face during a professional meeting last night. I realized that I was far from finished with this important component.

My initial reaction was one of despair. I’d been counting on launching this thing so I could move on to the next stage in my project. Having lived with it for several months, I was ready, even if it was not.

I immediately recognized the impending downward spiral in my mood, and was able to catch it quickly enough that I wasted no more than about a half-hour bemoaning the situation, before I realized that this was an opportunity! Had I launched the system in its current state, I would have totally missed the mark I was aiming for, and could have irreparably damaged the situation I was trying to address.

There followed several hours of brainstorming, writing myriad notes to myself and then sitting at the keyboard to capture all the new thoughts that came bubbling up, once I realized that (a) I had been very dissatisfied with the current state of the task; and (b) here was the opportunity to make it right.

I can’t call this a crisis, but given my personality I could have allowed it to turn into one.  You may have heard it said that the Chinese ideogram for “crisis” is made up of two components:  One, reads “danger”; the other, “opportunity”. (It turns out this probably isn’t true, but it makes for a good story, and the link is an interesting read.)

I’m thrilled that I stepped up to the danger and am taking advantage of the opportunity to address my earlier concerns. I think I’m on the right track now, and eagerly look forward to reworking the material. Launch will be delayed by no more than a week or two (fortunately, this is not time-constrained), and I find myself jazzed again in a way that I haven’t felt for too long.

I’m not divorcing the original idea, but we have gone into counseling.

Questions:  How do you know if something in which you’ve invested yourself is a good idea? How do you know if it’s time to “get a divorce”? What can be done to save the marriage? Should you?

Pedantry vs. Mastery

Mitch HobishGrowth, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity

Unless I maintain vigilance, I tend to be rather rule bound. It’s a part of my personality that I’m not fond of, so I do my best to be aware of my response in situations.

That’s why this quote, from A Word a Day struck me as being noteworthy:

Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry … To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery. -George Polya, mathematician (1887-1985).


Questions: How do you respond to situations? Do rules—and their application—give you comfort and the tools to deal with circumstances? Do you apply them pedantically or masterfully? What would/could change, were you to modify your behavior in this regard?

Do You Care If Big Brother (or Anyone Else) is Watching?

Mitch HobishGrowth

I just read an interesting analysis by Cory Doctorow, known to some (many, perhaps) as a blogger, columnist, and science-fiction author, with perspectives on the so-called information society that I find worth considering.

The piece in question deals with why in/on-the-street security cameras (known generally as CCTV) don’t deter criminals generally, and those who were involved in the recent mobs (riots) in the UK, specifically.  The analysis, Why CCTV has failed to deter criminals, raises many interesting and thought-provoking points.

I’ll not go into the article here or opine further, but reading it did put me in mind of some issues that are less acute and timely with respect to the larger community and societal issues, but nonetheless of potential import for me, you, and individuals, generally, with consequences for each of us as individuals and–ultimately–society, generally.

I invite you to read the questions, below, and to ponder.

Questions:  Do you base your behavior on the possibility that someone (else!) is watching what you do? Whether you do or you don’t, what can this tell you about yourself?  About your attitude toward yourself and society? Having thought about it, would you change your behavior? Why? Why not?