Category Archives: Business

What if Every Major Religious Holiday Were a National Holiday?

There were a few articles (, , and ) in The Economist over the last few issues that got me thinking about religion. And not any one particular religion — all of them — and how they might be very much interrelated. At the same time, I often think about the growing . It seems the ways of balance has completely gone out the window.

There are lots of different explanations as to why people continue to overwork themselves. One from this claims that Americans mistake overwork for good work. Meaning, they think that if they work harder (they’ll be working better). by way of a calculator that lets you visually see how much time you’re spending on a variety of activities, which include: work, sleep, leisure, chores, meals, commute, etc.

Another contribution to the nature of overworking is the amount of holidays that people are ‘allowed’ to take. In some countries, it’s pretty to have 6, 7, or 8 weeks as holidays. We could also say the workweek itself is a pressure to work harder. In France, they have a . There’s also the idea that you need to work longer hours in order to .

Circling back to my initial point about religion: there are certain days in countries that are designated as . In the US, for instance, Easter and Christmas are holidays for which it is illegal to mandate that someone needs to be at work. According to , there are an assortment of religions represented across the United States.

So, my “big” idea: make all the major religious holidays national holidays.

When I say national holiday, I mean that these are days that are mandatory days off for businesses. I realize that this kind of idea would take an enormous amount of planning, that there would need to be legislation passed, that we’d need to define “major religious holidays,” and all that jazz, but just think about it (abstractly) for a moment.

Think about the extra days off to spend with family. Think about the prospect of religious acceptance for the younger generations. Instead of just “taking the day off and ,” parents could spend the day with their kids explaining to them what the major holiday means to that religion. Or, if there were no kids, the adults could take the day to learn about the culture and religion for the holiday. This could definitely foster a greater sense of compassion and empathy between people of different faiths.

What if Business (or ALL Interactions) Ended With Hugs Instead of Handshakes?

According to , the origin of the handshake was thought to be a gesture of peace by demonstrating that you held no weapons. (Of course, this presupposes that everyone is right-handed, but that’s a story for a different post.) When you think about the handshake in that sense, it’s actually kind of nice, isn’t it?

There’s really a lot that could be said about the evolution of the handshake. We could talk about the different cross-cultural rituals that take the place of handshaking. For instance, , bowing is the norm when it comes to social interactions. However, with the prevalence of globalization, there are now many instances where east-Asians and non-east-Asians will be engaged in some sort crossed bow and handshake.

We could even discuss some of the of the handshake. For instance, Wikipedia lists 6 different kinds of handshakes (hand hug, dominance, cold and clammy, crusher, queens fingertips, and keep back), some of which you could probably figure out the gist of just from the name. Wikipedia also lists a number of modern customs spanning African-American culture to Arabic-speaking people and even for non-business situations in Turkey.

So, as I said, there’s so much information simply from a historical or anthropological point of view. I’m more interested in what it might look like to substitute a hug for the handshake. I’m sure I’m not the first person to imagine this possibility, (and a quick internet search even turns up results in and on the topic of hugs and handshakes), but I think I have a unique perspective on the matter.

Historically, as discussed above, the handshake was meant to show that there wasn’t a weapon in one’s hand. If we look at the of the act of the handshake (including both participants), there isn’t often an opening, specifically with regard to the heart area. If you think about when you shake someone’s hand, this is usually what happens (or some degree of variations thereof): one of the two participants (in the handshake) will stretch thereby shifting their torso out on an angle to the left (can you visualize it?) And the other person, the person who receives the handshake, has their elbow a little closer to their stomach and their hand is usually out in front of themselves (more towards the center). Take a second and picture this in your mind. The person receiving the outstretched hand, in a way, is closing off their heart area by way of their arm/bicep.

Now, I don’t think that either side of this equation is consciously or intentionally shifting their heart away from the action, I just think that this is how the ritual has developed over time. So instead, what if we hugged? I know, I know, this might not work across all cultures. And then you’d probably raise the issue that some people don’t feel comfortable being that ‘intimate’ with strangers. . Okay, but how did the handshake start? By showing the other person that you weren’t carrying a weapon.

Maybe a global movement to replace the handshake with the hug could be a way to promote more compassion and empathy for each other.

One things for sure, we could all use a bit more (through natural means).

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 7

Finally, finally, finally. I have caught up my “”Who I’’m Following”” series to the actual people I am following on Twitter. You’ll notice a decided conservative-flavor to these Twitter accounts because I noticed I was following a number of “liberal” folks. As a result, I wanted to make sure I was getting the viewpoint from the conservative side, too. If you missed any of the earlier posts in this series, here they are:






So, without further adieu, here are the people I have followed since my last post.

: Jonah writes on psychology, neuroscience, and the relationship between the humanities and science. You can find his columns/posts on the and .

: Scientific American has been covering science news for the last 165+ years. A reputable source of science news for certain.

: “The best of the alternative press — are digests of independent ideas and culture. Not right, not left, but forward thinking”

: “…the world’s fastest growing platforms for social change, empowering millions to start and join campaigns for social change in their communities.”

: “Counterparties is a curated snapshot of the best finance news and commentary. It combines what we [ and ] find interesting, overlooked, and important.”

: Jonas is one of my childhood friends (!) and he covers the Toronto Maple Leafs for TSN Radio 1050.

: Rob Lowe played one of my favorite TV characters, , and often tweets about an assortment of things including politics and .

: I went to high school with Melissa — she’’s one of the smartest people I know. She’s just finishing up her MBA at  and who knows what wonderful things she’ll contribute to the world.

: Richard Branson is probably one of the most successful — ever.

: A hilarious stand-up comedian. One of my favorites from him was “.”

: One of the most important documentaries — bar none. If you haven’t seen it, go see it — right now.

: Brian Burke is the current GM for the Toronto Maple Leafs and he’s got a reputation for .

: “An international magazine for Intelligent Optimists about the people, passion, & possibilities changing our world for the better.”

: Meghan McCain is the daughter of former Republican Presidential Nominee, John McCain.

: He is a very reputable economist and has a at universities and think-tanks.

: “Politics, election news and other jokes. From your friends at Comedy Central.”

: Seth Godin is one of the most influential people in business today, especially with regard to marketing.

: “Information graphics and data from The Wall Street Journal.” I’ve previously written about my affinity for data (in visual form).

: Jen is the writer/director/producer of the documentary I mentioned earlier, .

:  This is the Twitter account for the Nelson Mandela Foundation… “contributing to a just society by promoting the values, vision, and work of our founder.”

: I went to university with Shane and he currently works in the non-profit industry. He’s sure to do great things!

: This Twitter account provides proverbs and quotes. I do enjoy a good .

: He is… “a political and cultural commentator who considers himself a moderate and writes for the NYT.”

: “I write in the hope and expectation that people read people with whom they disagree to challenge their settled views. Suffice it to say, this isn’t generally the case, but I’m happy to continue behaving as though it is, as it is true of enough people to justify the effort.” ()

: , a modern-day philosopher in his own right, has said that Rove has read .

: “Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor for National Review, where he has covered national politics for 15 years.”

: I have Paul Krugman before. Seems like I unfollowed him and refollowed him.

: “Gallup news and tracking data on politics, business, wellbeing, and the world.”

: Do I really need to tell you who Deepak Chopra is? Just in case I do, go .

: A sports network of over 300 blogs maintained by part-time writers who love their team.

: Joe Scarborough is the co-host of  and is a former Congressman from Florida.

: This is the official Twitter account for  not to be confused with .

: Erin Andrews, (one of my sisters-in-law), is affectionately known as .

: Christina Bellantoni is the Politics Editor for . She was also a fellow at the this past fall.

: Michael is a Politics Editor for  and is a noted conservative voice.

: Frum is a former economic speechwriter for George W. Bush and clearly, is a noted conservative.

: “ALL the news from TED: TEDTalks, TED Conferences, the TED Prize and more.”

: “The business journal of McKinsey & Company. Our goal is to offer new ways of thinking about management in the private, public, & nonproft sector.”

: “The latest Harvard Business Review blog posts, Management Tips of the Day, Daily Stats, and more.”

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And there you have it. You’re all caught up on the the accounts I’m current following on Twitter. As always, if you have any recommendations (based on the flavor of the people I follow in Parts 1 through 7), feel free to leave me a note in the comment section of tweet .

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 6

It’s been just about two months since I last updated the list of people I’m following on Twitter. I thought today might be a good day to give a brief update. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to catch “all the way” up to who I’m following. In case you missed the earlier posts:





So, without further adieu, here are the people I have followed since my last post.

: Louise Hay is the author of one of the most the most famous self-help books of all time – . It lends credence to the idea that your thoughts can affect your biology.

: “A collection of quotes that will challenge, motivate and inspire you to be the best you can be.” Curated by , Personal Development Trainer & Coach.

: He is a former Governor & Congressman and is currently . He has bee notoriously held out of , but has some intriguing ideas.

: CNBC is a cable television business news channel. They are dedicated to covering business headlines and financial markets.

: LeVar Burton played the lovable character from . He’s also a big proponent of literacy.

: Justin Trudeau is the son of the famous . Justin has gone on to become a politician in his own right.

: Since the passing of Jack Layton, Turmel has filled in as the interim leader of the NDP. Shortly, the NDP will pick their leader.

: Dahlia is a Canadian (eh?) and mostly tweets about issues regarding law and the court system.

: This is the account of the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. I’m not sure, but I think the account will stay with the Prime Minister’s office, regardless of party.

: Melinda Gates is the co-founder and co-chair of the , which is the largest .

: Jim Carrey was born in (I lived there when I was younger!) and is one of the funnier comedians of today.

: Lewis Black is a stand-up comedian and is a regular on . His tweets are often funny.

: “Word Spy is devoted to ‘lexpionage,’ the sleuthing of new words and phrases.”

: Michael Steele is a former RNC Chairman. He is a contributor to MSNBC (often representing the conservative viewpoint).

: She is currently a Washington correspondent for GQ and often has interesting commentary on the political debates.

: Julie is one of my friends from SVSU. She currently works for the American Red Cross.

: The Dalai Lama is the most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism. His “reign” has lasted over 60 years!

: This twitter account is aimed at iPad users, but during “The Rachel Maddow Show,” it often tweets links to articles of which Maddow is referring.

: Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and is a very well respected academic.

: I used to watch Ali back when he was on . I always found him to be very intelligent.

: From the Twitter account: “We work to help all people lead healthy, productive lives, focused on health, poverty, and opportunity.”

: I listened to a lecture of Prof. Aaker (look for it in my upcoming post in the series “, Part 6.”)

: The : Informing and inspiring leaders of social change.

: Bill Gates doesn’t tweet very often, but when he does, he often, “shares cool things he’s learning.”

: Jack Welch is one of the preeminent businessmen of our time. It’s great to be able to follow his commentary via Twitter.

: Tweets to articles in that have to do with news or insights for business education.

: I like to view information by way of charts, so it’s great that has an account dedicated solely to charts.

: Tweets from this account are from and have to do with business, finance, or economics.

: This is the Twitter account for a blog and there are often tweets about the economy, business, and finance.

: This account retweets Humblebrags. As is made clear on their about statement, “Humblebrags are different from brags.”

: Paul La Monica tweets — often — about stocks (what’s up, what’s down) and the economy. He’s quite a barometer for the market.

: Richard writes about social and economic theory. He’s current a at the University of Toronto.

: Roubini is a rather famous economist. In fact, he predicted the collapse of the US housing market and the worldwide recession.

: Felix Salmon is a noted finance blogger for Reuters. He’s won for his scientific reporting.

: “GOOD is the global association of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits powering what works.”

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As I said earlier in this post, I’ll do my best to catch up to the updated list of who I’m following in the next couple of weeks. As always, if there’s someone you think I might like to follow, leave me a comment, send me an email, or me.

Do You Know Your Biases?

“You will learn from others around you being skeptical more than you will learn by becoming skeptical.” –

This past October, a world-renowned psychologist () published his latest book, . I’ve read a lot of reviews of the book and seen many of the interviews of him about this book and one of my favorite quotes (above) comes from the video (below). Take a few minutes and watch:

Kahneman, along with have done so much for the fields of psychology and economics. Some say that this book is the culmination of their work. I have enjoyed reading Kahneman and Tversky’s work through the years and think that their contribution on the subject of is monumental.

The quote I started this post with (…learn more from others around you being skeptical…) is worth talking about for a little bit. When I first heard him say that, I must have replayed it at least a dozen times. I heard the words he was saying, but it took some time for the wisdom to sink in. So what is it that Kahneman was saying?

Have you ever heard of an ? It’s the idea that your ideas and beliefs are reinforced (or amplified) because those that you tell them to share said beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’re familiar with and some of the , you know how hard it is to break from the group’s opinion on a topic. I don’t think that Kahneman was referring to this phenomenon in particular, but if you think about how hard it is to break from the group’s dominant viewpoint, it would make some sense that being “skeptical” yourself is not as easy as it sounds. However, if those around you are skeptical, it will be easier to learn from their skepticism about a given topic.

So, as you think about assembling your next business team or you’re just talking with your friends, remember how important and valuable the dissenting voice can be. Remember that having a  might not be the best idea. Remember how hard it is to be the singular dissenting voice. Remember to encourage healthy disagreement and an analysis from all sides. You’ll be much better off.

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 5

It’s been almost 3 months since I last updated the list of people I’m following on Twitter. I thought today might be a good time to begin to update that list. In case you missed the earlier posts:




So, without further adieu, here are the people I have followed since my last post.

: Rogin covers national security and foreign policy for . He often tweets his column and other things that come up in the news that have to do with national security or foreign policy.

: Melissa Harris-Perry is a professor of political science at . She guest hosts for and from time-to-time. She’s also writes for .

: Dylan Ratigan is the host of . He also, somewhat famously, about the political system in the US.

: has high praise for Milne. In her book , she said that Milne turned ‘s comment section into a “truly global debating forum.”

: He hosts a progressive radio show that has nearly 3 million listeners a week. Interesting to me, before being a nationally syndicated radio host, he was a psychotherapist.

: He served in the and as the in the . Currently, he’s a professor at .

: In 2000, Donna Brazile became the first African-American woman to lead a presidential campaign (Gore). She’s currently a professor at .

: Politifact is a project , “fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists, and interest groups.” This is very helpful in judging the validity (or truth) of some of the things said by people involved in politics.

: “The National Debt Clock ran out of digits so start following the debt daily on Twitter. (+) or (-) means up or down from previous day’s debt total.”

: This is the Twitter feed for the popular TV series, The Big Bang Theory. I rather enjoy the characters and so too, does .

: I’m currently (2011-2013) a graduate student at George Mason University in the School of Management (). This is the twitter feed for Mason’s school of management.

: Nick Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times. He’s “bringing to light human rights abuses in Asia and Africa.”

: Wolf Blitzer is CNN’s lead political anchor and is often seen as the host of CNN’s , which, , airs from 4pm to 6pm weeknights on CNN.

: Scahill is the national security correspondent for . He also wrote

: Gergen is a Senior Political Analyst for CNN. He’s also the Director for Public Leadership and a Professor of Public Service at the Harvard Kennedy School.

: Revkin writes the blog for the New York Times. “Dot Earth tracks relevant developments from suburbia to Siberia.

: Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Washington Post. He’s also an MSNBC analyst and author.

: David Axelrod was the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Afterwards, he remained a senior advisor to President Obama.

: “The Charter for Compassion is the result of Karen Armstrong’s 2008 TED Prize wish.” Check out the video of the .

: I’m sure you recognize the name (Lady Gaga). I decided to follow (and subsequently look into her message) when I first clicked onto her twitter profile and found that she was quoting .

: President Bartlet is the from the television series: . Whomever tweets from this account captures the essence of how President Bartlet would tweet, in my opinion.

: Nassim Haramein is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I highly recommend checking out his work. You can start with his , but if you can, I’d get a copy of “.”

: Chris Cillizza writes for and is a contributor to MSNBC. He often live-tweets the debates or other important political events.

: Chris Rock is one of my favorite comedians, especially when he does bits like that speak to the dysfunctional nature of some of the things in this world.

: I was first introduced to John Legend’s music during my undergraduate degree. I can be quite particular about the music I listen to, but for the most part, I like Legend.

: Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the more accessible scientists of today. He has made many appearances on talk shows () and even a guest spot on “.”

: My first introduction to Billy Crystal was in the movie A great movie, indeed. Interesting fact: Billy Crystal has hosted the (currently 8, soon to be 9, which is well behind Bob Hope with 18).

: The have made some hilarious movies through the years (written and/or directed). I wonder if  (movie) will prove to be as successful.

: This twitter account focuses on tweeting infographics, particularly those from their , which is a collection of the best infographics from around the web.

: Hill Harper is best known for playing a , but I initially followed him because of his inclination to empowering tweets.

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I’m nearing my self-imposed word limit of (1000 words), so I’ll end this post for now. It’s worth noting that I’ve gone through and “purged” some of the accounts I’ve followed in the past (including some of the accounts in this post) and subsequently, added a slew of new accounts. Look for some of them in Part 6 of this series. And as always, if you have suggestions, leave a comment, send me an email, or tweet me.

Want an Idea of What Really Happened During the Financial Crisis: Watch “Margin Call”

At the , an independent film by the name of made its debut. It was released in theatres a couple of weeks ago, while simultaneously being released on and . Meaning, instead of having to drive out to the theatre, you could watch the movie from the comfort of your comfortable couch. I had seen a few bits about the movie in the news that piqued my curiosity, so I took the time to watch it. I was pleasantly (or maybe unpleasantly?) surprised.

The film covers the actions of an investment bank over a 24-hour period. It focuses on the events leading up the . In essence, the movie is one possibility for some of the events that precipitated the crisis. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that the events from Margin Call are what happened, but I think it presents a perspective that hadn’t been adequately articulated in any of the other articles, books, or movies that I’d seen on the subject.

I’ve written about economics here before (most notably in the series), but after nearing completion of a course through business school, I have a different perspective on the economy. Maybe more importantly, I have a more nuanced understanding of why things happen the way they do in the economy. Pairing that with some of the things I’ve read/heard outside of business school make for an interesting take on the state of the global economy.

There are a couple of lines from the movie that I think are worth noting. This first bit of lines is between two of the firm’s employees. One of them is relatively low in the firm and one is somewhere near the middle to top. The conversation takes place (towards the end of the film) as the two of them are headed back to the office a couple of hours before they are about to sell as much of the firm’s holdings as they possibly can:

“If you really wanna do this with your life, you have to believe you’re necessary, and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and their big houses that they can’t even pay for — then you’re necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is because we’ve got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand  off, and then the whole world gets really fair really quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don’t. They want what we have to give them, but they also wanna, ya know, play innocent and pretend like they have no idea where it came from. Well that’s more hypocrisy than I’m willing to swallow.”

The next scene I wanted to highlight is right near the end of the film. The CEO is having a bite to eat in the restaurant on one of the . The Director of Trading walks in and a conversation ensues. In particular, there’s a monologue by the CEO:

“When did you start feeling so sorry for yourself? It’s unbearable. What, so you think we might’ve put a few people out of business today? That it’s all for nought? You’ve been doing this everyday for almost 40 years, Sam. And if this is all for nought, so is everything out there.

It’s just money. It’s made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don’t have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It’s not wrong. And it’s certainly no different today than it’s ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987, 92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It’s all just the same thing over and over. We can’t help ourselves. And you and I can’t, control it or, stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever so slightly alter it. We just react.

We make a lot of money if we get it right. We get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong.  And there’ve always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers. Happy farts and sad sacks.  Fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah. There may be more of us today than there’ve ever been, but the percentages, they stay exactly the same.”

As I said, this is only one perspective on what happened, but I found it quite interesting to see a depiction of what it might have been like to be on the inside of a firm grappling with what to do prior to the financial collapse. I hope you take the time to check out this movie.

What’s On My iPod: Lectures, In and Around Metro DC, Part 5

iPod, iPods, nano iPod, : Songs, LA to DC
: Lectures, LA to DC
: Podcasts, LA to DC
Part 4: Lectures/Podcasts, Ottawa to DC

In the first four parts of this series, I wrote about the various music, podcasts, or lectures that I listened to on my various road trips. Now that I’m in the DC area on a more permanent basis (completing an MBA), I’m not really in need of a vast sum of lectures/podcasts to listen to as I drive across the country (or between countries). As such, I’ve decided to continue this series and continue taking in extra information, while doing an assortment of activities (commuting, working out, etc.). As with the previous lectures, I’ve obtained all of these from iTunes U and highly recommend you check it out, if you haven’t already.

Making the Perfect Pitch – This was a short lecture (15 minutes) and it was provided by Cambridge University. They interviewed Dr. Darrin Disley, who gave some very poignant advice on the infamous “elevator pitch.” He explained the 9 C’s of elevator speeches, in the form of an elevator speech. The one thing that I pulled from this lecture (which happens to be one of the 9 C’s) is that the elevator pitch should be conversational. The purpose of the elevator pitch is to get the person you’re talking to interested in your pitch (not necessarily sell them on a business plan). The point is just to get the ball rolling.

The Art of the Short Sell – This was a lecture that James Chanos, founder and president of Kynikos Associates, gave to an audience at Yale University. Chanos talked about “10 Lessons From the Financial Crisis That Investors Will Soon Forget (If They Haven’t Already!)” As you can see from the powerpoint presentation, there is so much information in this lecture. The one takeaway for me is that financial history has a way of repeating itself. Chanos says, “Some other firm will be the AIG of the next crisis!”

Lecture, lecture hall, lecture hall students, students, lecturing, students learning, professor, professor lecture, lecture professor, professor lecturing,

The following lectures were part of a series called “Building a Business” and were hosted by Oxford University:

Negotiation Skills – This isn’t the first negotiation lecture I’ve listened to on the road. When the speaker began the lecture, I was surprised to recognize the activity from the first negotiation lecture I heard. There were minor changes, but it was essentially the same game. The main takeaways from this lecture how important creating value really is to the success of negotiations. Many people enter negotiations thinking that there is a ‘fixed pie’ that will be distributed between the parties. Instead, the two parties can, together, create value and in essence, add to the pie.

Managing People, Managing Teams – This lecture was given by Tim Cook, (not the new CEO of Apple), but the Tim Cook that is associated with Oxford University. Cook comes from a hard sciences background, so I thought it would be rather interesting to hear his take on managing people. He talked about transactional analysis and recommend Eric Berne’s book. I had already read it and would say that it’s one of the many methods out there for understanding human interaction. He also talked about some other skills that were important like interviewing and the relationship between managers (and the people they manage), as well as the people they interact with, but have no direct managerial “control” over, like politicians, accountants, etc.

Marketing: Creating and Keeping Customers – This lecture was given by Jonathan Reynolds, a professor at Oxford. Given my limited experience with the marketing literature, it was very informative to listen to this lecture by Reynolds. He covered a lot of ground from internet marketing to social media to e-commerce. Reynolds explores the ideas and principles that are paramount to the field of marketing. Of course, there are some overlaps with other fields (psychology), but marketing is a field steeped in intricacies and — since it is based on humans — continually evolving.

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Do Politics and Economics Mix in School Policy? – This lecture was given by Eric Hanushek and Michael Kirst and contained the perspectives of both politics (Kirst) and economics (Hanushek). students in class, students, class, classroom, teacher, blackboard, chalk, kids, grade school, It was put on courtesy of Stanford University and one of the speakers boasted that Stanford has one of the best institutions with regard to education policy research. One of the lines that struck me about this lecture was when one of the speakers proclaimed something to the effect that when it comes to education policy, everyone has an opinion. They spoke about some of the pitfalls to teacher’s unions (harder to reward excellent teachers, among other things), and they talked about the idea that education policy, for the most part, would be better served by being a local issue.

The Financial Crisis, the Recession, and the American Political Economy: A Systemic Perspective – This lecture, by far, had the longest introduction (to the speaker) of any of the previous lectures I’ve heard. It was given at MIT. Given the variety of work achieved by the speaker, Charles H. Ferguson, I understood why there was such a long intro. Moreover, when the speaker began, I didn’t realize that he was “the guy” who made the movie Inside Job. (Note: this lecture was given right around the time of the release of Inside Job, which of course, later went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary.) While there are many theories as to how/why things happened the way they did, (my two cents), I always find it fascinating to take in more perspectives. I don’t know that there is (or could be?) a singular answer as to why things happened.

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This rounds out the lectures I’ve been listening to since my last post. As always, if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments section (or through some other form: Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

What if Women Ruled the World?

So what if women ruled the world?

Really, I want you to think about it. What if women ruled the world? How would our world be different? (I’ll wait.)

Some of the things that came to mind might have been the various representations of women ruling the world that you saw on TV (or in a movie) or maybe you read about it in a book. Most of these, in my experience, are not what I would call “accurate” representations of how women would rule the world. They usually have women ruling the world, but they are playing a much more masculine role. If women ruled the world, do you really think they’d rule it like men have?

Women, typically, have more than their male counterparts. Of course, an integrated human would have both Yin energy and Yang energy, but like I said, typically, women are known for having more Yin energy. Because of this, I wouldn’t expect women to be overtly aggressive. That’s not to say they can’t be, but typically, women are going to be a bit more passive. Now, this is often seen as a negative quality (in general), but I think that this has only happened because men have “ruled the world.”  Because we’ve had men at the top, because men are typically the leader, the qualities present in men have been the qualities held in esteem.

One of the books I hold in high regard, , brings to light a different story of history (in a few chapters). That is, the authors review some of the important points in history and highlight some of the information that isn’t usually mentioned. As an aside, they raise an interesting perspective on evolution. More importantly to our topic of women ruling the world, they wrote about the beginnings of the United States of America. They wrote about how the  came to write the and how they came to write the . Of course, these authors weren’t there when these documents were forming, so their opinions (however based in ‘fact,’) cannot be assumed to be factual. I only say this because I’m sure there are lots of opinions about how such important documents as these came to be and I didn’t want to claim that the perspective I’m offering is the only one.

As I said, in this book, the authors talk about how these important American documents were formed. More than that, they talk about how the Founding Fathers interacted with the Native Americans and, in fact, how they [Founding Fathers] learned from them [Native Americans]. According to these authors, the two documents I referred to were influenced by what the Founding Fathers witnessed in the Native Americans. That is, how they interacted within their culture — with the land, with the people, and with the animals. It is a fascinating read, but the point I wanted to make with raising this book was that in the early Native American culture, women made the decision as to whether or not they went to war with a neighboring tribe. Let me say that again: women made the decision to go to war. Women. And the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were based on what the Founding Fathers witnessed in the Native American society.

Can you imagine what the world would look like today had women be the ultimate decision-makers with regard to going to war with a neighboring country? Do you think that the US would have been in as many wars as it has in the last 50 years had a council of women, , be the ones who made the final decision?

What’s On My iPod: Lectures/Podcasts From A Road Trip, Ottawa to DC, Part 4

: Songs, LA to DC
: Lectures, LA to DC
: Podcasts, LA to DC

In the first three parts of this series, I wrote about what was on my iPod for the trip from LA to DC (by car). More recently, I drove from Ottawa to DC, which allowed me to listen to a number of new podcasts and lectures. In this post, I’ll go over the lectures/podcasts and some of the knowledge I gleaned from them.

I had two podcasts. One of them was from the :

Chicago Booth Podcast: Should Executive Pay Be Regulated? (12/02/2009) – I thought I would start with one of the most interesting tracks I listened to on the trip. Given that I’m about to start an MBA, I thought it would be prudent of me to learn about this topic (executive pay). I will say, I was quite surprised to hear the statistics that the speaker, , offered on the topic. While he raised the point about athletes who make (equal or more) money than the CEOs, the surprising fact was that executive pay (now) is actually down in relation to executive pay from the ’80s. And maybe more poignant, executives make less money than athletes and entertainers.

The second podcast was from :

Nassim Taleb on Living with Black Swans (04/13/2011) – has written a number of articles and books, and is affiliated with some very prestigious institutions. He has so many important things to say, but I think the thing that I found the most transferable was the problem with specialization. He didn’t actually put it this way, but this is how I’m interpreting it. In particular, he talks about how important it is to — in an effort to account for randomness and variability — diversify. If you’re investing, don’t invest in just one company. Don’t invest in just one industry. Don’t invest in just one kind of investment. Or… we could relate it to business, specifically, I’m reminded of the book , by Kevin Maney. In Maney’s book, among other things, he talks about those times within an industry where companies are “blind-sided” by some sort of innovation (example: think about cameras 20 years ago and now how cell phones have revolutionized the way we take pictures). Taleb would argue the importance of guarding against a , which from our example, would be cell phones with cameras.

The remaining 6 tracks were all lectures I downloaded through . If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend it! The first lecture I listened to came courtesy of the  called:

What’s the Point of Economics? – The text from the website: “Evan Davis, BBC Today presenter, outlines five things everyone should know about economics, Mike Kitson looks at the relevance of economics to everyday life and Professor Willy Brown describes the growing impact of the minimum wage over its first ten years.”

There were two lectures I listened to that came from a class at  on Game Theory. I didn’t have the time to listen to every lecture from the course, so I picked two of the higher rated lectures:

02 – Putting Yourselves Into Other People’s Shoes and 03 – Iterative Deletion and the Median-Voter Theorem – I found these lectures highly informative. The first (or should I say second?) lecture gave a really good example of how important it is to put yourself into other people’s shoes. This example is related to how another person would approach a game (the same one that you’re playing) and exemplifies the importance of knowing your “opponent.” Like in one of the podcast, this lesson is very transferable to other parts of life. In the second (or third) lecture,  does a great job of explaining the median-voter theorem, and more importantly, uses the example of political positions to make the theorem more accessible to the students.

The last three lectures I listened to all came from :

Hire the Right People, Carlos Brito – This was an interesting talk, especially because it came from someone I usually wouldn’t necessarily voluntarily hear from. is the CEO of Anheuser-Busch and he has some intriguing ideas that he has put into practice in many of his offices. He thinks that separate offices foster LESS work. In fact, he talks about how, in his experience, having no walls has actually made work easier and motivated people to do more work. It’s his opinion that offices are for people who want to hide and do no work. With the open concept office, he explains how meetings are much “shorter;” 2- or 5-minute meetings can happen much quicker without having to “schedule” everything.

Dave Blakely on Fostering Innovation – From the description of this lecture’s : “In this talk, Dave Blakely presents a set of principles for successful innovation, regardless of an organization’s size, type or location. The heart of any innovation agenda is a carefully chosen interdisciplinary team, typically including members with backgrounds in technology, business, and other relevant industry-specific knowledge. Creative leaps can be inspired by empathetic human research, and insights are distilled in synthesis sessions. Techniques such as brainstorming can help teams to direct their creativity, and prototypes can be used to improve visualization and mitigate risk.”

Changing Behavior and Changing Policies –  runs the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University. To get a better idea of Fogg’s perspective on behavior, I would say (listen to this talk, as it’s only 20 minutes or so), or check out his site: .

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I don’t have any “planned” long trips on the horizon, but I am considering integrating podcasts and iTunes U lectures to daily life. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them in the comments, via email, or even on .