"Purple is Good" - revisited and repurposed

I would like to provide a fresh perspective on one of my past posts, Purple is Good.

As a recap, an executive presented at an all-hands employee meeting. His PowerPoint presentation showed a dashboard of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). It was a grid of colored squares with the obvious green for "good", yellow for "needs help" and red for "in trouble". There were also some purple squares. The employees looked confused since they weren't familiar with what this chart meant. Thinking he would help with their confusion, he said:

"Purple is good!"

I think of this and laugh anytime I hear someone trying to influence others with a point that the intended audience doesn't understand.

A Fresh Perspective

I consider myself more of a bottom feeder in my organization, so from this perspective, I intend this to be helpful and constructive.

A Thought Experiment

You are given the opportunity to present your ideas or solutions to someone you consider powerful. An executive, the mayor, governor, president. You have two weeks to prepare. How much of your time and energy will be used to prepare? How much of your free time will you think about this? The day of the presentation comes and you walk in. How much will this problem be of concern to the person in charge?

Anecdotal Evidence

My friend was in a meeting with an executive who said the following:

"For you, this is the most important topic. After this meeting, I have another meeting with the most important topic. And I have fifty meetings a week like this."

My Thoughts on Presenting to Executives

Many times your problem needs a solution that is more than just a phone call or an email. Your problem needs a carefully thought out and crafted strategy.  Your problem needs a champion, someone who is not being pulled in many directions, constantly distracted by other problems. That champion is you.

My Recent Experience

I'm responsible for a small project that has proven to be worthwhile to the company. We've had funding challenges, so I arranged meetings with executives, thinking that was the solution. I was received well, but left empty-handed. The response was that projects like this are hard to fund, even if they provide a lot of internal value.

Last month, our funding was cut to basically zero. I scrambled to find other work for my small team. I felt compelled to take full responsibility for funding my project. I already had a "Stakeholder" map (I use the FreeMind mind-mapping software). It was a map of the organization down to the users of our product. I called one person that seemed to have purse strings. My lead-in line: "I'm trying to develop a stable funding strategy for my project. Can you help educate me?" I started identifying people to talk to, contacting them, taking notes.

This was a completely new role for me as a bottom feeder. I had to adopt a new mindset. I had to abandon ego. I had to accept indifference, neglect, and rejection. I was encouraged by finding supporters and new opportunities.

On my map was a friend who rose through the ranks. His comment I found frank and helpful.

"You'll have more luck working bottom-up than top-down."

I never had someone say that to me before, but it agreed with what I was finding. The people closer to the bottom understood the value of my product and were bidding on new opportunities. Line items were added to larger proposals.

Conclusion 

I've heard the phrase "Sounds like a problem with management" in a lot of contexts recently. If there is a problem with management, then maybe we can be the solution. Executives don't need help with the purple squares. They need help with the red and yellow squares. I had the unique opportunity to interview with an executive years ago. I asked him: "What keeps you up at night?" I still remember his three answers. My project is a reaction to one of his issues. I don't think he even remembers the conversation. Still, it's one of the reasons I feel passionate about my project. 

Maybe you don't work in a large organization. Still, there's plenty of opportunity for each of us to make a difference.

Pickleball

 My friends and family think I'm obsessed with Pickleball. I'm in denial. Compared to my Pickleball friends that play anywhere from 3-7 times a week, I only play once or twice a week. I do have a wall in my garage that I practice against, but I don't do it often enough.

I have written five books on Pickleball (a sixth if you count the compilation of the five other books). If you are interested, they are on Amazon.

Get the compilation (much cheaper)

or get them individually

The Digital Data Bubble

Lately, I prefer a positive outlook on the future, yet I do have a couple of concerns. One of these concerns is data. The data we create each days grows exponentially, yet no one seems to discuss what this means long term. "Data storage is basically free!" is the usual claim. But at some point, I believe the Digital Data Bubble will have to burst. I can imagine a day when the monthly cost of maintaining data in the cloud will be a significant part of the household budget.

Thought Experiment #1 - A Messy Garage

Your garage is packed with stuff so you move to a house with a bigger garage. The new, bigger garage gets crowded so you move some of the stuff to a storage unit. The storage unit gets crowded, so you get a bigger storage unit. You keep getting more storage units until you find out about an empty warehouse. You move all of your stuff out of the garage and storage units into this one warehouse, and to your relief it barely takes up any space. You now begin storing all of your new belongings and stuff in the warehouse and to your surprise, it soon fills up. 

Is it time to get another warehouse? No. It's long past the time to get rid of stuff. Plus, you're frustrated because now you can never find anything and it seems that you have more junk than stuff of value.

Thought Experiment #2 - A Forest

The forest is thick with trees and plants. Countless animals and insects live there. A tree dies and falls over, cluttering the forest floor. Insects, fungus, bacteria swarm the tree and decompose it until the nutrients it held are released into the ground. There is a natural, ecological balance that prevents the forest from getting too dense.

Conclusion 

We need a strategy to purge our old useless data before it becomes too costly and too overwhelming to manage. 

ChaptGPT, AI and the Singularity

 I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring with all of the talk on the future of AI. 

ChatGPT

After playing around with ChatGPT a little, I've decided to make it my life coach. I'm serious. For example, last night I asked ChatGPT "How can I get more people to buy the book I self-published on Amazon?" I got a very helpful, actionable response.

The Singularity

In case you haven't heard about it, the "Singularity" is this prediction that technology advancement will keep accelerating until it surpasses human ability to understand or control it. If you think technology is advancing fast now, just wait and it will advance even faster. Then keep repeating the last sentence until your head spins off.

A mathematical singularity goes to infinity at a certain point. For example, if it's determined that the singularity will happen on a specific date, then technological innovation will be infinite on that date.

My problem with this is hopefully represented by an example. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, nobody knew how big it would get. I started tracking the numbers and attempted to find a mathematical function that could be used to predict how big it would be. I found a very good fit with an exponential growth curve. But there was a problem. It predicted that as time went on, more people would get COVID than there existed on the planet. The function didn't account that COVID would run out of people to infect. (See My COVID post).

I believe that there are other similar systematic constraints with technological advancement that will prevent a singularity. I don't know what they are just like I didn't think of the constraints early in the pandemic. Maybe it will be limited by how much electricity we can produce, or by computer memory (an AI with infinite abilities will need infinite power and storage). Maybe it will be a fundamental limitation, like our programming languages don't support what this AI will need. Or, maybe the AI will need humans to help it replicate (it doesn't have an opposable thumb, yet), and there are only so many humans that will be able to do this. All of these are potential limitations.

AI

I've listened to several of Lex Fridman's podcasts on AI and the most recent one resonated with me: his interview with Manolis Kellis. I'll summarize my impression with what I think is likely to happen with AI. 

Currently, many of our highest paid fields require intelligence. For example, doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, software developers. With our very diverse population, there may be people more ideal for these roles, but they are exclude by intelligence filters. Only the intellectually elite can make it into these roles. For example, what if there was a grandma somewhere that had the right bed side manners, love, wisdom, perspective that would make her a better doctor, but she just doesn't know all of the technical doctoring stuff. In the future, she won't need to know the technical stuff, she can use AI trained on diseases and treatments to help her with this part. I know I'm oversimplifying as I would want to know that grandma had some level of training and competence. 

Today we have a similar case with machinery. You don't need the fastest runner if you have a car. You don't need to strongest with a pick and shovel if you have an excavator. You don't need the person with the loudest voice if you have a microphone (or a blog). AI has the potential to be just another tool that humans use.

I saw a funny post on Reddit r/ProgrammingHumor. Someone posted a text they got from a friend that used ChatGPT to write code. They asked their programmer friend "Now what do I do with this code? How can I use it?" Similarly, a home builder uses many tools to build a house, but those tools can't build the house on their own. You need a skilled person to use all of the tools. 

Can AI do harm? We'll find out.

The Problem with Human Evolution

 I just had this thought and wanted to capture it.

Can humans evolve to the point for we no longer have some of the traits that cause some of our current social ills?

For example:

Will we ever evolve to suppress our violent tendencies or war-like nature?

or develop altruistic traits (we have enough to feed and house everyone yet there are hungry and homeless)? or develop an ability to avoid logical fallacies?

I believe in social evolution. For example we no longer accept human or animal sacrifice. Most of us have abolished slavery. 

My answer to the first question is No: that humans will not evolve to resolve societal ills. My reason for this answer is the natural selection promotes the traits of the individual, while social evolution is just the collective understanding that gets programmed into our brains. The collective understanding can change (rather rapidly). But I can think of no reason why a more socially evolved person would have more offspring than a socially primitive person.

My Software Development Experience

Person1: "Can you develop this software for me?"

Me: "Here it is! Isn't it cool?"

Person1: "That's awesome!"

Person2: "Where's your documentation?"

Me: "Here's my document! Isn't it helpful?"

Person2: "That's awesome! So helpful!"

Person3: "Where's your requirements specification?"

Me: "Here it is."

Person3: "Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted!"

Person4: "Where's your test plan?"

Me: "Here it is."

Person4: "Perfect!"

Person5: "You documents don't use the right format."

Me: "Here they are in the right format."

Person5: "That's much better."

Person6: "Your software doesn't follow the coding standard."

Me: "Look, now it does."

Person6: "Thanks!"

Person7: "Your software needs to interface with these new standards."

Me: "Ok, now it does."

Person7:  "Thanks"

Person8: "I was looking at your software. Did you know this was already available as open source software?"

Me: "Do I still have a job?"

Person8: "Of course, we still need someone to integrate and test it."

Person9: "Actually, we can have GPT4 do all of that."

Me: "Again, do I still have a job?"

Person9: "Yes, we need someone who knows how to ask GPT4 the right questions."

I'm Transsocial

 It wasn't my choice. I was assigned shyness at birth. This social assignment was reinforced with statements like "he's quiet" or "he's shy". These labels and other reinforcing stereotypes resulted in me being  more shy and quiet. The identity was imprinted on me.

The truth was that I was a careful observer. I was thoughtful (I was also the youngest of 6 children and got talked over a lot). However, with the attention brought to my quietness too often, I became overly introspective. I ended up accepting and identifying with the labels.

As I got a little older and was put in more social situations, I started to experience social dysphoria. I didn't want to be shy or quiet. In side of me was a fun, social, extrovert just waiting to be released. But how can you change something like that? 

In high school, I exerted myself striving to be more outgoing. I had successes but still had the emotional scars and self doubt that made me unsafely self-aware of any inadequacy.

I've tried many therapies, including 7 years as a member of Toastmasters. It's only recently that I came to the realization that I no longer identify as shy. To further reinforce my new identity, my wife told me that when she tells her friends (who happen to know me now) about my previous shyness, they are incredulous and can't imagine it. I guess I am successfully "passing" in my new identity.

Suggestions for Raising Shy Children

If you notice that your child demonstrates traits of shyness, I have some recommendations. My only expertise is as a transsocial myself, parent of adult children and grandparent. My experience scientifically represents a very small sample size, but I still offer these suggestions.

1. Avoid labeling the child. Avoid saying "You are shy" or anything similar.
2. If you feel like you have to draw attention to their behavior, pick positive traits "Wow, you were so brave climbing that ladder!", "That was nice of you to share your toy", etc.
3. Give them opportunities for positive social experiences (e.g. sports, clubs, family gatherings).
4. When introducing them to others, bring up things that they are proud of, "This is Mike, he likes to play with Legos".
5. Make it safe to talk to you. Let them express their emotions and validate how they feel. Don't try to talk them out of or into feeling another way.
6. Have crucial conversations in private. "I noticed that you were more quiet than normal around Suzie. Can you tell me about that?"