Ruminations on the First Weekend in March

March 2014 came in like a penguin Saturday morning at 4 degrees F.  I ran anyway because I can layer-up for almost any temperature, but I do worry about my iPhone (which I wear on my arm) becoming so cold that it shuts down my Runkeeper app.  Stupid, I know, but in this age of big and little data, if I don't record my run it's almost like I didn't do it.  In fact, it's exactly like I didn't do it.

Call this crazy, but I heard a guy on the radio the other day say he is a fanatic about his to-do list, so much so that if he completes something that he didn't originally have on his list, he writes the task down and checks it off.  He says it just makes him feel good.  I keep a to-do list (see here), but I'm not so hung up on tracking and recording that you'd ever catch me doing that.

Well, hardly ever.

Tombstones and Donuts: Watching Over Pvt. Flint

I stopped by to see my old friend, George Washington Flint (buried near the utilities, back by the dumpster, behind the abandoned Dunkin Donuts on Route 1) on my way into Boston on Friday.  (See Tombstones and Donuts on Old Route 1.)

Right in the center in the background.  One protective post is leaning.

I worry about Pvt. Flint, veteran of the Civil War, and intend to keep my eye on him.  Dunkin is doing a booming business just up the road and it'll be good when someone takes over their old digs and begins to give the grave-site some tender loving care again.  Either that, or we eventually need to get Pvt. Flint moved to someplace more fitting.

Google Glass: I'm Still Running Cool

You may have read there was a recent unfortunate incident involving Google Glass at a bar in San Francisco.  Tech writer Sarah Slocum was wearing the device when she was attacked and robbed (story and video here).  Some patrons of the bar were apparently upset, thinking they were being recorded.

I believe this is just the beginning of these kinds of dust-ups, unless we can get common sense, common courtesy, and maybe a regulation or two in front of the mob.  (Instructions from Google on how not to be a so-called glasshole are here.) The incident has only made Slocum more determined to wear her GGlass here.  For me, Google Glass remains the most uncomfortable of all the cool gadgets that have come out of American tech in the last few years (see here).  If it's already gotten physical in San Francisco, the heart and soul of new tech, what happens when these things reach mid-America?  For that matter, Las Vegas (I can see a big sign in the airport saying "Take A Number and Deposit Your Glass Here").  Stay tuned.

(For those of you seeking a whole different way of thinking about the issue, take a look at MIT Technology Review's "Twelve Tomorrows" [see here].  It's a collection of sci fi focused on the near-term to "provoke thought about the future."  The first story, "Insistence of Vision" by David Brin, paints a world where everyone has enhanced vision except criminals, who lose the gift as punishment for their crime.)

Still Trying to Get to WWI

You also know that it's the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI (about which I wrote a somewhat confusing post at the start of the year here).  My book of choice is Max Hastings' Catastrophe 1914, given to me by friend Tony.  Hastings focuses on just the first year of the war--really the first six months, since Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in June--which he says are "justly described as the most complex series of happenings in history, much more difficult to comprehend and explain than the Russian Revolution, the onset of World War II or the Cuban missile crisis."

But then he does something that cuts through all the confusion of 1914 by placing pictures in the front and back endpapers of the book.

Here's the front endpaper:

And here's the back:

Any questions?

Interestingly, Hastings writes that most of Europe received the news of the assassination of the Archduke "with equanimity, because acts of terrorism were so familiar."  A journalist for Le Figaro in Paris felt the crisis would fade into the general category of "Balkan squabbles."  The Archduke, whom apparently nobody but his wife much liked, was given a 15-minute funeral service.  Viennese mourning seemed perfunctory.

And then--the Hapsburg government decided to invade Serbia.  Now you've caught up to me in the reading.  And made me worry just a little bit more about the Crimea.

A New Book from IMD's Phil Rosenzweig

Which would you prefer:

Minolta S1 priced at $269.99, rated 6 out of 10 by Consumer Reports

Minolta S2 priced at $539.99, rated 8 out of 10 by Consumer Reports

It won't surprise you to find a large majority of people chose the S1 option, preferring to pay less.

Now try this.  Which would you prefer:

Minolta S1 priced at $269.99, rated 6 out of 10 by Consumer Reports

Minolta S2 priced at $539.99, rated 8 out of 10 by Consumer Reports

Minolta S3 priced at $839.99, rated 7 out of 10 by Consumer Reports

In this case, very few choose the S3, but the preference for the S1 and S2 was essentially reversed.

And that's an easy decision.  Imagine how we might confuse ourselves when decisions are really, truly complicated, as they are more often than not in a business setting.

This is the topic of Professor Rosenzweig's excellent new book, Left Brain, Right Stuff: How Leaders Make Winning Decisions.  (You might remember his first book, The Halo Effect, which I loved and blogged on here.)  The general theme again is "bias," but this time not about company performance, but how we confuse our own poor selves into making bad decisions.  "For all the advances of recent years," he writes, "we have not yet grasped the nature of many important and complex decisions."  (Nice review in The Huffington Post here, and another in the Wall Street Journal here.)  Thanks for being in touch, Prof. R, and good luck--this one is a winner!

My Other Stuff Blog

I've been posting a few of my pictures to a new blog--just what I needed--for fun.  There are so many brilliant photographers posting to the web it sometimes makes we want to stop shooting completely.  But then, well, then there's a snake just staring you in the eyes.  See here.

More Snow in the Forecast for New England

The weatherfolk are predicting more snow tonight and Monday.  It's more than a little disheartening, especially to those of us who think the last snow of the season (except in ski areas) should be on Christmas Eve.  Even the snowshoeing just seems harder in March.

It could be worse, though.  It could be 1914.

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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