Certainties & Serendipities

In an essay titled, Software is not epic, Scott Berkun, argues that, Software is only a tool, a second order creation, which is used  by others to create first order creations. So, he concludes, software is not an epic – a first order creation – by itself.

While making that point he defines a tool as

something you make so someone else can make something.

I agree with this definition of tool. But I disagree that the creations are static in their type. Consider the below sequence of creation:

A hammer is a tool to create a table; a table is a tool to create a novel; a novel is a tool to spark ideas; ideas are tool to create a revolution; and a revolution is a tool to bring in change.

So a first-order creation of one becomes a second-order creation on someone’s hand. That is the way the world progresses. And it is true of a software too.

Delegation ≠  Decision Making
Dissent ≠ Disloyalty
Busy ≠ Progress
Problem Solving ≠ Innovation
Past Trends ≠  Future Trends
Exception ≠ Norm
University Degree ≠ Competence
Honest ≠ Competent
Success in one field ≠ Success in any field
Productivity ≠ Squeeze water from stone
More ≠ Quality
Can ≠ Should

There is a definite need for a social sharing and discussion tool that is unlimited by 140 characters. Among the existing social tools G+ has the potential but in its current form it lacks an essential factor.

Let me start with where G+ fits between twitter and blogs.

I see G+ as a social scratchpad, where I can capture and discuss thoughts doing rounds in my mind. Since these thoughts are not yet well formed, I can’t capture them within 140 characters. Because these are just random rants on many random topics, I don’t want them on my blog.

Another scenario is longer replies to blog posts. Grand daddy of blogging, Dave Winer, believes that comments spoil the voice of the blogger. He encourages (in someway even forces) readers to write their comments as a post in their own blogs. But I don’t want to pollute my blog(s) with replies to posts that I find interesting across the web. A social scratchpad would be the place for it.

Even though it is a scratchpad, I still want to engage others on those random thoughts, because learning happens through those serendipitous interactions. In a blog based commenting system, I am forced to moderate because of spam. Existing moderation system discourages conversation.

Social media sites, on the other hand, promote engagement. They encourage informal conversations, much like real life. By already being a member of the tribe – called circles in G+, I can initiate conversation with anyone. I can also ignore any such initiated replies and comments, if I don’t perceive any value.

Another peripheral benefit that G+ brings is the aggregation of comments made within G+. I leave comments all over the place and there is no single place to aggregate the conversation. Engag.io is just for twitter and it doesn’t add any value better than twitter clients like [echofon].

When all these work together, a spark might be generated in twitter, carried over to G+ and if it develops further there may be a blog post. So the flow of creation might be:

twitter -> g+ -> blog

While G+ does well in all of the above, it fails in a crucial aspect – getting onto G+ is expensive.

Despite the resources at hand, Google is not able to bring a mobile application that makes it easy to get onto G+. On top of it, there is no ‘create’ API¹. If there is one essential factor behind the explosive growth of Twitter & Facebook, it is their API, which enabled integration with every application that is found in mobile. But Google has been adamant in not making a public ‘create’ API.

If Google wants its G+ platform to surpass existing social media sites, it should open it through a ‘create’ API, as early as possible.

Will Google listen?

Usually I’m not an egotist. So please bear with me as you read the next para. There is a reason for it.

My math score was consistently above 95% through school. I even scored 100% in Engineering Mathematics in undergraduate Engineering. In the final year of Engineering college, I wrote computer programs, both in C & Basic, for seven projects, including mine. When I started my career, I knew most of the API commands of Visual Basic by heart that I could program without referring to a manual. When I moved to Windows Programming, I had to refer to manuals but the instances were minimal. Even as late as 2003, I could program without referring to manuals.

Then Google came in¹.

There were, of course, search engines before Google. But search results weren’t precise. Add to it, the Internet wasn’t ubiquitous. But by 2003, Internet was available everywhere, all the time, even in India. And Google was God’s gift! It gave you the exact answer for the question in your mind. Amidst zillions of web-pages, the possibility that you could locate the page that had your answer, was nothing less than a miracle. That miracle was the beginning of rotting of my career.

I was advised by my friends that remembering all the commands is a waste of memory. The prevailing idea, then, was that you knew it or you knew who knew it. That ‘who-knew-it’ was Google. She² knew everything. In the beginning, I searched even those commands and algorithms I knew well, just to test Google’s capabilities. As confidence in Google’s results grew, I chose to forget inessentials.

Seven year later, I’m shocked by the consequence of that choice. I can’t commit to memory even the simple programming concepts like list comprehension in Python. It is as if my memory is rejecting it saying, ‘I’ll not store it; go google it.”

The effect got aggravated by ever increasing computing power in handheld devices. As a kid, I used to go along with my father for grocery shopping. I was not as good as my father in doing fractions but I could do it. Even as adult I was good at math(I already boasted about that, didn’t I?). As more and more computing power was cramped into mobile devices, I used them in the beginning for calculations that involved multiple steps, remembering intermediate results. Slowly, similar to how my brain got complacent towards programming skills, it showed the same signs towards math. It continually said, ‘go use your mobile, leave me alone.” The metamorphosis was gradual, but after seven years the impact is telling.

Recently, I have become an independent consultant. One of the tasks expected of me is to evaluate proposals and other estimates. The IT parts are piece of cake, but I just simply can’t bring my mind to evaluate estimations and quotes. I am not able to do even simple math (like fractions and sum of large numbers). Since I can’t evaluate the important part of the proposal – financials, I become mute spectator at the crucial part of the business strategies.

On one side, my programming productivity is down because I have to look-up most of the commands, for which I have to be connected to Internet. Combining that with the fact that I’m loosing my ability to do math, the future is scary.

So my advice to the next generation is, don’t sacrifice your memory at the alter of computing devices and internet. I’m trying to take back from the altar-fire whatever I could.

It may come in as a surprise, but there is a peripheral benefit of working in a government setup, which is that you encounter lot of intelligent and useful ideas¹.

One such idea was to document the context of a decision. It came from Mr R. Bandyopadhyay, ex-secretary of Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

When you encounter a situation where you need to decide, you may discuss with your buddies, analyze (mostly mentally), decide and move on. If you have a habit of writing a journal, you may note the decision you made. But you don’t write down the details of the situation, choices considered, point of view of these choices, assumptions considered in favor of a decision². These details of the decision are lost.

You may ask, why does it matter?

Well, a decision is meaningful only within the constrains in which it was made. When those constrains change, the decision certainly appear useless, sometimes even foolish. If you have documented the context then it is just an adjustment of the decision; otherwise you have to go through the process of decision making all over again³.

Another long-term benefit is your decision making process improves considerably, thus increasing chances of better decisions in the future.

Let me tell you some of the ways in which I have been using this:

I’m a retail and an occasional investor. I do as much through job as I could do to check details of the company before I invest⁴. However, the stock market is such that many-times price of the stock go lower than my purchasing price. Before I started noting down the context of the purchasing decision, I use to get nervous about the loss and would struggle to decide if I should sell and cut my loss. The decision was solely based on the current market price. But after I started practicing this idea, I evaluate the situation based on the assumptions I had made and if any of these assumptions and expectations were wrong I adjust the position accordingly.

Additionally, because I could go back and compare notes, my investing decisions have improved too.

Having seen the benefit of this idea, I am trying to implement this in other areas too. Try it and let me know if you find it helpful.

Choices, Image by: Orin Zebest