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March 28 Stereotypes and StatisticsThere are positive and negative stereotypes. People being stereotyped typically accept everything positive without much consideration and deny everything negative just as fast. There are also positive and negative statistics, that are accepted or denied the same way. Statistics are a bit more problematic because “numbers don’t lie, but liars are quite creative with numbers” (quoting a good friend) and also because 4 out of 3 people have problems with proportions and distributions.
Some stereotypes come from nothing, like my belief all Swizz people are peaceful. I know exactly one person from Switzerland and he happens to be peaceful, but that is hardly a relevant sample. I also believe that midgets working for the former Yugoslavian secret service would always order coconut and dark plum ice cream. I’m quite sure this is true.
Other stereotypes have empirical data backing them up. Men are better with spatial problems while women are better with multitasking (1,2,3). The problem here is distribution. Some confuse the concept of “average” with determinism and ignore that a fair group of women have better spatial perception and worse multitasking capabilities than a sizeable group of men.
When it comes to hiring, stereotyping is particularly bad even if backed by empirical data. Not because the stereotype is wrong, but exactly because it is right on average. The problem here are the outliers and laziness.
While we all know that 90% of all statistics are made on spot, just like this one, good companies always try to hire the best 1% of all candidates. And laziness frequently gets in the way of finding the brilliant candidates because they might come from the “wrong” group or graduated from a “weak” school. And brilliant candidates coming from groups with strong negative stereotypes are not only brilliant, they also have the drive and energy to defy and overcome the stereotypes. And that is hard, really hard. March 21 Sanjaya Has To GoThanks to the wonderful technology of digital video recorders I can watch American Idol. You might ask "why not thanks to the television?" and that would be a fair question. A question that with one unequivocal answer: 'because without the fast forward button it'd be unbearable to watch, and VCRs are not worth the trouble".
So the thing is Sanjaya must go. And eat beef. Lots of beef. The mite that eats my skin has more testosterone than this guy. He is painful to watch with the fast forward turned on and without sound. With sound he is akin to torture. I could find very few reasons why he stays in the competition, all painful.
Go, go, go Sanjaya. Go home. March 12 Halliburton is Moving Their Headquarters to DubaiThis has to be the most ironic corporate slap in the face of conservatives this decade. The over-priced, hardly monitored, "strategic" partner of the current government and Pentagon is moving headqurters to Dubai (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17577926/).
They claim the move is not to evade taxes, what is probably true considerig what they pay today, but a "strategic move". Their CEO will move to Dubai and operate from there, while the Houston headquarters will handle the American subsidiary.
Now the right thing to do is to go back and give port security to the Dubai company that was kicked out a couple of months ago. After all half of all non-bidding contracts in Iraq already belong to a soon-to-be Dubai company (Halliburton), as well as the food soldiers eat and quite a bit of their security equipment.
I cannot stop laughing. Way to go guys! Keep pulling this type of stunt and the population may wake up and discover the "hawks" and conservatives are the ones selling the future of this country to the highest bid.
Too bad I cannot vote, otherwise I'd be voting Nader next election. March 11 FunnyI saw stand-up comedy for the first time when I moved to the US. I fell in love with it watching Kris Rock - his movies are annoying, but his routines are fantastic. At first I thought the constant among all acts was the ability to push the envelope, to tell truths that were not popular, twisted, in a way folks would feel embarrassed enough to laugh, but not enough to walk away from the theater.
But since Richard Prior and George Carlin there isn’t a lot of innovation going on. There is situational comedy and jokes about ethnic groups, but comedians that explore stereotypes never cross certain lines. Just for fun I imagine this white comedian name Walter that used to be a statistics analyst. Just like other statistics experts he wears glasses, bald on the top of the head and looks like that creepy old uncle we all have.
Walter would never get away with one of the jokes I saw Kris Rock using: - Do you know what you call a man named Tyrone? Unemployed!
Walter has every right to make that joke. He probably knows Tyrone is a typically African-American name and that folks with that name are discriminated against because he can cross check the unemployment data. Yet, he would be lynched. There are also those jokes that leave people wondering if they were appropriate, and hence the fun for the comedian. For instance I have one about those ecological-Christian bumper stickers that ask “What would Jesus drive?” I know what Jesus drives. He drives a low rider Toyota pick-up with golden stickers on the door and all the gardening equipment on the back. I have absolutely no right to make that joke because I’m not Hispanic. But I find it funny not because of the stereotype, but because I don’t think enough people would know I have no right to make the joke. March 08 Search Engine DisappointmentSearch engines always lag behind blog updates. There are too many changes for them to keep up and the content is typically not important enough for the general population.
Recently my blog started showing up on Blogline, Baidu, Google and Live results. I have no idea why someone would read what I write, but lots of people do (if I can believe the stats).
Since I write about whatever I'm thinking at the moment there is no consistency week after week. I wrote about deal negotiation and fart jokes on alternating weeks and, please forgive me, Gabeira's crochet trunks.
I got lots of hits on the negotiation entry and Gabeira's entry. Too bad that by the time the entry about negotiation got indexed I had a fart joke out. So people clicking on, let's say, Live.com results for my negotiation entry were directed to a bad joke. Quite disappointing. March 07 PRDolphins are said to help swimmers that are drowning. I've heard stories of people that were sure they'd die when a dolphin came out of nowhere and pushed them back to shore. I've seen that on the newspapers too. Dolphins are playful and friendly, kids like to pet them at resorts, they like to swim around traveling boats in deep water and they have that nice smiling face. You might even have seen the flipper show from the 60s where they show how smart they are. It is quite unfortunate that dolphins actually do not help swimmers. They like to play and when they see a swimmer drowning, they seize the opportunity. They randomly push people to the shore or away from the shore, killing them or saving them depending on the swimmer's luck. But only the lucky swimmers come back to tell the story. The only other entity/thing/person I know with that type of PR is God. Recently a friend of mine broke her leg and could not walk or carry her baby in her arms. Considering how much I miss my own daughter (on vacation, away with family) I can only imagine how disappointed my friend was. Now she is getting better and she wrote a blog entry thanking God for being able to go up and down stairs again, to be able to carry her baby and all other mundane things we take for granted. Why no one thanks God for breaking their leg in the first place puzzles me. If we thank God for our recovery, winning the lottery, scoring the decisive point on a game and other good stuff, why don't we thank God for breaking our leg in the first place? So to balance out things I wish I could thank God for giving me an incurable disease (diabetes), for the genocide in Darfur, for all starving children, pedophiles and serial killers, the violence among mankind, pestilence and intolerance. Too bad I cannot forget my own responsibility. Unlike dolphins we're not supposed to judge God. So thank God for the inscrutable plan I cannot judge, because if I could I'd give it a C-. unless, of course, I win the $370 million record lottery jackpot tonight. In that case "thank God"! PS: if God doesn't like the entry he can give me a call. Unlike religious fundamentalists out there I do have enough faith to believe She/He/It knows my number and can call if She/He/It feels like it. I'm free thursday night! Not Very ProfessionalOverheard at the office:
- Is this the smell of impending doom that I feel or did you just fart? March 02 Company MeetingI feel ok writing about Ray Ozzie's boring presentation to Goldman Sachs last week, especially because Mr. Ballmer's talk to investors three weeks ago was a quasi-disaster and substantial part of my compensation depends on them both doing well (see http://blogs.business2.com/beta/2007/02/steve_ballmers_.html). Mr. Ballmer is usually very entertaining to watch as millions of people downloading the "monkey dance" video know (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc). The first time I had a chance to see Mr. Ballmer was on my very first month working at Microsoft, seven years ago. My boss was cheering like a little girl when Ballmer entered the stage, screaming "I LOVE THIS COMPANY", sweating profusely and jumping around like a nutjob. For me it was a cringe moment, but everyone else around me seemed to enjoy it. I could not stop thinking how bad would it be if the CEO died of heart attack the very first month I joined the company and what would that mean to the stock options I received for signing up. I felt like a complete alien for the first time. Of course he didn't die and it was not necessary - the stock tanked and I still have most of my options. Microsoft pulled a prank on a big investment bank years ago, convincing them to buy options from employees by a small price. I bought a hi-def TV with the bank's money and they probably still have the options. I have a kick every time I think I took money from an investment bank. The options were supposed to work as down payment for a condo, but I'm happy with the TV. If either Mr. Ballmer or Mr. Ozzie reads this thing, I hope they check out the Presentation Zen website (http://www.presentationzen.com/). This is a great blog about public speaking and how to deliver a message. Too bad they'll have to get used to see Steve Jobs used as example to follow many times over. March 01 Public SpeakingI just heard Ray Ozzie's presentation to Goldman Sachs. If he is paid by "hum", "ahn" and "uhs" he is probably the best paid executive at Microsoft.
I'm considering suing because I fell asleep and hit the keyboard - my chin hurts now.
Check it out for yourself: http://microsoft.shareholder.com/webcast/MediaPresentation.asp?MediaID=24224&MediaUserID=0
I certainly care less about how people say things and way more about what they say, but what he said wasn't that interesting either. |
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