I happened upon a little article at the Harvard Business Review on the topic of multitasking and disruptions, The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time, by Tony Schwartz.  This has been a problem for many people I know, particularly those who live and work in the technology sector in the Bay Area. I don’t live in the Bay Area, but when I visit, it’s telling to see the number of people walking down a hall, or on the street, looking at their smart phone instead of where they are going and participating in what’s happening around them.

My most memorable incident was with a VP who would come out to Denver and invite me to breakfast. We would chat, and then his phone would beep with a text message and in mid-sentence he would start tapping a note on it, often stopping the conversation. The next time we had breakfast and he started to do this, I asked him what was more important, our conversation or a text that could be responded to at any time? He said he could multi-task, so it wasn’t a problem. I said being in the here and now in a conversation required attention and engagement with the person you are talking to.  Would he kindly refrain from texting.  We continued to debate the value of multitasking when another text came in. Again he began to tap out a message looking at his phone.  I excused myself and left. After that, whenever we met, he purposely took his phone out of his pocket, turned it off and put it on the table. We can control our impulses, but sometimes you need a pointed reminder.

One of the comments to Tony’s article mentions a simple exercise to show that you are not more efficient when multi-taking. The task is to write the alphabet, a-z and underneath each letter, write the number 1-24 at the same time and as fast as you can.  The next time, just write all the letters and then all the numbers underneath. them as fast as you can. How do you feel when you do it each way? Did you make mistakes? The claim is you can complete this task in less time, with fewer mistakes and minimal effort if you do it as two separate tasks, one at a time.

I have become a strong believer that multi-tasking is not a virtue but a bad habit and a vice. It can be turned around, like any habit, by learning to recognize when you are about to start doing it, and then not do it. As happened with the VP, maybe it just takes each of us reminding our friends to stay in the “here and now” when talking with each other.

Spider-Man said this.

Yesterday, there was an example of the great power of celebrity and social media (the greatest power?) exercising small responsibility.

The story about Trayvon Martin being shot to death by a member of a  neighborhood watch patrol is well know. I noticed this morning an article about Spike Lee. He retweeted the address of a family “reported” to be the parents of Mr. Zimmerman, the man who shot Mr. Martin.

Mr. Lee is an internationally known personality. He has great power. He should take great responsibility for his statements. IMHO, retweeting what someone else said on this subject is being an electronic gossip. If he was not in possession of “the facts” he should stay silent.  To his credit, Mr. Lee has apologized and paid for the inconvenience to the Zimmermans demonstrating he understands the principle of responsibility. I’m optimisitic he will learn what great responsibility is.  

On a similar note, I think President Obama should have considered his great power when asked to comment on this tragedy. No comment would be reasonable from the President of the United States in a local case still under review and investigation by the Justice Department. Instead, bowing to pressure to express his opinion on such matters, he made some comments. He has weighed in on local issues before and it has not worked well for him, lest we forget the “beer in the rose garden” apology and comments about Occupy Wall Street.

Finally, social media is “Great Power” and it transfers to all who use it. The most powerful celebrities and public figures should be examples of how “Great Responsibility” is exercised so the least of us can benefit from their lessons.

I’ve been in a technology training class this week in downtown Denver. I’m fortunate that an express bus to downtown stops at the end of my street, so I’ve been bus commuting this week.  I used to do that when we first moved here 20 years ago. Times have changed. technology has changed, and the more things change, the more some things stay the same.

Social vs. Solitary

20 years ago when I was a regular bus commuter, some folks read the paper, or a book, and some would talk to each other much as neighbors did when I was a kid.  This week, most folks who would have read a paper back then were using their smart phone Kindle or iPad to read. I was the only one reading a real paper. Comfortingly enough, the percent preferring solitary pursuits vs. social was about the same. There was one debate between an older gent and an older lady with a Kindle about his preference for a book and the feel of paper and her preference for many books in a light weight form so she could read whatever she wanted whenever convenient. It was a draw in my opinion. Each to their own.

Women Prefer eBooks

I read an article that Kindle readers et al have sold very well to women. This also has led to a boom in romance novels, aka, “bodice rippers”, in eBook format. It seems that a Kindle provides the “plain brown wrapper” of anonymity lacking in print copies of the same book.  Being anonymous shapes human behavior when passion and romance are involved.

End of Encyclopedia Britannica Sales

I get to read the paper on the commute and noticed a WSJ article about the demise of the Encyclopedia Britannica door-to-door salesman. Why?  Because the Internet, Google and Wikipedia have replaced it.  In the 1960’s and 70’s when I had to do research papers in class, access to an encyclodedia was the fastest way to get the project done. Today, the information available to a person on a given day via a laptop, smart phone or desk top computer surpasses the total content in the Encyclopedia Britannica, (and in fact, the entire contents of my public library) and it’s available on demand pretty much anywhere you are if you can afford a smart phone.

Social Networking and the Power of a Single Voice, Part #1

The news this week included the letter from the disgruntled employee of Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith. His letter in the New York Times triggered a twitter/blog echo.  Result, the CEO and the President of Goldman publicly had to respond promising “investigations” into the claimed abuses of customers by Goldman.  A Senate investigation with Lloyd Blankfien’s grilling didn’t achieve that much impact after the recession. One man, one letter and then the echo chamber of social networks created more pressure than the US congress.  Hmm, participatory democracy in the extreme?

Social Networking and the Power of a Single Voice, Part #2

The trial of the university student who video taped his roommate’s homosexual encounter with a fellow student and then promoted it using Twitter resulted in his conviction on charges of invasion of privacy, among other charges. If he had made the same comments in the student union and in conversations with friends, would he have been prosecuted?  Would there have been any hard evidence prosecutors could have relied on? Does social networking impose harsher restrictions on what you say then a private conversation in a public square?

Something to consider when next you tweet or post a comment to any blog.

IT Administrator Perspective on Social Media

My class mates are IT administrators in private companies, local government, and not for profits. A comment overheard about Google and Facebook, “I don’t worry about privacy when I use these. Sure they collect information, but I don’t think the government would really be interested in mining this to learn all about me.” 

Most of the people in this class were born long after the Joe McCarthy era. the late 1960-early 1970’s with the infiltration by the FBI of various “left-wing” organizations, or Nixon’s Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters.  I made the comment that a rereading of “1984” was in order to appreciate the ability of government to abuse surveillance powers. Sadly, I don’t think many understood my 1984 reference.

Today, substitute “advertising funded free applications” for Big Brother in the story of 1984. It seems in the 21st century the power of “free” is far more effective, and less costly, then overt surveillence to collect an in-depth dossier of Winston’s comings and goings. How much more powerful is surveillance when human nature is leveraged to collect the information instead of covert means?  It’s well worth considering I think since we do have a choice in our use of social media applications.

The title of my blog does include the word “musings”, but I’ve been mostly focused on the “Motorcycle” part for awhile.  So, I figured I’d work on the musing part.  The word can be a noun, (meditation) or a adjective (thoughtfully abstracted).  So, here goes.

Skiing and Genomics

On the way up on the gondola at Keystone on Friday, I struck up a conversation with two fellows. They were at Keystone for a conference on immunology and Friday was the play day. We chatted about the acceleration of discovery in biology driven by sequencing the genome. They said there was a growing excitement at the conference over discoveries about the ecology of bacteria and viruses in the body. By count, there are more bacteria in our bodies by a factor of 10 than human cells. So who and what we are is likely more about the bacteria and interactions with our cells than it is about the DNA of our cells.  This seems similar to the revolution in cosmology where we learned  how small matter and energy are in the universe. Dark energy and dark matter make up 90% of the total. Our ideas about the universe are based on about 10% of what’s actually there.

Epigenetics is the emerging study of the interactions of DNA with the environment, bacteria and viruses. Science finds that gene expression is influenced by virus and bacterial interactions that can activate or inhibit gene expression. In some cases, this is the casue of disease. One of them pointed out a recent experiment with the Toxoplasma virus. It reproduces in cats and uses rats to infect other cats. The eggs move from cat feces to rats. Inside the rat, it causes changes in gene expression in rat brains making them less afraid of cats and easier to catch. When the cat eats a rat with Toxoplasma, it infects the cat thereby ensuring it’s survival. At that point, we got to the top of the mountain and bid adieu.

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal had an article on this topic including a discussion about the Toxoplasma study. Serendipity.

As we improve our ability to measure and see at smaller and smaller scales in biology, we find once again that human’s aren’t center stage. We keep confusing our ability to ask questions and make connections with our overall importance.

Pay for Maming in Sports

When did we forget that sports should showcase sportsmanship and serve as a platform for the higher qualities of human character. There was a letter in the Saturday Wall Street Journal that asked why “assault” was not a prosecutable offence in the NFL? Or, said differently, why is premeditated intent to maim, or kill, not a criminal matter?  At a minimum, why doesn’t the NFL at least expel for life any player or coach for this kind of behavior? We do that in other “professions” when members violate the code of conduct.  I don’t get it.