tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3 2009-07-03T03:49:23Z Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1488 2009-07-03T03:46:07Z 2009-07-03T03:49:23Z

Yesterday a had a very interesting “engagement” with a parking ticket machine. I visited the ministry of Health Care and Sports ( yes they go together in the Netherlands) and I drove my car in the parking house , drew...

Willem Brethouwr Yesterday a had a very interesting “engagement” with a parking ticket machine. I visited the ministry of Health Care and Sports ( yes they go together in the Netherlands) and I drove my car in the parking house , drew a ticket at the entrance ( visa was also an option, but I refused to lean backwards to find my wallet in my jacket) and parked my car at 10.50. The purpose for my visit was a briefing with the program manager ‘ZichtbareZorg’ (transparent Healthcare), a large quality transparence project on the subject of quality indicators. A huge complex problem that needs strong management and leadership but encounters a large amount of frustration, irritation and so on from the hospital quality managers who need to respond to the Government’s wants and needs. The team dealing with the subject needs some ‘empowerment’ so I am going to make them familiar with their identity and destination, story development and dealing with complexity. After a good and thorough briefing I asked for a ticket to leave the parking building, but my client told me they had gone out of tickets. At that same time I subconsciously had taken the original ticket out of my shirts pocket, but there was none. Problem 1. I said goodbye to my client and left the building but needed my ticket to enter the parking building. From that point I started to talk to machines and encountered new ways of communication. The machine man told me I really needed the ticket. I acknowledged but convinced him that my ticket was in the car. Where else could it be… I convinced the machine and got inside. Went upstairs 3 floors, entered my car, and looked for the ticket. But there was no ticket. Problem 2. Went down to ground floor, to the payment machine and tried to find the I (inquiry) button. It was somewhere hidden but I found it finally. Pushed the button and another male voice appeared in my imagination. I was advised to go back to my car, and find the ticket. I know the men are not great stuff finders, but I refused. Problem 3: the machine man had a solution. He would offer me a ‘lost ticket procedure’. He would virtually transfer a ticket, with an unknown price. Then the only thing I had to do was to finish the payment routine. Ok. In a few seconds the ticket appeared as well as the price: 75 Euro! Problem 4 I got angry and started conversations with a machine. I do know body language accounts for over 70% of perception so I needed a lot of energy to persuade my hidden adversary to capitulate. I told him that this was my first time here, once a year have problems with lost tickets and promised better behavior next time. In the meantime more than 5 visitors waiting in line…. The machine man made a great decision. He offered to send a live colleague. After 15 minutes he appeared. I started my negotiations again and finally we got to a solution together. I would pay for a one day ticket. I was not told the price, but I accepted blindly. Within 2 minutes I would know the answer: 10 euro’s, the machine told me. For 2 hours. Just 2 euro’s above normal. I left as a happy client. Talking to machines is another challenge for me. Did I “earn” 65 euro’s or lose 2 euro’s? I’m fine with the result. Who cares? tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1487 2009-06-30T06:30:22Z 2009-06-30T06:34:07Z

I started my first blog end of March last year. As a market researcher I’m obsessed with figures. As a co founder of MarketResponse, a market research and consultancy in the Netherlands I discovered at that time that on the...

Willem Brethouwr Palindrome ]]> Well that is something as well I thought and started to blog. The world we live in is full of hidden symbols and great numbers. As an experienced researcher I’ve presented numerous numbers. ‘Probably’ the number 1 was presented most. It seems that this was researched a long time ago. I will never forget the importance of probability distributions and statistical errors. In the early eighties I acted as project manager to measure the distribution of a leaflet called Shell Helpt. A consumer oriented leaflet, in which Shell gave numerous suggestions, dos and don’ts how to maintain your car successfully. The aim of the study was to measure the % of complete distribution on household level in the Netherlands (i.e. people in the sample had to report whether they had received a Shell Helpt leaflet, being the same species as we had sent them a few days before). Although it was a great study design with three stage sampling (random selection of cities, followed by random selection of streets, followed by quota sampling of 12 addresses) procedure I was not quite savvy to write a valid report. Statistical studies had indicated that in a certain street 5 consumers had to confirm ‘yes’ to be ‘sure’ that distribution had taken place. Still there was a small chance that people would say yes, when there was no distribution. On the other hand also there was a chance that respondents would report a ‘no’ whilst distribution actually had taken place, but we only had to find 2 no’s per street in order to know for sure. People tend to report more ‘yes’ more easily than ‘no’. I reported (after vast calculations) a 93% distribution success rate, added the standard error but multiplied it by two times a 1, 96 factor (used when looking for 95% confidence level). Obviously that was wrong. Client was not pleased after they found out and I felt bad. Yes it would cost the distributor money since I had been too generous. Actually I helped Shell, but not in the right way. Anyhow this is way before my career started to move. I still love statistics but probability sampling is something I leave to specialists. To me it is complexity. I will therefore report more qualitative experiences over the next few days ;-) tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1480 2009-06-14T14:56:50Z 2009-06-14T14:57:07Z

It is my last day as a guest blog. Also this has been my first blogging experience… I found it much more difficult to blog than I originally envisaged. I was always struggling to find the right reflective spirit (at...

Luca Letizia It is my last day as a guest blog. Also this has been my first blogging experience… I found it much more difficult to blog than I originally envisaged. I was always struggling to find the right reflective spirit (at the correct time) and to correct way to express the ideas once I had them… I think I will try to blog a little more and see what comes of it. After reading Outliners, I need to give it at least 10000 hours before becoming an expert, so still 9998 hours to go… Also I was also a little hesitant to talk about some personal stuff (I guess I would have liked to talk more about my family and our children and our fights with the educational systems), not sure why, often I have deleted some personal blogs after writing them, I am not capable of writing in the right way, specially personal stuff (I guess if I was I would be writing “The Road”). All in all it has been a very good experience and I have really enjoyed. And I think I will give it a real go at it… Yours Luca tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1479 2009-06-13T19:22:35Z 2009-06-13T19:23:04Z

I am not English as many of you know, but I have been living in UK for the best part of 13 years now. I think the current political climate in UK needs some reflection. The Labour party is crumbling...

Luca Letizia I am not English as many of you know, but I have been living in UK for the best part of 13 years now. I think the current political climate in UK needs some reflection. The Labour party is crumbling down. On that point, I just want to digress for a second, Tony Blair timing has always amazed me. Within 12 months of him living, the world seems to come to an end (political, economical social crises of unprecedented scale happened as soon as he left the PM job), not I cannot understand how that happened…. I cannot believe it is simply luck. I think, he just felt that things were not going to go his way any longer and he left (a bit like the great investors who get out just at the right time, they can “sense” the environment and profit from it). Now enough with the digression I really take objection (even though I cannot vote) to have a PM who is not elected and claims to be the right man for the job, on absolutely no grounds. I also think that the “victory|” of parties like the BNP should really give politicians some food for thoughts. How bad can things be, if people do vote for the BNP. I guess UK would need an Obama, a figure who is capable to voice the people concerns, express and connect, in other words a good story tellers, who tells story people want to listen to…. The issue with UK politics is that the stories are simply not worth listening to…. Let’s hope somebody will come out of the crisis to help UK out of the current hole it is in (often crisis are very good in this….) Luca tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1478 2009-06-11T15:07:40Z 2009-06-11T15:52:58Z

This morning I have taken the plane to Aberdeen for work. Airports are just such strange places, are the places of ultimate “classification”. First you are a potential criminal: You are pushed through all the security and checking like a...

Luca Letizia This morning I have taken the plane to Aberdeen for work. Airports are just such strange places, are the places of ultimate “classification”. First you are a potential criminal: You are pushed through all the security and checking like a piece of meat, an almost certanly dangerous piece of meat. Everything around you tells you that actually you are just a number, nobody cares what you think/want and that actually you have paid the full price of a ticket to almost strip naked because you might have something dangerous in your belt or in your shoes!!! You have to be checkes because you are dangerous and so is the person before you, and the one after that, and the one after that.... And of course, you cannot take water with you…. Too dangerous. Once they ensure that you are not too much of a criminal, then you go in the “waiting areas” This is the best devised class system I have came across. The business lounges are very the top dogs go, everything there is smooth and shiny. Things are free, you eat, drink, read as much as you like; nobody tells you off or looks at your strangely. And then you have the “plebs”, where nothing is shiny, but nevertheless quite expensive. It is mostly crowded and when you finally find a place where to sit to eat your overpriced Panini (Italian for sandwich!!), it is really uncomfortable. The best part is that the environment is designed so the two worlds meet as little as possible, if you are in the lounge you might never know that the dirty world of the plebs actually exists. You can not see them/smell them interact with them. Then you get on the plane. The class system continues… First Class – Business class – Others… treated like a king – land owner – plebs. The thing which always makes me wonder, is when they close these little curtains (on small planes) between the business class and the cattle class… The poor one cannot even look at the people in business class for fear of infecting them? Then there is the service on the plane, at the front of the plane one is offered nice drinks, perfectly baked little cakes and juicy steaks. At the other end of the plane, well I guess most of you know what kind of food is served… But then you get off the plane, and almost everybody is criminal again, you are pushed through passport control, and everybody is treated with the same contempt and almost disregard of human dignity and when you get out of the airport you can be yourself again. I guess there aren’t that many places in which you can be a potential terrorist, a first class passenger to pamper and a potential terrorist again within few hours…. Luca tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1477 2009-06-10T14:09:58Z 2009-06-10T14:12:12Z

Today I have been house bound as I have the flu (or a really bad cold, not sure how you can tell the difference)… So the lack of activity and being on m own has forced some thinking… My thoughts...

Luca Letizia Today I have been house bound as I have the flu (or a really bad cold, not sure how you can tell the difference)… So the lack of activity and being on m own has forced some thinking… My thoughts have drifted towards my parents, who after 41 years have separated few months ago, my mum is now living in England (BTW she does not speak English) and my dad has left the apartment where we grew up to live closer to his sisters. I had never had the privilege of discussing such a difficult choice with people who are close to me. The thing, which surprises me, is the amount of resentment they have towards each other for things which have happen more than 20 years ago. Now the question from me to them was, why not getting divorced 20/30 years ago where you can create a new life for yourself? My mum answer was that she did not walk out because of me and my brother and simply she did not come from a time and a place where one walks out for lack of happiness. My answer to that she created a hell for herself, which was somewhat pointless as both me and my brother felt the enormous tension at home and left at the first opportunity. My dad answer is, well everybody got problems…. Now my mum is living a second youth, going for week-end in London, going to the theatre (which she always liked), enjoying the gran children. I can mainly draw two lessons from this, It is important not to walk away at the first sign of difficulty, whatever you do. But it is also important to realize when that effort is pointless and one has to walk away and try something different. Luca tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1473 2009-06-08T09:18:27Z 2009-06-08T09:18:43Z

Sorry for the silence at the week end…. It was actually a quite difficult week-end as my son (who has epilepsy) had a seizure on Saturday afternoon, which lasted a quite long time and we ended up in hospital until...

Luca Letizia Sorry for the silence at the week end…. It was actually a quite difficult week-end as my son (who has epilepsy) had a seizure on Saturday afternoon, which lasted a quite long time and we ended up in hospital until 11 pm. As they wanted to ensure that he was OK give the length of the seizure… Now he is OK. Unfortunately we have been in E&A department several times over the past few years… and I have come to the conclusion that the E&A doctors are a very interesting category. When you end up in A&E (specially with something acute), first the medical staff will stabilize you. I guess this is a difficult but standard procedure (I guess they monitor basic biological functions to ensure that everything is OK, and if is not, they use drugs). Then start the investigation work to understand the causes (or relationships I guess). It is also a very interesting context as the patient or the relatives of the patients (at least I do) actually want answers (preferably reassuring ones) quick. And the doctors need to try to give you an answer, understanding the context, but not necessarily understand the history (when they walk in the room the first time). I remember last year, when my wife had a lung problems (another week-end in the hospital), we had a student coming in (I suspect it was part of his training), and my feeling were, I really do not want you to train on my loved ones… Just go away and play with your ball (I did not feel that friendly, I must admit) !!! But then it is clear that they need to be trained to deal with such complex situation (and you would hope they are properly supervised)!! You cannot just read a book about this… The medical profession must be an ideal test bed for complexity ideas…. Has any of you worked with HNS or its equivalent? I would be very curious to know what has been done. Luca tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1472 2009-06-06T07:12:01Z 2009-06-06T07:13:03Z

What is wrong with us…. This is just an un-believable story… http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/8084972.stmI do not know if these kind of things have always happened... But it seems horrible to starve 7 year old to death, and nobody noticing in a country...

Luca Letizia http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/8084972.stmI do not know if these kind of things have always happened... But it seems horrible to starve 7 year old to death, and nobody noticing in a country where there is a tendency to measure everything, to control everything to put video cameras everywhere… Does measurement works? Not in her case.... Luca ]]> tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1470 2009-06-04T18:57:23Z 2009-06-04T19:18:19Z

I just finished reading the Road by Cormac McCarthy, actually I just finished listening to it, as I bought it as an audio-book. I found it absolutely brilliant. I never read anything from McCarthy before (I only watched no country...

Luca Letizia I just finished reading the Road by Cormac McCarthy, actually I just finished listening to it, as I bought it as an audio-book. I found it absolutely brilliant. I never read anything from McCarthy before (I only watched no country for Old man, which I found a little weird…). But the road is really an exceptional book. The love between the father and the son is completely unconditional; I particularly liked it because it is not “sweet”, it describe a potential reality in all of its ugliness and the little hope that can be found even in the darkest moments. It shows that life has huge difficulties, and sometime, it is very difficult to see a way out, but it is important to teach your children that it is important to keep on going (even it is a difficult and unpalatable message), not to have self pity. It describes the tension which is often present between a parent and a child in a world which at time, you feel, does not help you…. I guess if I did not have any children, I probably I would have not liked it, but I do (I have two) I really enjoyed it…. tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1468 2009-06-03T10:40:05Z 2009-06-03T10:57:44Z

I got back from London late last night… Too tired to blog again. London is a really “strange” place. London could be everywhere, I mean it is a city with no real ethnicity as far as I can tell, the...

Luca Letizia I got back from London late last night… Too tired to blog again. London is a really “strange” place. London could be everywhere, I mean it is a city with no real ethnicity as far as I can tell, the restaurants, the people, the nationalities, the languages spoken. Even at Paddington train station you can find, a Sushi bar, a salad bar, a pizzeria, French bread, bagels place and the list goes on and on and on… Whereas when I have been in Paris, Paris is unconditionally French (a bit like Rome is unconditionally Italian), people will speak French, will eat French (I have had the best meal of my life in Paris), drink French. And I actually like that!!! I am not a great fan of choices at the cost of character…. I like to feel the place with all of their history… And I guess, it is better to have choices is you live there. But if you are visiting I am not really sure. tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1466 2009-06-02T06:51:38Z 2009-06-02T06:53:08Z

On the train to London today for some internal meetings… I must say I do not share Dave “love for trains”… Specially the ones to London…. The journey always takes longer than planned, the tube is one of the worst...

Luca Letizia On the train to London today for some internal meetings… I must say I do not share Dave “love for trains”… Specially the ones to London…. The journey always takes longer than planned, the tube is one of the worst places you will see in UK. Most people are stressed out, nobody is talking to anybody else. It seems to be that the non verbal communication says, I really do not want to be here, but I am because I have to!! Not sure if I am reading too much into this. Just stopped in Reading and getting “funny” looks from a couple of guys, as saying, you are sitting in MY sit, I come here every day and you just show up and take my sit (or is it me giving funny looks to people)! We are territorial beings. This is MY sit now…. I did like trains, when I was younger I would travel with InteRail in the summer in Europe. I loved it, I liked the “discovery” related to travelling to places you have not be before, and with the freedom to stop where you like when you like, sometime simply because you like the look of the town. But this journey (and many of the ones I currently do for business) have lost that component. It is simply getting there as soon as you can, and do what you have too…. tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1461 2009-06-01T09:23:09Z 2009-06-01T10:14:05Z

On Friday I was watching "Have I got News from you" a satiric program on the BBC where comedians comments on weekly event. For the ones not based in UK, at the moment there is a big "scandal" regarding English...

Luca Letizia people have been pis..ing in the pool, hence pools are bad, we must ban pools". It reminds me of the logic of so many decision both in work and in life... As a parent, when the children have a little accident because of improper use of a toy, we tend to take the toy away, if they chase the cat around relentlessly for 10 minutes and cat scratches the kids, we start to think, the cat is dangerous is aggressive (BTW the cat is still at home!). Needless to say that it happens in the work environment as well (Can you give examples from your own experience? I think it might make a very interesting reading....) abuse of any company property/process/system, often ends up with the property/process/system be banned/restricted/controlled also for the vast majority who is using it properly and correctly... We tend to get the causes (even when there are simple causes) completely wrong, I really do not understand why... If there is wee in the swimming pool, swimming pool are still OK... Just get people not to wee in it. Indeed in most public swimming pool they have some stuff which reacts with urine, to make it turn red. A good example of managing the boundaries in a way that does not impact the majority of users... We should learn from public swimming pools…. Luca ]]> tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1460 2009-05-31T01:01:01Z 2009-05-31T01:12:58Z

Hi All, This is my first time blogging.... So, let's start and se how it goes... We just got back from a week in Cornwell with the children as last week was half term. Yesterday we had excellent weather and...

Luca Letizia Hi All, This is my first time blogging.... So, let's start and se how it goes... We just got back from a week in Cornwell with the children as last week was half term. Yesterday we had excellent weather and we went down to the beach in Sennen. Now before I continue you should know that I am Italian, I grew up in Naples and spent the first 23 summers of my life between Sorrento, Ischia, Capri and the Amalfi Coast. For the ones who have not been there summers in the south of Italy can be HOT, I mean really hot, 35 C + and the Mediterranean is nice and warm, especially in July and August. So my mental image of the "beach" is, sunny, hot, sun shades, and be in the water because it is simply too hot not to get wet... Now, this is how I have been conditioned to think during my first 23 years if my life (I still remember as a child that my parents would not allow me in the water too early in the day because it was too cold... More on my upbringing later on, as I am going through a period of rethinking of my own history...) When we got down to beach in Sennen, one could see wind protectors after wind protectors, people dressed up and people putting on wet suites before ging in the water to surf...Now my brain was telling me, this is not what you know as a beach... It is alien, it is different it is dangerous :-) But I was really tempted to do body boarding; it just looks such good fun... I really wanted to go in. My desire was in sharp conflict with my "educational conditioning"... I ended up going in the water (after renting a wet suite and a body board), I had to get out, when I could not feel my feet and my hands any more because of the cold, but I had a really great time..... So it was a good holiday with some small but interesting challenges.... Luca tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1458 2009-05-29T13:18:28Z 2009-05-29T13:23:08Z

I know the theory of goal-setting, but it’s a very different thing to live it. As mentioned in a previous blog, I am participating in the Global Corporate Challenge, in which teams of 7 people aim to take 10,000 steps...

Vivienne Blake I know the theory of goal-setting, but it’s a very different thing to live it. As mentioned in a previous blog, I am participating in the Global Corporate Challenge, in which teams of 7 people aim to take 10,000 steps a day. We are all rediscovering how powerful having a goal can be. Team members start engaging in some very odd behaviours to get their steps up. One member describes jigging up and down in front of her computer at midnight waiting for a literature search to complete. Any opportunity to lift the daily steps score. I have been seen marching up and down the hallway at home just before bedtime trying to get in another 500 steps. My husband is both bemused and amused. “Why don’t you just cheat?” he asks. He also suggests helpfully that I tape my pedometer to the inside of my hubcap. Cheat? I couldn’t possibly. Instead I march determinedly and ridiculously up and down. The research tells us that setting a goal leads to 16% higher output than what is achieved with the exhortation to ‘do your best’. Deming the continuous improvement guru said “What gets measured gets done.” A combination of goal-setting and measurement is certainly changing my behaviour. Perhaps its time to re-introduce this into other aspects of my life? But right now could you excuse me, I am going for a walk which will be worth at least 3,000 steps. tag:www.cognitive-edge.com,2009:/blogs/guest//3.1455 2009-05-28T02:47:07Z 2009-05-28T02:58:45Z

You know how it is with advice – you love to give it and avoid taking it. However, on a CE course I was given some advice which has proved invaluable to me time and again. Dave had just done...

Vivienne Blake You know how it is with advice – you love to give it and avoid taking it. However, on a CE course I was given some advice which has proved invaluable to me time and again. Dave had just done his compelling spiel about complexity and all the CE tools to deal with it. I was contemplating a gig I had scheduled for later that week, with a client group who were undergoing a merger within a university context. An introverted research unit was being merged with a sales-oriented unit which taught advanced medical skills. I had a nice, safe plan worked out for the day. With my newly opened eyes, I could see all my planned approaches would have them operating on the ‘ordered’ side of the Cynefin Framework, whereas the reality of their current situation was that everything they understood about their working lives had just been blown apart with this merger. They were living in the complex and chaotic domains. Dave breezed by and threw out one of his one-liners. ‘Why give them the Cynefin Framework, get them to address one problem in each of the 4 domains, then do social Network Stimulation with them?’ Why not indeed – apart from the fact that I only just found out what Cynefin and SNS were five minutes ago, and didn’t feel like committing professional suicide just now. A gentle, bearded giant who was one of the course participants, and clearly had an IQ the size of a couple of football fields, leaned over to me and said five words ‘Always do the scary thing.’ I hardly heard another word from him for the rest of the course. However, the seed had been planted. With an uncharacteristic rush of blood to the head, I decided to give it a try. Later that week, my client group enthusiastically populated the Cynefin Framework with post-its containing all their current issues and challenges. They used domain-appropriate strategies to figure out how to deal with them. Very liberating stuff for them, suddenly it all looked manageable. In the afternoon I set up the SNS. Given that they had spent time in the morning looking at issues, they were very tuned in to a) self-organise into small mixed teams of people they wanted to work with and b) select an issue that they wanted to sort out. They quickly identified KPI and rewards, the boss was on hand to agree to the rewards asked, and the whole thing was resolved in a remarkably short period of time. One tip Dave gave me that was very useful is this. If you are working with merging groups, make it one of the guidelines for SNS group formation that each team should have two thirds membership from one merging entity and one third membership from the other entity. This saves deadlocks - it worked a treat. So my advice to you is ‘Always do what a gentle giant tells you’.