A&L Enterprises Tech Line

Interesting book – exposing a world I frankly don’t understand – poverty. I grew up in a middle class family, went to college and am solidly middle class now.  Living in poverty is as familiar to me as living in Africa.

I was impressed with the vision and intelligence of the couple who started this organization.  It’s a non-profit who operates with excellence.  It’s a testament to business people who make the transition to the non-profit world successfully.

This initiative was based on research and numbers – and the results showed.  Too many things in life can be destroyed by good wishes but poor planning.  And they changed when things didn’t work – they wanted measurable results – job retention and self-sufficiency.  They created an environment for success – it required hard work on the part of the attendees – and a commitment to them over time.  They realized that the problem was not just about them finding a job – but changing a lifestyle.

They observed that the chronically unemployed didn’t have the same skills that many of us have.  They may not react the same way at work – we push through it – complain to others, etc – they often will just quit.  There are a host of other skills, attitudes, etc. that we are so used to we’re not aware of them – that many who grow up in poverty are unfamiliar with.

I think I will be thinking about this book for a while – for the lessons it has for me.  I’m still impressed with the excellence of the organization…

I recently read “On the Brink” – Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System – by Henry Paulson.  This is the former Treasury Secretary’s personal view on the recent Financial Crisis.  It was a fascinating book in the sense that it showed a viewpoint of a government official during this timeframe – how scary it was for them.

One of the interesting things about reading a book like this is how it demonstrates the difference in viewpoints depending on what you know and how it affects you.  To Paulson – the “bailouts” were about saving the system – to me (at the time) and to many it was about covering Wall Street for their own mistakes.  Paulson describes a view of the crisis where he really believed that the whole system was about to come down – that he was dodging crisis after crisis – just trying to keep everything afloat.  It was a crazy, hectic and unique time in history to him – one where he literally felt like he was on the brink many times.

After reading this and thinking about my own feelings it demonstrates how differently we can see the same sequence of events.  That the American people despised the bailouts yet a Republican was a staunch supporter of them.  Do we always have the right information to back up our conclusions – or do we just react without thinking too much?  We can debate the roots of the crisis – but I look back and see that I was very angry with helping these companies – yet Paulson explained it was absolutely necessary.  And frankly the technical terms they used probably wouldn’t have made sense to most of us – so we couldn’t comprehend why he thought it was necessary.

The other thing I see is that how much emotions and fear drove the whole crisis – as it’s so not rational.  Wall Street doesn’t always represent the real valuation of a company – it represents a guess of what is to come for companies and the economy.  Confidence in a company has a powerful effect on how it interacts with the market and other companies.  Much of what drove this crisis was that companies lost confidence in each other – they were scared and didn’t trust each other (for good reasons).  This also affects the economy in general – as when people lose faith in the economy the whole thing quickly falls apart.

What is the real lesson?  That we are a part of the economy – our choices and behavior both as individuals and within organizations have an impact on the whole system.  Are we making wise choices?  Are we over-extending ourselves?  Are we acting with trust – are we trustworthy or trying to hide?  Do people have confidence in us – in the organizations we a part of?

Bursts, by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read lately.  It was not only informative – but very well written.  It uses an interesting style of continuing a story from history throughout the book.  This really drew me into the story and made me want to continue reading – to find out what as going to happen.

This book is about a fascinating topic – patterns to our lives and to the world around us.  That there are mathematical formulas that can be used to predict our behavior. We all see now how there is so much more data being collected about us – from Google to our grocery stores.  The point of much of that data is to sell us stuff – via targeted advertising.  Companies don’t like wasting money on advertising – the whole point of spending that money is to make more money.

To me this is both good and bad:

• on one hand it’s disturbing that companies know this much about me and I worry sometimes about it getting into the wrong hands
• on the other hand advertising that’s targeted is much less annoying – and it could even be useful

The author’s premise is that much of how we behave is neither random nor linear – but it occurs in bursts.   Think about how you check your e-mail – do you do it at random intervals or continuously over time?  No – we do it at times – not so random – but how much time we spend jumps up and down.  Another fascinating example is the travel of dollar bills at http://www.wheresgeorge.com/ This tracks how bills move – in that they spend much of their time in the same place – then suddenly jump to another place.  There are many patterns in nature and our lives which follow this.

How does this apply to our lives? One disturbing aspect is how the government tracks us.  One individual - Hasan Elahi – got caught up in this himself (see http://trackingtransience.net/).   He doesn’t fit the profile of a normal person – he travels much, much more than most of us.  Therefore the U.S. government, in trying to detect terrorism, ending up detaining and questioning him soley because of his travel patterns.  They were attempting to detect terrorism by looking for patterns of behavior.  Hasan’s behavior was similar to that of a terrorist – in terms of his travel.

I can’t do justice to this book – so I highly encourage you to read it.  It’s both informative and enjoyable.