Things I learned yesterday — 08/09/15
I’m trying to get into a habit of writing regularly so I’m spending a few minutes every day thinking about what I learned yesterday.
On change
Change is a social process. Real people talking to real people is how real change happens. When it comes to changing norms the impractical way is best. And it takes time. Technology can’t provide an instant frictionless solution for everything. That’s the message in this excellent New Yorker piece on Slow Innovation. Bangladesh had the worst rate of death through Diarrheal disease is the 70s. A simple cure using ingredients every mother had in her house was found, but little changed. So a charity called BRAC sent 14 women on a door to door tour showing mothers how to treat their children. They distilled the details into 7 simple points. “Severe diarrhea leads to death from dehydration; the signs of dehydration include dry tongue, sunken eyes, thirst, severe weakness, and reduced urination; the way to treat dehydration is to replace salt and water lost from the body, starting with the very first loose stool; a rehydration solution provides the most effective way to do this.”
By going door to door through more than seventy-five thousand villages, they showed twelve million families how to save their children. The program was stunningly successful. Use of oral rehydration therapy skyrocketed. The knowledge became self-propagating. The program had changed the norms. To change norms people follow the lead off people they know. The decision to make change is a social process. Real people talking to real people. Humans use soft data to make hard decisions. When it comes to change the content of the conversation is weak. How it ‘feels’ to speak to someone carries the power.
There’s a thing sales men have called ‘The Rule of Seven Touches’. here’s how a pharmaceutical sales rep gets doctors to try out new medicines using the rule: “Evidence is not remotely enough, he said, however strong a case you may have. You must also apply “the rule of seven touches.” Personally “touch” the doctors seven times, and they will come to know you; if they know you, they might trust you; and, if they trust you, they will change. That’s why he stocked doctors’ closets with free drug samples in person. Then he could poke his head around the corner and ask, “So how did your daughter Debbie’s soccer game go?” Eventually, this can become “Have you seen this study on our new drug? How about giving it a try?” As the rep had recognized, human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change”.
On self driving cars
“A granny chasing a duck” is going to become a new metaphor for something. I don’t know what. In helping their self driving cars learn how to react to unexpected and unfamiliar objects Google are throwing all sorts of distractions in their path: “We’ve done everything from throwing piles of loose paper in the road to purchasing giant stuffed birds from a Halloween store”. However the granny in an electric wheelchair chasing a duck was an unplanned happening. Must have been in Austin.
On planes landing
Air traffic control used to separate planes landing by distance. Heathrow has just switched to a Time Based System (TBS) — they will now be separated by time. With fixed distance separation between aircraft on final approach, when the headwind increases, the groundspeed drops. This leads to more planes being held in holding patterns. Using cockpit and meteorological data Time Based Separation dynamically adjusts the separation between arrivals. The hope is that the system will cut delays and enable the maximum number of planes to take off or land at any time.
On luck
On Sunday the Welsh national team came a step closer to qualifying for their first major tournament since 1958 by getting a point against Israel. It was a win against Israel that secured their place in the 1958 world cup finals. They were managed at the time by Jimmy Murphy, assistant manager to Matt Busby. The game against Israel meant that Jimmy couldn’t be on duty with united as they flew to Belgrade for a European Cup tie. A stoke of “luck” that meant he avoided the Munich Air Disaster.
Botox
Botox gets rid of your empathy along with the wrinkles. Mimicking the facial expressions of others is critical in the formation of empathy (see my first learning about social learning). Facial micro-mimicry is the major way we understand others’ emotions. The role of Botox is to get rid of micro-expressions that cause wrinkles.
