I've been using the latest version of Ubuntu, codename Intrepid Ibex, for a couple of weeks now. Given this, I think I can give a fair verdict on it.
The verdict is: meh.
There's not really much that's actively wrong with Intrepid. I've noticed a general decrease in system responsiveness and reliability compared to Hardy Heron (the last release), but frankly that's like saying Kilimanjaro is unacceptably small compared to Everest. It's still damn good by comparison with e.g. every instance of Windows I've used in the last few months. I have high hopes of penguinising my dad in the near future, as his loathing for his company Vista laptop increases.
The only other issue was the grace notes (quite ironic). Intrepid has a bunch of cute little features (see below) which, unfortunately, weren't actually installed when I upgraded my system. I've since hunted them down and installed them, but this definitely abbreviated the honeymoon period.
The big disappointment for me is probably OpenOffice 3.0. As far as I can tell, there is no way in which it is substantially cooler than 2.0, and the list of "great new features" is going to make any MS Office user roll their eyes and yawn theatrically. Considering what projects like Firefox and KDE have achieved in the same time, this is starting to get a bit silly. The longer this goes on, the more chance that Novell will be successful in forking the codebase and filling it full of Microsoft encrustations*.
So what do we get out of this release? Well, whilst there's nothing here to really make you go "wow", there are a number of little exploratory tweaks that could easily snowball into major developments. For example, each user now has an encrypted section in their home folder. Throw in the GnuPG plugin for Thunderbird and it looks like Ubuntu is rapidly becoming the first OS to have user-friendly crypto built in.
Another window on the future is Ubuntu's collaboration with the BBC to provide well-integrated access to media. Basically a huge chunk of content has just become available as a glorified playlist, via the Totem player. No need to piddle around on websites, just click through the list. I'm currently listening to the Digital Planet podcast.
Finally, a fair bit of love has been bestowed on Nautilus, the file browser. It has Firefox-like tabbed file browsing and a rather impressively effective previewing system. Very cute.
In general, this version took two steps forward and one step back. If you're on Hardy, I wouldn't particularly recommend you upgrade. That said, I'm glad it's out. Its showcase of features has enough neat ideas to keep the community busy for a long time.
* This may be an unfair accusation against Novell. However, their deals with Microsoft have scared the crap out of most penguinistas - we're worried they'll go kamikaze on us like SCO did a few years back. They would get caned if they tried, but Linux needs that sort of problem like it needs a hole in the head. Given this, everything that Novell touch (especially stuff like Mono and Moonlight that they touch with Microsoft's help**) tends to be interpreted as an early chess move in the game leading up to lawsuit. This may or may not be paranoia.
** It's definitely not paranoid to be worried about Microsoft. It used to be that they'd just try to squish open source. These days they seem to have graduated to trying to corrupt it - embrace, extend and extinguish. Microsoft is the living expression of why the open source movement needs the free software movement - open source's pragmatism doesn't handle attacks of this kind very well.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Cuts like a knife
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
- William of Ockham
The scientific method is probably the most important investigative tool we as a species have ever produced. As generally understood*, it is a means of comparing and contrasting hypotheses. It uses three conditions: accuracy, predictivity and parsimony.
Accuracy is easy to understand: a new model of the universe must be consistent with existing data. So general relativity looks like Newtonian dynamics at low energies, quantum atoms behave like point particles on human scales, and so on. A theory of gravity that did not produce an inverse square law would be no damn good.
Predictivity is similarly straightforward: a model can't just describe what has happened so far, it must also give us some clue what's coming up. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it limits people's ability to equivocate, which stops science descending into an angels-on-pinheads talking shop. Secondly, it means that the entire business occasionally generates useful real-world results.
Parsimony, also known as Ockham's Razor, is not so clear. In short, it states that you shouldn't include more "stuff" in your model than necessary. So never assume a conspiracy where stupidity is an adequate explanation; never infer psychic powers where outright fraud is a possibility; never choose epicycles over ellipses.
But what do we mean by "simple", and how do we justify this principle? The two questions are interlinked: a thorough justification of the Razor will of necessity give us a working definition of simplicity. Let's take a quick tour through some historical arguments put forward for this enigmatic principle. We should accept the simplest explanation because...
1) ...Simplicity is so damn cool.
This is probably the original view of Ockham's Razor. As far as Classical civilisation was concerned, simplicity was a desirable goal in itself, without needing any further justification.
This presupposes some kind of human aesthetic sense which would allow us to distinguish the simple from the complex. It's very "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
I remain unconvinced by this for two main reasons. Firstly, I don't think it really answers the question; it just wraps it in even fuzzier clothing. Secondly, even after several thousand years there is no consensus about whether God is defined as simple or complex. If our aesthetic sense can display inconsistency in a case as grandiose as this, what hope does it have in other, subtler, contexts?
2) ...Simplicity is more likely to be true.
This is an intriguing notion. Could it be the case that the universe is in some way geared towards elegant explanations? It's actually quite a common belief, not just amongst the religious, but also among scientists who see elegance amidst the chaos.
However, I'm not aware of any good explanation of why this should be the case. In the absence of that, it's impossible to say that this rule holds generally. And I'm fairly sure there's a certain amount of confirmation bias here.
There are some broad philosophies that would make this explanation more plausible. In general, though, I fall on the side of Sir Arthur Eddington: the mathematics is not there until we put it there.
3) ...Simplicity makes better targets for science.
This was Popper's take on parsimony. He believed that simple hypotheses were, if false, far easier to squash than complex ones.
This view has a certain amount of empirical support. Consider for example the epicycle "hypothesis". Turns out that, by sticking enough extra epicycles onto a planet's orbit, you can match almost any data set. So the hypothesis was rendered so fuzzy as to be undisprovable. Undisprovable hypotheses are the plaque in science's arteries: they seriously impede progress and they're almost impossible to get rid of.
In this sense, simplicity relates to the number of "magic variables" that an hypothesis contains. Epicycle theory had an arbitrary number of magic variables that could be set by scientists: the radii and rotation speed of the epicycles. Galileo's elliptic orbits, by contrast, were specified entirely by a single gravitational constant plus the masses and present velocities of the various heavenly bodies. It took several centuries to disprove epicycles. By contrast, if Galileo had been wrong, it could have been demonstrated in a matter of months.
4) ...Simplicity is functional
Let's say you have a tiger charging towards you. You have two explanations of its progress: one in terms of mass, momentum, chemical interactions and the behaviour of various neurons, and one in terms of it being a bloody great big cat that wants to eat you. Which model do you think would do most for your survival chances?
Humans only have a limited amount of computational resource at hand, so it makes sense to shepherd it as much as possible. Why waste valuable neurons believing in yetis, ghosts, gods? It doesn't make it any easier to dodge the tiger, and it reduces the space available for beliefs that could.
From this point of view, simplicity means computational simplicity: the model that generates the most accurate results in the shortest time. One interesting feature of this is that simplicity may actually vary from organism to organism: a cyborg with a silicon brain might have far different preferences from a mammal with a bunch of neurons. Heck, even different processors could lead to different views of the world.
This is probably the most popular explanation for Ockham's Razor as far as the philosophers are concerned. Game over? Probably... but this explanation also causes great fuss. Philosophers do not generally like pragmatism - it can change so easily from situation to situation, making a mess of all our overarching frameworks.
If Ockham's Razor is pragmatic, then a sufficiently strong pragmatic incentive could lead us to discard it. Furthering our position within the tribe, motivating ourselves, avoiding depression - all these become valid reasons for unparsimonious belief**.
We skeptics can find only a Pyrrhic victory in justifying the Razor by reference to pragmatism. In slicing away the gods, we slit our own philosophical wrists.
* According to Karl Popper, anyway. Kuhn would disagree. I tend to equivocate on this: I think that, while Kuhn probably describes the practice of science better, Popper provides a necessary level of justification. In football terms, Kuhn is the coach who talks about positions and tactics; Popper is the coach who talks about human biology.
** Or at least for giving the impression of belief. But for someone who isn't a good liar, it might be necessary to persuade themselves.
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- William of Ockham
The scientific method is probably the most important investigative tool we as a species have ever produced. As generally understood*, it is a means of comparing and contrasting hypotheses. It uses three conditions: accuracy, predictivity and parsimony.
Accuracy is easy to understand: a new model of the universe must be consistent with existing data. So general relativity looks like Newtonian dynamics at low energies, quantum atoms behave like point particles on human scales, and so on. A theory of gravity that did not produce an inverse square law would be no damn good.
Predictivity is similarly straightforward: a model can't just describe what has happened so far, it must also give us some clue what's coming up. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it limits people's ability to equivocate, which stops science descending into an angels-on-pinheads talking shop. Secondly, it means that the entire business occasionally generates useful real-world results.
Parsimony, also known as Ockham's Razor, is not so clear. In short, it states that you shouldn't include more "stuff" in your model than necessary. So never assume a conspiracy where stupidity is an adequate explanation; never infer psychic powers where outright fraud is a possibility; never choose epicycles over ellipses.
But what do we mean by "simple", and how do we justify this principle? The two questions are interlinked: a thorough justification of the Razor will of necessity give us a working definition of simplicity. Let's take a quick tour through some historical arguments put forward for this enigmatic principle. We should accept the simplest explanation because...
1) ...Simplicity is so damn cool.
This is probably the original view of Ockham's Razor. As far as Classical civilisation was concerned, simplicity was a desirable goal in itself, without needing any further justification.
This presupposes some kind of human aesthetic sense which would allow us to distinguish the simple from the complex. It's very "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
I remain unconvinced by this for two main reasons. Firstly, I don't think it really answers the question; it just wraps it in even fuzzier clothing. Secondly, even after several thousand years there is no consensus about whether God is defined as simple or complex. If our aesthetic sense can display inconsistency in a case as grandiose as this, what hope does it have in other, subtler, contexts?
2) ...Simplicity is more likely to be true.
This is an intriguing notion. Could it be the case that the universe is in some way geared towards elegant explanations? It's actually quite a common belief, not just amongst the religious, but also among scientists who see elegance amidst the chaos.
However, I'm not aware of any good explanation of why this should be the case. In the absence of that, it's impossible to say that this rule holds generally. And I'm fairly sure there's a certain amount of confirmation bias here.
There are some broad philosophies that would make this explanation more plausible. In general, though, I fall on the side of Sir Arthur Eddington: the mathematics is not there until we put it there.
3) ...Simplicity makes better targets for science.
This was Popper's take on parsimony. He believed that simple hypotheses were, if false, far easier to squash than complex ones.
This view has a certain amount of empirical support. Consider for example the epicycle "hypothesis". Turns out that, by sticking enough extra epicycles onto a planet's orbit, you can match almost any data set. So the hypothesis was rendered so fuzzy as to be undisprovable. Undisprovable hypotheses are the plaque in science's arteries: they seriously impede progress and they're almost impossible to get rid of.
In this sense, simplicity relates to the number of "magic variables" that an hypothesis contains. Epicycle theory had an arbitrary number of magic variables that could be set by scientists: the radii and rotation speed of the epicycles. Galileo's elliptic orbits, by contrast, were specified entirely by a single gravitational constant plus the masses and present velocities of the various heavenly bodies. It took several centuries to disprove epicycles. By contrast, if Galileo had been wrong, it could have been demonstrated in a matter of months.
4) ...Simplicity is functional
Let's say you have a tiger charging towards you. You have two explanations of its progress: one in terms of mass, momentum, chemical interactions and the behaviour of various neurons, and one in terms of it being a bloody great big cat that wants to eat you. Which model do you think would do most for your survival chances?
Humans only have a limited amount of computational resource at hand, so it makes sense to shepherd it as much as possible. Why waste valuable neurons believing in yetis, ghosts, gods? It doesn't make it any easier to dodge the tiger, and it reduces the space available for beliefs that could.
From this point of view, simplicity means computational simplicity: the model that generates the most accurate results in the shortest time. One interesting feature of this is that simplicity may actually vary from organism to organism: a cyborg with a silicon brain might have far different preferences from a mammal with a bunch of neurons. Heck, even different processors could lead to different views of the world.
This is probably the most popular explanation for Ockham's Razor as far as the philosophers are concerned. Game over? Probably... but this explanation also causes great fuss. Philosophers do not generally like pragmatism - it can change so easily from situation to situation, making a mess of all our overarching frameworks.
If Ockham's Razor is pragmatic, then a sufficiently strong pragmatic incentive could lead us to discard it. Furthering our position within the tribe, motivating ourselves, avoiding depression - all these become valid reasons for unparsimonious belief**.
We skeptics can find only a Pyrrhic victory in justifying the Razor by reference to pragmatism. In slicing away the gods, we slit our own philosophical wrists.
* According to Karl Popper, anyway. Kuhn would disagree. I tend to equivocate on this: I think that, while Kuhn probably describes the practice of science better, Popper provides a necessary level of justification. In football terms, Kuhn is the coach who talks about positions and tactics; Popper is the coach who talks about human biology.
** Or at least for giving the impression of belief. But for someone who isn't a good liar, it might be necessary to persuade themselves.
Read the full post
Monday, November 10, 2008
Bah
So in the run-up to halloween I did a lot of thinking about my costume. I was going to a party where I knew people were going to make an effort, and I ended up spending many hours on a rather nifty scarecrow outfit.
It helps that I'm ridiculously lanky, but height maketh not the scarecrow. I ended up hollowing out a pumpkin pinata* to make a mask. I worked through several pages of half-remembered electronics-related maths to give the mask glowing red eyes** that wouldn't explode at any inopportune moment (say, when my real eyes were 3cm away cos I was wearing the bloody thing). I even spent a couple of spare train journeys really puzzling the other passengers by meticulously attaching strands of raffia to rings of elastic, to create that "straw falling out the sleeves" effect.
It went really well, and I got second prize. I was only pipped to the post by a guy who came in the best Marlon Brando getup I have ever seen.
And now a friend of mine is having a birthday, and throwing... a fancy dress party. Based on the theme 1985. I wasn't even toddling in 1985. I do not have much awareness of fashions at the time. And the party is on Friday, so I'm panicking.
The pertinent questions, therefore, are as follows:
1) How much Adam Ant garb can I acquire at short notice from the local fancy dress store?
2) How much Adam Ant garb can I get away with wearing on public transport without being given a lovely new fancy dress outfit, this one with the sleeves tied together?
Answers on a postcard.
* I'm aware this should have a squiggle above the "n", but I'm lazy, so there.
** Incidentally, it is perfectly possible to carry a large round object stuffed full of wiring and batteries on the London Tube without anyone so much as batting an eyelid. So remind me: what's the point of all these CCTV cameras again?
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It helps that I'm ridiculously lanky, but height maketh not the scarecrow. I ended up hollowing out a pumpkin pinata* to make a mask. I worked through several pages of half-remembered electronics-related maths to give the mask glowing red eyes** that wouldn't explode at any inopportune moment (say, when my real eyes were 3cm away cos I was wearing the bloody thing). I even spent a couple of spare train journeys really puzzling the other passengers by meticulously attaching strands of raffia to rings of elastic, to create that "straw falling out the sleeves" effect.
It went really well, and I got second prize. I was only pipped to the post by a guy who came in the best Marlon Brando getup I have ever seen.
And now a friend of mine is having a birthday, and throwing... a fancy dress party. Based on the theme 1985. I wasn't even toddling in 1985. I do not have much awareness of fashions at the time. And the party is on Friday, so I'm panicking.
The pertinent questions, therefore, are as follows:
1) How much Adam Ant garb can I acquire at short notice from the local fancy dress store?
2) How much Adam Ant garb can I get away with wearing on public transport without being given a lovely new fancy dress outfit, this one with the sleeves tied together?
Answers on a postcard.
* I'm aware this should have a squiggle above the "n", but I'm lazy, so there.
** Incidentally, it is perfectly possible to carry a large round object stuffed full of wiring and batteries on the London Tube without anyone so much as batting an eyelid. So remind me: what's the point of all these CCTV cameras again?
Read the full post
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
A => B
It's UPGRADE TIME!
And, for me, new version of Ubuntu => time to change desktop background. I don't know why I've got into the habit of doing this, but it keeps life interesting. Last time I nicked a picture of Mars off the NASA website, but this time I want something a bit more fun.
I just so happen to notice that the new version of Ubuntu has a new built-in theme: Dark. Cue a frantic search for Lovecraftesque backgrounds. Something black and murky, with slimy tentacles just visible at the edges of the light.
And I can't find a damn thing.
There are lots of pictures that use Lovecraftian monsters - shuggoths, Cthulhu of course, even a rather good one of the colour out of space. But these are all Lovecraft backgrounds, not Lovecraftesque backgrounds.
The difference is subtle, but real. Lovecraft backgrounds include his characters. Lovecraftesque backgrounds convey his flavour of cold-sweat, hair-raising uncertainty about one's place in the world*. It's the "Signs" principle: that film was a lot scarier when you couldn't actually see the damn aliens.
On the bright side, I did find a rather nice collection of steampunkania. But I want tentacles, dammit. I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions?
* Of course, in Lovecraft's stories, our place in the world is actually very clearly-defined: Cthulhu's small intestine.
Read the full post
And, for me, new version of Ubuntu => time to change desktop background. I don't know why I've got into the habit of doing this, but it keeps life interesting. Last time I nicked a picture of Mars off the NASA website, but this time I want something a bit more fun.
I just so happen to notice that the new version of Ubuntu has a new built-in theme: Dark. Cue a frantic search for Lovecraftesque backgrounds. Something black and murky, with slimy tentacles just visible at the edges of the light.
And I can't find a damn thing.
There are lots of pictures that use Lovecraftian monsters - shuggoths, Cthulhu of course, even a rather good one of the colour out of space. But these are all Lovecraft backgrounds, not Lovecraftesque backgrounds.
The difference is subtle, but real. Lovecraft backgrounds include his characters. Lovecraftesque backgrounds convey his flavour of cold-sweat, hair-raising uncertainty about one's place in the world*. It's the "Signs" principle: that film was a lot scarier when you couldn't actually see the damn aliens.
On the bright side, I did find a rather nice collection of steampunkania. But I want tentacles, dammit. I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions?
* Of course, in Lovecraft's stories, our place in the world is actually very clearly-defined: Cthulhu's small intestine.
Read the full post
Monday, November 03, 2008
I Am Not Alone
It's intensely reassuring every time I discover that someone else has the same views as I do. Especially when it's obvious that they're far smarter and more articulate than me.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Riddle me this
OK, so I moan about the job market et al. But really I'm having a rather good few weeks. The VBA training courses are over*, so I don't have to worry about producing more training materials. A couple of other sources of panic have passed me by. I'm working 8-6 to make up hours, and I'm struggling with my halloween costume, but these are fairly minor problems really.
And so I do what I do every time my mind starts to free itself up: I come up with interesting little tasks for myself. I've been working on a pygame-based strategy game. I've started looking back over my textbooks in search of cool concepts. And I'm trying to invent a new kind of puzzle.
A whatnow?
Every month, the UK's actuarial trade mag, The Actuary, has a puzzle page. Since the actuarial profession consists entirely of maths geeks, these are often rather good (I'm still trying to figure out how they do the 16*16 Sudokus without employing a supercomputer or two).
However, it's quite rare for the puzzles to show real innovation. Normally they're of a pre-existing type (crosswords, sudoku, logic puzzles, number grids). The actual problems are damn hard, but they're not conceptually challenging**.
I'd like to change that.
I'm working on what I believe is a new design of puzzle. It will require not only sudoku-style pattern recognition, but also excellent spatial awareness. This is because it is played on the surface of a truncated polygon. Yes.
It's not going to make me famous, but if I'm contemplating leaving the actuarial profession then I would like to go out on a high note. Causing actuaries across the UK to spit coffee over their keyboards would be a good start.
* Actually they went really well. I discovered about an hour before giving the second training day that some of my trainees were from other companies that were paying my company for the training. This caused much panic. But the day went like a charm, the trainees really enjoyed it, and I can now put "professional trainer" on my CV :)
** The November edition contains a counterexample, but even that is just a combination of sudoku and another pre-existing type.
Read the full post
And so I do what I do every time my mind starts to free itself up: I come up with interesting little tasks for myself. I've been working on a pygame-based strategy game. I've started looking back over my textbooks in search of cool concepts. And I'm trying to invent a new kind of puzzle.
A whatnow?
Every month, the UK's actuarial trade mag, The Actuary, has a puzzle page. Since the actuarial profession consists entirely of maths geeks, these are often rather good (I'm still trying to figure out how they do the 16*16 Sudokus without employing a supercomputer or two).
However, it's quite rare for the puzzles to show real innovation. Normally they're of a pre-existing type (crosswords, sudoku, logic puzzles, number grids). The actual problems are damn hard, but they're not conceptually challenging**.
I'd like to change that.
I'm working on what I believe is a new design of puzzle. It will require not only sudoku-style pattern recognition, but also excellent spatial awareness. This is because it is played on the surface of a truncated polygon. Yes.
It's not going to make me famous, but if I'm contemplating leaving the actuarial profession then I would like to go out on a high note. Causing actuaries across the UK to spit coffee over their keyboards would be a good start.
* Actually they went really well. I discovered about an hour before giving the second training day that some of my trainees were from other companies that were paying my company for the training. This caused much panic. But the day went like a charm, the trainees really enjoyed it, and I can now put "professional trainer" on my CV :)
** The November edition contains a counterexample, but even that is just a combination of sudoku and another pre-existing type.
Read the full post
A compass is no good if you don't have a map
A definite advantage to working in a group full of contractors is that they're very happy to give careers advice. This is not something you get normally: the average co-worker, unless they're very chilled, will not tell you to ditch your company and strike out for greener pastures.
I've got a fair number of interesting ideas off them. In addition to searching for conventional jobs, one guy suggested that I take up contracting myself. On that front, I'm probably pretty employable: certainly the work I'm doing at the moment poses little challenge. Also I have an actuarial exam* under my belt, which looks damn good on a CV.
This option would probably do wonders for my bank balance. Contractors quite often get a stupidly large pay packet compared to conventional employees. There are two downsides, though. The first is reduced financial stability, which might be a problem if we hit a recession. The second is lack of career development, which is a massive issue for me. I would honestly rather hammer railroad spikes through my skull than do boring job after boring job for years on end**.
A second option, which I've just spent a fair chunk of evening discussing, is say "screw it" and go get an MBA or something. This idea holds a fair amount of interest. Technical skills for me are pretty much a solved problem, whereas managers tend be be confronted with challenges that involve people and are hence much weirder and more interesting.
My worries here are (again) twofold. Firstly, I'd hate to feel like I was running back to university as soon as it looked like the real world was putting up a fight. It is important to me that I retain my self-esteem in this area. When I feel like I'm on top of the world and everything is going consistently well - that's the time to go back to uni. Of course, at that point I may not feel like I need to.
Secondly, I read Dilbert. I know what people think about the stereotypical MBA, and I would hate to have them think that way about me. I've been in the real world for slightly over two years now, so I'm not a complete n00b, but it would worry me to study an entire course about management without ever having, y'know, actually been a manager.
I'm bouncing off the walls trying to figure out what to do next with my life. Some of those walls are figments of my imagination - for example, financial stability isn't really an issue for a young single male. This doesn't help much, though, because I don't really know which of the walls are illusory and which are solid and waiting for me to bust my nose on them.
Basically, I think this situation calls for a bit more self-confidence... and a lot more reading the job pages.
* Possibly two - fingers crossed for the November exam results!
** Which of course is why I'm doing the job search in the first place :(
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I've got a fair number of interesting ideas off them. In addition to searching for conventional jobs, one guy suggested that I take up contracting myself. On that front, I'm probably pretty employable: certainly the work I'm doing at the moment poses little challenge. Also I have an actuarial exam* under my belt, which looks damn good on a CV.
This option would probably do wonders for my bank balance. Contractors quite often get a stupidly large pay packet compared to conventional employees. There are two downsides, though. The first is reduced financial stability, which might be a problem if we hit a recession. The second is lack of career development, which is a massive issue for me. I would honestly rather hammer railroad spikes through my skull than do boring job after boring job for years on end**.
A second option, which I've just spent a fair chunk of evening discussing, is say "screw it" and go get an MBA or something. This idea holds a fair amount of interest. Technical skills for me are pretty much a solved problem, whereas managers tend be be confronted with challenges that involve people and are hence much weirder and more interesting.
My worries here are (again) twofold. Firstly, I'd hate to feel like I was running back to university as soon as it looked like the real world was putting up a fight. It is important to me that I retain my self-esteem in this area. When I feel like I'm on top of the world and everything is going consistently well - that's the time to go back to uni. Of course, at that point I may not feel like I need to.
Secondly, I read Dilbert. I know what people think about the stereotypical MBA, and I would hate to have them think that way about me. I've been in the real world for slightly over two years now, so I'm not a complete n00b, but it would worry me to study an entire course about management without ever having, y'know, actually been a manager.
I'm bouncing off the walls trying to figure out what to do next with my life. Some of those walls are figments of my imagination - for example, financial stability isn't really an issue for a young single male. This doesn't help much, though, because I don't really know which of the walls are illusory and which are solid and waiting for me to bust my nose on them.
Basically, I think this situation calls for a bit more self-confidence... and a lot more reading the job pages.
* Possibly two - fingers crossed for the November exam results!
** Which of course is why I'm doing the job search in the first place :(
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Joys of Jobhunting
As of a few days ago, I'm finally getting my act together and looking round for a new job. Hopefully a change of company won't be necessary - I do actually like the people I work for - but if they try to send me out on placement again then they'll have to catch me first.
We're now several evenings on, and certain axioms of jobhunting are starting to become clear to me. To whit:
1) The jobs that catch your attention are the ones you have neither training nor experience in.
I've lost count of how many really cool jobs I've looked at and reluctantly clicked past when it became clear that BA Hons Cantab was not going to cut the mustard.
2) The jobs that match your specialist skills are boring as hell.
As a maths grad, my options are apparently finance, finance or - just to push the envelope a little - finance. I do not find finance particularly interesting. It varies between the accountancy end of the spectrum, which requires basic numeracy but no real maths knowledge, and the predictive disciplines (actuarial, quant, etc), which require the ability to pull large numbers of assumptions out of thin air and then pass the blame when it all falls through.
There's also cryptography, but apparently only if you have a first class degree. I have a 2II. Ohttre gung.
3) The jobs that you don't need specialist knowledge for are dangerously vague.
At present, the best example of this is "project management". Beware of any job with this label: chances are it's a pure documentation job. What has happened is that large number of job jobhunters have decided that PM is the fashionable thing. In response, large numbers of recruitment agencies have started mentioning PM in all their ads, regardless of appropriacy.
Ditto "analyst", which normally turns out to be a sales job.
4) More recruitment agencies does not equal more opportunities.
It is incredibly hard to find actual decent job opportunities online. The major online recruitment agencies just recycle each other's listings. Any good jobs vanish like a rump steak in a piranha pool, and the remainder circulate until they're withdrawn or some idiot applies for them.
This seems to be a classic case of the Internet exposing how dysfunctional an industry is. Maybe recruitment agencies are better in person than online, but I doubt it.
5) Life's too short for this crap.
Every single vacancy you come across will have the phrase "please send CV plus cover letter in it". Sounds easy, right? Problem is, it takes a fair few hours to thrash out a decent cover letter. This can quickly become a limiting factor.
Requesting a cover letter is good sense on the part of the company. If applying for the job ceases to be a ten-minute task, applicants can't just employ a "CV shotgun" approach but must actually consider whether it's worth their time to apply. It encourages respect for the application process.
Unfortunately, this encouragement of respect is entirely one-way. In general, companies don't bother to reply to CVs they don't like, not providing even a soupçon of feedback. When you've spent three hours preparing your application, this is very lame.
Conclusion) I hate jobhunting.
As far as I can tell, the entire jobhunting process is a sneaky trick by companies to help them retain their employees. I've been actively hunting for less than a week and I'm already concluding that sticking hot needles through my fingernails would be less painful than attempting to leave my current employer.
But I know that, if I don't, before I know it I'll be a 40-year-old "placement specialist" and candidate for Ark B. I want to do something with my life, dammit.
Read the full post
We're now several evenings on, and certain axioms of jobhunting are starting to become clear to me. To whit:
1) The jobs that catch your attention are the ones you have neither training nor experience in.
I've lost count of how many really cool jobs I've looked at and reluctantly clicked past when it became clear that BA Hons Cantab was not going to cut the mustard.
2) The jobs that match your specialist skills are boring as hell.
As a maths grad, my options are apparently finance, finance or - just to push the envelope a little - finance. I do not find finance particularly interesting. It varies between the accountancy end of the spectrum, which requires basic numeracy but no real maths knowledge, and the predictive disciplines (actuarial, quant, etc), which require the ability to pull large numbers of assumptions out of thin air and then pass the blame when it all falls through.
There's also cryptography, but apparently only if you have a first class degree. I have a 2II. Ohttre gung.
3) The jobs that you don't need specialist knowledge for are dangerously vague.
At present, the best example of this is "project management". Beware of any job with this label: chances are it's a pure documentation job. What has happened is that large number of job jobhunters have decided that PM is the fashionable thing. In response, large numbers of recruitment agencies have started mentioning PM in all their ads, regardless of appropriacy.
Ditto "analyst", which normally turns out to be a sales job.
4) More recruitment agencies does not equal more opportunities.
It is incredibly hard to find actual decent job opportunities online. The major online recruitment agencies just recycle each other's listings. Any good jobs vanish like a rump steak in a piranha pool, and the remainder circulate until they're withdrawn or some idiot applies for them.
This seems to be a classic case of the Internet exposing how dysfunctional an industry is. Maybe recruitment agencies are better in person than online, but I doubt it.
5) Life's too short for this crap.
Every single vacancy you come across will have the phrase "please send CV plus cover letter in it". Sounds easy, right? Problem is, it takes a fair few hours to thrash out a decent cover letter. This can quickly become a limiting factor.
Requesting a cover letter is good sense on the part of the company. If applying for the job ceases to be a ten-minute task, applicants can't just employ a "CV shotgun" approach but must actually consider whether it's worth their time to apply. It encourages respect for the application process.
Unfortunately, this encouragement of respect is entirely one-way. In general, companies don't bother to reply to CVs they don't like, not providing even a soupçon of feedback. When you've spent three hours preparing your application, this is very lame.
Conclusion) I hate jobhunting.
As far as I can tell, the entire jobhunting process is a sneaky trick by companies to help them retain their employees. I've been actively hunting for less than a week and I'm already concluding that sticking hot needles through my fingernails would be less painful than attempting to leave my current employer.
But I know that, if I don't, before I know it I'll be a 40-year-old "placement specialist" and candidate for Ark B. I want to do something with my life, dammit.
Read the full post
Monday, October 13, 2008
That height rant
My, how things have gone downhill. Remember the good old days of conspiracy theory? You had the shooting of JFK, the CIA, the KGB, various mafias. And if all else failed, just call in SPECTRE.
These days, sadly, the conspiracies are much more mundane. I'm the victim of one at the moment. I've never successfully interrogated one of its operatives (damn cyanide pills), but I've been calling it CAT.
Campaign Against Tallness.
Now you may be thinking, what kind of conspiracy is this? It doesn't sound very intimidating, does it. But before you come to that conclusion, please examine Heathrow airport's Terminal 1 building. As a 6'4" tall guy, I have no problem with the ceiling (6'7") or even the doorframes (6'5"). What I do have problems with is the emergency lights (6'3"). The emergency lights in their sharp-edged, plate steel cases that are positioned right above the centre of the main walkway.
I feel this particular design feature conclusively proves not only CAT's existence, but also its dryly sadistic sense of humour. Blofeld had nothing on these guys.
Another CAT operative is at work in the car industry. Ever seen one of those cute little smart cars? Ever tried getting into one when you're 6'4"? Didn't think so.
And don't get me started on clothes. You would not believe how few trouser brands there are that even fit a 34" leg, let alone look good. Size 12 trainers? Sorry, that's one size higher than anyone holds in stock. Tough cookies.
So what actually is the evil goal of CAT? My best guess at the moment is that all its members are sensitive about their diminutive stature. By selectively eliminating tall individuals, or at least limiting their ability to breed*, they can ensure that soon everyone will be their height or lower.
For example, another of my (6'4") friends has a massive white streak in his hair from running through a (6'2") door. If he'd been running any faster, he'd have been permanently removed from the gene pool.
Of course their evil plan is ultimately self-defeating. Someday they may succeed in wiping out all the tall people.
But at that moment, CAMS (Campaign Against the Medium Sized) will stab them in the back. Bwahahahaha...
* And doesn't this just bring a whole new meaning to "not tonight baby, I've got a headache"?
Read the full post
These days, sadly, the conspiracies are much more mundane. I'm the victim of one at the moment. I've never successfully interrogated one of its operatives (damn cyanide pills), but I've been calling it CAT.
Campaign Against Tallness.
Now you may be thinking, what kind of conspiracy is this? It doesn't sound very intimidating, does it. But before you come to that conclusion, please examine Heathrow airport's Terminal 1 building. As a 6'4" tall guy, I have no problem with the ceiling (6'7") or even the doorframes (6'5"). What I do have problems with is the emergency lights (6'3"). The emergency lights in their sharp-edged, plate steel cases that are positioned right above the centre of the main walkway.
I feel this particular design feature conclusively proves not only CAT's existence, but also its dryly sadistic sense of humour. Blofeld had nothing on these guys.
Another CAT operative is at work in the car industry. Ever seen one of those cute little smart cars? Ever tried getting into one when you're 6'4"? Didn't think so.
And don't get me started on clothes. You would not believe how few trouser brands there are that even fit a 34" leg, let alone look good. Size 12 trainers? Sorry, that's one size higher than anyone holds in stock. Tough cookies.
So what actually is the evil goal of CAT? My best guess at the moment is that all its members are sensitive about their diminutive stature. By selectively eliminating tall individuals, or at least limiting their ability to breed*, they can ensure that soon everyone will be their height or lower.
For example, another of my (6'4") friends has a massive white streak in his hair from running through a (6'2") door. If he'd been running any faster, he'd have been permanently removed from the gene pool.
Of course their evil plan is ultimately self-defeating. Someday they may succeed in wiping out all the tall people.
But at that moment, CAMS (Campaign Against the Medium Sized) will stab them in the back. Bwahahahaha...
* And doesn't this just bring a whole new meaning to "not tonight baby, I've got a headache"?
Read the full post
Monday, October 06, 2008
That VBA Rant
So in addition to my regularly-scheduled job, I somehow agreed to do some training for the group of grads who joined the grad scheme the year after me. In Visual Basic for Applications. Which I loathe.
Now it's easy for me to say I hate Microsoft products. I'm a Linux user and a civil liberties geek, so it's fairly natural for me to hate those monopolistic bastards and their locked-down software. But this goes waaaay beyond that.
Visual Basic was the first programming language I ever learned. A friend introduced me to it when I was fourteen, and I was soon able to produce a cute little quiz program that got me really good marks in IT class. At the time I thought VBA was the bee's knees.
The process of disillusionment took a while. It probably started when I took an internship at a software company that did all their work in Python. The people were really nice, but it was immediately obvious how bad my programming style was. Stuff that should be completely intuitive for any programmer just wouldn't fit into my skull. I left with a much expanded repertoire of concepts, and a very strong sense of what makes code easier or harder to maintain.
My education continued over the years. A key resource was the comedy site The Daily WTF which, in addition to being hilarious, is a brilliant primer on how not to write code. There's a strong dose of the scientific community to professional programming: most coding conventions have arisen from years or even decades of gradual refinement by large numbers of skilled practitioners.
The icing on the cake was probably my university years. I did maths, and the programming modules were by no means focused on best practice, but I got very very good at elegantly expressing difficult algorithms in code. Software is the true language of mathematics; standard mathematical notation is just a shorthand.
And there's something beautiful about writing code for a well-designed programming language. When concepts and implementation tie together neatly, it brings a tear to your eye. Python is very good on this point: if you can think it, you can probably express it in Python code.
And then I took on a summer job with a telecoms consultancy. Who did all their programming in VBA for Excel. And I realised how very far I'd moved on. By week 4 I was gnawing at tables trying to get this kludgy toy language to do what I asked it to.
It doesn't have proper error handling. It doesn't have a proper object layer (try passing a function as an argument and call me a liar). It's not even remotely self-consistent in approach or content. Most of the Excel component is a wrapper round the Excel UI, which means that things like text search aren't at all programmer-friendly. Source control? Don't be silly.
Almost every language has something going for it. Java is slow and ugly, but at least it's portable. Lisp is impractical, but so very elegant. C++ is time-consuming, but good grief it's powerful. VBA is ugly, platform-specific, hard to use, lacking in basic and advanced functionality, but... there is no but.
As languages go, VBA stinks.
And yet, despite knowing this, I've managed to land myself in an industry with the highest concentration of VBA users on the planet. The vast majority* of actuarial "tools" are just spreadsheets with a VBA layer to do the messy stuff (batch-processing, goal seeks, etc).
I really can't take much more of this. It's as if I was a semi-pro mountain biker and the company forced me to ride around on one of those tiny clown bikes. It's as if I was a fencer and the only weapon they'd give me was a feather duster.
What makes it worse is that most people don't think this way. They've never even spoken to programmers, they show no awareness of software best practices or concepts like separation of concerns. Their idea of version control is taking a backup copy every few days (and that's only if they're particularly on-the-ball). Even commenting the damn code is seen as a bit avant-garde.
Most of them have had no formal training. Now I freely admit that neither have I - I'm a software dilettante. But I know my limitations, and I put a fair amount of effort into discovering what lies beyond them. By contrast, most people in the finance industry are alchemists: they take what they've learned from one or two tutors** and elevate it into divine knowledge.
I worry that, if I stay too long, I'll turn into one of them.
So I'm producing this VBA training material, and hating every minute of it. It's like swimming through treacle. The only good thing I can say is that, once the training is over, the company will have someone else to lumber with VBA-related tasks.
Rant over.
* The only alternative appears to be COBOL. This kinda says it all.
** Who learned it from their tutors, who learned it from their tutors. The chain generally terminates with a bloke who read "VBA for Dummies".
Read the full post
Now it's easy for me to say I hate Microsoft products. I'm a Linux user and a civil liberties geek, so it's fairly natural for me to hate those monopolistic bastards and their locked-down software. But this goes waaaay beyond that.
Visual Basic was the first programming language I ever learned. A friend introduced me to it when I was fourteen, and I was soon able to produce a cute little quiz program that got me really good marks in IT class. At the time I thought VBA was the bee's knees.
The process of disillusionment took a while. It probably started when I took an internship at a software company that did all their work in Python. The people were really nice, but it was immediately obvious how bad my programming style was. Stuff that should be completely intuitive for any programmer just wouldn't fit into my skull. I left with a much expanded repertoire of concepts, and a very strong sense of what makes code easier or harder to maintain.
My education continued over the years. A key resource was the comedy site The Daily WTF which, in addition to being hilarious, is a brilliant primer on how not to write code. There's a strong dose of the scientific community to professional programming: most coding conventions have arisen from years or even decades of gradual refinement by large numbers of skilled practitioners.
The icing on the cake was probably my university years. I did maths, and the programming modules were by no means focused on best practice, but I got very very good at elegantly expressing difficult algorithms in code. Software is the true language of mathematics; standard mathematical notation is just a shorthand.
And there's something beautiful about writing code for a well-designed programming language. When concepts and implementation tie together neatly, it brings a tear to your eye. Python is very good on this point: if you can think it, you can probably express it in Python code.
And then I took on a summer job with a telecoms consultancy. Who did all their programming in VBA for Excel. And I realised how very far I'd moved on. By week 4 I was gnawing at tables trying to get this kludgy toy language to do what I asked it to.
It doesn't have proper error handling. It doesn't have a proper object layer (try passing a function as an argument and call me a liar). It's not even remotely self-consistent in approach or content. Most of the Excel component is a wrapper round the Excel UI, which means that things like text search aren't at all programmer-friendly. Source control? Don't be silly.
Almost every language has something going for it. Java is slow and ugly, but at least it's portable. Lisp is impractical, but so very elegant. C++ is time-consuming, but good grief it's powerful. VBA is ugly, platform-specific, hard to use, lacking in basic and advanced functionality, but... there is no but.
As languages go, VBA stinks.
And yet, despite knowing this, I've managed to land myself in an industry with the highest concentration of VBA users on the planet. The vast majority* of actuarial "tools" are just spreadsheets with a VBA layer to do the messy stuff (batch-processing, goal seeks, etc).
I really can't take much more of this. It's as if I was a semi-pro mountain biker and the company forced me to ride around on one of those tiny clown bikes. It's as if I was a fencer and the only weapon they'd give me was a feather duster.
What makes it worse is that most people don't think this way. They've never even spoken to programmers, they show no awareness of software best practices or concepts like separation of concerns. Their idea of version control is taking a backup copy every few days (and that's only if they're particularly on-the-ball). Even commenting the damn code is seen as a bit avant-garde.
Most of them have had no formal training. Now I freely admit that neither have I - I'm a software dilettante. But I know my limitations, and I put a fair amount of effort into discovering what lies beyond them. By contrast, most people in the finance industry are alchemists: they take what they've learned from one or two tutors** and elevate it into divine knowledge.
I worry that, if I stay too long, I'll turn into one of them.
So I'm producing this VBA training material, and hating every minute of it. It's like swimming through treacle. The only good thing I can say is that, once the training is over, the company will have someone else to lumber with VBA-related tasks.
Rant over.
* The only alternative appears to be COBOL. This kinda says it all.
** Who learned it from their tutors, who learned it from their tutors. The chain generally terminates with a bloke who read "VBA for Dummies".
Read the full post
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Depressing much
It's no secret that I'm not particularly enthused by my current job. I'm on placement (e.g. my company is renting me out) to a big life office. The job title was "manual calcs" which, in the actuarial world, usually means a fair amount of juicy maths.
Actuarial maths doesn't really float my boat, but I figured I'd at least get some good old-fashioned brain stimulation. No dice. The job turns out to be basically data entry: extracting information from old systems and posting it to pensions administrators. Not exactly world-changing stuff.
One thing I don't mind about the job is that it gives you a certain feeling of connection. You read all these names, all these dry facts about people, and you wonder what their life is like. This lady went to Australia. Was it an elopement? This guy married at the age of 60. Did he finally meet the love of his life?
This young fella who was only in the scheme for a year. Did he find his dream job elsewhere?
Then there's the death claims. These quite often give a sense of connection, but for entirely the wrong reasons. Today I processed one that really got to me: a top-tier medical professional, lonely and living alone, committing suicide.
When you read something like that, you can't help but wonder: will that be my life? Will I live without love? Will I die with no-one to mourn me?
I'm 23 and I've been single for 5 years now, which time included my entire university career. I'm fairly sure that I'll be able to fall off this particular wagon given time, but it's not immediately obvious how to go about this. That's really disturbing, when you think about it: the only thing between me and a really depressing death claim is 40 years.
I'm not scared of kicking the bucket (no, really!). I just don't want to have too many regrets when it happens. The situation definitely calls for me to do something drastic. The problem is, I don't have a damn clue what.
Answers on a postcard.
Read the full post
Actuarial maths doesn't really float my boat, but I figured I'd at least get some good old-fashioned brain stimulation. No dice. The job turns out to be basically data entry: extracting information from old systems and posting it to pensions administrators. Not exactly world-changing stuff.
One thing I don't mind about the job is that it gives you a certain feeling of connection. You read all these names, all these dry facts about people, and you wonder what their life is like. This lady went to Australia. Was it an elopement? This guy married at the age of 60. Did he finally meet the love of his life?
This young fella who was only in the scheme for a year. Did he find his dream job elsewhere?
Then there's the death claims. These quite often give a sense of connection, but for entirely the wrong reasons. Today I processed one that really got to me: a top-tier medical professional, lonely and living alone, committing suicide.
When you read something like that, you can't help but wonder: will that be my life? Will I live without love? Will I die with no-one to mourn me?
I'm 23 and I've been single for 5 years now, which time included my entire university career. I'm fairly sure that I'll be able to fall off this particular wagon given time, but it's not immediately obvious how to go about this. That's really disturbing, when you think about it: the only thing between me and a really depressing death claim is 40 years.
I'm not scared of kicking the bucket (no, really!). I just don't want to have too many regrets when it happens. The situation definitely calls for me to do something drastic. The problem is, I don't have a damn clue what.
Answers on a postcard.
Read the full post
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Recommended Reading
So I've been meaning to read something by Cory Doctorow for a while. The guy has class, and he's a prominent member of today's civil-rights community, which I have a lot of respect for.
I've finally gotten round to looking up his site, and read one of the e-books he makes freely available: Little Brother. It freaked the hell out of me. And it prominently raised a question that's been bothering me for a while: why don't most people pay any attention to attacks on their rights?
Why do people cheer when the government arrests people, locks them up without trial, and won't release them even if they're proved innocent? Why do people accept the government's right to snoop on people in the hope of catching them in minor misdemeanours? In short, how can anyone hear the words "if you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to fear" without spitting soft drink all over their keyboard?
Governments are made of people. People can get things wrong. Worse, a decent minority of people are power-hungry bastards. Any organisation that possesses power will tend to attract such individuals like wasps to a picnic. Once a critical mass of bastards builds up, a powerful organisation can go bad real fast.
Terrorist groups are also made up of people, most of whom can be legitimately considered to be bastards. However, there are several important differences here:
1) Governments have better raw materials. So far no terrorist has ever got hold of a nuke; the government of the USA has about 10,000 and once blew up two whole cities.
2) Governments have more manpower. Al Qaeda is estimated to have on the order of 20,000 members worldwide, many of whom have day jobs. The UK Civil Service has 500,000 full-time employees, and that's just one component of one country's government.
3) Governments have stronger surveillance capacity. Fraudsters have to struggle to get access to even a few people's records; the UK government has lost 30 million personal records this year alone, including mine.
4) Governments tend to get the benefit of the doubt. If any non-governmental group had killed as many dogs as the various USA police forces, they'd have been (ahem) hounded out of the country.
Governments have 99% of the power, 99% of the weapons, and 99% of the mob support. Goverments have a long history of going bad. And yet we're worried about those terrorists who don't work for the State?
Read the full post
I've finally gotten round to looking up his site, and read one of the e-books he makes freely available: Little Brother. It freaked the hell out of me. And it prominently raised a question that's been bothering me for a while: why don't most people pay any attention to attacks on their rights?
Why do people cheer when the government arrests people, locks them up without trial, and won't release them even if they're proved innocent? Why do people accept the government's right to snoop on people in the hope of catching them in minor misdemeanours? In short, how can anyone hear the words "if you've nothing to hide then you've nothing to fear" without spitting soft drink all over their keyboard?
Governments are made of people. People can get things wrong. Worse, a decent minority of people are power-hungry bastards. Any organisation that possesses power will tend to attract such individuals like wasps to a picnic. Once a critical mass of bastards builds up, a powerful organisation can go bad real fast.
Terrorist groups are also made up of people, most of whom can be legitimately considered to be bastards. However, there are several important differences here:
1) Governments have better raw materials. So far no terrorist has ever got hold of a nuke; the government of the USA has about 10,000 and once blew up two whole cities.
2) Governments have more manpower. Al Qaeda is estimated to have on the order of 20,000 members worldwide, many of whom have day jobs. The UK Civil Service has 500,000 full-time employees, and that's just one component of one country's government.
3) Governments have stronger surveillance capacity. Fraudsters have to struggle to get access to even a few people's records; the UK government has lost 30 million personal records this year alone, including mine.
4) Governments tend to get the benefit of the doubt. If any non-governmental group had killed as many dogs as the various USA police forces, they'd have been (ahem) hounded out of the country.
Governments have 99% of the power, 99% of the weapons, and 99% of the mob support. Goverments have a long history of going bad. And yet we're worried about those terrorists who don't work for the State?
Read the full post
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Eureka
One of my favourite books, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stevenson, contains frequent references to a specialist mailing list for crypto geeks. The problem is that, in the real world, any mailing list offering high-level cryptographic discussion quickly gets colonised by opinionated numpties. So, in true Darwinian form, they're quite hard to locate.
I think I've just stumbled across one here. This is great for me, because I've wanted to develop a more advanced knowledge of cryptoanalysis for some time. Probably not so good for the list that it's been discovered by the outside world.
Once my forthcoming actuarial exams are over, I'll have to have a browse through the archives (in between learning Bengali and ancient Assyrian and brushing up on my computational biology). I'll let you know if I discover anything particularly interesting.
Read the full post
I think I've just stumbled across one here. This is great for me, because I've wanted to develop a more advanced knowledge of cryptoanalysis for some time. Probably not so good for the list that it's been discovered by the outside world.
Once my forthcoming actuarial exams are over, I'll have to have a browse through the archives (in between learning Bengali and ancient Assyrian and brushing up on my computational biology). I'll let you know if I discover anything particularly interesting.
Read the full post
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Random poetry day (week?)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
- "If" by Rudyard Kipling
This poem is the best expression of the Stoic philosophy I've ever come across, and every time I read it I find some new application to my life. Stoicism is intended to inure people to the stresses of existence - a good lifestyle for kings, generals, and those who try to arrange large lunch gatherings.
Read the full post
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
- "If" by Rudyard Kipling
This poem is the best expression of the Stoic philosophy I've ever come across, and every time I read it I find some new application to my life. Stoicism is intended to inure people to the stresses of existence - a good lifestyle for kings, generals, and those who try to arrange large lunch gatherings.
Read the full post
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
...is the title of a rather good book I came across a couple of years back. Despite being dated by its Freudian lingo, it was a rather well-thought-out consideration of an apparently simple question: why do generals suck so badly?
It used to be (possibly still is) a well-worn aphorism among soldiers that, whilst the poor sod in a different uniform might kill you, it was your general who would murder you. That was adequately demonstrated by the "meat-grinder" battles of the World Wars, where millions of men were thrown into combat with effectively no chance of achieving the mission objectives or coming out alive.
Or, for another example, consider the infamous defence of Johore (in Malaya). The British commander decided what direction he thought the attack would come from, concentrated all his forces in that direction, and stubbornly ignored all evidence to the contrary. He even ordered that no barricades be built because it would be "bad for morale". Of course, when the Japanese arrived, the defensive line was obliterated.
Why would someone give orders that were so blatantly stupid? OtPoMI gives a thorough discussion of this question, and turns up two main conclusions:
1) The reputation of the military is such that the people who join it tend to be insecure people looking for a stable foundation.
2) The structure of the military is such that risk-averse careerists tend to rise through the ranks fastest.
The result of this is that you get a whole range of commanders who replace self-confidence with bluster, who are inexperienced at dealing with trouble, and who see each battle not as a learning experience but as a threat to their personal reputation. You get people who, faced with a deteriorating situation, are completely unable to get their brain in gear, let alone sort things out (in fact, the Johore story gives a clear example of generals focusing on morale to the exclusion of reality - were they just trying to clear their heads?)
In short, you get people who are likely to screw up really badly.
I've currently got a bit too much of that in me for my liking. In yesterday's restaurant debacle, I was more worried about my reputation as an organiser than about the actual event. A good leader would have focused on making sure everyone was happy, even if this meant ditching the restaurant early and hitting the canteen. But I was too busy panicking to display that level of flexibility.
A good leader would have accepted that this was just one of those things, taken his lumps from the rest of the group, and moved on. I got defensive. I don't think I did anything particularly dumb, but the potential was there. Again, I was focusing on my reputation, and thus failing to "keep my head when all about were losing theirs and blaming it on me".
I have a naturally careerist streak. I don't necessarily apologise for this - it's an excellent source of personal motivation, and frankly I'd have done a lot better at uni if I'd developed this tendency sooner. But it does leave me open to precisely this sort of funk. Before we left for the restaurant, the dept manager had complimented me for arranging the leaving do unasked. If anything, being in the spotlight like this just made me freeze up even worse when everything went pear-shaped.
However, one advantage I have over the generals of yesteryear is that no-one can(successfully) accuse me of avoiding novelty or challenge. Hell, I went to one of the weirdest (and hence most successful) universities in the world. I can hack it.
The problem with careerism isn't so much that it leads to bad behaviour as that it leads to overfocusing on reputation and hence to bad stress reactions. I hereby resolve to learn to control this behaviour. In a way, yesterday was great, because I learned how much damage my adrenal gland can do me. Next time the shit hits the fan, I intend to be carrying an umbrella.
Read the full post
It used to be (possibly still is) a well-worn aphorism among soldiers that, whilst the poor sod in a different uniform might kill you, it was your general who would murder you. That was adequately demonstrated by the "meat-grinder" battles of the World Wars, where millions of men were thrown into combat with effectively no chance of achieving the mission objectives or coming out alive.
Or, for another example, consider the infamous defence of Johore (in Malaya). The British commander decided what direction he thought the attack would come from, concentrated all his forces in that direction, and stubbornly ignored all evidence to the contrary. He even ordered that no barricades be built because it would be "bad for morale". Of course, when the Japanese arrived, the defensive line was obliterated.
Why would someone give orders that were so blatantly stupid? OtPoMI gives a thorough discussion of this question, and turns up two main conclusions:
1) The reputation of the military is such that the people who join it tend to be insecure people looking for a stable foundation.
2) The structure of the military is such that risk-averse careerists tend to rise through the ranks fastest.
The result of this is that you get a whole range of commanders who replace self-confidence with bluster, who are inexperienced at dealing with trouble, and who see each battle not as a learning experience but as a threat to their personal reputation. You get people who, faced with a deteriorating situation, are completely unable to get their brain in gear, let alone sort things out (in fact, the Johore story gives a clear example of generals focusing on morale to the exclusion of reality - were they just trying to clear their heads?)
In short, you get people who are likely to screw up really badly.
I've currently got a bit too much of that in me for my liking. In yesterday's restaurant debacle, I was more worried about my reputation as an organiser than about the actual event. A good leader would have focused on making sure everyone was happy, even if this meant ditching the restaurant early and hitting the canteen. But I was too busy panicking to display that level of flexibility.
A good leader would have accepted that this was just one of those things, taken his lumps from the rest of the group, and moved on. I got defensive. I don't think I did anything particularly dumb, but the potential was there. Again, I was focusing on my reputation, and thus failing to "keep my head when all about were losing theirs and blaming it on me".
I have a naturally careerist streak. I don't necessarily apologise for this - it's an excellent source of personal motivation, and frankly I'd have done a lot better at uni if I'd developed this tendency sooner. But it does leave me open to precisely this sort of funk. Before we left for the restaurant, the dept manager had complimented me for arranging the leaving do unasked. If anything, being in the spotlight like this just made me freeze up even worse when everything went pear-shaped.
However, one advantage I have over the generals of yesteryear is that no-one can(successfully) accuse me of avoiding novelty or challenge. Hell, I went to one of the weirdest (and hence most successful) universities in the world. I can hack it.
The problem with careerism isn't so much that it leads to bad behaviour as that it leads to overfocusing on reputation and hence to bad stress reactions. I hereby resolve to learn to control this behaviour. In a way, yesterday was great, because I learned how much damage my adrenal gland can do me. Next time the shit hits the fan, I intend to be carrying an umbrella.
Read the full post
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Opposite of "up"
Feeling fairly down at the moment. I'm dealing with the aftermath of a massive adrenaline spike round about lunchtime, followed by an emotional kick in the goolies during the afternoon.
Today was a co-worker's last day in the team - she's leaving for a more interesting job elsewhere. I've only been on the team for a couple of weeks now but, when I found out that no-one had arranged a goodbye lunch for her, I figured "what the hell, worth a shot".
This is the first time I've organised something like this, so I made a point to cover all bases. I booked the restaurant, sent emails to the group, kept a log of who was coming. I even called in to the restaurant earlier today, just to make sure nothing could go wrong. I got everyone out of the office promptly, made sure they made it to the restaurant, ordered food, and sat chatting while we waited for it to arrive.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
After 40 minutes, we're getting a bit worried. The food hasn't arrived and, although the conversation has been excellent, we do need to be back at the office in about half an hour for a team meeting. It's only a three-minute walk so this isn't a problem, as long as the food arrives now. I check with one of the waitresses and she tells us it'll only be five minutes more.
So we wait. And wait. And wait. And all the time my blood pressure is getting higher and higher as I contemplate the consequences of having invited everyone to a lunch at which no food was actually served.
Turns out that the restaurant next door had closed for the day, so all its business was coming to our restaurant. And, being such helpful fellows, they couldn't possibly turn anyone away...
Eventually the manager comes over to us and confesses that there's unlikely to be any food arriving. He's very apologetic, and offers us a stack of free pizzas for collection in half an hour or so. So at least people got some lunch in the end, but it was still bloody stressful to feel like I'm responsible for everyone going hungry.
That was Act One. By this point, I'm on the boil, out of my mind on fight-or-flight hormones, I feel like the sky is falling, etc, etc. And another co-worker (who hadn't even been to lunch) picks that moment to request that I don't talk to him again except about work stuff.
That's kinda harsh. The worrying thing is, I have this complete uncertainty about whether I did anything to deserve it. I've said nasty things to this guy previously, but only in a well-defined context of mutual bloke-on-bloke teasing. Did I cross a line? Did I go outside that context? If so, why did he wait til now to say something?
Or, more worryingly, is it something I'm not even aware of that set him off? I react very badly to adrenaline. Round about the lunch-induced hormone spike, there are periods where I can't remember precisely what I said to whom. What did I say to him???
My brain is currently frying in its own juices on a mixture of emotional exhaustion and Othello-level paranoia. So no management skepticism tonight. I'll be OK come tomorrow, when my body chemistry is normal and the molehill stops looking quite so mountainous.
Read the full post
Today was a co-worker's last day in the team - she's leaving for a more interesting job elsewhere. I've only been on the team for a couple of weeks now but, when I found out that no-one had arranged a goodbye lunch for her, I figured "what the hell, worth a shot".
This is the first time I've organised something like this, so I made a point to cover all bases. I booked the restaurant, sent emails to the group, kept a log of who was coming. I even called in to the restaurant earlier today, just to make sure nothing could go wrong. I got everyone out of the office promptly, made sure they made it to the restaurant, ordered food, and sat chatting while we waited for it to arrive.
And waited. And waited. And waited.
After 40 minutes, we're getting a bit worried. The food hasn't arrived and, although the conversation has been excellent, we do need to be back at the office in about half an hour for a team meeting. It's only a three-minute walk so this isn't a problem, as long as the food arrives now. I check with one of the waitresses and she tells us it'll only be five minutes more.
So we wait. And wait. And wait. And all the time my blood pressure is getting higher and higher as I contemplate the consequences of having invited everyone to a lunch at which no food was actually served.
Turns out that the restaurant next door had closed for the day, so all its business was coming to our restaurant. And, being such helpful fellows, they couldn't possibly turn anyone away...
Eventually the manager comes over to us and confesses that there's unlikely to be any food arriving. He's very apologetic, and offers us a stack of free pizzas for collection in half an hour or so. So at least people got some lunch in the end, but it was still bloody stressful to feel like I'm responsible for everyone going hungry.
That was Act One. By this point, I'm on the boil, out of my mind on fight-or-flight hormones, I feel like the sky is falling, etc, etc. And another co-worker (who hadn't even been to lunch) picks that moment to request that I don't talk to him again except about work stuff.
That's kinda harsh. The worrying thing is, I have this complete uncertainty about whether I did anything to deserve it. I've said nasty things to this guy previously, but only in a well-defined context of mutual bloke-on-bloke teasing. Did I cross a line? Did I go outside that context? If so, why did he wait til now to say something?
Or, more worryingly, is it something I'm not even aware of that set him off? I react very badly to adrenaline. Round about the lunch-induced hormone spike, there are periods where I can't remember precisely what I said to whom. What did I say to him???
My brain is currently frying in its own juices on a mixture of emotional exhaustion and Othello-level paranoia. So no management skepticism tonight. I'll be OK come tomorrow, when my body chemistry is normal and the molehill stops looking quite so mountainous.
Read the full post
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Vertigo
One of the useful features of a new job is a chance to reinvent yourself a bit. I've been doing OK on that front, but of course there's some things you can never change.
For example, as a long-time introvert, it's inevitable that I'll seek peace and quiet to recharge my batteries. As an introvert, I should do better when focusing on my own personal tasks than when interacting with others. Right?
Well, actually, I spent today's "dead time"* organising a leaving do for a team member. And, despite the slight possibility that everyone will weasel out and the restaurant will break my legs for booking too much space, it's been really energising. It totally got me raring to go, and my ability to focus on work improved dramatically.
So what's the secret here? What is it that turns an habitual introvert into a contact-seeking extrovert? After a couple of weeks in my current role, I think I've put my finger on it.
Extroverts are people who have really. Boring. Jobs.**
* In case my employers come across this, I should clarify that this refers to e.g. the time between handing over a massive stack of completed cases and being given another massive stack to start on.
** I'm not so bothered about my employers reading this, because it's a widely-acknowledged fact of life in our team. If they fired everyone who said the work was dull, they'd get lonely real fast...
Read the full post
For example, as a long-time introvert, it's inevitable that I'll seek peace and quiet to recharge my batteries. As an introvert, I should do better when focusing on my own personal tasks than when interacting with others. Right?
Well, actually, I spent today's "dead time"* organising a leaving do for a team member. And, despite the slight possibility that everyone will weasel out and the restaurant will break my legs for booking too much space, it's been really energising. It totally got me raring to go, and my ability to focus on work improved dramatically.
So what's the secret here? What is it that turns an habitual introvert into a contact-seeking extrovert? After a couple of weeks in my current role, I think I've put my finger on it.
Extroverts are people who have really. Boring. Jobs.**
* In case my employers come across this, I should clarify that this refers to e.g. the time between handing over a massive stack of completed cases and being given another massive stack to start on.
** I'm not so bothered about my employers reading this, because it's a widely-acknowledged fact of life in our team. If they fired everyone who said the work was dull, they'd get lonely real fast...
Read the full post
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Random poetry day
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much
- Excerpt from Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Hat tip to Matt Ridley and his excellent book The Red Queen
Read the full post
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much
- Excerpt from Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man
Hat tip to Matt Ridley and his excellent book The Red Queen
Read the full post
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Management Skeptic #3: Detecting Lemons
This series discusses the concept of "management models" from a skeptical viewpoint. In my first post, I raised the question: do "management models" such as PRINCE2 improve a practitioner's ability to manage? In my second post, I discussed a common argument in support of this claim and demonstrated why it doesn't hold up.
This post analyses a second common argument in support of management models, and provides more reasons why a course can be popular without being any good.
Argument #2: Management models must be good, or why would companies buy into them?
In my last post, I discussed how a qualification can be very useful for job applicants without actually achieving anything in itself. Candidates who have been on well-marketed courses like PRINCE2 will often be seen as more competent, regardless of their real proficiency. As a counterexample I presented the "VISCOUNT4" thought experiment: a training course that is deeply popular despite sucking.
But why, one might ask, does this work in the long term? Why would companies hire people with a worthless qualification, and how can they prosper if they do? In short, why doesn't the "natural selection" of capitalism weed out VISCOUNT4-style courses?
From this question, it's easy to start jumping to conclusions. If these companies survive then preferential hiring of PRINCE2 practitioners must be beneficial for a company, so clearly PRINCE2 itself must make managers more effective...
I already discussed one objection to this chain of logic: it's possible that this preferential hiring is doing damage, but that the self-interested interviewers still favour a qualification that many of them possess.
In this post, I will provide another answer. I'd like to draw your attention to one of the most fascinating developments in economics since the young Adam Smith got a summer job at the nail-making factory: the new concept of information asymmetry.
The basic principle is simple. When someone suspects that a purchase isn't worth the asking price, they won't buy it. For example, why is it that the value of a car drops dramatically as soon as it leaves the vendor's turf? Because a small number of cars in any batch will be dodgy - "lemons" - and, by trying to sell your car on so soon, you're signalling to the world that you've been landed with one of them.
This sounds like common sense, but it creates a headache for economists. For example, back when England's currency was based on precious metals, it was well-known that "bad money drives out good". Some coins would be adulterated, forged, and otherwise tampered with in order to extract some of the value from them. Of course, when you found that you'd been landed with one of these lemons, you'd try to palm it off on some other sucker, but you'd keep the good coins safe in your wallet.
After a while, the very fact that you were trying to pay with a coin sent a signal to the vendor that that coin sucked. The value of money declined, which made it even more futile to pay with a good coin. A race to the bottom ensued that required heavy-duty government intervention to resolve.
The job market seems like it would be very vulnerable to this effect. If companies tend to retain good employees and ditch bad ones, soon the very fact that someone is after a job is itself enough to taint their application. How do we get around this? How does a good candidate signal to the employer that they are indeed a good candidate?
The answer is that they perform a task that is relatively easy for them but would be deeply painful for a poor candidate. Back in the old days, hunters used to prove their strength and tactical expertise by slaying a large predator, and anyone who hadn't yet done so was given reduced privileges within the tribe.
These days, students flock to universities in their thousands, in the safe knowledge that the time spent (wasted?) on some obscure academic subject will repay itself when they hit the job market. It's (fairly) easy for a smart, disciplined individual to pass exams, but very difficult if you're a poor candidate.
Similarly, although VISCOUNT4 may not contribute to a manager's effectiveness, the fact that someone has put themselves through expensive training courses demonstrates a great deal of commitment to the cause. Imagine: they could have gone on a three-week bender, they could have spent a weekend in Amsterdam's red light district, they could have knocked a month off their mortgage repayments, but instead they went on a training course. What dedication that individual must have!
So, counterintuitively, even if VISCOUNT4 sucks it may still be in employers' best interests to hire VISCOUNT4 practitioners. The world is weird that way.
Read the full post
This post analyses a second common argument in support of management models, and provides more reasons why a course can be popular without being any good.
Argument #2: Management models must be good, or why would companies buy into them?
In my last post, I discussed how a qualification can be very useful for job applicants without actually achieving anything in itself. Candidates who have been on well-marketed courses like PRINCE2 will often be seen as more competent, regardless of their real proficiency. As a counterexample I presented the "VISCOUNT4" thought experiment: a training course that is deeply popular despite sucking.
But why, one might ask, does this work in the long term? Why would companies hire people with a worthless qualification, and how can they prosper if they do? In short, why doesn't the "natural selection" of capitalism weed out VISCOUNT4-style courses?
From this question, it's easy to start jumping to conclusions. If these companies survive then preferential hiring of PRINCE2 practitioners must be beneficial for a company, so clearly PRINCE2 itself must make managers more effective...
I already discussed one objection to this chain of logic: it's possible that this preferential hiring is doing damage, but that the self-interested interviewers still favour a qualification that many of them possess.
In this post, I will provide another answer. I'd like to draw your attention to one of the most fascinating developments in economics since the young Adam Smith got a summer job at the nail-making factory: the new concept of information asymmetry.
The basic principle is simple. When someone suspects that a purchase isn't worth the asking price, they won't buy it. For example, why is it that the value of a car drops dramatically as soon as it leaves the vendor's turf? Because a small number of cars in any batch will be dodgy - "lemons" - and, by trying to sell your car on so soon, you're signalling to the world that you've been landed with one of them.
This sounds like common sense, but it creates a headache for economists. For example, back when England's currency was based on precious metals, it was well-known that "bad money drives out good". Some coins would be adulterated, forged, and otherwise tampered with in order to extract some of the value from them. Of course, when you found that you'd been landed with one of these lemons, you'd try to palm it off on some other sucker, but you'd keep the good coins safe in your wallet.
After a while, the very fact that you were trying to pay with a coin sent a signal to the vendor that that coin sucked. The value of money declined, which made it even more futile to pay with a good coin. A race to the bottom ensued that required heavy-duty government intervention to resolve.
The job market seems like it would be very vulnerable to this effect. If companies tend to retain good employees and ditch bad ones, soon the very fact that someone is after a job is itself enough to taint their application. How do we get around this? How does a good candidate signal to the employer that they are indeed a good candidate?
The answer is that they perform a task that is relatively easy for them but would be deeply painful for a poor candidate. Back in the old days, hunters used to prove their strength and tactical expertise by slaying a large predator, and anyone who hadn't yet done so was given reduced privileges within the tribe.
These days, students flock to universities in their thousands, in the safe knowledge that the time spent (wasted?) on some obscure academic subject will repay itself when they hit the job market. It's (fairly) easy for a smart, disciplined individual to pass exams, but very difficult if you're a poor candidate.
Similarly, although VISCOUNT4 may not contribute to a manager's effectiveness, the fact that someone has put themselves through expensive training courses demonstrates a great deal of commitment to the cause. Imagine: they could have gone on a three-week bender, they could have spent a weekend in Amsterdam's red light district, they could have knocked a month off their mortgage repayments, but instead they went on a training course. What dedication that individual must have!
So, counterintuitively, even if VISCOUNT4 sucks it may still be in employers' best interests to hire VISCOUNT4 practitioners. The world is weird that way.
Read the full post
Management skeptic (post #2)
In my last post, I raised the question: what advantage do "management models" such as PRINCE2 convey to the practitioner? Are they really worth the expensive training courses?
I've discussed this with many people, and they all seem to think the answer is "yes". In fact, it's almost unquestioned in management circles that applying management models can improve your management ability. In particular, implementation of quality management models like EFQM is in many cases required before people will entrust you with business. And you have to pass an exam on the Actuarial Control Loop (a variant of the management control loop I mentioned last time) before you can become an actuary.
If management models really are effective then that's fair enough. But I'm not sure the question has been answered.
In this and future posts I'll look at the various arguments provided for management models, with a description of why each gets my skeptical spider-sense tingling.
Argument #1: Management models look good on your CV
This one is actually true: if you've taken PRINCE2 (for example), it's generally assumed that you're a more competent project manager than a similar candidate who hasn't. This contrast is amplified by the number of managers who have taken PRINCE2 and therefore have an incentive to emphasise its coolness.
However, this effect isn't directly due to PRINCE2 itself, but rather to the packaging, marketing and community that surrounds it. Consider an imaginary qualification, which I'll call VISCOUNT4. This qualification is completely useless, but the VISCOUNT4 company has excellent advertising skills and soon manages to convince everyone that what their CV really needs is a VISCOUNT4 certificate.
As a result of this, VISCOUNT4 becomes immensely popular, and is subject to the positive feedback loop I mentioned above where managers with VISCOUNT4 tend to hire other managers with VISCOUNT4. The course quickly becomes a prerequisite for project management. But it still sucks.
In short, the popularity of PRINCE2 is not an argument for the effectiveness of PRINCE2, because the VISCOUNT4 scenario demonstrates another way that this popularity can arise. The PRINCE2 model cannot be said to have value simply because the PRINCE2 marketing is superb.
Read the full post
I've discussed this with many people, and they all seem to think the answer is "yes". In fact, it's almost unquestioned in management circles that applying management models can improve your management ability. In particular, implementation of quality management models like EFQM is in many cases required before people will entrust you with business. And you have to pass an exam on the Actuarial Control Loop (a variant of the management control loop I mentioned last time) before you can become an actuary.
If management models really are effective then that's fair enough. But I'm not sure the question has been answered.
In this and future posts I'll look at the various arguments provided for management models, with a description of why each gets my skeptical spider-sense tingling.
Argument #1: Management models look good on your CV
This one is actually true: if you've taken PRINCE2 (for example), it's generally assumed that you're a more competent project manager than a similar candidate who hasn't. This contrast is amplified by the number of managers who have taken PRINCE2 and therefore have an incentive to emphasise its coolness.
However, this effect isn't directly due to PRINCE2 itself, but rather to the packaging, marketing and community that surrounds it. Consider an imaginary qualification, which I'll call VISCOUNT4. This qualification is completely useless, but the VISCOUNT4 company has excellent advertising skills and soon manages to convince everyone that what their CV really needs is a VISCOUNT4 certificate.
As a result of this, VISCOUNT4 becomes immensely popular, and is subject to the positive feedback loop I mentioned above where managers with VISCOUNT4 tend to hire other managers with VISCOUNT4. The course quickly becomes a prerequisite for project management. But it still sucks.
In short, the popularity of PRINCE2 is not an argument for the effectiveness of PRINCE2, because the VISCOUNT4 scenario demonstrates another way that this popularity can arise. The PRINCE2 model cannot be said to have value simply because the PRINCE2 marketing is superb.
Read the full post
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