Hakiri

When we see something that is simple and obvious we automatically assume that we can reach the same idea because after all it is simple and obvious. However, simple and obvious concepts are hard to come up with.

Do not ignore the simple and the obvious. Some of the greatest things ever invented are quite simple and rather obvious but nevertheless great and irreplaceable.

This is another TED video. Lately I’ve been doing some digging on new ideas.

In the video above, Charles Leadbeater, a researcher from the UK based Demos Think Tank, talks about that innovation isn’t just for professionals anymore. The amateurs are taking over the world with ideas, paradigms and product shifts which companies cannot afford to take.

I was planning to take some notes and post them on the block but I just too lazy to do that. But spare 20 mnutes to watch the presentations. It is good.

One of my favorite blogs had a good post today and I decided to share it with you. Have a look at 37singals’ post titled Giving the trick away gave nothing away, because you still couldn’t grasp it.

The main argument is that giving away the recipe of how you do something shouldn’t be considered as a disadvantage or some kind of threat to your expertise. The recipe is one part of the story. What is needed also is the skill, the performance and to fully understand the particular problem you are solving. This is not something that you can cultivate right away by just reading a blog post or a paper. This is something that builds up with the years,… or simply put, the more often you do something the better you become at it. Sometimes, courses and training help a lot.

Part of what we do at Hakiri and the other sister organizations (GNUCITIZEN and SpinHunters) is to give our experience away for free. We love doing it and we get rewarded in different ways. These rewards are often not related to money at all. There are other currencies in this world that are much more valuable nowadays. We realize, and that is through experience, that the more we share the more rewards we receive and almost nothing is taken away from us.

So there you have it… yet another recipe to keep an eye on but don’t just sit on the idea… practice it.

This is a Saturday morning post so bear with me. I mean to talk about this topic for some time now and today I felt inspired to sit down and actually blog about it.

Anyway, personal automation… I truly believe that human beings are the bottlenecks of their lives. The most self-distractive and time consuming tasks are the repetitive decision making process for unimportant problems, procrastination and the inability to plan thoroughly in advance. It is not that we are incapable to do all that. It is more about the fact that these things are the everyday norm because humans are lazy beings in general.

However, these problems can be solved by removing yourself as the bottleneck. You don’t want to be the driver of the car but you want to give orders where you would like to go, i.e. you want to be the passenger. The only way to do that in a sensible way is by introducing a degree of automation in your lives.

If you find yourself doing something over and over again perhaps it is the time too look for a solution that will automate the problem. If there isn’t a solution, you are probably on verge of a breakthrough idea that could make you significantly richer. Both ways you win but the most importantly, you solve yet another problem in your live which you shouldn’t really worry about and can be completely outsourced and automated.

Here are a few ideas of what can be automated:

• Holidays, bookings, general entertainment – planning all of these things suck! they all require a lot of time, worries and thinking. Instead of doing all of this yourself, get a VA (virtual assistant) to sort all of this out for you.
• Personal finances – paying all the bills yourself is definitely not good for your health. It could be stressful to say at least. The best way to deal with it is to put everything on autopilot. All the money you owe should be taken out automatically on the first day you receive your salary. If the bill comes out every 3-4 months, than just do your average contribution every month. That will save you hustle at the end. Think about it, 30-40% of your salary go to the government anyway but you rarely think about it because because you don’t see all of these money coming in and going out of your bank account
• Food – food can get boring too, especially if you plan it. Most stores in UK have websites where you can purchase all the food that you need. Often, you can purchase the same ingredients you did last time. You don’t even need to do that. You can just a VA on autopilot to do it for you. On the geek side of things, you can write a script to calculate the basic possible way to use all the ingredients.

Once you do all of these you will see that automation is actually great. It almost feels like you’ve been taken care by your parents again but this time you are in charge of how things should happen. I personally haven’t fully reached such reaches but I am planning to improve in the near future.

This post will be rather short. I just want to lay out some ideas which I might continue at some other time.

So How can I successfully develop an Idea?

I found out through experience, that it is quite easy to come up with good ideas. I think that most people will say that this is probably the hardest thing but I would have to argue. It is the easiest, mainly because we are quite suited to use our imagination. In fact, there are numerous good strategies which you can use in order to give birth of all kinds of cool, exciting and quite useful ideas.

Coming up with a good idea is the easy but implementing it is quite hard. Unless you have a proper strategy and focus your idea is doomed to failure. It took me a while to figure this out. I would say that most ideas simply fail because people don’t know where to start and they don’t know how to handle them properly. In the next part of this post, I will give some tips, which work well for me. Do not take them for granted. You might need to develop your own methodology if the following one does not suit you well.

First thing first. Before jumping into any work, try to see whether it is worthed. I know that you might be excited but trust me, you better waste some time now then feeling sorry later. Doing something for fun is OK but doing something for fun that is quite useful is even better. Have an experiment just to verify that your idea could turn to be successful. So how people will react on it. Once you have some data, you can move to step two.

You need to set your idea goals. It sounds silly but this part is essential. If you don’t have a goal you will be chaotic and you will soon give up on the idea due to lack of interest and high doze of stress. Set your goal, but also set a good measurement to indicate when the goal is completed. Some people know how to set their goals but they have no idea about their progress. That is why you need a proper measurement. Make sure that your measurement is sound and it works well for your goal.

Once you have a goal and a sound measurement, split the process of achieving the goal in smaller tasks. The smaller their are the better. You can even make them ridiculously small. For example, if your goal is to write something like a paper or a blog post, or maybe even a book, start with the simplest task: pick a pen. Put that as task number on your daily schedule. It is very easy task but at the same time once you achieve it, it will motivate you go further.

Measure your progress constantly and reward yourself for the good work no matter how small it may seem. That will keep you motivated. If you start feeling bored of your idea but you feel like you have to continue doing it, then try to make it more fun. Change your working environment or do your tasks in slightly different way. Use your imagination.

I hope that this post was helpful.

You’ve got to love TED. In this video Joshua Klein discuss his findings around the interesting intelligence crows exhibit. There are a lot of stories about crows and how intelligent they really are but it is my first time I learn more about this subject in an very interesting and entertaining way.

One of the ideas that I like the most is connected to what Joshua mentions at the end of his talk. Because crows are so adaptable and because it seems like we can training them, then why don’t we use their ability in a human-animal symbiosis-like system. Crows can be trained to pick garbage or do other useful things for which they can be rewarded. I think that this is a very interesting idea worth exploring.

This post is mostly a ripoff from Wikipedia because who ever wrote about the topic did a pretty good job of summarizing the main ideas behind Barry Schwartz’s work.The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less is a 2004 book by Mr. Schwartz. In the book, Schwartz argues the controversial thesis that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers. Kind of communism in a way but wait! There is more…

How we choose

Schwartz describes that a consumer’s strategy for most good decisions will involve these steps:

1. Figure out your goal or goals. The process of goal-setting and decision making begins with the question: “What do I want?” When faced with the choice to pick a restaurant, a CD, or a movie, one makes their choice based upon how one would expect the experience to make them feel, expected utility. Once they have experienced that particular restaurant, CD or movie, their choice will be based upon a remembered utility. To say that you know what you want, therefore, means that these utilities align. Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have shown that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences is almost entirely determined by two things: how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst), and how they felt when they ended.
2. Evaluate the importance of each goal. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have researched how people make decisions and found a variety of rules of thumb that often lead us astray. Most people give substantial weight to anecdotal evidence, perhaps so much so that it cancels out expert evidence. The researchers called it the availability heuristic describing how we assume that the more available some piece of information is to memory, the more frequently we must have encountered it in the past. Salience will influence the weight we give any particular piece of information.
3. Array the options. Kahneman and Tversky found that personal “psychological accounts” will produce the effect of framing the choice and determining what options are considered as subjects to factor. For example, an evening at a concert could be just one entry in a much larger account, of say a “meeting a potential mate” account. Or it could be part of a more general account such as “ways to spend a Friday night”. Just how much an evening at a concert is worth will depend on which account it is a part of.
4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. People often talk about how “creative accountants can make a corporate balance sheet look as good or bad as they want it to look.” In many ways Schwartz views most people as creative accountants when it comes to keeping their own psychological balance sheet.
5. Pick the winning option. Schwartz argues that options are already attached to choices being considered. When the options are not already attached, they are not part of the endowment and choosing them is perceived as a gain. Economist Richard Thaler provides a helpful term sunk costs.
6. Modify goals. Schwartz points out that later one uses the consequences of their choice to modify their goals, the importance assigned to them, and the way future possibilities are evaluated.

Why we suffer

Schwartz integrates various psychological models for happiness showing how the problem of choice can be addressed by different strategies. What is important to note is that each of these strategies comes with its own bundle of psychological complication.

• Choice and Happiness. Schwartz discusses the significance of common research methods that utilize a Happiness Scale. He sides with the opinion of psychologists David Myers and Robert Lane. who independently conclude that the current abundance of choice often leads to depression and feelings of loneliness. Schwartz draws particular attention to Lane’s assertion that Americans are paying for increased affluence and freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of community. What was once given by family, neighborhood and workplace now must be achieved and actively cultivated on an individual basis. The social fabric is no longer a birthright but has become a series of deliberated and demanding choices.
• Freedom or Commitment. Schwartz connects this issue to economist Albert Hirschman’s research into how populations respond to unhappiness: they can exit the situation, or they can protest and voice their concerns. While free-market governments give citizens the right to express their displeasure by exit, as in switching brands, Schwarts maintains that social relations are different. Instead, we usually give voice to displeasure, hoping to project influence on the situation.
• Second-Order Decisions. Law professor Cass Sunstein uses the term “second-order decisions” for decisions that follow a rule. Having the discipline to live “by the rules” eliminates countless troublesome choices in one’s daily life. Schwartz shows that these second-order decisions can be divided into general categories of effectiveness for different situations: presumptions, standards, and cultural codes. Each of these methods are useful ways people use to parse the vast array of choices they confront.
• Missed Opportunities. Schwartz finds that when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity’s potential. Schwartz maintains that one of the downsides of making trade-offs is it alters how we feel about the decisions we face; afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision. While psychologists have known for years about the harmful effects of negative emotion on decision making, Schwartz points to recent evidence showing how positive emotion has the opposite effect: in general, subjects are inclined to consider more possibilities when they are feeling happy.

Or summarized in a different way, we have the following factors:

• Regret and anticipated regret
• Opportunity costs
• Escalation of expectations
• Self-blame

You can extract this information from the videos located at the beginning of the post, which I highly recommend to preview.

Conclusions

I started this post by saying that the concepts behind The Paradox of Choice are similar to those found within the communist doctrines. I cannot remember much of the time when my home country was under communist regime but I’ve heard a lot of stories about what was back then. Although people had less choice and very often they had been forced to do things against their will, in general, they were a lot happier. This fits quite nicely with what Schwartz said at some point in his lecture: people usually find themselves being happier in the past, perhaps because of the lack of choice (paraphrased). I believe it is a personal thing but that idea is something I find true in many different ways.

Another example, I guess, of the The Paradox of Choice is mirrored by the folks at 37signals, which work I find quite fascinating and interesting to follow. Here follows a few snippets from their book Getting Real which refer to the concepts why less is usually more:

Conventional wisdom says that to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have four features, you need five (or 15, or 25). If they’re spending x, you need to spend xx. If they have 20, you need 30…

…The answer is less. Do less than your competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to everyone else. Instead of oneupping, try one-downing. Instead of outdoing, try underdoing…

We’ll cover the concept of less throughout this book, but for starters, less means:

• Less features
• Less options/preferences
• Less people and corporate structure
• Less meetings and abstractions
• Less promises

(Getting Real: Build Less)

Follow the videos and the research and make up your own mind about what makes you happier: Less or More.

I’ve been talking a lot about the creative process lately. The reason for this is very simple. Creativity is important, especially today when only a dozen take full advantage of it. Creativity is not a talent, neither it is a skill. You are not born with it but it is something that you cultivate and develop over time. This post will hopefully shed some light on how to develop your creative mind.

The following list was extracted from an article located over here. I’ve added a short summary and my own interpretations.

1. Relax, and create ideas each day.

   The more your practice your creative mind the better it will become. It is like training a muscle. The relaxation part is also very important. Speaking from my personal experience, the best things I’ve done happened in a state of complete relaxation away from problems. I call this state of the mind hackmode.

2. Expand your possibility box.

   The more you see/experience the more options you will have to mix and match. The creative process is all about coming with interesting combinations.

3. Notate everything.

   Uou have to free up space in your brain for newer stuff. Write down all your thoughts, otherwise you will forget them.

4. Change your location.

   I am going to add change everything. Change is good. Very good! Don’t be afraid to change things.

5. Create fast brainstorming sessions.

   Brainstorming is a powerful tool. How many times you’ve come home packed with ideas after talking with your friends. This is a form of brainstorming. This is the reason why going to events is an excellent opportunity to not only brainstorm but also to introduce some change (see the previous point).

6. Stop creating rules where rules do not exist.

   Question everything! Don’t be a braindead. We can think for ourselves.

7. Eliminate some of your fears.

   Don’t be afraid to do what you want to do. Don’t be afraid to share your discoveries. Don’t be afraid of failure. It is a part of the process and the sooner your realize it the better.

8. Find new ways of doing something.

   There are always ways to do things differently. Find them!

9. Stop trying to analyze and create at the same time.

   Too much analyzing has never brought any good to anyone. As soon as your start analyzing the creative process is over. Separate these two processes as they never work at the same time. First create the idea, then analyze it.

10. Don’t worry about who gets the credit.

    Your ego is evil! Spend time to figure out how the idea will work rather then who gets the credit.

11. When you do work with a team (art director, client, advertiser, etc.), build on each other’s ideas.

    Be open to the people you work with as that will enable the creative process.

Make sure that you go through the article pointed above as that will give you further insights that could come very useful.

Let’s face it, we are all professionals here, so presenting ourselves is key when meeting clients and conducting business. If you have coded up some amazing projects, what’s the best way to present them to potential clients or buyers?, or even as a way to say hey, I know what I’m doing, hire me!. Abhinav Dapke has designed a concept business card which seems to be heading in the right direction.

The card works by having a flap on the rear of the card and can be used to attach different memory sizes, and a pair of slits can be used for the USB adapter. Now before you all post a comment and say this isn’t usable Daniel… it’s a glimpse of what the future might be. From a hacking perspective, you could include a whole series of tools, papers and code on the business card and have a OS in the pocket. Forget portable apps, have a portable platform.

We all spend a considerable amount of time in front of a computer screen, some more than others, which makes me wonder how everyone organises their workspace.

For me, minimalism is key; I cannot work in a cluttered environment. With this factor in mind, Lacie seemed to have read my mind and developed a ultra-minimalist disk drive, design by Neil Poulton. Adding to this, Milk in Denmark have designed a computer table which would aide the cluttered mess we often seem to adopt with computers.

How does your workspace look?