I hate numbers! They’re confusing, hard to keep track of and make my eyes water if I look at them too long. Ugh!
Nevertheless, people insist on throwing them around. They like to talk about them, crunch them, live and die by them, put lots of them in PowerPoint slides and generally find ways to torture me with them.
But I’ve found a way to fight back! I beat them at their own game. How do I do it? I cheat. Hah! There’s really no reason to be oppressed by numbers if you can find simple ways to work around them. In fact, you can win the numbers game if you simply refuse to play it fairly. With that in mind, here’s a few of my favorite math hacks.
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Some time ago, I wrote a post about the bureaucracy myth. My point was that whenever a company starts to have problems, the blame tends to be laid unfairly on “bureaucrats” rather than on management.
I got passionate responses, some in the comments section, but especially on social media.
Some were supportive, others derisive, but I still stand by the original point that blaming bureaucrats for systemic problems is a cop-out. One comment by a former government bureaucrat, however, helped me to see the problem in a new light. The reason that “bureaucrats” tend to be nameless and faceless is because they are, in reality, ourselves.
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Some people are dishonest, some are just plain stupid and lots write articles and provide commentary. Inevitably there’s going to be some intersection between the three sets.
However, since media charlatans often come with impressive titles, adoring fans and fast facts, it’s easy to get taken in. We simply can’t check every assertion that’s thrown at us.
Nevertheless, even the most accomplished frauds leave behind telltale signs. They use rhetorical devices that give them away and, with a little foreknowledge, are not hard to spot. With that in mind, here’s my guide to the most common modus operandi employed by fools and liars. When you see them coming, be on your guard!
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Some time ago, Mathew Ingram of Gigaom asked in a post why it is that the NY times and other newspapers don’t create new innovations, like daily deals .
The question inspired an impressive variety of comments, from those who denounced newspapers as “old fashioned” and “change averse” to those who pointed out that a newspaper’s primary mission is journalistic.
Whatever your sentiments about newspapers, clearly the problem isn’t exclusive to them. Why didn’t Yahoo invent the search engine? Why can’t Google get social media right? In other words, why do exciting innovations tend to come from the edge rather than from the center? The answer has a lot more to do with ecologies than individuals.
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The ancient fable of the blind men and an elephant has served as a source of both caution and inspiration across cultures and millennia.
In various versions, each blind man touches only part of the elephant and arrives at a different conclusion.
One feels the tusk and believes an elephant is like a spear; another the side and perceives a wall. A third, who grabs the tail, believes it to be like a rope and so on. I can’t think of a better description of digital marketing today.
Ask just about anybody and they will say “I get it” and then explain one aspect or the other. They’re often quite knowledgeable and informed until you move the discussion an inch to the left or the right. Then they become babbling idiots. Obviously, it can’t go on this way.
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We all love Carrie Bradshaw. And why not? She’s beautiful, charming, witty and intelligent. She lives glamorously, goes to cool parties, meets fascinating people and provides insightful social commentary.
Yet her story is not just about sex. As the title implies, at least half of it is the city. If Carrie lived in rural Kentucky rather than Manhattan, we wouldn’t admire her, but consider her lifestyle “trailer trash.”
Many would attribute this strange dichotomy to bias and perhaps there’s some truth to that. However, there’s a growing body of evidence that cities and the social activity that they catalyze are the key to our future. Even with our ability to connect across great distances, it is our local environment that spurs innovation.
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Last September, Chris Anderson of Wired magazine proclaimed that The Web Is Dead. Ten months later, events have shown that he couldn’t have been more wrong.
That’s not because the Web is still alive and kicking. To be fair, Mr. Anderson never argued that it would collapse, just that it would become irrelevant. That hasn’t happened and it’s looking less and less likely that it will.
In fact, thanks to the Web’s amazing ability to evolve, we’re soon going to see more innovation than we have in a long while. In a few short years, the web will be more mobile, interconnected, data rich and visually exciting than anything we’ve had before.
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“Keep it simple, stupid” is often repeated and invariably good advice. Nevertheless, it’s easier said than done. The truth is that simplicity is anything but simple.
Despite our best efforts, things seem to get complicated all by themselves. That’s not because we want it that way, but it’s the way the world works and it’s not going to get any easier.
Digital technology is undoubtedly making our world more complex. More powerful computers are ushering in an era of Big Data, while increased connectivity means that everything interacts with everything else, adding further complication. If we want clarity and simplicity, we need more than just platitudes.
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LinkedIn floats at nearly $10 billion? Facebook valued at nearly $100 billion! Is this a bubble or what?
Probably not. While the numbers are eye-popping, they aren’t irrational (which doesn’t necessarily mean that the valuations will be proved right, just that you don’t need to be crazy or stupid to buy into them).
And that’s what’s important. A bubble is a reflexive phenomenon, where sentiment runs away with itself. Investors bid up assets only because they are rising, with the belief that they’ll always be able to sell to someone dumber than they are. As we’ll see, that’s not what’s going on now and, in fact, all that money sloshing around is a very good thing.
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Are we getting smarter or dumber? That’s a question that goes back at least 2000 years to the time of Plato.
The debate erupted again recently, incited by a column from NY Times editor Bill Keller and a Wired article by Nicholas Carr, both of which suggested that the Internet is deteriorating our mental capacity.
Both men are serious people, who write well and thoughtfully. They give voice to something we all feel. From senior citizens at the Apple store to high-tech hippies collecting music on vinyl, we all take comfort in the past while we parse the future. However, the evidence is clear: Technology makes us smarter in meaningful ways.
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