You are still you lyrics by Josh Groban

This represents how I feel today.

You walk past me,
I can feel your pain.
Time changes everything.
One truth always stays the same...
You're still you.
After all...
You're still you.

Unfair by Shel Silverstein

They don't allow pets in this apartment.
That's not decent, that's not fair.
They don't allow pets in this apartment.
They don't listen, they don't care.
I told them he's quiet and never does bark,
I told them he'd do all his stuff in the park,
I told them he's cuddly and friendly, and yet --
They won' allow pets.

Effects of parent's technology use on children

The NYTimes is running a series of articles on your brain on computers. Its recent article is about effects of parent's technology use on early childhood development.

Here is the link to the article.

From a research perspective, there is no consensus on this question. Although some researchers (e.g., Sherry Turkle from MIT) found evidence of feelings of hurt, competition, and jealously in kids. Other researchers say that smartphone and laptop use by parents may not necessary be such a bad thing. Their argument is these devices allow parents to be more physically present at home with children.

What is your household like when it comes to technology use?

The importance of imagination

Here is part of J.K. Rowling's 2008 Harvard Commencement Speech that I really like:

"If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."

Delivering happiness: A Zappos' way

CBS News recently ran a story and a vdo interview of Tony Hsieh (Zappos' CEO). Here is the link to the article.

The bottom line is Zappos focuses on delivering happiness to customers, employees, and hopefully investors. Can they actually do that? Apparently so. I am an occasional Zappos' customer. I always had a pleasant experience with Zappos when I called their customer service. Zappos does not believe in outsourcing its call center. The call center is in Las Vegas. It does not have a script to talk to customers either. It also does not have time limit on customer calls.

The question is can every company follows this practice? Tony Hsieh thinks so. He has a book out this year. Here is the link to the book sold on amazon.com.

BP oil spill: Another black swan event

Another day, another news coverage on the catastrophic oil spill in the gulf. I am sure that we (U.S. and the rest of the world) will have to endure the consequences of this event in many years to come. Today, the Sunday Times printed an article that discusses risk management, regulatory policies and how they influence for-profit organization's decision making. Here is the link to the article.

The bottom line is the BP oil spill falls under "the black swan event" that can be explained by the black swan theory". Two underlying characteristics of a black swan event are: (1) an event is rare, hard to predict, and has high (negative) impacts, and, as a result, it gets to one of our human flaws in thinking and acting on an event. In other words, we, individually and collectively, tend to brush this kind of events aside and underestimate its likelihood of happening. In this case, a regulatory policy of capping an oil company's liability at $75 million for a rig spill increases the potential damage. That is, it reinforces companies to play down risks and potential damages and encourages them to act in their own self-interest towards profit maximization.

Are we creating systems that are too complex for us to make sense of?

Humanism movement in medical education

I read a piece in the NYTimes today titled "Bring Doctors to the Dying Patient's Bedside". I applauded this movement that emphasize the human side of medical treatments and cares. We are all humans. Doctors are humans with medical expertise. Patients are humans with expertise on their illness, symptoms, etc. It is very nice to hear that they have the white coat ceremony in which first-year medical students pledge to provide compassionate care.

Lester Z. Lieberman, founding chairman of the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey said that "we are hoping to gain some leverage with these young doctors, so that they go out and practice and treat their patients as human beings and press their colleagues to do the same."

Parallel to programs in medical schools, there is progress in the science of humanism as well. Dr. David T. Stern, vice chair of professionalism at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York said "what makes a difference is that we now have ways to measure professional behavior."

"While identifying professionalism, compassion, and patient-centered behavior was once an I-know-it-when-I-see-it-endeaver, deans and faculty can now weigh actual indicators of humanism on evaluations."

Here is the link to the article