Kevin Vogelsang

I’m sick today.  I’m thankful this doesn’t happen often.

We tend to assume the body is naturally healthy.  Good health is a gift.

When physical symptoms come, mental symptoms come along as well.  Intellectual efficiency is reduced.  Clarity of thought is dulled.  We can’t do the things we normally do.

The connection between body and mind is a strong reminder that it’s a bit strange to think of them as two separate pieces.

-Kevin
8.23.2010

I’ve been reading Atlas Shrugged for the last few months, and I’m finally halfway through.  The book talks a lot about the purpose, use, and meaning of money.  While reading this, I realized that most people don’t really understand money at all. Since this is a topic others have written about, I’ll defer to them.

Marc Fleury, founder of JBoss (and a very interesting character), has a good post about what money is and how it functions: The Financial Crisis for Dummies: Money. Marc is a very intelligent guy and the post has a lot of good points for understanding money.  I’ve included an excerpt below:

Money, it took me 37 years to make a bunch of it and it took me 40 to “get it”. In fact I am not sure I still completely “get” money. I mean that in the theoretical sense. After researching a bit I came to the conclusion that very few people actually understand money the way it works today. I previously discussed this here.

A definition of money
The first attribute of money is as a medium of exchange to make an economy churn. It is very much the oil in the economic engine. The meeting of neeeds is a rare occurence in a economy, but with the intermediation of money, from good to money to good, you can match disparate peoples, specialization occurs because money exists. Without money there is no economy but a limited barter economy. It also serves as a store of value. “Going to cash” is what everyone does when the markets go down because cash doesn’t lose its numerical face value. This leads to the liquidity preference that Keynes talks about. Finally, in a capitalist system a fiat money will be a bearer of interests. Keep that in mind. You can think of the “risk free” interest paid by the US treasuries on money. There are other properties of money that the litterature identifies (fungible, transferable, durable).

Types of money
Anything can serve as a money as long as it has the properties above. Historically gold has played a huge role as a money. As “out there” examples there is this tribe that used to swap shells in the sea as a money. Ownership of the shells meant money. Don’t laugh, we do exactly the same, but instead of sea-shells we use electronic records in computers. Any good history of money will give insights that are valuable into the nature of money but here is a short version: from gold to gold certificates. It is bulky to transport gold and prone to be stolen. Why not exchange the certificates of ownership of gold like the tribes exchanged certificates of ownership of seashells? Then the paper became as good as gold (bretton-woods in a sea-shell) then why not just use the paper and do away with the gold? and if the paper is good why not use binary representation of the paper in computers? That is where we are today, completely virtual instances of “fiat” government money existing only in computers and our imaginations, just like shells in the sea.

Debt is money and vice-versa
All money is a debt. When you give a good to someone and they give you a piece of paper in return, what the piece of paper says is that someone in the economy owes you an equivalent value of goods. Period. Reread this until you get it. So you have a piece of paper that can be redeemed at any time, you have a instant debt. Money is a debt on future production of the economy. US bills say that this “legal tender for all debts private and public”. It is enforced by law. All money is debt.
Vice-versa when someone emits a debt instrument, they are effectively emitting money. That money is in circulation in the economy, buys stuff. Debt is money.

Check out the whole post.

-Kevin
8.20.2010

Generally Negotiation is conceived as the art of getting what you want in a deal and getting all that you can: a better discount, higher prices, competing down the bid.

I’m not sure what real “negotiators” say about this stuff, but I don’t think “getting all that you can” is always the best approach–particularly when there is an ongoing relationship involved.  Take for instance, a tenant’s relationship with the landlord.  Perhaps as a company looking for real estate, you are able to find a great deal because the market is bad and the Landlord needs the cash quickly.  However, due to the situation, the Landlord is left grumbling about how bad a deal he got.  This is likely to come back on you somehow.

For whatever reason, if you somehow make a deal that actually isn’t good for the other party, you may find trouble.

People need to look out for their own interests, and we should expect each other to do so.  However, what I’m saying doesn’t contradict this.

-Kevin
8.19.2010

Legacy is a powerful force in our lives.  Whether we’re conscious of it or not, Legacy guides our most important actions and, at the same time, is our most important actions.

When we come to the end of the line, we want something to live on past us: our work, our children, something.  One of my favorite quotes capturing this comes from one of Chuck Palahniuk’s novels:

The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

One of the hardest things for someone is realizing that their Legacy won’t be completed.

-Kevin
8.18.2010

On step at a time.

That is my mantra for today.  And the rest of this week.  And the week after that.

Reminds me of a friend of mine, a middle-aged man from Lebanon.  He always says, “How do you think Alexander the Great conquered his empire?” He would then pause and say, “one step at a time.”

I suppose it must be true.  However, it’s funny to imagine Alexander waking up, stretching his arms with a yawn, and saying, “oh, another day, another small piece of the world to conquer.”

-Kevin
8.16.2010

Image by Extra Medium via Flickr

I approximated that each of us had likely already met the second-best girl we would see in our entire young-adult lives.

This was a claim made one night in college by my friend Bryan Hernandez.  “Is this true?”, we said.  For some reason, there was something depressing about this (for many of us.) I think largely because it meant, to some degree, our future was already decided for us.

Decisions are tough–especially when you have to choose an option, hope that it’s right, and give up surveying all the other options.  And choosing who to marry is arguably one of the most important decisions we’ll make in our lives. So naturally, one should come up with a mathematical strategy to make the best decision! (well maybe…..)

So why did Bryan make this claim?  Here’s what he says in his post on the topic, Modeling the Marriage Decision:

I’ll agree it’s a pretty bold claim, but I had reason.  That week in my Probability and Random Variables class, one of my all-time favorites, we had been studying an area of probability known as Sequential Decision Problems.  This class of problems concerns itself with applying classical probabi

lity theory to questions regarding how to make probabilistically optimal decisions in a sequence of random events.

Here’s the problem Bryan had studied that is analagous if you make some assumptions:

“You are in need of a secretary and only have time to interview N.  You are able to rank the relative quality of each after interviewing her.  At the end of the interview you must either reject the applicant without the ability of accepting him later, or accept him without the ability to continue interviewing the remaining applicants.  What is the strategy that maximizes the probability of selecting the best candidate out of all N?”

Image via Wikipedia

Of course, this isn’t completely how it works.  But go with it.

To make the optimal decision, there is an algorithm you can follow to get the best possible algorithm.  First, estimate how many potential partners you will potentially meet (“N”) during your decision period and apply the following algorithm:

“Interview the first N/e applicants and reject them all.  Select the next applicant that is better than the best out of that first group.”

For a more in depth coverage of this issue, check out Bryan’s full post on the topic: Modeling the Marriage Decision.

Nerds are funny.

-Kevin
8.13.2010

Over the past week or so I’ve written about why it’s important to find your passion and gain expertise.

Blogging can help you with these, and more.

Blogging is an awesome thing.

If you blog consistently, you’ll blog about what’s on your mind.  And soon enough, you will start to understand your natural patterns of thought and what you want to share.  This says a lot about you and helps to build self-awareness.

You’ll talk about things you know.  People will challenge you and ask you questions.  This will cause you to learn more.

People will learn from you.  People will appreciate your experience and the shared experiences between you.

People will also learn about you.  It’s strange how little we know about what is on each other’s minds and what our interests are, even our close friends that live next door to us.  Our minds are in a constant state of flux.  It’s hard to keep up with.  (Ever written something and looked back at it even a few months later?  It almost always gets the response, “Did I write that?  What was I thinking?”)

Blogging gives you an audience to write to.  Writing to people will require you to write clearly, and consequently, think more clearly.  Therefore, you’ll learn from writing.  One of my primary motivators to write is just to figure things out.  When I start writing about a topic, it leads me to unexpected ideas and conclusions.

It’ll give you an avenue to ask for help and share your goals.  And being very public about your goals is a very good idea.

It’ll also help you stay in touch with others and help them stay in touch with you.  You’re constantly offering people something to talk about with you.

When someone writes a comment, or just visits your page,  they provide you with positive feedback.  Your work has been noticed.  As you see your number of visitors slowly increase, you’ll want to keep doing it.  Like running, once you get in shape, once you get in a groove, you won’t want to give it up.

Starting a blog is easy. Just go to WordPress.com .

-Kevin
1.22.2010

I read a blog called the Frontal Cortex by Jonah Lehrer.  Jonah generally reviews neuroscience papers and provides commentary.

Today, Jonah had a post called the Personality Paradox that talks about the neuroscience behind personality.  Here’s an excerpt from the paper, an Australian study found in Biological Psychiatry, that Jonah reviews:

Participants’ scores on Harm Avoidance, Novelty Seeking, Reward Dependence, and Persistence were tested for association with 1,252,387 genetic markers. We also performed gene-based association tests and biological pathway analyses. No genetic variants that significantly contribute to personality variation were identified, while our sample provides over 90% power to detect variants that explain only 1% of the trait variance. This indicates that individual common genetic variants of this size or greater do not contribute to personality trait variation, which has important implications regarding the genetic architecture of personality and the evolutionary mechanisms by which heritable variation is maintained.

Jonah ends the post with this comment:

And this might be why the Australian study came up empty: We’re trying to find the genes for personality constructs that don’t exist. It’s not that people don’t have personalities, or that these personalities can’t be measured – it’s that we aren’t the same person in every situation, which is what all these “tests” implicitly assume. It turns out that Shakespeare had it right all along. Just look at Hamlet – the Danish prince wouldn’t fit neatly into the categories of Myers-Briggs. He’s brooding and melancholy in one scene, and then violent and impulsive in the next. But this doesn’t seem strange to the audience. Instead, the inconsistency of Hamlet seems all too human.

This is particularly interesting for me and those that have read my book 10 Powerful Personas.  The whole premise of the book is that people show a different face of their personality depending on the context; our personality has many faces (called personas).  More than that, these personas are memetic–they have meme-like qualities and are, therefore, heavily influenced by social forces and change over time.

The paper Jonah reviews seems to lend some credence to this premise, which I think many people find intuitive.  What are your thoughts on the topic?

Check out Jonah’s post.  (And then buy my  book )

-Kevin
8.9.2010

Image via Wikipedia

“I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky — my name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me.”–Muhammad Ali

Ali was an incredible physical athlete, but he was also an innovator of the sport.  He changed the way people fought.

Not only that, his charisma was strong enough that he changed the way people thought.  He was in the head of his opponents and his audience.  He was a champion that people wanted to see win.

He dominated through his feet, hands, and mind.

There are lessons here for any market, not just boxing.

-Kevin
8.6.2010

People love talking about leadership.  It’s quite a strange thing.

Some people say it’s clear that leaders are born.  Training helps smooth the edges, but you have a baseline leadership quotient that you can’t increase much.

Some people say it comes down to the right training.

There are many factors, and leaders seem to have some key characteristics.  But some are quite simple it would seem–not so different from what defines the dominance hierarchies in the animal kingdom.  When I met Julies Pieri, CEO of the Daily Grommet, not too long ago, she made the comment to a friend of mine, “oh, you’re a tall and deep-voiced guy.  Tall, deep-voiced guys always end up in leadership positions.”

Seems we should be aware of why we’re following our leader.  Maybe the reason isn’t very relevant.

-Kevin
8.5.2010