Caveman Hardcore Inventing

"Hardcore Inventing" written by Robert Yonover, the inventor of RescueStreamer now deployed in all navies and air forces of the world, contains extremely inspiring ideas for entrepreneurial innovators.

After Peter Drucker's "Innovation and Entrepreneurship," we all know entrepreneurial innovation must be "simple".

How simple?

According to the authors, it should be ape-level, caveman-level simple.

In their primitive conditions, our primitive ancestors innovated "quickly" as their survival depended on it. They used only "materials at hand" and scavenge these resources by "carefully observ[ing] [their] surroundings".

Lack Of Imagination -- Neuroticism Declines with Age

Actually I don't really know "Neuroticism " even as an English word. I just take it to mean a combination of nervousness, paranoia and superstition.

I stumbled upon the Big Five of Personality- OCEAN : Openness to experience, Conscientiousness Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism, and had to look up on its technical definition.

Wikipedia defines it as

Neuroticism: (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident). The tendency to experience unpleasant emotions easily, such as anger, anxiety, depression, and vulnerability. Neuroticism also refers to the degree of emotional stability and impulse control and is sometimes referred to by its low pole, "emotional stability".

I read around on the web and found some articles claim that neuroticism declines with one's age.

Even Wikipedia claims in one article that

Males however, tend to gradually decrease in Neuroticism from childhood to adolescence into adulthood.

I don't want to call this lack of imagination or perspective.

I prefer to call this lack of experience or lack of memory/recall.

Haven't they seen old people, both genders, become more afraid of falls, strangers, loud noises, various real or imaginary ailments as they grow old?

Entrepreneurship is not a silver bullet for the economy. Technology is not a silver bullet for the productivity ...

Entrepreneurship is not a silver bullet for the economy.

Technology is not a silver bullet for the productivity of the economy.

You are right.



Henry Ford — 'Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.'

Use Of Imagination --- Fast Track Slow Lane

Space shuttles explode. Once in a while.
















Bridges collapse. Once in a while.




Trains go slow. Once in a while.

Why?

Causes could be

A
B
C
Something Else

Lack Of Imagination -- Robots and Human Pets

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says humans will be robots' pets


When Robots Rule the World

But why would a robot want to have a pet? And if it did want one, why would it choose a human? We would just be way too high maintenance, ...

No other species on this planet keeps a creature from another species as a pet. When was the last time you saw a giraffe taking a tortoise for a walk? Or a gorilla keeping a white mouse for companionship?

I suspect Mr Wozniak has lost the plot somehow. ...  "I got this idea (about robots taking over) a few years ago, and so I started feeding my dog fillet steak and chicken every night because 'do unto others'."

Now this really is a bit rich, coming from a man whose company treats many of its Asian workers with scant regard. If Mr Wozniak were a "do unto others" person, he would surely make sure that the workers in, for example, the factories that manufacture Apple products in China were treated more humanely.

Lack of Imagination --- Beating Computers and Software

The New Silk Road,  Hardly an oasis, Kazakhstan turns geography to advantage as China builds a “New Silk Road”
Nov 15th 2014

As Chinese manufacturers move inland, getting their products to European markets has become more complicated. The journey back to the coast and halfway around the world by sea takes up to 60 days—an eternity for the latest iPads and other “fast fashion” products. Kazakhstan offers a backdoor route. Trains from Chongqing in south-west China to Duisburg in Germany, 10,800 kilometres (6,700 miles) via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Poland, supposedly take just 14 days.

Computers will think and decide like this:

days_on_route_1 = 60
days_on_route_2 = 14

if days_on_route_2 < days_on_route_1
    select(days_on_route_2)
else
    select(days_on_route_1)

Humans, especially those well-versed in Chinese culture, on the other hand, may have read Sun Tzu and they may know better.

Decisive Quick-Witted Re-framing

Monkey leaps on a croc posing as a stone in the river

VANARINDA-JATAKA

"Whoso, O monkey-king, like you, combines
Truth, foresight, fixed resolve, and fearlessness,
Shall see his routed foemen turn and flee."

Reference

The Jataka, Volume I, tr. by Robert Chalmers, [1895], at sacred-texts.com
THE JATAKA OR STORIES OF THE BUDDHA'S FORMER BIRTHS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE PALI BY VARIOUS HANDS
UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF PROFESSOR E. B. COWELL.

Modern communists and a perspective

Modern communists sounded super-foolish this way.

At some times in South-East Asia, communism was a bit fashionable.

Communism in Myanmar context meant "dumb," "misguided," "impatient," "impractical," and "cruel."

But then Myanmar was a "socialist" "one-party" country too and the national doctrine was that without its extremes and cruelty, communism can become "socialism" and that that brand of "socialism" was a cure-for-all! (Drum roll, or trumpets depending on the type of theatre you are in.)

Then Burmese author, U Aung Thin questioned in one of his literary criticism books: Lenin may have been concerned more with raising the poor than with bringing down the rich. So, Myanmar Commies, are you driven just to destroy the rich and the educated? What else do you have to say and do for raising the poor and the disadvantaged?

Mao and a perspective

In those days in South-East Asia, being a communist was a bit fashionable.

When you said you were a commie in those times, people may think you were misguided but they still allowed that you were idealist and you sought justice and the general good.

At that time, Mr Mao was rather eager to export his revolutions to near-by countries, including ours. 

Then Burmese author, U Thein Pe Myint wrote in the papers how hostile Mao was to Myanmar. It shook us. We simply could not understand why he would harbour such hostility to a country like ours --- peaceful, cowardly and rather in self-isolation.

If you cannot be nice to a docile, cowardly, subservient country, you must be truly out of control. Nero style.

Freud and a perspective

Freud sounded super-foolish this way.

He hypothesized that couples in the Victorian age had psychological troubles because their puritanical upbringing made them despise or fear sex.

Then Burmese author, Pi Moe Nin argued that if it was so, those Victorian parents must have been more persuasive and convincing than Lord Buddha Himself. Buddha taught and implored people to abstain from even sexual thoughts, and failed miserably. But these parents had succeeded in just one generation!


Maybe Sir Freud forgot logic and clear think during the hypothesis-formulation stage of his research.

Speed and Slow and Growth --- Part 2

In studies or in life, you can be 'slow' or 'fast.' Speed in itself is never a problem. Both slow and fast types can achieve good results in life.

Good Fast People

Feynman was very fast. Once his mentor, Wheeler said, "Yesterday, Feynman convinced me that it went backwards. Today, he's convinced me equally well that it goes around the other way. I don't know what he'll convince me of tomorrow!"(source)

Traders are very fast, making dozens of decisions per minute.
Poker players are very fast too.
Fencers, boxers, tennis players are very fast too.

Good Slow People

Warren Buffet was very slow. His recommendation is just to make 20 or fewer bets per life.Warren Buffet has often said, "I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only twenty slots in it so that you had twenty punches - representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you'd punched through the card, you couldn't make any more investments at all. Under those rules, you'd really think carefully about what you did, and you'd be forced to load up on what you'd really thought about. So you'd do so much better." (source)

Kazuo Inamori was very slow. It took him and 5 engineers and more for about 6 months to start KDDI, Japan's second-largest telecommunication services provider.

Lou Gerstner was very slow. In  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? , he took about a year to come up with a turnaround strategy for IBM.

Sir General William Slim was slow. It took him rounds of consultation to do a "Defeat Into Victory" in Myanmar against the Japanese.

Speed and Slow and Growth --- Part 1

Try and appreciate the Yoda-speak. Sometimes, it contains the best solution to your "speed" or "slow" problem, in studies or in life.

A StraitsTimes forum post said:

 "the majority of the 4,000 Singapore citizens who took part in an Our Singapore Conversation exercise in January were prepared to trade off economic growth for a slower pace of life"

1. Einstein, Niels Bohr, Leonardo da Vinci etc were slow, and good.
   Feynman was fast, and good too.
   
   
2. Bruce Lee was young and fast, and good.
   Morihei Ueshiba(Aikido founder) was old and fast, and good too.
   
   
3. Steve Jobs was extremely slow and late and good.
   Instagram, Facebook are fast and good too.
   
   
4. Toyota was slow and fast and outran all US car makers.
   F1 racing teams are fast.
   The Manhattan Project was fast.
   Samsung is "sashimi" fast and outran Nokia.
   
   
5.  Slack by Tom DeMarco maintains that you don't think faster because you put more pressure on your brains.
   However, Feynman seemed to think faster under pressure.
   
   

Real Fun Begins -- The Customers -- Part 1

Learning is easy, you are just window-shopping what others are up to and consuming what you fancy.  Producing is different, there you have to make some effort and what you produce may not have any taker. Endowed with an almost inexhaustible amount of laziness, our team never suffers from solutions that then need to go looking for problems.

Maybe Relentless, maybe some other books on Japanese marketing. It says that a small market segment you've found in your locale, most likely exist in other parts of the Globe as well.

Guy Kawaski, maybe in The Art of the Start,  keeps saying that the customer of One is a lot better than 100 market research reports!

Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, a Nobel Peace Prize winning microfinance organization and community development bank, was once asked in an entrepreneurial program by an aspiring social entrepreneur, about where to begin with her rather ambitious project. He replied that his gradually-big project began with just "one woman who was trying to escape from loan sharks"!

I, by instincts and by hard-won experience, know  that if one person truly enjoys your snacks, they stand a very good chance of doing well town-wide, then region-wide and so on.

This is exciting and fun! I've got more than one customer!

Of course, I won't be able to satisfy even this one customer completely, right now. ( My resources will have to grow in response. They will.)

But, who, which company  has satisfied you completely? Google? Apple?

This is exciting and fun!

Pandora's Curse, Pandoru's Dice, False Hopes and True Hopes

Pandora's Curse

This Greek king was immoral, corrupt, sadistic and incompetent. A king from one neighboring country was waging a punitive expedition against him. The king had no chance since his own people were reluctant to fight for him, since his wise ministers had been demoted or worse, and since his war-hero generals had been banished or worse.

Yet, the king was not prepared to give up. He still had Pandora's Box, with all its troubles and its supposedly redeeming Hope!

He still hoped that by invoking national honor and patriotic fervor of hist people to a frenzy, he could still face down this foreign invasion.

False Hope had blinded him to the reality.

Pandoru's Dice

Pandora had four younger sisters : Pandore, Pandori, Pandoro, Pandoru. Maybe their parents were so fond of English vowels A,E,I,O,U.

Now Pandoru was aghast about the king. What was she to do about people hoping against hope?

She could not intervene in human affairs as duex de machina. She could not save others, only their kamma can save them. She was a Buddhist. Yet she could not stand by while innocent people suffer for some misguided king's delusions.

What was she to do? Luckily for humanity, she recalled her grandpa's dice. Originally, the divine dice had six sides with dots numbering 1 to 6 like today's dice but eyes for the dots instead. It was rather large, almost the size of a human head.

Pandoru gave the dice to the king in a dream. When the king woke up in the morning, he saw it at the foot of his bed.

Pandoru was the Goddess of Maths, Marketing and Mass Communications. So she calculated by Probability Theory how many eyes at the least and at the most the king will see. This king was unlucky, he saw the least number of dots and the second least number of sides: 1 dot on one side and 2 dots on the other side.

The first dot/eye showed him his troops perishing in battle, his towns being burned down and him and his family members being sent to torture chambers. He became sober at once.

The second eye showed him another possibility: he was committing suicide after all his wives and children had been killed and captured.

The third eye showed him recalling his banished ministers and generals, taking their advice, pledging to his people to rule fairly after the war, and his people fighting the enemy to a stalemate at great difficulties. He also saw some of his re-instated ministers negotiating a peace treaty with the enemy, giving away some of his kingdom but still keeping him in power. He became hopeful again.
The more he played with the dice, the more possibilities he saw.

Pandoru had brought True Hope to mankind for the first time!

Cao Cao's Assurance

Cao Cao was a famous warlod during the Three Kingdoms Period in Chinese history. At one time, hist troops were camping uneasily, there were alarms throughout the day and the soldiers were too fearful to sleep as the night came.

Cao Cao told them

1. that he knew there were enemy troops nearby far outnumbering them
2. that they had seen him outwitted the enemy many times before in similar situations
3. that they must "put their hearts at peace and have a good night's sleep" for the coming battles

This is the voice of True Hope.

This how Andrew Carnegie added meters to his rather diminutive stature.

This is how I intend to sell my vision, my ideas, my products.

Multi-polar Disorder and Steve Jobs

Keynes, a British economist who pioneered modern macroeconomics, when accused of being a flip flop, retorted, "When facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

Konosuke Matsushita, Panasonic founder, quoted an ancient Japanese saying, "The sage changes his mind at least three times a day."

Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, in a recent BusinessWeek interview, said that Jobs was sold on one direction in one moment and a nano second later, sold on in a totally opposite direction. At first, Cook thought of this as "strange." Gradually, though, he came to see it as a rare gift and a talent. He wished his fellow CEO's and national leaders could be as flexible of thoughts as Jobs was.

Contrast them with Hitler. When told of Russia's superior monthly tank production statistics, Hitler accused his cabinet of sabotaging his war efforts.

Bipolar is a well known disorder, defined here. Multipolar disorder is a term I coined just now.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” says F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Bohr also wonders at our ability to hold paradoxical views in our mind at the same time, a la Yin and Yang style.

What if we can hold more than 2 views?

What if, like Feynman's scientists, we subscribe to 6 or 7 perspectives at the same time?

Fu Mingtain: Expand Your Focus to Strengths

Everyone is talking about Fu Mingtain these days in Singapore. What can she teach your kids?

Here are a few good things various people have talked about her.

1. She's tough.
2. Never say die.
3. She's a fighter, warrior.
4.“She has excellent fighting spirit and mental strength. She really deserves the gold medal,” said Singapore’s chef-de-mission, Dr Tan Eng Liang.

So, you can ask your kid to be tough, to never say die, to keep fighting against heavy odds, to be strong etc.
If your kid agrees, then you can stop reading this post right now.
If, the other hand, your kid hesitates, then please read on.

I am writing in my own words what I've read in the Straits Times.
She noticed that the home crowd cheered the other player and booed her.
Instead of taking this as intimidation, she interpreted this as more pressure piling upon her opponent.

Reframing! A more helpful point of view! A better perspective! (CBT! REBT! NLP! Don't worry about this alphabetic soup: concepts matter, terms don't.)
And therefore, more optimism, more courage.

The footballers who choke, collapse under pressure/expectations ...
Kids who get stomach upsets, emotional upsets near critical exams ...

They may not be able to toughen up in days, but they may be able to conjure up a nicer point of view in hours and get more courage in time.

Even the famous general US ("unconditional surrender") Grant overcame his fear with a spin on his perspective. More about this later.

I can't turn a chicken kid into an eagle in months. But I can help a chicken kid fly above eagles in hours. It's easy, isn't it? If I let it fly in a plane. (How about Cao Cao, Song Jiang, Mao, any under dog in history?)

A perspective is worth 80 IQ points, right?

November 23, 2011