Lost in translation
I love playing around with Google Translate – mostly to look at web sites or read blogs that are written in other languages. I’m also a big cycling fan and after this year’s Tour I decided to write to the German cyclist Jan Ullrich – one of my favorite riders and the third place finisher in this year’s contest. I wrote my note in English but also translated it into German using Google. I had forgotten about this note until a few days ago when I actually received a note back from Jan (I’m actually pretty sure it was really from him – it certainly made my day!). I translated it back to English also using Google, but decided that it was too important to leave to chance, so I forwarded it to a German friend of mine in Frankfurt for a second opinion. Turns out Google did a pretty nice job translating his response, but was apparently too literal in translating my original note. I found it pretty amusing and thought I would repeat it here – a good lesson in lexical vs. conceptual meaning. …
August 22, 2005· 2 min read
Putting a stake in the ground
Back from vacation and quite refreshed . . . One of the things we did in Maine was visit the LL Bean outlet (ok . . . we’re tourists . . .). Going there provided an example of making your threats real – in this case a positive one. LL Bean is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. No exceptions. They are so serious about this that they actually don’t have locks on the doors to their store. Pretty powerful example of putting a stake in the ground about something they believe strongly in.
August 22, 2005· 1 min read
More thoughts on Occam’s Paradox
I’ve been re-reading my Occam’s Paradox post as well as the comments and trackbacks (which are excellent – please click through them if you have a minute). I fell a little short of really saying what I originally intended for the post, which was that I think that we have a tendency not only to make things more complicated than need be, but also to focus on too many things (and therefore the wrong ones). As a result we try to assimilate too much data to make decisions (not recognizing the massive diminishing returns on this effort) and try to pay attention to too many things. I wrote a post a while ago about trying to cram too much information into financial models that argued that more complex models are not necessarily better or more accurate. I’m realizing now that I’m connecting the dots here that this is exactly the type of behavior I’m talking about in Occam’s Paradox. [By the way, there’s an entire post to be written about how VC’s play into this in their decision making (how many customers do we need to talk with, how many models should we run, etc before we make an investment decision?) – but I don’t think I should go there in this post]. …
July 29, 2005· 2 min read
Occam’s Paradox
Remember Occam’s Razor? It’s the principle (that you probably learned in high school physics) that states that the simplest solution to a given problem is probably the best. I’ve been thinking recently about complexity in business and in life and think there’s a corollary to Occam’sRazor that perhaps should be called Occam’s Paradox – the propensity of humans to make things more complicated than they need to be. I don’t pretend to know why this is, but I notice it all the time (both in my own life and with other people). I guess it’s just easy to start down the road of dependency mapping (i.e., making everything you do a part of a larger matrix that has many interdependencies). I watch this tendency in the companies I work with as well. Lots of dependency mapping; lots of “if’s”, “but’s” and “its not that simple”. Now – I get that life and business are complicated. But I’m talking about how we react to that complexity. We have the choice to either drown in complexity or to cut through it, because although the challenges we face in life and business are clearly complex – the solution to those challenges generally are not (generally the difference is in recognizing what you control and what you don’t control and not wasting a whole lot of time on the latter – perhaps a subject for a future post). …
July 26, 2005· 2 min read
Cheese
Today is the 36th anniversary of the first moon landing (July 20, 1969). Moon’s almost full, so you’ll get a great look at it. Google put up a moon site recently – www.moon.google.com. Be sure to zoom all the way in .
July 20, 2005· 1 min read
TSA in action
i can’t tell you how much safer i’m feeling now. i’m writing this on a flight from denver to chicago (on my danger sidekick, by the way). i almost inadvertantly took aboard an allen wrench set (in my bag from when i rode my bike to work last week and perhaps the most blunt object in my bag). the fact that i somehow got it with me to chicago in the first place aside, i know i’m much safer now that its been confiscated (apparently under the ‘tools’ clause of the tsa’s list of banned items). if not, right now, someone could have taken the set and be using it to LITERALLY dismantle the plane. . . …
July 5, 2005· 1 min read
Bike to work day
Today is bike to work day in Boulder. I’ve been meaning to ride my bike into work for a while, so today seemed like a good day to start. Biketoworkday_1 Here are a couple of observations from the road: – Riding in is a fantastic way to start the day. I got to work and felt great. I was completely energized and awake after my roughly 15 mile ride in.- Leave your computer at home. I forgot to do this last night and as a result had to lug my laptop on my back (along with a change of clothes, which would have also been a good thing to have brought into the office the day before my ride). What didn’t feel all that heavy in mile one felt like a ton by mile ten . . . – I live in the sticks. I didn’t realize how many miles of farmland I actually pass on my way to work. Zooming by at 60mph most mornings it fails to register with me. Riding at a more moderate 15 or 20mph I got to take it all in.- God – Colorado is beautiful. For about 8 or 9 miles of my ride I was riding with unobstructed views of the rockies, including Longs Peak – Bike lanes are everywhere here. I probably only rode about a mile this morning that wasn’t in a bike lane – excellent! …
June 22, 2005· 2 min read
Thinking of grandpa
My grandfather died on this date two years ago. He was a great man and I’ve been thinking about him all day. (As an aside, my wife pointed out that it would probably be a more appropriate to do this on his birthday rather than on the day he died, to which I responded that, as a Jew, it just feels right this way . . . )My grandfather was truly of the ‘greatest generation’ – growing up through the depression; dropping out of high school to help support his family where he was one of 11 children; eloping with my grandmother; serving in WWII; raising children; working a variety of jobs, but always making ends meet; enjoying retirement; taking care of his wife when she fell ill and eventually died; living life to the fullest. I was lucky to spend so much time with him – summers here in Colorado growing up and, more recently after I moved out here, frequent visits and our weekly breakfasts. I learned many great things from my grandfather. Among my favorites was a Yiddish saying that he taught me about embracing the path one is on (rather than what could have been). The (loose) transliteration is: …
May 27, 2005· 2 min read
What Is Love?
I’ve been asked a bunch what I’ve found most surprising about being a new dad. My wife, Greeley, and I have talked about this a lot as well. I’m thinking about it right now – on a flight and looking through some family pictures on my laptop – and the answer is actually really easy (and I think shared by a lot of parents – at least I know that both Greeley and I feel this way). The love you feel for your child is completely overwhelming – and for me the intensity of it was unexpected. Seriously – it’s totally different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I love my wife very much and in a way that is different from and more intense than I feel about anyone else. But the love you feel for your child is truly transformational. …
April 29, 2005· 2 min read
Taking 100% responsibility
I have a concept about relationships that I really like (even if I sometimes forget to follow its teachings): In any meaningful relationship (business, personal or otherwise) each person should be 100% responsible for that relationship. I used to think that a relationship involved each of the parties to be responsible for 50% (i.e., and therefore the total 100% would be taken care of). I guess that works in theory, but if you think about it, your relationships will be much more meaningful (and fulfilling) if you take 100% responsibility for them. This plays well into my recent post on communication. If each person in a relationship is taking 100% responsibility for the communication in a relationship that communication is likely to be much more frequent and meaningful than if each person is waiting for it to happen ½ of the time (which is, of course, what happens if each person only takes 50% responsibility). …
April 11, 2005· 2 min read