Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres

Choice Words/Phrases

Super crunchers is a book on how we can make a variety of predictions based on number crunching. You’d be surprised to know the power of super crunching. The kind of predictions it can make and the accuracy with which it can make are worth a consideration. You may not be able to predict a stock price and make quick money out of it, but you can definitely use crunching to predict a whole lot of things.

The wine prediction:
Orley challenged the wine quality prediction techniques (swishing and spitting) that had been in place for ages and how was that? Regression? (Wine Quality = 12.145+0.00117 winter rainfall+ 0.0614 average growing season temp – 0.00386). Orley found that low levels of harvest rain and high average summer temperatures produce the greatest wines. In years when the summer is particularly hot, grapes get ripe, which lowers their acidity, while in years when there is below- average rainfall the fruit gets concentrated. So it’s in the hot and dry years that you tend to get the legendary vintages.
The point is – the use of number crunching/statistical analysis to make complex predictions. That’s what “Super Crunchers” is about. Super crunching gets together a combination of size (terabytes- 1000 gigabytes & Petabyte (1000 terabytes)), speed and scale.
Data is power- call it the data empowered businesses. Companies that can leverage this will definitely have an edge over their non data friendly peers. Super crunching leads you to data driven decision taking.

Let’s take a peep into our day to day impacts of the data crunching:
1) iTunes lists the top downloaded songs
2) Delicious lists the most popular internet bookmarks
3) Netflix can recommend different movies to different people
4) eHarmony recommends people that are very similar to you
5) Google pre-picking the web pages based on your previous browsing habits etc
6) CapitalOne’s proactive call center and algorithms enables them to answer some of your questions even before you ask them. When their customer calls them for cancelling the account, they are re-directed either to a cancelling system/person or to retention specialist based on the client profitability and myriad other factors.
7) Visa with a little mining of my credit card charges can make a guess of whether I’l divorce in the next five years

Generating Data:
One can generate random data using ( =rand()) function in MS Excel. The random data thus generated can be used to gather insights
Randomized testing can be done with any policy that can be applied to some people and leave the rest. It cannot be applied to things such as a space shuttle launch or the federal rates determination etc., where we cannot randomly pick some people and assign them high interest rates, keeping the interest rates low for the rest. However there are dozens of other business/government situations to which randomized testing can be applied and make better predictions based on the randomized trial results.Should Google buy Youtube? This kind of question too cannot be readily answered by Super crunching. Super crunching requires analysis of the results of repeated decisions.
Evidence based Medicine: Misdiagnosis accounts for about 1/3rd of all medical error.
Marketing crunchers predict what products you will want to buy. Randomized studies predict how you’ll respond to a prescription drug.
Why are humans bad at making predictions? The human mind tends to suffer from a number of cognitive failings and biases that distort our ability to predict accurately e.g. people give too much weight to unusual events that seem salient( such as murders over more common and more dangerous deaths) etc.
So how about both? Traditional experts make better decisions when supplemented with results from a statistical prediction. In several studies, the most accurate way to exploit traditional experience is to merely add the expert evaluation as an additional factor in the statistical algorithm.
Fine then, what’s left for us to do? Hypothesize. What is left for us and for our intuition is to determine the variables that need to be used in the statistical analysis. The hunches of humans are still crucial in deciding on what to test and what not to test. Humans also play a vital role in collecting the right data for the analysis. Intuition can be treated as a pre-cursor to super crunching.
Epagogix has a neural network to try to predict a movie’s receipts based primarily on the characteristics of the script.
Understand numbers, understand standard deviation, get smart, speak more than yes or no….understand that Supercrunching is a complement to intuition. At the end of the day, the aim is to be able to make better choices in life—intuition or otherwise.

SD: There’s a 95% probability that a normal variable will lie within two standard deviations from the mean.
e.g. For every 100 people who work in the IT sector, an average of 40 people suffer from high cholesterol, with a SD of 10, meaning to say that, 20-60 people suffer from high cholesterol in 95%of the cases(different lots of 100 people).

Tipping Point- by Malcolm Gladwell

Choice Words/Phrases

Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses. They are like epidemics. This is the concept of the tipping point.
The three characteristics of an epidemic:
1. Contagiousness
2. Little changes causing dramatic effects
3. Change happens not gradually, but suddenly
Supporting stats:
In 1992, there were 2154 murders in NYC and 626,182 serious crimes, with the epicentre at Brownsville and East NY. But then, it tipped and it tipped suddenly at some point. Within five years, murders had dropped 64.3 % to 770 and total crimes by about 50% to 355,893.
Now, why is it that some ideas or behaviors or products start epidemics and others don’t???
The three agents of change according to Gladwell
1. Law of the Few
2. Stickiness Factor
3. Power of Context
Most of us know the 80/20 rule. This becomes even more extreme for epidemics. Something like 90/10 or maybe higher.


Law of the Few: Social epidemics of most kinds require some special rare people with rare skillsets to trigger off. This is the law of the few. The few that trigger a social epidemic.
There are three kinds of these rare people : The connectors ( These are the people that connect us to the world. They can just introduce any two people, they know a lot of them. They could just intro you to your prospective boss etc), The mavens ( Data banks. These are the people that know too much about the products in the market. They are walking reviews or databases. They can with authority suggest you products) and the Salesmen( The likable convincing friendly neighbour, rational, coherent and one that can convince you to go for something)

Stickiness Factor:
This refers to the stickiness of the message. Stickiness is about how sticky it is, how long it can stick in people’s mind, how much of the mindspace can it occupy and how long. The message’s stickiness can be enhanced in a variety of ways ( Repetition, Innovation, Catchy, Humor, Sentiment, Attention span etc). An advertiser better understands this. For the message to spread like an epidemic, it needs the stickiness.

Power of Context
What really matter is the little things. Small things can bring in a different context. E.g. there’s a theory that predicts the behavior among humans based on their order of birth. The older sibling happens to be domineering and conservative, while the younger ones creative and rebellious. The context changes if, these kids are away from home. The older siblings are no more likely to be conservative or domineering while the younger ones no longer rebellious or creative.
Another interesting example is the “broken window theory”. If a town has a broken window which is unattended to, there sets in a sense that no one cares and no one dares or that no one is in charge). This will result in more broken windows, which in turn will return the anarchy to roads etc sending a signal that anything goes. This in due time will build up to more serious crime in the town.

The rule of 150: Another big-league concept is the group concept and how groups can trigger an epidemic. Groups influence us in big ways. We try to remain in the groups and our behavior is governed by the rules of the group. The Rule of 150 which is seemingly an optimum group size that can achieve sublime results in spreading epidemics. So next time you want to spread a social epidemic, forget not to have a close group with a size of about 150. If you conside the neo-cortex ratio(don’t ask me what) in humans, its about 147.8 approx 150 which indicates the max people with whom we can have a genuinely good social relationship.

The rule of 150 can be extended to office team size or your social group size. A group of size larger than 150 can be too large for close ties among its members.

So dear readers, beware the small Big things in life, a small push at the right point can tip off any big thing.

Executive Warfare - by David D'Alessandro

As you go higher up, the competition intensifies and to reach “the top” is gonna be truly tough. You may have multiple bosses to please, you have to manage some intricate network of relationships, people always judge you and its not always fair. You may be rising happily within an Organization for two decades and on a not so fine a day, you are backstabbed and ousted. Everything is possible.
At this point it is also not enough to be smart, hard-working and result oriented, because your competition would also possess these attributes. So it’s something like “What got you here, won’t get you there”. There’s a fundamental change in the game. You need to know when to take a shot at your rivals and when to react gracefully and importantly how to handle the many new influences on your trajectory.

Attitude, Risk and Luck:
Three things you’d need for this combat – The right attitude, a willingness to take calculated risks, and dumb luck.
Lets get to the Attitude part- Be the boss within. Feel like one, think like one. How do you do it?
1. Study, study and study. Study to the extent that you get a new dimension or perspective to the discussion. Ask questions about that dimension and you suddenly become the most valuable person in the room.
Eg. “ David once learned that his company was planning to invest in a joint venture with the Colombian govt. During the meeting, he asked “what happens to our investment if the guerillas destabilize the government or a civil war breaks out?”
A crucial perspective but ignored till then. The CEO was suddenly looking onto David for answers and he became the most valuable person in the room.
2. Keep your personal life, personal and do not embarrass yourself in public (avoid having a martini at a company event)
3. Get in a sense of humor.

Risk: Higher management is all about handling risks intelligently and in a calculated manner. Here, Risk is the name of the game.
“Every project in the world has a father or mother who decided to take the risk. AND Organizational memory is very sharp on this point as to who took that risk”
At the same time, the key is taking the risk in a calculated manner. It’s very dangerous not to be able to see the downside of something. You must know and see a project that you may want to kill. It’s like the stop-loss concept of the equity markets. Know when to exit and be bold about it.
Luck: After doing all the right things, one still needs the luck to get what you want. There will be times, when Luck is not by your side. So what can one do about it? There’s no real solution for this but the author believes that you can make your luck (at least partly).
In this context the author gives some tips to improve your luck.
If you are passed over for a promotion, think about trying a new instrument, like getting assigned to task forces across disciplines. Get exposure to different disciplines. Contribute in new ways. And to close this case for luck one very important closing point- Its critical to be at the right place. You stay too long at a place too rich in your skills, and you are giving a tough time for your luck to make you lucky. Whatever you may do, you stand a great chance of being neglected. So move on from such a place and find the right one.

Bosses: Make sure that you understand your boss’ goal (immediate goal and beyond that). It also helps to identify with your boss’ risk appetite. If he’s for safe play, then in all respect he’s gonna reward safe players over you. And assure your boss that you are loyal to him and discreet. It’s important to be the most trusted person in the boss’s stable. At the same time, you can tell him your needs and assure him your loyalty as long as he gives you the push you need. It’s ok to say “I’ll help you reach your own goals, but you have to do something for me, which is to push me along”.
Be the most trusted person but let him not get too dependable on you that will let him not leave you anywhere to explore.
Get into the right meetings: It is necessary for you to attend the right meetings. Whoever the powers are in your org. getting exposure to them is important.
In these meetings, if you’re able to answer questions that your boss may not know answers to- you have made yourself visible and your boss wouldn’t mind taking the credit for hiring a real smart person, like you.
Some other tips about your survival and your journey to the centre of the boardroom.
Tip 1: Don’t just hitch yourself with just one person. He may have a very short life span. Hitch yourself with as many people as you can.
Tip 2: Pay attention to the meetings you attend and try to understand the dynamics between your boss and the CEO/CXO. If from the body language you find some indifference or tension, it’s a signal that you are perhaps not under the best boss.

PEERS:
Beware the consigliore (some really trusted people of your bosses and have unfettered access to your bosses). They can do a lot of harm behind your back. There are ways to tackle them. 1) Identify the possible consigliore and feed them with wrong and different information. So, depending on the info. That reaches your boss, you know the actual culprit. You may then further tackle this by constantly proving the info. Provided by the consigliore to be wrong. At the same time, once you know whom the consigliore is, you may deal with him in such a way that he passes on good inputs about you and that can really work for your advantage.
You will have enemies and they will be underhanded. What you really have to defend against are the water cooler campaigns (rumors about you). The really shrewd enemies will try to weave a theme using a series of stories about you.
You will have to tackle this wisely. If the rumor is a lie, calmly make the facts known. Also expose as little of your personal life as possible. Keep people who will not hesitate to give you candid feedback.
RIVALS:
The people above you are watching how you behave with your rivals. The top management wants to know how you tackle your rivals. It’s important to be an incremental player. Build your reputation steadily and dimensionally.
It’s good to know you rival’s weaknesses and it’s better when you show the world how you do not have the same weakness and how you can handle such situations better. In this book, David mentions of a case where the employee was an alcoholic and his rival decided to fire him whereas David gave the employee a helping hand and even sent him to a rehabilitation center at company’s expense, because the employee was a valued asset to the company, nevertheless keeping his bosses apprised of the case on a regular basis. This differentiation gives you the edge over your rival.
Ask your Rivals, pointed questions in meetings. They can disconcert your rival and will help you understand his weaknesses. “With one sharp, pertinent question you can raise the bar for your rival, open up a new line of inquiry that he will now have to face persistently’”
Organizational etiquette can be foolish at times; you should risk breaking it once in a while.
Appreciate your rival in front of the management if he has done a brilliant job.
If you have to shoot your rival, kill him- don’t leave him wounded and if you lose to your rival, leave the place or department or whatever. It’s not easy to work under your rivals.

The Team You build: I will not delve into this. I shall rather give it in a few points the gist of this chapter
a) Pick your own team
b) Be deliberate about bringing in outsiders
c) Hire people who are unlike yourself
d) Don’t be a bigot
e) Avoid hiring people who are mirthless
f) Beware of Yes- men
g) When it comes to Layoffs, some flexibility is only right.

The people you have to Motivate:
Respect their years of experience. Mere resentment will set in if you pretend to understand in a few weeks what they have spent half a lifetime learning.
When in doubt, simplify the issues, stay out of the details, and make sure your experts know that you will hold them accountable for the outcome.
Encourage your people to bring bad news to you individually so that they are not ashamed in public or not bring in the news at the right time for fear of ridicule.
Remove the blood clots mercilessly. Blood clots are the people who try to hinder your initiatives, rebel against your decisions, cut you out of the decision-making etc
As you move higher up. You will need to keep your door ajar (keeping em’ completely open will invite too many ppl unnecessarily and a lot of time waste). You cannot afford to listen to your employees pouring their heart out but at the same time, it’s not good to have an idea of their personal lives (whether or not they have kids and if so, how many etc)
“Loyalty is about gratitude, not Patriotism.” You build loyalty by helping each member of your team, individually, get where they want to go”
eg: You really need the services of an employee for 2 more years, but he’s now leaving the org. It really helps for you to know that all he really sought is an 80-foot boat and move to Florida in his retirement.
Yu can then say “ Look, I’l ensure you get your 80-foot bat. I’l bonus you, option you, or enhance your pension, whatever it takes for you to get your boat. But I’l need two years of your services” It’s a hard to resist deal. Isn’t it?
Many such examples as these. Another very important thing is to stand by your employees during difficult times. E.g. Flying down to pay your respects to someone dear to your employee or rending a helping hand for their family medical problems etc build a long lasting loyalty which does not happen over a cup of beer or cocktail.
Outsiders with Influence:
· Clients like babies need attention
· If an important client is at a meting in your building, drop in.
· Share your official and personal contact numbers
· Consigliore to them – advise them, listen to them, stand by them( never discuss your internal organizational issues though)
· Solve their problems, not just business problems but also their personal problems.. Do not however make it embarrassing by sending birthday greetings or lavish gifts etc.
· “Let your bosses know straight out that if they don’t promote you at some point, you will walk and much of the gold will walk with you”.
· Tread carefully with the extended family
· Try and be a part of the same club or share the same hair dresser etc. this kind of info. is very crucial
Culture:
Remain culturally sensitive and try and build a culture of openness, not a culture of fear.
The New Bosses- The Journalists:
Talk to your reporters regularly; do not however give interviews unprepared
Don’t soliloquize in interviews. Give short answers that cannot b taken out of context
“If you are getting really good press, some reporters will be contrarians just to stand out from the crowd. Pay heed to them and explain them, if possible meet them personally.
Be available to a reporter both when you have a positive story and a negative story.
Leave your plush office and visit their sparse govt. offices just to introduce yourself.
Show composure when aggressively questioned

Whale Done

Whale done is about improving your relationships at work, and at home following the training methodology imparted to killer whales. We all know how life-threatening a whale can be. Yet there is a group of whale trainers who play with whales and make them perform breathtaking feats on a daily basis. Ken Blanchard( the author) takes cues from the whale trainers and depicts in this book as to how these techniques can be used to better human relationships.
Lets navigate and absorb the essence of this killer shark training techniques.
Two lovers at a dining table – enraptured in each other’s company, lost in each other’s eyes and ignorant of what’s happening around. – Undivided attention is whats present in this case. As relationships mature, most of us get into ‘Gotcha’ mode. The gotcha mode according to Ken is about catching people doing things wrong. This is the root cause of deterioration in relatioships. The final demise of a relationship begins when you do something right but you are still yelled at for not doing it right enough. You had to ask me...You should have done it earlier blah blah blah..So how do we avoid this Gotcha thing and move ahead? – Whale Done techniques.
I shall in the next few pages walk you through these techniques:

T1: Accentuate the Positive
T2: Redirect the energy when mistakes occur

What do these thing mean? T1 essentially is the opposite of Gotcha mode- the Whale Done mode. T1 is about focussing on the things done right( however small or even if it is slightly irrelevant to the task at hand).
How do we do T1?
a. Wake up and say something positive when everything is going well
b. Praise progress (don’t wait for the end result)
c. Praise immediately
d. Be specific about what they did right or almost right
e. Share your positive feelings about what they did
f. Encourage them to keep up the good work
g. Never assume you know what motivates a person (It is avoidable to motivate people with money and animals with food). There are very many other things to motivate people/ animals with. Eg. One thing animals like is a rub on their stomach or a pat on their head or a long ride in a car.
T2: is avoiding the gotcha. In case mistakes occur, redirect the energy and build trust.
How do we T2?
a. Describe the error or problem as soon as possible , clearly and without blame
b. Show its negative impact
c. If appropriate take the blame for not making the task clear
d. Go over the task and ensure that it is clearly understood
e. Express your continuing trust and confidence in the person.
You’ve gotta read the book, for some examples on using Whale Done!!!!

Whale Done, everybody.

The Power of Creative Intelligence - Tony Buzan

Choice Words/Phrases

“The brain divided its activities distinctly into Right Brain and Left Brain activities.” Right brain caters to- rhythm, spatial awareness, dimensions, imagination, daydreaming, color and holistic awareness while the Left brain is responsible for words, logic, numbers, sequence, linearity, analysis and lists. The radically different view that the book puts forth – right brain and left brain are more intricately connected while performing their activities and there is a cross impact and dependence on the activities between the right and left brains. It is the whole-brain that creates the difference. Not the two parts independently. Creative brain is the whole brain. The book gives creativity work outs through out and I will list down some of the most salient of the tips.
1. Take breaks – Some of the most interesting and brilliant ideas come out while in the bath, in the shower, before going to sleep, while asleep, upon waking up, while listening to music etc.
For the whole brain to work well, take breaks.
2. Go for Long Walks or Rambles: Solvitas perambulum (solve it while you walk)
3.Use both sides of your body. (brush /comb your hair with your left hand if you are right handed and vice versa etc)
4. Play Einstein’s creative games: Ask questions to yourself like “what would it be like to go for a ride on a sunbeam to an end of the universe?’ or ‘if I traveled at the speed of light away from somebody, would I be invisible?’
5. Daydream and night dream- both give your visual creative muscles added strength.
6. Use Mind maps

If you want to understand more about the Mind Maps, which in itself is a fairly lengthy study, read Tony Buzan’s book on Mind Maps.

7. Join an art class or visit art galleries.
8. Try cartooning
9. Sing, Dance, get you another instrument, take music classes, perform in clubs, parties.
10. Improve vocabulary
11.Take any two words and try to think of atleast five similarities between them, the wilder the better. If you can find 10, you are exceptional, 15 you are in the world’s top 1 % and if you find over 20, you are demonstrating creative genius in this area.
Eg of word pairs: Orange and Frog, Bird and beetle, spaceship and watch etc.
12. See things from different viewpoints (Alexander the great was brilliant at seeing things from other points of view- and not just from that of other humans, but animals too.
13. Act of reversal – simply take whatever exists and consider the opposite.
14. Learn to tell witty jokes
15.The Universe and Me game: In this game, put yourself at the centre of the Associative universe. Each day, pick one random concept or idea, and generate five or more ideas in which this random concept relates to YOU. Eg. The moon and me, Love and me, Earth and me, Laptop and me, Blog and me etc.
16. You and Animals: Compare yourself with the traits of as many animals as possible. Check out which animal you resemble the most.
17. Create short poems
18. Be a child (stare at things, listen to stories, play with children, learn to do new thngs, ask questions (why, what, where, who)
19. Ask why or how, five times at least, a day.
20. Read more of Tony Buzan and Edward Debono

Outliers- by Malcolm Gladwell

Choice Words/Phrases

“This is a book about Outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary”
The Matthew Effect: This chapter is a revelation. It tells us that our notion that it is the best and the brightest who effortlessly rise to the top is much too simplistic. What is and has been overlooked all the while is the big head start that these outliers got, an opportunity that they neither deserved nor earned. It is this great opportunity that made the difference and not just the extraordinary individual traits attributed to these personas so far.
Here on the book deals with bolstering this concept of the strategic opportunity that most of the super successful humans got in their lives.
The 10,000 – Hour Rule: Ten thousand hours is the minimum time that makes a genius and this is widely accepted in the intellectual world. But here the book does not argue against nor support this rule. It explains how the outliers got the advantage of being able to spend their 10,000+ hours on their passion.
Eg. Bill Gates: Bill got the opportunity to work on ASR-33 way back in 1968, when virtually most of the schools used the tedious computer-card system. Reason, Gates’ father was a wealthy lawyer and his mother the daughter of a well-to-do banker and he was put in a private school that catered to Seattle’s elite families and the school had an ASR-33 teletype, which was a time-sharing terminal with a direct link to a mainframe computer in Seattle. Bill Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968.
There are examples of Beatles, Bill Joy, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Eric Schmidt, and Steve Jobs, each of them with the extraordinary opportunities they had been bestowed with.
IQ vs. Practical Intelligence: Termites the ones with extremely high IQ deemed the intelligentsia of the world were considered the logical successors to the corporate world. However, that was proved to be untrue and a new type of intelligence called the practical intelligence is now attributed to the overall success. What is Practical Intelligence? To Robert Sternberg a renowned psychologist, practical intelligence includes things like “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect”. Lets now look at what classes of people have superior practical intelligence. The answer: middle class and the elite. The middle-class parenting style also defined by some as ‘concerted cultivation’ attempts to proactively foster and assess a child’s talents, opinions and skills. While the poor parents tend to leave their children to develop on their own. Middle class encourages their kids to a bit of casual incivility and entitlement. They are encouraged to reason, negotiate and ask for what they are entitled to and these are key skills for success in today’s world.

The factors:
Some of the factors that the book outlines for the outlier advantage, which is the core point of the book are listed and detailed below:
1.New York Law firms: If you had to be an uber successful law firm in the 1960’s, you had the outlier advantage had you been Jewish. This is how the story turned. The Jewish lawyers that set foot in New York in the 1960’s were subject to work and pay discrimination. They were therefore forced to take up cases that were disdained by the white-shoe firms, such as hostile takeovers, proxy fights etc. Then came the 70’s. Federal regulations were meeker, markets globalize, easier access to cash and this lead to a surge in controversial takeovers and litigation cases. Who else was best prepared for these? The Jewish law firms of New York who were handling these forsaken cases. They are now experts in these with more than 10,000 hrs of experience. The tide was in their favor. So, if you were a Jewish lawyer in the 60’s, you had the opportunity to become big in the 70’s.
2.Demographic Luck: Most of us know about the baby boomers. There is another important trend in the American demography and that was in the 30’s, the demographic trough. The 1930’s saw a sizeable decline in the population growth compared to the preceding years, thanks to the great depression. Families stopped having children due to the economic hardships. What does this mean to the Outlier theory? For children born in the 1930’s, there was lesser competition for education, jobs etc. For a young would-be lawyer , being born in early 1930’s was a magic time, just as being born in 1955 was for a software programmer.
3.The garment industry and meaningful work
4.Legacy
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes & Korean Air:
Korean Air had a very disturbing trend of plane crashes.
The crash of Air flight 801 headed for Guam on August 5, 1997.
The crash of KAL 801, that wandered into the Russian airspace and was shot down by Soviet military jet in 1977. The Korean Air Boeing 747 crash in Seoul in 1979. Another Boeing 747 crash near Sakhalin Island, in Russia, followed by a Boeing 707 that went down over the Andaman Sea in 1987, two more crashes in 1989 in Tripoli and Seoul, and then another in 1994 in Cheju, South Korea.
The average loss rate for an airline like the United Airlines in the period 1988 to 1998 was .27 per million departures, while the loss rate for Korean Air at 4.79 per million departures- almost 17 times higher loss rate.
Korean Air’s crash sequence continued unabated and this trend was worrisome. In April 1999, Delta Air and Air France suspended their flying partnership with Korean Air. Korean Air’s fate was bleak.
Now for the analysis: Power Distance (PDI). PDI is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects authority. High PDI means the subordinates maintain a distance to their superiors, hesitate to challenge them, carry on their orders with little resistance, and speak using conversational mitigation and Low PDI is just the opposite.
The flight –deck design is intended to be operated by two people and when on of the pilots’ is a Korean and communicating with the traffic control of a low PDI nation, the gap turns out to be a fatal gap. The problem is Korea is very high on PDI and US very low.
As some of the black box studies showed after a plane crash, it’s this gap between the two pilots that caused the crash. A cultural issue. Even in case of an emergency the Korean would try to indirectly hint at things like ‘how about trying it this way” or “what if it does not work” etc, instead of simply saying “it’s an emergency, we need immediate clearance “
A series of interesting black box conversations are illustrated in the book.
Culture also expounds the reason why Asians are better at math. Eg. Chinese number words are quite brief. Most of them can be uttered in less than one-quarter of a second( eg. 4 is “si” and 7 is “qi”). Their English equivalents four and seven are longer, takes around one third of a second to pronounce them. This difference extends to two digit and three digit numbers as well.
Eg.eleven, twelve etc The number system in English is erratic while in China, Japan and Korea it is more logical. Twelve is ten two and Twenty-four is two-tens-four. This difference leads to Asian children learn to count faster than an average American. Chinese on the whole abets easy understanding and application of maths and hence the advantage.
So far in Outliers the point made is that success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages: when and where you were born, economic status of your parents, and what the circumstances of your upbringing, the Power distance of your culture, the uncertainty avoidance of your culture and a host of other cultural issues, all make a significant difference in how well you do in the world. – The Outlier Advantage.

Ten Secrets of Worlds Greatest Communicators- by Carmine Gallo

Choice Words/Phrases

Speak with passion: Unless the audience sees that you, the speaker is totally involved, enthused and passionate about what you are speaking the audience might just ignore you. The book introduces a new quotient similar to IQ or EQ and that is PQ (Passion Quotient) . PQ increases as your enthusiasm increases and also as your energy increases. So be energetic and be enthusiastic and be more passionate as you speak.
Inspire: Inspiration and Charisma is the key to inspiration. The author defines charisma as “a personal attractiveness that enables you to influence others, an ability to arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm”.
Seem human and paint a picture to your audience. Tell them where they are and where you are going to take them to. Show them that this is the compelling vision you have for them and that you are going to take all of them towards that vision.
One of the very effective ways of selling your vision is through a story. A good story appeals to the audience like a magnet and conveys the message in the most lucid and straightforward way. However, keep the story original and personal. Copying someone else’s story could have an adverse impact.
Sell a mission to the audience. Steve Jobs told the then CEO of Pepsi Sculley “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or Change the World”, in a bid to convince Sculley to join Apple.
Prepare: Prepare, prepare and prepare thoroughly before a presentation. Most of the world’s greatest communicators prepare thoroughly before the presentation. Some of them prepare to the finicky extent of when to pause, what joke to crack and when to smile.
People prepare by watching themselves the recorded practice sessions and improvising on the presentation.
It is also cardinally important to know your audience. Their background, their history, their interests and what kind of humor they’d like and what they are looking for in the presentation and what they actually care for.
And
Don’t read from your presentation…Speak.

Start Strong: Powerful beginning and end will leave the audience speechless. Some of the experts feel – get your audience’s attention in the first 30 seconds or perish. Try the 30 second pitch, where the gist of your message needs to be addressed in nothing more than 30 seconds. What makes a good 30-second pitch? The one that answers
1.What is my service, product, company or cause?
2.What problem do I solve?
3.How am I different?
4.Why should you care?

Clarity: Lose the Jargon or Lose your Audience. Keep it simple. Express the Wow in your message clearly.
Eg. for a Simple and Clear message. “Fix, Sell or Close” by Jack Welch.
Here’s what you can do to work around the jargon. Use Story enhancers
Story Enhancers include Analogies, Anecdotes, Endorsements, Examples, Statistics and Testimonials. `
Brevity:
Long is Dull. Are you dull?
Keep the presentation small and sweet. Avoid too many slides in case you are using a PowerPoint.

Say It With Style:
Develop your individual style.
There are some good tips to make a good style in a presentation.
1.Vary your tone
2.Have a reasonably good pace
3.Pause (at important points)
4. Punch the key words – for that extra stress
5. Clearly utter each and every word. Don’t mumble

Command Presence:
Don’t stand just at the same place throughout your presentation. Move around the stage and move around the audience. As you move around the audience, keep
1. Open Posture
2. Make Eye Contact
3. Use well placed Hand Gestures


Wear It Well:
Clients are flattered when you dress up for the occasion, because dressing up for an occasion shows that you care for the occasion and that is a positive sign. Great dress catches peoples’ attention. So Wear It Well.
Stay in Style when it comes to dressing. Update your closet with the latest in the market.
Get the Right Fit and Right Color. The color of leadership is “Dark Blue (solid or with fine pinstripe) Suit, White or baby blue shirt and burgundy tie “ according to De Paris. De Paris is an authority in dressing design and has made suits for some of the most popular US presidents such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Bush Senior and Junior etc. All this, however with the disclaimer that one needs to dress for the occasion. No point wearing De Paris’ style for a Valentine’s Day outing.


Reinvent Yourself:
Curiosity is the key word. Always be prepared to reinvent yourself, with new skills, new ideas, new vision, new slogan for your business etc.
AND
The 11th Secret – Believe, deep down that you’re destined to do great things.