Memory as art

I saw something recently that reminded me of an earlier post (Your Brain Is Not a Closet). A month or so ago I attended a gallery opening at BUIA Gallery in Chelsea of Eve Tremblay’s “Becoming Fahrenheit 451”. Ms. Tremblay actually recited Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from memory (ok, with some starts and stops, but still, what an amazing accomplishment). Like the characters in the novel who memorize books, Ms. Tremblay reminded us of how powerful memory is if we develop it.

Measured by tickets closed, not problems solved

What are we measuring? Misguidance on what to measure can result in poor customer service, albeit service that may satisfy agreed customer service requirements.

I recently called a software manufacturer because I had trouble activating one of their products, which I had bought. Here’s a synopsis of what happened.

- First call to customer service. Rep asks me for name and phone number. Decides my case needs to be handled by another group which specializes in product activation. Routes me to another rep.
- Second rep calls me by a different name and has the wrong information about my case. Starts to walk me through activation process. Can’t handle a question about a different version that I have preinstalled on my machine. I mention that the rep must get this question all the time. Am asked to call another specialist (cannot transfer me).
- Third rep has to ask all over again what the case is. I explain again and ask the version question no one can handle directly and am told to call a fourth person. Am given 10-digit case code.
- I call fourth rep, who automatically knows my name from the phone number the system recognizes but needs the case code anyway. I end up explaining to him how I think I can solve the problem. He agrees and asks if he can close the problem ticket. I decline since I don’t know if the problem will really be solved since it will take 20 minutes to uninstall and reinstall the software.
- Receive two different long emails from customer reps asking if the ticket can be closed. Includes details on how to respond to message, such as different email address and ID number.
- Receive additional email (addressing me by a new wrong name) which states that the ticket is closed since I have not responded.
- Ticket closed, problem solved.

All too common topic of conversation

It seems that an all too common topic of conversation is about the use and questions about the use of gadgets.

I do not imagine that previous generations spent the time we do – conversation time – sitting around discussing their difficulties using the rotary dial telephone or the post office. Or rather, while I do imagine people in the past discussing how the phone works or just how mail gets delivered, I imagine that these discussion would have been about the systems themselves and how they change the way we communicate. I do not imagine that the conversations were about how much time they wasted trying to figure out how to dial or how to address an envelope.

Gamelan and the foreign exchange trading program

When I was in Bali this past summer I took a couple of lessons on one of the Balinese xylophone-like instruments used as part of gamelan orchestral music.

My teacher was exacting in the subject of his expertise. He insisted on me getting the technique and notes correct from the start and only let me proceed after I memorized each part of the song. No written music is used in traditional gamelan orchestras. After a time, hammer in hand, I came to appreciate the commitment that he demanded from each stroke against the instrument's metal bars.

During a tea break, seeing that I wore an old Columbia Business School t-shirt, he asked me about foreign exchange trading, a subject I know nothing about except that it is exceptionally difficult to profit from it. The gamelan teacher wanted to buy a FX computer trading program which would trade for him based on preset parameters.

The whole idea seemed absurd. There we were in the courtyard of a home in rural Bali, chickens running around, someone making batik next door. I advised him against the trading and I hope that he did not start speculating. But now I wonder: to what degree does what today passes for cool business logic and modernity, say in the form of business research, actually differ from his FX trading program?

For Your Security Please Provide A List of Your Fears

Salliemae.com has an interesting security feature. The website forces you to choose five security questions from a preset list. Apart from the typical, there is also the question: "What is your greatest fear?"

I can just imagine the day when Salliemae.com is hacked and not only are millions of social security numbers stolen but also a list of borrowers' greatest fears.

They have a few other choices which I imagine being used as blackmail later on. "The first name of your favorite relative" and "The first name of your best friend from childhood" being good targets.

Does giving this kind of information really enhance security in the long-run?

Name choice in the information age

When I hear new parents talk about baby names they sometimes ask a few things that I had not formerly thought of as important in a name.

They ask:
1. What is the arrangement of the initials? Are there other meanings that come out from the initials, both in first, middle, last order and first, last, middle order (the later sometimes used on monograms)?
2. Who do they want to celebrate? Family and cultural names and words are here mentioned.

How will this change in the future? Will naming a baby (already difficult) become even more so? Will it become closer to choosing a company's new brand name? Will parents avoid common computing issues, such as avoiding compound names or names with apostrophes that may cause database errors?

I ask for a number of reasons. Imagine what technological changes have done for the generation being born today. They are different in that most of them will likely not have the chance to register their name or initials as a domain name; those domains will all have been taken by the time this new generation goes online. Also, given the greater level of international focus today, will names that are difficult to pronounce in popular languages suffer? Will names that have poor connotations in other cultures suffer? Will English speaking parents adopt or find inspiration in names from other languages, such as Chinese, Hindi or Arabic just as biblical names were tailored to other languages?

Your Brain Is Not a Closet

Artificial memory (such as what we can draw upon from databases) is not the same as natural memory (from our brains). As David Brooks writes in his op-ed piece "The Outsourced Brain", artificial memory means we can follow prompts from a GPS-enabled computer in order to drive ourselves home. That drive may be easier, faster and less stressful than it would otherwise and we certainly don't need to understand the road system to arrive home.

However, too much reliance on artificial memory has its shortcomings. I think one of the biggest areas is developmental shortfall and atrophy of mental skills.

For example, while using a calculator speeds up a lengthy calculation and makes it more accurate, should we always rely on a calculator even if it is accessible? I have seen people use calculators for tasks that take more time than mentally multiplying numbers (I used to have a boss who would use a calculator to multiply by 10).

Using artificial memory whenever possible can lead to mental laziness. The brain doesn't seem to be like a closet with a limited capacity that can be used to store one memory at the expense of another. Instead, use of our memories should enable us to uncover patterns and insight that would not come out merely from use of artificial memory.

Choose when to outsource your brain.