A couple weeks ago, I went to a talk on Securing Databases in the Cloud. The speaker was Mike Frank from Gazzang, a company that sells software to help with the exact problem he was speaking about: the risks with open source software tools and cloud hosting. The talk felt like a slightly awkward mix between promotion and education, but there was enough education that I got some good stuff out of it.

I know the importance of security and am quite fanatic about having proper security practices and aiming towards zero trust policies anywhere possible. I still managed to pick up a few new things, including considering anew the security implications of cloud-based hosting.

The most striking question that Mike brought up and which caused me pause was about virtual images. Hosting on AWS is extremely popular, and users have the perception of having a dedicated server. Most of my attention when thinking about security before went to security within the server (data architecture and encryption of data in the database) rather than security of the overall server image. Mike brought up the scenario of your AWS image, a virtual machine sitting somewhere in memory and disk, and an engineer somewhere having access to that virtual image and being able to do anything with it. How do you protect yourself in that scenario? Coming from that perspective, it made it obvious that security end-to-end and zero trust even of the (virtualized) hardware layer is important.

During the talk, Mike spoke about encrypting data within MySQL, PostgreSQL, Drizzle, and NoSQL databases Cassandra and MongoDB. Mike is Director of Products at Gazzang and prior to that, he was one of the senior product managers for MySQL both under Sun Microsystems and Oracle. He clearly knew his stuff.

Below are my notes from the talk.

1. Huge security risks out there. A new AWS instance spun up will get attacked (attempted) within minutes.

2. Non-obvious stuff that's important to protect:

• DB config files, log files, data directory
  
• Application source code
  

3. Ways to protect:

• Linux firewall
  
• AES 256, SHA 256, RSA
  
• OpenSSL
  
• mcrypt
  
• ecryptfs
  
• dm-crypt
  
• Cloud provider's firewall and security
  
• Encrypted cloud storage
  
• Encrypted file system
  
• Access control restrictions
  

4. Key management options:

• In database (less ideal)
  
• OS kernel key ring
  
• Outside database
  

5. Always use SSL for transport security

6. Database encryption functions for data at rest. Keys on outside key store.

7. Gazzang's product is ezNcrypt. How they solve it:

• On disk seamless encryption
  
• Keys stored outside DB
  
• Provide secure environment to run MySQL, Apache, PHP
  
• Handle ACLs
  
• Towards zero trust
  

8. Good article out there on issues with PCI compliance in the cloud

9. Gazzang built on top of ecryptfs

• They added keys and access controls
  
• All files are AES-encrypted so files stolen (like if AWS hacked) are worthless
• Performance hit of encryption: 1% hit on transactions per second and latency.
• Single passphrase and salt or RSA key for system
• Each file encrypted with separate key which master key can access. This allows changing the master key without re-encrypting all data (that's smart).
• Can also use their product to do PHP and perl encryption.

This is my first blog post about food! Though it's somewhat off topic from my regular reading notes and entrepreneurship musings, it's something I care a lot about. Especially dessert (the most important part of a meal). [I did a research project about crêpes in Southern France during college!]

I'll keep this blog post short in contrast to the portion sizes at The Griddle Cafe. Saying that this place is ridiculous is an understatement. The portions are so enormous that I was doing bicep curls with the takeout boxes of leftovers that I couldn't finish.

This is the type of place where you go with a group of six and order just one dish and have more than enough food.

As a chocoholic, I ordered the Black Magic pancake. Its menu description is perfect: "Disbelief will possess you as you're pulled under the spell of our crushed Oreo-filled flapjacks! Topped with whipped cream and Oreo cookie pieces." The only part they leave out is that you get THREE enormous pancakes (like falling off the edges of the plate, probably 10" in diameter each, 1/2" thick each). It's Oreo and chocolate overload, and I could barely finish one pancake myself. For me, the sign of a good restaurant is the presence of chocolate pancakes on the menu. (I'm collecting places around me that have them as it's somewhat rare!)

The other pancake they're famous for is the Red Velvet, which was equally insane (it was literally Red Velvet cake in the form of a pancake).

With such delicious and huge portions, the pricing is quite reasonable. The place has an old-style counter feeling, and it gets really busy, so you have to find the right time (like between meals or at the start of meals) to avoid the rush.

I can't wait to go back again (and have leftover breakfast to eat for a week thereafter).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions by Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde. I just finished it recently, and as a hobbyist magician and someone equally interested in psychology and neuroscience, it was an incredibly engaging read. I saw the book on display at the Skirball Museum store after seeing the Harry Houdini exhibit there (which was a really cool anniversary surprise I got!).

What I most enjoyed about the book was the tone of the authors in portraying human experience as a cognitive illusion created by our brain to promote our survival. Magicians are the cowboys that hack into our brain and mess with that illusion. How awesome is that?

I recently saw The Matrix again for the first time after about 4 years of not seeing it (I had seen it about 3 times before that), and this book had an eerie resemblance in its main lessons about the brain and the simulation of reality that it creates for our experience. The connection to magic was amazingly delicious icing on top of that cake.

I also enjoyed some of the philosophical discussions, which reminded me of an event I went to a while ago at the Center for Inquiry on magic, science, and skepticism.

Below are my main notes on the book. I'm leaving out a lot of detail with respect to effect secrets for obvious reasons. ;) Even so, this is one of my longest blog posts due to the number of interesting things I learned (and how much I enjoyed the book).

Introduction

• Book written by muggles (non-professionals) on magic
  
• First book on neuroscience of magic
  
• Why so vulnerable to sleights of mind?
  
• All secrets online; no major giveaways.
  
• Authors neurosurgeons
  
• Research on awareness
  
• Attended conference on visual illusions
  
• Sponsored illusionoftheyear.com contest (2011 winner shows change blindness)
  
• Moved conference to Las Vegas
  
• Realized magic is visual science and decided to study it
  
• Painters developed science of occlusion
  
• Neuroscience experiments clunky because subject can figure out
  
• But magic show subjects always fall for trick
  
• Scientists worked to learn magicians' techniques
  
• Friends with James Randi
  
• Met Teller, Mac King
  
• Humans have hardwired system of attention that can be hacked
  
• Magicians hack it
  
• Arthur Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
  
• The best magic show in earth is happening in your brain right now
  
• Traveled world to study magicians and even developed own show and presented it at the Magic Castle
  

Ch. 1: The woman in the chameleon dress

• Tomsoni changing assistant dress white to red using visual illusion
  
• Brain constructs reality is based on what it expects, not what it sees
  
• Humans are the result of an epic journey of evolution
  
• Brain is an amazing prediction machine
  
• Create simulation of reality in head (consciousness)
  
• You're blocking out most of what is happening around you right now
  
• Difference between psychological principles and neuroscience explanations that discuss anatomy
  
• Visual system starts with photoreceptors in eyes converting light to electrical impulses
  
• Key ability is way to see contrast
  
• Fill in scenes based on context and actually change the image based on what you expect
  
• Eye resolution only 1MP each
  
• Richness of visual experience is an illusion created by your brain
  
• Magicians take advantage of contrast detection
  
• Take advantage of after images
  
• Black art method
  
• Blacklight and black sheets against black background
  
• Camouflage

Ch. 2: The secret of bending a spoon (why magicians watch their angles)

• Learned ambitious card routine
  
• The trick that fooled Harry Houdini after seeing it 3 times
  
• Dai Vernon fooled Houdini with this
  
• Sleight means cleverness from Norse
  
• Center of vision: can only have good resolution in center of field of view (miss details in periphery)
  
• Occlusion and perspective fool you
  
• Uri Geller spoon bending, mindread
  
• James Randi debunked
  
• Amodal completion: assume object full even when partially occluded
  
• Good continuation (Gestalt)
  
• Brain constantly making up its own reality even with no input
  
• Why solitary confinement is punishment
  
• Charlatans and psychics steal money (always illusion)
  

Ch. 3: The brother who faked a dome (visual art)

• Artists invented visual science before scientists
  
• Magicians created cognitive illusions like artists made visual illusions
  
• Linear perspective
  
• Color paling
  
• Trompe l'oeil
  
• Artist painted cuppola without physical dome
  
• Grand canal in Venetian hotel
  
• Fake sky that changes color
  
• Markus Cornelis Escher drew visual illusions
  
• Impossible staircase
  
• Vision can process only one part of staircase at time
  
• Small gradual errors along staircase hidden
  
• Global perception impossible; only local
  
• Op art movement: optical art
  
• Enigma painting: illusory motion
  
• Illusion starts in eye, not brain
  
• Mona Lisa smile enigmatic
  
• Smile can be seen only when look away from mouth
  
• Peripheral vision integrates cheeks into mouth when look at eyes; when look at mouth, don't see shadows and smile
  
• Leaning tower illusion
  
• Rotating snakes illusion
  
• Some stationary patterns initiate illusory motion
  
• Standing wave of invisibility illusion
  

Ch. 4: Welcome to the show (cognitive illusions)

• Pickpocket Apollo Robbins
  
• Magic of Consciousness Symposium
  
• Patter one of most important tools
  
• Hold direct or divide attention
  
• Continually touching while asking questions and giving commands
  
• Grab wrist then squeeze creates tactile afterimage
  
• Adaptation: senses adapt and we forget soon after initial sense
  
• Magicians masterminds of cognitive sensations
  
• Attention: taking possession by mind of one of various trains of thought; implies withdrawal from others
  
• Attention cannot be divided
  
• Cocktail party effect allows your name to be heard across room
  
• Not clear how brain affects attention
  
• Eye movement circuits orient attention spotlight
  
• Magicians control attention and eyes like marionettes
  
• Overt and covert attention
  
• Head fake in sports to direct attention to wrong place
  
• Joint attention of both attention and eyes
  
• Correct eye contact is looking left eye to right eye (to not cross)
  
• Theory of Art and Magic Workshop
  
• Misdirection
  
• Localize subjects attention to specific frame
  
• Big move covers small move
  
• Doves draw attention
  
• First action keeps attention; second less focused
  
• Over the top corny jokes keep more attention
  
• Time misdirection: secret method done at different time than when key attention
  
• Habituation: repeat moves innocently then change method
  
• Less activity in brain when habituated to stimulus
  
• Tricks embedded in natural actions
  
• Action with no purpose suspicious
  
• Inform the motion
  
• Decoy actions
  
• Mirror neurons
  
• Your mind has its own virtual eye, ear, body: virtual simulation of actions in mind's body
  
• Help understand actions of others
  
• Same neurons active when watching action as doing it
  
• Autism: deficit in joint attention, not looking at people's faces
  
• Magicians rely on joint attention to manipulate people's joint attention
  
• Failure to fall for magic tricks and social misdirection could be indicator of autism
  

Ch. 5: The gorilla in your midst (more cognitive illusions)

• Personal space
  
• As far as brain concerned, personal space part of your mind's body
  
• Saccades: eye jerk movements
  
• Fixations: moments between saccades
  
• Neurons designed to detect change so must keep changing eye locations
  
• Neurons by default fire slowly (adapt to save energy)
  
• Smooth pursuit: Smooth eye movement only when teaming moving object
  
• Differentiate between smooth eye movements and saccades to control attention
  
• Fast linear gesture vs. moving arc which keeps attention
  
• Visual perception suppressed during saccades
  
• Magicians know things about attention scientists do not
  
• Overt misdirection: draw eyes to area of false interest
  
• Covert misdirection: draw attentional spotlight away but without moving eyes
  
• Inattentional blindness
  
• Change blindness: failure to remember what just seen
  
• Founder of Madrid school of magic using psychology
  
• Gorilla video
  
• Brain suppresses distractors most during difficult task
  
• Multitasking is a myth
  
• Eye tracking shows that visual attention controls seeing, not eyes -- can miss details even in eye focus
  
• Situational awareness: heightened awareness of all details around you
  
• Serial awareness, not parallel
  
• Magicians split attention to multiple places so you get distracted
  
• International Conference on Art and Science
  
• Miguel Angel Gea Spanish magician
  
• Change blindness tricks
  
• Won't notice gradual changes if have abrupt interruption in between
  
• Things slowly change without our awareness (aging)
  

Ch. 6: The ventrilloquist's secret (multisensory illusions)

• World Championship of Magic by FISM
  
• Magic Olympics
  
• Max Maven mentalist
  
• Foley artists
  
• Food tastes better when hear sounds
  
• Puff of air from "p" and "b" sounds help you understand language
  
• McGurk effect: eyes can fool ears
  
• Brain quickly merges conflicting signals
  
• Senses cross activated
  
• Phantom limb
  
• Synesthesia (hello Moonwalking with Einstein!)
  
• Auditory
  
• Time-space
  
• Mirror touch (sense touch when seeing others touch)
  
• Due to increased crosstalk between brain regions
  
• Senses separate but experience coherent
  
• Some neurons specific, some multisensory
  
• Feature integration system in brain
  
• Rapid patter and sound combos fool
  
• Terry Fator ventriloquist
  
• Ventriloquism means speaking from stomach
  
• Multisensory illusion
  
• Used by shamans and Romans to speak with g-ds
  
• Films are a form of ventriloquism
  
• Flicker fusion
  
• Persistence of vision when frame rate high enough
  
• Phi phenomenon
  
• Stroboscopic effect
  
• Story of mnemonist journalist with synesthesia who remembered details without taking notes
  

Ch. 7: The Indian rope trick (memory illusions)

• Hoax article in journal made up the trick
  
• People still reported seeing it
  
• Unreliability of memory
  
• People believe rope tricks to be true if hear them enough
  
• People confabulate true stories with false ones
  
• Magicians rewrite history when describing steps taken
  
• Misleading info given after event confuses with real story
  
• Suggestions and priming affect memory
  
• Procedural/muscle memory
  
• Declarative memory: semantic and episodic
  
• Semantic is facts
  
• Episodic is events
  
• Each time memory is used it gets stored anew and modified
  
• Flashbulb memories alter them
  
• Memory source confusion
  
• Forcing and then using language to implant false memories of freedom
  
• Crimes of memory, unreliability of eyewitnesses
  
• Mnemonic memory techniques
  
• Peg system
  
• Method of loci/memory palace
  
• Weird and outrageous images on route, interactive
  
• Mention of Joshua Foer
  
• Perils of total recall memory: Woman Who Can't Forget book about woman with perfect memory; too frustrating
  
• Hot reading: look up audience member info ahead of time online and "read mind" to discuss background (all memorized)

Ch. 8: Expectation and assumptions (how magicians makes an ass out of u and me)

• Mac King
  
• When magicians make mistakes, just glide along and reset; no one will notice
  
• When repeat tricks, keep changing method
  
• Theory of False Illusions
  
• Closing all the doors (of explanations) until only explanation is magic
  
• Brain plasticity, increasing predictive abilities
  
• Habituation through synaptic plasticity
  
• James Randi offers $1 million prize for proof of paranormal activity (not collected for 20 years)
  
• Mentalism relies on audience assumptions
  
• Priming: ethnic vs. gender priming affects test scores
  
• Reduce number of actual choices; makes mentalism possible
  
• Combine with priming
  
• Level of a person's bias measured by reaction time to concepts conflicting with their bias
  
• Magicians use bias and priming by giving hint that some method used and then showing it's not
  
• Children harder to deceive because don't have built up biases and predictions
  
• Infants younger than 9 months have little or no object permanence
  
• Infants are statistical learning machines
  
• Study: babies will look longer at impossible events than possible ones
  
• Shows they do have some object permanence concept at 3 months
  
• Theory of Mind: consider others' state of mind
  
• Sally and Anne Doll Test to see if child developed Theory of Mind
  
• Attention comes from inhibitory neurons to remove distractions
  
• Children able to take in more impulses
  
• Children have less structured sense of time
  
• Older children have linear stream of time
  
• Magicians need structure of infallible rules they can break
  
• Magic requires age 5
  
• Younger kids like coin from ear, needle through balloon, animated objects (none requires theory of mind)

Ch. 9: May the Force be with you (the illusion of choice)

• James Randi mentalist
  
• Force and lie when retelling process
  
• Mathematical forces
• One ahead principle: magician stays one step ahead of subject
  
• Flow based on choices so far (remove versus keep)
  
• Confabulate: justify choice in mind
  
• Idea: conduct choice blindness experiments using magic
  
• We are unaware of our unawareness
  
• When forced to swap choices, we will justify our rejected position and confabulate
  
• Cognitive dissonance allows magicians to make subjects feel like make free choice
  
• Free will not truly free
  
• We are always constrained by something
  
• Brain unconsciously choosing, then conscious notices it
  
• May not have free will
  
• Free will is a sophisticated cognitive illusion
  
• Our laughter at times is uncontrollable
  
• We're not in control; just along for the ride
  
• Study: We have patterned electrical brain activity seconds before a decision (electrical activity seconds before predicts decision)
  
• Brain is a correlation machine
  
• 2 effects cause illusion of free will
  
• Agency effect: you ascribe coincidences to your actions and agency; (example: think of someone and they call you at the same time)
  
• Exclusivity effect: can't think of any reason besides the one where you cause action or event; can be influenced very easily by others (example: not wanting to copy others)
  
• Free will is illusion caused by flesh
  
• Conscious will is an illusion, but morality still real
  
• Can a machine read your thoughts?
  
• fMRI research
  
• Not yet well but can in constrained situations
  

Ch. 10: Why magic wands work (illusory correlation, superstition, hypnosis, and flim flam)

• Ouiji board
  
• Satanic control
  
• Superstitious beliefs are illusory correlation
  
• Ideomotor effect: brain sends micro-impulses to muscles
  
• Ouiji cursor moves when group consensus
  
• To prove ouiji false, blindfold users
  
• Observers assume repetitions always same but never are
  
• Human compulsion to find patterns in world even when not there
  
• Illusory correlation is why some believe they are psychic
  
• We don't remember false predictions, times we were wrong
  
• Availability bias
  
• We remember our own actions more than others
  
• Conflict- and surprise-detecting brain areas
  
• Gamblers fallacy
  
• Idea that knowing past can help predict future
  
• Monte Hall problem
  
• Should always switch
  
• Doesn't match intuition
  
• Psychics learn about you before show
  
• Cold reading about reading behavior and making general statements that apply to all
  
• Cold reading teases out info by making statements that act like questions (intonation increases at end of phrase)
  
• Flatter subject
  
• Tell them what want to believe
  
• Hypnosis can work
  
• Hypnosis affects Stroop test
  
• In hypnotizable people, suggestions can change them
  
• 10-15% of people hypnotizable
  
• Placebos work
  
• Paul Zak at Claremont magician and neuroscientist
  
• Oxytocin released when trusting conman
  
• Conman shows you he trusts you which hooks you
  
• Investment fraud: mass emails "accurately" predicting outcomes by trying all variations
  
• Madoff
  
• Illusion of exclusivity
  

Ch. 11: The Magic Castle

• Neuromagicians
• Tryouts to join club
  
• Lack of women in magic
• But in Asia there are
• Judgment criteria
• Good enough to not embarrass Castle
  
• Not going to reveal secrets by accident
  
• Must know timing to demonstrate that know when magic happens
• Categories of magic
  
• Appearance
• Vanishing
• Transposition
• Restoration after destroyed
• Penetration
• Transformation
• Telekinesis, levitation, animation, spoon bend
• Mental or physical feats, mind reading, catch bullet
• Immense practice
• Motor map in brain
  
• New neural connections
• Motor maps increase in size with practice
  
• Functions move from higher level regions to lower level regions as gain expertise
• Magicians perform routine by rote
• Sleight of hand requires making move while making appearance of another
• Analyzed French drop movements scientifically
• Skilled magicians required to make ambiguous hand movements
• Acting is a required skill for magician
  
• Robert Houdin: "the magician is an actor who makes you think he has powers"
• Magicians were famous inventors
• No new tricks since 19th century
• Catching bullet
  
• Mechanical Turk: calculating machine that played chess
• magicians and spies collaborated
• Larger action covers smaller action
• Managing sight lines to do clandestine moves unseen
• Made it to Castle membership

Ch. 12: Will magic go away?

• Great magic not about secrets but about hacking the brain
• Like live music performers, tons of practice required
• Secret (like an entrepreneur's idea) is minimal component
• Exposure of secrets huge violation of group ethical standards
• Magic helps science so should cooperate more
• Should make secrets available for enlightened self interest
• Magic by expert still amazing even if know secret
• Mirror neurons link action and perception
• Get more active the more expert you are when you watch someone else do it
• Learning magic makes you like it more
• Illusions not mistake in brain design but critical to perception system
• When you look at a page in a book indoors and outdoors, it looks exactly the same. But outside 10 million times more bright and different quality of light so look is definitely not the same. 
• Brain runs 2 processes: brightness constancy and color constancy
• Your view of book page thus an illusion
• Visual illusions help you survive in complex world when you exit from the cave
• Cognitive illusions keep you alive
• Use magic to increase rate of cognitive discoveries
• Science will not make magic go away just like sunrise still looks beautiful after understood
  
• Science adds to the experience and enriches it
• Magic manipulates the core of our being
• Brain so easily fooled
• Spotligbt of attention
• Blink vs. Invisible Gorilla (intuition versus rational thinking)
• Both ideas right
• Brain signals can be weak and fuzzy
• Attention serves to change strength of signal
• Reasoning through important in order to direct attention

Epilogue

• Do one thing at a time (multitasking is a myth)
  
• Keep records of important Information immediately after event happens (memories fallible)
  
• When make mistake, move on and don't worry about being noticed (people have very limited attention width)
  
• People will tell you what you want to hear/coldreading (psychic, salesperson); try changing your story, and if the selling points change, they're not being honest
• When negotiating in personal relationships, disarm with charm (magicians' method)
  
• Don't think about something when don't want other person to know; your gaze telegraphs thoughts (eyes control other person's attention)
  
• When deciding, make list of all hard facts and intuitions and consider each one fully, then decide quickly (combining intuition and rational thinking)
  

This is a talk I gave at UCLA for our first-year communications class. It was inspired by stories I heard from my parents as well as my own personal experience watching my wife go through medical school. You can check out the PowerPoint via SlideShare below.

Libby Zion was an 18-year-old freshman girl who had just started attending college in New York in 1984. She was admitted to the hospital with a high fever, and the only physicians who saw her that night were doctors in training known as residents, who had been working close to 36 hours straight and were busy with dozens of other patients. There were medical errors committed along the way, and within 24 hours of being admitted to the hospital, Libby was dead, and her family was mortified.

Our current system of medical education is extremely suboptimal and urgently needs to change for the benefit of both patients and doctors. Why should you care about this problem that is rarely discussed? Sooner or later, you and your family are bound to get sick, and your lives will be in the hands of physicians out of your control. For instance, I’ve learned from my wife who is a medical student that June is the most dangerous month to go to the hospital because all of the residents and med students are brand new and are getting their first chance to “treat” real patients.

The main counterarguments that aim to keep the medical training system as it is are a tradition of hazing new doctors, keeping costs down by employing fewer doctors, and allowing doctors to have continuity of care for patients without switching off too much, but I will demonstrate from the perspective of patients and doctors that these benefits are not worth their extreme costs. Though some changes have been made to reduce doctor hours to 80 per week with no more than 36 hours in a shift, further changes are still necessary because the problems for patients and doctors remain severe.

The current medical training system is extremely dangerous for the patients it is ultimately trying to serve. When you consider the biggest causes of death on an annual basis (according to an Institute of Medicine report), the top four are the usual suspects: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and respiratory disease. But what’s shocking is that the fifth worst cause of death is medical errors, accounting for almost 100,000 deaths each year and costing our economy almost $20 billion, more than diabetes and Alzheimer’s. While most of the other causes of death are natural and hard to avoid, medical errors are by definition preventable. Research studies have shown that well-rested residents outperform tired residents on memory skills, interpretation of scans, and monitoring of patients, and doctors attribute more than half of their mistakes to sleep deprivation and having too many other tasks to do.

In addition, a recent study in Nature magazine showed that after 24 hours of wakefulness, cognitive function deteriorates to a level equivalent to having a 0.10 blood alcohol content, 25% higher than the legal limit for driving. If we don’t let people drive their cars at that level, why are we letting them operate on our loved ones?

But driving is not the only serious problem for doctors; in fact, it is just one of several severe risks the current medical education system presents for doctors just like it does for patients. According to an article in Academic Emergency Medicine, ER residents are seven times more likely to have a motor vehicle accident due to falling asleep at the wheel during their residency than before it. Not only are doctors physically in danger with the current system, they are also mentally suffering and losing their caring attitude towards patients. A recent New York Times article compared the suicide rates of doctors with the general population. The article showed that the suicide rate was 40% higher for male doctors and a staggering 130% higher for female doctors than general population. The most concerning piece of evidence, though, related to the training system’s effects on doctors comes from a study that reviewed real journal entries of residents. One journal entry stuck out but was representative of many other entries just like it: “It’s 1:00am, and I'm ready to go to bed when there's a code blue. Probably a nice man with a loving wife and concerned children, but I don't want him to live if it means I don't sleep. I just want to sleep.” It goes without saying that if the sleep deprivation is bringing individuals who swore the Hippocratic Oath to such a desperate, inhumane mental state, something is terribly wrong with the training system.

Therefore, in order to produce better outcomes for patients and help lower the thousands of deaths due to medical errors like Libby Zion’s as well as to create more safety and caring attitudes for doctors, we need to improve the medical training system by reducing the number of hours doctors work and increasing the amount of supervision. There is plenty of demand to go to medical school, so it is simply about hiring slightly more doctors. There will already be plenty of need for more doctors with universal healthcare coverage and increased healthcare demand. What all of you can do about this important issue is to help publicize the problem and get the word out about it, such as through blogs and talking to any journalist friends you might have. In addition, by writing to your Congressmen and voting on issues related to medical training, you can help to change the system one day.

But until that time, don’t go to the hospital in June.

Gary's audiobooks are extremely hilarious, filled with so much energy and personality that really rubs off on you. After enjoying Crush It, I decided to give his latest, The Thank You Economy, a shot.

It did not disappoint. It seemed to be somewhat of an extension to Crush It in that it focused on social media marketing. However, it took it one step further and one level deeper by honing in on the concept of customer engagement and WOWing customers, a la Zappos. It made the bold prediction that companies who do not fully embrace a customer-centric culture will be extinct within 5 years.

I did enjoy Crush It as a book more. CI seemed way more specific about actual actions and recommendations, while TTYE was more about trends and philosophy.

Just like with CI, in the audio version of TTYE, Gary went off script many times, which were often my favorite little bits of the entire experience, updating the readers based on what has gone down since the book went to press and adding in various ad libs and funny non sequiturs.

Below are my main notes and takeaways. I do think Gary's right in his predictions, and my personal philosophy has always been to treat others (especially anyone who's a "customer") as critically important. Finding unique ways to wow them like Gary has written is a great way to show this respect.

Preface

• Customer satisfaction is key
  

Part 1: Welcome

Ch. 1: How everything changed except human nature

• When people go out of their way, you feel inclined to reciprocate
  
• Business use of social media
  
• One to one relationships
  
• Word of mouth
  
• Remember the time when caring meant business
  
• Small town business versus quarterly earnings and stock options
  
• Internet could isolate
  
• Dark ages of customer service: phone hold, outsourced customer service
  
• Social media reconnected people
  
• Search changing to incorporate social features
  
• Customer complaints quickly shared and spread
  
• Business can't ignore complaints
  
• Better to be proactive
  
• Only companies who authentically follow old-style manners will succeed (I'm happy I read all those 15th century etiquette books in the Rare Books collection!)
  
• Value every single customer
  
• Social media equals business
  

Ch. 2: Erasing lines in the sand

• People always skeptical of new tech 
  

Ch. 3: Why smart people ignore social media and why they shouldn't

• (I was one of these people for a while until I decided to dig deeper and found the immensely interesting connections with psychology.)
• Intent matters
  
• Some doing it wrong
  
• Need to be fully committed
  
• Can't rely on ROI
  
• Excuse 1: there is no ROI
  
• What is the ROI of customer care?
  
• Nielsen proved trust drives sales
  
• Book: Satisfied tell 3, unsatisfied tell 3000
  
• Excuse 2: metrics aren't reliable
  
• Nielsen measures online like TV
  
• But only measures ads, not engagement
  
• Excuse 3: social media still too young
  
• Entering earlier makes big difference
  
• Excuse 4: social media is just a passing trend
  
• Already has changed the game
  
• Excuse 5: we need to control the message
  
• No one can control the message
  
• Here you have the chance to reply
  
• Excuse 6: no time to track random users
  
• Random users are who matter now
  
• Excuse 7: fine without it
  
• Was fine without fax, cell phone, etc.
  
• Excuse 8: tried it but didn't work
  
• Didn't commit and do it right
  
• Excuse 9: legal issues too thorny
  
• Change must come from top, not from legal
  
• Excuse 10: long-term benefits hard to measure
  
• Traditional media too expensive
  
• Ads are one time
  
• Social media continuous
  
• Excuse 11: only works for tech or fashion
  
• Works for all
  
• Even if you're not in a sexy industry, people are talking about it online
  

Part 2: How to win

Ch. 4: From the top, instill the right culture

• Amazon bought Zappos for its culture
  
• Culture is the next playing field
  
• No "vacation policy"
  
• Let employees run themselves as adults until found they can't be trusted
  
• Chief Culture Officer
  
• Begin with the top
  
• Commit whole hog
  
• Culture of super-sized caring
  
• Set tone
  
• Invest in employees
  
• Trust your people
  
• Be authentic
  
• Empower people
  
• Social media department
  
• Give a damn department
  

Ch. 5: The perfect date: traditional and new media

• Social media allows conversation to continue like a good date after a traditional ad
  

Ch. 6: I'm on a horse, Old Spice commercials

• Ping ping between traditional and social media
  
• Old Spice was huge win across both media
  
• But failed to keep engaging new followers
  
• No such thing as social media campaign; marriage, not one night stand
  

Ch. 7: Intent, quality versus quantity

• Not about numbers of fans and likes
  
• Depth of follow up and engagements
  
• Let your reps be themselves and not go on script
  
• Don't hire a PR company to do social media; do internally
  

Ch. 8: Shock and awe

• Give gifts randomly to engagers
  

Part 4: Thank You Economy in action

Ch. 9: Knowing where people want to go

• Tech company
• Tech support monitors social media and interacts
  
• Won $250k contract for telecom supplies by responding to a tweet
  
• Power of just showing up
  

Ch. 10: Interacting with the community

• Milwaukee burger joint
  
• Let customers determine the brand and operation of business
  
• Tweet Up events
  
• Foursquare specials
  
• Engage online and offline events
  
• Swarm event
  
• Spend money on customers, not ad networks
  

Ch. 11: Caring about the big and small

• Hotel chain
  
• Art of customization
  
• One on one shock and awe
  
• Dreammaker award for employees who wow customers
  
• Random acts of kindness
  
• Word of mouse (clicks)
  
• Regular investments and attention to social media training
  
• Twitter Tuesdays
  
• Facebook Fridays
  
• Message comes from top
  
• Few tweets pushing deals and most pulling in through engagement
  

Ch. 13: Pushing social media

• Dentist differentiates through social media
  
• Offered Groupon
  
• Able to re-earn trust when make mistakes
  
• Got articles in TechCrunch and journals
  
• Early social media adopters get huge earned media
  

Ch. 14: Attorneys who tweet

• Lawyers usually risk averse
  
• Requires trusting law firms
  
• Good intent
  
• Give startups advising services and work like they do
  

Conclusion

• Marketing getting harder
  
• Attention getting smaller
  
• Information generation harder
  
• All the data created by humans for all time until 2003 is now created every 48 hours
  
• Landscape won't stabilize
  
• Can't wait for it
  
• Have to run marathon with new tools, not sprint/campaign
  

Part 4: Sawdust

• How to start conversations
  
• Fear impending innovation
  
• Hidden agendas by traditional media
  
• Nielsen ratings cover a tiny sample; paper diaries sent through the mail inaccurate (most filled out wrong)
  
• People surfing the web and using multimedia devices while watching TV
  
• No one watching billboards because of mobile phones
  
• Surveys subconsciously filter people's replies
  
• Social media often less filtered
  
• Ad Age: most brands still irrelevant on twitter
  
• Problem is it's used wrong (press releases instead of conversations)
  
• Hsieh/Zappos acquisition email to employees full of personality and intention
  

Part 5: How to win in the Thank You Economy: Care

• Hire and create culture with the right DNA
  
• Tactics in this book will self destruct in 3 years; marketers will beat new platforms to death
  
• Must act now

A quick read (listen) that I enjoyed was The Power of Less by Leo Babauta. It was quite similar to The 4-Hour Workweek and Getting Things Done in its essence, though it was a bit less extreme and less detailed in its methodologies (this was both good and bad). I honestly found the book a bit too general/high-level as it tried to cover a very wide range of topics. The best parts were when the author wrote of his own personal experience and used specific details of life changes he made and how he went about that.

The takeaways I liked best were applying constraints/limits to all aspects of life and choosing the 1-3 big, challenging tasks each day that are required to move towards one's long-term goals, rather than simply doing what's easy and taking care of low-hanging fruit.

Introduction

• Overload of information and tasks
  
• Key is to make choices
  
• Simplicity
  
• Identify the essential
  
• Eliminate the rest
• Author went from bad life to good life
  
• Set limitations
  
• Choose essential
  
• Simplify
  
• Focus
  
• Set habits

Part 1: Principles

Ch. 1: Why less is better

• Now, more always seems better
  
• Finite number of hours looks like a problem
  
• High volume, short-term vs. focused and long-term thinking
  
• Lessons of haiku thinking
  
• By setting limitations, we choose the essential
  
• By choosing the essential, we create big impact with the fewest resources
  
• Examine your task list: Will this have impact beyond this week?
  
• Start with your goals, and each day choose the one task that moves you towards them
  
• Apply limitations to all aspects of life

Ch. 2: The art of setting limits

• Start with one area of life at a time
  
• Email
  
• Daily tasks
  
• Online reading
  
• How to set limits
  
• First, just arbitrary
  
• Test limit until it's a habit
  
• Analyze current usage level
  
• Try lower limit
  
• Test for a week
  
• Adjust if necessary and retest
  

Ch. 3: Choose the essential and simplify

• Put horse before cart
  
• Effectiveness vs. productivity (hello, Thinking on Your Feet class!)
  
• Ask in all parts of life what the essentials are
  
• What are your values?
  
• What are your goals?
  
• What do you love?
  
• What has the biggest impact?
  
• What has the longer term impact?
  
• Needs vs. wants
  
• Eliminate nonessentials
  
• Continual editing process
  
• Life commitments
  
• Yearly goals: only one or two
  
• Work projects and tasks
  
• Emails
  
• Finances
  
• Clutter
  
• Regular review
  
• Enjoy the process

Ch. 4: Simple focus

• State of flow
  
• Single tasking
  
• Mornings, work on your most important task. No distractions. Then take a break. Then other tasks.
  
• Practice focusing on present
  
• Exercise
  

Ch. 5: Creating new habits

• To make them long lasting
  
• 30 day challenge
  
• Only one habit per month
  
• Write down plan and exact tasks per day, who will report to, what will trigger
  
• Tell people publicly
  
• Report on progress daily
  
• Celebrate new habit
  
• Specific, accountable, encouraging
  
• Only one habit at a time 
  
• Choose an easy goal, even easier than what you think you can do
  
• Have a measurement
  
• Do exercise at same time daily
  
• Report daily
  
• Expect setbacks
  
• 12 key habits, one per month
  
• Set 3 MIT daily: Most Important Tasks
  
• Single tasking
  
• Process inbox to empty (hello GTD!)
  
• Check email just twice a day (hello 4HWW!)
  
• Exercise 10 min. per day, then increase slowly
  
• Work with no distractions
  
• Follow a morning routine
  
• Eat more fruits and veggies daily
  
• Keep your desk de-cluttered
  
• Say no to requests that aren't on your short list
  
• De-clutter house 15 min. per day
  
• Stick to a 5 sentence limit for emails

Ch. 6: Start small

• Small increments
  
• Narrows focus
  

Part 2: In practice

Ch. 7: Simple goals and projects

• One goal system
  
• One subgoal at a time
  
• Make a list of all goals then choose just one and focus completely on it; choose the one most desirable that will take 6 months to 1 year to complete
  
• If it takes longer than 1 year, break it into subgoals
  
• Figure out monthly subgoals
  
• Figure out weekly goal towards subgoal
  
• Figure out daily action towards weekly goal
  
• Keep a projects list
  
• Choose just 3 total projects for simple projects list
  
• Everything else keep "on deck"
  
• Things moved to simple projects list only when all 3 on simple list done (not one at a time to prevent starvation)
  
• Keep 3 projects related to one goal
  
• Having a couple projects is to compensate for blocking on others
  
• Focus on completion
  
• List tasks required for project
  
• Talk to your boss about your system. Do projects on your list first.

Ch. 8: Simple tasks

• 3 MITs per day
  
• Set MITs first thing daily
  
• Do them first thing in morning
  
• One MIT should be always goal-related
  
• Single task in it
  
• Break into small 30 min tasks
  

Ch. 9: Simple time management

• Don't schedule appointments ahead of time
  
• Keep meetings to minimum
  
• Use calendar to list options for activities
  
• Stay in flow
  
• Choose a task that's challenging enough
  
• Remove distractions
  
• Keep an open schedule
  
• Batch processing of smaller similar tasks
  
• Keep list of batch tasks organized by type: calls, emails, errands, paperwork, mailbox processing, meetings, online reading

Ch. 10: Simple email

• Find ways to combine different addresses
  
• Check at 10am and 4pm
  
• Process to empty, use external to-do system
  
• Write no more than 5 sentences

Ch. 11: Simple Internet

• Awareness
  
• Track internet usage time
  
• Have purpose to your use
  
• What are your real needs?
  
• What are fun sites? Use as reward for work
  
• Disconnect physically from net
  
• Offline hour or day regularly
  
• Discipline
  
• Break addiction for one week
  
• Set rules on usage per site
  
• Get social pressure from others
  
• Reward yourself

Ch. 12: Simple filing

• Alphabetical filing, just one drawer (hello GTD!)
  
• File immediately
  
• Have materials at hand for easy access
  
• Reduce filing needs
  
• File electronically
  
• Reduce incoming paper
  
• Stop paper versions of newsletters
  
• Pay bills immediately or batch twice per month

Ch. 13: Simple commitments

• Reduce number of them
  
• Take inventory of commitments
  
• Work
  
• Side work
  
• Family
  
• Civic
  
• Religious
  
• Hobbies
  
• Home
  
• Online
  
• Make a short list of what matters
  
• 4-5 top commitments
  
• Cut off all else
  
• Be firm
  
• Free up time and spend time doing nothing

Ch. 14: Simple daily routine

• Power of morning routine
  
• Wake at 4am and enjoy silence
  
• Go for morning run
  
• Read
  
• Create calming routine
  
• Do everyday, set habit
  
• Ideas below; choose 4-6
  
• Have coffee or tea
  
• Watch sunrise
  
• Exercise
  
• Shower
  
• Bath
  
• Read
  
• Eat breakfast
  
• Yoga
  
• Meditate
  
• Walk in nature
  
• Prep lunch
  
• Write
  
• Journal
  
• Choose 3 MITs
  
• Review goals
  
• Have gratitude session
  
• No work routines part of this
  
• Evening routine ideas
  
• Calming and prep for next day
  
• Unwind, prep, review, calm, keep house clean, spend time with loved ones, log day
  
• Cook dinner
  
• Eat dinner
  
• Shower or bath
  
• Brush and floss
  
• Journal
  
• Write
  
• Read
  
• Exercise
  
• Prep clothes and lunch for next day
  
• Meditate
  
• Work on lawn
  
• Review day
  
• Facial
  
• Read to kids
  
• Spouse conversation
  
• Focus on routine to set habit
  
• Make routine rewarding
  
• Log progress and report daily online

Ch. 15: De-clutter workspace

• Benefits of clean desk: focus, calm
  
• Set aside some time
  
• Clear off all except tools
  
• With each piece, deal with it then, don't put back on pile
  
• Options: trash, delegate, file, add to to-do list
  
• Remove knick knacks
  
• Celebrate when done
  
• Keep clean and file away new stuff going forward
  
• Do same for full home 
  
• Reduce desire for more
  
• Stop buying new stuff

Ch. 16: Slow down

• Stop self when switching attention
  
• Simple meditation, attention only on breathing
  
• Slow working
  
• Choose what you love
  
• Find your peak time
  
• Slow eating
  
• Drive slow

Ch. 17: Simple health and fitness

• Form exercise habit
  
• Schedule your workout time
  
• Gradual healthy diet changes
  
• Share goals with others
  
• Log workouts and diet daily

Ch. 18: Motivation

• Start small
  
• One goal
  
• Join group of likeminded people
  
• Visualizations

I recently finished listening to the audio version of Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. It was an enjoyable book, though it did have a majority of its background sections in common with other psychology books I've recently read having to do with natural biases and irrational decision-making. What I did like about this book was how it applied some basic principles to various areas of life, including managing money, saving for retirement, reaching health goals, and societal issues likes social security and organ donation. I think some of the suggestions in the book have a lot of weight, and I hope we implement them in the future.

I also liked their philosophy of libertarian paternalism, as it gels with some of my own personal thoughts on how choices and systems should be designed: giving people the right to choose but helping to "nudge" them in the right direction.

Intro: The cafeteria

• Location of foods influence kids' choices
  
• "Choice architect" organizes choices for others
  
• Examples: people writing forms, doctors explaining treatments, salespeople
  
• No such thing as neutral design
  
• Their philosophy: libertarian paternalism
  
• People should be free to do what they like
  
• Liberty-preserving
  
• Paternalistic to steer people to improve their lives
  
• Nudge doesn't forbid options
  
• People do not decide rationally
  

Part 1: Humans and Econs

Ch. 1: Biases

• 2 tabletops optical illusion
  
• How we think: 2 systems
  
• Automatic and rational systems (Systems 1 and 2)
  
• Anchoring, availability, representativeness biases
  
• Optimism
  
• Overconfidence
  
• Loss aversion
  
• Status quo bias
  
• Framing effects
  

Ch. 2: Resisting temptation

• Influence of arousal on choices underestimated
  
• Mindless choices: eating, driving, stale popcorn study
  
• Large plates and packages nudge us to eat more
  
• Ways to counteract: Clocky, informal bets against what you want
  
• Mental accounting of different non-fungible money accounts (even though all fungible)
  

Ch. 3: Social influence

• Social influences: information and peer pressure
  
• Music popularity in different simulated worlds based on initial conditions of what most downloaded (not inherent quality of music)
  
• Obesity contagious; eat more when eating with more people
  

Ch. 4: When we need a nudge

• Golden rule: when we can help and minimally hurt
  
• Market competition protects irrational consumers
  

Ch. 5: Choice architecture

• Stimulus response compatibility: pull bars on push doors incompatible
  
• Defaults: padding the path of least resistance
  
• Expect error and be forgiving
  
• Example: Netflix collaborative filtering
  

Part 2: Money

Ch. 6: Save more tomorrow

• Negative savings rates in US
  
• Ways to solve this: automatic enrollment in 401k plans
  
• Save More Tomorrow Plans: commit now to saving a certain % in the future (eases shock by not doing it yet but does commit)

Ch. 7: Naive investing

• Attitude towards risk affected by frequency of checking investment performance
  
• Market timing poor by people
  
• Problem: naive 1/n asset allocation
  
• Problem: not enough rebalancing
  
• Problem: concentration in single employer company stock
  
• Solutions: defaults should be well-diversified, passive portfolios

Ch. 8: Credit markets

• Mortgages
  
• Student loans
  
• Credit cards
  
• Not enough transparency; too much documentation; overcomplication
• Insuficient fee disclosures, comparisons across service providers
  
• Solution: standardized recap statements of fees in human- and machine-readable format; 3rd party sites can allow apples-for-apples comparison shopping
  
• Solution: reduce the types of loans and number of options to only the ones that are appropriate for people

Ch. 9: Privatizing social security

• Inspired by Sweden (but theirs is too laissez-faire)
  
• Sweden: too many choices, allowed mutual fund advertising
  
• More choices provided means need to give more help
  
• Provide one default great choice but allow those who want to customize to be able to do so

Part 3: Health

Ch. 10: Prescription drugs

• Medicare: way too many and too confusing plans
  
• Even official website impossible to use and gives non-reproducible results for plan choice algorithm
  
• Plan D Medicare impossible to understand (disagreement even among experts)
  
• Problem: random assignment of dual eligibles
• Solution: Simplify system, switch dual eligibles to intelligent assignment
  

Ch. 11: Increase organ donations

• Presumed consent in Austria
  
• Mandated choice in Iowa
  
• 80% of people just accept the default

Ch. 12: Saving the planet

• Externalities in pollution
  
• Fix incentives and provide feedback
  
• Cap and trade rights systems good
  
• More information disclosures on polluters
  
• Continuous feedback on energy use; Watson device to share energy use publicly; orb showing energy use to public; t-shirt you wear that projects your energy use to your friends (use peer pressure)
  

Part 4: Freedom

Ch. 13: Improving education

• Give more choices
  
• Introduce competition
  
• Simple recap fact sheets to help parents choose better schools
  

Ch. 14: Should patients be forced to buy lottery tickets?

• Problem: having right to sue for malpractice increases cost of healthcare and people not legally allowed to waive
  
• Better to allow freedom to contract for informed patients
  

Ch. 15: Privatizing marriage

• Solution: Marriage removed from all laws
  
• Separate religious organizations choose own rules for what to allow
  
• Civil unions give legal benefits to anyone who wants
• Tax benefits
  
• Entitlements
  
• Inheritance benefits
  
• Ownership benefits
  
• Surrogate decision making
  
• Evidentiary privileges
  
• Remove requirement for state licenses for marriages; up to private institutions, not government
  

Part 5: Extensions

Ch. 16: Ideas

• More ideas from authors and community
• Give More Tomorrow Plan (like Save More Tomorrow): for charity, commit to give small amount later
  
• Charity Debit Card: to quickly get itemized statements of contributions for tax purposes
  
• Automatic tax return: prefilled to reduce costs for default cases
  
• Stickk.com: financial commitments for goal-setting
  
• Quit smoking without a patch
  
• Motorcycle helmets: if want to ride without one, sign up showing proof of insurance, status as organ donor, and having passed special test
  
• Gambling self-bans: add yourself to list of people banned from casinos
  
• Destiny Health Plan: earn vitality bucks from living healthy
  
• Dollar a Day: pay teen girls $1/day to not be pregnant
  
• Changing filters in AC: little red light that tells you when
  
• No Bite Nail Polish: bitter taste if you bite it
  
• Civility Check: checks for mean emails and warns you before sending
  

Ch. 17: Objections to nudges

• Slippery slope (actual policies are beneficial)
  
• Evil nudgers and bad nudges (they'll always be there)
  
• Subliminal messaging (this is not; must have transparency)
  
• Nudging best when choice complex
  
• Asymmetric paternalism: help those most in need without harming others too much (example: mandatory cooling off periods after big purchase)
  

Bonus chapter: 20 more nudges

• iPed: jewelry changing color based on energy use/carbon footprint
  
• Smart meters: energy tracking
  
• Energy use and neighborhood comparison
  
• Affordable home energy meter (Watson); glows color based on use
  
• Fight global warming through driver feedback report and dashboard. Ecopedal to stop speeding.
  
• Power aware cord: intensity and age of electric current changes color
  
• Carbon labels: label carbon footprint
  
• Make believe speedbumps: painted triangles
  
• Eliminate dividing lines: lowers driving speeds, show vehicle speed
  
• Calorie count posting
  
• Eliminate cafeteria trays: less waste of food and napkins
  
• Japanese cultural norms/nudge against obesity
  
• Prescription drug nudges: to deal with patient noncompliance, give pill box with matrix of days, software updating doctor when taking or missing dose
  
• Procrastinators clock: up to 15 minutes fast but randomly
  
• Put a stop to people who blabber on: say, "please interrupt me if I speak longer than x minutes"
  
• Transparent airline seat pockets: helps people avoid forgetting belongings, also deters leaving trash
  
• Parking meters instead of panhandlers: homeless meters to raise money for city
  
• Limos for drunk drivers: road crew giving rides
  
• Social influences in recycling
  
• Urinals around the world: fly stickers
  

Postscript 11/08

• Obama
  
• Financial crisis
  
• Bounded rationality: hard to compare mortgages and understand subprime, especially for investors in MBS
  
• Limited self-control: easy to refinance and hard to resist, great returns on mortgage securities 
  
• Social influences: social contagion, unrealistic expectations
  
• Nudges: show mortgage terms in machine-readable format for comparison shopping, reduce complexity and types of mortgages available
  

I had the true pleasure of hearing Suzanne Nora Johnson address my leadership class taught by former Mayor Riordan. She spoke of leadership, courage, and what has allowed her to succeed in business and philanthropic initiatives. I especially enjoyed hearing about her personal philosophies and which thinkers she takes to heart.

Johnson started her career as a lawyer and has worked in a variety of fields, including finance in the private and public sectors. In 2006, Forbes named her in its list of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the world.

Most notably, Johnson worked as Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs as Head of Global Marketing, from which she retired in 2007 to work on solving international problems. She now is Chairman of The Global Council on Financial Risk and on the boards of many large institutions including Pfizer, the Broad Foundation, and the Carnegie Institute.

Johnson grew up in Chicago and had a large family with many first cousins. She went to USC and from there applied to law school. She clerked for a judge in the South to broaden her perspective and went on to practice law in New York for a couple years. She knew her goal longer term was to eventually work at the World Bank, so she applied to three investment banks to gain experience. That's what brought her to Goldman Sachs, where she eventually led the team to restructure emerging market debt.


Compare and Contrast

Johnson structured her talk by contrasting similar and often confused concepts.

• Achievement vs. success: focus on long-term results
  
• Strategic vs. tactical: long- vs. short-term
  
• Drive vs. ambition: drive is about doing goals to advance self and others; ambition is mostly for self. The founder of Matsushita Electric was a factory worker who started by creating a bike light for factory workers in his garage. His employer didn't want to sell it, so he went off on his own and produced it himself. He cared deeply about helping other factory workers, and during the depression, he didn't lay anyone off.
  
• Courage vs. risk-taking: strength to venture and withstand danger vs. simply bearing danger. May Chidiac was a journalist in the Lebanese broadcasting company; after terrorists exploded half her body, she still went back on the air to continue providing independent reporting.
  
• Innovation vs. adaptation: something new vs. adjustment to environmental conditions. Marie Curie found new elements because she was looking for something new.
  
• Inclusiveness vs. tolerance: worldliness, involving actively other perspectives vs. simply allowing something different or sympathizing. Sir Ratan Tata, founder of the Tata Group, endowed chairs in English universities to study poor people; his company is innovating in emerging markets way before others -- that's inclusiveness.
  
• Generosity vs. charity: liberality in giving, freedom from pettiness vs. relief donations. When Walter Payton, a football player, didn't take the opportunity given to him to skip ahead on the liver transplant list, this was generosity and ethical conduct.
  
• Fairness vs. disinterest: active treatment of all equally vs. freedom from involvement. Martin Luther King as overt and sought affirmative behavior towards fairness.
  

Long-Term Philosophy

• Societal fundamentals: inter-generational equity, global growth and security, functional democracy
  
• Inter-generational equity: Chris Hitchens, secular atheist, says the future belongs to the next generation
  
• Live for the next generation
  
• Passion to achieve results
  
• Optimism and opportunity in face of challenge
  
• Engage in innovations that improve the world
  
• Work with others in common cause
  
• Absolute importance of integrity
  
• Commitment to give back
  
• Proverb: Work for your future as if you're going to live forever; work for your afterlife as if you're going to die tomorrow.
  

Teams and Decision-Making

• Sort naysayers and supporters when you're right and wrong
  
• Understand and trust teammates
  
• Evaluate the odds and be comfortable with ambiguity
  
• When all else fails, use Hail Mary pass; just do something uncomfortable and take risk
  
• Need to throw the ball; can't be frozen
  

When I heard the Dean of UCLA Anderson mention Moonwalking with Einstein, I was caught off guard. The title was definitely unusual, and I had no idea what it was about. I knew it was about memory and psychology, and I figured it was worth a shot.

I was definitely in for a treat. The book follows the story of the author, who was a journalist in his twenties and got randomly into the "memory training circuit" and decided to give the techniques a shot by trying to see how well he could improve his memory. He ended up doing quite well: winning the US Memory Championship and making a lot of deep friendships with Mental Athletes (MAs) around the world.

The book was a really fun read, and I definitely learned a lot about memory and the history of memory techniques. In addition, I loved the philosophical discussions about the role of memory and how important it is to develop and cherish it for our human nature. It's also inspired me to look into a lot of the primary sources mentioned within it and to perhaps try to train myself similar to how the author did. The only question is when I can find the time to do that....

Below are my main notes on the text. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in psychology, memory, and general displays of awesomeness and freakish nature.

Ch. 1: The smartest man is hard to find

• US memory championship
  
• Brains harder to quantify than braun
  
• Ben Pridmore was reining memory champion
  
• Experience is sum of one's memories
  
• Wisdom is sum of one's experience
  
• Better memory => better person
  
• Pridmore said it's just technique that anyone can learn
  
• Mental Athletes (MAs)
  
• Use the "Memory Palace" technique developed by the Romans
  
• Tony Buzan marketed mind techniques
  
• Simonides developed "method of loci"
  
• Food intake affects brain
  
• Memorizing as a mental workout
  
• "Brain gyms" software
  
• At first, memory was stored inside and considered important; now it's in books and computers and seen as less important
  

Ch. 2: The man who remembered too much

• The Mind of the Mnemonist book
  
• Study of people with abnormal memory skills
  
• Normal people: the "curve of forgetting"
  
• Picture recognition test: memory for images excellent among all
  
• Photographic memory is a myth
  
• Study Subject in study had automatic synesthesia
  
• Memory is pattern of connections between neurons
  
• Memory not searchable; just accessible by cues
  
• Study Subject's memories were stored and organized linearly
  
• Install memory images along a real street
  
• Study Subject was crippled by inability to forget
  
• London taxi drivers have intense memory and test requirements
  
• Cabbies' brains changed and reorganized to adapt to job; "neural plasticity"
  
• Superior Memory book
  
• Brains of MAs had same IQ and same structure as control subjects in fMRI; difference was that different parts of brain used when memorizing (using visual and spatial navigation parts of brain)
  
• Consciously converting data into images placed on mental roadmap
  
• "KL7" club: Knights of Learning
  
• Manufactured synesthesia
  
• Turn names into visual joke on name/sound
  

Ch. 3: The expert expert

• Got a coach named Ed
  
• Learned about chicken sexing industry: determining gender of chickens is a bit deal; technique requires intuition to quickly and accurately work
  
• K. Erickson developed "skilled memory theory"
  
• Tested experts
  
• Tested author for baseline memory skills and followed him as he trained to see if his memory could improve
  
• Erickson studied experts. Found it takes 10,000 hours of training to become expert that can process enormous information in sophisticated ways and get past "magic 7" number (short-term memory limit).
  
• Chunk in order to remember more
  
• Use associations in long-term memory to see world differently
  

Ch. 4: The most forgetful man in the world

• Story of severe documented case of amnesia
  
• Monotony compresses time; novelty expands it
  
• Creating new memories stretches psychological time
  
• That's why it's so important to travel, do interesting work
  
• Life speeds up when becomes less memorable as we grow up
  
• Hippocampus converts short-term to long-term memory
  
• Unconscious
  
• Declarative/explicit vs. non-declarative/implicit/unconscious memories
  
• Unconscious memories don't require hippocampus
  
• Semantic/concept memories vs. episodic memory in time and space
  
• Ribeau's Law: memories not static; they change as we age and with events
  
• Sleep consolidates memories
  
• Infantile amnesia: brains maturing quickly, neocortex developing in first 3 years, lacks language and schemas
  

Ch. 5: The memory palace

• Elaborative coding
  
• Brains aren't adapted to current information age
  
• Simonides invented art of memory
  
• Rhetorica ad Herenium book
  
• Natural memory: hardware
  
• Artificial memory: software
  
• Method of loci
  
• Memory palace
  
• Populate intimately familiar place with images
  
• Start with house you grew up in and arrange items along a path
  
• Add multiple senses to each image you put down
  
• Add inappropriate images so it's funny and lewd
  

Ch. 6: How to memorize a poem

• Walk around and rediscover old places and know them very thoroughly
  
• Need 12 memory palaces to begin; grow to hundreds
  
• Memory training about growing as a person; learning old texts gives us guidance
  
• Memory training was huge in old civilizations
  
• Americans greatly behind Europeans on memory training
  
• For memorizing poems, put image of each topic not each word (due to efficiency and stability)
  
• "Topic" comes from Greek word for "place"
  
• That's the root of the phrase "in the first place"
  
• Brains better at remembering meaning than verbatim text
  
• Homer's works were a collection of oral bards' memories
  
• Cliches are memorable, repeated, visualized phrases; critical for memorability
  
• Jingles hard to knock out of head
  
• Song is the ultimate structuring device for language
  
• For abstract words, imagine similar sounding word
  
• Break word into syllables and find images that start with same letter
  
• Men's technique for poem memorization: just images
  
• Women's technique for poem memorization: understand how poem feels, associate parts of poem with emotions
  
• Break lines into beats with different emotions (Method Acting technique)
  
• Quirky subculture of memory only in Oxford competition (small group)
  
• Golden age of memory died
  

Ch. 7: The end of remembering

• Before writing was invented, everything had to be preserved in memory
  
• Now, we remember very little because of calendar, GPS, photo albums, speed dial, etc.
  
• 1/3 of Brits can't remember their home phone number or more than 2 friends' birthdays
  
• History of writing: printing press, word spacing, table of contents, indexes in books
  
• Training memory classically was to build index of all we have read
  
• External memory: online and electronically
  
• Even more futuristic: Microsoft Lifelog
  

Ch. 8: The okay plateau

• Memorize random stuff around you
  
• "Major System" to remember numbers
  
• "Person Action Object" system (PAO) for longer numbers: converts numbers to images
  
• Online Brain Club forum
  
• 52 cards mapped to PAO images of 3 so it's just 18 groups of images to memorize
  
• Expertise improvement: speed-typing plateau
  
• Run on autopilot at some point: "okay plateau"
  
• Top achievers keep out of the okay plateau and do deliberate practice 
  
• Technique, goal oriented, constant feedback
• Have to practice failing
  
• Put yourself in mind of someone better and see difference between you and them
  
• Start going at pace quicker than can go by 10-20%, make mistakes, but improve
  
• Barriers and records constantly get broken because psychological, not physical
  
• Memory like a musical instrument; can learn and improve
  
• Set up spreadsheet to track practice sessions, metrics, progress, graph everything
  
• Enforces mindfulness and attention when trying to memorize names or details
  

Ch. 9: The talented ten

• Is all this a form of mental peacocking or useful?
  
• There's a private school in the Bronx that teaches based on memory techniques; it is much better performing than other schools
  
• In education, rote memorization got replaced with experiential learning
  
• Tony Buzan was Inspired by the Major System by a prof in his college
  
• Wanted an "operator's manual" for how to run his brain
  
• Realized education has the wrong definition of smart
  
• Invented "mindmapping" notetaking technique
  
• Said invention is a product of inventorying and indexing
  
• Use your head book
  

Ch. 10: The rainman in all of us

• People do 20% worse in memory competition than in practice
  
• Met Daniel, who was called the "Rain Man" (big memory and language capabilities)
  
• Rain Man film
  
• "Savantism" disease
  
• Single skill vs. general talent
• Savants often accompanied with disability
  
• Born on a blue day book
  
• Effortless memory of his; no technique
  
• Met with Daniel
  
• Found him to be actually ordinary
  
• Synesthesia disorder
  
• Asberger syndrome: high-functioning autism
  
• Resources: World Wide Brain Club, Memory Circuit Stat Server
• Kim Peek another savant
  
• Damage in left brain common
  
• When left brain damaged, right brain opens up hidden inner skills in all people
  
• TMS technology can zap left brain and turn on savant skills in people
  
• Author was skeptical Daniel might not be a savant, maybe just trained mnemonist
  
• In 19th century, savant was great term
  
• But now became freak condition
  

Ch. 11: US memory championship

• For practice, wore ear muffs and horse blinders/painted safety goggles to keep concentrated
  
• Relax one week before
  
• Got new record in speed cards by doing 3 cards at a time
  
• Won memory championship
  

Epilogue

• People later just wanted to see him do tricks
  
• Went to World Memory Championship; finished 13th place
• Offered KL7 membership; had to drink 2 beers, memorize 49 digits, kiss strange woman's knee 3 times to be inducted
• Got retested in Florida by expert researcher
  
• Improved memory skills but still kept misplacing car keys
  
• Working memory still was limited
  
• Software upgraded but hardware still the same
  
• Practice makes perfect, but must be deliberate practice
  
• Key is time and commitment
  
• Learned to be more mindful of world around him
  
• Hard to find occasion to use old techniques
  
• How we perceive world is based on how we remember
  
• Memories are the seeds of our values
  
• Memory training is about nurturing our humanity
  
• Experiment was over; says he's done competing
  

During my Enterprise and Venture Initiation class at UCLA Anderson, we heard a really "delicious" story of the founding and sale of Larabar. The founder Lara Merriken came to speak to us, and it didn't hurt that she brought free samples.

Here are some of the most memorable takeaways and key points from her story.

On inspiration

Lara got the idea for her product in the spring of 2000 while hiking. She calls it her "intuitive moment" when she hungered for a healthy and delicious snack bar made of all natural ingredients. The rest is history.

On starting

Lara set out on a mission to create her signature bar with only six ingredients with household names: real fruit, nuts, and spices -- raw, vegan, and gluten-free. She was able to strike the perfect balance between health and taste and sustain it to reaching $20 million in sales in 2006.

The day after she got the idea, she bought a Cuisinart and started experimenting at home. She even did some "customer development" from the beginning: she brought test batches to her friends and got great feedback; people starting asking her to buy them from her when they didn't get enough samples.

When she made her first packaging, she realized she needed a name. No one could come up with a good name, and her friends already identified the bars with her personality, so they just said she should name it after herself. That's when Larabar was born.

The first 500 bars were all made by hand. By 2003, they got the bars into a few Colorado stores and were delivering each batch themselves, handmade in Lara's kitchen by her staff of friends. Her first hire was her dad as COO, and she hired others whose titles were "do anything" (from shipping to answering phones to baking).

Lara raised $150,000 from friends and family by word of mouth. She sent a simple business plan to people who helped her test the product, and she cared about having investors who believed in the idea for the long run.

On expansion

As they expanded to selling 40-50 million bars per year, they established numerous manufacturing partnerships and networks. In doing this, quality were her top priority. There was even a time when one batch of their bars got contaminated and a customer complained of finding something non-edible inside the bar. Lara talked to the customer personally, admitted fault, and pulled an entire batch from the shelves, being upfront with her customers and working hard to prevent this from occurring again.

When Lara started selling at Whole Foods and other larger retailers, she personally did the sales in the aisles and got feedback from real shoppers. She found it critical to negotiate with Whole Foods so that she could control the distribution of her product for quality purposes, and she managed to do this as her bar was the only one of its kind at the time and selling out continuously.

On perseverance

Her biggest challenges at the start were finding manufacturers and persuading suppliers that her business was viable. She explained how it took tremendous faith and luck to get through some of those tough times when deals fell through or quality issues came up. Her advice to entrepreneurs is to "stay true to your vision, surround yourself with people who support you, don’t fear risks, and persevere because anything is possible and you can make it happen.”

On selling

Lara was approached numerous times about selling her business. When she decided she would entertain the idea, she flew out to meet with two companies.

One company treated her almost disrespectfully, showing little hospitality and not giving her a sense of trustworthiness and passion for her business. This company, though, was offering her more money than the other company's offer.

The other company -- General Mills -- took a different approach. They showered her with lavish hospitality, including an entire banquet table of healthy foods upon her arrival and a lot of passion for her business and her vision. She immediately felt at home and understood -- that this company "got" her essence and was on board to take it to the next level.

She ended up selling of course to General Mills in 2008, which has allowed her to continue to be involved with shaping the product's trajectory but has taken care of expanding distribution and running day to day operations.

Conclusion

Overall, I greatly enjoyed hearing Lara's story, and I liked how she stayed true to her ideals and ethics throughout the growth of her business.