Outliers: the story of success! [Point 1: 10.000 hours rule]

On Saturday whilst discussing the characteristics of Blackswans here, William Buist suggested the importance of this book (Outliers) as a response to one of my comments and wanted to see my analysis of this book. William's suggestion of the book, my second reading of it recently, and the importance of Blackswans have inspired me to create this blog series to reflect and learn from important points in this insightful book titled Outliers by Malcom Gladwell.

After reading the book twice with fascination (because it provided considerable insights to my cognitive hypotheses with interesting findings), I believe there are important arguments to be considered in this book and to be followed up with further discussions. Since the scope of the book is comprehensive it will not fit into one blog; hence I will focus on one key point in each post.

One of the most important lessons learnt from this book is repeatedly mentioned as the "10,000-Hour Rule". Gladwell claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours, 10 years or a decade! He provides well proven examples. I believe him because they are very well known and documented cases.

I fully agree with this 10 thousand hour rule as a person observing how thoughts and concepts are processed and make progress in very complex environments. It took me approximately 10 years to certify globally in my discipline in IBM. It took me over 10 years after my master's degree to start authoring advanced research papers in peer reviewed and refereed scientific journals. It took me 20 years to start my first invention to be patented! It took me over 20 years to learn English which I am still feeling shaky!! I can see that it took 11 years Thomas and Penny to bring Ecademy to this level. Based on this first hand experienced based knowledge confirmed by Malcolm's observations, I have difficulty in understanding anyone who declares expertise on a topic less than 10 years. For some reasons, I kept thinking a lot about Edison and Tesla whilst digesting this rule!!

Let's watch the following 2 clips interviewing Malcolm on this book. These clips may help understand the coverage and importance of the book for those who haven't read it yet. I believe you will laugh at what the male interviewer is good at in the second video; and pay attention to what Bill Gates used to do secretly and why Mozart's early works were crap!:-)

Let's be mindful that this is an eye opening, realistic [an anti-self help] book therefore...! I'd love to obtain your views on this 10 thousand hour rule!





Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni || Naymz|| Superfan

Paradoxically, food insecurity may be underlying contributor to...

What is the importance of food security and insecurity? What does it mean?

Food security "refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Worldwide around 852 million people are chronically hungry due to extreme poverty, while up to 2 billion people lack food security intermittently due to varying degrees of poverty".

The article "Household food insecurity contributes to overweight in children" According to the article: "Both household food insecurity and childhood overweight are significant problems in the United States. Paradoxically, being food-insecure may be an underlying contributor to being overweight. A study of almost 8,500 low-income children ages 1 month to 5 years, published in the October 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, suggests an association between household food insecurity and overweight prevalence in this low-income population. However, sex and age appear to modify both the magnitude and direction of the association."

Is this a mental or physical problem? I'd be interested to obtain views on what other implications of food security/insecurity could be?

Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz|| Superfan

Are arranged marriages panacea for preventing divorce?

Arranged marriage is a large and complex topic spanning multi-disciplines with many implications in many walks of life. This is only an exploration blog as I have no experience in the area apart from my curiosity to learn and a cursory review of the literature from social networking aspect to catch some patterns.

It is paradoxical to see arranged marriages still continue with success. According to Kinjo "Twenty-five to 30 per cent of all marriages taking place in Japan at present are arranged marriages". The rate of arranged marriages are higher in South Asia and Middle East compared to Europe, America and Australasia. Through my observations, I believe this rate is much lower in Australia. However, our divorce rate in Australia is so high; at least 40 thousand couples get divorced each year.

Even though arranged marriages are believed to have a lot of negative connotations, I know a few families with arranged marriage reached their 50th and even 60th anniversaries, whereas a number of marriages based on love and prior trial ended up within a year or so. Many of my friends have less than 2 years of marriage duration. I'd like to understand this paradoxical situation. I am wondering whether arranged marriages can help with the divorce?

If we get back to social networking context, would you consider people getting married through social networking without seeing each other can be considered an arranged marriage? What is your definition of arranged marriage? Let's explore this topic from multiple angles with your personal thoughts, experience and cultural impacts in your countries on the topic.

Hope you will enjoy this funny commercial related to this topic with futuristic flavour:


Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz|| Superfan

How do you deliver bad news to others?

There are daily many bad news at homes, in schools, in hospitals, in workplaces, in press including offline and online social medium. We call them bad news because we believe they are bad with unwanted consequences. The heart of this issue is that we jump to the conclusions too quickly sometimes; without knowing the overall consequences and understanding the purpose behind them. Some of them could be blessing in disguise when we look at them from the hindsight. There are of course some realistic heart breaking events too.

The article titled How to deliver the news? made me think what the best way to deliver bad news. It is a complex situation when dramatic emotional events are the matter of the news. We are sensitive creatures. Our mind play a lot of trick on our body and psyche. Using neutral language is recommended rather than starting the conversation with "I'm sorry" or "unfortunately I have some bad news" etc.

We all of course have different views and experience on dealing with bad news. This is also very contextual and may vary according to the situation. Maybe we can learn from each other by identifying some practical patterns and handy hints. How do you usually deliver bad news to the related parties who are expected to suffer from or be disadvantaged by the intended severe bad news?

Regards,
Mehmet

Dr. Mehmet YILDIZ || IBM || IT Philosophy || Future|| Leadership || My blog || Twitter || Linkedin || Yasni ||Google || Naymz|| Superfan