I’m enjoying the work of Henry Mintzberg particularly Strategy Safari. It’s marvelous tour of those various approaches to business architecture that have attracted a following over the decades. It is a more respectful but still amusing variation of this list of business fads.

When they get around to the school of business architecture founded by Porter they trace it’s roots back into the literature of military strategy. Much of this school’s literature is summed up in pithy one liners. “Supply lines: defend yours, attack his.” or “Metrics!” Maxims have “thought stopping” power. The best defence is humor; for which they offer this:

Maxims about Maxims

• Most maxims are obvious.
• Obvious maxims can be meaningless.
• Some obvious maxims are contradicted by other obvious maxims (such as ‘Concentrate your forces.” and “Remain flexible.”).

So

• Beware of maxims.

Theory of Everything

It’s nice to have friends that know what your interested in. Santiago Gala recalled this delightful paper written in 1990 and then revised in 1996 about the different kinds of people who play in MUDs (i.e. multi-user online games, usually text based, often with an element of programming).

I found this entire paper just one long wonderful giggle fest! It’s particularly fun to overgeneralize it and map the four kinds of players the author outlines into other settings: communities, group forming, etc.

In brief it puts forth that there are three kinds of players in these online games: achievers, killers, socializers, and explorers.

• Achievers: work to win the game and gain points and status.
• Killers: use weapons to kill things, particularly other players
• Socializers: build relationships with other folks.
• Explorers: work to understand the game’s mechanisms.

He then maps those onto this little two dimensional space:

The paper is full of amusing lines. For example the socializers think the explorers are a lonely lot; while the killers would rather kill achievers v.s. socializers since there is no sport in killing socializers. The explorers find getting killed interesting.

I think I can see all these kinds in open source projects. But one thing about an open source project is that it tends to be oriented toward the world rather than the people; and hence tends to have more achievers and explorers.

He allows as some of the killers, i.e. those who strive to act upon people, aren’t killers but are instead helpers. I’ve seen some of those in open source projects as well.

Of course, only rarely does one of these amusing archetypes appear in a purebred form. Mixtures and variations over time are more typical.

This is a list of ways not to give sympathy.
I collected this list from Ms. Manners a long time ago. Since then I’ve reworked it some and added some more.

• Pangloss – it is all for the best
• Affirm’s this is a just world – “Probably deserved it…”  “If only he had stopped”
• Relativism – “You know, it could be worse.”
• Competition – “You think you’ve got troubles!  Let me tell you about my …”
• Emotional Vampire – “Go ahead feel bad!  Cry!  I’m here for you.”
• Not a Quiter – “I’m sure this will only lead you to redouble your efforts.”
• Predjudice – “Ah that’s how people like you deal with this, eh?”
• Distraction – “Ah, how ’bout those Red Sox!”

Since we are on the topic I might as well mention the right thing to do.

“I’m so sorry, I just want you to know I’m here for you.”  and actually doing something is better.

These can be used to construct a very silly joke of the exaggerated kind. Something very minor happens. For example: “Oh, we are out of milk!” you then trot out the full set one after another. “Well it’s probably for the best. We probably don’t deserve milk. You think that’s trouble why my toast is cold! …” This works best if you can the entire family to join in.
Next time something bad happens to you, see if you can collect the whole set.

The homeopathic fantasy is that extremely microscopic doses are sufficent to engender desired outcomes. It’s a kind of action at a distance fantasy. The managerial equivalent is that one slight lifts the left pinky; mumbling “make it so” and vast armys of talent and pools of capital snap into action.

The desire for such miraculous powers and nostrums is strong; so suppliers are happy to step up and sell you quart of panacea. You can’t argue with such strong desires. Strong desire for effective cures of these kinds engenders strong faith in their efficacy. It’s always a bit dangerous to argue with a true believer. In point of fact it’s a bit rude to destroy another’s faith, particularly if all you have to offer in return is dispair.

But I can rarely resist confusing the situation by throwing another dozen or more miracle cures into the pot. It’s fun to watch them duke it out. Ted just gleaned a nice set of management flashcards out of a book. I’m jealous! Oh! I know – I’ll steal them by reference!

Once you get past the enthusiasm of strong faith your still maybe stuck with grains of truth left behind. I don’t doubt that some homopathic remedies work great with tiny dose triggering large outcomes. You need to mud wrestle with the ideas to get to those grains of true. That exercise is dangerously close to arguing with the true believer.

Consider this one.

To mitigate risk: The plan has to precedes materialization.

Isn’t planning materialization? Don’t plans create rigidities that create their own risks? What of the rule’s complement.

Planning is what we do to avoid action.

Or one of my favorites.

The function of the plan is so we all know from whence we are deviating.

Planning is hard in the time of Moore’s law and his friends. Building houses on sand.

When the playing stops and the exhortations begin the learning dries up.

Five (well six) ways to learn.

• Trial and Error; playing with the material.
• Perception of the Object; study of the material.
• Perception of others using; watching their reactions as they use the material.
• Modeling; mimicing the performance of others with the material.
• Exhortation; being directed to utilize and how to use the material.

These are pretty clearly in rank order. The first is far more powerful a learning method than the last. The last is most popular with those that would instruct others.

There is a sixth method.

• Instruction

But it is assembled out of the others along with all the thousands of other frameworks for how to teach.

I’m bemused by how this illuminates the problem of herding cats. In open source you can almost always tell that things are going down hill when folks stop playing with the materials and start attempting various kinds of exhortations. It’s amazing to me how many organizations attempt to put a lid on the playing.

Another specimen for the frameworks collection. This is a social science one (i.e. why do people do dat?) framework. In this case how do people learn to do dat.

From Social Learning Theory; one of the mechinisms that primate learn is by observing the behaviors of other primates “Monkey see monkey do.” This is called “modeling.” Not to be confused with life modeling.

We can break that into four phases bridging from modeled events to matching performances.

• Attentional Processes: first you gotta notice the behavior you might model.
• Retention Processes: then you need to store it in your noodle.
• Motor Reproduction Processes: then you gotta figure out how to do what you saw.
• Motovational Processes: finally you need to have a reason to bother.

We can dive down a bit into each of these four, naming mechinisms that might get used to implement those.

Attentional Processes:

• Modeling Stimuli:
  • Distinctiveness
  • Affective Valence
  • Complexity
  • Prevalence
  • Functional Value
• Observer Chracteristics:
  • Sensory Capacities
  • Arousal Level
  • Perceptual Set
  • Past Reinforcement

Retition Processes:

• Symbolic Coding
• Cognitive Organization
• Symbolic Rehersal
• Motor Rehearsal

Motor Reproduction Processes:

• Physical Capablities
• Availability of Component Responses
• Self Observation of Reproductions
• Accuracy Feedback

Motivational Processes:

• External Reinforcement
• Vicarious Reinforcement
• Self-Reinforcement

This framework is lifted from Social Learning Theory by Bandura.

Presumably if you wish to learn something, or you wish to teach something you’d be wanting to use this framework to structure the situation. With that in mind this is an interesting list to contrast with the coercive techniques used by cults were such structuring gets entirely out of control.

Need more learning theories; here are  more than fifty more.