Below, I presented an open letter to the Science, Technology & Innovation Council. Now I’m honoured that its Chair, Dr. Howard Alper, took some time to respond.  This is not my common ironic sarcasm.  Considering that the organization must be sustaining comments and feedback from all quarters, I’m pleased that I would warrant the letter being read and responded to as it was.  You can see his response on behalf of STIC here.

According to the study referenced by this Globe & Mail article today, “Nice guys make less than ‘highly disagreeable’ men,” and most people willing to comment on my “prickly” or “grumpy” or “crusty” tendencies, my pay packet should be A LOT thicker.

Many years ago it was illegal in most jurisdictions for a motor vehicle’s windows to be tinted dark. As I recall, the reason was because it reduced the driver’s visibility. Might also have been because it impeded the policeman’s (yes, at the time almost exclusively men) ability to identify the driver and/or passenger load. Only long stretch limosines had the privacy of smokey windows–and only for the passenger area.

Memory is a funny thing as any psychologist will tell you. So it is with full admission that my recollection of much more civilized roadways could be a bit mythologized. That said, back then it seems that fewer drivers were outright, self-absorbed, unrepentant assholes wielding three tons of steel like an inflatable baseball bat. Even in only my (ahem) 30-years behind the wheel, i’ve observed and occasionally participated in the clear degradation of onroad civility. And because of my sheltered existence (i.e., not LA), I’ve experienced true road rage only once or twice. I’m referring only to the run of the mill lack of civility and acceptance that the rules of the road APPLY TO YOU TOO SHIT-HEAD that manifest in not just simple speeding but utterly cavalier disregard for any explicit meaning in the yellow lines (Yes, a solid line on your side means NO PASSING. This is the law, not a suggestion.), complete ignorance of the fact that you DO NOT deserve to be let in from the merge lane just because you’re there (Please spare me the crap too, you knew it was coming.) or into the single lane of reduced traffic after having sped along the open lane that ends just because you’re there (What are you more important than everyone else?  Didn’t you notice the big line-up?), willful intent to occupy two parking spaces in an otherwise full lot–or better yet, pull into a spot that somebody else is obviously waiting to get into, riding the bumper of the car in front of you at 120km/hr or darting into a gap of one car length between cars moving 100km/hr, or swinging radically across three lanes of traffic in the pouring rain, or text while driving (that, too, is illegal by the way).  I could go on.

The only really good thing that happens is that occasionally one of these narcissistic imbeciles removes his or her chromosomes from the gene pool.  Unfortunately, too often, with that closure of the line other innocent DNA ends too.

Anyway, with that set-up out of the way, here’s my thesis, which might actually be an interesting MA dissertation.  I believe that there is a direct correlation between tinted car windows and whether or not the driver is a douche bag.  It should be tested; I’m not sure how.  My contention is that, like on the Internet, where people remain anonymous or hidden behind “cute” aliases, behind the protective cover of tinted windows, drivers lose their inhibitions.  People do things online that they would never consider doing if the light of day were on them and others could see and judge.  Same goes on the road:  I bet that there is an anonymity effect at work that is the direct result of dark windows on cars–especially the “compensatory” muscle cars and Hummers.

1.  If you know of research or other opinion on this, put a comment and link to it.  Or, if you have a friend that needs to select a behavioural science thesis topic, feel free to pass this on.  It feels like a good one.

2.  Call your provincial or state representative and insist that window tinting on automobiles be restricted to the passenger compartment of livery vehicles and the Suburbans carrying Secret Service in the presidential motorcade.  (Who needs to see those guys anyway?)

I may have railed about this once before in a blog long since passed into archival stasis (this being its resurrection). And it’s always bothered me, but recently, particularly, because I’ve had to try and comply with its implicit demand as a speaker or presenter. You know, at a conference people (or their employers) pay good money to have somebody provide wisdom and insight that can be applied tomorrow to great benefit.

The problem is it’s nonsense and an absurd expectation anyway except for the most trivial of things. Things you should never pay a thousand or more dollars to acquire.

I wouldn’t be on it now except that I was listening to the audio book version of Zaffron and Logan’s Three Laws of Performance for the past week or so.  In it, they, being of like mind, excoriate this whole notion using what I consider a brilliant example.  Something like: What if a medical student in some program of specialization like neurosurgery expectantly asked the professor, ‘So what can I apply to my surgery tomorrow?’

Albeit hyperbolic, I wish I’d thought of the scenario.  What is it about the instant and unconsidered that is so alluring–even to those many millions who have read Gladwell’s Outliers and other books in the performance genre that consistently counsel that excellence, superiority, mastery… are all the product of thousands of hours of practical trial and error?

The question makes sense for a worker in a practical vocation like carpentry or masonry to ask the question.  A technique will be shown and taught, and the labourer can be expected to immediately implement that same technique to new advantage.  Of course the proficiency and quality will increase with practice.  But there’s not a lot of room or need for experimentation after being shown how to hang drywall once.

For those people that attend conferences and seminars of the sort I go sometime, we have to assume they work with their brains to some extent.  Their work is to greater or lesser degrees creative or, at the very least, subject to interpretive variation to suit the conditions and context in which they happen to be applying their talents.  As soon as those characteristics are thrown into the mix:  creative variation, conditions, and context, things change.  Even if that labourer intends to apply the newfound knowledge or insight to whatever he or she happens to be doing, it really ought to be considered as tentative or experimental.  That is a realistic expectation IF you want to put something to work tomorrow:  you’ll try it.  Will it work?  Will it be effective?  Will it be better than anything you’re doing now?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  (But maybe that’s not the point.  Just changing and experimenting and growing could be the point.)

In any case, my answer to the question, “What can I apply tomorrow at the office?” is this:

Anything but probably nothing.  Something but not everything.  And it probably won’t work anyway.  But you should try anyway.  That’s what will give the new knowledge concrete meaning and value.

Just a little bit to think about.

I’ve been negligent toward this blog… again.  In my defense, it IS summer, I have been trotting across the continent, and have now shifted from the writing and typesetting of my latest book (The Spaces In Between) to selling and marketing of it.  Oh yeah, and then there’s the day job too.  I’ll try to be better in the future.

What I have noticed of late is that my focus seems to be directing itself toward and intensifying on “innovation.”  While it’s just been something that I’ve done (or has happened around me) in the past, the change is that now it seems to be more of a motivation.  Speaking, writing, framing within… All of these things are signals, I think.  There is a psychological bias that manifests itself in the form of noticing what you are interested in (like when you’re intent on a new Audi and every second car on the road suddenly has overlapping rings on the grill).  Perhaps that’s what I’m experiencing.  Take for instance the press coverage of the most recent Canadian Science, Technology, and Innovation Council report on Canada’s state of innovation (culture).  I’ll save you the reading:  it’s not great.

I noticed it and have put my mind to it like it really matters to me.  And, I suppose it does.  It should matter to all Canadians.  But what I really mean is that it matters to me.  I want to do something about it.  As any good Canadian, “I’m going to write a Goddamn letter” to the Council members.  Something has to be done.  It’s not right that despite tax credits and grants (which are abused) and a variety of preferred sector actions by the government, encouragement of business, and  both hard science (engineering) and “entrepreneurship” program growth at universities, Canada still falls (further) behind.  Somebody has to do something.  In the absence of that, I will.

Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll keep the blog reader posted.  At the very least, I’ll excerpt and test some of the letter content here.  At most, I’ll make the letter public by posting the whole thing here.  Feel free to send me email.  Lord knows I’ve tried to fix the comments feature on the blog.  Thankfully, in a way, it seems irreparable.  “Thankfully” only in the sense that the last blog is nothing but an attractor for link whores.

More later.

BTW, the paper books are printed and now available.  Buy direct (the-spaces-in-between.com) or from Amazon.com.  Thank you in advance.