Yeah, right.

Some things happened today that made me give some thought to how we appear to others.

My son and I went to the park to play basketball.  I made that one-in-a-million shot that got the ball wedged between the rim and the backboard.  We could not reach it, even with David on my shoulder, and I am proof that white guys can't jump. 

I remembered that I had an ax in the trunk of the car.  Now, the reason it was there was that the handle and the ax head had become separated from each other while I was doing some work to clean up the back yard after the June 29 storm.  I tried to put the ax head on a new handle, but could not get it on all the way because I lack the proper equipment.   I have been meaning to take it to the hardware store to ask them to finish the job.  A man riding his bike past the basketball court saw me with David carrying the ax.  You should have seen the look on his face.  I think he was going to say something, but I believe he saw the basketball wedged between the backboard and the rim.

I got the ball down and we continued playing.  We also had a frisbee and a baseball, so we played with those after we stopped playing with the basketball.  We played catch with the baseball.  I threw the ball to David once, and it bounced off his hand and hit him in the nose.  Honest, it was a very soft underhand toss.  I want him to learn how to catch a baseball barehanded before I get him a baseball glove.  Anyway, his nose started bleeding and we decided it was time to go home.

We pulled into the driveway just in time to see a man bleeding from the head onto our neighbor's lawn.  He was with three other people working on a tree in the neighbor's yard that had broken limbs hanging from it.  I don't know what happened, but he had a nasty gash on his eyebrow.  I told him it would need stitches.  One of the man's coworkers got a first aid kit from their truck, and the guy asked me for a glass of water.

After I gave the man some water, I got a collapsible chair out of my car and told him to sit.  He went back to work after he got bandaged up.  I went in the house to do some chores.  My collapsible chair was gone after the tree crew left.  Oh well, I didn't do as much as the orignial Good Samaritan, and got off cheap.

Letter to President Obama

My Dear Mr. President;

The news that your re-election campaign filed suit against Ohio government officials disappointed me.  The attorney for your campaign filed suit against our secretary of state, Jon Husted, and our attorney general, Mike DeWine.  The suit demands that they remove an exception in Ohio election law that allows members of the armed services and other citizens overseas to cast early ballots. 

Currently, Ohio law allows early voting in the weeks before election day, with a cut-off of 6:00 PM on the Friday before election day.  The law is intended to make the availability of early voting consistent throughout all of Ohio's counties while giving some consideration to service members and others traveling overseas.  Early voting now makes voting quite convenient here in Ohio.

The argument that excluding service members and travelers from the restriction creates two classes of voters may pass a constitutional test, but it does not pass the "So What?" test.  If your campaign’s suit is successful, it may actually make voting less convenient for many Ohio residents as just six Ohio counties were able to offer early voting on weekends before the current law was enacted.

The argument that current Ohio voting regulations suppress the vote of members of racial and ethnic minority groups supports the point that former President George W. Bush made about "the soft bigotry of low expectations."  It is bigotry to believe that members of minority groups need to have the voting process made more convenient for them in order for them to be able to vote.  I believe that voter apathy is a much greater obstacle to participation in elections than voter suppression.

I respectfully request that you direct your campaign to withdraw the lawsuit against my state.  I regard it as a frivolous lawsuit.  Our state government does not need the legal expenses.  The suit makes you seem to be scrounging for every possible vote rather than serving the public interest or the interest of justice.

Very truly yours,

John C. Stevens

John Henry and Poptarts

When I first started to learn about Big Data, I worried that I would become the John Henry of data collection.  I am a supervisor and interviewer for a market research and public opinion research firm.  I have conducted tens of thousands of telephone interviews on a wide variety of topics.  I am able to get people to spill information because I have a pleasant voice and know how to ask sensitive questions without sounding shocked or judgmental.  I have learned how to probe for clarification of vague answers without irritating survey participants.

Vast amounts of data now exist about our opinions, beliefs, tastes and preferences from Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.  The software and hardware used to collect and analyze this data is becoming more sophisticated and robust.  It makes me wonder whether clients will be willing to pay for telephone surveys and focus groups if they believe they can acquire the information they need more cost-effectively by dipping into the river of information that flows through the Internet every second.

Walmart learned several years ago how to make use of their own records to run their stores more efficiently and profitably.  They learned from looking at sales records that they had better have plenty of Strawberry Poptarts in stock when a hurricane is moving toward the coast because that is what their customers want to stock up on when they are preparing for a hurricane.  More recently, investors have started to monitor Twitter and Facebook feeds to gauge attitudes about particular stocks.  As the field becomes more sophisticated, I can imagine many ways that analysis of Big Data could make telephone polling and focus groups obsolete – but not completely.  Some questions can be answered only by getting a representative sample of a population on the telephone and asking them specific questions.

One of the things I learned while researching Big Data is that those who expect to use Big Data to make business decisions expect a shortage of “data engineers,” or people who can figure out where to find relevant information and draw conclusions about it once it has been gathered.  Working in market research and public opinion research should be good preparation for a career as a data engineer.  Conducting interviews requires critical thinking skills in order to obtain information that clients can use to make decisions.  An interviewer has to determine whether a response actually answers a question, whether it is clear, and whether it is complete.  If not, the interviewer needs to ask appropriate follow up questions such as:

Ø      Why?

Ø      How so?

Ø      What do you mean by that?

Ø      Why is that important to you?

Ø      What can you tell me about that?

Ø      Such as?

Learning how to ask these questions in the appropriate context should be good training for anyone who wants to gather information from social media.  A business collects information because they need it to make decisions.  Understanding what kinds of decisions need to be made and where to find accurate information to make those decisions will require the same kinds of critical thinking skills required for conducting telephone interviews.

I can help anyone in Columbus, Ohio who would like to acquire the ability to ask appropriate questions in a real world setting.  Call or email me:

John C. Stevens

Saperstein Associates

(614) 261-0065

jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com

Literally

The severe storms of late June and early July of 2012 reminded me to be grateful for many things. Right now, I am grateful that our household regained Internet access today.

The whole adventure renewed my appreciation for the depth and richness of the English language. Many of us who spend a great deal of time online use phrases and clichés without thinking about what they mean or how they made their way into our language. Dealing with the aftermath of the storms exposed me to a few literal examples of some old phrases.

My son and I were grocery shopping when the first storm hit. We had to deal with some non-operating traffic lights getting home. When we got to our block we encountered felled trees blocking the streets. Our neighbor's tree had knocked down the line going to our house and our electrical mast. The top of the big spruce in our front yard had blown into our other neighbor's yard.

Several of the neighbors were already working on clearing the streets. I wanted to help my neighbors and make it easier for electric company trucks to have access to my street, so I grabbed my ax and my hand ax and pitched in. The next day I chopped up the top of the spruce that had blown into the neighbor's yard. I piled the branches at the base of the spruce. A few days later I chopped up the part of the trunk that had detached from the spruce and set the logs at the curb, hoping that one of the city crews would pick them up.

My next plan for my axes was to use them to chop up the tree in the back yard. I realized that I would need to have the blades sharpened, so I went to the hardware store down the street from my office. When I walked into the hardware store, I literally "had an ax to grind." All of the activity had weakened the handle of my long ax. Shortly after I got started chopping up the tree in the back yard, the ax head literally "went flying off the handle." I was able to finish what I had to do, but I had to keep putting the ax head back on the handle.

Today I noticed that the spruce branches I had piled up in the front yard were getting brown and dry. I know that evergreens can be quite flammable, especially when they are dried out. I decided to water down the branches. I have a garden hose, but rarely water my lawn. I consider doing so a waste of water. In order to use the hose to wet the spruce branches I had to untangle it and I had to literally "work out the kinks."

Axing downed trees has given me a deeper understanding of the clichés I mentioned. The experience should give me a deeper understanding of other clichés when I read them or use them.

Will robot drivers tailgate, too?

I would like to offer a few predictions based on my observations of traffic and information I read in a Washington Post article by Ashley Halsey III that was reprinted in the Columbus Dispatch.

The article describes advances in automotive technology - Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication - that will allow motor vehicles to communicate with each other by radio to help avoid collisions and traffic congestion.  The article described how pile-ups might be avoided by automatically applying the brakes on a vehicle if a vehicle several car lengths ahead had to stop abruptly.  The article also described how V2V systems might suggest alternative routes if a driver were to come upon a congested area.

I predict that the unintended consequences of this technology will be that we will realize that most drivers need to be retrained.  I also predict that many drivers will report V2V systems as malfunctioning when they work as intended.  Either that, or V2V systems will have to be configured to inform drivers in a diplomatic manner that they are not driving safely.

The illustration that accompanied Halsey's article showed an example of the driver of one vehicle being notified that the vehicle behind was following too closely.  This made me wonder if the driver of the vehicle in the rear would be notified that he or she was following too closely.  If so, would the V2V system override the driver's operation and decelerate or brake?

My experience while driving in traffic has convinced me that I am the only driver on the road who understands the concept of an assured clear distance.  If V2V systems are programmed to alert drivers that they are following another vehicle too closely, or to automatically slow the vehicle down so as to create a clear and safe distance, vehicle owners will report the systems as malfunctioning.  They will not believe that they are following too closely, and will not understand why they are receiving such alerts or why their vehicles are slowing down when they do not want them to do so.

Discrepancy in the understanding of a clear and safe distance is probably one issue that will cause drivers to believe that V2V systems are malfunctioning when they are not.  There are bound to be other issues.  These issues will greatly add to the cost of V2V systems and greatly reduce their efficiency and effectiveness.  It will probably take another two generations before V2V systems can bring about any real reductions in collisions or fuel savings.  By that time, drivers will have learned to drive with V2V systems in their cars.  They may even have a better idea of what a clear and safe distance is than present drivers do.

Everyone complains about religion, but Jesus did something about it.

The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are - and should be - central to the Christian faith, but Jesus chasing the money changers from the Temple in Jerusalem (Matthew 21:12-13) should be central to spreading that faith. That act addresses the contempt that many people have for religion.

Jesus was a revolutionary, but not the revolutionary that people expected Him to be. When He entered Jerusalem, people expected Him to lead a revolution against the Roman conquerors. Instead, one of the first things that He did was to rebel against His religion.

By chasing the money changers from the temple, Jesus acknowledged that religion was a racket. He signaled that a person should not have to have money to be saved. Jesus sent a message to those who most need to hear it that we should not have to pay to worship. God does not demand a price for His love.

Christianity has a bad reputation because church leaders through the centuries have used Christianity as a racket. Fortunately, we have the scriptures to tell us what Jesus really preached, if only we read them for ourselves. The Gospels provide many other examples of Jesus challenging the assumptions of the pious.

Zachary Louis Johnson, 1963 - 2012

My old friend, Zachary Louis Johnson, died from pancreatic cancer March 22, 2012. His wife told us that he did not want a funeral. This did not surprise me. When I asked him about ten years ago why he would not attend the funeral of Ricky Davis, he told me that he and Ricky did not like funerals.
Since Zach did not want a funeral, he probably did not want an obituary. I will not reveal details of his life, just some of my own memories of him.

Zach and I were business partners in Stevens & Johnson Communication Services in the 1990s. We did business to business telemarketing. He was a natural at networking. He was genuinely interested in people. We always say that a person had a great sense of humor after they have passed, but this guy really knew how to make people laugh. He was a jokester and a prankster.

I remember a Saturday in the mid 1990s when I was severely depressed. I was talking to Zach on the telephone, and he said something that made me laugh. I wish I could remember what it was. I started to laugh, and made myself keep laughing, and laugh hard. Zach was probably thinking, “C’mon, it wasn’t that funny!” Maybe not, but by making myself continue to laugh at Zach’s comment, I was able to start finding my way out of my depression. Nothing happened overnight, but Zach gave me the kick start that I needed. I wish only that I could have returned this gift of the healing power of laughter when Zach got his cancer. I did not learn of his problem until a couple of weeks ago.

We will miss him.