What I Am Reading: Catch-Up Edition

May 14 2012 Published by under What I'm Reading

One of the few joys air travel provides is long periods to read. I have been saving some new novels in series for such occasions, but a couple of stand-alone works also appeared on my iPad.

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I will buy anything Christopher Moore writes; I love his over-the-top world that much. I also like art, particularly the impressionists and others of La Belle Epoque. Sacre Bleu delighted me for these reasons. The novel begins with the death of Vincent Van Gogh, thought to be a suicide but in reality a murder by a mysterious, misshapen man. Lucien Lessard and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec become detectives, eventually tracking down the murderer and his beautiful female friend. Along the way the reader gets to review the wonderful art and colorful artists of this period, as well as some others throughout time. I loved my college art history class, but I wish it could have been this much fun.

The other book is a first novel from Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding. Two factors went into this download. First, it made Maureen Corrigan's best of 2011 list. Of course, I live in a baseball family, providing my second motivation for the download.  My son got his Fisher-Price tee ball set for his second birthday, and he then insisted that I pitch to him ("No. Throw ball!"). I gently lobbed the plastic whiffleball, he swung his bat, and the ball hit me in the face. He and his father love the sport, and I have grown to appreciate it along the way (despite the injuries I have suffered).

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This novel follows a nearly perfect shortstop, Henry, as he joins the team at Westish, a tiny liberal arts college along the shores of Lake Michigan. The plots revolve around Henry, the player who discovers him, Henry's roommate, the college president, and the president's daughter; everyone except Henry's roommate take turns narrating the action.

Through 60% of the novel I was enthralled with its mix of baseball, academia, and the fate of our dreams. The last 40% requires some major suspension of disbelief. I kept reading, trying to figure out how these plots would resolve. Some events are improbable, to say the least. I hoped to tell you that this is a great novel, but the ending action drops it down to merely good. If you like baseball, especially at the college level, you will enjoy this read. Like Sacre Bleu, you will never believe these events actually happened.

I have another trip later this week, and I have downloaded Christopher Buckley's newest work, They Eat Puppies, Don't They? I will let you know how I like that one next week.

Are you reading something you love? Let me know; I am always looking for good stuff!

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What I Am Reading: This Is Klout?

Apr 02 2012 Published by under [Information&Communication]

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A few weeks back I saw a blurb for Return On Influence: The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing. As a scientist, I know the power of measurement. Until something can be quantified, you really cannot demonstrate its relationship to other phenomena. Social media certainly leaves an online footprint we should be able to measure. Marketer Mark W. Schaefer takes on this topic as he has other forms of social media.

The first part of the book deals with "The Roots of Influence." Long ago, we learned about stuff and events through conversations with our neighbors. Our leaders made proclamations and such, but if we wanted to know which baker had the best goods, we asked others. As time went on, humanity saw the growth of media via printing presses, radio, television, and the early internet. Broadcasters, politicians, and celebrities became "thought leaders" with a few-to-many form of communication. Want to market the next "It" bag? Make sure the hottest stars carry it.

Now, argues Schaefer, we are back to the village square with everyone participating in the conversation. However, influence still concentrates in select individuals. How can we determine who the key movers are in a market? How can marketers then exploit those with influence?

Obviously, Klout, PeerIndex, and similar services (outlined in a helpful appendix) attempt to measure this influence. Klout receives more attention than the other services in the text. The second part of the book examines in broad strokes the way social scoring works. Social influence at present is assessed through engagement, retweets, the connection of your followers, and the influence of those followers. Of course, by the time any book is published, the exact algorithm for measurement by any service will have changed, so specific numbers would be moot.

Schaefer also envisions a future where these scores can be linked to you both online and off. He sees the good: you purchase something, your superior Klout score is flagged, and you get a discount. I see the real power of this linkage, namely tracking your followers' actions. Marketers would love to know if I tweet about a product (maybe do a book review ;) ) how many of my followers then go out and purchase this item? Then they could calculate an actual financial ROI for sending me an item or book or widget. The real question in my mind is whether we want them to link our purchases to our online identities in this manner.

I must admit, the book inspired me to make more of an effort to engage with my twitter followers over 10 days to see if I could drive my score up. Instead it fell from 45 to 44.

I also wish the book had focused more on some of the less obvious aspects of Klout. I do not want to be Justin Bieber (the only person with a perfect 100 Klout score), and my mid-40's score is quite respectable (the average score is 20). Adding more networks to the service may improve your score, although connecting Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and FourSquare did not change mine. The topics section of Klout interests me. The only subject in which I have high influence is Barack Obama. Huh? While I retweet a fair amount of political stuff, my major interest revolves around biomedical science and health. Third on my list is Helium. Of course, this can be linked to a single tweet during Science Online 2012 (Funniest element is Helium: He He He). I eventually lost track of how many times that one got retweeted.

That's influence?

My second most influential topic is Bangladesh. I have absolutely no clue how or why this is in my list, even after reading ROI.

I also long to know more about Klout Styles. The service calls me a Networker, and I have no reason to doubt that. I am proud of my ability to connect across groups to bring people and thoughts together in new ways. I have no idea what the other styles might be since the book does not delve into them, nor does the Klout website. Since the book often comes across as an ad for Klout, providing this level of detail about a single service might have been interesting.

There are some interesting ideas in ROI that could have produced a couple of long-form articles. For someone well-versed in social media, the book goes on and on about the same thing for a long time. I suspect those in business, especially marketing, will appreciate the read more than I did. As someone whose interests lie a little farther off that path, I was underwhelmed.

My blogs are on my CV. My Klout score is not.

 

 

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What I Am Reading: Why I Cannot Stop

Mar 05 2012 Published by under What I'm Reading, [Brain&Behavior]

Unless you have been completely disconnected from mainstream media for the past 3 weeks, you have heard something about The Power of Habit, a book by Charles Duhigg. As I opened my browser to start this post, my radio announced an interview about the book on today's Fresh Air. Somewhere there are cloistered monks dying to break their vow of silence to gossip about how Target detected a teenager's pregnancy before her father did.

Click to pre-order at Amazon

In other words, the buzz is amazing for a book not hitting the stands until March 20. And this book is worth every word you have heard.

Early on, we meet The Habit Loop, a simple sequence of cue - behavior - reward that recurs throughout the book. First Duhigg examines basic neuroscience research with rats in mazes; by automating behaviors within the maze (in other words, forming habits) the rats get their reward (chocolate) faster. Think a task this simple does not apply to humans? Consider your daily commute. How many days do you remember your lane changes and turns? For most of us, our daily drive only registers in our brains when something out of the ordinary happens. Does this mean we are less attentive? On one level, yes, but by putting the routine stuff on autopilot, we may be more attentive when traffic conditions are unusual.

The habit loop also applies to groups. Stories from a Rhode Island surgical suite demonstrate maladaptive habits that ultimately get replaced with better ones after a crisis. I enjoyed the story of Paul O'Neill's turn-around for Alcoa. The Aluminum Company of America was struggling when he became CEO in 1987, and investors thought he was crazy to focus on worker safety rather than improved profits. This saga leads us to the concept of keystone habits. Developing a functional positive habit loop for one thing (worker safety) can influence everything else within a company!

Keystone habits work for individuals as well. Australian researchers Megan Oaten and Ken Cheng designed experiments in which groups of students were assigned to physical conditioning, study habit improvement, and personal finance courses. After several weeks, they assessed a whole bunch of other habits in the groups and found that many aspects of the participants' lives improved. They ate better, smoked less, and were more productive in school or work, regardless of the nature of the original assignment.

Finally, an explanation for my personal pedometer effect! My job varies from incredibly sedentary (outpatient clinic and administrative work; 2,000 to 3,000 steps per workday) to fairly active (running around the hospital seeing inpatients; 7,000 to 10,000 steps per workday). My weight stabilizes (or may even decrease) when I wear a pedometer. I thought at first that this was because I had an objective measurement of my activity level. I would come home emotionally exhausted, feeling like I had climbed Mount Everest. My device told me that I had only walked about 2 miles and I needed to head to the gym. However, when my pedometer broke and I just forced myself to walk 2 miles on the treadmill most days (the amount of activity needed to reach that step goal), I started gaining weight again.

Even though my activity levels were likely about the same, I was in better metabolic balance when wearing the device. When I track my daily activity with the pedometer, I probably eat healthier. Why undo that treadmill time with a bag of Cheetos? That little device and step number provided important feedback to reinforce numerous other habit loops. Activity tracking provided a keystone habit that cued other good behaviors!

The Power of Habit is an entertaining and insightful read. We all need to understand the necessity and power of habit before we can use "The Loop" to meet our goals.

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What I Am Reading: Too Big To Know

Feb 23 2012 Published by under Uncategorized, What I'm Reading

Click to enlarge (Original image at http://bit.ly/zKZNml)

In 1988, Russell Ackoff first drew the pyramidal progression from data to wisdom shown in the figure. Data points or facts were gathered into knowledge by experts who certified and spread this understanding of data via books and other credentialed documents. Ultimately, with further probing and understanding, knowledge would lead to wisdom.

In the age of Google, anyone with an internet connection can access data directly. Data formerly isolated to one silo or another now can be linked among multiple disciplines. In general, this should lead to increased knowledge and wisdom. However, as the price of an online soapbox has dropped, the number of people providing interpretations of data has increased.

Our "Knowledge" no longer comes vetted by experts; how do we know what we find is climbing toward wisdom and not utter crap masquerading as "Information?"

That is one of the problems appropached in the book  Too Big to Know: Rethinking knowledge now that the facts aren't the facts, experts are everywhere, and the smartest person in the room is the room, by David Weinberger. This thoroughly-referenced book examines our brave new world of knowledge and concludes that the answer may simply be...more data.

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For example, consider phylogeny, grouping and classifying related plants or animals or proteins or genes. In the "old days" experts in the field got together and came up with a classification system so that everyone would call stuff by the same name. If one person called a protein TGF-beta inducible gene H3 (BIG-H3) and another called it TGF-beta induced 68kda (TGFBI), they might not realize they were thinking about the same thing. Agreement was crucial. The modern solution has been metadata, data about the data. Both of these proteins can be referenced to the same entry in a table somewhere in a database. When you select TGFB-H3 for your literature search, the metadata knows that you also mean TGFBI.

Metadata may also assist in recognition of untruths or poor quality information. This process still relies on recognized experts to rate the quality of a given site or piece of data, as well as the wisdom of groups, the power of the hive-mind. There will still be people who will choose to ignore stuff that is rated "pants on fire" (see Politifact's Truth-o-Meter), but cranks have existed since the dawn of time. The internet cannot solve everything.

InterrelatedDataEtc

Relationship of Data, Information, and Knowledge Today

Too Big to Know captures a modern theme and runs with it. We are drowning in data and information, but sometimes it feels like we know less. We must learn how to deal with the potential and problems of this new reality. Instead of a progressive pyramid, we now swim in a sea of data (tiny red dots in figure at right) with bits from all over the place synthesized into knowledge (larger orange dots). Knowledge (yellow asterisks) is harder to find, as is wisdom (green stars). These bits all exist together, like a stew, rather than stacked like a sandwich (a pyramidal sandwich, if you please).

The old model was orderly, while chaos reigns in the new one. The discussions in the book give me hope that we can learn to live with the new model and harness its power. I feel like I cannot do the book justice here; perhaps the topic is too big to blog!

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What I Am Reading: #scio12 swag, Before the Lights Go Out

Feb 06 2012 Published by under [Science in Society]

One of the joys of attending Science Online can be a  pain as well. With all of those authors in the group, dragging home books can result in excess baggage fees. This year a lottery book distribution limited the problem. As I took my tickets down the rows of books and advance proofs, I picked some that looked delightful for me and some that family members would enjoy.

Available April 10, 2012

I won one of the latter, one I chose because my son is a first-year engineering student at Minnesota with a vague interest in green, clean energy:

Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the energy crisis before it conquers us.

Maggie Koerth-Baker, currently affiliated with BoingBoing.net, explores our relationship with energy in the US. Early on, she points out that energy can be viewed through many lenses. Some people wish to end out dependency on foreign resources. Others are concerned about climate changes. Most people hope to save a few bucks along the way, even if that is not the primary motive.

Unfortunately, individual actions cannot achieve the changes we must make to preserve our way of life. Even if we all immediately change our light bulbs and buy electric vehicles, the same issues continue since generation of electricity constitutes our major consumption of energy and our major source of pollution. Why not build more renewable generators, like windmills, solar panels, and hydroelectric plants? We can; but electricity must enter the grid in the correct amount at the correct time. We simply cannot generate energy from these sources until we can store it for when and where we use it.

She examines each alternate source of energy in its turn, as well as many conservation options. Ultimately, our energy infrastructure built up to support our current lifestyle, and changing our relationship with energy will require big, expensive changes to infrastructure before anything of real significance can happen.

Does that observation mean that Maggie Koerth-Baker does not believe we should be changing light bulbs and buying more efficient vehicles? Absolutely not! Conservation remains part of the strategy - it just cannot be the sole approach.

The book ends with descriptions of some projects involving decentralization of energy generation. Local biofuel generation in Madelia, MN, particularly fascinated me. An environmentalist became concerned about topsoil loss in the area. Wanting to prevent erosion by encouraging farmers to plant "Third Crops (native grasses that take less toll on the soil but have little economic benefit), Linda Meschke needed to find a way to make these plants profitable. The solution came in collaboration with the University of Minnesota. They towed in  a microwave pyrolysis system to convert those cellulosic stalks into energy.

Pyrolysis involves heating organic material in an oxygen-free environment to just under 950 degrees Farenheit, a process that releases a bunch of volatile gases that can be condensed into liquid fuel. The solids that remain are biochar, a charcoal-like substance that traps carbon in ring structures for a long, long time. This energy generation is carbon neutral, and the biochar can bind nitrogen, perhaps making it a good fertilizer.

Wonderful! Why don't we go cut kudzu and crank out these microwave pyrolyzers?

First, the liquid fuel can be used as home heating oil or in place of industrial petroleum, but its acidic pH will not let it substitute for gasoline. Second, the data about biochar is preliminary; only long-term field tests will confirm its use as fertilizer. Finally, the system is not yet ready to be scaled up. While it is allowing farmers around Madelia to save a few bucks and profit from "Third Crops," it has not taken the town off the grid or closed the local gas station. It is a tantalizing first step, though.

The bottom line is that solving the energy/pollution/climate change crisis will depend on a lot of smaller experiments, novel technology, and infrastructure changes. No single solution will provide "The Answer" for the entire problem. Ultimately, some big, costly, large-group changes will be needed.

I hope we can find our way to make them happen.

 

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What I'm Reading: WTF? Edition

Sep 27 2011 Published by under [Education&Careers]

Harvard Business Review tipped me off to Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the Boardroom and the Bedroom by Catherine Hakim. The brief note in their daily iPhone update led to an ebook download. And confusion.

First, erotic capital is not quite what you think; mandatory cleavage and stripper shoes are not part of the game. Erotic capital includes six components:

  1. Beauty
  2. Sex Appeal
  3. Social Grace
  4. Liveliness
  5. Social Presentation
  6. Sexual Competence

While part of one's erotic capital is inborn, other components can be learned or improved with time and effort. Hakim's main point is that we deny and devalue erotic capital, particularly in women; attractive men get far more of a pay benefit than attractive women in the workforce. In a recent online interview for Slate she stated:

 The key point is for women to be aware that there's a sex differential and a sex gap in returns and rewards, and to be aware that they should therefore not be holding back or feel embarrassed about seeking to get value for their contribution, for their attractiveness. As I see it, patriarchal men, but also to a larger extent, radical feminist women, which women seem to listen to more than men, say that beauty is only skin deep, it's trivial, it's superficial, it has no value, and you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to exploit it.

A lot of what Hakim discusses here I would call My Mom's Rules:

  • Stand up straight
  • Wear nice clothes; keep them fresh and clean
  • Remember your manners
  • Take pride in yourself
  • You only get one chance to make a first impression

Someone who is charming and takes care with their appearance will make a better impression than someone who does the opposite. They are more likely to get hired at a better wage in a job interview situation. Is that really surprising, and does it require a male-female sexual desire differential? All other characteristics being acceptable, a more pleasant (physically and/or socially) person will get the job/promotion/bonus/etc.

Back to Slate for a moment:

Slate: Well, how do women who are, let's say, past their prime, continue to exploit this differential? You used the example of glamour model Katie Price in your book as someone who has successfully used her erotic capital. She's a self-made multimillionaire, and it is in large part because of the cosmetic enhancements that she's done and her participation in a reality TV show. What if someone of a similar class background tried the same thing and failed at it—she spent a great deal of money on cosmetic surgery but didn't profit. How is what she's done, in investing in her erotic capital, going to help her in the long run? Isn't that money better spent investing in some professional development?

Hakim: There are two problems here. One, everybody seems to be assuming, and I don't know why, that it's an either/or situation—a zero-sum game. It isn't a zero-sum game. People can invest in education, invest in training, invest in qualifications, invest in work experience, and also invest in their erotic capital.

Slate: But if they're lower class, where are they supposed to get the money to invest in all of these things at the same time? If you don't have the money, it is in fact a zero-sum game.

Hakim: It isn't a money thing. Having a good body, being fit, is more about time and effort. Money makes things easier, but you don't need money for most things. Education is not about money exclusively. It's about time and effort. If you have a lot of money, you can go to an expensive hairdresser and they'll do everything for you. But if you don't, then you learn to do it all yourself and most women can do that kind of thing themselves. Similarly, makeup, there's cheap versions and cheap products, as well as expensive ones. You don't have to have the expensive ones.

One of my examples in the book is [IMF Managing Director] Christine Lagarde, one of the most highly qualified and competent and professional women in the world. Like many women in the French culture, she takes the view that also being attractive and well-dressed and well-groomed and well-presented and having a very good hairstyle and nice jewelry is all part of being a professional woman. And I see lately that Vanity Fair in the U.S. has listed her among its best-dressed women. She is an example of a woman who exploits her intelligence, qualifications, and her erotic capital. The French culture, the Italian culture, the Spanish culture, they all take the view that for men as well as women, investing in your attractiveness and your self-presentation and dress and grooming is valuable.

As a 50-year-old woman whose appearance has aged along with her, I am glad for the Lagarde example (I have some of the same lines around my mouth). Being thin is not nearly as easy as Hakim believes, and I am too cheap to pay for a face-lift, but continuing to follow My Mom's Rules keeps me looking professional. And I usually have the best pair of shoes in the room.

Parts of the book get repetitive. For example, prostitution can be fun and profitable for young, sexually adventurous women, like dating for money! It's about more than sex! Only the patriarchy and radical feminists keep women from enjoying sex for profit!

Pages and pages are devoted to research establishing that men want more sex than women, especially women over 30. All cited works involve self-reporting.  However, Hakim ignores contradictory research:

Slate: Are you familiar with the work of psychology professor Meredith Chivers? She did some research where she hooked up monitors to the genitals of men and women to measure their blood flow, and showed them clips of straight sex, gay sex, and men and women masturbating, among other things. She found that women were physically aroused by a greater variety of subjects than men were, but that women's self-reporting did not line up with the physical evidence—they underreported their arousal. In light of Chivers' research, don't you think it is possible that the differential in sexual desire is socially constructed?

Hakim: The reason I didn't quote Chivers' research, which I've been aware of for a very long time, is because there is serious disagreement about the interpretation that should be placed on her findings. A lot of people, including myself, don't interpret that as sexual desire. It's a physiological reaction. For example, when people are frightened, they pee. They also get what you might call physiologically aroused. It doesn't mean that they are experiencing sexual desire. In particular situations, people have a lot of physiological reactions which in all sorts of ways may not make sense.

Sure sounds socially constructed to me.

I would not have called these characteristics erotic capital, which is why I have this blog instead of a book. The general premise  that socially adept, attractive people do well is hardly contestable. Other parts of this tome will make your head explode.

Read at your own risk.

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Better Late Than Never

Aug 22 2011 Published by under Feminist Musings

A while back (PM or pre-moving), Mein Hermitage announced another round of women in academia, no baby questions allowed. I agreed to be on the panel, thinking it would give me an excuse to stop unpacking and do something fun every day or two. Obviously, in the last 14 years some combination of time, aging, and child-induced dementia helped me forget how much damn fun moving could be.

The hub post went up today, when my answers to four questions were supposed to be done.

Damn.

Fortunately, the house is functional, and we can find most items essential for life. And, I answered one of the questions de jour back in 2009 for Isis' Letters to Our Daughters Project. With shameless efficiency, I repeat it here. By the way, Isis moved her digs to her own domain (every goddess should have one).

The validity of my "embrace your inner bitch" posture was recently validated while reading Guy Kawasaki's book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions. In discussing the power of intermittent use of profanity and the reluctance many women feel to use these words, he offers this advice:

...heed the rules that I provided above, and let it rip, because the best way to destroy a double standard is to defy it.

Without further adieu, here is my advice on balancing assertiveness/bitchiness:

Once upon a time, there was a woman who felt that her gender should not be an issue in her career. She wanted to be treated as an equal, she acted like she was equal, and the men called her a bitch.

Bitch -noun

1. a female dog.
2. a female of canines generally.
3. Slang.

a. a malicious, unpleasant, selfish person, esp. a woman

 

b. a lewd woman.

 
4. Slang.

a. a complaint.

 

b. anything difficult or unpleasant: The test was a bitch.

 

c. anything memorable, esp. something exceptionally good: That last big party he threw was a real bitch

 
Why does this 5 letter word have such power over women? We are raised to be “nice.” Malicious, unpleasant, and selfish are the opposite of this goal; however, this means that demanding equality may appear bitchy! At so many gatherings I have heard women ask how they can get their needs met without being called a bitch (generally these women spell the word rather than say it). The short answer? You cannot! Anytime you assert your needs and put yourself ahead of someone else, others may call you a “female dog.”
When my daughter was starting middle school, I explained the world to her in my own warped way. I give my students the same advice. If you have a voice that gets heard in the world, someone will call you a bitch. If you perform acts of kindness and charity, someone will say that the bitch is showing off! If you show more spine than a jelly fish, someone eventually will brand you a bitch. Accept it. If someone calls you a bitch, you are probably doing something right.
About a year later a classmate turned to her and called her a bitch. She thanked him for noticing, and then related how she had not reached her mother’s level of “bitchdom” yet. He said nothing more, and did not try to insult her the rest of the year. She came home from school empowered rather than insulted.
Now, this advice does not mean you should be a bitch. Do not be mean or evil, and never treat those lower than you on the ladder of life with contempt. Always have a sounding board of friends who can help you determine the line between reasonable and bitchy. Sometimes you will cross the line, but, with their help, you will recognize this behavior and apologize for it. If you find yourself crossing the line too often, you may need to reexamine your attitudes and behavior. Do not be afraid to do this and make necessary adjustments. It is called “growth.”
Someday I hope we get beyond the name-calling, but until then take pride in some bitchiness. It may just mean you are acting like a human being instead of an invertebrate. It may just mean you are living your life.

 

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Merely Delivering Information?

Jul 08 2011 Published by under Learning

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The summer issue of Harvard Business Review includes an interesting piece synthesizing several books about higher education. Justin Fox argues that academia is overdue for change in Disrupting Higher Ed. He opens with the following:

Last summer my family moved from Manhattan to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Thanks to a lucky break in the rental market, we ended up with part of a house in a lovely, leafy neighborhood near the Harvard campus. Many of our neighbors are Harvard professors. They’re lovely (not leafy) folks. Smart, friendly, funny. Did I mention smart?

They’re also among the most privileged people I’ve ever met. Privileged not because they inherited large sums of money or lounge around eating bonbons. Privileged because they work in rewarding, stimulating jobs—with lots of opportunity for variety and personal initiative—and seemingly don’t ever have to worry about losing them.

A few paragraphs later, after discussing the last decade's disruption in the media, the fallacy sets in:

Higher education, like the media, is in the business of delivering information.

Uh, no. Even in BA/BS level courses, the idea is not to merely read and remember stuff; most faculty want undergrads to integrate the facts into understanding. The information delivered should be used, ultimately, to generate new knowledge: new interpretations of history, new pieces of art, new search engines, and new science break-throughs. The purpose of higher education is knowledge, including its communication, generation, and preservation. As students mover higher up the system, through the masters and doctoral levels, the emphasis on communication of knowledge lessens. Especially for the PhD student, the emphasis becomes research, taking what is known and integrating it in new ways, perhaps with new facts.

Higher education is like making the information, then delivering and editorializing on it, ultimately hoping that someone will make more new information with it all.

As a medical school faculty member, I have to communicate certain facts to the students; if they do not learn how to calculate the anion gap, they cannot use it at the bedside. However, what they really need to know is what the anion gap means,what it tells them about the patient's pathophysiology. I want them to understand the systems of the body, to appreciate the interactions of all of these systems, and to juggle this level of complexity when they see the patient. These latter skills do not happen in the lecture hall; they occur at the bedside. While some of this complex consideration of everything can be simulated (in really expensive, high-tech teaching halls), nothing compares to actually using new information in the care of a patient.

Students learn by grappling with knowledge, fighting with the facts and figures for mastery. Some students learn visually, others by reading, and others by hearing. Often, providing ways to manipulate and understand new knowledge in multiple ways can help students grasp stuff faster. The online world makes this easier, by letting those of us who do teach post videos, songs, and other non-traditional materials that students can use. However, I do not see anyway a student could get a meaningful degree just by learning facts online.

I have participated in some online learning myself through webinars with interactive discussions, both in real-time and via asynchronous message boards. For short courses it works pretty well, and interactivity can be generated. I was forced to use the facts I read between sessions and to support my actions with my teacher and my peers. Learning can be done via new technologies. I don't know that I would have wanted to do an entire degree program via that format; it took far more effort on everyone's part than gathering a bunch of students in a classroom. As an extrovert, I also gain energy with people. I like the social aspects of education, even the camaraderie of a class learning with a bad teacher!

I agree that we in academia are privileged. I make less than my counterparts in private practice, but I have a stimulating, rewarding job. I can justify a lot of wide-ranging interests as part of my profession, including readings on adult learning, social media, and even creative non-fiction writing. I would not give up that aspect of my career! Of course, my job security comes not from that part of my job, but from my clinical skills. In the current era of funding cuts, having MD behind my name provides far more salary guarantee than tenure, even in the Ivory Tower!

Fox presents recent books demonstrating the "disruption" that is occurring outside the Ivy League. One book, The Innovative University: Changing the DNA of Higher Education from the Inside Out, he describes as an "entertaining, informative history of higher education as seen through the joint lens of Harvard and BYU-Idaho." It sounds like a great read, but it won't be available until July 26 (and not yet in an eReader format for pre-order; hello, disruptive technology?).

How do you see higher education in this online media age? Disrupted or supplemented? Do you think we professors and instructors are merely in the business of delivering information?

 

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What I Am Reading: Kidney Edition

Jun 01 2011 Published by under Uncategorized, What I'm Reading

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Walter A. Hunt's new book fills a niche in the kidney disease market: a book by a patient about living with the knowledge that your kidneys will fail, living with failed kidneys, and surviving it all to get transplanted. The subtitle, A Guide for Living, sums it up nicely; you can survive and thrive with kidney disease. In this age of self-help and patients empowerment, it seems impossible that no one has written this book before now. Unfortunately, Walter A. Hunt is not a typical kidney disease patient (more on that later), so the book may not have as broad an audience as possible.

The book flows in the predicted fashion, from what kidneys do and why they fail, though the diagnostic tests and treatment options available at each step of the way. Throughout the book, the author remembers that each patient's disease will be different, and that no single prescription can fit everyone, especially before the onset of end-stage kidney failure. Personal insights on adapting and dealing with issues may be of benefit to many patients, especially if they lack an understanding support system.

My major criticism of the book stems from the author's background. Dr. Hunt holds a doctorate in neuropharmacology and performed biomedical research for 30 years before his diagnosis with polycystic kidney disease. While this background certainly helped him understand his condition, the writing in the book likely exceeds the health literacy of much of the population. Terms like "diffuse" may not be familiar to the average kidney patient (even though I am certain most heard it in a science class somewhere along the way), but clearly he assumes that word will be understood:

Dialysis involves filtration. Start with a basic concept: imagine a tank of water into which you carefully place a drop of ink in one corner of the tank. The concentrated ink tends to diffuse over time throughout the entire container of water until it reaches the same concentration in all parts of the tank.

Starting with a definition of diffusion might have been useful for the average adult in the US.

Kidney Disease: A Guide for Living may not be a perfect guide for patients, but it fills an empty slot on the patient's bookshelf. Motivated patients may find it a valuable addition to their kidney disease management tools.

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What I Am Reading: No, Really Edition

May 20 2011 Published by under What I'm Reading

First, this is post #200 since the inception of WhizBANG! on August 8, 2010. Please leave congratulatory comments below for this artificial milestone that I only noticed when I logged on to post.

Yesterday evening, the following headline caught my attention:

Kindle Books Now Outselling Real Books on Amazon

Unreal books? Ghost books? Undead books?

I received a Kindle for Christmas in 2009. I was reading eBooks via an iPod app for about 6 months at that point. I got my iPad in October 2010. Frankly, I try not to buy dead tree books any longer.

So what am I reading if not "real books?"

I'm waiting for my answer, Mashable.

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