The Numerati by Stephen Baker

The Numerati by Stephen Baker

This book is about measuring people. It visits the companies and individuals that are creating the mathematics to measure and track people. IBM is seeking to track all of its 50,000 workers using complex social networking software. The company, Umbria, has created software to track blogs. Casinos are trying to find cheats in the least intrusive way possible.

The Numerati tells the story of how you are a statistic which can be broken down into a category then tracked using mathematical algorithms. These algorithms see if you are a productive white collar worker, what you buy, how you vote, and what you write in your blog.

In addition, these numbers can become intrusive and be used to determine if you are terrorist or criminal, what your medical problems are, and who you might fall in love with. As they say, the only way to really insure your privacy is to not put it online or over a cell phone.

You have value as a mathematical commodity to many people. You get a supermarket discount card so the retailer can track what you buy filling up your cart with your weekly groceries. You receive a constant stream of junk mail based on what you buy online or over the phone. I regularly receive mailers from Haband because I buy from them online.

People exist in what is called the, "attention economy". Your attention has value. You might even pay money to a search engine optimization company to make your blog more visible on the web so more people will pay attention to it. I constantly ping my blog to make sure places like Technorati and Google know it has been updated.

What you do at work and on the web are monitored. There are now thousands of security cameras everywhere; in supermarkets, at the job, and on street. The government and private industry is both protecting and surveilling you. It has become an age of ubiquitous tracking.

This surveillance can be beneficial as well as harmful. In healthcare, it can monitor alzheimers patients, and check for future health problems. As things improve, you might live in a house with built in circuitry that checks your physical condition constantly.

I found this book insightful. It reminded me that I need to keep some control over where I spend my money and who I give my information to. I don't take surveys over the phone. Often, I will make purchases with cash. One of the reasons I often use the library is the records of what I read and watch are purged regularly. Library records can be supinaed. Making choices of how you are recorded is paramount in an attention economy.

I enjoyed reading this book. There is very little complex math in it. It also maintains a very neutral tone and does not sensationalize the subject. This makes the writing very accessible.

Good Morning, Miscellaneous Thoughts

William Randolph Hearst (1863 – 1951), American newspaper magnate, politician, c1910

I took a walk up to my local library this morning and dropped off a few books. I also picked up two new books, Management Skills for New Managers Based on the Bestselling Seminar by the American Management Association by Carol W. Ellis, and The Numerati by Stephen Baker.

Right now, I am thinking about the concept of management. It is not something which I like to think about. In some ways, I know it is not something which I am used to. My upbringing always hammered me with the idea of being an excellent specialist. That is exactly what I am a senior librarian, a librarian II as they call it in civil service.

All of the librarian III positions are management positions unless you happen to be lucky enough to get into a specialty. The specialist positions like collection development are fast disappearing in the library world. I did not do well the last time I tried for a management type position.

This means if I have ambition, I have to reprogram my attitudes about managing people as well as change my skills considerably. This is not an easy thing to do. It takes time and patience. The first step is improving my time management and organization skills. Having the appearance of organization whether or not you work hard automatically changes the way people think about you.

I am an idiosyncratic person, I don't do well with recruiters. As Popeye says, "I yam what I yam." I have always found my own work. I am not going to go into a recruiters office and say, "Here I am find me a wonderful new position." Acting classes are not going to help me with this.

As I read and understand the various management books, they say one thing. Perform exceptionally and people will notice and seek you out. Resumes and complaining don't get you very far.

The third component is managing people. This is another skill which I will have to learn. It will not be easy for me. I unfortunately don't have lots of extra money to spend on improving my skills. I am thinking of doing a couple units of MIT Open Courseware. There are no credits for these courses. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm I am strong believer in self-education.

Right now, this leaves me with three goals, improving my organizational skills, performing better, and learning some basic management skills over the next year.

I finished going through Management Skills for New Managers by Carol W. Ellis. This is not a management theory book. It is a set of checklists, questionnaires, and surveys on how you interact with your current reports. The whole book is about creating a better work environment. There is no theory. It is all actions. For a manager to properly use this book they would have to be managing a number of people, communicating, training, evaluating, and coaching them.

It is of not much use for someone who wants to learn management theory. It does give an overview of what you are supposed to be doing. The book seems practical enough. But, you need to already be in a management position to use it properly. It is a skills workbook. I might find it useful later.

I have started reading The Numerati by Stephen Baker. So far, it is a book about the people who make mathematical models of human behavior for different corporate and business purposes. I rather like the writing. There is a strong human interest angle.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I have been playing with twitter lately. I have a learned a few things about the service. Apparently, it is more important to be followed than follow people. In order to be able to follow more than 2000 people, you generally have to have over 2000 followers. Once you reach this number you contact twitter and they generally let you go above their limits.

I also have been trying out an application called Mr. Tweet, http://www.mrtweet.com/ This is supposed to generate more "influential"people to follow. I don't see how it works, but I am trying it out.

I checked my sitemeter today to see who has come to visit this site. There was one rather interesting list of book sites. Apparently, a plug-in for internet explorer, Zemanta http://www.zemanta.com/ has added my site to a long list of book sites .