Adrien's Lifestream http://adrienmagnus.com Challenge the known and embrace the unknown. posterous.com Sun, 06 Nov 2011 19:39:00 -0800 The Checklist Manifesto http://adrienmagnus.com/the-checklist-manifesto http://adrienmagnus.com/the-checklist-manifesto

Checkmanifestocover

After reading this book you will never get into something without doing your checklist first. Atul Gawande is challenging what we think of the reliability of experts with the question: what do we do when expertise is not enough?

 

He demonstrates how good the impact of the checklist is through carefully chosen stories. It's about surgeons, airline pilots, engineers, investors and the degree of complexity they face to do their job.

 

Here is my curated version of the book:

 

 

The problem of extreme complexity

 

« Here, then, is the fundamental puzzle of modern medical care: you have a desperately sick patient and in order to have a chance of saving him you have to get the knowledge right and then you have to make sure that the 178 daily tasks that follow are done correctly—despite some monitor's alarm going off for God knows what reason, despite the patient in the next bed crashing, despite a nurse poking his head around the curtain to ask whether someone could help “get this lady's chest open”.

There is complexity upon complexity. And even specialization has begun to seem inadequate. So what do you do?”

 

“There are degrees of complexity, though, and medicine and other fields like it have grown so far beyond the usual kind that avoiding daily mistakes is proving impossible even for our most superspecialized.”

 

 

The checklist

 

“ Substantial parts of what software designers, financial managers, fire-fighters, police officers, lawyers, and most certainly clinicians do are now too complex for them to carry out reliably from memory alone.”

 

The end of the master builder

 

“Four generations after the first aviation checklists went into use, a lesson is emerging: checklists seem able to defend anyone, even the experienced, against failure in many more tasks than we realized. They provide a kind of cognitive net. They catch mental flaws inherent in all of us—flaws of memory and attention and thoroughness.”

 

There is three different kinds of problems in the world: the simple, the complicated and the complex.

 

“Simple problems are ones like baking a cake from a mix. There is a recipe. Following the recipe brings a high likelihood of success.”

 

“Complicated problems are ones like sending a rocket to the moon. They can sometimes be broken down into a series of problems. But there is no straightforward recipe. Success frequently requires multiple people, often multiple teams, and specialized expertise.”

 

“ Complex problems are ones like raising a child. Once you learn how to send a rocket to the moon, you can repeat the process with other rockets and perfect it. But not so with raising a child. Every child is unique. Although raising one child may provide experience, it does not guarantee success with the next child.”

 

 

The checklist factory

 

“Good checklists are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything—a checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps—the ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical.”

 

“Pilots nonetheless turn to their checklists for two reasons. First, they are trained to do so. They learn for the beginning of flight school that their memory and judgment are unreliable and that lives depend on their recognizing that fact. Second, the checklists have proved their worth—they work. Aviation checklists are by no means perfect. Some have been found confusing or unclear of flawed. Nonetheless, they have earned pilots' faith.”

 

 

The test

 

“In London, during a knee replacement by an orthopedic surgeon who was one of the toughest critics, the checklist brought the team to recognize, before incision and the point of no return, that the knee prosthesis on hand was the wrong size for the patient—and that the right size was not available in the hospital. The surgeon became an instant checklist proponent.”

 

“More than 250 staff members—surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and others—filled out an anonymous survey after three months of using the checklist. […] Then we asked the staff one more question. “If you were having an operation, would you want the checklist to be used?”

A full 93 percent said yes.”

 

 

The hero in the age of checklists

 

“ Discipline is hard—harder than trustworthiness and skill and perhaps even than selflessness. We are by nature flawed and inconstant creatures. We can't even keep from snacking between meals. We are not built for discipline. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at.”

 

 

Since then I started thinking in terms of checklists for every task I'm working on. Checklists are big deal. How did the checklist impacted your daily work?

 

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Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:04:27 -0800 First Quote Of 2011 http://adrienmagnus.com/first-quote-of-2011 http://adrienmagnus.com/first-quote-of-2011

When a fine idea is compressed into a definite metre, the very same thought comes hurtling at one like a missile launched from a fully extented arm.

―Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

 

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Sat, 04 Dec 2010 16:03:00 -0800 Peace Is Every Step http://adrienmagnus.com/peace-is-every-step http://adrienmagnus.com/peace-is-every-step

Peaceiseverystep_cover

I went through the whole piece of Peace Is Every Step. This thin book brings a lot of valuable insights from Buddhist teachings into our information-overloaded world. It's that simple and deeply refreshing.

You've got a selection of my best picks:
  • The starting point is mindfulness. And mindfulness is about being fully immersed in the present moment. One way of getting into that state is mindful breathing. Sounds obvious? Just try it and notice how it feels.
  • Our society has materialized happiness with things. They expect you to get them so you'll feel happy somewhere in the future. You actually don't have to. Once you're right in the present moment, you have peace and joy right now. Living in the present moment is taking good care of the future.
  • Aimlessness: The basic condition for being happy is our consciousness of being happy. If we're not aware that we're happy, we're not really happy.
A good example is this: When we have a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. But when we don't have a toothache, we're still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant though.
  • What's Not Wrong?: We often ask "What's wrong?". Doing so, that makes we think of things that we're guilty of. Negative thinking often comes up. We would be much happier if we tried to stay on track with the positive things around us. We should learn to ask, "What's not wrong?" and be in touch with that.
  • There is a big emphasis on interbeing.
When you're driving your car, you become one with the car. You think you control the car while the car is changing yourself. Once in the car, you expect to arrive pretty quickly. So you're stuck in traffic, stress comes up and you have lost control over your expectation. We should drive our cars with mindfulness so we stay happy as the traveler who walks without thinking to arrive.

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Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:04:00 -0800 Create Stories Using The Social Web With Storify http://adrienmagnus.com/create-stories-using-the-social-web-with-stor http://adrienmagnus.com/create-stories-using-the-social-web-with-stor

I first met Storify Cofounder Xavier Damman at a conference in San Francisco one year ago. He was working on a product called Publitweet back then. He also built in 24 hours ListiMonkey right at the time when Twitter launched the list feature. He was very enthusiastic and ready to take the next step.

We're now living in the connected age of social media and we try to catch up with never-ending feeds. Whatsoever on Twitter or Facebook. It's been kind of cool in 2010. We werescrolling on the Twitter feed looking for interesting stuff to learn about.

But another truth lies ahead: it's getting more and more overwhelming to keep up with what's happening with your friends and Twitter followers. People increasingly spend quite a good deal of their life online. People are sharing more and more stuff. People get excited about telling their friend about that awesome video. It all comes down to bring so much noise.

We need filters to get the most relevant information from the noisy social medias. Storify is kind of big deal on the web curation scene. It's about finding the meaning in the noise and turn that meaning into a format that people can actually understand. That format is a story. And people read stories. The stories you create with Storify are made of tweets, status updates, youtube videos and pretty much every other social web service.

I think it's very promising. To me it'll be a lot more handy to tell the story of what happened in a concert while putting together real-time pieces of the show.

Have a look at this recent interview of Storify Cofounders by Robert Scoble:

And here is what a Storify looks like:

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Thu, 18 Nov 2010 14:46:00 -0800 Brain Rules http://adrienmagnus.com/brain-rules http://adrienmagnus.com/brain-rules

Brain_rules_cover

Brain Rules is one of those books that really makes you feel smarter. Who wouldn't want to know how your brain is running?

I loved this book. John Medina did a great work in putting his tremendous knowledge into twelves small chapters. The book is packed up with many stories, each one illustrating one brain rule at a time. I learned a handful of tricks for dealing with school, work and home life.

Here are some of the notes that I put in my Moleskine:
  • Most of the events that predict whether something learned also will be remembered occur in the first few seconds of learning.
  • Many of the same mechanisms that cause you to run from a predator are also used when you're having sex.
  • Every brain is wired differently. Even though the current system is founded on expectations that certain learning goals should be achieved by a certain age. Students of the same age show a great deal of intellectual variability.
  • One NASA study showed that a 26-minute nap improved a pilot's performance by more than 34%. The afternoon nap is a biological need.
  • If information is presented orally, people remember about 10%, tested 72 hours after exposure. That figure goes up to 65% if you add a picture.
I first heard about this book in Scott Berkun's Confession of a Public Speaker and I'm sure he did benefit a lot from it too.

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Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:55:36 -0800 Just Got My Wax Tailor Vinyl Signed http://adrienmagnus.com/just-got-my-wax-tailor-vinyl-signed http://adrienmagnus.com/just-got-my-wax-tailor-vinyl-signed
Vinyl_dedicace

That made my day. Thanks Louis!

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Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:44:24 -0800 Attention Is The New Black http://adrienmagnus.com/attention-is-the-new-black http://adrienmagnus.com/attention-is-the-new-black
Music bands are doomed. The Internet era has completely shifted the distribution platform. It used to be the record shops. Today it's all about streaming monthly subscription. There is one good news and one bad news to that.

Good news is that the customer accesses to pretty much any track on powerful streaming platforms such as Spotify.

But bad news is every band or artist has now the same visibility on the distribution platform. I mean the size of the record shop is limited by the space in which a limited number of records can be on sale. And therefore a selection is made up. The customer easily finds what he's looking for. The artist can somehow size up his audience.

Although with the streaming platforms there is no limit. In a couple of minutes the customer can switch between as many as ten records. Because aside from the TOP 50 songs, there is no selection. The customer is lost with the ten million tracks choice. So he's trying out a bit of everything and is frustrated of leaving some unheard.

If the physical record get purchased, a meaningful connection is established with the artist as the customer will dedicate time and attention to listen to the record. Because that's a physical thing that you can hold with both hands. While the digital record is manipulated from your fingertip for a few seconds. The perceived value obviously is here close to nothing.

For an artist to get valuable audience, customer's attention needs to be focused on an experience for some time in the proper context. So that's a lasting moment.

This is going to be pretty tough for artists as the attention span is getting smaller and smaller. Even though there is a solution. They've got either to be really good in social medias or to make really great music. They can be either a member of the tribe or they can set the tone for what everyone is talking about within the tribe.

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Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:10:00 -0700 The Cultural Barrier With The Translating Phone http://adrienmagnus.com/the-cultural-barrier-with-the-translating-pho http://adrienmagnus.com/the-cultural-barrier-with-the-translating-pho

Earlier in October, Michael Arrington talked about the slow race to a translating phone. The product translates voice into another language and then speaks the translation to the listener. And Google is working on it.

It's indeed a very promising technology, as we can see on this demo. This actually would make intercultural communications more accessible. Michael Arrington goes even further saying that being able to pick up the phone and talk to someone without a common language would help make the world a smaller place.

The thing is that culture is deeply anchored into language. And talking with each other in a specific language means sharing cultural traits, not only mere chatting. Using a translating phone means talking in the same way you talk to friends from your country, although the two people aren't sharing same cultural values. At first sight I don't feel the culture dimension of the product.

Though today's globalization is about using foreign languages in order to create a relationship through a meaningful cultural connection. I don't think this technology is going to forge business relationships and friendships easier in the future. Experts estimate that the words we say barely represent 10% of human communication.

Let's say voice translation was the first part. What're we going to do when adding video and body language issues?

New social behaviours will appear anyway as the translating phone is coming in the following months.

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Sun, 24 Oct 2010 15:27:00 -0700 Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel http://adrienmagnus.com/vagabonding-an-uncommon-guide-to-the-art-of-l http://adrienmagnus.com/vagabonding-an-uncommon-guide-to-the-art-of-l

Vagabonding_cover

 

Rolf Potts puts into contrast the tremendous difference between traveling as having vacation and traveling as a full discovery experience. Vagabonding is a fresh book that's digging into the philosophy of travel.

In case you were wondering, "vagabonding" doesn't relate to homeless people, instead:

Vagabonding is an attitude - a friendly interest in people, places and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the world.

For most of people, going to vacation means rewarding pleasure for working hard a freaking number of hours per week all year long. Though vagabonding is not an escape from your real life but a discovery of your real life that justifies work. The purpose is -at its best- a rediscovery of reality itself so to allow your spirit to grow:

Travel compels you to discover your spiritual side by simple elimination: without all the rituals, routines and possessions that give your life meaning at home, you're forced to look for meaning within yourself.

The 4 key principles of the Vagabonding philosophy:
  • Keep things real and keep on learning.
  • Be creative and get into adventures.
  • Earn your freedom all over again and don't set limits.
  • Keep things simple and let your spirit grow.
As a frequent traveler, the content provided by this book has been very valuable to me. I highly recommend it to anyone willing to jump into the unknown of the road.

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Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:35:23 -0700 Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything http://adrienmagnus.com/freakonomics-a-rogue-economist-explores-the-h http://adrienmagnus.com/freakonomics-a-rogue-economist-explores-the-h
Freakonomics

Economic books have the true advantage of being backed up by numbers. And numbers don't lie. Freakonomics is about digging in unusual questions of daily life and society, using the power of numbers in order to unmask curious conclusions.

Conventional wisdom is definitely defied. Questions such as: Why experts are in the perfect position to exploit you? Which is most dangerous: a gun or a swimming pool? How the legalization of abortion impacted so much criminality? How the invention of crack cocaine mirrored the invention of nylon stocking? And so on.
My favorite: How much do parents really matter?

The incentive behind this book is the fact that morality represents the way that people would like the world to work. Whereas economics represents how it actually does work. And people crave for that information. A very entertaining reading.

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Sun, 03 Oct 2010 15:55:00 -0700 8 Facts Why Silicon Valley Kicks Europe's Butt http://adrienmagnus.com/8-facts-why-silicon-valley-kicks-europes-butt http://adrienmagnus.com/8-facts-why-silicon-valley-kicks-europes-butt

4437167135_37b2e28ebd_m

 

I have been wondering lately whether Europe can be such a place as great as Silicon Valley to foster startup creation.
Loic Le Meur puts a couple of reasons why Silicon Valley is well ahead of Europe in the tech business. Here are the 8 key facts:

  • All you need is in one place. The best Internet companies and the best people in tech industry are all in one place.
  • Campus life. Everything you do with entrepreneur friends during free time is related with business. It's non stop.
  • Social environment is very flexible. You can hire fast but also fire fast which is very unpopular in Europe and impossible to do. Being able to fire fast allows startups to hire fast.
  • The "how can I help" attitude. People trust you more by default. Very easy to meet anyone in Silicon Valley.
  • Diversity. Silicon Valley is much more diverse. Half of the people we interact with daily are not Americans.
  • Visibility. The press and the key tech blogers care more about you if you are based there.
  • Global state of mind. You're surrounded by people who want to create the leader in the world on something. The thing is you're allowed to think big.
  • Multinational team. It forces you to think and execute globally. Especially enhances creativy.

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Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:07:00 -0700 On The Meaning of Travel http://adrienmagnus.com/on-the-meaning-of-travel http://adrienmagnus.com/on-the-meaning-of-travel

Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgement. The traveler was a student of what he sought.

―Paul Fussel, Abroad

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Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:55:00 -0700 Catching Up with the Information Era http://adrienmagnus.com/catching-up-with-the-information-era http://adrienmagnus.com/catching-up-with-the-information-era

We're dealing with an increasing amount of information everyday. This is beginning with public transportation. First thing you have in front of you when riding the metro is three different newspapers available for free. Each of them contain all kinds of news and junk advertising.
Then there are computers which basically allow you to access the knowledge of the world for free. You can be aware of what's happening anywhere in the world in real time thanks to the revolutionary Internet.
Next thing is emails. We're addicted to emails. We keep checking emails and our brain makes automatically us click on the new items that are filling the inbox. This is happening all day as long as you're in front of a computer.
And then there is Facebook. A whole new layer of information about your friends is capturing your attention. People say Facebook is about maintaining relationships with your friends. But does a status update make the relationship with your 500 or 1000 friends maintained?
And now there is iPhone. A handy device with which you access Facebook, Twitter, emails and news. In real time and from anywhere. Are we actually feeling good when processing that never-ending amount of information?

Although the quantity of information we need to deal with has increased in a huge way over time, our ability to pay attention did not. The average number of friends you can maintain over time in the real world is 150, says anthropologist Robin Dunbar. So what's the meaning of checking what's up with several hundreds of friends on Facebook? Which one of these situations do you remember the most: When you're hustling to keep your friends posted by sending messages left and right on Facebook; When you're having fun drinking beers in a pub with a bunch of friends.
Is it meaningful for you to spend your time consuming information and being often interrupted by "breaking" news, text messages and Facebook's notifications?
Getting information can lead to inspiration. But too much information is information overload.
Checking emails first thing in the morning will make you think you achieved something because you did answer emails. You actually did not craft anything new on your own. The worst is that your amount of attention has decreased. Although the thing you did just after emails might have required 100% of your attention to make sense.
If some news are really breaking news, that makes people talk about it. So you're aware of most news while small talks with people surrounding you.
The way we're spending our time everyday is defining what you achieved in your life. Time is a scarce resource and we don't control it. Our own attention is an even scarcer resource however we do own and control it. Does the time you spend to be aware of everything make your life meaningful?

Technologies are capturing more and more our attention. The span of attention we dedicate to a specific thing is becoming smaller and smaller. The information era is not over at all. And the way humans think doesn't make us avoid information overload because our minds are driven by short term commitments and activities.
Once again, technology can help us by providing the right tool. To make our life meaningful in this information era, we need tools to curate and filter contents. So you can focus your attention, do something that is meaningful for you and make a difference.

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Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:11:00 -0700 Confessions Of A Public Speaker http://adrienmagnus.com/confessions-of-a-public-speaker-5 http://adrienmagnus.com/confessions-of-a-public-speaker-5

Confessions

People are more afraid of public speaking than death. Yes, and that's why tons of inexperienced people fail to communicate ideas to their audience. Don't you remember one time when you were wasting your time in a room where the speaker was actually talking to himself? Because I do. This refreshing book deals with conference speakers and teachers. It contains dozens of insights so to provide clues on how to do public speaking right.

The majority of people are dead lazy to prepare their talk when they speak in public. They *think* it's going to be all right. The truth is that these speakers are not only wasting their own time in case of fail. It's actually 33 hours of wasted time if we consider a 100 people audience attending to a 20 minutes talk.
What the audience expects from the speaker is though nothing much. Just as much as the talk is entertaining and, maybe, inspiring. If it even leads to make people do something differently after the talk, then you might be doing very well.

Scott Berkun explains in a plain style how speakers should behave to effectively connect to their audiences. Confessions Of A Public Speaker is full of practical tips and will make you laugh.

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Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:04:31 -0800 65 km/h is my best snowboarding speed for today. Will #crushit tomorrow. http://adrienmagnus.com/65-kmh-is-my-best-snowboarding-speed-for-toda-0 http://adrienmagnus.com/65-kmh-is-my-best-snowboarding-speed-for-toda-0

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Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:09:58 -0800 Mavericks at Work http://adrienmagnus.com/mavericks-at-work http://adrienmagnus.com/mavericks-at-work
Mavericks_cover_02

"A report from the front lines of the future of business. It's not a book of best practices. It's a book of next practices--a set of insights and a collection of case studies that amount to a business plan for the 21st century, a new way to lead, compete, and succeed." -Taylor and LaBarre

From my last readings.

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Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:16:00 -0800 Just got my signed copy of The 4-Hour Workweek! http://adrienmagnus.com/just-got-my-signed-copy-of-the-4-hour-workwee http://adrienmagnus.com/just-got-my-signed-copy-of-the-4-hour-workwee

55128764-fa7ce0cde4a00cdc38bb0

At Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco. Thanks Tim Ferriss!

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Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:39:25 -0800 You need to Crush It http://adrienmagnus.com/you-need-to-crush-it http://adrienmagnus.com/you-need-to-crush-it
Book-header2-trans

From my last readings.

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Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:24:00 -0800 Them Crooked Vultures at Fox Theater http://adrienmagnus.com/them-crooked-vultures-at-fox-theater http://adrienmagnus.com/them-crooked-vultures-at-fox-theater

Them Crooked Vultures is a rock supergroup made up of drummer Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Eagles of Death Metal) and bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin).

They played the entire album plus "Highway 1". Josh Homme even dealed some vodka during "Interlude With Ludes". Dave Grohl was blasting so hard that his drum kit was moving on stage, even if it was stucked with multiple sandbags. They leaved without any encore, but who cares? It was perfect.
What a great high quality performance. One of the best 2009 shows.

Photos by Laura Musselman.

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Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:03:00 -0800 Spotify rocks with precursor mobile music experience http://adrienmagnus.com/spotify-rocks-with-precursor-mobile-music-exp http://adrienmagnus.com/spotify-rocks-with-precursor-mobile-music-exp

Spotify is a great music streaming service that allows instant listening to more than 6 millions songs. The application is available on Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone and Android phones.

I was using the free version for a couple of months. It stands to reason that yes, advertising sucks. But the Symbian version has just been released which allows me to use Spotify on my Nokia N95.

As a music nerd, I quite immediately upgraded my account to 9,99€/month prenium version which provides:
- Mobile music with streaming over 3G/2.5G/Wifi in high quality
- Playlists are even available offline
- Access music anywhere in the world and of course no ads

After 24H of use I must admit that I totally love it. This is real innovation in the music industry.
And Deezer is now also into the prenium game. Sorry, but Spotify won this time with Nokia support.

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