Dan Erwin

How to Get More Out of Your Creative Thinking

A lot more. . .

As a young church minister in the congregational tradition, I had to write two new, creative sermons for nearly every week in the 1960s. My Boulder church included Colorado University faculty, students, as well as engineers from the local technology firms, all of whom brought high expectations with them to Sunday classes and worship.

Thankfully, I learned just a couple years after seminary graduation (1962) that if I went to sleep on Thursday or Friday with a sermon or a creative idea half-finished, or needed some new ideas or anecdotes, I’d have everything I needed when I woke up the next morning. Or if I was just playing around with some creative ideas during the day, there was a high chance that the idea would be complete--or at least zinging some new pointers my way--when I woke up the next morning. At first,

Can You Argue with Data?

On Monday of this week, I posted an article on ChatGPT, the generative chatbot. By Wednesday morning I’d already had 700 views on the article. Intriguingly, no comments. But my brief, almost simplistic analysis of the chatbot suggested another issue that I think needs to be put to rest. On numerous occasions in my consulting work I’ve heard the statement, “you can’t argue with the data.”

Is the statement accurate? Absolutely not!

Data permeates almost every aspect of our lives. But how often do you think about its effects? In an intriguing new book by Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert called The Secret Life of Data, the two writers explore the profound effects of data with knowledgeable experts from many disciplines. What they found, of course, is that there’s no such thing as a data system that doesn’t contain flaws and biases. And often, those left out of the data tend to be the ones getting the “short end of the stick.” You may have read the difficulties of AI within healthcare—and the built-in biases like leaving minorities out of the data. I understand that some of the data has been corrected, but in some instances the biases caused serious negative healthcare effects.

My First Experience with ChatGPT

. . . was enlightening. It confirmed my knowledge of artificial intelligence and reinforced the need for assessing trustworthiness of Chat content.

So that I’d be able to evaluate the tool, I asked a question in the center of my religious and theological scholarly expertise. I asked “what’s the Biblical book of Jeremiah all about.” The errors were immediately obvious to my scholarly eye—and there were plenty of errors. So, I want to talk about how to assess just a few of the elements of a product or service.

To assess the value of any product or service, you always begin with the fundamental proposal—which usually appears in its advertising or in the sales pitch. In argumentation, the proposal is typically called the “claim,” which is built on specific data and oriented to an objective.

AI development folk have already created development guidelines for human system interaction. Although the guidelines are exceptionally specific for AI development, I’m going to work from the more standard argument process which works across all contexts and can be applied fairly simply—and then added to for specific contexts like digital chat. My basic approach—the Toulmin argument model--applies to absolutely every context imaginable and makes it easy to understand the issues. Then, if you so desire, you can apply the context specific translation of guidelines.

The underlying approach for assessing an AI app is like any other product or service--whether for an auto, a new house, a frozen vegetable or even a condom. I happen to drive a Mercedes C300. The Mercedes proposal is very clear-cut: “we are the defining class since 1886.” The Trojan condom, in contrast, proposes that they are the defining “instrument of closeness.”

The Chat GPT, too, makes a very clear proposal: “we communicate with enterprise data across industries, languages, and specialties. . . driving a new era of convenience, productivity, and connectivity.” Although generative AI is a unique species, it’s spread is moving across industry, healthcare, natural language processing, space exploration and science.

The fundamental issue in all these AI products is trustworthiness.

The Unique Gifts of Reading

Back in 2020 I wrote that 'I've always wanted to say something very direct when an acquaintance or a client asked why I read so much, but I was always a bit too cautious to verbalize my real beliefs out loud.

But if a prominent, knowledgeable person  supports my beliefs publicly, I'll happily repeat them. I followed up then with a quote from General Mattis verbalizing my actual beliefs in the context of the military: If you haven't read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain sustain you. Any commander who claims he is "too busy to read" is going to fill body bags with his troops as he learns the hard way.  
Boy, have I changed my mind since then.

In a recent study, I retrieved tons of personal stories, revealing my profoundly unconscious growth as a result of my reading from as early as the fifth grade, I began learning basic "noticing" and "analytical" skills in the fifth grade by reading kid detective stories like Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes. Some of these stories are really just "kid stuff," but phenomenally useful to this fifth-grade kid. 

I learned to question the elementary ethics that had been pounded into my head by my mother and in Sunday School by reading the works of Mark Twain. His Huck Finn was a show-stopper in my life, causing me to rethink, helping to decide what to hold on to and what to discard. Robinson Crusoe taught me that I could sometimes learn without help from others. And the Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes taught me the opposite--the value of associates in learning. And some of those books were not even "great literature."

Second Thoughts on the Trump-Harris “Debate”

I spent part of Tuesday evening last week sporadically watching the interaction, probably seeing 2/3 of the “debate.” I was quite certain that my “helper” who comes the next morning would ask what I thought about it. And probably some of my coffee cronies, too.

As expected, my “guy” wanted to know “what” I thought about it. I responded that I didn’t know yet. But that I was disappointed by the quality of analysis that followed their session. I wondered what had happen to all the “smarts” that was normally floating around presidential debates—and whether positions in political analysis were no longer perceived as career opportunities. Putting off my thoughts about the debate.

But about 10am Wednesday morning it all came together.
Shortly after noon, Wednesday, I noticed that two writers in The Atlantic pulled it all together the same way, but without the explanation I’m offering here. The other writers, leads from our outstanding newspapers, although close, didn’t get there.

How to Understand Artificial Intelligence Two Completely Different Ways

One of the basic characteristics of truly intelligent people is that they take advantage of new situations, have a natural curiosity and a thirst for knowledge. They are eager to learn about different areas of life, including people, culture, animals, history and the world. Intelligent people recognise that others have information and insight that they can share which will help them grow, expand their wisdom, and enhance their intelligence.

How does this play out
Having worked with a great deal of very intelligent people, one of the unique characteristics about this thirst for knowledge is that they look for different ways of understanding. Sometimes this plays out in striking metaphors. Other times in plays out in exciting analogies. And sometimes it's a person from one discipline talking about another discipline and revealing how differently they think about another person's discipline.

Israel vs. Hamas Is Best Understood as a “Waiting Game”

Understanding social reality is especially important for managing long time career success. Though the term is not regularly used in business, reality structures are nothing more than a mental framework that helps people understand and interpret the world around them.  Over the years I’ve found that reality structures can differ between one corporation and another. The 3M reality differs significantly, for example, from the Ralston Purina reality. 3M is strongly oriented to research, while Ralston is strongly oriented to marketing. The consequence is that research behaviors get a lot of attention at 3M, and little at Ralston. You get my gist.
In this post, I want to introduce you to a major social reality that operates in many different contexts.

The “waiting game”
“Waiting game” is a social reality in which one or more participants withhold action temporarily in the hope of having a favorable opportunity for more effective action later.

Why Does “Weird” Work So Well?

When Tim Walz called Donald Trump and his worldview “weird,” it got terrific, immediate attention. It also launched a thousand memes. I suspect it may have also got him the job of Kamala Harris’ running mate. As a rhetorical specialist, a guy who’s always asking why some words and ideas work and other’s don’t, I was extremely curious about why “weird” worked so very well.

To no surprise, that brilliant Columbia linguist, John McWhorter, weighed in on the answer in a NYTimes article. He pointed out that, historically, the term has been around for several centuries and over time it has changed its meaning. In Shakespeare’s use of the term it meant “ghoulish” and “frighteningly odd.” Today it just means “peculiar.”

“Weird” is a part of the language that isn’t taught in our schools, but should be. The novel is usually omitted in grade school. That’s one of the reasons it stands out. It wasn’t in your grade school vocabulary lists. It’s like one of my favorite terms that new Americans don’t understand—“duh.” A word that’s used when something is said or written that’s disgustingly obvious—and often a take-down. Any fourth-grader would know that, but a new immigrant wouldn’t get it.

McWhorter points out what I suspect is the real power of the term “weird.” There’s no workable comeback, other than “no, I’m not weird.” And as you peobably know, some denials just don’t work.