Play to Live

Play to Live is a book for those who still haven't buy the importance of play for children and adults alike. If you know someone who still believes that play is a childish waste of time, give Brian VanDongen's book. 

"Play is not just important to education; play is education.  Play is not just important to a healthy lifestyle; play is a healthy lifestyle. Play is not just important to life skills; play is a life skill."

Without going into the depth of research on play this is a convincing invitation. Invitations to allow more play time to children and also to permit ourselves, as adults, to play.

"You have my permission: Be playful."

Children and Play in the Holocaust

Children and Play in the Holocaust is a emotionally hard to read essay by George Eisen. With a long list of references Eisen presents the experience of children in ghettos, detention centers and concentration camps during the Nazi occupation. These stories challenge the classical theory of play but also reinforce how play is so encoded in our genes that is almost unavoidable. 

"Play burst forth spontaneously and uncontrollably without regard of the external situation."

The sociological, psychological, physiological and even political aspects of life during the Holocaust are visited under the lens of children, and adult, play.

"Their play, just like all human experiences, was reflective of and governed by societal, psychological, and economic conditions of the society in which they took place."

For the people in the play field the book can be used as a catalog of play experiences to be classified under the 16 play types by Bob Hughes; to identify the play cycle and the role of adults in free play.

A River in Darkness

A River in Darkness is a surreal story of a man struggle to survive in North Korea. Half Japanese and half Korean, Masaji Ishikawa migrated to North Korea after his father got enticed by the lies of Kim Il-sung. For 36 years he struggle to survive to care for his family and see them die of starvation and abuse. He finally made it back to Japan just to find indifference and hostility. 

Among the lessons in the book is the eyewitness testimony of the failure of central planning (core of Socialism and Communism)

But that’s the thing. People in North Korea spend so much time in study meetings and calculating the number of hours they’ve worked that there’s no time to do the actual work. The result? Raw materials don’t arrive in factories, the electricity doesn’t work, and farms are overrun with weeds. But as long as people can get their food rations, they don’t care.

The black market was also thriving. It seemed the more messed up a country became, the more the black market prospered.

A River in Darkness is strikingly crude in the recollections of Ishikawa memories but also in the blind eye of other governments that wanted to avoid conflicts with North Korea, specially China and Japan itself. 

I often think about what would have become of me if I’d stayed in North Korea. I would probably have starved too. But at least I’d have died in someone’s arms with my family gathered around me. We’d have said our goodbyes. What chance of that now?

Ishikawa disappeared, don't know if publishing the book helped him in anyway. Don't even know if Masaji Ishikawa is his real name or a pen name. We just can hope he found peace.

Exponential Organizations

In 1982 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman published In Search of Excellence, in 1994 Jim Collins and Jerry Porras published Built to Last, and in 2014 Salim Ismail, Mike Malone, Yuri van Geest came up with Exponential Organizations. What do these have in common? They are examples of what Jeff Sandefer call "Business Pornography". Or what Phil Rosenzweig in The Halo Effect calls Delusion of Rigorous Research.

Books that sold by the millions pleasing the ears of people looking for instant success stories.

Exponential Organizations (ExO) makes some good diagnostics of the differences in pace and dynamics in the market. However the book is about Unicorns a fact that the authors acknowledge "Most of Lee's unicorns score well above the ExO threshold score." 

A principle in finance is that the higher the risk the higher the returns, thus an ExO has very high returns because they have very high risks.The book misses the mark by oversimplifies the market, it doesn't say anything about the thousands who die trying to be unicorns, it has no recognition to elements of luck and opportunity. Somehow Ismail et. al. despise the old fashion business model of bootstrapping and hard-work is still valid.

In the end they come with the idea of an ExO mindset which should yield into a ExO company and X10 returns. Economically if this were true the market would be dominated by very few companies, all ExOs, or the market would be so huge that I doubt it would be sustainable. 

Near the end of the book Ismail et. al. quote economist Brian Arthur: "Complexity economics is a different way of thinking about the economy. It sees the economy not as a system in equilibrium but as one in motion, perpetually 'computing' itself - perpetually constructing itself anew. Where equilibrium economics emphasize order, determinacy, deduction and stasis, this new framework emphasizes contingency, indeterminacy, sense-making and openness to change. Until now, economics has been a noun-based rather than verb-based science." What Arthur call the old economics is what Economist like Pete Boetke call "Mainstream economics" that oversimplified an emergent process, in opposition to "Mainsteet economics" that has always been dynamic. Maybe the velocity has change but markets were never static. Therefore, Ismail's ideas are not that original, successful entrepreneurs and business-people have succeeded because they understood the dynamics of their time.

Wise Guy

Guy Kawasaki returns with a book about life lessons that is entertaining, fun and yes, wise.

Wise Guy is a very personal book since he uses personal stories to give context to his pearls of wisdom. From the beginning Kawasaki clearly states:

"Before you ask, or wonder, this is not my autobiography or memoir. It is a compilation of the most enlightening stories of my life. Think personal lessons, not personal history."

Wise Guy is a collection of life lessons. We can learn from our own experience or vicariously from other people's experiences and this is what Guy has to offer: "my goal is to educate, not to awe you".

I'm not sure the order the author followed to write the book. He could have thought about a lesson to share and search for an anecdote to enhance or he could have remind a life event and search for lessons in it. Either way Wise Guy is a book loaded with nuggets of wisdom.

Some of the favorites ones are:

"Be a  hard-ass if you are a teacher, manager, coach, or someone who influences people. You’re not doing anyone a favor by lowering your standards and expectations in an effort to be kind, gentle, or popular. The future cost of  short-term kindness is great."

The world is full of PC-ness and being blunt and clear can be a risk worth taking. None wins from  hypocrisy. 

"Don’t consider yourself a victim... If you believe you’re a victim, you’ll truly become one.Take responsibility for your fate. You still may not succeed, but at least you’ll try."

This is a nugget consistent with other authors like Fred Kofman, Joseph Campbell and others. The victim has the benefit of not having to take responsibility but at a great cost, impotence and lack of freedom.

"Make your personal interests known. This provides “hooks” to develop additional and deeper relationships.  These relationships have led to friendships, adventures, and financial rewards. My life would have been a lot less interesting if I had not “opened the kimono” and unveiled my personal interests."

"Cultivate relationships with people you would run to see. Anyone who doesn’t pass the Shopping Center Test may waste your time, and life is too short. Second, be the person other people run to see. This is a useful test for how you treat others."

Living in a connected world is an opportunity to expand and grow. People are more than their jobs and sharing what you love can be a glue to support more and better relationships. But also the myriad of relationships can be overwhelming, Guy's advice is prioritize and spend your time wisely.

"If you provide value, you can ask  for—  and  receive— reciprocation. This is the glue that holds society together. You may not care about reciprocation, but the important concept is to help people so much that they would gladly reciprocate."

Adam Smith (and others before him) stressed the value of social cooperation. The division of labor works only in a cooperative environment. It is a mistake to think that competition is the opposite of cooperation, competition is the freedom to provide more value than others.You can't get value from society if you don't provide value, unless you are a parasite.

"Smile. The more you smile and laugh, the more you will smile and laugh. The more you smile and laugh, the easier life gets. You can never go wrong being nice, and there’s no such thing as being too nice."

This is one of the best ones. People live such dull lives that being playful seems as a sin or a crime (as Bernie DeKoven used to say). Believe in humanity and enjoy life more.

I found one of the last chapters, Ohana, quite special. Guy was humble and brave enough to ask his family and close acquaintances to share a pearl of wisdom they acquire from interacting with him. They share nice personal stories and what they learned form them.

Everybody should take the time to do what Kawasaki did with Wise Guy. Reflect on your life and what you learned, thank the people who touch your life and gave you a lesson, and ask those around you how you have made their lives better. 

You, Your Child, and School

Sir Ken Robinson is a world wide recognized educator. Whenever Robinson speaks or writes something new the education community listens. This is the case of his latest book, You, Your Child and School. This time Robinson is speaking to the parents. Helping a generation of highly involved parents deal with the anxiety that educating their children in an increasing uncertain world.

Robinson's ideas are always stimulating and challenging, and hopefully this book will expand the discussion about the need for a radical change in Education.

However Robinson seems to still hope for the impossible, to change a government run education system. The coexistence of opposing models is a conundrum that has wasted millions of dollars while destroying the hope of families.

As a kind of social justice warrior Robinson sees an active role of public education as a menas to equality. His low trust in the profit motive probably biased by the current state of cronyism within the mainstream system blinds him to the efforts of thousands of edupreneurs who are trying to make a change. As Michael Strong points out here we need a free market of education for ideas to spur innovation. For many educators it is sinful to consider education for profit but as Kerry McDonald point it out here it seems to be a major reason why so many efforts have failed.

Aside from the political contradictions, Sir Ken Robinson delivers sound advice for parents who have understood that the current system of Education needs a turnover. 

It is satisfying that Robinson devoted some pages to the importance of play. 

"Perhaps the simplest advice I can offer parents concerned about preparing their children for the world is this: let them play more. I don't mean they should spend more time with the Little League or the school basketball club, as valuable as that can be. I'm talking about inventing games on the spot, with their friends, turning a pile of twigs into a faerie wood, or hiking along a stream to explore the wildlife there. Play is the work of a child, and children must have time, space, and permission to engage in variety of play in order to maximize the developmental benefits that play offers"

Then follows to elaborate on the definition of play by the "Dirt is Good - DIG" movement.

· Play is intrinsically motivated
· Play is a state of mind
· Play is pleasurable
· Play is nonliteral
· Play is actively engaging
· Play has no external rules

Another important advice from Robinson is how to judge a good school? He offers a template to make the call.

"As a parent you can use the four purposes and eight competencies as a template for judging whether your child's school - or your homeschooling program - is providing the kind of education they really need and press for improvements where necessary." 

The four purposes:
· economic development
· social development
· cultural development
· personal development

Learning to live (ways to know):
· know that
· know how
· know this

The eight competencies:
· curiosity
· creativity
· criticism
· communication
· collaboration
· compassion
· composure
· citizenship

Overall is a good book for parents, not so a contribution to the cause of an overhaul in Education.

Rating. 3 of 5 stars.

La llamada de la tribu

"La llamada de la tribu" es el más reciente trabajo de Mario Vargas Llosa nos trae su biografía intelectual. Un recorrido por los principales pensadores que influyeron en su pensamiento liberal.

Adam Smith
José Ortega y Gasset
Friedrich August Von Hayek
Sir Karl Popper
Raymond Aron
Sir Isaiah Berlin
Jean-Francois Revel
(creo que Vargas Llosa debió agregar a Jean-Paul Sartre. Si bien es cierto que no fue un pensador Liberal, su presencia y desilusión son una constante)

Siendo Vargas Llosa un consagrado novelista, premio Cervantes (1994) y Nobel de Literatura (2010) entre muchos era de esperar un texto rico, entretenido y variado. "La llamada de la Tribu" es hasta cierto punto la continuación de "Contra Viento y Marea" (Entre Sartre y Camus, 1983) donde desarrolló su recorrido ideológico del socialismo al liberalismo. 

En esta oportunidad Vargas Llosa hace una reseña biográfica e intelectual de los autores liberales que más influyeron en su pensamiento. Por un lado nos cuenta detalles de sus vidas llegando a niveles de intimidad que acercan el personaje al lector. Detalles que no solo refieren sus virtudes sino sus defectos, haciendo de cada uno de los elegidos seres cercanos al lector. Ejemplos de estos sucesos están la disputa entre Karl Popper y Wittgenstein, o las infidelidades de Isaiah Berlin. Por otro lado, como buen escritor, no deja de hacer una crítica a la calidad literaria de sus héroes. Excelentes los textos de Ortega y Gasset y de Jean-Francois Revel, no así el inglés de Hayek. Pero la narración no es únicamente biográfica sino también intelectual. Vargas Llosa destaca los aprendizajes que tuvo de cada uno de los autores, pero también comparte lo que considera errores y contradicciones. 

Si bien es cierto que para alguien como Vargas Llosa escribir este libro es un lujo que se puede dar queda claro que todos podríamos emular la selección de nuestro "Dream Team" intelectual. Una selección que en forma indirecta esboza un perfil intelectual.

La riqueza del libro tiene un valor adicional al simple conocer mejor al Nobel, es un texto que puede bien servir de introducción al Liberalismo. Una narración donde resaltan algunos de sus principales exponentes y sus ideas sin llegar a ser un tratado académico pero si para sembrar en el lector dudas e interés por sus contribuciones individuales.

Rating 5 estrellas.