Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.
Stephen King – Writer
Managing by projects is not new. Earliest homo sapiens had to gather food, hunt for food, build shelter, and propagate their clans. Each activity had a beginning and end with a specifi life-driven purpose – hunt and gather food for another day. Sounds like a project to me. Continue reading
The AI learning challenge: A lot of folks worrying about their work/career/job want to learn AI. Or ML? The #1 tool in Machine Learning is gradient descent. I asked Chat GPT what is it: “Gradient descent is an optimization algorithm commonly used in machine learning and statistical modeling to minimize a function by iteratively moving towards the steepest descent, as defined by the negative of the gradient.”
Huh? What’s that. OK. Let’s simply it. Think of a 3D mountain (triple integral in calculus). You want to find the quickest way down the mountain. Got it?
But, here’s the challenge. I’m a mathy engineer. I had to have 2 years of calculus, 1 year of linear algebra, 1 year of statistics/probability, 1 year of fluency of a computer language, etc. Anyway, you get it that to do ML, you need a lot of math and maybe a degree.
The Simple Solution: Andrew Ng, a former Stanford professor and now entrepreneur, teaches this intuitively on Coursera. No math. Just algebra and intuitive programming using preprogrammed. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/machine-learning-introduction
Takeaway: If you want to learn ML and AI, don’t get a math or CS degree. Takes Ng’s courses on Coursera. If you want to get a math degree and solve triple integrals, go ahead. But, I’m now doing the simple, effective, and doable.
VUCANs: Now that I got your attention. You thought when you scanned this click bait title, that we were talking about Vulcans. In the Star Trek series, Vulcans were the logical aliens with funny ears that always had to suppress their emotions.
Nope. We’re talking about VUCANs®. Who are they? This is a term we invented for our books and risk products. A VUCAN is a Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity iNhabitant. Get it…
VUCA acronym: What did it start? US military colleges invented the term about 40 years ago to describe the new world of war. Instead of two opposing armies with nuclear weapons, most wars would consist of irregular combatants with new forms of warfare such as robot, AI, and drones.
Let’s look at these acronym words a little more carefully. What does VUCA mean:
Change happens: People don’t like change. It feels different and unfamiliar. It takes us out of our comfort zone. It means we may have less personal control. It can result in fear of the unknown. It can mean loss of job security. That’s why we’re now all VUCANs.
Pizza is one of the world’s most popular foods.
In the U.S., 350 slices are eaten every second, while 40% of Americans eat pizza at least once a week.
There’s a reason why pizza is so popular. Humans are drawn to foods that are fatty and sweet and rich and complex. Pizza has all of these components. Cheese is fatty, meat toppings tend to be rich, and the sauce is sweet. Continue reading
Change the things that can be changed, accept those that cannot, and have the wisdom to know the difference.
Serenity Prayer
Leadership often surfaces in a battle or pandemic, where the consequences of poor judgment are fatal. Critical self-management issues will surface for each of us in opportunity situations (upside risk) and high consequence situations (downside risk). Continue reading