“If you don’t brand yourself, Google will brand you.”

Sherry Beck Paprocki

Sense making amidst loss of control, or Why randomness naturally fools so many

Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception
Jennifer A. Whitson & Adam D. Galinsky

We present six experiments that tested whether lacking control increases illusory pattern perception, which we define as the identification of a coherent and meaningful interrelationship among a set of random or unrelated stimuli. Participants who lacked control were more likely to perceive a variety of illusory patterns, including seeing images in noise, forming illusory correlations in stock market information, perceiving conspiracies, and developing superstitions/u>. Additionally, we demonstrated that increased pattern perception has a motivational basis by measuring the need for structure directly and showing that the causal link between lack of control and illusory pattern perception is reduced by affirming the self. Although these many disparate forms of pattern perception are typically discussed as separate phenomena, the current results suggest that there is a common motive underlying them.

On choice

When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse

too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed

When I used to earn my living as a corporate employee, I would react to the too many meetings syndrome by asking if there was a vaccine against meetingitis, the virus whose vector is e-calendaring. I also remember when visiting Intel, there was a brief list on a wall in each conference room, a leftover from Andy Grove, reminding employees to keep meetings on topic, short, and with deliverables associated to individuals at the end.

Here's a set of recommendations from Reid Hastie, professor at the University of Chicago, who contends that “every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.”

• Whoever calls a meeting should be explicit about its objectives. This means specifying tangible goals and assigning responsibility for creating, summarizing and reporting on them. Ask yourself this question: Specifically, what do we want accomplished when we walk out of the room?
• Everyone should think carefully about the opportunity costs of a meeting: How many participants are really needed? (Almost all business teams and committees are too big.) How long should the meeting last? Set a definite ending time. Anyone who doubts that the meeting is necessary, or thinks it’s too long, should speak up.
• After productive or unproductive meetings, assign credit or blame to the person in charge. Then, if people have track records of leading ineffective meetings, don’t let them lead future sessions. When their expertise is essential, make them subordinate to an effective meeting leader.

Happy Meetings!

on democratically run organizations

Democratically controlled orchestras are very good at getting rid of the best players and not very good at getting rid of the worst ones.

Neville Mariner in interview with Norman Lebrecht

on the finer points of branding

Microsoft, as if to counter Apple where it thinks it stands a chance, is running its own ad-campaign, “Windows. Life without walls.” Now, if that's so, I am replaying someone's thought:

So “Windows. Life without walls” is the campaign slogan. I can already hear what a Seinfeld not paid by Microsoft would say in his monologue: "If you live a life without walls, why on earth would you need windows?" Jan, Mississippi

unsung heroes

By looking at the architectural output of big names like Frank Gehry and Daniel Liebeskind, one realizes that the unsung heroes of today's habitats are the structural engineers. In music this was sorted out once the institution of the conductor was established--late in the 19^th century with the likes of Rubinstein, Nikitsch and Mahler. Architects are the equivalent of composers while structural engineers are of the conductors'. Then, we have those individuals who embody the best of two worlds, such as Santiago Calatrava, or Gustav Mahler.

In your profession, who are the unsung heroes? Moreover, what will you do about it?

comparative perspectives to professionalism

Here are two answers to a question asking about paths to a career in quantitative finance:

I

Stand out of the crowd.If you are really looking for a HF quant career, go for a Master in Math or Physics, learn to program in C++ and mastering the Mathematica software.
Get an extra interest in Radioastronomy (wave theory is very related to financial markets), try to go to work with Prof Henry Lo at MIT Finance Lab.
and add some studies in Behavioral finance aimed at building behavioral quant elements in algos.
But don't go for another MBA (there are dozens out there..with experience) and don't bother for a CFA, unless you really have extra free time and don't know how to use it better.
CAIA may be culturally interesting, but still a young quali to have weight...

I am hiring a Civil Engineer with an MBA, yes, but a an extra Master in Math and C++ programming skills. I would have hired him without MBA...but not without the Math and programming skills.

Stand out of the crowd...MBAS are becoming too common to carry weight, at least that's what my colleagues are saying.

II

[the previous answer] hit it on the head, stand out from the crowd. But I would lean towards a communication approach instead of a “smart-person” approach.

The quant world is chock full of smart people, it feels like every genius with a PhD has already left academia for the siren call of six-figure salaries. When you talk to investment bankers, what they want today are two things; 1) People who can communicate effectively and concisely, and 2) answers - not more models.

Five years ago, hedge funds were trying to ramp up sophistication because there was a lot of easy money chasing “new ideas”. Researchers got to play with wave-form models and random forests to predict market movements. The recent financial crisis made people take a step back and ask some honest questions. First, how does GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) play into these models? Second, what is the value of these unbelievably fancy models? Can we still support or use them when our researcher with a 190 IQ gets poached by a different fund? Are simple to maintain GLM models good enough? Do our models account for rare events, or are they ignoring the Black Swan? How do I explain this stuff to an investor?!

A good approach to take in today’s environment, is a background in effective communication and illustration of how you can get answers for people. Your background is in marketing, so you should have a leg up on communication skills over pure modeling expert. I would start with an MBA from a top 50 (preferably top 15) school, a CFA is a nice add-on, but school quality is worth more. Make sure and focus on math/statistics/finance/programming, you must have these skills, but IMO, they play second-fiddle to communication these days. Focus on networking at school and lead every group project and every presentation. If you can hack that, you’ll be able to sell yourself as a communicative leader that can manage quant-analysts and get answers.


One is hiring, one is European, one is not working in the US; Go figure!