2010 year in review - literary edition

Fifty.

That was the goal, and on December 26, I finished Oil by Upton Sinclair, my 50th book of 2010.

I shared this goal a while back as a way to motivate myself to keep learning. It worked. I learned, for example, about

• The 14th Century (A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuckman)
• Running (ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer)
• Randomness (The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb)
• Lewis and Clark (Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose)
• Ebola (The Hot Zone by Richard Preston)
• Leadership (Next Generation Leadership by Andy Stanley, among others)
• Philosophy (Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar... by Cathcart and Klein)
• Social networking, childhood disorders, personal finance, communication, trans-racial adoption, evolving definitions of manhood, etc.

The fastest reads took only a day. The longest was about 10 months. The average, obviously, was about a week. Many of the books were in audio form, allowing me to make good use of commute time. One was on a Kindle. Most were borrowed from the library.

When I set the goal of 50 books, I wasn't sure if it was reasonable, or even possible, what with three kids and all. I'm a fast reader, though, and having the goal kept me focused on continuing to read. Like any discipline, just keeping at it is the most helpful thing.

The thing that struck me toward the end of the year, though, was how many more books I haven't read than those I have. 50 is a small number next to the 10 on my bedside table, the 87 on my library list, and the 130+ on my Amazon list. Taleb (in The Black Swan), talks about the importance of the unread books. So I'm OK with having more unread books than read ones, but for 2011, I am making more specific goals than a simple number. In the interest of public accountability, here are 2011's book goals:

• 25 books by dead people. This will force me out of my tendency to read fluffy business books and encourage a little more intensity of material. (Note that while this does allow me to count Peter Drucker and Robert Jordan, I am counting on my good faith to not abuse them for the sake of the goal.) Specifically, I'd like to include at least
• The Old and New Testaments (counts as 2 books, not 66)
• One Shakespearean play
• One classic Greek drama/tragedy/comedy
• One 19th Century British
• One Russian
• One Southern writer (I may not actually be able to stomach this)
• One famous philosopher
• One church father
• 3 books on personal finance
• 3 books on parenting
• 3 books on energy
• 3 books on marriage
• All the books currently on my nightstand

That totals to 47, though there will be some overlap between categories. The rules are the same, I have to "read" the whole book, and finish it during 2011's calendar year. Audio books are encouraged, and the Kindle will play a much bigger role now that I have one of my very own. The clock starts in 90 minutes. Game on.

This post has been pretty self-centered, and there's probably not much here for others to actually read. With a quarterly posting schedule, I don't count on many readers anyway. If you've made it this far, though, I'd love to hear what your read in 2010, what your plans are for 2011, and if you've got any recommendations for my list. Happy New Year, and happy reading.

PS - For those who are curious, the complete list in order of completion can be found here. I've put my top five recommendations in italics, though there are plenty of good ones on there (and a few I'd skip). If you'd like additional thoughts on any of them, let me know.

Spiritual Constipation

The human digestive system works on a simple principle. Food goes in, waste goes out. Along the way, the body is nourished. Sometimes, though, something goes wrong and constipation results. Food goes in, nothing comes out. Along the way, the body hurts. Pain is a clear signal of malfunction.

The human spirit works on a similar principle. Food goes in, fruit goes out. Along the way, the spirit is nourished. Sometimes, though, something goes wrong and spiritual constipation results. Food goes in, nothing comes out. Along the way, the spirit hurts, but the signal it sends is more subtle than physical pain...(more)

This article was written for Lucid Magazine. Click here to read the rest of it and check out the other cool stuff.

How are you learning?

50 books.

That's my reading goal for 2010. In addition to blogs, magazines, and whatever else, my goal is to read 50 books by year-end. No limits on the genre, length, or quality...just 50 books. With 13 to date in the 1st quarter, I'm on track.

I have chosen this goal because books open up new worlds to me. New ideas, new facts, new ways of thinking; they all come to me through books. I read for entertainment, but above all, I read to learn. Learning leads to growth, and without growth, there is only decay. So despite all the demands on my time, I read.

The point of this post is not, however, to impress you with my reading goal (many people read more). Nor is it to encourage you to read more (though I think that's always a good idea). Rather, it is a question of learning. Specifically,

How are you learning?

If not through books, what? How? Are you listening to Open University courses? Online training sessions? Attending lectures? Blogs, magazines, newspapers?

Life keeps moving. The only way to keep up is to grow, and without learning, there is no growth. How are you keeping up? How are you learning?

(That last question is not rhetorical. I know how I'm learning, and I'm curious...how are you learning?)

On Connection

In the age of the internet, connectivity is everywhere. There are hundreds of apps and websites all seeking to connect us with others. It seems, as well, that this is something we desire. If we didn't care about connection, Web 2.0 would never have begun, let alone thrived. Yet, is there a limit? Can we be too connected?

There is only one way to find out (for an engineer). Derive the equation for the system and see if there is a maximum. Pretty easy, except that we are dealing with humans, not atoms, so there will have to be some approximation. So, simplifying it down, I propose the Connection Index (CI).

Connection Index = number of connections * average quality of each connection

I also propose that each of us desires to maximize our CI. Since the equation is straightforward, maximization of CI involves increasing the number of connections and/or their quality. It gets complicated when we consider that one of those factors is easy to both influence and measure, while the other is not.

As a result of man's aversion to complexity, we are therefore drawn to the simple factor: number of connections. We know that a single connection makes us feel good, so we strive to increase the number of connections, knowing that more connections leads to greater CI (assuming constant quality). Since we are ignoring quality because it is too complex, we might as well assume it is constant. So we have more Twitter followers, more Facebook friends, and more LinkedIn connections, each one linearly increasing our CI...right?

Clearly, this logic breaks down. A short pause is all it takes to realize that my 350th friend on Facebook does not have the same quality of connection that I do with my wife (at least, they better not). So if the average quality of each connection is not the same, our assumption of constant average quality may not be as valid as we would like to think.

Imagine, for example that you have one connection with your soul mate. Your best friend in the entire world. One connection times a very high average quality equals a high CI. Now add another connection of an old classmate whom you have not seen in 15 years (a common Facebook occurrence). Very little connection quality, dragging the average quality of connections down significantly. But the number doubled, so the overall CI likely went up a bit, since the connection with your soul mate is unaffected by this new Facebook friend. So far, so good...Facebook has increased our CI.

Continue the thought experiment for a while, now. More and more people friend you on Facebook. One introduces you to Twitter and mentions LinkedIn. MySpace looks interesting, as does Tumblr. Google throws in Wave and Buzz. Connections (and the platforms that facilitate them) are multiplying rapidly. Which is good, since more connections leads to greater CI...right?

This is where it gets sticky. All those connections are clamoring for time and attention. On Facebook, your spouse gets equal screen time with your college roommates who compete with your clients on LinkedIn. Simply having a connection requires something of you, and that something has to come from somewhere. That somewhere will eventually be from the time and attention spent on your soul mate, that first and strongest connection. At first, that is no big deal. But soon, a loss of time will lead to a loss of quality in that connection, and CI begins to drop.

By this reasoning, at some point, additional connections begin to reduce the average quality more than can be compensated by the added connection. CI starts dropping, and will continue to drop with more connections, likely accelerating as we try to compensate for the negative feeling of a lower CI with a greater number of connections. (Remember our focus on the easy part of the equation? Plus, it worked up until now, right?)

So where does that leave us? In an ever downward spiral of reaching for something that is fleeing from us faster than we can pursue it. Once CI begins to drop, the only way to stop the bleeding is to defy instinct and stop. Don't add more friends, don't join another network, just stop.

Then focus on the other half of the equation. Rather than increasing numbers, increase the quality. Spend more time with your spouse, face-to-face with friends. Invest in the connections you have, and maybe even cut off some of those that are wasting your time.

The index is what matters. Stop stressing quantity and make the quality happen.