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I was hoping to get my hands on a copy of The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within, Second Edition because I wanted to read his perspective on presentations before designing a lesson on teaching with presentations.  When I discovered that the copy at my local library was in the reference section and not available for checkout, I decided to return another day to read it and selected Tufte’s Envisioning Information in the meantime.

Envisioning Information examines the effectiveness of various solutions to the problem of displaying multivariate data in 2 dimensions.  Tufte suggests that some of the more successful solutions involve one or more of the following

• small, multiple images
• layering and separation of data
• micro/macro displays

Tufte also sprinkles advice and warnings throughout the book.  For example, in a vertical list in a tabular display, you should put high impact information at the top and bottom.  He lectures against “chartjunk” and the posterization of data, which he describes as data-thin graphs hiding behind cute concepts.

Envisioning Information is a quick read filled, as you might expect, with numerous images.  Still, I found the book thought-provoking, especially in the early chapters.  On page 34, Tufte asks rhetorically, “Who would trust a chart that looks like a video game?”  He raises this question in relation to a discussion of chartjunk and data posterization, and I expect he meant readers to think “No one!” when they came to the question.  However, I found myself thinking, “I might . . . depending on which video game you’re talking about.”

On page 31 Tufte states, “Unlike speech, visual displays are simultaneously a wideband and a perceiver-controllable channel.”  In contrast, Tufte describes speech as linear, nonreversible and one dimensional.  Would Tufte argue that written or recorded speech is still linear, nonreversible and one dimensional?  I’m not sure that I would.  Perceivers can rewind recorded speech, or leaf back through a book.  Hypertext and hypermedia do not necessitate a linear flow of information.

On page 32, Tufte praises an example of a compact display of 1,826 days of weather history and then states  “Emaciated data-thin designs, in contrast, provoke suspicions and rightfully so about the quality of measurement and analysis.”  Do “emaciated data-thin designs” really “provoke suspicion”.  I think perhaps they should, but I believe that the majority of the data displays that most people experience are data-thin.  Additionally, many data-thin displays are housed in familiar display templates such as pie charts, tables, and bar graphs.  At first glance, I found some of the data-rich designs that Tufte presented to be unsettling because of their unfamiliar format.  On further inspection, I was able to unlock the keys to the information contained, but I found myself wondering; how many people have a greater suspicion of an unfamiliar data-rich format than of a familiar but data-thin format?

I also noticed that many of the designs that earned Tufte’s harshest critiques bore a marked similarity to my memory of the charts, tables, and bus schedules on the standardized exams for basic literacy and numeracy that I took in ninth grade.  According to Tufte, these information displays were difficult to interpret because of poor design.  Is it fair to test children on their ability to interpret poorly designed information displays?  I’m not sure, but I fear that the ability to interpret poorly designed information displays may be a vital skill in the “real world”.

It may seem like hubris to mindmap a book entitled Envisioning Information , but I attempted it anyway.  My scribblings violate some, perhaps even many, of the principles that Tufte was trying to communicate in his book.  However, the purpose of my mindmap differs from the purpose of the information displays that Tufte critiques in his book.  The primary purpose of my mindmap is to help me organize my thoughts and impressions, while the primary purpose of the information displays discussed in Envisioning Information was to communicate data.  I post this here mostly for my own future reference.

As I was on my way to return my borrowed copy of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything to its rightful owner, I passed David Wiley in a doorway. He saw the book in my hand, mentioned that he had heard a lot of good things about the book, and asked my opinion (but not my name; I was in such a hurry to get home and finish packing, I didn’t think to introduce myself. Drat!). My impromptu review was probably less than thirty seconds and perhaps two sentences in length. Basically, I felt the book was good, but having just finished Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition by Everett Rogers, I found Influencer: The Power to Change Anything a much less thorough study of the process of changing human behavior. Still, I felt that Influencer had some merit in making recommendations for change agents. I’ve been meaning to record my thoughts on the book in a little more detail and since I’m semi-settled, now is as good a time as any.

Influencer: The Power to Change Anything is the work of the same group of authors (plus David Maxfield) that wrote Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High and Crucial Confrontations. The authors run VitalSmarts, a company specializing in consulting and corporate training.  The subtitle of the book is “The Power to Change Anything“, which is a bold claim that should arouse a degree of skepticism in most people. In the early pages of the book, the authors do admit limits on this power (don’t expect to change gravity using the methods advocated in this book), but maintain that their methods provide the ability to effect great changes in human behavior. Patterson and his co-authors direct the book at anyone seeking to influence human behavior. These methods, they claim, work for influencing yourself as well as others. They illustrate this point by referencing a hypothetical example of an individual struggling to lose weight.  Still, most individuals will read this book with the intent to change the behavior of others.

The early chapters of the book stress the importance of identifying the “vital behaviors” that lead to desired outcomes.  To qualify as “vital”, behaviors must be recognizable, repeatable, and high-leverage.  Formal or informal research can help to uncover these behaviors.  The authors recommend looking for vital behaviors when in examples of “positive deviance”.  If someone or some group is succeeding where others are failing, identify the specific behaviors that they are doing differently.  Also, would-be influencers should be prepared for setbacks by establishing “recovery behaviors” in advance.  In another early chapter, the authors discuss the power of vicarious experience, summarizing some of the work of Albert Bandura as well as describing the power of story telling.  According to the authors, to be influential, a vicarious experience like a story needs to convince the audience that the behavior is (1) worth it and (2) within their ability to achieve it.

The bulk of Influencer identifies and elaborates upon six sources of influence:

• Personal motivation – For some behaviors, influencers can create personal motivation where none existed before by creating experiences where individuals can try the new behavior (think Green Eggs and Ham (I Can Read It All by Myself Beginner Books)).  For other behaviors, individuals may know what the correct behavior is but have rationalized a way to avoid doing it.  In this case, influencers need fight moral disengagement by reframing the issue.  Sometimes this is as simple as replacing labels with names.
• Personal ability – Once individuals have a desire to perform the behavior, they must have the ability to do so.  In this chapter, the authors discuss the importance of deliberate practice, the idea that practice doesn’t make perfect . . . perfect practice makes perfect.
• Social motivation – Social norms can be a barrier to changing behaviors.  As a result, it is necessary for influencers to work through existing social networks to find opinion leaders in the community.  Also, influencers should seek to establish shared responsibility amongst members of the network.
• Social ability – Some changes require individuals to work in teams in order to foster creativity and supply multiple perspectives.  Networks provide social capital.
• Structural motivation – Incentives must be used with extreme caution.  External incentives can poison existing intrinsic motivation and influencers should beware of punishing by reward.  When punishments are used, provide specific warnings and don’t bluff.
• Structural ability – Often, influencers underestimate the effect of the environment on their ability to accomplish goals.  Influencers should examine the systems that they desire to change in terms of propinquity and attempt to set up the surroundings so that the desired behavior is difficult to avoid and the alternatives are difficult to execute.  Additionally, they should provide data and cues to the desired behavior.

In the final chapter, the authors summarize the content from the previous chapters.  They stress their conclusion that successful influence strategies combine multiple sources of influence, frequently all six, and caution against the stingy application of sources of influence.

Having finished the book, I feel that I have a better understanding of how change agents craft successful influence/innovation campaigns.  I also believe that the book provides a useful framework for analyzing success and identifying vital behaviors.  Does that mean that I’m now armed with “the power to change anything”?

Only time will tell.

I was out of town on a quasi-vacation most of this past week and I used my time in airports and on planes to read two library books. The first book I finished was The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Unlock Your Brain’s Untapped Potential by Tony and Barry Buzan. The second book was Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. Neither book is new, but I just got around to reading them.

I chose to read The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential because it was recommended in a writing guide that I read a couple of years ago. The Buzan brothers claim that Mind Mapping has the power to revolutionize your life. Often, they sound like salesmen, which of course they are; Tony Buzan has made a living off of workshops and paraphernalia related to Mind Maps. Despite this, I feel that the book gave good suggestions for note-taking and planning. I’ve decided to give the technique a try, so you will find my mind map for The Mind Map Book below.

I tried to follow the rules given in the book and I was fairly pleased with the results.  My mind map for Linked turned out a little more cramped than I like, but I don’t intend to redo it, so here it is.

I chose to read Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means because I thought it might give me some useful background information as I begin my research into personal learning networks. I really enjoyed the conceptual explanation of the characteristics of scale free networks. I’m slightly wishing that I had majored in math or computer science so that I could specialize in network science. I’m interested in how the concepts of clustering, preferential attachment, competitive fitness, and directed networks apply to personal learning networks. How do we teach students to use network dynamics to their advantage? What role can explicit instruction play in the dynamics of a personal learning network? Also, I want to find the Granovetter paper on “The Strength of Weak Ties”.