Michael Braun's Blog

In the debate about whether and how student test scores should be used to evaluate teacher performance, one side seems to have a lot more to fear than the other. Teachers, if their students’ test performance dictates whether or not the teacher remains employed, have a lot to lose in terms of job security. School administrators, on the other hand, seem relatively secure in their position, able to fire teachers at will and finally break what they see as the shackle hold tenure places on their ability to staff their schools par excellence.

But what if school administrators will be just as hampered with this new tool as they ever were before by old ways of measuring teacher performance? Or, even worse for them, what if these new tools actually demonstrate that there is limited variability per teacher on student test performance; in other words, what if there is little classroom by classroom variability in the scores? How can administrators get rid of so-called “bad” teachers then? What if the tests don’t give the justification school administrators were seeking?

In an ideal world, the passionate teacher with innovative, exciting teaching methods who inspires her students to continue to learn even when they are outside of the classroom will also be scored a better instructor than the lackluster teacher coming in each day to handout some worksheets, tell students to read quietly, and collect a paycheck. In reality, the passionate teacher may inspire outside learning in subjects that are not reflected in the standardized tests that will determine the teacher’s performance rating. And the poor teacher’s worksheets may be geared very well for material that is tested. Ultimately, their students’ test score averages may not significantly differ, thus offering no evidence from which to conclude a difference in teacher quality.

What’s an administrator to do in this situation? The administrator could use other evaluation tools; in most debates, no one suggests that test scores be the ONLY way teachers are evaluated. But what if the administrator wants to get rid of the teacher? What evidence can she present to justify her decision? In terms of classroom observation, the teacher may not be exciting, but his classroom is well-managed – lots of quiet reading time – and his students are performing perfectly adequately on tests. Can the teacher really be fired because he seems to intake less caffeine than the passionate teacher?

Those who live by the test will also be forced to die by the test. In demanding the power to critique teachers by their students’ test scores, administrators should first look at what power they are also granting to teachers. Suddenly, test scores can be used as evidence that dismissal was biased or unwarranted. If a teacher wants to allege discrimination of any sort, pointing to test scores as being adequate is a good starting point in a lawsuit. For every instance where test scores flag an inadequate teacher who administrators also wish to dismiss, they may uphold the efforts of a teacher everyone wants gone. And if bad test scores don’t automatically doom a passionate teacher, then administrators will need to tread very carefully when attempting to dismiss the so-called “bad” teacher when the evidence supporting that conclusion is sparse.

Ever wonder why some supporting test score evaluations also decry teacher’s unions and tenure? Because if administrators aren’t given the power to dismiss without reason, then the addition of test scores for evaluation does a lot more complicate firings than it does to clarify.

I find it offensive that the Super Bowl is often promoted as a way to see “cool” advertisements, when every year, most of the advertisements are drivel, uninspired boring attempts to sell products that everyone has already seen advertised. Perhaps one or two interesting ads debut, but that’s it. One noteworthy ad that people are talking about is for Samsung’s “Galaxy Note,” a tablet/phone with a 5.3″ screen that includes a stylus.

The advertisement (which you can view here – not sure if this video will remain on YouTube, so you can also search for “galaxy note thing called love ad” and you’ll be able to find it) begins showing people standing in line waiting for something; this is meant to evoke pictures of people waiting to buy the iPhone. The people then notice someone using the Galaxy Note and are invited to try it out by the random consumer using it. A man in line, upon using the device, utters a line never before spoken: “It’s got a pen? This is awesome.” The people in line become disillusioned, saying they don’t know what they believe in, before the commercial devolves into a bombastic performance of band The Darkness’ song “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.”

There is no way that Samsung believes this is an earnest attempt to market their new product. Consider the features they are promoting. No one is excited about an included stylus. First, if consumers want a stylus with their touch screen device, they are free to purchase one; there are many options. Second, styluses are associated with resistive touch screens (ones that require pressure to work), a technology that has been all but replaced in modern devices. Third, it isn’t clear just what advantage the stylus offers, meaning the person’s unbelievable reaction (“It’s got a pen?”) doesn’t seem like earnest excitement, but instead excitement cloaked in irony. The stylus is the only feature specifically promoted in the ad.

Then, consider the environment in which the product is promoted. All people in line appear to be in their twenties or thirties and are dressed like hipsters. This is the prime age group for celebrating an ironic interest in something. The song used further enhances the ironic appeal of the product; band the Darkness is known as a spoof rock group, celebrating and mocking the energy of glam rock music from the 1980s. The Darkness’ music is cloaked in irony. Liking the music means both enjoying the songs but also enjoying the expression of rock music as excess.

So what does ironic interest in Samsung’s products get you? Absolutely nothing. Apple isn’t interested in someone having an ironic interest in the iPad, and their commercials reflect this. Apple’s ads are about pure expression of a wide variety of earnest emotions. And humor, if that is what Samsung is aiming for, can be created without irony. Consider Microsoft’s commercial demonstrating the interconnectedness of their products. In the commercial I am thinking of, an adult plays a dancing game on Kinect, is recorded doing so, and the video is edited and posted online quickly; the ad is pleasant, perhaps funny, and demonstrates real value in Microsoft’s products. Samsung does nothing of the sort in this Super Bowl ad.

What will the ad get Samsung? Again, the answer is absolutely nothing. Samsung has a lot of products and this one giant smartphone won’t stand out among their other offerings, at least not in a good way. There will certainly be a few consumers interested in the large screen but likely many more who are turned off by it. In the end, the phone has no features that appeal above the many other smart phones that customers can buy. A stylus is not something that people can believe in, and Samsung has completely failed to demonstrate that they actually, earnestly think their products are any good.

Roderick Swaab and colleagues outline an appealing model of channel effects in group negotiation in a 2012 article published in Personality and Social Psychology Review. They hypothesize and then demonstrate through two meta-analyses that the outcomes of negotiations between two parties can be predicted by the richness of a channel (richness meaning how much the channel is like face to face) and the relationship between the parties (cooperative, competitive, or neutral). When the two parties are cooperative, the richness of the channel doesn’t matter, because humans are able to adapt to restrictions in channels and cues don’t necessarily matter when people are motivated to work together (for example, misunderstanding caused by a lack of immediate feedback doesn’t derail the process). When groups are neutral toward each other, more cues help the negotiation because any misunderstanding can be clarified quickly before turning into hostilities. And most interesting, when groups are hostile to each other, fewer cues are better, because the groups can more easily focus on the issues and less on personal feelings toward each other.

It’s reasonable to make an argument that these same processes may play out in a wider variety of domains. For example, we might suggest that the same negotiation processes play out in relational maintenance behaviors between family members. Oftentimes, family members will fall into the cooperative category, working together to keep up relations with each other. But there are a wide array of family relationships, some harmonious, some neutral, and some hostile. And thus we can make similar predictions about the relationships between family members as we can about relationships between negotiating groups. As family members often need to do more than simple relational maintenance, the predictions become even more important. For example, if two adult children must negotiate about care for an ailing parent, the relationship between the two and their separate interests may be used to suggest a certain channel for their communication.

Another wrinkle is added, however, when considering intergenerational interactions, like contact between grandchildren and grandparents. Though these relationships may contain less actual negotiation, they still contain plenty of relational maintenance behaviors. And the relationships are not always one of strong connection. There may even be a greater variability of relational closeness between grandparents and grandchildren than between parents and children. Based on these relationships, we might aim to select a channel from the advice of Swaab and colleagues, but because age is an added variable, we are forced to consider the role of stereotype activation.

Valerie Barker, Howard Giles, and Jake Harwood summarize past models of intergenerational contact and stereotype activation in a 2004 book chapter titled “Inter- and Intragroup Perspectives on Intergenerational Communication.” In that same chapter, they introduce a comprehensive and parsimonious model of inter- and intragroup interactions. This integrated model suggests that antecedents and expectations in an encounter with an older adult lead to different cognitive responses that emphasize either connection or difference, which in turn produce different communicative responses that are either appropriate or inappropriate for the communication partner.

For example, Jim, a college freshman, and Olga, an emeritus professor in her 70s, encounter each other on the bus. Olga has no place to sit on the bus and Jim offers her his seat. This prompts a conversation when Olga asks Jim about his major. Jim’s preconceptions of Olga as an older adult shape how he responds to her. For example, if Jim holds that older adults tend to be a bit mentally slower, he may already see Olga as someone very different from himself. This may prompt him to speak in simpler terms about what classes he is taking. This type of communication reduces Olga’s opportunities to respond to Jim, because she cannot actively engage with his response. This leads to reduced beneficial outcomes from the interaction and suggests an interesting possibility about the channel over which Jim and Olga interacted. Because age salient cues are visible when they interact face to face, Jim’s cognitive responses are different. Thus rich channels may lead to more stereotype activation.

The challenge then is integrating these types of intergenerational communication models with the predictions of Swaab and colleagues. Jim and Olga are most certainly neutral to one another in any relational maintenance task (like pleasant conversation on a bus), but the richer channel may predict lessened outcomes than a leaner channel. Does that suggest that lean channels are always best for intergenerational encounters? Does it mean that face to face interactions are simply not good for older adults, because of the possibility that age-salient characteristics will produce a less satisfying interaction? Is this why, as Laura Carstensen has argued, many adults have smaller social circles later in life? There is definitely some integrative work to be done between the two perspectives.

Amazon is in a bit of trouble. They are in a historically low-margin business (discount retail) and have been spending money trying to become a gadget maker. Their electronic devices have sold well, but Amazon has never released actual sales figures. So while companies like Apple make great efforts to tout specific numbers (X number of iPads sold, etc.), Amazon has never officially said the number of Kindles sold. Previously, this fueled speculation that in fact Amazon wasn’t selling very many. But as analyst estimates continue to put numbers in the millions, this speculation seems off. All this secrecy might make sense if Amazon was making money like crazy, but they missed expectations in the last quarter and saw their profits fall. This could be due to money spent producing their Kindle devices and thus matter less to investors who see the product generating Amazon sales, as I speculated here. Or it could be a troubling sign of future challenges. In either case, why not release Kindle sales figures?

As Amazon continues to expand its Kindle line, their expenses associated with the product increase. That’s fine if the product actually drives business to Amazon. But if the cost to keep up with the competition outpaces the growth in Amazon sales, then the benefits to Amazon are reduced. Think of it this way. The Kindle Fire came out as a competitor to Apple’s iPad and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Color for the holiday season, and analysts estimate that it was a robust seller. That should mean good things for Amazon’s bottom line. But the Kindle Fire was also a loss leader, a product sold at a loss but intended to drive other sales. And the other sales that it can drive only become profitable at large volumes, meaning Amazon must sell an awful lot of Kindle Fires before they see a return that investors care about.

The product will always be a step behind the iPad in terms of functionality and ability (for example, always using a slower processor) in order to keep costs down. Yet Amazon still needs to be spending money continuously to produce the product’s next generation. It isn’t enough to release a product that competes with Apple today; they also must plan for the product that can compete with Apple tomorrow. And thus the expense associated with the Kindle Fire that may have been responsible for Amazon’s low profits may not go away because the Kindle Fire is now being sold, not developed; the expense may continue as Amazon updates the product.

So what good does it do to hide the number of Kindle Fire’s sold? Investors skeptical of Amazon’s potential may see the company’s new strategies (digital content and gadgets) failing to produce greater returns. No info on specific sales figures may confirm that these products will never help the company grow. Investors confident in Amazon have no hard numbers upon which to base their buy recommendations. Another dismal quarter may be enough to sour their confidence, whereas sales figures that are impressive could keep their faith from spoiling.

It may be particularly telling that Amazon released their earnings after Apple and that they did not report total Kindle Fires sold. After all, Apple had a banner quarter, selling some 15 million iPads. If Amazon sold just a fraction of that, then they may not want to invite comparisons between the two. Everyone recognizes the the Kindle Fire is in a different class than the iPad, but that’s not a good story to tell investors. After all, most people who own an iPad are not going to be motivated to buy a Kindle Fire.

In the end, if Amazon wants to act like a gadget company, then they need to report earnings like a gadget company. Let investors know just what kind of risk they are taking on as Amazon builds tablets and ebook readers. Is that investment paying off? Is the loss from selling the Fire below cost being made up by content sales? Amazon can decide what to report for now, but another disappointing quarter and investors will be selling on the numbers, not buying on the rumors, and that will mean bad news for Amazon.

No matter how mundane and innocuous one’s research may be, there is a reticence to post it online for anyone to view prior to publication. Researchers may fear that others will steal their ideas and publish something before they are able. They may also worry that blogging about research will result in ridicule from peers, exposing under developed ideas before they are ready. Or perhaps blogging could reduce the chances of fair review, as reviewers may be more likely to know who the author is.

On the other hand, the act of blogging for many people is an ideal time to take under-formed ideas and write them up in a logical way. it’s a chance for exploration, and the possibility of reader feedback is an added bonus. Researchers should seek a broader audience for their work, even at the risk of potential downsides. And for me, as I embark on work on my dissertation, the challenge is to find a way to write substantially every day. What better forum for this task than the only place I’ve managed to write regularly and with great volume?

The question then is to know what to share, not whether to share. For researchers struggling with this question, here are my initial rules.

1. No talk of one’s own methods, data, or results. This kind of information should be saved for publication. Obviously, if something has already been published, then this information is fine to write about. But overstating one’s data prior to peer review may be presumptuous and could reduce the changes of publication. Methods are also a creative part of the research process and are easier for other people to borrow.

2. More explication and discussion than conclusions. One should share the thought process leading to an idea, but save the actual idea for a journal publication. Imagine, for example, trying to synthesize several areas of research into a more parsimonious model. The initial thinking is ideal content for blog posts, but the model should only be blogged about after it is published.

3. Short posts with limited ideas. There’s no reason to put half a dissertation proposal into one blog post. Each post should represent a unique idea that can be developed in five or six paragraphs. This also helps reduce reader fatigue as many ideas may not be of general interest.

4. Keep the reader engaged with questions. An outsider view is often helpful for turning certain research questions on their heads. A fresh set of eyes may more easily recognize hidden assumptions that keep a certain concept from being fully developed. Allowing the reader to engage with the research should result in overall improvements.

I don’t plan to inundate anyone with ideas from my dissertation, but when I’m struggling with a difficult puzzle, I’m looking forward to using this blog as a place to do my thinking out loud, as it were. With any luck, I’ll soon be making substantial progress each and every day, demonstrating once again a unique value in blogging.

Facebook announced its new “timeline” feature some time ago, and it has begun infiltrating everyone’s profiles. Essentially, the feature allows you to see your Facebook activity over time. At its best, the service acts like a record of your life, much like paging through a diary or reading old blog posts. Anyone who is a sucker for Facebook nostalgia should love the feature, especially given how hard it was to rewind through wall activity previously.

But as Facebook gears up for a rumored IPO, it’s worth scrutinizing their decisions for just how they will increase profits for the company. When companies like Google are bringing in billions of dollars every quarter but have a market cap of just $187 billion, Facebook’s own sought valuation (of between $75 and $100 billion) seems predicated on expectations of massive profits soon. So, will Facebook timeline increase profits? And if so, how?

First, let’s consider just who the feature could appeal to – new users or old users. Given that new users do not have an extensive Facebook history, this group can be ruled out. There may be a few people who might engage in some kind of anticipated nostalgia and think that the timeline feature will be great for them eventually, but I think it is safe to judge that this group is a very small number of new users.

Thus we must limit the group who can appreciate the feature to old users, specifically users who have been members for a couple years or more. That’s about 450 million people, a very sizable chunk even though it’s just half of Facebook’s current user base. Among those 450 million people, what other kinds of groups emerge? There is certainly a section of users who will be actively turned off by the feature. After all, the timeline isn’t just for the profile owner to see; any of their “friends” can view it too. That makes it really easy for, say, a new romantic partner to look at all the flirtations that that person may have engaged in over Facebook. “I thought you said Cindy was just a friend! Why did you write this on her wall three years ago?,” someone might ask. There is definitely reason to dislike the feature, and anyone who does will likely result in reduced revenue for Facebook, either because they quit the site or use it less.

Another section of users are those who are disinterested in the new feature. It won’t reduce or increase the amount of time they spend on the site. For Facebook, this group is also of little interest, as they aren’t changing the amount of time they spend on the site and thus don’t add to Facebook’s revenue. Ruling those people out, there’s just one section left: people so charmed by the nostalgia embedded in the feature that they increase the amount of time they spend on the site. These individuals will add to Facebook’s bottom line because they will view and click on more ads.

Given that only a (relatively) small number of users will add to Facebook’s potential profits, we must ask what Facebook thinks they gain from adding this new feature. There are several possibilities, with three that stand out as most logical. Facebook might think that this feature will help attract new users to the site. Given the appeals discussed above, this doesn’t seem likely to occur. Facebook might think that this will help retain current users; again, seems unlikely. Facebook might think that this is a new way to sell ads, but given how unappealing and invasive Facebook’s latest “ad innovations” are (for example, embedding ads in the news feed), this seems like a stretch.

So is this an actual business decision? Is Facebook thinking strategically? Logically, it appears the answer is no. Timeline seems most likely to be a feature that some software engineer dreamed up and put into place during an all night work session. “Wouldn’t this be cool?,” the engineer may have asked.

Here’s the problem with coding done like this. First, Facebook risks losing users every time they make it clear how much personal data they really do command. Second, every time Facebook produces a major formatting change for their site, they face backlash. Third, new potential users may be turned off by all the negative backlash. Fourth, no new user growth means Facebook’s desired valuation is completely off. In other words, every time Facebook makes a big change, they hurt their profitability.

So what is the company supposed to do? Not change? How in the world can they survive if this is the case? Here’s the best advice: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; but fix what is broke before flaunting the clever things you can do with users’ data. What is broken at Facebook is the ability to make money. Does Facebook really think investors know how to steer the company better than Facebook executives? Founder Mark Zuckerberg’s repeated bone-headed decisions actively deny this conclusion, meaning a rumored-impending IPO make be yet another decision made out of curiosity and wonder rather than bottom-line-based business sense. What will going public do to Facebook’s user base? You can walk through the same line of reasoning as above and come to the same conclusion: it’s not going to help.

Email has rapidly become the default channel of communication in many of our professional and personal relationships. This means that individuals who have email addresses are expected to check them regularly and respond in a timely fashion to messages they have received. Though expectations about how fast a response should be sent likely vary by individual, message, and context, the expectation remains: respond, if you have received.

Despite email’s prevalence, however, great differences exist in just how well individuals manage their email accounts. Some communicators handle email with ease, using set methods to deal with email in a timely manner and keep their inbox sorted to avoid getting overwhelmed. But other communicators seem to struggle with the volume of email they receive; they don’t respond for extended periods of time (if at all), fail to internalize key information transmitted over email, and let many emails go unread. Rather than demonize these people for their poor email skills, it is better that we let these people know: Be honest about your email skills.

Information transmitted over email has many advantages. It is easy to send, can contain a lot of textual information thanks to its long form, and can be used to transmit files by attaching them to the message. But email with an unreliable communication partner has overwhelming disadvantages, mainly stemming from the lack of confirmation that the partner has actually read and understood the message. For poor emailers, this fact can lead to many failed interactions. The sender has the expectation that the receiver will pay attention to the message. The receiver who is bad at email, however, cannot be trusted to live up to the those expectations.

Rather than changing our expectations globally (“you can’t trust anyone to read an email!”) or asking the poor emailers to change (“read my emails or we’re done!”), the best thing for the email-inept is to open up about their email use patterns. For example, if a person checks their email infrequently, they should simply admit this. If a person doesn’t like to respond to emails (for whatever reason), then let the sender know. If a person can’t handle the volume of emails, then figure out some other way to communicate with people.

All these solutions would be much more welcome than the delusional receiver who thinks he can handle email but repeatedly fails to see important messages and reply in a timely manner: the job candidate who doesn’t reply to an interview request for several days, the manager who tells employees to email her but never recalls the emails sent when meeting about them, the co-worker who only responds to questions asked in one out of every three emails. For all these people, the task is to recognize their lack of email skills and let people know: I just can’t get the hang of email.

There is likely to be a measure of shame associated with such an admission. After all, the concept of email is not particularly challenging. But by admitting such failure, perhaps the email-inept will work harder to figure out a solution that works for them. If email is overwhelming, then set up a mail application for reading and replying to email. Use Microsoft’s Outlook or Apple’s Mail to construct rules and filters that steer emails into appropriate folders. Put together a pattern of use that makes reading and responding to emails its own task, to be dealt with several times throughout the day. Don’t try to read email on the fly, for example on a smartphone or tablet, if this means that the messages will get lost when switching between devices. And finally, stop sending emails asking for information if the response is likely to get lost or missed.

Whether or not the unskilled email user improves, communication can improve through honesty. When a person admits that he can’t manage his email, or that email is a bad way to contact him, or whatever, senders can make better choices. Of course, senders themselves may be inept at other channels. There are people who never return missed calls, even if a voicemail message is left; who don’t answer their phone, ever; who are constantly distracted or tuned-out when meeting face-to-face; or who always seem to be dodging any attempts at communication. If everyone can be honest about the best way to communicate with them – email, phone, text, face-to-face, etc. – then communication can flourish. Without that self-awareness, another missed email message is bound to drive us skilled emailers to madness.

Wisconsin Republican governor Scott Walker is facing some tough times lately. His regressive legislative agenda has resulted in a very likely recall from office, meaning he will have to run again just to keep his job. And the FBI has been conducting an extensive investigation into the campaign practices of Walker’s aides when he was county executive of Milwaukee. The most recent action in this investigation has been the arrest of Darlene Wink and Kelly Rindfleisch who have now been charged with campaigning on state time. In other words, while being paid by taxpayers to do county work, prosecutors allege that these former employees were actually working for Mr. Walker’s campaign for governor.

A reasonable person might conclude that, while these employees may be guilty, Mr. Walker has done nothing wrong. After all, it is unlikely that he himself was directly supervising how each of these employees spent their time. As long as they got their work done, he should have no reason to think twice about their work. This logical conclusion and response to the allegations is actually what makes Mr. Walker’s campaign’s official response so troubling. They told Wisconsin Public Radio that “the Milwaukee County executive’s office expressed policy was that county employees were not permitted to use county time or resources to conduct any political activity.”

Isn’t that kind of like former president Richard Nixon saying he shouldn’t be implicated in the burglary at the Watergate Hotel because it is against the law to commit burglaries? Or a mob boss saying a hit on a rival wasn’t his doing because everyone knows murder is illegal? The whole reason the FBI is investigating in the first place is because the expressed policy and the law forbid the kind of actions that prosecutors allege Mr. Walker’s employees engaged in. The question now is whether or not Mr. Walker told them to do so or was aware of their behavior.

So why doesn’t the campaign just say that Mr. Walker never told someone to do campaign work while the taxpayers were paying their salary? Or even better, why don’t they say that Mr. Walker expressly forbade that kind of action, because, you know, he’s not stupid enough to think he could get away with it? Those types of responses might actually be reassuring. Simply stating that there was a policy is like saying a homeowner isn’t liable for accidents on her icy sidewalks because she put up a “Careful!” sign.

Maybe Mr. Walker’s campaign is just run by a bunch of idiots. Or maybe, just maybe, they know that this scandal has some real legs. The collection of emails that investigators now hold is likely extensive. It won’t take many correspondence trails to suggest Mr. Walker had knowledge of the ongoing illegal activities. Heck, if he responds to an email in which someone says that they are working half on county business and half on campaign work (as some emails specifically say), then he has knowledge of how employees were spending their time. If he doesn’t stop the action then and there, he’s already done enough to warrant further investigation.

Will Mr. Walker eventually be charged? If his guilt is as plain as his lack-of-denial makes it seem, then I hope he will be. But even if he isn’t, his close connection with some real sleazy behavior should be enough to make Wisconsin voters realize we can’t trust Scott Walker as our governor.

When one looks at movements toward more sustainable living through the use of “green” solutions, there are two general camps. Not necessarily opposed to one another, the two groups are those who advocate “off-the-grid” solutions and those who support more collective living (let’s call them the “tighter-grid” camp). The Off-the-Grid camp favors back-to-the-earth solutions, including growing crops without fertilizer, raising animals in “free range” environments, using natural fibers, and a close integration with nature. The Tighter-Grid camp favors life in large cities, where people live in close proximity in apartments, the use of public transportation, and generally shun the “country life.” It should be obvious that there are overlaps between these two groups, but in terms of philosophy, their approaches to sustainable living could not be more different, and thus it makes sense to contrast the two.

The problem with these two camps is that one is currently winning the sustainability debate in the media, while also failing in many sustainable living tenets, and that’s the Off-the-Gridders. When news reports talk about sustainable living, the prototypical focus is on a family living on their own hobby farm, raising chickens, planting a large vegetable garden, and wearing flannel. Perhaps they have a furnace powered in part by animal waste or a wood burning stove around which they gather each cold winter evening. This is presented as an ideal for sustainable living.

But these media reports ignore the fact that this type of living is fundamentally unsustainable. First, these individuals living off-the-grid have not removed themselves from society. Instead, they must use a lot of energy to get to society: busses must pick up and drop off their kids for school, they have to drive to work each day, and shopping is miles away. Even if their workplaces, stores, and schools are in small towns not too far away, these towns also represent unsustainable living, where most goods must be trucked in regularly.

The Tighter-Gridders are living a vastly more sustainable lifestyle. Small apartments are much easier to heat and cool than houses. Work and school are easy to walk to, and public transportation is widely available. Shopping is conveniently located, and a mass concentration of people means more goods can be transported together, allowing less distance overall. In terms of efficiency, the modern metropolis is vastly superior to small town or country life.

These benefits are not regularly recognized, however. Even academic departments supposedly focused on “green living” miss this distinction. Consider, for example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. This article of theirs discusses how faculty and students of this institution are practicing sustainable living, but it glorifies the Off-the-Gridders. Dr. Jean Bahr, a professor of geosciences and environmental studies, is celebrated because she installed solar panels on the roof of her house and replaced incandescent bulbs with fluorescents. That Dr. Bahr lives in a house, rather than in a more sustainable apartment or condo is not mentioned. Student Sunny Nguyen is celebrated because he “tries to eat as little beef as possible.” The fact that vegetarians somehow manage to eat no beef at all (imagine that!) goes unmentioned.

The worst offender celebrated in the article is Nelson Institute Interim Director Gregg Mitman and his “green cabin” located 50 miles outside of Madison. His 600 foot cabin serves as his family’s “summer getaway” and was built to be “sustainable.” How building a cabin on some land is more sustainable than simply leaving the land undeveloped is not explained. Dr. Mitman can surely recognize that owning two homes is less sustainable than owning one, and that owning a condo is more sustainable than owning any homes at all. But the article doesn’t bother to mention this.

Why not mention it? Because the Off-the-Gridders aren’t interested in making sacrifices to their preferred lifestyle. They act as the Romantics did, celebrating the pastoral life of shepherds. Living in a city is contrary to these dreams, and even though it is more sustainable, city life is shunned in favor of DIY green solutions. Off-the-grid lifestyles are thus more interested in consumerism than anything else. “Going green” opens up a whole new realm of purchases to make, money to spend, and work to do, offering tangible benefits and pleasures. Moving into a small apartment in the middle of a busy city, even though such a move would be highly sustainable, has no such intrinsic pleasure associated with it.

Even worse, the Off-the-Gridders have no interest in producing solutions for world hunger or overpopulation. Commercial agriculture has revolutionized food production and made it possible for many people to get enough food to eat. In cases of mass hunger, the main issue is moving food to the right places at the right times, not an overall world food shortage. The solution to this problem is not to encourage people to grow their own food or shop at farmer’s markets. The solution is to find ways to encourage commercial agriculture techniques around the world. High yield farming is the best way to feed people, and city living is uniquely designed to support high yield farming. It gets people to stop living on arable land and allows for easy distribution of food. This is recognized in the Tighter-Grid camp and woefully, even damnably, ignored by the Off-the-Gridders.

Though the Nelson Institute titles their article “Practicing what we teach,” the examples do everything but. No person can reasonably claim that sustainable living starts by all people building 600 square foot cabins in the wilderness. This model of life is impossible to sustain and would result in massive loss of life the world over. From a Kantian perspective, if the efforts of Dr. Mitman cannot be practiced by all, they are unethical. Ethics and morals demand that the Nelson Institute stop encouraging off-the-grid lifestyles. The sustainability of the planet depends on it.

Yesterday, I discussed the how manuscript review for publication in academic journals is an opaque, confusing, even intimidating process. Authors are seldom given any feedback on the process of review and only hear from the editor once a final judgment is rendered. Reviewers too do not have access to the opinions of other reviewers. And editors learn quickly that the process is complicated and fraught with delays, such that even the best intentioned editors can’t do much to speed up the process of review. Because editors often seem to have the worst job in the whole process, one might wonder why they don’t do more to increase transparency about the review process. In this post, I’ll consider some of the reasons why, and then conclude by discussing how opacity hurts the process overall.

First, editors aren’t more open because it protects them against reasonable claims of bias. An editor has no vested interest in letting the author of a rejected manuscript know that the reviewers were actually quite mixed in their judgments. For example, what to do with a manuscript that splits the decisions of its three reviewers: one says accept, another revise, and a third reject. If the editor’s final decision is reject, then telling the author about how the reviewers didn’t give a particularly clear opinion doesn’t increase confidence in the editor’s leadership.

Second, the secretive process forces authors to accept time delays. Authors have a strong desire to see their work reviewed in a timely manner. But editors, given that the work is not their full-time job, must prioritize and limit the amount of time they spend working for their journal each week. A secretive process prevents authors from suggesting editors spend more time giving judgments to submitted manuscripts, because authors are prevented from knowing information like the rate of submissions that the journal receives.

Third, the process increases the value of accepted manuscripts. If judgments were rendered openly and quickly, authors would be able to rapidly find a journal to publish their work. But because of the time delays, each accepted manuscript comes with a history of extensive revision, long waits, peer review, and ultimate redemption when the work appears in print. This type of effort creates buy-in for the system, something desperately needed if the academic journal, as a medium, can continue. Because online publishing is so easy, many authors can get their work to the academic community without a journal. A more secretive process makes each published work seem of comparatively greater value.

There are definitely advantages, thus, to an opaque review process. But what is gained does not outweigh what is lost. Authors regularly get mixed feedback, suggesting peer-review consensus is hard to come by. Editors don’t make progress on publications for long periods of time, reducing trust in the system. Reviewers seldom get feedback on their own review, making it hard to improve. And the whole process is shrouded in excess formality.

The outstanding question is whether this lack of transparency hurts the potential survival of academic journals. Already some journals are doing away with printed copies and changing to a rolling publication model (when something is accepted, it is published; there is no “in press”). This new model is one step closer to greater openness. Perhaps someday submitted manuscripts could be put online for open review; authors could see detailed feedback prior to an editor’s decision. Or a series of decision rules could be put into place to determine if a manuscript is published, reducing the editor’s role significantly.

Opacity has a lessened place in this age of openness. And journals must adjust to having their policies questioned more frequently. When the process of review is delayed or confusing, authors have a right to demand to know just what is going on. Being more open about the process of review will increase faith in the system, partly because it exposes areas where a clear consensus was not available. Even though opacity may offer some benefits, transparency makes the system stronger, not weaker.

It wasn’t long ago that I wrote in favor of the anonymous review process held as the gold standard for peer review of academic work. In order to reduce the amount of error in the judgments rendered, I suggested that anonymizing reviews worked to make reviewer judgments better. But since September 2011, I have had the pleasure of working as the editorial assistant for an academic journal edited by one of my professors, and this experience has given me a new perspective on this particular process. So while my logic in favor of anonymous review still stands, there is a lot of room for increased transparency in the manuscript review process.

Today, the review process usually works something like this. An author creates an account on a journal’s website and goes through some standard forms in order to submit a manuscript. Once the paper is submitted, the waiting game begins. After some period of time (often quite a long wait), the author receives an email from an editor rendering the journal’s judgment. The author has little recourse after the judgment is rendered, as appeals are rare and the process seldom well-defined. From that decision, thus, the author must move forward; only in the case of an acceptance are the next steps perfectly clear. In short, it’s a confusing process shrouded (somewhat intentionally) in mystery.

This mystery, however, does nothing to increase confidence in the review process. First, because the process is so opaque, communication with journal editors tends to be overly formal, even to the point of reducing the effectiveness of the communication. Authors feel the need to treat editors (and even their lowly assistants) with excessive respect. This suggests that authors feel intimidated by the journal and its omnipotent editor. Second, authors are accustomed to receiving no information about how the review process is proceeding until they receive final judgment from the editor. Only in cases of excessive delays will authors write to inquire about the status of their manuscript. And I suspect, from personal experience, that this is done with a sense of trepidation – “what if I jinx it?!”. If reviews are seen as such fickle things (dictated by the bipolar whims of the editor), then keeping the process secret does nothing to change this reputation.

It is reasonable for authors to have a distrust of the review process because everything is quite murky. And as authors serve as reviewers for manuscripts, no greater clarity is introduced into the process. Reviewers do not regularly receive feedback on their reviews, either from an editor or by being able to see the opinions of other reviewers. Thus a reviewer recommending “acceptance” does not know if other reviewers felt the same way, at least not until the manuscript is actually published. Because the process of submission to review to publication can take up to several years, reviewers may not even recognize the piece when it comes out. Why all the delay? Reviewers aren’t given any more reason for it than authors are.

Working as an editorial assistant gives one a whole new perspective on the process, so much perspective that it is too bad many professors see editorships as highly prestigious yet highly undesirable (too much work!). From an insider’s perspective, it is easy to understand the delays. It takes sometimes several weeks for the editor to deliver a preliminary judgment on a manuscript (should it go out for review?). Next, reviewers can be awfully slow sometimes, missing deadlines by months. But the editor wants to give reviewers leeway (after all, they have more power than the editor in some ways), so reminders to those reviewers may only go out after the initial deadline is missed by three months or more. And reminders often don’t work; initial reviewers will say they are now too busy, or make promises that they don’t keep. Once reviews are in, the editor needs a large amount of time to carefully review the judgments rendered, review the manuscript itself, and then make a final decision to be relayed to the author. If the journal receives a large volume of submissions, this entire process can take massive amounts of time to complete.

Given these constraints, why aren’t editors more open about the entire review process? After all, it seems that being more open about how hard the work is would make for a smoother time for editors and authors. I’ll consider the advantages of an opaque review process tomorrow.

Financial advice celebrity Suze Orman has a new product to offer those people who regularly seek her advice. It’s a prepaid debit card, offered by MasterCard. Individuals using this “Approved Card” simply deposit money into an account linked with the card (but separate from banks) and can then spend that money as they please. For this convenience, they pay only a small monthly fee of $3.00. The card will even issue checks from their accounts for just $1.00 per check. And they can use the card at an ATM, for just $2.00 card fees, plus additional ATM fees. What if they need customer service? Don’t worry – card holders get one free call per month (additional calls cost $2.00 each).

What benefits does Ms. Orman think this card offers? First, according to the website, “There’s one thing absolutely NO OTHER CARD can give you—Suze Orman!”. That’s right, the card is advertised by a women who has your best interests at heart (just as long as they align closely with her best interests). Second, you can’t spend money that you don’t have. Because the card is prepaid, it won’t work if there isn’t enough money in your account. Third, the card separates you from the banking system, though you can deposit money on the card directly from, you guessed it, a bank account.

You know the real problem that this card solves? Ms. Orman isn’t making enough money. Think about it. She is supposed to be an expert at financial management, yet all her money comes from her supposed expertise. If she didn’t release this card, then her whole empire could come crumbling down. Imagine if Ms. Orman wasn’t making a lot of money! It sure would raise questions about her financial advice. After all, her education is in social work and her main work experience (prior to becoming a celebrity) was following a set script as a financial advisor (read: robot) for Merrill Lynch.

Will this card be successful? Who knows. Ms. Orman has powerful friends and as noted by the New York Times today, Oprah’s O magazine was kind enough to let Ms. Orman run content-advertizing not once, but twice in the most recent issue. With that kind of marketing, who knows how many people will fall for Ms. Orman’s trap. But to the buyer – when someone starts telling you about the fees you will pay to use your own money, it’s time to dump that service. Caveat emptor… and caveat emptor Ormana.

The Republicans have held three nominating elections en route to their selection of a presidential candidate for the 2012 election against current president Barack Obama. In Iowa, revised numbers gave Rick Santorum the win. In New Hampshire, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won. And now, most recently, 40% of South Carolina voters selected Newt Gingrich, giving him the win. Three votes and three different winners – it looks like the pundits claiming that the Republican party is fractured are quite right. So what does this all mean for the men still in the race?

Mitt Romney: yes, now is a good time to start panicking. Mr. Romney has treated his campaign thus far as mere formality; his eye has always been on the race against Mr. Obama. But in so doing, Mr. Romney has managed to make himself look quite presumptuous. Before Iowa, he was campaigning in New Hampshire; before New Hampshire, he was in South Carolina; and before South Carolina, he was in Florida. This strategy has worked in only one vote, however. And it’s arguable that extreme negative ads were the only thing that kept Mr. Gingrich from a better finish in Iowa and New Hampshire. With Mr. Romney stumbling, will the money be there to stop support for Mr. Gingrich before Mr. Romney finds himself behind?

Rick Santorum: who will you endorse when you drop out? No one expected Mr. Santorum to win, not even the candidate himself. Now the question is who will he steer his supporters toward when he drops out? Rick Perry may be a good lead to follow for Mr. Santorum. Mr. Perry dropped out before South Carolina and endorsed Mr. Gingrich. That’s not the reason that Mr. Gingrich won, but it certainly didn’t hurt. Mr. Santorum’s choices are between a Mormon, a faith not exactly aligned with his own Roman Catholic beliefs, or Mr. Gingrich, a recent Catholic convert. This information seems to favor Mr. Gingrich.

Ron Paul: do you want to run for President and give Mr. Obama the win? Mr. Paul is not a real contender in this election. He never has been. In fact, by staying so far below the radar, he has escaped national outcry over racist newsletters published in his name. But Mr. Paul continues to draw small numbers of fervent supporters. A third-party run is not outside the realm of possibilities for Mr. Paul. But Mr. Paul would draw more from potential Republican voters than he would from potential Democrats. This could be a decisive factor in giving Mr. Obama the win, especially if the election is very close – think Ralph Nader in 2000.

Newt Gingrich: how long can you sustain this? There’s no doubt that Mr. Gingrich is doing well right now. He has resurrected his campaign from certain death not once but twice! First, his campaign staff all quit because he went on a cruise with his wife. But Mr. Gingrich came back. Second, he lost handily in Iowa and New Hampshire, but now has come back to win South Carolina. But can Mr. Gingrich keep it up? If he can win Florida, then Mr. Gingrich will have a decent chance at sustaining his momentum. Indeed, if past is prologue, no Republican candidate has ever won the nomination without winning South Carolina. But Mr. Gingrich’s organization problems (see first campaign death, above) have him not competing in some key states, including Virginia. Mr. Romney may be able to hold out in the long run.

Barack Obama: one day longer. The longer the nominating race goes, the better chance Mr. Obama has to win. Mr. Romney looks like the most formidable opponent, but his struggles mean good news for Mr. Obama. And with positive economic data continuing, Mr. Obama may have the upper hand when it comes to the general election. So, hold out, Gingrich supporters! One day longer, one day stronger!

Very few presidents are able to campaign on their military expertise. The last president who could lay claim to military leadership experience was Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War 2 and a five-star general. Other presidents must offer reassurances that they will make military decisions only after careful consideration and advice of military leaders.

As for economic expertise, the same thing can be said. Though some past presidents, including George W. Bush, have business degrees, very few (if any) have degrees (let alone advanced degrees) in economics. Bill Clinton did study economics while at Oxford, but he never received a degree in the subject. Yet politicians, especially those currently running for the Republican presidential nomination, seem to emphasize their remove from influence of economists, even going so far as to suggest that Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, had committed treasonous acts. Politicians would do well to treat the advice of economists with the same weight they give to the advice of military leaders.

Politicians listen to the advice of military leaders because A) the topic is of vital national interest, B) they lack experience themselves, and C) they need others (troops and others) to follow and accept their commands. The same thing can be said for economics. The economic policies of the United States can have a direct impact on the health of our economy. Though the Federal Reserve is insulated (wisely) from government intrusion, Congress can pass legislation that can affect the economy. Furthermore, in times of great crisis, Congress can authorize emergency action to help shore up our financial system. Such an event occurred recently, when Congress approved the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to provide much needed liquidity to major financial institutions. This action was prompted based on the sound advice of economists, and it ultimately helped reduce the severity of the impending recession. Without such action, the effects of the financial collapse around the world would have been even more severe.

But would Congressional leaders and the president have known such action was desperately and imminently needed without the advice of economists? The answer to this question is unclear. Mr. Bush, president at the time, was no Jeb Bartlett, the president from the television show The West Wing and a Noble Prize winner in economics. Instead, Mr. Bush had to rely on the advice of others who knew much more about the financial system. In these complex matters, deferring to expertise is the wise thing to do.

Deferential treatment toward economists helps make the right decisions about emergency action, and it also helps ensure that banks and other private businesses feel a sense of reassurance about the economic policies of the nation. Consider this possible outcome had Congress not passed the TARP. Ford, or any other large manufacturing company, frequently relies on short-term loans from banks in order to keep their company running. For example, Ford may have been waiting for a return on a major investment overseas; the investment had tapped their cash reserves, leaving them unable to make payroll without a short-term loan. If banks suddenly stop lending because they themselves aren’t sure how much money they have (given foolish investment in various toxic derivatives), then Ford can’t get the money it needs to pay its employees. To avoid having employees work without pay, Ford is forced to shut down all its factories and temporarily lay off all employees. But if the banks are reassured by Congress’s actions and if Ford feels confident that the markets retain liquidity (at least enough for them to squeak by), then the economy can continue mostly normally. Obviously large layoffs did occur, but few as dramatic as the worst case scenarios we can imagine.

Some politicians and candidates might argue that economic consensus is seldom found and that the president needs to show a strong will when it comes to economic matters. This is definitely true. But military consensus may not always occur either, and setting a general priority is different from dictating just how to accomplish the goal. A president can set forth to reduce budget deficits, but he should defer to economic advisors on the best way to achieve the goal. Without this advice, radical cuts can actually stall the economy further; this is exactly what happened in Britain after the election that installed David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Let’s hope that claims of treasonous activities are simply campaign rhetoric. After all, President Obama campaigned to end the war in Iraq but, when elected, proceeded to do so in a very cautious way following the advice of military leaders. Still, even rhetoric can cause problems. Part of the president’s job is to instill confidence about the nation’s course; suggesting that the Federal Reserve is weakening the economy does nothing to encourage recovery, especially when such statements are clearly made without any economic expertise.

Why were so many websites blacked out yesterday? It was in protest to legislation making its way through Congress that would build a blacklist for a variety of actions related to online piracy. The legislation would give the government power to take down websites who are connected to copyright infringements. Broadly defined, this could include even placing a link to a website that sells counterfeit goods or allows file-sharers to connect. So if I placed a link on my website to a torrent site, the government would have legal authority to shut my website down.

Free speech activists and web companies have aligned against the bill. Media companies including record labels and movie studios have aligned in support of it. With this information in mind, Pro Publica gathered information on campaign donations to senators from the entertainment industry and senators’ position on PIPA, the Senate’s version of the legislation described above (called SOPA in the House of Representatives). Perhaps not surprisingly, among the top ten senators receiving the most money from the entertainment industry, only one is on record as opposing the legislation.

Why does this predictable pattern happen? A simplistic explanation is that money buys the vote. These senators know how they need to vote in order to keep that campaign cash rolling in and therefore they vote in their own best interests, which may not be the best interests of the country. If this is true, it means that our elected officials are crooked, even evil. And asking the senators if they are voting in favor because of the money, all would deny that this is the case. That means, if we assume the simplistic explanation is true, that they are all also liars.

But does this cynical explanation actually live up to scrutiny? The answer is no. No elected official gets rich on their government salary, and every single senator is able to make more money out of office than in, by working as a lobbyist, giving speeches, taking positions on corporate boards or in think-tanks. And the money they take from the entertainment industry doesn’t translate to luxuries. It is spent on their campaigns and related efforts. The senators aren’t suffering, of course, and they make well above the nation’s median salary. But it doesn’t make sense for them to change their votes for money because there is little benefit to them in doing so. They could make more money out of government yet they stay in, partly because they are motivated to serve the people, as corny as that might sound.

Is it just a fluke, then, that those senators receiving money from the entertainment industry happen to support legislation favored by the same industry? It quite possibly is, but a more satisfying explanation is that money doesn’t buy votes; instead, it buys time and access. Think about it this way. If someone gives you $50,000 unsolicited and then asks to meet with you for an hour, would you be likely to refuse? Most all of us would be more than happy to meet with such a generous benefactor. The same thing happens with politicians. Campaign donors who give a lot get time to meet with the politician. They also get invited to social events where they can talk with the politician’s staff and others who matter to the politician. That money buys a lot of access.

So what happens during that access? I suspect a lot of general socializing. But when things get down to business, it means the politician gets a pretty convincing and coherent argument about a certain piece of legislation that the donor would like to see passed. There are strong arguments in favor of most anything, and you can bet that the entertainment industry can put together a good presentation in favor of their side. Piracy costs us money, it hurts the economy, it hurts creativity, etc.

This type of argument might not have much effect if the politician heard the other side of the story. The murkiness of the law, the challenges with enforcement, the slippery slope issues, not to mention the entertainment industry’s narrow reading of just what “fair use” means. Hearing both sides might temper the politician’s support. But in this particular case, only one side is organized enough (and wealthy enough) to buy the access needed.

Thus money doesn’t buy a vote but it does guarantee that the politician will get a good argument on just what the donor thinks is good for the country. Hearing only one side of the argument makes the legislation seem completely straight-forward and beneficial. This particular process is likely to be even more extreme when the legislation in question is not deeply partisan and when it is little understood by the politician. If constituents aren’t calling about it, that too will help make the donor’s position seem even more logical and persuasive.

Understanding the problem this way doesn’t make it go away, but it at least offers a starting point for solving the problem. Restricting lobbyists and campaign donations can make a big difference on just what voices the politician hears. Maybe someday the people can talk as loud as the money does.