Joseph Carrabis - Fear Álainn

Whether directly or tangentially involved in the web analytics industry, the Silly Series looks at some weird and wonderful people.

It’s time to get to know mild-mannered superhero, Joseph Carrabis.

1.  Please be so kind as to provide me with a short bio, Joseph.

I was tempted to write simply “I.” and leave it as an exercise to readers to derive meaning from it, then appreciated that my humor is often lost on people. Either lost or voted off the island.

A bio. I don’t see myself as particularly interesting enough to biograph.

I went through my list of quotes to find something I thought fit and offer:

Promise me you’ll always remember:
you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

- Christopher Robin to Pooh

It points to your next question that I can guess what members in the community (as I recognize it), should they read the above quote, will lock onto what parts of it and why, so let me also offer Rey Carr’s “You can count the seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the number of apples in a seed.”

And of course, based on our email exchanges regarding your flattering request that I take part in this exercise (and spawning the image below courtesy of NextStage’s resident graphics guru, John Scullin), I offer from my quotes file

It was as if somewhere in my teens I said to myself, “Let’s see… I can do well in school, go to college, get a degree and lead a totally mundane, boring, completely unfulfilled life. Or I can become a superhero…” and I saw that and said, “Screw that. The rest of the world can go on the straight and narrow,” and I took a left.
Of course, the path I chose meant I’d be misunderstood, have enemies, have to solve bigger than life problems, that kind of stuff, but even if I chose the simple path I’d be telling myself I was still doing those things. The superhero path also meant I’d be respected and honored and sought after, and again, I’d be telling myself those things were true even if I took the simple path.
So somewhere in my teens I figured, “What the hell?” and I took a left and I haven’t looked back since.

Now you’ll have to explain the names you planned on giving me.

[Exxx: I was planning on calling Joseph's profile either Virtual Man or Mindreading Man, but after reading his submission, the only appropriate title was "Fear Álainn", which is the Irish for "Lovely Man"]

2(a). Is it true that you can tell the future?

I can tell the future just about anything. Whether the future listens is a completely different matter.

Are we talking prediction? Predicting the future isn’t as difficult as some people claim it to be. Accurate predictions are based on planar orthogonal projections (imagine a line extending into forever, several planes intersecting that line and perpendicular to it. Each plane is a different event. Picking the correct event is determined by all the orthogonal intersections that happened before, hence have become fixed on the line). From this we recognize that it helps to know a lot about what’s happened before and what makes “this time” different from “those times”. The further out (in time) the prediction, the more orthogonalities exist between “now” and “then”, and this is where most people encounter difficulties because probability mechanics get involved and there can be several “lines into forever” that intersect and curve around each other such that their orthogonalities intersect or become intertwined.

Example: Susan (wife, partner, beloved, Princess, …) and I play a card game called Russian Bank, a two deck solitaire (I’ve included an image). Each player puts four cards from their deck on the table face up to start the game and I can predict who’ll win (accuracy well over 90%) simply by seeing how the cards are laid out at the start. This accuracy climbs as the game is played, and I’m usually able to pick the exact point where the outcome is finalized and why. At a conference we attended, someone watched us play and asked how I could be so accurate.

My answer was (probably) pure Joseph, “I see probability manifolds and solids over the cards and based on them. Determine the width, density, relative viscosities, temporal accelerations, etc., of each solid and manifold, see how they shift their size, shape, placement, valences, etc., where, when and how they pop into and out of existence, and you know how things will go because there’s a fixed number of cards in the decks, once a card is in play there are a fixed number of ways it can be played, and your partner is consciously and non-consciously giving off an incredible number of signals about how they’ll play the game.

And I do mean “see”. I’ve had minimal eyesight since birth. Not being able to see until I was five years old meant the visual centers of my brain developed differently than those of sighted people, one element of which is that they visualized information provided by non-optical brain centers and functions.

So being able to see things like probability manifolds and such overlaying the world may require others look through my glasses.

It also makes going for a ride with me driving the car very exciting. Example: Susan has to remind me to turn on the lights when I’m driving at night. Not sure why this is important to her as she’s not driving the car hence doesn’t need to see the road.

2(b). Are you some kind of shaman?

No, I’m not. I get asked this question periodically and know the answer is “No, I’m not.”

One of my mentors is a Paiute Shaman Woman, a GrandMother of one of the Three Women’s Nations. I was one of three white males she allowed to study with her. One day we were sitting in the blazing sun on the high mesa, the air high altitude-cool and dry with only a few old-man cacti, Mexican redknee tarantulas, some dancers and drummers to keep us company. I said to her, “GrandMother, you’re an incredibly powerful shaman.”

She laughed. “No, I’m not.”

“But GrandMother, I’ve seen what you can do! I know what you’ve done! You are an incredibly powerful shaman.”

She patiently patted my head. “No, I’m not. If I do what I do it’s because the Spirits let me. If I was a gifted pianist and lost my hands, would I still be a gifted pianist? So it’s not me, it’s the Spirits that allow me. If they go away then I couldn’t do what you see me do. I don’t even call myself one. I let people know it’s the Spirits.”

I had to think about that. “Lots of people have said you are, though.”

“People say lots of things. People come to me because of my practice. Or because something in them lets them know the Spirits work with me. They use that word because they have no other word for what I do.”

I nodded, my eyes going to the gathering dancers. She watched me. “But my teachers,” she said, “they are incredibly powerful shaman.”

I looked back at her and she was smiling. It took me a minute and then I laughed my head off.

So no, I’m not one.

And in keeping with referencing my quotes list…

There is no supernatural, there are simply things that are easily understood and/or controlled by almost everyone, and those things that are understood and/or controlled only by specialists. Those things need to be dealt with using different techniques, just as building a bridge needs to use different techniques and specialists than roasting a pig. People in these societies usually accept and believe in what we call magic, which refers to the technology they use to manipulate what we call the supernatural.

- Cara Richards

3. What the heck is a NeuroMarketer?

“‘NeuroMarketer’ is the latest term used in an industry that seeks to create long-term fads while itself being driven by short-term fads.”? Hmm. Too snippy.

Maybe “‘NeuroMarketer’ is a person who uses their brain when they do marketing.”? Well…may not hold true in the large…

Ah! I know, “…They use that word because they have no other word for what I do.”

People have been applying the term to us off and on since 2006, definitely since mid-2010, and probably because since 1999 we’ve been saying you have to get inside people’s brains to market to them effectively.

What do I do when I’m “neuromarketing”? Pretty much what I’ve been doing since 1999 or so, using NextStage tools to help people improve their work. So the only recognizable difference is that now, doing it daily and “in-house” for another organization, I get to see lightbulbs go off left, right and center as people’s understanding kicks in and gets fired up. It also gives me a great opportunity to learn what new tools people need (we’re betaing NextStage SampleMatch in the Members area now and getting great feedback. I think Veritas is next). The major learning for me is seeing where people place our tools in their existing processes and where they create new processes around our tools.

Observing this daily fascinates and reminds me of learning to play musical instruments. Start someone with instruments fitting both their physical size and ability, meaning don’t start a five year old with a standard size guitar or violin, nor a Daoin or Stradivarius. As the student progresses so their instrument (Susan and I play a total of 23 instruments, each with different skill and always with a laugh. Example: I was in our music room mangling a Bach Two Part Invention one evening. Susan called out from the living room, “That’s right. That’s how Bach would have written it if he had the balls.” I was laughing so hard I couldn’t continue).

I’ve wondered if NextStage tools would have the current use, breadth of use or the widespread use they do today if traditional web analytics hadn’t been mainstream first (and the traditional analytics world is actually a small part of our user population). As one of our clients said, “We use to have to explain web analytics all the time, now nobody asks any questions about it.”  People have stopped asking questions about NextStage analytics. Now it’s “Use it and make things better.”

4(a). How many patents do you currently hold…

Two that I know of.

[4(b).] …and which one would you take to a party if it was a person?

The first one because it’s nice to respect your elders.

5(a). Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community…

Easy. Avinash Kaushik.

[5(b).]… and why?

This was a challenge to answer. There are lots of reasons. He’s never lied to me that I know of. That’s a big one.

He’s always done what he said he’d do. That’s another.

When he didn’t want to do something he told me directly.

He’s never attempted to increase his social worth or personal prestige by associating himself with me or NextStage that I know of. That’s major.

When he was going to do something that would directly or indirectly affect me or NextStage, he let me know ahead of time.

He knows who he is and understands why and how he got where he is. This is another big one for me.

There are different ways to phrase all the above. He’s honest, he’s forthright, he’s fair. He’s maskless. What you see is what you get. He lives a life (as far as I know) that shows understanding and compassion. He’s shared anecdotes with me that cause me to think “I want to do that” or “I want to be like that” or “I will learn that”, etc. I recognize him as someone with a high degree of personal integrity and that means a lot to me.

As I pondered this, I concluded that he most closely followed NextStage’s Principles even though he’d probably never seen them. And of course, these are my impressions of him.

What made this a difficult question for me is that I could name a few similar people in the industry and none with as much to lose via their actions as Avinash. At his level, to demonstrate the characteristics I mention, is (in my experience) rare. This, I believe, stems from both his understanding who he is and why and how he achieved his level in the industry. Also rare.

6(a). If you could choose any author to pen your biography, who would it be…

Any of Susan, Charles (our CTO), Todd (our IP counsel) or any other long-term NextStageologist.

[6(b).] …and what would be the most embarrassing incident cited?

This one was another challenge to answer. I asked those mentioned above (they’ve known me 32 years, 20 or so years and 11 years, respectively) and none of us could come up with something, although all of them agreed on the salient reason; One offered “I think to be embarrassed, you first have to care deeply what other people think about you. I don’t think that’s very true for either of us.” and another “I don’t see you putting that much value in the opinions of others to really be embarrassed.”

I even looked up the word, embarrass, to make sure I understood its meaning. It seems to be based on shame, pride, self-conscious and social discomfort concepts, and those are incredibly expensive concepts to maintain about one’s self, yes? Besides, I know I’m going to make mistakes, I’m comfortable in my lack of knowledge and ability, … all those things that lead to embarrassment, so if I know this, why be embarrassed about such?

When you know who you are and are comfortable with it, life gets a lot easier.

7. What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?

That Susan and I continue.

8. Do you think the general public are right to be suspicious of online tracking software and its applications?

Well, I’m not really sure what is meant by “online tracking software”. The only type of tracking that would cause me concern is ours if used improperly.

I learned Facebook analytics and Google Analytics last year 1) so I could discuss results, conclusions and their origins with some pretty big clients (all US based and in the top ten of what they do, I believe) and 2) I was curious what all the “analytics” talk was about.

I pretty much found the information provided by those tools inadequate for the purposes desired. The information provided was very pretty, lots of neat graphs and such, and really nothing that one could comfortably and conclusively move forward with (this gets back to predicting the future, I guess). Really didn’t matter what was tagged, how or where, things were being asked that couldn’t be answered by the analytics provided.

So if that is “online tracking software”, there’s no reason to be concerned.

I’ve also dealt with “behavioral targeting” technologies and recognized that they deal with (for example) the fact that someone got in a car, not the reason someone got in that particular car at that particular time wearing those particular clothes with those particular accessories and that particular coffee cup with that particular kind of coffee in it, put that particular station on the radio and drove off in that particular direction.

Understanding gross behaviors is fairly simple (my opinion) and I’m not sure how knowing that someone got in a car is useful. To a certain degree, sure. But even then, you don’t know if they started the car or are just sitting in it. And if either, why?

Understanding minute behaviors is much more interesting to me (surprise!) because knowing even one or two minute behaviors lets you know what gross behaviors will happen next, how many will happen and in what order.

So again, if that’s “online tracking software”, there’s no reason for concern. At best it can determine macro-population activity (fine for many purposes) and increasingly less and less useful as new user platforms allow people and businesses to interact increasingly individually. It’s the same as seeing someone pick up their coat and opening the door for them to go out. They look at you a little oddly and say, “Do you want me to leave?” “No, I saw you pick up your coat so I assumed you were leaving.” “No, I just wanted to get some papers out of my pocket.”

You saw a gross behavior, assigned an erroneous meaning and acted incorrectly due to the erroneous meaning assigned, not the gross behavior itself. (Hey! Would that be “embarrassing”?)

So businesses can’t assume to know what some individual or even most populations are going to do based on gross behaviors. Some gross behaviors apply, yes, and only in the most general terms and only in the largest populations. Example: If it’s cold, most people will wear a coat outside. Therefore if you know it’s going to get colder start selling coats. This is excellent retailing based on gross behaviors.

Let’s say you know it’s going to get colder. You also know the language people from specific geographies are using when they comment on blogs, twitter, update Facebook, LinkedIn, so on and so forth. You know the periodicity of this activity, the lengths of their contributions, … the list can go on depending on the specificity required.

This extra information translates to knowing what colors to stock, coat lengths and styles, brands, … The end result in increased on and offline sales. This is better retailing based on minute behaviors.

And now “neuromarketers” are sticking people in fMRIs and similar physically constricting devices, showing them pictures of brands while these people listen to the bangs and hums of these devices in action, and state that placing people in these highly synthetic environments reveals what people in general will do when they walk down a supermarket aisle. Synthetic situations can only reveal synthetic results.

My opinion, that, and again, nothing to be concerned with.

I think people may have issues if they knew the number of different companies and organizations that are gathering information about them when they visit a site. For example, a major brand site may drop its own cookies but then affiliate network cookies are dropped, “behavioral” information provider cookies are dropped, metrics cookies are dropped, cookies from companies paying the brand to track visitors for their own purposes are dropped and the list goes on and on and on. It’s amazing. We counted twenty organizations — none of them the site owner — dropping cookies during a visit to site and that was just on the homepage. People may not be as concerned about “privacy” as they once were and I do think they’d be unhappy if they knew how far their information is traveling.

I wrote about privacy, tracking and cookies way back when the privacy issue gained notoriety (2005) and what I wrote then still holds, me thinks; People will gladly give up “privacy” in exchange for “identity”. The more you can interact with me as me so that I know you know you’re interacting with me as me, the more about me you need to know and the more personally identifying information I’ll freely share in order to be recognized as me.

The equation implied in that last line above is frighteningly real (for most people, me thinks, if they recognized it as such) in the realms of Twitter, Facebook, most social sites and evidently in the world of digital photography.

Social sites are able to tag entries with location information regardless if people intentionally contribute that information in their entry (“Still waiting in line at the post office”). Enterprising thieves are more and more making use of that kind of freely given information to know when to enter peoples’ homes and offices when it’s safest to do so, when children are most vulnerable and so on. People’s mistake is a psycho-social one; the belief that their information is going out only to people they know (their social network) when it’s really going out to the world. Digital photographs carry more information as meta data than people imagine. Traditional privacy concerns pale in comparison.

The discussion about tracking and privacy is long gone, me thinks. It’s like the person standing in the middle of a grocery store aisle, talking on their cellphone to someone they know very well, perhaps intimately, discussing personal hygiene products, then getting upset when you laugh at something they said in their “personal” conversation. They gave up their right to privacy by their actions and have no right to be upset when you respond to their actions. They violated their own privacy, you had very little to do with it.

It would be one thing if they got upset because you wanted to stuff them into an fMRI, but you’re not doing anything except walking down a supermarket aisle.

Anyway, people are standing in the middle of the aisle when they post to social sites and such, me thinks.

It should also be noted that I’ve moved the discussion from what some anonymous organization will do with personal information to what an ill-meaning individual will do with personal information, and that’s an element of the social web. Again pulling from my quotes file, “Big Brother is watching us, but he’s also thick as pigshit.” (from Oliver’s Travels)

For those with an interest, I discuss privacy and tracking concerns from a historical and psycho-social perspective in Reading Virtual Minds Volume 2: Theory and Online Applications. I hope to have a sample chapter or two posted in the NextStage Members area by the end of Jan 2011.

True concerns about tracking only arise for me when behaviors (as I recognize them) can be both tied to individuals and the meaning of their behaviors given individualized meaning. To the best of my knowledge the only tools capable of that are NextStage’s.

Example: We know we can produce a tool, the NextStage Social Interferometer, and I’ve even had discussions with some of our advisors about it because we (NextStage) are not comfortable making it publicly available.

It’s a viral monitoring tool that can determine if (for example) Person A has any real influence with Persons B, C, …, how that influence works, its degree, how long it works, if Persons B, C, … will act upon Person A’s influence, when and in what direction (positive, negative, polarity), …

It can also demonstrate what Persons B, C, … really think about Person A. Because the tool is (at present) tied to individual names, users can learn that Person B thinks A’s an idiot, someone to be friendly to but whose throat should be cut at the first opportunity, someone to be personable with in public but who is despised in private, … and it goes downhill from there. It’ll show all the positives, too, yes, and positives aren’t as dangerous as negatives because…umm…people could get embarrassed(?).

This tool has been finalized after various aspects went through testing with our last newsletter release, when other users got together to go over their results with us, so on and so forth.

Example: There was an indication that some people had indeterminate psycho-sexual identities. Someone called out “They’re gay!” as a joke. Unfortunately, having said it meant they thought it, having thought it and expressed it for others to respond to demonstrates they acted upon their thought. Acting upon their thought via gross behavior indicates (any or all of) they are 1) uncomfortable with their own sexuality at a non-conscious level, 2) harbor prejudices they themselves might be unaware of, 3) will act towards others non-consciously upon their biases and prejudices, 4) …

So no, we won’t be letting this tool out except to very select individuals and groups.

That’s the kind of thing that concerns me and goes back to a previous point, being comfortable with who you are. It’s rare.

And then again, the best use of any technology (my opinion) is to better who we are. To do that, we must first come to terms with who we are right now (and several NextStage tool users are dealing with that as they use the tools to learn about themselves). If one is kind, any technology will allow one to perform kind acts better.

But if one is deceitful to begin with, any technology will only help one be better at being deceitful. It won’t matter if the technology is a mobile device, a credit card or an automobile, each will be used (at some point) to perform deceitful acts better than if the technology were not available.

But realize deceitful tendencies exist and you’d rather they don’t? Then one can consciously decide to be not deceitful each time the opportunity for choice arises, and any technology will allow not deceitful choices to be made better and better each time.

9. If you started a cult, what daily mantra would your followers use?

“We’re out of cream? Give me a second to go out to the barn. Want anything else while I’m out there?”

Either that or “Become”.

Probably the latter as it allows for more possibilities.

Then again, we have a pretty big barn.

10(a). What is your favourite type of graph…

Today, as I write this, multidimensional concept manifolds.

[10(b).] …and why?

Imagine an ocean where the water’s surface has mountains and valleys and prairies and plateaus. There are still waves and tides, and the mountains and valleys and prairies and plateaus are fixed in place so that the waves go up the mountains and down the valleys and across the plateaus and prairies, the tides can make the mountains higher or lower, the valleys deeper and so on, but mountains, valleys, prairies and plateaus remain.

Now imagine sailing this ocean in a catamaran and the wind in your sails is ideas, thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, imaginations. The strongest of these fill your sails and your catamaran can climb mountains, zip along prairies and plateaus, explore the deepest valleys. Trim your sails and the smallest idea can take you places no other belief, attitude, imagination or thought would allow you to go. The vakas are thought and deed and catamarans are remarkably stable when both thought and deed are in the water.

Now imagine sailing in any direction or set of directions at once. Directions you didn’t even know existed. You could sail up, down, left, right, in, out and now you can sail in the directions “future”, “absent”, “mythic”, “friend”, … . And the ocean and wind tell you of even more directions that will only exist as long as you’re willing to sail them.

I wish more people would be willing to sail. I’ll gladly share my glasses if it makes it easier for them.

Check out the full list of interviews in the Silly Series here!