Cambridge Alumni of Northern California Blog

2009-09-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

Alumni met for the 1st monthly mixer of the 2009-2010 academic year in the bar of the Stanford Park Hotel on 2nd September, 2009. They welcomed Zarko Maletin who is studying at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge.

He is collaborating on the project with Prof. Robert A. Burgleman, Exec. Director of Executive Education at Stanford at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Robert E. Siegel. They are working on empirical research, following Burgleman and Siegel's research paper: Defining the Minimum Winning Game in High- Technology Ventures".

He is also working with the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale.

2007-08-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

In the newly renovated courtyard of the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park, Cambridge alumni sipped Chardonnays and Cabernets. The gathering of over 70 alumni were honored by the presence of Lord Rees of Ludlow, Astronomer Royal, President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College, as well as Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics in the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge.

Trinity College arranged for Trinity alumni and guests to dine with Lord Rees after the mixer. Other college heads of house are invited to participate in our mixers. A few non-Trinitarians shared a Chinese meal at Su Hong's Menlo Park establishment (1039 El Camino Real).

2007-07-12T22:03:00.001-07:00

The Boat Race dinner planning committee met on Wednesday June 11th - the discussion centered on a review of the 2007 dinner. The main wish was for a large screen on which to display the race.

Discussion for the 2008 dinner focused on dates and potential speakers. Peter Robinson is the Cambridge co-chair for the 2008 dinner. Together, with co-chair Dennis Bonney from Oxford, the 2008 dinner looks like it is off to a good start.

2007-07-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

Stanford Business Breakfast on Wednesday July 11th featured Doug Harris, Kaleidoscope Group, who spoke on "Getting the best out of others".
The theme was centered on treating people that we may not naturally have a good rapport with so that there is a 1+1=3 situation.

Typically our approach to people we might not like or are different is one of:
1. Fear
2. Guilt
3. Self Righteousness

Our attitude to diversity must be that it informs us and gives us new learning. experiences. Privilege is unearned - we need to be aware of what is earned and explore how privilege affects who we find acceptable.

We were encouraged to manage biases and managing through the filters that we may subconsciously, or consciously apply.
The Golden Rule is not enough, we need the Platinum Rule
Touch base with others and think of their needs and wants - its not enough just to do unto others, that which we would have done unto ourselves.

Healthy debates, integrating ideas and respecting others who are different can lead to a unified culture and unbelievable performance. This requires empowering everyone to speak and balancing conversations by listening carefully and speaking respectfully.

Why has inclusion's success been mitigated?
Do we favor:
Peace over Trust
Or
Trust over Peace

Watch for which of these characteristics tends to make insiders and outsiders:
Race
Age
Gender
Physical Abilities
Sexual Orientation

Check out http://www.webkg.com

Check out the steps to new awareness
1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Consciousompetence
4. Unconscious competence

Learn to be comfortable with discomfort.

The talk was peppered with humor and examples ranging from Michael Jordan leaving his comfort zone from Basketball to Baseball and a female sales employee who demanded to be listened to.

So next time we meet with rival Oxonians... we'll know how to explore our diversity!

2007-07-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday July 3rd we had the first of our city mixers at Sports Club LA, next to the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco. The bar was airy and spacious with a view of Market Street. Stimulating conversation, wine and snacks enhanced the congenial gathering. Alumni, especially the theoretical physicists present looked forward to welcoming Lord Rees to our next mixer in Menlo Park.

2007-06-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ron Howard implored us "Don't confuse the quality of the outcome with the quality of the decision". He was giving a talk at the Stanford Business Breakfast on "Decision Analysis: Why Don't We Naturally Make Good Decisions?".

Cambridge Alumni have a table at the Breakfast Briefings and the next breakfast, on Getting the Best from Others by Doug Harris, Managing Director and Leader, The Kaleidoscope Group, on Wed Jul 11 is likely to sell out - so we were urged to sign up fast. I guess that's a reason we have the alumni group - to get the best from (and give it to) our fellow alumni.

Ron started by saying how Decision Making was fundamental across many disciplines - including business, engineering, lawand medicine. He has been at this a very long time - being a Stanford Prof since the mid-1960s where he founded the field of modern Decision Analysis. Its a long time since I was in college, but one of my favorite books while at Cambridge was Ron's classic treatise on Dynamic Programming and Markov Processes (MIT Press, 1960).

Still his work is very recent, compared with Seneca, whom he quoted "When the words are clear, then the thought will be also". He claimed that serious Decision Analysis was about 300 years old. After all Laplace wrote about it in 1812, but his analysis is still overlooked by many. Ron's son had presented him with a list of Cognitive Biases. One he especially favored was the Lake Wobegon effect - when humans tend to flatter themselves and believe that they are above average (aren't you a better than average driver?).

To test our own intuition and decision making ability three conundrums were posed.
1. Open the Box, being familiar to most audience members was not expounded on in detail, but you may want to check it out.
2. We had to do this - to illustrate Anchoring - put down the last three digits of your phone number, add 400, then write down the date Attila the Hun was defeated. Amazingly the adding 400 influences people to move their estimate upward.
3. The Envelope Exchange Paradox - 2 envelopes containing money for you - if you choose one and know how much is in it, should you exchange it for the 2nd one?

More seriously, there are many tools for analysis - too many for him to describe in detail so I'll put some links here - strategy tables, decision diagrams (he showed one for deciding how to design a motorbike), deterministic models, tornado diagrams (add-in for Excel), decision trees ( add-in for Excel), probabilities, utility diagrams, kiviat charts, etc..

If you're having surgery would you prefer Ron with good tools in a Stanford Medical Center operating room, or an expert surgeon with a knife in the Stanford faculty club? Good tools are not enough!

Summing up with 10 principles of realizing good decisions, "Do not gather useless information that cannot change a decision" he illustrated by telling us about a doctor who ordered a test, but was going to give the same prescription whether or not it was positive.

During the question time Ron was asked whether cultural differences affected the science of decision theory. He said it was like arithmetic - it's cross-cultural. He went on to cite examples of how his PhD students in China and the Middle East were successfully adopting his theories to these very different environments.

I hope that more Cambridge Alumni will be able to join the next Stanford Business Breakfast and thanks to Jo Ellis for inviting us to the event. I know at least one didn't find the Cambridge Table - but it was marked!

First Peninsula Mixer of 2007 at the Stanford Park Hotel

2007-06-06T23:32:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to everybody who came this evening- our first networking event of the year at the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park.

Any 'first' event that is slated to run until 9pm and has 15+ people and runs until 10pm should be considered a success and hopefully bodes well for the future.

For those of you who weren't able to make it, my personal observation would be that one easily forgets how many interesting and enjoyable (and useful!) conversations you have when you get a group of Cambridge people together.

Look forward to seeing people at the next event in San Francisco at the SportsClubLA on July 3rd.

Jeremy

KTEH Volunteer Activity

2007-06-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

Two of us answered phones for San Jose's KTEH TV during the morning pledge breaks. We were in between Curious George, Sesame Street and other programs for children. The demographic of the callers was quite different from last year when we answered calls for San Francisco's KQED radio.

It was more fun being in a TV studio than in the phone-in room of a radio station. The parking was much better in San Jose than in San Francisco.

To get credit and mention on the air we need 5 representatives from Cambridge Alumni at least. So although we didn't get a mention for Cambridge Alumni on TV, and the cameras were focused on a wall of children's names, we were happy to help the local public TV station.

Thanks for Nicki Marrian for organizing this community event.

Web Update

2007-06-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

The web is being updated using Google tools. After a false start where the web was under an indivdual account, it has been moved to a group account under Google Apps. This should provide more features for our users over time.

With the Google Developer Conference on May 31st there are plenty of new ideas to try out on the website. It is still pretty experimental, so bear with us as we upgrade it over time.

New York Cambridge Alumni - walking tour with food - Sunday May 20th 2007

2007-05-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

As part of our attempt to extend our collaboration with some of the
other Cambridge Alumni groups around the country, the NYC group is now
sending us details of their events so any Northern California member
happening to be in NYC can join them.

This Sunday - May 20th - the NYC group has arranged a culinary walking tour priced
at $20 per person.

The tour will pass through Chinatown, Little Italy and the Lower East
Side, with stops along the way to sample the food of each area. It
will meet at Delancey & Essex Streets by the Big Onion Walking Tours
sign, and the tour will last about two hours - bring your cameras, your
walking shoes and your appetites!

Space is limited for this event so if you wish to join please register
in advance at http://cantabnyc.org/register.php?event=156

4th Annual Wildflower Hike

2007-05-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

The 4th Annual Hike or Bike was held on the San Francisco Peninsula. It started with a wildflower walk on the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve. The weather was sunny and windy, having rained the day before. So the wildflowers were at their peak.

We walked from about 11:00 am to 12:30 pm from the viewpoint car park on Skyline Boulevard to the Alpine Lake, near where Page Mill Road meets Skyline Boulevard.

We had to shelter behind a bush for lunch as it was very windy. Then others joined us for a walk down Clouds Rest Road on to Upper Alpine Road. This walk was chosen because it is one of the few suitable for dogs. We then walked up Crazy Pete's Trail to the Broome's house.

They kindly provided us with tea, augmented by baked goods from other alumni. Over 20 alumni attended.