Diversity Event: Leveraging Diversity

This diversity event was held at Howe Hall and the speaker was Scott E. Page. Dr. Page has spoken at many universities and worked (works) at the University of Michigan. In his presentation, he wants to bring diverse ideas into the engineering world (that's why he spoke in Howe Hall). These ideas are practical topics so everybody in the workplace can be more productive. Dr. Page has been doing research on this subject for over five years discusses many sections of diversity.

Dr. Page first starts off talking about that hiring diversity is the right thing, not just required by law. Doing so, this enlarges the pool of people and talent. When hiring, ability matters most. He continued talking about how as a society, we adapt so fast to diversity or anything around us. This discussion led into the big idea of the night; two heads are better than one. In my view, this is mostly true. When there are two heads, that generally means two ideas. However, those "two heads" might not agree with each other or might not be able to come to a consensus. 

He then discussed prediction and how that relates to diversity. Prediction usually involves astrology, atmosphere readings, dreams, and/or palm reading. Despite the assumed predictions, diversity can be best predicted by models. Dr. Page talked about all sorts of mathematical models that were confusing, but when put in layman's terms, they made sense. One of the basic models that he used was crowd error = average error - diversity. This makes sense because diversity comes form all pile sorts; a diverse group + an average people = geniuses. Dr. Page tested this by creating a bunch of agents with diverse perspectives. They were ranked on performance and one of the groups must be "smart". The diverse group almost always outperformed the "best" (or "smart") group. 

At the end of his presentation, Dr. Page closed with a comparison to running and a bike. When someone runs, they can run only for a short time before being exhausted. Yet, when riding on a bike, you don't get as tired as running. This directly relates to diversity. When only the "best" people are put together, they can only make it a short distance before ideas run out (like running). However, when a diverse group of people gather, ideas seem unlimited (like biking). 

In my opinion, this diversity event was very interesting, except for the whole complicated mathematical model idea. Dr. Page gave me a new view on diversity. I feel that having diversity in a workplace shouldn't necessarily be a requirement, but should be highly recommended. Diversity can bring all sorts of talent into a company and could possibly raise production rates. Overall, this was a very effective diversity event that opened up my eyes to diversity.