Blog posts tagged People
Smart people don’t think others are stupid – Derek Sivers, May 2012
There are no smart people or stupid people, just people being smart or being stupid. (And things are often not as they seem, so people who seem to be doing something smart or stupid, may not be. There’s always more information, more context, and more to the story.)
Being smart means thinking things through – trying to find the real answer, not the first answer.
Being stupid means avoiding thinking by jumping to conclusions. Jumping to a conclusion is like quitting a game : you lose by default.
Steve Sinofsky and company off-sites – Business Insider profile, Feb 2012
Here’s what he wrote about a retreat mandated by the human resources department back in the late 1990s:
“We got all sorts of weird instructions like no mobile phones or food, some folks had to arrive (at a small campground-like environment on Cape Cod) a day early. It was all spooky and I was super uncomfortable. Using analogies of today, it was like The Apprentice meets Survivor or something, except there were no lucrative endorsements waiting for us after we finished …. Without going into too many details, suffice it to say that a group of Microsoft people managed to ‘break’ the simulation. We had the ‘facilitators’ in tears and ended the game two days early. It was torture. I swore off all HR-related activities for about 5 years after that.”
Generations 2010 – Pew Internet Report, Dec 2010
“There are still notable differences by generation in online activities, but the dominance of the Millennial generation that we documented in our first “Generations” report in 2009 has slipped in many activities.”
Microsoft’s Creative Destruction – NYTimes, Feb 2010
…our group of very clever graphics experts invented a way to display text on screen called ClearType. It worked by using the color dots of liquid crystal displays to make type much more readable on the screen. Although we built it to help sell e-books, it gave Microsoft a huge potential advantage for every device with a screen. But it also annoyed other Microsoft groups that felt threatened by our success.
Engineers in the Windows group falsely claimed it made the display go haywire when certain colors were used. The head of Office products said it was fuzzy and gave him headaches. The vice president for pocket devices was blunter: he’d support ClearType and use it, but only if I transferred the program and the programmers to his control. …a decade passed before a fully operational version of ClearType finally made it into Windows.
Ten Psychology studies from 2009 worth knowing about – David Disalvo, Dec 2009
1. If you have to choose between buying something or spending the money on a memorable experience, go with the experience… we adapt to all things material in our lives in a matter of weeks. 6. If you are preparing for a specific challenge, prep for that challenge and not just ones like it. Specialisation trumps general problem solving.
Mixed Feelings – Sunny Bains, Wired archive, 2009
See with your tongue. Navigate with your skin. Fly by the seat of your pants (literally). How researchers can tap the plasticity of the brain to hack our 5 senses — and build a few new ones.
Magic Numbers – Dave Snowden, May 2008
- 5 (or maybe 3) = working memory limit <- Miller
- 15 = people we can trust <- Snowden?
- 150 = natural community size <- Dunbar
The Cost of Smarts – Verilyn Klinkenborg, NY Times, May 2008
Intelligence, it turns out, is a high-priced option. It takes more upkeep, burns more fuel and is slow off the starting line because it depends on learning — a gradual process — instead of instinct. Plenty of other species are able to learn, and one of the things they’ve apparently learned is when to stop.
