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Scott Adams: Idea People
“There are two types of people in the world. One type is people-oriented. When they make conversation, it is about people — what people are doing, what someone said, how someone feels. The other group is idea-oriented. When they make conversation, they talk about ideas and concepts and objects. Idea people are boring, even to other idea people.”
“When a person talks about people, it is personal to everyone who listens. You will automatically relate the story to yourself, thinking how you would react in that person’s situation, how your life has parallels.”
The Information, by James Gleick
Publishers Weekly review on Amazon:
“In 1948, Bell Laboratories announced the invention of the electronic semiconductor and its revolutionary ability to do anything a vacuum tube could do but more efficiently. While the revolution in communications was taking these steps, Bell Labs scientist Claude Shannon helped to write a monograph for them, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, in which he coined the word bit to name a fundamental unit of computer information. As bestselling author Gleick (Chaos) astutely argues, Shannon’s neologism profoundly changed our view of the world; his brilliant work introduced us to the notion that a tiny piece of hardware could transmit messages that contained meaning and that a physical unit, a bit, could measure a quality as elusive as information. Shannon’s story is only one of many in this sprawling history of information. Gleick’s exceptional history of culture concludes that information is indeed the blood, the fuel, and the vital principle on which our world runs.”
The following got some highlighter during my read:
“In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself.” pg 12
“With words we begin to leave traces behind us like breadcrumbs: memories in symbols for others to follow.” pg 31
“All known alphabets, used today or found buried on tablets and stone, descend from the same original ancestor.” pg 33
“The written word was a prerequisite for conscious thought as we understand it.” pg 37
“The new normal”
“What’s actually happening is this: we’re realizing that the industrial revolution is fading. The 80 year long run that brought ever-increasing productivity (and along with it, well-paying jobs for an ever-expanding middle class) is ending. The promise that you can get paid really well to do precisely what your boss instructs you to do is now a dream, no longer a reality.”
From a post by Seth Godin.
Library Thing fun facts
Library Thing is an only database for keeping track of your books. And it does so much more than that. Today,for example, I discovered a page that illustrates the height of my books if stacked (higher than the Sphinx, shorter than the Statue of Liberty):
And that they would fill 21 U-Haul book boxes or 5 IKEA Billy bookcases. Or, if I tore the books apart and laid all the pages end to end, they would stretch for 13.25 miles.
Interesting, but not very useful. And then I found a page that listed all the characters in the books in my library. Now that is handy. Can’t remember one of the bad guys in a John D. MacDonald novel? You can find it here. [Boone “Boo” Waxwell, Bright Orange for a Shroud]
If you are daunted by the prospect of entering all of your books into the Library Thing database, I believe there are scanner apps for your smart phone.
“The Cultural Imperative For A Social Business”
That’s the title of a blog post by Maria Ogneva that has been stuck in my head for a week or so. It’s about how businesses and organizations communicate and share information. A topic of discussion in our company recently. Here are a few of my take-away’s from Maria’s post:
“Transparency and openness require the braveness of “opening up the kimono”, not when convenient, but all the time. It involves letting people know what’s happening and why, with advance notice, providing a channel to share feedback, and closing the feedback loop – in the open.”
I give us a B- on that one. We’d like to be there but aren’t quite.
“Knowledge hoarding is replaced by sharing. Traditionally, our educational systems have emphasized becoming a specialist. We have hoarded our knowledge in fear that if we shared what we knew, we will become more replaceable.”
Ouch. Been guilty of that myself. I suspect we still have pockets but by the very nature of hoarding, it’s difficult to know.
“Command and control mindset: Traditionally, corporations have been structured with tightly managed controls at the top, which were passed down through levels of management, down to the people who actually performed the work. Tasks to be done, as well as the processes by which these tasks had to be done, were mandated from the top.”
The C&C manager often has an “I-know-best-that’s-why-I’m-the-manager” mindset. Takes a lot of self-confidence to break free of this approach. But the command and control style of management be less and less effective in any event:
“Rigid hierarchies: Scarcity of information pre-Internet, combined with specialization, has contributed to knowledge hoarding. At times, this asymmetry of information, and not the right leadership skills, allowed people to rise up the corporate ladder. Hierarchies were developed to preserve this status quo. However, things are changing rapidly, and democratization of information is definitely putting the emphasis back on leadership style, and not access to information, as a competitive advantage.”
This is why I’m all in on the Network and shared information. It’s breaking down these 20th century approaches to business, communication and everything else.
If you manage a company or work at a company, you should take a few minutes to read this insightful post. I’ll let you know how things come out at our company.
Carnivores Anonymous
It’s been almost a week since I ate meat. No, I am not going Vegan or vegetarian. I like meat. Barb’s delicious pulled pork; her smoked chicken wings; a Sonic Burger; even the occasional baloney sandwich. I grew up eating meat. And probably will again. This is just a little experiment. It’s a terrible analogy, but I’m reminded of recovering alcoholics who stay sober one day at a time.
As meal time approaches, I decide if there is any alternative to meat that sounds appetizing. And, for the past week, there has been. I’m not sure what has brought this on or how long it will last but it has been easier than I would have thought.
I don’t think I have any strong moral concerns regarding eating meat. On the other hand, if I had to kill the cow or the chicken, I’d pass.
I should confess I don’t have a real “love” for food the way some do. It’s just fuel for my engine and pretty much any fuel will do.
Not sure where I stand on leather shoes.
The Mountain
SimpleGallery WordPress plug-in
YouTube has added lots of tools for organizing, sharing and displaying your videos. And I haven’t taken full advantage of some of those. But I also like a little WordPress plug-in called Simple Gallery for building a page of thumbnails which –when clicked– pop up a player. This provides a simple way to browse videos.
Spring
