Archive for August, 2009

When Exposing Yourself To New Interesting Things, Make It Closely Related To Your Core Skills

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Spend 80% of your time on your passions, improving your core skills. There are plenty of things you can find that simply meet the “interesting” criteria.
The argument that colleges expose you to things you wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to is not that compelling a value proposition because it is not very hard to find new [...]

Crowdsourcing Pitfalls for Productive People

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

On Thursday I attended Crowdsourcing for Social Good a great panel, with great attendees who I witnessed cook up some great things the mixer time surrounding the panel. Here I’ve written up one cautionary note about crowdsourcing for people who are engaged in their work, and a few notes from the evening.

I don’t think that for [...]

A Remarkable Life Requires Exhibiting Courage and THEN Putting in Effort

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

I started to write a comment on Cal Newport’s provocative post on whether a remarkable life requires courage or effort?…and while I tried to formulate my opinion on the matter while brushing my teeth enough thoughts broke through my conflicted un-opinionated state  to warrant the comment stand-alone status:
The process that I have seen work is:
1) [...]

From the Force For the Future Blog

Friday, August 21st, 2009

“Visioning” From the Force For the Future Blog:
We believe the larger long term direction we’re heading towards is becoming the liaison for “Real World University”, the best learning environment of all, where passion, learning and work are all fluid and intimately related. Making an impact and creating value in the workplace is increasingly dependent on [...]

Ask Why Not What & Its Role In Resolving Uncertainty

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Most people only ask the “what” questions. What are you doing lately? What’s up? What did you do yesterday? What are you going to do this summer? What are you studying? It takes a rare breed of person to ask the “why” and “how” questions.
The “why” and “how” questions are much more interesting and elevated. [...]

Upward Market Pressure on Creativity

Friday, August 21st, 2009

I recently followed a link to this article on Wired profiling the first scientific discovery made by a machine with no human intervention.
This doesn’t signal the end of the role human scientists. Instead it puts increasing upward pressure on scientists developing their creative faculties. And this trend is not prevalent just in science. Everything that [...]

A Story From My Childhood & Lessons on Intrinsic Motivation

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

A story from my childhood on the importance of intrinsic motivation for learning.  On Sunday we had a family party at my house and invited many of the people who were important during the early years of my family. The occasion was a mix of both my parents 25th anniversary and my twin sister and [...]

Richard Branson Reflects on His Success

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Desmond Tutu: If a young man says to you, sir Richard, if I want to be successful what must I do?
Branson: You must realize that money is not the definition of success, you want to get involved with whatever interests you in life and try to do it the best you can, it may be [...]

Longer Incubation Periods

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

On Thursday Morning, I was fortunate enough to sit down with Alan Webber over an early morning coffee, who founded Fast Company over a decade ago.
We were talking about some of the skills young people should have in order to launch successful ventures.
Alan noted that while someone is trying to get a startup going there [...]

If You’re Successful Once, Please Don’t Check Out

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

Most people are going to disagree with me here, but I find it sad that Seth Berger checked out after finishing with AND1.  I think having kids was the culprit for the decrease in desire, and this case isn’t the exception.
“Knowledge@Wharton: Clearly you have experienced a lot of success in a very competitive industry. If [...]