Archive for the 'Culture' Category

Changing The Way We Think About Change

Published
by
Eric
on July 3, 2008
in Careers and Culture
. 1 Comment

I know many of you are with me when I offer a big round of congratulations to Jarred on his upcoming journey to the west coast and his new post at Google. Oddly enough I had this piece in my backlog of half-written posts that you may see in the coming weeks and decided this might be a timely reminder for Jarred and others about the possible frustrations of change and how they may not matter as much as you think.

This is a blog — if you couldn’t tell from the banner above — about change. For the most part, change is seen for its positive characteristics. Change means progress, change means advancement, change means opportunity. Sometimes, however, change means severing bonds and losing out on things you had in the past.  This leads to frustration and sometimes unhappiness.

Earlier this year I had an opportunity to work with a sub-group within my department and bring it up to speed with the rest of the group. While I initially jumped at the opportunity, I hesitated when I realized that the switch meant I would have to move groups and physically move my desk away from the comfort of the small team that I had worked with for the previous five months. In those five months we carefully built a well oiled business machine that produced high quality work tailored to those above us. These bonds were forged over late nights and pressing deadlines that I was, in many ways, afraid of giving up.

Continue reading ‘Changing The Way We Think About Change’

Monday Links: May 26th, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on May 26, 2008
in Careers, Culture, Energy, Environment, Monday Links and Sociology
. 2 Comments

Happy Memorial Day to everyone. Monday Links are a little late today, but nobody is at work to read them anyway, so enjoy these on Tuesday Morning:

  • In case you didn’t know, geeks rule. David Brooks offers definitive proof in an NY Times Op-Ed published on…wait for it…my birthday:

Among adults, the words “geek” and “nerd” exchanged status positions. A nerd was still socially tainted, but geekdom acquired its own cool counterculture. A geek possessed a certain passion for specialized knowledge, but also a high degree of cultural awareness and poise that a nerd lacked. [...]

So, in a relatively short period of time, the social structure has flipped. For as it is written, the last shall be first and the geek shall inherit the earth.

  • Via Grist and Ezra Klein, here’s an advertisement for wind power that won an award at Cannes. It’s brilliant:

<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=cQbl1c63Ofo&amp;e">http://youtube.com/watch?v=cQbl1c63Ofo&amp;e</a>

  • I really enjoyed a provocative post from Brazen Careerist on “10 Ways Generation Y Will Change the Workplace.” A few of these made me want to shout out an ‘amen,’ like: “We’ll Promote Based on Emotional Intelligence,” and “We’ll Hold Only Productive Meetings.”
  • Here’s a gem of a story from Mental Floss: haunting, sad, curious, and beautiful. Coming across things like this makes me love the internet. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here’s a tease:

Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.

  • One more video: this one, from TreeHugger, is a Greenpeace ad illustrating the ocean’s role in producing oxygen and absorbing CO2. Simple, effective, and beautifully edited. Watch it with sound but beware: the heavy breathing might be a bit awkward if you share an office.

<a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=tzcGFUsL4HM&amp;e">http://youtube.com/watch?v=tzcGFUsL4HM&amp;e</a>

  • In “come on people…why!?” news this week: some crazy frenchman has decided that skydiving from 25 miles in the air is a good idea. Just for a bit of context, that’s 131,200 feet; transatlantic flights fly at about 42,000 feet. He’s expected to break the sound barrier during his dive. Good God.

Enjoy! Check back this week for more regular bloggin’ (thanks for your patience last week).

Habitual Thinking

Published
by
Jarred
on May 11, 2008
in Business, Culture, Education, Health and Science
. 2 Comments

I read an interesting article in The New York Times (our favorite source) about habits and their influence on human creativity and innovation. Janet Rae-Dupree writes that

brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks. Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

Rae-Dupree goes on to note that, in addition to today’s much emphasized powers of analysis and procedure, we’re born with equally strong innovative and collaborative problem-solving capabilities. Those two approaches, however, are known to go under biological and cultural attack throughout our younger years. Biologically, at puberty the brain often “throws out” innovation and collaboration because they go underutilized and are deemed less cognitively “valuable.” Culturally, the emphasis these days on analytic and systematic learning (especially in the face of standardized testing) fosters less development of the more creative mental faculties.

It turns out that “stretching” our minds into new ways of thinking can be beneficial in multiple arenas. Physically, learning to think in new ways keeps our brains and even our bodies healthy. One interviewee in the article notes that “researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general”.

Encouraging unique thought processes can also benefit businesses, non-profits, and government. More and more, I hear about job interviews where people are asked something like: “How many golf balls does it take to fill up a school bus.” They don’t know the answer, and don’t really care what number the candidate comes up with. Smart companies are investigating and investing not in what potential hires know, but in how they think.

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Round-Up: What’s So Special About Blogging?

Published
by
Jarred
on May 1, 2008
in Blogging, Culture, News and Web 2.0
. 1 Comment

The conversation started by Steven Hodson about how bloggers can most usefully fulfill their roles and obligations to their audiences has grown to proportions rivaling some of our other popular posts. I learned of Steven’s initial post through Corvida at SheGeeks, who had added her own thoughts to his original theory. I responded with a critique, which prompted Corvida to rebut and clarify. Along the way, readers of all three blogs have chimed in through comments as well as on FriendFeed and Twitter.

Steven, Corvida, and I have since reached common ground in the fact that bloggers are indeed similar to news anchors in that they highlight issues for their readers. We’ve also essentially agreed that bloggers can be more aptly described as “layers” to raw information rather than filters for it. Finally, we’ve also found consensus in the fact that the term “blogger” is to broad a category to attribute specific characterisitics to it.

This last point has really had me thinking about blogs and digital media in general. What’s the big deal?

Continue reading ‘Round-Up: What’s So Special About Blogging?’

Monday Links: April 14th, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on April 14, 2008
in Business, Cooking, Culture, Education, Energy, Environment, Monday Links and Search
. 2 Comments

Happy Monday. I decided to start the week (sharing with coworkers, naturally) with Whole Wheat Apple Muffins, following this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Del.icio.us. (nerd joke!). Enjoy a few links as you consider how good an apple muffin would taste right now (answer: unbelievably good).

  • Could Google benefit from asking users to input their race before searching? The NY Times reports on Rushmore Drive, a new search engine that delivers search results catered to specific racial groups. The company behind Rushmore Drive started with an African-American focus, but plans on expanding to other races; from the article:

[The site] offers search results that, at first glance, border on stereotypes. A search query for “Thanksgiving recipes,” for instance, yields sites featuring recipes for sweet potato pie and collard greens. But according to Johnny Taylor, the chief executive of Rushmore Drive, the results are based on years of search data from IAC’s Ask division.

Rushmore Drive analyzed search results for 3,000 of the most popular search terms in areas with large black populations and found that when people in those areas searched for recipes, they were much more likely to click on pages with soul food. Those searching for hair products, dance, cars, fraternities and sororities also ended up on vastly different Web sites than people who lived in areas with smaller black populations.

  • Here’s a quick Fast Company featurette on the new D.C. Nationals ballpark. It’s the first professional ballpark to receive LEED certification. Can’t wait to catch a game (or 3) there in May
  • This is old news, but in case you missed it (or didn’t understand the details), here’s a Washington Post article describing the new partnership between Google and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.N. will use Google Earth to draw attention to the plight of refugees around the globe and to illustrate their forced emigration.
  • [slaps head for not thinking of this]: Here’s a simple idea for storing your ever-growing list of frequent flier/hotel reward program/valued shopper numbers…file them away in your cell phone under a specific heading. Brilliant…the Internet is a beautiful thing.

Happy Monday.