Can you train people to innovate? Financial analyst Barry Ritholtz has shared a helpful slide set titled “Innovation can be trained” that’s worth reading. Printing and then tacking individual slides to your cube walls can be used as a daily reminder that organizations can create cultures of innovation. It’s based on the work The Innovator’s DNA by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton Christensen.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
- In front of us is a wild adolescence, but it should not be feared. The challenges are solvable, but the first to take care of the fact that the human resources are still there, Manka says
- No one tired, exhausted ideas for this new world, to be creative and composing. Now, all over the Haari is far too much, and people have no time to think about how different things would sense.
Source: Turun Sanomat
http://www.ts.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/585470/Tutkijat+Murroksessa+tyo+muuttuu+ei+lopu
Tomi Engdahl says:
Does Technology Restrict Creativity?
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=271079&cid=nl.dn14
Last November, the Telegraph reported that England will become the first country in the world to mandate computer programming in primary and secondary schools. This is set to happen this year.
During my college days, I worked on a project encouraging people to pick up a pen and paper, rather than going to their keyboards. This brought up some interesting design questions, which have since evolved. Are we losing our collective creative instinct as a result of new technologies? Or are these advancements opening opportunities for innovation? Is the creative process changing?
On the train, I saw a child no more than four years old playing gleefully for hours on a tablet. This got me thinking. Understanding and being able to control technology has become as essential as knowing how to read and write. But what if understanding and being able to control technology surpassed the need to know how to handwrite? Has design and technology changed the way we live so much that, in 30 years, children will be taught how to use a keyboard and how to code before they learn to write — if they learn to write at all?
The act of sitting down at a screen to type and think is incredibly restrictive, creatively speaking. The act of your conscience forcing you to act with your hands on the keyboard, compared to the simple act of writing with pen and paper or sketching something, creates physical boundaries. Interacting with a machine automatically limits the creative thought process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teaching our children to code: a quiet revolution
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10410036/Teaching-our-children-to-code-a-quiet-revolution.html
The next wave of the digital revolution arrives next year, with every child in the UK being taught computer programming. But is Britain ready?
In just under a year, England will become the first country in the world to mandate computer programming in primary and secondary schools. Children will start learning to write code when they enter school the age of five, and will not stop until at least 16, when they finish their GCSEs.
By the end of key stage one, students will be expected to create and debug simple programs as well as ‘use technology safely and respectfully’. They will also be taught to understand what algorithms are, how they are implemented as programs on digital devices, and that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions.
By the time they reach key stage 2, pupils will be taught how to design and write programs that accomplish specific goals, including controlling or simulating physical systems. They will also learn how to understand computer networks and use logical reasoning to detect and correct errors in algorithms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Develop a Blockbuster Product
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=271086&cid=nl.dn14
What would you do if the demand for your product went from 100,000 units a day to almost nothing within a span of several months? That’s exactly what happened to Razor USA and their flagship kick scooter during the Christmas season of 2000. The market had become oversaturated and sales plummeted.
I spoke with research and design (R&D) manager Bob Hadley, who’s been with Razor since the beginning, and found out.
Razor was not content to be a “one hit wonder” or produce endless variations of the original product.
strategy came a string of successful products in various categorie
Build an efficient process that quickly turns good ideas into great products
It’s important to be able to vet out design ideas as quickly as possible. Hadley estimates that for every 100 ideas, about 10 make it to the prototype stage for validation.
Be open to new sources of innovation, and don’t trust focus groups
Hadley says that Razor isn’t big on focus groups, which tend to provide too small a sample.
Embrace new ways to get the word out
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that Razor’s Crazy Cart was one of the hottest toys of the 2013 holiday season. The company believes that all the excitement stemmed from two YouTube videos that went viral in just a few days.
Adopt a long-term strategy with a focus on innovation
Razor sees big potential with its patented Crazy Cart, and plans to spend the near term keeping up with demand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Educational Circuit Box for Young Aspiring Hackers
http://hackaday.com/2014/01/21/educational-circuit-box-for-young-aspiring-hackers/
Here’s a great idea: an Educational Circuit Box you can make to get kids interested in electronics! What looks like a boring project box with wires sticking out might just become a box of wonder and curiosity for young ones.
[Fileark] built this for his son, and has happily shared it on his blog for others to recreate. As you can probably guess from the picture, it makes use of a project box, LEDs, buttons, switches, and female header pins. Using the included breadboard jumpers picked up off of eBay, it allows your kid to learn about circuits by plugging in different components and seeing what happens.
Educational Circuit Box DIY
http://www.electronhacks.com/2014/01/educational-circuit-box-diy/
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Facebook could lose 80pc of users by 2017′
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10589169/Facebook-could-lose-80pc-of-users-by-2017.html
This conclusion has been reached by comparing the adoption and abandonment dynamics of social networks to the dynamics that govern the spread of infectious disease.
“Ideas, like diseases, have been shown to spread infectiously between people before eventually dying out, and have been successfully described with epidemiological models,” the reserachers wrote in their paper.
“Ideas are spread through communicative contact between different people who share ideas with each other. Idea manifesters ultimately lose interest with the idea and no longer manifest the idea, which can be thought of as the gain of ‘immunity’ to the idea.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
LegoDuino for kid-friendly microcontrollers
http://hackaday.com/2013/07/05/legoduino-for-kid-friendly-microcontrollers/
[J. Benschop] is teaching his nine-year-old son electronics by giving him a few wires, LEDs, and batteries. Eventually, the son looked over at his dad’s workbench and wondered what the little bug-shaped rectangles did. Microcontrollers and embedded programming are just a bit too advanced for someone who hasn’t hit a double-digit age, but [J] figured he could still have his son experience the awesomeness of programming electronics by building a custom electronic Lego microcontroller system.
This isn’t as complex as a Lego Mindstorms system. Really, it’s only an ATMega and a 2.4 GHz wireless transceiver. Still, that’s more than enough to add a few sensors and motor drivers, and an awesome introduction to electronics development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Officeland: Open Concept Offices
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/01/23/officeland-open-concept-offices/
Open concept offices have been lauded in the tech industry, especially when they come with bright slides, games and stocked kitchens all in the name of collaboration and creativity. And yet studies show attention span, productivity and creativity can create an unintended slide.
By 2015 it’s estimated that three quarters of all companies will have an open plan office design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Engineering the Silver Screen
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1395&doc_id=269645&cid=nl.dn14
It’s often said that pop culture fails to provide inspiration to aspiring engineers. While movies and television shows routinely depict cops, doctors, and lawyers, they seldom show engineering professionals.
We’ve attempted to capture a few exceptions to that rule. In truth, Hollywood occasionally writes engineers into movies or television plots.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Does Technology Restrict Creativity?
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=271079&cid=nl.dn14
Last November, the Telegraph reported that England will become the first country in the world to mandate computer programming in primary and secondary schools. This is set to happen this year.
During my college days, I worked on a project encouraging people to pick up a pen and paper, rather than going to their keyboards. This brought up some interesting design questions, which have since evolved. Are we losing our collective creative instinct as a result of new technologies? Or are these advancements opening opportunities for innovation? Is the creative process changing?
The act of sitting down at a screen to type and think is incredibly restrictive, creatively speaking.
Will future generations therefore lack creativity as technology and design develops, so that we’re in a more controlled and creatively limited environment, or are we simply a species that rolls with the times?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computer programming would satisfy foreign-language requirement under Kentucky bill
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20140123/NEWS0101/301230033/Computer-programming-would-satisfy-foreign-language-requirement-under-Kentucky-bill?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Legislation that would let students use computer programming courses to satisfy foreign-language requirements in public schools moved forward in the Kentucky Senate on Thursday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creative Destruction
http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/creative-destruction
“Creative destruction” is a term economists use to describe the way in which dynamic new industries overtake then replace old industries.
It is not intrinsically a benign process, and it can create wrenching social and economic dislocations, as I shall make clear. But it is nonetheless capitalism at its dispassionate best, redirecting investment and resources toward their most efficient use.
When this occurs, new wealth is a salient byproduct
The firms are being coy, reluctant to compete aggressively with their own sales channels
Tomi Engdahl says:
California Regulator Seeks To Shut Down ‘Learn To Code’ Bootcamps
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/01/31/1432227/california-regulator-seeks-to-shut-down-learn-to-code-bootcamps
“BPPE sent cease and desist letters to Hackbright Academy, Hack Reactor, App Academy, Zipfian Academy, and others.”
Gale says:
I pay a quick visit each day a few blogs and blogs to read content, however this website gives feature based articles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creativity and cheating
Mwahahaha…
To be creative, it helps to cheat
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21595401-be-creative-it-helps-cheat-mwahahaha
Dr Gino and Dr Wiltermuth tested the honesty of 153 volunteers
This combination showed not only that creative people cheat more, but also that cheating seems to encourage creativity—for those who cheated in the adding-up test were even better at word association than their candle-test results predicted.
The crucial predictor of creativity, the researchers confirmed, was the actual amount of cheating, not any propensity to cheat.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Should Everybody Learn to Code?
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/2/171674-should-everybody-learn-to-code/fulltext
If someone is going to become a knowledge worker, or take on any job “that requires an undergraduate degree,” they should know how to read a piece of code that is useful to them and be able to make changes to it
The demand for computer scientists and technical professionals in the U.S. is projected to grow 34% through 2018
The Carnegie Mellon study also noted that a lot of people were doing programming without realizing it, by creating macros for spreadsheets or doing database queries using SQL. “So the argument is, lots of people are going to do programming,”
Everyone should learn computational thinking, maintains Jeannette Wing, corporate vice president at Microsoft Research. Computational thinking helps people learn how to think abstractly and pull apart a problem into smaller pieces. One concrete way to learn aspects of those skills is programming, Wing says.
The point of teaching programming in high school would be to give students some level of literacy relative to programming
Tomi Engdahl says:
James Dyson: We Should Pay Students to Study Science Subjects
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/james-dyson-we-should-pay-students-study-science-subjects-1434873
The renowned UK inventor James Dyson believes the UK needs to offer students monetary incentives to choose science subjects at university.
Dyson’s controversial proposal comes as he revealed that his company was unable to fill 120 engineering positions in its UK headquarters in 2013. “It holds us back, and it holds exports back.”
“Unlike other skills, engineering skills take time to acquire, but it is possible for people with similar core skills to become proficient, and industry and Government should look at ways to make the most of the pool of potential engineers.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Girls and Software
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/girls-and-software
Looking around at the hackers I know, the great ones started before puberty. Even if they lacked computers, they were taking apart alarm clocks, repairing pencil sharpeners or tinkering with ham radios. Some of them built pumpkin launchers or LEGO trains.
Twelve-year-old girls today don’t generally get to have the experiences that I did.
Parents are warned to keep kids off the computer
Unfortunately, our society has set girls up to be anything but technologists.
I’ve never had a problem with old-school hackers. These guys treat me like one of them, rather than “the woman in the group”,
There aren’t very many girls who want to hack.
I imagine this has a lot to do with the fact that girls are given fashion dolls and make-up and told to fantasize about dating and popularity, while boys are given LEGOs and tool sets and told to do something.
Give me a young person of any gender with a hacker mentality, and I’ll make sure they get the support they need to become awesome.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Interview with Woz: To innovate, get personal
http://www.infoworld.com/d/consumerization-of-it/interview-woz-innovate-get-personal-235555
The Apple co-founder explains why being human is key to good tech and why technology alone won’t fix our schools
Many of us in the tech press say that we’ve hit a lull in technology innovation, after an amazing run of truly disruptive new technologies from cloud computing to social networking, from mobile devices to voice services, in the last decade. Steve “Woz” Wozniak is not so sure, but he does believe that innovations can’t be scheduled or even predicted with any certainty. They take off only when many factors come together.
There’s no question that companies are doggedly pursuing the next big thing in technology, whatever that may be.
But nothing seems to be pointing to the right way,” Woznak says. One reason is simple: “You tend to deal with the past,” replicating what you know in a new form.
“We put the technology into a system that damages creative thinking — the kids give up, and at a very early age.” Wozniak believes the mass-production system of education is the key problem
Tomi Engdahl says:
Son, It’s Time We Talk About Where Start-Ups Come From.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/son-its-time-we-talk-about-where-start-ups-come-from
Good people are especially prone to bad ideas, son. But at an Internet start-up, right and wrong become murky.
My start-up rage comes from direct experience.
5dimes marketing code sbr says:
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Tomi Engdahl says:
‘No, I CAN’T write code myself,’ admits woman in charge of teaching our kids to code
‘Jen from the IT crowd’ syndrome strikes
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/11/coding_in_schools_madness/
The government’s “Year Of Code” scheme to bring computer programming into schools for children as young as five has degenerated into a political bunfight.
The Year of Code scheme adds £500,000 to the £3m already pledged to dinosaur trade group the British Computer Society to teach 400 teachers coding skills – so they can teach every other teacher in the country.
Codeacademy, which should benefit from the “teach kids code” hype, is a UK training company that teaches web coding.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The coolest girl at CES is the electrical engineer who built this robotic arm
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/08/the-coolest-girl-at-ces-is-the-electrical-engineer-who-built-this-robotic-arm/
Marita Cheng took seven years to complete her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.
That’s because in between classes, she was founding a startup to help the disabled and a nonprofit to get more girls interested in robotics.
”The smartphone app gives you so much more control. It’s not just up-down-left-right.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hacking our senses to boost learning power
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131022-hacking-senses-to-boost-learning
Some schools are pumping music, noises and fragrances into the classroom to see if it improves exam results – could it work?
Why might this be? It’s perhaps not surprising that smells affect memory, given that the brain’s olfactory bulb is intimately linked to the hippocampus, which deals with learning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A shocking discovery:
Can Electric Current Make People Better at Math?
Scientists find mild jolts to the brain may improve performance with numbers
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303650204579374951187246122
The idea of using electric current to treat the brain of various diseases has a long and fraught history
Electroconvulsive therapy has improved dramatically over the years
Transcranial electrical stimulation, or tES, is one of the newest brain stimulation techniques. Unlike DBS, it is noninvasive.
Up to 6% of the population is estimated to have a math-learning disability called developmental dyscalculia, similar to dyslexia but with numerals instead of letters.
There are also ethical questions about the technique. If it truly works to enhance cognitive performance, should it be accessible to anyone who can afford to buy the device—which already is available for sale in the U.S.? Should parents be able to perform such stimulation on their kids without monitoring?
“It’s early days but that hasn’t stopped some companies from selling the device and marketing it as a learning tool,” Dr. Cohen Kadosh says. “Be very careful.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Good engineering managers aren’t just hard to find — they don’t exist
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/13/good-engineering-managers-arent-just-hard-to-find-they-dont-exit/
Everyone talks about how difficult it is to hire great software engineers in the Valley. And it is. But nobody’s talking about how hard — really hard — it is to find good engineering managers.
Good engineering managers, on the other hand, are practically impossible to find.
I just assumed I was looking in the wrong places. But recently I’ve come to a different conclusion: They don’t exist.
Why? Well, the implicit aim of most functions in a company is to get further up the hierarchy. To have more influence. To become the “boss”. To lead people. But engineers are… different. Unlike virtually every other function in a software company, engineers — particularly the good ones – don’t want to move up. This means that the people who want the engineering manager role are unlikely to be very good at it; and those who could be good at it don’t want anything to do with it at all.
Let’s dig into this.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 Presidents Who Thought Like Engineers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321000&
Most presidents come from an academic or professional background that involves letters — law, writing, maybe journalism or education. Few bring to the office what one might call a technical background.
Only one, Herbert Hoover, was in the strictest sense an engineer by trade.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Global digital service technical establishment today is relatively simple – but can you define your organization’s digital business model? The World’s best innovations are now start-ups – but how do you find and take advantage of them?
IT unit is not worth the candle to hide under a bushel: many organizations, it is the only unit that has years of experience in outsourcing, ecosystems, end-user support, networks, standards, master data, security, and architecture management.
Negligible Nor is it that on this day every IT professional is already used to working in a global, virtual environment.
Source: Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/cio/blogit/CIO_100_blogi/huomiseksi+teollinen+internet/a968301
Tomi Engdahl says:
With Hackathons Taking Center Stage, The Coming Transformation Of The Computer Scientist
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/15/with-hackathons-taking-center-stage-the-coming-transformation-of-the-computer-scientist/
For the first time next semester, more than 10,000 students are expected to participate in one of 10 mega-hackathons, in a discipline that graduated just about 16,000 students in 2012. That could mean that a majority of CS students will have participated in a hackathon before graduation in just the next few semesters.
Hackathons, though, are just one part of the coming transformation of computer science education. Once a theoretical subject to the chagrin of many undergraduates, computer science students are increasingly finding outlets like hackathons, open source projects, and startups to learn the applied skill sets desired by industry – and are getting the job offers to prove it.
Yet, this rebuilding of the pipeline for new engineers poses deep questions about the future of educating software developers. What is the proper role of universities and degree programs?
Like many professions today, software development is developing new rules for education and status identification. At one point, a degree from MIT or Stanford was the key ticket to a major Silicon Valley company, and from there, a start-up or a management role.
The new culture around hackathons and open source projects is going to upend this forced march. Students increasingly are engaging with startups earlier in their careers, and they are building products rather than writing code samples. With a continued focus on education, there is an opportunity here to solve the engineer crunch, and perhaps even expand the range of people who are involved in engineering the next great startups.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MoMA ‘A Collection of Ideas’ photos
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/17/5417482/moma-a-collection-of-ideas-exhibition-photos
Tomi Engdahl says:
Out in the Open: Automate Your Home With Your Own Personal SkyNet
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/02/skynet/
HeatSync Labs sits just off Main Street in Mesa, Arizona. This public hacker space offers a workshop where engineers and programmers can build whatever they like, and as you might expect, it’s littered with clever little gadgets that can talk to the internet.
“Every day, we come up with a new thing we want to automate,” explains HeatSync Labs board member Luis Montes.
The trouble is that each little gadget makes life more complicated for the lab.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2014 Engineers’ Choice Awards: Spotlight on Innovation
http://www.controleng.com/events-and-awards/engineers-choice-awards/2014/2014-engineers-choice-awards-winners.html
Best automation, control, and instrumentation products in 23 categories.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computer Science is Not a Foreign Language
http://codeorg.tumblr.com/post/75129943201/language
Suddenly, a new idea is gaining steam: that computer science should count as a foreign language credit. A bill is moving forward in the Kentucky senate that would allow high school students to take computer programming classes for a foreign language credit.
Computer science is more than code
It’s important to teach our kids computer science, not just coding. Computer science covers how the Internet works, how to analyze big data and how technology impacts the world around us. Code is a part of that, but it’s more a tool to interact with computers to make your ideas come to life. Over time, programming languages will change, but the fundamental concepts of computer science — like logic and problem solving — are universal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Neuroscience of Computer Programming
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/02/23/0239241/the-neuroscience-of-computer-programming
pret ursitoare titu says:
Your means of describing all in this piece
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Thanks a lot.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why the University Is the Ideal Startup Platform
http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/02/university-ideal-startup-platform/
The entrepreneurial spirit at the university level is willing and eager: nearly 90 percent of young people believe that entrepreneurship education is important, according to the Young Entrepreneur Council. And with the advent of the internet, free access to resources, and lowered barriers to entry, students can now start companies with minimal capital.
College is by no means a prerequisite for starting a successful company, but there are a number of factors that allow it to give rise to startups. The first reason is that on average, institutions of higher education tend to attract both ambitious and smart people.
One simple explanation may be that ambitious and smart people strive to attend the very best educational institutions should circumstances allow, displaying the discipline and work ethic that’s critical to achieving such levels of future success when launching an early stage startup.
Besides attracting high-achieving individuals, universities house students from multidisciplinary backgrounds and provide a means for such individuals to easily interact with each other due to proximity. Successful early stage startups are founded by a well-rounded team of individuals from diverse backgrounds.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: What Essays and Short Stories Should Be In a Course On Futurism?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/14/02/26/0127221/ask-slashdot-what-essays-and-short-stories-should-be-in-a-course-on-futurism
“I’ll be teaching an interdisciplinary college course on how technology is changing the world and how students can influence that change. In addition to teaching the students how to create apps, I’d like for us to read and discuss short stories and essays about how the future”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Women missing out on lucrative careers in computer science
http://www.mercurynews.com/mike-cassidy/ci_25224467/women-missing-out-lucrative-careers-computer-science
The stubbornly low number of female computer science students in the United States has generated a pile of academic studies, ample hand-wringing and a wide-ranging discussion in tech and education circles about what can be done to boost the number of women choosing computing careers.
All of which raises a fair question: What difference does it make if women don’t join the tech workforce in the same numbers that men do?
It turns out it makes a huge difference. The dearth of women in computing has the potential to slow the U.S. economy
“Today, two and a half billion people are connected to the Internet,”
The damage starts with a problem that is already being confronted by the tech industry and other companies that rely on computing talent (which means practically all of them): The economy is creating far more computing jobs than U.S. schools are creating computer science graduates.
Without U.S. workers to fill those jobs, employers will face three choices: export the work, import the workers or leave the positions empty.
Right now, four of the 20 top-paying jobs for women are in computing, a broad field in which only about one-quarter of workers are female. The best tech jobs for women are positions such as computer programmer, software developer, information systems manager and systems analyst, with median pay for women ranging from about $60,000 to about $80,000. The figures are higher for men, ranging from about $71,000 to about $90,000.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google WLTM hard-working, cognitive-thinking experts
How to get a job at Google
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2331259/google-wltm-hard-working-cognitive-thinking-experts
“For every job, though, the [number one] thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not IQ. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioural interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”
“It’s feeling the sense of responsibility, the sense of ownership, to step in,” said Bock.
How to Get a Job at Google
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-to-get-a-job-at-google.html?_r=2
“There are five hiring attributes we have across the company,” explained Bock. “If it’s a technical role, we assess your coding ability, and half the roles in the company are technical roles. For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”
The least important attribute they look for is “expertise.”
Most of the time the nonexpert will come up with the same answer, added Bock, “because most of the time it’s not that hard.” Sure, once in a while they will mess it up, he said, but once in a while they’ll also come up with an answer that is totally new. And there is huge value in that.
To sum up Bock’s approach to hiring: Talent can come in so many different forms and be built in so many nontraditional ways today, hiring officers have to be alive to every one — besides brand-name colleges.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Are You Too Old to Land a New IT Job?
http://www.cio.com/article/748862/Are_You_Too_Old_to_Land_a_New_IT_Job_
Age really is just a number. If you’re keeping current on new technologies and advancement, and show a willingness to keep learning and growing, there’s no reason it should be an impediment to your job search.
Looking for a job or a promotion and worried that your age might be an impediment? Don’t be. Age really is just a number, and especially in IT, that number isn’t as important as your accomplishments, your adaptability and willingness to learn.
“It’s about being able to demonstrate your accomplishments,” says author, career search expert and consultant Rick Gillis. “Most IT firms want to know one of two things: Can you make them money or can you save them money? Then they’ll want to hire you, regardless of your age,” he says.
Staying current on new technologies, advancements and methodologies can keep your skill sets relevant and will help you avoid becoming one of those ‘former masters of the universe’ who’ve faded into obscurity and can barely turn on their computer, he says.
“You have to be current. That is key, especially in IT,” Gillis says
“Age, in and of itself, doesn’t matter, but adaptability does,” says Capone. “That’s not always a skill you’re born with, but it can be learned,”
“Mentoring is a two-way street, and even when I, as the CIO, am paired up with employees who are much younger and lower on the corporate ladder, I learn something every day,” Capone says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Powerlessness of Positive Thinking
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/02/the-powerlessness-of-positive-thinking.html
Since publishing “The Secret,” in 2006, the Australian author Rhonda Byrne has been writing self-help manifestos based on the idea that people who think positive thoughts are rewarded with happiness, wealth, influence, wisdom, and success.
Byrne’s idea isn’t new—it’s been a mainstay among greeting-card companies, motivational speakers, and school teachers for decades—but she’s become one of its most visible prophets. “The way to change a lack of belief is very simple,” Byrne writes. “Begin thinking the opposite thoughts to what you’ve been thinking about yourself: that you can do it, and that you have everything within you to do it.”
There’s some truth to Byrne’s ideas about the relationship between thought and action.
But they also have detractors.
Burkeman is onto something. According to a great deal of research, positive fantasies may lessen your chances of succeeding.
In a provocative new analysis, Oettingen and her colleagues have suggested that public displays of positive thinking may even predict downturns in major macroeconomic outcomes.
Like religion, they offer an appealing, non-technical solution to life’s biggest problems while demanding nothing more of their adherents than faith
Kappes said that fantasies might be useful when you’re unable to satisfy a need
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Power of Negative Thinking
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opinion/sunday/the-positive-power-of-negative-thinking.html
Even goal setting, the ubiquitous motivational technique of managers everywhere, isn’t an undisputed boon. Fixating too vigorously on goals can distort an organization’s overall mission in a desperate effort to meet some overly narrow target, and research by several business-school professors suggests that employees consumed with goals are likelier to cut ethical corners.
Though much of this research is new, the essential insight isn’t. Ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers understood the need to balance the positive with the negative, optimism with pessimism, a striving for success and security with an openness to failure and uncertainty.
Buddhist meditation, too, is arguably all about learning to resist the urge to think positively — to let emotions and sensations arise and pass, regardless of their content
Tomi Engdahl says:
Positive Thinking Leads to Economic Decline
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-hutson/positive-thinking-leads-t_b_4771401.html
“We will turn to the only resource we have that in times of need always grows — the goodness and the courage of the American people,” George H.W. Bush said in his inaugural address, in 1989. It was an optimistic statement, using the future tense and positive words. Unfortunately, over the next four years, GDP plummeted and unemployment shot up. Bush was not an outlier in his misplaced optimism. In a paper in press in Psychological Science, researchers report that expressions of positive thinking about the future — in inaugural addresses from 1933 to 2009 and newspaper articles from 2007 to 2009 — reliably predicted economic decline.
What explains these paradoxical results? If you vividly picture a desired outcome (weight loss, a job offer), without also thinking in detail about what stands in your way, it’s a bit like you already have the prize, so you don’t strive so hard.
Positive thinking also biases us to ignore negative information and encourages risk-taking behavior — such as betting on a forever-growing real estate market and investing in precarious mortgages.
If optimism has these effects on individuals, maybe it affects society as a whole in the same way.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Industry Is Completely Ridiculous. Let’s Hope It Stays That Way.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/01/this-industry-is-completely-ridiculous-lets-hope-it-stays-that-way/
It’s more like what famed screenwriter William Goldman once said of Hollywood: “Nobody knows anything.” I’ve argued before that Silicon Valley is more like Hollywood than people realize — VCs as producers, founders as directors, most everyone desperate for blockbuster hits — and the Valley today is like the Hollywood that Goldman was talking about, the Hollywood of the 1970s, when nobody knew what might become a hit and so an anarchic wave of auteurs flooded the scene, Spielberg and Lucas and Coppola and Easy Rider and even, God help us, Zardoz, because producers were throwing money at everything, because nobody knew anything.
Let’s hope it stays that way. Because since then, Hollywood found formulas for success, and pretty much every tentpole movie follows them
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Why You Should Stop Hacking Your Life and Invest in The Journey
https://medium.com/philosophy-logic/7f838b1fa228
“Maybe stop trying so hard to find shortcuts to “hack” your life. The best things are hard. Invest in the journey. Just sayin’.”
A lark of a tweet I fired off last December that — somewhat to my surprise — went semi-viral, shared across a variety of social networks and blogs like wildfire.
Why is this surprising? And what does it say?
I was surprised because we live in such a meme, hashtag and shortcut obsessed culture.
Consistent with our shrinking attention span, demand for immediate gratification, intolerance for hard work, rebuttal of experiential value, and general (illusory) sense of entitlement to the good life, this hack ethos is emblematic of our obsessive modern imperative for immediacy — the drive to turbocharge, accelerate, optimize, scramble, quicken and hasten our way to maximum health, fitness, professional success and ultimately happiness.
KnowYourMeme defines “life hacks” as “tricks, skills or shortcuts that are meant to increase a person’s productivity or efficiency in their everyday lives.”
A recipe for success he guarantees to work:
All you have to do is commit your entire life to something, which will result in one of two outcomes. Either you will succeed, or you will die trying, which is in and of itself it’s own form of success.
This people, is the very essence of the anti-hack.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Masters of Their Own Destiny
Why today’s giants build the tech they need to stay on top.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3025636/technovore/masters-of-their-own-destiny
The A7 neatly sums up the new reality of our always-connected world: Every market is ripe for upheaval, competition can come from anywhere, and today’s customer could very well be the one who knocks you from your perch.
Think back to just 15 years ago when the likes of Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel, and Oracle got big supplying the backbone of Internet computing. Their incumbency meant they had to serve the needs of a lot of customers, which slowed them down. And as the metabolism of change in the Internet era has sped up, they couldn’t keep pace.
When Facebook was in its megagrowth phase a few years ago, it realized that the big server companies couldn’t make what it needed to serve up all those cute baby pictures and endless event requests. So Facebook set up a skunk-works project and designed its own servers specifically to make Facebook services zoom at the lowest possible cost. It sent the plans to an Asian server maker named Quanta to build these streamlined boxes cheaply.
Facebook didn’t have designs on the $55 billion server market. It took matters in its own hands and ended up creating a competitor that Dell, HP, and IBM didn’t see coming. Facebook, thanks to its sheer size and complexity, is the standard-bearer for the data-rich, highly networked future of information. When it designs machines to handle its workloads, it’s creating the next-generation server. The big-hardware makers let the tail wag the dog.
As with Facebook, Apple’s main business isn’t making chips. But it had to craft its own processors once it realized that the major semiconductor manufacturers simply weren’t going to push the envelope on performance fast enough to meet the company’s development timeline.
The strategy today is simple: In order to move fast, build what you can’t buy or risk losing control of your fate and becoming the next Palm, Motorola, or HTC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
1 in 10 Americans think HTML is an STD, study finds
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-1-10-americans-html-std-study-finds-20140304,0,1188415.story#ixzz2v54ieM4R
If you’re talking tech with Americans, you may want to avoid using any jargon.
A recent study found that many Americans are lost when it comes to tech-related terms, with 11% saying that they thought HTML — a language that is used to create websites — was a sexually transmitted disease.
Besides HTML, there were some other amusing findings
Despite the incorrect answers, 61% of the respondents said it is important to have a good knowledge of technology in this day and age.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mathematicians are chronically lost and confused (and that’s how it’s supposed to be)
http://j2kun.svbtle.com/mathematicians-are-chronically-lost-and-confused
A large part of my audience over at Math ∩ Programming are industry software engineers who are discovering two things about mathematics: it’s really hard and it opens the door to a world of new ideas. In that way it’s a lot like learning to read. Once you’re mildly fluent you can read books, use the ideas to solve problems, and maybe even write an original piece of your own.
Many people who are in this position, trying to learn mathematics on their own, have roughly two approaches.
The first is to learn only the things that you need for the applications you’re interested in.
The second approach is to try to understand everything so thoroughly as to become a part of it. In technical terms, they try to grok mathematics.
This is again commendable, but it often results in insurmountable frustrations and quitting before the best part of the subject.
Andrew Wiles, one of the world’s most renowned mathematicians, wonderfully describes research like exploring a big mansion.
“You enter the first room of the mansion and it’s completely dark. You stumble around bumping into the furniture but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch, you turn it on, and suddenly it’s all illuminated.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Your Season of Birth Is Etched in Your Brain
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/03/season-birth-etched-brain/
The season we’re born in can have far-reaching consequences. For instance, Spring babies are more likely than others to develop schizophrenia later in life, whereas Summer babies tend to grow up to be more sensation seeking. There are many more of these so-called season of birth effects.
Pantazatos also performed another kind of analysis. He looked to see if it were possible to predict which season a person was born in, purely from looking at differences in grey matter volume across their brains. This time he found a significant result for women but not men.