The Early Men of Science
Those who think of the 21st century as a headily unprecedented rush of innovation should pause to consider the first half of the 19th. Between 1800 and 1860, the world gained a giddy array of inventions, including the battery, the electric light, the steam engine, electromagnets, typewriters, sewing machines, dynamos, photography, propellers, revolvers, postage stamps, bicycles and the internal combustion engine. In the book "The Philosophical Breakfast Club", Laura J Snyder deftly recreates this age of marvels through the lives of four remarkable Victorian men. In doing so, she tells a greater tale of the rise of science as a formal discipline, and the triumph of evidence-based methods of inductive reason.
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Posted: March 22nd, 2011
at 10:38pm by mnp
Categories: science,philosophy,innovation
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Philadelphia Syndrome
In search of a cure…
The only way to fight Philadelphia Syndrome is to put our heads down and create something great. Forget New York. Forget LA. Whether its an innovative school, a new way to work, or what we’re doing with Devnuts, don’t stop until people start noticing. Stop whining. For God’s sake stop whining. Stop talking about what you’re doing and just do it. Once that happens, Philadelphia will start to be known as a place where things are happening and not a place where things might happen.
The reality is, cities are like women. You’re attracted to the ones that don’t need you. New York doesn’t need you, it’s the center of the universe. LA is where movie stars live, you’re not worthy. Philadelphia begs for you to like them. Remember we’ve got such great art! Almost all cities have great art. That’s not a reason to live here.
Posted: March 22nd, 2011
at 8:12pm by mnp
Categories: hood status,life,web,business,weaponry,"ninja",travel,development,education,entrepreneurship,americana,jobs
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Quote of the Day
What we found in our studies is that you can recover more effectively, work out harder more frequently, increase muscle mass and enhance the physical adaptations that are happening when you exercise just by minding what supplements you use and when you supplement. via
DIY : Hold a Meeting
-For every session, create a document clearly stating: The meeting’s Purpose (Why we are here); Its Desired Outcomes (What we will achieve by the meeting’s close); Assigned Roles (Primary facilitator—the manager, secondary facilitators—everyone else in attendance, minute-taker, timekeeper, and scribe); and an Agenda with clock times and topic leaders).
-Show respect for the agenda but remain flexible in using it—modify times, priorities, and items as circumstances dictate.
-Call for a process check and ask, "What is the best use of our team’s time right now?" whenever we see time on an agenda item running out and we haven’t achieved the desired outcome linked to it.
-Use a "parking lot"—a separate flip chart page—for collecting information that is important to hold on to, but is not germane to the topic currently being processed.
-Stimulate contributions by actively seeking information and opinions from others in a sincere manner, using open ended questions. ("Why do you think it won’t work?)
-Test comprehension when unsure about what’s being said. (So what you’re saying is . . . Right?)
-"Open the gate" to bring in quiet or non-participating individuals.
-Positively recognize and support the constructive participation of others to maintain an open collaborative climate and keep people involved.
-Summarize and post all decisions and action items along the way for all to see.
-Avoid being a disruptive meeting participant, but when a person is disruptive (dominating, interrupting, starting side conversations, tuning out, rambling, overly argumentative/sarcastic), all attendees share responsibility for dealing with it.
-Welcome and foster constructive differences as the key to critical thinking, while always being alert to stop personal attacks.
-Be flexible in team thinking and the search for options because the team’s collective wisdom produces better ideas than solo or dictated thinking.
-Be more concerned with "what’s right" rather than "who’s right".
-Review all decisions that were made, all action items, that were assigned, the "parking lot," and any postponed agenda items at the end of every session.
-Conduct a meeting assessment at the close of every session. (Ask: "What did we do well today?" "What could we do better next time?"
Posted: March 22nd, 2011
at 5:58pm by mnp
Categories: business,diy,development,blogs
Comments: No comments
TechWeek Chicago
Happening July 22-29 in Chicago, TechWeek put on by MidVentures, is a week-long festival of 60 events and workshops. Host an event, sponsor or inquire about speaker opportunities here.
Posted: March 22nd, 2011
at 1:53pm by mnp
Categories: web,business,design,development,events,entrepreneurship
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What is Expertise?
Among investigators of expertise, it has generally been assumed that the performance of experts improved as a direct function of increases in their knowledge through training and extended experience. However, recent studies show that there are, at least, some domains where "experts" perform no better then less trained individuals (cf. outcomes of therapy by clinical psychologists, Dawes, 1994) and that sometimes experts’ decisions are no more accurate than beginners’ decisions and simple decision aids (Camerer & Johnson, 1991; Bolger & Wright, 1992). Most individuals who start as active professionals or as beginners in a domain change their behavior and increase their performance for a limited time until they reach an acceptable level. Beyond this point, however, further improvements appear to be unpredictable and the number of years of work and leisure experience in a domain is a poor predictor of attained performance (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Hence, continued improvements (changes) in achievement are not automatic consequences of more experience and in those domains where performance consistently increases aspiring experts seek out particular kinds of experience, that is deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993)-activities designed, typically by a teacher, for the sole purpose of effectively improving specific aspects of an individual’s performance.