Most profound (to me) question at TED: "What does it feel like to be wrong?"
audience answered: bad, embarrassing, awful, etc
"You're answering a different question: what does it feel like to *realize* you're wrong?"
Actually *being* wrong doesn't feel like anything at all. It feels just like being right.
That's from John Lilly's Twitter feed, reflecting on the TED conference.
Scott Adams has a "winning" post on Charlie Sheen:
Imagine if you stopped filtering everything you said and did. You'd have to be in Charlie Sheen's unique position to get away with it, but just try to imagine yourself living without self-censorship. Wouldn't you sound crazy?
Imagine you are so unafraid of consequences and the opinions of other people that you start sentences before you have a plan for how they will end. Sometimes a sentence turns out well, and sometimes you compare yourself to tigers and mythological gods.
I think Charlie is fascinating because he's living without fear. That translates into a disturbing degree of honesty. And at the moment it gives him an amazing amount of power over the media, which he is using to his advantage.
I can't judge his mental health. And clearly he has a drug issue that will last a lifetime. But I also think that a total lack of fear would look like insanity to the casual observer. And perhaps it is. But it's a strangely great kind of crazy.
In his blog post How CEOs Can Improve Speeches, Nick Morgan analyzes the opening pargraphs of Obama's state of the union address:
You can tell when rhetoric is empty — and therefore should be cut — because it would never be possible to say the alternative. Could a president begin by insulting the Speaker, 'dissing' a tragically ailing representative, trashing the democratic process, or coming out against jobs? Of course not. Therefore, nothing is being said. Speeches are much more interesting for the audience when they dispense with the polite nothings and get right to the meat.
In other words, could someone substantively disagree with your point? If not, it's probably not a very interesting point.
Once you know a counterpoint exists, understand the logic of the counterpoint — this will help you affirmatively explain your point with clarity and rigor. As I noted in a post a couple years ago, an efficient and reliable way to probe the depths of a person's knowledge of an issue is to ask the person to explain the other side's perspective.
Skeptoid by Brian Dunning is my favorite podcast. I download episodes onto my iPod and listen to them while driving (earbud in one ear).
I recently enjoyed his take on Myers-Briggs Personality Test. I've seen personality tests used to detrimental effect in the workplace. For example, employees getting pigeonholed by their bosses based on the results of their test. So I was already skeptical (notwithstanding the fact that every McKinsey person I know swears by Myers-Briggs). Listening to Brian's report affirmed my skepticism. Here's the bottom line:
I do find one common theme among mainstream psychotherapists where the use of the MBTI is advised, and that's as a conversation starter. It's a fine way to give people a quick snapshot of what their strengths and weaknesses might be, and of those with whom they interact. To get the dialog going, this is a perfectly valid tool. But as a tool for making career decisions, relationship decisions, or psychiatric assessment, no. Although it would be nice to have a magically easy self-analysis tool that can make your decisions for you and be your crystal ball, the Myers-Briggs test is not it. It is interesting and it does have value as a starting point for meaningful dialog, but that's where the line should be drawn.
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Last year I donated to two non-profit content providers: Skeptoid and the Wikimedia Foundation (which oversees Wikipedia, my favorite web site).
Quick link dump:
— Marc Benioff's riffs (20 minute video interview) on the future of work seem spot-on. Marc sees enterprise software looking more and more like Facebook — the changes in software should be accompanied by new management practices and compensation structures.
— One way to inspire, NFL edition:
There were 65 yards between the Steelers and the end zone in their A.F.C. divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens, which was tied with less than four minutes remaining when [quarterback] Ben Roethlisberger entered the huddle.
The local train was leaving for the conference championship game on a cold, sleety Saturday night, and Roethlisberger, the Steelers’ quarterback, wanted to know if all his offensive teammates were aboard.
“I’m going down to score,” Roethlisberger said, according to Steelers receiver Michael Wallace. “Who’s coming down with me?”
— Chris Yeh thoughtfully assesses the different ways to be influential on Twitter.
— Arnold Schwarzenegger reflects on leaving office:
I can only operate to the utmost and to 100 percent of my potential if I have no safety net. Because it's only then that I'm at my peak. That's one reason I never did TV shows — I didn't want to have that security. What I liked about being governor was never knowing how a meeting would end. The legislative leaders could leave and destroy you to the press. Or they go out and compliment you. So you don't know. You don't know the way the people go. One year they like something, the next year it's number seven on their priority list. So you just never know. That brings excitement and spice to life. And that to me is the difference between living and existing.
— Here's a video of a robot harvesting strawberries — it knows which are ripe and which are not. What would we do without the Japanese?
— Is Andrew Mason the funniest big-time CEO alive right now? (Here are more examples.)
— Two girls order Indian food in Hindi over the phone…even though they don't speak Hindi. This is the future. (The Economist reviewed the recent book on whether English will someday not be the lingua franca.)
— Via Justin Rockefeller, this is a 60 Minutes report on people who can remember every detail of every day of their life. It's called "Super Autobiographical Memory." Fascinating.
— The would-be Times Square bomber was on a plane bound for Dubai that was seconds from taking off at JFK. Then the pilot got an urgent message from air traffic control. Here's the audio of the conversation.
— Steve Blank, expert entrepreneur and Silicon Valley leader, honestly assesses the state of entrepreneurship in Chile after a two week visit.
— This was the rap song I listened to while driving today. First few verses are epic. The opening line channels Steinbeck: "there's a thin line between anger and hunger my man / And I ride a unicycle down the middle, you might catch me touchin feet down on both sides." Later: "If you drop three crumbs, Ill eat one / Feed one to the family, rest I get invested in my freedom."