Capitalism was a good idea as long as the money remains in the country. The flow of money sustains consumption, and everybody can buy things thanks to their work, it's a virtuous circle.
Once this loop is broken, the system derails completely: 1) unemployement increases 2) people have not enough money to buy the gadgets 3) the companies have difficulties, thus reduce the number of their employees 4) goto 1)
The irony in Apple's case is that the gadgets cannot be bought by the chinese who build them.
But be careful with gluten, which is present in all forms of wheat, and used in vegan recipes. I believe that our body can only absorb a given amount of gluten in our lifetime. I'm gluten intolerant, and removing gluten from my food tremendously improved my life, by curing my IBS. There is a correlation between IBS and Emotional Intelligence. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19575489
First, you have the irrational belief that reality is as you think, and you think it's confirmed because others perceive it too. This is absurd, and it's easy to realize that when you dream, you are unable to realize that you dream: you are taken by the reality of your dream. Since you are unable to be aware of your dreams, how could you be aware of the reality ?
Secondly, you believe that all experiences could be understood by your mental. I did some psychoanalysis, and also believed that I could understand my subconscious with my mind. In fact, I realized that trying to understand a few seconds of my life could take a few hours of analysis, so this method is impractical to understand who you are, because you cannot treat all the amount of data every day, it would need a life to analyze just one day of your life.
Finally, I understood recently what Buddha meant by finding happiness. You may believe that happiness is easy to find. But in fact, happiness depends on your thoughts: you are happy when you think that something is pleasant, and you are unhappy when things don't go the way you want. So basically, happiness depends on your own thoughts. Buddha explained that to find true happiness, the only mean is to make the thinking process disappear, so that you'll stop judging if a situation is good or bad (note: this is not blindness !). The problem is now: how could I stop my thinking process ? Frankly, I'm thinking all the time, and my mind is always searching for more challenges, so my mind wanders from a thought to another one, and it's endless. Another difficulty is that it's impossible to stop thinking. Meditating only stops the flow during the time you meditate, but it starts again when you stop. This is an open problem for me right now.
This approach is completely theoretical and thus useless.
I believe in non-duality. In fact, the reality is just an illusion, and there are ways to experience it with certainty, but the experience cannot be shared or described. I'd like to recommend this simple approach (which doesn't rely on God): http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/downloads/who_am_I.pdf
I believe that if you are in a group that you think (even unconsciously) that it performs excellently, then you'll over-perform. If you think that you are in an average group, you'll perform averagely. And if you think that you are in a weak group, you'll sub-perform. Of course, there are some exceptions, when some people have some neurosis issues.
And basically, this is what Ringelmann & Köhler verified in their experiences.
About the group's performance, I don't think that a group can perform better than the sum of the individuals, except for tasks requiring some sharing between the members (sharing knowledge or ideas for example). When the tasks don't need sharing, group performance will degrade, unless you are able to create some sharing between members (and most of the managers don't want to create sharing, because they believe that they maintain their power by dividing people). In fact, collaboration is always superior to competition.
Also, I worked on myself these last 15 years, so I'm well aware of my cognitive processes, I don't believe in conspiracy, and I'm also working on finding who I really am without rationalization.
I think that you rely too much on external proofs, instead of checking how you perform yourself. Most psychologists are full of theories, but their theories don't match with practice, because they are not practicing. For example, there are a lot of psychological effects when pair-programming, but they can only be described by someone who pair-programs, not by an external viewer.
Oh, and I think that the most abused word is not "innovation", it's "we are a company focused on the human", which is always false when the company announces it.
All the tasks you proposed cannot be done alone, they require synchronization with several people. Also, you don't measure individual performance, but I'm sure Ringelmann's effect apply in your cases !
number of persons => percent of performance of individuals 1 => 100% 2 => 93% 3 => 85% 4 => 77% 5 => 70% 6 => 63% 7 => 56% 8 => 49%
So when you put 4 persons together, you get the amount of performance of 4 individuals. And Ringelmann used motivated people in his experiences, they were synchronized with singing.
Köhler's effect doesn't apply to intellectual tasks, contrary to Ringelmann's. In fact Köhler's effect depends on the motivation of the individual to do his best. He may try to be as good as the best performers, but he may also stop all efforts if the task seems too difficult.
According to Demming, the power of a group is equal of the sum of every individual plus the sum of their interactions. In most groups, their interactions are negative, thus reducing the power of the group. And I witnessed some groups where the sum was almost zero !
You give the example of some group challenge. Of course, people will perform better in group, because these are challenges interesting to solve in groups ! Since most of the work is boring, people tend to procrastinate, especially when the group is large, as you explained with social loafing. It's difficult to split work in small interesting tasks. It's easy to explain, as Dan Pink, how to motivate people in theory (autonomy, mastery, purpose), but it's tougher in reality, because motivation is not task-related.
And I'm not a MBA, I'm a programmer with a lot of experience in teams and in psychology.
There's a reason that assembly lines are much more efficient than having each individual build each unit from start to finish
This is indiividual work ! You split the task into tiny parts, so that people will become specialized in solving their little task. The more separate the tasks, the more efficient your process can be. But you don't produce more than the sum of individuals.
For Example Synergy Is an aspect when people working in a team or a group produce more then the sum of each person.
Sorry to disappoint you, but a group cannot produce more than the sum of each person. This is called Ringelmann effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringelmann_effect it has been measured in 1914, by measuring the amount of effort of groups of different sizes. When you put 8 persons together, you get the amount of effort only 4 can produce. People unconsciously reduce their effort when they work in a team.
What you can do is try to increase intrinsic motivation, so that not too much energy is lost in the group. Also, choose the best members for your team.
In fact, productivity increases when the task to be done is boring to do.
When the task is motivating, pair-programming reduces the productivity.
For example, I hate coding UIs, but when I pair-program UIs, I'm very efficient at that. When I'm motivated by a coding challenge, pair-programming slows me down, because I'll have to communicate, which is a slow process.
Ok, I understood your message, which is basically: stop being a victim !
However, you don't understand the human nature at all.
Firstly, when you are a victim of any violence, you sense guilt, the guilt about something that you may have avoided. How could I have escaped the situation ? This first question arises instantly, and there is no simple answer to that. You cannot say: "hey, just forget about these destructive ideas, look at the bright part of the situation; you are alive". Violence is very different when you are a witness (and TV tends to make it so common) or when you are a victim.
Secondly, there is a more insidious question: Why did it happen to me ? Is it my fault that I have been raped ? Is it my attitude or my way of dressing that encouraged the rapist ? This question appears once you didn't get the answer to the first question.
In my case, I believe that any situation that we survived is a lesson to learn, and some of the lessons are not obvious at all ! How can I become a better person from a violent situation ?
I also believe that people change, so violence towards the rapist is not a solution, because he may change and become someone who will help raped women in the future (it's unlikely, but it's possible), so the rapist has a lesson to learn too. Does prison help people to understand these lessons ?
You are welcome. I'll give you another trick, inspired by TRIZ and ASIT:
if you have no idea how to improve your product, just describe all its functionalities graphically (it's similar to Design Thinking, which is a great way to solve problems for visual people). After that your product has been drawn on a board, just remove each part one after another (and replace the removed part after). Ask yourself: - what is the value of my product without this part ? - what could I use to replace this part ?
This process is called Extracting, and is essential when improving systems, it helps to challenge your own conceptions.
ASIT's creator, Roni Horowitz, proposes the following exercise: suppose that you have a TV without image. What could you do with it ? What is its value ?
Agile/Scrum is not very good for brainstorming because it's focused on the process. In fact, brainstorming creates a lot of ideas, but most of them are garbage.
I would recommend that you use the retrospective tool as follows:
- first, use a timeboxed meeting (for example, 1 hour)
- when the meeting starts, explain the goal of the meeting: to generate good ideas
- then ask people to list the problems or the parts that could to be improved
- then ask them to vote for the most urgent problems (give 3 points to each participant, and ask them to place their points where they want)
- then take the most voted problem, and talk about it WITHOUT searching for a solution. The deeper the problem has been discussed, the better the problem is understood. If the problem is not clear, use the 5 whys.
- NEVER search for solutions, since you'll fall in the "shitty instantaneous ideas" syndrome.
- there is another syndrome, which is that people tend to defend their ideas even though they are bad. Most of good ideas are a mix of different ideas.
- as long as you have time, continue taking the most voted problems
I call this process: the Reality Check. It's necessary to detect what can be improved, and most of all to challenge the existing product/process.
Now, the tricky second part:
- at the end of the meeting, ask people to propose solutions on a wiki page, or on a wall with post-its
Generally, finding good solutions requires to take a break, and cannot be found in a short amount of time (in my case, I find my best ideas after a good night sleep). Ideas can be iteratively improved, so a wiki is the perfect way to do that. Once a good idea has been found, reward all the participants, for example invite them for a lunch. Some people like competition, so you may use a chart about the most creative guys, and reward them at the end of the year.
If you need more ideas, just contact me, and I'll provide you some other tricks, like ASIT methodology.
Strangely, I encountered the exact opposite problem. I have tons of RSS bookmarks (I don't use extensions for RSS), and since version 12, I can only open one page, and no other during 2 minutes. I guess it's a bug when you reduce the number of connections (I'm forced to use 8 connections max, because more connections hang my wifi router).
You cannot imagine how this pisses me off, so I'm using Chrome more and more, but I hate Chrome.
And I'm using also IE, Opera and Seamonkey, each of these for unique usage:
- IE when I need ActiveX
- Opera when I don't want to use Javascript (disabled in my configuration) and I want to restore where I quit
- SeaMonkey when I don't want to load pictures
- Chrome when I need Flash (I removed Flash on my computer), or Javascript
- Firefox for all other usages, because bookmarking is easier than the others, and AdBlock is a requirement
In Paris, the Metro is the transportation's network, and by extension the name of the stations and of the trains.
The stations smell like piss, with beggars and tramps everywhere (and yes, I'm french). Once there is a small problem on a line, all the traffic is slowed down. The trains almost always are late, especially when the weather is hot.
Finally, the parisians always try to force their way in the train, even though it's full.
Agreed. The problem with marketing guys is that they care only about money and risks. They don't want to bet money on products that may not work, so they tend to copy existing products.
When your focus is money or measuring risks, you cannot focus on users or products. Gates and Jobs cared about products (but not much about users), and that's why they succeeded.
Also, they think about their products as sequels, like movies sequels. A good product will have a good reputation, so the next version will sell a lot more. This strategy works only when the product is good.
And finally, learning from failures is the most important thing. You cannot always succeed with your product, so when a product fails, try to learn the lesson behind this failure, instead of trying to cover it. Marketing and sales guys don't want to hear about failure.
Slashdot Mirror
Capitalism was a good idea as long as the money remains in the country.
The flow of money sustains consumption, and everybody can buy things thanks to their work, it's a virtuous circle.
Once this loop is broken, the system derails completely:
1) unemployement increases
2) people have not enough money to buy the gadgets
3) the companies have difficulties, thus reduce the number of their employees
4) goto 1)
The irony in Apple's case is that the gadgets cannot be bought by the chinese who build them.
I also recommend you a sattvic diet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sattvic_diet
But be careful with gluten, which is present in all forms of wheat, and used in vegan recipes.
I believe that our body can only absorb a given amount of gluten in our lifetime.
I'm gluten intolerant, and removing gluten from my food tremendously improved my life, by curing my IBS.
There is a correlation between IBS and Emotional Intelligence.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19575489
I think that you are missing a few points.
First, you have the irrational belief that reality is as you think, and you think it's confirmed because others perceive it too.
This is absurd, and it's easy to realize that when you dream, you are unable to realize that you dream: you are taken by the reality of your dream.
Since you are unable to be aware of your dreams, how could you be aware of the reality ?
Secondly, you believe that all experiences could be understood by your mental.
I did some psychoanalysis, and also believed that I could understand my subconscious with my mind.
In fact, I realized that trying to understand a few seconds of my life could take a few hours of analysis, so this method is impractical to understand who you are, because you cannot treat all the amount of data every day, it would need a life to analyze just one day of your life.
Finally, I understood recently what Buddha meant by finding happiness.
You may believe that happiness is easy to find.
But in fact, happiness depends on your thoughts:
you are happy when you think that something is pleasant, and you are unhappy when things don't go the way you want.
So basically, happiness depends on your own thoughts.
Buddha explained that to find true happiness, the only mean is to make the thinking process disappear, so that you'll stop judging if a situation is good or bad (note: this is not blindness !).
The problem is now: how could I stop my thinking process ?
Frankly, I'm thinking all the time, and my mind is always searching for more challenges, so my mind wanders from a thought to another one, and it's endless.
Another difficulty is that it's impossible to stop thinking.
Meditating only stops the flow during the time you meditate, but it starts again when you stop.
This is an open problem for me right now.
This approach is completely theoretical and thus useless.
I believe in non-duality.
In fact, the reality is just an illusion, and there are ways to experience it with certainty, but the experience cannot be shared or described.
I'd like to recommend this simple approach (which doesn't rely on God):
http://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/downloads/who_am_I.pdf
Thanks for the detailed analysis.
However, I'm a facilitator, so I'm well aware of group performances.
I still maintain that Ringelmann & Köhler effects are the same effect.
I wrote an article (in french) on my blog:
https://psychologieagile.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/les-effets-ringelmann-et-kohler/
I believe that if you are in a group that you think (even unconsciously) that it performs excellently, then you'll over-perform.
If you think that you are in an average group, you'll perform averagely.
And if you think that you are in a weak group, you'll sub-perform.
Of course, there are some exceptions, when some people have some neurosis issues.
And basically, this is what Ringelmann & Köhler verified in their experiences.
About the group's performance, I don't think that a group can perform better than the sum of the individuals, except for tasks requiring some sharing between the members (sharing knowledge or ideas for example).
When the tasks don't need sharing, group performance will degrade, unless you are able to create some sharing between members (and most of the managers don't want to create sharing, because they believe that they maintain their power by dividing people). In fact, collaboration is always superior to competition.
Also, I worked on myself these last 15 years, so I'm well aware of my cognitive processes, I don't believe in conspiracy, and I'm also working on finding who I really am without rationalization.
I think that you rely too much on external proofs, instead of checking how you perform yourself.
Most psychologists are full of theories, but their theories don't match with practice, because they are not practicing.
For example, there are a lot of psychological effects when pair-programming, but they can only be described by someone who pair-programs, not by an external viewer.
Oh, and I think that the most abused word is not "innovation", it's "we are a company focused on the human", which is always false when the company announces it.
All the tasks you proposed cannot be done alone, they require synchronization with several people.
Also, you don't measure individual performance, but I'm sure Ringelmann's effect apply in your cases !
BTW, I retrieved the performance factors for groups, measured by Ringelmann in 1913, you can get the original here:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k54409695.image.f14
number of persons => percent of performance of individuals
1 => 100%
2 => 93%
3 => 85%
4 => 77%
5 => 70%
6 => 63%
7 => 56%
8 => 49%
So when you put 4 persons together, you get the amount of performance of 4 individuals.
And Ringelmann used motivated people in his experiences, they were synchronized with singing.
At least, that's the case of the Dodo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo#Extinction
I'm not an MBA either, but I don't know where you find that the Köhler effect doesn't apply to cognitive tasks.
Here:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.uni-hamburg.de/ fachbereiche-einrichtungen/fb16/absozpsy/eaesp_koehler_05.pdf
Köhler's effect doesn't apply to intellectual tasks, contrary to Ringelmann's.
In fact Köhler's effect depends on the motivation of the individual to do his best. He may try to be as good as the best performers, but he may also stop all efforts if the task seems too difficult.
According to Demming, the power of a group is equal of the sum of every individual plus the sum of their interactions.
In most groups, their interactions are negative, thus reducing the power of the group.
And I witnessed some groups where the sum was almost zero !
You give the example of some group challenge. Of course, people will perform better in group, because these are challenges interesting to solve in groups !
Since most of the work is boring, people tend to procrastinate, especially when the group is large, as you explained with social loafing.
It's difficult to split work in small interesting tasks.
It's easy to explain, as Dan Pink, how to motivate people in theory (autonomy, mastery, purpose), but it's tougher in reality, because motivation is not task-related.
And I'm not a MBA, I'm a programmer with a lot of experience in teams and in psychology.
There's a reason that assembly lines are much more efficient than having each individual build each unit from start to finish
This is indiividual work !
You split the task into tiny parts, so that people will become specialized in solving their little task.
The more separate the tasks, the more efficient your process can be.
But you don't produce more than the sum of individuals.
For Example Synergy Is an aspect when people working in a team or a group produce more then the sum of each person.
Sorry to disappoint you, but a group cannot produce more than the sum of each person.
This is called Ringelmann effect:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringelmann_effect
it has been measured in 1914, by measuring the amount of effort of groups of different sizes.
When you put 8 persons together, you get the amount of effort only 4 can produce.
People unconsciously reduce their effort when they work in a team.
What you can do is try to increase intrinsic motivation, so that not too much energy is lost in the group.
Also, choose the best members for your team.
The recent lost
Shouldn't that be "loss" ?
In fact, productivity increases when the task to be done is boring to do.
When the task is motivating, pair-programming reduces the productivity.
For example, I hate coding UIs, but when I pair-program UIs, I'm very efficient at that.
When I'm motivated by a coding challenge, pair-programming slows me down, because I'll have to communicate, which is a slow process.
You forgot to mention Köhler's effect:
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.uni-hamburg.de/fachbereiche-einrichtungen/fb16/absozpsy/HAFOS-40.pdf
It's a motivational effect, which encourages the lowest performer to surpass himself.
Köhler's effect is the opposite of Ringelmann's effect.
It reminds me about the easter egg in the Thomson's MO6 ROM, when you pressed the keys M, O and 6 simultaneously:
http://cyberpingui.free.fr/mo6.htm
Since it's from 1985, it's a little bit older than Apple's one.
Ok, I understood your message, which is basically: stop being a victim !
However, you don't understand the human nature at all.
Firstly, when you are a victim of any violence, you sense guilt, the guilt about something that you may have avoided. How could I have escaped the situation ?
This first question arises instantly, and there is no simple answer to that. You cannot say: "hey, just forget about these destructive ideas, look at the bright part of the situation; you are alive".
Violence is very different when you are a witness (and TV tends to make it so common) or when you are a victim.
Secondly, there is a more insidious question: Why did it happen to me ? Is it my fault that I have been raped ?
Is it my attitude or my way of dressing that encouraged the rapist ?
This question appears once you didn't get the answer to the first question.
In my case, I believe that any situation that we survived is a lesson to learn, and some of the lessons are not obvious at all !
How can I become a better person from a violent situation ?
I also believe that people change, so violence towards the rapist is not a solution, because he may change and become someone who will help raped women in the future (it's unlikely, but it's possible), so the rapist has a lesson to learn too. Does prison help people to understand these lessons ?
The next one will be:
Super Advanced Mario Bros Adventures
aka SAMBA
It will rock !
You are welcome.
I'll give you another trick, inspired by TRIZ and ASIT:
if you have no idea how to improve your product, just describe all its functionalities graphically (it's similar to Design Thinking, which is a great way to solve problems for visual people).
After that your product has been drawn on a board, just remove each part one after another (and replace the removed part after).
Ask yourself:
- what is the value of my product without this part ?
- what could I use to replace this part ?
This process is called Extracting, and is essential when improving systems, it helps to challenge your own conceptions.
ASIT's creator, Roni Horowitz, proposes the following exercise:
suppose that you have a TV without image.
What could you do with it ?
What is its value ?
Agile/Scrum is not very good for brainstorming because it's focused on the process.
In fact, brainstorming creates a lot of ideas, but most of them are garbage.
I would recommend that you use the retrospective tool as follows:
- first, use a timeboxed meeting (for example, 1 hour)
- when the meeting starts, explain the goal of the meeting: to generate good ideas
- then ask people to list the problems or the parts that could to be improved
- then ask them to vote for the most urgent problems (give 3 points to each participant, and ask them to place their points where they want)
- then take the most voted problem, and talk about it WITHOUT searching for a solution. The deeper the problem has been discussed, the better the problem is understood. If the problem is not clear, use the 5 whys.
- NEVER search for solutions, since you'll fall in the "shitty instantaneous ideas" syndrome.
- there is another syndrome, which is that people tend to defend their ideas even though they are bad. Most of good ideas are a mix of different ideas.
- as long as you have time, continue taking the most voted problems
I call this process: the Reality Check.
It's necessary to detect what can be improved, and most of all to challenge the existing product/process.
Now, the tricky second part:
- at the end of the meeting, ask people to propose solutions on a wiki page, or on a wall with post-its
Generally, finding good solutions requires to take a break, and cannot be found in a short amount of time (in my case, I find my best ideas after a good night sleep).
Ideas can be iteratively improved, so a wiki is the perfect way to do that.
Once a good idea has been found, reward all the participants, for example invite them for a lunch.
Some people like competition, so you may use a chart about the most creative guys, and reward them at the end of the year.
If you need more ideas, just contact me, and I'll provide you some other tricks, like ASIT methodology.
For example: what is your most shameful event in your life ?
Such events are unique to a person (some say that they define our own personality), and rarely expressed publicly.
I'm a french guy, and I never saw the Baskerville font used in France.
I'm pretty sure that this font has a cultural connotation for english people, but not for the rest of the world.
When one reads a text in Baskerville, one probably unconsciously associates it with ancient books, and with ancient wisdom.
An interesting experience would be to write a "modern" question (using recent words) with Baskerville, and measure its impact.
Strangely, I encountered the exact opposite problem.
I have tons of RSS bookmarks (I don't use extensions for RSS), and since version 12, I can only open one page, and no other during 2 minutes.
I guess it's a bug when you reduce the number of connections (I'm forced to use 8 connections max, because more connections hang my wifi router).
You cannot imagine how this pisses me off, so I'm using Chrome more and more, but I hate Chrome.
And I'm using also IE, Opera and Seamonkey, each of these for unique usage:
- IE when I need ActiveX
- Opera when I don't want to use Javascript (disabled in my configuration) and I want to restore where I quit
- SeaMonkey when I don't want to load pictures
- Chrome when I need Flash (I removed Flash on my computer), or Javascript
- Firefox for all other usages, because bookmarking is easier than the others, and AdBlock is a requirement
In Paris, the Metro is the transportation's network, and by extension the name of the stations and of the trains.
The stations smell like piss, with beggars and tramps everywhere (and yes, I'm french).
Once there is a small problem on a line, all the traffic is slowed down.
The trains almost always are late, especially when the weather is hot.
Finally, the parisians always try to force their way in the train, even though it's full.
Why they chose this name is beyond me !
Agreed.
The problem with marketing guys is that they care only about money and risks.
They don't want to bet money on products that may not work, so they tend to copy existing products.
When your focus is money or measuring risks, you cannot focus on users or products.
Gates and Jobs cared about products (but not much about users), and that's why they succeeded.
Also, they think about their products as sequels, like movies sequels.
A good product will have a good reputation, so the next version will sell a lot more.
This strategy works only when the product is good.
And finally, learning from failures is the most important thing.
You cannot always succeed with your product, so when a product fails, try to learn the lesson behind this failure, instead of trying to cover it.
Marketing and sales guys don't want to hear about failure.
Adding images will also increase the bandwidth costs.
An encyclopedia is not a dating site !