Tag Archives: Quotes

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The self-narrating animal

“We’re sto­ry­telling crea­tures by na­ture, and we tell our­selves story after story until we come up with an ex­pla­na­tion that we like and that sounds rea­son­able enough to be­lieve. And when the story por­trays us in a more glow­ing and pos­i­tive light, so much the bet­ter.”

– Dan Ariely, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

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Posted on January 20, 2014 in Figure Stuff Out

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On Brainstorming and Group Work

[I]t was the curious power of electronic collaboration that contributed to the New Groupthink in the first place. What created Linux, or Wikipedia, if not a gigantic electronic brainstorming session? But we’re so impressed by the power of online collaboration that we’ve come to overvalue all group work at the expense of solo thought. We fail to realize that participating in an online working group is a form of solitude all its own.

Susan Cain, Author, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

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Posted on February 17, 2013 in Figure Stuff Out

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Why Everyone Should Chill Out

Any as­pect of life to which at­ten­tion is di­rected will loom large in a global eval­u­a­tion. This is the essence of the fo­cus­ing il­lu­sion, which can be de­scribed in a sin­gle sen­tence:

Noth­ing in life is as im­por­tant as you think it is when you are think­ing about it.

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize-winning Economist, in Thinking, Fast and Slow

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Posted on February 9, 2013 in Figure Stuff Out

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Three Things Making Work Fulfilling

Those three things—au­ton­omy, com­plex­ity, and a con­nec­tion be­tween ef­fort and re­ward—are, most peo­ple agree, the three qual­i­ties that work has to have if it is to be sat­is­fy­ing. It is not how much money we make that ul­ti­mately makes us happy be­tween nine and five. It’s whether our work ful­fills us. If I of­fered you a choice be­tween being an ar­chi­tect for $75,000 a year and work­ing in a toll­booth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take?

Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

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Posted on February 2, 2013 in Figure Stuff Out

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Characterizing Resilience

“Resilient people […] possess three characteristics: a staunch acceptance of reality; a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful; and an uncanny ability to improvise.

 

You can bounce back from hardship with just one or two of these qualities, but you will only be truly resilient with all three.”

Diane L. Coutu, senior editor at Harvard Business Review, as cited.

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Posted on January 31, 2013 in Figure Stuff Out

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Experts Articulating Expertise

One problem with relying only on subject matter experts for course development is that experts can only articulate about 30 percent of their knowledge.

Ken Koedinger, Professor of Carnegie Mellon University, as cited.

This phenomenon is called the “curse of expertise,” and it shows up in all sorts of settings—not just the instructor who can’t communicate what she knows to her students, but also the parent helping with homework who can’t get a concept across to his child, the marketer or salesperson who misjudges what customers knows, and the manager who’s frustrated that his employees don’t “get it” more quickly.

Annie Murphy Paul, The Brilliant Report, as cited.

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Posted on January 27, 2013 in Figure Stuff Out

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