b.cognosco

Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.

Most Popular

Book Reviews

Recently

Friday, June 8, 2007

Breakthroughs Happen in a Social Context

Tuesday night I rode my bike down to Fayetteville, just south of Atlanta, to attend Lisa Haneberg's "2 Weeks 2 a Breakthrough" talk And talk about your breakthrough ideas - Lisa is riding her motorcycle across the country to promote her new book. I feel safe in saying this is the first time a business book has been promoted in such a way. And I'm certain it's the first time ever by a woman. Pretty cool.

So what did I think about the talk? Lisa’s premise for this talk (and the book) is that little things matter. She relates in terms of chaos theory and the Butterfly Effect – which is a little new-agey – but the analogies are for inspiration more than analysis. The main idea is that continual forward progress, even in tiny increments – builds velocity, and forward velocity leads to breakthroughs. To illustrate Lisa uses the consulting mainstay – the 2x2 matrix:

I think many of us spend our lives either in “Dreamer” or “Stuck” modes. Those with adult ADD tend to be in the “Victim” quadrant – confusing motion with progress and paddling furiously but getting nowhere. But where we all want to be is in the “Peak Performer” quadrant.

Lisa offered two points that stood out for me:

• Breakthroughs happen in a social context – If you aren’t out actively promoting your goal or idea – discussing it regularly with friends, colleagues, and strangers and sharing your challenges, achievements, and objectives – you aren’t going to make any breakthroughs.
• Introverts, no matter how smart, rarely make breakthroughs – Breakthroughs do not happen in front of your face. They happen in the connections and gaps and networks that emerge from constant forward action and focus. [Editor's note: Following a comment from Lisa the above bullet point should read 'Introverts, no matter how smart, rarely make breakthroughs until they breakout of introverted behavior patterns...']
  

I am a natural introvert. I’m more comfortable sitting alone in my office than I am in a crowd. Over the years I’ve worked hard at developing my extrovert capacity and done a lot of public speaking and presentations. But at my core I’m always more comfortable alone. That makes it easy for me to slip into the Stuck or Dreamer states.

And that’s a dangerous thing. It’s like exercise, or eating habits, or any other behavior you want to modify. What’s required is constant forward progress – even in small steps. If you stop – even for a little bit – getting started again is difficult. The inertia that builds is deadly. This is really the underlying principle behind all behavior modification, from Alcoholics Anonymous to Weight Watchers.

And so it is with Lisa’s program – simple, proven principles packaged in an easy-to-read program and supplemented with specific plans to help you move forward. More important, Lisa is building her own network and cult following. She asked each attendee to contact her by the end of the week and let her know how it was going, and if she could help, she would. Her goal for this tour is to help as many people reach a breakthrough as possible. Lisa has quite a few cities still to visit as she heads back west. Check her travel itinerary and go see her if you get the chance.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:04 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Collaboration, Learning

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

How To Think About A Presentation

My friend and colleague Sean Murphy, who is a great synthesizer and sensemaker, came up with an excellent presentation idea a while back. He’s done this a few times now and if you’re in the San Jose/Silicon Valley area and have a chance to see Sean’s “12 Books for the Busy CEO” you should do so. Links to his next session is below:

Crucial Marketing Concepts for Consultants @ PATCA May 10

I will be presenting a revised and improved version of the “12 Books for the Busy CEO” presentation on Thursday May 10 at 6pm at the PATCA monthly dinner at the Embassy Suites Santa Clara - Silicon Valley on 2885 Lakeside Drive in Santa Clara.

I will cover a dozen books and offer a synthesis of the key marketing concepts (this is not a sequence of twelve book reports) that they offer. I will have an article on crucial marketing concepts that I will give out for attendees. There is good content here for entrepreneurs, whether they are starting out as consultants or embedding their expertise in software or a SaaS offering.

Spend an hour and leave with a summary of key marketing insights and some rules of thumb for successful innovation in Silicon Valley. You may even identify one or two books that you haven’t read that will be worth your time. I will cover a dozen books that form the basis for conventional wisdom on marketing in Silicon Valley. They provide the terms, the metaphors, the parables–in short the language–that successful high technology firms use to develop their plans and monitor their execution. Some of these books are old–most have stood the test of time, which in Valley years is a decade or more–but still provide succinct guidelines for new product introduction and sales.

I want to thank Mark Duncan for helping us turn a set of black and white PowerPoint slides that were primarily text bullets into a colorful and illustration rich article.

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 9:53 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Business & Finance, Collaboration, Education, Learning

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Video of Tool Use in New Caledonian Crows

Introduction to tool use in New Caledonian crows

New Caledonian crows (Corvus moneduloides) are known to make and use complex tools in the wild (Hunt, 1996; 2000). We are investigating the cognitive and neural correlates of these natural tool using abilities in a colony of captive crows (the photo shows our first two subjects - 'Abel' and 'Betty' [on the left]; sadly, Abel died of old age in August 2002).

In the wild, the crows make a wide variety of tools from a number of different materials, and we have found that they will also readily do so in captivity, even with unfamiliar materials. They usually remove the leaves and side branches from twigs, and also make tools from other bits of material they find, such as their own moulted feathers (by removing the barbs), cardboard (by tearing it into strips), and leaves. They are even able to use techniques which would not work with natural materials to manufacture a tool for a particular task. We (Weir et al., 2002) found that Betty was able to bend a piece of wire to form a hook, which she then used to pull a bucket containing food from a vertical tube (see movie in panel on left; for more movies, see Photos and movies).

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 9:25 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Learning

Syndication

Contact

 

Presence

 

 
 ICQ

 

 

 

www.flickr.com More of GratefulZed's photos

This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:06:57 GMT