Continuing on my recent theme of zero-sum vs. non-zero-sum thinking in management, today I want to discuss two different communication styles, which I am calling adversarial and collaborative. The adversarial style is essentially the Thunderdome approach to communication: “Two ideas enter, one idea leaves.” The default assumption of the adversarialist is that the other person’s […]
Category: thoughts
Management lessons from ultimate frisbee
As those of you who follow my other feeds know, I’ve taken up playing ultimate frisbee again with the Manhattan Ultimate league. While the main benefit is getting back into shape after two years of class-induced neglect, I also really enjoy playing ultimate because of the philosophy baked into the rules of the game. If […]
The Art of Innovation, by Tom Kelley
Amazon link I’ve heard great things about Ideo, often called the leading product design firm in the world. Last year, in my “Managing Innovation” class, we watched a Nightline special called the Deep Dive, where Nightline gave Ideo one week to re-design the shopping cart. It was a great look inside the company’s innovation process, […]
Defending generalists
Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers, but I have to take exception to his latest post called We specialize in everything: When choice is limited, I want a generalist. When selection is difficult, a jack of all trades is just fine. But whenever possible, please bring me a brilliant specialist. If you’re shaking […]
Age of Conversation
A few months ago, I read a post calling for authors for a book called The Age of Conversation. It sounded interesting, so I put in my name and will be one of 275 people (listed below) contributing a single page 400-word essay on the theme of “Why Don’t People Get It?” Here’s where I […]
Executive Master’s in Technology Management at Columbia
As I’m finishing up my master’s program at Columbia, it’s time to reflect back on my experiences of the past two years. I wrote up an email to Frank Giardini from the comments on yesterday’s post, who asked about comparing the program to getting an MBA, and realized I might as well post my thoughts […]
Intelligence and non-zero-sum thinking
Yesterday was the last class of my master’s program at Columbia (I have one more final next week, but no more class sessions). A bunch of us technology management students went out for drinks afterwards in celebration, and ran into another group of students from our marketing class. And it was interesting chatting with them […]
Unpacking “it’s complicated”
A friend recently sent me an update email with the line: She is my “it’s complicated” on Facebook. [updated to add: the friend in question cites xkcd as his inspiration] I think this quote is wonderfully transcendent in capturing the zeitgeist, so much so that I’m going to spend a blog post unpacking it. Grant […]
Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Nonlinearity
Over the weekend, I went for a walk and listened to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s talk at the Long Now (viewable at the Whole Earth site, and summarized here). I’ve been doing this for a few weekends now – I can never pay enough attention to listen to a talk like that if I’m at home […]
Introductions
Although this post is still accurate as a general introduction, here are links to the last few annual updates on the state of my life: 2017 Year in Review, the Year of New Beginnings 2016 Year in Review, the Year of Recovery 2015 Year in Review, the Year of Pushing the Limits 2014 Year in […]
