Musings on personal and enterprise technology (of potential interest to professional technoids and others)

Monday, November 15, 2010

Future States blog: Swimming analogy to understand risks of overconfidence

Heard Malcolm Gladwell's outstanding presentation today (at The Art of Management conference), re: the overconfidence of experts that led to the 2008 financial crisis, as compared to the mistakes of General Joseph Hooker's overconfidence in the Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville . I was reminded of an outstanding "Swim Season" Future States blog post by Demian Entrekin in his Future States blog. Both Gladwell and Entrekin suggest the very real risks of overconfidence, even by those considered experts in their fields. Here is part of Entrekin's IMHO brilliant swimming analogy (full post at http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/ppmtoday/swim-season-37499):

"Imagine two swimmers.

Both swimmers are trying to get from one island to another.

On the other island there is a clear destination...

Both swimmers jump into the water at the same time.

The first swimmer puts his head down and begins to swim...

The plan is to waste no time.

The plan is to keep swimming until the destination has been achieved...

The second swimmer has a different plan.

The second swimmer will take 100 strokes and then stop.

When the second swimmer stops, he will wait until he sees the destination...

The second swimmer notices that the target has moved.

The first swimmer keeps going hard and strong.

The second swimmer stops again and notices a current has taken him off course.

He makes a small adjustment and continues swimming.

The first swimmer begins to tire.

The second swimmer continues to stop and make adjustments...

The first swimmer finally decides he must stop and take his bearing.

The second swimmer sees the shore.

The first swimmer sees the two islands in the distance.

The second swimmer feels tired but also sees the end.

The first swimmer begins to swim back against the current, a sense of panic setting in.

The second swimmer reaches the shore.

The first swimmer now wonders which island is the destination."

Thursday, June 17, 2010

5 things you can do with attachments in Gmail - Official Gmail Blog

Nice article explaining 5 attachment-related gmail features, including my favorite: "Never forget an attachment again":











However, I continue to be amazed that google, The King Of Search, have not enabled searching your gmail to find the matching content in your messages' attached PDF's (yahoo has).

Sunday, February 7, 2010

First Look at the iPad for eLearning - Interactyx


Excellent review, thanks to Patrick for this excellent Interactyx blog post, clarifying some of the criteria to consider when evaluating Kindle vs. iPad:

First Look at the iPad for eLearning - Interactyx: "...It appears Apple has struck a significant blow to Amazon's Kindle with an aggressive pricing structure that matches that of the Kindle DX, yet with a full colour screen and functionality that significantly exceeds that of an e-reader. I also expect Amazon to respond shortly with new pricing structures and a color version. A little competition is always good.

The ipad's reasonably large, vibrant display certainly are a step up from smartphones for visual content, and for me personally, a step up from a Kindle as well... if remote viewing and reviewing of (non-Flash) content is the key it certainly looks like a capable tool in that respect..."