It used to be the case that people were admonished to "not re-invent the wheel". We now live in an age that spends a lot of time "reinventing the flat tire!"
The flat tires come from the reinventors often not being in the same league as the original inventors. This is a symptom of a "pop culture" where identity and participation are much more important than progress...
>Especially for information technology, I don't understand the rationale why it has to be concentrated at certain places. As long as there is a good net connection, it could be anywhere in the world. Let's concentrate on the US for a moment. Why can't a successful startup not be in Dallas, Amarillo, Miami or Des Moines?
Because the real commodity being sold with the apartments and offices isn't net access or even land. It's proximity to rich people. It's not an open market economy; it's a feudal system in which you need to stick close to your patrons.
Depends on the purpose. Research suggests that people are both less persuadable and poorer decision makers when hungry. But post-prandial coma isn't great for meetings that require thought and focus either. Engineers often prefer their afternoons uninterrupted by meetings.
I try to schedule thoughtful meetings and meetings with engineers for right after standup so people aren't yet starving for lunch and aren't breaking flow. Right after lunch is good for quick status updates or outgoing sales calls. Meetings with the sales team or CEO go wherever there's a free half hour slot on their calendars.
And my boss will talk your ear off on useless tangents, given the chance, so I try to schedule meetings with him for first thing in the morning if I need to make sure we don't run out of time; just before he has a meeting, if I'm having a busy day; or at the end of the day if I know he has to be somewhere and I don't.
Brain plasticity and learning "power" aside, I believe the biggest difference between learning something as a child and as an adult is simple how conscious we are that we're trying to learn something and how much we self-reflect and analyse our own abilities and progress.
As a child we typically do things just because we enjoy them, and often don't have an idea of a goal or target, other than simply doing the thing because we find it intrinsically fun. As an adult however we become highly analytic, self-reflective and critical of both ourselves and others, and we start to do things with a consciousness and awareness of others.
Additionally, by the time you reach adulthood there's a high chance that there's a thing that you've done enough to be in a fairly experienced position with, so anything new undertaken as an adult will now be judged in terms of the things you can already do, which means it will feel difficult and you'll believe that you suck at it. Which you do, because you're a beginner, and that's normal and is precisely what it means to be taking up something new!
While trying to play the piano as a child I had no thoughts of achieving a goal or getting to a specific level, and I certainly didn't compare myself to others. I just did it because it was fun. By the time I was more conscious of enjoying it and knew that I wanted to learn more seriously I'd already acquired a basic level of keyboard fluency.
So, having bought a guitar a few weeks ago and finding that all of a sudden trying to acquire a new physical skill is actually difficult (particularly important to remember as a developer where often what we're learning is a variation on an existing technique), I keep having to remind myself that it only feels difficult because it's new, and it would feel just as difficult if I were starting from a younger age, except I just wouldn't be so darn self-conscious about it.
It's fascinating to me that modern psychology and neuroscience often confirm the beliefs of ancient rhetoricians like Aristotle and Cicero. What they're essentially describling in this article is the scientific underpinning of some aspects of classic ethos and pathos appeals.
> We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them
Competence is called phronesis - practical wisdom - by rhetoriticians, and demonstrating it is an important part of an ethos appeal. Antonakis, who is cited in the article talks about charismatic leadership tactics, which aren't much different to what's discussed in renaissance comportment guides, including the body language stuff.
The worrying thing is that logos, the rational aspect of persuasion, is demonstrably the least effective technique - also a common thread in classical rhetoric.
The flat tires come from the reinventors often not being in the same league as the original inventors. This is a symptom of a "pop culture" where identity and participation are much more important than progress...