October 2010

• 2010-10-28

  Selection and development

  I was looking at the blog Aid on the Edge of Chaos and followed a link to Owen Barder’s wonderful presentation titled “What can development policy learn from evolution?” I enjoyed the clear, thought-provoking presentation so much I wrote a comment to the post. However, the comment turned out to be much too long for Read more

• 2010-10-22

  Depth and breadth in organizational narrative

  Last night I finished reading The Pillars of the Earth, a historical novel by Ken Follett about the middle ages. I wanted to read the novel because I enjoyed the miniseries, which I fell into watching on Netflix purely by chance (all right! it was because I saw Matthew MacFadyen and Rufus Sewell in it). Read more

• 2010-10-14

  Life without … what?

  Recently I’ve come across three random tidbits that struck me as strangely connected. They are all narrowings of self-definition, of what it means to be a human being. Humanity = electricity My son and I have been enjoying some episodes of a television series called Life After People. The series examines what would happen to Read more

• 2010-10-08

  WEIRD research on WEIRD people

  To start, you might want to look at the interesting article by James Surowiecki in this week’s New Yorker on procrastination. Which brings me to my resolution: I am going to try to finish the rewrite of Working with Stories this month. My favorite part from Surowiecki’s article is this part: Instead [of fighting with Read more

• 2010-10-01

  It takes all kinds, even on the internet

  I’ve been enjoying the fascinating spectacle going on lately with everybody talking about social media, spurred by Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker essay on social media and activism. Here’s my perspective on it. Lowering the bar (Warning: this is the “that’s just what I said” part of this post — can’t remove it — tried.) Gladwell Read more