tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-152644642024-03-12T23:57:55.269-04:00El Blog de The Outside GroupEspacio virtual para conversar y aprender juntos.Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-76191306060764280342012-12-01T11:40:00.001-04:002012-12-01T11:40:06.756-04:00Co-ompeticion: Cuando los Competidores ColaboranCompetir y colaborar pueden paracer como relaciones opuestas. Pero cada dia vemos comola interdependencia nos obliga a encontrar un terrotorio comun en donde todos alcancemos souluciones ganar-ganar. A continuacion un articulo sobre como los mega rivales Netflix y Amazon han logrado identificar oportunidades para colaborar. <br />
<br />
<b>Netflix and Amazon: Quite the co-opetition case study</b><br />
by Larry Dignan <br />
November 30, 2012<br />
www.zdnet.com<br />
<br />
Netflix and Amazon are fierce rivals on streaming video. Netflix is
also moving its entire technology infrastructure to Amazon Web Services.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is Amazon's most visible infrastructure as a
service customer. On another front, Amazon is making storage cheaper for
Hastings while raising Netflix's content costs through competition
elsewhere.<br />
<br />
Simply put, the Netflix and Amazon relationship is complicated,
nuanced and in some regards just plain weird. The Netflix-Amazon
relationship also highlights why Amazon Web Services (AWS) is
successful. At the AWS re:Invent conference this week in Las Vegas, the
Netflix-Amazon relationship was on full display.<br />
<br />
But to hear Amazon execs and Hastings talk there's nothing out of the ordinary.<br />
<br />
Hastings noted <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-web-services-cuts-s3-prices-knocks-old-guard-rivals-7000008039/">AWS price cuts</a>
and thanked Andy Jassy, senior vice president of AWS on Wednesday.
Hastings also said Netflix's entire infrastructure will run on AWS.<br />
<br />
On Thursday, <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-ceo-bezos-aws-is-lean-manufacturing-kindle-fire-for-it-7000008115/">Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
We put just as much care into Netflix on AWS as we do Amazon retail.
We may compete on Prime instant video, but we bust our butts every day
for Netflix on AWS. The whole point of what we are doing is to
standardize that layer. Amazon retail gets the benefit of standardizing
that layer.</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/r/story/70/00/008120/netflixcloud-620x457.png?hash=LGR1BTIzZ2&upscale=1" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="netflixcloud" border="0" height="470" src="http://cdn-static.zdnet.com/i/r/story/70/00/008120/netflixcloud-620x457.png?hash=LGR1BTIzZ2&upscale=1" title="netflixcloud" width="640" /></a></div>
The importance of this Netflix relationship can't be overstated. The
Netflix case studies and ongoing collaboration allow AWS to be an option
for many of Amazon's competitors. If the Netflix and Amazon partnership
seems odd to some folks it can't be worse than Best Buy using AWS.
Retailers use AWS. E-commerce companies use AWS. A bevy of startups and
large enterprises are using AWS.<br />
<br />
Many of these customers also compete with Amazon. In other words, AWS
rivals/customers put a lot of trust in Bezos and the gang to keep its
IT infrastructure unit separate and stay that way. That goodwill may be
AWS' secret sauce in many respects. Belief that AWS is independent can
allow it to fend off competitors who are just as surprised as Bezos at
the traction Amazon has with enterprises, government customers and
education institutions.<br />
<br />
What remains to be seen is whether AWS is dented by encroachment from
a bevy of rivals such as Rackspace. Rackspace has made a point of
trying to poach retail customers from AWS. <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-web-services-rackspaces-openstack-low-on-customers-radar-7000008051/">The Rackspace argument</a>: Why would you give business to a rival? So far, the argument hasn't worked.<br />
<br />
Adam Selipsky, vice president of product marketing, sales, and
product management at AWS, said rivals will give business to the company
because it meets their IT needs.<br />
This co-opetition is "not uncommon at all," said Selipsky. Ultimately
retailers or any other customer base will stick with AWS if it delivers
strong performance, a good pace of innovation, value and good customer
support. If AWS didn't operate independently customers wouldn't use its
services, he added. "The only way to build a healthy large cash flow
generating business is to focus on servicing customers," he said. "We
and customers are comfortable with the long-term state of affairs."Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-72221205139546606972012-11-21T10:11:00.001-04:002012-11-21T10:11:47.183-04:00La Creatividad como Proceso Colaborativo<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/uzzi/htm/" target="_blank">Brian Uzzi</a>, PhD, profesor del Kellog School of Management, presenta los resultados de su investigacion sobre como la colaboracion esta impactando el proceso de creatividad. Uzzi propone que los grandes avances de innovacion en la humanidad han sido en su gran mayoria el resultado de procesos colaborativos. </div>
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tyjohv6OdoU" width="560"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-91157293494128345802012-11-15T10:31:00.001-04:002012-11-15T10:31:50.383-04:00La Intuicion y la Cooperacion<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sobre la intuicion y la cooperacion<b>, </b>un articulo reciente que establece que si respondemos con rapidez estaremos inclinados a cooperar. Esto no concuerda con mis observaciones durante simulaciones de colaborcion y trabajo en equipo. Ademas, siempre he puesto en duda exprimentos que usen juegos de economia para describir las relaciones humanas. Es una forma de enmarcar las relaciones en un paradigma economico y reducir nuestras interacciones a meros actos de costo-beneficio. Aun asi creo que es una lectura importante. </div>
<br />
<b>Quick intuitive decisions foster more charity and cooperation than slow calculated ones</b><br />
by Ed Yong<br />
Discover Magazine<br />
September 19, 2012<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=kahneman-excerpt-thinking-fast-and-slow">Our lives are governed by both fast and slow</a>
– by quick, intuitive decisions based on our gut feelings; and by
deliberate, ponderous ones based on careful reflection. How do these
varying speeds affect our choices? Consider the many situations when we
must put our own self-interest against the public good, from giving to
charity to paying out taxes. Are we naturally prone to selfishness,
behaving altruistically only through slow acts of self-control? Or do we
intuitively reveal our better angels, giving way to self-interest as we
take time to think?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to David Rand from Harvard University, it’s the latter.
Through a series of experiments, he has found that, on average, people
behave more selflessly if they make decisions quickly and intuitively.
If they take time to weigh things up, cooperation gives way to
selfishness. The title of his paper – “<em>Spontaneous giving and calculated greed</em>” – says it all.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span id="more-7665"></span>Working with Joshua Greene and Martin
Nowak, Rand asked volunteers to play the sort of games that economists
have used for years. They have to decide how to divvy, steal, invest or
monopolise a pot of money, sometimes with the option to reward or punish
other players. These games are useful research tools, but there’s an
unspoken simplicity to them. Sure, the size of the payoffs or the number
of rounds may vary, but experiments assume that people play
consistently depending on their personal preferences. We know from
personal experience that this is unlikely to be true, and Rand’s
experiments confirm as much. They show that speed matters.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rand started with a simple <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_goods_game">public goods game</a>,
where players decide how much money to put into a pot. The pot is then
doubled and split evenly among them. The group gets the best returns if
everyone goes all-in, but each individual does best if they withhold
their money and reap the rewards nonetheless.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rand recruited 212 people for the experiment using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Mechanical_Turk">Amazon’s Mechanical Turk</a>,
an internet marketplace where people can outsource tasks to worldwide
volunteers. The Turk provided two advantages: the volunteers were more
diverse than the <a href="http://neuroanthropology.net/2010/07/10/we-agree-its-weird-but-is-it-weird-enough/">W.E.I.R.D</a>.
undergraduates who normally take part in psychological studies; and
Rand could measure how quickly they made their decisions. With that
data, he found that players contributed around 67 percent of their money
if they made decisions within 10 seconds, but only around 53 percent if
they took longer.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rand also went back to four of his earlier studies, where he had recorded reaction times (including <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2008/03/19/winners-dont-punish-punishing-slackers-part-2/">one I’ve written about before</a>).
All of these involved college students, but they used different
economic games. Nonetheless, all showed the same link between faster
decisions, and more cooperative choices. “Although the cold logic of
self-interest is seductive, our first impulse is to cooperate,” Rand
writes.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Of course, <a href="http://xkcd.com/552/">these results are just correlations</a>.
Does rapid-fire decision-making actually foment cooperation, or are
selfless decisions just quicker to make? To find out, Rand recruited
more volunteers through the Mechanical Turk, and got them to play
another public goods game. This time, he manipulated the speed of their
decisions—he either told them to choose quickly, or asked them to write
about a time when their intuitions served them well or careful reasoning
led them astray. Under both conditions, the volunteers made faster
choices, and contributed more money to the communal pot. If, however,
they were told to decide slowly, or to write about times when reflection
beat intuition, they stumped up less money.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From these results, it’s tempting to conclude that cooperation is
somehow “innate” or “hardwired” and that selfishness is somehow imposed
upon these predispositions. But Rand points out that our intuitions are
also shaped by our daily lives. In so many of our choices, cooperation
is the sensible call; if we cheat, we may be punished, lose our
reputation, or deny ourselves the future goodwill of those we wrong.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, when volunteers take part in the experiments, “their automatic
first response is to be cooperative,” Rand writes. “It then requires
reflection to overcome this cooperative impulse and instead adapt to the
unusual situation created in these experiments, in which cooperation is
not advantageous.” He found two lines of support for this idea when he
surveyed his volunteers: The link between fast-thinking and charity only
held for people who said that their daily lives were mostly filled with
cooperative interactions; and it only held for those who hadn’t taken
part in similar experimental games before.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“This shows how it’s difficult to consider experimental play in
isolation from things outside the lab or as completely determined by the
game’s monetary payoffs, as a lot of economists do,” says Ann Dreber
Almenberg from the Stockholm School of Economics, and one of Rand’s
former colleagues.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Obviously, all of these results are averages, and the individuals in
the study varied greatly. Some people hardly cooperated at all,
regardless of how quickly or slowly they thought. Others took a long
time, and still erred on the side of selflessness. “We weren’t able to
find any traits that differentiated these people from everyone else, but
it something we are quite interested in exploring more,” says Rand. And
more importantly, no one showed the opposite trend—no one cooperated <em>more </em>when they made intuitive rather than reflective decisions.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Rand now wants to find out more about how the link decision speed and
cooperation varies between individuals, and across different cultures.
He also wants to understand how these trade-offs play out in real
settings, and he suspects that “fact-based rational pitches may be less
effective than more emotional appeals, if you are trying to get other
people to be cooperative.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<strong>Reference:</strong> Rand, Greene & Nowak. 2012. Spontaneous giving and calculated greed. Nature <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11467">http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11467</a></div>
Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-44404436810781567632012-11-15T09:12:00.000-04:002012-11-15T09:13:06.619-04:00Sobre la Confianza y la Intuicion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9sKbqA2TRA/UKTnGn7JlnI/AAAAAAAAA0A/Xp7YIPAqeEk/s1600/11WELL_SPAN-tmagArticle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9sKbqA2TRA/UKTnGn7JlnI/AAAAAAAAA0A/Xp7YIPAqeEk/s1600/11WELL_SPAN-tmagArticle.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
La intuicion en la toma de decisiones, en especifico el decidir si alguien es confiable o no, es uno de los temas resbaladizos de la psicologia. El siguiente articulo amplia el cnocimiento sobre que claves visuales y gestos corporales aportan a la desconfianza. Pulsen <a href="http://nyti.ms/Pkt9BS" target="_blank">aqui</a> y veran un video del robot realizando los gestos. <b><br /></b><br />
<br />
<b>Who’s Trustworthy? A Robot Can Help Teach Us</b><br />
by Tara Parker-Pope<br />
The New York Times<br />
September 10, 2012<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
How do we decide whether to trust somebody?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
An unusual new study of college students’ interactions with a robot
has shed light on why we intuitively trust some people and distrust
others. While many people assume that behaviors like avoiding eye
contact and fidgeting are signals that a person is being dishonest,
scientists have found that no single gesture or expression consistently
predicts trustworthiness.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But researchers from Northeastern University, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Cornell recently identified four distinct
behaviors that, together, appear to warn our brains that a person can’t
be trusted.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The findings, to be published this month in the journal Psychological
Science, may help explain why we are sometimes quick to like or dislike
a person we have just met. More important, the research could one day
be used to develop computer programs that can rapidly assess behavior in
airports or elsewhere to flag security risks.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the first experiment, 86 undergraduates from Northeastern were
given five minutes to get to know a fellow student they hadn’t met
before. Half the pairs met face to face; the other half interacted
online by instant message.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then the students were asked to play a game in which all the players
got four tokens and the chance to win money. A token was worth $1 if a
player kept it for himself or $2 when he gave it to his partner. Players
could win $4 each if both partners kept their tokens, but if they
worked together and traded all four tokens, then each partner could win
$8. But the biggest gain — $12 — came from cheating a partner out of his
tokens and not giving any in return.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Over all, only about 1 in 5 people (22 percent) were completely
trustworthy and cooperative, giving away all their tokens so that each
partner could win $8. Thirteen percent were untrustworthy, keeping all
or most of their tokens. The remaining 65 percent were somewhat
cooperative, giving away two or three tokens but also holding one or two
back for security.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Both groups demonstrated the same level of cooperation. Whether the
students met face to face or online didn’t change their decisions about
how many tokens to give away or keep. But students who met in person
were far better at predicting the trustworthiness of the partner; that
suggested they were relying on visual cues.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“Lack of face-to-face contact didn’t make people more selfish,” said
the study’s lead author, David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at
Northeastern. “But a person’s ability to predict what their partner was
going to do was greater face to face than online. There is something the
mind is picking up that gives you greater accuracy and makes you better
able to identify people who are going to be trustworthy.”</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To find out what cues the players were responding to, the researchers
filmed the students’ five-minute conversations before the game started.
They discovered that four specific gestures predicted when a person was
less trustworthy: leaning away from someone; crossing arms in a
blocking fashion; touching, rubbing or grasping hands together; and
touching oneself on the face, abdomen or elsewhere. These cues were not
predictive by themselves; they predicted untrustworthiness only in
combination.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And individuals intuitively picked up on the cues. “The more you saw
someone do this, the more intuition you had that they would be less
trustworthy,” Dr. DeSteno said.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The researchers then conducted an experiment pairing students with a
friendly-faced robot, developed by Cynthia Breazeal, who directs
M.I.T.’s personal robots group.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The setup was basically the same, except the students had a 10-minute
conversation with the robot before they played the game. (The extra
time was needed to help the student get over the “wow” factor of talking
to a robot.) A woman acted as the robot’s voice, but she was unaware of
its movements, which were controlled by two other people. Sometimes the
robot used only typical gestures, like moving a hand or shrugging its
shoulders, but sometimes it mimicked the four cues of distrust: clasping
its hands, crossing its arms, touching its face or leaning away.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Surprisingly, when students saw the robot make the hand and body
gestures associated with distrust, they later made decisions in the
token game that suggested they didn’t trust the robot.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In questionnaires afterward, students in both groups rated the robot
equally likable. But those who had unknowingly witnessed the cues
associated with distrust also rated the robot as less trustworthy,
compared with students exposed to only the conversational gestures.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“It makes no sense to ascribe intentions to a robot,” said an author
of the study, Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell. “But
it appears we have certain postures and gestures that we interpret in
certain ways. When we see them, whether it’s a robot or a human, we’re
affected by it, because of the pattern it evokes in our brain
responses.” Dr. Frank said the study suggested that there might have
been an evolutionary benefit to cooperation — and, more important, to
the ability to determine who could be trusted.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“One of the interesting big questions in evolution has always been
‘Why do people do the right thing and pass up opportunities for gain
when no one is looking?’ ” he said. “But if you are known to be a
trustworthy person, then you are economically valuable in many
situations, and it’s also valuable to be able to identify who won’t
cheat.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“Life is all about finding people you can trust in different situations.”</div>
Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-46829493302775217842012-11-13T19:51:00.002-04:002012-11-13T19:51:45.563-04:00Liderazgo Comunitario<div style="text-align: justify;">
A continuación, un video de Peter Snege, creador del concepto Organización de Aprendizaje, y su visión de liderazgo. Me parece peculiar que define el liderazgo como un proceso colectivo y no individual como se suele describir. </div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-29127863488348186012012-06-13T12:25:00.001-04:002012-06-13T12:25:56.425-04:00Asombrarse es beneficioso para el ser humano<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Un nuevo estudio del campo de la sicologia presenta una nueva mirada al beneficio de presenciar experiencias que causen impresion o asombro (awe)<b>. </b>Es interesante que este estudio valide una de las experiencias mas comunes en nuestros programas de Curso de Sogas, el asombro e impresion<b>. </b>Sabemos por años que la aventura es una fuente interminable de asombro. Aqui les dejo el articulo de la revista Buisiness Insider y un video para que se asombren y se impresionen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Psychologists: Awesomeness Is Good For You</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gus Libin, Business Insider<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A seriously cool study is coming out later this year in <i>Psychological
Science</i> on <a href="http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/aaker/pages/documents/TimeandAwe2012_workingpaper.pdf">the
benefits of awe</a> [pdf].</div>
Awe, which describes a "feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear
or wonder" and comes from the old Norse word for "terror," seems
like a strange subject for research, but its benefits are clear.<br />
<br />
Lead author Melanie Rudd of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/stanford">Stanford University</a>
concluded that awe expands people's perception of time, enhances well-being and
causes people to behave more altruistically and less materialistically.<br />
<br />
How did they stimulate awe? Rudd explained over email:<br />
<br />
The methods that were the most effective at stimulating awe were those that
presented participants with a “new” awe experience (i.e., having participants
watch the awe-eliciting commercial). Remembering a past awe-eliciting
experience and reading about an imaginary awe-eliciting experience (i.e., the
short story) also elicited awe, but relatively less compared to when
participants experienced a “fresh” and “real” awe experience.<br />
<br />
How can we stimulate awe and its benefits in our daily life? Rudd explains:<br />
<br />
There are two things needed for a true awe experience: 1) Perceptual
vastness (i.e., you need to perceive that you’ve encountered something vast in
number, size, scope, complexity, or social bearing) and 2) A need for
accommodation (i.e., you must feel that you need to revise or update your mental
structures/the way you think/your understanding of the world in order to
understand the perceptually vast thing/stimuli). So anything you experience in
daily life that leads you to experience these two things can stimulate awe and
its benefits. And the things that elicit these two things and, as a result,
awe, can differ from person to person. However, there are some things that seem
to more frequently elicit awe—experiencing nature, being exposed to art or
music, and observing the accomplishments of others. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/things">Things</a> like social
interactions and personal accomplishments seem to be less likely to elicit awe.
And I imagine that just putting yourself in new situations, in new places, and
encountering new people would increase your chances of experiencing awe.<br />
<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jxGW5Z8mZ9c" width="560"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-8038104367780640402012-05-29T23:55:00.000-04:002012-05-29T23:55:38.156-04:00El Poder de las Redes<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nJmGrNdJ5Gw" width="560"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-52353094389583256842012-05-23T08:58:00.001-04:002012-05-23T08:58:33.033-04:00La Nueva Ciencia de la Medicion en los Equipos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Los avances tecnologicos han asistido a la gestion de trabajar en equipo desde hace decadas. El uso del email, video conferencias y grabaciones de las sesiones de trabajo han estado integradas desde la decada de los 90. Pero nunca habia sido integrada de manera tal que diera informacion util para pronosticar y transformar la ejecucion del equipo. Ahora existe una nueva manera de medir la efectividad de la colaboracion y la comunicacion en el equipo mediante el uso de un sensor que capta la comunicacion no verbal durante las interacciones de los miembros del equipo y la ubicacion espacial de los miembros. A continuacion una entrevista de <span class="Author"><span class="AuthorBio"><a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/people/sandy" target="_blank"><span class="bioname">Alex “Sandy” Pentland</span></a> profesor en MIT, director del MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory y el MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, y chairman de
<a href="http://www.sociometricsolutions.com/" target="_blank">Sociometric Solutions</a>.</span></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VoDCo-mEbq0" width="560"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-16833840565618559292012-05-16T08:23:00.000-04:002012-05-16T08:23:35.669-04:00El dinamismo de la conciencia<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://socrates.berkeley.edu/%7Enoe/an_bio.html" target="_blank">Alva No<span class="an_medbody">ë</span></a><span class="an_medbody">, filosofo en UC Berkley, </span><span class="an_medbody">nos presenta l</span>a conciencia como algo que hacemos en nuestra relacion dinamica con el mundo que nos rodea. </div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MoOHWHEJOLU" width="560"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-38235891461703007182012-04-12T20:24:00.000-04:002012-04-12T20:24:21.389-04:00Ubuntu<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SPKWu2IWRGQ/T4dx4Hx1ibI/AAAAAAAAAd4/HNgE3bY26kY/s1600/collaboration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SPKWu2IWRGQ/T4dx4Hx1ibI/AAAAAAAAAd4/HNgE3bY26kY/s320/collaboration.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ubuntu (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_language" title="Zulu language"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Zulu</span></a>/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xhosa_language" title="Xhosa language"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Xhosa</span></a> pronunciation: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA" title="Wikipedia:IPA"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">[ùɓúntʼú]</span></a>; English: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English" title="Wikipedia:IPA for English"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">/uˈbʊntuː/</span></a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pronunciation_respelling_key" title="Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">oo-BUUN-too</span></a>) or "uMunthu" (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichewa" title="Chichewa"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Chichewa</span></a>) is an African <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic" title="Ethic"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">ethic</span></a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism" title="Humanism"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">humanist</span></a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy" title="Philosophy"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">philosophy</span></a> focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. Some believe that ubuntu is a classical African philosophy or worldview whereas others point out that the idea that ubuntu as a philosophy or worldview has developed in written sources in recent years. The word has its origin in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_languages" title="Bantu languages"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Bantu languages</span></a> of southern Africa.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ubuntu maybe defined as "I am what I am because of who we all are." (From a translation offered by Liberian peace activist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leymah_Gbowee" title="Leymah Gbowee">Leymah Gbowee</a>.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop" title="Archbishop">Archbishop</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Tutu" title="Desmond Tutu">Desmond Tutu</a> offered a definition in a 1999 book:<sup id="cite_ref-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29#cite_note-2">[3]</a></sup></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tutu further explained Ubuntu in 2008:<sup id="cite_ref-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29#cite_note-3">[4]</a></sup></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela" title="Nelson Mandela">Nelson Mandela</a> explained Ubuntu as follows:<sup id="cite_ref-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29#cite_note-4">[5]</a></sup></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Jackson" title="Tim Jackson">Tim Jackson</a> refers to Ubuntu as a philosophy that supports the changes he says are necessary to create a future that is economically and environmentally sustainable.<sup id="cite_ref-Ted_Talk_5-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29#cite_note-Ted_Talk-5">[6]</a></sup></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Judge Colin Lamont expanded on the definition during his ruling on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech" title="Hate speech">hate speech</a> trial of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Malema" title="Julius Malema">Julius Malema</a> <sup id="cite_ref-Lamont_6-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28philosophy%29#cite_note-Lamont-6">[7]</a></sup>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ubuntu is recognized as being an important source of law within the context of strained or broken relationships amongst individuals or communities and as an aid for providing remedies which contribute towards more mutually acceptable remedies for the parties in such cases. Ubuntu is a concept which: </div><ol start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">is to be contrasted with vengeance;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">dictates that a high value be placed on the life of a human being;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">is inextricably linked to the values of and which places a high premium on dignity, compassion, humaneness and respect for humanity of another;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">dictates a shift from confrontation to mediation and conciliation;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">dictates good attitudes and shared concern;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">favours the re-establishment of harmony in the relationship between parties and that such harmony should restore the dignity of the plaintiff without ruining the defendant;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">favours restorative rather than retributive justice;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">operates in a direction favouring reconciliation rather than estrangement of disputants;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">works towards sensitising a disputant or a defendant in litigation to the hurtful impact of his actions to the other party and towards changing such conduct rather than merely punishing the disputant;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">promotes mutual understanding rather than punishment;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">favours face-to-face encounters of disputants with a view to facilitating differences being resolved rather than conflict and victory for the most powerful;</li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in;">favours civility and civilised dialogue premised on mutual tolerance.</li>
</ol>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-91955855536752926442012-04-02T08:12:00.000-04:002012-04-02T08:12:21.379-04:00La colaboracion a nivel de neuronas<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0KocmfCxGTg/T3mWrzBEUdI/AAAAAAAAAdw/PXnNDU-xMBI/s1600/main+Sebastian+Kaulitzki+shutterstock_14167231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0KocmfCxGTg/T3mWrzBEUdI/AAAAAAAAAdw/PXnNDU-xMBI/s400/main+Sebastian+Kaulitzki+shutterstock_14167231.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Al parecer la colaboracion es un proceso que comienza a nivel de las neuronas. Este estudio menciona como al aprender una nueva tarea se crean "clusters" de neuronas que ayudan al aprendizaje de esta tarea. Muy interesante...<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Learning New Tasks: Brain Cells Benefit From Having Neighbors</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Alice G. Walton</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Atlantic</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">April 1, 2012</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When we learn new a new task or a new nugget of information, our brain cells form new patterns of connections. This is the essence of learning. But what researchers have just found is that when brain cells form new connections, they are stronger when there is a "neighbor" close by.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The research team had mice learn a new motor task, like putting their paws through a slot to gain access to a morsel of food. They looked at what was going on in the motor cortex, which controls motor movements, specifically focusing on the "spines" of the cells' dendrites, the parts of the neurons that form synapses (cell-cell connections) with other neurons.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">During the few days when the mice were learning and repeating the new behavior, some interesting changes took place in the cells of the motor cortex. The new synapses that were forming tended to form in clusters. Moreover, the spines grew stronger -- which makes for a better synaptic connection -- when there was another one nearby. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">"We found that formation of a second connection is correlated with a strengthening of the first connection, which suggests that they are likely to be involved in the same circuitry," said lead author Yi Zuo in a news release. "The clustering of synapses may serve to magnify the strength of the connections."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">When mice later learned a different, but related task (like grabbing a piece of pasta instead of a seed), the brain still formed clusters, but the ones involved in the different tasks remained separate. This suggests that <em>each task</em> forms its own clustered connections that stay in separate brain circuits. "Repetitive activation of the same cortical circuit is really important in learning a new task," Zuo said.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Previous research has shown that <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/mind/art3373.html" target="_blank">practice does indeed help us learn new tasks</a>. This study adds to our understanding of the learning process by showing exactly what's going on in the brain to explain why repetition improves learning. Still, <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/sports_medicine/art3011.html" target="_blank">mixing up one's practice routine</a> is also crucial to learning, since it challenges the brain to attack the task from different angles. <a href="http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/mind/art2846.html" target="_blank">Taking a break after you learn something new</a> can also help solidify memories.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The researchers of the current study hope that understanding learning on the tiniest level will allow them to "find out the best way to induce new memories," which could help not only in physical tasks but also in absorbing new information in general. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">The study was published in the journal <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10844.html" target="_blank"><em><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Nature</span></em></a>. </span></div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-82465892715251957362012-03-15T11:20:00.000-04:002012-03-15T11:20:05.845-04:00Startups sin ideas pero con un equipo talentoso<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TecXfnXjA0Y/T2IHdgi5jQI/AAAAAAAAAdo/Dvc5_jQDnLw/s1600/ff_ycombinator2_f-thumb-615x304-81653.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TecXfnXjA0Y/T2IHdgi5jQI/AAAAAAAAAdo/Dvc5_jQDnLw/s400/ff_ycombinator2_f-thumb-615x304-81653.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <br />
<div style="color: black; text-align: justify;">La gente de <a href="http://ycombinator.com/" target="_blank">Y Combinators</a> ha estado creando "starups" de empresas desde el 2005 bajo un nuevo modelo: Invertir pequeñas cantidades de dinero ($18K por proyecto) para muchos grupos de prospectos (65 proyectos). Desde su comienzo han financiado 380 proyectos, entre ellos <a href="http://loopt.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Loopt</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://reddit.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Reddit</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://clustrix.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Clustrix</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://wufoo.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Wufoo</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://scribd.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Scribd</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://xobni.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Xobni</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://weebly.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Weebly</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://songkick.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Songkick</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://disqus.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Disqus</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://dropbox.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Dropbox</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://zumodrive.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">ZumoDrive</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://justin.tv/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Justin.tv</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://heroku.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Heroku</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://athinkingape.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">A Thinking Ape</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://posterous.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Posterous</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://airbnb.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Airbnb</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://heyzap.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Heyzap</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://cloudkick.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Cloudkick</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://dailybooth.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">DailyBooth</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://wepay.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">WePay</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://bu.mp/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Bump</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://stripe.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Stripe</a><span style="color: black;">, </span><a href="http://hipmunk.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Hipmunk</a><span style="color: black;">, y </span><a href="http://aerofs.com/" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">AeroFS</a><span style="color: black;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;">Ahora han vuelto a revolucionar su metodo: Los miembros de un proyecto no necesitan tener la gran idea, solo ser un grupo de personas talentosas, que se conozcan por un tiempo y que hayan laborado juntos. El principio es sencillo, las ideas fluiran. Es una gran apuesta al poder inherente de la colaboracion. Aqui un escrito de su propuesta.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>New: Apply to Y Combinator without an Idea</b> </span><br />
<br />
13 March 2012 <br />
<br />
Y Combinator is trying an experiment this funding cycle. We're going to have a separate application track for groups that don't have an idea yet. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> So if the only thing holding you back from starting a startup is not having an idea for one, now nothing is holding you back. If you apply for this batch and you seem like you'd make good founders, we'll accept you with no idea and then help you come up with one. (We'll consider single founders too, but we prefer groups.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Why are we doing this? Partly because we realized we already were. A lot of the startups we accept change their ideas completely, and some of those do really well. Reddit was originally going to be a way to order food on your cellphone. (This is a <a href="">viable idea</a> now, but it wasn't before smartphones.) Scribd was originally going to be a ridesharing service. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> The other reason we're doing it is that our experience suggests that smart people who think they can't come up with a good startup idea are generally mistaken. Almost every smart person has a good idea in them. A good startup idea is simply a significant, fixable unmet need, and most smart people are at least unconsciously aware of several of those. They just don't know it. And we now have lots of practice helping founders see the startup ideas they already have. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> If you're a group of people who are really good at what you do, and have known each other for a while and work well together, we'll take the risk if you will. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> To apply with no idea, just go to <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/apply-noidea">http://news.ycombinator.com/apply-noidea</a> and you'll find an abbreviated application form. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> We're not sure this will work, but if it does we'll do it from now on. </div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-72122019468211795382012-03-15T10:54:00.001-04:002012-03-15T10:55:39.019-04:00¿Es el Brainstorming una manera de Groupthink?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BWypGo7z5_c/T2IBM6_z0dI/AAAAAAAAAdY/cLX0GjxW080/s1600/120130_r21798_p233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BWypGo7z5_c/T2IBM6_z0dI/AAAAAAAAAdY/cLX0GjxW080/s320/120130_r21798_p233.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Aqui un <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lehrer?currentPage=all" target="_blank">articulo</a> muy interesante sobre los misconceptos del Brainstorming. Incluye los trabajos del <a href="http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/uzzi/ftp/buwww.html" target="_blank">Prof. Brian Uzzi</a> sobre la composicion optima de un equipo. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Groupthink: The brainstorming myth</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">By Jonah Lehrer</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The New Yorker Magazine</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In the late nineteen-forties, Alex Osborn, a partner in the advertising agency B.B.D.O., decided to write a book in which he shared his creative secrets. At the time, B.B.D.O. was widely regarded as the most innovative firm on Madison Avenue. Born in 1888, Osborn had spent much of his career in Buffalo, where he started out working in newspapers, and his life at B.B.D.O. began when he teamed up with another young adman he’d met volunteering for the United War Work Campaign. By the forties, he was one of the industry’s grand old men, ready to pass on the lessons he’d learned. His book “Your Creative Power” was published in 1948. An amalgam of pop science and business anecdote, it became a surprise best-seller. Osborn promised that, by following his advice, the typical reader could double his creative output. Such a mental boost would spur career success—“To get your foot in the door, your imagination can be an open-sesame”—and also make the reader a much happier person. “The more you rub your creative lamp, the more alive you feel,” he wrote. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">“Your Creative Power” was filled with tricks and strategies, such as always carrying a notebook, to be ready when inspiration struck. But Osborn’s most celebrated idea was the one discussed in Chapter 33, “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas.” When a group works together, he wrote, the members should engage in a “brainstorm,” which means “using the brain to storm a creative problem—and doing so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.” For Osborn, brainstorming was central to B.B.D.O.’s success. Osborn described, for instance, how the technique inspired a group of ten admen to come up with eighty-seven ideas for a new drugstore in ninety minutes, or nearly an idea per minute. The brainstorm had turned his employees into imagination machines. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The book outlined the essential rules of a successful brainstorming session. The most important of these, Osborn said—the thing that distinguishes brainstorming from other types of group activity—was the absence of criticism and negative feedback. If people were worried that their ideas might be ridiculed by the group, the process would fail. “Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it in the bud,” he wrote. “Forget quality; aim now to get a quantity of answers. When you’re through, your sheet of paper may be so full of ridiculous nonsense that you’ll be disgusted. Never mind. You’re loosening up your unfettered imagination—making your mind deliver.” Brainstorming enshrined a no-judgments approach to holding a meeting.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Brainstorming was an immediate hit and Osborn became an influential business guru, writing such best-sellers as “Wake Up Your Mind” and “The Gold Mine Between Your Ears.” Brainstorming provided companies with an easy way to structure their group interactions, and it became the most widely used creativity technique in the world. It is still popular in advertising offices and design firms, classrooms and boardrooms. “Your Creative Power” has even inspired academic institutes, such as the International Center for Studies in Creativity, at Buffalo State College, near where Osborn lived. And it has given rise to detailed pedagogical doctrines, such as the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process, which is frequently employed by business consultants. When people want to extract the best ideas from a group, they still obey Osborn’s cardinal rule, censoring criticism and encouraging the most “freewheeling” associations. At the design firm <span class="smallcaps">IDEO</span>, famous for developing the first Apple mouse, brainstorming is “practically a religion,” according to the company’s general manager. Employees are instructed to “defer judgment” and “go for quantity.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The underlying assumption of brainstorming is that if people are scared of saying the wrong thing, they’ll end up saying nothing at all. The appeal of this idea is obvious: it’s always nice to be saturated in positive feedback. Typically, participants leave a brainstorming session proud of their contribution. The whiteboard has been filled with free associations. Brainstorming seems like an ideal technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. But there is a problem with brainstorming. It doesn’t work.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The first empirical test of Osborn’s brainstorming technique was performed at Yale University, in 1958. Forty-eight male undergraduates were divided into twelve groups and given a series of creative puzzles. The groups were instructed to follow Osborn’s guidelines. As a control sample, the scientists gave the same puzzles to forty-eight students working by themselves. The results were a sobering refutation of Osborn. The solo students came up with roughly twice as many solutions as the brainstorming groups, and a panel of judges deemed their solutions more “feasible” and “effective.” Brainstorming didn’t unleash the potential of the group, but rather made each individual less creative. Although the findings did nothing to hurt brainstorming’s popularity, numerous follow-up studies have come to the same conclusion. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, has summarized the science: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And yet Osborn was right about one thing: like it or not, human creativity has increasingly become a group process. “Many of us can work much better creatively when teamed up,” he wrote, noting that the trend was particularly apparent in science labs. “In the new B. F. Goodrich Research Center”—Goodrich was an important B.B.D.O. client—“250 workers . . . are hard on the hunt for ideas every hour, every day,” he noted. “They are divided into 12 specialized groups—one for each major phase of chemistry, one for each major phase of physics, and so on.” Osborn was quick to see that science had ceased to be solitary. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ben Jones, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management, at Northwestern University, has quantified this trend. By analyzing 19.9 million peer-reviewed academic papers and 2.1 million patents from the past fifty years, he has shown that levels of teamwork have increased in more than ninety-five per cent of scientific subfields; the size of the average team has increased by about twenty per cent each decade. The most frequently cited studies in a field used to be the product of a lone genius, like Einstein or Darwin. Today, regardless of whether researchers are studying particle physics or human genetics, science papers by multiple authors receive more than twice as many citations as those by individuals. This trend was even more apparent when it came to so-called “home-run papers”—publications with at least a hundred citations. These were more than six times as likely to come from a team of scientists. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Jones’s explanation is that scientific advances have led to a situation where all the remaining problems are incredibly hard. Researchers are forced to become increasingly specialized, because there’s only so much information one mind can handle. And they have to collaborate, because the most interesting mysteries lie at the intersections of disciplines. “A hundred years ago, the Wright brothers could build an airplane all by themselves,” Jones says. “Now Boeing needs hundreds of engineers just to design and produce the engines.” The larger lesson is that the increasing complexity of human knowledge, coupled with the escalating difficulty of those remaining questions, means that people must either work together or fail alone. But if brainstorming is useless, the question still remains: What’s the best template for group creativity?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In 2003, Charlan Nemeth, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, divided two hundred and sixty-five female undergraduates into teams of five. She gave all the teams the same problem—“How can traffic congestion be reduced in the San Francisco Bay Area?”—and assigned each team one of three conditions. The first set of teams got the standard brainstorming spiel, including the no-criticism ground rules. Other teams—assigned what Nemeth called the “debate” condition—were told, “Most research and advice suggest that the best way to come up with good solutions is to come up with many solutions. Freewheeling is welcome; don’t be afraid to say anything that comes to mind. However, in addition, most studies suggest that you should debate and even criticize each other’s ideas.” The rest received no further instructions, leaving them free to collaborate however they wanted. All the teams had twenty minutes to come up with as many good solutions as possible.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The results were telling. The brainstorming groups slightly outperformed the groups given no instructions, but teams given the debate condition were the most creative by far. On average, they generated nearly twenty per cent more ideas. And, after the teams disbanded, another interesting result became apparent. Researchers asked each subject individually if she had any more ideas about traffic. The brainstormers and the people given no guidelines produced an average of three additional ideas; the debaters produced seven. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nemeth’s studies suggest that the ineffectiveness of brainstorming stems from the very thing that Osborn thought was most important. As Nemeth puts it, “While the instruction ‘Do not criticize’ is often cited as the important instruction in brainstorming, this appears to be a counterproductive strategy. Our findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition.” Osborn thought that imagination is inhibited by the merest hint of criticism, but Nemeth’s work and a number of other studies have demonstrated that it can thrive on conflict. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">According to Nemeth, dissent stimulates new ideas because it encourages us to engage more fully with the work of others and to reassess our viewpoints. “There’s this Pollyannaish notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone’s feelings,” she says. “Well, that’s just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Another of her experiments has demonstrated that exposure to unfamiliar perspectives can foster creativity. The experiment focussed on a staple of the brainstorming orthodoxy—free association. A long-standing problem with free association is that people aren’t very good at it. In the early nineteen-sixties, two psychologists, David Palermo and James Jenkins, began amassing a huge table of word associations, the first thoughts that come to mind when people are asked to reflect on a particular word. (They interviewed more than forty-five hundred subjects.) Palermo and Jenkins soon discovered that the vast majority of these associations were utterly predictable. For instance, when people are asked to free-associate about the word “blue,” the most likely first answer is “green,” followed by “sky” and “ocean.” When asked to free-associate about “green,” nearly everyone says “grass.” “Even the most creative people are still going to come up with many mundane associations,” Nemeth says. “If you want to be original, then you have to get past this first layer of predictability.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Nemeth’s experiment devised a way of escaping this trap. Pairs of subjects were shown a series of color slides in various shades of blue and asked to identify the colors. Sometimes one of the pair was actually a lab assistant instructed by Nemeth to provide a wrong answer. After a few minutes, the pairs were asked to free-associate about the colors they had seen. People who had been exposed to inaccurate descriptions came up with associations that were far more original. Instead of saying that “blue” reminded them of “sky,” they came up with “jazz” and “berry pie.” The obvious answer had stopped being their only answer. Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” Nemeth says. “It wakes us right up.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Criticism allows people to dig below the surface of the imagination and come up with collective ideas that aren’t predictable. And recognizing the importance of conflicting perspectives in a group raises the issue of what kinds of people will work together best. Brian Uzzi, a sociologist at Northwestern, has spent his career trying to find what the ideal composition of a team would look like. Casting around for an industry to study that would most clearly show the effects of interaction, he hit on Broadway musicals. He’d grown up in New York City and attended his first musical at the age of nine. “I went to see ‘Hair,’ ” Uzzi recalls. “I remember absolutely nothing about the music, but I do remember the nude scene. That just about blew my mind. I’ve been a fan of Broadway ever since.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Uzzi sees musicals as a model of group creativity. “Nobody creates a Broadway musical by themselves,” he said. “The production requires too many different kinds of talent.” A composer has to write songs with a lyricist and a librettist; a choreographer has to work with a director, who is probably getting notes from the producers. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Uzzi wanted to understand how the relationships of these team members affected the product. Was it better to have a group composed of close friends who had worked together before? Or did strangers make better theatre? He undertook a study of every musical produced on Broadway between 1945 and 1989. To get a full list of collaborators, he sometimes had to track down dusty old <i>Playbills</i> in theatre basements. He spent years analyzing the teams behind four hundred and seventy-four productions, and charted the relationships of thousands of artists, from Cole Porter to Andrew Lloyd Webber. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Uzzi found that the people who worked on Broadway were part of a social network with lots of interconnections: it didn’t take many links to get from the librettist of “Guys and Dolls” to the choreographer of “Cats.” Uzzi devised a way to quantify the density of these connections, a figure he called Q. If musicals were being developed by teams of artists that had worked together several times before—a common practice, because Broadway producers see “incumbent teams” as less risky—those musicals would have an extremely high Q. A musical created by a team of strangers would have a low Q. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Uzzi then tallied his Q readings with information about how successful the productions had been. “Frankly, I was surprised by how big the effect was,” Uzzi told me. “I expected Q to matter, but I had no idea it would matter this much.” According to the data, the relationships among collaborators emerged as a reliable predictor of Broadway success. When the Q was low—less than 1.7 on Uzzi’s five-point scale—the musicals were likely to fail. Because the artists didn’t know one another, they struggled to work together and exchange ideas. “This wasn’t so surprising,” Uzzi says. “It takes time to develop a successful collaboration.” But, when the Q was too high (above 3.2), the work also suffered. The artists all thought in similar ways, which crushed innovation. According to Uzzi, this is what happened on Broadway during the nineteen-twenties, which he made the focus of a separate study. The decade is remembered for its glittering array of talent—Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein II, and so on—but Uzzi’s data reveals that ninety per cent of musicals produced during the decade were flops, far above the historical norm. “Broadway had some of the biggest names ever,” Uzzi explains. “But the shows were too full of repeat relationships, and that stifled creativity.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The best Broadway shows were produced by networks with an intermediate level of social intimacy. The ideal level of Q—which Uzzi and his colleague Jarrett Spiro called the “bliss point”—emerged as being between 2.4 and 2.6. A show produced by a team whose Q was within this range was three times more likely to be a commercial success than a musical produced by a team with a score below 1.4 or above 3.2. It was also three times more likely to be lauded by the critics. “The best Broadway teams, by far, were those with a mix of relationships,” Uzzi says. “These teams had some old friends, but they also had newbies. This mixture meant that the artists could interact efficiently—they had a familiar structure to fall back on—but they also managed to incorporate some new ideas. They were comfortable with each other, but they weren’t too comfortable.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Uzzi’s favorite example of “intermediate Q” is “West Side Story,” one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever. In 1957, the play was seen as a radical departure from Broadway conventions, both for its focus on social problems and for its extended dance scenes. The concept was dreamed up by Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents. They were all Broadway legends, which might make “West Side Story” look like a show with high Q. But the project also benefitted from a crucial injection of unknown talent, as the established artists realized that they needed a fresh lyrical voice. After an extensive search, they chose a twenty-five-year-old lyricist who had never worked on a Broadway musical before. His name was Stephen Sondheim. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A few years ago, Isaac Kohane, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, published a study that looked at scientific research conducted by groups in an attempt to determine the effect that physical proximity had on the quality of the research. He analyzed more than thirty-five thousand peer-reviewed papers, mapping the precise location of co-authors. Then he assessed the quality of the research by counting the number of subsequent citations. The task, Kohane says, took a “small army of undergraduates” eighteen months to complete. Once the data was amassed, the correlation became clear: when coauthors were closer together, their papers tended to be of significantly higher quality. The best research was consistently produced when scientists were working within ten metres of each other; the least cited papers tended to emerge from collaborators who were a kilometre or more apart. “If you want people to work together effectively, these findings reinforce the need to create architectures that support frequent, physical, spontaneous interactions,” Kohane says. “Even in the era of big science, when researchers spend so much time on the Internet, it’s still so important to create intimate spaces.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A new generation of laboratory architecture has tried to make chance encounters more likely to take place, and the trend has spread in the business world, too. One fanatical believer in the power of space to enhance the work of groups was Steve Jobs. Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Jobs records that when Jobs was planning Pixar’s headquarters, in 1999, he had the building arranged around a central atrium, so that Pixar’s diverse staff of artists, writers, and computer scientists would run into each other more often. “We used to joke that the building was Steve’s movie,” Ed Catmull, the president of both Disney Animation and Pixar Animation, says. “He really oversaw everything.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Jobs soon realized that it wasn’t enough simply to create an airy atrium; he needed to force people to go there. He began with the mailboxes, which he shifted to the lobby. Then he moved the meeting rooms to the center of the building, followed by the cafeteria, the coffee bar, and the gift shop. Finally, he decided that the atrium should contain the only set of bathrooms in the entire building. (He was later forced to compromise and install a second pair of bathrooms.) “At first, I thought this was the most ridiculous idea,” Darla Anderson, a producer on several Pixar films, told me. “I didn’t want to have to walk all the way to the atrium every time I needed to do something. That’s just a waste of time. But Steve said, ‘Everybody has to run into each other.’ He really believed that the best meetings happened by accident, in the hallway or parking lot. And you know what? He was right. I get more done having a cup of coffee and striking up a conversation or walking to the bathroom and running into unexpected people than I do sitting at my desk.” Brad Bird, the director of “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” says that Jobs “made it impossible for you not to run into the rest of the company.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In the spring of 1942, it became clear that the Radiation Laboratory at M.I.T.—the main radar research institute for the Allied war effort—needed more space. The Rad Lab had been developing a radar device for fighter aircraft that would allow pilots to identify distant German bombers, and was hiring hundreds of scientists every few months. The proposed new structure, known as Building 20, was going to be the biggest lab yet, comprising two hundred and fifty thousand square feet, on three floors. It was designed in an afternoon by a local architecture firm, and construction was quick and cheap. The design featured a wooden frame on top of a concrete-slab foundation, with an exterior covered in gray asbestos shingles. (Steel was in short supply.) The structure violated the Cambridge fire code, but it was granted an exemption because of its temporary status. M.I.T. promised to demolish Building 20 shortly after the war.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Initially, Building 20 was regarded as a failure. Ventilation was poor and hallways were dim. The walls were thin, the roof leaked, and the building was broiling in the summer and freezing in the winter. Nevertheless, Building 20 quickly became a center of groundbreaking research, the Los Alamos of the East Coast, celebrated for its important work on military radar. Within a few years, the lab developed radar systems used for naval navigation, weather prediction, and the detection of bombers and U-boats. According to a 1945 statement issued by the Defense Department, the Rad Lab “pushed research in this field ahead by at least 25 normal peacetime years.” If the atom bomb ended the war, radar is what won it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Immediately after the surrender of Japan, M.I.T., as it had promised, began making plans for the demolition of Building 20. The Rad Lab offices were dismantled and the radio towers on the roof were taken down. But the influx of students after the G.I. Bill suddenly left M.I.T. desperately short of space. Building 20 was turned into offices for scientists who had nowhere else to go. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The first division to move into Building 20 was the Research Laboratory of Electronics, which grew directly out of the Rad Lab. Because the electrical engineers needed only a fraction of the structure, M.I.T. began shifting a wide variety of academic departments and student clubs to the so-called “plywood palace.” By the nineteen-fifties, Building 20 was home to the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, the Linguistics Department, and the machine shop. There was a particle accelerator, the R.O.T.C., a piano repair facility, and a cell-culture lab.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Building 20 became a strange, chaotic domain, full of groups who had been thrown together by chance and who knew little about one another’s work. And yet, by the time it was finally demolished, in 1998, Building 20 had become a legend of innovation, widely regarded as one of the most creative spaces in the world. In the postwar decades, scientists working there pioneered a stunning list of breakthroughs, from advances in high-speed photography to the development of the physics behind microwaves. Building 20 served as an incubator for the Bose Corporation. It gave rise to the first video game and to Chomskyan linguistics. Stewart Brand, in his study “How Buildings Learn,” cites Building 20 as an example of a “Low Road” structure, a type of space that is unusually creative because it is so unwanted and underdesigned. (Another example is the Silicon Valley garage.) As a result, scientists in Building 20 felt free to remake their rooms, customizing the structure to fit their needs. Walls were torn down without permission; equipment was stored in the courtyards and bolted to the roof. When Jerrold Zacharias was developing the first atomic clock, working in Building 20, he removed two floors in his lab to make room for a three-story metal cylinder. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The space also forced solitary scientists to mix and mingle. Although the rushed wartime architects weren’t thinking about the sweet spot of Q or the importance of physical proximity when they designed the structure, they conjured up a space that maximized both of these features, allowing researchers to take advantage of Building 20’s intellectual diversity.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Room numbers, for instance, followed an inscrutable scheme: rooms on the second floor were given numbers beginning with 1, and third-floor room numbers began with 2. Furthermore, the wings that made up the building were named in an unclear sequence: B wing gave onto A wing, followed by E, D, and C wings. Even longtime residents of Building 20 were constantly getting lost, wandering the corridors in search of rooms. Those looking for the Ice Research Lab had to walk past the military recruiting office; students on their way to play with the toy trains (the Tech Model Railroad Club was on the third floor, in Room No. 20E-214) strolled along hallways filled with the latest computing experiments. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The building’s horizontal layout also spurred interaction. Brand quotes Henry Zimmerman, an electrical engineer who worked there for years: “In a vertical layout with small floors, there is less research variety on each floor. Chance meetings in an elevator tend to terminate in the lobby, whereas chance meetings in a corridor tended to lead to technical discussions.” The urban theorist Jane Jacobs described such incidental conversations as “knowledge spillovers.” Her favorite example was the rise of the automobile industry in Detroit. In the eighteen-twenties, the city was full of small shipyards built for the flour trade. Over time, the shipyards became centers of expertise in the internal-combustion engine. Nearly a century later, those engines proved ideal for powering cars, which is why many pioneers of the automotive industry got their start building ships. Jacobs’s point was that the unpredictable nature of innovation meant that it couldn’t be prescribed in advance.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Building 20 was full of knowledge spillovers. Take the career of Amar Bose. In the spring of 1956, Bose, a music enthusiast, procrastinating in writing his dissertation, decided to buy a hi-fi. He chose the system with the best technical specs, but found that the speakers sounded terrible. Bose realized that the science of hi-fi needed help and began frequenting the Acoustics Lab, which was just down the hall. Before long, Bose was spending more time playing with tweeters than he was on his dissertation. Nobody minded the interloper in the lab, and, three years later, Bose produced a wedge-shaped contraption outfitted with twenty-two speakers, a synthesis of his time among the engineers and his musical sensibility. The Bose Corporation was founded soon afterward.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A similar lesson emerges from the Linguistics Department at M.I.T., which was founded by Morris Halle, in the early fifties. According to Halle, he was assigned to Building 20 because that was the least valuable real estate on campus, and nobody thought much of linguists. Nevertheless, he soon grew fond of the building, if only because he was able to tear down several room dividers. This allowed Halle to transform a field that was often hermetic, with grad students working alone in the library, into a group exercise, characterized by discussion, Socratic interrogation, and the vigorous exchange of clashing perspectives. “At Building 20, we made a big room, so that all of the students could talk to each other,” Halle remembers. “That’s how I wanted them to learn.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One of Halle’s first recruits was Carol Chomsky, a young scholar who was married to a Harvard grad student named Noam Chomsky, also a linguist. Halle encouraged Chomsky to apply for an open position at M.I.T., and in 1955 he joined the linguistics faculty at Building 20. For the next several decades, Halle and Chomsky worked in adjacent offices, which were recalled by a colleague as “the two most miserable holes in the whole place.” Although the men studied different aspects of language—Chomsky focussed on syntax and grammar, and Halle analyzed the sounds of words—the men spent much of their day talking about their work. “We became great friends,” Halle says. “And friends shouldn’t be shy about telling each other when they are wrong. What am I supposed to do? Not tell him he’s got a bad idea?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">After a few years at M.I.T., Chomsky revolutionized the study of linguistics by proposing that every language shares a “deep structure,” which reflects the cognitive structures of the mind. Chomsky’s work drew from disparate fields—biology, psychology, and computer science. At the time, the fields seemed to have nothing in common—except the hallways of Building 20. “Building 20 was a fantastic environment,” Chomsky says. “It looked like it was going to fall apart. But it was extremely interactive.” He went on, “There was a mixture of people who later became separate departments interacting informally all the time. You would walk down the corridor and meet people and have a discussion.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Building 20 and brainstorming came into being at almost exactly the same time. In the sixty years since then, if the studies are right, brainstorming has achieved nothing—or, at least, less than would have been achieved by six decades’ worth of brainstormers working quietly on their own. Building 20, though, ranks as one of the most creative environments of all time, a space with an almost uncanny ability to extract the best from people. Among M.I.T. people, it was referred to as “the magical incubator.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The fatal misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions. The lesson of Building 20 is that when the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant—not everyone is always in the mood for small talk or criticism—that doesn’t mean that they can be avoided. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.</div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-37971151003826328332012-01-23T08:54:00.001-04:002012-01-23T08:56:47.122-04:00Colaboracion o la Muerte....<h2 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"></span></h2><h2 style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span></span> </h2><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Un estudio revela que las personas que carecen de relaciones afectivas en el lugar de trabajo pueden estar en mayor riesgo de desarrollar condiciones de salud que culminen en enfermedades terminales. Una razon adicional para colaborar diariamente.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b>Getting Along with Coworkers May Add Years to Your Life</b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">THURSDAY, Aug. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Good relationships with your co-workers and a convivial, supportive work environment may add years to your life, new Israeli research finds.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Published recently in <i>Health Psychology</i>, the study tracked 820 adults with an average age of 41 who worked 8.8 hour days for about 20 years; a third of them were women. Employees who reported low social support at work were 2.4 times more likely to die during those two decades, compared with their colleagues who said they had a good social support system in the workplace.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">During the study period, 53 people died, most of whom had negligible social connections with their co-workers. Lack of emotional support at work, in fact, was associated with an 140 percent increased risk of dying in the next 20 years, the researchers found.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">"We spend most of our waking hours at work, and we don't have much time to meet our friends during the weekdays," co-author Dr. Sharon Toker of the department of organizational behavior at Tel Aviv University in Israel, explained in a statement. "Work should be a place where people can get necessary emotional support."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Toker and her colleagues surveyed the study volunteers about their relationships with their supervisors and peers.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">They found that peer or informal social support at work was a more potent predictor of health and longevity than relationships with a supervisor or boss. This effect was significant among employees aged 38 to 45, but not in those younger or older.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The findings held up even after the researchers controlled for factors such as age, sex, obesity, smoking, alcohol use, blood sugar, cholesterol, depression and anxiety.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Study participants were also asked if they took initiative at work and if they had the freedom to make their own decisions. Men did better when they were given more control at work, while women with the same amount of control actually had shorter lifespans.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Specifically, women who reported significant control over their tasks and workflow were 70 percent more likely to die during the 20-year period, the study showed. Exactly what is behind this finding is not known, but the study authors suggest that women in positions of power may be overwhelmed by the need to be tough at work and still carry out stressful duties at home.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The study authors also noted that the modern workplace often lacks a supportive environment. Many people telecommute; others communicate via e-mail even if they are in the same office. Coffee corners where people can sit and talk, informal social outings for staff members and/or a virtual social network may encourage employees to feel more connected, the researchers suggested. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">"Being happy at work can be a huge productivity booster, and happy people work better with others, are more creative, have more energy, get sick less often, learn faster and worry less about mistakes," said Dr. Alan Manevitz, a psychiatrist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City who was not involved in the study. "The old-fashioned coffee break, talking to people face to face or having an employee picnic on the weekend are very good morale boosters," he said. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">However, the study can't answer whether the happy, healthy employee is the chicken or the egg, Manevitz said. Are these employees happy because they work in a supportive environment, he asked, or does their positive energy spill over into how they perceive their work place?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">New companies like Google and Zappos are famous for their work hard, play hard credos, and this really speaks to balance, he said. "You don't want to play hard without working or work hard without playing," he said. These companies break down the traditional workplace hierarchies and create bull-pens where people can approach one another freely, but this only works in companies where people are not worried about losing their jobs, he said. Due to the economy, "job security has gone out the window."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Dr. Elyse Schimel, a psychologist in private practice in New York City, said that in the current economy, you have to really weigh your options. "Feeling supported and having a good work environment isn't as important as keeping a roof over your family's head and food on the table," she said. "There are buffers that can help you cope with stress including exercise, sleeping well, eating well, family support and social support," she said. "If you are in a hostile work environment, but don't have feasible options to leave, you want to get balance elsewhere in your life."</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b>More information</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Find out more about maintaining a work-life balance at the <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/work-life-balance/WL00056">Mayo Clinic</a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">SOURCES: Elyse Schimel, Psy.D., psychologist, private practice, New York City; Alan Manevitz, M.D., psychiatrist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; May 2011 <i>Health Psychology</i></div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-21315819165899691992011-12-15T10:24:00.000-04:002011-12-15T10:24:31.026-04:00Homenaje visual a la lectura...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fxV-j0EwQLc/Tun1X8D3NoI/AAAAAAAAAcs/bXgAd41WtoA/s1600/377148_10150427428329556_648064555_8225101_1291369385_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fxV-j0EwQLc/Tun1X8D3NoI/AAAAAAAAAcs/bXgAd41WtoA/s400/377148_10150427428329556_648064555_8225101_1291369385_n.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-71602358040336172682011-12-15T09:08:00.000-04:002011-12-15T09:08:23.900-04:00Solo hay errores si no sabemos como responder a estos<div style="text-align: justify;">En este video el maestro <a href="http://www.stefonharris.com/" target="_blank">Stefon Harris</a> demuestra como los "errores" en un grupo muchas veces se deben a la falta de conciencia sensible y aceptacion de lo que los demas traen a la mesa. A su vez esta falta de respuesta adecuada a los eventos que ocurren es lo que llamamos "errores". Muy interesante y me pone a pensar en multiples escenarios en las organizaciones a los que puedo traspolar este principio. </div><br />
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</object>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-32473082865781690232011-12-12T14:47:00.001-04:002011-12-12T14:48:25.413-04:00La colaboracion masiva + relaciones justas = Resultados im - posibles<div style="text-align: justify;">¿Quieres aprender un nuevo idioma mientras ayudas a traducir el internet? <a href="http://vonahn.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Luis von Ahn</a> ha creado esta aplicaion y la palabra clave en su discurso es JUSTA. Mas alla de la increible tecnologia detras del sistema de <a href="http://www.duolingo.com/" target="_blank">Duolingo</a>, este se construye sobre un modelo de justicia que reta los modelos de negocio tradicionales. Este es una muestra mas del poder de la colaboracion.</div><br />
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/12668335">Project-based Learning at High Tech High</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/nli">New Learning Institute</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-20397098909748500142011-11-02T15:01:00.000-04:002011-11-02T15:01:28.361-04:00La Molecula de la Confianza y la MoralidadInteresante descubrimiento sobre la molécula oxitocina y posible conexión con la confianza y la moralidad. <br />
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</object>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-51043844763180442712011-10-27T12:43:00.000-04:002011-10-27T12:43:12.303-04:00Investigacion del Cancer en la era del Open Source<div style="text-align: justify;">Este video es una de las demostraciones mas impactantes del beneficio de la colaboracion abierta. No solo por la importancia que tiene el descubrimiento de nuevas medicinas para curar el cancer, pero por la rapidez y efectividad que el modelo provee. Compartir las ideas tan pronto se pueda, abiertamente, con una finalidad superior al beneficio individual, nos permite tener logros impensables. Creo que este es el camino al futuro, y que los paradigmas cyberneticos se estan desbordando cada vez mas sobre el mundo concreto. ¡¡En hora buen Dr. Jay Brander!! </div><br />
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</object>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-7521949212092054232011-10-21T10:07:00.000-04:002011-10-21T10:07:23.087-04:00El Cerebro Dividido<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dFs9WO2B8uI" width="560"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-41003417370626711392011-09-14T11:59:00.000-04:002011-09-14T11:59:27.673-04:00Desarrollo del Caracter y el Poder Vivir la Buena Vida<div style="text-align: justify;">Siempre he estado muy interesado en el tema del desarrollo del Carácter, tanto como desarrollar mi propio carácter, ayudar a otros a mio alrededor a que desarrollen el suyo y, mas reciente, como padre, proveyendo le a mi hijo el modelaje y las enseñanzas para su desarrollo. Aquí un articulo muy interesante que sirve de reflexión sobre la enseñanza<b> </b>y desarrollo de esta gran cualidad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>What if the Secret to Success Is Failure?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">By Paul Tough</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The New York Times</div><div style="text-align: justify;">September 14, 2011</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dominic Randolph can seem a little out of place at <a href="http://www.riverdale.edu/default.aspx" target="_blank">Riverdale Country School</a> — which is odd, because he’s the headmaster. Riverdale is one of New York City’s most prestigious private schools, with a 104-year-old campus that looks down grandly on Van Cortlandt Park from the top of a steep hill in the richest part of the Bronx. On the discussion boards of <a href="http://www.urbanbaby.com/" target="_blank">UrbanBaby.com</a>, worked-up moms from the Upper East Side argue over whether Riverdale sends enough seniors to Harvard, Yale and Princeton to be considered truly “TT” (top-tier, in UrbanBabyese), or whether it is more accurately labeled “2T” (second-tier), but it is, certainly, part of the city’s private-school elite, a place members of the establishment send their kids to learn to be members of the establishment. Tuition starts at $38,500 a year, and that’s for prekindergarten. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Randolph, by contrast, comes across as an iconoclast, a disrupter, even a bit of an eccentric. He dresses for work every day in a black suit with a narrow tie, and the outfit, plus his cool demeanor and sweep of graying hair, makes you wonder, when you first meet him, if he might have played sax in a ska band in the ’80s. (The English accent helps.) He is a big thinker, always chasing new ideas, and a conversation with him can feel like a one-man TED conference, dotted with references to the latest work by behavioral psychologists and management gurus and design theorists. When he became headmaster in 2007, he swapped offices with his secretary, giving her the reclusive inner sanctum where previous headmasters sat and remodeling the small outer reception area into his own open-concept work space, its walls covered with whiteboard paint on which he sketches ideas and slogans. One day when I visited, one wall was bare except for a white sheet of paper. On it was printed a single black question mark. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> For the headmaster of an intensely competitive school, Randolph, who is 49, is surprisingly skeptical about many of the basic elements of a contemporary high-stakes American education. He did away with Advanced Placement classes in the high school soon after he arrived at Riverdale; he encourages his teachers to limit the homework they assign; and he says that the standardized tests that Riverdale and other private schools require for admission to kindergarten and to middle school are “a patently unfair system” because they evaluate students almost entirely by I.Q. “This push on tests,” he told me, “is missing out on some serious parts of what it means to be a successful human.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> The most critical missing piece, Randolph explained as we sat in his office last fall, is <em>character</em> — those essential traits of mind and habit that were drilled into him at boarding school in England and that also have deep roots in American history. “Whether it’s the pioneer in the Conestoga wagon or someone coming here in the 1920s from southern Italy, there was this idea in America that if you worked hard and you showed real grit, that you could be successful,” he said. “Strangely, we’ve now forgotten that. People who have an easy time of things, who get 800s on their SAT’s, I worry that those people get feedback that everything they’re doing is great. And I think as a result, we are actually setting them up for long-term failure. When that person suddenly has to face up to a difficult moment, then I think they’re screwed, to be honest. I don’t think they’ve grown the capacities to be able to handle that.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Randolph has been pondering throughout his 23-year career as an educator the question of whether and how schools should impart good character. It has often felt like a lonely quest, but it has led him in some interesting directions. In the winter of 2005, Randolph read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Your-Mind/dp/0671019112" target="_blank">“Learned Optimism,”</a> a book by Martin Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who helped establish the Positive Psychology movement. Randolph found the book intriguing, and he arranged a meeting with the author. As it happened, on the morning that Randolph made the trip to Philadelphia, Seligman had scheduled a separate meeting with David Levin, the co-founder of the <a href="http://www.kipp.org/" target="_blank">KIPP network of charter schools</a> and the superintendent of the KIPP schools in New York City. Seligman decided he might as well combine the two meetings, and he invited Christopher Peterson, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, who was also visiting Penn that day, to join him and Randolph and Levin in his office for a freewheeling discussion of psychology and schooling. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Levin had also spent many years trying to figure out how to provide lessons in character to his students, who were almost all black or Latino and from low-income families. At the first KIPP school, in Houston, he and his co-founder, Michael Feinberg, filled the walls with slogans like “Work Hard” and “Be Nice” and “There Are No Shortcuts,” and they developed a system of rewards and demerits designed to train their students not only in fractions and algebra but also in perseverance and empathy. Like Randolph, Levin went to Seligman’s office expecting to talk about optimism. But Seligman surprised them both by pulling out a new and very different book, which he and Peterson had just finished: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Character-Strengths-Virtues-Handbook-Classification/dp/0195167015" target="_blank">“Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification,”</a> a scholarly, 800-page tome that weighed in at three and a half pounds. It was intended, according to the authors, as a “manual of the sanities,” an attempt to inaugurate what they described as a “science of good character.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> It was, in other words, exactly what Randolph and Levin had been looking for, separately, even if neither of them had quite known it. Seligman and Peterson consulted works from Aristotle to Confucius, from the Upanishads to the Torah, from the Boy Scout Handbook to profiles of Pokémon characters, and they settled on 24 character strengths common to all cultures and eras. The list included some we think of as traditional noble traits, like bravery, citizenship, fairness, wisdom and integrity; others that veer into the emotional realm, like love, humor, zest and appreciation of beauty; and still others that are more concerned with day-to-day human interactions: social intelligence (the ability to recognize interpersonal dynamics and adapt quickly to different social situations), kindness, self-regulation, gratitude. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> In most societies, Seligman and Peterson wrote, these strengths were considered to have a moral valence, and in many cases they overlapped with religious laws and strictures. But their true importance did not come from their relationship to any system of ethics or moral laws but from their practical benefit: cultivating these strengths represented a reliable path to “the good life,” a life that was not just happy but also meaningful and fulfilling. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Six years after that first meeting, Levin and Randolph are trying to put this conception of character into action in their schools. In the process, they have found themselves wrestling with questions that have long confounded not just educators but anyone trying to nurture a thriving child or simply live a good life. What is good character? Is it really something that can be taught in a formal way, in the classroom, or is it the responsibility of the family, something that is inculcated gradually over years of experience? Which qualities matter most for a child trying to negotiate his way to a successful and autonomous adulthood? And are the answers to those questions the same in Harlem and in Riverdale? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <strong>Levin had believed</strong> in the importance of character since KIPP’s inception. But on the day of his trip to see Seligman, he was feeling a new urgency about the subject. Six years earlier, in 1999, the first group of students to enter KIPP Academy middle school, which Levin founded and ran in the South Bronx, triumphed on the eighth-grade citywide achievement test, graduating with the highest scores in the Bronx and the fifth-highest in all of New York City. Every morning of middle school they passed a giant sign in the stairwell reminding them of their mission: “Climb the Mountain to College.” And as they left KIPP for high school, they seemed poised to do just that: not only did they have outstanding academic results, but most of them also won admission to highly selective private and Catholic schools, often with full scholarships. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> But as Levin told me when we spoke last fall, for many students in that first cohort, things didn’t go as planned. “We thought, O.K., our first class was the fifth-highest-performing class in all of New York City,” Levin said. “We got 90 percent into private and parochial schools. It’s all going to be solved. But it wasn’t.” Almost every member of the cohort did make it through high school, and more than 80 percent of them enrolled in college. But then the mountain grew steeper, and every few weeks, it seemed, Levin got word of another student who decided to drop out. According to a report that KIPP issued last spring, only 33 percent of students who graduated from a KIPP middle school 10 or more years ago have graduated from a four-year college. That rate is considerably better than the 8 percent of children from low-income families who currently complete college nationwide, and it even beats the average national rate of college completion for all income groups, which is 31 percent. But it still falls well short of KIPP’s stated goal: that 75 percent of KIPP alumni will graduate from a four-year college, and 100 percent will be prepared for a stable career. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> As Levin watched the progress of those KIPP alumni, he noticed something curious: the students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically at KIPP; they were the ones with exceptional character strengths, like optimism and persistence and social intelligence. They were the ones who were able to recover from a bad grade and resolve to do better next time; to bounce back from a fight with their parents; to resist the urge to go out to the movies and stay home and study instead; to persuade professors to give them extra help after class. Those skills weren’t enough on their own to earn students a B.A., Levin knew. But for young people without the benefit of a lot of family resources, without the kind of safety net that their wealthier peers enjoyed, they seemed an indispensable part of making it to graduation day. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> What appealed to Levin about the list of character strengths that Seligman and Peterson compiled was that it was presented not as a finger-wagging guilt trip about good values and appropriate behavior but as a recipe for a successful and happy life. He was wary of the idea that KIPP’s aim was to instill in its students “middle-class values,” as though well-off kids had some depth of character that low-income students lacked. “The thing that I think is great about the character-strength approach,” he told me, “is it is fundamentally devoid of value judgment.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Still, neither Levin nor Dominic Randolph had a clear vision of how to turn an 800-page psychology text into a practical program. After that first meeting in Seligman’s office, Levin and Randolph kept in touch, calling and e-mailing, swapping articles and Web links, and they soon discovered that they shared a lot of ideas and interests, despite the very different school environments in which they worked. They decided to join forces, to try to tackle the mysteries of character together, and they turned for help to Angela Duckworth, who at the time was a graduate student in Seligman’s department (she is now an assistant professor). Duckworth came to Penn in 2002 at the age of 32, after working for a decade as a teacher and a charter-school consultant. When she applied to the Ph.D. program at Penn, she wrote in her application essay that her experiences in schools had given her “a distinctly different view of school reform” than the one she started out with in her 20s. “The problem, I think, is not only the schools but also the students themselves,” she wrote. “Here’s why: learning is hard. True, learning is fun, exhilarating and gratifying — but it is also often daunting, exhausting and sometimes discouraging. . . . To help chronically low-performing but intelligent students, educators and parents must first recognize that character is at least as important as intellect.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Duckworth’s early research showed that measures of self-control can be a more reliable predictor of students’ grade-point averages than their I.Q.’s. But while self-control seemed to be a critical ingredient in attaining basic success, Duckworth came to feel it wasn’t as relevant when it came to outstanding achievement. People who accomplished great things, she noticed, often combined a passion for a single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission, whatever the obstacles and however long it might take. She decided she needed to name this quality, and she chose the word “grit.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> She developed a test to measure grit, which she called the Grit Scale. It is a deceptively simple test, in that it requires you to rate yourself on just 12 questions, from “I finish whatever I begin” to “I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one.” It takes about three minutes to complete, and it relies entirely on self-report — and yet when Duckworth took it out into the field, she found it was remarkably predictive of success. At Penn, high grit ratings allowed students with relatively low college-board scores to nonetheless achieve high G.P.A.’s. Duckworth and her collaborators gave their grit test to more than 1,200 freshman cadets as they entered West Point and embarked on the grueling summer training course known as Beast Barracks. The military has developed its own complex evaluation, called the Whole Candidate Score, to judge incoming cadets and predict which of them will survive the demands of West Point; it includes academic grades, a gauge of physical fitness and a Leadership Potential Score. But at the end of Beast Barracks, the more accurate predictor of which cadets persisted and which ones dropped out turned out to be Duckworth’s 12-item grit questionnaire. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Levin and Randolph asked Duckworth to use the new methods and tools she was developing to help them investigate the question of character at KIPP and Riverdale, and she and a handful of Penn graduate students began making regular treks from Philadelphia to New York. The first question Duckworth addressed, again, was the relative importance of I.Q. and self-control. She and her team of researchers gave middle-school students at Riverdale and KIPP a variety of psychological and I.Q. tests. They found that at both schools, I.Q. was the better predictor of scores on statewide achievement tests, but measures of self-control were more reliable indicators of report-card grades. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Duckworth’s research convinced Levin and Randolph that they should try to foster self-control and grit in their students. Yet those didn’t seem like the only character strengths that mattered. The full list of 24, on the other hand, felt too unwieldy. So they asked Peterson if he could narrow the list down to a more manageable handful, and he identified a set of strengths that were, according to his research, especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement. After a few small adjustments (Levin and Randolph opted to drop love in favor of curiosity), they settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Over the course of the next year and a half, Duckworth worked with Levin and Randolph to turn the list of seven strengths into a two-page evaluation, a questionnaire that could be completed by teachers or parents, or by students themselves. For each strength, teachers suggested a variety of “indicators,” much like the questions Duckworth asked people to respond to on her grit questionnaire, and she road-tested several dozen of them at Riverdale and KIPP. She eventually settled on the 24 most statistically reliable ones, from “This student is eager to explore new things” (an indicator of curiosity) to “This student believes that effort will improve his or her future” (optimism). </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> For Levin, the next step was clear. Wouldn’t it be cool, he mused, if each student graduated from school with not only a G.P.A. but also a C.P.A., for character-point average? If you were a college-admissions director or a corporate human-resources manager selecting entry-level employees, wouldn’t you like to know which ones scored highest in grit or optimism or zest? And if you were a parent of a KIPP student, wouldn’t you want to know how your son or daughter stacked up next to the rest of the class in character as well as in reading ability? As soon as he got the final list of indicators from Duckworth and Peterson, Levin started working to turn it into a specific, concise assessment that he could hand out to students and parents at KIPP’s New York City schools twice a year: the first-ever character report card. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <strong>Back at Riverdale,</strong> though, the idea of a character report card made Randolph nervous. “I have a philosophical issue with quantifying character,” he explained to me one afternoon. “With my school’s specific population, at least, as soon as you set up something like a report card, you’re going to have a bunch of people doing test prep for it. I don’t want to come up with a metric around character that could then be gamed. I would hate it if that’s where we ended up.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Still, he did think that the inventory Duckworth and Peterson developed could be a useful tool in communicating with students about character. And so he has been taking what one Riverdale teacher described as a “viral approach” to spreading the idea of this new method of assessing character throughout the Riverdale community. He talks about character at parent nights, asks pointed questions in staff meetings, connects like-minded members of his faculty and instructs them to come up with new programs. Last winter, Riverdale students in the fifth and sixth grades took the 24-indicator survey, and their teachers rated them as well. The results were discussed by teachers and administrators, but they weren’t shared with students or parents, and they certainly weren’t labeled a “report card.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> As I spent time at Riverdale last year, it became apparent to me that the debate over character at the school wasn’t just about how best to evaluate and improve students’ character. It went deeper, to the question of what “character” really meant. When Randolph arrived at Riverdale, the school already had in place a character-education program, of a sort. Called <a href="http://www.riverdale.edu/podium/default.aspx?t=136009&rc=0" target="_blank">CARE</a>, for Children Aware of Riverdale Ethics, the program was adopted in 1989 in the lower school, which at Riverdale means prekindergarten through fifth grade. It is a blueprint for niceness, mandating that students “Treat everyone with respect” and “Be aware of other people’s feelings and find ways to help those whose feelings have been hurt.” Posters in the hallway remind students of the virtues related to CARE (“Practice Good Manners . . . Avoid Gossiping . . . Help Others”). In the lower school, many teachers describe it as a proud and essential part of what makes Riverdale the school that it is. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> When I asked Randolph last winter about CARE, he was diplomatic. “I see the character strengths as CARE 2.0,” he explained. “I’d basically like to take all of this new character language and say that we’re in the next generation of CARE.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> In fact, though, the character-strength approach of Seligman and Peterson isn’t an expansion of programs like CARE; if anything, it is a repudiation of them. In 2008, a national organization called the Character Education Partnership published a paper that divided character education into two categories: programs that develop “moral character,” which embodies ethical values like fairness, generosity and integrity; and those that address “performance character,” which includes values like effort, diligence and perseverance. The CARE program falls firmly on the “moral character” side of the divide, while the seven strengths that Randolph and Levin have chosen for their schools lean much more heavily toward performance character: while they do have a moral component, strengths like zest, optimism, social intelligence and curiosity aren’t particularly heroic; they make you think of Steve Jobs or Bill Clinton more than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> The two teachers Randolph has chosen to oversee the school’s character initiative are K.C. Cohen, the guidance counselor for the middle and upper schools, and Karen Fierst, a learning specialist in the lower school. Cohen is friendly and thoughtful, in her mid-30s, a graduate of Fieldston, the private school just down the road from Riverdale. She is intensely interested in character development, and like Randolph, she is worried about the character of Riverdale students. But she is not yet entirely convinced by the seven character strengths that Riverdale has ostensibly chosen. “When I think of good character, I think: Are you fair? Are you honest in dealings with other people? Are you a cheater?” she told me. “I don’t think so much about: Are you tenacious? Are you a hard worker? I think, Are you a good person?” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Cohen’s vision of character is much closer to “moral character” than “performance character,” and so far, that vision remains the dominant one at Riverdale. When I spent a day at the school in March, sitting in on a variety of classes and meetings, messages about behavior and values permeated the day, but those messages stayed almost entirely in the moral dimension. It was a hectic day at the middle school — it was pajama day, plus there was a morning assembly, and then on top of that, the kids in French class who were going on the two-week trip to Bordeaux for spring break had to leave early in order to make their overnight flight to Paris. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The topic for the assembly was heroes, and a half-dozen students stood up in front of their classmates — about 350 kids, in all — and each made a brief presentation about a particular hero he or she had chosen: Ruby Nell Bridges, the African-American girl who was part of the first group to integrate the schools in New Orleans in 1960; Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor whose self-immolation helped spark the recent revolt in that country; the actor and activist Paul Robeson. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> In the assembly, in classes and in conversations with different students, I heard a lot of talk about values and ethics, and the values that were emphasized tended to be social values: inclusion, tolerance, diversity. (I heard a lot more about black history at Riverdale than I did at the KIPP schools I visited.) One eighth-grade girl I asked about character said that for her and her friends, the biggest issue was inclusion — who was invited to whose bat mitzvah; who was being shunned on Facebook. Character, as far as I could tell, was being defined at Riverdale mostly in terms of helping other people — or at least not hurting their feelings. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Randolph told me that he had concerns about a character program that comprised only those kind of nice-guy values. “The danger with character is if you just revert to these general terms — respect, honesty, tolerance — it seems really vague,” he said. “If I stand in front of the kids and just say, ‘It’s really important for you to respect each other,’ I think they glaze over. But if you say, ‘Well, actually you need to exhibit self-control,’ or you explain the value of social intelligence — this will help you collaborate more effectively — then it seems a bit more tangible.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> When I spoke to Karen Fierst, the teacher who was overseeing the character project for the Riverdale lower school, she said she was worried that it would be a challenge to convince the students and their parents that there was anything in the 24 character strengths that might actually benefit them. For KIPP kids, she said, the notion that character could help them get through college was a powerful lure, one that would motivate them to take the strengths seriously. For kids at Riverdale, though, there was little doubt that they would graduate from college. “It will just happen,” Fierst explained. “It happened to every generation in their family before them. And so it’s harder to get them to invest in this idea. For KIPP students, learning these strengths is partly about trying to demystify what makes other people successful — kind of like, ‘We’re letting you in on the secret of what successful people are like.’ But kids here already live in a successful community. They’re not depending on their teachers to give them the information on how to be successful.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <strong>At KIPP Infinity middle school,</strong> which occupies one floor of a school on West 133rd Street, across from the M.T.A.’s giant Manhattanville bus depot, report-card night last winter fell on a cold Thursday at the beginning of February. Report-card night is always a big deal at KIPP schools — parents are strongly urged to attend, and at Infinity, almost all of them do — but this particular evening carried an extra level of anxiety for both the administrators and the parents, because students were receiving their very first character report cards, and no one knew quite what to expect. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Logistically, the character report card had been a challenge to pull off. Teachers at all four KIPP middle schools in New York City had to grade every one of their students, on a scale of 1 to 5, on every one of the 24 character indicators, and more than a few of them found the process a little daunting. And now that report-card night had arrived, they had an even bigger challenge: explaining to parents just how those precise figures, rounded to the second decimal place, summed up their children’s character. I sat for a while with Mike Witter, a 31-year-old eighth-grade English teacher, as he talked through the character report card with Faith Flemister and her son Juaquin Bennett, a tall, hefty eighth grader in a gray hooded sweatshirt. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> “For the past few years we’ve been working on a project to create a clearer picture for parents about the character of your child,” Witter explained to Flemister. “The categories that we ended up putting together represent qualities that have been studied and determined to be indicators of success. They mean you’re more likely to go to college. More likely to find a good job. Even surprising things, like they mean you’re more likely to get married, or more likely to have a family. So we think these are really important.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Flemister nodded, and Witter began to work his way down the scores on Juaquin’s character report card, starting with the good news: every teacher had scored him as a perfect 5 on “Is polite to adults and peers,” and he did almost as well on “Keeps temper in check.” They were both indicators for interpersonal self-control. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> “I can tell this is a real strength for you,” Witter said, turning to Juaquin. “This kind of self-control is something you’ve developed incredibly well. So that makes me think we need to start looking at: What’s something we can target? And the first thing that jumps out at me is this.” Witter pulled out a green felt-tip marker and circled one indicator on Juaquin’s report card. “ ‘Pays attention and resists distraction,’ ” Witter read aloud, an indicator for academic self-control. “That’s a little lower than some of the other numbers. Why do you think that is?” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> “I talk too much in class,” Juaquin said, a little sheepishly, looking down at his black sneakers. “I sometimes stare off into space and don’t pay attention.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> The three of them talked over a few strategies to help Juaquin focus more in class, and by the end of the 15-minute conversation, Flemister seemed convinced by the new approach. “The strong points are not a surprise,” she said to Witter as he got up to talk to another family. “That’s just the type of person Juaquin is. But it’s good how you pinpoint what he can do to make things easier on himself. Then maybe his grades will pick up.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> A month later, I returned to KIPP to visit Witter’s classroom. By that point in the school year, character language had permeated Infinity. Kids wore T-shirts with the slogan “Infinite Character” and Seligman’s 24 character strengths listed on the back. The walls were covered with signs that read “Got self-control?” and “I actively participate!” (one indicator for zest). There was a bulletin board in the hallway topped with the words “Character Counts,” where students filled out and posted “Spotted!” cards when they saw a fellow student performing actions that demonstrate character. (Jasmine R. cited William N. for zest: “William was in math class and he raised his hand for every problem.”) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> I came to Witter’s class to observe something that Levin was calling “dual-purpose instruction,” the practice of deliberately working explicit talk about character strengths into every lesson. Levin wanted math teachers to use the strengths in word problems; he explained that history teachers could use them to orient a class discussion about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. And when I arrived in Witter’s class at 7:45 on a Thursday morning in March, he was leading a discussion about Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart.” Above Witter’s head, at the front of the class, the seven character strengths were stenciled in four-inch-high letters, white on blue, from optimism to social intelligence. He asked his students to rank Okonkwo, the protagonist, on his various character strengths. There was a lot of back and forth, but in the end, most students agreed that Okonkwo rated highest on grit and lowest on self-control. Then a student named Yantzee raised his hand. “Can’t a trait backfire at you?” he asked. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> “Sure, a trait can backfire,” Witter said. “Too much grit, like Okonkwo, you start to lose your ability to have empathy for other people. If you’re so gritty that you don’t understand why everyone’s complaining about how hard things are, because nothing’s hard for you, because you’re Mr. Grit, then you’re going to have a hard time being kind. Even love — being too loving might make you the kind of person who can get played.” There was a ripple of knowing laughter from the students. “So, yes, character is something you have to be careful about. Character strengths can become character weaknesses.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Though the seven character strengths aren’t included in every lesson at KIPP, they do make it into most conversations about discipline. One day last winter, I was speaking with Sayuri Stabrowski, a 30-year-old seventh-and-eighth-grade reading teacher at KIPP Infinity, and she mentioned that she caught a girl chewing gum in her class earlier that day. “She denied it,” Stabrowski told me. “She said, ‘No, I’m not, I’m chewing my tongue.’ ” Stabrowski rolled her eyes as she told me the story. “I said, ‘O.K. fine.’ Then later in the class, I saw her chewing again, and I said: ‘You’re chewing gum! I see you.’ She said, ‘No, I’m not, see?’ and she moved the gum over in her mouth in this really obvious way, and we all saw what she was doing. Now, a couple of years ago, I probably would have blown my top and screamed. But this time, I was able to say: ‘Gosh, not only were you chewing gum, which is kind of minor, but you lied to me twice. That’s a real disappointment. What does that say about your character?’ And she was just devastated.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Stabrowski was worried that the girl, who often struggled with her behavior, might have a mini-meltdown — a “baby attack,” in KIPP jargon — in the middle of the class, but in fact, the girl spit out her gum and sat through the rest of the class and then afterward came up to her teacher with tears in her eyes. “We had a long conversation,” Stabrowski told me. “She said: ‘I’m trying so hard to just grow up. But nothing ever changes!’ And I said: ‘Do you know what does change? You didn’t have a baby attack in front of the other kids, and two weeks ago, you would have.’ ” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> To Tom Brunzell, who as the dean of students at KIPP Infinity oversaw the implementation of the character report card, what is going on in character conversations like that one isn’t academic instruction at all, or even discipline; it’s therapy. Specifically, it’s a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy, the very practical, nuts-and-bolts psychological technique that provides the theoretical underpinning for the whole positive psychology field. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or C.B.T., involves using the conscious mind to understand and overcome unconscious fears and self-destructive habits, using techniques like “self-talk” — putting an immediate crisis in perspective by reminding yourself of the larger context. “The kids who succeed at KIPP are the ones who can C.B.T. themselves in the moment,” Brunzell told me. Part of the point of the character initiative, as he saw it, was to give their students the tools to do that. “All kids this age are having mini-implosions every day,” he said. “I mean, it’s middle school, the worst years of their lives. But the kids who make it are the ones who can tell themselves: ‘I can rise above this little situation. I’m O.K. Tomorrow is a new day.’ ”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <strong>For Randolph,</strong> the experience that Brunzell was describing — the struggle to pull yourself through a crisis, to come to terms on a deep level with your own shortcomings and to labor to overcome them — is exactly what is missing for so many students at academically excellent schools like Riverdale. And perhaps surprisingly, it may turn out to be an area where the students at KIPP have a real advantage over Riverdale kids. On the professional development day in February when I visited Riverdale, Randolph had arranged a screening for his entire faculty of “Race to Nowhere,” a movie about the stresses facing mostly privileged American high-school students that has become an underground hit in many wealthy suburbs, where one-time showings at schools, churches and community centers bring out hundreds of concerned parents. The movie paints a grim portrait of contemporary adolescence, rising in an emotional crescendo to the story of an overachieving teenage girl who committed suicide, apparently because of the ever-increasing pressure to succeed that she felt both at school and at home. At Riverdale, the film seemed to have a powerful effect on many of the staff; one teacher who came up to Randolph afterward had tears in her eyes. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> “Race to Nowhere” has helped to coalesce a growing movement of psychologists and educators who argue that the systems and methods now in place to raise and educate well-off kids in the United States are in fact devastating them. One central figure in the movie is Madeline Levine, a psychologist in Marin County who is the author of a best-selling book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Price-Privilege-Advantage-Generation-Disconnected/dp/0060595841" target="_blank">“The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.”</a> In her book, Levine cites studies and surveys to back up her contention that children of affluent parents now exhibit “unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems beginning in junior high school.” This is no accident of demographics, Levine says, but instead is a direct result of the child-raising practices that prevail in well-off American homes; wealthy parents today, she argues, are more likely to be emotionally distant from their children, and at the same time to insist on high levels of achievement, a potentially toxic blend of influences that can create “intense feelings of shame and hopelessness” in affluent children. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Cohen and Fierst told me that they also see many Riverdale parents who, while pushing their children to excel, also inadvertently shield them from exactly the kind of experience that can lead to character growth. As Fierst put it: “Our kids don’t put up with a lot of suffering. They don’t have a threshold for it. They’re protected against it quite a bit. And when they do get uncomfortable, we hear from their parents. We try to talk to parents about having to sort of make it O.K. for there to be challenge, because that’s where learning happens.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Cohen said that in the middle school, “if a kid is a C student, and their parents think that they’re all-A’s, we do get a lot of pushback: ‘What are you talking about? This is a great paper!’ We have parents calling in and saying, for their kids, ‘Can’t you just give them two more days on this paper?’ Overindulging kids, with the intention of giving them everything and being loving, but at the expense of their character — that’s huge in our population. I think that’s one of the biggest problems we have at Riverdale.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> This is a problem, of course, for all parents, not just affluent ones. It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small. And yet we all know — on some level, at least — that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation that they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can. As a parent, you struggle with these thorny questions every day, and if you make the right call even half the time, you’re lucky. But it’s one thing to acknowledge this dilemma in the privacy of your own home; it’s quite another to have it addressed in public, at a school where you send your kids at great expense. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> And it’s that problem that Randolph is up against as he tries to push forward this new kind of conversation about character at Riverdale. When you work at a public school, whether it’s a charter or a traditional public school, you’re paid by the state, responsible, on some level, to your fellow citizens for the job you do preparing your students to join the adult world. When you work at a private school like Riverdale, though, even one with a long waiting list, you are always conscious that you’re working for the parents who pay the tuition fees. Which makes a campaign like the one that Randolph is trying to embark on all the more complicated. If your premise is that your students are lacking in deep traits like grit and gratitude and self-control, you’re implicitly criticizing the parenting they’ve received — which means you’re implicitly criticizing your employers. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> When I asked Randolph to explain just what he thought Riverdale students were missing out on, he told me the story of his own scholastic career. He did well in boarding school and was admitted to Harvard, but when he got to college, he felt lost, out of step with the power-tie careerism of the Reagan ’80s. After two years at Harvard, Randolph left for a year to work in a low-paying manual job, as a carpenter’s helper, trying to find himself. After college, he moved for a couple of years to Italy, where he worked odd jobs and studied opera. It was an uncertain and unsettled time in his life, filled with plenty of failed experiments and setbacks and struggles. Looking back on his life, though, Randolph says that the character strengths that enabled him to achieve the success that he has were not built in his years at Harvard or at the boarding schools he attended; they came out of those years of trial and error, of taking chances and living without a safety net. And it is precisely those kinds of experiences that he worries that his students aren’t having. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> “The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure,” Randolph explained. “And in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything.” </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> Most Riverdale students can see before them a clear path to a certain type of success. They’ll go to college, they’ll graduate, they’ll get well-paying jobs — and if they fall along the way, their families will almost certainly catch them, often well into their 20s or even 30s, if necessary. But despite their many advantages, Randolph isn’t yet convinced that the education they currently receive at Riverdale, or the support they receive at home, will provide them with the skills to negotiate the path toward the deeper success that Seligman and Peterson hold up as the ultimate product of good character: a happy, meaningful, productive life. Randolph wants his students to succeed, of course — it’s just that he believes that in order to do so, they first need to learn how to fail. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Paul Tough (inquiries@paultough.com), a contributing writer, is the author of "Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America." His book "The Success Equation" will be published next year.</i></div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-80029071330868078852011-08-17T13:58:00.001-04:002011-08-17T13:59:35.015-04:00La felicidad colectiva - La necesidad que se le escapo a Maslow<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WvH4H8NX9SI/TkvxJ33bZOI/AAAAAAAAAb0/SoT6g3jFBKA/s1600/main+RTXSIZ3-thumb-615x350-60649.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WvH4H8NX9SI/TkvxJ33bZOI/AAAAAAAAAb0/SoT6g3jFBKA/s1600/main+RTXSIZ3-thumb-615x350-60649.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WvH4H8NX9SI/TkvxJ33bZOI/AAAAAAAAAb0/SoT6g3jFBKA/s400/main+RTXSIZ3-thumb-615x350-60649.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Un nuevo estudio mediante encuesta a cientos de miles de personas en 123 paises revela cuales son las necesidades universales de los humanos. Entre los hallazgos principales se encuentra que la necesidad a nivela de sociedad es fundamental parea la felicidad individual. Es beneficioso vivir en una sociedad con otras persons que tienen sus necesidades cubiertas. El mejorar individualmente en una sociedad no es suficiente.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"> </div><b>Maslow 2.0: A new and Improved Recipe for Happines</b><br />
by Hans Villarica<br />
August 17, 2011<br />
The Atlancic<br />
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What are the ingredients for happiness? It's a question that has been <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/7439/">addressed</a> time and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/the-pursuit-of-happiness-what-the-founders-meant-and-didnt/240708/">again</a>, and now a study based on the first-ever globally representative poll on well-being has some answers about whether or not a pioneering theory is actually correct.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The theory in question is the psychologist Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs," a staple of Psychology 101 courses that was famously articulated in 1954. It breaks down the path to happiness in an easy-to-digest list: Earthly needs, such as food and safety, are considered essential, since they act as the groundwork that makes it possible to pursue loftier desires, such as love, respect, and self-actualization (the realization of one's full potential).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The problem is, Maslow's theory remained a theory. Though it gained popularity, scientific psychologists largely ignored it. "They thought the needs were too inborn and universal," says Ed Diener, the author of <i>Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth</i>, "and that the idea of self-actualization was too fuzzy. They started to believe everything is learned and due to socialization."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To find proof that Maslow's theory translated into real life, <a href="http://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/%7Eediener/">Diener</a>, a University of Illinois psychologist and senior scientist for the Gallup Organization, helped design the Gallup World Poll, a landmark survey on well-being with 60,865 participants from 123 countries that was conducted from 2005 to 2010. Respondents answered questions about six needs that closely resemble those in Maslow's model: basic needs (food, shelter); safety; social needs (love, support); respect; mastery; and autonomy. They also rated their well-being across three discrete measures: life evaluation (a person's view of his or her life as a whole), positive feelings (day-to-day instances of joy or pleasure), and negative feelings (everyday experiences of sorrow, anger, or stress). Finally, Diener analyzed the poll data with fellow University of Illinois psychology professor <a href="http://www.psychology.illinois.edu/people/sientay">Louis Tay</a> for a <a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-101-2-354.pdf">study</a> in the current edition of the <i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The results are mixed. Maslow rightly saw that there are human needs that apply regardless of culture, but his ordering of these needs was not right on target. "Although the most basic needs might get the most attention when you don't have them," Diener explains, "you don't need to fulfill them in order to get benefits [from the others]." Even when we are hungry, for instance, we can be happy with our friends. "They're like vitamins," Diener says on how the needs work independently. "We need them all."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The study's methodical investigation of both day-to-day positive and negative feelings and overall life evaluation uncovered novel nuances as well. As it turns out, the needs that are most linked with everyday satisfaction are interpersonal ones, such as love and respect. Our troubles, conversely, relate most to lack of esteem, lack of freedom, and lack of nourishment. Only when we look back on the quality of our lives thus far do basic needs become significant indicators for well-being. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Diener, the implications for public policymakers are clear. Since each of Maslow's needs correlates with certain components of happiness, he says, "all the needs are important all the time. Our leaders need to think about them from the outset, otherwise they will have no reason to address social and community needs until food and shelter are available to all."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">University of Pennsylvania psychology professor <a href="http://www.psych.upenn.edu/people/seligman">Martin Seligman</a>, who says the study might be a breakthrough, adds: "Governments should take these measures seriously and hold themselves accountable for public policy changes for the well-being of their citizens." Focus away from monetary measures should be considered, especially in light of Diener and Tay's finding that income has little impact on day-to-day happiness and is significant for well-being only in so far as it allows for basic needs to be met. Seligman argues in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Flourish-Visionary-Understanding-Happiness-Well-being/dp/1439190755"><i>Flourish</i></a>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>.[G]ross domestic product should no longer be the only serious index of how well a nation is doing. It is not just the alarming divergence between quality of life and GDP that warrants this conclusion. Policy itself follows from what is measured, and if all that is measured is money, all policy will be about getting more money.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps, as Seligman suggests, governments could take their cue from Bhutan, a nation that consistently ranks high in "gross national happiness," if not GDP. University of British Columbia economist <a href="http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/jhelliwell/">John Helliwell</a> points to the recent riots in London, where social connections had ostensibly frayed, to illustrate the dangers of an unhappy citizenry. Such anti-social acts, he says, should prompt world leaders to adopt the recently passed U.N. <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39084">resolution</a> to make happiness a primary goal for global development and to consider Diener's model. "It shows clearly the importance in all societies of human connections and social supports, something that's been ignored in recent years," he says.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, Maslow's theory has led psychologists to focus on the self over the social for decades, what with self-actualization as the height of human motivation. Diener and Tay's revised model, however, aims to strike a balance between the pursuit of happiness as the end goal and the fulfillment of both personal and social goals to get there. "Maslow got right that there are universal human needs beyond the physiological needs that everyone recognizes," Diener says. "But it turns out people are inherently social. We are called the social animal now."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-65271756474588421552011-08-15T15:27:00.001-04:002011-08-15T15:28:38.134-04:00La confianza, la colaboracion y la evolucion de la generosidad<h2 class="fly-title"></h2><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3v_MIUvT5bk/TklrQQ9xsHI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/loALWNxBAbs/s1600/20110730_STD001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3v_MIUvT5bk/TklrQQ9xsHI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/loALWNxBAbs/s400/20110730_STD001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">Segun este estudio sobre psicologia evolutiva, colaborar es uno de los principales factores para el exito de nuestra especie. Lo que me interesa principalmente es el uso de los juegos de simulacion para validar que si colaboramos tendremos exito como humanos. Pero, ¿en verdad hace falta este estudio para probar esto....? De todas maneras creo que los hallazgos del estudio son relevantes.</div><br />
<b>The Evolution of Generosity </b><br />
The Economist<br />
July 30, 2011<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">The extraordinary success of <i class="Italic">Homo sapiens</i> is a result of four things: intelligence, language, an ability to manipulate objects dexterously in order to make tools, and co-operation. Over the decades the anthropological spotlight has shifted from one to another of these as the prime mover of the package, and thus the fundament of the human condition. At the moment co-operation is the most fashionable subject of investigation. In particular, why are humans so willing to collaborate with unrelated strangers, even to the point of risking being cheated by people whose characters they cannot possibly know?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Evidence from economic games played in the laboratory for real money suggests humans are both trusting of those they have no reason to expect they will ever see again, and surprisingly unwilling to cheat them—and that these phenomena are deeply ingrained in the species’s psychology. Existing theories of the evolution of trust depend either on the participants being relatives (and thus sharing genes) or on their relationship being long-term, with each keeping count to make sure the overall benefits of collaboration exceed the costs. Neither applies in the case of passing strangers, and that has led to speculation that something extraordinary, such as a need for extreme collaboration prompted by the emergence of warfare that uses weapons, has happened in recent human evolution to promote the emergence of an instinct for unconditional generosity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, two doyens of the field, who work at the University of California, Santa Barbara, do not agree. They see no need for extraordinary mechanisms and the latest study to come from their group (the actual work was done by Andrew Delton and Max Krasnow, who have just <a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/Delton,%20Krasnow,%20Cosmides%20&%20Tooby%20PNAS%202011.pdf">published the results</a> in the <i class="Italic">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i>) suggests they are right. It also shows the value of applying common sense to psychological analyses—but then of backing that common sense with some solid mathematical modelling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Be seeing you</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Studying human evolution directly is obviously impossible. The generation times are far too long. But it is possible to isolate features of interest and examine how they evolve in computer simulations. To this end Dr Delton and Dr Krasnow designed software agents that were able to meet up and interact in a computer’s processor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The agents’ interactions mimicked those of economic games in the real world, though the currency was arbitrary “fitness units” rather than dollars. This meant that agents which successfully collaborated built up fitness over the period of their collaboration. Those that cheated on the first encounter got a one-off allocation of fitness, but would never be trusted in the future. Each agent had an inbuilt and heritable level of trustworthiness (ie, the likelihood that it would cheat at the first opportunity) and, in each encounter it had, it was assigned a level of likelihood (detectable by the other agent) that it would be back for further interactions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After a certain amount of time the agents reproduced in proportion to their accumulated fitness; the old generation died, and the young took over. The process was then repeated for 10,000 generations (equivalent to about 200,000 years of human history, or the entire period for which <i class="Italic">Homo sapiens</i> has existed), to see what level of collaboration would emerge.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The upshot was that, as the researchers predicted, generosity pays—or, rather, the cost of early selfishness is greater than the cost of trust. This is because the likelihood that an encounter will be one-off, and thus worth cheating on, is just that: a likelihood, rather than a certainty. This fact was reflected in the way the likelihood values were created in the model. They were drawn from a probability distribution, so the actual future encounter rate was only indicated, not precisely determined by them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For most plausible sets of costs, benefits and chances of future encounters the simulation found that it pays to be trusting, even though you will sometimes be cheated. Which, if you think about it, makes perfect sense. Previous attempts to study the evolution of trust using games have been arranged to make it clear to the participants whether their encounter was a one-off, and drawn their conclusions accordingly. That, though, is hardly realistic. In the real world, although you might guess, based on the circumstances, whether or not you will meet someone again, you cannot know for sure. Moreover, in the ancient world of hunter-gatherers, limited movement meant a second encounter would be much more likely than it is in the populous, modern urban world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">No need, then, for special mechanisms to explain generosity. An open hand to the stranger makes evolutionary as well as moral sense. Except, of course, that those two senses are probably, biologically speaking, the same thing. But that would be the subject of a different article.</div><br />
Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15264464.post-10142889822086410942011-08-08T10:13:00.000-04:002011-08-08T10:13:18.392-04:00Sonrie Un corto visual para estimular las buenas ideas....<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-T9wbYpbbWc" width="480"></iframe>Karel Hilversumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17956874760020707495noreply@blogger.com0