Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

If Good Things Lasted Forever

Would we appreciate how precious they are? Read more →

Some of the Best Things Lazy People Do

“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.” [Agatha Christie] Grace Murray Hopper# was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and a pioneer in her field. She was one of Harvard Mark I computer’s first programmers and is responsible for developing the first ever compiler used for computer programming language. As she herself admitted, she did it because she was lazy. The compiler was “the intermediate program that translates English language instructions into the language of the target computer.” She did this, she said,... Read more →

The Most Effective Salespeople are Ambiverts

Contrary to popular belief, the most effective salespeople score halfway between the poles of extreme extroversion and extreme introversion in personality tests. Adam Grant, associate professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania conducted research that compared personality to yearly sales and found that “ambiverts” earned 24 percent more than the introverts and, 32 percent more than the extroverts. Susan Cain's case of the “unassuming-looking fellow named Jon Berghoff” in Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking explains why: Jon is a stereotypical introvert, right down to his physical appearance: lean,... Read more →

The Surprising Truth about What Motivates us

“We are not as endlessly manipulable and predictable as you would think,” says Dan Pink in Drive. The results of an MIT study demonstrated that while there is a correspondence between effort expended and inventive expected for mechanical skills. However, when the task involved even a modicum of cognitive skills, a larger reward led to poorer performance. Studies at MIT, the University of Chicago, and Carnegie Mellon all found similar results. Higher pay equals better performance for rote work, but does not work the same way when even rudimentary cognitive skills are involved. In fact, based on experiments that psychologists,... Read more →

The Missing Links

For some reason three of the links to today's Learning Habit went missing between the time I tested the new format and the time it sent. Maybe it got ahead of itself like the rest of our clocks for Daylight Time Savings. Here are the links: 2. / How informality is more than nice to have. It makes it easier to get meaningful things done. We hear bold, human voices wherever good work is going on. 3./ Why context-specific value creation is the future of work. Farming more and more often starts with a true understanding of the particularities of... Read more →

Richard Feynman on Knowing Something and Certainty

When we look to figure out how something works in first person, we become more intimate with how it works and add multiples of value to our own capacity to think about problems. Filtering through our own lens encourages exploration and an open mind. Richard Feynman was a practical thinker, he enjoyed working from first principles and personal reasoning to understand how things came to be. He says: “There’s all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over the place. I may be quite wrong, maybe they do know all these things, but I don’t think I’m wrong. You see, I... Read more →

How to Create More by Getting Better at it

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” [Rumi] If everything has been said and done before, it hasn't been said and done by us. In the same way we bring to life an original combination of the same ingredients and our own spin on them - genetics and environment - what we bring to the process and product of creativity is ours alone. Time constraints and pressure to deliver are a common issue. We also prefer to have time alone to think and an environment that is more conducive to creativity in... Read more →

Here's to the Crazy Ones

In an interview with PBS, Steve Jobs says: “When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is - everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change... Read more →

How to Make Progress on Meaningful Work

“Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress -- even a small win -- can make all the difference in how they feel and perform.” [Teresa M. Amabile] We make the most progress on our work when we commit deeply to... Read more →

Showing up

“Most of us are brave and afraid in the same moment, all day long.” [Brené Brown] We underestimate the power of feedback. It's useful to learn how to provide it, and to understand the types of feedback that are well suited to each situation. When we engage in a creative endeavor, by necessity, we need to show ourselves. Since each of us has their own filters through which we see the world, this makes us vulnerable to criticism. And criticism hurts -- especially when hurled at us from a high perch. But, says Brené Brown channeling Roosevelt from his Sorbonne... Read more →