Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Building a Different Box of Tools

The hardest part of learning is our desire to be curious about something, our ability to think through what we find, and then engage with the data to make it ours. Even when we have access to the infinite repository of the Internet, the actual reading and processing takes time and effort. That is if we want to form our own opinion about something, or take things further. We know we're onto something when we read actively, looking things up in context, referencing material outside our discipline. Admitting, I don't know, and looking it up or investigating a question, a... Read more →

Why we Should Never Bargain Over Positions in Negotiations

Conversation is a tool we can use to make sense of the world, each other, expand our horizons, learn new things, discuss ideas, make decisions, or understand issues and reach agreement. There is an art to arguing well, as many a trial attorney knows. Politicians and parents alike know that whenever we hear about a break in talks, we're headed for trouble. The ability to negotiate well is no just the domain of diplomats, it's a skill we should develop and practice to navigate better many situations in everyday life. We think we are good negotiators, all it takes is... Read more →

What do we Really Need to Know?

Half of the battle in managing ourselves is about deciding how we place value on our activities. When it comes to quantifying one activity in comparison with another, knowledge work suffers from a metrics black hole. As Peter Drucker says in The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, “Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.” Says Drucker: “The problem is rather that the important and relevant outside events are often qualitative and not capable of quantification. They are not yet facts. A fact, after all, is an event that somebody has... Read more →

Cognitive Psychology and the Beauty Premium

In a brief submitted to support Apple in its multi-million dollar Supreme Court patent battle against Samsung, 111 of the most renowned designers and theorists including industrial designer Dieter Rams, fashion designers Calvin Klein and Paul Smith, typography idol Paula Scher, and architect Norman Foster explain the value of design to tech. The document is a brief review of the effects of mechanization on daily life from an historical perspective, the emotional power of design, and much more—with examples from the automobile and consumer products industries. Form is strongly associated with function: “Design is particularly important for consumer products with... Read more →

Einstein on Perfection of Means and Confusion of Goals

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem–in my opinion–to characterize our age. If we desire sincerely and passionately for the safety, the welfare, and the free development of the talents of all men, we shall not be in want of the means to approach such a state. Even if only a small part of mankind strives for such goals, their superiority will prove itself in the long run.” Albert Einstein wrote this during World War II as the scientific community was enrolled in the war effort. It was a reminder that science is a method and not an end... Read more →

We Chat, Except we Don't Actually Talk

We don't get paid to have conversations. Conversations are throwaway time. There are plenty of tools and technologies for conversation. We can do away with face-to-face and phone conversations. In our haste to solve a problem — from collaborating and getting on the same page, to becoming more efficient, from discovering new things and meeting people, to learning a new skill — we forget about the side effects of not talking with each other. There are three types of problems — simple, complicated, and complex. On the people side of things, it's complex, formulas have limited application and uncertainty of... Read more →

What do We Know Anyway?

“Things are not as they seem, nor are they otherwise.” [The Lankavatara Sutra] Humor is a wonderful tonic for the spirit. Whenever we feel down and done for, a quip, as the British would say, pun, or well-timed joke does the job. Comedians, actors, and writers know the art of turning something perfectly ordinary into funny —they use crazy wisdom. They explore a lot of ideas and get feedback systematically. Here's one from Louis C.K.: “I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even... Read more →

Accessing our Untapped Power through an Open Mind

“Lovers of wisdom must open their minds to many things.” [Heraclitus, 25 centuries ago] Many things go out of fashion to be replaced by others. One day they are business imperatives, the next day they are gone and forgotten. Along with the buzzwords, awards, and puzzling fads we have seen develop and fizzle, one trend stands tall as valuable —the ability to create. But there is a creativity gap in our organizations and in our lives. While the expectation that we will use creativity at work has gone from 5 percent to 35 percent, only 1 in 4 people feel... Read more →

Why Aren't we Very Interested in Economics?

“We’ve got this profession wrong; a lot of professional economists think what they do is too difficult for ordinary people. You’d be surprised how often these people are stupid enough to say things, at least in private, like ‘you wouldn’t understand what I do even if I explained it to you’. If you cannot explain it to other people, you have the problem,” says Ha-Joon Chang. Chang is a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge and is the author of several widely discussed policy books. People have strong opinions about many things, despite non... Read more →

Why we Repeat Ourselves

“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication ... Innumerable confusions and a profound feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transitions. Our 'Age of Anxiety' is, in great part, the result of trying to do today's job with yesterday's tools–with yesterday's concepts.” [Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage: an Inventory of Effects] It was 1967, McLuhan's ideas about the nature of media, the increasing speed of communication, and the technological basis for our understanding of who we are... Read more →