Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

The Power of Making Commitments

Good listening skills create an advantage in life — we learn so much more when we understand the feelings and concerns that come across when someone is talking. Just like when we read a good book, we want to make sure we're still and attuned to the actual words, rather than skimming and jumping around without paying attention. Great negotiators increase the amount of information they have about the interests expressed by the other side by listening. A better understanding of someone's interests creates clarity about what's important and gives us a chance to increase our power. We make trade-offs... Read more →

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

“Physics opens windows through which we see far into the distance. What we see does not cease to astound us. We realize that we are full of prejudices and that our intuitive image of the world is partial, parochial, inadequate.” Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy and the USA. His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity, where he is among the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory. He has also worked in the history and philosophy of science. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is a short read based... Read more →

On the Origin of Memes

We call an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person online an Internet meme. Many have been circulating in social networks over the last several years, chances are you've seen at least two. Because clever marketers have been using them to create interest in products, as with The New Old Spice Guy. We wouldn't have heard about the 2006 action thriller Snakes on a Plane had it not been for memes. Yet buzz doesn't necessarily translate into box office success. Another example is the successful Dumb Ways to Die, an Australian... Read more →

How to Write A Thesis

Language and numbers are the basis of our world, we need both to make sense of things and to use our ability to process information to its full potential. The sciences are about discovery, the humanities are about originality and invention where creativity and innovation thrive. When we lose the teaching of literary arts, we lose ingenuity and imagination. Even worse, without the core skills of what it takes to form and then write a thesis we're hardly equipped to bringing new ideas to life. The most general meaning of thesis is a proposition maintained by argument — many of... Read more →

How to Increase an Idea's Adoption Rates

“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.” [Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] We know from experience that formal leaders influence the behavior of those in their chain of command. CEOs, lead scientists, general managers, and so on. But there's a difference between power and status — some leaders may have status and no power, while others just the opposite. Those who have power and no status may still exercise control over others, as history attests. Without the formal power, status can help us be heard. Enrico Fermi was an Italian... Read more →

How Small Things Make a Big Difference

Most of us live lives constantly on the go, with little-to-no-time for formulating hypotheses to investigate further. Exploration becomes something that occurs by chance. Long on data, short on theory. Curiosity helps, but it needs acting on it to work. The relentless quest for predictable outcomes blinds us from the reality that business and most specifically commerce is about risk creation, the other side of the opportunity coin. Our conversations often suffer from a lack of appreciation for the micro-trade offs that are constantly necessary to make something work... and keep working. Translating to layman terms — we idolize the... Read more →

Thinking with our Whole Bodies

The the aphorism mens sana in corpore sano (Lat.from Greek philosopher Thales) has come to mean that physical exercise is an important or essential part of mental and psychological well-being. Another way of translating from its ancient Greek origins is a healthy mind in a healthy body. The poet Juvenal used it in a Satire to say that the wise person understands these are the most precious gifts to attend to vs. fame and riches. We spend a lot of time exercising the body, or talking about it, and comparatively little in exercising the mind. The reverse case is also... Read more →

Four Universal Motives for Writing

In 1946, British author George Orwell wrote an essay titles Why I Write, prefacing the four motives for writing he outlines with some background as to how we got started and the evolution of his writing. He says, “from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued.” Orwell started with poetry at the very young age of four or five, often imitating the style of authors he admired, like Aristophanes. When he reached sixteen, it became clear what kinds of books he wanted to write, “enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings,... Read more →

Hitchcock and Truffaut in Conversation on the Art and Craft of Storytelling

In June 1962, French screenwriter, director, producer and actor François Truffaut wrote a letter to Alfred Hitchcock asking whether he might interview him in depth about his life and career. Truffaut proposed they meet to talk for a week of all day interviews. In the letter he stated his reasons: Paris, 2 June 1962 Dear Mr Hitchcock, First of all, allow me to remind you who I am. A few years ago, in late 1954, when I was a film journalist, I came with my friend Claude Chabrol to interview you at the Saint-Maurice studio where you were directing the... Read more →

Reason Provides the Push to Widen our Circle of Empathy

Our ancestors were tightly connected with each other, which is why they felt only the pain of their family and the people in their village. As we started to travel more and learn new things, we expanded the circle of sympathy to the clan, the tribe, the nation, the race, and maybe all humankind. It was a process that at its origin had what physicist David Bohm called “participatory thought” — in some cultures there was a shared understanding that everyone was part of the same experience. In his excellent On Dialogue, Bohm explains the meaning of participatory, it's about... Read more →