Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Using the Knowledge we Already Have

“Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows.” [Papert's Principle] Marvin Minsky was the co-founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Project (later the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) whose co-director of Seymour Papert's name he used to illustrate an important learning principle. Papert worked on learning theories focusing on the impact new technologies had on learning in general, and in schools as learning organizations in particular. Our ability to use the knowledge we already have is based on practicing thinking. Thanks... Read more →

Great Strategists Practice Thinking

[image from the 1968 movie Odyssey, when Ulysses asks his companions to tie him to the mast as they navigate by the area where the sirens beckoned. Circe the sorceress had predicted he would give in. Scene shot in Monte Argentario, Cala della Cacciarella] + It's not enough to do, to practice becoming better at strategy or strategizing, we need to learn to think better. Smart thinking is not an innate quality but rather a skill we can cultivate, and is not the same as intelligence, however we define it. We can develop better thinking habits, higher quality knowledge and... Read more →

The Difference Between Strategy and Operational Effectiveness

“When people are used to think about something in a particular way, they have great difficulty in thinking about it in new ways.” [Karl Duncker] The problem compounds when the source of our thinking is confusion. Clarity of thought creates advantage in action. But the two, which in business we most commonly refer to as strategy and execution, are not one and the same. It's especially important to understand the difference when it comes to operational effectiveness. What strategy is Strategy is a signal that there is a future state that is desirable to a person, group, or organization and... Read more →

Our Brand is Crisis

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” [Antonio Gramsci] A campaign team engages a battle-hardened American political consultant to help re-elect a controversial president in Bolivia, where she must compete with a long-term rival working for another candidate. Jane/Bullock comes up with the slug line, “Our Brand is Crisis,” which ends up focusing the campaign and winning the vote. It's just business, as she says: That's the world, that's politics. That's how it works. It starts out with big... Read more →

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There

Doing has replaced thinking in our culture — it's all about acting, getting stuff done, hustle. Scratch under the brittle veneer surface and what we have is many busy bodies, maybe the same claiming busyness as an excuse for not being available. Yet when we study the lives of very productive and successful people what we find is that they do less — and think more. Warren Buffett's reading routine is baked right onto his day. “Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but... Read more →

How Netonomics Will Replace Destructive Economy of Scale

"Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." [Winston Churchill] When we don't learn from history, we're bound to repeat it. Giambattista Vico was an Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian and jurist of the Age of Enlightenment. He was a precursor of systematic and complex thought and believed that history repeated itself in cycles — primitive/divine, poetic/heroic, and civil history. Only he attributed this continuous repetition to divine providence. We like to think our rational decision-making prevails, that we maximize all alternatives in our pursuit of monetary gain, seemingly the only value. But there's a lot... Read more →

The Consequences of Limited Rationality, Social Preferences, and Lack of Self-Control

“I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.” [Jean-Paul Sartre] We'd like to think we're enlightened rational actors, that we make choices based on our individual and unique circumstances, and that we're mostly in full command of our actions. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But this is now bad news once we understand how we work. Richard H. Thaler has spent time testing how psychologically realistic assumptions come into play into economic decision-making. The field of behavioral economics is richer for his contributions and... Read more →

The Antidote to Fear is Trust

“What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.” [Epictectus] Fear is one of the biggest barriers to becoming fully engaged with work and life. It's one of a pair of strong emotions, along with love, and becomes one with us if we're not careful. Making mistakes is part of being human, errare humanum est said Cicero, to err is human. He then followed by saying that only fools persevere — insipientis nullius nisi, in errore... Read more →

Seduced by Social, Rescued by Love

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing, and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” [Rumi] We can all benefit from a more open and honest mode of communication with each other, of knowing that it's okay to ask and to speak openly about what we feel ― that, too is the product of culture. When we become better at communicating, we enrich our lives and transform our workplace. Hannah du Plessis teaches change leaders and their teams the fundamentals of creating together across differences. Because of her culture and her work, Hannah came to appreciate the value of... Read more →