Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Stop Chasing Your Tail, Make New Sense of What's Happening

How do you make change happen? I'm not talking about setting out for the big transformative change or the stuff of revolutions. That's also important. But, in the here and now of your life, how do you keep things moving forward? Another way of asking the same question: how do you get unstuck? Out from autopilot and into creative thinking. Or, facing a crisis, how do you keep anxiety at bay to do what you need to do to keep calm and stay safe? There's a simple tool you can use to get more of what you want. It can... Read more →

The Coronavirus Shows Why, if They are to Stay Healthy, Companies Need to Rethink Practices

It was obvious before the pandemic. Companies spent less and less time and effort at the micro level, trying to sort out what's desirable for people. I've heard it from strategists and from qualitative researchers: a mandate to figure how to capture and manage attention quickly. Understanding, like relationships, take time and commitment to build. But technology moves at a faster pace, enveloping everyone into its speed and growth potential. Hence the widening gap between the things we must choose to do and those we leave on the cutting floor. It's taken a global pandemic to realize that we don't... Read more →

Ten Books to Gain Perspective

People have asked more questions in the last few weeks than in the last ten years. They all start with what's the future of—work, cities, travel, faith, science, education, government bodies. Every day brings in new questions, few answers. But this is not for lack of trying. The questions are just too complex to work out individually. Networks started forming around each of these questions, scientists, academics, researchers are pooling their thinking and experience to make it more difficult for the virus to spread and improve humanity's odds. People connect on similarities—like language, body of knowledge—yet benefit from differences—such as... Read more →

Find Signal in Noise to Draw Meaning and Make Better Decisions

Cognitive biases, we're not leaving home without them. Well, right now we're not leaving home, period. It's just so interesting that there's an obsession over productivity and time spent on tasks, and yet, so little proportional attention to how what occupies brain waves impacts it. I don't know if you've ever wondered why are there are so many cognitive biases. There must be some reason they survived through the centuries to modern day. And yes, I'm aware this is a rhetorical question, because cognitive biases help us address key needs in our lives: filter and sort information organize data draw... Read more →

A Quarantine from Reality: Italian Goes to America, Son Opens a Bank, Helps Rebuild a Community, a City, a State, and a Country

It seems that what's dictating the human agenda right now is fear. Each day we get our rationing of counts—who lived, who died, who told a story. Right out of Hamilton, the show. The avalanche of articles and news alerts seem to indicate that anything goes. In a business setting, which is what I'm used to, when a new situation like the one we're facing creates a change, the first line of defense from letting it overtake you is what you say to others and your internal conversation. Because those words are birthing the emotional wake you'll need to live... Read more →

Responding to Emergencies

On Friday, September 21, 2001 there was an explosion in the city of Tolouse, France. Since it happened ten short days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it meant immediate panic about a terror attack. The public had already been primed in that direction by both politicians and the always-on news cycle. At the time, I had flights to Italy booked 20 days out and, though I didn't know it yet, I would lose my job right before Christmas. It was a volatile time, marked by ambiguity and uncertainty. Making decisions with a clear head... Read more →

Why the Little Decisions we Make Every Day are of Infinite Importance

We earn success a little bit a time, in the moment to moment decisions that in themselves make no visible difference whatsoever, but the accumulated compounding effect is profound. Understanding that the effects of small actions build over time helps us do something we may have struggled for years — to start. Whether we want to be healthier or pick a more diverse panel of speakers at conferences, we can make big changes with small steps. C. S. Lewis# once said, “Good and evil increase at compound interest. That’s why the little decisions we make every day are of infinite... Read more →

The Most Important Question: How do you Know?

The amount of knowledge we generate and store is growing exponentially. Much of what you learned in school or in the early years of your work has likely changed. It takes a little effort to stay up to date. It costs a lot to stay behind. The speed at which you need to make decisions has accelerated. This begs for getting your hands on reliable information and knowledge fast. Fortunately, there are also many more ways to gain insights and the skills today. It takes little effort to stay up to date. But you score no points for trying, effort... Read more →

What is High Resolution, what is Low Resolution. Can we Tell?

Many authors and journalists know how to write, few know how to be read. Few writers have the gift of introducing the reader to the pleasure of reading. It's a gift we receive from select classics. In Italy, Idro Montanelli had the gift of knowing how to reduce concepts to the essential ideas without subtracting depth from his message. Thus starts a review of Massimo Mantellini's Low Resolution. In the short book (Einaudi, 2018), Mantellini says with depth that the Internet has radically changed our approach to information, social relations, markets and culture. We traded higher resolution experiences with music,... Read more →

Everyone Has a Story

A 24-year old boy seeing out from the train shouted: “Dad, look the trees are going behind!” Dad smiled as a group of young people sitting nearby whispered snide remarks about the 24-year old's childish behavior. Suddenly, the young man exclaimed again: “Dad, look the clouds are running with us!” The group couldn't resist anymore and they said to the father: “Take your son to a good doctor, why don't you?” The father smiled and said: “I did. We're coming back from the hospital now. My son was blind from birth, he just got his sight today.” How would you... Read more →