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robertogreco + focus   105

Taming the Wandering Mind | The Moral Sciences Club | Big Think
"Reconciling oneself to the fact that projects "take the time they take" can be a necessary step in finishing projects at all. My mind is not simply prone to distraction, it is prone to rebellion. The wrong kind of pressure makes it resist its own commands, sends it spinning out of its own control. Bearing down, reining in, whipping harder doesn't get "me" back on track so much as set me against myself in a showdown I always lose winning. Better to just glide on the thermal of whim until the destination once again comes into sight and a smooth approach becomes finally possible.

Not to say that one can drift one's way to success. Aims must be fixed and kept in mind, even if one knows it's worse than useless to charge right at them. One must develop a sense of one's attention as one develops a sense of a powerful but skittish horse, calmly riding wide of known dangers…

We need to reconcile ourselves to our own temperaments, stop trying to fight or drug ourselves into submission…"
medicine  drugs  howwework  howwewrite  allsorts  productivity  focus  willpower  self-mastery  self-improvement  self-accommodation  gtd  effort  adhd  2012  hanifkureishi  attention  distraction  willwilkinson  from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco
Lists of Note: Henry Miller's 11 Commandments
"COMMANDMENTS

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can't create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."

[via @robinsloan: "1, 3, 7, 9, & 10 on Henry Miller's list here are so simple & powerful, & not just for writers:" http://twitter.com/robinsloan/status/168794527241482240 ]
purpose  concentration  focus  attention  making  writing  glvo  henrymiller 
february 2012 by robertogreco
Twitter / @millsbaker: Information is ineffectual ...
"Information is ineffectual; news of all sorts is noise. Focus, attention, discretion: these are radical."
2012  discretion  distraction  millsbaker  attention  focus  noise  news  information  from delicious
february 2012 by robertogreco
nickd: Whatever's next; whatever's good.
"I like dabbling in small projects with good people, and I like making tiny amounts of money so I can eat burritos in a city with a comically low cost of living."

"I always keep an open mind about any sort of projects that involve some degree of research, play, and curiosity. So if you want to plan anything off-the-wall funny or pranksterish, then get at me. I love outlandish, ridiculous projects. Let’s scheme together."

"I would like to make cool things with good people. Maybe you’re one of these good people. And maybe you know other good people, too. I’m in a rare inflection point in my life where I don’t have to juggle competing priorities to take on new stuff. I would love if you got in touch (nickd//nickd/org or @nickd), and spread this far and wide. I am a little scared these days, but things are really only worth doing if they’re scary, so I figure I must be at least a little right."
focus  makingtime  projects  projectideas  curiosity  risktaking  time  leapsoffaith  design  yearoff  glvo  freelance  doing  making  play  quitting  2012  nickdisabato  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch | Fast Company
'Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that combined create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. Employees are actively and passionately engaged in the business, operating from a sense of confidence and empowerment rather than navigating their days through miserably extensive procedures and mind-numbing bureaucracy. Performance-oriented cultures possess statistically better financial growth, with high employee involvement, strong internal communication, and an acceptance of a healthy level of risk-taking in order to achieve new levels of innovation."
failure  success  accountability  responsibility  administration  leadership  spirit  cohesion  connection  agency  motivation  focus  lcproject  tcsnmy  business  innovation  strategy  management  culture  from delicious
january 2012 by robertogreco
Focused dabbling - Neven Mrgan's tumbl
"The hardest thing for humans to persuade each other of is priorities. Should you be an exercise freak? A computer wiz? A classical-literature buff? A badass hiker? A game maker? A dedicated volunteer? A great cook? These are all worthy activities, each enriching your life and likely the lives of others. Our pasts lead us to a mix of a few obsessions, and hopefully we keep our minds open to many more. Those of us who commit to honing that one art may index excel at it. But for my doomed attempt at convincing you of how to arrange your life, I suggest a solid interest in, oh, three or five Big Things. They will compete for your attention, and the vagaries of fate will lead you toward one, then another. Things you learn in the first will improve you in the second, then bring you to a whole new third. You will be a happier and better person for branching out a bit."
howwework  work  attention  meaning  creativegeneralists  generalists  interdisciplinary  learning  hobbies  dabbling  focus  2011  nevenmrgan  from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco
Neven Mrgan at re:build 2011 on Vimeo
"Bit Depth, by Neven Mrgan: At my dayjob, I design Mac software UI/UX, websites, T-shirts, and office signage. In my spare time, I’ve designed 8-bit games. I think every creative professional would benefit from fully executing projects of different complexity, history, and purpose."

[All great stuff. Totally agree with him about the gamification bit.]

[See also: http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/14868098046/focused-dabbling ]
sideprojects  videogames  specialists  generalists  interdisciplinary  interdisciplinarity  dabbling  software  applications  transmit  panic  8-bit  bitdepth  depth  gaming  games  purpose  focus  darwin  work  design  polish  re:build  2011  appification  gamification  nevenmrgan  from delicious
december 2011 by robertogreco
Startup School 2011- Ashton Kutcher - YouTube
"People who genuinely want to solve a problem, a real problem, a problem that exists not just for themselves, but sometimes just for themselves and then it turns into a wave effect that solves other people's problems. Sometimes by solving your own problems. Generally, if you want to affect the world, you have to change yourself first…making uncomfortable choices…taking that risk…doing this thing that nobody else is doing."

"It's not about being like somebody else. It's not about the billion dollars. It's about how you can affect other people's lives — enrich them, improve them — how you can eliminate the space between people, how you can eliminate pain and friction."

"If you want to be a real entrepreneur, you have to be the cause, you have to be the creator of someone else's new reality, which eliminates time, space, motion, friction…"

Tells story about Carl Fisher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_G._Fisher ]
ashtonkutcher  purpose  vision  problemsolving  dropouts  entrepreneurship  2011  startupschool2011  via:monikahardy  risktaking  lcproject  carlfisher  marketing  change  passion  focus  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
The Isolator, A Bizarre Helmet For Encouraging Concentration (1925)
"The Isolator is a bizarre helmet invented in 1925 that encourages focus and concentration by rendering the wearer deaf, piping them full of oxygen, and limiting their vision to a tiny horizontal slit. The Isolator was invented by Hugo Gernsback, editor of Science and Invention magazine, member of “The American Physical Society,” and one of the pioneers of science fiction."
1925  focus  inventions  concentration  technology  history  hugogernsback  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
I would have clapped, but then she would have seen the camera - sippey.com
"There's something wonderful about watching someone do something they're good at, when they're not performing, or even deliberately practicing. Just doing it, because it's what they love to do.

Especially when they have no idea they're being recorded."
passion  practice  michaelsippey  2011  rubikscube  focus  love  pleasure  doing  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
Creativity Is Hustle: Make Something Every Day - Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg - Video - The Atlantic
"I think doing something start to finish each day not only helps you get over the fear of starting a project, but also the fear of finishing one. I know it can be hard to let stuff go when you know you could make it better, but at some point in every project, at some level you need to be like, "fine, good enough." That's really hard for some people, but this can definitely help.

I've think a project like this also helps with the notion that you need to be in some totally inspired state of zen to create art. Art is like taking a dump, it's not always fun or convenient but it's something you gotta do everyday and you shouldn't get to hung up if the product looks like pile of crap. Yer not gonna make a masterpiece everyday or even 95% of the time, but it's a numbers game and the you've got to get rid of all those crappy ideas before you can get to the good ones. Just showing up is 90% of the battle."
faketv  mikewinkelman  glvo  making  doing  howwework  ideas  creativity  cv  projects  plp  focus  2011  kasiacieplak-mayrvonbaldegg  interviews  animation  art  from delicious
october 2011 by robertogreco
Steve Jobs Insult Response - YouTube
"guy: "Mr. Jobs, you're a bright and influential man."

steve: "Here it comes."

guy: "It's sad and clear that add several counts you've discussed that you don't know what you're talking about.

(pause)

guy: "I would like, for example, for you to express in clear terms how say Java and any of its incarnations addresses the ideas embodied in OpenDOC. And when you're finished with that, perhaps you can tell us what you personally have been doing for the past 7 years""
stevejobs  change  gamechanging  business  decisionmaking  decisions  1997  risktaking  mistakes  customerexperience  backwards  apple  insults  humility  cohesion  bigpicture  focus  from delicious
september 2011 by robertogreco
Steve's Seven Insights for 21st Century Capitalists - Umair Haque - Harvard Business Review
"Matter. "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water—or do you want to change the world?"

Master. "Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it's really how it works."

Do the insanely great. "When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall & nobody will ever see it."

Have taste. "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste…absolutely no taste."

Build a temple. "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, & the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. & the only way to do great work is to love what you do."

Don't build a casino. "The cure for Apple is not cost-cutting. The cure for Apple is to innovate its way out of its current predicament."

Don't pander — better. "We didn't build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves.""
business  innovation  umairhaque  stevejobs  meaning  purpose  tcsnmy  work  focus  values  management  leadership  2011  lcproject  design  gamechanging  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
Haruki Murakami: Talent Is Nothing Without Focus and Endurance :: Articles :: The 99 Percent
"It's not surprising then that, for Murakami, the act of running and the act of creating are inextricably linked, like the two sides of a Möbius strip. As he writes about the evolution of his running career — from his first marathon to his first ultramarathon (62 miles) to his first triathlon — he constantly circles back to how his athletic experiences have impacted his writing practice, and vice versa. For Murakami, the creative process is a sport.<br />
 <br />
Here's what he has to say about talent, focus, and endurance: [long quote]"
harukimurakami  writing  endurance  workethic  running  focus  training  practice  talent  from delicious
august 2011 by robertogreco
» A Focus on Founders: The Anatomy of a New Design Education Johnny Holland – It's all about interaction » Blog Archive
"In a word, the intent of our educational model is disruption. At AC4D, we intend to empower our alumni to make a difference in the world, using the persuasive, thoughtful, and provocative ualities of design (or “design thinking” combined with “design doing”) as the mechanism.<br />
<br />
But there’s another question that we ask, and strive to answer, and this question is more important: what should we design, in the first place?…<br />
…our initial question – what should we design, in the first place – alters the conversation about “career.” When we start to question the fundamentals of our industry and the economic system that contains it, we arrive quickly at a rejection of “corporate vs. consultancy”, “job titles”, and the other baggage of our jobs…<br />
<br />
And this poses a problem for designers acting as entrepreneurs: how can they remain focused, passionate, and excited during the process of packaging, refining, detailing, and producing the actual offering?"
ac4d  jonkolko  education  socialentrepreneurship  designeducation  independence  meaning  disruption  2011  focus  passion  creativity  designthinking  altgdp  entrepreneurship  empowerment  from delicious
july 2011 by robertogreco
» A Focus on Founders: The Anatomy of a New Design Education Johnny Holland – It's all about interaction » Blog Archive
"In a word, the intent of our educational model is disruption. At AC4D, we intend to empower our alumni to make a difference in the world, using the persuasive, thoughtful, and provocative ualities of design (or “design thinking” combined with “design doing”) as the mechanism.

But there’s another question that we ask, and strive to answer, and this question is more important: what should we design, in the first place?…
…our initial question – what should we design, in the first place – alters the conversation about “career.” When we start to question the fundamentals of our industry and the economic system that contains it, we arrive quickly at a rejection of “corporate vs. consultancy”, “job titles”, and the other baggage of our jobs…

And this poses a problem for designers acting as entrepreneurs: how can they remain focused, passionate, and excited during the process of packaging, refining, detailing, and producing the actual offering?"
ac4d  jonkolko  education  socialentrepreneurship  designeducation  independence  meaning  disruption  2011  focus  passion  creativity  designthinking  altgdp  entrepreneurship  empowerment 
july 2011 by robertogreco
iA Writer for Mac on Vimeo
"iA Writer for Mac is a digital writing tool that will turn you into a shark following a blood trail. We tried our best to create an interface that works so seamlessly that all your thoughts go into the text instead of the program. It is built on three principles:<br />
<br />
1. Form = Idea: iA Writer is a writing tool as hard and as uncustomizable as a mechanical type writer. It has no preferences. It is how it is. It works like it works. Love it or hate it.<br />
2. Thought goes into writing, not using: Focus mode allows me to think, spell and write at one sentence at a time.<br />
3. Minimal input, maximum output: It automatically formats semantical entities such as headlines, lists, bold, strong, block quotes. Writer works without mouse.<br />
<br />
Visit itunes.apple.com/​us/​app/​ia-writer/​id439623248?mt=12# for more information "
writing  software  mac  text  minimalism  texteditor  simplicity  focus  applications  osx  iawriter  from delicious
june 2011 by robertogreco
Start-Up Lytro Aims to Sharpen Focus of Entire Camera Industry - Ina Fried - News - AllThingsD
"A Mountain View start-up is promising that its camera, due later this year, will bring the biggest change to photography since the transition from film to digital…

The breakthrough is a different type of sensor that captures what are known as light fields — basically, all the light that is moving in all directions in the view of the camera. That offers several advantages over traditional photography, the most revolutionary of which is that photos no longer need to be focused before they are taken.

This means capturing that perfect shot of your fast-moving pet or squirming child could soon get a whole lot easier. Instead of having to manually focus or wait for autofocus to kick in and hopefully center on the right thing, pictures can be taken immediately and in rapid succession. Once the picture is on a computer or phone, the focus can be adjusted to center on any object in the image…"
photography  digital  lytro  cameras  focus 
june 2011 by robertogreco
Nothing « aronsolomon dot com
"Years ago, when I was a teacher and coach, I’d often finish my early-morning workouts on the basketball court. It was a simple routine of taking a foul shot, running a sprint, taking another foul shot, and so on and so forth.<br />
<br />
I made the kids do it because they were going to be tired when they shot their throws in a game. Good practice replicates game conditions.<br />
<br />
But I did it in the mornings to fall into a nothingness, as pure and black as the pre-dawn fields I’d look out upon through the gym windows. In thinking of nothing I was open to taking in everything.<br />
<br />
The day would progress with classes and meetings and practice and dorm duty and every “thing” would make a light mark on the darkness. I could reset in the morning.<br />
<br />
We make too little of nothing. We fear it by filling our nothing with meaningless marks. We chip at it with noise and let our technology create an illusion of full.<br />
<br />
I crave nothing."
aronsolomon  simplicity  nothing  nothingness  teaching  thinking  clarity  noise  focus  technology  attention  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
Jonah Lehrer on Buildings, Health and Creativity | Head Case - WSJ.com
"Although we're only starting to grasp how the insides of buildings influence the insides of the mind, it's possible to begin prescribing different kinds of spaces for different tasks. If we're performing a job that requires accuracy and focus (say, copy editing a manuscript), we should seek out confined spaces with a red color scheme. But for tasks that require a little bit of creativity, we seem to benefit from high ceilings, lots of windows and bright blue walls that match the sky."
learning  design  architecture  science  psychology  jonahlehrer  2011  ceilings  schooldesign  creativity  focus  thinking  neuroscience  from delicious
may 2011 by robertogreco
Hot Stuff: Is the Kool-Aid wearing off? - Smiley & West
"The administration has to straighten its back up and say: “This is what we believe. This is our vision.”"
barackobama  tcsnmy  administration  vision  belief  purpose  clarity  management  focus  cv  tavissmiley  cornelwest  2011  policy  decisionmaking  from delicious
april 2011 by robertogreco
The power of lonely - The Boston Globe
"But an emerging body of research is suggesting that spending time alone, if done right, can be good for us — that certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around, and that even the most socially motivated among us should regularly be taking time to ourselves if we want to have fully developed personalities, and be capable of focus and creative thinking. There is even research to suggest that blocking off enough alone time is an important component of a well-functioning social life — that if we want to get the most out of the time we spend with people, we should make sure we’re spending enough of it away from them. Just as regular exercise and healthy eating make our minds and bodies work better, solitude experts say, so can being alone."<br />
<br />
[via: http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/3876384185/but-an-emerging-body-of-research-is-suggesting ]
psychology  solitude  loneliness  culture  social  society  2011  creativity  focus  health  from delicious
march 2011 by robertogreco
Stop Wasting Time and Effort Developing Fragile Capabilities | OnTheSpiral
"Fragile capabilities have two characteristics: You have no current use for them; Your skill level diminishes quickly without practice or reinforcement; If your resolution fits both of the above criteria then you might as well not bother.  I can almost guarantee you won’t stick with it for the long term. These are not vague criteria either, “current use” does not mean “potential use”. If you won’t use it today w/out an act of willpower then you are probably wasting your time."<br />
<br />
"Why do you want to learn a foreign language? If you plan to live or work abroad then make concrete plans & start the immersion now or stop wasting your time until you get there…"<br />
<br />
"The most successful goals are those that create self-reinforcing capabilities. In other words, they build their own context. Self-reinforcing capabilities send you spiraling outward as each new accomplishment is also the stimulus for new growth. They are the compliment to what Venkat Rao recently called Leveraged Resolutions."
fragilecapabilities  gregoryrader  immediacy  justintime  learning  efficiency  focus  unschooling  deschooling  education  yearoff  life  from delicious
february 2011 by robertogreco
Evan Williams | evhead: Ten Rules for Web Startups [via: http://interconnected.org/home/2011/01/18/ten_rules_for_web_startups]
"#1 Be Narrow: Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too…#2 Be Different #3 Be Casual #4 Be Picky: Another perennial business rule, and it applies to everything you do: features, employees, investors, partners, press opportunities. Startups are often too eager to accept people or ideas into their world. You can almost always afford to wait if something doesn't feel just right, and false negatives are usually better than false positives. One of Google's biggest strengths—and sources of frustration for outsiders—was their willingness to say no to opportunities, easy money, potential employees, and deals. #5 Be User-Centric #6 Be Self-Centred: Make it better based on your own desires. #7 Be Greedy #8 Be Tiny #9 Be Agile #10 Be Balanced #11 Be Wary"
business  startup  entrepreneurship  tips  tcsnmy  lcproject  small  agility  evanwilliams  focus  startups  2005  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
YouTube - Yelp (With Apologies to Allen Ginsberg) narrated by Peter Coyote
"Shabbat is a very old idea -- 5000 years old. Just take a break one day a week. I desperately needed a "technology shabbat." Recently addicted to tweeting, I became that person I hated who pulled out her iPhone while actually talking to someone -- sneaking email fixes in bathroom stalls. It was getting ugly. <br />
<br />
Sophocles once said, "nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse," and this couldn't be more true of technology. <br />
<br />
My husband (artist & robotics professor Ken Goldberg) and I were thinking about the "curse" part. We both love technology and have devoted our careers to experimenting with it, but could we unplug for one day a week? So Ken and I decided to try to truly power down one day a week. Inspired by this concept, we reworked Ginsberg's "Howl," into "Yelp." Then I made a little film about it and Peter Coyote lent his great voice."
technology  culture  internet  addiction  email  google  twitter  allenginsberg  howl  im  attention  present  beingpresent  focus  unplug  unplugging  rss  facebook  internetsabbaticals  web  online  from delicious
january 2011 by robertogreco
Film History 101 (via Netflix Watch Instantly) « Snarkmarket [See also Matt Penniman's "Sci-fi Film History 101" list: http://snarkmarket.com/2010/6492]
"Robin is absolutely right: I like lists, I remember everything I’ve ever seen or read, and I’ve been making course syllabi for over a decade, so I’m often finding myself saying “If you really want to understand [topic], these are the [number of objects] you need to check out.” Half the fun is the constraint of it, especially since we all now know (or should know) that constraints = creativity."
film  netflix  history  cinema  movies  timcarmody  snarkmarket  teaching  curation  curating  constraints  lists  creativity  forbeginners  thecanon  pairing  sharing  expertise  experience  education  learning  online  2010  frankchimero  surveycourses  surveys  web  internet  perspective  organization  succinct  focus  design  the101  robinsloan  classes  classideas  format  delivery  guidance  beginner  reference  pacing  goldcoins  surveycasts  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
The 101 « Snarkmarket
"Some of the teachers I remember most from college are the ones who would say something like: “Listen. There are only two movies you need to understand to understand [whole giant big cinematic movement X]. Those two movies are [A] and [B]. And we’re gonna watch ‘em.” (I feel like this is something Tim is extremely good at, actually.) It’s a step above curation, right? Context matters here; so does sequence. So we’re talking about some sort of super-sharp, web-powered, media-rich syllabus. I always liked syllabi, actually. They seem to make such an alluring promise, you know? Something like:<br />
<br />
Go through this with me, and you will be a novice no more."
curation  curating  robinsloan  frankchimero  lists  organization  experience  expertise  teaching  learning  online  web  classes  classideas  format  delivery  guidance  beginner  forbeginners  reference  2010  pacing  goldcoins  surveys  surveycourses  the101  education  internet  perspective  succinct  focus  design  history  constraints  creativity  thecanon  pairing  sharing  surveycasts  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Frank Chimero - The Two Best Things on the Web 2010
"My top two choices, however, stood tall as perhaps the best stock I’ve had the pleasure of reading on the web, both in terms of their scope, but more interestingly about how they treated their content and audience. There’s a pattern here that I enjoy. I’d like to introduce you to them, and hopefully in the process make a bit of a point about the direction I want the web to take in the next year."<br />
<br />
"I suppose I’m hungry for curated educational materials online. These are more than lists of books to read: they’re organized, edited, and have a clear point of view about the content they are presenting, and subvert the typical scatter-shot approach of half the web (like Wikipedia), or the hyper-linear, storyless other half that obsesses over lists. And that’s the frustrating thing about trying to teach yourself things online: you’re new, so you don’t know what’s important, but everything is spread so thin and all over the place, so it’s difficult to make meaningful connections."
education  learning  online  lists  2010  frankchimero  surveycourses  surveys  teaching  forbeginners  web  internet  curating  curation  perspective  organization  succinct  focus  design  history  constraints  creativity  thecanon  pairing  sharing  expertise  experience  the101  robinsloan  classes  classideas  format  delivery  guidance  beginner  reference  pacing  goldcoins  surveycasts  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Freedom - Windows and Mac Internet Blocking Software
"Freedom is a simple productivity application that locks you away from the internet on Mac or Windows computers for up to eight hours at a time. Freedom frees you from distractions, allowing you time to write, analyze, code, or create. At the end of your offline period, Freedom allows you back on the internet. You can download Freedom immediately for 10 dollars through either PayPal or Google Checkout."
productivity  software  mac  windows  distraction  attention  focus  applications  via:robinsloan  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Lessons Learned in Stockholm: Thoughts from Head of School — THINK Global School
"Humans balk at a completely unstructured day…we can build a good compromise between unstructured classes & traditional timetable. Ideally, we will be able to sit down w/ students at weekly Sunday meetings & map out week ahead.<br />
<br />
…schools will do better managing tech if admin sets clear objectives for tech program but then creates conditions for healthy, intelligent experimenting by faculty & students…internal crowd-sourcing is fastest way to develop set of best practices to fit school’s mission…iPhone = single most important tool we’ve used this term…<br />
<br />
Less is more. We overbooked museum tours, lectures & adventures at start of term. Better–much better–to go to same gallery 3 times & work closely w/ docent than go to 3 different exhibits. Better–much better–to study 3 paintings closely than whole galleries worth superficially. In future, we want to collaborate w/ museums, galleries, universities, exhibitions & so on that are willing to develop deep & tightly focused projects."
iphone  ipad  teaching  learning  technology  simplicity  slow  slowness  lessismore  tgs  thinkglobalschool  bradovenell-carter  lcproject  blockschedules  scheduling  tcsnmy  schools  travel  structure  textbooks  textbookfree  meaning  focus  depthoverbreadth  cv  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Good and Bad Procrastination
"If you want to work on big things, you seem to have to trick yourself into doing it. You have to work on small things that could grow into big things, or work on successively larger things, or split the moral load with collaborators. It's not a sign of weakness to depend on such tricks. The very best work has been done this way.<br />
<br />
When I talk to people who've managed to make themselves work on big things, I find that all blow off errands, and all feel guilty about it. I don't think they should feel guilty. There's more to do than anyone could. So someone doing the best work they can is inevitably going to leave a lot of errands undone. It seems a mistake to feel bad about that."
procrastination  gtd  paulgraham  productivity  2005  distraction  attention  interruptions  focus  creativity  innovation  work  cv  efficiency  errands  priorities  lifehacks  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Getting Creative Things Done: How To Fit Hard Thinking Into a Busy Schedule :: Tips :: The 99 Percent
"At first glance, the GCTD system seems obvious. “Block out time on my calendar for big projects,” you might think. “I've tried that.”<br />
<br />
Creative work, however, is a subtle affair. If your mind is not in the exact right state, it’s difficult to produce high-quality results. Because of this, details matter. This is what’s important about GCTD, not the general idea of blocking out time, but the carefully-calibrated details that accompany it: the blocks are treated like real appointments and are dedicated to only one (or, at most, two) projects in a week; absolutely zero interruptions are allowed during the blocks; and the focus is on process, not goals.<br />
<br />
These little things add up to a system that consistently produces the types of ambitious results that, as Graham puts it, are “at the limits of your capacity.” The type of results that can make you a star."
creativity  time  scheduling  gtd  gctd  arts  business  advice  work  focus  goals  from delicious
december 2010 by robertogreco
Attention versus distraction? What that big NY Times story leaves out » Nieman Journalism Lab
"question, though, is: distraction from what? & also: What’s inherently wrong with distraction?…What that framing forgets, though, is that the other side of fragmentation can be focus: the kind of deep-dive, myopic-in-a-good-way, almost Zen-like concentration that sparks to life when intellectual engagement couples with emotional affinity…Formal education, as we’ve framed it, is not only about finding ways to learn more about the things we love, but also, equally, about squelching our aversion to the things we don’t — all in the ecumenical spirit of generalized knowledge…The web inculcates a follow your bliss approach to learning that seeps, slowly, into the broader realm of information; under its influence, our notion of knowledge is slowly shedding its normative layers…Community, after all, needs the normative to function; the question is where we draw the line between the interest and the imperative…what we really want from digital world = permission to be impulsive."
attention  distraction  unschooling  deschooling  control  impulsivity  impulse-control  apathy  focus  learning  education  culture  information  socialmedia  technology  digitalnatives  constructivism  psychology  21stcenturyskills  criticism  lcproject  schools  formaleducation  informallearning  motivation  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
Your Word Processor Is Distracting You (Global Moxie)
"When author Jonathan Franzen wrote The Corrections, he went so far as to blindfold himself in order to give complete concentration to his prose. In a 2001 profile of Franzen, The Guardian wrote:<br />
<br />
"He locked himself away in his spartan studio on 125th Street in East Harlem to write. Some days, in order to keep his mind “free of all clichés,” he wrote in the dark, with the blinds drawn and the lights off. And he wore earplugs, earmuffs and a blindfold. “You can always find the ‘home’ keys on your computer,” he says in an embarrassed whisper. “They have little raised bumps.”"<br />
<br />
Here’s a guy who won the National Book Award for his novel, and he couldn’t even see his screen, let alone diddle with his word processor’s line spacing. “What you see is what you get?” When your task is building ideas, WYSIWYG just isn’t all that relevant."
jonathanfranzen  writing  wordprocessing  text  markdown  johngruber  distraction  attention  editing  focus  bbedit  textmate  via:cervus  wysiwyg  editplus  textwrangler  notepad  from delicious
november 2010 by robertogreco
John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript | Cult of Mac
"He felt that the computer was going to change the world & it it was going to become what he called “the bicycle for the mind.” It would enable individuals to have this incredible capability that they never dreamed of before…<br />
<br />
What makes Steve’s methodology different from everyone else’s is that he always believed the most important decisions you make are not the things you do – but the things that you decide not to do. He’s a minimalist.…<br />
<br />
Normally you will only see a handful of software engineers who are building an operating system. People think that it must be hundreds and hundreds working on an operating system. It really isn't. It's really just a small team of people. Think of it like the atelier of an artist…<br />
<br />
[Japanese standards are just different than ours. If you look at Apple and the attention to detail. The “open me first,” the way the box is designed, the fold lines, the quality of paper, the printing — Apple just goes to extraordinary lengths."
apple  business  stevejobs  mac  design  interview  size  groupsize  teams  managment  administration  lcproject  focus  minimalism  johnsculley  organizations  tcsnmy  computers  efficiency  via:kottke  japan  muji  experience  packaging  management  from delicious
october 2010 by robertogreco
Are Distractible People More Creative? | Wired Science | Wired.com
"not enough to simply pay attention to everything—such a deluge of sensation can quickly get confusing. (Kierkegaard referred to this mental state as “drowning in possibility”. Some scientists believe that schizophrenia is characterized by extremely low latent inhibition coupled w/ severe working memory deficits…leads to a mind constantly hijacked by minor distractions.)…We need to let more info in, but we also need to be ruthless about throwing out useless stuff.

People bemoan infinite distractions of web, way we’re constantly being seduced by hyperlinks, unexpected search results, arcane Wikipedia entries. & yes, that’s all true—I just wasted 30 minutes searching for that Kierkegaard quote. (I ended up on a Danish culture website, which led me to a photography collection of Danish modern furniture…) But the problem isn’t distractibility per se—it's distractibility coupled w/ failure to curate our thoughts, to monitor relevancy of whatever is loitering in working memory."
jonahlehrer  neuroscience  attention  distraction  psychology  creativity  research  brain  behavior  intelligence  imaginzation  schizophrenia  memory  internet  online  cv  curation  curating  filtering  forgetting  focus  from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco
Spencer's Scratch Pad: educational hoarding
"My problem is not that I need professional development. It's not that I need more nifty strategies to lead me on the way toward becoming a better teacher. I don't need another conference or seminar or workshop or TEN TOP WAYS TO USE TWITTER in my classroom. I don't need more hyperbole. I need more simplicity. I don't need more, I need to learn to do less. I don't need another binder. I need an anti-binder crusader who will help remind me of the essential questions that really are essential - someone to nudge me back toward the question, "Does this help us to live well?""
johnspencer  simplicity  professionaldevelopment  planning  teaching  education  schools  curriculum  less  slowessentials  minimalism  featurecreep  features  featuritis  moreisnotbetter  experience  empowerment  technology  unschooling  deschooling  learning  innovation  focus  lcproject  from delicious
september 2010 by robertogreco
Fishing with Strawberries - O'Reilly Media [via: http://twitter.com/lmoberglavoie/status/21289227189[
"On one level, the difference between the two points of view is simply the difference between selling one on one to a very targeted prospect and selling to a mass market, where you are casting a wide net, and some set of potential customers will match your own "strawberry" profile.<br />
<br />
But there's perhaps a deeper level on which this difference is one on which a great deal that is special about this company hinges. We seek to find what is true in ourselves, and use it to resonate with whatever subject we explore, trusting that resonance to lead us to kindred spirits out in the world, and them to us.<br />
<br />
I like to think that we have the capability to fish with worms when necessary, but that in general, we're farmers, not fishermen, and strawberries go over just fine."<br />
<br />
[Related: http://brendandawes.posterous.com/being-selfish-making-things-for-yourself-to-m]
entrepreneurship  tcsnmy  creativity  creation  making  doing  sales  customers  massmarket  business  fulfillment  greatness  focus  distraction  lcproject  devotion  purpose  visions  timoreilly  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
Near Future Laboratory » Features Aren’t A Measure Of Innovation
"For some reason lists of features are legible to accountants & engineers who often have the keys to the car & decide what gets done."'

"Innovating, only not by stacking lists of features & parts & stuff — but at least by starting with ways of creating opportunities & experiences that lead people in new, unexpected directions. That make space for experiences that go beyond expectation. Basically creating new user experiences. I don’t think you do that just by creating new features & bolting on new technologies."

[Some quick thoughts below, but more here: http://robertogreco.tumblr.com/post/916738627/more-opportunities-not-more-features ]

[Love this. It speaks to what we do at schools that empower learners by creating a flexible learning environment, not adding more classes, more programs. We do "less" in terms of numbers, but more in terms of freedom & self-direction, helping them give themselves more options. One point missing: it's not only accountant & engineer decision-making people that need help seeing the benefit of fewer features, but also number-comparing users (parents in our case).]
tcsnmy  julianbleecker  features  featurecreep  featuritis  moreisnotbetter  less  simplicity  experience  empowerment  design  designthinking  engineers  accountants  numbers  technology  unschooling  deschooling  education  learning  innovation  focus  lcproject  cv  from delicious
august 2010 by robertogreco
SpeEdChange: The Question of Attention
"Is your ability to attend to random flashing red rectangles a fair measuring system? Well, that's what always makes research funny. In order to quantify the human experience in a "valid" way you have to strip it down to a point where the experience itself is completely out of context and thus meaningless.
multitasking  attention  irasocol  learning  focus  research  bias  subtlety  singletasking 
july 2010 by robertogreco
The Top Idea in Your Mind
"I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I'd go further: now I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower.
business  creativity  distraction  mind  lifehacks  productivity  psychology  thinking  startups  paulgraham  entrepreneurship  motivation  innovation  philosophy  politics  ideas  shower  cv  attention  focus  tcsnmy 
july 2010 by robertogreco
Medieval Multitasking: Did We Ever Focus? | Culture | Religion Dispatches
"Engaged by brilliant illuminations; challenged by reading in Latin, without spacing btwn words, capitalization, or punctuation; & invited into the commentary of past readers of the text, medieval readers of Augustine, Dante, Virgil, or the Bible would surely be able to give today’s digitally-distracted multitaskers a run for our money. The physical form of the bound book brought together all of these various “links” into one “platform” so that the diverse perspectives of a blended contemporary & historical community of thinkers could be more easily accessed."
multitasking  history  technology  hypertext  communication  distraction  medieval  literacy  internet  books  writing  reading  davidbrooks  nicholascarr  focus 
july 2010 by robertogreco
Twitter / Howard Rheingold: Neither Internet nor Google ... [also http://twitter.com/hrheingold/status/15509066703 AND http://twitter.com/hrheingold/status/15509092161 AND http://twitter.com/hrheingold/status/15509346793]
"Neither Internet nor Google makes anybody smarter or dumber - that wording is necessitated by rhetoric of headlines. Human agency is key. The way we USE the Internet - or books, or classrooms - influences whether we gain or lose insight or capability from the experience. I'm careful about technological deterministic language because language is a mind-tool, and how one uses it matters. Information-handling competencies (like knowing how to use RSS) must combine w/ attention skills to benefit from web. Hence, "infotention.""
attention  internet  web  online  howardrheingold  focus  learning  intelligence  rss  technology  experience  humanagency  books  classrooms 
june 2010 by robertogreco
City Brights: Howard Rheingold : Attention literacy
"Mindfulness and norms, my students helped me see, are essential tools for those who would master the arts of attention.
education  howardrheingold  pedagogy  multitasking  laptops  learning  attention  1to1  1:1  21stcenturylearning  21stcenturyskills  literacy  learning2.0  classroom  tcsnmy  mobile  phones  media  socialmedia  lindastone  continuouspartialattention  productivity  mindfulness  listening  conversation  focus 
may 2010 by robertogreco
The No. 1 Habit of Highly Creative People | Zen Habits
"Creativity flourishes in solitude. With quiet, you can hear your thoughts, you can reach deep within yourself, you can focus. Of course, there are lots of ways to find this solitude. Let’s listen to a few of the creative people I talked to or researched." [I'm not sure solitude is number one, but the "how we work" profiles are interesting.]
solitude  creativity  productivity  zenhabits  writing  contemplation  design  habits  focus  howwework 
may 2010 by robertogreco
Coldbrain. (Focusing Attention)
"I made a decision, a straightforward one in retrospect, to stop reading some of the increasingly superficial blogs out there. You probably know the type: ‘10 ways to use X’, ‘What Avatar can teach you about Y’, etc. Whilst I admire GTD (and any system or viewpoint that provides people with a way to accomplish more in their lives), its legacy needs to be more than a load of terribly repetitive and ultimately unnecessary ‘productivity’ blogs. Instead I’ve actively sought out people that I think have something interesting to say on the broader topics of getting things done and on topics that interest me. It’s been a revelation.
infooverload  information  following  unfollowing  twitter  tumblr  googlereader  attention  focus  stockandflow  scale 
may 2010 by robertogreco
Author Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains | Magazine
"There’s nothing wrong w/ absorbing info quickly & in bits & pieces. We’ve always skimmed newspapers more than read them, & we routinely run our eyes over books & magazines to get the gist of a piece of writing & decide whether it warrants more thorough reading. The ability to scan & browse is as important as the ability to read deeply & think attentively. The problem is that skimming is becoming our dominant mode of thought. Once a means to an end, a way to identify info for further study, it’s becoming an end in itself—our preferred method of both learning & analysis. Dazzled by Net’s treasures, we are blind to damage we may be doing to our intellectual lives & even our culture.
neuroscience  productivity  reading  psychology  distraction  attention  hypertext  brain  health  change  cognition  learning  education  neurology  technology  future  focus  science  nicholascarr  clayshirky  tcsnmy  elearning  media  internet 
may 2010 by robertogreco
Blog: Frank Chimero (Here)
"I’ve said before attention is the most limited resource we have. We’re spread too thin, like too little butter over too much bread. I still believe that’s true, and there are a lot of people talking about how to alleviate that situation. But, often times the discussion stops too soon: we wrongly think that we’re just here to put up fences around certain areas so we’re not spread too thin.
presence  frankchimero  availability  attention  delight  wonder  robertirwin  teaching  serendipity  play  focus  grazing  writing  programming  wisdom  singletasking 
may 2010 by robertogreco
Focusing on everything - Joi Ito's Web
"One of the great thoughts in the book is the idea that you should set a general trajectory of where you want to go, but that you must embrace serendipity and allow your network to provide the resources necessary to turn any random events into a highly valuable one and that developing that network comes from sharing and connecting by helping others solve their problems and build things."
2010  focus  joiito  serendipity  ties  social  people  connections  messiness  trajectory  purpose  cv  conversation  networks  sharing  time  life  flexibility  chance  opportunity 
may 2010 by robertogreco
Future Perfect » Three Rules To Survive Corporate Life
"Three simple rules to surviving corporate life with a smile:
janchipchase  work  tcsnmy  life  corporatelife  process  leadership  ethics  management  ratrace  philosophy  focus  meaning  purpose  unschooling  deschooling  cv  office 
april 2010 by robertogreco
Clive Thompson to Texters: Park the Car, Take the Bus | Magazine
"We should change our focus to the other side of the equation & curtail not the texting but the driving. This may sound a bit facetious, but I’m serious. When we worry about driving & texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they’re doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving?
texting  driving  safety  transportation  us  japan  europe  future  focus  multitasking  clivethompson 
february 2010 by robertogreco
A new class of content for a new class of device « Snarkmarket
"the web kinda hates bounded, holis­tic work...likes bits & pieces, cross-references & rec­om­men­da­tions, frag­ments & tabs...loves the fact that you’re read­ing this post in Google Reader...iPad looks to me like a focus machine...such an oppor­tu­nity for sto­ry­telling, & for inno­va­tion around sto­ry­telling...oppor­tu­nity to make the Myst of 2010...con­nect the dots. For all its power & flex­i­bil­ity, the web is really bad at pre­sent­ing bounded, holis­tic work in a focused, immer­sive way. This is why web shows never worked. The web is bad at con­tain­ers...bad at frames... the young Hayao Miyaza­kis & Mark Z. Danielewskis & Edward Goreys of this world ought to be learn­ing Objective-C—or at least mak­ing some new friends. Because this new device gives us the power and flex­i­bil­ity to real­ize a whole new class of crazy vision—and it puts that vision in a frame. ... In five years, the coolest stuff on the iPad should be… jeez, you know, I think it should be art."
design  culture  storytelling  snarkmarket  blogging  journalism  robinsloan  immersion  epub  content  ipad  marketing  attention  future  books  change  multimedia  apple  media  innovation  2010  focus  singletasking  multitasking 
january 2010 by robertogreco
Avoiding "if they like x, give them more of x" - (37signals)
"He’s [David Simon] talking TV. But when launching a business, there’s a lot to be said for starting from a point of view and knowing what you want to say too. When you do that, you have an anchor for everything you do moving forward.
tcsnmy  focus  purpose  lcproject  administration  mission  37signals  davidsimon 
january 2010 by robertogreco
“the purpose-idea”: ten questions for mark earls | Gapingvoid
"Third, “Brand” is what you get as a result of doing great , not a good guide to what to do — it’s the sco­re­board, not the game.
branding  herd  purpose  hughmacleod  markearls  tcsnmy  mission  focus  communication  advertising  marketing  administration  leadership  management 
january 2010 by robertogreco
"Listening, Understanding, Neutralizing" - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan
"A reader writes: "The Morning After" is simple, non-hysterical, spot-on analysis. I especially agree that Obama is after bin Laden. No other single action would pay such huge dividends. In this, Obama proves himself again to be, not just the politician as chess master, but the politician as martial artist, always seeking for the fulcrum, the pivot point where four ounces of effort will yield a thousand pounds of result.
andrewsullivan  barackobama  osamabinladen  politics  policy  focus 
december 2009 by robertogreco
Caterina.net: Working hard is overrated
"a lot of what we then considered "working hard" was actually "freaking out"...panicking, working on things just to be working on something, not knowing what we were doing, fearing failure, worrying about things we needn't have worried about, thinking about fund raising rather than product building, building too many features, getting distracted by competitors...& other time-consuming activities. This time around we have eliminated a lot of freaking out time. We seem to be working less hard this time...Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen. But you can save yourself a lot of time by working on the right thing."
caterinafake  working  careers  life  work  tcsnmy  cv  wisdom  business  entrepreneurship  startups  productivity  gtd  lifehacks  focus  philosophy  time  balance  flickr  advice  ideas  culture  patterns  management  leadership  administration  confidence  freakingout 
september 2009 by robertogreco
How To Work Better [[Fischli+Weiss]] on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
focus  work  productivity  glvo  fischli+weiss  listening  singletasking  simplicity 
september 2009 by robertogreco
Seth's Blog: Free work vs. internships
"internships are overrated. Most of the time, the employer thinks he's doing the intern a favor, but he doesn't trust the interns to do any actual thoughtful, intelligent work worth talking about. And to be fair, most of the time the interns are busy hiding, not grabbing responsibility but instead acting like they're in school, avoiding hard work and trying to get an A...'free work' is something else entirely...Isn't it odd that we're willing to spend $300,000 to buy an accredited but ultimately useless academic line on our resume, but we hesitate to do a month of hard work to create a chunk of experience that's priceless?"
internships  work  freework  sethgodin  learning  education  value  assessment  grades  focus  risktaking  risk  business  employment  careers  unschooling  deschooling  lcproject 
august 2009 by robertogreco
Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Substitute Students and Learning for Customers and What Do you Get?
"I enjoyed listening to Jeff Bezos, founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of Amazon (who recently acquired Zappos), talk about his philosophy for a successful business. While I am not insisting on a one to one correlation here, I think educators can learn a lot from thinking about what Mr. Bezos says in relation to students, learning, and the community of stakeholders associated with schooling. If educators were as dedicated to students and learning as Amazon and Zappos are to customers, imagine the level of learning and understanding that could be possible for everyone involved. This formula requires us to reimagine schooling from the ground up (i.e., please erase the current industrial model immediately).
jeffbezos  amazon  zappos  business  education  learning  teaching  tcsnmy  change  reform  students  community  longterm  criticism  focus  competition  gamechanging  lcproject  unschooling  deschooling 
august 2009 by robertogreco
BBC - dot.life: Listening to Mr iPhone
"So how did the company decide what customers wanted - surely by using focus groups? "We don't do focus groups," he said firmly, explaining that they resulted in bland products designed not to offend anyone.
iphone  design  innovation  jonathanive  apple  focus  focusgroups  tcsnmy 
july 2009 by robertogreco
O’DonnellWeb - Got flow? [references: http://parentingbeyondbelief.com/blog/?p=2449]
"Flow, as defined by Dale McGowan, is when we’re completely in the moment, so intensely focused on the activity at hand that we lose track of time. It’s one of the most deeply satisfying and meaningful states we can enter.
homeschool  unschooling  parenting  dalemcgowan  mihalycsikszentmihalyi  flow  spirituality  attention  pace  focus  schools  schooling  learning  scheduling  experience  now  slow  well-being  happiness 
june 2009 by robertogreco
The Real Time Web is a Beautiful Distraction – Opposable Planets
"The ability to pay attention, focus and strategically disconnect will be a winning discipline of the next generation of business leaders." via: http://www.euansemple.com/theobvious/2009/5/9/learning-when-to-switch-off.html
attention  distraction  continuouspartialattention  focus  work  learning  behavior  twitter  internet  gtd  procrastination  concentration  parenting  psychology  facebook  advice  realtime  technology 
may 2009 by robertogreco
A Life Offline (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
"I have literally had a computer since birth; the Internet came not long after that: I still remember email addresses supplemented by UUCP bang-paths. Hardly a day has gone by in which I haven’t checked my email for what must be a decade.
technology  communication  productivity  health  attention  awareness  continuouspartialattention  focus  print  books  internetvacation  connectivity  mobile  phones  online  web  via:preoccupations 
may 2009 by robertogreco
HOW TO: Simplify Your Social Media Routine
"These days participating in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogging and more is almost required for any entrepreneur or business, small or large.
via:hrheingold  socialnetworking  twitter  howto  time  productivity  informationmanagement  infooverload  distraction  focus  tcsnmy  newmedia  facebook  socialmedia  tips  simplicity  timemanagement 
may 2009 by robertogreco
ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL 102 « LEBBEUS WOODS [list of posts in this series here: http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=87058_0_24_0_C]
"A dean has the power to lead a school in a particular direction, and not in others. Together with this power comes the responsibility to have, and communicate, a clear idea of what that direction is, so that faculty and students know where they stand. If they agree, they freely stay and work together; if they disagree, they can leave, or not join the school at all. A dean, acting also through department chairs, sets the tone of a school—whether it is to be experimental or rooted in traditional values—and also its character—egalitarian or autocratic. A great school cannot be all things to all people. Intelligent choices can be made only when the available choices are clear. A dean who lets a school be pushed this way and that by its own internal struggles within the faculty and the students is a failed leader, and the school suffers. A great dean is not afraid to lead in the direction he or she thinks best. The courage to do that is the essence of the job description"
lebbeuswoods  education  architecture  leadership  administration  tcsnmy  mission  management  focus  teaching  learning  faculty  socraticmethod 
march 2009 by robertogreco
Museum 2.0: Deliberately Unsustainable Business Models
"The underlying dysfunction...often an inability to focus on anything but survivability. To make it, museums need to survive AND succeed...important for museums to undergo an exercise in which you list out two types of things: 1. core services that people depend on and need to survive. ... 2. services you provide that make you awesome. What drives people through your door, gets them excited, and connects them passionately with your content? You should be able to point with pride to both the ways you support the community with reliable, consistent services and supreme awesomeness. The desire to survive will always exist, whether you run a small institution or a giant one. It's human nature to want to keep your job and keep doing what you're doing. The challenge is not to make it your primary goal."
museums  focus  mission  tcsnmy  machineproject  sustainability  lcproject  markallen 
march 2009 by robertogreco
Museums suck. » Blog Archive » Um, museumssuck.com?
"You want a real lesson the museum industry can learn from successful web 2.0 initiatives? Be really good at what you’re interested in and other people who are also interested in that will get excited and involved. Be really good at what you’re interested in and other people who aren’t also interested in that… will do something else. Let them."
tcsnmy  museums  relevance  focus  technology  culture  science 
february 2009 by robertogreco
Startups in 13 Sentences
"1. Pick good cofounders. 2. Launch fast. 3. Let your idea evolve. 4. Understand your users. 5. **Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent.** 6. Offer surprisingly good customer service. 7. You make what you measure. 8. **Spend little.** 9. **Get ramen profitable.** 10. Avoid distractions. 11. **Don't get demoralized.** 12. Don't give up. 13. Deals fall through."
tcsnmy  startups  paulgraham  howto  entrepreneurship  business  administration  management  leadership  focus  success  diy 
february 2009 by robertogreco
Mind Hacks: The myth of the concentration oasis
"New technology has not created some sort of unnatural cyber-world, but is just moving us away from a relatively short blip of focus that pervaded parts of the Western world for probably about 50 years at most.
distraction  attention  history  perspective  luddism  technology  children  mobile  phones  myths  concentration  infooverload  mindhacks  singletasking  psychology  pedagogy  science  internet  productivity  parenting  brain  twitter  society  flow  focus  leisure  continuouspartialattention  maggiejackson  culture  multitasking 
february 2009 by robertogreco
Wired 14.08: PLAY - Now Hear This!
"The more you can concentrate with background noise, the more it strengthens the brain. Isaac Asimov used to set his typewriter up in stores and other loud places to work. His claim was that you get really good at writing when you’re in a crowd. You want to be energized by that background noise, rather than distracted."
noise  concentration  psychology  productivity  focus  sound  creativity  attention 
january 2009 by robertogreco
Television and Brain Health - Prevention.com
"Reach for the remote and hone your concentration skills: Lowering the TV volume a little more each day can teach you to filter out background noise and improve focus, says University of California, San Francisco neuroscientist Michael Merzenich, PhD. Your training at home could even pay off at work by helping you block out the loudmouth in the next cubicle or fully concentrate on a meeting while ignoring noisy distractions outside."
focus  concentration  brain  noise  productivity  neuroscience  tv  television 
january 2009 by robertogreco
» Adaptive Path’s - Subject to Change at angusf : personal website of Angus Fraser
"Definition of empathy:”…empathy is an understanding of a person or groups subjective experience by sharing that experience vicariously. Sharing an experience avoids the distance of pity while vicariousness maintains an observers level of objectivity. Thus, we could say that empathy is something like a balanced curiosity that can lead to a deeper understanding of another person.” ... on maintaining focus: “This is where experience strategy and system design intersect. In designing a system, you get caught up in all the opportunities that technology makes available. A strong experience strategy makes clear not just what to do, but what not to do” ... “where a plan is based on prediction, a strategy is designed to encompass unforeseeably changing conditions.”" see also quotes from pages 101, 111, 125, 126, 140, 142
usability  ui  experiencedesign  books  empathy  tcsnmy  understanding  design  research  lcproject  complexity  focus  experience  stewartbrand  planning  leadership  administration  management  freedom  open  change  adaptivepath  adaptability 
november 2008 by robertogreco
The Brand Gap [via: http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/marketing-branding-education-ing/]
"1. A brand is not a logo. 2. A brand is not an identity. 3. A brand is not a product. So what exactly is a brand? It's a persons gut feeling about a product, service or organization, because brands are defined by individuals, not companies, markets, or publics. It's a gut feeling because people are emotional intuitive beings. In other words, it's not what you say it is. It is what **they** say it is... We tend to base out buying choices on trust. Trust comes from meeting and beating customer expectations...A charismatic brand is a product, service, or organization for which people believe there's no substitute... Any brand can be charismatic...[just follow] five disciplines of brand building: Differentiate. Marketing today is about creating tribes. Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter?...Collaborate...Innovate...Validate...Cultivate." In many ways the message boils down to knowing who you are as an organization (your mission) and staying to true to that core definition.
mission  missionstatements  branding  marketing  focus  authenticity  administration  management  leadership  trust  innovation  confidence  substance  perception  tcsnmy 
november 2008 by robertogreco
Marketing, branding, education-ing « Learn Online
"Cathy Sierra planted that seed in my head back in Feb 2007 with her post Marketing should be education, education should be marketing. Ever since then I’ve been on the look out for a good marketeer who is ready or willing to talk about education. Next week I’m meeting with a marketing researcher which I hope will lead me to something interesting in terms of what marketing and education speak could do for one another."
marketing  branding  education  schools  kathysierra  tcsnmy  authenticity  focus  management  administration  leadership  mission  missionstatements  trust  substance  perception 
november 2008 by robertogreco
Productivity 2.0: How the New Rules of Work Are Changing the Game | Zen Habits
"1. Don’t Crank - Work With Deeper Focus. 2. Toss Out Meetings and Planning — Just Start. 3. Paperwork is out — automate with technology. 4. Don’t multi-task — multi-project and single-task. 5. Produce less, not more. 6. Forget about organization — use technology. 7. Out with hierarchies — in with freedom. 8. Work fewer hours, not more."
work  workplace  management  administration  leadership  focus  multitasking  singletasking  planning  meetings  efficiency  paperless  organization  productivity  qualityoflife 
october 2008 by robertogreco
My Thoughts On "Startup Depression"
"I particularly like Jason's "10 specific things you can do" section. In that section he urges entrepreneurs to get focused, get better, get leaner, and ultimately to get profitable. That's spot on."
recession  web2.0  greatdepression  funding  bailout  entrepreneurship  markets  business  money  economics  leadership  austerity  management  administration  survival  focus 
october 2008 by robertogreco
textually.org: Text Messaging Makes Your Brain Blank Out
"The ratio communis, a key region of the brain, was malfunctioning. Instead of fluorescing on brain scans, it flickered, grey and dull. What science was trying to work out was the link between this dead zone and gadgets. When we chat on the mobile phone, text furiously, browse the BlackBerry, or commune with our car's global positioning system (GPS), the lights go out."
attention  distraction  health  safety  psychology  mobile  phones  gps  texting  sms  focus 
september 2008 by robertogreco
The Liberal: Sport - Not a gentle kind of Zen
"Zidane’s ‘Federer’-quality runs through the film. Zidane is often almost still, barely trotting around. When he moves, it is for a reason – in his own mind, it will be a decisive move. His opponents, you feel, can sense the power of Zidane’s imaginative grasp. It is that which creates the illusion of complicity.
football  zidane  filom  rogerfederer  concentration  focus  sports 
august 2008 by robertogreco
8 Great Anti-Hacks to Fundamentally Change Your Life | Zen Habits [see also: http://thegrowinglife.com/2008/04/quitting-things-and-flakiness-the-1-productivity-anti-hack/]
"post-higher-education life just isn’t configured to encourage growth; it’s configured to reward stagnation...what would your life be like if you cut out all the stepping stones?...“Productivity” is an Industrial Era economics term"
productivity  life  lifehacks  yearoff  work  society  gamechanging  perspective  education  ratrace  simplicity  focus  learning  colleges  universities  careers  workplace  time  happiness  schooling  deschooling  unschooling  habits  philosophy  quitting  responsibility  management  administration  leadership 
july 2008 by robertogreco
Stoooopid .... why the Google generation isn’t as smart as it thinks - Times Online "They are immersed not in knowledge but in “gossip and social banter...They don’t grow up. They are living off the thrill of peer attention"
"Studies show older people are generally more adept with computers than younger....Education and work can be restructured to teach and propagate the skills of concentration and focus. People can be taught to turn off, to ignore the beep and the ping."
distraction  attention  internet  digitalnatives  education  multitasking  continuouspartialattention  focus  children  cognition  technology  sociality  social  socialnetworks  socialnetworking  facebook  myspace  culture  information  networks  interruptions  newmedia  overload  concentration  generations  learning  health  burnout 
july 2008 by robertogreco
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