Great intro to social networks. Will check out his book “Connected”!
“If You're So Free, Why Do You Follow Others? The Sociological Science Behind Social Networks and Social Influence. Nicholas Christakis, Professor of Medical Sociology, Medicine, and Sociology at Harvard University If you think you're in complete control of your destiny or even your own actions, you're wrong. Every choice you make, every behavior you exhibit, and even every desire you have finds its roots in the social universe. Nicholas Christakis explains why individual actions are inextricably linked to sociological pressures; whether you're absorbing altruism performed by someone you'll never meet or deciding to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, collective phenomena affect every aspect of your life.
A major study in Zambia showed the benefits of just giving poor people money with no strings attached. But the government isn't entirely convinced. Here's why.
Great article! It touches on many issues that I have been grappling with over the past few years: Prejudice around who is poor and what that means, ways to help people and what that says about the helper, the need to keep a system running despite lack of evidence of success.
Obviously a similar debate to the trials of Guaranteed Basic Income running in many countries right now. It was time this trickled down into development work too.
How the secretive Silicon Valley lab is trying to resurrect the lost art of invention
Fascinating article from @theatlantic! Reading with an OD lens a number of tings pop out at me:
- Idea generation: They use the POP (purpose, outcome, process) formula! “ “First, it must address a huge problem; second, it must propose a radical solution; third, it must employ a relatively feasible technology.“
- Creating and nurturing an intentional organizational culture facilitates the mission: “Psychological safety. I initially winced when I heard the term, which sounded like New Age fluff. But it turns out to be an important element of X’s culture, the engineering of which has been nearly as deliberate as that of, say, Loon’s balloons.”
- Structuring your rewards so that they encourage behavior that you want to see more of: “Because the latter possibility is high, the company has also created financial rewards for team members who shut down projects that are likely to fail.“
- The powerful combination of organizational design + organizational culture: “Any successful organization working on highly risky projects has five essential features, according to Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School and a co-author of The Progress Principle. The first is “failure value,” a recognition that mistakes are opportunities to learn. The second is psychological safety, the concept so many X employees mentioned. The third is multiple diversities—of backgrounds, perspectives, and cognitive styles. The fourth, and perhaps most complicated, is a focus on refining questions, not just on answers; on routinely stepping back to ask whether the problems the organization is trying to solve are the most important ones. These are features that X has self-consciously built into its culture.”
We all know that when we make decisions in groups, they don't always go right -- and sometimes they go very wrong. How can groups make good decisions? With his colleague Dan Ariely, neuroscientist Mariano Sigman has been inquiring into how we interact to reach decisions by performing experiments with live crowds around the world. In this fun, fact-filled explainer, he shares some intriguing results -- as well as some implications for how it might impact our political system. In a time when people seem to be more polarized than ever, Sigman says, better understanding how groups interact and reach conclusions might spark interesting new ways to construct a healthier democracy.
Fun edu-video. From obvious links to political decision-making I ponder what the insights are for better organizations and team work. My main take-away is that I need to design for deliberation and diversity of opinion to a achieve good collective decision-making. I am made to think once again about #LiberatingStructures and the need to question rusty meeting protocols or decision-making processes!
After years away on a foreign posting, coming ‘home’ can be overwhelming and isolating. Here’s how many people cope with fitting back in.
So true. After 20 years and counting of living in different countries, the idea of a ‘fluid identity’ makes sense to me. The positive side is definitely the learning and experiences that I have gained over these years. However, I also miss feeling rooted in one place and truly calling it home. I am not sure how my outlook and sensation will change over the years but for now I am trying to make the best out of having outsider eyes wherever I am but still trying my best to understand the local culture and integrating.
Learning guru John Seely Brown is not being even slightly ironic when he says that he’d hire an expert player of World of Warcraft (the massive multiplayer online fantasy videogame) over an MBA from Harvard.
Interesting how he links practices such as learning, providing and accepting feedback, curiosity and teamwork to skills needed and effortlessly developed when playing World of Warcraft.
IBM pioneered telecommuting. Now it wants people back in the office.
Biggest insights: “Collaborative productivity” - to solve problems together is increased by proximity. “Individual productivity” can go up when working remotely. Also, electronic forms of communications, ie email, Slack, video-conferencing cannot measure up to replace in-person communication.
How does nature of work and type of business affect the physical expression of the workplace?
See also Allen curve: “In communication theory, the Allen curve is a graphical representation that reveals the exponential drop in frequency of communication between engineers as the distance between them increases. It was discovered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Thomas J. Allen in the late 1970s.A related and highly significant finding of Allen was his identification of the key role of information gatekeepers. Often such interlocutors were poorly recognized by management and yet conveyed vital concepts from just the right people to just the right other people in the organization.”(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_curve_)
There’s no proof that organisations benefit from the endless cycle of meetings, but we are addicted to them, writes the Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins
I would add that with thoughtful facilitation or at least intentional meeting design, meetings CAN be useful and productive....
What is the right balance of complexity and simplicity for campaigners and reformers? Some thoughts on how we think & communicate about change
“If problems/solutions are complex and context-specific, outsiders might be better advised to argue about process – who needs to be involved and supported (eg civil society, women) in finding the solutions, rather than claiming to have the solutions themselves.“
On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop, for a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by.
Every moment feels like now. Old photos of places or people I know or love give me calm. I step back, become smaller and the world I know becomes bigger.
Have you ever read a book passage that you're certain could one day be applicable to your life? But, between your shopping list, work to-dos, and your aunt's upcoming birthday, the passage quickly fades from your memory causing you to draw a blank when you really need to...
Interesting article and something I have been experimenting with for a long time. Currently, I try to use sketchnotes.
Nonprofits do the work of changing the world every single day. One of the ways we do that is through challenging systems and rebuilding structures
The Nonprofit Culture of Poverty (2 parts).
Not really a new topic but it bears reminding ourselves to what extent we as NPO staff or friends perpetuate this cycle. I think this would be a great article to share with new staff or board member candidates to rock the boat a little.
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