Khan on Forage v Farm Razib Khan on foragers vs. farmers: Cultures which are the most developed and least developed have the most equitable relations between the genders, while those in the middle are generally more conventionally male-dominated. … Plough farming societies tend to be more patriarchal [than hoe societies], all things equal. … Immigrants to the United States impart to their descendants the same values. … The majority of the world’s population are no longer primary producers, but most are recent descendants of primary producers. Ultimately this goes back to the foragers & farmers debate. The above is a rather materialist economic reading of power relations. One could create a narrative of moral evolution over time, and the expansion of the arc of humanity with the spread of universal religions. With mass affluence has come liberalism, post-materialism, and all sorts of ideas and movements predicated on self-actualization. We should not proliferate categories beyond what is needed.
Preserving knowledge. Jam tomorrow? « All of us are smarter than any of us… Have you ever been given a pot of homemade jam? (Jelly to my American readers!) Perhaps you won some as a prize on the tombola stall at a school fair, whilst secretly hoping for that champagne bottle? It usually comes in a recycled jar, carefully labelled by hand – often in the spidery handwriting of somebody else’s Aunt Agatha. If you’re anything like me, you’ll smile dutifully, and put it away in the dark corner of a kitchen cupboard for a few years. One day you’ll rediscover it, and put it straight into the bin (or if you’re unscrupulous, offer it to the tombola stall at the next school fair). The trouble is, I don’t know Aunt Agatha. Why the alarm? “Don’t worry – we’ll interview all your key members of staff, and give you a nicely packaged product on a memory stick which represents each person’s knowledge, experience, relationships, favourite references etc. In ‘Learning to Fly’, I described these kind of personal knowledge capture activities as “knowledge salvage”. Like this:
The Pirate Wheel This is a first attempt to outline the Privacy spoke of The Pirate Wheel. It will certainly change over time, but this is a first stake in the ground. The Pirate Ideology is a new ideology that centers around the power over information, and gives it to the citizens, forcing a transparent government. This is one of the eight spokes. Privacy means that everybody has the right to have her life to herself. Privacy of Body: Your body is yours, and you have the right to do with it what you like. Privacy of Correspondence: What you discuss with other people, when, how, and from where is something between you and them, and only between you and them. Privacy of Data: The bit patterns on your computer, laptop, pad, phone, and other devices is a private matter for you. Privacy of Economy: Your assets, inflow of funds and outflow of funds are for you to know. Privacy of Identity: You have the right to be anonymous in all daily matters and as you go about your day.
Sound Knowledge Strategies, LLC. The icons on concept nodes represent knowledge resources. Click on the icon and then on the name of the resource you want to access. Improving Instructional Effectiveness How to Foster Meaningful Learning, Knowledge Creation and Collaboration Support for Teacher Collaboration How Does Web 2.0 Impact Lawyers? What Is A Structured Settlement? Overview of Structured Settlement Market What New Business Opportunities Does IRC 5891 Create for Annuity Providers & Structured Settlement Cos.? What Are the Defining Elements of the Primary Structured Settlement Market? What Are the Defining Elements of the Secondary Structured Settlement Market? How Can Podcasting Be Used to Innovate Marketing, CRM, and Business Models How Can Social Networking Software Support Knowledge Creation & Knowledge Sharing? What Is the New Creative Intelligence in the Age of the Worldwide Web? How Has Olympic Pain & Addiction Services (OPAS) Improved the Treatment of Non-Cancerous Pain? WA State Renewable Energy Initiative: I 937
Theory U and Theory T Management theory books and disaster films have something in common. Both confront the prospect of the near-total destruction of life as we know it. In the movies, the hero invariably realizes what must be done and saves the world just before the credits roll. In management books, the chosen manager masters the correct theory just in time to avert business catastrophe. This question about happy endings comes to mind on the 50th anniversary of one of the most storied contributions to the management literature, Douglas McGregor’s famous distinction between Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X says that the average human being is lazy and self-centered, lacks ambition, dislikes change, and longs to be told what to do. McGregor named his theories after letters of the alphabet in order to avoid prejudicing the discussion in favor of one or the other, and he further insisted that both theories have value in the appropriate contexts.
ZyLAB eDiscovery & Information Management - e-discovery software, electronic discovery, litigation readiness Valence Theory of Organization / Effective Theory In an earlier chapter, I describe how Inter Pares considers the issue of scaling and growth, and suggest this comparison between BAH and UCaPP organizations: With BAH organizations, effectiveness is measured in terms of owned or controlled resources that are deployed in the pursuit of defined objectives and goals. UCaPP organizations, it seems, feel a lesser need to control or own the means – including people – that enable the creation and dissemination of its intended effects which are based in shared values and participation in common cause. In a contemporary context, it is appropriate to question whether the traditional construction of organizational effectiveness – having to do with access and deployment of resources, or achievement of stated goals and objectives, or combinations of both – provides the most useful guidance for a UCaPP world. …is itself transforming, that is changing the innovator as he or she seeks to change the world. Sensory Revision
Solitude and Leadership: an article by William Deresiewicz | The American Scholar Essays - Spring 2010 Print If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts By William Deresiewicz The lecture below was delivered to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009. My title must seem like a contradiction. Leadership is what you are here to learn—the qualities of character and mind that will make you fit to command a platoon, and beyond that, perhaps, a company, a battalion, or, if you leave the military, a corporation, a foundation, a department of government. We need to begin by talking about what leadership really means. So I began to wonder, as I taught at Yale, what leadership really consists of. See, things have changed since I went to college in the ’80s. So what I saw around me were great kids who had been trained to be world-class hoop jumpers. That is exactly what places like Yale mean when they talk about training leaders. But I think there’s something desperately wrong, and even dangerous, about that idea.
The Collapse of Complex Business Models I gave a talk last year to a group of TV executives gathered for an annual conference. From the Q&A after, it was clear that for them, the question wasn’t whether the internet was going to alter their business, but about the mode and tempo of that alteration. Against that background, though, they were worried about a much more practical matter: When, they asked, would online video generate enough money to cover their current costs? That kind of question comes up a lot. There are two essential bits of background here. Here’s why. In 1988, Joseph Tainter wrote a chilling book called The Collapse of Complex Societies. The answer he arrived at was that they hadn’t collapsed despite their cultural sophistication, they’d collapsed because of it. Early on, the marginal value of this complexity is positive—each additional bit of complexity more than pays for itself in improved output—but over time, the law of diminishing returns reduces the marginal value, until it disappears completely. Dr.