Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Being Called Smart

Scientific studies have shown that you can destroy a child by calling them "smart." Even when they're very young, little kids know that being "smart" is what makes them special - and so, the first time they encounter something they don't understand immediately, it's a threat. Their specialness is in danger of being stripped away. And if they lose that smartness, then what are they? 

There's fewer things I've related to more than this article. Most of the mistakes made in my life were because of things outlined in this article. I took Advanced English in High School only because the smart kids were taking it. I didn't even like English class, but I _had_ to take English, since that's what smart people did and I was smart. 

So there I am, Advanced English in tenth grade. I was among all the smart people, time to show off, right? Nope. I did no homework. Absolutely zero. I just slid by with the confident knowledge that "well, if I did the homework, I'd definitely would have gotten an A." 

Oh well. 

One thing this article links up with really well is with Louis C. K.'s speech in honor of George Carlin:


Motivated yet?

Avoiding Procrastination


Thought this was especially nice. Hurray for mind maps, too.

Cleaning out my bookmarks

Going through my bookmarks, thought it'd be a good time to post some relevant content. Head's up!

Monday, November 5, 2012

PPT Template... Company or others?

Powerpoint came up tonight while at home during the dark Minnesota winter evenings. The wife asked me:
"Is it wrong to suggest a Powerpoint presentation at work should be using the company template?"
I've actually been thinking about that a lot lately, as Powerpoint presentations are just so nice for facilitating a meeting. Is it alright to deviate from the proscribed company template at work? Does it depend on the presentation?

Nothing against the OptumInsight template, it's very nicely crafted. But having seen the same template used for a 1.5+ years, it's wearing thin. Combine that with the fact that Microsoft has some oh-so-pretty templates ready to go and prepacked in Powerpoint, I've got admit, I've started deviating.