Senia Maymin, Ph.D. – Brave Job Search
Senior Leaders: Get a new job *before* you get laid off
Some interesting new video technology companies:
Speaking of video technology, here’s a good analysis of one possible result in YouTube/Google land: “pre-rolling” ads.
That’s it. Since we talked about Web 2.0 briefly today, the question is:
What are the best web applications you’ve seen recently?
Some of my answers:
* www.nowthen.com – Collect your history starting from today by emailing the site cell phone pictures of yourself and short text messages.
* I like myspace for musicians.
* Blogs, blogs, and more blogs. I’m a fan of great blogs. Dave Seah, Kathy Sierra, Evelyn, Alvin, Chris, Dave Shearon, Anna, Seth, Logic+Emotion, ConsumingAmbitions, news at PPND, SharpBrains, Cognitive Daily, photo of the day.
What do you think?!?! :)
What exactly is Web 2.0?
Here are two answers:
How does Web 2.0 differ from the regular internet? Some of the problems that people decribe with the early internet is that it was too based on older media, like TV, newspapers, even radio. And it wasn’t enough based on interactivity and personalization. The talk is that there is a new internet coming or in place now (depending on who you ask) that is about the individual user, that is about community, and that is about seamless individualization.
From Kevin’s notes on the page with the video:
Throughout history, each new medium (books, radio, cinema, television) has first been used to produce content equivalent to that found in existing media. The classic example is radio, which was first used to broadcast radio plays—content based on the familiar medium of theater. Eventually, however, out of the unique strengths of a medium will arise a new kind of content: one that doesn’t mimic what came before, but instead delivers an experience that would never have been possible before. Web 2.0 is that stage in the evolution of the Web as a medium.
It turns out that discussion about Web 2.0 can actually make some people pretty emotional. See Kathy Sierra’s post on this – she discusses the difference between Web 2.0 being a buzzword (just a word) and jargon (a word that means something deeper to the people who understand the field). I wrote a bit about jargon in my Quantum Speech post.
And to summarize Seth’s post, the enhancement of Web 2.0 can come from data (Web 3.0) or from intra-people connections (Web 4.0). Seth writes that Tim Berners-Lee defines the future Web 3.0 as a semantic web – where computers can analyze all the data in the world, and specifically all the data relevant to you. Then Seth introduces his version of Web 4.0, in which different gadgets and information systems can talk to each other, and in a way that’s not top-down, but as he describes, is like a tribe – “smaller, far more intense connections with trusted colleagues and their activities.”
Enjoy the future.
It’s interesting that in both Kevin’s talk and Seth’s post, the best way to describe the future is by examples: “What will we be able to do with Web 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0?” Why do you think that is – that we need examples to explain something we don’t yet know? …. Aha, it’s because people think in stories. Because people live in stories and think in stories.
Update: BTW, you can tell that people have strong opinions on the term Web 2.0 if you read Kathy Sierra’s article on the difference between a buzzword and useful jargon for “Web 2.0”.
Welcome to February. Has your life changed since the New Year? Do you want it to?
What is the #1 habit you want to create right now? Do you want to eat healthier? Become more organized? Remember where you put your keys? Give up alcohol?
Here are some new results from Positive Psychology that could help you create new habits and break old behavior. Let’s look at the stories behind these new results to see whether they work for you.
Self-Regulation
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It turns out that one of the strongest things you can do for yourself to create a new habit is to exercise self-control in some area of your life. Roy Baumeister of Florida State University and his colleagues sum up three studies of self-control in a pre-publication.
The posture study: if you ask college students to watch their posture for two weeks – simply to improve it whenever possible – and then have the students take a self-control activity test, those who had been asked to work on their posture improved their self-control. Moms and ballet teachers all over the world must be celebrating this news. |
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Self-control is often referred to as “self-regulation,†and the fascinating thesis of Baumeister and colleagues is that self-regulation can act as a muscle! What are some things that we know about muscles? 1) Muscles can be trained to get stronger over time, and 2) If weak, a muscle can be easily fatigued. |
Baumeister postulates that the same two ideas can be applied to self-regulation. If a person is tempted multiple times, “Have a drink…. Come on, have a drink…. Have just one drink,†then each time, it becomes harder to say no. On the other hand, if a person trains his self-regulation, then it becomes easier to say no to temptations. How can you train your self-regulation? Self-regulation is your personality process to exert control over your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Baumeister proposes an interesting result – if you do ANYTHING that requires self-regulation, then that makes it EASIER for you to have self-regulation in EVERYTHING.
Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Baumeister reports on two studies – the exercise study and the money study. In the exercise study, students were taught a cardio and weights exercise regimen and were told to follow it closely for two months. At the end of two months, not only did their self-regulation increase under test circumstances (link how do scientists measure self-regulation?), but also the exercisers had less junk food, cigarettes, alcohol, and caffeine. I know what you’re saying – those things are all related to getting healthier and exercising. True. But additionally, the students reported studying more, watching TV less, and doing more household chores like washing dishes. Why is it that if you start to exercise regularly, then that may result in you getting better grades or being a neater person?
Baumeister attributes it to a well-trained self-regulation muscle. In the money study, participants were asked to manage their finances for four months by following a specific system. Not only did the participants increase their average savings rate over four months from 8% to 38% of their income, but they also improved study habits and doing household chores and decreased cigarette use. Baumeister and colleagues use these results to say that self-regulation is not specific to one domain… being self-regulated in your money management leads to self-regulation in other areas. Does that mean that a person who develops great study habits may suddenly lose a lot of weight and become amazingly buff? Maybe, says Baumeister.
In the current issue of Health Psychology, Peter Hall of Ontario’s Waterloo University studies which part of the brain leads to good self-regulation. His answer is the strong executive function of the frontal lobes. Hall gives participants the Stroop test (try it here) in which the word GREEN may appear in red color. As one author describes, “to answer correctly you have to mentally override the impulse to read the word. The same effortful overriding—and the same underlying neuronal activity—is presumably needed to keep showing up at the gym, even when it hurts.â€
STARTING Self-Regulation Today
What is something you can start doing today to put more self-regulation into your life? You can create more structure. Whether you decide that you will pre-pack your lunch so you don’t have something unhealthy at the local café. Or whether you schedule out exercise time for the remainder of the week. Or whether you clean your room. Or whether you decide to pay attention to posture. Or decide that you will open your email only every three hours – 9am, noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm – for no more than a half hour each time. Structure something concrete into your life. That’s the best way to develop self-regulation. Structure something simple into your life so it doesn’t turn everything in your life upside down but so that it does create some structure.
Start with a little bit of self-regulation – to get an effect across many habits.
This article is part of a series on creating new habits and behavior modification and originally appeared here.
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Senia Maymin, MBA, MAPP works in the financial industry and consults to corporations about Positive Psychology. Senia is the Editor of Positive Psychology News Daily, and runs a blog about positive psychology at Senia.com. Senia’s bio.
Senia writes on the first of each month, and her past articles are here. |
One Thing
Yes.
“Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
~ Aristotle
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
~ Aristotle
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
~ Anonymous
“The three hardest tasks in the world are neither physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts: to return love for hate, to include the excluded, and to say, “I was wrong”. ”
~ Sydney J. Harris
“He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.”
~ Lao Tzu
“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.”
~ Jim Rohn
“Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It’s not hard. Character is doing what’s right when nobody’s looking.”
~ Anonymous
Hi, here are the five things you may not know about me. I got tagged by the delightful and fun Evelyn Rodriguez.
Five Things:
1) A couple of years back, I auditioned as a dancer for the Madonna Confessions tour. She had open auditions in NYC, and there was a line around the block in the super-cold winter. I stood in line between two Rockettes (I learned you have to be 5’8″ to be Rockette). There were over 300 females auditioning. When we went in, everyone tried to warm up from the cold quickly, and the tour choreographers had four of us get on the floor at a time and dance to Madonna’s “Hollywood.” The Rockettes both went with more jazz, some girls went hiphop (which worked great to that song), a few went ballroom-dance style, and I was on the flamenco-jazz side.
2) When I was a kid, my dad taught me combinatorics using different mini-chocolates.
3) I did singing-songwriting on the folk open-mike scene. I’m a big fan of the open-mike scene in Boston. It’s a wonderful environment – you go into various clubs and perform your songs. It goes like this: they draws names from a hat to pick the order of the evening, then people go on in their order. You know most of the people in the room, and you try out different songs on the audience. Fabulouso.
4) My sport in high school was springboard diving. Loved it! Our coach used to use as his mantras, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” and “90% of this is guts.” Having done gymnastics earlier, it was great to switch to falling onto water as opposed to onto the mats.
5) I love rock-climbing and have done a multi-pitch climb (where you climb some, then reset your base in the middle of the cliff, then climb some more) only once at the Gunks. One of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.
I now tag these super folks!
David Seah (uppdate: David’s list of five things! 2/1)
Dave Shearon (update: Dave’s list of five things! 1/31)
Alvaro Fernandez (update: Alvaro’s list of five things 4/1)
Alvin Soon (update: Alvin’s list here 2/4)
Chris Harrison (update: Chris’ list of five things! 1/30)
Anna Farmery
Logic+Emotion posts a fascinating post on role models (a story, in fact).
Two great posts from Sharpbrains:
* A carnival with lots of information, and
* A neuroscience hosted carnival, as part of many neuro-related websites.
Enjoy them both! Both very worth your time.
Well, it’s about a month into the new year. How’re you feeling about exercise these days? What steps could you take right now – today – if you wanted to ensure your exercise success?
I read a sheet on this recently from a health club. Here is what they recommend. What would you recommend?
Five Steps to Exercise Success
Ok, and what would I recommend as my steps to success in exercise?
My Steps to Exercise Success
What do you think?
Q: What are your steps to exercise success?
“Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
~ George Washington
“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
~ Ayn Rand
“The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.”
~ Ayn Rand
“About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
~ Ernest Hemingway
“As a child I was taught that to tell the truth was often painful. As an adult I have learned that not to tell the truth is more painful, and that the fear of telling the truth—whatever the truth may be—that fear is the most painful sensation of a moral life.”
~ June Jordan
“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” …and… “Nature is goodness crystallized.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they see. Let them see.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
“Ethics begins when we are free: it is freedom itself, when that freedom is considered and controlled.”
~ André Comte-Sponville
“How can you be happy unless you have some self-respect? And how can you respect yourself unless you control yourself, master yourself, overcome your failings? … Ethically speaking, it’s pointless wishing you were someone else. You can dream of being rich, healthy, good-looking, happy … But it is absurd to dream of being virtuous. Whether you are a villain or a good person is for you and you alone to decide: you are worth precisely what you want.”
~ André Comte-Sponville
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
~ Georges Bataille
“The only immorality … is not to do what one has to do when one has to do it.”
~ Jean Anouilh
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
~ Marcus Aurelius
“Happiness is inward and not outward; and so it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.”
~ Henry Van Dyke
“Think of yourself as two people, and one of them is inside of you, and he’s a scorekeeper. And he keeps score of your idea of the world. … And when you have a conflict with your scorekeeper, that’s unhappiness. Happiness is being completely in sync with your own perception of goodness.”
~ Will Smith
“. . . happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it. . . .”
~ Aristotle
Note: Posted on 1-26 for 1-25.