3 ms·
"Just as most smoking prevention advertising is proven to increase smoking might many pro innovation programs prevent innovation?" Back in the spring of 2007 I
by edw 7y ago
"Just as most smoking prevention advertising is proven to increase smoking might many pro innovation programs prevent innovation?"
Back in the spring of 2007 I was dating a woman who worked for a mature Silicon Valley tech company. She was excited to share news of a recently-introduced program that she was certain I'd love. What was it? I asked. A rotational development program. It would produce people like me, she said: generalists, people who understood many aspects of the company's business and could go on to lead it into the future.
My response to this news was sadness. Don't you know what's going to happen? All of the High Achievers and Grade Grubbers and Brass Ring Grabbers are going to hear about this program, and they're going to compete for this Shiny Object, this Resume Enhancer, and all the people like me, the ones who quietly follow their curiosity with a borderline sense of guilt and shame, who feel like outcasts and weirdos for not fitting in, are never going to sign up for the cutthroat competition. And the company will think it has done something wonderful to promote innovation.
I remember the look on her face after I'd unloaded on this thing she was so proud of. The relationship did not survive to see the first day of summer.
- mikelyons 7y agoThis rings to me much like the stage orange human tendency to take the beauty of the natural world and commoditize and monetize it, destroying what made it beautiful in the process. (Spiral Dynamics stage orange)
- edw 7y agoThanks for the introduction to Spiral Dynamics; it's an interesting way of thinking about how people think about the world. Of course, in the hands of the sort of people who think rotational development programs are a boffo idea, it is perfectly suited for misuse. Spiral Dynamics isn't named in the following article, but I'm sure some cheapened version of it is being used out in the wild by mostly-well-meaning gurus and HR people: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/style/personality-tests-office.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/style/personality-tests-o... Which further reminds me: In 2008-9, I told a fellow entrepreneur how I thought about designing Half.com's UX, namely as an exercise in creating a game, in that people don't like to plays games that they don't think are fair, or know they're doomed to never win. (I used a former love's domination in Monopoly, and our friends' hesitancy to play with her, as an example.) This comment led the entrepreneur into an obsession with "gamification," to the point that he took me to eat lunch with a leading gamification guru, IIRC at the Second Avenue Deli. Gamification, a precursor to everything written about by Nir Eyal in "Hooked," was the antithesis of what I cared about: not about making people want to play, but about making people feel like the cannot help but play.
- mikelyons 7y agoIf you're curious about Spiral Dynamics, and its applications in Life and in politics, this series is fantastic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23aDNBvn_2g&list=PLWq2PmY0jhcpz1T8_HCUrhuw0mRp1z7Aq https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23aDNBvn_2g&list=PLWq2PmY0jh... if you just want to see where Trump and China are going, then this is a good summary https://actualized.org/insights/the-big-picture-of-global-politics https://actualized.org/insights/the-big-picture-of-global-po... Note to moderation: I only post this to help this fellow, and promise to only post it in this context where it's appropriate, open to feedback if this is also outside the realm of acceptable behavior. :thumbs_up:
- Pimpus 7y agoPeople don't like you posting this guy because he's a weirdo, gives off intense cultish vibes, and has obsessed, weirdo followers (yes, I'm talking about you).
- ffwacom 7y agoFor all of Rands faults she goes into this dynamic in excruciating detail in The Fountainhead.