Carrots & Sticks? Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose

Fun and surprising TED Talk by Dan Pink on Motivation.

Experiments show that extrinsic motivators (carrots and sticks) work great for simple/mechanical-like tasks, probably by providing a narrow focus. But... rewards make performance worse for creative/complex tasks!!!

It's a funny coincidence that today I picked up a free copy of the The Wall Street Journal and it had an article on executive bonuses. Huge expensive carrots that, according to the experiments above, lead to less ability to deal with complexity.

Using OLPC XO as an ebook reader for O’Reilly’s Safari Books Online

My XO OLPC is not collecting dust any more after I suddenly realized that its reflective screen mode would allow me to read safaribooksonline.com while outside. Firefox is an option, but I went for Opera. While connected, I open in different tabs the sections that I'm going to read; I then read in handheld mode, with wifi turned off to have a longer batery life.

1. I updated my XO from how it came from the first edition of G1G1. The updated version is more friendly and privides a much longer battery life.
2. Installed the old OLPC build of Opera.
3. I tried to change (to no effect) the tiny tiny menu fonts (Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> Fonts -> Interface Menu. Choose DejaVu serif, increase font to 16 and select bold for the weight. Setting the Interface menu font to anything greater than 16 causes menu text to become unreadable)
4. I remapped the game pad buttons (more on this later)
5. I went to http://www.safaribooksonline.com/interim/ that provides access to the mobile interface from non-mobile devices. Note the "interim" in the url: they did not allow this until recently, when a change from html to flash annoyed lots of customers; who knows for how long this will be available.

The arrow buttons in the game pad change whenever you change the screen orientation: up is always the one that points upwards. The playstation-like buttons do not change their function with the screen orientation.

Since all I want to do is read from already loaded tabs, these are the mappings that looked more comfortable for me. This other set would allow to use links and navigate.

Button	New value	Application/Browser
o (PageUp)	Zoom in,10	Browser Widget
x (PageDown)	Zoom out,10	Browser Widget
[] (Home)	Scroll down	Browser Widget
v (End)	Scroll up	Browser Widget
Up	Page up	Browser Widget
Down	Page down	Browser Widget
Left	Switch to previous page	Application
Right	Switch to next page	Application

To change the mappings, Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> Shortcuts and edit the Keyboard setup named "Opera Standard for Unix"; you will be creating a modified version, and going back to the default one will be easy if needed. Search for them, and edit them with a double click, changing columns with the tab key. For the last two, you'll have to clear the search field, select the "Application" row and then click on "New..."

Changes

Changes, changes, changes... Please, do not tell my mum about them, because she would be very upset with me!

Last July I took a two years leave from IBM. In a very smart move (in my opinion), IBM is paying me a third of my salary during a period that is forecasted to be of low business. I am allowed to work (and I need to!), but, obviously, I cannot work for IBM's competitors. They are investing this money to get a re-energized employee or, if the employee doesn't go back, to have him leave without having to lay him off, saving quite a bit of money.

I plan to take advantage of this by doing lots of learning and following some long time interests that I was performing on top of my formal role of at IBM: dealing/trying to make sense of organizations and teaching.

So what have I being doing during this months? Besides lots of reading and learning, Ganyet, Banzy and I toyed with the idea of working together in super-secret super-cool project, but, after a few weeks, I did not find a way to fit my skills into their needs; it is a pity, because world domination is in their road map.

When I left university, I should have made a project to become officially an engineer. I then joined IBM, and I was not disciplined enough to spend my free time finishing the project that I just started before joining. Almost 20 years later, I'm fixing that. And I'm very excited about it, because my project is about the software that should help to build a community around 1x1microcredit.org, a peer-to-peer micro-lending website that will offers people the possibility to lend money at low interest rates to poor people so that they can escape poverty, just like kiva.org. PHP aside, I feel very lucky for being able to work in a project that is technically cool and has an even cooler goal.

"because" vs "in order to"

Charles Handy, in The Age Of Unreason

Continuous change is comfortable change. The past is then the guide to the future. An American friend, visiting Britain and Europe for the first time, wondered, "Why is it that over here whenever I ask the reason for anything, any institution or ceremony or set of rules, they always give me an historical answer, 'because'; whereas in my country we always want a functional answer, 'in order to'. Europeans, I suggested, look backward to the best of their history and change as little as they can; Americans look forward and want to change as much as they may.

I'll keep an eye opened to see what answers I give to myself, and what answers I hear from other people. Being an in-order-to person looks to me like a very nice goal.

Peter Drucker: from supervision to objectives

Last post about the episode about Peter Drucker in The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management.

Drucker later elaborated on the setting of objectives in Managing by Results and many have considered this to be his most important contribution to management thinking. He shifted the focus of management actions away from the inputs to the outputs. It was management by results rather than management by supervision.

(...) Management by Objectives can turn into management by targets and quotas, with workers spending more time chasing the numbers than doing the real work. (...) Drucker knew this. The measures had to measure what really mattered. What Drucker wanted was a workplace where workers were trusted to get on with the job without undue supervision, where they knew what was expected of them and were clear about how it would be measured and how they would be rewarded.

Peter Drucker on decentralization

Yet another post about the third episode in The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management.

He explained, for the first time, how and why decentralization worked. He calculated that 95 per cent of all decisions in General motors at that time were taken by the divisions, leaving only the really big ones for the centre. Drucker was keen on decentralization because of its impact on what he called Human Effort, the motivation it provided to people to work and to learn. Decentralization created small pools where people felt that their contribution mattered. Those small pools also meant that there was space for young executives to make mistakes without threatening the future of the company. They were, he said, farms for growing talent.

Peter Drucker was there before

The third episode in The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management, is about Peter Drucker. Now it's a nice time to learn a bit more about him, because right now Drucker's Centenial Week is happening: http://www.drucker100.com/, and some life webcasts will be on during this weekend.

I suddenly realized that Keynes and all the brilliant economic students there were interested in the behaviour of commodities, while I was interested in the behaviour of people.

Charles Handy and Potfolio Lifes

What interested me was not the downsizing or the re-engineering itself, but the consequences for our individual working lives. Organizations, it seemed to me, would increasingly dispense with our services in our mid-lives as they concentrated on fewer and younger people in their cores, with only a few wise heads to keep the show on track. The rest of us would have to develop what I called 'portfolio' lives, a mix of different bits and pieces of work, some for money, some for fun, some for free.

That quote was from Charles Handy, in the second episode of his Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management, hardly about management, but about society.

The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management

From BBC's Learning English, The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management, an old (2002?) and delightful audio series.

Do not miss it.

It is written and narrated by Charles Handy. Listening to Handy's voice is a pleasure. And it does not matter if you don't care about businesses or management: most of it is about society and some of the changes in our world during the last half century.

Each episode is less than 15 minutes long, and has a full transcript.

Analyze your traffic without you

Even when you have like a dozen visits a day, checking google analytics now and then is nice (hey! a vsitor from Belize!). However, it is nice to be able to tell what traffic comes from yourself and what comes from your two readers (if any). A bookmarklet can help you to enable a filter that will allow analytics to remove you from its stats, or even to track your own usage of your site.

Update: bookmarklet magic moved from the defunct googlepages to amazon s3 to http://code.verg.es/sharebookmarklet.html

El autor sin abuela y la teoría de la organización

La portada de la PDA gigante era un mal augurio. Si no fuera porque el material de la asignatura Organización y administración de empresas II, que curso en la UOC, está basado en gran parte en este libro, la PDA platillo volante habría sido suficiente para dejar el libro en la estantería de la biblioteca.

Pero, ¿qué importa una portada? Se trata de los contenido, y parezco estar en buenas manos. Al menos, el autor, Eduardo Bueno Campos, no tiene la menor duda de ello; de los prólogos de la primera y segunda edición extraigo las siguientes muestas

la aparición, en 1976, de la primera edición de mi obra clásica

esta década transcurrida ha provocado que mi cosecha intelectual y mi patrimonio científico se haya incrementado de forma destacada, con un buen número de artículos en revistas nacionales e internacionales de impacto científico, así como nuevos libros...

Pero leo y leo y, ¡ay! , no puedo compartir el entusiasmo del autor por el mismo autor. Y, básicamente, todo se reduce a que soy incapaz de relacionar mi percepción sobre las organizaciones con las que convivo o he convivido con la mayoría de cosas de las que me habla el libro. Capítulos enteros sin entender de dónde venía el texto (¿descripción de la realidad? ¿prescripción para mejores organizaciones? ¿alguna escuela de pensamiento reconocida? ¿el propio autor? ¿palabra revelada?).

Otro libro sobre teoría de la organización describe muy bien porque me interesa la teoría de la organización y por qué me decepciona no disfrutar leyendo o discutiendo sobre ella:

all forms of collective activity - politics, the family, as well as work - are about organizations in some way. Which also means - and it is a major failing of most books to ignore this - that to study organizations involves thinking about philosophy, politics, ethics and much more. And behind or beyond these abstractions are the lived experiences of people not just working together, but joking, arguing, critizing, fighting, deciding, lusting, despairing, creating, resisting, fearing, hoping or, in short, organizing. I don't find it easy to imagine a world without organizations, but I also don't find it easy to recognize that world in the mainstream books about organizations

He disfrutado de este segundo libro como de una novela, aunque a menudo he estado en desacuerdo con el autor Chris Grey. Otro día, más sobre el estupendo A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations.

Comprant llibres

M'he convertit en un entusiasta de The Book Depository. Normalment hi comprava els llibres via amazon.fr; acostumaven a sortir-me una mica més barats que comprant-los a Amazon mateix. Ara els compro directament, amb enviament gratuït, i encara em surt una mica més barat.

amazon.com, però, segueix sent insustituible a l'hora de buscar opinions. I sempre intento començar llegint algunes de les opinions amb menys estrelles. Entre altres motius, per què em convé més que em convencin de no comprar un llibre que de fer-ho.

Bonuses

Henry Mintzberg:

Executive compensation has become a polite form of thievery, or, if you prefer, legal corruption. Executives get paid extra when the stock price goes up (bonus) and when it goes down (golden parachute); they get paid extra for staying in their job (retention bonus (...)), and for just doing their job (a bonus for signing a merger (...)).

As for the argument that if you don’t pay the bonuses, you don’t get the right person, I counter that if you do pay the bonuses, you get the wrong person. You get someone who is willing to single him or herself out from everyone else, at the expense of teamwork (...). The CEO, like everyone else in the company, has a job to do and should be paid for doing it. (...)

For the sake of sustainable enterprise: Executive bonuses should be eliminated. Period.

From http://www.mintzberg.org/pdf/execbonus.pdf

Once things have happened once

Charles Frankel, in High on Foggy Bottom; an Outsider's Inside View of the Government

Once things have happened, no matter how accidentally, they will be regarded as manifestations of an unchangeable Higher Reason. For every argument inside government that some jerry-built bureaucratic arrangement should be changed, there are usually twenty arguments to show that it rest's on God's own Logic, an that tampering with it will bring down the heavens.

Likely to be a valid statement also for individuals

Com és el dia a dia dels investigadors?

http://www.prbb.org/openday

Has extret mai ADN d’un kiwi? Saps com Darwin va desenvolupar la seva teoria de l'evolució? Vols crear el teu propi fòssil? I... per a què serveix, en definitiva, la ciència?

Ara és la teva! Després de l'èxit de l'any passat la segona Jornada de Portes Obertes del PRBB et permetrà de nou respondre aquestes i altres preguntes, fer de científic per un dia passejant pels laboratoris i fent experiments reals.

Si mai us heu preguntat què s'hi fa dins d'aquest edifici de les fustetes que hi ha davant del mar, aquesta és la vostra oportunitat per esbrinar-ho.

Apropeu-vos-hi amb tota la família el proper dissabte 3 d'octubre. Hi haurà activitats per a petits i grans!

Gràcies per l'avís, Maik!

Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter

Sacha Chua rocks, as usual

Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter

View more documents from Sacha Chua.

La teva responsabilitat

M'ha agradat el discurs de Barak Obama de principi de curs. M'agrada que hi hagi un discurs presidencial de principi de curs!

Això vol dir que -ai!- els meus pobres fill hauran de patir-ne una adaptació Vergés.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

My tablet PC says hi

One of the joys of not being an Apple fanboy is that you can already be the user of a tablet PC. In case you are not aware of it, tablets are cool, comfortable and in a similar price range than any laptop.

In june I got an hp tx2000 at http://mcs-n.com and paid €712 for it. I took advantage of Plan Avanza's interest free credits.

It's small and easy to carry around; reading on it with its screen folded, either on the coach or in the bus, is very comfortable. Unfortunatelly, battery life is not that great; I'm hopping to extend it a bit by taking the time to undervolt its cpu.

It came preloaded with lots of crapware (dear HP, haven't you considered that maybe all this bloatware makes your hardware look bad and underperformant?). I wiped it and did a clean installation of Vista 64bits (make that two or three clean installations... damn activation!) Update: Before doing a clean install on a tablet pc, you may want to save some calibration data (something that I failed to do)

• I went for 64 bits because I was hoping that the OS would be taking advantage of the 4GB of RAM that are available (it won't happen with Vista 32 bits; it may happen in Vista 64 bits; I don't know if it happens in my laptop)
• I went for Vista Ultimate because I found a good deal for students http://daelgolpe.es/ and I thought that I may end up needing its support for different language packs. Yes, this school year I'm a student.
• I don't recall how I got out of the activation nightmare. The great Activation Backup and Restore and Microsoft alternate media allowed me to go from bloated Vista Home 32 to fresh installation to Vista Home 64. I then, don't ask me how, was able to use the Ultimate upgrade license key.

Run!

cc'ing the world about something that a dear friend of mine should consider. From the New York Times: Exercise Found Effective Against Depression

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center tested exercise against the drug Zoloft and found the ability of either -- or a combination of the two -- to reduce or eliminate symptoms were about the same. But they found exercise seemed to do a better job of keeping symptoms from coming back after the depression lifted.

(...) 8 percent of exercisers saw symptoms come back, compared with 38 percent of those taking drugs and 31 percent getting both.

The studies do not prove exercise relieves depression, in part because the exercisers worked out in a group, so group dynamics may have played a role

Para votantes cuidadosos

Lista de los diputados en el Parlamento Europeo, con su actividad parlamentaria, lista de presencia, declaración de intereses económicos... Aunque sería más divertido si fuera como el envidiable TheyWorkForYou.com.

Energy

One can view the constant interaction with people in terms of energy.

• How do you tend to feel after dealing with a given person? More energized? Drained?
  
• How do you think other people feel after interacting with you?

This idea can go far beyond fluffy self-helpy introspection. By asking this sort of questions in an organization, one can map enthusiasm and get a good indication of where energy is high, and creativity and innovation likely to occur.

Driving Results Through Social Networks: How Top Organizations Leverage Networks for Performance and Growth talks about enthusiasm networks.

Nothing gets done here without someone somewhere getting enthused about an idea and then enthusing others.

And, without stopping talking about business, we can get back into self-helpy stuff... The book identifies some behaviours that are perceived as generating positive energy:

1. Do you do what you say are going to do and address tough issues with integrity?
2. Do you see realistic possibilities in conversations and avoid focusing too early or heavily on potential obstacles?
3. Are you mentally and physically engaged in meetings and conversations?
4. Are you flexible in your thinking and do you use your expertise appropriately?
5. When you disagree, do you focus on the issue at hand rather than on the individual?
   

Sellos

En Correos puedes convertir tus imagenes



en sellos



Cada sello, equivalente a los que valen treintaypoco y sirven para cartas nacionales, sale por un euro. ¡Pero hace una ilusión!

En tusello.es

Robinson Crusoe

ROBINSON CRUSOE. Una novela en imágenes inspirada en la obra de Daniel Defoe de Ajubel. Estupendo.

De la colección Libros para niños de la editorial valenciana Media Vaca. Como para gastarse una pequeña fortuna.

Historia aburridísima de un SMS, un pesao y la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos

El 11 de febrero Telefónica me envía un SMS

Publi: Llama al xxxxx de Telefonica para lo que necesites; telefonos, direcciones, taxis, trafico, el tiempo, como llegar,... Fin publi SMS 900502020

¿Saben mi móvil? Maniático de la privacidad, decido ponerme en contacto con la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos a través de su web:

He recibido de Telefónica un SMS de publicidad en mi teléfono móvil. Nunca he sido cliente de Telefónica con ese número. La única relación que ese número ha tenido con ellos es que una vez lo di como teléfono de contacto para una avería en mi línea fija.
¿Es esto legal? Gracias.

Un mes después, recibo del Jefe del Área de Atención al Ciudadano la respuesta que transcribo a continuación y que no me parece especialmente útil para decidir cuáles han de ser mis siguientes pasos. Eso si, el Jefe de Área me saluda atentamente, lo que le agradezco. Game over.

En relación a su consulta se le informa de lo siguiente:

La legislación vigente en materia de protección de datos (Ley Orgánica 15/1999), reconoce una serie de derechos a los ciudadanos, como son el derecho de acceso, rectificación y cancelación de sus datos personales. El ejercicio de los mismos es personalísimo, y debe, por tanto, ser ejercido directamente por los interesados ante cada uno de los responsables/titulares de los ficheros automatizados, (salvo en el caso de menores de edad o incapacitados o salvo poder expreso y por escrito del titular de los datos y fotocopia de los dos DNI) lo que significa que el titular de los datos puede dirigirse a cada una de las empresas u organismos públicos, de los que sabe o presume que tienen sus datos, solicitando información sobre qué datos tienen y cómo los han obtenido (derecho de acceso), la rectificación de los mismos, la cancelación de los datos en sus ficheros (derecho de cancelación) o la oposición a que traten sus datos para un uso o fin determinado (derecho de oposición). En este caso, deberá dirigirse directamente al responsable del fichero en donde se encuentren sus datos personales, utilizando cualquier medio que permita acreditar el envío y la recogida de su solicitud, para el ejercicio de sus derechos, acompañando copia de su D.N.I. e indicando el fichero o ficheros a consultar.

La Agencia Española de Protección de Datos no dispone de los datos de los ciudadanos.

Si en el plazo de un mes para el derecho de acceso (y diez días hábiles en el resto de los derechos) desde la recepción de la solicitud en la sede del responsable del fichero, ésta no ha sido atendida adecuadamente, podrá dirigirse a la Agencia con copia de la solicitud cursada y de la contestación recibida (si existiera), para que ésta Agencia, a su vez, se dirija a la empresa designada con el objetivo de hacer efectivo el ejercicio de sus derechos.

El derecho de acceso no puede ejercitarse a intervalos inferiores a 12 meses, salvo que exista un interés legitimo al efecto (articulo 15.3 de la LOPD).

Elles salten, però no ho anirem a veure

Abans anàvem a veure els partits de bàsquet femení de l'UB Barça: ho passàvem bé, l'ambient era molt agradable i familiar, i els nens veien que les noies tenen un paper més interessant que donar saltironets amb faldilla curta mente els nois juguen. Ens agradava, però l'Universitari va desaparèixer.

Avui hem anat per primer cop a veure l'Olesa. El partit era divertit, i l'àmbient bó... fins que la gent s'ha enfadat amb l'arbitre. Cridòria, insults. La C. ha volgut marxar quan això ha començat. I a en G. també li ha estat bé.

Dotze euros menys i una activitat que ja no repetirem. Una pena.

Brick walls

But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason.
The brick walls are not there to keep us out.
The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.
Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.
They're there to stop the other people.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (video transcript pdf)

Could someone please clone that man?

sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants

in the face of doubt, openness prevails

Lots and lots of organizations, both corporations and public administrations, could learn from these quotes. Taken from a memo by Barack Obama for the heads of executive departments and agencies. I bet that my honeymoon phase will be over sooner or later... but, in the meanwhile, would you dear lucky Americans mind cloning several hundred POTUS and sending them all over the place?

Yay for transparency!

Mapa del Mar de Dudas

Mapa del Mar de Dudas, originally uploaded by -Xv.

Este es uno de los 287 mapas que el Almirante Salomon Dudas dibujó intentando describir la cambiante geografía del mar que lleva su nombre.

De Wikipedia:

El Mar de Dudas fue descubierto por Sir Salomon Dudas durante su última expedición. Su ubicación exacta permanece deconocida, puesto que el cuaderno de bitácora de Dudas sólo contenía interminables ensayos sobre cuál era el mejor tipo de letra para detallar con claridad la ruta. Se tiene muy poca información sobre la última expedición de Dudas y su final. La única documentación disponible son los 287 mapas, el inútil cuaderno de bitácora y el diario personal del segundo de a bordo.

Después de ocho semanas explorando la zona, Dudas decidió volver a puerto. Dos días después, cambió de opinión y cambio ciento ochenta grados el rumbo, para hacerlo de nuevo tres veces más. Harta de este rumbo errático, la tripulación de Dudas se amotinó y le abandonó en un bote cerca de los Islas de Buridán. Mientras el HMS Zigzag se alejaba en un viaje de cuyo trágico final se desconocen los detalles, la tripulación pudo observar como Dudas remaba alternativamente hacia la Isla Norte y la Isla Sur, cayendo exhausto antes de alcanzar ninguna de las dos.

Change

(via Phil Whitehouse's twitter stream)

Advertència

Per un motiu o altre, la meva filla està plorant com una boja al meu costat mentre jo l'intento consolar. Entenc que això pugui trencar-li el cor i vulgui ajudar, però, si us plau, si vostè no disposa d'habilitats extraordinàries (com ara volar o treure's pilotes de ping pong del nas) no cal que s'acosti i ens interrompi.
És altament improbable que un "no ploris, maca" d'un desconegut tingui cap altre efecte que una mirada assassina per part meva, que espero em sabrà disculpar.
Agraint-li la seva bona intenció i les ganes d'ajudar,
-Xavier

A button to make it simpler to paste notes: urls

I often paste links to Lotus Notes documents (mostly mail messages) in my tiddlywikis. Creating a toolbar button that puts the notes: url in a field makes it simpler. Unfortunately, LotusScript does not provide a way to access the clipboard, so you have to manually select the text and copy it there.
Create a new toolbar button and paste this code inside:

dn := @Subset(@DbName; 1);
linkType:= "Document";
nsfPath := @WebDbName;
qualifiedHost := @If(@Length(dn) = 0; ""; @DbLookup("":""; dn:"names.nsf"; "($ServersLookup)"; dn; "SMTPFullHostDomain"));
dbUrl := "Notes://"  + qualifiedHost+ "/" + nsfPath;
viewUrl := dbUrl +  "/";
docUrl := viewUrl + "/" + @Text(@DocumentUniqueID);
docTitle := @If(@IsAvailable(Subject);Subject;@IsAvailable(Title);Title;@IsAvailable(FullName);FullName;@Name([CN];@Author));
clipboardTxt := "[[" + docTitle + "|" + docUrl + "]]";
@Prompt([OkCancelEdit]; "TiddlyWiki link"; "Copy the text below to the clipboard."; clipboardTxt)

I posted this long ago in my intranet blog, and looks that can also be useful outside. The code was adapted from something that Jonathan Feinberg, of Wordle fame, wrote for a then young and great Dogear, a bookmarking service that ended up being one of the key components of Lotus Connections.

Change we must

Professionally, I'm always advocating for change and innovation.
Politically, I never vote for the party that is ruling in a given administration.

Then, why oh why do I get so annoyed when I'm unable to shop the exact same model of running shorts that I bough five years ago? Or was it ten years ago?

Update:
Luis, in a comment to my original post, tries to make me feel better and invites me to put the blame on the usual suspects: politicians, executives and managers.

I started to feel better until, what started as a joke became an interesting lesson for myself: am I not showing the exact same attitude that I often and loudly complain about? The we-have-always-done-things-like-this-here automatic response? The who-cares-if-the-alternative is-better mindset? Check Ferran Rodena's Eliminating Waste: Lessons From The Trenches for an example of this attitude from a group that does not belong to the usual suspects

I was offered some more technologically advanced shorts and I did not even consider its possible advantages! I must remember this the next time that I want to push some change!

Teachers and teachers

From an article in The New Yorker by Malcom Gladwell (via Bil Sherrin's intranet blog):

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year.

It's a good article, focused on how hard is to predict new hires performance in some fields.

Unfortunately, I don't think this kind of metrics are obtained in the education system in my country. In fact, several teacher unions here consider teaching evaluation as something to oppose as it promotes competition over collaboration. Yep. Feedback? Who needs it?

2009 User's guide. First draft

2009 User's guide. First draft, originally uploaded by -Xv.

A first draft of my 2009 resolutions/guidelines. Inspired by Sacha Chua.

make eyes shine, awe, patience, focus, simplify
start early, meditation, run, food, quit
play, listen, notes, realistic drawing, hack

Dows simplifica

Vem anar a petar a Dows, a la secció de video-jocs. Sorpresa molt agradable. Ple de jocs per fer-hi un tast.
Algunes idees simplísimes però molt pràctiques: no et donen una targeta de client (millor per a tu i la teva engreixada cartera, i millor per a ells) i et guarden els tickets i les garanties (no cal conservar aquests paperets de tinta tèrmica que s'han tornat blancs quan els vas a mirar després de tres mesos).
Estava jo tan encantat quan, a la tele, veig una anunci d'un joc que havia comprat amb un preu recomanat inferior al que jo havia pagat. Ahir els vaig enviar un correu electrònic explicant-ho, i, aquets matí,

Sr. Vergés,
Com a responsable del centre de la secció de videojocs, sento el malentés que hi ha hagut amb aquest joc. Fins fa ben poc, el PVP recomanat de l’article que vosté va adquirir era 39,90 €, i malauradament el fabricant no ens va comunicar la baixada de preu dels articles a 29,90€, d’aquí l’error.
El convido a que es passi per la botiga per a que li retornem la diferencia, amb el nostre “preu mínim garantit”, i aprofito per saludarlo atentament,

Que durin!