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Seth Godin over at his blog has a post on what he descibes as a population of “polar opposites” in the work place. His nomenclature for these two are “Thrill Seekers” and “Fear Avoiders”. It’s an intersting choice of labels. He goes on to describe a thrill seeker as:

Thrill seekers love growth. They most enjoy a day where they try something that was difficult, or–even better–said to be impossible, and then pull it off. Thrill seekers are great salespeople because they view every encounter as a chance to break some sort of record or have an interaction that is memorable.

and correspondingly Fear Avoiders as:

Fear avoiders hate change. They want the world to stay just the way it is. They’re happy being mediocre, because being mediocre means less threat/fear/change. They resent being pushed into the unknown, because the unknown is a scary place.

This is an interesting way of dividing up individuals. I have heard a similar designation for people where I work. The venacular however is a little different “Proponent of Change” vs. “Process Stabalizer”. The Process stabalizer is the individual who loves order and rigor and checklists and the lack of options that these things bring. The process stabillizer likes to churn through very efficiently “the process”. They love to run full out and “perform” The Proponet of Change is the individueal that lovers to mix things up, change course, try it differently, take the most direct path, and win. The end and goal is usually the prize and the chaos incurred is simply a cost of doing business.

I can see which of my co-workers fall into which category or “mode of operation” as a natural tendency. Not to say that on “any given Sunday”, as the saying goes, your actions can be seen as being in either of the camps.

Is the fact that both these types exist a good or a bad thing? On one hand the dicotomy creates a natural conflict, much like we have with our 2-party Political System in the US. The theory there is that some competition raises the level of performance. At the same time this dicotomy provides a balance. The trick is to prevent gridlock while allowing the gentle competition to provide better results. The other thing is to understand these natural tendencies when trying to influence someone.

Seth also highlights a very important point in today’s world:

So why not call them risk seekers and risk avoiders? Well, it used to be true. Seeking thrills was risky. But no longer. Now, of course, safe is risky. The horrible irony is that the fear avoiders are setting themselves up for big changes because they’re confused. The safest thing they can do now, it turns out, is become a thrill seeker.

In today’s world status quo is a dangerous thing as you will get passed by.

What do you think?

I was reading the January 11, 2007 copy of Machine Design Magazine last night. I know that was printed a while ago, sometimes I get behind on my trade publication reading. Machine Design is especially one that isn’t directly related to my day-to-day role, but I usually always at some point make sure to read it.

In that issue there was an article by Phillip Trotter of Right Hemisphere Inc. entitled “A Better way to Accelerate Learning” that caught my eye (Here is the Link). The article talks about “Just in Time Training” for mostly mechanical devices. The concept is that a person who is called in to install/fix/service a piece of equipment can, through digitization , pull up 3-D accurate diagrams of the equipment, instructions for procedures, troubleshooting information, and the like. So instead of training someone for every possible contingency this JIT training allows a technician to become productive more quickly and continue operating efficiently. The article goes on to talk about how this is brought about by a convergence of computer advancement (portability and power), increasing re-use in 3D CAD (supplier to user), and advancement in web and database technology delivery of training. Naturally, Right Hemisphere produces products to help implement this type of JIT training. Another interesting note was through open-source like sharing of CAD data from the manufacturer to the user, the cost maintaining and updating instruction/training material is severely reduced.

What really caught my eye was this image that accompanied the article.

A similar diagram is also availible in this write paper on Interactive Training at Right Hemisphere.

I have heard mention of the relative effectiveness of various training types, but this diagram and the relative amount of course design that goes into each one is particularly interesting. As I read through this chart, I looked back on my time as a student and tried to internally validate this with my own historical knowledge. I had some difficulty in validating the we only remembering 10% of what we read for example. The 90% retension of a something that you have learned through simulation and games was easy for me to grasp. I look back and vividly remember to this day my undergraduate and graduate controls courses where we learned about various types of process control through simulation. It was a computer based learning excercise where small teams and individuals would be posed with real chemical processes with their control systems. It was your job to choose between several different control implementations (P vs. PI vs. PID, or standard feedback, feed-forward, or cascade controls) and then tune these controllers and look at the realtive performance. To this day I still re-call correctly the information I learned in these simulations. At the time it was very frustrating because you could not fudge your way through it. You had to learn by trying various stategies, looking at the results, identify your failure points, correct them, and then not finish until you had proven to yourself that you had a robust solution. (Dr. Smith, you were ahead of your time)
This also reminded me of a podcast I listened to a while back on Dan Keldsen’s Blog that discussed “Learnertainment” and learning through simulation.

So taking this a step further, what are those areas in your business that could benefit from education or training by simulation?

• Are there core competencies that usually can only be learned by “time in job”?
• Are there tasks that can only be learned by doing?
• Are there mission critical or safety related items that are candidates?
• Are there large-scale systems with long time cycles that would benefit from simulation where you can see the results of your actions in a time less than years?
• Are there situations where competitive strategy elucidation by game-play could be useful?

I can think of quite a few candidates. Now is that caveat about the increasing time in training curriculum development we see as the horinzontal arrow in that image above.

Do you have a real world example of when you learned through simulation?

Do you know of an example of how your company or you are using simulation in employee training?

Write and tell me. I’ll post the good ones here.

I find myself a regular reader of this particular website Molecule of the Day. Just about everyday the author provides a chemical structure of a chemical molecule and some interesting fact, use, or history about it.

Some notable ones of late are:

• Bitrex - Worlds most bitter substance
• Havitrol - Made up drug
• Isohumulone - Compound causing bitterness in beer
• You can also search up your favorites

I was discussing with some of friends the other day about LinkedIn.com. They were all asking questions like:

1. Why should I join this?
2. How would one use it?
3. Why not use use Friendster or MySpace?
4. What would I put in myprofile?
5. How do I get my friends to join?
6. Who do I invite?

So in order of convenience, I’ll try to put some of the better answers that I have seen.

1. Why should I join this?
2. How would one use this?

I think Guy Kawasaki has a pretty good summary of why in the first part and how in the second part of the post on his weblog entitled “Ten ways to use Linkedin”. He really hits on most the major ones that I have heard in other places. Personally, I started using this as a way to keep track of my friends and colleagues as they have scattered the world, changed jobs, or other things that make it difficult to keep tabs on them. I also like the 11th entry on the new questions and answer feature of linkedin. Reid Hoffman (One of LinkedIN’s founders and formerly of Paypal fame) also has some insight into how LinkedIN was originally envisioned and how it is used now in this interview on Venture Voice.

As for #3 Why not use use Friendster or MySpace?

Well this is one is a little subtle and very important. MySpace and Friendster are for social functions. People looking for, finding, and socializing with with others. Linkedin in my mind is a very different beast in that it is targeted at professionals. Most professionals “have enough friends” to paraphrase Konstantin Guericke one of linkedin’s founders stated in this interesting interview on Dan Keldsen’s website. He then goes on to talk about the distinction between people who want social interaction and people looking for business contacts, relationships, jobs, and information. Most people are not just looking to hang out and most people don’t want you to waste their time doing so. For me the concept of seeing who my friend’s friends are and how we could help each other is quite fascinating.

As for #4 What would I put in myprofile?

I start out by saying “what is your intent?” Are you looking for a job? Looking to stay in contact with friends? Wanting to expand you network size for business leads or influence? Are you looking for potential customers? investors? or potential hires?

Personally you can check out my evolving profile by clicking in the link in the sidebar of this blog. I think we can look to Guy Kawasaki again for a nice post about his Linkedin profile before and after he went about improving it. I would look around and see how other people use it. I see improvements people have made all the time.

As for #5 How do I get my friends to join?

You are pretty much on your own on this one. I find that people interested in trying new things are much more likely to give it a shot and sign up. There are a couple of other tips:

• Send a personalized email - Don’t just send a form mail.
• Include the Sig you usually use when emailing them so they recognize it.
• Be interesting. People that you I find interesting or that find me interesting usually accept every time.
• Send a separate email or phone conversation to them outlining why you sent them the link, explaining linkedin, and links to some interesting articles about it.

As for # 6 Who do I invite?

Well I use pretty much one criteria for selecting who to invite. If I find the person interesting, I send them an invite. Someone I am not impressed by or wouldn’t want to recommend to my friends doesn’t make the cut. This is my policy, but again if you have other reasons for using linkedin like expanding your network, gathering information, or hiring people, you can pretty much invite every email address you come across.

Well I hope this is helpful to those of you that might have had questions like this. Let me know if you have other suggestions.

Here is a quick post to introduce myself and what you might expect to find here.

I am a 30 something year old scientist who works for a fortune 500 company in a technical role.  I am a Chemical Engineering by training (BS,MS,PhD).   I work primarily in the materials area.  My primary role is as a scientist and developer of new products.

I am facsinated by how new materials and prodcuts are developed and enter into the marketplace.  Which ones sell? which ones don’t?  and which ones change the way things are done.

So you will find a couple of key themes at this spot:

• Innovation Topics
• Advances in science and how they might be used
• New materials and their commercialization

Tune in and we’ll see how this develops.

I also plan on using this venue to sharing some experimentation with my own personal growth through a couple of on-going series:

• Read something new - My personal attempt on a weekly basis to expose myself to something new.  This might include picking up a magazine, trade journal, or book on something I never would usually read or be interested in.
• New science article - A weekly basis of pointing out something interesting I see in a scientific paper and how it might be used.

I look forward to comments and suggestions.  The site design may change and improve/regress as I get settled on something that works.