Vibes are SCIENCE. February 13, 2010
Posted by krgaskins in psychology.add a comment
“May I ask to what these questions tend?”
“Merely to the illustration of your character,” said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. “I am trying to make it out.”
“And what is your success?”
She shook her head. “I do not get on at all.”
Validation [SIGH]
If you know me, you probably know I’m a “vibe” person. I favor intuition (for better or worse) when assessing an individual’s character, situational reactions, and general openness.
So I was pretty excited when I encountered this article in last month’s Harvard Business Review: “We Can Measure the Power of Charisma.”
Truth be told, I’m not really interested in quantifying charisma or learning which social cues have ROI. But I like the notion that the seemingly substanceless vibes I can’t help but prefer (over more “concrete” cues) have empirical potential. (That’s not to say that my char-dar is reading signs correctly, but merely that the signs exist.)
The Experiment
Researchers conducted a study, outfitting executives at a party with devices that recorded “social” data—that is, tone of voice, JAZZ HANDS (gesticulation), proximity to others, and more. Less than a week later, these executives presented business plans to a panel of judges in a contest; without being privy to their pitches, the researchers were able to predict correctly the outcome.
Qualification: “The signals indicate who will win but say nothing about the quality of their ideas… like the Nixon-Kennedy debate: Those who saw it rated Kennedy higher. Those who heard it rated Nixon higher.”
“Honest signals is a biological term. They’re the nonverbal cues that social species use to coordinate themselves—gestures, expressions, tone. Humans use many types of signals, but honest signals are unusual in that they cause changes in the receiver of the signal [...]. If I’m happy, it almost literally rubs off on you.
The more successful people talk more, but they also listen more. They spend more face-to-face time with others. They pick up cues from others, draw people out, and get them to be more outgoing. It’s not what they project that makes them charismatic; it’s what they elicit.”
ReadWriteWeb (Yay!) February 13, 2010
Posted by krgaskins in work.add a comment
Let’s say you get an idea – or, as Pooh would more accurately say – it gets you. Where did it come from? If you are able to trace it all the way back to its source, you will discover that it came from Nothing. And chances are, the greater the idea, the more directly it came from there.
The wise are children who know their minds have been emptied of the countless minute somethings of small learning, and filled with the wisdom of the Great Nothing.
Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
I’m excited to mention that Latitude recently partnered with ReadWriteWeb on one of its Latitude 42 innovation studies. I’ve followed RWW for some time, and consider them distinct for transposing a more sophisticated analytical overlay onto traditional reporting. (So, like, much respect.)
The study consists of a structured idea generation exercise for kids (ages 12 and under); it asks them to conceive of (to draw) things they’d like to do on computers or the Web, but can’t yet.
The notion is that children have a unique approach to technology, and exhibit their thinking ability with much greater freedom than adults, not being confined to imagine within the bounds of what is seemingly practical or possible. (How children think is more valuable than the end-solutions they propose, in many cases.)
RWW’s founder, Mr. MacManus, was kind enough to write our kick-off post, and I’ll be working with RWW to deliver the results (cross-posted to life-connected.com) in the next few weeks.
(If you know someone with a child that’s age 12 or under who’d like to participate, you can find a link to the study here.)
Self-Referential Journalism January 28, 2010
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The New York Times’ Bits Blog is live-blogging Apple’s iPad announcement today.
He’s now displaying the New York Times site, NYTimes.com. If he shows the Bits blog, the space-time continuum may rip. Oh, jeez, he just showed the Technology page, which has Bits on it. I just saw my own name on the screen. Audience is chuckling as they see our tech headlines.
He’s now going to Time magazine, thank God.
What’s in a Name? December 31, 2009
Posted by krgaskins in literature, musings, uncategorized.add a comment
Names are important.
I enjoy the act of naming things, and I conduct the process with a certain engrossing finickiness.
I notice wireless network names that come up on my iPhone as I locomote around town. I even fancy how charming it would be if “pink_panties” (somewhere around Norfolk & Harvard Streets) got together with “sniffer” (inbound Central Square T).
I name important “characters” in my life on Twitter so there will be narrative continuity to my tweets. People who follow me on Twitter and later meet me in person know my characters; these individuals’ names (personas) are important—not their @identities.
I form pre-opinions about books, movies, brands, and people from their names. So do you, of course.
I hear a lot of discussion about “brand narrative” and “personal narrative.” Great stories often begin with well-chosen language (encompassing a general manner of addressing the world) and mentions of clearly defined people, places, and things. Great names help these elements to be narratively self-perpetuating and persistently memorable.
The Stuff of Strangers December 2, 2009
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If you guys haven’t seen this, you should check it out.
It’s near and dear to my heart, as we–this curious box and I–share some common ground… loitering in front of the same ol’ cafe.
I almost walked into the Stranger Exchange, literally, on its first week outside 1369 Coffee Shop in Central Square (Cambridge, MA). Then I wrote it up for Work, as a kind of Freecycle/PostSecret lovechild, in the form of hyperlocal dropbox. The system is something like, “take a penny, leave a penny”–but with far more creativity, diversity, and personal value relayed than with the currency of… currency.
The box suggests one might leave (among other things):
Books, movies, old pictures, new pictures, report cards, post cards, love letters, rumors, business cards, questions, answers, origami, keys to nowhere, coupons, dirty looks, self-portraits, surprises, etc.
Rachel Botsman, who writes for shareable.net, interviewed the guys behind the Stranger Exchange, accumulating some fascinating material, interweaved into a larger discussion about peer-to-peer networks, and an emerging sentiment of “unexpected curiosity and respect” amongst “people you don’t know or are not even friends with.”
I liked this notion of “unexpected curiosity and respect,” because, as a Child of The Internet, it makes sense to me, intuitively. I explored the notion a bit more here.
You probably know me, or wouldn’t mind it.
Relatedly, the obscurity of connectivity. How quickly we become friends, having never met. How strange that you are friends with so-and-so, being geographically removed, devoid of mutual connections, topically irrelevant to his or her lifestream content, 15 years lagging, or of no professional use.
(These are my bottom-up observations. I don’t consider them comprehensive, but the more I encounter, and the more I converse with people in the everyday, the more I find to affirm them. You may find otherwise. My laissez-faire parade, however obscure, is sunny; you don’t want to be the rain on it, do you?)
But was it ever the obvious that created substantive bonds between people? Sometimes. But never without a sense of congeniality–and often just this congeniality, without the obvious. So, I’ll say I think the Internet offers “unexpected accessibility and congeniality”–alongside “unexpected curiosity and respect.”
If you’ve read all this, maybe you think what I wrote is inherently interesting. (I’d prefer if you did, though you needn’t.) But chances are we’ve shared a joke, a life anecdote, a café table–or my digital presence projects to you that we very well could.
Long Live the Independent Bookstore March 3, 2009
Posted by krgaskins in literature, local, noteworthy encounters.3 comments
Perhaps the closing of retail establishments isn’t exactly what Ferlinghetti had in mind for these lines, but as a founder of the famous City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, I hope he wouldn’t object to them being used for this particular purpose.
“The independent bookstore is dead; long live the independent bookstore,” wrote The New York Times in September of 2008. The big “chain booksellers” (namely Barnes & Noble and Borders) have been cited with killing off the smaller, independent stores at a rate of three per week for years, even prior to 2008. But given the recession, the giants are struggling too; the value of Barnes & Noble‘s stock fell 30% from 2007 to 2008, and Borders‘ a whopping 60% over the same time period. Borders (relieved of its Amazon alliance in 2008) is now in debt and trying on a new CEO after a significant drop in holiday sales.
So, it seems surprising that the off-the-beaten path independent bookstores with a cool but quirky and wondrous but sometimes unreliable selection of merchandise are still in existence at all. As I walk down Massachusetts Avenue towards Harvard Square, I’m shocked at how many businesses have closed up shop (“The People’s Republic of Cambridge” is especially proud of its high density of local, independently-owned businesses).
The other weekend I visited Grolier’s Poetry Book Shop, recommended to me by a friend. It’s located right near Harvard Square off the main drag and shouldn’t be a difficult find at all, but Cambridge is full of shops stuffed into side-streets, alleyways, and other subtle nooks-and-crannies prone to being overlooked.
The idea of “walking a neighborhood” (which many communities have traded in for strip malls, and which Merill Reports suggests may be one factor tipping the scales in favor of online retailers like Amazon), certainly isn’t dead in Cambridge. With foot traffic up, it seems more important than ever to have high visibility and great word-of-mouth. Afterall, I’d walked by the shop countless times, and had never known of its existence until a friend pointed it out.
The shop itself is surprisingly small and the interior bears an uncanny resemblance to Ollivander’s wand shop in the Harry Potter films, with tall wooden shelves and diffuse, yellowish lighting. As far as book shops go, Grolier’s carries exclusively poetry… but they carry a lot of it. Dan Wuenschel, the general manager, is a vault of pleasantly dispensed information, serving much the same function as the iTunes Genius. He let on that Charles Simic (previously, not much known to me) shares the same dark humor as Billy Collins, which the two use similarly in “extrapolating the universe” from their immediate physical surroundings.
Aside from the quaint charm of the store’s atmosphere and the helpful personnel, I learned that there’s a nice feeling of community happening around Grolier’s, with the occasional, casual “celebrity” drop-in. My friend loves Irish literature, so was interested to hear that Seamus Heaney stops by the store when he’s working at Harvard. Among many others, Elizabeth Alexander, who wrote and recited the inaugural poem, is also a frequent guest at the store.
Grolier’s keeps tabs on all the literary events happening in the Boston area. Mr. Wuenschel informed me that between the AGNI Magazine (run by Boston University) e-mail list (sign up for alerts relating to Boston or New York events here) and another local literary e-mail list (organized by a gentleman named Daniel Bouchard — send a note to bouchard [at] MIT [dot] edu and request to be included), it would be nearly impossible to miss news of a literary event in the area.
Given the competitive pricing and selection of Amazon and the rise of Half.com and eBay in recent years, it is compelling to forego on the small bookstore experience (mostly, the ever-so-slightly inflated prices that go along with it, by necessity). But there is something to be said for standing in a charming little “niche” store with books calling down at you from packed shelves that seem to go on forever, and the helpful employees that have something more like a very astute conversation with you than a sales-pitch. Call me old-fashioned, but Amazon‘s recommendation engine couldn’t compete with Mr. Wuenschel, even if we discounted the pleasantries of person-to-person engagement.
Some other notable local booksellers:
I’d written previously in my Midnight On Your Left posting about two of my favorite local, independently-owned bookstores in the Boston area:
Brookline Booksmith (in Coolidge Corner, Brookline)
Rodney’s Bookstore (in Central Square, Cambridge)
I’m particularly fond of used books, so both shops carry them; however, Brookline Booksmith dedicates its top level exclusively to new books (and Rodney’s Bookstore doesn’t stock new books at all). Both are definitely worth a good perusin’.


But, I suspect, that “internet” fluency happens much like general language acquisition; if you aren’t immersed in the language and culture from a young age, you can still become fluent (or conversant, at least) through practice and experience. That being said, I’d like to leave these more practical concerns behind for now; what my previous post, 



Oh, yes you do. What with society becoming more fast-paced everyday, how many people actually have time to blog at their desks? Time = money, baby.

Who could’ve ever doubted than an expression like “WTF?” would stand the test of time? I mean, WTF? Great ideas got stayin’ power.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.


