Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on Vacation
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings, 2015/03/10

Doug Belshaw flags this interesting account on time created by Brain Pickings's Maria Popova. The core thread of the discussion describes how our perception of time changes. The simple and immediate explanbation for this is, "We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling." It's like McTaggert says: time is not real. And it shows how flexible our perceptions are. "It is clear that however the brain counts time, it has a system that is very flexible. It takes account of [factors like] emotions, absorption, expectations, the demands of a task and even the temperature." Good stuff.

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Skills for the Networked World
Sahana Chattopadhyay, ID, Other Reflections, 2015/03/10

This is an interesting post because it summarizes a number of other posts on new skills and comes up with a list as a bit of a synthesis of them. I think that overall it's a good list, though there's some duplication and cross-categorization. And it mixes skills and values. Things like autonomy (aka 'courage zone') and diversity are values (and he should add openness and interactivity). Things like cognition (aka 'critical thinking') and pattern recognition (aka 'meta-cognition') are skills, and are what we recognize as critical literacies. Here are his core skills, quoted:

• meta-cognition: "working out loud, building one's PLN and PKM, digital sense-making"
• critical thinking: "to take decisions in the face of flux and ambiguity, to embrace change"
• diversity and inclusion: "super-additivity where the sum of the whole exceeds that of the individual parts"
• relationship building: "collaboration is working together on a common problem, while cooperation is freely sharing without any objective
• community participation: "sharing, creating, and debating of knowledge around a domain"
• courage zone: "agility and adaptability in learning... ability to question tacit assumptions and biases"

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The Mythology of Leadership
nick shackleton-jones, aconventional, 2015/03/10

With nick shackleton-jones I tend to agree that "leadership models tend to overstate and rationalise the role of leaders, politely glossing over the fact that in most organisations many leaders were probably not ideal candidates for the role." It's a common instance of the tendency to overascribe outcomes to a single or pivotal cause. This is especially the case with what he typifies here as 'pre-conventional' leaders (mantra: avoid punishment) and 'conventional' leaders (mantra: follow the rules). I personally have long subscribed to the belief that what qualifies people to be leaders in many organizations is the ability to do what they are told. One of the happy changes in my recent life is that this model seems to be changing in my own employment environment.

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