idealawg

Is technology making us stupid—or smarter than we’ve ever been?

The title of this blog post is the first line in a new piece by Annie Murphy Paul titled "Rules for thinking with tech." She writes:

Is technology making us stupid—or smarter than we’ve ever been? Author Nicholas Carr memorably made the case for the former in his 2010 book The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains. This fall we’ll have a rejoinder of sorts from writer Clive Thompson, with his book Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds For The Better.
 
My own take: technology can make us smarter or stupider, and we need to develop a set of principles to guide our everyday behavior, making sure that tech is improving and not impeding our mental processes. Today I want to propose one such principle, in response to the important question: What kind of information do we need to have stored in our heads, and what kind can we leave “in the cloud,” to be accessed as necessary?

Click to read the rest. This question of whether technology is helping or hurting is hot. I watch as friends and colleagues take positions on the matter and then argue vehemently for their point of view. I like Paul's approach: It's how you use technology that makes it a positive or negative influence so let's find the ways to use it with wisdom.

Note: Here's a related article by Paul from which a couple of the paragraphs in the above-linked-to post were originally published: "‘Digital Literacy’ Will Never Replace The Traditional Kind" (TIME).

Miksang contemplative photography: Meditation with a camera

Intention and discipline are required to practice meditation with your camera. To learn more, watch this short video of Michael Wood talking about what gets in the way of seeing in the moment and how to overcome those obstacles. He also describes the process versus the result, control, appreciation, seeing clearly, and discovery.

Note: If you can't read the haiku I put on my photo, it is below. Clicking on the image will make it larger, too.

this world of dew
is yes, a world of dew
and yet . . .
--Issa Kobayashi

(I first saw the haiku in Haiku Mind: 108 Poems to Cultivate Awareness and Open Your Heart.)

Note (added later): Click to watch another video on miksang contemplative photography and mindful seeing.

Want to help yourself and others get more done (and enjoy the doing)? Here's an excellent method

If you want to support people, including yourself, in making changes or accomplishing goals, read The Progress Principle. The simple message: Research shows that if we can see our progress, no matter how small, we are motivated to keep on the path towards the change or goal. I can't tell you how many times I have recommended the book, or how many times people have read the book and then sent me a hearty "thank you."

For a quick overview of the book, click to watch this video (99u) of coauthor Dr. Teresa Amabile. In it she mentions that a person can track their progress in many ways including using an app; one example of this kind of app is iDoneThis, which you can download for free.

A related technique comes from, of all people, the comedian Jerry Seinfeld. It's called "Don't Break the Chain" and is decribed at lifehacker:

I finally decided to give Jerry Seinfeld's productivity secret a try. It's more commonly known as "Don't Break the Chain," and the concept is simple: spend some amount of time doing a desired activity every day and, when you do, cross off that day on a calendar. This creates a chain of Xs showing your progress. If you don't do your specified task on one day, you don't get an X and that chain is broken. It seems almost too simple to work, but it's allowed me to accomplish so much more than I ever thought possible.

And here's an app to support you in not breaking the chain: Wonderful Day.

If you have not already tried harnessing the progress principle, I urge you to give it a try.

Note: One of many reasons I am a believer in the value of the progress principle (other than that I have seen it work for myself and others) is because it is compatible with some of the solution-focused techniques, such as scaling. I have blogged about solution-focused approaches in the past, e.g., here, here, and here.

Green hair and Parmesan cheese: Ask big, new, shiny-bright questions about mediation

Mediation can be boring. In the last couple of years, I have talked with several experienced conflict professionals who have echoed my feeling of boredom. The boredom does not so much flow from being with parties in conflict but from the discussions among practitioners. I sense that too frequently we are playing small, our thinking and acting constrained, and governed excessively by the past.

And for those us of who have been involved in the field for decades, the feeling of deja vu descends upon us as we hear the same old discussions arising anew, from questions about process accreditation to prickly analyses of party autonomy and caucusing to debates about mediator self-awareness and mindfulness. We've been there and done that and know deep in our hearts that those may not be the right questions for the 21st century.

Always on the lookout for ways to ascertain the best questions to ask myself, parties, and the field, I was delighted to learn that Dr. Roberta Ness has a new book. I savored her first book. She teaches a class on innovation and is dean of University of Texas School of Public Health. (Click to watch her TEDxHouston talk on increasing innovation.) Today I listened to an interview of Dr. Ness (WGBH News) in which she talks about all of her books and how to become more creative.

In the interview she looks at this question: What if you could define—and distill—innovation and creativity? She says that innovation is teachable (although it takes practice like playing a musical instrument) and geniuses work from a toolbox. Her first book Innovation Generation describes those tools. She talks about her concern that the US is facing a lack of imagination and that schools are not teaching students to be creative. Even though kids' IQs are going up, their creativity is going down.

Ness says when a 3-year-old colors in a coloring book or draws a picture, he may decide to use the green crayon for hair; the typical school soon teaches him that is not an acceptable option. On the other hand, a philosophy and practice of education that does raise students' ability to innovate is Montessori, and Ness includes Maria Montessori as one of the people she profiles in her new book Genius Unmasked.

A threshold skill of innovation is frame-shifting. Ness explains that frames are expectations we have through which we filter new information. What's a frame-shift? From the WGBH site:

"Focus On Passing Down Your Values, Not Money"

The Goodwin Games might be a fun show to watch. Whether you watch or not, the article describing the new comedy makes some good points about legacy and inheritance. Excerpt:

The Goodwin Games, a new Fox TV comedy starring Beau Bridges, is a little wacky but it makes a vital personal finance point between laughs: Parents should ensure their children will inherit their estates as they wish, of course, but it’s equally important – maybe even more important – that they pass on their values.

How are you doing on that score?

An intriguing finding that caught my eye in the recent survey of people over 45, Americans’ Perspectives on New Retirement Realities and the Longevity Bonus, from Merrill Lynch and the Age Wave consulting firm, really underscores this view.

Click to read the rest of "Focus On Passing Down Your Values, Not Money" (Forbes).

Listen to the cicadas of 2013

The sound of cicadas on the east coast. Click to listen. (Above is a photo I took of one of the gang.)

Note: You can hear the sound of a landing plane in the middle of this short recording but mostly just the cicadas singing (or whatever they do).

Note (added June 3, 2013): Article on the cicadas "17-year cicadas create a buzz in some Va. neighborhoods" (Washington Post). Click to listen to them in another of my recordings from Manassas, Virginia.

 Note (added June 9, 2013). Here are some haiku poems written by Matsu Basho about cicadas.

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die

Calm and serene
The sound of a cicada
Penetrates the rock

Lonely silence, 
A single cicada's cry 
Sinking into stone

Photography opens your eyes to a new way of seeing: Interview with Christine Valters Paintner

I am pleased to introduce to you Christine Valters Paintner and her new book Eyes of the Heart. I read the book because of my belief that photography can increase both our mindfulness and our ability to attend to ourselves, others, and our world. The book shows us why and how the way of seeing facilitated by photography can be valuable. I asked Christine a few questions that may be of interest to conflict professionals.

The law can be a very stressful profession. In Todd Kashdan's book Curious, he talks about the relationship between curiosity and anxiety: the more curious one is, the less anxiety he or she will be experiencing. In your book, you talk about the promotion of curiosity through photography. Will you say more about that, please.

Curiosity is a wonderful quality which promotes spacious inquiry. Rather than needing to figure everything out and extract the answers, through curiosity we can hold ourselves open to new possibilities.  To be curious means to let go of my own expectations about how things should be and discover what is really there.  It means softening my desire to be right and listen into new ways of thinking and being.

Since reading your book, I have repeated in conversations several of the points you made. People seem uniformly intrigued with the notion of receiving photos rather than taking them. Please explain that to readers.

This is one of my favorite aspects of talking about photography specifically as a contemplative practice.  Our favorite and common language for photography is “taking” a photo.   We use it all the time without much thought as to the deeper meaning of the words.  But we live in a culture of taking, where we often grasp at things we want, look for life to meet our desires of the moment, feel impatient when things don’t go our way.

To “receive” a photo means to shift our intention in the process of creating an image.  For me, receiving is about acknowledging that all of life is a gift.  When I go for a walk with my camera, rather than look around me thinking about what images I can take, what kinds of beautiful things I can record as a trophy to my experience, I try to cultivate this sense of receiving gifts.  I pay attention to moments that shimmer before me, even if I don’t understand exactly why.  Something calls to me, stirs my energy, quickens me and I create a sense of spaciousness to receive that through the lens of the camera to see what might be revealed to me.

Mediators and other conflict professionals often use the process of reframing. How can your approach to photography help a person to become better at reframing in other arenas besides photography?

Using Sketchvideos for teaching: A demo focusing on conflict

My talented friend and colleague Susanne Hoogwater (also a lawyer and mediator) is very creative. Since she is a Renaissance Soul, I am constantly astounded and delighted at the new arenas she opens up for others and the products she designs. Recently I have become aware of a method she is using to facilitate teaching about conflict, and watched it in action.

And now you may watch a sample SketchVideo created by Susanne, too. It's part of a series on emotional intelligence and critical decisionmaking that she is designing for Denver's Conflict Center. This sample looks at four kinds of power: over, surrender, with, and within.

Click to watch the SketchVideo and to learn more about the benefits of communicating with this medium, as well as Susanne's process of creating these videos. She does it all on her iPad!

Living with SIN: Using photos to track our shifts and changes over time

Last week, I gave a presentation in Baltimore on conflict resolution; one focus was detecting your inner mediator. We looked at six tips or clues for that path of inner clarity. One of the six was: "Look at people and disputes through SIN (Situational, Individual, Now)." Our discussion included the benfits of being wary of assumptions about one size fitting all, and of remembering that behavior, preferences, values, other states and traits can vary significantly with context.

In looking at SIN, I included some photos in the handouts which I will post below. I recommended that photos be used in such a way that we can see how we change from day to day. This exercise was not created by me; I have seen it in various forms a number of times. Let's look at how Stephanie Calabrese Roberts, author of The Art of iPhoneography, describes it.

She gives these instructions:

Scan through your image library and select a handful of your favorites. Study each image and ask yourself these questions:

• What were you doing moments before you made the image?
• What inspired you to make the image?
• How did you feel at that moment?
• How did the time of day, season, or weather impact the moment?
• How does the image make you feel now?
• If you could return to the scene now, how might you see it differently?

Since most people in my session would not have brought photos with them, I provided those below. Attendees were asked to write some reactions, observations, feelings, or descriptive words below each of the photos. I urged them to then revisit the photos a week later, preferably even further in the future, and again respond to them (not looking at the previous responses). Typically responses will shift and change.

Roberts writes in her book:

Maryland Bar's ADR Section Spring Award Event (photos included)

Rachel Wohl (click to enlarge)

I was pleased to attend the ceremony on Thursday, May 3, at which Rachel Wohl received the award named for Judge Robert M. Bell, the Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals. (To read about Judge Bell's very impressive background, click here.) The award is "in recognition of her substantial and significant contributions and efforts advancing ADR in Maryland." It was presented by Judge Bell himself. Click to view the evening's program.

Here are some photos. (I apologize that a couple of the captions are incomplete because Typepad does not resize them when a photo is resized.)

Westminster Hall in Baltimore where event was held

Dave Simison, head of MD Bar ADR Section, and Judge Bell

Rachel Wohl, Judge Bell, Jonathan Rosenthal; Dave Simison was cut off when photo was inserted here

Upcoming seminar—Snap to Attention: Increasing Self-Awareness with Your Smartphone’s Camera

We have set the date for the Snap to Attention™ retreat to be held at the beautiful Spirit Mountain Retreat in Idyllwild, CA (nearest airport is Palm Springs). The two-day program will be held on the first weekend in November. Check here at this post for more details soon, email me to be notified when they are added, or join the Spirit Mountain mailing list.

This a short description of the program:

Snap to Attention™: Increasing Self-Awareness with Your Smartphone’s Camera

Brain science has proven what wise people have always known: Two critical components of resolving conflict, achieving career satisfaction, serving clients, and excelling at many other personal and professional endeavors are sharp and sensitive self-awareness and awake and aware attention. Many of us have in our pocket a tool to increase those skills of awareness and attention: our phone camera. We will look at how the camera’s filters, frames, and focus are metaphors for how we see the world, and ways to use our camera to increase our moment-to-moment mindfulness. Bring your smartphone and mind to increase in-sight and out-sight.

We will of course have time for contemplative activities, including photo snapping, on Spirit Mountain's beautiful grounds.

Click to read previous posts about photography.



Image credit: Spirit Mountain.

Another app for creating photos for training programs and presentations

I recently learned of an app that allows me impose one photo on another. It's called Superimpose. Below is my debut attempt. As you can see, I have lots to learn but the app is definitely master-able. In my research, I learned that this may be the easiest app of those that combine photos.

As a demo of how the app works, I decided to play with a very old photo of my Springer Spaniel Scipio looking at a friend. (Both the dog and the friend are long dead.)

Below I have posted the original photo, then the version on which I used another app called Popsicolor, and finally a floating photo made with Superimpose. You will need to click the last photo to see the full version or you will miss part of the effect.

What apps do you recommend for photos?

The friend holding the food which is of such great interest to my dog is Mike Sparrow. Click to read his obituary.



Be sure to cllck to see the entire photo or, because of Typepad sizing, you will only see a view that is incomplete.

For a friend, I wrote this caption about the last photo: I think Scipio may be somewhere still, coveting someone's hamburger and fries.

Filters and frames revisited: Do you see what I see, witness what I witness, picture what I picture?

We each have our own individual, unique filters and frames. This individuality results in our seeing the world—and people, situations, and circumstances in the world—in very different ways. I don't always attend to, construe, or notice what you do. Of course, as most of us probably know well, these differences can lead to conflict.

I recently posted about filters and frames at Brains on Purpose, and included a number of photos using various filters, frames, and apps to illustrate how one scene can have many versions or interpretations. That post at Brains on Purpose received a positive response from readers so I decided to post another series of shots, this time here at idealawg.

Take a look below at the various portrayals of garbage containers waiting on the street for the disposal truck. (Click on photos for larger versions.) Do the different renderings cause you to focus on varying places in the photo; imagine a different story; shift your responses, attitudes, or feelings?

Before taking a look, I hope you read the post at Brains on Purpose.

The helicopter child: Some guidance for the adult kid who's overprotective of his or her aging parent

By now, most people reading this post have heard the phrase "helicopter parent." In case you haven't, from "The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting" (TIME):

The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We bought macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks, hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old's "pencil-holding deficiency," hooked up broadband connections in the treehouse but took down the swing set after the second skinned knee. We hovered over every school, playground and practice field — "helicopter parents," teachers christened us ... ."

Click to read previous idealawg posts about helicopter parents.

But the hovering behavior does not only go down the family tree, it also flies up into the parent branches. Adult children are overprotecting their aging parents. I suppose we can call a person doing this up-the-tree overprotecting a "helicopter child."

The motivations for hovering over and around one's parent are many. Just four are mentioned in "Overprotective children do more harm than good" (Gainesville Sun): old-age myths, the widowed parent, reparenting your parents, and emotional baggage. A bit of elaboration on these four reasons adult children overprotect . . .

• One of our culture's old-age myths is that cognitive decline is inevitable. Children who believe this may infantilize their parents, not accurately assessing their parents' abilities and capacity for autonomy.
• When one parent dies, adult children may move in "too fast" in an effort to be supportive.
• Popular wisdom tells us that roles are reversed as parents age so that we as adult children become the parents. This reversal is not really accurate because the dynamics are different. Nevertheless, this misconception can lead children to attempt to parent their parents.
• Conflicts that developed in the past may influence how the child treats the aging parent, so that the child's behavior does not fit the situation or the needs of the parent.

Of course, there are many other reasons a child may hover. A few that come to mind right now: need to be needed, guilt, tendency to martyrdom, or lack of ability to listen to or read the parent.

The balance between autonomy and support is a delicate one in any relationship. In the case of aging parents, that balance can be particularly challenging. And there are ways to frame the challenge that can make it easier.

How do we maintain balance?