Managing what will increases your success now?

Posted on by Isura Silva

The hype about information economy is everywhere. The headlines scream some audacious thinking.

Information is the new crude oil.

Data is driving business.

Information is everything. Manage it or die.

The thing is- information is now in abundance. We create enormous amounts of data. No one, even machines can not keep track of the amount of data we create. We create more than what we can consume. So we consume more.

Here’s the catch. If information is the new crude oil, why we are not paying for 99% of the content out there in the internet ?

We trade our attention for the abundance of information. The more information we get, the more attention we give. More the attention, the more income for the tech industry. The big brothers of information tech ( mainly facebook, Google, and Amazon) are courting for our attention. The battle is fierce. The more time we spend browsing them, the more income they get. Which is why these tech is so smart. We don’t pay, right? Someone else is paying. But our attention? They take bets on our attention.

So, in effect, what is the most scarce resource out there now ?

Our attention.

Not sure yet ?

Look around you. Who can stand at a queue, travel in a bus or be at a meeting with out taking a peep in to their phones?

Can you ?

There’s always a peculiar reason.

Posted on by Isura Silva

In a forum discussing on violence against children, I got to know that more than 80% of child abuses are done by the family members or the immediate relatives. ‘Why?’ my heart cried.

Then the answer came. Children are warned about the outsiders: Do not get in to vehicles, do not talk with people you don’t know. But, family and relatives are assumed to be trustworthy. Because they are assumed trustworthy, children have no doubts about what they do to children. Children even think that is how they are treated. So they do not raise the question. They offer the least or no resistance. And the abuse may go on for a long time, before it is uncovered.

One solution came up is teaching children about ‘good touch and bad touch’. Schools in Europe educate the children about it. It’s a good thing. Children can make up their own mind. They are educated. They can decide.

There’s always a peculiar reason for weird things. But isn’t it the most obvious reason?

Why we fail to see is our assumptions about the world. In this case the wrong assumption was : family and relatives are protectors, keep away from outsiders, they can harm you.

Think of a peculiar reason, when confronted with problems and assumptions.

Breaking point

Posted on by Isura Silva

Every single human being has a breaking point.

Whatever the situation, hygiene of the mind is important. Whatever we put in to our mind, it takes hold of us as the reality, if we feed too much of the same.

If you scroll through FaceBook, every moment you get a chance to look in to your phone, you will be very much conditioned by your feed. Your ability to be in the moment will be compromised.

If you watch too much crime/war drama, your ability to see humans as peace loving will be very low.

If you have abusive, bullying friends, your ability to treat other people with goodness will be less likely.

If you have low trust with in your team, your next action better be trustworthy. Every action you take otherwise will be another step towards the breaking point. Everyone has a breaking point for everything.

Gossip brewed in news channels, pushes audience to their breakpoint of critical thinking. May be that’s what media channels want, yet hygienically not good for our minds. It makes us to be caustic and skeptical about even good things, even good people. People will start doubting the ability of humans to be human. They will stop believing that a human can help another human with no expectation of a return. People will love gadgets more, and would want robots to get things done. Singularity* seems a great tipping point in human evolution. May also be the breaking point.

Singularity * – The technological singularity is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial super intelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilizations (Wikipedia)