Words worth espousing - the ohnosecond

And now for something completely different. The photograph to the left came to me via an email from my cobber Richard Carfirkin. Original lost in the mists of cyberspace so no attribution. I am putting it here as a graphic illustration of the place one finds oneself after experiencing the dreaded ohnosecond. "What is an ohnosecond?" (I hear you ask.)

From Whatis?com (which bills itself as "The leading IT encyclopedia and learning centre")

An ohnosecond is that very short moment in time during which you realize that you have pressed the wrong key and deleted hours, days, or weeks of work.

Another definition here:

The fraction of time it takes to realize you've just goofed; for example, right after you hit the send button on an e-mail and realize you forgot to include the attachment. Another great example is that moment of horror when you see the key in the ignition switch just as you're slamming the car door shut. This term was coined by Elizabeth Crowe in her book The Electronic Traveler.

Update: Silly me, google knows all, sees all. Origin of photograph here.

Posted by Jef Clark

Thinking like a Genius

The first and last thing demanded of genius is the love of truth Goethe

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future." The following eight strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. "These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history."

The practice of genius (Guide blog #1)

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!) Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one. 2. Visualize! When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant role in his thinking process. 3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity. Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence. 4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual. The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science. 5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects. Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses. 6. Think in opposites. Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarity. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form. 7. Think metaphorically. Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts. 8. Prepare yourself for chance. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?" The practice of genius (Guide blog #1) Adapted with permission from: Michalko, Michael, Thinking Like a Genius: Eight strategies used by the super creative, from Aristotle and Leonardo to Einstein and Edison (New Horizons for Learning) as seen at http://www.newhorizons.org/wwart_michalko1.html, (June 15, 1999) This article first appeared in THE FUTURIST, May 1998 Michael Michalko is the author of Thinkertoys (A Handbook of Business Creativity), ThinkPak (A Brainstorming Card Set), and Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Geniuses (Ten Speed Press, 1998).

Are We Born To Be Great Thinkers?

What makes a "great thinker?"

What makes a "great thinker?" A high I.Q.? A university education? Are we born to be great thinkers, or do we learn it?
Actually, anyone can be a great thinker. Sure, some of history's so-called "thinkers" had genius-level I.Q. and schooling, but most were normal people who needed or wanted to find solutions to everyday questions.
Key to Great Thoughts
The key to discovery of great thoughts lies in one word:

PERMISSION.

Give yourself permission to think "outside the box." Daydream. Fantasize. Doodle. Meditate. And never think your ideas are dumb or worthless.

Many of the world's greatest thinkers were laughed at. But imagine what our world if people like Philo T. Farnsworth, a farm boy from Idaho, hadn't dreamed up television.

Who do you know that you think is a great thinker?
Who always has amazing ideas?
Who comes up with solutions to problems no one else thinks of?
Next time you see them, ask them how they do it.

Learning issues

Knowledge is power (Bacon). All of us have vast areas of ignorance and we will never come close to knowing more than a very small fraction of what there is to know. Nevertheless, being aware of what we don't know is also a type of power because it enables us to focus our learning where it counts when we have problems to solve. The more adept we become at defining what we need to know in away that it can be pursued, the easier it is to quickly locate needed information and the better problem solvers we become.

Most of us are reluctant to reveal our ignorance. Who wants to look "stupid?" A major tenet of problem-based learning is that learning occurs best in an environment where we can admit our knowledge gaps and do something about them by working together to achieve understanding. In problem-based learning, our knowledge gaps become our learning issues. The way we go about defining learning issues influences the depth of understanding we achieve.