Choices or Molds?
INTJ
The actually signifies Introverted iNtuitive
Thinking Judging, but this needs a little
explanation:
Introverted is aligned not with shyness etc. but
whether the person needs others as an expression of
themselves or gets energy from others. So an
introverted means that they are self-activated.
An Intuitive person means that they believe the
information that they themselves have received from
the internal or imaginative world.
Anyway, the results did not really surprise me. But
it got me to wonder whether I’ve turned out
like that because of the things I’ve done in my
life to date or that some of the trends are inherent.
I looked back at what I assess were significant
decision points and experiences in my life and felt
that some of them had clearly had a life-changing
impact and some were following a preferred path but
some, as a I remember, were rather less significant
at the time or less serious but turned out to be
significant in hindsight.
I certainly think that my degree choice was
significant - I still to this day over quarter of a
century later have people surprised that I chose to
study Theoretical Physics. I am still interested but
realise that my interest is very much at a somewhat
knowledgeable member of the public. But the
scientific outlook still remains. Again a career as a
school teacher, though at this time occupied about a
quarter of my working life (this first quarter) has
left me indelibly marked as having a teacher’s
perspective - and this comes out even today in my
desire to assist people to understand, the importance
and practice of good communication, etc. My personal
decision to follow Christ as an adult, and this is
not meant to be a cliché, was and is still a
life-changing event. This also has imbued me with new
attitudes and outlooks.
There are others, but I wonder where some of the
drivers to make the choices I made came from.
I’m not so sure that everything is inherent -
or “in your genes” as I believe that
there is choice, which no doubt is another
discussion. Did I make such choices because I was
already pre-disposed to that route or was there a
post-event change that shaped me? I’m not sure
- but I’d probably say both, and that means
that there may be a cascade effect that as your make
choices that reinforce outlooks then the next choice
is more likely to go the same direction. But
sometimes I feel that we sense we’re
constrained and make a leap - almost deliberately to
be unexpected (or perverse).
I was intrigued to read some of the perspectives of
an INTJ and several rang very true.
Virtual Serendipity?
This triggered the thought that one of the things you miss when working in a virtual team, or remotely is the serendipity of conversations. I don't read up on research on collaboration but clearly it must be very difficult to do. This is why, despite the tools all being available from the home office (and sometimes better - another rant - another time), the lack of this discovery or bumping into people is something that I am making deliberate efforts to get into the office.
On another tack, but related - vaguely, is the development of social tools - such as del.icio.us that enable you to share things. But I have been using Last.fm for sometime letting iScrobbler send up my listening habits.For those of you unaware. Last.fm is a website that seeks to give you suggested other music to listen to, dependent on your listening habits. the iScrobbler sends up to your area on Last.fm the songs you play and Last.fm builds a picture and recommends other music. There is also Pandora which seeks to use an algorithmic approach instead to make recommendations. It might be interesting to take the approach and apply it to other things, It was interesting to see on the BBc's Dragons Den programme that someone was trying to do something very similar with books. Clearly none of the dragons were aware of either Last.fm or Pandora. One of the things about Last.fm is that it takes a more social view of providing groups to allow people to share, whereas Pandora can be used almost in isolation.
Echoes
Anyway, the article that stunned me was delivered in may and yes I've only just got around to commenting.
You can read it for yourself at http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060518.html
The comments about billable hours are strong echoes on my current work outlook. The gathering of billable hours and revenue is something that is shouted loud and often proud by management. This is often to the detriment of delivering efficiently. We are all guilty - we all add contingency and eventually after anything has gone through enough people then amount of contingency can be greater than the core effort needed to accomplish the thing. Of course, in this age of protecting against failure, we all do it. In an era of job insecurity, the busier we are the less likely we feel at risk.
This is not the only aspect this malaise - getting requirements agreed is becoming a specialist job.