Having thought about my original post a bit longer (and having pontificated a bit about some related topics in other posts) it is necessary to further expand the thinking about ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ of friends.
George McConnell
Know Your Enemy (especially when its your friend)
A few of these initial blog posts have been centred around the subject of how we relate to others, the importance of understanding our worldview and the difficulties (and surprises) inherent in interpreting the world view of others. What I had struggled with a little was finding a good, relevant (and real) example of me misjudging the reactions of someone else – and then I remembered a previous post on my company intranet blog.
A Hidden Agenda Paradox
Following on from the need to understand that others have their own worldview that will be difficult for any of us to get inside it is necessary to spend just a short time looking at things from the other way round.
Understanding Others
I have an amateur interest in psychology – in particular cognitive psychology – and understanding the way we ‘work’. This is, of course, not unrelated to the problem faced by anyone having to design/produce/specify any system that is to be used by others – so it is very relevant to my day-to-day existence. Of course it is one thing to know the theory and quite another to put it into practice!
Where Are We Going
Found this presentation through LinkedIn. Certainly worth a viewing.
Dumbing Down
I often watch TV series/programmes about subjects that I have a particular interest in and, inevitably, those of which I have most knowledge always seem to come across as superficial or shallow or just plain dumbed down. I wonder to what extent that is a problem for the media generally.
Prediction Is Difficult – Especially About The Future!
It was Neils Bohr who first said that, and it is something which we all often fail to remember. This is the first of two blogs (probably in quick succession) triggered by a TV programme that I watched this evening.
Unintended Consequences
The Law of Unintended Consequences has been recognised for a long time. I myself am fond of stating that the thing that will trip you up or cause a project to go awry is always the thing that you failed to consider – all of the planning and preparation and decision making that is carried out is premised on the fact that everything is known – this law suggests that premise is always wrong (assuming you are dealing with anything other than a very simple system).
Inspirational Writing
There is no doubt that if this blog goes the same way as the one that I have previously published privately then a significant number of the posts will result from the discovery of a really apt quote or article that resonates with my own views. This post is one such and is inspired by words from Viktor Frankl.
On Friends
A few things have triggered me to think about friends recently – yes, I know I always will be thinking about friends, but I mean here thinking about the ‘concept’ of friends rather than the people themselves!