Web 2.0

I've been starting to read a few blogs about Public Service Renewal. I guess because these are new and relatively young public servants they have tended to focus on the emergence of new technologies.

I also participated in a conference about this issue as well and so I've started exploring these technologies a bit more. I will never be a technofile, and I'm usually a bit conservative about trying new things, though I would say I'm open to at least trying things.

I started using google reader and it's been interesting. I think overall it's a positive way to organize all the blogs you follow. I miss the surfing and checking out pages, without knowing that it's been updated, and looking at articles through the reader isn't quite the same experience.

I think overall it'll allow me to follow more blogs, and also to track more issues and follow them more easily. Especially if there are blogs that aren't updated all the time, you can keep track through the RSS feed, and make sure you don't miss a new article.

I also tried two other social media, and I don't think they work nearly as well for me. One was Digg, which links up with facebook, and lets you highlight an interesting site or article. I don't really get much out of participating, but I suppose collectively it gives you a sense of what people are reading.

The other interesting possibility was yahoo! pipes. Lets you throw feeds and filter them to try and limit how many articles actually get through. Interesting idea, but I'm not a programmer and it gets pretty complicated. Interesting idea, but I'm not too sure how to use it yet.

I enjoy reading all my feeds, and so to a certain extent I don't need that kind of throttling system.

Intuition

I've been thinking this week quite a a bit about intuition. More and more I've come to realize that I'm an intuitive person. I've know this for some time, being identified as an "N" as part of the Myyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

I think I've always known though, that I have a knack for figuring things out, relatively easily without thinking about them much. I also really enjoy puzzles, particularly word puzzles.

One of the moments that's burned in my memory of seemingly pure intuition on my part happened when I was 13 years old. I was sleeping and woke up suddenly after hearing a sound I couldn't immediately identify. After about 3 seconds, the thought popped in my brain battery acid!. It was was one of those moments of intuition where everything all of a sudden makes sense.

So I jumped out of bed, realizing that the batteries in the back of my stereo on my nightside table had busted. I grabbed some towels and started cleaning it up.

For me it was incredible how quickly I was able to identify the problem, simply by the sound. I must have been able to sort through the possible causes of that in a flash.

Since then I've always had a keen sense that I am a highly intuitive person. It sounds arrogant but I that's a misunderstanding of what that means. For me, it means I like to try and figure things out by reasoning myself, and that my thinking is not linear. Often flashes of insight, which have been built up through acquired knowledge appear to me.

It means I also enjoy puzzles and figuring out what acronyms are without needing them explained.I would guess that many intelligent people would have this ability to see shapes and patterns where others simply see data.

In fact, John Ralston Saul in his book On Equilibrium speaks about Intuition as one of the key qualities that makes us human. The others include, Common Sense, Ethics, Imagination, Memory and Reason.

Currently Reading:


Filthy Lucre by Joseph Heath
Welcome to the Urban Revolution by Jeb Brugmann
Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb