Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly
technology
Technology is anything that doesn't work yet.
predictions unbelievable believable
Any believable prediction will be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable.
thinking interesting decision
And they discovered something very interesting: when it comes to walking, most of the ant's thinking and decision-making is not in its brain at all. It's distributed. It's in its legs.
innovation overwhelmed fringe
The nature of an innovation is that it will arise at a fringe where it can afford to become prevalent enough to establish its usefulness without being overwhelmed by the inertia of the orthodox system.
future technology vision
Our society lacks a feedback loop for controlling technology: a way to gauge intended effects from actual effects later on
business heart years
Preserve the core, and let the rest flux. In their wonderful bestseller Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a convincing argument that long-lived companies are able to thrive 50 years or more by retaining a very small heart of unchanging values, and then stimulating progress in everything else. At times "everything" includes changing the business the company operates in, migrating, say, from mining to insurance. Outside the core of values, nothing should be exempt from flux. Nothing.
time stress passion
The young are always coming up with the good ideas; it's because they waste time. They follow their passion and do something, not looking for a payoff, just doing what's interesting.
technology ideas memes
Humans are the reproductive organs of technology. We multiply manufactured artifacts and spread ideas and memes.
care evolution make-sense
Evolution doesn't care about what makes sense; it cares about what works
years lasts looks
We're just at the beginning of the beginning of all these kind of changes. There's a sense that all the big things have happened, but relatively speaking, nothing big has happened yet. In 20 years from now we'll look back and say, 'Well, nothing really happened in the last 20 years.'
technology mind usefulness
Technology is all the accumulated usefulness that our minds invent.
organization easier
It's generally much easier to kill an organization than to change it substantially.
organization fire literature
Managers tend to treat organizations as if they are infinitely plastic. They hire and fire, merge, downsize, terminate programs, add capacities. But there are limits to the shifts that organizations can absorb.
smart
Nobody is as smart as everybody.