Successful collaboration are not the result of random encounters. They are not. Encounters that appear like coincidences are in reality the workings of social network mechanisms. I don’t mean social networks as in social networks sites (e.g. Facebook, Twitter), but as in the connection between individuals, connections that existed well before network sites visualized these connections…
Sometimes I wonder if I annoy friends and colleagues when I start a sentence with “Research has shown … “. Sometimes nothing happens out of this and I feel like talking to deaf ears. But I persist. I persist because I think these nuggets of knowledge are important. Maybe not now, but once they will…
Do you need to be committed to your job and your profession? What if you work in a (multidisciplinary) teams, whose standards or work do you need to commit to? If your colleagues slack, because they are less committed to their job, can you do the same or should you put in your weight or…
1871, the business incubator in Chicago, ranks first business incubators in the US, up from 9th place last year. A tremendous achievement. Business incubators offer startups more than a place to grow, they give them the network and tools to grow. 1817 is especially good at this, excelling in value for Chicago, value for its clients,…
In a hospital somewhere in the world a nurse and a doctor are fighting. They disagree on how to care for a young girl. The family wants her to be at home, enjoying the time with her, not certain how long they have. The doctor wants to try out a treatment, possibly saving her life,…
This plea is not going to bode well with many academics. “How dare this young researcher – until now without credentials – tell us how to do our job?” might they say. But the reason is simple and everyone who is not in academia would agree with me. It is well-known that people do not quit…
There are two types of experts: Routine and adaptive experts. Both require expertise in a field. The differences between them is how they are dealing with changs in their environment. Adaptive expertise: What is it? I have been studying adaptive expertise for the past five years, beginning with a summary of what other people have…
As our jobs are getting increasingly specialized, the importance of information exchange is increasing. Collaboration is important and will become even more important. Tasks require the expertise of several people, and the final product can only be exceptionally great, if all team members who worked on the task collaborated. Collaboration requires information exchange. Information exchange is about asking…
Universities are bastion of knowledge, a place where experts transmit their wisdom to novices, a place where individuals can pursue their freedom and spent hours thinking about society’s problems and inventing solutions after years of research. Or at least so I thought when I was young. I went ahead and decided to do a Ph.D. At that time, I was…
A startup is a bunch of people who run around like headless chicken trying to make sure that not everything burns down. Don’t like that image? It conveys the chaos that goes on in startups. Individuals who start a company have lots of energy; if you want to work there you need to be able…
Changing Learning and Working 