About David Epstein’s book Range[1].
deliberate practice
head start
advantage or liability?
sampling period
late specialization
slow bakers
It feels like falling behind
kind or wicked learning?
parallel trenches
chunking
single and double-loop learning
cognitive entrenchment
Martian tennis
scientific spectacles
cognitively flexible
computational thinking
Fermi problems
calling bullshit
low on restraint
experiment more
using procedures
making connections
the generation effect
seeking rules
desirable difficulties
hyperconnection effect
retrieval journey
distributed practice
fadeout effect
interleaving
fusillade of analogies
world hypothesis
radiation problem
inside and outside view
deep learning, organic
far transfer
ill-defined problems
the ambiguous sorting task
practice makes perfect
push on
multi-armed bandit process
sunk cost fallacy
the context principle
personality does change
short-term planning
the standardization covenant
the end of history illusion
premature optimization
carry a big basket
predictors vs reflectors
circular management
ask everyone
never envision
just eat the marshmallow
the continuously evolving story of me
career switching
first act, then think
chance encounters
short-term explorations
forward from promising situations
wait to find out
lost in a jungle
flighty gadabout
a warm feelin’
trying things
cream of tartar
outside-in thinking
Einstellung effect
Russian nesting dolls
era of hyperspecialization
double-edged sword
drinking a slushy
undiscovered public knowledge
grunt work
intern syndrome
a really good question
hanafuda
Nintendo
rent-by-the-hour “love hotels”
withered technology
monozukuri
Ultra Hand’s 1.2 million units
functional fixedness
a vague knowledge of everything
empowering innovation
Dyson’s birds and frogs
a breakthrough in glitter
Mother Nature’s proof of concept
the adjacent stuff
polymath inventors
investigative journalism
mosaic building
bobbers hanging in the water
T-shaped people
a thousand opera houses
broader availability
dart-throwing chimp
breath is trickier than going straight
combine things in new ways
it takes opportunity
active open-mindedness
Superforecasting[2]
Superman or the Fantastic Four?[3]
Serial Innovators[4]
peripheral domains
repurposing the already available
ideas tumble over each other
network of enterprise
π-shaped people
The Population Bomb[5]
The Bet[6]
foxes and hedgehogs
foxes with dragonfly eyes
science curiosity, not science knowledge
roam freely
listen carefully
consume omnivorously
dropping one’s tool, knowing when to
overlearned behaviour
away from goodness
Young Man and Fire[7]
regress to what one knows best
grounded in conformity
congruence
cultural fit
intellectual archipelagos
zombie management
hunches held lightly
ambidextrous thought
sensemaking
paradoxical
reckless deviation
deliberate amateurs
starch
not research, only search
the principle of limited sloppiness
better wrong than boring
the free play
“arbitrage opportunities”
you have to use reason
incongruence benefit
building in cross-checks
Monday Notes
chains, of command and communication
“let’s take that offline”
disciplinary boundaries fly out the window
let them torture the cucumber
graze shallow
go for breath
spread thin
orderly journeys from a to b
get murkier over time and depth
breakthrough and fallacy look a lot alike
“universal” setup networks
import/export business of ideas
don’t feel behind
it has to be inefficient
(1) simple disbelief
(2) so, what’s the advice?
Felt curious? Here’s an appetizer, or go on and read the book; hopefully not enough to hurt your music.
[1] Epstein, D. J. (2019). Range: Why generalists triumph in a specialized world.
[2] Tetlock, P. E., & Gardner, D. (2015). Superforecasting: The art and science of prediction.
[3] Taylor, A., & Greve, H. R. (2006). Superman or the fantastic four? Knowledge combination and experience in innovative teams. Academy of Management Journal, 49(4), 723–740. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2006.22083029
[4] Griffin, A., Price, R. L., Vojak, B. (2012) Serial Innovators, Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
[5] Ehrlich, P. R. (1968). The population bomb. New York: Ballantine Books.
[6] Sabin, P. (2013). The bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and our gamble over Earth’s future.
[7] Maclean, N. (1992). Young men & fire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
