The value of technology when working for humankind

Sharing two interesting articles about the value of technology for humankind:



Algorithm detects depression in speech
 USC researchers are using machine learning to diagnose depression, based on speech patterns. The depression-associated speech variations have been documented in sveral studies; depressed patient speech can be flat, with reduced variability, and monotonicity. Reduced speech, reduced articulation rate, increased pause duration, and varied switching pause duration were also observed.

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Robot helps nurses schedule tasks on labor floor
At the CSAIL ( Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory), the largest research laboratory at MIT and one of the world’s most important centers of information technology research, a new system is able to anticipate room assignments and suggest which nurses to assign to patients for C-sections and other procedures provided satisfactory recommendations to nurses 90 percent of the time.

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"Follow Your Passion" is bad advice: how to think about passion in an entirely different way.

Many of us have read about success and on the valued concept of "following your passion" ; it sounds reasonable and somewhere in life - when deciding on a path for university, on some job interview, on a career assessment, on a coaching sessions or on some other occasion -  you've probably have had someone asking “What are you passionate about?”  . Passion is often considered as a prime-key for success, presumably providing the energy, resistance and determination required to pursue and accomplish goals.

Although I embrace the concept "love what you do, do what you love", pretty much along my whole life I have found the question above extremely difficult to answer! In fact, many times I have found myself in extremes; either being passionate about many things, or being passionate about very few. For sure, many years ago, both when deciding on an academic path as well as when searching for my first job, I was simply unable to define precisely what I was passionate about. And, along the years and the many people I know, I also have found a reasonable number that, just like me, also didn't had "a passion"  and never could have predicted where they are or do today. 
And, last but not the least, my experience makes me totally agree with Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert):  “It’s easy to be passionate about things that are working out (...) but when things go down the drain, the passion can drain too (...)" and closes by saying; " (..) objectively, my passion level moved with my success. Success caused passion more than passion caused success.”
   
Crossing these thoughts came the reading of Cal Newport's blog, where the author goes against the “Follow your Passion” principle, considered  biased from start by assuming that:
a) a person must have preexisting passion, and
b) if a person matches that passion to a job, then he /she will enjoy

Newport elaborates on more complex dynamics and debunks the Passion Hypothesis: passion is not something that you discover and then match a job to; it is, instead, something that grows (or not) over time.

Yes, Cal, I'm with you - for me and many of my close friends, preexisting passions have been rare and have had little (sometimes nothing) to do with what most of us have end up doing and/or loving about work. So, I have particularly found Newport arguments simple and refreshing (*) - on his book "So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work you Love", he definitely makes his case; it's a fantasy to expect to feel a burning passion about work and you'll be better instead if focusing on developing crucial skills, cultivating and creating high quality work. Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, Newport says, because passion comes after putting in hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before.

In other words, WHAT YOU DO for a living IS MUCH LESS important than HOW YOU DO IT. 

Here is Newport's talk at Google, providing depth on his view.

And a bit more: on his new book "Deep Work", Newport states that it is deep work that makes you good and provides the sense of true fulfillment ... And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep, spending their days in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media. A step further in his approach, explaining the mind and brain dynamics, easily explained in this quick book review.

(*) Cal Newport is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science, born in 1982 and graduated in 2004.

Rising above "demons and struggles"; my first half-marathon

March 20, 2016; I have finished my first half-marathon at EDP Meia-Maratona de Lisboa.

Now, wasn't I suppose to celebrate that right away? Yes, I was. However, I took me some time to seat down, get this post ready to publish and share.

The last two weeks I had some particularly rough times, both emotionally and physically.  My anxiety has been high and the physical symptoms hard to ignore on such a level that by March 16 it would have been very easy for me to cancel running this event.  But I didn’t.

Somehow, I was able to bounce back from adversity and disappointment - and this running event became a sort of an act of defiance against my demons and struggles.
YES, I did finish this race and completed my first half-marathon.
YES, I did overcome all the fears and all the pain that stroke me along the 21K running - and that tells me that I am stronger than all that afflicts me. 

It also tells me that one does not have to be born with mental toughness. Mental toughness can be acquired - and one does not have to go through a life-threatening experience to gain it because mental toughness can be acquired by learning.
The more you try, the more you learn.
The more you learn, the more mental toughness you gain.

And the more mental tough you are, the more resilient you become with stronger ability to focus when facing unexpected circumstances. You learn not to avoid situations but instead to address them.  My half-marathon experience is a statement of truth for this; when reaching 14K, I felt dead tired, hurting, crying and wanting to quit.  I stopped running but kept walking, trying to focus on moving forward. "Another step, just keep moving" I constantly repeated to myself. 
I gathered my strength and adjusted my pace, which gave me the ability to keep moving forward. 
Suffering, I reached the 17K milestone and there I finally heard my inner voice saying - “You can do this." - There it was; faith and trust in myself.  I could (again) believe in me, even when there was no one close by to boost my confidence.  And when running the final 4K, I was really enjoying the fact that every step, even full of pain, was bringing me closer to my goal.

 

The end of this story for me is that glory does not have to be noticed by others. 

My own glory on this half-marathon was to kept moving my feet, against pain, against fear, against frustrations... especially, against the idea that I would not be able to rise above and finish.

 

Oh YES, I've made it!