Author: gsmiller93

In Someone Else’s Shoes

Daniel Pink defines empathy as the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling. He talks about how empathy is different from sympathy in the sense that sympathy is feeling for someone and empathy is feeling with someone. Making the mental connections needed to understand the emotions of others utilizes the right brain heavily.

Empathy, like all of the other high-concept, high-touch senses, has a huge application in the workforce. Empathy is one of the few remaining qualities humans can possess that keeps us from all being replaced with computers. You can’t make a computer feel emotion. In the Informational Age, empathy didn’t matter so much, because people only cared about the result. Now, when people are so concerned with the why, empathy gives companies a way to connect with consumers and make their businesses incredibly profitable. As a result, workers who possess a high level of empathy become very valuable to employers.

For my empathy exercise, I decided to try eavesdropping on a few random conversations in my dormitory’s lounge. Luckily, nothing too incredibly private was being shared, or I may have felt bad. I don’t really consider myself an extremely empathetic person, and, to no surprise, trying this exercise more or less validated that thought. When I listened in, I could put myself in another person’s shoes in the sense that I understood what they were talking about, but not really what they were feeling. After a little bit of time, however, I could start to understand the emotions of what other people were saying. I think this may have been because I was practicing a mental task that I do not normally perform.

After trying this exercise, it is clear to me why empathy can be such an important skill in the workforce. Being able to connect with someone on an emotional level like that would make it very easy for someone to create a product or design a method custom tailored to their emotions. I believe that the Conceptual Age will have a large level of application for empathy.

image from radiiskate.org


A Search for Meaning

This week, we read Dan Pink’s chapter on meaning. The basis of this chapter focuses a lot on why we do the things that we do. Pink talks specifically about a famous psychologist names Viktor Frankl. Frankl was one of the first people to make the connection that a person’s main concern in life is not to search for pleasure or avoid pain, but to attempt to see a true meaning in life.

Pink ties this concept into his ideas of a shift from the Informational Age to the Conceptual Age. Now that the global standard of living has increased and the abundance situation has made survival, for the most part, relatively easy, people are putting a much larger focus on finding meaning in their lives and doing things for a reason. For many people, an abundance of material possessions has created the problem of having the “means, but no meaning” for survival.

Spirituality provides meaning for a large percent of the population. Pink explains that this is different from religion, because spirituality is merely “finding a purpose in life”. He goes on to explain that having meaning in life, specifically a spirituality in life, can lead to a healthier lifestyle where people live longer, succeed more in work, and accomplish more during their lives.

For my Meaning exercise, I decided to picture myself at ninety. I picture myself having led a successful life in the workplace with a large family sharing my name. I will have seen much of the world, and shared many memories with my family. I would also be happily retired near the beach. I picture myself like this because I strongly believe that my meaning in life is to enjoy it to the fullest and leave a lasting impression on the family I love that also has a strong love for me. I believe that true meaning involves leaving a lasting impression on the world, either by being successful, or by having a strong effect on the lives of others, especially family members. Having a meaning and purpose in life allows us to free our right brains from our left brains to utilize our whole mind and enjoy all aspects of life.

image from beach-backgrounds.com


Choosing a Career Path

Professional Intervention Homework Assignment:

I think a meaningful homework assignment for this project involves researching possible career paths for a particular field of study. In my case, this is Industrial Engineering. I believe that for a person to choose their academic and career paths, a substantial amount of knowledge about their field of study is necessary. This assignment provides an opportunity to learn more about potential career options for students. Also, asking someone to describe why they want to pursue something can help to reassure themselves with their choice of field of study.

Field of Study: Industrial Engineering

1. List and describe three career choices. Include detailed descriptions of the type of work.

-Management Systems Engineer- For venues like a hospital, this career involves designing admissions procedures to ensure efficient patient admission or designing procedures for optimum use of medical facilities to help bring the cost of overall healthcare down

-Ergonomist- Can work in places like automobile plants, where they may do things like changing the tools that workers for different assembly processes to reduce injuries or optimizing other aspects of the assembly process

-Operations Engineer- Deals with optimizing systems. At a business like a parcel service, an operations engineer may design conceptual layouts for maintenance facilities for various types of transportations or improve the accuracy of and reduce the time spent transporting items being shipped.

2. Provide some general statistics about your field of study, including salaries, degrees, and ranks.

In 2006, the U.S. employed 201,000 industrial engineers. The average starting salaries for industrial engineers are $55,067 per year with a bachelor’s degree, $64,759 per year with a master’s degree, and $77,364 per year with a doctorate degree. The median annual income for industrial engineers in the U.S. is $68,620. Based on these salaries, industrial engineering ranks 7th out for 15 for bachelor’s degrees, 3rd of 10 for master’s degrees, and 2nd of 7 for doctorate’s degrees.

3. Describe why you want to pursue your chosen field of study.

Industrial engineering is something that highly reflects my style of thinking. It primarily involves a lot of optimization and making systems more efficient, which is how I feel my mind often operates. There is also a large amount of problem solving in industrial engineering, and I pride myself on being an excellent problem solver. Problem solving is something I enjoy doing, so it makes sense to get involved with engineering. One of the most appealing factors of industrial engineering to me is the broad span of career choices available. I know that I can find a career perfectly suited for me within the field of industrial engineering.


Like Father, Like Son.

I am the son of two industrial engineers that graduated from Georgia Tech. As a young kid, I often saw them constantly working with computers. Computers were, and still are, something that I have very little interest working with primarily, and, as a result, I convinced myself at a young age that I did not want to be an industrial engineer.

As I progressed through school, I realized that I possessed a strong aptitude for math and science. I seemed to be riding a collision course for a combination of engineering, Georgia Tech, and a very convenient Zell Miller scholarship. After being accepted to Tech, a few key events influenced the selection of my desired field of study and career path.

During the spring semester of my senior year of high school, I took a course in AP Economics, and became obsessed. I had never experienced an academic subject that I wielded such high skill and had such an intense interest for. My teacher for that class suggested I should look into industrial engineering.

It turns out that industrial engineering is not limited to just computers. It deals a lot with the optimization of complex processes and systems, and many related fields can be heavily influenced by business and economics. I have a strong interest in pursuing a career in business with a degree in industrial engineering because it makes so much sense for me and my other interests. Besides, it’s hard to go wrong with a major at Georgia Tech that is nationally ranked number one.

Conveniently, industrial engineers from Georgia Tech have a high average salary as well. I cannot think of anything better to do with my life than get paid well for something I love doing. I aspire to having a high position in a prominent company like Coke or Delta. I am proud to be the next engineer in the long line of engineers in my family.


Invention Mob Trial 1

For my first attempt at our invention mob, I posted a status on Facebook about a relatively controversial issue: the new Facebook.

The response was average at best but there were some good points made in the comments. However, enticing people to leave comments and discussion about an English project seem to be a bit of a challenge. I think this is probably because most people are okay with checking up on Facebook and maybe leaving a quick comment, but are usually not looking to carry on a full discussion.

I think other methods may have to be used as part of our Invention Mob, but this is a start.


Laugh Club

Dan Pink’s chapter on play explains a lot about how people with a strong sense of play will thrive in the conceptual age. It will no longer be enough to be able to code or perform L-directed tasks because many of these tasks can be easily shipped to Asia or completed by a machine. Pink goes on to say that remaining successful here in America will depend on people that can more easily bridge the gap between L-directed and R-directed tasks. He specifically talks about how video games, humor, and laughter can help people learn higher forms of intelligence as well as key skills for social interaction. For my “Play” project, I decided to try the laughter club. I asked a few people to just hang out and laugh for a bit. More than anything for me, it was a huge stress relief. Having such a simple escape from the tough academics of a school like Georgia Tech is invaluable. It even helped me to work more effectively after the fact. Seeing how having something as simple as a laughing group affected me, I can understand how having a strong sense of play can make a person more marketable in the job industry and the conceptual age.


Symphony with Symphonies

Dan Pink’s chapter on symphony touches on some key points as to why symphony is so important for the change from the informational age to the conceptual age. Pink explains how symphony is an R-directed form of thinking in which people see things typically considered as unconnected elements as more complex relationships. The L-directed method of analyzing multiple aspects of something as separate entities, Pink says, is a practice that is quickly being replaced by computers and overseas workers. People that are more able to “see the big picture” and utilize the ability will thrive in the conceptual age, according to Pink.

For my symphony project, I chose to listen to Mozart’s Symphony No. 35. Just listening to it really provided me with a lot of insight into what symphony really is. All of the individual parts of the music are artfully composed and expertly performed, but the combination of all of the individual parts is astounding. Mozart has the high strings and the woodwinds playing very fast and rhythmic sequences of notes while the brass and low strings have louder melodies. Separately, these are skillful musical displays, but not incredibly impressive. Together, however, these different aspects provide a beautiful dynamic contrast and an appealing and complex melody. A literal symphony, with all of its intricate relationships, is one of the best examples of Dan Pink’s explanation of symphonies.


Leaping to New Ideas

My created object for class last Friday was an origami frog I created using the internet and a piece of computer paper. One of my group members, Sid, also brought something origami, so we started to think. Sid liked the origami connection and decided he wanted to something that would connect a lot of people. I thought it would be creative to have a central whiteboard or writing area of some sort where people can add there own thoughts and ideas based off of various cues we would put on the board, which would involve lots of random people.  As a group, we discussed how we could take pictures of said board and blog about things that people wrote. It is a creative idea in a very early stage, but I think that if people dedicate one moment of their lives to add a thought, this board can turn into something exciting.

Greg