Webby Clare

Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

On being wrong

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Being right, and the idea/feeling of being so convinced of your own ‘rightness’ (or the frustration in dealing with others’ unwavering belief in their own ‘rightness’ and your associated ‘wrongness’) is something I’ve been thinking/discussing quite a bit lately, so I very much enjoyed Kathryn Schulz’s PopTech Talk on Being Wrong…

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18393719[/vimeo]

I like her key message that given that we can’t trust our own recollections, knowledge, feeling or belief of what’s right, we need to look outside of our self to consciously put our rightness or wrongness to the test.

Some similar ideas (and references to the same research) are covered in this Big Think video about how we are more likely to believe the veracity of intense “flash-bulb memories”—yet these are just as likely as normal memories to be distorted over time.

Sometimes I think that this inability to trust your own memory is scary and uncomfortable and disorienting… but I guess it’s better to be aware of the limitations of memory rather than blindly (and sometimes dangerously) remaining completely and unquestionably convinced of your ‘rightness’.

On Marriage

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I’m getting married in a little over 2 months, so have been thinking lots lately about marriage, and love, and tradition, and ceremony, and family, and happiness etc etc. So, I particularly enjoyed this PopTech talk from Stephanie Coontz on what makes an ideal marriage.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18393580[/vimeo]

HINT: It’s the little interactions that matter!

The Power of Storytelling

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I became interested in storytelling (as a business/personal communication tool rather than as a creative/artistic pursuit) about 6 months ago and am doing heaps of reading and watching on the subject. Right now I’m making my way through Annette Simmons’ The Story Factor. I’ve just read the chapter in which Annette discusses the different aspects of storytelling: gestures; facial expressions; body language; sounds, smells and tastes; irrelevant detail; virtual reality; timing and pause; and tone. Yesterday I watched this fantastic video of master storyteller Jay O’Callahan talking about the power of storytelling at The 99 Percent Conference. Jay demonstrates each of the aspects of storytelling so clearly and effectively, so it’s the perfect practical accompaniment to Annette’s text!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14806071[/vimeo]

Also, appreciations is a technique that O’Callahan uses to improve the storytelling skills of his students and he touches on this really nicely as well in this video (O’Callahan’s use of appreciations and how the can be applied to building any creative strength is further discussed in Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen).

TED talks that I don’t stop talking about

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TED is all about ideas worth spreading, right? So I figure that one the best indicators of an effective TED talk is that I end up telling everyone and anyone who’ll listen about it. I’ve enjoyed tonnes of TED talks on a range of different topics, but I’m very conscious of a few that I talk about constantly. Here they are…

The influence of our social networks

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I must admit that when I hear the term ‘social network’ I immediately think of web-based tools and services – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. But this TED talk explores the (surprising and somewhat hidden) power of more traditional social networks – the networks of family, friends and neighbours that we create and form part of. I found this talk interesting, surprising and inspiring…

I also enjoyed James Fowler’s PopTech 2009 talk on the same subject.

Experience vs. memory

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One of the recent TED talks I’ve enjoyed… In it Daniel Kahneman discusses the ‘remembering self’ an the ‘experiencing self’ and poses an interesting thought experiment:

Imagine that your next vacation you know that at the end of the vacation all your pictures will be destroyed, and you’ll get an amnesic drug so that you won’t remember anything. Now, would you choose the same vacation? And if you would choose a different vacation, there is a conflict between your two selves, and you need to think about how to adjudicate that conflict, and it’s actually not at all obvious because, if you think in terms of time, then you get one answer. And if you think in terms of memories, you might get another answer. Why do we pick the vacations we do, is a problem that confronts us with a choice between the two selves.

It reminded me of this photo (which I know I’ve told lots of people about, but I don’t think I’ve posted yet)…