[teampractices] On the importance of deep knowledge to getting work done

Fri Aug 12 22:08:41 UTC 2016

lol Joel, these are amazing.

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 2:30 PM, Joel Aufrecht <jaufrecht at wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Shipment information sent to FedEx.
>>
>> FedEx processing shipment information.
>>
>> Like, processing it mentally.
>>
>> FedEx is having an existential crisis about shipping information:
>>
>> What is the nature of packages?
>>
>> What is the meaning of one person sending a package to another person?
>>
>> C.E.O. of FedEx issued order that all employees read Marcel Mauss’s essay
>> “The Gift,” about the sociology of gift-giving, to better understand the
>> thoughts of FedEx customers when they send and receive packages.
>>
>> Discussion group took place with all hundred and sixty-five thousand
>> FedEx workers about the essay.
>>
>> Each employee presented thoughts on the text.
>>
>> Conclusion reached that an open dialogue should continue about packages.
>> And a second reading about gifts, by Jacques Derrida, was assigned for next
>> week.
>>
>> Package picked up by FedEx with a feeling of purpose.
>>
> ...
>>
> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/updates-from-
> your-fedex-package-by-colin-stokes
>
> But on the other hand:
>
>> Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine
>>
>> A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off
>> and on.
>>
>> Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot
>> fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is
>> going wrong.”
>>
>> Knight turned the machine off and on.
>>
>> The machine worked.
>>
> http://catb.org/jargon/html/koans.html
>
>
>
>
> *-- Joel Aufrecht*
> Team Practices Group
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> _______________________________________________
> teampractices mailing list
> teampractices at lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/teampractices
>
>

-- 
Arthur Richards
Sr. Agile Coach: Organizational Collaboration
Team Practices Group <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Team_Practices_Group>
[[User:Awjrichards]]
IRC: awjr
+1-415-839-6885 x6687
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/teampractices/attachments/20160812/ff96fa6d/attachment-0001.html>