Everyone is different and we’re all good at different things. But after awhile certain talents end up repeating themselves over time, and if you’re lucky you’ll have someone help you identify what they are. Talents & Strengths are different than your skills. I know a lot about internet stuff, but I also know a lot about Sailboats. Those are vastly different things, but I (apparently) apply these talents to both problems. So I thought I’d share my top 5 talents / strengths as highlighted by various studies, tests, etc.
It’s interesting to see how these have actually played out in all of my previous jobs, technical or otherwise, as well as the things I think about, the books I read, the people I know, and the goals I have in life. I’m sharing because I thought it was interesting. No set is better than another set. In fact I’d like to switch some. The question is this: Do you focus on what you’re inherently good at? Or do you try and fill in the gaps? I lean more towards the former. I’d love to be able to sit down and pile through my taxes, however that bores me. I’ll blame it on my ‘Ideation’
Strategic
People who are especially talented in the Strategic theme create alternative ways to proceed. Faced with any given scenario, they can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues. Make sense out of seemingly unrelated information, draw conclusions, and make projections.
Ideation
People who are especially talented in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena. Mind-numbing routines, processes, paperwork, or production lines sometimes bore you. (Ha!)
Restorative
People who are especially talented in the Restorative theme are adept at dealing with problems. They are good at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it.
Competition
Dont know if this is a ’strength’ ;)
People who are especially talented in the Competition theme measure their progress against the performance of others. They strive to win first place and revel in contests.
Adaptability
People who are especially talented in the Adaptability theme prefer to “go with the flow.” They tend to be “now” people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time. You resist being tied to predetermined plans and standardized systems. You prefer to experience life in the moment. You are eager to see where it takes you.
Okay I showed you mine. What are some of your Strengths?
I didn’t know until today, but I’ve been a really big fan of Louie Psihoyos ever since I started reading National Geographic back when I was a kid. It turns out some of my favourite pictures from that magazine are his, and I was delighted to stumble upon his portfolio online.
There are a lot of great amateur photographers out there. You can find fantastic pictures on Flickr every single day, but the talent of a professional is unmistakeable. Everything from the story to the lighting to the caption serve as examples of what it means to truly capture a moment.
Being able to outsource all of your computing needs to an external provider is absolutely fantastic for developers and some businesses. While not running your own infrastructure is much cheaper, it also makes the amount of energy and associated ‘costs’ of computing very opaque.
There are quite a few issues with the transparency of costs in the cloud computing space. This includes no transparency into the cost of electricity, and where that electricity is coming from. To date, there is no public database of electricity markets, datacenters, and hosting providers which lists how much carbon per kWh of electricity is being output. In ICT this is a massive issue, because of the sheer amount of energy our industry consumes.
“Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is both a problem and a potential solution in the war against climate change. Currently, computers are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than airlines. Greenhouse gas is growing exponentially and we expect that ICT will produce double the emissions of the airline industry within five years with no end in site. ICT can provide a solution to climate change by reducing carbon emmission in the world through telecommuting and other means.”
Here in British Columbia we get most of our electricity from renewable hydro-electric power. Hydro-Electric is one of the lowest forms of reliable low carbon output electricity generation available. It goes without saying that providing computing services using energy generated this way would mean less CO2 / kWh but also less CO2 per compute cycle.
We need several things to make this happen
1) Start measuring how much power ICT is using on a per server / component basis
2) Develop resources that track carbon output per kWh in different states & provinces and provide that information as a service
3) Determine where your computing resources are located and track on a per machine level the amount of carbon being output
4) Calculate how much carbon you’re using.
Those are pretty audacious goals, but I think we really need to start keeping track of carbon output for power. By tying that into the different services we use on a regular basis, we can make carbon part of the social and actual cost of using services. Hopefully that will help buy us enough time and money to develop the carbon neutral power solutions we desperately need.
Bill Gates’ TED talk went online today and I agree with Alex Steffen that it’s the most important climate talk of the year (and will be for the rest of 2010). Nothing is more important to the security of our planet than reducing our carbon output, and the best way to do that is to significantly ramp up investment in innovative energy companies. The best part of the talk is The Gates Equation which does an excellent job showing how we have to reduce and eliminate our CO2 emissions. For more of an explanation on The Gates Equation check out the WorldChanging post.
Providing Carbon Neutral energy is the holy grail, not only for the planet but for its inhabitants. Cheap, carbon neutral energy is the only way to sustain our economies, lift people out of poverty and continue our whole ‘civilization’ experiment.
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