Do you have your own little “tricks”? That is, ways of doing things that are faster than how you used to do them? Well, congratulations, you’re something of an efficiency expert. And if you can picture an assembly line of people putting products together, then you’ve seen one way of increasing productivity. But some of us are really, really obsessed with efficiency and often those people are computer programmers. Some of them, as you’ll hear from Clive Thompson (author of Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World) have even developed ways to make their love lives more efficient! Sounds impossible but I think you’ll enjoy hearing what some coders are up to. Why are they obsessed with efficiency? Do they score highly on Conscientiousness in the Big Five personality score? Would Frederick Taylor – founder of scientific management – feel a kindred spirit in them? Let’s find out.
Resources
- Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World
- Coders Primal Urge to Kill Inefficiency Everywhere
- Clive Thompson’s website
- Clive Thompson’s Twitter Site
- Productivity and the Joy of Doing Things the Hard Way
Educational Activities I Built In Wix
- How Do You Define an Aggressive Act (a fun activity using a Bugs Bunny cartoon that demonstrates how hard it is to get a good operational definition of human behavior.
