Further thoughts on today's class session

I wanted to note something more general about the first part of the session.  We had fun. And I believe students learned something.  My ideal is to have "educative play" where participants grow from the experience and enjoy it at the same time.  This is distinct from "dissipative play" where there is fun but no personal growth.  You almost surely need some of that too, to recharge your batteries, but the thought is that if you can combine work and play then life is good.   For a few minutes today, I thought we achieved that. 

A couple of other points about schmoozing I should have made.  It is a generalist skill.  If you are a good schmoozer you should be able to do that with lots of quite different people.  Thus, it benefits from good generalist reading,   I made a suggestion to do this a while back (it is in the last section of this post) where I said it would help you climb the ranks of management.  It will also definitely help you in schmoozing.  It is especially good if you can relate the discussion to some reading and stay in context the whole time.  Talking with people is one way to stay informed.  Reading good an interest stuff is another.  You really should be doing both. 

The other point is about how instrumental the class seemed at first on why to engage in the schmoozing.  I hope it will be obvious to you that if you are overtly instrumental about that or any other behavior, then you will not appear genuine.  In other words, being instrumental can block your ability to listen.  So, I believe, the primary reasons to schmooze is because it is enjoyable.  The connections you make as a consequence should be considered byproduct only.  If you reverse the order of priority, you won't get as much out of doing it. 

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I forgot something not class related, but that I wanted to announce to the class.  Bur first here is an economic theory of predictions.  If you are going to make a prediction, it is better for it to be outrageous.  In the rare even that you are proven right, you'll be considered a genius, with outstanding insight.  In the complementary event where you are proven wrong, you hope that people will quickly forget bout your prediction and, after all, life is a random walk, so it can't be forecast.

Now with that as background, I'm predicting that Carlos Beltran will be the next manager of the New York Yankees.  ESPN says this is a long shot. 

You heard it here first.

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The Sherry Turkle piece I briefly showed is called Stop Googling.  Let's Talk.  You should definitely read it.  Soon after it appeared I had a little email thread with her about it.  Since she responded to my query I was emboldened to send today's rhyme qua lesson plat to her.  At least she acknowledged receipt.  That is below.

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From: Sherry Turkle [sturkle@media.mit.edu]
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2017 10:04 AM
To: Arvan, Lanny
Subject: Re: I thought you might enjoy this.

Thank you!

S

On Nov 16, 2017, at 9:57 AM, Arvan, Lanny <larvan@illinois.edu> wrote:

Teaching students to schmooze
Over coffee rather than booze
And to enjoy the doing
Even if misconstruing
Good face to face conversation is news.
#ItTurnsOutTalkIsntCheap

Found here:  https://twitter.com/larvan3/status/931120054854352897