Michael Durr
The Other Side of the Link
Since I'm hoping you'll join our bloggers, I need to tell you something
about me. No one feels comfortable discussing their thoughts with
an
unknown entity. You need to know something about the person on the other
side of the computer’s communication link. Here’s a thumbnail version of
who I am.
Professionally, I’m a writer and marketer. I started this career by getting a bachelor’s degree in business and technical communications and then a master’s degree in marketing communications. Most of my marketing has been for computer companies. Computers interest me, especially the topic of human interaction with computers. For a communicator, one of the most profound issues of our time is how communication changes when a computer link is placed between communicating parties.
On the personal side, I’m blessed with some great and interesting people in my life. My wife is a dietitian/nutritionist. I have a son who, as a video game developer, has one of the most envied jobs on the planet. I have a daughter who is living in Scotland where she is completing work on a degree in veterinary medicine.
The Business of Thinking
The journey from communications and marketing to The
Business of Thinking in hindsight seems inevitable. Communication is a
tricky enterprise, as most thinking people are well aware. In our personal
lives, communication seldom works perfectly. Marketing is communication in a
commercial
context, often much simpler than trying to deal with personal
issues. Novelists, poets, painters, architects, business managers, and
anyone else in any social endeavor must face their own specific communication challenges.
But these challenges can all be distilled into one question: How do you
articulate your idea so that someone else sees what you see?
The writers of Star Trek were onto something when they came up with the Vulcan Mind Meld. Just put your fingertips on someone’s skull and you can see their thoughts and understand them. Of course, even this intriguing notion wouldn’t work perfectly. Perfect empathy does not equate to perfect agreement. I’m still me and you’re still you and any communication between us must be filtered through our individuality.
Communication at its core involves a brain and a set of emotions trying to have a meaningful dialog with another brain and set of emotions (please allow me some latitude in parsing these objects). In other words, reliable communication depends on your understanding of how you and other humans think, react, make decisions, and evolve intellectually.
What Works?
I commented above that I’m interested in computers, but
I’m especially interested in what we do with them. And so it is with my
interest in thinking. As a communicator I’m principally interested in
applied thinking. When cognitive research is presented to the world, how is
it applied in schools, business, and everyday life? What works and what
doesn’t?
I can come up with my own answers, from my own perspective. But, like the first person to describe a platypus, my perspective is too narrow to do the subject justice. Whatever your interests, education, and perspective, I hope you will find some time to participate in this website and weblog, The Blog.
The topic is simply anything related to thinking. This website exists for the purpose of stimulating the discussion of thinking. I believe that, for each of us, thinking is our primary business. What do you think?
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