The Crucible Effect and the Scarcity of Collective Attention
ribbonfarm.com
ribbonfarm.com
I'm really unsure whether there was something useful in there for me or not -- lots of name-dropping, business-book mentioning, even some allusions to complicated math. At the end of the day, what I think the author was trying to say is that 12 is the optimum size for a creative group and that 150 is the optimum number of active fans you should have for your blog, and that 10,000 is the number of hours you have to spend on something to be good at it.
It would have been much better if the author had picked one point and made it cogently. Instead the article had this rambling, diffuse feeling to it.
I liked some of the data, and liked the points. The style just wasn't for me.
Me too, but for me it was more of an excitement to see the next point. Rather than being poorly written I'd say it was too interesting (if that's possible).
If enough people are great at something it's easy to learn greatness.
But then what seems like an interesting article just kept going and going and going... tl.
Though the exact numbers of men in a legion varied, the basic pattern of organization remained the same. The smallest unit was the tent group (contubernium), composed of 8 men who shared a tent, a mule, and eating equipment. These were organized into a disciplinary unit called a century (despite the fact that a century typically had 80 rather than 100 men), under the command of a centurion. The basic fighting unit was a cohort, composed of six centuries (480 men plus 6 centurions). The legion itself was composed of ten cohorts, and the first cohort had many extra men—the clerks, engineers, and other specialists who did not usually fight—and the senior centurion of the legion, the primipilus, or “number one javelin.”
I do not think college is terribly good at educating. Even so, I'm forced to admit the cliché is probably right: it's a powerfully life-changing, valuable experience. I came out of it with a radically reshaped worldview, tremendous energy, and much knowledge. My rate of progress while in college (in fact, mostly a few specific years) was much higher than any other time I remember.
...But I don't look back and think of important classes taken or works read. I see myself surrounded by brilliant, energetic peers. That's the Crucible Effect he describes. We talk about it when thinking of "startup-friendly" communities, or hacker groups, or even preserving the "character" of these boards. We're trying to keep the Crucible Effect intact.
Interesting.