Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2006-05-27

1)

Someone sent me an email regarding yesterday's post and here is my reply.

  > I'm not sure I understand the broader implications of the marshmallow
  > thing though. Are you saying that consultants should avoid solving
  > their customers' problems quickly?
  
  I think the idea is if consultants talk about the customer's problems before
  talking about the solution a few things happen.
  
  - The customer feels the consultant is actually trying to help and not
    simply trying to sell something.
  
  - The consultant is (hopefully) less likely to sell a "solution" that does
    not really address the problems that the customer has.
  
  The result is both the customer and the consultant get value out of the
  relationship.  I think that leads to a long term relationship of value to
  both groups.
  
  In the software world it is common that a vendor sells some software that
  doesn't really help the customer.
  
  I had someone try to sell my employer something that would add a 20%
  slowdown for all of our websites.  It was supposed to protect us in case a
  product we got from somewhere else had a certain type of bug.
  
  I said "if the product we already have has that kind of bug then we have
  bigger problems".  I don't think the solution he was selling was of value to
  me (at least not at that price) but he tried to sell it to me anyway.
  
  If instead of telling me about that product he had asked about problems I
  saw then he might have been able to suggest something that I would want.
  
  The lesson is not "solve problems slowly" but "be sure you solve the right
  problems".

2)

Irene S. Levine wrote an article on the difficulty of mixing marriage and a
career as a scientist.

  After a crest during the third decade of life, scientific productivity
  --as evidenced by major discoveries and publications-- fell off
  dramatically with age. When he looked at the marital history of the
  sample, he found that the decline in productivity was less severe among
  men who had never been married. As a group, unmarried scientists
  continued to achieve well into their late 50s, and their rates of decline
  were slower.

  ...

  Several forum contributors saw marriage as a source of emotional and
  financial stability rather than a dangerous undertow.

  ...

  Chris, a second-year postdoc in Canada [said] "I would say if you are the
  scientist, yes, get married. If you are the scientists partner, think
  long and hard if you can live with that in your relationship"

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/articles/2006_05_26/scientific_success_what_s_love_got_to_do_with_it

I was reminded of a story from David Suzuki's autobiography Metamorphosis.
Dr. Suzuki was going to go camping with his girlfriend and his children
from a previous marriage when the children were unexpectedly unable to go
on the trip.

Suzuki immediately felt excited that he would have the weekend free to work
in the lab.  Naturally his girlfriend was less than pleased.

I recommend "Metamorphosis: Stages in a Life" by David Suzuki.  It was
released during the middle of the 1980s.  A sequel "David Suzuki: The
Autobiography" was just released in the past couple months and I have not
read it yet.

David Suzuki has a weekly column that you can read on the web at
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/About_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/Article_Archives/