https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/05/16/the-gervais-principle-vi-children-of-an-absent-god/ By Venkatesh Rao And so here we are, ready for an assault on our Everest: the mind that lies behind the low-reactor Sociopath face. A face that gazes upon the worlds of Losers and the Clueless with divine inscrutability. It’s certainly been a long climb. With the resurrection of David Wallace and the ascent …
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/10/14/the-gervais-principle-v-heads-i-win-tails-you-lose/ By Venkatesh Rao At the heart of all tragedy, the Greeks saw a phenomenon they called hamartia: a fatal error born of unavoidable ignorance. Combined with a fundamental moral flaw, hamartia inevitably led on to destruction. For the Greeks, humans were cursed not just with mortality of the flesh, but also hamartia-driven mortality of …
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/14/the-gervais-principle-iv-wonderful-human-beings/ By Venkatesh Rao Each of them – and they constitute 80% of humanity – is born the most beautiful baby in the world. Each is an above-average child; in fact the entire 80% is in the top 20% of human beings (it’s crowded up there). Each grows up knowing that he or she is …
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-iii-the-curse-of-development/ By Venkatesh Rao In the first two parts of this series, we talked about the archetypes that inhabit organizations (Sociopaths, Losers, Clueless), what they do (the Gervais Principle) and how (the four languages). In this part, we’ll use a somewhat unorthodox take on the idea of arrested development to explain why the three groups …
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii-posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/ By Venkatesh Rao We began this analysis of corporate life by exploring a theoretical construct (the Gervais Principle) through the character arcs of Michael and Ryan in The Office. The construct and examples provide a broad-strokes treatment of the why of the power dynamics among Sociopaths, the Clueless and Losers. This helps us understand …
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ By Venkatesh Rao My neighbor introduced me to The Office back in 2005. Since then, I’ve watched every episode of both the British and American versions. I’ve watched the show obsessively because I’ve been unable to figure out what makes it so devastatingly effective, and elevates it so far above the likes of Dilbert …
Exploit, Don’t Endorse – Responding to the Big Social & Big Search Credibility Crisis at Google, Facebook, and Twitter Big Social Media Companies have become a large part of customer-facing communications and interactions, so how best to respond ethically to their privacy, corruption, and censorship scandals? We promote an explicit “Exploit, Don’t Endorse” policy that …
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