On Lego
It’s hard to say who is more obsessed with Lego bricks – my kids, or their parents! My partner and I both feel that our childhoods were poorer for not having had our own Lego toys. We’ve made up for it by having more Legos in the house than we could possibly ever play with! The kids received small Lego kits for Christmas and Easter, and I am always stepping on some half constructed piece or part. For Christmas the boys also received an annual pass to Legoland, which is not far from us. I took my oldest during his Spring break (see picture taken in the lobby,...
Read MoreNat’s Nibbles – Forget Normal
Forget “normal.” Recognize that when it comes to human diversity — including the diversity of minds — “normal” is a highly subjective, culturally-constructed fiction. Recognize that there is no “normal” mind, and that conformity to the local conception of “normal” is in no way synonymous with health, well-being, or personal fulfillment – and is, in fact, often in direct conflict with those things. A healthy, thriving autistic person looks very different from a healthy, thriving non-autistic person. In nurturing the development of autistic individuals,...
Read MoreMy next job
We have always read books to our kids at bedtime, but they are finally old enough to appreciate (and be quiet enough!) for the public library. We are so lucky to have a wonderful town library walking distance from our house. The whole second floor is a children’s section, and the boys seem to enjoy it. They love getting to pick books out themselves, and we all appreciate the variety of reading material. As a result of our library adventures, we have read some fun new books in the past few weeks, including one called Oh, Ducky!: A Chocolate Calamity by David Slomin. It is cute, and...
Read MoreNat’s Nibbles
As my work / life changes, I find myself reading a lot, but not posting as much as I would like … except on our family blog, where the evolution of our amazing kids is documented in nauseating detail. :) So I’ve been trying to think about how to do a better job sharing all the great material I’m coming across online, and I thought I would give this thing (which I’m tentatively calling Nat’s Nibbles) a try. I’m modeling this type of blog post after a couple of blogs that I follow regularly, that do a really nice job capturing interesting stories and...
Read MoreForget willpower
As people start the traditional making and breaking of New Year’s resolutions, willpower seems to be at top of mind for many. I have been ruminating on what I want to accomplish this year, and how I’ll put the right steps in place to get there. I’m sure many of you have been doing the same! But I dislike making resolutions just because it’s January, and I really dislike pretending that something is going to change unless I am really sure I can establish and execute on an plan. Corporate training meets real life, I guess! So when one of my ZS colleagues posted...
Read MoreConnected – case studies
As I mentioned in an earlier post about the book Connected, I wanted to share a few of the case studies from the book that I found the most compelling. I can’t believe I wrote that post in October 2009! I have had this post in draft and finally pushed it through to the finish line, which I think speaks to the staying power of these case studies and their theoretical underpinnings. Case Studies After introducing the basic concepts, the authors begin to explore case studies on a variety of topics, including Emotions (Chapter 2), Love and Sex (Chapter 3), Health (Chapter 4), Money,...
Read MoreDecisions, decisions
Several weeks ago I had the chance to participate in a webinar with Jonah Lehrer, who wrote the books How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist. The session was made available through my membership with the Creative Good UX Councils. The introduction to Jonah and his work from Creative Good said that “Design is partially about guiding people, offering choices, sometimes persuading them to make specific choices, or at least understand all options.” Jonah said that he started studying how people decide because he is himself pathologically indecisive – he would go to...
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