During the diversity event that I attended, titled A Business Case for Diversity, I learned several valuable things via concrete evidence. In essence, the seminar was about something everyone already inherently knows, diverse groups make strong groups. Most people already know that a diverse group allows more ideas and points of view to be expressed than with a group of reruns. This is precisely why the United States government, aka congress, works. We use large groups of diverse people and diverse ideals to get great outcomes. Mr. Page however was able to articulate it in a new manner and was also able to boil it down to a mathematical formula.
    Mr. Page summed the ability of a diverse group to provide outstanding results up to a simple equation. This equation relates to people attempting to find things such as the amount of M&M's in a jar, or the weight of a calf. The individual accuracy minus the group accuracy, will be within a close percentage of the correct values. This is a little hard to understand, and requires further articulation. However, to sum it up fairly quickly and nicely, it can simply be said that as you increase the diversity of a group you increase it's effectiveness. Now, you have to make a couple of assumptions.. you have to first assume that the group is smart, and you have to secondly assume that it is possible to get a credible answer to your question. Next you have to make sure that the diversity in your group is on the inside. It doesn't matter if you have a black person, a white person, a hispanic person, and a native american person in your group if they all think alike. You need your diversity to be in the thought process, in the beliefs and ideas. If you get a bunch of people with different backgrounds and psychologies, you can create a mean think tank.
     The things that Mr. Page talked about obviously were coherent with real life situations. He found a way to turn diversity into a winning thing, not a required by law thing. And isn't it true that diverse groups make finer groups. I find that in my personal experiences, not just academic and business, a diverse group is a fine one to work with. Results and output are better, the learning curve is better, and the experience tends to be better in the end.

Twitter, a 7 day journey.. (+7 more days to this post)

     To be honest, I never liked the idea of twitter. In fact, before I begin, you should know that I rather despise most social networking sites. I find that for the most part they are just time wasters. If anyone disagrees, please, take a moment to think how many of your friends plays those terrible facebook games that make you feed fish or grow "crops. However, that is not to say that I don't recognize a use for them. I sincerely see the use of social media websites like youtube, facebook, and most of all LinkedIn. But I could never fathom the idea that twitter is useful for anything. And in reality, its not.
    Twitter serves no real practical purpose. Unless of course you are a news station, in which case you can create a newsfeed that shoots into a practical social media site, like facebook. Or if you are a celebrity or politician that wants to spread some fine propaganda and cause viewers to see you as a person rather than a far off finely made suit with political ideals.
     The irony of the preceding paragraph is that the lack of a substantial basis for practicality is what makes twitter such a beautiful tool fo rpeople to use. It has no purpose, no aims and goals, and no determination to have live your "twitter life" a certain way. You create your own practical uses for it. As in this article http://www.balkhis.com/twitter/25-reasons-why-someone-should-join-twitter/, the author states that one reason to use twitter is to learn. This may seem an odd concept, but its only because twitter wasn't necessarily built for this use. Its all about what you make of it. The author mentions of himself being a designer, and following other designers that then present links and ideas on twitter, thus giving him knowledge.
    I too have found this ironic feature of twitter. I've started following actors and writers and directors. Seeing as performing arts are one of the things that I've considered going into in my future, I thought I should try to see what they are like. Although I know that they wouldn't put anything that would get them in trouble up on twitter. (Thus masking somewhat who they really are.) But the usefulness of their posts is that they can't completely not be themselves while posting on twitter. Thus concludes my journey, as far as you know! I shall probably still have a twitter account, and shall probably still tweet and read a few of my favorite actors and directors, and possibly even add you. My profile can be found at this URL. http://twitter.com/#!/Mark_E_Hamilton