Меня зовут Алексей Иванов, я дизайнер продуктов в Кремниевой долине, ведущий блога «Пончик Ньюз» и бесячего подкаста «Но вы держитесь».

Сегодня я предлагаю поговорить о том, что прямо сейчас происходит с важнейшим нашим ресурсом — вниманием, и что можно сделать, чтобы вернуть его себе.

TL;DR: Great teams are not born, they grow into effective and cohesive groups of dedicated and inspired people over time. There are ways to facilitate this growth. The Team Canvas is a free tool for leaders, facilitators, and consultants that helps to organize team alignment meetings, bring members on the same page, resolve conflicts and build a productive culture. It’s good for on-sites and remote sessions. Download it here in one of ten languages.

Part 1. Understanding Team Dynamics

As a leader or facilitator, you might experience moments when you need to bring the team members together, clarify their goals, figure out their motivations, and help them to be more aligned and productive. …

“So what you are saying is that it’s my being reserved and a bit strict under pressure with my teammates makes them want to avoid any projects with me? That’s crazy, but I see how it can be true”, my friend told me upon debriefing on her personality assessment results.

In the beginning, she was a bit skeptical: she couldn't see how a psychological test can identify complex areas of her concern for her professional and private lives, let alone suggest ways to improve them. …

Technology is hijacking our time and attention, and there is an increasing body of evidence that it leads to mental health issues: depression, anxiety, and social isolation.

Ok, Google, so what do we do in the world where tech is a connective tissue for our professional, social and private lives?

Three Ways

Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory had one of the most profound impacts on the way I look at my own development and the way I understand the world. Wilber’s insights into a combination of spirituality, psychology, and cognitive science are truly remarkable.

No Boundary is one of the first books written by Wilber back in 1971. In the book, he advocates that as humans we define the way we exist in the world by the boundaries we create between ‘me’ and ‘not me’.

Wilber’s novel idea is that there are three most important boundaries: between conscious mind and shadow, between our head and our body, and between what we consider our physical selves and the rest of the world. As one embarks on the quest for conscious growth, they start finding ways of removing boundaries. …

On Successful EdTech Business

1. We built an edtech company valued at $100M. We started as an online school teaching English to Russian-speaking students, and over 6 years, we grew into a platform with 50K paying students and 5K teachers, who gave more than 3.9M lessons online. We use Uber model, taking a cut from every transaction. Our markets are Russian-speaking countries. We experiment with countries like China and Turkey.

2. To build a successful tech product, it’s important to think broadly about competition. For example, we do compete with traditional educators, marketplaces (like itlaki), and self-study platforms (like DuoLingo). But most importantly, we compete with anything that takes time from a student: sports, TV, games and YouTube. …

Six years ago Netflix first released the pilot for House of Cards directed by David Fincher. The show was the first of Original Series, the content created and produced by Netflix. In the years that followed, the company launched hundreds of successful shows and movies, including uber-successful Stranger Things, Sense 8, and Narcos. Today, one can state confidently that Netflix influenced our culture, changed the entertainment industry and made Holywood shake up quite a bit.

In the last months of 2018, Netflix released “Bird Box” with Sandra Bullock and “You”. The former has been watched by 80 million households (58% of all subscribers), the latter — by 40 million (29%). …

Rainer Maria Rilke was born to a family of a military officer in 19th century Czechoslovakia. Despite his interest in arts and poetry, he was sent to a military school. After the school, he proceeded with the artistic career and extensive travels, becoming a world-renown poet and novelist.

Years later, a young poet named Franz Kappus found himself in the same military school, and decided to ask Rilke for advice and guidance. Their correspondence was published as a series of ten letters from Rilke to Kappus, probably the most famous letters ever written. …