Any Given Idea

How to give Criticism Without Bruising Egos

We've all been in this situation: You're being asked for your opinion and don't quite know how to respond. No matter if you know that person well or not your brain tries to file that person into a pattern. We scrub thru a bunch of replies and reactions according to that. We don't want to be too harsh we don't want to offend yet bring our points across successfully.

Don't get emotionally involved. Try saying only what you have to say and what you want to say. If you don't feel comfortable saying something and it's not essential to mention, don't. Try to stay as objective as possible - don't include additive personal views. Your opinion is automatically subjective, no need to indulge.

And you want to start your criticism with something positive. Even in cases where there's little that's good, put emphasize on it before turning to the things that need revision. You open up a more direct line of communication: your feedback feels more justified and finds greater acceptance.

If you slammed all you don't like onto the person without prior preparation, you'd be putting the dog in the corner, so to speak, and he'd be left to bark or bite. The momentum of emotion would move the desired goal out of focus.

Our goal is to give feedback that finds acceptance and opening with recognizing positive aspects helps us get through. It's not a revolutionary new thought, agreed, but a little reminder can't hurt.

How The Internet Changed The Way We Consume

Granted, the Internet has brought us countless advantages and sped up the way we access information by a massive factor. It's bringing great innovation to the table in rapid cycles. It's allowing us to spread progress everywhere the world. It's bumping access to a new level. We've got cloud computing so we can work from everywhere, cloud music & films so we can consume where ever we are, cloud documents so we can be productive no matter from where — great. The Internet changed the way we collaborate and communicate and consume.

In the past, when we were only able to do these things from a certain computers hence were only able produce when you had access to certain equipment and files. Today you can collaborate to an online document with co-workers from anywhere in the world — in real time; access everything no matter where in the world you are. You can consume what you want — when you want it. It's what we all love and appreciate about the Internet — it's just hiding the chance of overconsumption behind it's back.

The way we should understand the Internet is it's a means to and end — always and only a means. As soon as we stop using it as a tool to a greater cause, we're turning producing into consuming. The Internet has too many interesting things, too many random bits of entertainment to not get sucked in. That doesn't mean it's bad to spend a certain amount of time just sucking in random content. It can even be a vital to finding inspiration or such as long as we know when to stop and don't turn it into a pattern, a habit.

What the Internet changed most is how much we consume: It's fast, it's easy and it's accessible from anywhere. As a result we're consuming from everywhere and every time and all the time. We're happily spending hours and hours in our social networks or on video sites instead of letting boredom come over us. We don't want to read the news after it happend, we want to be informed through information networks as it happens.

We should ask ourselves whether this is as important and as fulfilling as we believe or if it's just vicarious satisfaction — are we just doing it to compensate the feeling we've forgotten some time back? The feeling of not having to care about the most recent events that are happening half way around the world? Not needing to be up to speed with everything your friends do? The feeling of spending your precious time not being constantly entertained? The feeling of being bored to death and starting to create? If we reflect on it, the answer becomes fairly prominent: Let the Internet be a tool of yours — not the other way around.