I recently had the opportunity to talk at some length with an engaged set of students at Olympia High School. (I talk regularly to school groups, and if you’d like to book me to talk to your school group, you can contact my booking agent here.) We discussed both my high tech career as well as my writing, and found ourselves discussing technology, the future, and how one balances career aspirations as well as creative endeavors.
Here are some of the resources I shared with them after my talk, as “footnotes” to our conversation.
1) First, I spoke about removing distractions from my creative work and focusing. Here is relevant information about phones and other technology as intentionally addictive and distracting.
Addiction to Phones
How Technology Addicts You — from a Google Design Ethicist
Digital Distraction https://time.com/
2) Second, I spoke about Ira Glass (host of “This American Life”) and his emphasis on the experience of a younger, striving artist.
Ira Glass on Failure as an Artist https://jamesclear.com/ira-
Here’s a great animated video with the same quote: https://vimeo.com/
3) Third, here is a link to that study on “luck” that I mentioned
Is Luck Real? https://www.popsci.com/luck-
More details on this study here: https://www.
4) Fourth, I talked a bit about writing about autism. Here’s Temple Grandin’s TED Talk about the autistic experience.
Temple Grandin TED talk
5) Fifth, here are a number of articles about how liberal arts degrees make you more successful in the new economy:
Liberal Arts Degree is Tech’s hottest ticket (factual data) https://www.forbes.com/sites/
Fortune 500 CEOs with Liberal Arts Degrees (factual data)
Why Tech Needs Liberal Arts Degrees (factual data)
The Future of Work (an opinion piece)
6) Sixth, here’s a series of article that provide discussion of the coming wave of job losses due to high tech innovation and AI in particular.
AI and Unemployment
Robots and Work
Jobs Disappearing
AI and Jobs
7) Seventh, my current book-in-progress covers AR/VR futuristic scenarios. Some of the references I’ve used include the following:
Discussion of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality https://time.com/
Another perspective from Facebook — https://mashable.com/2017/
8) Eighth, I mentioned my work in high tech. Here are some relevant videos and highlights that might be of interest.
Google I/O – Ned Hayes on the show floor doing a Drone Demo https://nedhayes.com/drone
Intel Developer Forum, on stage with EVP Doug Fisher
GigaOM Mobilize https://www.youtube.
Intel TV Interview https://bit.ly/
Early Mobile Phone interface Demo (it’s very cheesy, but please note that this was before the iPhone and Android went big — https://bit.ly/2sAEM2z ) I led the UI design and demo team for Paul Allen.
Oh, and here’s some information about that iPhone innovation I mentioned, that Paul Allen’s team invented: https://nedhayes.com/
The following information about Silicon Valley is interesting and pertinent.
And here’s a quick Seattle Times article that covered my commute to Silicon Valley
And finally, I mentioned several additional books during the course of our conversation. Here are some of the relevant books.
AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, by Neil Postman
Steve Silberman NEUROTRIBES
Temple Grandin Books
THE LUCK FACTOR
THE EAGLE TREE
