My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima my bus instructors and various flying instructors have said similar... i.e. if you look at the kerb you'll hit it, you should instead look down the road... and when landing you should look at the far end of the runway, because if you look at the ground close to you you'll misjudge and hit it hard
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
I first learned this in a "regular" (not whitewater) canoe course. Important for survival there!
I can totally see the transfer to business and other spheres - thanks for sharing!
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@eanakashima Ha, didn't know boating people used that as well - motorcycle people are told "do not look at the tree" (or more generally, look where you want to go, not what you want to avoid).
The Wikipedia page is disappointingly terse, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation .
@richlv ooh TIL "target fixation"
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@eanakashima Ha, didn't know boating people used that as well - motorcycle people are told "do not look at the tree" (or more generally, look where you want to go, not what you want to avoid).
The Wikipedia page is disappointingly terse, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation .
First rule of tree skiing (skiing through aspen groves or other timber):
"Look and aim between the trees."
Whether it's someone else pointing, or you pointing, pointing where to go indeed matters.
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First rule of tree skiing (skiing through aspen groves or other timber):
"Look and aim between the trees."
Whether it's someone else pointing, or you pointing, pointing where to go indeed matters.
@tab2space @eanakashima I imagined some mighty legendary hero who in a pinch affixed two large fir trees to their feet and used them as skis.
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@eanakashima Works with motorbikes too
This is the context where I learned it. As soon as I identify a hazard, I need to immediately shift my focus to the safe part of the pavement and my front wheel just goes there. An instructor at motorcycle school told me.
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
God, I went through independent discovery of that idea long time ago I suddenly realized if I wanted to avoid crashing into something I needed to look at where I had to go rather than the thing I was about to crash into
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God, I went through independent discovery of that idea long time ago I suddenly realized if I wanted to avoid crashing into something I needed to look at where I had to go rather than the thing I was about to crash into
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @eanakashima
When I was a young lad getting to mild mountain biking someone said "what you see is what you hit"
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima what’s it called in whitewater rafting when the raft flips and you have to save yourself? Hypothetically. Not that this has ever happened to me. Twice. Also, we’ll done!
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@eanakashima Ha, didn't know boating people used that as well - motorcycle people are told "do not look at the tree" (or more generally, look where you want to go, not what you want to avoid).
The Wikipedia page is disappointingly terse, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation .
@richlv @eanakashima "Target fixation" is the term I'd heard in conjunction with motorcycle safety training
It's a surprisingly accurate pattern of behavior when any sort of fear or panic takes over
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima I think I'd heard this phrase but didn't know it came from rafting and kayaking. Thanks for the background!
And I sure do have to keep reminding people “tell people what to do, not just what not to do”…
In the vein of not focusing people's attention in an unwanted direction, I'm reminded of this bit from the 1987 edition of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines (second paragraph):
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@GhostOnTheHalfShell @eanakashima
When I was a young lad getting to mild mountain biking someone said "what you see is what you hit"
@ColmDonoghue @GhostOnTheHalfShell a surprisingly catchy rendition of the concept
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@richlv @eanakashima "Target fixation" is the term I'd heard in conjunction with motorcycle safety training
It's a surprisingly accurate pattern of behavior when any sort of fear or panic takes over
@recursive @richlv @eanakashima It's not only fear or panic based. "look where you want the car to go" is a principle I was taught with driving.
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@tab2space @eanakashima I imagined some mighty legendary hero who in a pinch affixed two large fir trees to their feet and used them as skis.
@richlv @tab2space @eanakashima Sounds like something Paul Bunyan would've done, had he skied.
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima now if you could only build on this and get us in the world wide fediverse to "point positive" instead of perma-ranting against all and every hazard, that would be no small feat
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima The benefits of this are obvious to me when facing immediate threats where there's no time to orient and plan a path to safety. Sharing common language so that you can get to safety with a single glance is huge.
Bringing this to the office, where emergencies are rarely this immediate, seems to be little more than applying the name to preferred behaviour where we want people to do more than just point out problems.
Is that assessment correct, or is there more to this?
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima Ah, the flipside term to target fixation, nice. TIL!
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@eanakashima I think I'd heard this phrase but didn't know it came from rafting and kayaking. Thanks for the background!
And I sure do have to keep reminding people “tell people what to do, not just what not to do”…
In the vein of not focusing people's attention in an unwanted direction, I'm reminded of this bit from the 1987 edition of the Apple Human Interface Guidelines (second paragraph):
@boredzo on a tangential note, I like the last section: "Design in black and white" (and add colours later)
Some of the reasoning may seem outdated, as it initially did to me even though I am currently reading this on a black-and-white e-paper monitor
I learnt a similar concept as a drawing style from Hergé who always made sure his illustrations worked in black and white, where it would sometimes stay unless colour was added as a bonus on top. Works wonders for xeroxable art
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My greatest professional accomplishment of the year: I got my exec & manager teammates saying "point positive," a term from whitewater rafting and kayaking.
Meaning: when facing hazards, point people toward where to go/what to do, rather than drawing attention to everything to avoid.
@eanakashima @praveen society is not immutable. If you just avoid conflict, always take the way of least resistance, never fixing things, never identifying obstacles and problems to address everything will stay bad for everyone forever.
If your job is like a death ride on a wild river reconsider your life choices, if you have enough privilege to do so.
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@eanakashima Ha, didn't know boating people used that as well - motorcycle people are told "do not look at the tree" (or more generally, look where you want to go, not what you want to avoid).
The Wikipedia page is disappointingly terse, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation .
@richlv @eanakashima heh, from a boating/sailing perspective I learned to always point at the person who fell off. That way you don't lose track of their position.
I was confused by this image at the start.
