Relating to dyslexia

Albert Einstein - Dyslexic and most recognized and well-known scientists

I was reading wired.com’s post about Dyslexia from a while ago and it almost had me in tears on the tube today. Why? Because I related to so much of it, it was freaky.

Interconnected reasoning is another kind of strength. These connections can be relationships of likeness — analogies for example — or causal relationships, or the ability to shift perspective and view an object or event from multiple perspectives, or the ability to see the “gist” or big-picture context surrounding an event or idea. Many dyslexics work in highly interdisciplinary fields or fields that require combining perspectives and techniques gained from different disciplines or backgrounds. Or they’re multiple specialists, or their work history is unusually varied. Often these individuals draw the comment that they can see connections that other people haven’t seen before.

This is one of my biggest things. I see the world in a connected way (for example the post about the singularity and diversity) and I find it hard to explain to others but in my head it makes sense. The tools I’m told to use limit me and drive me insane (don’t get me started on having to separate my life and manage two calendars, thankfully I opted out of that crap)

Here comes one of those connections… I have been looking for a way to do collaborative mindmapping. I love google docs but a document is sometimes limiting. I have looked around and found quite a few commercial mindmapping tools but then I found mindmup which is open source. And with some experimentation the other day, I got it working with Google Drive in a realtime collaborative way. Expect more mind maps in the future now.

But back to that post…

Wired: Would you want to be dyslexic if you could choose to be?
Brock: Absolutely! It’s a phenomenal kind of wiring.

This one really got me. For all the people telling me I’m doing it wrong, correcting my writing, etc, etc… Its made me a stronger person. A person with a super strong personality, self confident about my own ability and weaknesses. I have to admit even with the hard time I got at home and at school, I wouldn’t change a thing. Its part of who I am, and I can’t imagine not being dyslexic.

I luckily grew up in the technological revolution meaning I could cope through reliance on technology. If I was a generation earlier, it would be a different story.

I do wonder what difference it would have made if I had been correctly diagnosed in junior school? Rather that 10 years later while doing my dissertation at Ravensbourne. The test of half a day was intense but finally the results were posted to me later and as I always knew, I was pretty badly dyslexic.

I’ll be keeping an eye on dyslexicadvantage as I’d certainly like to improve on my already quite unique skillset.

Google me back if you like…

Coffee at Daphines, Amstel Station

Love this story from Ars Technica, When the restaurant you Googled Googles you back.

The maitre d’ in question, Justin Roller, says he tries to ascertain things like whether a couple is coming to the restaurant for an anniversary, and if so, which anniversary that is. If it’s a birthday, for instance, he wants to wish them “Happy Birthday” when they arrive. He’ll scan for photos of the guests in chef’s whites or posed with wine glasses, which suggest they might be chefs or sommeliers themselves.

It goes deeper: if a particular guest appears to hail from Montana, Roller will try to pair up the table with a server who is from Montana. “Same goes for guests who own jazz clubs, who can be paired with a sommelier that happens to be into jazz,” writes Grub Street.

Ok I can see why people would be freaked out about it. It does remind me when a member of staff in an American dinner, read the full name of my then mother-in-law off her credit card. And then started calling her by her first name. He over stepped the mark…

But on the other hand. If they don’t over step the mark it can be quite nice. FYG use to tweet me quite a bit and the owners use to know quite a bit about me. I didn’t see it as a problem because thats just the kind of person I am. It was kind of nice, although it would have been nicer to know which one of the two owners and 4 possible staff was actually tweeting me.

You will have to take it from me but North Tea Power a coffee shop in the northern quarter. Rocked someones world with a personal message on a sign, from looking at someones twitter stream. Unfortunately the service which wrote it up is no longer, but I can promise you it was pretty epic and well done. Link now lives here. (cheers Martinrue)

Like most things, theres bad use and theres good uses. Those who identify the good ones will win massive loyal fans, those who don’t and try automate stuff will fail and loose out. Cluetrain rules…