Quote of Richard Hamming

 

 An email from maillist sent by supervisor.

 

 It's a quote from Richard Hamming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamming

 

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A quote from the speech: "Another trait, it took me a while to notice.
I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open
or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office
closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more
productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite
know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is
sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets
all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to
what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the
cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is
symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a
pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and
those who ultimately do important things, although people who work
with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on
slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame. "

 

 

I translate this to: go to symposiums and seminars as much as possible
even though it impacts your immediate productivity.  Good advice!

 

 

 

I tend to be work with the door closed, which is not a good habit. Instead of asking for advice, I prefer to find the solution by myself which wastes time and leads to unneccessary difficulties sometimes.

 

I should learn to communicate with others and to be more open minded.

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