TED Community » Morry Patoka

More About Me

I'm passionate about

My children, making a difference, living an inspired life, sharing joy.

An idea worth spreading

People create the conditions for success.

Talk to me about

Everything. Every topic is an opportunity to learn something new.

People don't know that I'm good at

Cooking. Well, at least I like what I make. And I've been told I'm not too shabby at song lyrics.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +3.80 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +4

  A comment on Talk: Melissa Marshall: Talk nerdy to me

  Oct 29 2012: There is a really important aspect to this cute presentation that I'd like to share through my own experience running a tech company.
  
  I was sitting in the meeting room with our development team of programmers, most of whom spoke broken English at best. I myself had no technical training whatsoever. I was running the business and the business depended on the software we were developing. I knew what the system had to do and relied on the team to figure out how to make it happen. But it wasn't happening so smoothly. After a few hours of listening, watching, and asking some simple questions about the data structure they had drawn on the oversized whiteboard, I noticed something. The conversation, although very technical, always circled around to the same issue.
  
  After seeing how they addressed other stumbling blocks in the architecture I got up from my chair at the back of the room and stepped up to the whiteboard. I humbly asked for their consideration as I erased a few tables and arrows, then redrew them in a new configuration with key codes and one-to-many relationship lines that I saw them using.
  
  I turned to look at the team and asked, "could this work"?
  
  Silence.
  
  After what felt like an incredibly awkward few minutes, our head programmer slowly nodded his head and said, "Yes...this could work." And as it turned out, it did.
  
  You see, I'm a visual thinker. Draw it out and I can comprehend things a lot quicker then through words alone. The lesson for all of us, scientists, technicians, experts in any field, is to find a way to express concepts in an inclusive way, because you never know where, or from who, the next idea will come from.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Jonathan Trent: Energy from floating algae pods

  Sep 10 2012: More than an absolutely wonderful opportunity to change how the world generates energy, this is a perfect story about innovation, collaboration and believing that anything is possible when we dare to dream, think and do.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Margaret Heffernan: Dare to disagree

  Aug 29 2012: Collaboration without conflict is simply consensus. And there’s nothing very innovative or inspiring about nodding your head in agreement just to avoid conflict. It takes guts to stand toe to toe with someone, whether they’re the schoolyard bully or the CEO of your company.
  
  However, having facilitated several thousand hours of group interactions in pursuit of new ideas to solve hard problems, one thing stands out at least equal to the fear of conflict. Vulnerability. Speaking up, not always in disagreement, but even to ask a provocative question or share a personal perspective, is hugely uncomfortable for most of us. More significantly, it stops us from sharing what might be the one spark that leads to the most innovative, life altering ideas.
  
  The new model of thinking needed is based on creating the conditions for creative connectivity. That includes data, people with diverse experiences, processes that provide the freedom to fail fast, and multiple dialogue channels up, down, across and outside the organization.
• +3

  A comment on Talk: Leymah Gbowee: Unlock the intelligence, passion, greatness of girls

  Apr 7 2012: It's hard to really understand how easy we have it until we understand the role we can have in helping people achieve just the basics.
• +3

  A comment on Talk: How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries

  Mar 18 2012: The thing I really loved about Adam's talk is that it reinforced the simple truth that our creativity and ingenuity make innovation possible. Ideas come from everywhere. We just have to open our minds.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Derek Sivers: Weird, or just different?

  Feb 13 2012: What I love about this short talk is that it highlights how we can challenge thinking by flipping ideas over to explore and create new ideas. It's a technique I use collaboratively with groups to generate new opportunities such as enhancing customer experience, increasing sales, solving business problems, imagining the future and growing the company.
  
  Flip it, as outrageous as it may initially appear, and spark new perspectives.

• A comment on Conversation: How do you define "being successful"?

  Jan 12 2012: To define “what is being successful”, I think you have to begin with, “what is success”.
  
  Whether it’s your personal success, or that of your business, I believe success is a combination of two factors – Achievement and Fulfillment.
  
  Achievement definitions are generally linear. Cross the finish line and you’ve won. Be the last one left standing on the reality show and you take home the prize. Fulfillment comes from your Core Values – the foundation of your being and the guideposts for your most critical decisions.
  
  Success is not just cold, hard accomplishment, nor is it a Sunday afternoon Made For TV movie. Success needs both achievement and fulfillment, in some kind of symbiotic, emotional balance that creates the conditions for you to live a good, safe, healthy and rewarding life.
  
  If you’re interested, I wrote a short article on the subject of success from a business perspective at http://createtheconditions.com/what-is-success/.
  
  One last thought... what you consider success today may not be how you will view it tomorrow, or next year, or in ten years. We change. The world changes. And along with those things, so does our definition of success.
• +4

  A comment on Conversation: We can all be heros! We share many of the same insecurities and fears, so why do some people take action while others continue to look away?

  Jan 2 2012: Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts. Fantastic perspectives and comments.
  
  The idea, or more accurately, the “ideal” of being a full time hero is not entirely realistic. Hey, even Superman had a day job. While we hear about people who have dedicated their lives to doing heroic work, I believe that most heroes are made in increments. Sometimes, many small actions over a lifetime can add up to superhero status. Isn’t that part of the reason we see our parents as heroes, time and time again coming to our rescue?
  
  Maybe we make the concept of hero too lofty an ideal. For most of us it’s rarely a big Hollywood moment backed by explosions and a dramatic music score. It’s more about seeing something that needs to be made right, and having the courage to do something about it. Not once in our lives, but throughout our lives.
• +7

  A comment on Talk: Alberto Cairo: There are no scraps of men

  Dec 30 2011: The story itself is inspiring but it's the storyteller who provides the greatest inspiration. And it is this... hero's aren't born, they're just like any of us. Fearful. Worried. Distracted. Reluctant. Everyday people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. The difference happens when we do something about it. Sometimes it's instinctive, like protecting a friend from being bullied or put down. Other times it gets to a point that we just can't look the other way any longer, as in the case of Alberto Cairo.
  
  His emotion really came through he told us his story. Even now, he seems to constantly battle his own personal insecurities, reluctantly agreeing to take things to the next level and in doing so, making the world a better place.
  
  When we watch movies, why are we drawn to the reluctant hero? The one who has to overcome his own fears and issues and doubts before standing up to face adversity. It's because that hero is a reflection of us. We can be that hero, too. There are thousands of opportunities around us all the time. We just have to open our eyes and our hearts to see that we're needed and believe that we can make a difference. It's as simple as taking that first step, just like Alberto. Once you start, you can't help but do more. Thanks Alberto, for showing us that we can all be heros.

• A comment on Conversation: Do you use crowd wisdom to think? Be part of creating the first ever crowd sourced TED talk

  Dec 10 2011: Hi Lior,
  
  My experience with crowd wisdom is very practical. For years we've used a group collaborative system to generate insights, ideas and strategies that actually get implemented, mostly because of the crowd dynamics that created the ideas in the first place. Bringing together a group in person, the right group, is not much different than what's needed to make online crowd wisdom work well. Some of the comments in this conversation bring up similar points, but here are a few of the basics that we've discovered over thousands of hours facilitating insight, ideation and strategy sessions.
  
  You need some experts, but not too many or they will act as blinders to the crowd, keeping the conversation too narrow or dismissing ideas that are too far out there.
  
  People tend to be linear in their thinking so you have to introduce instigators that break them out of their traditional thinking patterns. Metaphors, pictures, music, creativity exercises get our brains to another place quickly. Once we're there it's much easier to discover new things we would have otherwise missed, or connect dots that would have never made sense until we opened our minds.
  
  Focus is critical to outcomes. Focus doesn't mean preventing exploration. On the contrary, it helps groups to see opportunities more clearly. One of the jobs of a facilitator in a crowd is to take the nuggets, hold them back up to the crowd and say, "hey, look at this. Can this help us get to an answer we can use?"
  
  If you'd like more detailed explanation I have a number of articles on my blog site that can help. You can get the link from my profile if you're interested. I don't want to come across as promoting. From your responses to comments I see that you've already tapped into some of the great books on the subject.
  
  Good luck on your Ted talk. I'm looking forward to it.