Kevin Kelly Quotations

It's more along the lines of raising a child: we train the system to a certain range of behaviors that we find most useful. But then we let it go, because we don't want to have to be babysitting it the whole time.

We are infected by our own misunderstanding of how our own minds work.

Complexity that works is built up out of modules that work perfectly, layered one over the other.

The nature of an innovation is that it will arise at a fringe where it can afford to become prevalent enough to establish its usefulness without being overwhelmed by the inertia of the orthodox system.

Species go extinct because there are historical contraints built into a given body or a given design.

Organisms by their design are not made to adapt too far.

And they discovered something very interesting: when it comes to walking, most of the ant's thinking and decision-making is not in its brain at all. It's distributed. It's in its legs.

When a system is in turbulence, the turbulence is not just out there in the environment, but is a part of the organization or organism that you are looking at.

A brain is a society of very small, simple modules that cannot be said to be thinking, that are not smart in themselves. But when you have a network of them together, out of that arises a kind of smartness.

The way that organizations and organisms anticipate the future is by taking signals from the past, most the time.

The way to build a complex system that works is to build it from very simple systems that work.

But in a turbulent environment the change is so widespread that it just routes around any kind of central authority. So it is best to manage the bottom-up change rather than try to institute it from the top down.

Managers tend to treat organizations as if they are infinitely plastic. They hire and fire, merge, downsize, terminate programs, add capacities. But there are limits to the shifts that organizations can absorb.

In a broad systems sense, an organism's environment is indistinguishable from the organism itself.

Technological advances could allow us to see more clearly into our own lives.

This is actually a very important principle that science is learning about large systems like evolution and that futurists are learning about anticipating human society: just because a future scenario is plausible doesn't mean we can get there from here.

An organization is a set of relationships that are persistent over time.

Changing things from the top down works when things are stable.

Each organism's environment, for the most part, consists of other organisms.

It's generally much easier to kill an organization than to change it substantially.

Much of outcomes research is a systematic attempt to exploit what is known and make it better.

One of the functions of an organization, of any organism, is to anticipate the future, so that those relationships can persist over time.

The current understanding was that it was impossible to predict how something would evolve because it was a very turbulent environment full of things interacting with each other.

The great advance of personal computers was not the computing power per se but the fact that it brought it right to your face, that you had control over it, that were confronted with it and could steer it.

An organization's reason for being, like that of any organism, is to help the parts that are in relationship to each other, to be able to deal with change in the environment.

But in fact, when you try to model that on a computer you find that because of the very structure of matter and of the chemical bonds that are the basis of every organism, evolution is not random at all. It will tend to follow certain paths.

It has become evident that the primary lesson of the study of evolution is that all evolution is coevolution: every organism is evolving in tandem with the organisms around it.

Organizations get invested into a particular product. And sometimes the best thing is to stop making that product, even though it's profitable, because it has optimized at a local peak.

Each system is trying to anticipate change in the environment.

An organization's intelligence is distributed to the point of being ubiquitous.

Basins of attraction, of self organization, show up as well in our complex social environment, in human organizations. Here again, while we cannot predict the result of any given input, we can say that it will likely fall within one of several areas.

Everything that we are making, we are making more and more complex.

The most certain thing you can say about the environment tomorrow is that it probably is going to be just like today, for the most part.

The organization and the environment are in concert.

The most interesting thing about change in the environment is that for the most part the environment isn't changing.

But when you are embodied in a location, in a physical plant, in a set of people, and in a common history, that constrains your evolution and your ability to evolve in certain directions.

The system continually has to make this choice: it can either continue to exploit a known process and make it more productive, or it can explore a new process at the cost of being less efficient.

We tend to think of the mind of an organization residing in the CEO and the organization's top managers, perhaps with the help of outside consultants that they call in. But that is not really how an organization thinks.

We're a company that, historically, has done work on the Toll Road. We are not concerned about a private entity having control of the Toll Road.

We're growing everything we do by adding complementary services above and beyond what we do for our client base and vice versa for IP's clients.

Many of us have this neo-Amish pattern in our use of technology, and it's our own way to exert some sort of power over it. These gadgets are supposed to be serving us, but we have so many of them that we feel like we're enslaved to our servants. So we create restrictions to show who's boss. Like, I may be a slave to e-mail, but I don't text-message, therefore I really have the upper hand.

(McDowell) made up his mind to vote 'No' before he heard one piece of evidence.

Me missing the two field goals could have played a role in it. I had a job to do, whether it's a fake or a kick, so I had to get it done.

On March 7, to get this packet of information is a little startling. Most of my immediate reaction is not printable.

I think you're going to start seeing guys running in their main events. The performances should start moving up a bit, that's the plan. Hopefully in the next few weeks we see what this team can really do.

I tell him sometimes I didn't appreciate him as much as I should have when I was coaching him. But when I spent time putting together his highlight tape for recruiting, wow. His senior year against Archbishop Ryan, he must have broken six or seven tackles on a long run, put a hand down to keep his balance. He's got a heck of a will not to be tackled.

I still had my confidence. I don't think I've ever missed three in a row.

We do think the economy is a bit overheated. Architecting a softer landing, if that's what (Greenspan) is doing, is probably not a bad idea.

We do think the economy is a bit overheated, ... Architecting a softer landing, if that's what (Greenspan) is doing, is probably not a bad idea.

Those were personal records for everyone except Aldrich. We thought we?d be able to run under 18 minutes, so it was a pretty good effort.

To think about how many yards he put up in such a short time this season, it's truly remarkable. I think that kind of shows those schools that were looking at him only on defense that he had the right idea.

We just shut down (in the past). The intimidation factor is huge against this team. But today we just played our hearts out.

Being a private school and having a player like this helps. It can't be anything but a positive influence on your program.

This is really cool. It's great to see all the little kids.

This is the fair that, for whatever reason, has the most buzz to it. It's where you'll find the biggest concentration of clients and dealers. What happens is that that booksellers tend to save up their best material to showcase in New York.

There's a lot of room for education. Most people, when they understand it, think that it's not such a bad thing.

They cannot allow this to die. We have a long fight ahead, but it's nice to start with a modest victory.

It was just a matter of me getting my chance again.

They will not all go to fruition, but we're waiting to see what develops.

Their story resonated with me, because it wasn't that long ago that I had dreams of getting ahead in life. These kids may have made mistakes, but they were robbed of their dreams.

I'm not aware of having to deal with schools that have lost accreditation. Sometimes we deal with schools so new they haven't gone through accreditation process, so you just do best you can with the limited information you have.

This is money in the bank earning interest, not bonds, not debt.

This is a great opportunity and I'm excited to take over as the Georgetown head coach. There is a tremendous amount of potential in Washington and we're confident that we can guide the Hoya program to the top of the Patriot League.

The coaches said this is just like another game, ... They are getting us to be real humble about it.

In the context of your dreams,knowledge will always gives you enough reasons not to act. Act regardless and execute xceptionally

Clearly, we are self-made. We are the first technology. We are part inventor and part the invented

The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All othertopologies limit what can happen

A complaint is a unique opportunity to strengthen the relationship with the client.

Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.

We are reaching deep within ourselves to adjust the master knob.

The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.

We are infected by our own misunderstandin g of how our own minds work.

We have to get better at believing the impossible.

The very long tail of the future is already here.

Well, here's what you can do, and that's about it.

Our mission as humans is not only to discover our fullest selves in the technium, and to find full contentment, but to expand the possibilities for others. Greater technology will selfishly unleash our talents, but it will also unselfishly unleash others: our children, and all children to come.

Technology is anything that doesn't work yet.

Any believable prediction will be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable.

Our society lacks a feedback loop for controlling technology: a way to gauge intended effects from actual effects later on

Preserve the core, and let the rest flux. In their wonderful bestseller Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a convincing argument that long-lived companies are able to thrive 50 years or more by retaining a very small heart of unchanging values, and then stimulating progress in everything else. At times "everything" includes changing the business the company operates in, migrating, say, from mining to insurance. Outside the core of values, nothing should be exempt from flux. Nothing.

The young are always coming up with the good ideas; it's because they waste time. They follow their passion and do something, not looking for a payoff, just doing what's interesting.

Humans are the reproductive organs of technology. We multiply manufactured artifacts and spread ideas and memes.

Evolution doesn't care about what makes sense; it cares about what works

We're just at the beginning of the beginning of all these kind of changes. There's a sense that all the big things have happened, but relatively speaking, nothing big has happened yet. In 20 years from now we'll look back and say, 'Well, nothing really happened in the last 20 years.'

Technology is all the accumulated usefulness that our minds invent.

Nobody is as smart as everybody.

My major goal in business was to learn. I had legislated in my mind for failure the worse possible scenario was I would learn a lot regardless of the outcome. This goal was the foundation for success of the business. Peldi, Balsamiq

There is nothing to be found in a beehive that is not submerged in a bee. And yet you can search a bee forever with cyclotron and fluoroscope, and you will never find the hive.

Why fear feedback? Why stigmatize failure in the workplace when it's bringing you closer to achieving your organizational goals.

In 2007, Stanford Business School Advisory committee asserted that self awareness was the most important attribute a leader should develop. The challenge for the modern entrepreneur is to take that path.

Attention deficit is no longer the supposed domain of Generation Y's who were brought up on a diet of social media and new technology. A recent study revealed 65 percent of 55-64 year olds surf, text and watch television simultaneously.

How do entrepreneurs survive their early failures? They don't view their failures as failures - they view these experiences as feedback, and a prelude to future success.

Managing bottom-up change is its own art.

Your greatest job is shedding what you don't have to do.

Wherever the Net arises, there arises also a rebel to resist human control...A network nurtures small failures in order that large failures don't happen as often. It is...fertile ground for learning, adaptation, and evolution...The only organization capable of unprejudiced growth, or unguided learning, is a network. All other topologies limit what can happen.

I work in a "you scratch my back, and I'll stab yours" kind of a place.

Softball isn't just a game it's away of life.

‎What color is a chameleon placed on a mirror? ... The chameleon responding to its own shifting image is an apt analog of the human world of fashion. Taken as a whole, what are fads but the response of a hive mind to its own reflection? In a 21st-century society wired into instantaneous networks, marketing is the mirror; the collective consumer is the chameleon.

This is the culmination of a lot of people's vision. I think this is just another step towards making Central Michigan football among the elite programs in the Mid-American Conference.

Technology is anything that was invented after you were born.