Kathryn Skelton
Cornish gal living it up in the Big Smoke; punk folk enthusiast, museum addict, cider drinker and farmer's daughter. Knower Of Things at FutureLearn.
Location London
Activity
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I've never thought about storytelling as a management technique; this is something I will try to ponder on - how does it apply to my team and how could it help us engage better with our work, each other, and the rest of the company?
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I find directing difficult when I am working with someone who has entirely different domain knowledge than me. I am a strategist, but I manage data scientists - they know much better than me how to do their jobs! I think this is maybe where coaching comes in... I try to help by coaching them to understand the context, articulate their questions, explore their...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
From my experience of being managed, I think the most important thing is to know where people are trying to go in their roles and careers, and give them tasks and opportunities to help them get there. My best managers have found out about my ambitions, strengths and weaknesses, and given me opportunities and helped me to reflect on my work accordingly.
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I thought this was a really interesting comment, as I feel the same!! However! I managed a person from Germany once, and he found it really confusing and annoying that I didn't 'issue commands' - he explained to me that based on his experience in Germany, your manager does literally tell you to do stuff and how to do it, rather than asking what you think and...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Hm. I have literally no idea which of these I am good at. I might have to ask my team to fill in an anonymous survey!!
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I think that's a really interesting perspective, Victoria. I wonder, as machines get better at dealing with themselves (as robotics and artificial intelligence develop), how that will impact the importance of uniquely human 'people skills'? Maybe it will make us value people skills even more, as something which is very hard for machines to replicate? What do...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Most basically, I think people skills are integral to businesses because in nearly all situations, people are the link between inputs and outputs - whether that's money in, money out, or money in, impact out. If you don't have the skills to work with people, and help them be effective, then you aren't going to achieve your desired outputs without wasting A LOT...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Hi everyone - for me, the most interesting part of managing people is seeing how their goals and ambitions can impact and improve their work, when someone takes the seed of an idea or an opportunity and develops it and then eventually completely knocks it out of the park without you even having to help them any more. That's what makes it rewarding!
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
To be honest, 5 portions of fruit / veg a day is the only dietary reference point which really sticks with me. Everything else is too contentious / complicated / overwhelming to remember and/or use! Ironically, despite knowing '5 a day', I don't actually count my portions of fruit and veg... and I'm also aware that's '5 a day' is in part just about public...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I particularly like the perspective at the end of this video - about what's the most helpful way of thinking about over-eating in order to help address the problems it can cause. A diagnosis of addiction is only as useful as the improvements in treatment it can lead to.
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I think anything can be psychologically addictive, including food. But I don't think food is physically addictive - like addictive drugs can be - as it doesn't cause the neurological changes which physical addiction does, and therefore the strength of any addiction is probably lower in comparison to things like booze or heroine.
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Ernest Pratt
Thanks Evie (and Alex) - good to know!
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I use olive oil and some vegetable (rapeseed) oil in cooking; don't have bread much, but when I do, it's usually with a low-fat (vegetable or olive oil based) spread. My other main source of fat is cheese! I don't think there's an mono- or polyunsaturated fat version of that.
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Ernest Pratt
That is my question too, Ernest - I understood that, after exercise, I would need more protein than usual to rebuild over-worked muscle tissue. Although I imagine there is still a limit as to how much additional protein is useful; presumably the gut can only absorb up to a certain amount...
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BMI of 22. I was up at 24.5 about 6 months ago, which felt a bit close for comfort, and was a really good stimulus for getting some excess weight off!
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I wouldn't describe obesity as a disease in itself; I think it's a physical state (maybe even a symptom?) which can cause, and be caused by, disease. I see the overall increase in obesity in humans as being caused by an environment which our biology is not well adapted to... but of course, there are a lot of individual differences - not everyone is clinically...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Hi everyone, I'm Kathy, and I've joined this course because my team has recently expanded to cover an area of the business which I'm less familiar with. I want to get better at managing because I think that will help me to overcome my lack of experience in this particular area. More generally, I hope to learn some useful frameworks and pick up some practical...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I think that the positives (use in medicine, forensics, etc.) outweigh the negatives (primarily privacy) in principle. The problems for me arise around related issues of security (could someone somehow find out more about me than I know myself), possible commercialisation (what if my information was sold to e.g. a medical insurance company), and informed...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Any evidence provides more clarity than no evidence! The fingermarks strongly indicate that a third person was involved in the incident (although "who" it was remains to be determined), opening the passenger door to access Mrs W ("what" happened) . As others have said, we now that the "when" part of the incident involves a trip down to the Loch ("where")....
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Sadly, a lack of sellotape (TM) means I've used non-transparent parcel tape, which makes the whole thing rather more challenging... but I've definitely identified a whorl on my thumb, and four very similar right-oriented loops on my fingers. Fun!
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Steve M
I agree - rather than having a cut-off (16+ minutiae = confirmed identity"), it seems sensible to allow an expert to bring to bear all the evidence they have and make an informed judgement.
People are very skeptical about "subjectivity" in fingerprint identification - but humans are actually rather good at making comparisons and identifying similarities...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
So, like most things, the evidence itself might be infallible (the finger mark could be perfect, and they are likely to be a unique marker of identify) but the process of interpretation (ACE-V) - as other people say - is subject to human error and bias.
I think the idea of trying to remove bias by separating the fingerprint experts from the case is very...
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Judith Murch
Very factual and thorough; can I just say "ditto"? The only thing I have to add is that the motive provided by the witnesses so far is robbery, which is presumably something worth testing (e.g. did something obvious and valuable get left behind for no obvious reason, thus casting doubt on this explanation).
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
1. Who are the victim (i.e. confirm her identity) and the witnesses (Mr Ward and Mr Duggan)?
2. Where did the shootings take place? (I.e. was it really at that spot, in / by the car, and what was the position of the gunman)
3. Were there any other witnesses - and if so, what did they see? (NB. Not just witnesses to the crime, but other people who could...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Having scanned a few of the comments, I'd say firstly that I don't have enough information yet to accuse Mr Ward of killing his wife with Mr Duggan as an accomplice! Although it doesn't seem that the available evidence (e.g. position of car, position of gunshot wound, blood, Mr Ward's injury, position of Mrs Ward's body) matches Mr Ward's story, I'd be trying...
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Fiona Hyams
I agree, Fiona. It's easy to say "the janitor did it - it's always the janitor!" (or the ex-employee / jilted girlfriend / person who was being blackmailed, or whatever) but in real life I would expect it to be less dramatically satisfying and more... boring! Think horses before zebras, as they say.
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Me too! Just in time :)
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I would define Forensic Science as the application of scientific (that is, experimentally proven) techniques, practices and observations, to investigating and solving crimes. My scant knowledge is just from TV, but even that gives a glimpse into the many branches of forensic science; forensic psychology, for example, is just as fascinating as DNA analysis. I...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
My version of this is the "second cheapest wine" paradox - see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlg3H1StHpQ (don't pretend you don't do the same). Actually, I don't think it's paradoxical...
Firstly, I might not choose the cheapest wine because my friends (or the waiter!) would look down on me - which is a rational decision (although as with the Asch study,...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I agree with the people who've suggested objective quantitative measures of quality of life. I think happiness is too nebulous and too subjective a thing to focus on.
The relativity idea also suggests there could be personal value in reducing the gap between rich and poor - less difference between me and my betters, therefore I feel better off. OR do I feel...
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Michael Hutton
I agree, it doesn't seem very realistic, so I'd question if it's representative of real life. I'd also question whether electric shocks are a valid thing to test, most people don't have much experience with shocks so it's not surprising they make illogical judgements based on the limited cues available.
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
Isn't it actually logical to quibble over small amounts, because they tend to crop up more?
Nick explains this by saying that "there are a lot of small sums of money, both positive and negative in our minds, and very few big ones" and that this means we care a lot about the small sums.
But small sums (my daily coffee, my trip to work, the stuff I buy...
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Robert Miles
Same on "Deal or no deal" - even though the game is all about chance, people have a "system" that they're sure will work. More irrationality!
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Kathryn Skelton replied to Malcolm Fowles
I would have missed it too! I was rubbish in the week 1 experiment too, so I guess change blindness as tested in an experiment generalises pretty well into the real world - in my case at least!
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I very much accept that my choices are influenced by others. For example, I trust the editors of Which magazine to tell me which is the best mattress to buy; I trust my friend when she tells me a club is good. But those both feel very rational (Which has empirical data; my friend and I have similar taste); what's more unsettling is when my choices are...
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
I wonder what role verbalisation plays in these biases. Is it verbalisation which triggers the bias? if so, is a pre event thought you've spoken or written down less susceptible to hindsight bias, because the opportunity for bias has been and gone? I would expect it to be less susceptible although possibly just because once you've verbalised something you...
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My friends and I call that "type 2 fun"! I don't know whether I agree it's a protective mechanism though; in the experiment nick mentioned where the subject was paid $20, they were left with a more negative memory, which suggests there is another reason. Efficiency, maybe? Why bother remembering something which you now know is wrong, after all.
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Kathryn Skelton made a comment
The piece of evidence about scrappy writing is an interesting one. I don't disagree we might make those assumptions, and we also might be unaware of our biases and therefore come up with "stories" to explain them - but there are other areas where we WOULD be aware - like CVs, where a badly spelt or laid out document would be enough to put you off someone...
