【英语语言学习】你的浏览器透露了你多少信息

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We turn now to a story about a missed opportunity. Several years ago, Adam Grant was approached to become an early investor¹ in Warby Parker - you know, the first startup to sell eyeglasses online. Grant is a management consultant² who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania's business school. So he spends his days looking at who and what makes successful businesses. In his new book, "Originals: How Non-conformists Move The World," Grant details how he decided³ not to invest in Warby Parker. He says it was because the founders⁴ were doing this startup thing part-time. And he wasn't sure they were committed.

ADAM GRANT: I thought to be an entrepreneur, you have to be a risk-taker and you have to be all in.

MARTIN: Yeah.

GRANT: And what I didn't realize at the time was, first of all, successful entrepreneurs are much more likely to play it safe and have backup plans than failed entrepreneurs. And secondly⁵, all of the time they spent working on other things was giving them the freedom to do something really original. If they had - if they had just gone in and started the company, they would have felt the pressure to release their product immediately. Instead, they had the time to figure out that they needed a home try-on program to get people to make the leap and order glasses online.

MARTIN: Something I thought was interesting in the book, you say that original thinkers are more likely to challenge the status quo. That's kind of obvious. But it extends to just even very basic behaviors.

GRANT: Oh, I love this study. So I'm sitting at a conference one day, and this economist⁶, Mike Housman, presents a study showing that we can predict your job performance and your commitment at work just by knowing what web browser⁷ you use. And I was stunned⁸ to find out that people who use Chrome and Firefox, this is in, like, customer service and call center jobs, were better performers on the job. They also, on average, stayed around in those jobs 15 percent longer than their poor Internet Explorer and Safari⁹ peers. And a lot of people hear this study and think, well, great. If I want to get better at my job, I should just download a new browser.

MARTIN: (Laughter).

GRANT: Not quite the point, right? The point is, what browser you use signals something about the way that you tend to live your life. If you use Firefox or Chrome, you have to download those browsers¹⁰. Whereas Safari and Internet Explorer, they come pre-installed on your computer. They're the default. And if you're the kind of person who just accepts the default, you tend not to take as many original steps as the rest of us. If you're somebody who had that instinct to say, you know, I wonder if there's a better browser out there, that's just a tiny clue that you might be the kind of person who's willing to reject other defaults in your life too.

MARTIN: You say that if you're stuck in a job you don't like, instead of just quitting, the original thinker will try to figure out how to redefine the job description in order to make it a more satisfying experience. How does that work?

GRANT: Yeah. It's called job crafting. So a couple of colleagues and I studied this at Google. And we found that there were all sorts of ways that they could make modifications¹¹ to their own jobs that made them more meaningful, more motivating and still allowed them to be very effective. There was one person who really, really hated working on spreadsheets. And she found someone else in her team who loved spreadsheets. And they were able to do a little bit of a task swap¹².

MARTIN: That sounds great. But oftentimes, people have to make a case to a manager about why, you know - I don't like to do spreadsheet, so I don't want to do them. I'm going to find someone else to do them.

GRANT: I think that you have to earn status before you can exercise that kind of power. So what that means is you have to demonstrate that you're excelling in your job at first. And then, what most managers do, is they give leeway if you've ended up being a star performer.

MARTIN: You say in the book that experience isn't necessarily a good thing when trying to cultivate creativity or original thinking. How so?

GRANT: I think this happens to all of us. The more familiar you become with the domain¹³, the more you tend to see things just like everyone else and get stuck or entrenched¹⁴ in one particular way of doing things. So if you study, for example, fashion designers, the most original fashion collections come from the designers who have not only traveled abroad but who have spent the most time working abroad in countries that are maximally different from their own. Of course, not everyone is going to go work abroad, but is there a chance to rotate to a different job and gain a little bit of familiarity with the skill that you haven't tested before? That's the kind of stretching that helps people ultimately become more original.

MARTIN: But it's also kind of daunting¹⁵, right? Like, we're ingrained with this idea that you need to develop an expertise¹⁶. You need to be good at something. And that's what society values, especially if you're in the middle-to-late stages of a career.

GRANT: But you'll find that practice makes perfect. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't make new. And I think that we can all find ways to break out of the frame of repeating something over and over again until we've mastered it. A lot of times, it doesn't even happen in our jobs. So if you study Nobel Prize-winning scientists, one of the things that differentiates¹⁷ them from their peers is that they're way more likely to have artistic¹⁸ hobbies. Galileo is one of my favorite examples of this. He was the first to spot mountains on the moon. And he was looking through a telescope at an image that many of his peers had seen as well. The only reason he spotted¹⁹ it was because he was trained in a particular drawing technique that led him to recognize some of the patterns as mountains. And I think there are all kind of connections we can draw between artistic engagement and the actual work we do, if only we paid attention to them.

MARTIN: Adam Grant, his book is "Originals: How Non-conformists Move The World." Thanks so much for talking with us, Adam.

GRANT: Thank you.

1 investor   

n.投资者，投资人

参考例句：

• My nephew is a cautious investor.我侄子是个小心谨慎的投资者。
• The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

2 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

5 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

6 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

7 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

8 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

9 safari   

n.远征旅行(探险、考察)；探险队，狩猎队

参考例句：

• When we go on safari we like to cook on an open fire.我们远行狩猎时，喜欢露天生火做饭。
• They went on safari searching for the rare black rhinoceros.他们进行探险旅行，搜寻那稀有的黑犀牛。

10 browsers   

浏览器

参考例句：

• Three-layer architecture is a model made up of browser, web server and background database server. 这种体系结构是由Browser、Web Server、Database Server组成的浏览器／Web服务器／后台数据库服务器三层模型。 来自互联网
• Another excellent approach is to abandon the browser entirely and, instead, create a non-browser-based, Internet-enabled application. 另一个非常好的方法是干脆放弃浏览器，取而代之，创建一个不基于浏览器，但却是基于互联网的应用。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

11 modifications   

n.缓和( modification的名词复数 )；限制；更改；改变

参考例句：

• The engine was pulled apart for modifications and then reassembled. 发动机被拆开改型，然后再组装起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The original plan had undergone fairly extensive modifications. 原计划已经作了相当大的修改。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

13 domain   

n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围

参考例句：

• This information should be in the public domain.这一消息应该为公众所知。
• This question comes into the domain of philosophy.这一问题属于哲学范畴。

14 entrenched   

adj.确立的，不容易改的(风俗习惯)

参考例句：

• Television seems to be firmly entrenched as the number one medium for national advertising.电视看来要在全国广告媒介中牢固地占据头等位置。
• If the enemy dares to attack us in these entrenched positions,we will make short work of them.如果敌人胆敢进攻我们固守的阵地，我们就消灭他们。

15 daunting   

adj.使人畏缩的

参考例句：

• They were faced with the daunting task of restoring the house.他们面临着修复房子的艰巨任务。
• Starting a new job can be a daunting prospect.开始一项新工作有时会让人望而却步。

16 expertise   

n.专门知识(或技能等)，专长

参考例句：

• We were amazed at his expertise on the ski slopes.他斜坡滑雪的技能使我们赞叹不已。
• You really have the technical expertise in a new breakthrough.让你真正在专业技术上有一个全新的突破。

17 differentiates   

区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的第三人称单数 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征

参考例句：

• This genus of plants differentiates into many species. 这种植物可分为许多种类。
• Our fax machine differentiates between an incoming fax signal and a voice call. 我们的传真机能区分接收传真信号和语音信号。

18 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

19 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。