So I’ve now gone through the chapter in Carlos’s book on slower is faster in an effort to find some ideas for images. I abstracted his examples into the following table:
| Example | Fast | Slow | Sweet Spot | Important variables |
| Tortoise and Hare | Hare travels with consistency and perseverance | |||
| Task completion, productivity | Too fast and we create stress, make mistakes, breakdown | Too slow and productivity suffers, workers slack off | Pace at which mistakes are tolerated | |
| Racing | Fast pace leads to burnout | Too slow creates self-shame | Pace at which energy use allows one to complete the race at the best possible time. | Type of sport, distance, individual athlete, other |
| Evacuating a crowded space | Panic leads to pushing, trampling, slow exit (turbulent flow) | Obstacles to exit like the seats on an airplane prevents nervous pushing (laminar flow) | Constant unobstructed passage of individuals | Level of panic and nervous pushing, size of exit, density of crowd, obstacles to exit |
| Highway traffic | Increasing speed increases the safe distance needed between cars | Lower speed has shorter safe distance | Match between density, speed, space available to enable smooth (laminar) flow. | As density increases more space is needed |
| Consumption of prey | If predator consumes prey too fast, might starve to death | Prudent predators propagate faster | Steady supply of prey | |
| Fisheries | Take too much too fast and limit the ability to replenish | Matching removal and renewal | ||
| Creative Process | Too fast and no room for idle curiosity | Maximum creativity is when a (dynamic) balance between work and idleness is achieved. | ||
| Searching for solutions | Exploitation: taking advantage of current solutions and trying out small variations: Depth | Exploration: trying very different solutions; Breadth | We discover the precise balance only by trying. | |
| Raising children | Too much praise; why bother | Not enough praise, lack of motivation | ||
| Generalization | A variable (speed, energy, stress) increases the desired property of the system | If it is increased “too much”, there is a phase transition, i.e., the “rules of the game” change, and the desired property is reduced | Usually, the most desirable situation is found near the phase transition; that is, balancing aspects of both phases. However, in many systems, this phase transition moves constantly. | Balance can change; and in some cases, it cannot be known beforehand |
Although incomplete I will share this with Chris and Sam to see which ones catch their attention and might be ripe for some image creation.