As a scientist, I want to explore the great wonders our ocean has to offer. As a conservationist, I need to explore the vital human-ocean connection: how the ocean can provide for people and how our impacts affect the health of our oceans. This is critically important for us this century. Our population is rapidly growing toward 9 billion people and our demand for food, fresh water and energy is predicted to double. The deep sea is the most hostile environment on Earth. Reaching it requires the same kind of methods, technology and expertise required for exploring space. Yet despite the similarity in how we employ technology to explore both the ocean and space, there is a great disparity between the amount of funding put toward space exploration and ocean exploration. The result? We have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of our own planet’s sea floor. The essence of the hutong had more to do with spirit than structure: it wasn’t the brick and tiles and wood that mattered; it was the way that people interacted with their environment. And this environment had always been changing, which created residents like Good Old Wang, who was pragmatic, resourceful, and flexible. There was no reason for such people to feel threatened by the initial incursions of modernity — if anything, such elements tended to draw out the hutong spirit, because residents immediately found creative ways to incorporate a McDonald’s or an Olympic toilet into their 网页链接 nobody appreciates the exercise stations more than hutong residents. The machines are scattered throughout old parts of the city, tucked into narrow alleyways. At dawn and dusk, they are especially busy — older people meet in groups to chat and take a few rounds on the pendulum. On warm evenings, men sit idly on the machines and smoke cigarettes. The workout stations are perfect for the ultimate hutong sport: hanging around in the street with the 网页链接 second, he added, “is leadership — in particular emergent leadership as opposed to traditional leadership. Traditional leadership is, were you president of the chess club? Were you vice president of sales? How quickly did you get there? We don’t care. What we care about is, when faced with a problem and you’re a member of a team, do you, at the appropriate time, step in and lead. And just as critically, do you step back and stop leading, do you let someone else? Because what’s critical to be an effective leader in this environment is you have to be willing to relinquish power.”Google attracts so much talent it can afford to look beyond traditional metrics, like GPA. For most young people, though, going to college and doing well is still the best way to master the tools needed for many careers. But your degree is not a proxy for your ability to do any job. The world only cares about — and pays off on — what you can do with what you know. And in an age when innovation is increasingly a group endeavor, it also cares about a lot of soft skills — leadership, humility, collaboration, adaptability and loving to learn and re-learn. This will be true no matter where you go to work.