Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
It’s possible to love your job and hate it at the same time: On one side of the equation, there are the elements of work that, if not done right, will cause us to be dissatisfied. These are the hygiene factors: status, compensation, …
In his new book The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, Jonathan Gottschall puts forth the argument that storytelling’s deceptions emerge from deeply human needs. The Atlantic’s Maura Kelly investigates: When we tell …
We easily think associatively, we think metaphorically, we think causally, but statistics requires thinking about many things at once, which is something that System 1 is not designed to do. Appreciating uncertainty is not exactly rewarded …
We all know first impressions matter. We’ve all been told to be extra careful about how we come across in the initial seconds of a job interview or a first date. So we sweat over handshakes and shirt colors. But first impressions aren’t so …
What they don’t seem to teach you in business school is that “the five forces” and “the seven Cs” and every other generic framework for problem solving are heuristics: they can lead you to solutions, but they cannot make you think. Via The …
Your memory changes every time you tell a story. Police have to be very careful when questioning witnesses. They basically treat a witness’s memory like a crime scene: once you go over it a single time, it’s irreversibly …
Some insightful comments by Steve Jobs on the information economy. Jobs argues that television is causing us to think less than we used to. We live in an information economy, but I don’t believe we live in an information society. …
Steve Jobs with an interesting perspective on what design means Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. The design of the Mac wasn’t what …
From Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength Contrary to popular stereotype, alcohol doesn’t increase your impulse to do stupid or destructive things; instead, it simply removes restraints. It lessens self-control in two ways: …
Consumer.ology I enjoyed the first part of the book, which explores the fallacy of market research and the complex reality about consumers and the psychology of shopping. A summary paragraph: “The unconscious mind is the real driver …
Companies don’t need to ask you if you’re pregnant, they know from the change in your purchases. And sometimes they even know you’re pregnant before you do. This fascinating article in the New York Times takes a look at …
An eloquent explanation on the difference between mysteries and puzzles by Gregory Treverton: There’s a reason millions of people try to solve crossword puzzles each day. Amid the well-ordered combat between a puzzler’s mind and …
Working alone is out. Organizations, schools, and culture are in the thrall of what Susan Cain calls “the new groupthink,” which holds that creativity derives from our gregariousness. “Most of us,” she writes, …
You’ll never look at infomercials the same after reading this post. Robert Cialdini calls But Wait…There’s More “A wholly fascinating account of a wholly fascinating industry.” If you’re interested in how …
The Web offers choice and competition that is only one click away. But in practice, the power of defaults often matters most. This article in the NYT flags some interesting points on technological defaults and privacy. THE default values …
We’re not as adept at seeing reality as we’d like to be. We are pattern matching machines. We see them where they exist and where they don’t exist. We fit what we see to what we know. Dr. Ralph Greenspan says(1): In no …
Most people thought the Internet represented a liberation from conformity where ideas, freedom of information, creativity ruled. But what role does our need to belong play? What role does the simple “like” button play in social …
Nassim Taleb’s article, The Black Swan of Cario, (PDF) on suppressing volatility is worth a read. It’s the ultimate example of iatrogenics by the fragilista. Here are my notes. Complex systems that have artificially suppressed …
When you’re faced with problems, do you have the right tools to handle them? I didn’t use to. My approach consisted mostly of guesswork and dumb luck. It worked sometimes. But I wanted to improve my ability to make good decisions. So I …
One natural human bias is that we tend to draw strong conclusions based on few observations. This bias, misconceptions of chance, shows itself in many ways including the gambler and hot hand fallacies. Such biases may induce public opinion …
Spending time alone, if done right, can be good for you. Certain tasks and thought processes are best carried out without anyone else around. One ongoing Harvard study indicates that people form more lasting and accurate memories if they …
How can someone so smart be so stupid? We’ve all asked this question after watching a perfectly intelligent friend or relative pull a boneheaded move. “There is a narrow set of cognitive skills that we track and that we call intelligence. …
Practice activities are worthless without useful feedback about the results. Here is a wonderful excerpt from Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else: The best performers observe themselves …
A beautiful excerpt from Herbert Simon’s Strategy and Organizational Evolution: Anticipating the future means detecting, preferably prospectively,novel features in the environment that may affect the firm significantly in the future, …