The Writer’s Role
E.B. White, noted author of Charlote’s Web and co-author of The Elements of Style, answers a question on the role of the writer in a society that has become increasingly enamored of and dependent upon science and technology. The …
E.B. White, noted author of Charlote’s Web and co-author of The Elements of Style, answers a question on the role of the writer in a society that has become increasingly enamored of and dependent upon science and technology. The …
“States don’t fail overnight. The seeds of of their destruction are sown deep within their political institutions.” Is it culture, weather, or Geography? What about war or some singular event that re-writes history? In …
What happens if you take Time magazine’s list of the 100 best novels from 1923 to the present and look at some of the ‘best’ one-star reviews posted on Amazon.com? Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) “Obviously, a lot people …
If you study the root causes of business disasters and management missteps, you’ll often find a predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. Many companies’ decision-making systems are designed to steer investments to …
Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman talks with the Guardian about his pessimistic mother, the delusion of investment bankers and the need for irony. Human beings cannot comprehend very large or very small numbers. It would be …
Dale Carnegie is known for his practical, no-nonsense approach to advice. Interestingly, a section on 7 rules for making your home life happier was included in the original 1936 edition of How to Win Friends and Influence People but omitted …
As James Surowiecki illustrates in an excellent piece in the New Yorker, the pursuit of perfect fairness causes a lot of terrible problems in system function. Surowiecki calls this The Fairness Trap: …Rationally, then, this standoff …
The point of regression analysis is to make predictions based on past relationships. “My concern,” one of the authors of the paper said, “is that when reading economics journal articles you get the impression that the …
Emma Coats, a storyboard artist at Pixar Animation, recently tweeted a series of “story basics,” on how to create appealing stories: #1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes. #2: You gotta keep in mind …
One of the theories is cognitive dissonance—we find it difficult to hold contradictory ideas in our head at the same time. Cognitive dissonance predicts that given the choice between our emotional ties and facts, we’ll pick emotional …
You probably don’t know as much as you think you do. When put to the test, most people find they can’t explain the workings of everyday things they think they understand. Don’t believe me? Find an object you use daily (a …
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 …
Many promising executives derail sometime during their careers, often because they weren’t very good at office politics. Not playing the political game is often seen as a good thing, even a badge of honor. Some managers see it as …
Interesting article by Richard Thaler on encouraging good citizenship by making the desired behavior more fun: Lotteries are just one way to provide positive reinforcement. Their power comes from the fact that the chance of winning the …