The square peg and the workplace

Here’s a recent find, the “You’re the Boss” blog in the New York Times (H/T Phil Stott at CNBC).  What drew me in was this tough-minded post on happy employees by Jay Goltz.  “A tough-minded post on happy employees”, you say?  Yes indeed, for as Goltz notes: Have you ever seen a company or department [...]

Why presentations become bullet list deserts

I assume that many of you are familiar with Edward Tufte and his indictment of current presentation practices: “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint“.  If not, you should read the essay.  For me, it was like looking at a personal “worst of”.  But while Tufte tells me what’s wrong, I don’t get much insight on how [...]

Matt Ridley stole my post’s title

Well, sort of… I was going to call my post on his WSJ column “Effect and Cause”.   Then I checked his blog and found he had cross-posted the piece on his blog using my title.  The nerve! OK, enough mock self-absorption.  The WSJ title is less clever, but more direct: “When Scientists Confuse Cause and [...]

If you don’t read Reihan Salam, start now

Reihan is one of the most prolific and wide-ranging writers I know (The Agenda blog here, he also writes for The Daily).  His post “The Power of Good Management and the Frontier Dilemma” is a great example of his balance of theory, thought, and practice. First, he links to and summarizes an article presenting an [...]

New reverse psychology how-to YouTube

If this isn’t viral already, it will be soon. H/T: CBS News

The Tsunami and Knowledge Management

Talk about wisdom of the ancients… this CBS News article highlights the Japanese village of Aneyoshi, which heeded the warning of an old stone marker: “High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants,” the stone slab reads. “Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.” The east [...]

Scott Adams on a “real” college education

The Dilbert creator writes occasionally for the Wall Street Journal and has had some great pieces.  This past week’s entry hit on the mismatch between college student and curriculum: I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, [...]

Good to see some humility in finance

Saw Joe Kernan’s interesting CNBC interview with a quant-oriented investment manager, David Harding of Winton Capital Management. As suggested in my subject line, Harding and the crew at Winton apparently have some humility about their approach.  When Genius Failed — Roger Lowenstein’s tale of the rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management — is [...]

Petraeus on Change and Lessons Learned

Still cleaning out the “blog ideas” attic and found this gem.  In this speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Gen. David Petraeus presented the Iraq surge as an organizational change problem.  He has clearly lived the change process, both in theory and practice: [T]here are four steps to institutional change. First, you have to get [...]

Dissin’ Tycho Brahe

Found this interesting article about a pair of amateur rocketeers…manned rocketeers, that is.  Very cool, though slightly mad. What spun me up was this passage about the name of their craft: called HEAT-1X Tycho Brahe (named after a 16th century Danish discoverer of a supernova). Tycho Brahe…and all Discovery News could come up with was [...]