Think Different

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results......


 - Albert Einstein









He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. 

He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. 

- Albert Einstein 

SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION

Social Networking





Understanding & Communicating with Gen Y

SIMPLICITY

An excellent example of how to do it........www.commoncraft.com

Blogs in Plain English

 

Investing Money in Plain English

Are we in control of our decisions?

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions.

Behavioral Economics Introduction

Standard Economics vs. Behavioral Economics 




Visual and decision illusions






 

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it's OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we're predictably irrational -- and can be influenced in ways we can't grasp.

 

 Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely Introduction From Injury to Behavioral Economics

  


Predictably Irrational Chapter 1 - Everything is Relative  

Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely Chapter 2 Supply and Demand?  

Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely Chapter 3 The Cost of Zero  

Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely Chapter 4 The Cost of Social Norms 

Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely Chapter 5 The Influence of Arousal 

Chapter 6 The Problem of Procrastination 

Chapter 7: The High Price of Ownership

 Chapter 8: Keeping doors open

 

Chapter 9: The effect of expectations

 Chapter 10: The power of price

Chapters 11 and 12: The context of our character

Chapter 13: What is behavioral economics?

First Decisions Matter a Lot

The Temptation of Free

Social vs. Financial Exchanges

We Don't Recognize Ourselves

Self-Control Mechanisms

 

 

High Cost of Attachment

 

Keeping Options Open

Expectations Color Experiences

You Get What You Pay For

Dishonesty: Everyone Cheats a Little Bit

The promise of Behavioral Economics

Preschoolers and Nature vs. Nurture

With affection and humour, parents, caregivers and childcare experts discuss raising the young jungle animals known as preschoolers.

The topic: Preschoolers and Nature vs. Nurture


Nature endows us with inborn abilities and traits; nurture takes these genetic tendencies and molds them as we learn and mature.

Researchers agree that the link between a gene and a behavior is not the same as cause and effect. While a gene may increase the likelihood that you'll behave in a particular way, it does not make people do things. Which means that we still get to choose who we'll be when we grow up.

Question: What would be your favourite example to illustrate nature via nurture?

Answer: My favourite is a study from Dunedin, New Zealand, conducted between 1972 and 1973. Researcher Terrie Moffitt and her colleagues investigated differences in the promoter (or 'switch') region of the brain's serotonin transporter gene which can affect the way people react to stressful life events – things like divorce or bereavement. (Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, a chemical 'messenger' that allows communication between nerve cells.)

The study found that people with one or two copies of the short version of the serotonin promoter showed more symptoms of depression following at least three stressful life events than people with two copies of the long version. For one or two events there was no difference.

In other words, your genome does not make you depressed, but makes you more susceptible to environmental pressures; in this case it makes you more likely to be depressed when you suffer several external setbacks. And that has to be how things like intelligence are determined. A clever person is not born clever, they're born more able to take in teaching, they're born capable of learning.

So it's not a gene for intelligence, it's a gene for learning. A tennis player or scholar may not have been much better at tennis or study to start with, but was innately drawn to doing a lot of tennis or study and practice that made him or her perfect. So the nature sought out the nurture.

Alan Kay shares a powerful idea about ideas

With all the intensity and brilliance for which he is known, Alan Kay envisions better techniques for teaching kids by using computers to illustrate experience in ways -– mathematically and scientifically -- that only computers can.

Why you should listen to him:

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Alan Kay not only coined this favorite tech-world adage, but has proven its truth several times. A true polymath, as well as inventor, he has combined engineering brilliance with knowledge of child development, epistemology, molecular biology and more.

In the 1960s, Kay joined the computer team at XeroxPARC, where he worked on world-changing inventions like the graphical interface, object-oriented programming, and the personal computer itself. Later, at Apple, Atari, HP, Disney, and now at his own nonprofits, he has helped refine the tools he anticipated long before they were realized.

As the industry has blossomed, however, Kay continues to grapple with the deeper purpose of computing, struggling to create the machine that won't only recapitulate patterns in the world as we know it but will teach both children and adults to think, to see what otherwise is beyond them.

"One of the computer industry's most prolific inventors."

Electronic Engineering Times

Jeff Skoll: Making movies that make change

Jeff Skoll was eBay's employee number 2 and president number 1. He left with a comfortable fortune and a desire to spend his money helping others.



Film producer Jeff Skoll (An Inconvenient Truth) talks about his film company, Participant Productions, and the people who've inspired him to do good.

Participant Productions, makes movies to inspire social change, including Syriana; An Inconvenient Truth; North Country; Fast Food Nation; Good Night & Good Luck, Charlie Wilsons War; Dafur Now…


The Skoll Foundation, established in 1999, invests in, connects and celebrates social entrepreneurs -- offering grants to people who build businesses, schools and services for communities in need. Every year, it presents the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford, and runs Social Edge, a networking site for social entrepreneurs.


His production company, Participant Productions, is what Skoll calls a "pro-social media company," making features and documentaries that address social and political issues and drive real change. His film North Country, for example, is credited with influencing the signing of the 2005 Violence Against Women Act. Participant's blockbuster doc, An Inconvenient Truth, is required viewing in classrooms around the world, and has unquestionably changed the debate around climate change. Upcoming for Participant are two films about Afghanistan, and a documentary about Jimmy Carter's controversial 2006-7 book tour.

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce -- and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.

Malcolm Gladwell searches for the counterintuitive in what we all take to be the mundane: cookies, sneakers, pasta sauce. A New Yorker staff writer since 1996, he visits obscure laboratories and infomercial set kitchens as often as the hangouts of freelance cool-hunters -- a sort of pop-R&D gumshoe -- and for that has become a star lecturer and bestselling author.

Sparkling with curiosity, undaunted by difficult research (yet an eloquent, accessible writer), his work uncovers truths hidden in strange data. His always-delightful blog tackles topics from serial killers to steroids in sports, while provocative recent work in the New Yorker sheds new light on the Flynn effect -- the decades-spanning rise in I.Q. scores.

Gladwell has written two books. The Tipping Point, which began as a New Yorker piece, applies the principles of epidemiology to crime (and sneaker sales), while Blink examines the unconscious processes that allow the mind to "thin slice" reality -- and make decisions in the blink of an eye. A third book is forthcoming.

Being Entrepreneurial in Hard Times

Thinking out of the box isn't enough. Leading executive coaches, Marshall Goldsmith and Steven Berglas, talk about entrepreneurs as "socialized juvenile delinquents" who can make a real difference within their corporations

How to Be an Inspiring Leader

Carmine Gallo, author of "Fire Them Up"BW Editor Nick Leiber talks to communications coach Carmine Gallo about how to apply the techniques business leaders use to influence staffers, clients, and investors