May 2015
Corporations and other organizations do not have cultures; they have philosophies and ideologies that form a process in which there is a constant discourse about the nature and expression of values, beliefs, practices, ideas, and goals. This discourse happens in sales meetings, interactions with customers, board meetings, and in conversations around the water cooler. It’s a constantly moving target.
- John Traphagan, "Why Company Culture is a Misleading Term."
What Google searches tell us about sex - by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Are polar bears threatened by warming and loss of polar ice? No, according to a team of evidence-based modelers.
Radical transparency can really work - HBR article
We can all rest assured that investment firms have learned their lesson. Whoops, no we can't, a new study of ethical behavior among investment professionals finds.
Richard Dawkins: The Discontinuous Mind - short essay
Build a Change Platform, not a Change Program - by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini
How the teams at Undercurrent do "load balancing" to manage resources and workflow.
Carefully measuring the effectiveness of giving children bicycles to ride to school in India - great methodology videos
When Climate Models Fail - book by Bob Tisdale
Rather than the Fed moving interest rates by committee, Scott Sumner recommends crowdsourcing the Fed's Open Market operations - cool paper, but a bit technical.
Matt Ridley on why he doesn't believe there will be much man-made global warming this century. - blog
My favorite take on pre-historic global temperature measurement - according to the data we have so far, it looks like we're in a short-term rise in the middle of a long-term cooling trend - by Jo Nova
Sorry Al Gore, but your evidence on global warming is slip-sliding away - how the temperature data was cherrypicked
A MUST SEE video on climate science and the evidence, by Warren Meyer
The classic Dave Snowden/Mary Boone piece on leadership and decision context - HBR article
The evolution of the concept of evolution was complicated and convoluted - NYT article
If a time machine could serve up to you your 200 million greats grandfather, you would eat him with tartar sauce and a slice of lemon. He was a fish. Yet you are connected to him by an unbroken line of intermediate ancestors, every one of whom belonged to the same species as its parents and its children.
- Richard Dawkins
How they run meetings at Medium - blog post
Focus on simple solutions you can test - Fast Company Article
US jails are full of unconvicted poor people who can't afford bail - NY Times opinion
Great tip: use data tables in Excel to create visual what-if scenarios.
The inspiring MindValley TED talk.
Scientific Reports tries to fast-track peer review - and gets a facefull of backlash.
Jeff Bezos's shareholder letter: "Experiments and more experiments."
Did QE cause the markets to rise? It's complicated, says Terry Burnham.
Beware of simple stories told by people like Danny Kahneman and Malcolm Gladwell, they might be wrong.
How to Grow without Crushing Agility and Creativity - they do it at Atlassian every day.
How and why writers should write in pairs.
A demonstration of a brain/body bias - you can't ride a backwards bicycle, even if you think you can.