One method of unlearning is to visualize information and data in new ways. For too long, too many economists and statisticians have assumed that everyone appreciates rare numbers the same way they do. This isn’t true.  Just take a look at the following visualizations of data which I pulled from IBM’s very useful Many Eyes…

A half-million dollars ($500,000) is a half-million dollars, right? Not necessarily. If you are fortunate enough to make that kind of money you think you'd be happy regardless of your situation. But this isn't necessarily the case. According to scientific research, if a person makes $500,000 and all his neighbors make $1 million he is…

“I have what I call an iron prescription that helps me keep sane when I naturally drift toward preferring one ideology over another and that is: I say that I’m not entitled to have an opinion on this subject unless I can state the argument against my position better than the people who support it….

Take a look at the picture to the right. Who do you see? Albert Einstein, right? Now, step away from your computer and look at the picture again. Do you see someone else?   I have said before that we must train our mind (or train our brain) in order to unlearn. The picture to…

“There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.” Daniel Pink  The above quote comes from this wonderful TED presentation by Daniel Pink. If you think you know how to motivate your employees to higher achievement, I strongly urge you to watch the video because it suggests we all have a lot to…

Writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mark Bowden has an excellent commentary entitled "The lost art of influence." At one point he writes, "Being persuasive is hard, because it demands you consider that you might be wrong. To refute opposing points of view capably (and winningly) you must first really hear opposing points of view." Admitting…

In an early key college football matchup, the 8th ranked Ohio State Buckeyes lost to the 3rd ranked USC Trojan's last evening by a score of 18-15. A number of reasons will be given for the defeat and many will be valid. One key decision likely to be overlooked by most observers was Ohio State Coach…

A series of newspapers and Internet sites are reporting on new research, profiled in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which suggests that multi-taskers are worse at multi-tasking. Before jumping on the bandwagon and decrying the scourge of multi-tasking, I would encourage you to read this thoughtful post from one of…

Read the following sentence: A woman without her man is nothing. My guess is that if you're a woman it pissed you off because you read it in the following way: "A woman, without her man, is nothing". If, however, you made just a small change in punctuation it could be read this way: "A…

Quick. I want you to say aloud what color you see in every word in the chart to the right. Do not say the word you read. (For example, sometimes the word "white" will be in the color red so you would say "red.") The quiz, better known as the Stoop task, is a classic…