On Thursday evening I was sat at a low table with Maureen. “It is nice to be able to speak to people”. She clarified “At most events the majority would have had several beers by now”. “We can have a real conversation and I like that.” I knew that Saudi Arabia was alcohol free, but … Read more
Take a look around you. Take a look at the people you work with, the people you meet at parties, even the people you just casually pass in the street. How do they spend their days? Most of them work. They do some other activities as well. They sleep, eat, cook, hang out with friends, … Read more
I was reading a book by Professor Richard Wiseman (nice name for a professor) where he quotes a study by Ellen Langer of Harvard University. Half of the residents in a nursing home were given a houseplant and asked to look after it. The other half were given an identical plant but told that the … Read more
Should we focus on the ends to improve the means or focus on the means to improve the ends? On Monday I spent a couple of hours at IESE in a research seminar where Harvard Professor Julie Battiliana presented her research on professional and organisational identity in two Bolivian commercial microfinance institutions. BancoSol and Banco … Read more
I would place Steve Jobs way up there in my list of powerful public speakers. I think Steve is somebody well worth study because his presentations are so powerful because of how much hard work he puts in to making them that great. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Barrack Obama are great speakers but somehow … Read more
The conclusion: it doesn’t matter how good the idea, it matters what the “buyer” thinks of you as a person in the first few seconds of your pitch. I have just read “How to Pitch a Brilliant idea” by Kimberly Elsbach in the Harvard Business Review. In 150 miliseconds a “buyer” will have categorized you … Read more
The brain: 3 pounds, you could hold it in the palm of your hand… but it can contemplate the vastness of the universe, the reason for its own existance or why I am writing this post at midnight when I need to be up at 5am tomorrow. How? There are 100 billion neurons in the … Read more
I came across the concept of Personal Branding via the blog of Dan Schwabel about 6 months ago and have been a regular reader of his blog. Some ideas have been percolating up through my unconsciousness and drifted into consciousness during a day skiing with my friend Javi. (Thanks to Ana, Piero and friends for … Read more
Yep, I have been watching more TED talks. This time… Daniel Pink. Thanks to Tim for the link. Daniel Pink describes a 1945 Karl Duncker social science experiment called the Candle Problem. Subjects are shown into a room and given the objects as seen in the image to the right and are asked to attach … Read more
Most days are much the same. However, great changes in our world don’t come from normal days – they are driven by the extreme events, the outliers. Something like 70% of all the drops in the US stock exchanges are due to 6 particular days of extreme share price drops. The course of my own … Read more