Category: insight
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The End Is Nigh?
When I was writing this piece about the effect of social networks in financial markets, I was reminded about another New Scientist article I'd read a couple of months ago which, in a related fashion, suggested that once human society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Most civilisations in history…
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Financial Flocking
Wonderfully Herd-like feature in this weeks New Scientist talking about the inner workings of financial markets and theorising about the inadequacies of prevalent economic theory and the potential real causes behind the current financial malaise. Traditional economic theory posits that markets operate in 'equilibrium'. They are affected by changes in surrounding forces – good news…
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Being Young
Decent presentation from MTV Asia looking at the relationship between the young and their media. I quite like "youth don’t need another website"… http://static.slideshare.net/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=mtv-asia-being-young-1204774154995613-4 | View | Upload your own Via
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Same As It Ever Was
I saw Sir Tim Berners-Lee interviewed at Innovation Edge on Wednesday. He made an important distinction in defining what the web (his invention) is now all about, describing it as like a teenager – expanding its horizons, flexing its muscles, beginning to understand what it was really capable of. And in that context "the web…
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Columbo And The Art of Insight
There was always a moment in every Columbo episode where Peter Falk was on his way out the door and he'd pause, turn around, and say "Just one more thing…". I've always believed that insight should be a key driver of business strategy and thinking which is perhaps why I like this presentation by Matthew…
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Same Same But Different
How different are the British from the Americans? The Economist has just run a survey interviewing a thousand Brits and a thousand Americans with the same questions relating to social, economic and political matters. The differences are quite stark. Amongst the nuggets (including some paraphrased from the feature): 80% of Americans believe there is a…
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How To Be Happy
Lee from Serendipity Book posted a great quote from philosopher Dan Dennett – a one sentence definition of happiness: "Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it." This more altruistic approach to finding fulfillment may well work – at least according to this opinion piece by Michael Steger, Director of…
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The Secret of Motivation
It’s been a bit tough getting back into work again after the christmas break so I guess it’s ironic I should be posting about this but there was a great article in New Scientist before christmas about procrastination (I would have posted about it before but I procrastinated). Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhikers Guide…
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The Future of Entertainment
Recently we worked with the Future Foundation (and some other consortium members including Sony, Orange, EMI, Channel 4, The Guardian) on a research project called “Entertainment Futures” which attempted to explore and define the role of leisure, entertainment and all forms of escape in the modern world and what this might mean for people over…
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Google Brain
Intriguing little snippet in this weeks New Scientist about how Google’s search alogorithm may mimic the way that the human brain retrieves information. A study by Psychologist Tom Griffiths at The University of California, Berkeley, tested Pagerank’s methodology (of ranking sites by the number of sites that link to them) against other word-retrieval methodologies and…