I shouldn’t be poking fun at this since I’m not a fan of capital punishment and for the affected person this is deadly serious businees.
But, I just can’t resist.
On Wednesday, for the first time in 70 years, Georgia was supposed to execute a woman who ran out of appeals and pardon opportunities.
But, things didn’t go as planned …
According to ChinaSmack.com, most Hong Kong elementary school applicants are able to answer this admissions test question in the allotted 20 seconds.
Can you?
Psst: It’s ok to use scratch paper and a pen or pencil.
Stumped? Here’s the answer and the teaching point …
Had a disappointing technical problem over the weekend.
Here’s what happened and the lesson learned …
Ever wonder why the gun-chewing cashier asks you for your zip code?
I naively assumed the store was just doing some kind of geo-survey … trying to figure out where their customers were coming from … how far they were driving to shop their store.
Silly boy.
CNN reports that ”Every time you mindlessly give a sales clerk your zip code at checkout, you’re giving data companies and retailers the ability to track everything from your body type to your bad habits.”
Whoa, Nellie.
Here’s what’s happening …
Interesting study on cognitive biases from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow …
Patients undergoing a painful medical procedure – think, colonoscopy without anesthesia – recorded their pain levels during the procedure on a range from no pain (zero) to excruciating (10).
Some of the procedures were short in duration … others were longer.
Below is the pain chart for 2 representative patients.
The patients were asked – after the fact—how painful the procedure was.
What’s your bet? Which patient claimed to have undergone the more painful procedure?
According to ChinaSmack.com, most Hong Kong elementary school applicants are able to answer this admissions test question in the allotted 20 seconds.
Can you?
Psst: It’s ok to use scratch paper and a pen or pencil.
Stumped? Here’s the answer and the teaching point …
According to Business Week …
“Disney has launched a $1 billion experiment in crowd control, data collection, and wearable technology that could change the way people play—and spend—at the Most Magical Place on Earth. “
The innovation – called MyMagic – let’s Mickey track every move you make around the old Magic Kingdom.
A couple of years ago I switched off TurboTax when they tried to start charging separately for each computer – meaning that I had to buy 2 licenses to have TurboTax on both my desktop and laptop.
I got back on the program when they backed off that silly pricing hack.
Having learned nothing from that pricing backfire, TurboTax recently got itself in another brouhaha with customers when it tried another pricing sleight of hand.
Here’s what went down …
Excerpted from Think Better …
Among the many discoveries NASA made when it began sending people into space was that the astronauts’ pens did not work well in zero gravity.
The ink wouldn’t flow properly. You can simulate the effect at home by trying to write with the business end of your pen pointing up.
Pretty soon, the ink stops flowing and the pen won’t write.
The solution – giving astronaut’s a way to write upside down — depends on how you frame the problem …
A while ago, we posted The Dude Factor about two recent virals centered on the word “dude”.
Curiosity got the best of me re: the origins and use of the expression “dude”.
First, directly from the Urban Dictionary:
Here’s a brief history of the term …
Lots of hacking going on: Sony, Anthem Healthcare …
Here’s one from the “you can’t make this stuff” file.
LifeLock is one of the companies that monitors the credit applications and credit worthiness inquires.
Todd Davis became LifeLock’s CEO when the company’s founder was ousted for making repeated misleading statements about his shady past and the company’s origins.
For a couple of years, Mr. Davis was prominent in LifeLock’s ads … revealing his social security number and daring identity thieves to crack his code.
Bad idea.
Reportedly, Mr. Davis has had his identity stolen at least 13 times since his taunt-the-thieves commercials.
US News & World Report says to keep these 10 catch phrases off your cover letter:
1. “I meet the requirements for the position.”Explain why you’re an excellent candidate, not just an adequate one.
2. “I’m hard-working and a great communicator.” These are cliches that cause hiring managers’ eyes to glaze over …and don’t convey anything of substance.
3. “I’m a visionary leader.” Proclaiming this about yourself comes across as, well, weird. Show accomplishments.
4. “You won’t find a candidate better qualified than me.” This comes off as needlessly cocky hyperbole — and it’s generally inaccurate..
5. “Dear sir or madam.” In most industries, this will come across as an antiquated, stuffy salutation. If you know the hiring manager’s name, use it … if not, simply writing “dear hiring manager” is fine.
Big shake-up on TV.
First, NBC suspends news anchor Brian Williams for lying like a rug.
Boom!
12 million news watchers of lose their faux-trusted source at MSNBC’s planet ship.
Then, the 2nd shoe fell …
A couple of years ago I jumped on the bandwagon and e-filed my first ever tax return.
A couple of weeks later I was an identity theft victim.
Coincidence?
I can’t prove the connection … I also can’t shake the suspicion.
Now, crooks have a new online hack: filing online returns that claim other folks refunds.
Here’s what’s going on …
Wash Post had an interesting analysis titled “This graph shows how bad the Fed is at predicting the future
The crux of their argument: the Fed has a clear recent tendency to mis-forecast economic growth … not by a little, by a lot … forecasting almost twice as rapid growth as is ultimately realized.
For example, in 2009 the Fed was predicting 4.2 percent growth in 2011. But then in 2010 it revised that down to 3.85 percent growth. And in 2011 they revised it further to 2.8 percent growth. And when all was said and done, the economy only grew about 2.4 percent that year. The Fed projected growth almost twice as fast as what actually happened.
What’s going on?
A lot of chatter over the weekend about how President Obama’s economic policies are – after 6 years — humming.
More than 250,000 more people were employed … but interestingly, the unemployment rate inched up as the labor force participation rate increased a bit.
What’s going on?
A couple of economists at the NBER – the think tank that officially declares when recessions begin and end – just issued a study with an evidenced-based hypothesis …
Fusion.net surveyed 1000 people aged 18-34 about everything from politics to dating.
One finding: The millennials are say they’re engaged ahead of the all-important 2016 election.
That’s a good thing, except …
One question revealed how alarmingly uninformed they are about politics …
I didn’t say it, Jim Clifton, Gallup’s CEO did.
Specifically, he says that he hears all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it.”
The reason: “The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.” It doesn’t capture the true angst in the job market.
The crux of his argument centers on a “good jobs” metric: the ratio of full-time workers to the total adult population.
That ratio dropped about 5 percentage points during the recession and has recouped only about one of those 5 percentage points.
That’s not good.
Clifton brings those numbers to life in his opinion piece …
They focus on customer value.
McKinsey says that leading companies combine insights about customers, competitors, and costs to develop more innovative and cost-effective products.
* * * * *
Excerpted from McKinsey Quarterly’s, “Designing products for value”
A rising tide of prosperity in developing economies is reshaping the nature of competition. Recognizing the challenges of the new environment, a few product makers … are taking a different approach.
Here are some examples:
Sounds like an easy question with an obvious answer, right?
Not really.
Sometimes, properly defining the market is a stumbling block for strategists.
Harvard guru Clayton Christensen tries to cut to the crux with a simple principle:
People “hire” products to do “jobs”
The jobs are situation-specific problems that customers have to resolve.
Christensen says that the best way to define (and segment) is based on “jobs to be done”.
He calls the approach “milkshake marketing” …. the 5-minute video explains why.
Here’s a more rigorous definition of the “Jobs to be DOne” Framework …
I oft say that anybody who pays sticker price at Kohl’s should look over their shoulder to make sure that Darwin isn’t chasing them.
Maybe the same should be said of parents who pay list price tuition to fund their kiddies through college.
Lots of talk re: how college costs are soaring.
According to the WSJ …
Published tuition rates have soared in the last decade, but only a small percentage of families actually pays full freight.
Between grants to needy students and merit scholarships to entice other desirable candidates, schools these days are giving back nearly 50% of gross tuition revenue in the form of aid and awards.
In other words, list prices are going up, but more stuff is being sold at sale prices.
Increasingly, colleges are using pricing methods previously the domain of airlines and discount retailers …
The Homa Files 