Many people complain that they get too many emails and there’s even a phenomenon called Inbox Zero. But do we really get that many emails? And do we really want fewer emails? In the book The Tyranny of Email, John Freeman claims the average office worker “sends and receives two hundred emails a day.” According…
Archive | 2017
The Chatham House Rule and Confidentiality
I recently took part in an event which the organizers described as happening under the Chatham House Rule. After talking to many of the participants, I realized we were uncertain exactly what this meant. We assumed the rule implied confidentiality – but we disagreed on how much. Most of us were wrong. Founded in 1920,…
A One-Question Test for Narcissism
Do you know someone you think is a narcissist? A narcissistic personality is characterized by inflated views of the self, extreme vanity, and obsessive self-importance. The term comes from the mythical Greek character, Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water. Entranced by his own beauty, Narcissus stared…
Unleash Your Inner William Gibson
Welcome to the future. It is a common complaint that we were promised jetpacks and flying cars but all we got was… something less cool. But the complaints are mostly unwarranted. Things that seemed like science fiction not long ago are now commonplace (or soon will be): under-the-skin GPS, 3D printing, hoverboards, lab-grown leather, self-heating…
Bikeshedding is avoiding tough problems
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This commonly-used phrase reminds us that, no matter how far away a deadline is, we always seem to be rushed to complete the task. Some even cite it as evidence that setting impossibly short deadlines is good for efficiency. While most of us are…
Successful Authors Explain Why They Write
If writing were illegal I’d be in prison. I can’t not write. It’s a compulsion. — David Baldacci For most, writing isn’t a lucrative profession; it’s a passion. According to Meredith Maran, “one million manuscripts are currently searching for a U.S. publisher. One percent of these will get the nod.” But publishing a book isn’t…
It’s time to fix how we board airplanes
I travel often enough that when people ask me where I’m based, I sometimes joke “Seat 4F.” I’ve been able to observe a lot of passengers boarding planes. Based on what I’ve seen, how we board airplanes doesn’t work very well. And based on what I’ve read, it doesn’t make sense either. All U.S. airlines…
If you’re a logophile or lexiphile, you’ll like paraprosdokians
Recently a colleague sent me an email which said “since you’re a lexiphile, you might like these phrases and use them in a future blog”. He included a list of 10 punny sentences like this one: Police were called to the daycare center, where a three-year-old was resisting a rest. He was right – I…
Banished Words 2017
You, Sir are living in a historic time. Post-truth politics gets carefully manicured through fake news and propagated bigly via an echo chamber. By my guesstimate, everyone’s favorite bête noire is the overuse of the word ‘disruption’. Am I on fleek? There’s no reason to get your dandruff up. During a town hall meeting, Lake…