Why are unimportant decisions so hard for people to make? The conventional wisdom is people don’t make decisions due to the fear of being wrong. However, in “Decision Quicksand: When Trivial Choices Suck Us In,” research suggests excessive information and extraneous choices trick our brains into thinking a decision is more complicated than it really…
I don’t like acronyms because they get in the way of clear communication. Unfortunately, I work in an industry that loves them. Even my best marketers have the irresistible urge to turn every project, every product, and every position into an acronym. There are so many acronyms that no one can keep them straight. Here…
While popular wisdom is that any publicity is good publicity, academic research has largely shown negative word of mouth hurts company brand and sales. For example, negative movie reviews decrease box office receipts to the point that Hollywood pundits believe that it is “almost impossible to recover from bad buzz.” As a specific example, Viacom Chairman…
Would you rather do nothing or do something that serves no purpose? University of Chicago researchers discovered most people, given even a flimsy excuse to be busy, will choose doing something over doing nothing. People were happy when they were busy, even if they were forced to be busy or if the task had no…
Sometimes you have to think outside the camel. At a recent management offsite, I adopted the phrase “Think different, act different” as a rallying cry for the team. I was trying to emphasize the dangers of group think so I reminded them of the story of ten monkeys in the cage. I didn’t just want…
After hours of pre-game hype before Super Bowl 2011, I began to wonder “how super is the Super Bowl?” Compared to other sporting events’ championships, it has gained almost mythic proportions – today is known as “Super Bowl Sunday” and by some estimates trails only Thanksgiving as an American food holiday. I don’t hear that kind…
WordPress.com provides a wide variety of statistics that help you understand the health of your blog. Like most metrics, the WP statistics are one part useful and one part entertainment. To reinforce both of these attributes, earlier this month WP sent an email with their take on my blog. I’ve borrowed from their email but…
The next time you go on a job interview be sure to bring your resume in a heavy, well-constructed portfolio and encourage the person interviewing you to drink a hot beverage. You’re more likely to get the job. Research in the field of embodied cognition has shown job candidates appear more important when they are associated…
One of my most popular blogs is “The No Asshole Rule” which was inspired by a class I took from Professor Robert Sutton. Sutton encourages companies to get rid of workplace assholes who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who are openly aggressive to others with less power. While there’s a detailed on-line…
Lake Superior State University released its 36th annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness”. The list is based on more than 1,000 submissions on their Web site. The winners (losers?) include the Sarah Palin-coined word “refudiate” and the popular online terms “viral” and “fail.” LSSU’s complete list…