Toxoplasma gondii is a common parasite estimated to infect ~10% of the U.S. population and perhaps as many as half in other countries. Few infected people exhibit symptoms, as a healthy person’s immune system usually keeps the parasite from causing illness. However, toxoplasma infection has been linked to a wide variety of outgoing and risk-seeking…
I’m not gaslighting you. We’re at an inflection point of people quiet quitting irregardless if everything is amazing and moving forward. Does that make sense? Absolutely! Since 1976, Lake Superior State University (LSSU) has compiled an annual list of words to be banned. For years, it was described as words to be “banished from the…
If you want to pursue innovation, consider next practices instead of best practices. Best practices look into the past to document processes that can be repeated for specific business problems. Next practices are future-oriented blueprints which allow organizations to better anticipate and respond to strategic issues which have inherent unknowns and risks. Best practices allow…
If you’re watching one of the many Peanuts holiday specials, you might wonder why ice sports show up often. Charles Schulz, the creator of the comic strip and animated cartoon “Peanuts,” was born in Minnesota and fell in love with the game of hockey at an early age. His father took him to St. Paul Saints and Minneapolis…
Ever wonder why you seem to come up with your best ideas when you’re in the shower? Research titled ‘Inspired By Distraction’ claimed you become more creative in your problem solving when you’re doing simple tasks which allow your mind to wander. The authors wrote, “Compared with engaging in a demanding task, rest, or no…
The Stonecutter’s Credo is both an allegory for persistence and a caution about false attribution: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split…
After I watched Top Gun: Maverick, I called a Navy Pilot friend to ask what he thought about the movie. His response: “At the end of the film, there’s no way the F14 could have gotten airborne with such a short run. Without a catapult, it needs about half a mile (2500 feet) to take…
The availability heuristic is a cognitive bias which describes our tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly when making decisions. If we think of something quickly (i.e., it’s more available to our memory), we assume it’s a more frequent and more probable event. If we have a harder time thinking of something (less…
I’ve never been one to watch a lot of television but, like everyone else, started binge watching during the early days of the pandemic. Soon, I was faced with a dilemma: how long should I give a popular TV series before abandoning it for something else? I decided to follow the Rule of 25 for…
If branding is the art of differentiation, blanding might be the science of imitation. We’re witnessing the blanding of brands. Blanding, a term coined in 2018, happens when a challenger brand drafts on the brand recognition of a larger and more established competitor by using similar brand identification (fonts, colors, imagery). Blanding was popularized by…