Empathy

A boss who says thanks

Any time a marketing guy sends an email about how awesome his boss is, I react with an emotion that registers somewhere between deep suspicion and utter disregard. But earlier this month I received a note from Christopher Jensen, Marketing Team Lead for Modern Survey, whose CEO President, Don MacPherson, I happen to know. Jensen’s story rang […]


Buy a book, save a life

Every 45 seconds, a child dies of malaria. You might feel helpless in the face of such an overwhelming statistic. But there’s something you can do. It’s as easy as a few clicks of a mouse, cheaper than a movie date, and will pay you back many times over. Go to End Malaria Day and […]


A 30-second test to determine whether your boss is a gem or a jerk

Let’s say you and I are talking in person — and I make a strange request: “Take your right forefinger and draw a capital E on your forehead.” There are two ways to do that, of course. You can draw like the guy on the left or like the guy on the right. But which […]


The 44-cent solution

Tom Peters calls it “the pursuit of wow.” Seth Godin calls it being “remarkable.” None of us do it enough — which is why it’s so spectacular when we see it in action. Case in point: Sunday night at the J.W. Marriott in Phoenix. I’ve got a letter to mail, but no stamps. So I go […]


Work$ and play$ well with others

The core argument of AWNM is that left-brain abilities remain absolutely necessary — but that in a world of Asia, automation, and abundance, they’re no longer sufficient.  The current BusinessWeek cites new research that offers another factual brick in this wall: “A new study concludes that social skills can be a better predictor of future earnings than […]


Recession roundup

Yesterday’s item on Jeremy Grantham’s hemispheric explanation for the credit crisis got tons of hits. So to feed a hungry public, let me serve a few other chewy tidbits I’ve collected from the economic meltdown: Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban offers some keen thoughts about how to get rich — especially in times of economic […]


Design and empathy in health care

The Let’s Talk Health Care blog pointed me to this NY Times story about Xtreme Aging, a program “designed to simulate the diminished abilities associated with old age.”As the Times‘s John Leland explains, participants don distorting glasses to cloud their vision. They stuff cotton balls in their ears to dampen their hearing and in their nose to limit their […]

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