Lots of interesting factoids in this Wall Street Journal excerpt of Jane McGonigal‘s equally interesting book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Here are a few (italics added): “[Al]though a typical gamer plays for just an hour or two a day, there are now more than five […]
Still haven’t gotten around to making your new year’s resolutions? The Pink Blog is here to help. I asked my friend, Fast Company co-founder Bill Taylor, to do the work for us — and offer up a few resolutions to help us work better and innovate faster in 2011. The three suggestions listed below come
One of my favorite business books of the year is The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith. (She’s a Stanford B-School professor, he’s an economist and marketing guru.) Although shelves groan with books about the mechanics of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, The
Last week at a conference, I had the good fortune of hearing a lecture by Stanford University professor Carol Dweck, whose research on intelligence and mindsets has been revelatory for me in all aspects of my life. Dweck’s broad argument is that what people believe shapes what they achieve — mostly irrespective of their innate
Paul Sullivan — author of the terrific book, Clutch — has a fascinating piece in Saturday’s New York Times about the growing ranks of social scientists who are studying American elites. As wealth in this country concentrates at the top — and, increasingly, at the top of the top — how that happened and who inhabits this upper echelon
We all know it’s better to own than to rent, better to have than to borrow. But what if there’s a wiser way — one that takes advantage of the 21st century’s exploding opportunities for tapping information networks and connecting with others? Lisa Gansky’s The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing describes an emerging ecosystem
Even though I’ve worked for myself for 13 years, I’ve had plenty of bosses in my life. Only two were awful (and you know who you are.) Most were generally fine. But none was truly amazing. In my younger days, I suspected that this rampant okay-ness was because these folks had no idea how to
Thanks to a short vacation, a brief respite from traveling, and my general inclination to avoid real work, I’ve been able read a lot the last few weeks. Here are two more books — neither of which has much to do with business, motivation, or talent — that I really enjoyed. The first is Barbara
One of my favorite books of recent years was Predictably Irrational by Duke behavioral economist Dan Ariely. Now Ariely is back with a new book, The Upside of Irrationality, and it’s just as good and, in some ways, even better. Where the last book focused on how poor reasoning can lead us astray, this one explores
In 2003, my pal Mark Frauenfelder (one of the impresarios behind Boing Boing) and his wife Carla Sinclair — two young parents suffering from dot-com bubble burnout — distilled their frustration into a brief manifesto. They made a vow: To take more control of our lives; To cut through the absurd chaos of modern life and
