As a serious student of archaeology, I was expecting to decode Mayan text and unearth priceless artifacts. Yet somehow, I stumbled upon one of the most ancient truths of humanity: the importance of persuasion, and …
Read the full story »Human insights and observations.
People and the way we do business.
Design, art, music, and all things man made.
Food, meal culture, and the social trade with every dish.
The dotcom guys got each other excited and created a bust. Banks verified moneymaking programs with other banks, but somehow, they went broke. These groups sought to solve problems and produce value, but the solutions they devised returned the exact opposite result: problems were created and value was lost. This phenomena is a pervasive human dilemma and Mark Twain describes it just right, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
As human beings, we are all susceptible to becoming the hammerheads Mr. Twain describes. The familiar feels so Read the full story »
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It is so easy for people to take the way they see the world for granted. This fact is even more painfully obvious when the subject is sight and blindness. Human beings are so heavily …
“Why couldn’t she understand my agony?” was the puzzlement of the five-year-old Cynthia trying to explain that I had eaten my veggies and pascetti (translation: spaghetti), and was full from dinner. “But MAAaaaooom, my dessert …
Some cultures come with an expiration date. Sometimes intentional, more often not, these movements are never meant to last. One of the starkest examples is the formation and demise of cults. It usually starts
In my Great Grandmother’s house hung a peculiar photograph. It was Grandma J on a ship with a funny pirate and his fake parrot. This photograph made no sense on the surface. Great Grandma J …
Human beings have evolved to live by one truly unique social strategy: storytelling. All cultures have tales and we are wired to listen to, learn from, and retell these stories. Smart individuals and savvy companies thrive on …
Google is one of the few companies that are getting it right this holiday season. They are offering free WiFi to travelers who touch ground in 47 different airports. What is the emotional reaction to …
Which came first, the temple or the restaurant? For a food-loving anthropologist, this is a very tough question! If you follow the path to enlightenment, in this case Highway 101, to the City of 10,000 …
After devouring the ready-to-use wisdom in Change By Design, I began to consider the number of industrial designers I’ve met. I asked: were they really implementing design thinking or just doing design? Sadly, most of them …
It’s easy to get addicted to fun stories. Just start with Harry Potter, then A Series of Misfortunate Events, then Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then Twilight, and soon you’re hooked on many otherworldly texts and …
What does an entrepreneur CEO or a publicly traded company CEO really own? Usually their ownership is represented in the form of company stock. So what does that stock really represent? Is it the value …
The dotcom guys got each other excited and created a bust. Banks verified moneymaking programs with other banks, but somehow, they went broke. These groups sought to solve problems and produce value, but the solutions …
Some cultures come with an expiration date. Sometimes intentional, more often not, these movements are never meant to last. One of the starkest examples is the formation and demise of cults. It usually starts
It is so easy for people to take the way they see the world for granted. This fact is even more painfully obvious when the subject is sight and blindness. Human beings are so heavily …
“Why couldn’t she understand my agony?” was the puzzlement of the five-year-old Cynthia trying to explain that I had eaten my veggies and pascetti (translation: spaghetti), and was full from dinner. “But MAAaaaooom, my dessert …
