Google has a great little tool called Ngram that is fascinating and an incredibly underutilised resource. You simply provide one or more words and Ngram charts the number of times that those words appear in books throughout history (Google has scanned millions of books from libraries around the world). Today, I put in Marketing and...
Social media platforms like Facebook are great places to share information with your friends and family. But sometimes, people over-share. They document every cup of coffee, every baby photo, every holiday snap and every opinion or mishap. Some of these posts are interesting to the rest of us, but sometimes they are simply a form...
Take two people. One has more skills and ability, but the other has incredible passion for what they do; an energy and intensity that is contagious. They know that they’re not as good [yet], but their desire to get better and their work ethic makes up for any deficiency. Who would you rather have on...
A couple of my employees were invited to speak at the local university recently to discuss their jobs and their career choices with students. They asked me if I had any advice for them that they could share; they may have regretted that question after 45 minutes of my response. You see, there seems to...
Ignorance begets Confidence There’s a cognitive bias known as The Dunning-Kruger Effect that describes how people who are very bad at something, actually think that they are quite good because they don’t know enough to understand just how bad they are; they overestimate their performance. “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are...
In this era of “Big Data,” I often hear terms like data and information being used almost interchangeably; and so I thought that I’d write an explanation of these terms and also include what should be the ultimate goal of data analysis – “insight”. Data? Big or Small. Data is raw. It has no meaning...
Everyone seems to be jumping on the “Big Data” bandwagon these days – especially by the marketing folks. Recently I read Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier and it opened my eyes to the true meaning of this term and how it...
I was asked in a meeting yesterday how someone gets ahead at my company (and with me personally) – and the answer was pretty easy really – initiative. Those people who show initiative – who go the extra mile, who refine their craft, make changes, seek constant improvement, implement ideas and make an impact. These...
“Meanwhile” is a great word for helping you (and others) focus on action. Use it as a reminder that although one path may be blocked, there's usually something else that you can be accomplished. It also reminds you that not everything stops while you are waiting, or procrastinating with or without good reason. For example:...
A well-documented, common trait of highly successful people is a strong “sense of urgency”. An atmosphere of urgency creates an atmosphere of achievement – as they say. This is not the same as being stressed out and hectic. A sense of urgency is about respect – respect for your own time, respect for the time...