I agree with Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, the authors of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, who argue that products and systems, especially those with which people interact to make decision, ought to be designed to nudge them in the direction of what best serves their true interests. Few, S.... Continue Reading →
I've been thinking about this question for a long time now: how do we balance the need for agility in working with data and the need for proper governance around the said data? For those with no idea what I'm talking about, here's a great summary of the conundrum I've found no answers for: [F]rom... Continue Reading →
I once wrote about one of the dangers of machine learning algorithms (e.g. the thing that powers the rules behind which many decisions are made in the real world): the closed feedback loop. An algorithm that falls into one of these closed feedback loops starts to lose its ability to learn from more data, since... Continue Reading →
As I sat there in front of my screen developing the spreadsheet/tool that was to be shared with the more than hundred salespeople in the company I realised I had doubts - would this really work? Was this an improvement to what they already had? Or was it more change for the sake of change?... Continue Reading →
I felt like a lawyer. The call was in less than 12 hours, and I was busy preparing my case, consolidating evidence and building my story. To be honest, I wasn't 100% behind the argument I was preparing to put across, but I didn’t really have much of a choice. I had to believe -- how... Continue Reading →
The extent of my nerdiness was only realized this after reading the following excerpt from the book "Decisive" by Chip Heath (I find it a really good book, by the way): In our quest to convince you of the merits of a process, we realize we’ve been facing an uphill battle: It would be hard to... Continue Reading →
Creating on the iPad... it's just not the same as creating on the computer. When on the iPad, I'm far more a consumer. Typing is laboured, and sharing isn't as easy. If I see an image on Facebook or Linked In, and I want to share that with my Google+ followers, it's not straightforward at... Continue Reading →
For my birthday this year, my wife gave me an iPad Air (thank you!) Unbeknownst to me, this was to radically change my reading habits. I am--perhaps was, now with the iPad--huge fan of libraries and bookstores: the smell of age-worn books, newspapers and old people; the sounds of teenagers and their gossipy tongues; and... Continue Reading →
WordPress 3.8 has just been released, and it brings with it some rather significant aesthetic changes to the admin interface. While giving it a test drive, I realised how closely it resembled that of Windows Phone/8 (in terms of colours, fonts, and distinctive "flatness"). For all their faults, Microsoft's Metro interface is, to me at least,... Continue Reading →
Andrew McAfee posted about a very intriguing study on personality, gender and age in their relation to language. In essence, what the study did was to look at the correlation of people's Facebook statuses and their personality, gender, and age. You'll know why I say it's intriguing when you take a look at some of... Continue Reading →
Donn, fragments 